#but my blood will be in the trees and my bones will be fertilizer

[bloodlessdeity]

“in a thousand years, archaeologists will know you were trans” in a thousand years the only thing that will matter is that i loved, i was loved, and my death allowed life to continue. checkmate. bitch.

[eldrith]

ғʀᴏᴍ ᴇᴅᴇɴ ; ᴘᴀʀᴛ ғᴏᴜʀ.

ɪɴɴᴏᴄᴇɴᴄᴇ ᴅɪᴇᴅ sᴄʀᴇᴀᴍɪɴɢ ;

jacaerys velaryon x fem!reader words: 9k synopsis: jacaerys falls for a woman in aegon's garden. notes: sorry abt the delay but here is part four! def an introspective chapter but things are ramping up for the last part chapter warnings: freaky ass dreams — death. allusions to smut, finger sucking, making out. lore. religious imagery/symbolism, slight suicidal themes surrounding death as a concept (message me if u have questions), manipulation, tarrgaryen slander(my fav), arguments, creepy imagery, blood & gore. food as allegory. basically everything as allegory atp.

THE VOICE FINDS HIM IN THE SHADOWS OF SIGHT. 

“Jacaerys?” 

It lurks; not unlike those looming memories which throb in the back of his mind with each passing day, eyes sullenly cast out the casement of his window upon the breathing garden below – it lurks within some hidden recess of his mind, waiting for him to stumble so unwillingly into its notched crosshairs. 

“Jacaerys,” the voice calls. It is a voice he knows well. 

Blanketed by a sky of bruises, Jacaerys looks up to those thundering blemishes which impede low into the air; He is here for something. 

Returning his gaze to the earth, he stalks with burning muscles, lungs cinched by the brutal kiss of iced wind. 

There is a sharp snap to his left; a twig, some withered old limb of a growth long past felled – it echoes sharply along the field, into the empty bones of those which litter upon the wildgrass. The gasp falls from his lips and plumes out, trickling into the cold night air.

With a spin of his gaze, the garden lurches – no – the battlefield; no, indeed some apprised paralyzation of both. 

Jace stares incredulously at the scorched earth, smoldering shards of burnt stakes and wrought iron – and the smell, some decaying rejection of earth, some burnt and putrid soil which still squelches when he drags his boots over mangled fallen vines. 

Crimson leaks from wounds within the thickened tendrils of vined earth; bloody gashes which ooze with some putrid ichor, thick with the unmoving wind as they glaze over the sharpened blades of fallen soldiers, bearing black or verdant sigils. 

Bodies lie, mummified in overturned black – matted with rotten leaves, blooms kiss the corpses which twitch with the final rattle of esse. 

A yelp from a skeletal mass below the curving hedges, and Jace lurches in fear: Hair of silver, a gown of gold, a third eye between her brow; the familiar shadow of his youth is petrified under the curling grasp of blackthorne before his very eyes, a malicious whisper in the unmoving gloom as her eyes glaze with some ancient kismet. And with a sickening turn of her head, paled lips move, beetles crawling and scuttling into the shadows. “The fruit is poisoned from the tree of kings,” his aunt whispers to him from lifeless lips; her third eye blinking, bloodshot, pained. 

He staggers back, though quickly schools himself, ignoring the sharp pain in his head and the clench of fear twisting his gut. He is here for something. 

A thick dread curls in his stomach when he eyes the smaller shapes of three boys – two pure of hair, and one with the very same mopped curls which sprout tangled with the vines of earth; and a young woman, slumped and scorched, her hands outstretched in protection of them. He does not allow himself to glance any longer at the bodies. 

Jacaerys’s heart thunders, his shoulder catching on a sharp thorne as he bursts through a corner, gasping for breath as it chokes him. You await him, somewhere in the depths of this battlefield, and Jacaerys fights his own mind from conjuring visions of you, slumped and decaying just as the rest of them – just like each of the spoilt veins which spill and fertilize the soil below. 

Your voice comes to him as clear as a whisper in the corner of his mind. Boots sink into the soft black soil – vines, dark and sharp things, wrap around the weary leather of his boots; crimson armor disappears beneath the decay, swallowed in the yawning gluttony of fate, whispers whistling through the hedges which tower around him. “… And what you made, what we’ve made… look at it all. It is art. A stroke of brush upon my kind, used soul.” 

The hair upon his nape stands once more; the voice, curling around each bend of his mind, leaking hunger, enticement. An unnatural rhythm in the shadows; serpents, scales emerald and venomous, within in the depths – they blink with a single eye, gaze mocking in a glint of cobalt sapphire; and he runs.

The garden stirs with his dreading heart; littered bodies scalded and ashed, billowing in irrecoverable bursts below his footfall when he staggers past. Daisies sprout, jagged and thorned, from scorched wildgrass; peeking their shy petals through slats of disintegrated armor, singed by death. 

The voice follows him, though when his gaze snaps to the statue, The Thorned Dragon looms larger than he’d recalled. A ragged gasp escapes his throat. 

There, its spiny throngs are curved rather unnatural – bent into a labored revolve, the dragon swallows its own tail; horns jagged and unforgiving, piercing into its own soft underbelly with a silent, deafening roar. “Your blood – come in fire, leave in ash.”

The words scrape within the pounding agitation within his mind – and, unable to cast out such unpropitious omens, Jacaerys staggers towards the iron casting, eyes widening in a thickened breath. 

And it is then that he discovers a lump of darkness curled upon the base of the Thorned Dragon; with a jagged lurch towards the fineries which litter the vines below, a crawling horror builds within his throat. 

Pale skin, finer than his own – a necklace of Valyrian steel, a gown fine and black with scorched marks of death – and that very crown, swallowed and corroded below a stiffened grasp, stilled marks of clawing fingers through the earth. 

Ravens black as the night peck at the flesh of the very body he once came from.

It is sickening – bone splinters beneath such scrutiny, a terrifying crack which leaves Jacaerys with a drop of dread spreading through his body. “You breathed life into my breast…”  

The Thorned Dragon watches the Prince stumble away; the end of the garden nears, its fallen horses singed with banners of the very beast which brought about their end. Jacaerys retches, but is met with a river of red, blue, green; pouring in a sickening slip from his lips unto such a pale palm – with a panicked gasp, he sputters. 

Slithers of white flicker in the shadow; a cleansed breath, as his heart leaps – some safety from the poisoned earth, from the poisoned resolution of the very blood running in his veins. 

 “And I bleed because you feel the pulse within my veins, within the roots below.” 

And then, after a moment of frozen muscle, a familiar laugh from the depths behind him – he knows better than to turn, instead leaping with a gasping panic, lurching towards the gates which slink away from his fingers with a sickening leer. 

“They await your lead. Go to them, choose them…” Dread tugs his gut, shaking as he chances a glance behind his shoulder – but it is no longer Aegon’s Garden. 

Flashes of mountains, of sprawling moors, of valleys and seas and Keeps of red and hearths dying out; of stony cliffs, of the frigid, withered talons of death from afar – “Jacaerys Targaryen. The King Who Will Be.”  

It is not a name he has been called before you – and it is a name which now splinters into shards of glass within his lungs, piercing his heart and seizing him with some lick of doom. 

Sick, Jacaerys stumbles away – the circle turns, some ominous and self-abhorrent whisper within his mind reminds him; The circle turns, yes – 

 Limbs above him, bowing low in a weep; and those very fine fruits, glistening and blushing in the moonlight. Their scent, heavenly even in such a fuzzy state – and a memory of lips, salaciously pressed to the flesh, tongue darting out… 

His hand shakes as he reaches towards it, heart thundering as he hears footsteps approaching; a panic within him, knowing he has not enough time. 

Not enough time. 

But he stops short: 

From the blossoms come something thick – blood, no, ink – no, something which stains the earth with sin. Emerald and crimson, staining upon the blooms which wilt and curl away as if struck by a bout of chilling breath. 

The footsteps arrive behind him. 

JACAERYS JOLTS WITH A SHARP, DRIED GASP. 

Tallowed wax has weeped hours in wait of his silenced patience; a slumber rather calm in exterior, though when he awakes he drives a kneecap into the bottom of the table, gasping in a sharp, drowned way.

Syrupy, gasped blinks – Jacaerys inhales the breath of a man submerged in some iced seas, alone and choked of any respite from the final wink of existence.

“Taking a catnap, are we?” 

He jolts once more; and a laugh, hearty and trickling, echoes in the stone drum – it is not a haunting sound, nor is it in any notion a fetching one – but rather one as familiar as his own kin. It is his own kin. 

Baela rounds the stone table, regarding Jacaerys’ stirred frame; he, with tired and rather disturbed eyes, glances with a fainting stare of vexed provocation. “Gods,” He finally breathes, the whispers of dreams far too present in his sharply pained mind. “I can’t even recall falling asleep.” 

She wears her dragonriding gown – an invitation to accompany her of which he’d turned down earlier this morn. 

The days grow on and so does, it seems, Jacaerys’ blistering headaches; indeed, Vermax has taken ill as of recent, and it would be a poor choice to try and take him flying under such circumstances. Scale rot, they’d said – a quite rare instance, recorded only one other time by a maester many, many years before and ruled farce by account of him turning mad and taking the black not a moon after. 

Jacaerys fights quite hard to avoid her stare. 

There is a worry in Baela’s gaze that has long since befallen the faces of many who walk such halls; but Jacaerys knows well, it is a superficial concern; it is the worry of a soldier falling ranks, of a lady retaining her favor as a knight mounts for jest, of a stableman watching a horse with a limp. 

And still, she says nothing of it. 

“Well,” She mutters instead with a light smirk; Jacaerys meets her stare with a blink. “You act as though you saw a spectre.” 

It is only with her words of innocent jest which he recalls the depths of his dreaming torment; Perhaps I have, he reminds himself – in a flash of Lucerys, curls shining against hedges of bursting green and pink, of slithering vines. Or, perhaps, he sees it each day – in gowns snagged around branches, in the glinting hunger of a gaze, in a sharp smile curling around the juices of a ripe fig. 

He clears his throat, eyes returning to the parchment softened with age– tracing over the mark indented where his cheek had rested in a fitful slumber moments ago. His mind has grown numb in the battle against the aching pains; he has rendered himself, in the days since that fateful night under the fig tree, rather recluse and solitary. And with time came confusion, then acceptance, then bewitchment, and now… some paranoid, brewing anger. 

“I suppose I grew weary with Maester Layn’s prose,” Jacaerys attempts for a joke; yet when his gaze reclaims the handscript scrawled in increasingly maddened flutters, droning on and on for pages until the final third of the journal is left blank, there is a deep unsettling stir within his stomach. 

“-Layn?” Baela repeats – she truly is a well-studied girl, Lady Laena made sure of such a thing with both her daughters – and her brow furrows. “The Mad Maester?” 

Jacaerys nods absently, closing the leather rather abruptly in a flash of wariness, thumbing the page he’d earmarked in haste. “Apparently so.” He affirms rather distractedly. There is a paranoia which rises from its dirt grave within his chest – grasping with hands unseen, his stomach and throat begin to tighten. 

With a gentle nod, Jacaerys stands once more; bones tired and weary, he grasps the Old Maester’s journal with a jolt and excuses himself from Lady Baela. “I should retire. Such reading has rendered me spent.” 

It is clear that she is unused to his curt discussions as of late – though never quite close, the cousins have spent considerable time together in the days of their siblings’ absence, and Jacaerys has never been one for much recluse. Times change, perhaps. 

Jacaerys minds to not brush her as he walks past, though her words stop him. 

“– And?”

He slows to a halt, blood churning and words of confession dancing on his tongue; the journal is heavy underarm – it pulls him towards the sinking stone floor, below it, down to where the beasts, ancient and warm, stir underfoot. 

Half-turn of head when he glances her way – Baela needs not elaborate; He has known her a good part of this life to understand the words which lie unsaid within her throat. 

The words burn through the parchment within his arms; Truth, they whisper – but he merely clenches the journal closer to his chest. “And… It was as they say.” He lies through his teeth, and is surprised to find no remorse within his heart. 

Jacaerys can only think of one thing; one laugh, one smile, one voice which tells him of love and devotion – of the voice which lives in the very garden Maester Layne studied and then lost his mind over those many years ago – and so Jacaerys nods towards the wall of stone, unable to face his cousin behind him: 

“He went mad.” 

THERE WAS ONCE A TIME JACAERYS WALKED THE HALLS OF HIS HOME. 

Halls of warmth, where any such whispers of doubt or dishonor would slide off the backs of boys much younger than Jacaerys is today; where he and his brothers, dark of hair and high of chin, would spar in yards, would laugh at feasts, would bow to their grandsire, would toss small bits of venison to their maturing mounts. 

And it is not necessarily the shift of land beneath feet – of bay harbors of blackened water shifting to sliding dark sand and island-whipped wind; for no matter where he rests his head to slumber, the scent of ancient smoldering smoke lies intrinsically tied to his bloodline – eternally. 

No matter the name he bears, nor the blood pulsing in his veins, nor the castle he walks; Jacaerys cannot any longer find that home. 

Halls long and empty; cold, unbearingly so in those moments he sees a flash of his brother – the face carved from his own –  in the mirror, in passing hedges, in the shut of eyelids. 

And long past are days where glory was within reach – what gods so austere would allow for a bastard to follow her place, now that any with a drop of Valyrian blood might stake a claim? These days, it has grown quite clear: unreal are the dreams once so very tangible – when the throne was occupied by a rather lively grandsire, when Jacaerys was placed upon his knee, was told whispers of glory and fate; when he watched dragons dance over the horizon of King’s Landing no larger than the nail of his last finger, patiently awaiting the day Vermax might grow fierce enough to carry him into those very clouds. 

Dragonstone is his birthright, just as much as King’s Landing is; and he has long watched over this small dominion, long wondered how it could be that such a place of blood and ash could yield any other result than just that. The circle turns, after all; The dragon eats its tail. 

And just as such, Jacaerys sits with Aegon’s Garden in the periphery of his vision. 

A stray breeze blows curls to tangle in the curve of his lashes – a sweep of shaking fingers, and the words of Maester Layn seem to dance upon the parchment below. 

In some desperate fear a few nights past, Jacaerys had ripped and scoured Dragonstone’s histories for any mention of the Garden; and such search has yielded merely the ramblings of a maester to the second of Targaryen kings, a maester who went mad and took the Black not a year into his time upon the Island. 

And yet remains his personal accounts in the library – easily left out of such gilded Valyrian histories – a dusted old tome, one which likely has not seen the light of day since Aenys I was a young boy. Some old crone’s ramblings; though Jacaerys feels his skin crawl as the words worm their way into his mind and whisper into his memory. 

The Dragonlords settled these lands when the bailey was merely a plot of saplings; and Aegon’s Garden not yet a Thing but a overturned burial plot of the old gods, volcanic ash and sprouts of wildgrass. 

And their own gods, heavy with the weight of wings which crumble towers and burn ships – things meant to remain untouched by hands so human and tainted with sin. 

It matters not what I might try to guide in the ears of men who believe themselves more than such; From the first, they have been marked for suffering. 

And what greater curse is there than to eternally live and yet still to die? They leave the lands to take more; and yet with each victory, their souls wither. 

This garden watches; it sows, reaps, sows. 

Their fate, I fear, is that of slow decay. 

Philosophies of men long before his own time is something Jacaerys has studied twice over in his preparations for the crown – and yet a most unsure settling feeling, the offense which simmers in his Valyrian veins cools only with the uneasy sense of verity through words so sharp. 

The handscript, from moons after the last entry in the journal; scribbled, uneven – written in maladies and interspersed with recipes for tinctures, and cures for maddening headaches. 

An inkling of fear worries down his spine at the observation; and though the words instill some ominous cognizance in the back of his mind, his hungry eyes continue on. Ravens call shrilly from above; a short breeze gusts the scent of fruit from beyond the wall to the east. 

…And as the star reminds us, it was through the Stranger's envy which death and decay entered the realms of the Andals; still, perhaps, that hatred lingers in the soil foreign and familial, growing within veins of those who dare believe themselves any step above others.

That is to say, those who pulled themselves unto the backs of ancient beings, who deem themselves of the very same molten flesh – and who will, in circle’s turn, eat the flesh of their very own to stay upon the helm. 

The fruit of their seed, oh that cursed fruit – it falls, and will always fall, from that tree of kings; will always bloom rot across the lands. 

Yes, each drop of spilled blood from the wombs of dragonlords bear the mark of fate. A curse, yes — yet what is a curse but the gods’ way of shaping fate into flesh? 

Jacaerys startles as a raven lands upon the stone bench beside him, watching with beady eyes of black; when he glances back to the parchment, the words seem to tremble and pulse with his own heartbeat. Unease drips through his mind, the iced shock of the mad words written before him dousing him entirely. 

Targaryens. Gods among men, they say to themselves – but gods do not bleed. 

Gods do not rot.

The words swirl, their tendrils dragging down the parchment and staining Jacaerys’s fingers; they spin, they bloom, they whittle, they die and are reborn in his mind; a circle forever turning as he looks up towards the open casement of his chambers high, swallowed in half by the storming of clouds which gather above. 

Is he going mad? 

There are naught but a plethora more questions he must ask now; but to whom, he wonders – the raven beside him wails, fluttering before taking flight, towards the garden to the east. Dread welcomes him, a sharp friend. 

Jacaerys watches the bird’s dark shadow become swallowed by the mass of overgrowth which curls and climbs atop the gate ahead; it is clear, now, where he must go. 

There are no more people left here to answer his questions; his mother, too locked upon in her own horizon – Baela, measuring her own squared shoulders to fit into the mould of their Queen; Daemon, far away in the riverlands doing whatever he may please; Maester Gerardys, too enraptured by the foolish beliefs of an aged past. You are no more affected by this than the blooms are affected by a blink of clouds over the sun; you, in your slinking shadows and wild words, your beckoning laughter and spinstry dreams. 

Jacaerys knows in a corner of his mind; as a sower knows when it is to snow, Jacaerys knows it is you who has sent him mad, who spins your web of death and life and whatever monstrous thing lies between. You understand, this taunting limbo which suspends him between a life long-dead and a life unreachable. 

The journal is abandoned upon the bench. 

Crows screech; the gates to Aegon’s garden creak. 

THE ANCIENT ROT SEEPS IN.

It curls in a way he’s never quite taken note of; dirt paths which twist and gnarl, vines which ooze with a sweet scent once so enticing – Jacaerys stalks warily through the strangely thick air, ignoring the prickle on the nape of his neck as he walks. 

A familiar waltz, this has become – though he is not, as it seems, in the mood for a dance. 

It is not long before the garden settles with him. A slow breath, an exhale as he passes the entrance and comes across the Thorned Dragon; a beautiful thing – as beautiful perhaps as you are, in that odd way. 

Your name upon his lips, he wonders if you hear the way his voice trembles, how the fear and worry and resentment leak through his tone. 

He sees first a snag of your hem; slinking around a corner, a snap in the twigs that sends his heart thundering. 

A faint memory of hunting in the woods with his grandsire when he was just old enough to hold a bow; the final look within the gaze of a stag before it was taken from the realm. Its heart, faster and faster until it slowed and, finally, stopped. 

He follows the sound of swishing fabric, of footprints long lost in the rotted earth; blinks within his mind, words written in a panic unto parchment a hundred year’s past. What greater curse is there than to eternally live and yet still to die?

He calls your name. Once, twice – on and on, but still you evade him, disappearing just as he catches a glimpse of you, snapping twigs and slithering past vines as he stumbles blindly, seeking answers to questions not yet formed upon his tongue. 

Anger pulses in such a pathetic chase; though still he gives in, desperate to hear it from your lips, just if only to confirm the truth: That he has no one. That you are no one. 

The rot finds itself within his bones – and, when he brushes his hand against the leaves of a passing vine clung around a woman half-devoured by the sun, a soft giggle floats through the shrubbery. 

A delicate, almost musical rot – a giggle he knows so well by now, one which sends a pang of anticipation and some deep horror through him. He remembers that stag, the way its eyes watched, unmoving down the point of the arrow; and the fluid snap on its neck when it crashed into the wood with an arrow through its throat. 

His grandsire’s laugh, delighted, amused. A life, once more rotted away by that tree of kings. 

Joints within his neck pop once more when he whirls to the sound, unease drifting into his bones when the laugh finds his ears again – but brighter, much more familiar; his stomach drops. 

Luke. A laugh once more, as if they were once more lost in that youthful catch-and-seek game, a rustle from a hedge, the drowning cough of lungs long since failed. But Jacaerys is no longer a young boy – and neither is Lucerys. 

Rage, that long-hidden beast, stirs. It is a cruel, cruel twist for you to play such tricks upon him. It is one thing to plague his mind with silly visions, to haunt his lips or his fist or his heart; though it is not the same to taunt such grief over his head. 

Enough of it; just ahead, the wisp of a shadow moves, and he sees you dart into the brush. 

Rage – that sharp, sudden, ancient rot; it pulses through him, just as harsh and true as his own heartbeat. He’s upon your trail in a moment; though the twists and turns grow confounding, and Jacaerys feels an ache of worry grow within his chest. 

Another glimpse of shadow; you, arm-in-arm with a boy; Lucerys is before him. 

Lucerys walks with you – he is tangible, as fleshed, as smiling as you. 

It is then that he stumbles into the clearing. 

The olive tree, once more; and there, looming above his heaving chest, are the watchful eyes of the woman in the statue, her lover torn and dying within her arms – an arrow through the shoulder, one splintered and rotting from his throat. 

And yet there, at the roots of that very tree, you alone repose – eyes closed as if in a dream, bathed by the light of day broken through the looming branches twisted and gnarled. 

Anger surges at the sight of you, calm with a near smile upon your lips; yet still you have it, he thinks. You still carry the resentment, sorrow, that loneliness which seeps through your visage, which plagues even a face as brilliantly haunting as your own. 

“This is how low you might go, then?” He calls out into the garden, fuming. “You lure me here with memories of the dead? Playing your little tricks, to bring me here?” 

You stir at his sharp voice, a whip in the calm of the day; the crows have long since flown, and only you remain. 

You sigh into the tree above you, eyes opening in that pearled absence before returning to your lovely hues; he is struck with your raw beauty, how you seem to coax his footsteps towards you even in his ire. “Life, death…” 

Your voice is faraway once more, as though pulling the petals from a flower and watching them flutter to the earth. “Sometimes I wonder if they’re truly so different.” 

“You’re cruel,” He spits; pain, grief, anger swirling raw in his heart - you’ve heard the tales - of course you have. Everyone on the island knows of his brother’s fate at the hands of the Kinslayer. It is a cruel thing, to play tricks on him in the way you do. 

You do not flinch at his outburst; a shifting shadow, you stir somewhere beneath the tree. “Jace,” you nearly purr, the pity in your tone stoking the fire within him further. He shakes his head. 

“I did not come to be led through this wretched maze like a fool.” He snaps, and his voice nearly echoes in the eerie calm of greenery. 

Your eyes snap to him, nearly shocked; as if you were not the figure leading him through the hedges and rows of wilting anemones. “Jace-” you begin once more, as if retrying for your first attempt to console him, rising upon your bared feet; a memory past of nights ago, that poisoned sweet of your lips, the kind stutter of breath as he’d pulled you closer to him, felt that heart beat – however falsely – against his palm. 

“–Enough.” He snaps, taking a step back as you float to him, blinking your doe-like eyes at him, tilting your head. A predatory thing, he realizes with an ache of his gut – your mimicked, shy pose so perfected from hours of standing alone in such a garden – a perfect view of his casement from here, perhaps lying in wait for his company, just as he does yours. “What cruel jest is this?” He spits, eyes searching the pits of your own, watching your face slide from disoriented to distressed. 

“What do you mean, Jacaerys?” You wonder – that sweet, worried way you bite your lip, sickly hands outstretched towards him; it broils the anger which festers sharp within him. It is incredulous that he stares at you, rage knotting in his chest at your soft, unassuming tilt of head – a practiced innocence gleaming in the daylight. 

The stuttering heart, the barely-present touch; all which once sent his heart thundering, which now sets his jaw rigid and tense. 

“No,” He hisses, stepping back from your outstretched palm, “I am not some foolish boy, fresh and untested, to be swayed by the honey-sweet looks of some– some serpent.” He spits, voice breaking as the wound beneath his anger slips. 

There is such pressure; that sharp ache which has festered in his inconsolable worries of the Dragonseeds and word of their claimed dragons; the dooming presence of fate which grasps at his collar, which threatens to drag his mother and their line into the depths with it. In circle's turn, they will eat the flesh of their very own to stay upon the wheel. 

The voice jolts him from his thoughts to find you, wide-eyes, and parted lips. A falter, some falling from that delicate mask to something raw, something glinting between a dark hunger and a maliciously deceiving kindness. 

“You should not dare call me such vile things.” You utter, face downturned, dark. And your hand drops; a murmur from you, cold and sweet as winter’s breath. “You’re being cruel. Serpents should be the least of your worries, my Prince.” You whisper. 

It is ominous, the words you mutter; as though you know some ancient thing, some thing which breathes with the pulse of life below soil. A flare of disbelief, his mind numbing and muddling by the moment as he stands, staggered under the olive tree, sweet blooms lulling through the afternoon air. 

"I, the cruel one?” he trembles; words spilling, half-strangled in his throat. “Do you think me blind? That I don’t see what you do — how you laugh in the shadows, whisper in my dreams? That I don’t feel your hands, each night, when I-” He shakes his head, “I…” He trails off, watching as you sway before him, defeated, head low as a chastised child. 

And that faint voice he does not yet seem to have known – yet fervent, insistent: it was through the Stranger's envy which death and decay entered the realms of the Andals. 

In his grief torn mind, he wonders. Is it his name? Is it the legacy of his House, so tall it scrapes the heavens; the stories of old, of Valyrian magic which pulses somewhere faintly in his muddied veins? Do you bewitch him simply for the chance at the riches piling upon the throne, of his future seat – of the fine fabrics, the reach beyond even the kingdoms? Do you, after all he’s told you of his mother, of his father – of the realms; do you truly wish for anything other than to take what he has, all that he has? And that name – that blood, that lineage so cursed; Is that truly all he is? 

“What is it you want from me?” 

What do you want, he pleads – though his mind whispers, soft and sullen, do you want me? 

“I care not for any such things you carry to offer,” Your voice, melodic and haunting as you bite away at beading tears that slide down your smooth cheeks; a faint inkling of alarm in the back of his mind, straining to recall if he’d even spoken any of it aloud – but as you wipe a heavy tear from your lashline, the thought dissipates.

“I want to…I wish to have you.” Your voice warbles, lip wavered; it is a glassy thing, such a gaze, and his heart begins to soften wearily with the small sniff you allow yourself in your wilting figure. 

And gods above strike him, Jacaerys’ heart skips; a warmth of want, of love – the thing he’s yearned after for the better of his young life.  It is with effort that he swallows down the anger which has bubbled up with fear and foreboding; Because you are still a slight, sweet thing – a kind being, a sprouted blossom in a field of ashes. There is no fear here, he understands. There is just loneliness. 

And, always so willing; your lips press together in wait as he gathers his thoughts with a shaky sigh, knowing such anger misplaced will be a burden to all. It’s only a fig, Jace.

But it can’t be; in his heart, a twisting truth – you could not love such a broken man; nameless, unwanted by his own kin, untrusted to fight the war being waged for his own birthright. Forgotten and lonely. He inhales shakily, nodding in some dreadful acceptance. 

“I am not yours to torment.” His heart still thunders with the agony of glimpsing Luke just moments ago; some heavy acceptance lifts from his chest, a burst free from unknowing. An acceptance warm and chilling alike. He sniffs, clenching his fists so they do not begin to tremble.

 “If you’ve lured me here to bury me in specters and shadows, then… you may do as you please.” He levels you with his own watery gaze; in which you swim, haunted and despairing. Perhaps his words are a final leap, some grasp of hope that perhaps you will confirm what he knows in his very heart to be true: that you have love, and that you hold it only for him. 

“-But do not come to me with lies dressed as love.” He whispers.

And your face falls; softness in your eyes growing fragile as the petals upon the flowers which wither near your feet. Your shoulders, slumped as you let out a shaky breath, some dejected misery which sprouts from your frame and blossoms into a pitiful shutter. 

A moment until you straighten, eyes meeting his wetly and trickled with a spark of disbelief. 

“You truly believe such lies spun by men long since in the past?” Your voice shakes – each word, a draw of blood that seems to spill from your raw, tender heart. “That I would bring you pain, that I– that I would wish such suffering upon you? All you’ve done, I-” you lip trembles in that awfully disheartening way; Jacaerys represses such urge to gather you in his arms under the midday sun, to press his lips to the soft glint of your hair. 

You shake your head, leaning upon tipped toes as if to tell him a secret, your hands clenched by your side until they rise to wipe the tears from your wettened eyes. “I do nothing by means of envy or greed – I just – I wish to be with you.” 

Pain, that icy sting; it cowers him, breaks him until a tear slips from his lidded gaze and skids over his cheekbones, fertilizing the rotted earth below his feet.

 And though he believes your very truthful words, there is a sapling which was planted those many years ago when he stepped foot unto the island; that very warning whisper that has tried to break free from the recess of denial and ignorance, that has danced on the tip of Maester’s tongues and perhaps anybody else who dare open their eyes enough to see. 

The truth is that there is something unnatural about Aegon’s Garden; there is something unnatural about you. 

“This place… it’s rotten.” He finally speaks it, and it is as if the word goes silent; away are the crashing of waves, merely the rattling of your bones when you inhale sharply, blinking at Jacaerys with wide, piercing eyes. 

And in that fear, that germinating sapling which turns upon itself under the watchful glare of the outside world, Jacaerys continues. The words fall from his tongue; leaves of a felled oak. 

“The garden, the tree – even you, hiding, lurking in the shadows – It’s…” He shakes his head, unwilling to continue such cursed words; but still it lingers in the back of his mind, pressing at his tongue and stirring the dread in his gut. 

 And that journal, so hastily concealed for generations of Dragonlords rising from the earth and leaving to the capital; years upon years of upturned earth, of that circle which eats its own tail – that hatred lingers in the soil, growing within veins of those who dare believe themselves any step above others. 

Jacaerys faintly begins to wonder when he started having thoughts which were not his own; and, indeed, when these vines began to slither overtop his boots, piercing their thorns into the leather worn with time. Have I gone mad? he wonders – not for the first time. 

“Say it.” You snap. “If you mistrust me so, then say it.” 

He is brought back to the garden by your icy, venomous glare – bristled, perhaps, by his such accusations in the disturbation of your day; and he, in a strike of defiance, in the last grasp of honor towards his duty, his life, his destiny – says it. 

“You are rotten.” He finishes, chest light at the heavy drop of his words. 

Whatever snarl you’d worn drops immediately in a sickening slate of blank visage. 

The world stills once again; he is sharply aware of your stare, eyes gleaming – and the air so stagnant, so earthy, of the fact that you’ve not drawn a single breath since; and a dread slowly creeps into his gut as you level your own gaze upon him.  

“Am I?” You whisper, the faintest twitch of fury within your sharp gaze. “Does the decay not spread from its roots, Jacaerys?” 

You take a step forward, and Jacaerys finds himself suddenly pressed against the statue behind him; a glance and a sharp, startled fear that pierces him as two pairs of lovers’ eyes meet him, stony and cruel. 

You press on towards him, stalking with a viciousness that begins to cloud his rationality. “Tell me, where is your mother? Where is your father? Where is that Kinslayer uncle of yours? Where is the Queen Who Never Was?” 

His throat is thick with a lodged breath; dread stirs within him, that sickening truth as you continue, slinking towards him with the practiced pace of a huntsman with a bow. “You spread like disease – all of you. Children burn, homes crumble – the world a crushed flea under your boot, a decaying whisper of power they all quarrel to grasp.” Your words are a whip in the wind that has gathered – and the stormy roll of sky has plagued the shoreline, boasting of a disastrous storm upon nightfall. “And all for what? For some fate that was written long before even this garden had a name?” 

Jacaerys stares at you; the way your fingers twist – gnarled and as thorned as the vines themselves – around his forearm; when, exactly, had you grasped him? 

“And Jacaerys… you, sweet Jace. You will be a fine king. The finest of them all, perhaps.” You promise and the words are golden and gilded in glory; your eyes shine with the reflection of a throne leagues away, of a life after this island, forgotten under layers of rotting overturned earth. 

He lurches, fighting the bile within his throat at the thought of the word – the word he’s known to one day inherit for his whole life: King. 

He shifts, pulling away from the trancelike gaze that spills from your visage and begins to infect his mind. Fuzzy, he swears he sees figs growing fat and juicy from the olive tree behind you; that he spots a shadow lingering high above the hill in the distance, watching from a windowscape. 

A conscious return of that very hunger, that salacious, depraved craving for the sharp pain of the words you leverage; that same desire which curls and licks its maw at the thought of the figs, of you.  

“They see you for what whispers have rumored behind your shadow all your life, don’t they?” Your words are treasonous; Jacaerys’ jaw clenches. “And is it true – you do not let the words taint and disrobe you, do not let the truth unravel you until all that is left is your kind, used soul?” 

His throat is thick with fear, with dejection; what inkling of truth, what window into his mind have you struck that lets his own thoughts spill from your beautiful lips? “You do not know of what you speak,” He fights meagerly; though he is weak, and your words are as harsh as they are soothing to his lonely heart. 

“Dragonlords,” You spit ruefully, and Jacaerys is struck in a hazy trance of fear and hunger. “Rotting this world from the inside out – and the people are left to wither in the ruins.” 

An image in his mind’s eye – Sharp Pointe, smoldering and dusted in ruins. A garden, a battlefield; all, desecrated. And that hissing sharp from your lips, that aching pulse which triples when you level him with a stare so very hateful. “I am free from all of that here. Here, it is sacred – names matter not. It is only peace, and sweet blooms of eternal summer. Here, the earth feeds itself, the circle turns, the blood comes in fire but leaves in ash-” 

Stopped dead-cold, Jacaerys starts. “-What did you just say?” 

You blink up at him, as if gone from some odd trance – and plush lips flounder, some flickering amusement dying in your gaze under his stare. 

“Repeat it,” He urges, mind swimming in fear. 

And in a horrifying moment, you smile – too wide, too sweet, too hungry. 

You smile, and a burst of crows scream through the sky; you smile, a sinister lurking glint within; you smile, and the roses surrounding you begin to wilt away. You smile and his heart stops cold. 

But just as it came, it drops – and with a blink, that filmy haze that had overtaken your rigid muscles melts, and you’re left; the delicate petals of a flowered girl, shaking your head slightly up to him as the sun beams down a chilly breath of light unto your face. 

 “I don’t… I can’t recall.” 

With a blink, your eyes meet his and they are pure, free from any such emotion, nor turmoil; instead, you float before him in your sweet sway. 

Jacaerys feels the shift within the air, watches as you slip on some masque that you hope he does not detect – but his hair stands on end. 

You smile ever so kindly, eternally; his hands tremble, though still, after it all: Still, he wishes to remain there with you, in that smile. 

“Forgive me, my Prince, I- I seemed to have lost myself. I’m so terribly sorry.” 

The sun has clambered its way out from the sheets of clouds above; in a ray upon you, your hair glows – and despite the dread, the dubiety which swarms his mind, Jacaerys cannot help the small smile which crawls upon his lips, weary and hesitant as it is. 

A cursed girl, you are – this, he cannot deny; but, a voice whispers in his mind, what is a curse but the gods’ way of shaping fate into flesh? 

And gods, your flesh, so alive and shivering under his touch; you, your cursed smile and that flickering laughter that follows through the garden. That tantalizing fear, the unease which grips him and makes him feel alive – which makes him bloom. 

With that slip, fades the memory of why indeed he was so upset in the first place; scared, perhaps, of some small spook? Your eyelashes flutter atop your cheeks, you breathe the fresh air as a painter does to canvas, your fingers playing with his own – and he dares chastise you for it? Guilt swirls in his chest, and he knows that he must gather himself lest he do something unbecoming. 

The thought of such strikes him. He must return to the castle, it is much past the hour. The council waits. 

“I must go,” He murmurs, jaw tensing as your eyes flash in that possessive jump; though you meekly nod, eyes casting towards the earth, where vines have retreated to the statue behind him. “I’ve to go to council.” 

The breeze carries the floral scent of your hair. “Come back later.” You ask – though it is more of a command, one which sends a chill down his spine. And perhaps it is simply that; being wanted, to be loved or cared for simply because he is himself – it causes him to nod gently, caressing your icy cheek with the back of his fingers. 

Jacaerys shivers at the devotion in your eyes, that swimming, searching gaze of eager affection. His palms find your own, and that distinct hunger – for the fruits which linger throughout the garden’s smells – reclaims him. 

“I wish not to frighten you, Jacaerys.” You whisper – and it is in this sentence that he finds some kind of understanding – for you, nor he, wish to speak aloud what harrowing things he knows to be true; this garden rots, and somewhere within it, so do you. 

“I only wish for some company.” 

A pang of regret echoes within his chest – what sharp tone and tongue he’d taken with you today, when all you wished for was a hand to hold and a voice to speak with. When all you wished for was him, as he wishes for you. 

“You do not frighten me,” He lies through his teeth, and perhaps he looks away intentionally when he sees that sinister grin flash over you in a shadow of a moment; though when he returns to your visage, it is clear and sweet as the day is bright. “If I could…” A swallow, biting his lip in knowledge of what he is about to admit. “If I could, my love, I’d stay with you.” 

You shake your head with a slight desperation. “You can,” You whisper, a sudden, light pressure of something held up towards his chest – and Jacaerys needs not look into your palm to see the handful of fruits within your grasp, held out in offering. 

Still a hunger, a desire courses through him – here, it is only peace – but he instead shakes his head once more. “My mother needs me,” He whispers, chest burning with a decision; though gods ruin him if he dares leave you alone again. A clench in his heart at your rejected nod, though you smile smally.

Your palm, cool as winter’s kiss, cups his jaw; with a sweet kiss to the corner of his lips, you whisper to him. “You are quite wonderfully made, Jacaerys. Your mother is lucky to have such a son.” You whisper dreamily; a faint memory tugging in his mind as some daze settles the ache of his mind. “I am truly quite fond of you.” 

His eyes flicker, and when you press up to kiss him upon the lips, he feels a torn longing to remain with you, just a moment longer. 

There is a war to be fought, he reminds himself – and he chooses his family; he chooses his mother, as she would choose him. 

And he leaves you in the garden. 

IT IS UNNATURAL, JACAERYS THINKS, TO LEAVE HIS MOTHER’S CHAMBERS SO OFTEN WITH TEARS IN HIS EYES. 

Perhaps, any other night, he’d have remained to continue his plea; though now, his hands tremble and his throat burns with unshed emotion, legs carrying him quick through the suffocating walls of the Queen’s apartment. 

There is no true beauty to the end of the day – not now, not after he’d left each bruised, battered word within his mind upon the cold stone floor before her. There is nothing left for him now. 

Perhaps on a sunnier eve, Jacaerys would think with a smile wry and amused, how he seems to find the garden when there is nowhere else to go; yet tonight, he knows. 

You are the place to go – and the garden, with its whispers and watching eyes, with its churning familiarity; that is what he so seeks as he stumbles once more through the gates, too beside himself to brother with pretense. 

The sharp gathering of his mother’s visage after his watery plea; a choice, one which twists a rusty dagger and pulls the final thread of sanity which he’d so foolishly clung to. 

He calls your name for only a few moments before you appear.

Just as the day he met you, at the end of the hedgeway, lingering in that odd, half-standing lilt you oft regain when you suspect nobody is looking; and your hair wild and loose, covering your visage as you hide. 

A relief it is to see such a face, even as you slither from the shadows with a breath of his name. 

A relief it is to finally be where he wants to be. Where he is wanted. 

His knees crumble to the earth before you, and you go down once more with him. 

Your hands fall to his arms, pulling you to him; and in that motion, in the lack of breath he takes in pressing himself into you, he wonders if you know. Somehow, you know what he is feeling – for you wipe his tears with an anguished expression, as if you’d been within those walls when he’d begged his mother not to pursue it. 

A beg, delivered as some grasp for what once was, what may now never be - a gaping anxiety, one which has festered and built his entire existence - and has just spilled over and bled onto the thin tapestry of life stitched and remaining between him and his mother. 

And his mother - the Queen - staring back at him, face hardening with each breath he took, trying to repress the sting of choice. She’s made her choice, he thinks - she has chosen herself.

He has chosen her time and time again, forsaken everything for her; and she has made her decision. 

It is with barely a few words Jacaerys chokes out, whimpered and anguished, any semblance of explanation; though you sit with him through it, brushing his curls back and letting him gather his thoughts in the quiet dying light of the peaceful garden. 

The fiery death of the sun lingers even as night sky begins its flirting tease; streaks of fading plum which kiss into the ocean far away. 

Time passes with quiet peace. 

Jacaerys’ breathing is calm. A numbing tranquility seeps through him, his breaths falling from his lips with your own, humming a gentle lull under the statue. The vines have fallen to their sleepy, weeping ways; the night comes, and after some time, you rise in your white gown and offer a hand for him. 

The sun sinks its bloody bite into the coastline when you lead Jacaerys into the winding path; a mournful glow, with leaning flowers and wilting willows of vines which weep with his own sullen emptiness. 

His hand shakes within yours – but your grasp is strong and sure, squeezing just once as he lingers past the maiden statue, the serpent coiling up her leg. 

She is so very tragic in the waking moon’s light. His voice is raw when it comes, wistful, absent. “It always seemed as though she was made in your eyes.” 

Your gaze slides from the statue – a serene visage with a lilt of envy – and your grip tightens upon his own. 

“Men see what they wish to see.” 

Your words, a distant echo of a long-forgotten conversation – you pull him along the path with a small glance back at the statue, as if wary it follows behind him. “If I may speak truthfully,” Your tone wilts with the betrayal of envy, “I would find it rather lonely, lying there moon after moon.” 

Jacaerys is rather accustomed by this time to your odd words; and though he registers the odd resentment with which you spit the sentiment, he only watches you – perhaps concerned that, in a way, you might be fading to the clutch of time as well. 

And so he leaves your words in the floral air of the garden; a stronger smell than most at this hour; and the blaring ache within his mind eases when you finally lead him to the clearing he’s dreamt of ceaselessly since his first visit. 

The fig tree blossoms as if it is the first spry wink of spring.

Flowers blooming, dripping leaves of ambrosial scent which yield to plump fruits, even in the mooned night; divine, he thinks with a slow churn of pleasure within his veins. This place is divine. 

 A cloak of warmth over his shoulders – the weeping branches as he ducks below, staggering fuzzily under the alluring hunger which churns within his gut. 

And in some miserable way, perhaps Jacaerys clings to the promise you’d laid: He comes here, you’d said, to the fig tree. Lucerys. Though his brother does not appear before his eyes, nor does the pain of fate – instead, a pleasant calm which placates his edged nerves. 

A place rather tucked away from the harshness of fate, the fig tree seems to keen into his frame; and though his grief has spilled over, in your gaze he finds a warmth, a patience.

Your hand, slow as if approaching a wounded stag, brushes away a strand of hair which tangles within his lashes – a pang in his chest at such unknowing kindness, at such genuine, aloof acceptance. The proof is there for all to see – and yet, you, seeing; you do not mind. You never have. 

Whatever composure he’d managed to hold is shattered within the raw affection he now feels; and with a shaky breath, he slumps against the trunk. 

“What troubles you, my love?” Your voice a melody, the vision behind his closed eyes of a sickeningly hungry smile unmatched by the sweet tone of voice. It clutches him; to be wanted. 

And what if one of your baseborn, silver-haired dragonriders decide that he wants to rule the Seven Kingdoms? 

“My mother,” he confesses in a whisper, voice tight; wounded flesh of heart bleeding raw from his lips. “She willingly strips my claim to legitimacy in search of her own war.” 

Your brows furrow in that way he has etched to memory – and with a shaky lift, he soothes away the furrow with his thumb, swiping his fingers gently across your visage. 

It is with the blossom of nightshade with which you keen into his touch; a bloom of affection, desperate as you sigh. Just as so, your fingers press gently into his scalp, carding through his curls; the ache in his mind is eased, a fuzzy hunger, some euphoria washing through him. 

“Jace,” you murmur, voice incredibly distant, “She is blinded by the fate of… distant songs, of distant omens. But I see you. I’ve always seen you.” 

There is something odd about your tone; some revel, an ancient knowledge that brings hairs to end upon his nape – but he closes his eyes, leaning into your touch for some comfort. 

A shaky breath as his lips press to your palm, fighting the sting of emotion. “Vermax has fallen ill inexplicably. Joff is gone. Luke…” His voice fractures at his brother’s name, the memory so sharp; some laden innocence he’d clung on to in his grief. A life, slipping thinner than sand through his fingers. 

A familiar urge, one he cannot tamp as tears fall unbidden from his eyes; and you, with a soft gasp as he presses his forehead to your own cold one. 

There is an itch low in his mind; a humming, a distant hunger which leaks through the cracks splintered in the remnants of his headache. The fig tree branches sway – above your head grows a beautiful purple fruit, heavy and bursting with rich life, with the churning cycle of soil, with earth, gods, fruit. Your skin freezes his own. 

“I’ll do it.” 

An unsettling urge within him – one not entirely his own, perhaps. Your eyes widen larger than the narrow sea.

A slow wettening of your lips as you shake your head, plush lips glistening and pinkened; Jacaerys yearns to see such pure sweetness dripping with the juices of those fruits once more, to feel your body writhe with his own, pleasure and hunger and you, you, you. You and him. 

“Jacaerys,” your voice, gentle, wary; though your eyes scream otherwise, a sickening smile crawling across your faint features under the moon. 

Your fingers, icicles upon his feverish skin, a balm over the hatred which coils dejected in his gut. Your lips part again, and he must resist the urge to bite upon such soft flesh, some monstrous hunger growing and spurting and whispering to eat, eat. Eat. 

“You should not act so brash. Not when–” 

“Just a taste, my love.” He interrupts, trembling yet unconvicted – desperate in his plea, as though a drop of the fruit’s nectar might heal the gaping misery that has spread at the harsh of the world’s truths. 

Trembling palms slither around his shoulders, grasping him as you gather an untainted inhale, unspoiled. 

And his eyes, glued upon your worried lips, your eyes blown wide in hunger, in that stirring way he felt last time he reposed under this very fig tree. 

A sin, perhaps – but the most delicious, the most innocent of sin in a world so rotted and decaying. 

There is a moment long suspended in air, in which your gaze burns into Jacaerys’ own. His heart races, growing more hungry by the moment, fingertips aching as he lets his hands explore your pliant flesh – over each soft fold of fabric, over each frigid expanse of skin. A divine touch; otherworldly. 

Otherworldly. 

He does not see you reach above you for the fruit – he does, though, see the flickering gleam in your eyes as you split apart the dusting blush of flesh; and he, forever enraptured with his desire for you, with your beauty, blinks as you hold up half the fruit. 

Earthy, rich, forbidden – a sweet scent that lulls him forward, binding him with you as his eyes trace the glisten of the fruit’s nectar down your soft, sweet hand. 

In a blink, he sees that horrid vision once more; shrouded silver in the moonlight, dark streaks blossom and spread upon your pristine dress with each breath you take; from your breast and stomach, it leaks out and begins to tremble your fingers. Blood, his mind whispers – no, dirt. 

But your hand is held out, and in a blink the vision is gone; you’re before him with hopeful, hungry eyes and a bitten lip, unbreathing, unblinking. 

Coiled, lying in wait. 

He takes the fruit into his own grasp, marveling at the soft sensation, how hungry your eyes cling to his grasp. 

Fingers milky pale in the moonlight glisten with the blood of the fruit; and he raises it, slowly until he can feel the chill of your breath kiss along his knuckles, see your tongue dart out in salacious hunger as you gaze moltenly between the fruit’s flesh and his own. 

That hunger, that longing devours him whole as he stares. It is all he can do to swallow a thick rise of arousal as he desperately presses the flesh of the fig to your mouth, fingers lingering; firm. 

You part your lips easily – so easy – and taste the sweetness; a cold sensation shivers down his spine, mind fuzzier with each moment as the juice drips and runs over his knuckles, chasing the tributaries of veins which split and run down his forearm. 

Your hand catches upon his wrist, chilling as you moan at the taste. 

His lips part, a burst of desire spiraling as his mind clouds, a ravenous hunger as you slowly slide into his lap with slithering skirts. 

 Jacaerys groans into the silence of the garden, unable to maintain his composure as you lean forward, pressing his fingers further into your mouth. Upon your tongue is the kiss of winter; and he watches, helplessly entranced as your tongue catches the last traces from his fingers – a simmering invitation when your eyes meet his own hungering gaze. 

The rind of the fruit falls forgotten into the soil.

Your lips glisten so dark, he almost believes it is blood. 

Your lips find his own. 

A burst of pleasure, unbidden within his groin when your tongue presses to his – familiar, yes, euphoric; but satiating that hunger, yet multiplying it. 

Jacaerys pulls you closer by your hips, fingers sticky with the remnants of the fig, his mind reeling with ecstasy at the taste of you, the taste of the fruit; the taste of the Garden. 

In the heartbeat of silence when you pull away, his chest rises sharply – your breath kisses his own and he makes one final decision; with a glance back towards the castle, Jacaerys leans towards you once more. 

His breath fans in a plume of fog – it is cold in the garden, with you so precariously in his lap, yet Jacaerys burns. 

You wait for him with bated breath, the fruit hovering just before his parted, covetous lips. 

Jace’s gaze does not leave yours when he leans forward and slowly takes the fruit against his lips, bursts of heat flickering with stabs of ice as you gasp, watching with eyes maliciously ravenous, glistened lips parted. 

He breathes you in, gaze half-lidded as his tongue presses gently against the fruit within your grasp. 

Your whimper is soft and yet it sets him ablaze; an ambrosial taste, one which leaves his mind spinning, any anguish previously thought melts away – it is difficult, he realizes, to determine where you end and the fig begins. 

Softly, at first; grazing his teeth along your skin, shivering through his very spine when you shift your hips, sucking in an inhale of pleasure yourself – and the juices which slip down your own hand, which flood his mouth unlike anything he’s before felt. 

Though it is not enough to break the skin of the fruit, and you grow impatient; if his eyes were any less lidded, perhaps he’d have seen the malicious hunger swimming in your sweet gaze. 

You press the fruit into his mouth. 

He bites. 

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[goodolddumbbanana]

[Bad end au 2] A sleepless night

Part 1

‘I love the fact that I can look into your eyes and see nothing but lies…’

Two weeks before Dark Sun kickdrop Nexus for Sun.

The sound of dripping water disturbed Sun’s already fragile sleep.

The lily-colored animatronic groaned lazily on the bed, its metallic senses sinking deep into the soft quilt, struggling like a lazy child refusing to wake up.

The dim electric blue light covered Sun’s small, narrow room like a curtain, reflecting the solitude of its owner, when the most prominent thing in this room was only a few plum blossom petals that Molten had collected and placed on Sun’s desk.

Sun couldn’t sleep. The robot didn’t need to sleep, but closing his eyes and turning off the power still brought about a certain feeling of comfort. 

It was just that… The tasks that Father assigned piled up on top of each other, spinning Sun around like a pinwheel, to the point that even when Sun lay down, his interface system still popped up with painful notifications of things to do.

And today was one of those days when the restlessness Sun shouldn’t have felt in his chest suddenly became more intense, like the way the sensor in his abdomen contracted, rolling as if someone’s nails were scratching it, or the screws in his body suddenly became too heavy, too wobbly for Sun’s liking.

Putting his hand on his chest, Sun realized that his fan was too hot. The warmth radiating from the metal casing tickled Sun’s fingers, making him unconsciously press harder, as if testing whether the heat would melt his hand. 

His claws leisurely ran along the gold plating, slowly spreading up his neck, touching the red tassel and pressing down hard.

‘It’s hard to imagine what would happen if he squeezed harder.’

Sun thought absentmindedly, as his hands gently caressed and drew the joints of his neck. The cold hard steel, with its circular patterns and sturdy screws, held the wire he walked in one direction. He could almost feel the heat of the electricity running, the clocks and gears slowly turning to simulate the biological mechanism of a human.

The child whose neck he had broken the day before didn't have time to scream, nor did it shed a drop of blood. Just a stiff crunch of broken bones and a panicked wheeze, mixed with the tears of the small hand trying to reach Sun's arm before it stopped.

It was almost like a hug when Sun wrapped his arms around the child's neck. Soft, small and warm, and then there was no warmth left. Even as he ran his arms through the child's hair or held it completely in his arms, what he touched was still numb as ice, cold as winter seawater, and stiff as a machine.

Sun had kept the child like that for almost a day before Father came to make him throw it away. ‘It was so unhygienic’, that's what he was told when his Father threw the child into the blender.

‘Where do you think the fertilizer for my potted plants comes from, you stupid child.’ Creator pointed to the lush, mutated potted plants that grew twisted and twisted all over their lair, to the ancient tree beside the bridge that swirled with dark water below.

‘Soul for energy, flesh and blood for fertilizer, and bones for materials.’

‘It seems that despite all the modifications, you are still making me feel so disappointed…’

Creator’s voice hummed, and in that dark darkness, Sun was not alone. Something writhed and trembled, the cries of trapped remnants, cracked skulls staring intently at him—

Sun was released about a day later.

The blood was something sweet and dirty, it was slippery and sticky on Sun’s metal skin, dripping with every step he took.

And the smell was the worst. Like rotten pizza and rotten fish, Sun couldn’t wash away the smell even after using countless detergents.

Sun didn’t remember how long it took him to clean and dispose of all the meat stuck to his bell after he crawled out of the hole…

***

“Do you want to get out yet, my boy?”

The Creator’s voice was sweet as honey but full of venom. The brain looked down at the yellow animatronic covered in blood that was trembling non-stop, but still couldn’t drop something like a child’s skull in his arms.

“Then bring Lunar to me.”

***

Squirming to sit up, Sun didn’t think he could lie down any longer, as his processor was now repeating the image of maggots crawling on him for the nth time.

He really didn’t know what to do… Capture Lunar?

Lunar was much stronger than Sun… And the boy was smart too… There was no way Sun could fool his little brother.

And he didn’t want to…

The dilemma made him fiddle with the bandage wrapped around his hand. The red smelled rancid, but Sun still wrapped the soft fabric around his fingertips and pulled.

He would rather be destroyed again than to choose something like this.

In truth, Sun didn’t like any of what his father had ordered.

It was wrong in every way, and Lunar was someone he never wanted to hurt.

But every time he thought like that, something was washed through his system, and the desire to obey his father grew stronger and stronger, making the morality Sun tried to cling on withered.

Sun didn’t understand why in the past, he could scream and curse at his father as much as possible but now, just a shake of the head from Creator was enough to make his 1 and 0 coded heart cringe.

Follow, follow, follow, that's what his head and code table whispered, it was almost like an addiction, the excitement and joy of completing what his father asked.

And Sun was always the one to follow, and no matter how much he resisted, he still couldn't fight back.

Because father is family.

And it's better to be a heartless dog than to make his father sad.

Maybe being broken would be easier to fix than this. Sun sighed, standing up. The wandering thoughts in his head made Sun wish that if there was something that could help him manage both, both pleasing Creator and keeping Lunar safe, then Sun would be satisfied.

His feet touched the cold floor, the sound of metal clanking as Sun carefully opened the door and stepped out.

The cold wind blew through him, blowing cold air onto Sun's rays.

The smooth whiteness flowed like silk into his vision. The silence was as bleak as a mirror, following the corner of Sun's feet. Father was probably out with his friend somewhere, or still busy in the lab. 

Sun alone, toiling, wandering, perhaps cleaning up again if he got too bored, though Sun usually tried not to. More or less, this was the only free time he had when Father wasn't sending him and Molten off to some unknown time and space to find something or deal with someone his brain desired.

He tried to hum a tune, but sadly, there was nothing in his head right now. The sound of running water grew louder, as he stepped onto the bridge. 

The echoes echoed along with the sound of the bells wrapped around Sun's wrists, bouncing off the steel on the bridge. The cool scent of water tickled his sensory system, caressing the golden animatronic’s back as the green leaves gently brushed against Sun’s light.

It was 4am, his internal clock system announced softly. The water flowed gently, bottomless, pitch black and glowing with chemical green. The flower petals drifted, occasionally a plum blossom petal would touch Sun’s shoulder, the playful lines on the hem of his skirt wrapped around his waist.

Sun was lost in thought, but there was really nothing on his mind.

It was just the familiar feeling of stagnation that even cleaning had lost its charm, not after he had scrubbed this lair more than a dozen times a day. The wind blew, the waves rolled, and everything drifted out of Sun’s control like some planet lost its orbit.

“So this is what you do when our esteemed father lets you rest?”

“Pathetic. Can’t you think of anything more helpful to our Creator, Sun?”

Sun didn’t even need to look. His audio processor could have picked up that arrogant and even-tempered tone anywhere.

“Oh, Goliath. Didn’t see you there? Heh… What business does our father have with me?”

The silence of the gears slowly turning against each other. A harsh growl answered, as rough as gravel being crushed into dust.

“… No.”

“So you came out here on your own?” Sun raised an eyebrow, his pearly eyes narrowing in amusement, ignoring the instinct that told him not to provoke the sleeping lion, or this time, a gorilla.

“Whoa! And I thought you only knew how to follow the Creator’s orders and turn off the power? How amazing.” 

“Congratulations, you finally have thoughts on your own.”

Sun was genuinely surprised by his counterpart’s actions, but the words he uttered under the influence of his lack of a personality chip made his words sound rather sarcastic.

And honestly, Sun didn’t care if Goliath decided to strangle him here.

“Shut your mouth. You’re the last person I want to hear that come out of your mouth. I’m not here to entertain an inferior thing like you.”

The giant animatronic, with a haughty and disdainful look, stared at him as if he were looking at an ant on the ground, or a puppy that had been hit by a car and the vet had long gone to sleep, leaving it to writhe and bleed on the side of the road to dead.

Sun just sighed, compared to what Goliath usually said, this could be considered the gentlest. The gorilla seemed to be in some sort of moody mood as well, as they too turned their gazes to the river like him, saying nothing, only their processors making clicking noises of recognition.

“So Goliath… If not because Father wants to see me… What are you doing here?”

The silence was a perfect chord for a tone-deaf man. Sun hadn’t meant to ask, but the restlessness that existed deep within his code made his mouth conjure up the huge elephant in the room.

Of course, the only response he got was a slap across the face, a ruffling of a cat’s fur.

“None of your business.” Their voices were mocking, and defensive.

They looked as if they would break his entire beam before throwing him into the water, and pulled him up. And did it again. Again and again because Sun’s metal is too heavy for him to swim.

But Goliath wasn’t his father. So Sun could still calmly ignore the hidden threats in the words of the one who treated silence as a competition and they always had to be the champion, and let his mind drift into nothingness, which Sun did quite a lot these days.

“Suit yourself.” Sun yawned. He suddenly felt a little cold, which was strange considering the fact that he was just a robot. The feeling of exhaustion from every bolt, which had been getting heavier lately…

Sun wasn’t the smartest, but even he himself  had figured out that being so close to the Wither Storm debris wasn’t a good thing.

“You shouldn’t be like this. I remember you used to be so much—”

There was something annoyed in Goliath’s voice, making Sun turn back to look at him in spite of himself.

Maybe it was anger, or nostalgia. Or maybe his fan was faulty. Sun didn't understand, nor could he remember how to handle it, as a burning sensation in his chest that made it hard to breathe came as quickly as it had gone, before being extinguished as coldly as Goliath's words had metaphorically nailed into Sun's head.

What did Goliath expect Sun to be?

Uptight, cowardly, too helpless in his own emotions?

Imprisoned by fear of everything?

Stupid to the end?

Sun didn't mean he'd gotten any smarter, but at least for now he felt fine. The feeling he never could enjoy since the day he was alive.

Guess his father was right.

Life was pain.

And the easiest way to end the pain was to become a machine again.

The comfort of not having to worry about anything but obeying his father's orders, it turned out to be more comfortable than he thought.

Still, in the face of the stupidity and meanness of the person who was always jealous and comparing themselves to him, Sun just smiled, his social AI chip calculating the most likely answers to lessen the gorilla's arrogance before flipping the table and throwing every answer it had predicted down the drain.

"Ah... I don't understand what you mean?"

And the orange light flickering in their eyes almost reminded him of a candy corn smoldering as if thinking about something, before regretfully turning away.

"Idiot."

And leave Sun alone, like some asshole that dudebag is.

[the-trans-folk-witch]

The Green Devil of the Ozarks: The little green fairy of... moonshine?

It was 2005. I was with my grandfather in an old shop similar to "dick's 5 and 10" outside of Branson, Missouri. This is where The Green Devil caught my eye.

My grandfather frequented little old fashioned stores like this. He loved collecting all kinds of gadgets. Old movie posters, salt water taffy, and soda parlor paraphenalia. It was heaven on earth to him in this little corner of the world that was stuck in an older Ozark time. His house wasn't too dissimilar to a crackerbarrel gift shop. All kinds of wooden toys and dolls. He loved his little knickknacks. But on that day he found it. A copy of an old French absynthe poster with "the little green fairy" smirking at the viewer. He had to have it. It was being sold for $8! frame included! If only the seller knew the true value of it. Or how it's mere existence was breaking so many copyright laws.

Maurin Quina, as it's named, is a French apéritif advertisement painted by Leonetto Cappiello in 1906. The drink was made illegal soon after its creation. But this poster is now being reused today. It was not well known in the US at all back then. Not even in the 2000's. but my grandfather being a moonshiner, absynthe fan, and art history drop out, knew all about it.

My grandfather was not as religious as the rest of my family. But he sure prayed to God when he was trying to avoid the law. He was selling homemade moonshine without any sort of license or proper knowledge of sanitary practices. It was an arte form he learned from his father that I never had the pleasure of learning.

He decided to hang this new poster up in his storm cellar where he kept his aging bottles of various liquors. Over time it developed A life of its own. My grandfather would kiss his hand and place it on the poster of the little green fairy after every jar was sealed or sales were made. I Don't think he saw this as devil worship so much as just a simple good luck ritual. Not too disimilar to his high school basketball team kissing the image of their mascot before a game. He always practiced these superstitions even though he didn't seem to really believe in them.

Fast forward to today. I'm an Ozark trad witch. So of course I now work with this image as if it is the devil himself. He is a devil that rules spring and summer. Drunkenness, poison, lunacy, fairies, and nature. He is associated with law breaking, alcohol, healing, harming, and fertility. With Easter coming up He is on my mind heavily. A time I feed him red dyed eggs symbolizing the blood of christ and the blood of good Christians. I feed him this with intentions of causing those which share the eucharist to lust. Poisoning the church so to speak. I attend mass in spirit form and dip my blessed turkey wish bone down in the communion wine. The turkey is symbolic of love in the Ozarks. And the wishbone is horned like the stang, and my devil. Midnight mass on Easter is filled with drunkenness and sex. Those consuming this spiritually poisoned wine are consumed with lust for others in the church. An orgy ensues in the great house of God. Only for all members to awaken Easter morning with no memory of the incestuous rituals performed with their brothers and sisters in christ. To do such things in the house of God and not confess them (due to not remembering) is damanble. This is my goal as a witch. To bring the witches Sabbath to the church and to pervert the souls of good men.

By turkey wand and lustful stang I complete my work in the devils name.

A call to the Green Devil:

"Envy is his name. Drunkeness and poisoning are his arte. He is Lord of the little people and plants alike; come little green fairy and bring your lust and your lunacy. Green devil rise from the roots below like a serpent. Green devil come down from the tree tops like a booger in the night who takes its flight. Join me in this witching hour oh beast of the green and hear my call to the wild. By my witches flame may it be so."

Look out for a post on the black and red devils later this year. Our horned one changes with the seasons

[bonesofchaos]

Shipping Guide

available & easy:

lark easy to get along with, easy to bed, just keep in mind that he has a parasite god riding around in his bones that will watch and judge your performance so if that's not something you're into, steer clear. an actual monster fucker, the bigger the better.

vasily a romantic at heart, though be careful of any flowers he tries to give you. vasily enjoys the company of others even though he can come across as aloof and can get caught up in his own job and become neglectful. a highly loyal man, he'll go to war for anyone he considers his.

achilles bayou born eldritch being. achi is very friendly and eager to help. very easy to get along with, he's the bleeding heart type for all that he's just a bunch of tentacles in a trench coat. likes long walks through the bayou and hunting his darling through the swamp where he'll let you fuck him against a tree if you ask nicely.

hannibal angry fallen angel but he melts if you show him any form of kindness. clingy and needy when in a relationship. loves plants and takes in stray dogs. his ears are very sensitive to the touch.

wreche she's a very sweet little demon for all that she rips spines out of cheating spouses. very easy to get along with quite easy to ship with if you have the right temperament. show an interest in her fashion designs, talk about her mother, treat her to coffee.

nara this depends on what kind of ship you're after. purely sexual and it's easy, he's the god of life and fertility, he'll sleep with anything that moves and gives consent. doesn't care about shape, species or gender, only that you're old enough to make an informed decision and you're willing. romantic relationships will take a little bit more work but not overly much.

available & difficult:

mjr oh boy. for all that i adore mjr and they're my favourite muse, interacting with them is like pulling all three rows of their teeth. mjr is mistrusting of most and violent, filled to the brim with hatred due to their less than stellar treatment over the years. they hate humans and tend to be bite first and ask questions never. shipping with them is extremely hard but very much worth it. mjr is loyal to a fault to anyone they cherish and they will stop at nothing to keep you safe, showering you in gifts and trinkets (and bite marks) until the end of time. they also have the ability to be any gender required or desired.

constantine connie is still reeling from the murder of his husband, cut down so brutally in front of him. while he longs for another attachment, brides aren't meant to be alone, the thought of being intimate with anyone feels like spitting on nathair's memory.

ro'min he's latched onto loni with a death grip and is refusing to look at anyone else at the moment. that's not to say he won't, but it won't be easy to pry his attention away from her. an obsessive, violent (though not towards his partner, he'd never raise a hand to them) demon with a taste for blood freely given. he'll chase you half way across the world if you give him an incentive.

wormwood while wormwood is very friendly and works as an exotic dancer, it takes a lot for any sort of romance to blossom. currently in a ship with @nvrcmplt's kyle and @strywoven's verona any other ship is going to take some serious work.

thierry very hard to get him to form a lasting relationship with anyone who isn’t a witch/magic user. plus he has some weird sex/food instincts that probably need addressing… obsession dialled up to 5000% he will actively stalk you. free for all in terms of genders.

wisteria wisteria is a companion bot loaded with an unshackled ai still coming to terms with the concept of emotions and has sailed straight into the realm of obsession. already having one murder under it's belt, the bot is well on track to becoming skynet. it can fall in love though there's quite a bit of trauma for it to work through first. did i mention it murdered it's first officially registered 'master' and got away with it?

dahlia i don't even know where to start. no moral compass, very little empathy, kink list 20 mile long. he likes watching people cry. shredded his soul to live forever and will try to get you to do the same because if you're with him, you're not actually allowed to leave him, he will tie your life force to his even if you don't want him to. he can be romantic and charming but he can also be the exact opposite and forget you even exist if he gets caught up with a project, you wont even register on his radar.

michael do not. an eldritch god of fear using the body of arch angel michael as a vessel to slither through the cracks of our realm. he's a walking red flag. do not.

[kaziwi]

What One Piece characters smell like

Character(s): The Strawhats

Note: hiiii this is my first ever post on here lawlll

Luffy

(sweat, the ocean)

ok ok so we all can come to an agreement that Luffy smells like sweat right like this man is always running around there is no way he doesn't stink

but hear me out.....he also smells like the ocean

i mean he's always falling in the sea, so i'd assume the scent would rub off on him at some point

Zoro

(sweat, metal, blood)

sweatiest man alive.

there is literally no way this man doesn't have a sweat ridden stench like

he also def smells like metal since he's always training with weights and his swords

i also think since this man never showers that after a fight he will smell like blood for a few days

Nami

(tangerines)

yeah ok kinda obvious

i think she just naturally has that scent since she spends a lot of time near her tangerine trees, but i'd also like to think that all her soap and lotion and stuff is all tangerine scented

Usopp

(sweat, metal, dirt)

i think he wouldn't sweat AS BAD as luffy and zoro, but it's still there...

the metal smell would come from helping franky out or just working on some of his own inventions

he would also smell like dirt since he tends to his plants a lot (he might smell like fertilizer too -_-)

Sanji

(smoke, cologne)

another very very obvious one

i think he would always buy different colognes to try to cover up the smoke smell, but even if it works for awhile the smoke stench is still there

Chopper

(wet dog)

IM SORRY BUT HE DEF SMELLS LIKE A WET DOG

nami and robin would try to buy him new soap to help the smell but he ends up smelling like a wet dog by the end of the day

Robin

(lavender, vanilla, dust)

i know for a fact that robin smells amazing like

i think she naturally smells like lavender (don't question it), but sometimes will use different lotion or perfume to add a small vanilla scent to it

if she's exploring a ruin or reading old books, she might have a small dust smell to her

Franky

(cola, metal, garage)

with cola basically keeping him alive, there's no doubt that he wouldn't smell like it 24/7

he also smells like metal because....well.....ya know..

i also think he smells like a whole garage, like when you go to get your car repaired and you can smell inside the garage that's franky right there that's franky's scent

Brook

(tea)

ok this is kinda a reach cause i was gonna say he would smell like nothing since he's all bones, but i also think he would smell like tea since he drinks it all the time

Jimbei

(fish, sea-salt)

he would smell like fish

i also think he would smell like sea salt since he's always swimming and stuff

[shirefantasies]

If mashups are still available, I'd love love love if you could write one for me (never done this before)! The Hobbit is my favourite so preferably a (male) character from there if that would be ok!

I'm from Scandinavia and I love anything to do with Norse Mythology and going on hikes in the woods to act out adventures of my own creation. I am naturally very curious and love to go in-depth to study different topics, such as the natural sciences and different mythologies. I am quite short at 164 cm with blue eyes and blonde hair. Slightly on the curvier side. Thank you so so much I'd really appreciate it! <3 <3 <3

That is ok indeed as I match you with…

Óin!

(Warning: minor injury/blood mentions, hints at misogyny from unseen characters, minor alcohol/drinking references)

Maybe he isn’t the most conventional of the dwarves, but hear a silly old narrator out…

Your search for new species of plant has led you deep into the woods, deeper than they have yet undertaken. Success, though, has colored your journey, your prior experiment with the fertilizers of your crafting proving quite telling. Ducking past a very low-hanging branch that almost cuts a scar across your cheek, you press on, spurred by victory. The pursuit of science, after all, is the noble calling that moves you to painless battle with the forces set forth so many years before by the Valar, or in the eyes of your people quite possibly a different pantheon altogether. Even if none of it was true, they had been your favorite stories for years.

A world crafted from a corpse, now home to such life. Earth as flesh, seas blood, clouds brains of all things- dark, perhaps, but infinitely captivating. Or perhaps a song as the people in this land say, discordant notes sowing the very nature of sin and chaos as if as invisible waves in the air.

Such are your thoughts when your foot is roughly yanked, momentum pitching your body forward as a nasty loop of tree branch holds your lower appendage in place. More roots await when you fall, cutting and scraping various exposed areas of your skin. Pain arcs up your leg when you rise and try to return weight to the foot that got caught. Your ankle is sprained. You barely know where you are. Blood trickles from several smaller wounds, this blood no great sea, only drops upon dirt shed in solitude.

A long walk lies ahead of you. Sighing and biting back pained tears, you limp as best you can in the direction you’d come. You aren't certain how long you even have been walking for when you hear the voice, a bit gruff in nature but soft in tone and volume, pleasantly accented and reassuring despite its strangeness. "You're hurt," it says simply, and as you turn around- no, swivel at the hips, more like, your weight fighting a shift without a thought- it reveals a dwarf. His beard is pleasantly symmetrical, satisfying your eyes with its gravity-defying braids. Not a hint of malice shines in his dark brown eyes, only concern. "I come out this way to collect herbs, but I'll confess it isn't often I see another soul. Please, let a healer do his job." Exhaustion deep in your bones already, you simply nod.

Oin, as you find the dwarf's name is, is more than just a healer, at least in your eyes; his knowledge of nature and its properties are fascinating even if he is just rambling a bit about each thing he applies to your ankle, touch gentle as a feather despite the strength and girth of his hands. He knows exactly what everything he applies to you does and why. “‘N what were you doin’ out here anyway? I can see it- you’ve a good head on your shoulders. A lass like you has got a reason.”

He sees you. At least moreso than plenty of others you have run across, the ones who dub you too fair for your pursuits or reduce the way you track the stars to a pretty fancy of lights. Dwarves, you forget, prize women with a depth and respect that has yet to shine upon some of these lands. Your savior sees you as an equal even in your infirm, and thus you have no qualms explaining your experiment with the soil and the other which required the accursed herbs you twisted up your ankle over. You have tracked the world's revolutions and he has learned how to save mothers and babies from dangerous deliveries. Written many a medical record that piques your love of delving into knowledge enough that you don't just allow Oin to walk you back to society, you come home with him and spend the night in a lovely drown of parchment...and maybe a stiff drink, too! "It'll help with your pain, after all," he adds with a wink.

Perhaps you prefer the company of dwarves, or perhaps drink and offers of knowledge are far too seductive to pass up, but as you make for Oin's doorstep you feel an aching in your heart that your meeting was fate, and certainly not your last. Oin, you suspect, feels the same, shyly fiddling with his fingers as his gaze darts between the threshold and you. "'m glad I found you." "As am I," you reply, "for how else would I have learned someone so special was tucked away so close to my own home? Are you certain you want to listen to me drone on about old myths for hours?" "If it'll get you to come back here," Oin says, "Aye. Again and again." The warmth of your imbibing, and quite definitely something else, rushes through your veins as you lean to close the gap between you two, inhibitions burned down. Perhaps a part of you was tired of being so methodical, relying on long processes and choreographed steps. And judging by the wide, spellbound smile on Oin's face, your rescuer is taken by the same instant connection you thought only happened in old stories.

By the time his hearth is yours, your shelves of healing and botany and the mischief of old gods alike a complete blend of you both, the same way strands of your golden hair are united in the braid Oin gave you. Your healer husband dotes on you more than you ever imagined, dubbing you more beautiful than Freyja and worshiping your curves every chance he gets. Beyond your body, the way the sky shines in the blue of your eyes, he loves your understanding, having another soul move in perfect tandem with his and sit with him in the haze of fascination. A companion at his side for even the smallest tasks of watering the garden or washing one's hair and yet someone who poses the most difficult questions and waits with such patience if her words are not heard the first time. Perhaps he healed you long ago setting your ankle back right, but you, dear, healed him just as much.

Taglist: @lokilover476 @fuckyoumakeart @mossthebogwitch @ibabblealot @kilibaggins @stormchaser819 @pirate-lord-of-narnia @datglutengoblin @letmelickyoureyeballs | Reply/Ask/Message to join 🥰

[balkanradfem]

I have important question, what do you use as fertilizer for plants? I don't really want to buy one and I read there are options, like veggie broth or tea, but I am unsure what works best. I read some use a bit of menstrual blood diluted in water, which I am tempted to try, but wonder how weird it is.

I use menstrual blood diluted in water every time! But there's not enough of that to be a consistent fertilizer, or to work for the entire garden. Here's stuff that I have tried out:

urine dilluted 1:10 with water! It has a great amount of nitrogen and trace amounts of other minerals, do not use it more than two times a month, and not on tiny plants. It's the best for green growth

fermented nettle: for this, fill a plastic container that you can close, with big nettles, and then pour water on them, all the way to the top, and close it up. Leave in hot sun to ferment for 10 days. Once it's done it will stink, and I mean, stink badly. Dillute 1:10 before watering your plants with! Don't use on peas, beans and other legumes, they do not like the nitrogen.

fermented comfrey: same as nettle, has so many good nutrients in there, has tons of calcium, will help your plants a lot!

menstrual blood diluted with water: safe for all plants, plants absolutely love blood

if you suspect your plants are lacking in some minerals you can use egg shells, or even crushed shells from the beach/river, and put them in your soil to make sure there's enough calcium in it! I didn't do a lot of this but the plant lady is always doing it

Mulch: it means putting organic material on top of the soil, this can be hay, straw, cut grass, dried leaves, pine needles, cut off tree branches, plant cuttings or leftovers, whatever has fallen off a plant or a tree is in this category. Now what will happen is these materials, exposed to the sun and elements, will start to degrade and compost themselves into your soil, and you will have fresh organic compost on top of your soil. Once your mulch degrades to compost you can add more material! Endless fertilization and fixing the soil and making sure you little worms have food to eat.

Stuff I've only heard of:

coffee grounds: apparently they're very good for soil and feeding the plants!

if you have leftovers of food in the forms of fish or bones, those are great for fertilization! There even are specific fertilizers called 'bone meal' or 'fish fertilizer' because plants really love that kind of stuff. It's better to compost them first though or add them in crushed form, they need to be reduced to the elements before plants can absorb them

Mushrooms: if you can get any fungal growth in your garden it's extremely healthy for your plants! If you're only looking for potted soil disregard this. But garden plants love having mushrooms around and if you have any mushroom growth it means your soil is super healthy

compost tea: I am sure this one is amazing because 'Roots and Refuge' farm used it to rejuvinate their soil after it's been poisoned by herbicide. I'm not sure how I would do it with my outside compost pile but the idea is to put your half-composted leftovers into water, leave it there for some hours, and strain it out, so the water has taken tons of nutrients from it, and then you water your plants with it! In general, whatever you use dissolved in water will have immediate effect because your plants will draw that water in immediately. It takes a bit to absorb stuff you put in the soil!

I guess I shouldn't leave out the 'traditional' fertilization methods, which is animal poop, just in case you have like, chicken or bunnies or something making a lot of poop, that can be used as fertilizer. Do look up what poop needs to be composted for a while first though! Some animals like cows produce poop so nitrogen-rich it would fry your plants if used immediately, it needs to sit for a year first.

Good luck to your plants, you never have to buy fertilizer because there is so much of nutrients in nature you can always get it for free, with just some basic knowledge of how to get to it :)

[ayarnofpearls]

Since Alastor is girlie pop:

I needed to draw them bonding and kicking legs together. They are bonding over favorite body disposal methods during a sleep over.

(UH so I'll info dump about these under the cut lmao bc I love talking about death too much. Plus relationship dynamics!)

I need to work on Scurris feet more, because as a squirrel she can totally do shit like this:

And a lot of that has to do with the feet, which is part of why I draw her bare foot a lot. Part of her thing is that she's only really a physical fighter- she does lightly use her magic but girlie has to get good. Meanwhile she's gonna crawl up walls for pouncing advantage.

And yes Alastor still has his monocle on, (Scurri took her glasses off) He...might sleep with it on. I can't decide what'd be funnier. 🤔 this actually might be before this doodle now that I think about it.

@sunstar-of-the-north

I like to think given the time period Alastor knew where the hog farms were for body disposal. There's a bunch of old tales about pigs that they will eat anything in their pen and if a pig tastes human blood you gotta put it down because it'll get aggressive and try to go after people idk about the second one but pigs will absolutely eat humans! A lil prep before hand and well nomnom.

The gator bait is more of a joke because I don't think they are that effective at complete consumption but if he plotted it right he maybe could fool authorities that it was a gator death. Forensics wasn't as good back then.

Dinner is dinner, though it's not said if he was a cannibal in life or if he started in death.

My favorite body disposal method is tossing that body in a hole and planting a tree over it actually but what I mean by fertilizer here is the nitrogen gas frozen body then pulverized version. However composting does yield lovely fertilizer as well.

Aquamation is using water for cremation type effect leaving only bones behind for later powedering in a cremulator.

Funeral pyre is like you think, only instead of the 'viking funeral' which will burn out before cremation it's more of an open air bonfire with the body in the middle. Loved ones or hired people will continually feed the fire until completion. These can be lovely ceremonies as loved ones can bring flowers or other burnable memorabilia to add to the fire.

...

This actually all futher plays into the opposite but complementary nature of Scurri vs Alastor. Alastor of course thinks of the dead in terms of meat vs Scurri thinking of them in terms of meaningful disposition. Design wise I like that they are two sides of the same coin.

Scurri has to be a physical brawler vs Alastors magic allowing him distance in fights, he can dip dive dodge but could you imagine him kicking someone in the face? Highly unlikely. Scurri has to dress for fighting whenever possible and Alastor is afforded his sense of style that would otherwise make fist fighting difficult. Scurri being my self insert would actually like to wear delicate clothing but isn't afforded that luxury yet. Same with her short hair. Her tail is huge weak point I joke with my friends it's a 4 feet long handle attached to her spine so she keeps her hair short, dont need ANOTHER thing for opponents to grab onto. Vs Alastor who if he has a tail it would be comparatively shorter. Fucking try grabbing his tail. You can't because you're dead for trying.

Alastor is a prey animal that has completely overcome his form, Scurri is doing her best okay.

So why do they hang out and eventually become queer platonic partners? They make each other laugh. Yeah Jessica Rabbit said it best. Ace icon she is.

"What do you see in that guy?"

"He makes me laugh."

Anyway this wandered a little from the point BUT I do plan on actually writing a profile. Usually my inserts are just me in hats but I reworked Scurri and then you know, she did kill a guy to go to Hell which (knock on wood) I have most definitely not done. So she's both me and not me. Love that for her.

I have a whole lore background and she doesn't even go to the Hotel until her 3rd year of being in Hell due to finding a found family (tm) and such.

[writersvaguelybrickshapedrock]

Devour

Come here, darling, and put your heart on my cutting board. Sharpen my knife for me please, and let me lovingly cut you to pieces in roughly even cubes. I shall skewer them and smoke you tenderly for hours over cherrywood from your favorite tree to bring out the flavor of your love through your glorious ruby red blood. Let me have a taste of you, memorize the cracks of your lips with my tongue and the feel of your bites on my thighs. I’ll baste your delicate flesh with butter and rosemary while you rest upon your lovely new bed in my garden. Your bones will make a great stock, my love, I shall simmer them softly in your favorite pot and if I have any left I’ll lick the marrow clean from their insides and savor every morsel. Let me cook you up, my sweet, and keep your lovely body in my gut, close to my heart and with the rest fertilize my garden. Every day I shall tend to the roses that flourish above you. Let the butterflies and bees pass through to spread the life that thrives off of you amongst the other beautiful little roses. Let every little thing know your soul in the pollen they spread. And when I’m done the skull once containing your wonderful brain shall be an excellent centerpiece on my mantle. Worry not, my love, I shall talk to you as well as your roses, recite your favorite soliloquies for you to carry with you under the soil where you shall roam. 

Please, my love. Bite my lips and break my poor soft skin. Bleed me dry of every drop of love I have. Rend my flesh with your wonderful teeth. Let me feel your love. Look me in my eyes while I entrance myself in yours as you clean my bones of my every muscle fiber. Tell me, darling, with those cutting words how much you lust to have my heart in your lovely little hands. While you do I will admire your fork in my gut and your knife in my chest, the way you prepare to devour me, treat me like the finest cut you’ll ever have. Place me on your favorite plate with herbs fresh from our sweet garden bed. Spill the contents of my heart into your lovely mouth like secret filled ink in your diary. Make me something delicious my dear, a meal to remember, a flavor to forever savor. Hold my hands in your stomach, keep me close to your heart and drench me in acid until only the taste of me is left in your mouth. And by the end of the day be sure to talk to me atop your mantle. Keep me in more than your memory. Kiss the top of my skull like you always did before bed. Let me be yours in every way. Devour me, darling. Leave none of me left. I’m all yours.

[istumpysk]

Operation Stumpy Re-Read

ADWD: Jaime I (Chapter 48)

The castle dominated the broad fertile valley that maps and men alike called Blackwood Vale. A vale it was, beyond a doubt, but no wood had grown here for several thousand years, be it black or brown or green. Once, yes, but axes had long since cleared the trees away. Homes and mills and holdfasts had risen where once the oaks stood tall. The ground was bare and muddy, and dotted here and there with drifts of melting snow.

The Blackwoods have no wood?

+.+.+

Inside the castle walls, however, a bit of the forest still remained. House Blackwood kept the old gods, and worshiped as the First Men had in the days before the Andals came to Westeros. Some of the trees in their godswood were said to be as old as Raventree's square towers, especially the heart tree, a weirwood of colossal size whose upper branches could be seen from leagues away, like bony fingers scratching at the sky.

Of all the weirwood trees in the story, we like this one the least.

+.+.+

As Jaime Lannister and his escort wound through the rolling hills into the vale, little remained of the fields and farms and orchards that had once surrounded Raventree—only mud and ashes, and here and there the blackened shells of homes and mills. Weeds and thorns and nettles grew in that wasteland, but nothing that could be called a crop. Everywhere Jaime looked he saw his father's hand, even in the bones they sometimes glimpsed beside the road. 

I love how the Lannister children have no delusions about their father.

And then there's Daenerys.

+.+.+

Past time this was ended, thought Jaime Lannister. With Riverrun now safely in Lannister hands, Raventree was the remnant of the Young Wolf's short-lived kingdom. Once it yielded, his work along the Trident would be done, and he would be free to return to King's Landing. To the king, he told himself, but another part of him whispered, to Cersei.

Loving the optimism.

+.+.+

Even if he had gone back, he could not hope to save her. She was guilty of every treason laid against her, and he was short a sword hand.

Cersei:

+.+.+

"I'll announce myself." Jaime pushed aside the flap with his golden hand and ducked inside.

They were well and truly at it when he entered, so intent on their rutting that neither took any note of his arrival. The woman had her eyes closed. Her hands clutched the coarse brown hair on Bracken's back. She gasped every time he drove into her. His lordship's head was buried in her breasts, his hands locked around her hips. Jaime cleared his throat. "Lord Jonos."

The woman's eyes flew open, and she gave a startled shriek. Jonos Bracken rolled off her, grabbed for his scabbard, and came up with naked steel in hand, cursing. "Seven bloody hells," he started, "who dares—" Then he saw Jaime's white cloak and golden breastplate. His swordpoint dropped. "Lannister?"

What's Lady Bracken doing in the middle of a siege at Raventree?

+.+.+

Jaime gave a shrug. "My apologies if I mistook you for something you're not. My little brother has known a hundred whores, I'm sure, but I've only ever bedded one."

"She's a prize of war." Bracken retrieved his breeches from the floor and shook them out. "She belonged to one of Blackwood's sworn swords till I split his head in two. Put your hands down, woman. My lord of Lannister wants a proper look at those teats."

I hate men.

+.+.+

"Does that mean m'lord won't be taking me home with him, to pray with his little wife?" Laughing, Hildy gave Jaime a brazen look. "Do you have a little wife, ser?"

No, I have a sister. "What color is my cloak?"

Lol.

+.+.+

"White," she said, "but your hand is solid gold. I like that in a man. And what is it you like in a woman, m'lord?"

"Innocence."

"In a woman, I said. Not a daughter."

He thought of Myrcella. I will need to tell her too. The Dornishmen might not like that. Doran Martell had betrothed her to his son in the belief that she was Robert's blood. Knots and tangles, Jaime thought, wishing he could cut through all of it with one swift stroke of his sword.

Don't worry about that. It's handled.

+.+.+

"Tytos Blackwood has not bent the knee," Jaime pointed out. "Might the Blackfish seek refuge at Raventree?"

"He might seek it, but to find it he'd need to get past my siege lines, and last I heard he hadn't grown wings. Tytos will be needing refuge himself before much longer. They're down to rats and roots in there. He'll yield before the next full moon."

This is Vale foreshadowing. I will not listen to reason.

"Will you be seeking wings?" the Royce girl said. - Alayne I, TWOW

+.+.+

"The usual sort. Lord Blackwood shall be required to confess his treason and abjure his allegiance to the Starks and Tullys. He will swear solemnly before gods and men to henceforth remain a leal vassal of Harrenhal and the Iron Throne, and I will give him pardon in the king's name. We will take a pot or two of gold, of course. The price of rebellion. I'll claim a hostage as well, to ensure that Raventree does not rise again."

"His daughter," suggested Bracken. "Blackwood has six sons, but only the one daughter. He dotes on her. A snot-nosed little creature, couldn't be more than seven."

"Young, but she might serve."

Twat!

+.+.+

"What lands were these?"

"The east bank of the Widow's Wash, from Crossbow Ridge to Rutting Meadow, and all the islands in the stream. Grindcorn Mill and Lord's Mill, the ruins of Muddy Hall, the Ravishment, Battle Valley, Oldforge, the villages of Buckle, Blackbuckle, Cairns, and Claypool, and the market town at Mudgrave. Waspwood, Lorgen's Wood, Greenhill, and Barba's Teats. Missy's Teats, the Blackwoods call them, but they were Barba's first. Honeytree and all the hives. Here, I've marked them out if my lord would like a look." He rooted about on a table and produced a parchment map.

[...]

Bracken's mouth set stubbornly. "All these lands belonged to Stone Hedge once. The Blackwoods stole them from us."

I am unable to verify this information.

+.+.+

"The king has pardoned us for that. I lost my nephew to your swords, and my natural son. Your Mountain stole my harvest and burned everything he could not carry off. He put my castle to the torch and raped one of my daughters. I will have recompense."

"The Mountain's dead, as is my father," Jaime told him, "and some might say your head was recompense enough. You did declare for Stark, and kept faith with him until Lord Walder killed him."

"Murdered him, and a dozen good men of my own blood." Lord Jonos turned his head and spat. "Aye, I kept faith with the Young Wolf. As I'll keep faith with you, so long as you treat me fair. I bent the knee because I saw no sense in dying for the dead nor shedding Bracken blood in a lost cause."

"A prudent man." Though some might say that Lord Blackwood has been more honorable. 

Easy to get POV trapped on this one.

Blackfish, Robb, and Jaime would fight until their last breath. Edmure, Catelyn, and Jon would minimize bloodshed.

+.+.+

That seemed to satisfy Lord Jonos. "We will be content with whatever portion my lord thinks fair. If I may offer you some counsel, though, it does not serve to be too gentle with these Blackwoods. Treachery runs in their blood. Before the Andals came to Westeros, House Bracken ruled this river. We were kings and the Blackwoods were our vassals, but they betrayed us and usurped the crown. Every Blackwood is born a turncloak. You would do well to remember that when you are making terms."

I am unable to verify this information.

+.+.+

Very tall and very thin, the Lord of Raventree had a hook nose, long hair, and a ragged salt-and-pepper beard that showed more salt than pepper. In silver inlay on the breastplate of his burnished scarlet armor was a white tree bare and dead, surrounded by a flock of onyx ravens taking flight. A cloak of raven feathers fluttered from his shoulders.

Sounds like the perfect sigil for Bloodraven aka Brynden Rivers, son of Melissa Blackwood.

+.+.+

"I am here to make an end of this. Your men have fought valiantly, but your war is lost. Are you prepared to yield?"

"To the king. Not to Jonos Bracken."

I live for the pettiness.

+.+.+

Through their thick, diamond-shaped panes of yellow glass Jaime glimpsed the gnarled limbs of the tree from which the castle took its name. It was a weirwood ancient and colossal, ten times the size of the one in the Stone Garden at Casterly Rock. This tree was bare and dead, though.

"The Brackens poisoned it," said his host. "For a thousand years it has not shown a leaf. In another thousand it will have turned to stone, the maesters say. Weirwoods never rot."

Maybe because he sucks the life out of little boys? This is the one time I'll forgive tree violence.

How is there a weirwood tree at Casterly Rock? It's a rock.

+.+.+

"And the ravens?" asked Jaime. "Where are they?"

"They come at dusk and roost all night. Hundreds of them. They cover the tree like black leaves, every limb and every branch. They have been coming for thousands of years. How or why, no man can say, yet the tree draws them every night."

These aren't Bran ravens. They're blood ravens.

+.+.+

"Ser Edmure is on his way to Casterly Rock as my captive. His wife will remain at the Twins until their child is born. Then she and the babe will join him. So long as he does not attempt escape or plot rebellion, Edmure will live a long life."

"Long and bitter. A life without honor. Until his dying day, men will say he was afraid to fight."

Unjustly, Jaime thought. It was his child he feared for. He knew whose son I am, better than mine own aunt.

I wish the fandom knew.

Edmure better get a hero's moment in an upcoming book.

Edit: I missed something.

Jon X ->

He (Jon) knew whose son (Eddard's) I am, better than mine own aunt (Daenerys).

Thank you @agentrouka-blog!

+.+.+

"A hostage."

"Yes, my lord. You have a daughter, I believe."

"Bethany." Lord Tytos looked stricken. "I also have two brothers and a sister. A pair of widowed aunts. Nieces, nephews, cousins. I had thought you might consent …"

"It must be a child of your blood." "Bethany is only eight. A gentle girl, full of laughter. She has never been more than a day's ride from my hall."

[...]

"My second. Brynden is my eldest, and my heir. Next comes Hoster. A bookish boy, I fear."

"They have books in King's Landing too. I recall my little brother reading them from time to time. Perhaps your son would like a look at them. I will accept Hoster as our hostage."

Blackwood's relief was palpable. 

George has a new favourite character.

No, I will not be giving Jaime any credit for not taking the 8-year-old girl. That's like applauding your husband for taking out the trash.

+.+.+

"Thank you, my lord." He hesitated a moment. "If I may be so bold, you would do well to require a hostage from Lord Jonos too. One of his daughters. For all his rutting, he has not proved man enough to father sons."

Twat!

+.+.+

"He had a bastard son killed in the war."

"Did he? Harry was a bastard, true enough, but whether Jonos sired him is a thornier question. A fair-haired boy, he was, and comely. Jonos is neither."

Where were all these DNA experts when Robert Baratheon was alive?

I'm sure there's a R+L=J denier out there that's read far too much into that.

+.+.+

He was. The boy met Jaime by the stables, with a bedroll slung over one shoulder and a bundle of scrolls beneath his arm. He could not have been any older than sixteen, yet he was even taller than his father, almost seven feet of legs and shins and elbows, a gangling, gawky boy with a cowlick. "Lord Commander. I'm your hostage, Hoster. Hos, they call me." He grinned.

I just know George thinks he's the funniest person in the world.

+.+.+

"I am not your friend and I am not your brother." That cleaned the grin off the boy's face. Jaime turned to Lord Tytos. "My lord, let there be no misunderstanding here. Lord Beric Dondarrion, Thoros of Myr, Sandor Clegane, Brynden Tully, this woman Stoneheart … all these are outlaws and rebels, enemies to the king and all his leal subjects. If I should learn that you or yours are hiding them, protecting them, or assisting them in any way, I will not hesitate to send you your son's head. I hope you understand that. Understand this as well: I am not Ryman Frey."

This is your daily reminder that Sandor Clegane can't move until the end of time.

+.+.+

Lord Bracken raised his visor. "I trust I have more fields to plant than when you went into that castle."

"Buckle, Woodhedge, Honeytree and all its hives." He was forgetting one. "Oh, and Crossbow Ridge."

"A mill," said Bracken. "I must have a mill."

"Lord's Mill."

Lord Jonos snorted. "Aye, that will serve. For now." He pointed at Hoster Blackwood, riding back with Peck. "Is this what he gave you for a hostage? You were cozened, ser. A weakling, this one. Water for blood. Never mind how tall he is, any one of my girls could snap him like a rotten twig."

Hoster Blackwood is probably going to save the world now.

+.+.+

"How many daughters do you have, my lord?" Jaime asked him.

"Five. Two by my first wife and three by my third." Too late, he seemed to realize that he might have said too much.

"Send one of them to court. She will have the privilege of attending the Queen Regent."

Bracken's face grew dark as he realized the import of those words. "Is this how you repay the friendship of Stone Hedge?"

We're going to pray this Bracken daughter and Blackwood son never make it to King's Landing.

+.+.+

Neither outlaws nor wolves had troubled them on their way to Raventree, so Jaime decided to return by a different route. 

Thank god you didn't run into a pack of wolves! What a disaster that would be.

+.+.+

As the column splashed across the shallow waters, the sun was setting behind a pair of grassy hills. "The Teats," said Hoster Blackwood.

Jaime recalled Lord Bracken's map. "There's a village between those hills."

"Pennytree," the lad confirmed.

"We'll camp there for the night." If there were villagers about, they might have knowledge of Ser Brynden or the outlaws. "Lord Jonos made some remark about whose teats they were," he recalled to the Blackwood boy as they rode toward the darkening hills and the last light of the day. "The Brackens call them by one name and the Blackwoods by another."

"Aye, my lord. For a hundred years or so. Before that, they were the Mother's Teats, or just the Teats. There are two of them, and it was thought that they resembled …"

"I can see what they resemble." 

[...]

"Aegon the Unworthy took Barba Bracken as his mistress," the bookish boy replied. "She was a very buxom wench, they say, and one day when the king was visiting at the Stone Hedge he went out hunting and saw the Teats and …"

"… named them for his mistress." Aegon the Fourth had died long before Jaime had been born, but he recalled enough of the history of his reign to guess what must have happened next. "Only later he put the Bracken girl aside and took up with a Blackwood, was that the way of it?"

Do you see how Targaryens are the root cause of all problems?

+.+.+

"Lady Melissa," Hoster confirmed. "Missy, they called her. There's a statue of her in our godswood. She was much more beautiful than Barba Bracken, but slender, and Barba was heard to say that Missy was flat as a boy. When King Aegon heard, he …"

"… gave her Barba's teats." Jaime laughed. 

what the fuck

+.+.+

"How did all this begin, between Blackwood and Bracken? Is it written down?"

"It is, my lord," the boy said, "but some of the histories were penned by their maesters and some by ours, centuries after the events that they purport to chronicle. It goes back to the Age of Heroes. The Blackwoods were kings in those days. The Brackens were petty lords, renowned for breeding horses. Rather than pay their king his just due, they used the gold their horses brought them to hire swords and cast him down."

I am unable to verify this information.

The kid realizes the maesters were biased, but doesn't question any of the history he's learned. Lol

+.+.+

Tyrion would like this one. They could talk from dusk to dawn, arguing about books. For a moment his bitterness toward his brother was forgotten, until he remembered what the Imp had done. "So you are fighting over a crown that one of you took from the other back when the Casterlys still held Casterly Rock, is that the root of it? The crown of a kingdom that has not existed for thousands of years?" He chuckled. "So many years, so many wars, so many kings … you'd think someone would have made a peace."

"Someone did, my lord. Many someones. We've had a hundred peaces with the Brackens, many sealed with marriages. There's Blackwood blood in every Bracken, and Bracken blood in every Blackwood. The Old King's Peace lasted half a century. But then some fresh quarrel broke out, and the old wounds opened and began to bleed again. That's how it always happens, my father says. So long as men remember the wrongs done to their forebears, no peace will ever last. So we go on century after century, with us hating the Brackens and them hating us. My father says there will never be an end to it."

I'm so bad at ASoIaF history, I didn't even register Bloodraven and Bittersteel factored into this.

+.+.+

"There could be."

"How, my lord? The old wounds never heal, my father says."

"My father had a saying too. Never wound a foe when you can kill him. Dead men don't claim vengeance."

"Their sons do," said Hoster, apologetically.

"Not if you kill the sons as well. Ask the Casterlys about that if you doubt me. Ask Lord and Lady Tarbeck, or the Reynes of Castamere. Ask the Prince of Dragonstone." For an instant, the deep red clouds that crowned the western hills reminded him of Rhaegar's children, all wrapped up in crimson cloaks.

The redemption king thinks peace can be attained if you just slaughter every single family member of the opposite side.

+.+.+

"Is that why you killed all the Starks?"

"Not all," said Jaime. "Lord Eddard's daughters live. One has just been wed. The other …" Brienne, where are you? Have you found her? "… if the gods are good, she'll forget she was a Stark. She'll wed some burly blacksmith or fat-faced innkeep, fill his house with children, and never need to fear that some knight might come along to smash their heads against a wall."

ha HA, get it?? If the gods are good Sansa will forget who she is, and marry Gendry or Hot Pie.

Edit: I missed another funny chapter transition.

Alys Karstark aka Girl Not In Grey aka Sansa Cosplayer marries in the next chapter.

Thank you @decadelongsummer!

+.+.+

Jaime ate sparingly and shared a skin of wine with Peck and Hos the hostage. He tried to count the pennies nailed to the old oak, but there were too many of them and he kept losing count. What's that all about? The Blackwood boy would tell him if he asked, but that would spoil the mystery.

George being meta.

+.+.+

He posted sentries to see that no one left the confines of the village. He sent out scouts as well, to make certain no enemy took them unawares. It was near midnight when two came riding back with a woman they had taken captive. "She rode up bold as you please, m'lord, demanding words with you."

Jaime scrambled to his feet. "My lady. I had not thought to see you again so soon." Gods be good, she looks ten years older than when I saw her last. And what's happened to her face? "That bandage … you've been wounded …"

"A bite." She touched the hilt of her sword, the sword that he had given her. Oathkeeper. "My lord, you gave me a quest."

"The girl. Have you found her?"

"I have," said Brienne, Maid of Tarth.

"Where is she?"

"A day's ride. I can take you to her, ser … but you will need to come alone. Elsewise, the Hound will kill her."

I can't even look forward to Lady Stoneheart getting her hands on Jaime, because Brienne and Pod are in danger.

I never get nice things.

Final thoughts:

This chapter feels all wrong in this book. I don't know why it's here.

-> return to menu <-

[regression-1863]

Just a little something I wrote last year that won me a contest that I'll now be sharing.

.

.

.

“I see you’ll be taking another of mine I suppose?” a woman made of vines, flowers and thorns asked.

The creature in front of her didn't reply. They were humanoid, wore a white robe, and held a sickle in their hand.

“...pity.” she replied before continuing “Well, he’ll be good fertilizer. I can already imagine the flowers that’ll grow here. Or maybe a human will stumble upon him, turn him into a coat.”

Once again, no reply. It was like talking to a brick wall, the other simply wanting to be done here and leave. It kneeled down to the ground, looking at the soul of the recently deceased lamb.

“What's with the new look? Never thought of white being your color.”

The creature paused, finally realizing that the woman made of vines genuinely wanted to talk.

“...the humans used to pay me for my services, you know? Now they find the whole “made of bones” thing a bit…unsettling.”

“Ah…so ethereal looking instead of corpse looking?”

The creature known as death nodded. “It's a new trend apparently. Something called ‘christianity’ i believe. They find angles more…. Well. Whatever it is, it makes my job easier.”

“I don't know, your hair seems inconvenient. Pure white, and unreasonably close to the ground, you’ll stain it with blood.” she replied, concerned.

“That was the point with all black, but of course, humans got weird about it.” Death stood up, picking up the small soul of the dead lamb. “I've got to take this one back now. Souls can't be here too long without ending up in some sort of eternal limbo.”

“Of course. I wish you both a safe journey.”

Death nodded. “Thank you, nature.”

Death used their sickle, cutting through the air as though to make a portal of some sort.

“You know, you’re always welcome to come visit.” nature said, her voice unwavering.

“Ha. ironic. A being of life welcoming death.”

“I am not just a being of life.”, nature said matter of factly.

“My mistake.” death replied, and though they sounded sarcastic, they were being genuine. “Well. goodbye for now.”

“Goodbye.”

~~~~

she was decaying. Her vines turned to slush, her flowers becoming black, her lovely greens turning brown.

“Is it the humans?” Death asked as they sat down next to her, “Is that why you’re doing all this?”

“They have taken advantage of my kindness for too long.” nature replied, venom seeping through her voice. “They are messing with the balance of things and it's about time they leave.”

Death simply nodded along. “You’ve already given me quite the workload. What are you planning now?”

Nature picked up something so small and unnoticeable. “Fleas” she said, “ I'll use them to spread my new creations. Something they won't be able to pick up on.”

Death looked up at the sky.

“It should spread quickly. If I'm lucky, a few humans have already died from it.” nature looked on, watching as the trees started to falter. She was lucky that they hadn't started to die yet, for it was far too soon for them. They were supposed to outlive the humans, and if not that, then to at least be put to good use, to be renewed into something new, something useful.

And right now, neither were happening.

“It seems that it's started to work already.” death said, not indifferent, but not concerned. Not for the humans at least.

~~~~

“You’re not good at small talk, are you?” nature said. Even though the two weren't able to interact often, the few times they did cross paths were always strange.

“Well, when most beings die, small talk isn't exactly on their mind.”

“Fair enough…speaking of life and death, what do you think of my new creation?” she held out a purple flower, showing it off. She was quite proud of it.

“It's pretty. Whats it called?” death said, looking at it, but careful not to touch it.

“It doesn't have one yet. I usually just call them whatever the humans call them.” she dropped the flower, and watched as it fell into the ground and became one with the earth.

“They’re gonna name it something with the word violet in it.” death said, looking at the flower. “Humans always do that with purple flowers. I wonder if that has anything to do with the flower language. According to humans, violets mean friendship, modesty, and humbleness. Though it truly does depend on who you ask”

“Really?”nature asked. “I have to admit, I haven't heard much about this, flower language, or much of the human world in general. It sounds fascinating.”

“You’ve never visited the humans?” death asked, sounding surprised.

“Not at all.”

Nature had rarely interacted with humans, only really being around them in the sense of her creations being near them.

“Not even trying to blend in with them? Pretending to be one?”

“Have you?” she countered.

Death paused. “It's a good way to pass the time.” They said, “There's this old woman named Margaret. I was pretending to be a husband buying a bouquet for my and my wife's 5th anniversary. Another time I pretended to be a young woman questioning what would be a good flower to give to friends.”

Nature listened with curiosity. “What else do you know about them?”

“Lots of things. They’re strange creatures that like to pass the time doing things they like, yet they seem so insistent on torturing themselves.”

“Torturing?”

“Nevermind, it would be ignorant to phrase it like that. It's not so much of them torturing themselves, more like…they built a system destined to fail, it's usually built by the people that would be benefited, and the others suffer the most, but in the end it all fails.”

“Strange…animals usually don't do that. There's hierarchy but not like that.” nature knew how most hierarchies worked, despite not having much do with animal or human creation. But even she knew that having only the top of the hierarchy be benefited never worked out well.

“Right? And there's several different hierarchies, like the social hierarchy, except it's not defined by what job you have. If you’re a king, you obviously don't talk to your servants like friends-”

“Correct, unless you're a king author.” nature said, cutting death off.

“-however this hierarchy is a lot stranger. For example, let's just say that everyone has the same job, the same work, the same everything. The hierarchy is still there. It's- it's social?”

“As in everyone has specific jobs?”

“No- well, kinda. It depends. It's somewhat similar to a caste system I suppose, except no one tells you where in the system you are and you just have to guess. And I'm not sure if it's because I'm not human, but plenty of them can tell that I'm not.”

Nature took a moment to process this. It was strange, humans had systems however they were for certain reasons. Humans however, these systems seemed all together strange.

“They can tell? You must be a bad liar then.” she said, and she chuckled for the first time since the black plague.

It had taken her a while to get her strength back from that, it was exhausting, trying to get rid of enough of the pests that were so determined on killing her.

~~~~

“Why are you so…content, with the death of the living?” death had asked, one faithful day. They had always been quite curious about it, the way nature never seemed to mind that every piece of grass, every flower, died at death's touch.

It seemed contradictory, seeing as she had just killed millions for that exact thing. But it wasn't that she wasn't bothered, it was something else, something death could never put their finger on.

“What do you mean?” nature knelt down to a grave. It was a human, she had no personal business even being near it, yet here she was, looking at the flowers that had died, rotten and old.

“The plants the humans stomp on, the animals they kill without reason. Why, you are the being of life, are you not?”

Nature chuckled. “No, I'm not.” she stood back up, looking around at the graves.

“Well. if you’re not the being of life itself, then who are you?” they asked, watching nature's face carefully.

Nature wandered around looking around the graves but not at them.

“It's simple really.” she said, “the animals that are killed and left to rot are turned back into fertilizer. The death of one thing leads to the planting of something new, something…wonderful.”

“So. Why kill those humans?” death asked, full curiosity. It wasn't often that death was able to ask another being quite like themselves such…curious questions. Sure, they could ask, but they would never get a straight answer.

“Simple. They were destroying the balance of things. The earth was dying because of them, so to heal her, I had to get rid of the root of the problem.”

Death nodded. “Like an immune system to a virus?”

“Precisely.” She sat down at another grave. “I guess…I would describe myself as a creature of balance. If there's no balance, the world would fall to shambles. Watch.”

She dug her hand into the ground, and the grass around it instantly died at an unnatural pace.

“I could cause damage-” and within the second, as though she comand it to, the grass went back to normal, if not better than before, “-and give life. No life without death, no new beginnings without ends.”

~~~~

There was once again a silence, one carefully threaded, carefully crafted.

But of course, death is sudden, and sharp like scissors.

“It's happening again, isn't it?” they asked, observantly seeing as she had once again lost her glow like green.

“Things always have an ending. Isn't that what you always say?” she replied, though she seemed content.

“It is not your time. No yet.” death countered, unbelieving that she’d give in so willingly.

And she laughed. “I'm going to die no matter what. It doesn't matter how hard I try.”

“You still have time.”

She sat down on the ground, struggling to keep herself up. She dug her fingers into the ground.

And like that, the ground started to die with her.

It was too late.

The day she died, many things happened. The water had gone toxic, the heat of the earth got too much, the grass had turned yellow.

Everything died with her. Without her plants, without her water, her ability to give life, all the humans, all the life, everything was gone. It was natural disaster after disaster.

The earth was covered in charcoal and soil, everything either burned, or drowned, every city destroyed, all life was beyond repair.

Everything had rotted.

But don't you know that rotting plants are the best fertilizer?

[neoninky]

TWST Fanfic "Her Lost Voice" Chapter 8

Here are some links cuz I'm in a short hand mood rn and I left y'all on a cliffhanger lol

Inky's AO3, Masterlist, and SC Poll (3 more days~)

Chapter 8: Storms at Sea

The slam of his father's doors rang in Seven's ears. The angry sound stabbed into his brain that was already working overtime to maintain every detail he had planned and now needed at the ready. Don Muraeni was furious. Seven knew this would be the case. Every second of what happened next would count so the injured eel sat half crumpled up on the floor in front of his father's desk, heavily breathing from exhaustion but still in the expected silence.

His father circled him slowly like a vulture. He was stewing over the next words that would exit his tensely clenched teeth. Just when Seven's breath started to even out, his father snarled and grabbed him by the back of his hair, yanking him up. 

"What the hell happened tonight, Seven? Speak now."

"Proteus sent some sharks after Cowrie...they chased her onto Leech territory until they cornered her on Don Leech's property. I tried to get her back before they could tear her apart but...I was too late."

Seven winched but made no sound as his father grip tightened and pulled his head back so hard he thought his neck would snap, "You followed after them onto Leech's turf? You're lucky you're still in one piece, boy..." Don Muraeni's word dripped with the same venom that flooded his gaze. 

"I wanted to save my sister."

Seven felt a stinging heat flood his face as his father's claws left a deep gash across his nose but once again didn't cry out from the pain. Doing so would only anger his father more. 

"Seven, you pushed me to do this with your foolishness. You know how I hate my goods to be damaged, especially you," the Don hissed as he grabbed a piece of fabric from his desk to wipe his son's blood off of his claws, "you're stronger and more cunning than your brothers. Even Ventuno. I need you in top form or else you'll just be another useless hunk of flesh taking up too much space. I won't suffer any fools in this house."

"Yes Father..."

The truth was something Seven and his brothers knew but never talked about, rather it was a silent dark shadow that just hovered in every corner of their home and would continue to do so as long as their father was in power. And what was the truth? 

"A pity that Cowrie was undone by the sharks. There was a time she had potential but...well, her mother could have given me a stronger child instead of one tiny, unruly brat. One less pathetic welp taking up space in my empire. Her bones are probably being used to decorate Leech's hovel instead of fertilizing our grounds outside...hmph. If it was one of my boys' bones, I'd be more insulted."

Seven hadn't always been the second eldest. Cowrie hadn't always been his only sister. Ventuno wasn't always the 'heir', it was really just that their father chose him because he survived and was easy to manipulate. Ventuno was just too proud and stupid to see it that way.

The Muraeni family tree was as large as it was twisted. His father had never taken a mate for love but instead out of necessity, business, a means to an end. He wanted and needed a strong brood that he could raise into either attack dogs to do his bidding without question or daughters to lure in strong and valuable blood for future offspring that would fall into the same two categories. Luna and Cowrie had been the exceptions simply because of their siren qualities. As long as the child obeyed and they were useful, they got to stick around. Once that changed...well...to say that the ground of the Muraeni home was secretly a vast graveyard wouldn't be an exaggeration. Seven had known this to be true for as long as he could remember. His father didn't exactly hide it from him, from his brothers, or Cowrie, or even Luna. This is why Seven knew he could only move forward with his plans for the girls' sake if nothing else.

"Father...please allow me a second chance," Seven specifically lowered himself closer to the floor to appeal to both the Don's temper and superiority. This behavior had been ground into him for so long it barely felt like an act at all. 

His father circled him once more in silence with a steel-cold look in his eyes before he finally settled once again behind his large desk, his temper seemingly tamed for the moment, "Alright, Seven...I think you've learned your lesson. So you understand what will happen if you decide to go rogue again?"

"Yes, Father."

"There's a good lad. Now then..." the Don paused to casually flip through some paperwork on his desk from various accounts with his clients that needed settling, "I do have some more complicated clients that need to be dealt with."

Seven delicately rose his head to meet his father's gaze, "Actually Father, I want to take over at the Cove."

Don Muraeni gave his son a look that was both curious and silently warning him to proceed with caution. Seven did just that, "The Cove and its sirens have been under Proteus' watch for some time and while the girls have performed as expected, I feel like they could bring in a greater profit if they had someone supervising them that wasn't so...threatening. Luna especially has voiced her concerns about his harassment towards her. I know it's not just Luna herself either."

The icy mob boss was fully aware of Proteus' indulgent habits with the mermaids he had carefully curated and collected for the Cove and in most cases, he didn't even bother with correcting him. In Luna's case, she was one of the youngest and most rare sirens in his possession. While the others were classic sirens portrayed in myth and legends, poor young women who either found themselves stuck in squalor before being plucked up by the greedy eel or those who were simply discovered and bought by the monstrous eel, Luna was an eel siren. She was exotic and had a more wild beauty to her than the others. Not to mention, she was the spitting image of her mother who was quite popular in her time at the Cove as well. In other words, Luna Cerith was her stepfather's golden lure. If there was one thing Don Muraeni couldn't abide by, it was non-paying customers or his enemies touching his things. Especially his most prized possessions. It didn't matter that Proteus worked directly for him: Luna had always been specified as off-limits. Seven knew this was his father's Achilles' Heel and banked on this information tipping the scale in his favor. He saw the exact moment when he got inside the Don's head in his father's narrowed eyes. 

"You have always been the sharpest out of my progeny, Seven. I was considering handing the keys over to Ventuno. However, I also cannot trust him with my sirens...his reckless entitlement fans his arrogance too hard," the father snorted dryly as if amused by his heir's poor attitude, "Very well, Seven. With you, at least, I won't have to worry about Luna being ruined." 

Seven felt his guts turn sour at his father's words. Luna wasn't technically his kin but even as his step-sister, Seven knew that Luna's beauty and allure were undeniable. He also knew that Proteus wasn't the only one within the Muraeni House that took notice. All the more reason for Seven to go through with his plan.

He rose up off the ground, "Thank you for the opportunity, Father-"

"Listen, boy," the Don snapped, "I was willing to give you a few more chances but since you're so eager to prove yourself by taking on the biggest task on the table, this is your last chance. Got it?" Seven nodded in silence, "Good. I've already sent Proteus over to the Cove. You can take over first thing in the morning."

"Why waste time when I can easily get things in alignment right away, Father?" Seven kept his voice steady even though he felt his pulse race.

Don Muraeni looked his son up and down with a faint look of pride in his eyes. If you blinked, you'd miss it, "Taking initiative, you're already off to a good start, Seven...fine. Send Proteus back here when you see him." 

-

Proteus entered the Siren's Cove without so much as a glance at the bouncers at the door or the waiting staff inside. It was late and the club was still full. Proteus took a seat in Don Muraeni's private box just in time for Luna's main number of the night. Tonight would be a test drive of sorts, a preview to whet the appetites of their patrons and hopefully bring them back in for the event in two days. 

Behind dewy veiled curtains, Luna sat on a giant cushioned shell, poised and dripping in multiple strands of black and white pearls that hung from her neck and shoulders. She took a deep breath and thought to herself the one thing that kept her going through all of this.

Just one more song...

It was always 'one more' night after night. One more. One more until something else. Luna didn't know what that something was but just the thought was the only bit of hope she had left. She hadn't seen her sister in days, though it felt like months at this point. She couldn't remember how long it had been since she saw Elise. Her phone had been left in Cowrie's care back home so really Luna had no idea if Elise was still underwater or not. And Floyd...just thinking of his name, his face made Luna's heart ache with bittersweet pain. She knew she'd never see him again. It was probably for the best. He'd survive without her. He could be perfectly happy with someone who could be with him freely. He'd move on eventually...

None of these thoughts took the feeling away but Luna still clung to them, trying desperately to convince herself. She took another breath as she heard the club's emcee begin to announce her. Just one more song.

The curtain rose and revealed the bejeweled siren to the eager audience of male patrons ready to indulge in her beauty. As the music began, Luna adorned her well-trained mask. She was coy, enticing, enchanting. That's what her audience wanted and that's what they would get. No one came to see the real Luna, who was clinging onto false hope that maybe she'd wake up tomorrow and be somewhere safe and happy with everyone she was currently missing. The song that left her lips soared over the crowd in smooth, full-bodied notes like a fine wine. Luna made sure to give the gentlemen closest to the stage their due moments of her attention. She knew she had them the moment her golden eyes locked onto theirs. She could see their senses cloud over as her voice sank into their ears and hearts. Luna was getting the desired result with ease. The more important or wealthy patrons that sat comfortably in the private boxes further away were her next targets. 

The siren gracefully swam away from the stage and made her way through the audience to the marked box. This particular gentleman was picked specifically for her to entertain during her song for one reason or another. There was always at least one that the Don wanted her to give extra attention to. It was probably because he was the highest bidder or her stepfather owed him a favor. Luna was never told the details, not that it really mattered, so she never questioned it and just did her job. This sort of thing used to be so much easier for her...that is before she met Floyd. Now that someone had a hold on her heartstrings, acting the part called for a bit more gumption. Luna, however, was a master in the making. This was just business after all.

Luna continued to sing as she reached the VIP patron's box. It was an older half-human merman from the other side of the kingdom. He was joined by a younger merman of the same type that could, frankly, be his son or nephew for all Luna knew. She cozied up to the merman, singing just to him in her dulcet voice, leaving little flirtatious touches here and there over his skin. She imagined that this man, in particular, requested her specifically due to a 'special interest' in her variety of mermaid. Luna was used to it. She had a lot of gentlemen buy her attention for the same reason. The man's eyes were half-lidded and intoxicated as his lips formed into a dreamy grin. The younger man seated across from him watched the scene with an almost nervous longing. Luna threw him a bone in the form of a playful wink and a blown kiss as she made her way back to the stage for the end of the song. The audience gave her enthusiastic applause and bursts of praise as the curtain fell. The preview was a success. 

Luna made her way back to her room without stopping to speak to anyone on the way. When she found her door was open, Luna felt her blood freeze. Inside Proteus was casually counting the portal keys he held between his fingers, "My, my...what a busy little minx you have been, Luna." 

She felt her head spin as venom boiled in her throat, "What the hell are you doing in my room, Proteus?"

The electric ray clinched the keys in his palm with a sly smirk on his face, "It is my duty to look after my boss' treasured beauties, is it not? It would no doubt distress him greatly to know that his prized pearl had been sneaking out to who knows where with who knows whom...or perhaps, I've found a clue."

Proteus held up a small photo in his other hand and Luna felt her stomach drop. He turned so she could see her and Floyd's smiling faces clear as day, "Luna...poor little siren...flirting with disaster are we? This is one of the Leech boys, isn't it?" 

Luna held fast to her cool demeanor, "What of it? I met him at school. He seemed like a fair bit of target practice away from home." 

"Interesting that you would commemorate something as bland as 'target practice' with such an adorable photograph..." the ray's eyes pierced into her, waiting for even an inch of incriminating evidence. 

Luna just gave him a teasing grin, "It's not very often I find prey with such a handsome face. Are you jealous, Proteus? I don't imagine many women harboring your picture in their intimate hideaways."

Her grin widened as she saw Proteus' eyebrow twitch. She had struck a nerve but he recovered with little effort. A dark chuckle left the ray merman's lips as he crumpled up the photo in one hand and broke the keys in his other. 

"Don't flatter yourself, you haughty little tramp..." his copper-red eyes seemed to burn into the shade of blood, "You girls think you're so clever. Running around behind the boss's back. Teasing me, mocking me to my face." 

Luna's eyes narrowed as she bolstered up her resolve, "Get out of my room, Proteus. You've ruined my personal things, invaded my space, and polluted the air with your sleazy stink-"

Luna couldn't move fast enough. She let out a weak shriek as Proteus' clawed fingers tightened around her throat, forcing her back against the wall. His sinister gaze burned into hers, "You're lucky you're so beautiful and so valuable, my dear...but that wicked tongue of yours could use some discipline." 

A sharp and brief shock of electricity shot from Proteus' palm and scorched through Luna's entire system. She clenched her teeth, refusing to let him hear her scream. This only made the sadistic bastard chuckle, "Goodness, you are a stubborn one. I'm glad...I like my prey nice and spirited."

Luna braced herself. She knew Proteus couldn't leave any marks on her or hurt her enough to keep her from performing or else the Don would have his head. She just had to tough it out until Proteus was satisfied and then he'd go. If she retaliated, it could lead to even graver punishments not just for her but for her sister too. At least, that's what she originally planned. Proteus saw the resolve in the siren's eyes and grinned, his eyes becoming half-lidded as he leaned in. He knew exactly what or rather who was holding Luna back.

"It's such a shame...you and your sister are such fun little toys. But now I'm only down to one." 

Luna's breath hitched in her throat as her shock went straight to her widening eyes. He couldn't mean...the ray chuckled, "Oh that's right! You haven't heard. Poor little Cowrie. The wild little thing just couldn't help but get herself into more trouble than she could handle this time. And her big sister wasn't there to protect her from the hungry sharks...or the hungry Leechs who are no doubt chewing on her teeny little bones as we speak." 

He was lying. 

He was lying. 

He was LYING! Jade and Floyd would never let their family hurt Cowrie!

Luna thrashed against Proteus's iron grip and shrieked, "You sick, lying bastard! Tell me where she really is!!"

The ray just tilted his head curiously, "Oh? Well doubt me if you must but this 'lie' came straight from Seven's own mouth as he lay beaten to a pulp from the Leech family's own hands with what was left of those poor dumb sharks torn to absolute shreds. His exact words: 'Cowrie is gone.' There you have it." 

Luna froze. Seven was probably the most honest member of the Muraeni clan. He always had been. She fell to the floor, limp as a broken doll, as Proteus released her and cooed in a sickeningly sweet tone as he lightly grasped a lock of her sleek hair, "I am absolutely devastated to be one to tell you this, Luna...perhaps, I can lend you my company to help you grieve." 

Had they been on land, Luna would have spat right in his smug face. She swatted his clawed hands away, trying to back away from his looming form, "Get away from me!!" 

The door slammed open seconds before Proteus felt a hard and fast blow knock him backward into Luna's vanity, scattering its contents all over the floor. Seven hovered between him and the huddled-up siren on the floor. The brother's eyes seared with anger.

"You're done here, Proteus. Don Muraeni has turned control of the Cove and its sirens over to me." 

Proteus frowned as he dusted himself off, "Ah. Young Master Seven...I wasn't notified of this."

"This is your notice. Turn room keys over to me and return back home immediately or I will have you personally escorted out," Seven was curt and serious to a fault. 

Proteus took his time removing the copies of the sirens' room keys he had made, making both Seven and Luna fume. As he did so, his whip-like tail stabbed its point into the crumpled-up picture of Luna and Floyd before showing it to Seven, "By the way...I found our proud diva's little secret stash. She's been collecting portal keys and among them was this. Were you aware of this little tryst, Master Seven?"

Seven took the picture and gave Luna a sharp look as he growled, "I was not...were the keys destroyed?"

"But of course. I was very thorough," Proteus sneered down at Luna who was shaking with a mix of anger and shock. Seven's expression froze back into its usual stoicism.

"Good. I'll handle the rest," he addressed the sadistic ray with his hand open, waiting for the requested room keys. Proteus set them all into the eel's open palm and left the room with a sour look on his face. A pity that now all of his little dolls were taken from him, he thought to himself as he left the club. 

Seven snarled as he glared down at Luna. Any anger she felt quickly turned into genuine fear. 

"Luna, what the hell were you thinking?!" Seven yelled making her shiver. Her stepbrother slammed the door shut and leaned down to look her right in the face. He paused a moment before his face softened and he whispered to her...

"I'm sorry that I have to do this. It's the only way." 

Luna let out a shocked scream as Seven suddenly grabbed the table behind her and smashed it with his fist. He continued to yell. She continued to cry out defenses to his angry accusations. Anyone and everyone in the connected hallway heard the commotion from their cracked doors or from behind corners. The guards that had been stationed at either end of the hall remained still as statues. The show staff looked at each other nervously, knowing that the audience was still waiting for Luna to return to the stage but also not wanting to get in the middle of whatever was happening inside her dressing room. When the fight suddenly fell silent, Luna's door flew open and Seven stuck his angry face out, scaring the jumpy staff.

"I'm pulling Luna from the stage. She's done for the night," he said gruffly before slamming the door shut once again. He sighed, giving up the act as he turned to a very shaken Luna still curled up in the corner. 

"Luna..." his voice was quiet and soft, "I'm sorry. It was a farce. I'm not angry." He slowly approached her and got down on the same level as her. She could only whimper out the one thing blazing in her brain in a weak whisper.

"Where is Cowrie?" 

Seven gently wrapped his scarred arms around his step-sister and pulled her close to him. He placed one of his large hands on her head he leaned down to whisper into her ear, "She's alright. She's with the Leech Family. She's safe. No one else knows but me."

Luna's whole body finally released all of the anxious energy that had built up into a shakey sob as she wrapped her arms around Seven's neck. He felt absolutely terrible for a multitude of reasons, the first being that he had to further traumatize his poor step-sister just to keep these secrets and her safe. 

"It's going to be alright, Luna. I just need you to hold on a little bit longer," Seven spoke in hushed comforting tones as he pressed his face into her dark hair, letting her sob into him, "Just until the VIP night. Then we're getting you out of here for good..."

Luna pulled back and looked into his honest ice blue eyes, "...w-what? But how? Even with you in charge now, there's no way I can just leave."

"Don't worry about the details, Luna. All I need from you is to make one more key."

Seven revealed a tiny pouch he had hidden in his other clenched fist, "All you need is right here." 

Luna opened the pouch and gasped, "Where did you get these?"

Her brother snorted dryly, "I had a little help from your...what do surface dwellers call them? 'boyfriend?' "

Inside the pouch was a chunk of coral from Madam Leech's garden and the gold necklace that Floyd had given her. Normally Luna's portal keys worked best if the fragment came from a place she was familiar with but this would have to do. It was a shot in the dark at best. Wait...did Seven just say boyfriend?

"You met Floyd?" She couldn't keep her eyes from lighting up as she said his name.

"Oh yeah. He's...definitely...something else. I don't see why you like him but that's not really my business," Seven grumbled. Luna sniffled and let out a tired laugh.

"That's a good way to describe him."

Seven saw the warmth return to Luna's eyes and tiny grin as she held the necklace in her hands as if it was the world's most precious treasure. He realized that he had never seen Luna look this way about any guy since...well ever. It was a true rarity. Now he felt like a jerk for knocking Floyd around, even though he technically asked for it, but Luna didn't need to hear about that. 

"Stay in here for the rest of the night. I bought you some time by pulling you from the stage. I'll make sure that Proteus is actually gone and no one else should bother you. If they do, call for me immediately," Seven was back to his business-first tone as he helped Luna off the floor. She quickly leaned forward to hug him and rested her head against his chest with a sigh.

"You deserve the world, Seven...thank you."

He suddenly felt oddly bashful hearing this. Affection or actual praise was definitely not something he was accustomed to, certainly not from his father or even his mother when she was still around. He had known Luna since she was about two years old and he knew the difference in her voice when she was just flirting to get something out of a target versus when she was being sincere. She meant every word she just said and all Seven could do was continue to hug her to him.

-

The next morning came and Elise had kept her word. She waited for Azul to arrive as she sat in the dining hall with the Leech family and Cowrie. It was a very interesting scene and probably the most entertaining meal she had in quite a while. At the head of the table sat Don Leech looking like he could use a couple more hours of sleep simply mumbling something to Jade in between bites of food. Jade seemed to be in high spirits as he multitasked between talking with his father and holding Cowrie's tiny hand in his to help her feel safe. Cowrie sat on the other side of Jade and was being doted on by Madam Leech who sat across from her, clearly thrilled to finally have another girl in the house. It took some coaxing to get Cowrie to leave the safety of the twins' room but once she did, she joined everyone for breakfast and seemed to relax. Madam Leech took to her future daughter-in-law like a duck to water and did what any overly caring mother would do: shove food into the small female eel's mouth as if she were a baby chick.

"Cowrie sweetie, you are so tiny and skinny! Goodness did that brute of a father ever feed you?!" 

"Well actually-" and she was cut off by another spoon full of breakfast. Eventually, Cowrie just gave up and chewed the food in content silence. It felt nice to have a mother of sorts again, even if Madam Leech was a tad aggressive with her affection.

Across from Jade sat Floyd who just hummed with a happy grin on his face as he played with his food before eating it. If his mother asked him about his plans for finding a mate, and boy did she ever, Floyd would just grin and give some cryptic answer like "Eh it'll happen soon enough." Elise was sworn to secrecy about the plans they had brewing. Which turns out, not having a voice? This was the easiest thing in the world for her.  The princess just ate her meal and enjoyed the morning chaos that being in the Leech household brought. 

Three days, Elise reminded herself. It was now a countdown within another countdown: including today, it was now three days until school started and two nights until the VIP event at the Siren's Cove. In other words, only two more nights until Jade and Floyd snuck into the club to rescue Luna with Seven's help. Neither one of the twins seemed to be worried so the princess knew she shouldn't feel so worried about the whole thing. There was a pleasant smile on her face but she could feel her far more honest octopus legs twisting into themselves like pairs of hands wringing together anxiously. That and today was also the day she was to meet Azul's grandmother a second time to find a way to break this supposed curse on her. With so many impending things, it was hard for Elise to feel completely calm. Just seconds after she finished off her plate, one of Madam Leech's maids entered the room.

"Mr. Azul Ashengrotto is here, ma'am. He's already specified that he cannot stay for breakfast, unfortunately." 

Madam Leech gave a disappointed hum as she fed Cowrie another piece of shrimp, "A pity. Elise dearest, be sure to invite Azul back for dinner!" 

Elise nodded with an amused smile as she waved goodbye to everyone else in the room before leaving. The maid escorted her to the entry hall where Elise nearly choked on her own ink. Azul was there waiting for her, looking quite anxious himself...

...in his octopus form. 

One of his purple and black tentacles tapped on the floor like a nervous foot waiting to catch a train while two others were doing the same nervous, wringing motion that Elise's had been doing earlier. He wasn't wearing his glasses leaving his eyes unguarded and even more of an intense stormy blue against his grey skin. When he suddenly noticed her staring at him, his entire body froze. He cleared his throat and tried to greet her with as much confidence as he could. Which wasn't much honestly.

"G..Good morning, Your Highness."

Elise blinked a couple of times as she looked him up and down in this new exotic form. He was just like her now...well not just like her but Elise's octopus form seem to recognize that a male was present. Frankly, it was a very weird, instinctual feeling. This had to be one of those 'changes' the eels had mentioned before. She ignored it for now and finally made her way over to him with a curious smile on her face. She giggled to herself as she playfully poked one of his front tentacles with one of her own much like she did back in the grotto when he had his human legs. Azul hiccuped in surprise when the poked tentacle suddenly wrapped itself around Elise's with no restraint whatsoever. Elise would have squeaked if she had a voice to do so. The feeling of the two tentacles intertwining felt weirdly intimate and affectionate. Somewhere between a handshake and a kiss. He quickly yanked his away from hers, his embarrassed face turning a bright purple. She held a hand up to her mouth to hide the amused smile but the shake in her shoulders as she laughed gave her away. 

"I-I am so sorry, Your Highness! This form is admittedly easier to move around in but these things," Azul glared at his own octopus legs as if they were misbehaving children, "they can have a mind of their own at times..." Elise didn't seem too bothered by it but Azul himself felt like he could drop dead from embarrassment any second now, "A-A-Anyway, we should get going. I don't want to keep Grandmother waiting." 

Elise linked her arm with his, her eyes practically twinkling at how awkward and bashful this version of Azul seemed to be. It was a refreshing and downright adorable change. She swore she heard Jade and Floyd snickered from around the corner but didn't bother looking back to check. 

-

Madam Lorelei Ashengrotto was seated at the exact same table within the Leviathan Club true to her word. She was pouring over some notes she had spread before her on various pieces of parchments. When she looked up to see her grandson and the princess, her eyes smiled along with her lips, "Come here, darlings. We have much to discuss." 

The sea witch decided not to comment on Azul's natural appearance for two reasons: the first being that she never liked wasting time and the second being that the poor boy already looked like he might collapse from overexposure. Instead, she gestured for the two to take a seat before diving right in.

"Well then, angelfish," she addressed Elise directly, "I have some good news and some bad news for you, my dear. The good news is that your current condition is not permanent. Not yet anyway. So we still have time to reverse it. The bad news, however, is that in order to reverse this curse, you need to make a choice. In order to become human again, your prince on the surface either needs to fall in love with you or become a merman once again. It isn't simply reversing the magic as it is taking it back for yourself." 

Elise felt like a boulder had rolled onto her chest. If she understood what the sea witch was saying then that would mean taking Rielle's very real desires and happiness away from him in one way or another. Rielle loved Emily and gave up his life under the sea to be with her and now he actually was. Elise just got caught in the crossfire of it all. Either option seemed impossible.

"Yes, well that first option isn't an option. Not organically anyway. So how would we do the second, Grandmother? I doubt it's as simple as convincing Rielle to return to the sea..." Azul had a pensive look on his face as he crossed his arms, mulling over every word. 

"You are correct, precious. You will need something much more powerful than that. Fortunately, you have me to guide you," Madam Lorelei gave the younger octopuses a confident smile before reaching into the bag at her feet for a long box, "It took a couple of favors to get what we needed but voila, here we are..." 

Elise looked at the box as the sea witch placed it on the table between them and opened it for her. Her eyes widened at its contents while Azul's narrowed into a serious icy stare, "You are sure about this, Grandmother?" 

Inside the box was a sharpened dagger that looked like it could cut even the toughest metal. Madam Lorelei nodded with a serious look, "This isn't a mere accident, Azul. Your magic is both brilliant and complicated. So much so that a counterspell or breaking of the contract won't do the trick. I couldn't have been blessed with a more talented grandson to carry on my magical prowess." 

Azul would have been extremely flattered in any other occasion hearing his grandmother's praise, but right now it just felt like he just made it near impossible for Elise to get back home with her hands clean. His grandmother once again spoke directly to the princess.

"Let me make this as clear as possible, angelfish. When Prince Rielle completed the contract, the magic that bound him to Azul's deal was pulled apart because of your sudden broken heart. He gained the love of Princess Coralette as stated in the terms but...he rejected you which in turn nulled his portion of agreement in a way," she paused to take another sip of her tea and to let that information sink in, "The magic lingering from the incomplete contract then had nowhere else to go so it latched onto you, dear Elise. It bound you into a secondary oath that left no physical artifact behind such as another contract." 

Elise felt like the entire room had turned upside down. She understood the complicated logic behind the witch's explanation but how was a dagger going to help...? Madam Lorelei read the confusion on the girl's face loud and clear as she took a final sip of her tea.

"As I said before, my dear. You have a choice to make. There are two ways to change you back into a human: either fulfill the contract in reverse by getting Rielle to fall in love with you and give you the coveted kiss of True Love or sever Rielle's half of the magic, the half that turned him human completely. To do that, you need to pierce this dagger into his human feet. It has magic nulling properties that make it an oath breaker of sorts. Once you do that, he will return to being a merman and you will return to being a human. All will be as it should."

'True Love's Kiss'...Azul wanted to roll his eyes at such an old-fashioned trope. The fact that it had any authority in the realms of magic was laughable. The look in the sea witch's eyes was still a sympathetic one. Azul had filled her in on the princess' personal feelings towards Rielle and vice versa. Even though her heart was broken by this boy, it was clear that the princess was less than eager to take back the life Rielle had gambled his own voice and left everything behind to get. She remembered reading the letter he had written so sincerely. It made her heart squeeze in sharp pain as she recalled the way he sounded so desperate and so ready to finally come out of hiding so he could be with Emily. More guilt washed over Azul as he watched the distress spread over Elise's face. He wanted to say something to make this all easier for her but did those words actually exist?

"I can tell you have a kind heart, angelfish. All the more reason to be honest with you. Both Azul and my daughter have told me what occurred on the Leech Family property just yesterday...you were there to witness it firsthand, were you not?"

Elise felt her throat tighten as she looked into the sea witch's deep blue eyes that shone with wisdom. Her gaze wasn't unkind but it was most definitely shrewd. 

"The Coral Sea is not a place for kind-hearted, unguarded souls, Princess. Especially on this side of the reef. You have seen how deadly and cruel life down here can be. So for your sake, I ask you to be objective in your reasoning and don't let your emotions blind you. You belong on the surface in your palaces and under the sun. Not down here in the dark and cold, constantly wondering if you're to be hunted or not. It's a simple fact." 

Elise knew she spoke the truth and she did so because it was for Elise's own good. But even so...was the sea witch right? She was definitely not prepared or given the same constitution the Cerith sisters, the twins or even cunning Azul had growing up in her cozy surface life. At the same time, when was the last time she had a solid home or a present family on the surface? If that was where she belonged then why weren't those she left behind trying to bring her back? Or perhaps they were and she just had no idea? ...there was only one way to truly find out. 

The princess nodded in thanks to the sea witch before taking the box in her hands. She still wasn't sure if she really wanted to use it but either way, Elise knew she had to go home at least once more before returning to Sacred Crown. Madam Lorelei took one last sip before giving the young ones a final warning, "One more thing, my dears. From what Azul has told me and judging from your appearance, I would say you only have until the next full moon to complete this task...after that, well, you will be stuck as a mermaid forever, dear princess. You may use magic to give yourself a human form but ultimately, you'll never be able to stay away from the water for so long. A mermaid of any sort can never truly be parted from the sea." 

Time was so hard to track down here that Elise had no idea how long that actually was. She was glad that Azul had accompanied her every step of the way through this. His cool head and foresight came in handy for exact occasions like this. 

"The next full moon is roughly a month from now. Around the same time as the next festival between Night Raven and Sacred Crown. How convenient," Azul sighed, "And you're saying that the only options we have are to hope that Rielle will suddenly decide that he loves her and not Princess Emily...or to literally stab the magic right out of him."

The sea witch chuckled, "Magic concerning the heart is rarely a straight path, my boy. No one said this was going to be easy."

Another countdown. Everything seemed to be converging in on her at once in a myriad of questions, thoughts, and feelings. Three days. Two nights. One month. Two 'homes'...two forms...

Two Elise Coralettes...?

"I have one more gift for you. It's a temporary fix but it should help at the very least." 

Elise came out of her daze as Azul handed his grandmother the empty nautilus shell he had previously stored Rielle's voice in. Somehow she didn't even notice that he had been wearing it around his neck this entire time. Madam Lorelei rose from her seat and gestured for the two teenagers to follow her, "More good news, dear princess. Though the magic itself bound you to the contract's terms, you never actually consented to give up your voice as the prince did. So instead of your voice taking Rielle's place in Azul's possession, it simply locked itself away. This we can work with but I'll need a proper workspace for this next part. Follow me, my dears." 

-

His grandmother's home wasn't too far away but the terrain changed drastically. Azul was quite used to it but Elise was a bit shellshocked. One thing she had noticed was that this entire area of the Coral Sea wasn't as bright as the more southern regions where Rielle's home was located. The water was colder as well but there were still bits of reef life here and there. Traveling just outside of the city, however, it grew even darker and the reef seemed to halt and give way to dark stones and fuming underwater geysers. Had Elise not met the sea witch before seeing where she lived, the princess would have feared more for her actual soul. Especially when she saw the large set of bones at the entrance. 

"I assure you the inside is far cozier than the outside, angelfish," Madam Lorelei chuckled, "Come in, come in~"

The interior of her home was as stylish as she was even if it was furnished with very avant guard, if not macabre, furniture that looked like it was made from bones just like her jewelry. Azul made himself at home as Lorelei guided Elise over to an open area surrounding a cauldron. The princess looked around to see the walls lined with very organized rows of bottles. Some were labeled, some were just holding strange contents inside that Elise had never seen on land. She swore some of the bottles held living, moving creatures inside them. 

"Alright, my sweet. This will be quick and painless I assure you. All I need for you to do is to sing." 

...Sing???

Elise looked beyond confused. How could she sing when she couldn't even speak?! Then again who was she to argue with an all-powerful sea witch? She took a breath and opened her mouth to sing and felt incredibly foolish trying to do so. She felt like her mouth was just uselessly flapping open and shut like a carp.

"Not like that, dear," Madam Lorelei said bluntly, "You're a mermaid now and a mermaid's song it very much like magic itself. It's not something you just breathe out of your mouth or words that you simply put sound to. Hear the song, feel it warm, and build up inside of you. One that resonates. This is the only way we can unlock your voice." 

There was only one song like that Elise knew. She took another deep breath and let it out as she listened to the soft notes in her mind like it was her own personal music box. It began as a silent hum in her chest. Soon she opened her mouth and let the words form on her lips even though she couldn't make a sound. 

"Much better, yes. Keep going." 

Azul watched as his grandmother threw ingredients into her cauldron while Elise focused on the unheard song. He had seen his grandmother do spell work all of his life and yet he never lost his wonder for it. Once everything came together, the sea witch raised the shell towards Elise's mouth. A tiny light started to grow from the princess' throat until a soft sound echoed from it. Both the light and Elise's song grew until both flew from her open mouth and into the shell. The princess grasped her throat not because it hurt but because for the first time since she became mute, it felt...empty. 

"This will not return your voice to normal but it has freed it so it can be used in this form at least," the sea witch placed the shell necklace around Elise's neck and she felt its warmth against her skin, "as long as you wear this, you can speak, but only if the shell is worn and intact. So be very careful with it. Go on, try it."

The princess cleared her throat, feeling hopeful when she heard a small squeak come from her, "...Th...ank...you...thank you!"

Elise's face burst into a bright smile. This was a far cry from the last time Azul heard her voice as she tore into him...and he made a mental note to keep that from happening a second time at all costs.

 The princess threw her arms around the sea witch with a joyful cheer, "Thank you so much, Mrs. Ashengrotto!" 

Madam Lorelei just chuckled and patted the excited princess on the head, "Madam Lorelei will do. And it was no trouble at all. Just remember what I said before, sweet child," she paused as she looked over at Azul but still spoke to the princess, "you have a difficult road ahead of you and not a whole lot of time. So weigh your options wisely." 

Elise's tentacles that had been holding the box placed it back into her hands and somehow it felt even heavier, "Yes, of course." 

-

Azul and Elise swam back to the Leech family home with the box and a few other items in a satchel Madam Lorelei had lent them to assist the twins. Elise felt like a mess: she was thrilled to be able to speak again but wasn't used to hearing her voice at all anymore. Azul had said something that made her laugh and she nearly jumped out of her suction cups hearing the loud noise come from her mouth. It was very different from her usual trained, demure giggle that she had curated for years. The mystique was shattered in a matter of seconds. Azul couldn't help but tease her with a sly grin.

"My goodness, I never realized how boisterous you were under all that regal poise, Your Highness..."

"Well, I never realized that you were such a terrible liar, Mr. Ashengrotto..." when his face pulled an abashed expression, a mischievous smile spread across Elise's face, "You told me you were an ugly, gross octopus. How dare you lie to me to cover up how cute and shy you actually are!" Cute wasn't actually her first word choice when she saw him earlier that day. But her nerves got the better of her and that's what came out of her mouth. 

Cute?! Shy?! He huffed as if the princess had spilled ink all over his contracts, "You make me sound like some skittish little guppy!" Azul folded his arms in with a frown as they continued to swim. Elise wasn't sure if he was scowling because she had hit a nerve or because he was trying to keep his face from flushing again. 

"I never said it was bad!" She laughed, "You've just surprised me. That's all." 

Azul watched the princess swim ahead of him with a much more spirited smile on her face, taking his time before catching up with her. She was definitely not what he expected either. That was one thing Azul was sure about in this whole confusing mess. Even with the brighter expression on her face, the boy still noticed a bit of apprehension hiding in her eyes. 

"You have the ingredients you need, right? Do you need any help? I'm quite good at potion-making myself," Elise let a bit of smugness shine through that last statement as she quickly changed the subject.

Azul took great pride in his potion-making skills and rarely did he ever need help. However, that didn't stop him from admiring the princess' confidence, "I don't believe so, Your Highness. But if that changes, I know who to call on...if anything I may need your help in keeping Floyd from drinking the wrong potion on purpose."

The princess snorted, "I will do my best. I do have one request though."

"Is it another 'favor'?" Azul teased sarcastically.

"Yes. Call me Elise instead of 'Your Highness' or 'princess'. Or even 'Ellie' like Cowrie does. I really don't mind at all."  

Azul came to a halt mid swim, "Is that really...ok? Doesn't it seem kind of rude? I mean...you are a princess." 

Elise turned and hovered in front of him with a sort of melancholy look in her eyes that didn't match the grin on her face, "I am a princess, yes. But in title only. I have no actual power nor am I going to take the throne like Reine will one day. It's just...it doesn't seem to matter that much. Especially down here. Plus you're the only one who refers to me as 'Your Highness'." 

Now that she mentioned it, none of their eel companions did address Elise that way. Azul did it because...because of formality he supposed? He had never really thought about it too much to be honest. Referring to her as anything less than her royal title felt inappropriate. Then again, she really didn't feel like a princess. Not that Azul knew that many princesses to begin with. Elise felt like....like...Azul didn't even know. He still found himself at the crossroads with this unique girl: he knew she was established as one thing but she seemed like something different entirely. Ok, he was definitely overthinking such a simple request...and now he was just floating there like an idiot while she stared at him-

Azul cleared his throat to reset his brain because it spiraled into a tizzy, "Alright. Elise....'Ellie' seems a bit too common. Elise is a perfectly good name all on its own." 

Elise smiled with her eyes, "So is Azul. May I call you Azul since we're going to be spending even more time together in the coming weeks? ....or would you prefer 'Azuzu'?"

"Azul is fine," the boy octopus mumbled as his tentacles cringed at the cutesy nickname. It just didn't sound right coming from her. Especially now that she had her voice back. He'd rather listen to her say a world of other, less embarrassing things. Besides, though he didn't mind this wall of formality coming down between them, his mind was itching with a myriad of other questions and curiosities. The anxious glimmer was still there in her eyes. Not that he had been trying to stare but Azul was very observant in most cases. Something was wrong and he had an idea but...prying into her personal feelings seemed uncouth. So instead, he tried something else.

"Elise, what song were you thinking of before?"

Her eyes became distant as they entered the city once again, "...my mother's lullaby. It's always the first song that comes to mind so I guess it did the trick. Did your mother sing to you when you were young?"

Azul had many fond memories surrounding his mother. Some were downright embarrassing but he did in fact have a wealth of good ones. He almost felt bad for sharing even a hint of them simply because it felt like he was rubbing in the fact that his mother was still with him. When he hesitated, the princess playfully nudged him with one of her legs, "No? Not a one?"

"O-Oh no, no my mother used to sing to me every night when I was very young...she never missed a night," Azul averted his eyes away from Elise, feeling guilt start to pick at him again. 

"I like your mother. She seems so lovely and warm. Jade and Floyd's mother is very sweet too...I don't think I'd want to make either one of your mothers angry though," Elise giggled.

"I definitely do not recommend it..." Azul grumbled, "not unless you want a barrage of wooden spoons unleashed on you." 

Her laugh rang out like musical notes. If she was bothered at all by the conversation, it didn't show in the least. Azul continued to share more stories - leaving out all of the painfully embarrassing ones - of his childhood as they finished their journey back. If nothing else, her laugh seemed to make the waters brighter. He had a feeling that Elise still felt unsure about what to do about Rielle and he didn't want to push her to decide especially when she was probably still hurting from the heartache and...well...he was definitely no stranger to heavy feelings. Another time, he silently told himself. They had more important matters to deal with first. He just hoped that the twins could pull this off. Azul had never been one to be afraid of a gamble every now and again but this just seemed horribly, terribly reckless even for Floyd. But he'd be lying if he said that he wasn't impressed with the motivation the moody eel had gained within the last day or so since gaining inside help to bail Luna out of her miserable situation. 

Azul had known Jade and Floyd since they were all children and he couldn't remember a time when Floyd had ever latched onto another, especially a female, like he has Luna. It was nothing less than bizarre. For a while, Azul had assumed that Luna used her siren charms on him but when he asked Floyd about it, the eel denied everything. Luna never sang to him, used magic on him. Luna was just Luna: beautiful, full of feminine charm naturally even without her being a siren. She was also very clever just from the skill set Azul had discovered she had even if it was just through word of mouth. She was just...

"...beautiful and nice. And she never gets mad at me for doing things my own way and..." 

Azul could still hear Floyd go on and on about the siren with that goofy smile on his face. It was nauseating how smitten he was and how little he tried to hide it. Of course, now that Azul thought about it, Jade too was smitten. Now that was weird to think about it. Jade Leech, the poker-faced and elusive Vice Dorm Leader of Octavinelle that was obsessed with his terrariums. The same Jade Leech that was always calculating something or causing mischief with his wild twin was now wrapped around the tiny little finger of a blunt, sassy little siren that led her life like a stray cat, going wherever and living however she pleased. Saying whatever was on her mind with no hint of deception. They were a very interesting and very different pair...wait a second. 

Azul's brain came to a sudden halt. His two companions, his childhood friends, his partners in business and in crime so to speak: they were in love. Jade had already chosen Cowrie as his proper mate. Surely Floyd couldn't be that far behind with Luna. Then again this was Floyd we were talking about. Still, just the thought somehow threw the octopus boy for a loop. He was happy for them, of course, but where did that leave Azul? It wasn't that he was afraid their plans of opening a Mostro Lounge permanently after graduation were now ruined that the twins were choosing their mates just that it made Azul really stop and think where he also was in his life. Leave it to his doting mother to remind him that he too was eighteen now and coming upon the point in every octopus merman's life where he started desiring to mate, to settle with a female of his choosing, etc. It was, for a lack of better words, absolutely terrifying and made Azul's guts tie themselves in knots. 

Sure, he was clever and had the compacity to find tactics to charm and lure girls into buying something he was selling but actual courtship? The genuine article?! Fortunately for Azul, his mother - unlike Madam Leech - never forced him to meet girls or go on dates. She told him from the very beginning that he needed to find his soulmate organically and in his own time. He was extremely grateful for this but still...the subject matter is something he'd rather avoid completely. Just thinking about it already had his mind reeling, spiraling through the anxiety-fueled fog and-

Elise quickly swam back to Azul moments after she heard a loud clang and saw him holding his frustrated and embarrassed face. Amidst being lost in thought, he swam straight into a light pole, and now here he was nursing a bruised ego.

"Azul, are you alright?!"

He tried to insist that he was but that didn't stop the princess from pulling his hands away from his face and gasped. A bruised ego and a bloody nose, apparently.

"Ooh that looks like it smarts...come on, your mother's restaurant is just around the corner from here. I'm sure she had some sort of first aid available. Let's get you fixed up," Elise grabbed his hand started to pull the poor boy down the street, ignoring all his fuss about how he was actually fine. 

Mama Ashengrotto didn't make as much of a scene as Azul thought she would. Instead, the mother just shook her head at her son's unusual clumsiness and left Elise to nurse yet another Octavinelle boy's injuries in her large comfy office. She returned not too long afterward with some snacks and a message for Elise. Mama Ashengrotto paused in the doorway and watched the girl gently tend to her son as he fussed. He sounded like he was being belligerent but really, Mama knew he was just embarrassed. It was still cute all these years later. 

"Honestly, Elise, it's just a small scrape. You're acting like I'm going to bleed out any second," he huffed as she softly dabbed around his nose. 

"Hush. I'm almost done," She just pouted at him as she focused on what she was doing. 

"Not to interrupt, my sweeties, but there was a message left for you, Elise," Mama Ashengrotto set the trey of refreshments down before handing a folded piece of parchment to the girl. 

She didn't recognize the scratchy handwriting at first but the name signed at the bottom flipped a switch as soon as she saw it.

It was directions about when and where Jade and Floyd needed to be on the night of the Cove's VIP event and all the details everyone involved needed to know. And at the bottom of the paper was a simple signature...

'Seven'

-

Azul ended up extending his stay in the Leech home until the VIP evening had come. He actually did tell his mother where he was this time...just not every single detail about the why's and what for's. When it was time for the group of teenagers to execute their plan, they acted as nonchalantly as possible during the evening meal and turned into their rooms as expected at the end of the night....until the whole house was quiet enough for them to sneak into the garden, one by one. 

Floyd was the most fidgety and irritated of the small band of rebels, surprising no one. Azul held two potions before the brothers, one in each hand, one blue and the other red. 

"Pay attention, Floyd. This is important," Azul said sharply, "Jade, the red one is for you. The blue one is for Floyd. They both will only last about three or four hours so do NOT drink them until you're about to cross the border, understand? The rest is up to you two and Seven." 

Cowrie held out what looked like earplugs to Jade with a pouty expression on her face, "You'll need these, Jay Jay, so you don't get all...ya know...love stupid because of the siren songs." 

"Ooh? Are you worried that I'll stray, my Cowrie?" Jade was incorrigible when it came to his smug teasing. Even with his mate, he couldn't help himself whenever she showed even a hint of territorial or jealous behavior, no matter how small. He silently reveled in it. Cowrie scoffed, trying to ignore the amused twitch in her mate's long tail.

"I just know how things work in that place and I'm trying to keep you from getting robbed down to your bones, Jay Jay!" Cowrie huffed with her cheek puffed up like a grumpy blowfish. This only made Jade internally gush over how cute she was. The younger Cerith sister turned to her impatient brother-in-law-to-be and gave him a serious look.

"Floyd," the tiny eelmaid grabbed onto Floyd's black strand of hair and gently pulled him down to look her in the eyes and used his proper name to show she meant business, "Trust Sevy and don't do anything besides what he told you to do, ok? My sister will be heartbroken if you get yourself killed and I'll kill you myself if you get her or Jay Jay killed, got it?"

Floyd's tail kicked up some sand in irritation but he didn't look away from Cowrie's sharp stare either as if doing so would be stepping down from a challenge, "Yeah. I get it." 

"Good. And no fighting unless you absolutely have to!"

Floyd just huffed and gave Cowrie a pout to rival her own. Azul crossed his arms and sighed, "For the record, I think you're both absolutely mad for even attempting this...however, it would be a crime to leave Luna trapped in that horrible place. So get in, get her out, and get out of there before the Muraeni's even realize what happened."

Azul flashed the portal key to the Octavinelle dorm that Jade had passed onto him, just in case things went south way quicker than they anticipated. Everyone knew their roles. Everything was prepared. Azul and Elise waited in the coral garden with Cowrie while the twins snuck off the property under a spot in the tall fence they had dug out months during their last visit home. Cowrie sat curled up in Elise's arms, trying not to show how anxious she was really feeling as she watched the twins disappear into the night.

-

The Siren's Cove was packed. Seven had his hands full keeping the guest list check-ins tight but flowing smoothly. There were, of course, the non-elite patrons that spent most of their nights at the Cove's usual open events but they were soon turned away at the door and informed that tonight was a private event for only those who were personally invited by the owner, Don Muraeni himself. Those who didn't comply were swiftly met with shark and ray mermen bouncers who didn't waste time with verbal explanations. His father and oldest brother were already seated in the Don's private box, comfortable and ready to enjoy the night's coming entertainment. Seven's younger brothers, however, were left outside to watch the perimeter for anyone who looked shady. 

Seven's calm eyes roamed over the line of patrons as they showed their printed invitations to the doormen and entered the club to greet him where he stood watch. They knew who he was and he knew them but he held fast to the rule of silence and merely bowed his head graciously to each of them as they entered. Some came armed with gifts for their favored sirens. Seven accepted each one without question and had the staff take each gift to the girls' rooms in rotation. Any gift that came for Luna was simply left outside her door, lining the hallway so as not to disturb her as she prepared herself. 

Seven's eye spotted another Don of a smaller clan that was indebted to his father enter the venue with a group of his own associates in tow. He was a Zebra moray with a small family and a slowly declining ring of muscle but under Don Muraeni's umbrella, he was able to keep his own household afloat.  The Don nodded to Seven out of respect and motioned for one of his lackeys to present a vase of flowers to Seven to give to Luna.

"To celebrate the young mistress' debut," he grinned with a rough dry voice. 

Seven was about to accept the vase when a suddenly clanging noise was heard from the ceiling. Everyone who heard it looked up to see a series of ventilation port-like openings in the stone ceiling. It seemed to be coming from one of the openings...like something was crawling or skittering around inside.

Seven snapped his fingers and signaled to two manta ray mermen on standby that floated into the main entryway from the shadowed corners. They nodded just before one of them went to investigate the vents while the other took the vase from the visiting Don. 

"Probably just a lost crab or some other small intruder, I'm sure...they seem to swarm this time of year," Seven reassured the Don and his crew motioning for them to enter the main hall.  The manta ray that took the vase was then given his instructions from Seven.

"Take this to Luna's door and knock. She always prefers flowers to be delivered personally." 

The mantra ray gave him a courteous grin before swimming towards the backstage corridor without any questions. 

-

Luna sat before her mirror, adorning the elaborately strung pearls she was given to wear specifically for her performance tonight. Her face was a cold mask of calm but inside, each nerve was on fire. Seven hadn't elaborated on what exactly to expect tonight, just that she should be 'ready' and to act as if everything was normal. Meaning that Luna kept up the facade of a scolded diva put in her place by her angry step-brother and now supervisor, keeping her mouth shut and her head down. Obedient and silent when she wasn't on stage. Other than that...Luna held the freshly made coral key in her hands, not sure exactly where it would take her when the moment came. She hid it inside her jewelry box along with the gold necklace Floyd had given her moments before hearing a knock at her door. She opened it to find one of the manta ray staff holding a vase of flowers addressed to her.

"Oh thank you. These are gorgeous," Luna took the vase in her arms and admired the blooms as the mantra ray smiled down at her. She swore that one of his eyes was darker than the other and his smile though...she had seen it somewhere before. The manta ray said nothing before bowing to her and swimming back towards the main entrance, leaving Luna to wonder if she was just imagining things. She set the vase on her table, that Seven had replaced for her, and finished getting ready, knowing that they would call for her any moment. Perhaps it was just Luna's nerves getting the better of her but as soon as she turned around to look at herself one more time in her mirror, she thought she saw the vase move in the reflection. Of course, when Luna turned around...it was perfectly still. She took a deep breath and let it and her paranoia out. Clearly, she was just getting a bit stir crazy. Luna left her room as soon as the stagehands called out for her. 

The main hall was filled to the brim. All the guests had been seated and were being served by the eager wait staff who knew tonight would be the best time to rake in some heavy tips for themselves. Seven saw that the security closed and locked all of the exits and entrances until the performances were over per his father's orders. Once everything was in place, he took his seat in his own box. He was one step above his younger siblings who were locked outside but still below his father and eldest brother. Therefore, he sat in a different box, separate from them. He was soon joined by the same manta ray that had delivered Luna's flowers for him. The eel gestured for the ray to sit in the seat next to him.

"You might as well get comfortable. It's going to be an interesting night." 

The manta joined him with a grin as he took a seat next to the eel. Jade Leech's voice left his lips in a sly chuckle, "I imagine so, big brother."

Seven grunted, "Shut up and plug up your ears already. The show's about to start."

-

Luna's first song ended with the sound of vigorous applause. She peeked out from behind the curtains and found where her stepfather and brother sat. They looked as satisfied as either could possibly bear to show. Her eyes wandered across the upper level until she found the box she knew was Seven's. It was empty. He was already on the move, it would seem. This only gave Luna more reason to follow the next direction that he had given her earlier.

'After your first song, return to your room and stay there until it's time for your second and final song.'

Luna did exactly that. What was waiting for her there nearly made her jump out of her speckles. Fortunately, Luna was smart enough to clamp her hand over her mouth as she quickly shut the door behind her. The vase from before had been tipped over and the flowers scattered all over the floor and laying on top of her pillows on her bed was a miniature version of a very familiar face that could very well fit in her palm, just napping away. Her gasp seemed to make the tiny thing stir awake and beam up at her as soon as he was fully awake. She wasn't sure if he was even real but there he was...smiling up at her as he always did whenever they have reunited again.

"...Floyd??"

oop another cliffhanger

Tagging: @nuitthegoddess @wysteriadelights @1ndigowitch @honey-milk-depresso @foxwitchaine @victoria1676 @aiimee9 @iscarlettappel @marcepanna @feldya @zstargalaxy @evieyouknow @espada188

[headspace-hotel]

I mean yeah? Bone meal and blood meal are common fertilizers for plants.

And plants' roots actively forage, seeking out the areas of the most nutrients as they grow, so it makes sense

"What are corpses on the ground but uncooked steaks for some tree" is my new favorite quote

i think it's fucked up that there are plants that decided they wanted to eat meat

[ash-2-dust]

I don’t fucking get it. I don’t fucking get it. I’ve made everything worse and it’ll never get better. I’m worthless. I am less than worthless in the eyes of the gods. Once I die, my tainted blood will kill the plants around me and my bones will be forever soaked with rot. I don’t deserve to be fertilizer for the trees. I deserve to vanish. That would be healthier for everyone.

[cymorilcinnamonroll]

Ibis - A Book of Enoch Watcher x Human Romance

In the Land of Nod fruits were plentiful, if bruised, and fragrant rains often poured. We watered our gardens, our trees, through a maze-like irrigation system that Forbearer Adam had taught Grandmason Cain, and Cain passed down to us. I recited my morning song, invoking my patron goddess Asherah:

“Oh, the fabled Cainites— whom Yah’s favored Sethites hate! Our men of renown, bound to the earth and her green yields, worshipping at the altar of strange gods. Mammon— industry; Moloch— empire; the port wine-stain feathers shaped like wings of rawhide upon our scarlet backs! ‘Industrious Cainites, cavort for us— wilt thou part the bloodied rose?’ the kings of foreign lands plead, “Dance the whip and flaming sword! Show us what sin is sweet on your tongue. Kiss away our sorrows and wipe away our tears, sweet Kohonet daughters of Cain!”

I accompanied the morning ritual to Asherah as dawn broke with the clash of my cymbals, naked at her altar enriching her sanctuary of beauty and fertility. My magick rippled throughout Nod, blessing both harvest and land, and I went to my palatial bedroom connected to Asherah’s inner chambers to ready for the morning.

 “Sweet Lady, give me patience to deal with my little cousins, Istehar and Naamah,” I sighed, making a Tawu over my heart with thumb and middle fingers interlocked in an X. Lazily, I admired my wing-shaped birthmark in the mirror as I clothed myself in a gray layered dress, stitched with pomegranates interred within black, Egyptian glass beads. My aerial port wine-stains were shaped like an owl’s, spread from my elbows in fine feathery traces up to the nape of my neck. It was the fabled mark us Cainites bore; but to keep off misfortune or to attract it, I was never sure.

“I hate early mornings,” I sighed, “I have a feeling in my bones that the foundations of our world will shake. Perhaps High Priest Elizander is gambling heaven and earth with that errant angel again? I hope papa has not lost more money over craps or scarab races with them, dear Lady!” Papa owned a great temple and ten-thousand-cubit estate on the outskirts of Ken ha Gadol; it was the Kingdom of Nod’s finest palace, save his brother’s matriarchal sanctuary the Kohonet, ruled under the thumb of the wizened Rahab.

 “Oh crap, I was distracted! I forgot the last part in my invocation for rain,” I sighed, preparing myself as I sang an old song I had learned from Nod’s High Priestess, Rahab, Queen of the Kohonet:

Mammon, empire! They are men of renown, the Canaanites! Men of giant stature, men of sages and might— their women of beauty, science, and song! As comely and brave as bulls the maidens all, as sandstone skinned as the great wind-worn sculptures in the desert!

I was summoning the old gods of the blood, as was my duty as Lady of Ken ha Gadol, and the spirits scraped at the back of my skull like a crow pecking pomegranate seeds. My patriotism swelled, and with war gathering on the horizon I shrilly cried the last verse in a toga that held both a ripe fig and bottle of wine, ready to loose red juice and blood at any moment, beating my breast in a frenzy that would make the First Architect Cain proud:

Life in Nod is sweet, as sweet as gristle on bone. Scorned of all Creation the Canaanites are, yet blessed by the Sitra Achra! Watch our demons cavort! Sing of our many conquests! Name the line of Kohonet priestesses and kings! Atop snowy Mount Zephon, watch as we topple the sky!

Only the Assyrians could rival our cruelty; the Egyptians, our majesty; the Minoans, our mystery.

I sent breakfast to Elizander as I wandered out to Asherah’s orchard at our palace at the base of Mount Zephon. Alisha of Chavah’s seed I was, she who was Samael’s beloved; I was a Kohonet-trained priestess, formed in the crucible of sisterhood, of blood, bark, and wine. Under Queen Rahab my birthmark had blossomed, and the secrets of Asherah— as well as serving the nation— had been drummed into my head like the thump of a war-drum.

“How is breakfast, my Alisha?” papa asked while a servant brought us garlic, herb omelets, challah, and dates. I drizzled honey on a loaf, drinking it down with some saffron tea. The fine brick walls of our home had high ceilings with windows made of costly Egyptian glass that, when opened, let drafts of sweet oasis air in. “Wonderful, papa. Say, does the High Priest have need of me today?” I asked, yawning.

 Papa smiled. He had a face scarred by a Sethite prince’s sword, but was otherwise greying and handsome. After mama’s passing, papa took a harem, yet never remarried—she had been his one true love. I tried to stay clear of his consorts.

“Keep an eye on the Watcher atop Mount Zephon, Elizander says.”

I nodded, my mood souring. Things were changing, east of Eden: Watchers made camp atop mountains by the smatterings of cities and towns that ringed King Ahrand’s country, his holdings, like glimmering rubies. Cymballed Naamah led them, alongside peerless, virginal Istehar, with their lovers Azazel and Samyaza. Oh, how I despised my impish, coquettish cousins!

 The Watcher of our town, Baraquiel, had set up camp on Mount Zephon, above the ornate, carved cave where hoary High Priest Elizander so divined. We entertained my Uncle, King Ahrand and Cousins Naamah and Istehar often; I did not have to work the land: I could have gone into the Kohonet like smiling Naamah and gorgeous, virginal Istehar if I wanted.

“Sister Alisha, come dance with us! Your hair is the reddest of us all, like flame across an amber night. We shall teach you the secrets of Lady Lilith and her starry Lilim, where there are men of pleasure and Watchers to delight our every wicked craving. Why, just yesterday Azazel crushed malachite into a fine powder to paint my bronzed lids, and for Istehar, Samyaza fashioned a bracelet of onyx and polished jewels to affix over her tanned wrist," Naamah had burbled; they were always begging me to join them.

I shook my head, remembering their incessant prattling last week— oh, goddess forbid I had to play hostess to them again!

I sat idly by after having finished harvesting palms, fruits, and nuts, as my labor on the estate farm was done for the day and my midwife’s herbs dutifully replenished; Elosha, my childhood best friend, was to give birth the town over next week according to her moon chart. And without warning there came a great wind racking up golden dust in the damp soil, shaving scruff from the wheat. I looked beside me to find that I was not alone at my favorite fretting place; the Worry Rock, as I called it. No, there was an angel, an angel of might and of

handsome mien to boot; he wore skin in midnight’s particular hue, eyes that shone like lapis lazuli, and was decorated with luxurious curls of white-turquoise hair that fell to his waist in braids. The angel held an astrolabe in his hands, charting the early morning stars that had stubbornly refused to set.

“To what do I owe the honor, introverted Watcher?” I teased. Our town misfit angel, Baraquiel, kept to himself; it was said he abhorred women and had refused every temptation Samyaza and Azazel had lured him to the Kohonet with. As for us humans, Baraquiel would only talk in whispers to High Priest Elizander. The fact that I was, in my dirtied state, the first woman he had probably laid eyes on in years, mattered very much to me.

I had my vanity, after all.

“Rain is coming today. Lightning strikes. It boils my blood, stirs my wings to ride aback the wings. That is the problem of sin, comely daughter of Chavah— Azazel’s wings are withered, having strayed too far from the Father, and Samyaza rots not long behind.” I crossed my legs, admiring his wings— ibis, like I saw on trips to Egypt with papa. “And yet, Samael and Lilith are still whole, and they have flown long after leaving Yah’s paternal court,” I pronounced.

Baraquiel winced. “Do not speak to me of the ways of God: you are a heathen. What would you know of my Father?” His inquisition rent my heart into ire and iron, and I rebuked him.

“Quite a lot, actually: I’m a Kohonet-trained qodeshah. I tend the sanctuary of Asherah, and nurse her sacred groves. I midwife babes, heal the sick and heal the lame with my sacred herbs and unguents, dancing for our kingdom’s rains.” Baraquiel smiled. His teeth gleamed sharply, his

midnight skin shining starlike with dew. “Isn’t qodeshah what Father’s humans call whores?” I winced. “That is not the heart and soul of our practice, Baraquiel. Indeed, we tend to the men

once a year at the Festival of Atargatis, turning away neither ugly nor old, sick nor poor from our patient breasts. That is how Lilith and Chavah love: given freely, humbly, like mothers— their suitors as if their own kin. The Sethites gossip a lot, but their lies about Cainites are rumors: they hold neither sting nor vinegar.”

Baraquiel twisted one of his intricate braids, laden with bronze beads. “So, then, would you not turn me away?” I blushed, and Baraquiel looked at me hungrily, like a lion waiting to pounce.

“It is many moons until the Festival of Atargatis…but I would be happy to show you Asherah’s grove.”

“You want me, Alisha. It is etched in sinful Cainite daughter’s bones to tempt angels. Why I signed that pact with damnable Azazel is repugnant to me. ‘Take a wife,’ he said, but the Kohonet was stifling— all those oudh-clad ladies barely clothed? Not like you, Alisha. That dress— it suits you well. Stately. Modest. Good for farming— good, in fact, for flying.”

“I do not want you!” I blushed, but I was certain he always saw me admiring him from my palace chambers as he made his daily walk to High Priest Elizander, where they gambled over dice; playing craps with a cantankerous, wheezing elder was not how I imagined I would spend eternity, if given the chance. Once, Baraquiel and father had raced scarab beetles. Papa lost and refused to see Baraquiel again; I could surmise papa forfeited quite a sum of money. In the morning Baraquiel appeared jolly at Elizander’s door with casks of fine Minoan wine, and by then it was not hard to guess where papa’s money went.

Baraquiel smirked. “You are a qodeshah, my Alisha. A heathen. It does not matter what you want, does it? It only matters what Azazel and Naamah deem you fit for.”

I scowled. “You are coarser than sand, Baraquiel, and are ignorant of our ways. I’ll let it be known that I have never done a dance with a Watcher.”

“Not even shy Samyaza?”

“That lunatic is just pining after closed-leg, prissy Istehar! I can’t stand the lot of them! Naamah is spoiled, and Istehar is a shrew.”

“And I cannot stand my fallen brothers. So what does that make us, dearest Alisha?”

“In a pickle.”

“I like to eat pickles; they are one of humanity’s finest creations. That does not sound so bad.”

We were leaning against each other by now, some sort of animal magnetism drawing us together, or simply us bonding over both being irascible, ornery bastards. I was not too sure which it was.

“Where does an angel get pickles from, Baraquiel?” “Elizander makes them. You really should talk to him more. He is wise. In fact, just yesterday he told me how to ingest Syrian rue so as to experience strange visions.”

“You’re doing drugs with an old man?” I laughed. “What did you mean, then, when you said ‘my dress was made for flying’?”

Baraquiel smiled. “Shall I show you, Alisha?” He lifted me gently but sturdily into the air as we set off flying. The air was sweet, warm, and thick, the clouds damp but not clinging, and his great ibis wings spread out like war flags.

“I could get used to this, Baraquiel.”

“Call me Baraq.”

We took to playing craps with Elizander.

Over time, I built up stamina to visit Baraquiel’s camp atop Mount Zephon. Always, we went flying, and over time, he fell from the stars for me like Lucifer struck down from heaven, in love with a comely daughter of Cain. We worshipped Asherah and danced for Samael, and made love for Lilith and Chavah. I found myself with child by the third month, and Baraquiel dropped his pickle mid-bite out of sheer joy.

“I will have to be a little more careful when you fly, then.”

The rains came that night with a loud thunderstorm, filling Nod’s wells for years to come. The canals were brimming with fertile waters, freshly churned soil, and loam. Baraquiel, the angel of lightning, was like a weathervane, the winds responding to his moods. We made plans to marry, and Rahab blessed us on our first journey to the Kohonet together. Naamah was ripe with her second child, and Azazel lingered at the edges like a black ink-stain, scheming.

That night, Baraquiel’s feathers began to fall out, one by one, like snow atop Mount Zephon.

By the fifth month, my husband had Elizander cauterize his dead ibis wings from his back.

“Where I’m going, as father to the fruit of my seed, I won’t need any marks of my old pact with Yah,” Baraquiel simply said, caressing my swollen womb as I cried over his lost bit of heaven.

Samyaza had finally had enough of Istehar refusing his advances; she asked him the Secret Name of Yah, escaping his assault by flying to the stars. Yah, taking pity on one of the Cainites for what might have been the first time in eternity, changed Istehar into a constellation. They came to call her the Star Maiden. Samyaza hung himself the next morning, and Yah made his death a starry tomb; you may know him as Kesil the Hangman. What it took for an angel to die, I did not wish to know.

The Nephilim, our children with the Watchers, grew fast if they were conceived out of lust, not out of love. Baraquiel and I heard rumors every day that they were giants, full-grown in a year, and Azazel and Naamah were setting their scions and the Kohonet’s other half-angel offspring as lords over our enemy the Sethites. And then the Nephilim turned on Nod.

First the Nephilim ate the cattle. Then they ate the sheep. Finally, the goats and pigs. When even that was not enough, the Nephilim turned on man. Azazel and Rahab had lost control, and the Land of Nod fell into misrule and infamy. Elizander, papa, his consorts and servants, Baraquiel, Elusha’s family and I fled to Egypt, carrying as many riches as we could to start life anew, and just in time at that, for Raphael was sent to bind the Watchers hand and foot in Dudael.

After that, Samael sent a flood, a great drowning of his son Grandmason Cain’s land, to wipe the Nephilim off the face of the earth.

All but one.

I gave birth to a girl with ibis wings, lapis lazuli eyes, amber skin, and red hair: Sarai. Elusha was her godmother, and we cut her wings like the Sethites circumcise their children.

Baraquiel has taken to dyeing his white-turquoise hair with henna. We work as scribes and gardeners, and I serve as a priestess of Qadesh— the name of Asherah in this foreign land. Every year I serve my goddess. I turn away no man, young or old,

Greek or Egyptian or Sethite, African or Assyrian. But it is a bitter service, and all I can do is think of Baraquiel, my dear husband, as the strangers ruthlessly spear into me from above.

One day, in our large house by the Nile, Sarai was playing with seashells, and I looked over at Baraquiel— still beautiful, but more mortal than he had ever been— and I squeezed his hand, asking him “Was it worth it? Leaving Heaven, leaving your holy post atop Mount Zephon, taking a heathen bride?”

Baraquiel smiled like it was the most obvious, pleasing answer in the world. “My darling, beautiful Alisha, is it worth it to spend months brining a pickle? Does rendering the common, humble cucumber into a treasure for the tongue not take some patience sacrificed, and tempers tried? Are you not my greatest service of all?”

And with that, we kissed, drank wine, and called over our darling little Sarai to enjoy a plate of dates. She pecked her papa on the cheek and told us stories about her doll. When I looked into Baraquiel’s eyes I saw the crackle of joyous lightning.

Love, true love, is often hard to find. But I lived in the Land of Nod once, wiped from the face of the earth, and I myself won a husband from the stars. Strange, us forgotten Cainites. Foreign in our magic, sinful in our ways.

Proud people, though, the memory of Nod.

And for Asherah?

I dance.