#but his storyline just keeps nagging at me and we didn’t see him at the end of the season

[judenightfell]

Guys, this bitch:

Is Morozova. I will not explain further.

[anjelicawrites]

The Winner Takes It All

Series masterlist

Chapter X (end)

Paring: Aemond Targaryen x reader

Synopsis: inspired by the Æthelflæd and Erik's storyline in The Last Kingdom. Might be spoilerish if you haven't seen it (go watch it!!!), even though I've just stolen the inspiration and went on with the story my way.

Warnings: Canon compliant violence, childbirth.

A/N: reader is AFAB, they/them pronouns are used (they are called “lady” and “daughter of the North”). The only descriptor is that they have long hair.

A/N 1: this is an AU. Look at me taking the canon story of Westeros and yell “Parkhour!” as I jump out of the window clutching it in my hands.

The memories of a year of war play in your head while you stroke your swollen belly. You are due anytime now, Aemond tense, having to divide himself between his worry for you and the oncoming peace negotiations.

For all their power and dragons, the Valyrian army was at a standstill with your people who, on the other hand, were defending the last stronghold, but were doomed to die of starvation, having to destroy amassed goods as the Northerner army retired and the small piece of land under their control being too small to feed everyone. The Valyrians were going to reign over a dead land, something Aemond didn’t want, the Northerner wanted their freedom, but that amounted to nothing when you are dead.

The castle chosen to carry out the negotiations is not the one where you and Aemond live, it’s closer to the last stronghold, smaller and easier to defend, even though you know Cregan comes in peace. After the failed negotiations for your freedom, you got wind of a shift of power within the Northerner army, your other husband losing support in favor of Cregan Stark, who had been leading the desperate resistance against the invasion.

You know your former husband will attend and you wonder how he’ll react to seeing you almost at term, when his seed had never taken inside your womb.

You don’t have to participate in the negotiations, Aemond had repeated that daily, but you want to, as a goodwill sign from the victors, to help your people as much as you can. This doesn’t make Aemond happy, worried as he is now that you carry his child in your belly: he’d keep you under glass if you’d let him and you know he is already afraid about you giving birth, all the dangers and now you want to be in the same room where your violent former husband is. You can see all his worries in his eye, feel it in the way he gently strokes your belly and hear it in his voice as he talks High Valyrian to your unborn child, still you will not accept to be relegated in your shared quarters, while the men decide: you had been part of this war since the beginning, you will see its end.

WIth a discreet knock on the door, Aemond announces his arrival, his hand travels to your belly as your guards wait outside.

“If you ask another time, I will knock something on your head”

“I wasn’t going to” he lies

“Good. Shall we go?”.

You link your arm with his and head for the hall, where the negotiations will take place. There’s a nagging feeling making its way in the pit of your stomach, an animal instinct that’s telling you something not right is afoot; you try to pin it on Aemond’s worries bleeding over to you, on having to face your other husband after such a long time, on the pregnancy almost at term, still something feels wrong the same way it did when you were first kidnapped. You are not sure if Aemond is feeling what you are right now, his other hand landing gently on your arm linked to his, almost to soothe you. Your other husband. You know he’s the one triggering your fears, because you are afraid he might do something, he might want to have his revenge, even though you don’t know how he’d do that, with the way the encounter had been organizes, still you are uneasy and ready.

When you enter the hall, the feeling is like a hand squeezing your stomach, reflexively your fingers fly to your belly, tapping until your child responds with kicks you can feel through the thick material of your dress.

You know the news of your pregnancy had reached the Northerner army months ago, still the men gasp audibly at seeing you walking proudly, head high, eyes scanning each one of them. You can see the sneer on your other husband’s face and you revel in that. Take that, you think, it was your seed to be rotten, not my womb.

As per shared request, none of the men is carrying a weapon and the guards have been left outside, a sign of goodwill; why, then, are you scanning the hall as if you were in the courtyard training with Aemond?

On their own accord, your eyes keep trailing between the man who had attacked you, and lost a hand for it and your other husband: what is wrong there? You don’t listen to what the men are saying, focused as you are on your other husband’s mannerism, how jittery he is, the way his eyes dart around as if he’s getting ready to…

You jump out of your chair when the first sword is drawn, Aemond’s arm to shield you. He is disarmed, almost all of the Northerner delegation is as well, apart from your former husband, some Lords loyal to his House and some Valyrians, led by your former attacker. Someone screams that this is a trap, you are too busy trying to find something to defend yourself with as the guards outside try to break down the huge door, locked, by whom? When?

In the ruckus you find yourself against a wall, Aemond lost in the carnage, your former husband ready to strike you.

“Finally whore, you get what you deserve” he sneers, blood on his face.

You frantically search for something to wield, anything to protect yourself and your child, anything! Without your mind fully registering what you are doing, your bigger frame, the protruding belly slowing your movements, your leg kicks him in the knee with a satisfying crack and you enter his space while his leg gives out, your hand shooting for his own sword. He tries to resist and you headbutt him, his hand giving out, the cold of the hilt in your hand, the graceful arc of the blade meeting the softness of the flesh of his neck, the blood spilling as the traitors scream in surprise.

“He was no King in the North” you spat, staring at his dead eyes.

Your former attacker tries to charge you, but Aemond grabs him from behind and you impale him on the sword, the traitors stare lost at the guts spilling on the floor and at your bloodsoaked dress and face, giving the chance to the others to disarm them and open the door to the guards, who spill in while the first cramp squeezes your belly.

Aemond is immediately by your side, trying discreetly to check on you

“I think it is time - you groan at his surprised face - your child is coming, Aemond. Help me out of here with my dignity intact”.

You don’t care about what’s going to happen, when the delegations will meet again, if ever, you are deaf to the screaming around you, focused as you are to put one foot in front of the other, your handmaiden appearing out of nowhere to help you to the birthing bed. You don’t see or hear anything, the pain in your belly your only focus, Aemond’s strong hold your only tether.

It’s hours upon hours of endless pain, of you walking on shaking legs in attempt to soothe yourself, of feeling your body slowly getting ready to push out your child, of Aemond scared face when it seems like the baby doesn’t want to come out, of the maester hinting at the fact that Aemond might have to decide between you and the child and Aemond threatening him, if neither of you survive the birth.

The last pushes are accompanied by a pain like you’ve never felt before, your insides tearing apart to make way for your child. Out of sheer stubbornness you don’t faint, instead you crush Aemond’s hand in yours and bellow like a wild beast, until your child is born.

For a second the whole room is quiet, and then your child’s first scream pierces the air. The future monarch of the North and of New Valyria has arrived, you can finally rest.

Aemond taglist: @fan-goddess

[curmudggeon]

Southern Hope (Arthur Morgan x Female Reader)

❝ If by any chance...in another lifetime, we happen to see each other again, I'll come and find you. And I'll make you fall in love with me, over and over again ❞

In which romance novelist, Mary-Beth under the pen name of Leslie Dupont, writes a coming of age love story based on her favourite gang members in the past, You and Arthur.

Trigger Warnings; Violence | Blood | Angst | Sexual Intentions

A/N: This is a project I've been working on for quite a while. I had the idea in mind when I had the chance to experience the musical composition of Aaron Copland's quintessential American Dream, 'Appalachian Spring' -one of my favourite pieces with such a beautiful storyline. And I wanted to retell it in the form of a book that is available on my Wattpad (ongoing) for you to enjoy from Mary-Beth's POV. I hope you show love to this book as much as I loved writing it. Have a sneak peek at the prologue!

Read on Wattpad here for more chapters to come!

PROLOGUE

Leslie Dupont; Mary-Beth Gaskill

Lemoyne, Saint Denis

November 1907

-

“Mademoiselle Dupont, we expect your next manuscript to be submitted by next summer. Now is not the time to be reminiscing.”

Here we go again

Mary-Beth sighed as her editor, Céline Laurent, had warned her once more for not meeting the deadline to her books. She was in a crucial position in her life. After her debut as a romance novelist, The Lady of The Manor was an instant best-seller across the country. It was the kind of thing she specializes in, silly ol’ romances.

“I promise you, I’ll get it done by then.” Or maybe, at least not for now. She shouldn't have promised something she couldn’t keep, especially in the meantime.

“I’ll take your word for that, if you don’t meet the deadline by then. Y’know what will happen to your contract, Leslie.” Céline stood at the door frame of Mary-Beth’s office with hands on her hips and raised eyebrows.

She knew exactly what she had meant. In fact, she knew the consequences on the back of her head when she first signed that contract with her publishing company. Two more books were requested of her. Or else she would be evicted of her apartment and be forced to live along the streets of Saint Denis for the rest of her life. A life of luxury slipping between her fingers.

“Yes, ma’am,” Mary-Beth disclaimed, the moment her editor slammed the door as she left her office. Heaving yet another exaggerated sigh, she crosses her arms on the grand rosewood desk, flopping her head on top of it. “What am I going to do now…” She murmured into the crevice of her arms.

Mary-Beth was in the middle of a major writer’s block for a few months now. She lost sight of that imaginative space of hers, consisting of the most swoon-worthy romances to the picture-perfect life she portrayed through her characters. A part of Mary-Beth that her readers absolutely adored. But, her head was now a clouded space of everlasting void. It was difficult for Mary-Beth to come into terms of writing again, but she couldn’t quite identify what had put her into this position.

Once she gathered the courage to write again, it all came crashing down like violent tidal waves when she came face to the daunting blank page of nothingness —almost drowning her.

It was as simple as that. Come to work, have a cup of tea, sit down, and a blank page.

Every. Damn. Time.

Maybe it was because she was already nearing her mid-thirties, and she hasn’t found someone to sweep her off her feet. Maybe it was when she first held Tilly’s baby that she found the need to be a mother someday. Maybe it was the overwhelming response towards her writing, she felt the need to hide away into an abyss. Or maybe she couldn’t stop thinking about the time she had come across John again after so many years that the memories just come flooding back.

Or maybe, just, maybe. It was because it’s November.

The most dreaded time of the year. November, in which the seemingly fearsome Van der Linde gang had officially broken up. Guns were fired, ties were broken and deaths were grieved. An unforgettable, painful memory.

She would often think about campfire songs, the girls and, Miss Grimshaw’s constant nagging about undone chores. Oh, how best of friends Céline and Miss Grimshaw would have been if she had heard Mary-Beth had been slacking again. It was her coping mechanism, think more about the good times to get rid of the bad ones.

Mary-Beth remembered when she took in her hands at being a matchmaker. Prancing around the camp, she would eye her two best contenders. You and Arthur.

She knew from the start when you had laid your eyes on each other for the first time, she could see through the inexplicable connection in between. You were both extremely awkward when it came to small-talk or addressing each other as you walked by across camp. However, it never stopped Arthur to come to camp as soon as he could just so he could see you, even just for a second.

The conversation would often start with Arthur while on his way to Dutch’s tent,

“Hey,”

“Hey.”

“I’ll leave you to it then.”

“Yea sure…”

—and that would be it.

At the same time, every single day, at the course of sunset.

You poor socially inept fools.

Mary-Beth, Tilly, and Karen would always see the interaction happen in the middle of their afternoon chores. Grinning from ear to ear. They would elbow each other whenever there was something different about the correspondence.

One time, you would walk past him, suddenly kissing him on the cheek and scurrying away.

Arthur would stop in his tracks, stunned, with a hand-over where your kiss tingled on his skin. Then he would look back at you as you laid down, smiling to yourself against a tree with a book in your hands. And Dutch would yell his name, knocking him out of his stupor before he noticed he was staring for a little too long.

The girls would start applauding for your heroic performance, it was like a groundbreaking plot twist Mary-Beth couldn’t wait to write about when the idea came into mind.

The both of you were like a walking excruciating slow, slow-burn romance novel. That was when Mary-Beth would cue in her entrance as matchmaker as soon as the interaction slowly died down. Your story had to have a happily ever after in her book.

She would pester you and Arthur separately, mentioning each other’s names and slipping in hints of romantic intentions from the other side so the both of you can address whatever this relationship was.

Mary-Beth knew it was a mission accomplished the night Sean was rescued back to Horseshoe Overlook. When she stood aside of the camp watching Dutch and Molly ballroom dancing into the moonlight, she caught a glimpse of you and Arthur behind them. Running into the woods, hand in hand, giggling to yourselves like prepubescent teenagers.

After that night, it was a considered job well done when your chance encounters slowly turned into planned ones. He would take you on dates, and you would show him affection like nobody’s business. A perfect couple, your American dream.

Until it became a nightmare.

And Arthur had passed,

your Arthur.

Ever since then, Mary-Beth wondered what had happened to you. Were you still alive after all these years? She couldn’t imagine how hard you must be coping with the news. Or what if you didn’t know at all? Even when she asked John and Tilly, they said you disappeared that night he passed.

Not even a single trace. Where were you?

Mary-Beth dismissed the thought out of her head, lifting her head away from the desk. She had to let go of these memories for her own well-being. For what seemed like yesterday were merely years ago. But it couldn’t have hurt to reminisce just a bit, for old times sake.

The story of You and Arthur was unwritten, left to collect dust from the lack of content. The perfect example of a sepia-tinted photograph, forgotten. Mary-Beth believed the both of you deserved something much more than a devastating ending. She wasn’t as ruthless as the other authors she had met that held an iron fist when killing off their characters. Mary-Beth wasn’t like that.

And the idea came to mind. She was a romance novelist for a reason; to fulfil all the possibilities for the unconditional love you shared.

And so Mary-Beth picked up her beautiful fountain pen,

She began to write on the great desk in her quiet room.

To write the most beautiful story of the century,

You and Arthur. Arthur and you.

A perfect couple. The American Dream.

A life that could have been so much more,

A life to remember…

[mieohmy]

𝖢𝗈𝗆𝖿𝗈𝗋𝗍 𝟣𝟢𝟣 | 𝖫𝖾𝖾 𝖩𝖾𝗇𝗈

PAIRING: lee jeno x reader

GENRE: angst, fluff, humor, comfort, established relationship au, college au,  this rly is just a self indulgent fic kjasdfk

WC: 2.1k

NOTES: slight argument/fighting ?? , cursing

SUMMARY: jeno wants your attention, your comforting presence, your love- he simply wants you.

for the bday boy that i treasure sm! happy birthday to puppy jeno <333

ღ

The phone next to you lies untouched, and practically has been for days- or has it been a week already? I mean, it wasn’t your fault that upcoming finals had been taking you to the depths of hell, and you had no choice but to lock yourself at home to study for a week on end. 

Which brings you to day 7? 8? of being holed up in your room all day, memorizing a bazillion tiny printed words and trying to cram as much information as possible in that overworked brain of yours. Getting about 4-5 hours of sleep a day, you couldn’t remember anymore- or even care to remember. Not to mention the added stress that came along with being any normal college student. Wasn’t life just wonderful?

You feel bad for everyone that has tried to contact you over this stressful period in your life (since you completely turned your phone off to eliminate all distractions), but the urge to stop studying completely and just check up on the real world and all its happenings grows stronger. You breathe in -out, constantly chanting ‘self-control’ over and over again in your head. Then your eyes slowly open, and you slap yourself one last time as if to say ‘get it together' before diving back into the books.

Just two more days. Two more days and you can finish and not have to stress about finals until results come out. 

At this point, you were surviving off of coffee, tea, random stolen snacks that your boyfriend would bring over from his dorm. 

Damn, when’s the last time you had a proper meal? Monday?

And then you frown. What day even is it today? You glance at your calendar and- 

Goodness grief, it’s Sunday already. 

You almost have a midlife crisis over wasting basically a week doing nothing but sitting at your desk and looking at words, but then again at this point- you’re just over it and want to be done as soon as possible. 

But soon, a weird feeling arises after you recall today’s date- like you were forgetting something. You place a hand over your forehead. Was there something important today? 

And as if the universe read your mind, the doorbell rings.

A giant wave of confusion washes over you. Was someone supposed to come over today?

-and you just completely wiped it from your mind?

You’re still running through your memories as you walk to the door. No, it's not Chae since she has finals too...

Opening it, you’re not at all expecting who was behind it. 

“Jeno-?”

He blinks back at your wide eyes, expression turning concerned, and you rub your temples in exasperation and defeat. 

“Oh, did we have a date today or something? I’m so sorry- I totally forgot.”

His eyebrows furrow. “No, I was just supposed to come over to hang out with you....”

“It’s been so long since we last talked, baby. You haven’t responded to any of my texts. What’s going on?” He promptly adds, staring intently at you. 

You let out a sigh, and jeno notices your tense shoulders and dark under-eye circles. “I thought you knew. Finals are coming up so I’ve been stuck at home cramming for about a week now actually.” 

His frown deepens. “I did know. And still, y/n..” he says in a warning tone. 

You know what his voice implies, you’ve heard it plenty of times at this point, but right now you don’t have to energy to listen to his nagging. “ I know, I know. Just- come in, I guess.....”

To be completely honest, you wanted to send jeno back home- there was still a lot more information left to cover and you obviously weren’t in your best condition, but he was the one who actually remembered your ‘date’ and drove to your place, so you would feel even worse making him go all the way back to his dorm. 

Jeno easily follows you in, biting the inside of his cheek to hold back any comments while examining your place even though barely anything has changed since he last visited- mostly because there was nothing to change when you were in your room all day. 

You walk to the kitchen, getting your boyfriend some water while yawning. Meanwhile, your mind is drifting away, thinking about what topics are left that you have to go over later. “What are we even doing today?” 

Jeno plops on your couch, arms behind his head. “I don’t know. A movie?”

You hide your grimace, immediately thinking of how much time would be wasted watching one, or possibly even more if jeno was feeling it. In the one to two hours of a movie, you could be done with chapter two and three-

“Y/n??”

Your head snaps up. “Yes?”

“Are you gonna come over here or just stand there in the kitchen all day?” he teases.

You shake your head to clear the fog and join jeno on the couch. Scrolling through the options, you automatically snuggle up next to him, eyes blearily watching the moving tv screen. 

He decides on this one animated film, and you’re too drained to pay attention so you simply nod and let the movie begin. But even though you try your best to focus on the storyline and what’s currently going on, your mind keeps wandering off to other, more boring things- your studies, obviously. 

The number of chapters you covered, the slight of chapters you have left, how long you would have to stay up to finish going through your planned amount of information  -all the stressful thoughts swirling in your head, and it only exhausts you more. 

You let out a sigh, and jeno turns to you. “Are you okay? You’ve been sighing nonstop since we started the movie.” 

You clear your throat, biting back a yawn. “Oh- yeah, sorry. I won’t do it anymore.”

Your boyfriend stiffens but doesn’t say anything, attention returning to the flashing screen in front of him. 

You did try. You really did. But your eyelids keep drifting shut and your head keeps slowly lolling forward and snapping back up -it’s not until your forehead accidentally knocks against jeno’s chest that he finally speaks up again. 

“Y/n. You need to take a break and get some sleep. Now.” His tone is sharp and commanding. 

You snap your eyes back open, vision blurry. “No- it’s fine. I’m good, let’s keep watching.” 

The immediate switch in the air is scary, jeno swiftly reaching for the remote and pausing the movie to look at you dead straight in the eyes before setting it back down with a loud, clattering noise. “You need to rest. I can tell from how tired you look, and I know you’ve been studying for so long, so why is it that hard to just relax for a little?” 

You groan, distress breaking through. “I can’t, okay? You already understand how stressful school is and how important my upcoming tests are. I know you’re just trying to be kind and thoughtful but-“ 

“But what?” He cuts you off, the frustration he’s been hiding for a while finally revealing itself. “Taking a rest from burning your brain out isn’t going to kill you, y/n.”

Your hands at your side clench and unclench, a wave of emotions overcoming you. “I know that. But I can’t afford to have a break now.” Everything suddenly feels overwhelming, and your voice comes out strained and uncontrolled. 

“I’m almost there, jeno. It’s so close, and if I stop now, I’ll feel like a failure.”

He laughs a short and echoing bark. “How do you think I feel? I was trying to brush everything aside and act like it was all fine, but it’s certainly not when you’re like this.”

You falter. 

Jeno gets up, making direct eye contact with you even though his body is trembling and his voice is shaky. 

“I spent the past week just lying in bed and worrying about you- if you were eating okay and getting enough sleep. I was constantly texting you reminders to take care of yourself, only to find out from your friend that you turned your phone completely off.  Do you know how shitty of a person I was feeling? I didn’t want to be a distraction to you because I know how much you care about your grades, but it’s killing me, y/n. I want to be there for you, but instead, I end up feeling like the worst boyfriend in the world.” 

He shudders before continuing,

“And then I come here, brushing off all my worries since I was super excited to finally be with you after so long, and then I have to see you in such a bad condition. Barely taking care of yourself, barely even surviving on your own just so you can pass your exams that I know you’ll already do well on no matter what. As your boyfriend who wants to help and be here for you, do you know how much my heart hurts?”  

He finishes, but not before wiping away the frustrated tears that appeared in his angry rant.

It takes one beat -two beats, before you immediately spring up, rushing towards jeno and throwing your arms around him. 

He accepts it, burying his face into your shoulder and wrapping his arms tightly around your waist. 

The guilt courses through your body, and you understand. The consequences of your actions hit you, hard, and you know you deserve it all. Jeno just wants to know that you’re here. You’re here with him.

“I’m really sorry,” you murmur into his hair, “I’m really, really sorry, jeno.” 

You hate the fact that you can still feel the slight wetness of his tears soaking through your-technically his- shirt. You pull back, looking straight into his eyes to make sure he knows you’re being genuine.

“I promise to pay more attention to myself, and I promise I won’t ever let it happen again. I won’t shut you out anymore... and you can come over to take care of me whenever you want, okay?”

Jeno slowly nods, and you softly wipe away the corners of his red eyes of any wetness.

He pulls you closer to him again, inhaling your scent one more time, and you finally let yourself go. 

After about a minute of just enjoying each other’s warm embrace - one that you feel like you haven’t felt in so long- you allow yourself to smile and pull back just enough to place a kiss on his cheek. 

“Was my baby just lonely and missed me too much?” you sing in a soft voice. He lets out a disgruntled noise in response, shaking his head against your body. 

But you both know what the answer is.

“C’mon, let’s go to bed.” You tug his arm easily to your room, putting off your studies, at least for today.

“You’re really gonna take a break this time?” Jeno asks, eyeing you carefully. 

You grin. “Yes? Besides, I know you’re always down for cuddles.” 

You drag him to the bed, taking his arms and wrapping them around your body as exhaustion quickly fills you. 

You fight yourself to stay awake as long as you can to enjoy jeno’s presence, but he notices and hugs you even closer if possible, whispering softly, “Go to sleep, baby. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

And before you finally drift off, you sleepily murmur, “I love you, jeno. Like, a lot.” 

Even after you fall asleep in his embrace, he stares down at you, softly kissing your forehead.

I love you too. 

bonus bc i adore jeno too much :

“Jeno- for the last time, you’re not a bad boyfriend.”

“I know.... but-“

You shut him up with a quick kiss.

“You’re the sweetest.”

Another kiss.

“Funniest.”

Peck.

“Handsomest.” 

His ever so growing smile freezes. Jeno looks at you, a surprisingly solemn look on his face. 

You raise an eyebrow, confused. 

“......even more than Nam joo hyuk?”

Ah. He had to go for the favorite actor. 

You swallow, battling an intense internal war before begrudgingly nodding. “Okayyy...fine. You are.”  

He crosses his arms. “I’m what?”

You roll your eyes, whining. “I already said it!”

Jeno shakes his head firmly. “Say the whole thing.”

You take a deep breath in, internally apologizing to your beloved actor. “......you, lee -verymuchanannoyingbaby- jeno, are more handsome than Nam joo hyuk.” Your sentence is finished swiftly in one breath, words slurring together. It actually pains you to say that. But it’s good enough for your boyfriend. 

Jeno delights in the squeal you let out when he picks you up in his arms to spin you around. 

“Fuck yeah- take that, nam joo hyuk!”

ღ

a/n: anyways im going to go hide away and cry over jeno now ^^

[thesleepy1]

My King Shall Have Everything

A/N: A fuck load of people seemed to like my last Merthur fic. I even got a request for a sequel from @antobcq who wanted a 5+1 fic where Arthur couldn’t get anything done without Merlin on his lap. I haven’t done one of these fics in ages but I’m down with this prompt. I also love the headcanon where Merlin is a better court member and adviser than Arthur and completely leaves Arthur in the dust during diplomatic meetings. Unbeta’d as always, we die like Arthur.

Extra note, this turned out much longer than I expected it to. This might be my longest fic yet. I didn’t mean for it to be like this but I spent too much time on it to just leave it alone. And much to my surprise, it’s a linear storyline as well. I hope you all enjoy it and feel free to give me some feedback. Do you prefer the linear storylines or short snippets of scenes? Also, kind of sorry for the slight angst. My bad. It got worse towards the end, I was getting really tired and wasn’t completely sure how to end it. It’s not on the highest note is all I’ll say.

Pairings: Merlin x Arthur, slight Gwen x Morgana

Summary: Five times Arthur couldn’t get anything done without Merlin on his lap and one time where Merlin couldn’t get anything done without Arthur on his lap.

Word count: 10,485

Warnings: Lap sitting, fluff, physical touch, sexual content, grinding, angst, wounds, violence, character death, more warnings to be added, more tags to be added, proceed with caution, breeding kink, impregnation kink, mentions of dub/con, possessive behavior, obsessive behavior, eugenics, blood, gore, hurt/comfort, angst/comfort, whump, injuries, begging, character death, mentions of public executions, long fic, foul language, asphyxiation, strangulation, choking,

Arthur was good at many things, but being on time was not one of them. Especially, when at the end of the hall he had to attend a council meeting with some of the most stuck up people he had ever met, and that was saying something considering he had to spend the last winter with his extended family. His advisers had been up his ass all week about the new rising kingdom beyond the continent. A kingdom so far away, he had just heard of it several months prior. It was like the kingdom had appeared overnight, suddenly a new ink blotch taking over the lower side of the map.

Personally, he didn’t believe it was real in the first place, having a squadron of knights and hired mercenaries sail over to investigate this so-called Kingdom of Le Lubrique. Much to his disbelief, they didn’t come back empty handed and instead returned with a message. A greeting, as his advisers and Merlin had called it.

To Arthur, it was merely stiff aristocrats getting together in too large a room to talk about dull nonsense. Something he had enough of in his own kingdom. Every other month he was already forced to put on a brave face and converse with the other ruling kings and queens of the continent; he didn’t need another to add on to the mix. He already loathed the balls he was required to host.

“You’re late,” Merlin hissed at him as he entered through a side door so as to not alert the others of his presence.

“That’s kind of the point of me coming here long after the time I was supposed to, Merlin,” Arthur rolled his eyes, sneaking behind the other advisers present to his seat. Merlin begrudgingly followed right on his tail.

“This is serious Arthur, you should have been here ten minutes ago!” Merlin nagged a tad too loudly.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the great king of Camelot himself. I’m delighted to see you have graced us with the honor of your belated attendance,” said an adviser from the guest kingdom with a tone that made Arthur want to stab him, wars be damned.

“I hope you could excuse my tardiness just this once,” Arthur began, trying to come up with a plausible excuse. He looked over to Merlin for help, but the warlock looked clueless as usual. “It...was just that I was caught up with...making sure my...uh...husband’s family were making themselves at home. The in-laws are visiting, you see. You know how hard it can be to keep them happy.”

Merlin looked like he wanted to hang Arthur with his own entrails at the king’s quick thinking. Camelot’s advisers seemed to be considering throwing themselves from the window. And the guest advisers seemed content with Arthur’s answer; though not pleased.

“Oh, believe me,” one of them began, a tall woman with high cheekbones and piercing brown eyes, “I know exactly how tiring in-laws can be.” She let out a high pitched laugh like the sound of dying blue jays; the sound made Arthur want to join his advisers as they inched towards the open windows.

“Well, yes, hahaha, they can be quite a hassle. Especially people that are related to my husband here,” Arthur clapped his hands, smiling at Merlin as he took his seat at the head of the table, “Shall we properly begin then?”

Arthur truly and wholeheartedly regretted agreeing to the whole thing. It was hour after hour of mindless words with little to no meaning. They just went on and on about things that meant little to nothing. He tried to tune out their voices but the tall woman’s laugh was like the crack of a whip, bringing him back to reality each time someone made a vaguely funny comment.

“Are you alright, Arthur?” Merlin said in a hushed tone next to his side. Concern had brought his dark eyebrows together. Arthur was tempted to take his fingers and smooth out Merlin’s worry, but perhaps that was too intimate an act for a meeting. Then again, when did Arthur care about what other people thought of him and his husband.

“I’m fine, Merlin,” Arthur sighed, “Just so bored with all of this.”

“How could you be bored? Have you been listening to half of what they’ve been saying? For a kingdom so small they have so much potential. Their farmlands double ours, as well as their ores, and their medicine is even on par to Gaius’s.” Merlin continued on with such a light in his eyes that Arthur was distracted like a moth to a glowing flame.

“Arthur, have you been listening to what I’ve been saying?”

The king shook his head softly, slightly ashamed for not paying attention to his husband. “I’m sorry. I’m just so distracted. I need something to ground me if I’m going to survive another dreadful hour of this,” he groaned, thinking over if the fall from the window would kill him or lethally wound him. Either way, he’d be away from this horror with Merlin at his bedside playing nurse. At the private thought, an idea crossed his mind that had him delighted.

“You know what would help me?” Arthur began, a smirk tugging at his lips.

“What?” Merlin gave him a suspicious look, having seen the grin on the king many times before.

“It’ll really help if you were on my lap.” Merlin gave him an incredulous glare, ready to smack him across the back of the head for such a suggestion during such a crucial conference. “Please, Merlin? You really do help me focus.”

The warlock seemed to be thinking over Arthur’s request, a frown twisting his face. He looked like he was going to say no, but the pleading look on Arthur’s face made him change his mind. “Just this once. I don’t want to make a habit of this, Arthur,” Merlin warned in a hurried voice.

“Just this once,” Arthur lied through his teeth.

The second king of Camelot sat himself on the first, his side pressed against Arthur’s chest. Arthur wound his arm around Merlin and held him tightly. The action seemed to have garnered the attention of the visitors who looked at the pair strangely. And for some odd reason, the visiting ladies of the guest kingdom seemed to be glaring intently at Merlin.

“We are ever so sorry to be boring you, your majesty, but there is still much to discuss,” a visiting high lord coughed, glaring at the pair. “I apologize that our talk of declining population, racial biases against commoners and sorcerers, and ever so low birth rates have made you tired, but considering it may be the undoing of Le Lubrique, I deem it vital,” he practically snarled.

Arthur’s grip on Merlin tightened, his other hand palming Merlin’s thighs. The warlock couldn’t hide the grin that was stretched across his beautiful face at the touch. The king absolutely loved that grin. Arthur glared right back at those who dared question his behavior, for him showing his love for his king. He sounded in a stern voice that left no room for argument, “No apologies needed. Please, continue.”

“Don’t let us disturb you,” Merlin added with a more snarky tone, commanding the same amount of respect. “You have our full attention.”

-----

“Must I attend? You’ll be there, is that not enough?” Arthur whined as Merlin buttoned up his shirt.

“We are hosting a party in the Kingdom of Le Lubrique’s honor. Their queen has traveled all the way here to properly meet us,” Merlin pressed a kiss to Arthur’s cheek for the effort. “Must I continue?”

“Only if you wish, my dear,” Arthur pointed to his other cheek, waiting for the same treatment as the other.

Merlin rolled his eyes, pressing another kiss to Arthur. “I’m serious, Arthur, this could mean an all out war or the strongest of ally ship. I mean, have you read the reports of what their kingdom is like? It sounds, and excuse for my word choice but there really is no other way to describe it; magical. I would love to visit the country myself. If we make a good impression they might invite us for a stay,” he continued, tying a red handkerchief with Camelot’s crest around his own neck.

“And that’s why the second king of Camelot would be in attendance.”

Merlin left Arthur in their room after that, knowing that Arthur would follow him. “Are you really going to make me sit there and listen to them go on and on about their plan to repopulate their country, or over tax their people for the food that’s in abundance? Come on, Merlin, we could have our council handle it.” Arthur stepped in front of Merlin to block his way. “Why don’t we head back to our room and make this a more entertaining night?” he wiggled his eyebrows to make sure Merlin got his point.

Merlin heard him loud and clear and rightfully ignored Arthur’s attempt to get into his pants. He sidestepped the man to continue on his path, turning a corner to the ballroom. “Do you hear yourself? What kind of impression would that give Le Lubrique if you just suddenly disappeared?!” Arthur turned to run back to their room just to prove Merlin’s point, but the warlock quickly magicked him back to his side. “You’re coming with me whether you like it or not.”

And that was how Arthur ended up sitting on his throne, bored out of his mind and unwilling to be civil or sociable when he could have spent the entire evening snuggled inside Merlin. He could have been in bed by now, having Merlin moaning his name underneath him, but instead Arthur watched as the guest and court mingled and danced. The instrumentalists bobbed their heads in tune to their upbeat song.

Despite refusing to speak to anyone besides Morgana, and Merlin, and occasionally Gwen when she could spare a moment from dancing; he had learned quite a bit about their guests. The fact that although they had a vast amount of farmlands, they had little people to work in them. Which came as a shock to Arthur because he had learned earlier on that Le Lubrique consisted of mostly sorcerers.

Le Lubrique’s queen was the tall woman with a voice that made Arthur’s ears bleed. Her lady in waiting seemed to be a distant relative from their shared trait of high cheekbones, drowning brown eyes, and dark hair. The two were glued at the hip, her lady in waiting obsessively trailing behind her like a newborn duckling wherever they went. They were both strong magic users if Merlin’s gushing was anything to go by. And also very beautiful with fancy perfume that complimented each other so nicely that they smelt like heaven, from Merlin’s words of course, not his. If Arthur didn’t know any better, he would think Merlin fancied them; the queen and her lady in waiting.

Even when the queen was dancing with a number of council members, the servant would be right next to her. It was quite amusing to watch them struggle to sway in time with the music. Arthur had already made bets with Gwen on the number of times party guests would refuse dances with the pair because they refused to separate. So far Arthur was winning.

That was until the queen smugly asked Merlin for a dance. Her lady in waiting immediately stepped away like someone had called for her assistance, leaving the queen alone with Merlin. Much to Arthur’s disappointment, Merlin happily accepted the dance. He took the queen’s hand and off they went, twirling around as if they were the only ones in the room. His hands on her shoulder and waist, her hands virtually tearing his clothes from his chest.

The way the queen of Le Lubrique looked at Merlin made a sick feeling build up from the pit of Arthur’s stomach. She was undressing him with her eyes, the brown in her gaze turning an almost pitch black from lust. The woman said something that made Merlin taken aback, something about dragons and druids, but it was hard to hear from the chatter of the room. For all Arthur knew, it could have very well been a spell.

Merlin recovered quickly with a grin and laugh that had Arthur’s heart skipping a beat. Then the two of them had the audacity to continue dancing as if nothing had happened, the queen still shamelessly pulling at Merlin’s fine clothes that only Arthur was allowed to rip away.

Arthur didn’t know why Merlin didn’t stop the queen when she pulled his handkerchief from his neck. The king was almost killed for even playing with Merlin’s handkerchief and now this woman was doing the same without losing an arm and a leg? Completely unfair. That was proof in itself, she had casted a spell on Merlin.

“Merlin,” Arthur called out to his husband sternly only to be ignored once more. “Merlin,” Arthur stepped away from his throne, making his way towards his husband and the queen.

“I think you should go to bed before things get ugly,” Morgana gently warned Gwen, gesturing towards Arthur’s outburst. “It could either go well or we’ll die of secondhand embarrassment.”

“Thank you for your concern, my love,” Gwen replied with a smirk, “But I want to see how this unfolds.”

Morgana laughed at that, glancing between Arthur and Merlin. “Suit yourself.”

The two high ladies watched as Arthur pulled Merlin away from the queen of Le Lubrique, dragging him away from the woman as she stared on in horror. To Gwen's and Morgana’s surprise, the queen tried to pull Merlin back into her arms. Merlin seemed to be in a daze throughout the whole skirmish. His eyes glazed over, even from afar.

“Should we step in?” Gwen asked with concern, ready to intervene.

“Arthur can handle it, probably.”

The queen called her lady in waiting to help her. Three heads tugged at poor Merlin like he was flax rope at a kingdom fair. The lady in waiting tried to block Arthur from getting a good grip on Merlin while the queen tried to take more of Merlin’s clothes off. A crowd was forming and Morgana distinctively noticed coins being passed around in bets.

“Are you sure, my love?”

“Oh, It's just getting good,” Morgana grinned like a Cheshire cat. “How much are you willing to bet, my beloved?”

Finally, as the crowd began cheering, Arthur twisted out of the lady in waiting’s grip and grabbed hold of Merlin’s waist. The king lifted the warlock up in a bridal carry and turned on his heel for his throne, the crowd parting in heckles and laughs. Arthur blatantly ignored them, sitting down on his throne with Merlin in his lap. Unfortunately, he was unable to retrieve Merlin’s handkerchief, a matter he will surely not hear the end of for quite some time. But between a measly piece of fabric and Merlin’s life, Arthur would choose Merlin time and time again, his own life be damned.

Taking a moment to throw a sneer at Gwen and Morgana who were snickering, Arthur tried to shake Merlin out of the haze. “Are you alright, Merlin?” He stroked Merlin’s arms gently, trying to bring him back to the present. His blue gray eyes were a stormy glaze, seemingly out of it. It made an ugly feeling swirl around in Arthur’s head, the fact that some queen had touched his Merlin in such a way made Arthur sick.

Merlin shuddered in Arthur’s hold, looking down at himself and then at the ballroom floor where others had returned to dancing. Confusion crossed his face, “Of course, I’m alright,” he furrowed his eyebrows, “How did I get here?” Merlin rubbed at his temple, trying to soothe the ache that had formed there.

“Arthur carried you like the jealous brute he is,” Morgana explained, passing Gwen a handful of coins.

“Jealous brute?” Merlin questioned, looking at the trio for a real explanation.

Arthur was about to defend himself when a member of Le Lubrique’s court approached them. “Haha, I couldn’t help but notice the spectacle that you put on there, sire,” the man addressed Merlin.

“I’m sorry, I don’t quite follow.”

The man laughed again, mirth in his eyes. “I guess you wouldn’t,” he said vaguely, “The queen does have a way with words.”

“What do you mean by that?” Arthur butted in, holding Merlin a tad too tight. Merlin squirmed in Arthur’s lap but Arthur seemed to hardly notice.

“Well, you are a warlock, aren’t you, sire?” the man addressed Merlin once more. Merlin nodded despite himself. “A warlock as well as a dragonlord under the queen’s attention is bound to feel the efforts of her magic. And her special attention for that matter, hahaha.”

“Sorry,” Merlin began, more confused than before. “What do you mean by that expactly?”

“Our queen is a lovely dragon tamer. Her family is the last of their kind. Although taming a dragon is much easier when you have someone who can speak to the creatures,” the man laughed as if telling a joke only he knew the punchline to and walked away as if nothing had happened.

Least to say, the rest of the night Arthur didn’t let Merlin out of his sight. He had no idea what a dragon tamer was and Merlin seemed as lost as he was, but he wasn’t taking any chances. No one was going to “tame” his lover. Whatever that meant. Morgana and Gwen could laugh and call him jealous all they want, Arthur only had Merlin’s best interest at heart.

“I doubt having me be a lap warmer is in my best interest.”

-----

It had been weeks and Arthur naively thought they were done interacting with the kingdom of Le Lubrique. He had hoped to be finished with the rising kingdom, to leave them alone as long as they left him be.

He was rarely fortunate these days. Never even.

Apparently, Merlin was not deterred by almost being kidnapped by the queen and her lady in waiting. Merlin even said he enjoyed their company and their attention to his every breathing word. Arthur loved the man, but sometimes he could be quite an idiot.

Merlin, without Arthur’s knowledge, had invited a member of Le Lubrique’s court to stay at the castle. Who else to volunteer to come to Camelot but the queen’s lady in waiting. She was only supposed to be in the kingdom for a couple of weeks, but unfortunately that wasn’t the case. That couple of weeks turned into a couple of months and eventually the woman practically lived there. She had made herself at home on day one, much to Arthur’s dismay. He couldn’t really kick her out without making a bad impression towards her kingdom, despite what her queen had already done.

He was a king. Much to his reluctance, he had to act like it. And that meant acting like you liked people that you hated to the core.

“And these are our forests,” Arthur gestured to the thick wall of trees that signified the beginning of the woods. “I typically take neighboring kings hunting here. If you’re interested, we can go if you’d like.”

Sylvy, the lady in waiting, sat on her horse with her head held high. For someone with a position like her’s, she acted like she was queen herself. Arthur had spent the whole day trying to show her around for the utmost time. She was never satisfied with what he showed her, as if she were looking for a break in the walls of the kingdom.

Every morning she demanded to be taken around on a tour and every afternoon she was left with a deep frown on her face. Nothing made her happy it seemed, and Arthur had truly tried to make her feel at the very least, welcomed. It was just so difficult to do so with the knowledge of what she had done to Merlin. Had enchanted him, put him in a daze of some sort.

If Camelot still had the ban on magic, she would’ve been dead the moment she laid a hand on Merlin. On the crown’s orders, she would have been hung or burned, some form of public execution. Her dark hair would go up in flames as the fire burned higher and higher, her head would hang low as the bucket was kicked out underneath her. Arthur was still considering having her prisoned for what she did and simply explained to her queen that there had been a freak accident. If he were a lesser man, a lesser king, he would’ve done so and let it be a warning.

“I despise hunting as a sport, it’s just mindlessly cruel,” she snarled, her lips curling as a show of disdain. She held the reins to her horse like a vice, afraid that she’d be ripped from the saddle and forced to participate in such barbaric practices. At least, that was what Arthur thought was swimming through her mind.

“Yes, yes, but some like the adrenaline rush of a good hunt,” Arthur explained without real passion, merely a form of continuing the dry conversation. Sylvy had woken him up so early that morning he barely had a chance to give Merlin a goodbye kiss. “Some have to do it to survive.”

“There are other ways to live,” Sylvy began, urging her horse to turn by towards the main part of the kingdom, seeing as they were on the outskirts. “Le Lubrique for one replies solely on farmlands. We have no need for meat or the slaughtering of innocent animals. Everyone can live without such a horrible act; people and sorcerers alike. Meat is simply murder.”

Arthur half heartedly nodded, trailing behind her while trying not to fall off his horse. “I can’t argue with you there.” He didn’t want to argue with about anything her to be truthful, he had had enough of that already.

They traveled at a moderate trot in silence before she spoke up again. “Why haven't you invited me to a council meeting? I’ve been here for ages. Surely you have these sorts of things at least once a month.” She tried to act nonchalantly, but Arthur could see right through her. “I mean, there must be all sorts of things to discuss. An heir to the throne for one, seeing as neither you nor king Merlin can bear children.”

“We just haven’t had any council meetings, nothing interesting to report that couldn’t be done with a quill and parchment is all,” Arthur lied with a fake smile she could not see. “And an heir doesn’t need to be of blood. They just need to be taught how to properly command a kingdom like a fair and just ruler. To know what’s best for a kingdom, who to trust and who to leave behind in the woods.”

A look of abhorrence lingered on Sylvy’s face at Arthur’s words, bothered that he would even say such a thing. But Arthur was right, it didn’t matter if his heir was not his child as long as they were just and fair to all that passed them. Arthur could only imagine what Le Lubrique was like if all their subjects thought the same way Sylvy did. It must be all out war for them if a bastard appeared in court one day; though in reality royal bastards were a dime a dozen.

Sylvy went quiet for a moment, calculating her words while mulling over what Arthur had said. “With a kingdom as large as yours, surely there’s action all around? Suitable women all around. Something worthwhile must have happened during my stay,” her voice took on a tone that Arthur didn’t like, a light flush painting her cheeks like some teenage girl with a crush, “What about king Merlin?”

“What about my husband?”

“What has he been up to?” Sylvy asked indifferently, trying to hide her curiosity from Arthur. If only she would try to hide that damn blush. Merlin was physically attractive, Arthur knew this as an undeniable fact, but to be so unabashed while in front of the man’s husband? What was he? The first king of Camelot reduced to chop liver. Unbelievable!

“Well, he’s the second king of Camelot. A king’s job is never done. There is always more work than one man can handle. I should know, I used to be the one doing all the work.”

They reached town just as Sylvy took on an accusatory tone, “Then what are you doing here?”

Arthur resisted the urge to strangle her in front of so many people. His fists clenched around his reins so hard his knuckles turned ivory. “I’m showing you around, just as you had requested,” Arthur gritted through his teeth, trying so very hard not to glare at her.

“And here I was, hoping to attend a meeting with the second king.”

“Really now?” Arthur could feel the mare under him shuffle on her hooves at his fury. “You know what? There might be one later today.” What he had planned was so unbelievably petty and a tad childish, but at this point, he didn’t give a damn. Sylvy was getting on his last nerve. “I’ll have a servant call you when it’s time. For now, why don’t you explore our lovely town by yourself? Walk around without a king hovering over you and all. That way, I could get back to doing my job.”

Sylvy brightened up in spite of Arthur’s words. A smile was forming on her face, her high cheekbones pushed up even farther. Her brown eyes crinkled at the notion that she’ll be able to see Merlin. “I can’t wait,” she said, unsaddling and handing the reins to her horse to Arthur. “I must get ready,” she said to herself loud enough for Arthur to hear.

“Take all the time you need.”

Arthur would regret those words later that night when he sat among his advisers. Sylvy, their honored guest was over half an hour late and the others were beginning to feel on edge. Many of them were not planned for a meeting so soon after the one they had earlier that week. It was an unprompted get together for the lady in waiting’s sake, Arthur had explained to them.

On days like these Arthur was glad he was king and that there’d be grave consequences if he were murdered by one of his advisers. They would be in the right to do so, kill him that is; but he was hoping to live long enough to raise a couple of children with Merlin.

“Why are we doing this, Arthur?” Merlin asked, hiding a yawn with his hand. While Arthur was riding around the kingdom with Le Lubrique’s queen’s lady in waiting, Merlin was left to run the kingdom by himself. The haunted task of commanding and keeping an eye on so many people was taking its toll on the sorcerer. Merlin hadn’t properly slept in days, too busy keeping the kingdom in one piece.

“Sylvy wanted to be present for a council meeting. As a member of Le Lubrique’s court, we have to answer to her call until her stay is up.” Merlin gave him a look that called Arthur out on his poorly constructed plan. “And I may or may not want her to know that you’re taken.”

Merlin rolled his eyes along with most of the present court. They should all be used to Arthur’s antics at this point. What were they expecting? An honest to god meeting to discuss important topics with their visitor from foreign lands? Never. A fake meeting just so Arthur could flaunt the fact that Merlin loved him and not some conceited queen and her lady in waiting? That was more like it.

“Sometimes I can’t believe I asked you to marry me,” Merlin yawned again, giving Arthur a tired look in more ways than one.

“Feels just like a dream, doesn’t it?”

“More like a nightmare.”

“You love me,” Arthur opened up his arms so Merlin could take his place on the king’s lap. Merlin shook his head at the gesture, so incredibly done with Arthur. “Come on, Merlin. You know you like it here.” He teasingly patted his lap. “You can rest until our guest arrives.”

“Fine,” Merlin said begrudgingly after a moment of hesitation, his mind clouded by the want for sleep. “But you better wake me up when she comes.”

“Of course,” Arthur assured, inviting Merlin over once more. This time Merlin made himself home on Arthur’s lap, his head going to rest on Arthur’s chest. He curled in Arthur’s lap like second nature, having done this so many times over the years. Arthur wrapped his arms around the younger man, making sure he was supported and comfortable. Merlin fit perfectly nonetheless. Within moments, a soft snoring sound could be heard from the man on Arthur’s lap, content in where he sat. The second king finally got the rest he deserved. “I wouldn’t wake you for the world,” Arthur whispered, rubbing soothing circles on Merlin’s arm and leg.

Another half an hour passed achingly slowly without the esteemed lady in waiting’s presence. Arthur was about to call off the whole thing and make his way to his bedchamber when at last, the doors to the room opened to reveal Sylvy. She was no longer dressed in her usual servant attire with its cream apron and blue gray dress. Instead she had ransacked the queen’s wardrobe, wearing something befitting a ball.

The dress was elegant and detailed with silk and satin; a deep shade of bourbon that brought out her brown eyes. Her hand was even done up in cascading dark curls that perfectly fell from the knot atop her head. A glittering wine hair piece sat nestled against her hair, matching perfectly with the studs in her ears. She was beautiful even without the time spent enhancing what was already there, but now she stood ready to rule a kingdom.

Sylvy took her seat across from where Merlin would have sat. “Where is king Merlin?” she asked, not noticing that the man in question was currently sleeping on Arthur’s lap.

“I’m sorry for how unprepared we were, but I can relate to your troubles of not having enough hands to run a kingdom. My husband had taken the task of ruling all alone while I tended to your needs.” Arthur pressed a kiss to Merlin’s hair when he stirred in his sleep, continuing on his over sweetened words. “He’s beyond exhausted, but still wanted to take part in our meeting. Please understand that he really did try his best to stay awake.”

The emotions that crossed Sylvy’s face came in a blur; she was unreadable. But one thing was for sure, Arthur had won this small battle. He had shoved Merlin’s unquestionable favor for him in the lady in waiting’s face. Merlin was his and his alone. For good measure Arthur pressed a deep kiss onto Merlin’s lips, the sorcerer smiling in his sleep.

His advisers on the other hand felt cheated. If the death glares shot his way were anything to go by. Though there was one from Sylvy as well. A lot of people wanted him dead at the moment. But he was perfectly happy. They could string him up after the meeting for all he cared, the unintelligible look on Sylvy’s face was worth it. She was utterly speechless.

“I’m ever so sorry we were late to start, but would you like to commence this meeting?” Arthur asked like a gentleman with a cocky grin, making sure to stare right at Le Lubrique’s envoy.

-----

When Sylvy left Arthur rejoiced. She was finally out of his hair. Things could go back to normal and he could go back to spending his free time with Merlin instead of on horseback through a bare orchard. No matter how many times Arthur explained to Sylvy that their crops were not aided by magic like Le Lubrique’s, Sylvy insisted on seeing their “mortal” development.

Everything was put back into its rightful place. He couldn’t wait to put everything about Le Lubrique behind him and move on.

He was back on the throne with Merlin, leading the kingdom just as they were before the whole ordeal with Le Lubrique. Their advisers especially liked the fact that Arthur was back with Merlin; it meant less work for them. The moment that Sylvy left their grounds, Camelot’s advisers piled parchment after novel after demands on his table.

Those selfish bastards.

The so-called requests were so thick that Merlin didn’t even make a sarcastic comment comparing it to Arthur’s ass, and, or his thick skull; the warlock simply went to work. If Arthur himself wasn’t already terrified of the workload, he would have shocked himself to the grave at Merlin’s willingness to submit to their advisers. The two kings of Camelot knew when they met their match.

What felt like weeks passed where Arthur and Merlin did nothing but what their advisers ordered. They were slaves to their own court. The two didn’t leave their room for anything, not food, not training, not even a breath of fresh air. Their knights would occasionally knock on their door to make sure they were both still alive, but once the knights of the round table had been turned down a couple dozen times, they stopped caring. Merlin and Arthur shut off the world. They were practically locked in there, all because of their own doing.

Well, mostly Merlin’s doing. He was the one who invited the envoy over and wanted to make peace with the new kingdom. Arthur had nothing to do with that prolonged visit from the devil, he was only paying the price. His hands ached like it had been shorn off at the wrists, his back screaming for him to rest. He didn’t remember the last time he touched his bed, the neatly tucked in linens calling him to slumber. But he couldn’t, neither of them could until their work was done. Their kingdom depended on it and their kingdom came first, Arthur and Merlin’s comfort second. They both knew what they had signed up for when they decided to wed.

“A-Arthur,” Merlin groaned late one night, the sun mere minutes from the horizon.

Arthur immediately looked up from his book, putting his full attention on Merlin who was on the other side of the room. Neither of them had talked in days besides the few grunts they exchanged while passing over important text. The fact that Merlin was straining his voice now meant something serious was going on.

“What’s wrong?” Arthur coughed, his throat parched and dry as a desert.

“I-I-” Merlin began, rubbing harshly at his hurt eyes, “I think that’s the last one.” The sorcerer signed one more parchment with a flick of his wrist, setting it aside to dry along with the rest.

And the thing was, Merlin was right. There was no more work to go through, to tirelessly read; everything was finally done. “I’m so tired I don’t think I can see straight, b-but that was it!”

“What?”

“We’re finished, you clophole," Merlin smiled, taking Arthur’s breath away.

Arthur leapt out of his seat, pure joy masking the aches and pains as he rushed over to Merlin’s side. The king pulled the sorcerer from his chair, lifting the man into the air, Arthur kissed Merlin like it was their wedding day. Deep and full of all the longing he had for the man, grasping at him as if he could protect Merlin from the world.

He only pulled back for air, inhaling lungfuls before pressing his lips back against Merlin’s. Arthur missed his husband so damn much despite having worked across the room for each other. He hadn’t touched the other man in ages, it was heaven to feel his heartbeat beneath his pained fingers. To kiss down Merlin’s pale neck and mark him until the whole castle knew exactly what they had been up to. To pull at Merlin’s clothes, ripping his tunic right off of his chest, the buttons flying across the room.

“Arthur,” Merlin moaned, gently pushing Arthur back so he could speak. “I liked that shirt.”

Arthur thumbed at Merlin’s trousers, holding his hips tight enough to leave marks that Merlin would feel for days to come. “I’ll get you a new one.”

“But my mother made me that one,” Merlin complained, wrapping his arms around Arthur’s neck. His strong hand went to cup Arthur’s cheek, making the king look at him. Forcing the king to calm down and evaluate things. “We have to get something to eat too, dear,” Merlin told Arthur in a loving tone. “We’re both too exhausted for this.”

“I’m never too tired for you,” Arthur bit back, leaning into Merlin’s hand. He may have been putting his weight on Merlin’s desk so as to not fall over, but Merlin didn’t need to know that. Arthur could most definitely ravage Merlin while on the brink of death.

Merlin pulled Arthur close to kiss him softly, “If we go to bed now, then we can spend all of next day together,” Merlin tried to bargain, eyes teary from lack of any sort of sleep. “You’re going to hurt yourself, you ass,” he chuckled with a small smile that made his eyes crinkle with mirth.

���I don’t want to,” Arthur whined, “I’ve worked for weeks on end. Now I want my reward for behaving.” Arthur sat back on Merlin’s desk, pulling the man on top of him. The desk groaned under their combined weight, but Arthur hardly cared when he had Merlin on his lap and straddling his thighs. “You’re all I want.” He embraced Merlin, the warlock half naked and moaning as Arthur kissed along his arm. His mouth sucked at Merlin’s skin, teeth leaving markings on pale skin claiming Merlin as his. Arthur worshiped Merlin until his stormy eyes were hazy with unabated lust.

“Just you….”

Arthur slumped forward, out like a dying candle before he even knew it. Merlin had to stifle a laugh, though he doubted anything would wake Arthur then. The king was out cold, snoring like there was no tomorrow. Too bad Merlin had to carry his fat ass over to their bed. The warlock was beginning to rethink their plans for tomorrow. Sometimes he wished Arthur wasn’t such a stubborn ass and listened to him. It would save them both the trouble, Merlin was right most of the time after all.

“Get some rest, you oaf,” Merlin said to the asleep man, tucking him into their bed. Arthur’s blonde hair was like a halo against their stark white pillow, the dark bags underneath his eyes a contrast with the paleness of his skin. His old tunic was a dull red from overuse, the buttons holding onto the fabric for dear life. Merlin stripped Arthur of his boats and stuffy tunic leaving both men in their trousers. A much better way to sleep if anyone asked.

“Good night, Arthur,” Merlin whispered into Arthur’s ear, snuggling up against the king. He threw the blankets over himself and laid on Arthur’s chest. The pull of sleep had Merlin out just as quickly, the moment he allowed his breath to even out, there was nothing that would stop him from getting the well earned sleep that he so needed.

“Rest well, Merlin,” Arthur answered in a murmur, pulling Merlin in close. “Sweet dreams, you idiot.”

-----

“Arthur, calm down and try to see reason!” Merlin all but yelled at the king without his crown. The man in question was in his knight gear, armor and chainmail strapped tightly to his body for protection. His sword hung to his side, within reach at all times. Arthur could feel something ominous looming on the horizon, it was Merlin who was still seeing the world with rose colored glasses.

“I tried to see reason. I tried to play nice. And this is what I get in return,” Arthur gestured to the pile of charred wood on the round table. Wood that was once the homes of innocent farmers who played no part in the altercations of royals. People that Arthur was supposed to protect, their livelihoods and homes included. “We were nothing but good to them and this is what happened. Dozens of houses burned to nothing overnight!”

“We have to act now, Merlin.”

“Going in there with your swords raised in offence isn’t going to do anything but start an all out war,” Merlin insisted, urging Arthur to reel himself in, to not lash out at the closest thing. If it were anyone else Merlin would have already smacked them over the head for raising their voice at him. Unfortunately, Merlin was sleeping with the man and didn’t want to be smothered in his sleep. “That’s what Le Lubrique wants; a reason to fight. We can’t give them that.”

“Then what exactly do you expect us to do, Merlin?” Gwen piped in across the table from Merlin. Morgana stood to her side, eyes darting between all the speakers in a frenzy. “They attacked first. It’s only right that we return what they have given us.” Gwen picked up a piece of wood, charcoal rubbing off on her hands as she turned it over. “Arthur is right, we just can’t sit idle.”

Merlin stared at Gwen, hoping that she would be on his side on this. She solemnly shook her head, denying her friend’s offer. Gwen wanted to go on the offence just as much as Arthur, her friends were harmed when Le Lubrique’s soldiers set fire to a section of the kingdom. They burned down acres of farmland, dozens of homes with children and elderly. Luckily, nobody was killed in the process but many were harmed. Gwen wanted vengeance for them. She was a loyal ruler, loyal to her people.

“And we won’t,” Merlin bargained, “We won’t let them gain any more than they already have. No one here knows exactly what they want from us, but we do know that they’re willing to play dirty to get it,” he went on, talking with his hands to release some of the tension. “Let me be a spy and-”

“Absolutely not.”

“You didn’t let me finish.”

“No,” Arthur said firmly, daring Merlin to argue. “You stay right here with me. I will not have you risking your life for measly information.”

“It's not measly information, Arthur. It could be the difference between thousands dead and a simple treaty. We don’t know what Le Lubrique wants, but if we do, we could try to bargain with them. No blood needs to be shed,” Merlin tried, laying a hand on Arthur’s shoulder, forcing the man to look at him. “The queen wants me. She made that very clear. She won’t hurt me if she thinks I’m on her side.”

Arthur stared at Merlin, watching the sorcerer for any sign of hesitation. When he saw nothing of the sort Arthur sat down in his chair with a huff. Merlin really wanted to do this. Spy work is equal to a as rushing in with their flag flying and swords shining; both could end with Merlin buried six feet under. Even the implication had Arthur feeling like hell.

“How am I supposed to get anything done with you gone?” Arthur questioned genuinely, much to the snickers of the knights and ladies. “I can’t function without you,” this was whispered softly to Merlin, just for Merlin.

The anger and stress dissipated from Merlin’s eyes, his shoulders slacked in resignation. Realization slowly but surely dawned on the sorcerer. Arthur was simply afraid. The first king of Camelot was worried, on the brink of tears from it if anyone looked close enough. Merlin rolled his eyes, even after all these years Arthur was still undoubtedly the same.

Without a care for the other people in the room, Merlin sat down on Arthur’s lap, hands on the other’s chest to stabilize himself. Merlin leaned in close and pressed a kiss to Arthur’s lips, cradling his jaw like it was something breakable. “Everything will be alright, Arthur. I can protect myself just fine,” Merlin reassured in a careful voice, stroking Arthur’s cheek. “You won’t even notice I’m gone.”

“I always feel empty without you, Merlin." Arthur pulled Merlin in for another kiss, this one deeper than the last. The two only pulled away for air and even then they went back for more. They couldn’t have enough of the other, constantly needing to feel the other person. A give and take only the other could provide. “What am I supposed to do if you don’t return?” Arthur asked quietly, resting his forehead on Merlin’s. “How am I supposed to live?”

“I promise to you, you’ll never have to find out. You’re stuck with me," Merlin smirked, running his fingers through Arthur’s hair. "Till death do us part, darling.”

Arthur wished he could believe Merlin’s promise. He swore on his mother’s grave that if Merlin fulfilled his promise that he’ll listen to everything Merlin has to say. He’ll never question Merlin again, never talk back to the warlock, shove his stubbornness down and never speak of it again. Arthur would have done anything for Merlin, only the man asked.

Not a month later Arthur received news in the form of a messenger. Le Lubrique had declared war on any who dared try to take the last living dragonlord from them. Merlin was theirs, they stated, the dragonlord belonged to dragon tamers. The two are vital for the continuation of dragons in the old religion. One to gain their trust, the other to keep the creatures in chains where they belong. Any and all who tried to take away their dragonlord would be faced with lethal consequences.

At that Arthur sent the messenger to be put into the stocks. Lethal consequences. Arthur will show them just how deadly he could be. Le Lubrique will pay, a month without Merlin was torture but if they dared to lay a hand on Merlin they would all burn. Gwen was absolutely right, Arthur required vengeance, he wanted them all to feel just what angering Camelot will do, what angering him will do.

And after making such a claim over Merlin’s life, Arthur will show them no mercy. Le Lubrique had declared war on Camelot and Arthur would answer tenfold.

------

It took around two weeks for Arthur to prepare for battle against a kingdom full of sorcerers. Another week was spent traveling with his soldiers over land and sea. Through it all he couldn’t help but be eaten alive by the nagging feeling that he was too late. That he would arrive only to find ash; bones if he was lucky. Day and night he was slowly being killed by the fact that he could very well be walking into his husband’s grave.

“He’s going to be okay,” Morgana reassured him one day as he leaned against the railing of their ship. They were perhaps an hour if not less from shore and Arthur hadn’t slept a wink. He could feel exhaustion mixing with the worry brewing in his mind, ready to overflow at a single inconvenience. His sword was once again at his side, the memory making everything so much worse. “Merlin will be teasing you for worrying so much if he were here.”

“But he isn’t, is he, Morgana?” Arthur said more harshly than he intended. “He could already be dead for all we know.” And it would be all Arthur’s fault, though he kept that notion to himself. By the look on Morgana’s face, she must have been thinking the same thing.

“It's not your fault, Arthur. Merlin chose to go on his own free will.”

“But I was the one who allowed it,” Arthur bit back, standing straight on his feet. “I sent him to his death.”

“You don’t know that,” Morgana crossed her arms. She should be used to Arthur’s self destructive behavior but even this was getting too much for her. “If what that messenger said was true, Merlin’s probably being pampered to death.”

That seemed to be the wrong thing to have said because Arthur’s despair did not lighten. It seemed to have gotten worse. “What if he likes it better with Le Lubrique’s court? I’m no warlock, I can’t compete with their magic!”

“Arthur, you’re overthinking this,” Morgana was done with Arthur’s antics. She was ready to gag him and throw him in the ship’s makeshift prison cell until they had properly docked. “Merlin will run right into your arms the moment he sees you. I’m willing to bet on it, just you wait and see. Merlin loves-”

At Morgana’s silence, Arthur looked over to the direction of her gaze. Their ship was making speed but Arthur suddenly wished they had stopped right where they were and sink. The sight took Arthur’s breath away, making his blood go cold. Le Lubrique was burning and it looked like it had been burning for a very long time. There was no shoreside to speak of, just endless flickering flames. Where the castle should have been standing tall like a beacon was nothing but flames, ruble, and ash.

“Merlin!” Arthur yelled even though his voice would not carry that far. “Merlin!” he called again, his heart sinking to his stomach. He wanted to drown at sea. He never wanted to reach the shore, to be lost in the ocean and never have to face what he already knew was there. The absence of what he knew should’ve been. “Merlin!” he shouted even though it was futile.

“Arthur, please!” Morgana struggled to pull him back from the side, afraid he’ll jump and swim the rest of the way himself. Or worse. “Just an hour, please. That’s all you have to wait for. You- you don’t know for sure.” Even Morgana was not so sure of her words, the picture in front of them was hard to paint as lies.

“I sent him to his death….” Arthur whimpered, “I killed him. I killed my husband.” The king sank to his knees, kneeling next to Morgana. The woman could barely hide the tears in her eyes at the sight. Everything she wanted to say, every reassurance died on her tongue. Whatever she said could very well be a lie and nothing more.

“We will make them pay, Arthur. We will make them pay for what they’ve done,” Morgana decided instead, pulling Arthur to his feet. “They won’t get away with this,” she stated sternly, much like their father when he had set his mind to something.

Less than an hour passed where the tension was so thick, one could slice through it with an unsharpened sword. All on board prepared for battle, despite the fact that the fires never stopped burning. Regardless of the fact that they might be too late to be of much good. The fighting had already begun long before they docked, a civil war where the same flag was flying on opposite sides.

“Go search for what is left, we’ll handle everything else,” Gwen informed Arthur when they stepped foot on the raging battlefield. She was dressed in chainmail armor just like everyone else, Camelot’s colors making her blend in with the searing fires. Her helmet was covering most of her face, giving her the appearance of a frightening soldier ready to take lives at a moment's notice. If Arthur was in a better mood, he would have been sorry for the folks who would come face to face with Gwen, the quick footed soldier instead of Gwen, the gentle, kind hearted high lady. At the moment he was on the verge of breaking and was ever so glad that Gwen was as cut throat as she was.

“Thank you,” Arthur told her from the bottom of his heart, “We should have listened to you from the start.”

“You followed your husband’s request, I can’t fault you for that.” She pulled Arthur in for a hug before sending him off. “Go find our king.”

Gwen didn’t have to tell Arthur twice, he was off before she finished speaking. The only thing is his mind was finding and holding Merlin. Nothing else mattered. Not the war thriving around him, swords clashing, arrows flying, Camelot’s red against the duality of Le Lubrique’s purples; nothing. The sorcerer was all that was worth living for and Arthur had a guess as to where Merlin would be.

The castle with Le Lubrique’s flag flapping against the blistering wind was as good as any place to start. Arthur climbed the hill that the palace stood on with lead in his stomach. It felt like every step he took he was merely walking into a trap. The castle should not still be in one piece, the battles around the structure should have made it no more than debris. However, it still stood on weak support.

Going against the nagging voice in the back of his head Arthur called out for his husband, “Merlin!” He walked closer to what would have been the courtyard. Around the perimeter were burning shrubbery that must have been a sight to behold at one point in time. Now there were nothing more than flares and the source of black smoke. The cobblestone center was stained with a drying red that Arthur did not want to face the source of. “Merlin!” Arthur sounded out in the courtyard.

“Arthur,” a hoarse voice groaned weakly. Arthur ran in the direction it came from, his sense of self preservation be damned. Merlin’s life could be on the line.

“Merlin, stay with me. Keep talking!”

“I-I’m over here,” Merlin hissed out helpfully, not informing Arthur where, “here” exactly was. Why did Arthur have to marry such a buffoon? Sure, no one could compare to Merlin, but at the very least he could have courted a smarter man.

“I’m coming, just stay where you are,” Arthur said hastily, rushing through the crumbling courtyard. “Don’t you dare die on me, I’ll kill you myself if you do!” he threatened, searching every nook and cranny for the warlock.

“That’s my line, you ass,” Merlin moaned in complaint, his eyes rolling to the back of his head. “Come up with your own catchphrases.”

Sometimes Arthur couldn’t believe his choice in a partner. Merlin was really making banter with him while possibly on the brink of death. He was definitely going to kill Merlin for this. “Make me, you bastard,” Arthur cursed, rounding a sharp corner that fell apart as he passed it. His breath was taken away for the second time that day when he saw Merlin on the ground.

They were in what must have been a parlor, the stained glass windows shattered on the ground as a number of the fine furniture burned to cinder. Arthur could imagine the room as something beautiful if he were to be invited over for tea. Now he just saw it as a smoking mess, something that he was glad was going up in flames. Though, without him or Merlin in it would be nice.

“There you are!” Arthur exclaimed, rushing over and kneeling on the floor next to Merlin’s frame. The sorcerer was half naked with sharp nail marks littered across his pale skin. Merlin’s neck was a raring red as if a hand had been wrapped around his throat which didn’t let up until he passed out from the lack of air. His form was covered in a thin sheen of sweat and tears, his rib cage stuck out in unpleasant angles. It looked like he hadn’t been fed in days. The sight made Arthur furious, but Le Lubrique’s court could wait. Arthur had to get Merlin to safety first.

“Took you long enough, you oaf,” Merlin hissed through his teeth, his lips chapped from dehydration. The corner of his mouth was bleeding as if he had been back handed across the face. Arthur reached out a hand to touch it, to make sure Merlin was real and not just some illusion made by a sick sorcerer. “Stop that, it already hurts to talk,” Merlin coughed, his eyes hazy.

“What happened?” Arthur couldn’t help but ask, shrugging off his cape to throw over Merlin’s bare chest. It didn’t offer much coverage but it was protection against the flying embers. As a bonus it covered the markings that made Arthur’s skin crawl.

“I arrived under the guise of an envoy, just as we had planned. Everything seemed to be going fine, but they found out I was a spy early on. It was like they could read my mind, and I don’t doubt that they have the knowledge just for the spell,” Merlin explained, pulling Arthur’s cape close, the soft fabric offering a sense of shelter. “But they didn’t seem to care that I was there under ulterior motives. They were only glad to have me, mind and body,” Merlin shivered at the thought. “Le Lubrique’s queen wanted me to father her children.”

Merlin paused to let the thought sink in. He watched Arthur for his reaction. Arthur’s face twisted in a disgusted sneer, baring his teeth at the implication. The king clenched his fists until his nails dug deep enough into his palm to drag blood. Arthur wanted to feel the pain, something to ground him farther so he didn’t march off to kill someone who might already be dead.

“Le Lubrique wanted dragons as slaves, no king would be dumb enough to go to war with a kingdom with dragons on their side; no matter its size,” Merlin went on, his eyes glowing yellow at the notion. “They needed me as a stud.”

Arthur was repulsed at the notion that Le Lubrique would even conceive of such a thing. He must have looked ready to vomit because Merlin quickly added, “Le Lubrique’s queen even tried to make herself appealing to me when I denied her advances.” Arthur could only imagine what the woman did. Sylvy’s antics immediately came to mind. “She magicked her hair blonde and made her eyes your shade of blue.”

Arthur couldn’t help but darkly chuckle at that. Of all the ways to make Merlin fall for someone, blonde hair and blue eyes weren’t it. “Did she really think looking like me would get you to bed her?”

“No,” Merlin began again with a pained yelp that he tried to hide. “What she said was what made me comply.”

“What did she say?” Arthur growled, his earlier fury seeping back into his bloodstream. “What did that harlot say?”

“She threatened your life, Arthur. Your honor, your dignity, and reign as king. Everything,” Merlin got teary eyed at the memory. “The way she took her pleasure from me was painful, but it was nothing compared to the thought of what she said she would have done to you.”

Arthur was shaking with rage, his whole body trembled with the urge to tear Le Lubrique’s queen apart, limb by limb by his own bare hands. His hand hovered over his sword subconsciously. He wanted to kill her, needed to destroy her for what she’s done. For the fear she incited into Merlin. Arthur was bloodthirsty; he hoped that Gwen was just as demanding of blood.

“I wanted to kill her.” Merlin’s quivering voice brought Arthur back to the present. “Let me kill her, Arthur,” Merlin begged his husband, his lip beginning to bleed.

“Of course,” Arthur wiped Merlin’s tears away with his thumb, his hand caressing Merlin’s cheek gently. “Anything you want, I’ll give it to you in a heartbeat.”

“Now, Arthur. I want to kill her now.” Merlin tried to sit up but the cry of pain had him falling right back to where he was. “She deserves to suffer.” His eyes lit up in a gold light, trying to magic his way upright but failed and fell down once more. The warlock’s body was in a worse state than he appeared, he shook in a cold sweat like an infection induced fever.

When Merlin began coughing fistfuls of blood at the strain Arthur was forced to act quickly. The king straddled Merlin’s legs, sitting down on his lap to keep Merlin on the ground. “Shhh, I’m here, Merlin. I’m safe, I’m alive,” Arthur barricaded Merlin with his arms. “I’ll bring you her head, I swear.”

“Let me do it, Arthur. I can kill her myself,” Merlin barked, another fit of coughs had him squeezing his eyes shut.

“I’ll bring her to you, alive. You can do anything you want with her court,” Arthur tried a different approach, tears forming in his eyes at the sight of Merlin in this state. “You can make her pay for what she’s done, make her feel the same pain. But please, Merlin,” Arthur begged, stroking Merlin’s face as tears fell on the man’s face. “Stay with me. Keep talking.”

Merlin opened his eyes at Arthur’s request, pain painting them a disorientating blue. “It hurts, Arthur. She did so, so many horrible things,” Merlin admitted in the burning parlor room. He reached out angry scarred arms to wrap around Arthur, pulling the king flush against his chest. “Everything aches, it feels like I’m being burned alive.” Merlin had Arthur in a death grip, there was barely enough room for either of them to breathe. It felt like home.

“They will pay, this I swear,” Arthur made an oath, kissing Merlin to make it true. “By the end of this day their bodies will be put on display for all to see.” He kissed down Merlin’s neck, burying Le Lubrique’s queen’s markings with his own. “Do you want her kingdom as well, Merlin? Say the word and it's yours.”

“I want you. I want her gone. I want her kingdom. I want it all,” Merlin’s mind was spinning with searing fever, screaming pain, and the constant pleasure of Arthur licking at his throat. He squeezed Arthur’s neck with his shaking arms. “Give me everything.”

In a burning parlor of a dying country with a queen and court that abandoned it, the first king of Camelot made a vow to the second king; an apology and a promise. Everything the licking fire was eating, everything destroyed by its own queen; the country, and the sea that surrounded it. The never ending farmlands, the people that survived, and the bones that would be buried by ash of its own making. The entire kingdom; dead, dying, or thriving. All of it would be Merlin’s.

All of it is Merlin’s.

“My king shall have everything.”

[littlespoonevan]

still getting good at not leaving

guess who couldn’t help herself and had to write a fix-it fic?!?! lmao look i know this storyline will probably get some sort of resolution in tomorrow’s episode but until then i would like to present u all with this <3 takes place just after the end of 11x02

title from pov by ariana grande

I hope you like it! <3

*

Ian heaves himself up off the floor with a huff when he reaches his hundredth sit-up. Mickey’s still on the bed sorting money into piles and steadfastly ignoring the weight of Ian’s gaze so he decides to go take a shower and hopes the room will feel a little less tense when he comes back.

He doesn’t want to be angry at Mickey is the thing. He loves him more than he’s ever loved anything and he knows who Mickey is. He knows “normal life” and whatever the fuck that’s supposed to be has never been what Mickey’s about. And it’s not- he doesn’t want to change Mickey, y’know? He just wants to keep him here. With Ian. And he can’t do that if Mickey’s back inside a jail cell because they didn’t have enough money for bills at the end of the month.

He dries off and changes into a t-shirt and boxers in the bathroom when he’s finished, hanging his damp towel on top of the shower rod and padding back into the bedroom.

Mickey’s still in the same position he was in when Ian left him but the money’s been hidden away.

“You gonna share a bed with me or is that off the table too?” Mickey grumbles once Ian’s closed the door and Ian can’t help feeling a brief pang of guilt. He’s not doing this to make Mickey think he loves him any less. He sighs, turning around to see Mickey scowling up at him, jaw set defiantly.

“Of course I’m sharing a bed with you,” he murmurs, moving over to the bed and leaning down to kiss the top of Mickey’s head before climbing over him to get settled in the empty space on the mattress.

Mickey slouches a little once Ian’s lying beside him, arms crossed as he casts him a sidelong glance. “I tried today, you know.”

And the thing is, Ian does know. But he also knows Mickey prepared himself for what he perceived to be inevitable failure.

“Mick, you didn’t even put down your real work experience on your resume,” he says, keeping his voice light so Mickey doesn’t think he’s nagging him again. “You’ve had real security jobs before.”

“Yeah but this wasn’t a security job so why would it matter? I was trying to tailor it to the job and shit,” Mickey mutters and Ian gives him a sceptical look. Mickey holds his stare for approximately fifteen seconds before he huffs and looks away. “Whatever. I didn’t want this stupid fucking job anyway.”

“I know you didn’t,” Ian tells him, pushing up on his elbows to mirror Mickey’s position sitting against the wall. He reaches for Mickey’s hand then, relieved when Mickey doesn’t pull away and instead splays his fingers so Ian can fold his own between them.

“I get you don’t just want some crappy minimum wage job for no thanks, alright? I get it. But I also don’t want you to end up in prison again-“

Mickey scoffs and opens his mouth to protest but Ian barrels on before he can say anything.

“Just listen a sec,” he pleads, squeezing Mickey’s hand and eventually getting him to meet his eyes again. “I know you know how to be careful but Mick, you’re on probation. And a Milkovich. The cops don’t need much of an excuse to send you back to jail.”

Mickey doesn’t respond right away but something in his expression softens just a bit, like he finally understands why Ian’s been such a pain in the ass about this.

“You know every time I got caught I did it on purpose?” Mickey says after a beat and that pulls Ian up short. He blinks, shaking his head and Mickey’s expression twists into something that’s almost regretfully amused.

“The first time was because I didn’t rat out your boss for the creepy child groomer he was. Which I should’ve, by the way,” Mickey says pointedly, giving Ian the same knowing look he used to give him every time they had this conversation as teenagers. Ian, now, feels pretty comfortable in saying that he’s been brought around to Mickey’s way of thinking.

“Second time was to avoid my dad in case Frank couldn’t keep his mouth shut,” he continues and Ian winces, running his thumb over the back of Mickey’s hand like he can somehow soothe the old hurt. “Then the time with Sammi- okay, yeah, I didn’t get caught on purpose but that was that bitch’s fault, not mine.”

They haven’t talked about Sammi since they first shared a cell but it still makes Ian uncomfortable to think about that time in their life. To think of how much grief and pain he caused Mickey back then.

“Then I distinctly recall turning myself in for your pasty ass,” Mickey says, bringing Ian back to reality with a teasing lilt to his voice and a smirk as he bumps their shoulders together.

Ian huffs a laugh but his chest still tightens somewhat. He’s not oblivious to how much Mickey has sacrificed for him in the past; it’s more than he’s ever deserved. “I’m glad you did,” he mumbles after a moment. “Even if I don’t like that you had to give up your freedom to do it.”

Mickey shrugs, ducking his head and pulling their joined hands into his lap. “Yeah, well. Where would we be if I didn’t, huh?”

Ian smiles to himself, shaking his head, and thinks of a different moment a long time ago when things weren’t quite this easy. What you and I have makes me free. “Probably not married and arguing about how we’re gonna pay the electricity bill.”

Mickey raises an eyebrow at him, letting out quiet laugh before his expression turns serious. “Listen, we’ll figure out the money stuff.”

“I know,” Ian murmurs, closing the distance between them to punctuate his reply with a kiss. He follows it up with a kiss to the ball of Mickey’s shoulder before he straightens again, letting his head rest back against the wall. “I love you.”

Mickey nods just slightly, a silent I know. A we’re okay. “Love you too.”

Ian smiles at him and tugs on Mickey’s hand until they’re both lying down. And with their legs tangled together and their faces only inches apart on the pillows, he knows they’ll figure it out.

They always do.

*

[skullsandwineglasses]

Remembrance of Things Past - Eps 1-10 Impression/Rant

Not really a first impressions post since there are only 2 episodes left, but as I’m waiting on the last few episodes, I thought I’d rant a bit about the drama here. 

First of all, I agree with everything that AvenueX said in her review of the first 6 episodes. Her review is what prompted me to start the drama. I needed a realistic slice of life drama to balance out the idol drama that is You Are My Glory (which I’m also waiting on for new episodes), and ROTP seemed to fit bill. ROTP is just so good.

I binged ROTP in 3 days. It could have been 2 days, but I started it at 2am on a Wednesday night, so I didn’t get very far the first night. Each episode is about 75 minutes long, so almost the equivalent of 2 regular lengthed episodes, but not quite. 

I cried during the first two episodes. The character development is just phenomenal. You really feel for Jing Jing’s character even though you’ve only seen her character for an hour. There are little moments throughout the drama that made me tear up too, like when the girls were celebrating Nan Jia jie’s 36th birthday and I got emotional over how close their bond is, or moments when the girls reflected on their aging parents and how we often take our parents for granted. 

Plot pacing and structure

The plot is tight and well-paced, and each girl’s storyline is interwoven well. Sometimes they’d cut between simultaneous scenes between the girls to compare and contrast what they’re each going through. For instance, when Xu Yan is having an argument with her boyfriend, the drama will also cut and flip back and forth to Qiao Xi Chen going through problems at her workplace. When Xu Yan makes up with her boyfriend, the drama cuts to QXC and Nan Jia being romantically pursued by Jian Yi Fan and Ou Yang. It’s interesting to see how their lives mirror and differ from each other. 

Because the storylines between the girls are so interwoven and keep flipping back and forth between each other, it makes it hard to skip scenes because you can’t just skip an entire segment or else you’ll miss something important in all 3 storylines. I can see that this might be a little annoying if you have a preference for one of the girls and want to skip someone else’s storyline. But I actually like seeing all 3 of their stories play out, so I’m not bothered by it. 

Another aspect about the plot’s structure that I appreciate is how they use the mystery behind Jing Jing’s suicide as a throughline for the drama. Up until episode 8ish(?), each episode ends with a question about Jing Jing’s life prior to her suicide and the next episode opens with the girls trying to find an answer or a clue to it. The girls and we the audience learn more and more about Jing Jing with each episode. However, episodes 9 and 10 deviate from the structure a bit and so the drama has recently been less and less focused on Jing Jing’s story, especially after they found out that she had depression. The drama seems to imply that her depression due to the stress of living in Beijing was the main factor that led to her suicide, while the successive unfortunate events that happened on her birthday was the trigger. 

Characters

I like all the main characters in the drama, albeit some a little more than others, which I’ll explain. I think the 3 male love interests are a little too perfect though, and so I guess this slice of life drama is actually a little idealistic after all. 

Xu Yan - My least favourite of the four girls. She’s materialistic, but not as spoiled as I though she would be. But it does annoy me how she keeps picking fights with Shen Zi Chang, when he’s just trying his best. He’s so tolerant and patient with her. He apologizes, they make up, and then the cycle repeats. It’s just a very unhealthy relationship, and I’m tried of seeing them fight and make up. 

EDIT: So, I started writing this review when I had only watched up until episode 9, but now that I’ve finished episode 10, um, wtf?? Xu Yan made a bad choice and got scammed of all her money, her friends try to comfort her, loan her money, and tell her not to repress her emotions like Jing Jing. And then she just lashes out at them saying they have no right to comfort her because they were the ones who caused Jing Jing’s death. Xu Yan starts off blaming QXC for not knowing that Jing Jing had a crush on her boyfriend, and then she blames Nan Jia for being a bad older cousin. She blames both of them for being ignorant of Jing Jing’s depression and only caring about themselves. QXC (rightfully) retorts back than Xu Yan knew all along that Jing Jing had a crush on her boyfriend, and yet Xu Yan never told anyone, so she’s just as guilty as all of them. Honestly, I was sympathetic towards Xu Yan before, but she was just so ungrateful and entitled in that scene. What right does she have pointing fingers and assigning guilt to people? And to weaponize Jing Jing’s death against them? That’s just cruel. The argument between them in that scene at the end of episode 10 just felt so random and out of place. All of a sudden, Xu Yan points out all of these problems she has with QXC and Nan Jia, when all they’ve ever done is pamper her. Also, you can’t blame QXC for dating Lin Rui even if Jing Jing liked him first, and not to mention that QXC wasn’t even aware. QXC might not have even chosen to date Lin Rui if she had known. But it happens all the time between friends where your friend might date someone you like. All’s fair in love and war, and there’s no first come first serve rule when it comes to dating.

Jing Jing - She becomes more complex as you learn more about her. She puts her friends first and is fiercely supportive and protective of them. We get a glimpse of how far she’s willing to go for them she pulls a butcher knife from the kitchen and points it at QXC’s debt collectors in the first episode. Her friends see her as being really open, expressive, and bubbly. She’s the first one they each go to whenever they need help with a problem or want to show off an achievement. But in reality, she’s really secretive. She hides her feelings to keep her friends happy, and when they slowly uncover her secrets, she becomes less and less recognizable to them, as though she’s been living a double life all along. 

At the end of episode 10, Jing Jing is described as the “hole in the tree” that everyone goes to to share their secrets, but they forget that she’s also a person with her own secrets to share, and she’s not just a tree hole to serve others. Can we blame the friends for not paying enough attention to Jing Jing and only using her for emotional support? Yes and no. It’s complicated. We should always do more to try to care for others and to be more attentive to them, but at the same time, it’s impossible to completely know a person. I purposely hide parts of my life from my friends because I don’t want them worrying or judging or commenting. So I would never expect them to be able to figure it out, and neither do I want them to figure it out. I think it’s interesting that the drama is exploring the friends’ self-imposed guilt, but I don’t agree that Xu Yan should be the one to point it out them and to be Jing Jing’s spokesperson. Xu Yan positions herself as Jing Jing’s heroic and righteous advocator, when really Xu Yan is the most problematic person out of the three remaining friends. 

Also, after seeing how the friends interact, they don’t feel narcissistic. Yes, they each readily vent about their problems to each other, but they also ask about the other person. It’s not one-sided. Xu Yan talks about her problems with her boyfriend, but she also asks and cares about what’s happening in QXC’s life and vice versa. Nan Jia is more mature and is busy with her business, but she always takes the time and effort to help her friends. All of their conversations are reciprocal and they are genuinely interested in each other’s lives. So, I don’t think they have a major communication problem or that they don’t care or that they’re ignorant. Which again, makes Xu Yan’s accusations in episode 10 feel even more unfair. 

Ji Nan Jia - Jing Jing’s cousin and also the oldest of the three girls (about a decade older). Sassy, witty, unapologetic, confident. She’s who you’d think of when you imagine a successful, independent, career-driven woman. She’s extremely annoyed by her mother’s nagging to get married. But she herself is trying to figure out whether she actually wants to find someone to settle down with or if she just wants to beat her biological clock and have children while she still can. She’s pursued by Ou Yang, ten years her junior, and he’s absolutely enamoured with her. He seems to be unconditionally in love with her, which is what I meant when I said that the male leads in this drama seem too perfect and idealistic. But I like Ou Yang though. He’s adorable. 

Qiao Xi Chen - The main character of the four main characters. Like Nan Jia, she’s also quite sassy. In some ways, she’s like a younger version of Nan Jia. QXC is also very career driven and competitive. She’s confident and believes in her abilities, but she also gets easily overwhelmed and emotional (like when her stress and nervousness prevented her from being able to give her proposal presentation and she ran out of the room. I’ve definitely felt that way before my committee meetings). QXC is a character you can self-insert as because she represents the everyday employee who struggles with the long commute to work and tries to stand out and make a name for herself in the company. QXC is also extremely paranoid, which is understandable when you’re a woman living alone in the city. I know what it’s like to have to briskly walk home late at night and constantly having to look over your shoulder to make sure no one’s following you, or having to check your hotel room before you change, or having to make it seem like you’re not the only one living in your apartment. QXC is smart, logical, helps people when she can, but is also reasonably selfish when she needs to protect herself, like when her co-workers try to take advantage of her or throw her under the bus. She’s a character everyone can relate to.

She and Jian Yi Fan also make such a cute pairing. I love all their interactions. I love how Jian Yi Fan can’t help but smile when he’s with her, but he tries hard to clamp it down. I love how QXC is aware of her own attraction and easily admits to to Xu Yan that she does have feelings for him instead of beating around the bush. And I especially love the awkward but adorable confession scene in episode 8. Such great banter and play on words (”你是什麼意思” “沒意思” “你對我是不是有意思?”). The drama did a great job of depicting the frustration of trying to guess whether someone likes you when they seem to be sending mixed signals. A lot of dramas that don’t focus on romance seem to do a better job of showing romance than idol dramas that focus on nothing but romance. I grew up with TVB dramas, and in most of them, romance is usually secondary to the main plot, but I always loved the romances in those dramas.

Like Ou Yang, JYF is such an idealistic love interest. He’s so supportive of and attentive to QXC. I haven’t watched too many slice of life dramas, but To Dear Myself and My Best Friend’s Story both had flawed (and sometimes even irredeemable) male love interests. This drama’s rose-coloured glasses definitely reduces the amount of performative angst, but it also makes the drama a little less realistic. The men in Jing Jing’s life aren’t villainized either even when you expected them to be sinister. I think the most antagonistic character is Lin Rui, but even he’s made to be sympathetic. In fact, nearly all the characters in the drama are sympathetic characters because many of the choices they made were forced because of the situation they found themselves in, and what they did was an act of self-preservation. And so, you can’t hate them or blame them. 

Acting and Dialogue

I mean, what’s there to say? The acting and dialogue just sucks you right in. I love it so much. The characters are so animated and charming because of how well the actors delivered their lines. I’m not a mandarin speaker (I’m a cantonese speaker but learned mandarin afterwards), but even I was able to notice the colloquialism and slangs and idiosyncratic ticks in speech that made the dialogue feel so real and alive. The actors had great comedic timing, and when they cried, you could feel how vulnerable they are. 

Lastly, I also like the little “life lessons” they include at the end of the drama where there’d be a voiceover by one of the actresses and they’d muse about life. One of my favourite musings when when they talked about what it means to have a sense of security. For some people, having a sense of security is about having a certain amount of money in your bank account, or having someone waiting for you to come home, but a sense of security isn’t something tangible or physical that you can achieve or possess. It’s a belief. It’s a belief that you’re able to face any problem and that life will go on. It’s a belief that the one that you love will be faithful and supportive. It’s a type of belief that allows you to be confident to face uncertainty. And thus, a sense of security is something that only you can give yourself. I really like that little food for thought because it’s a great reminder to be self-dependent and to not rely on external gratification. Que sera sera. What will be will be. Don’t get too hung over on failure and don’t let stress dominate your life. 

Note: Watching this at the same time as You Are My Glory is extremely humbling. YAMG is an idol drama, and so they make the romance look so easy. Heck, idol dramas make being a protagonist easy. The protagonist is destined to stand out from the crowd. It’s easy to be noticed. It’s easy to cause a change in the status quo. But ROTP is a reminder that we’re all practically nobodies in the big city. It feels impossible to make an impression when there are millions of other people living almost the same life as you are. There’s nothing special about you, and it’s hard to find meaning and purpose. Obviously, the drama shows that even when it feels like you’re trying to swim upstream in a big city, we each have a life worth living. We may feel insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but to our friends and family, we’re their world and they’re ours. I think it was Camus who said that we should find meaning in the face of absurdity. Live in spite of how absurd and meaningless things feels. Anyway, this drama gives you a lot to think about, even though I don’t really like the melodrama they’ve recently added to drag the plot (*cough cough* that explosive argument scene at the end of episode 10 that I keep ranting about). You’d think that a 12-episode drama wouldn’t have filler, and yet here we are. 

[24-guy]

So. The tales of the smp thing.

Cw:// minor amounts of swearing (one mild word)

I don't usually put my two cents into things like this, keeping my theories to myself and all that since my friends don't watch the smp or anything like that.

And just a fair warning, this is going to be a long post so you can skip this if you're looking for other things. I don't know how to put the "read more" cut on the post.

I want to talk about what the significance of John John (ranboo) dying in the most recent tales thing. As far as I can see, nobody has said anything along the lines of what I'm thinking but I have just woken up and I went to bed immediately after the episode, with my brain going brrr.

Long story short: I think ranboo is going to die.

And I mean, lose a life and everyone thinks he's dead because he goes somewhere else when he dies.

My evidence;

The wild west episode had little explicit lore in it. The masquerade had the egg, very obviously, and the city of mizu is a future city with a shit ton of ties to ranboo, what with him saying he'd like to build an underwater city one day and ranbob and all of that.

Now. The egg said to techno on the 13th that he looked familiar and if the egg knew him. It could just be a joke at the fact that techno didn't change his skin for the masquerade one very much, but it could also be because, in canon, both billiam and techno are pig men.

How does this lend into ranboo potentially dying?

The past tales episodes predict the future.

It's instilled into us time and time again that the past keeps repeating itself.

Even in minor things.

The thing repeating itself now is the egg. It's repeating it's hold on the world.

So if ranboo died, then that could happen in the future.

"But it could have been an accident".

To that I say, no. Karl chose to have ranboo go up. It was planned. And usually, correct me if I'm wrong, but usually ranboo is a pretty good shot. Meaning it was intentional that his character was a bad one.

I know I'm doing a lot of reaching here, but yeah.

Now I'm gonna spill my thoughts on the egg.

Specifically the interactions with techno and ranboo. Because it seemed odd to me how it interacted with them.

Usually, the egg has to be interacted with for you to hear it; tommy started destroying it, sam is a spy, bad and ant are completely possessed, you get it.

But techno hadn't. Yet it started talking with him. This probably means it's getting stronger. Now. As I said before it said techno looks familiar, referencing to billiam, most likely. This could be why it was trying to show more of an authority to techno, saying "silence" after techno and that were beginning to go off topic, trying to control the situation but clearly failing because techno is just that type of person.

It began speaking to ranboo in a worse way as well, instead of asking what ranboo wanted, it picked at the little things nagging at ranboo himself. I remember seeing somewhere that apparently the egg called ranboo a slave, but I don't know how true it is. If it is true, then that could explain the more intimidation based tactics the egg tried to use, since the egg could be thinking that ranboo, who literally followed techno around during that stream, was the butler.

It seems that the egg is getting caught up in what and who it does and doesn't know.

I know that a lot of this is reaching so far I have to have a ladder to get there but even so, it's just something weird I noticed.

That's all. Sorry for the long post. I did like ranting though, so maybe I'll do it again. This is just two episodes of the tales series so, maybe I could try again.

Edit:

It's just occurred to me that I never said where I think ranboo is going to go.

Personally, I don't think he's going to go to the inbetween. My first thought was like... A recreation of The End, so he didn't get the achievement because, like, what if he actually came from there in the first place. But then I realised, no. That wouldn't make sense and would be very difficult to pull off with the ender dragon being there and the endermen. So what if he re-appeared at a completely different location in the server, one that maybe prompts him to start building a certain underwater city. Maybe the cause of death was because everyone found out about him trying to break dream out of prison, with how it seems the storyline is going currently, and that underwater city is the one place that nobody has a chance of anyone finding him. He writes down everything about everyone he knows, the most unreliable narrator picturing stories of men who can lift mountains. And his ancestors think he had the best memory since he wrote everything the city was founded on. Each story of his friends being told through this single lense that we, as the audience, know is unreliable due to memory problems. So it would make sense as to why mizu would think ranboo had the best memory. Everything they know came from him.

Shoot. Edit 2:

The consequence of ranboo dying. I keep forgetting to finish my thoughts in this. But this is the last one, I think.

Forgive me, for I only wish for wholesome family interactions. And this certainly is one.

It seems like techno and ranboo are a reccuring thing in the tales thing. With techno, there's also ranboo. Which makes sense, they're friendly in real life I assume and their smp characters are friends. But they also retain that mentor-mentee bond throughout the timelines too. Techno and ranboo, billiam and the butler, now the sheriff and John. This could be just like, "oh yeah. They're friends, it makes sense that they'd be friendly in the tales things too" if it wasn't for tubbo. Anyone who watches any of ranboo or tubbo's streams pretty much knows that they're practically best friends now, which is a really really nice dynamic. I love it. Now. If it was just real life friendship causing the friendly interactions between the sheriff and John then explain why tubbo's character, percy, is the one mainly picking on john.

Could be friendship, and a silly one at that, but you know. Reaching here.

Not to mention, the sheriff is the first one who reacted and reached where john died and reacted the worst, via... Milk... Drinking... Competition... Apparently? I don't know. It's very silly.

So. My thought process here is that we know techno and Phil are indifferent to ranboo's actions when he sleep walks, and we know techno knows about the voice now and he doesn't seem to care. We also know that ranboo trusts techno due to that shared commonality of voices in their heads.

So I think that, if ranboo dies, then techno and Phil are gonna have some words. Maybe moreso techno than phil because techno really seems to be warming up to everyone's favorite enderboy recently and I don't think that's without good thought. Techno very easily could get ranboo to go away if he wanted, but he's fooling himself at this point. He wasted no time hesitating giving ranboo his only trident to save him from the egg, was constantly trying to get him away from it when they were in the same room, ect.

So two possibilities for ranboo's potential death, have arisen:

1) The rest of the smp find out that ranboo has been trying to break dream out of prison.

2) ranboo tries to destroy the egg, maybe it grows slightly bigger and he doesn't bring enough totems to live through destroying it, as we see it causes damage to him to break it's blocks.

So yeah. Ranboo dies and techno decides that something needed to be done in dramatic techno fashion. I'm not sure what that is yet, but yeah.

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Guns Ain’t a Plague

I wrote some version of this story over and over. This is the version I apparently emailed to a friend in 2013 and just rediscovered in my inbox. I am staring at this and realizing how long ago 2013 was now. Oh my gosh.

Background: I was already very much all about post-apocalyptic stuff, but this takes place in a world entirely unlike - and yet strikingly like - our own. In a world where war and disease once tore the land apart, an isolated, caged city of children struggles to survive.

Until one decides to leave.

Oh man somewhere in my stuff I have all my old maps and descriptions of the different countries and the war and... I wrote so much stuff for this universe/storyline...

-

The young woman crouched where the last of the road crumbled into broken stone. It had been crushed when they exited the city, taking their horses and carriages, doctors and soldiers and history, with them. Her feet were bare and she dug her toes into the warm red earth between the cracked rock. The muscles in her legs tensed, she placed one hand for balance on the ground.

She would have to run like wind if she was going to survive this.

“Don’t,” came Tor’s familiar voice behind her. She jumped up, wondering why she was even surprised he had followed her. She had, after all, been the one to teach him how to do it. She turned around, to look him in the eye, heart aching at the idea that if she didn’t time this just right, she would never see him again.

“Ed,” The boy said in the same pleading tone, hands held out to grab her, “don’t. You can’t even think it. You’ll die, same as they all do!”

Ed rolled her eyes and shot him a baleful glare, but she was bluffing and they both knew it. The toughness fell off of her face almost immediately, and she grabbed the much younger boy, pulling him into a fierce hug.

The two of them looked so alike that they seemed mirrored, almost, the teenager and the adult just barely ten years older than him. Ed’s skin was the same dusky red-brown as Tor’s, their hair the same rich black. It even hung in the same small twists, cut short and close to their heads, although Tor’s was cut a little longer. The only difference was in their ages and in their eyes. Ed’s eyes were a deep, rich pure brown, but Tor’s were green.

Ed thought she was somewhere near twenty-five; no one was completely sure on ages here. She knew Tor had been something like two when she’d found him; herself a ragged orphan, hearing him crying from two buildings over and simply taking him home. It was better than letting him die.

“I should’ve known you’d follow me,” She said, shaking her head. “And if you’re here… Jedder came too, didn’t he?”

“I run faster’n Jedder,” Tor said, clinging to her even harder. His arms around her waist felt like they were crushing her organs and she attempted to try and loosen his grip, with no luck. “Don’t die, Ed!”

“Won’t die, Tor,” she replied. “Don’t think I will anyway. How long they been standin’ there, those towers? Ten years now? Every gun’s got to run out of bullets sometime, right?”

“Not those guns.” Torrin gestured at the small turret towers stationed every twenty feet or so as far as they both could see around the place designated as the ‘edge’ of the city. Wherever roads had gone any farther, they had been smashed to bits until the towers were up. It felt like a river of grass, weeds, broken rock and bone surrounded them, surrounded this whole ruined city, a city that no living person had ever seen before it was a pile of ghosts and disease.

Ed, for a moment, allowed her grip on Tor to be as tight as his grip on her.

“Besides,” he continued with his face still pushed against her shoulder, head still tucked just under her chin. “who’s gonna feed us if you’re dead? Who’s gonna take care of us? You always take care of us, Eddi! Always. Since everybody died you take care of us. You can’t just stop ‘cause your feet got itchy.”

“Tor, you know damn well that ain’t why I want to try this time. We can’t stay here forever. This place is full of us, we can’t keep enough food to go on livin’ like this.  It’s been over a hundred years since this city fell, by my parents’ reckoning, since they just left everyone to die. Left a city full of kids with a bunch of dead bodies and bullets, fat lot of good it’s doin’ us now. The Oracle and her folk may like this place, an’ the Keepers may think we’re stuck here carin’ for the dead, but I think… I think somebody needs to get out and prove we still exist.”

There were footsteps behind them and they turned, almost as one, with Tor’s hand still twisted in Ed’s shirt.

The sweaty, fast-breathing young man who came running up to them was not like them in the slightest. His skin and hair were the same flat and dull gray-white. Compared to Tor and Ed, his arms seemed too long, he was too skinny, his hands and feet just a mite too big to be human. His eyes were unsettling to everyone but his little chosen family; wide and far apart, set on a diagonal line in his face, they were black. He broke into a relieved smile at seeing them both standing there. “Eddi! Tor caught up with you then. He runs faster’n me!”

“That’s what I said!” Tor was entirely too proud of himself. Ed bit her lip to stop from chiding him for it.

Jedder stopped, leaning over to lean his hands flat on his thighs to try and stop gasping quite so much.

“’Course he does. Plesalka never could run to save your lives,” Ed said with a responding smile and managed to extricate her shirt from Tor’s grasp. She turned back to survey the turrets again. Old and rusting over time, evidence of Plesalka scientific genius, the kind of machines and creations that neither Letenje like Ed and Tor or the Teci had ever been able to match. Their last apology for their part in this before the Exile began.

She knew about the reason those turrets existed only her parents had hoarded the scribble writings of their own ancestors; her great-great grandmother had been alive to witness the Plague and the death, had survived long enough to make sure her children were as protected as possible.

In the end, there was only so much protection to give; scarcity of food and resources meant that no one had a very long life span here.

It was one of the reasons she was so aware of her need to leave.

“I’m going to try whether you two like it or not. I’m going to try on my own, got it? And if I make it over that rise to the other side, I will shut those turrets down somehow. I’ll bash ‘em in with one of those twisted hunks of metal lyin’ all over the damn place. Once they’re broken, you two can get over and we can leave together. We’re not gonna die here where they left all of us, thinkin’ we’d be gone eventually.” Old grief twisted in her heart; she’d lost both her parents when she was 12, when they had gone out scavenging and been caught in the middle of a battle between the old Oracle’s gang and other Scavs like them. It had been a long, lonely, horrible year before she’d found Jedder.

She crouched down again, curling her fingers around one of the broken pieces of the road here at the edge. It was heavier than it looked, warm from the constant rays of the sun. Even with the lean muscle she’d picked up in ten years of scavenging everything she ate she left out a small grunt of effort as she threw it straight at the closest turret. She missed by a long arc. The gun did not respond or move to follow the stone’s movement. “They’re gettin’ worse. They used to shoot the rocks, too.”

Jedder and Tor shared a look behind her back, unsure of what to do. Jedder, at fifteen, was still nine years Ed’s junior and Tor at twelve was a full twelve years younger. She had been as much a mother to them as a teenage girl could be when she’d found them. Jedder had been found first, a little Scav just barely staying alive by stealing from the gangs, unwelcome like all Plesalka were… Tor just two years old, crying inside a makeshift nursery, his parents dead on the floor and all their food stores stolen. She had taken them in, even knowing Jedder being Plesalka would make it harder on them.        

No one ever stopped being angry, especially since in a century the stories to explain what had happened had gotten weirder and more elaborate as told by the remaining survivors. Even the truth made it hard to forgive either the Plesalka or the Teci for what they had created, what they had done in their war on each other… even if kids like Jedder were so far removed from those events as to be a whole separate people by now.

“Eddi,” Tor said, and now his voice was starting to take on a edge of nagging worry, “Eddi, what if this doesn’t work and you die?”

“Then you and Jedder go on livin’,” Ed replied without looking back at them.

She was surveying all possible obstacles between her and the turrets. Rocks. Weeds.

Bodies.

The last made her shudder, made the already roiling pit of nervousness that was her stomach threaten to riot up her meager lunch. Some of the bodies out here weren’t even bodies anymore. It was mostly bones left for her to look at, though now and then she could see evidence of newer deaths. Some kids still went crazy and made a run for it. She herself probably counted as crazy, just to be thinking about it. Still. There was a lot of bone out here. A lot of dead people dumped here at the edge to warn away anyone who might see them, to keep visitors out, to keep the descendents of Pohroma citizens in.

Barefoot, you want to run through a burial ground, she thought, wondering if it would be the last thing she did. “I’ve taught you both how to live if you lost me. If you think you can’t stick it out just the two of you, well, the other Plesalka that’re still alive would take Jedder in, if he went to them. Tor, you know the Oracle or the Keepers would have you. They could keep you safe. Don’t you dare join up with any of the Scav gangs, though.”

“We want you,” Jedder said stubbornly. “Besides, even if you died we’d just stick together. We don’t know any other way to be but the three of us.”

“Then you better be prayin’ to somebody’s god I don’t die now, because I’m going to do this.” She didn’t wait for their response but just launched herself forward with all the speed her legs could give her.  Not being able to crouch down and prepare first had only cost her half a second, but nonetheless she felt a rush of fear that it would be a half-second too many.

She felt Tor’s fingers clutch the back of her shirt, but he couldn’t get a grip and she twisted away from him easily, running like the devil was at her heels.

There was a rusty shrieking coming from turrets that had been left abandoned, not repaired or even touched in almost twenty years. The sound filled the air, coming from nearly ten turrets who were all slowly, inexorably pointing in her direction as she ran. Birds, having made nests in the openings, took to the air in a sudden frenzy of wings and shrieking birdcalls. For a moment, the sky was dark with them.

Ed ran.

She dodged larger rocks and the corpses of both people and animals shot dead by the turrets. Dogs, rats, foxes, cats, people… all just empty bones, she told herself, trying not to let her feet even brush them as she went past.

She ran.

She caught a glint and looked up, realizing that she could see the sun shining off all the metal casing on the ground for every bullet these huge guns had ever fired. She was caught by the shine of them just long enough to distract her.

And she tripped.

She had to have tripped on a rock, she could feel the rough of it scrape all the way down from mid-calf to her ankle as she fell and went rolling, coming to a halt only when she hit another big chunk of rock a few feet away. The breath was knocked out of her and she could only gasp, frozen, realizing that the horrible groaning of the moving metal had finally come to an end.

She looked up, and was looking directly up the barrel of one of the turrets, and it was aiming at her. She could not move. She thought of her parents, long dead from the violence in this city. She thought of finding Tor at two years old, Jedder at the time the only one who keep the little toddler from crying all the time. She thought of how they had lived the last ten years as a family, kept each other safe. She thought of every time she had ever seen a wild animal gunned down by these turrets, ripped to absolute shreds by the bullets.

She flinched at the sudden click of the gun.

Click?

It echoed, bouncing off against the walls and back again and at least twenty of the turrets were clicking in a chorus and Ed began, despite the aftermath of adrenaline still pumping, to laugh.

The sound of her laughter was something just below a scream, hysterical and echoing, bouncing off against the old stone walls behind Tor and Jedder, making them jump.

It took some effort and her ankle ached in a way that told her this victory wasn’t coming to her without some price to pay, but she began to hobble back to Jedder and Tor, arms out to them, spread as wide as her smile.

“They’re empty!” She called out above the noise. “Every single one!”

Only a moment of hesitation, a look of pure relief shared between the two boys, and then they came pounding across the earth until they could throw their arms around her, the both of them at once.

“They’re empty,” she whispered, pressing a kiss to the top of Tor’s head, to the fuzzy twists of his hair, before turning to lean her forehead against Jedder’s cheek. “I knew it. They never did come back to replace ‘em, not since before I was born, at least my da said. They had to run out sooner or later.” She squeezed the two of them even tighter, then finally let them go. Reluctantly, they let go of her as well.

“Empty,” she said one more time, savoring the taste of the word.

“So we can go,” Jedder breathed out. “We can leave. I don’t. I’ve never been outside the city. No one has. We don’t even know if there’s other people out there or if everyone died in the Plague, if it hit other places, too.”

 “I don’t think it did,” Tor said, thoughtfully. “Cause otherwise why would they have had to send people to keep us locked in by replacin’ bullets, ever?” Curling his fingers in Ed’s patched and worn shirt, he shook his head. “Bet there’s a whole world full of people out there. Maybe they don’t even know about us.”

Ed smiled, but it was a smile entirely without humor.

“Let’s go show the bastards we’re still alive.”

[mysticeri]

Pretty Eyes

• For +18 readers who love Attack On Titan, this fantasy goes along with the original storyline.

The year is 834, [y/n] is born [your birth month and day]. On the northwest side of Shiganshina is where you lived, a small cabin for a loving family. Born into a family of Shepards, never did they ever expect [y/n] to be the most important person to a hero who would free all of Paradis..

You grew up with loving parents who kept you away from the horrors of the world. Yes, they are very protective of you since you are an only child, but it’s truly for your own good. Because of them you are very well mannered, kind, smart, and brave. You help your mother cook, clean, gather food, along with many other tasks. Your father taught you how to hunt, chop wood, and other “manly” things because he doesn’t want you to, “depend on some chump”. You have a sense of humor, but your mom made sure to teach you about boundaries. Overall you are independent and strong in the best way possible. Unfortunately without the experience of making friends and talking to neighbors, you really didn’t know how to communicate with anyone besides your parents.

As the dreadful year of 845 comes, so does your rebellious nature of wanting to have fun all the time. You wanted to go out to explore more of Shiganshina, but your parents forbid it from happening. They never told you why, but they did exceptionally well at isolating you from the rest of the city. As your curiosity grew, so did your hunger of meeting new people. How much longer until you can meet a new face for the first time? When can you finally be free to do what you truly want to do?

As the fall of Wall Maria happens, your parents immediately grab you along with some clothes and flee to Trost. Your parents dodged your sight of seeing the Titans even though you tried so hard to sneak a peak. Your parents over-protectiveness was starting to annoy you more than ever. In Trost your father has some family there, even though hell was breaking loose everywhere, a part of you was excited to see your other family members for the first time. Little did you know that you would wish that you never did..

Living in Trost was almost the same as Shiganshina, except that now you live with an alcoholic uncle, a nagging aunt, and a mean cousin. Hell was breaching every part of your life now. At last, you hear the news that your whole family has made the decision to volunteer at the fields. Internally, you are excited because you’re gonna be around new faces in the fields, but on the outside you were nervous because, how can you talk to someone if you don’t know what to talk about? For the first time ever, you were worried about the wrong thing..

As the first month goes by with no titan activity, everyone is struggling to scavenge enough food for their families. The shortage was effecting everyone. As the next day begins, you head off to the fields earlier than your family, this wasn’t the first time. You liked going early so you can meet new faces, but so far you still haven’t made any friends. As you approach the main area where they keep the buckets and other supplies, you see three kids sitting on a log beside the building. You’ve never seen them before.. One was a thin blonde boy, the middle child was a girl with dark hair, and at the end of the log was a boy with short brown hair. They were talking and waiting for the supervisors to arrive, just like you and many others. You want to walk up and join them, but apart of you won’t move forward. You were stuck. Your anxiety was holding you back, but you pushed yourself inches and inches closer. Before you reach the log they spot you over their shoulders. “Oh man, they must of heard me shuffling towards them..”, you think to yourself. “Hello, are you ok?”, says the blonde kid. You freeze and you can feel your cheeks heat up as they all look at you. After making eye contact with the blonde kid and the girl, what makes you blush even more was the sight of the brown haired boy. His eyes sparkled a pretty green in the sunlight. “I- .. I’m ok. Can I j-join you guys?”, you say as your eyes can’t leave his. From your side view you notice how the girl looks over at him and you, then folds her arms, “We can’t talk much, we’re about to start working.” You break your eye contact with him to face her and then you look down. “I-.. Ok..”, you turn away and start to walk, but then you stop as the blonde haired boy speaks up. “Come on, Mikasa, she just wants to hang with us for a little, right?” As you look over your shoulder, the blonde welcomes you with a soft grin and pats the log, signaling you to sit with them. You nod in response and make your way over to sit. “I’m Armin, this is Mikasa and Eren. What’s your name?”, Armin says as he shifts a little to face you. All of them look at you as you sit and you grin shyly as you look down at your hands. “I’m [y/n].. It’s nice to meet you guys..” As you look up at them, both of the boys smile as they say, “Hi [y/n]”, but you notice that Mikasa showed a weak grin. “Jeez, why did I come.. I don’t think she likes me..”, you think to yourself as you fiddle with your thumbs. “So where are you from, [y/n]?”, Armin asks.

While you walk home after a long day of picking berries, you can’t stop thinking about Eren. His pretty eyes made you blush every time you both made eye contact. You’ve never seen green eyes before, not only was the color strikingly amazing, but the structure of them seemed so different than the others. The seriousness and curiosity behind them really showed through every expression he portrayed. You learned that he lost his mother the day the colossal titan appeared. That could explain why his eyes seemed so.. Different. You also learned that Mikasa had went through some traumatic events too. Even Armin wasn’t entirely ok either. Then you realize, none of you are ok. Humanity wasn’t ok. Everyone was suffering.. For some reason though, you wanted to hug Eren the most.

Part 2 coming soon...

[crossovereddie]

Thoughts on S11xE5

I’m so ready to just jump right into the episode. The Mickey drought has finally ended!

Ian intro but no Mickey? Keep it I don’t want it.

I was really waiting for him to pop out I’m disappointed

Terry really is the worst omg

Sleepy lip :(((

Lip’s neighborhood is so LA I’m sad they couldn’t film exteriors in Chicago

Sandy 🤤🤤🤤

CARGO PANTS SHES SO FUNNY

They way ian calls for Mickey THEYRE SO MARRIED

THERE HE IS MY BABY BOY OH SWEETHEART YOU LOOK SO CUTE IN YOUR WORK UNIFORM I LOVE YOU

JUST GIVE THE BABY HIS COFFEE

THEY REALLY ARE SO MARRIED OMG

“How am I nagging you?” “You’re talking” omg

SHUT THE FUCK UP TOO

Ugh I need sandy to be my baby mama

She’s being hella shady but I’m HELLA into it

SANDY AND CARL THE INTERACTION I DIDNT KNOW I NEEDED

Poor Liam 😭😭😭

Mickey protect Liam please

Wtf Milton

I cant stand Tami :)))))))

The Milkoviches are so gross I’m so glad Mickey got out

Why am I so impressed by that swing franny is in

Finally my baby

His eyes in the rear view mirror are everything

Their bickering is endearing

Okay I know they’re getting robbed but all I can focus on is their wedding rings

THE TATTOO LMAO

A FAKE GUN IM DEAD

HE LISTENED TO HIS HUSBAND AND DIDNT BRING A REAL GUN

ILL SEE YOU AT THANKSGIVING WHY IS THIS SCENE SO FUNNY

HEIGHT DIFFERENCE

THEYRE SO CUTE

Whats with that house

I say this every week but I hate Carl’s storyline so much

I’m actually extremely uncomfortable with the Milkovich/ Liam storyline

Debbie is the most selfish

Stop stalking your gf and pay attention to your daughter

Gay relatives lmao

Okay I wanna hug both of them THEYRE so cute

Ian’s all into now when he didn’t even want this job lol

I just love how they balance each other out

Kev read the room

HES SO DRAMATIC LMAO

SHUT UP KEV LMAOOOO

OH MY GOD MICKEY IS GORGEOUS

IAN PLS

THEY STOLE AN AMBULANCE THATS SO MUCH WORSE THAN CARRYING A GUN

WHERES THE LOGIC IAN LMAO

They’re both so hot

SHUT THE FUCK UP DEBBIE DAMN

oh Ian :(

He deserves better

@ writers you gave him Mickey back now give him a job he loves

They’re laughing together

“Holy shit I’m hard” OH MY GOD

“That might be the hottest thing I’ve ever heard you say”

THE WAY THEYRE STARING AT EACH OTHER

KISSING AGAINST THE AMBULANCE

THUMB!!!!!!!!!!

THE WAY IAN ALWAYS PUSHES MICKEY BY THE BACK OF HIS NECK GETS ME EVERYTIME

MORE KISSING

WTF

Now I need an ambulance sex fic since they got rudely interrupted by a dead body

THEM DRIVING PAST CARL LMAO

that house is creepy

I kinda want it lol

How is nobody looking for that ambulance

FASHIONISTA MICKEY

“Should we say a few words?” “Yeah. Bye” play this at my funeral pls

I love those idiots so much

FUCK HIM UP LIP

SANDY DESERVES BETTER

Me im better

SANDY BABY I LOVE YOU SO MUCH

HUSBAND?!

I’m so weak for Mickey and Sandy Milkovich

NO LIP PLEASE DONT

WHAT THE FUCK

OH MY GOD

I need next week NOW

Terry getting shot was just the icing on the cake of a very fun episode. I need the next episode asap. This recap wasn’t as long as usual but i really did enjoy this episode Share your thoughts if you want!

[insfiringyou]

BTS - Finding Solace (Jungkook x Young-soon)

Contains: Angst. Family discussions. *Trigger warning for upsetting scenes involving an ill family member*

Set between ‘Jin’s Wedding’ and ‘A Reunion’, Young-soon’s father is taken ill, and Jungkook agnosies over how to support her during such a difficult time.

You can find out more about our headcanon universe and ongoing storyline here and more about our headcanon girlfriends here.

To read all headcanon fics chronologically, go here.

To read each member & their girlfriend’s headcanon universe fics in order, follow the links here: RM   /   Jin /   Suga /   J-Hope   /   Jimin  /   V   /   Jungkook & our full masterlist of fics and art can be found here

Content below the cut

PART ONE

The strip light overhead buzzed incessantly as Jungkook punched a code into the vending machine at the end of the hall, watching the spiralled dispenser twirl before dropping a candy bar in the tray below. He paused for a moment, before ordering another. He knew Young-soon would not be hungry when she left the ward, but it was a long drive home and her appetite was sure to return before they reached Seoul. 

The corridor was strangely silent, with only the humming bulb and the distant squeak of a nurse’s shoes keeping him company, but he couldn’t help feeling relieved. During their first few visits, Young-soon’s relentless, pained sobs had echoed from the room where her father was kept, and he had felt powerless to stop them. That first long and silent drive from her apartment in the city to the suburban hospital at the edge of Incheon still played on his mind; the way she automatically reached for the handle on the driver’s side of her car after receiving the call, and how he had stopped her, knowing she was in no condition to attempt the journey. She was shaking the whole way, gaze fixed on the road ahead as he steered through the city, following the Satnav which promised to find the streets with the least congestion. Her eyes swam with tears, but she kept her jaw tightly clenched, only letting go when he finally pulled into the hospital parking lot and her mother met them in the foyer. Stepping back, he allowed them space to hug; their embrace tightening as they clung to each other; her mother briefly meeting his gaze over his girlfriend’s shoulder, with a thankful nod. 

He hadn’t known what to do when they reached the third floor. The door to her father’s suite was open, and Jungkook caught a glimpse of the older man’s pale, chalky face in the hospital bed. His eyes were closed, and for a moment he feared the worst, until the doctor led the two women into the room and murmured that he was stable. The younger woman’s shoulders dropped in relief and she turned, for the first time that afternoon, to face her boyfriend, letting out a long sigh. 

Wanting to give them their privacy and feeling a little worn from the unexpected drive, he stayed in the corridor. There was something he needed to do and looked around the ward for a phone-zone, where he could make a private call without disturbing the staff. Several signs dotted around the walls clearly forbade their use in the corridors, but he finally found one which pointed to a small room near the nurses’ station and followed the direction of the arrow, closing the door quietly behind himself.  

It took longer than expected to be connected to the right person but, satisfied he had done all he could, he looked around the ward, seeking out somewhere to sit. Slowly, he walked to a line of plastic chairs which lined one whitewashed wall and leaned back, pressing the pads of his thumb and index finger against his eyes. It seemed as though he had been awake for days but a quick glance at his G-Shock told him it was not yet seven pm. His heart seemed to stop when, a moment later he heard Young-soon let out a single cry, quickly muffled by, presumably, her mother’s shoulder in another tight embrace. He considered getting back to his feet and rushing in to see her, but knew he couldn’t help. The quiet, reassuring tone of the doctor’s voice floated down the hall from the private room, followed by that of her mother, before the door closed behind them, muffling the sounds from the outside world. 

Jungkook waited patiently, ignoring the nagging, itchy feeling behind his eyes, until he could no longer keep them open. Settling back, he urged himself to stay awake, wanting to be there when the door eventually opened again; to be told how the older man had been affected by the stroke which had occurred while pottering around the garden earlier in the day. Jungkook remembered observing the weather from Young-soon’s apartment window as he got out of the shower and towelled himself off; thinking that if he did not have to make a video call to his management it would have been the perfect day for a long stroll through the park. There had not been a cloud in the sky, and the layer of fog which usually filled the streets early in the day had been absent. He recalled thinking that Young-soon would be thankful; that her asthma which sometimes played up when the air was badly polluted would not bother her while the day was so bright and, suddenly, he felt a little guilty; as though his cheerful mood and optimism had somehow cursed the day, causing things to become messy and complicated. He thought of her father, who always hugged him so fondly when they met and seemed so proud of him the last time they spoke, when Jungkook revealed he was laying the groundwork for a solo album. Other than his own parents, he had never met somebody who welcomed him with such warmth and affection. It had crossed his mind more than once over the last two and a half years that he would feel honoured to call such a man his father-in-law and hoped, more than anything, that he would be okay; that the other man would get to enjoy another sun-filled day in the garden, admiring the bright variety of flowers he had so lovingly planted over the years. 

It wasn’t until he heard the loudening sounds of footsteps against the vinyl flooring and his eyes snapped open that he realised he had fallen asleep. The door to the hospital suite was wide open, and Young-soon was walking towards him, dabbing gently at her eyes with the back of her fingers. He got to his feet at once, wondering vaguely how long he had been dozing.

“How is he?” Jungkook asked, reaching out for her hands as she closed the gap between them. 

She sniffled quietly, voice trembling. “We won’t know until he wakes up.”

His heart sank and he looked over her shoulder, towards the open doorway. He couldn’t see from this angle, but he suspected from the almost-silent atmosphere, that her father was alone.

“Did your mom go home?”

She nodded. “She’s just picking up a few things. They’ve said it could be a while…”

“I’ve called your boss.” He reassured her, squeezing her fingers gently. “He said to take a few days off and call when you can.”

A frown lined her face, crumpling her features. “I didn’t even think of that…”

“You shouldn’t have to worry about work.” He murmured softly and she sighed, clearly drained and feeling at a loss of what to do next. 

“I’m worried about my mom.” She admitted. 

“Is she planning to stay at home?”

Her shoulders moved in a shrug. “I doubt she’s thought of booking anywhere. I just don’t want her to be on her own.”

He thought for a moment, realising that he had never been in a situation like this before and wondering whether he was doing the right thing; if there was more he should be doing. The thought seemed pointless, but it troubled him nonetheless and when he spoke next, he was a little cautious. “Do you want me to stay?” 

Her eyes met his, but her gaze was soft and grateful. “Don’t you have a photoshoot tomorrow?”

He shook his head. “I’m sure they’ll understand.”

That had been two weeks ago...but the look of worry on her face as they left the hospital together still haunted him. 

Pocketing the spare candy bar, he reached for the cup of lukewarm instant coffee he had left sitting on one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs and sipped it with a grimace as a young woman opened the door of the nurses station and joined the corridor to begin her evening rounds. She looked freshed out of training, her short black hair tied neatly in a bun, and cast a double glance in his direction as she walked past. Nervously, he moved the polystyrene cup from his mouth and pointed at it. 

“Am I okay to drink it here?” He asked, thinking he had been caught out. There were no signs telling him not to but, like the cell phone policy, he suspected the nurses could be pretty strict. She hesitated for a moment before nodding with a smile. 

“Yeah, sure. Just be careful not to spill any.”

It took him a moment to work out the expression on her face and realised it was a look he had seen before. For a second, she seemed to hesitate and he wondered whether she would ask for an autograph. The timing would be incredibly inappropriate, but it would not be the first time. Instead, she surprised him by straightening up, as though catching herself and realising where she was and, with an internal sigh of relief, Jungkook cut the silence. 

“I will.” He promised, before nodding in the direction of the door down the hall which was undoubtedly one she would be visiting on her round. “How is he?”

Following his eyeline, she pointed. “In there?” She turned back to him. “A lot better than he was. He’s got his appetite back…and his communication’s improving.” 

“Has he been out of bed yet?”

She shook her head. “Not on his own.” She must have seen the sunken expression on his face, because her gaze softened sympathetically. “...It just takes time.”

“I guess.” 

She thought for a moment. “The woman in there with him now…do you know her?”

“She’s my girlfriend.” Jungkook confirmed, realising as he said it that it was the first time he had told someone other than those he knew. It didn’t feel like such a big deal anymore. “He’s her father.”

“Oh.” Her mouth opened, as though desperately wanting to ask more, but she quickly closed it, remaining professional. “If you need anything, I’ll be right down the hall.” She pointed vaguely in the direction of the station and started to walk away before turning back, just remembering... “Visiting hours are almost over.” She warned softly. “If you want to stay a few more minutes, I won’t tell…”

Jungkook nodded with a grateful smile. “Thanks.” 

PART TWO

Three months later…

She took the towel as it was handed to her with a quiet thanks and began the work of wiping the cutlery which lay on the draining board, dropping them by type into the draw behind her as her mother washed up. She noticed the silver in the older woman’s hair which seemed to cover almost her head; a few strands of black still clinging to the strands in the centre while the edges were consumed. It had only been two and a half weeks since her last visit, but the stress of the last few months had finally started to take its toll. Her face was likewise adorned by a few extra grooves and lines which Young-soon did not remember being there at the time of her father’s hospitalisation, and she wondered vaguely whether she too was beginning to show physical signs of her worry. She had recently found a few greys of her own while brushing her hair in the bathroom mirror and had plucked them out with a quiet “fuck.”

Catching her gaze, her mother smiled softly; the crinkles at the corner of her mouth strangely loving as they both turned ahead to look out of the wide window in front of the sink. The view overlooked a small patch of decking and, beyond that, the stretch of lawn which was currently being mowed by Jungkook. He moved along the push-mower with some effort; its metal blades noisy as it cut through the grass in a straight line. Beside him, Young-soon could just about make out the shape of her father standing under the shade cast by the garden shed; his oversized stomach hanging over his shorts as he watched the young man carefully. This too seemed strange. She remembered her father as lean and trim when he entered the hospital, but it seemed that months of spending most of his time in bed had rounded him.

The two women subconsciously held their breath as Jungkook stopped mowing and reached for a potted plant which blocked his path at the edge of the grass, picking it up and discarding it gently by a row of sunflowers. 

The older woman tutted with a smile. “He’s going to ask him to move it.” She warned softly, under her breath. “You know he likes it in the shade.”

Young-soon watched and, a moment later, her father’s short, stubby finger shot out and pointed in the direction of the shadowed decking.

Her mother chuckled lightly, handing her a freshly washed plate.. “I told you…I wonder how much longer he’ll continue if your dad keeps bossing him around.”

Young-soon shrugged. “Probably all night.” She mumbled dryly, stacking the plate onto the drying rack. She sensed her mother looking at her out of the corner of her eye. 

“I hope you don’t order him around like that.” She taunted, a little too knowingly.. “He seems like he has trouble saying no.”

Her eyes rolled in reply, voice little more than a grumbling whisper. “Tell me about it…” The tone of her answer made her mother frown and, changing the subject, Young-soon nodded towards the outline of her boyfriend as he resumed mowing. “It was his idea to come and help.”

The older woman looked at her a moment longer before she too continued the task at hand; dipping her worn hands into the bowl to find the dishcloth at the bottom. “He’s a sweet boy.” She commented fondly, as though stating a fact, and Young-soon couldn’t help but sigh in agreement.  

“I know.” She murmured, finding herself looking in his direction once more as he stopped what he was doing to reach for the hem of his white shirt and lift it above his head. The day was unseasonably warm and his tanned skin glistened with sweat; his tattoos becoming visible as he discarded the fabric on the stone walkway which ran alongside the neat patch of lawn. She watched him wipe his forehead with the back of his hand and could almost imagine her father’s sarcastic, and slightly chastising comment at the sight. Jungkook cast a timid grin in his direction, muttering something in reply before reaching once more for the handlebar. Despite having seen him topless almost every day for the past few months as he spent more and more time with her, it still made her heart beat rapidly in her chest. Catching herself, she shook her head and glanced down at the growing pile of plates she had missed being handed to her. 

“I caught him looking at apartments the other day.” Young-soon said, ignoring the churning, fluttery feeling in her lower stomach. 

“Oh?” The other woman seemed interested. 

She nodded, laughing softly. “Here in Incheon...he was trying to minimise the website when I came in, but he clicked zoom instead…”

“Do you think he wants you to move in together?”

She sensed the curiosity in her mother’s voice and couldn’t help but feel guilty that she was not as entirely convinced by the idea.

“It’s a big step.” She spoke slowly. “I’m not sure if I’d want to commute.”

“It’d only be for the weekends.” Her mother reasoned, voice raising in pitch as though unable to hide her excitement. “You could stay in Seoul with your aunt.”

Young-soon pulled a face and she tutted dramatically, hiding a smile. 

“She always asks how you are…” 

“Then I’ll call her…” 

The clattering sound outside came to a halt; the mowing evidently finished and Jungkook began the task of sorting the plant pots he had shifted back to their original place, under the watchful eye of her father.

“It’s good of him to support you going part time.” Her mother eventually murmured, cutting the silence. 

“I didn’t ask him to.” She protested weakly. “But I’m glad he does.” Young-soon admitted with a small sigh. “My wages only just cover my rent.”

“You know we’d help too…” 

She shook her head sadly. “Dad’s treatment...” She argued, feeling a small hand brush her shoulder.

“You’re our only daughter.” The voice beside her was soft, reassuring. “We’ve been putting money aside for years...for when you get married…”

Her lips twisted in a small, sarcastic smile. “That’s optimistic.” 

The other woman shook her head in disagreement. “He’d make a good husband.” She reasoned, but found herself frowning a moment later when Young-soon did not answer. “You’re not sure?” 

Sighing, she admitted defeat. “I suppose he would be…” 

“Haven’t you discussed it before?” Her mother raised a questioning eyebrow. “If you want a family?”

“Once or twice...” She admitted, looking down. “But not in a while.” Glancing back through the window, she was lost in thought for a moment. “He seems fixated on this house thing...”

“It’d be nice to have you closer.” Her mother’s tone seemed hopeful. “Your dad would appreciate it too.”

Young-soon nodded. “I’m glad he’s getting better.”

“They want him back in next week to run some more tests.” 

Her stomach sank. “You didn’t say…”

“It’s just precautionary. They don’t want him to exert himself too much. And he has a new diet plan. No red meat whatsoever.”

Young-soon’s lips curled in a guilty smile and she eyed her mother playfully. “He won’t like that.”

“I told him I’d try it too.” The older woman laughed quietly. “But he doesn’t know about the dried pork in the cupboard.”

“You rebel.” 

Their conversation was interrupted by a small knock on the kitchen door which opened onto the garden. They both turned in unison to look towards the doorway as Jungkook’s face appeared in the frame, his forehead shimmery with perspiration. 

“Hi…” He waved, a little out of breath. Young-soon suspected some of the plant pots were heavier than they looked and hadn’t been moved in years. He looked past her, directing his question at her mother. “He asks where you keep the weed killer.” He blushed, a little embarrassed to be following such an errand. 

“In the same place I’ve kept it for thirty six years.” The older woman called cheerfully, voice full of sarcasm.  

The young man looked from her to his girlfriend, who seemed more than amused, before nodding curtly, anticipating he would end up rewording the instructions so as to not frustrate the other man any further.“Alright, thanks...” He gave another timid wave, before disappearing back through the doorway, coming into view a moment later as he joined the stretch of lawn and walked over to the man now sitting in a deck chair. Young-soon and her mother both watched Jungkook open the garden shed and duck under the low-hanging door frame to delve into its depths. He reammerged a moment later, clutching a bright green bottle. 

“He cheated on me.” Young-soon suddenly said, cutting the silence. 

“What?” The low, emotionless tone of her daughter’s voice masked the meaning for a moment and her smile faded as she turned to face her. 

“Jungkook.” She sighed softly, pulling her eyes from her boyfriend’s silhouette to look her mother in the eye. “He cheated...a while back.”

The woman opposite opened her mouth, lips flailing for a moment, before pressing them tightly together; eyebrows knitting in a frown. “With who?” She asked softly, confused. 

Young-soon shrugged. “I don’t know.” She admitted, suddenly feeling pathetic. “He doesn’t either. It was at a party.”

The older woman was stunned into silence, eyes roaming over her daughter’s face as though trying to read more into the situation, but finding nothing more than what was already said. “I’m surprised.” She murmured after a moment, wanting to say more, but unable to find the right words. 

“So was I…” Young-soon admitted, turning back to finish the drying. Jungkook was, unsurprisingly, sprinkling liquid into the cracks between the decking, targeting the long, ugly-looking flowers which had started to sprout through the slits of wood while her father had been in hospital. 

Although there were a few stray items of crockery still submerged in the soapy water, her mother ignored them, instead watching her daughter carefully as Young-soon slotted the last few plates into the remaining gaps on the drying rack. “Why didn’t you tell us?” She quietly asked.

Young-soon shrugged feebly. “I didn’t know how I felt…” A frown formed on her face as she watched the young man stride back down the garden and kneel softly beside a plant pot, reaching for the small sack of soil which lay beside it. She shook her head, backtracking. “I was ashamed. Should I have been more mad?” 

Her question was directed more to herself than the woman opposite and her mother was once more silent for a few moments, before speaking up. “Has he told you he’s sorry?”

She nodded, letting out a small, humourless laugh. “He begged my forgiveness for a year.” There was a moment of hesitation before the continued, a hint of residual pain in her voice, as though unearthing old wounds. “But that doesn’t mean it’s right...what he did.” 

The voice which came from beside her was beyond tender; understanding. “Of course it doesn’t.” Her mother agreed. “But things aren’t always perfect.”

Young-soon turned to look at her, gathering herself together. “Does it change your opinion of him?” She asked, realising that she was a little anxious for the anwer. 

“As he is right now?” Her mother looked through the window, watching him for a moment. “He’s potting begonias in your father’s old gardening hat…” She commented, telling the other woman all she needed to know. 

Surprisingly relieved, her shoulders dropped and she wiped her damp hands on the towel, running it across her fingers. “I just needed to tell someone.” She confessed quietly, glancing back towards the garden, eyes fixing steadily on the figure kneeled in the distance. “Before we move in together.”

“Do you feel better?” Her mother asked.

“No…” She admitted with a small shrug. “But I can’t hold onto it forever.”

“No, you can’t…” The woman agreed, falling quiet. Young-soon watched her dip her hands back into the now lukewarm water and reach for the chopsticks which had fallen to the bottom of the bowl. “So you’ve made up your mind? About the move?” 

Young-soon nodded, unable to stop herself from feeling bashful. “I think I did, just now.”

“That’s good.” Her mother whispered, relieved to hear her daughter sounding more like herself again. The confession still played on her mind, but it seemed the younger woman had worked things out for herself. “I’m glad you told me.” She confirmed gently. “I can’t believe you got so grown up…”

Young-soon rolled her eyes, but felt her stomach grow warm at the pride evident in the woman’s voice. “My twenties are far behind me mom…”

“Your dad still sees you as his little girl.” Her mother said fondly, nodding towards the garden where the older man was seen to be shuffling forward in his chair and reaching for Jungkook’s outstretched hands as he was pulled steadily to his feet. “Let’s just keep this between us.” She said gently, pressing her lips together tightly. 

Young-soon nodded silently, watching the two men walk, side by side, across the garden. Her father was helped along by the cane, as well as the reassuring grasp of Jungkook’s hand as he accompanied him, matching his slow pace as they joined the shaded decking. 

“Looks like they’re nearly done.” Her mother observed, gaze softening at the sight. It had been a hard few months, but she was relieved her husband was well enough to walk again. “Go and ask if they want something to drink. They both look like they need a lie down.”

***

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[bellatrixobsessed1]

Speak No Evil (Part 35) - V2

So this first chapter of version 2 (V2), the TyZula path, is sort of going to be a repeat of chapter 18 with some altercations to fit the next storyline. Tbh I kind of recommend re-reading the chapters prior to it, that’s what I had to do lol.

The sun had begun to filter through the windows hours ago, spilling a pleasant and cheek-warming wash of gold over the upturned side of her face. But she remains in bed, head sunken into pillows that are so invitingly plush. 

She supposes that she has earned, or at the very least, could use a day spent in bed. Or mostly spent in bed. There can’t be much harm in it, she and Zuko had come to Ember Island to relax. She has simply decided to take advantage of this rather late. She rolls onto her back and exhales. Her ankles are still throbbing lightly. 

She stretches her arms and tries to prepare herself to fully wake up and rise out of bed. She could use breakfast, though at this point, it is lunchtime. She lingers for a moment in the hallway in front of the kitchen. Seicho is already awake, she probably has been for some time now. 

“You don’t have to cook for me, you already did so much…” she hears Zuko mutter. 

Seicho shrugs. “I like cooking, it’s a hobby.” She clearly has a lot of those, hiking, fishing, botany...it seems as though she has a new hobby for every day and she had spent a good portion of their trip going on and on about said hobbies. 

“Are you sure?” 

“Completely.” Seicho flashes him a grin. “But if you’d like, I can show you how to perfectly cook and season a lobster!” She inhales deeply. “It already smells wonderful. The trip was fun but it’s nice to have a full kitchen of cooking supplies!”

Azula supposes that it does smell nice, especially when she adds a touch of rosemary and a sprinkle of parsley. The woman catches her eye. “You’re finally awake!”

‘More or less.’ Azula spells out. She rubs at her eyes

“Are you feeling any better?” Zuko asks.

She holds up her hands and gestures, ‘a little’. 

“Good. Believe it or not, I was worried.” He pauses, “I’m still worried.”

 She wonders if Seicho has told him yet of how furiously she tried to hike up that volcano. Agni, she hopes that the woman hasn’t shared anything while she was asleep. She’d much rather tell him herself, if at all. ‘Why?’

“You weren’t doing too good when you left and you came back covered in cuts and...swollen ankles.”

She shrugs, ‘I’m fine.’

She can tell that Seicho is itching to speak up. She finds herself flooded with relief. Seicho holds her tongue. She wonders how long the girl with keep holding her tongue. 

‘Really. I’m fine.’ And she thinks that she is telling the truth. She doesn’t feel particularly good nor hopeful. But she doesn’t feel naggingly miserable either. Her mind is still troubled with the task of working out how to approach TyLee should they see each other again. 

They will see each other again, she promises herself this.

 .oOo.

TyLee bunches her fists and takes a deep breath. She isn’t yet ready, but she is as ready as she can and will be. Regardless of her hesitations, she needs to do this. She needs to if she ever wants to bring her journey one step closer to full closure. 

She finds Mai outside of her aunt Mura’s flower shop, pruning leaves and ruffled petals. Zuko hadn’t expelled her from the palace, as far as TyLee knows but TyLee also can’t imagine that Mai would feel particularly welcomed there. 

She takes another, much deeper breath. Agni, her hands are shaking. She isn’t sure how in the name of the spirits she is going to confront Azula. She thinks of Tuya and of the rest of her expedition mates. She thinks of the words ‘clever’ and ‘innovative’. She isn’t just ‘sweet’ and ‘cute’ anymore. 

She isn’t just some bubbly, naive child.

Well perhaps she is still bubbly and chipper but she is smart. She is strong and resilient. She can hold her own. 

She will hold her own.

“Hello, Mai.”

Mai looks up from her flowers as nonchalant and unexpressive as she always has been. Maybe she could use a venture away from the Fire Nation too. Maybe everyone can use a vacation from the Fire Nation. “How was your trip to…”

“The poles.” TyLee finishes. “It was amazing. Mai you should have seen it, it was glittery and enticing and it was like the Spirit World covered our world in stars…” she is rambling again. That stupid perky rambling. “And I learned a lot about myself.”

Mai quirks a brow. “Good things?”

TyLee nods. “Yes. A lot of good things.” She pauses. “And I thought about a lot too.”

“Like what?”

“Like about how I let everyone take advantage of me. Not just Azula but Zuko did it, you did it, and even Suki did it sometimes.”

Mai opens her mouth to interrupt but she won’t stand for interjection, not this time. “I don’t even think that you guys meant to do it. Azula, sure. But not Zuko and Suki. Sometimes I think that it just happened naturally. Because I let it happen. Because I couldn’t say no.”

“You didn’t mention me…”

“Because I’m not sure about you, Mai.” She confesses. “I’ve thought about it over and over again and I still can’t tell if you actually cared about me--if you actually loved me or if you were just trying to spite Azula and Zuko.” She wonders if Mai is even sure herself. Quite possibly she thinks that Mai had been killing two iguana-parrots with one stone. 

“What if I told you that it was a mix of both?”

TyLee is quiet for perhaps longer than she has ever held a silence. The question has so much weight, so many nuances to consider. “Then I would say that it still isn’t okay. I don’t want to be part of some scheme. I didn’t distance myself from Azula to become your pawn instead.”

“You weren’t just a pawn…” Mai trails off.

“I was a pawn with perks.”

Mai shakes her head, “I loved you. For real.”

“So did Azula.” TyLee points out. “But I was still a pawn. I was still being used. Don’t you think it’s a little strange that you were trying to get back at Azula by doing the exact same things she did?”

“Why are you defending her?”

And there it is; the trap that they always set for her. She almost didn’t catch it. “I’m not. Actually…” it dawns upon her,  “I think it’s the opposite. I’m telling you that what she did, how she used me, was wrong. And I’m saying that it doesn’t become less wrong when you do it.” She bites her lip, weary of what she is about to say. She thinks that she may have already scratched at the surface of this nagging itch in her head. “If anything it’s worse when you do it.”

For the first time in a while, Mai looks genuinely angry. Her brows crinkle and her mouth curves down ever so slightly. “How so?”

“Because you think that you’re doing it for the greater good. And you pretended like you weren’t doing it. At least Azula was trying to stop and even if she wasn’t, at least she was up front about it…”  The problem with Azula, she realizes, is habit. Habit and constant apologies with no great efforts to make a change. 

“What do you want from me, TyLee?”

“I want you to admit it. I want you to acknowledge that you were using me.” She wants clear cut confirmation that she isn’t seeing things that aren’t there. That she isn’t making an issue of nothing at all. She needs to know. “I need you to see that it...it really messed with me, Mai. To have so many people--to have the people I loved the most use me over and over again.” She attempts to blink away a few tears.

Mai’s expression softens and she rubs her hands over her face. “I did it okay. I loved you but I used you. I was mad at Zuko. Azula is the worst person I’ve ever met. And You’re one of the best. It was perfect; they’d both get hurt and I’d...we’d be happy.” 

TyLee shakes her head. “ You’d be happy. I want to be loved, Mai. I want to be loved completely with no ulterior motives.” And it comes to her that she can be. 

“So what are you going to do, TyLee? Cut us all out.”

She doesn’t want to. She’d love to keep talking to Mai and Zuko, and even Azula, if only in moderation. Deep down she thinks that she would like to love Azula again. It hurts but she knows that it is entirely possible that a talk would only solidify what she is already fairly certain of--that Azula doesn’t care who she hurts so long as her ego is intact. “If I have to. Don’t make me have to.” Silently she begs the same of Azula.

.oOo.

“No, no, like this!” Seicho takes her by the wrist and guides her hand. 

‘Is there really an exact method of sprinkling salt on sizzle-crisps?’ Azula asks.

“There’s a particular way of arranging the dish too once the salt and spices are added. Personally I like to arrange my fruit slices and salad leaves to make pretty pictures…”

‘You like to play with your food.’

“It’s an art, princess! Culinary art. An undervalued art, if you ask me!” She pauses. “If you want, you can put the parchment aside and spell words out with fruit slices or sprinkle tyme to make letters.”

‘No thanks.’ She writes as Zuko grumbles, “and dirty our counters? We don’t have servants here so I’ll be the one cleaning the mess.” 

“Azula can help!”

‘Azula won’t help.’ Cleaning is beneath her. Getting her hands dirty to knead dough and toss flour was a task better suited for serving personnel. She still isn’t sure why she has rolled out and flattened so many circles of dough. She gestures to them, ‘what for?’

“We’re going to wrap the sizzle-crisps in them, of course.” Seicho smiles. 

Azula blinks. 

“What kind of abomination are you having us make?” Zuko throws his hands up, kicking up a cloud of flour.

‘An affront to taste buds all over the Fire Nation. We ought to have you banished.’

“Don’t banish me until after you try it.” Seicho declares. 

Azula picks up one of the sizzle-crisps and wraps it up in a blanket of dough. She supposes enduring the woman’s terrible cuisine creative process is the least that she can do.

.oOo. 

Azula has grown unresponsive again. She doesn’t mean to in fact she had, had a nice time and had quite decently enjoyed her wrapped sizzle-crisps. But her mind is, as per usual, a mess. She thinks that she is letting things go too far. Stringing Seicho along. She is horrid with these sorts of things but she is almost certain that the woman has taken a very bright shine to her. 

The shine is alarmingly bright and she hadn’t meant to plant the seeds for it. But the woman has been so good to her and, Agni, she could use love and company. So much so that sometimes she can fool even herself into thinking that she loves Seicho. And maybe she does, truly so, but she yearns so much for TyLee. And she knows exactly who she would pick if given a choice. 

She rubs her hands over her face. When had she become so confused and conflicted? When had she become so delicate and volatile? She should stop thinking about this before she drives herself back into a sense of self-loathing. 

“What’s wrong?” Seicho finally asks. She thinks that the woman has been dying to do just that since they started cooking. 

‘Just thinking…’ She knows that she should elaborate because she knows damn well that Seicho will ask her to. She decides to wait for the request on the off chance that it won’t be made. Really, it would probably be good for her to get it off of her chest. 

“About what?”

She should come out with the truth. But, spirits, she only has one friend and telling her that, that is how it will stay may well ruin it. She swallows before deciding on a careful partial truth. It is actually a whole truth, just not the one that needs to be spoken. ‘My voice.’  And truly, her lack of a voice is on her mind, just not as pressingly at the moment. She hovers the brush over the parchment as if to add something more. She almost scribbles down her confession. Instead she retracts her hand.

“What about it?”

‘I want it back.’

Azula’s stomach squirms when the woman touches her fingers to her lips. The motion is so delicate, so tender. She feels tears stinging in the corners of her eyes. She can have a lover…

TyLee probably won’t even take her back and if she doesn’t then she will regret having burned this bridge. Azula curls her fingers around her wrist.  She isn’t sure where to go from here. She knows that she is a fool for writing of a sure shot at affection for the slim chance that she can mend old relationships.

She can see the disappointment in Seicho’s eyes when she ultimately decides to put the woman’s hand back at her side. She shakes her head and looks at her parchment. Her stomach flutters and squirms. With a hand that shakes slightly she picks up the parchment again. 

With a lump in her throat, she scrawls, ‘I still love TyLee. I still want her.’ Her hands tingle as though they too are charged with anxiety. She can’t yet bring herself to hold the parchment up. She doesn’t want to lose Seicho. She doesn’t want to lose her...her friend? Her companion. The woman who had saved her life for Agni knows what reason. 

She hands the parchment to Seicho and follows the motion of her eyes. Notes the crease in her brow, the twitch of her lips. “Why didn’t you just say so?”

Azula blinks and Seicho laughs, “right.”  She hands the parchment back. 

‘Well?’ Azula mouths.

“Well, what?” 

Azula scribbles a quick, ‘you aren’t angry?’

“I can’t force you to love me, Azula.” She takes her hand. “I don’t want to, but if TyLee uh...found someone else…”

Azula flinches. For all she knows, TyLee has already made amends with Mai while she was traipsing about the jungle. 

“...you still have someone who loves you.” She smiles. 

Azula lets the woman pull her into a hug. Sometimes it is nice to be held, to take gestures of comfort. She hesitantly returns the embrace. 

“Do you still want to talk about your voice?”

Azula pulls out of the hug and nods, ‘I would like to find the spirit. I want to actually find it, in the right jungle.’ She takes the parchment back and adds, ‘are you going to come with me again?’

“Of course I’ll come with you! And maybe we can see if TyLee and your brother can come along. I’ll just have to let Zhang-Zin know.”

 ‘That would be ideal, yes.’

Seicho’s overly enthusiastic smile returns. “Things are going to fall into place for you, you’ll see!” She insists. 

Azula shrugs and mouths a halfhearted, ‘maybe’.  

Seicho seems to think for a moment, “but I think that we should take a break first.” 

‘A break?’

“We just got back from the jungle, you’ve got a lot on your mind, don’t you think that it would be nice to, I don’t know, go to the beach and relax a little. And then we can start planning our next quest.”  

‘I…’ for a moment only the single letter remains on the parchment. ‘I guess that a break could be nice.’ But it could also be a waste of time. She can’t particularly see herself being able to relax. Not with so many things on her mind. Not when TyLee could be out there deciding that dating her is the worst thing that has ever happened to her or making out with Mai or some other gorgeous woman. Not when her voice is still null. Not when she is so skeptical that Seicho truly is alright with being only a friend. 

She has an inkling that the only reason she is still so cheerful is because she is secretly hoping that TyLee has moved on. 

Seicho leaps off of the bed. “Tomorrow, we can go shell hunting tomorrow and I can show you this tidal pool with these spiny urchins.” She is listing off so many ideas and Azula isn’t sure what her intentions are. Isn’t sure that this isn’t just some sort of scheme to try to rope her into a relationship.

Azula rubs her hands over her face--she supposes that this sort of paranoia is exactly why things have gone so amiss between she and TyLee. She wishes that she could just accept that, perhaps, some people do mean well. 

That some people just try their best to make something good of dreadful or unexpected things. 

Perhaps Seicho really does just want a lighthearted day with a friend. 

Azula could use one of those. Maybe it is exactly what she needs; a relationship without romance. Something more carefree before delving back into much heavier subjects. 

‘I’d rather avoid urchins.’

Seicho laughs out loud, a full body laugh. “Alright, no urchins.” 

[unto-myself-together]

From Dusk to Dawn, ch 2 (ESO fanfic)

Content warnings for this specific chapter: references to sex. Brief descriptions of violence. Occasional light cursing (i.e. damn, ass. It’s very infrequent though)

Author notes (a lot of notes, sorry!!):

Previous chapters: Chapter 1

Author notes (skip to the squiggly lines--> ~~~~~~ if you want to jump straight into the story)

You can also read the story on my Archive of Our Own Account here:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/23343163/chapters/64680022#workskin

Lots of notes here (and I apologize for that. But this chapter had a lot of stuff going on. There are a couple of explanations for anyone who is interested/confused by something that went on in this chapter.):

Hey everyone. I really really hope you all have been doing much better during these troubled times than I have. I have an anxiety disorder (as well as a couple of other things and chronic medical conditions) and let’s just say that this does not exactly mix well with a worldwide pandemic. Let me just say that if it wasn’t for ESO and my ESO guildies, I don’t know where I’d be.

I love your comments. All of them. I have been coming back just to read them again and again, and when I get the chance I want to respond to each and every one of them. You all are so beautiful; thank you… And thank you to the person who left that extremely lovely message in my ask box on Tumblr! I’m not sure how to let you know, how to respond in a way that you will see (are you still around?), but if you can see this: I love you and I loved, loved, loved your message!

I missed writing. A lot. But I have so tired lately that I was having difficulties writing this next chapter. I finally got it out and I wanted to share it with all of you. This one is a bit more lighthearted than the last (we’re going to go on a rollercoaster here, with lighthearted chapters intermixed with not-so lighthearted chapters). I also changed the tags a bit.

Ravenwatch and sexuality: It’s actually canon that House Ravenwatch has “naked parties”. I kid you not. Gwendis has dialogue during the quest where you crown the new King/Queen of Rivenspire; if you meet her upstairs in Shornhelm’s castle, she’ll say something like:“If this were a Ravenwatch party, none of these people would be wearing clothes”. Please note that this is a “missable conversation”;if you do not catch Gwendis before completing the crowning quest, you will never get to see her say it again.

Even if ZOS later decides to erase these lines, they can’t erase them from history because I have recordings of it :D In all honesty? I actually appreciated this little side note;I think it adds more complexity to their characters. Given their rules about consent regarding blood giving, their parties are probably fully consensual too.And there really isn’t anything wrong about adults having consensual parties. Besides, vampires have always been a little associated with sex and sexuality, so I don’t think it’s really that surprising.

Kalin’s comment is a reference to their parties. But he purposely worded it in a way that he knew Elyssa wouldn’t understand: with a reference to a Dunmer tavern-brothel. No, Ophelia doesn’t actually participate in their parties (having grown up in this place, I think it would be awkward for all people involved); instead she usually goes to visit relatives and comes back to help with the clean-up. That’s not gonna stop Kalin from teasing her anyways. Speaking of Kalin, I really think he didn’t need to be half-naked and lounging on their dining room table during their mealtime. Just saying: I feel like we were interrupting a little more than just “mealtime”.

Now, whether or not Verandis and his "children" have relations with each other when they keep referring to each other by familial names ("father", "sister") is a different story; the idea makes me uncomfortable. But I'm fairly certain Kalin (who is not "a family member") and mortal guests can get some action with the vampires.

In regards to the mortal servants: I’m sorry, ZOS. I don’t care how much magic is pumping through Tamriel’s veins; you will never convince me that two servants (Kalin and Estelle) can feed a household of five vampires once a night every night (even more than five vampires if you save the two people during the Rivenspire quests). Even with magical “produce more blood” potions, I felt the need to add at least two more mortals to the household…I hope readers don’t mind…

It did get me thinking: how does Verandis find these people? I doubt he just puts up an ad onto the Shornhelm bulletin board. Can you imagine? “Help wanted. Must have lots of blood and no aversion to pointy objects in your neck” (I’m kidding). Melina Cassel’s comments in her hireling mails implies that Verandis doesn’t force the servants to give blood as a part of their contract (she makes mention that Estelle giving blood goes “beyond the call of duty”). But there probably is a preference for those who aren’t averse to parting with a bit of their life force every now and then. In Kalin’s case, I’m like 99% convinced his half naked Dunmer self does it because he thinks it’s hot.

I actually had a mock up done of the Castle Ravenwatch basement/lower floor on the PTS using Daggerfall Overlook. I’m not sure if anyone would be interested enough in it for me to post a pic of it though. (yes, I know.  I saw the Ravenwatch Prologue and I don’t care)

I really hope ZOS comes up with a house crest for House Ravenwatch soon; otherwise I will have to make my own…

I know it may not seem like it from this chapter, but I actually have fallen madly in love with Fennorian. But it doesn’t technically appear during the Rivenspire questline, and I actually want Elyssa’s first time meeting him to be during her visit to Western Skyrim and doing something like the Bound in Blood quest.

The goat: It’s more of an inside joke I have with myself. When I was going through the Rivenspire questline for the first time, I noticed that there’s a goat that appears behind Ravenwatch Castle. At first, I thought it coincided the appearance and disappearance of Kalin. So I made a joke to myself that Kalin IS the goat. (Later I found out the goat’s appearance has nothing to do with whether or not Kalin the NPC is around. Still, I thought it would be funny to poke at that idea in the fic).

I have a problem with the Stormhaven storyline and this idea that you have to have this specific potion made with the Dream Shard just to avoid dreams. For the purposes of this story, I’m going to re-write that part so that the Dream Shard created potion is only to prevent Vaermina’s magic from interfering with your dreams specifically, and that there are likely plenty of other alchemy potions (sleep potions) that could prevent dreams (but not necessarily prevent Vaermina or her followers from affecting your sleep or giving you nightmares anyways). I just wanted to make that distinction.

While I wouldn’t doubt Vaermina might torment the Vestige in their sleep as a payback, I doubt the Daedric Prince would care enough to do it constantly (just the feeling that I got when I finished the Stormhaven questline was that Vaermina wasn’t too perturbed by being thwarted. Her “imprisoning” the Vestige in her realm was half-hearted as well; you could easily leave. Like she had much bigger fish to fry than you).

In regards to House Ravenwatch and sexuality again: I wanted to state more bluntly that No, I do not think the vampiric family members have sex with each other because they keep referring to each other as "brother" and "sister" (and to Verandis as "father") in canon. Yes, I know they're probably not ACTUALLY related to each other, but still. Instead, I think they have rampant naked parties with fully willing fully adult mortal participants. Let's be honest: there's got to be at least as many mortals in Tamriel who think vampires are hot as there are people in our world that think vampires are hot...Also. You know. Kalin. Half naked. On the table. Just saying.

PLEASE NOTE: Elyssa Arboretum is NOT the actual name of my character. I changed her last name for this story because...well....I'm a little shy. If you ever meet someone in game that has a name similar but not exact, it MIGHT be me. I usually like being on my own, as social situations can cause me great stress (especially if they're strangers). I am so sorry, and I greatly appreciate your understanding...

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She was staring at a wall.

….

…….

To be fair, it was a very nice wall.

…

….

….Although it did take her more than a moment’s time to realize she was staring at it sideways.

…

…And even longer to realize that she was staring at it sideways because she was lying down.

Groaning out of partial frustration, Elyssa heaved herself into a sitting position.

A soft bed and warm blankets were there to greet her, and they were inviting enough that she was sorely tempted to just go back to sleep.

But the longer she sat there, the faster the memories of the previous days nagged at her:

High Rock.

Blood fiends.

A plot to conquer the entirety of Rivenspire by a grieving and spiteful Breton noble.

The usual.

….

……She had to know what time it was.

Covers flung wide, she jumped out of bed.  Or tripped, rather; a creak in her back found her eagerness a bit disagreeable.   And it took a bit rubbing out her muscles to get her poor back to stand up straight.

But she hurried to make her way downstairs, whether her sore back liked it or not, when she heard the echoes of a conversation.

Gwendis and Melina were both there in the main hall.  Gwendis was literally lounging on top of her coffin, her arm lazily hanging over her eyes as if she meant to sleep like that.

Melina was at the table, toying with an array of colorful runestones.

“Good morning, Elyssa,” Melina cheerfully greeted her as she approached.

“Morning, Melina.  Morning Gwendis.”

Gwendis only gave a grunt in response.

Elyssa took a spot next to Melina, watching her as she carefully examined one rune at a time before placing them into different, colorful piles.

“Did you sleep well?”  Melina asked, frowning and squinting closer to her own hand when she noticed the rune she held had its surface defaced.

“Better than well.  I think this was the best sleep I’ve had since…it’s got to have been weeks...I feel fantastic…”

Melina chuckled a little.  “Well if you get such wonderful sleep in our home, perhaps you should stay with us then!  At least, for a while.  We get so few guests; I find it a little exciting to have someone new with us.  And, provided you’re still interested, I’d love the opportunity to show you a few basic enchanting techniques.  You know…when all this…ah, bloodfiend business is over.”

Elyssa perked up with a grin.  “I think I’d really like that.  And maybe you could take a look at that book I got, the one I told you about?  It really doesn’t make a lick of sense to me, and it would be great if someone could translate it into something more ‘beginner level’.”

“Oh of course, dear. I’ll certainly give it a try when we’re all a little less pre-occupied…”

“Wake me up when the world’s ending,” Gwendis moaned, still lounging on her perch.

“Is she all right?” Elyssa asked, leaning towards Melina.

“Oh she’s fine.  Just cranky after scouting out half of Rivenspire for Adusa.  She’ll be better after she gets some rest….”

Melina’s eyes narrowed at Gwendis.  “She’d feel even better if she actually bothered to go inside her coffin instead of sleeping on the hard stone lid...”

“That requires getting up…” Gwendis complained.

Melina gave a sigh, then went back to her rune sorting.

But Elyssa continued to stare at Gwendis, lost in thought.

“Do vampires dream?”  She asked, absentmindedly.

“Of course we do,” Melina replied. “My favorite dreams involve handsome men, coming to sweep me off my feet and take me far away to their extravagant and elaborate castle where we watch the stars and raise our nineteen adopted children together…”

“Which, for Melina, is nineteen too many,” Gwendis chimed in with a chuckle.

“Oh hush you.  If you’re too tired to lift a coffin lid than you’re too tired to make fun of my fantasies.”

“Do you really want nineteen children?”  Elyssa asked.

“Well…” She started with a bit of a grimace, “Maybe not quite THAT many….But I do want at least a child or two.  I adore children, they can be so sweet sometimes…”

She stared with melancholy as she traced the face of a beautiful rune.

“Never making assumptions….never judging you…”  She continued, solemnly.

“Breaking all the furniture in the house,” Gwendis remarked with a more lighthearted air.

“I suppose they can also be quite destructive too,” Melina gave out a little laugh.  “But what about you, Elyssa?  Have you ever thought about children?”

Elyssa made a face. “I think my horse is enough of a handful…”

She straightened up in a panic when she remembered her horse.

“Wait, my horse!  I put her around back in that shed place like Ophelia told me to, but I forgot to ask: was that really okay?  What if the bloodfiends got to her?  Should I go check on her?”

Melina patted her hand reassuringly just as she stood.

“Don’t fret there, dear.  The bloodfiends tend to lean away from anything that doesn’t smell like food, and our scent is all over these grounds.  It wards the little monsters away from our beautiful castle.”

Elyssa sat back down out of relief.

“Besides,” Melina added, “Our beloved little goat would have been eaten a long time ago if it were otherwise.”

“That goat!” Elyssa groaned. “I mean, speaking of kids and destruction: your goat wouldn’t stop headbutting me as I was trying to take off my horse’s tack, and I was very nearly tempted to kick him straight into your lake.  How do you get him to stop?”

“Elyssa!”  Melina chastised with a cluck. “That’s no way to treat Kalin.”

“Yes but—“ Elyssa cut off as those words wormed their way into her head.  “Wha….”

She turned to Melina, face contorted in a mixture of utter confusion with a touch of horror.  “What?  But I thought Kalin was the name of your…”

“Our resident Weregoat, yes.”

“Your resident… what?”

“Were.  Goat.” Melina said with precise articulation.

Elyssa stared at her as if she’d grown an extra head.  “You’re pulling my leg.”

“Me?” Melina asked, offended and with her hand firmly at her heart.  “Why I’d never!”

That did nothing to convince Elyssa.

“Gwendis…” Elyssa sighed, turning to the lounging vampire.  “Is there such thing as Weregoats?“

Gwendis lazily lifted her arm to give her a side eye.  “I mean, I think you should really focus on apologizing to Kalin for thinking about throwing him into the lake…Ya got some priorities you need to sort here…”

Elyssa flushed in embarrassment.  She’d never heard of a weregoat before.  But then, she’d never heard of friendly vampires until just yesterday.  And someone did tell her once that werebears were an actual thing…

“All…All right…” Elyssa said, slowly.  Not quite fully prepared to believe.  “Then when do weregoats transform?”

“Why, none other than the evening of every second Morndas of the month.  Which, I believe, was yesterday.  Is that not correct, Gwendis?”

“Yeee-ep.”  Gwendis replied, lazily letting the word hang in the air.

“Okay,” Elyssa said, a little less confident in herself.  “But why a goat, of all things?”

“Please,” Melina said, “Do I look like Hircine? For all we know, the Daedric Prince of the Hunt punishes those who scorn him with this…awful curse.  Such poor people might be used as fodder in the Prince’s hunting games.  All the more reason why he needs to stay, safe and sound, with us.”

Elyssa gave Melina a critical eye.  The vampire had been a bit overdramatic in the way she’d said “awful curse”, but otherwise it seemed she was serious.

Gwendis, likewise, seemed fairly serious too, even as she kept lounging on her coffin lid.  

Elyssa sighed, defeated.

“I guess I really should apologize to Kalin for getting irritated with him…”

“If you still don’t believe us, you can check out his tail,” Gwendis chipped in, “Ask if he’ll drop his pants and show you his hindquarters.”

Elyssa flushed red, and was about to reply that she would not, under any circumstances, ask to see the Dunmer’s posterior.

But a strangled noise brought her attention back to Melina, and her eyes narrowed in as the lady vampire struggled to keep a straight face.

“You…” Elyssa accused.  “You both are pulling my leg after all!”

Melina released the laughter she had apparently been holding in, and Gwendis was happy to chuckle alongside her.

“Come on, Mel,” Gwendis accused, “We had something here.”

The other’s laughter died down to a grin.

“Oh but Gwendis, I think you went a little too far with that one.  If she honestly asked Kalin to bare himself…you know how he gets…He’d probably acquiesce.”

“But that was the best part about it.” Gwendis grinned back.

“Well I don’t think it’s very nice,” Elyssa grumbled.

“Come on.” Gwendis said “We’re just teasing ya a bit.  A little hazing just to check if you’re good with our House and all.”

“Besides,” Melina added.  “It was positively adorable that you were willing to believe in weregoats.”

“Yeah.  I’m just so gullible aren’t I?”  Elyssa replied bitterly, remembering what the Count had told her last night about being a little too trusting of people.

“Come now, dear.” Melina said, patting her hand.  “We’re sorry.  Truly.  And how about I put my money where my mouth is and give you extra runestones for your next shipment as a little apology gift?”

“I guess…”  She replied, trying to refrain from any signs that free stuff had indeed perked up her mood just slightly.  

She found out she didn’t need to put much effort into that; the Count himself emerged from his study to interrupt.

“Good morning, Elyssa.  May I have a word with you?”  The statement was short, sweet, and a bit curt. Although that could have just been his High Elven accent.

“Do something naughty while we were gone, did ya?” Gwendis grinned at her just as Elyssa got up to join him.

“Wha—No!  Of course not!”

Gwendis’ chuckle seemed to almost follow her as she joined Verandis by the bookshelves.  This time, he forewent a book in favor of leaning against the shelves, his arms crossed while he regarded her carefully.

“Did you sleep well?”

“Like a rock.”  She stretched out her back a little with a wince. “I even woke up feeling a little like a rock.”

“Probably because you spent the better part of the night sleeping on my floor.  If I hadn’t decided to venture upstairs to dabble with a little more alchemy, you’d have woken up there too.  Why didn’t you drink the potion while you were in bed?”

“I did!” Elyssa cheerfully replied, holding a finger up, “But then I thought it would be a good idea to fetch a little more wine to wash it down.”

His eyebrows rose as he gave her a pointed look

“I mean,” Elyssa continued, her hands dropping to her side again, “At the time it seemed like a good idea.  Obviously it’s not such a good idea after the fact.”

The Count stared at her critically for a good while before he closed his eyes with a sigh.  When he re-opened them, he was back to contemplative again.

“You’re lucky you suffered no serious injuries; you could have easily gained yourself a concussion.  It seems the Divines do more than simply gift you powerful light magic: it appears they’re also the only things that are keeping you alive.”

“Hey!”

“Which brings me to the reason I called you here.  I took the liberty of making a full batch of sleeping draught for you.  The bottles are on a tray upstairs labeled with their purpose and your name.”

“Really?”  Elyssa’s face lit up; the potential to actually get decent sleep was literally being handed to her.  “Thank you so much! I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.  This stuff is fantastic; I didn’t dream at all after drinking it.”

“Which is something I need to warn you of.  As you’ve discovered for yourself, the draught places you in a very deep sleep.  Too deep to dream…and most certainly too deep to be easily roused.  If someone were to grab you or hurt you, you will likely not awaken.  Make sure to never take a dose unless you are absolutely certain of your safety.”

She was much less enthusiastic about this caveat; inn rooms were expensive, and camping was often inevitable for a lot of places.

“So…I probably shouldn’t drink any if it’s just me and my sleeping roll out in the open...”

“I would severely recommend against that.  Instead, if you absolutely cannot sleep and cannot find a safe haven, take a quarter dosage.  It will not rid you of your dreams, but it will help keep you from a restless night without sacrificing your ability to respond to potential threats.”

She gave him a wry smile.  “Aaaaand let me guess; I’ll have to come back to you every time I run out, won’t I?  Should I start looking for a house in Rivenspire?”

He waved the questions away.  “No need.  I’ve written down the recipe for you.   Even if you do not feel comfortable brewing it yourself, you need only take the instructions to any community’s resident alchemist.  It’s straightforward enough that any one of them should be able to provide it for you.”

She nodded and mimicked his stance to recline against the bookshelves, albeit from the opposite end.   Silence hung in the air, and he was still regarding her carefully.

“…That’s not all you called me here for.  Is it?”  Elyssa finally spoke up.

“No, it’s not.”  Verandis sighed.  She could tell from his very tone he was contemplating his words carefully. “Elyssa…have you considered spending time in Wayrest for a while?  There’s a flower festival that happens every year around this time, I believe.  I can only vouch for what I’ve seen from afar, but it’s does seem a rather popular event…”

She stared at him incredulously.  “We’re in the middle of a situation where bloodfiends and vampires are trying to take over the entire province…”

“Indeed.  And we have more than enough people here to handle it.”

She winced back as if he had struck her.  ‘We don’t need you’ was the unspoken implication.  

“Oh?  Am I a burden to you now?” She spat back bitterly.

“Child—“

“So what that I’m young?  That I have nightmares, and that you found out about them. Now I’m suddenly too pathetic to be of any use to you, is that right?”

“Listen to me—“

“No, you listen to me!  What was all that stuff you told me last night?  How it was okay to have weaknesses?  I’m grateful you gave me potions to help with my sleep, but I’m not worthless just because I need them!  And you!”

She pointed an accusing finger at him.

“You have no right to order me out of Rivenspire like this!  You aren’t my parent.  You aren’t my Emperor.  You’re not even the King of Rivenspire.”

She could tell, from the way his face perceptively changed, that the last statement hit a mark.  But she was too angry to care.

“No.  I’m going to stay right here. I’m going to help defeat Baron Montclair.  I’m gonna fight a whole bunch of bloodfiends to reach him…” She stared him down, fists clenched at her side, “And there’s not a damn thing you can do to stop me.”

He stared back at her, calmly watching for an indication that she was finished.

“Elyssa…”  When he finally spoke, it was soft, slow, and soothing. “I do not believe I ever said you were worthless or pathetic.”

“And yet you’re ordering me to go off prancing at a flower festival.”

“I’m not ordering you to do anything, child.  I’m merely making a suggestion.  A suggestion based on what I’ve seen and what you’ve told me…You need a moment to relax and recover.  One cannot keep shouldering so many burdens without cracking underneath their pressures.”

“But I’m also needed here.  Back at Shornhelm, you said I had powerful light magic.  Better than most.”  She reminded him.   “And that I could be a great help in all this, since we’re fighting people whose very skin cracks under the light…”

“And, to an extent, I stand by those words.  Light magic is notoriously tricky to learn compared to the other elements, and yet it seems to come to you as easily as breathing does.  This is unheard of, particularly for someone at your age.  There are those who would even go so far as to call you a prodigy, myself included.”

The unexpected praise took a little of the edge off her rage.

“But you’re still inexperienced, and it’s painfully obvious you have not had any formal training in combat; your footwork is sloppy and you leave far too many openings for your opponent to take advantage of.  This might not be particularly risky when dealing with mindl0ess bloodfiends, creatures which have very little ability to strategize.  But the full-fledged vampires in Montclair’s army won’t hesitate to use that against you.  Furthermore, why aren’t you using a staff?”

She straightened up with pride.  “Swords are cool.”

He paused as if this was not the answer he was expecting.

“A staff would make a tremendous improvement on your magicka flow.”  He continued on with the same tone of voice.  He had, apparently, elected to ignore her statement. “You might even see an additional threefold improvement in the manifestation of your abilities.”

“But it would leave me wide open.  Greatswords help me guard against blows…”

“And so can staves…”

He walked over to retrieve his own firestaff that had been waiting in the corner for him.  Holding it out for her to look at, he gestured to its components.

“A typical battlestaff is made with combat in mind, and part of that involves the possibility that you will need to block a blow if your opponent finds a way to come within reach.  You can see here how my own weapon has its wood reinforced with a layer of metal.  Furthermore, are the multiple runes embedded into its spine…”

His finger traced over the weapon.  As if in response to its owner’s command, several symbols glowed across the length of it, brightly shining for a brief moment before settling back to normal.

“These, too, are designed with its protection in mind.  And with the mind of maintaining consistent magicka flow.  A staff that can no longer provide a steady resonation with its owner’s power is not only useless, but dangerous.  Such a weapon risks a catastrophic explosion if the user was not careful; thus, the important of the runes.  And as for its bladed tip…”

He gestured to the very top of the staff, in which the blade has been sharpened to fine edge.

“It is not unusual for many staff artisans to include a bladed tip in their work.  It does nothing to impair the staff’s traditional function and offers the advantage to utilize it as a make-shift spear, should the need require it.”

He set the staff aside back in its designated corner.

“Staves may not be as….”  He gave her an indulgent smile “…flashy as some other weapons, but they are nonetheless perfectly viable, and adaptable to changing situations on the battlefield.”

Elyssa grumbled, unimpressed.  “First you order me out of the region, now you’re ordering me to change my weapon—“

“Just another suggestion, Elyssa.  A suggestion,” The Count interrupted with wry smile.  He went to return to his books once again.

“As you say, Father.”  She mockingly shot back.  She waited for a moment to see if he’d react to that, if only just a little bit. But her frustration grew a tad when it was clear he was utterly unfazed by the title, continuing on in his books without so much as a raised eyebrow.

She grumbled again, and turned to leave the library.

“And please do not forget to eat before you leave, my daughter.” He called after her.

She froze in the doorway, and took a moment to glance back at him; her face full of surprise.

His reading was as focused as it always was, but he did pause to look up when he noticed her watching.

“Something wrong?”  He asked, and the very end of his mouth seemed to twist ever so slightly in a smile that almost looked….devious.

“N-no…” She replied shakily, the surprise lining her face beginning to tinge just slightly with mortification.

She thought the damned vampire elf would be too serious to give much of a reaction, let alone throw her comment back in her face.

“Then by all means: do try to make me proud out there.” He turned the page and returned to his books, still with that damnable little smile.

“I---“ Elyssa closed her mouth almost as soon as she’d opened it, before she said anything she might later come to regret, and decided it was far better to just turn around and walk away.

She could hear Gwendis’ muffled, gentle laughter beside her as she passed the coffins, and it only made her more determined to try and keep the red from her face from showing; it was likely most of the vampiric members of the household had overheard.

Melina, too, seemed to struggle with her own smile as Elyssa passed her.

“Oh,” Melina said. “I believe Ophelia made some honey bread this morning, if that pleases you, dear sister.”

“Shut up.”  Elyssa muttered back, and made haste for the guest room before either of them could comment further.

She ignored the tray of alchemy bottles that had been set aside for her on the table, deciding she could figure out the logistics of safely storing them in her pack later.  Once safely within the walls of her temporary bedroom, she made a beeline for her gear.

She was quickly getting used to putting it on; the intricacies that went into the chainmail underside and the straps that accompanied the plate outer layer did not seem to trouble her as much as it did weeks ago.

Her feet brought her to stand in front of the mirror, admiring her work.   She looked almost like a real soldier.

Honorary member of the Lion Guard, Elyssa Arboretum.  

The memory of the guard announcing this while offering the suit of tailored armor played in her head.  It was to be expected: in spite of all the things she had (somehow) managed to accomplish, she wasn’t actually a soldier.  She had no training in their regiment…nor was she even technically a citizen of High Rock.  

‘You’re footwork is sloppy and you leave too many openings’

‘It seems the Divines do more than simply gift you powerful light magic: it appears they’re also the only things that are keeping you alive’

These new words began to rotate in her head, churning into doubts.

Most of her opponents, thus far, had either been werewolves overcome by their animalistic desires, nature corrupting spirits, mindless zombies, or clumsy bandits and disorganized cultist members…None of them had combat styles that could be comparable to word “finesse”.  So her usual method of brute forcing her way with powerful spears of light magic before swinging her greatsword around in a haphazard manner had always worked out.  Tactics, strategy, and footwork were never things she ever thought about on a regular basis.

Even with Angof the Gravesinger...he almost seemed like the more she fought with him, the more he just…gave up. As if his motivation to defeat her was shriveling away like the very vines he failed to grow.  Most of his necromantic abilities didn’t stand a chance against the element of light; she barely even needed to concentrate to sweep the floor clear of his zombies.  They faded to dust almost as soon as she touched them with even the dimmest glow of her power.  And that wasn’t even mentioning the fact that she had plenty of help at her side at the time…

….

...What if she’d just been lucky so far in her opponents?

That all of her “deeds” were nothing more than the culmination of her brute forcing her own “prodigy-like” magic and having the “Gods’ luck” on her side?

…..

….Was she actually making a difference?

She struck a pose in the mirror, hoping to look impressive decked out in her armor…but her rounded cheeks and short stature did nothing to wipe away the traditional, youthful appearance of a Breton.

Why couldn’t she have inherited at least a little of her Imperial father’s more chiseled features?

She stuck her tongue out at herself, and was greeted with an even more childish sight as a result.  Fully frustrated, she grabbed her pack and stuck a few of her things in it.

She frowned at the alchemy bottles; it was times like these that she wished she had a bigger protective bottle case in her pack.  She was grateful that he made her so much, but there was just a few too many to fit.

And she was hungry.

…She huffed, and decided she’d have to figure out the problem of the bottles later.

As she made her way downstairs, she caught sight of Gwendis and Melina chatting at the dining table; Gwendis finally appeared to have made it off her coffin.  Elyssa was almost tempted to throw a teasing comment at her for that.

Further downstairs was the basement level.

She’d been told it was always kept locked, mostly so that the household (both vampire and servant) could have a place of privacy away from any visiting guests.  The main kitchen was down there, however, and so she found herself knocking at the basement door.

“Why good morning to you, Elyssa!”  The cheerful face of an older, gray haired Imperial woman greeted her.

“Good morning, Ophelia.  Melina told me you have some honey bread all made up?”

“I do.  I do indeed; my lady must have smelled it from the hall.  Come in, sweetie, and I’ll cut you a few slices.”

The basement of Ravenwatch castle was, perhaps, even more homely than its main hall.  Reminiscent of the guest suite, there were no gargoyle statues or eclectic furnishings (save for the two coffins in the center of the room, one of which had to be Melina’s).  A roaring fireplace lit up the place brighter than the other rooms, perhaps for the benefit of the servants as they had their own separate room nearby.

Workstations filled with alchemy ingredients and enchanting components lined the walls.  A mysterious door to an even deeper cellar was in the far corner (she was told it was strictly forbidden to anyone not of the House; and that only made her slightly more curious about it).  Finally, there was a full kitchen to the side; much nicer than the kitchenette of the upstairs guest suite.

Ophelia wasn’t the only servant awake; the others were out and about as well.

The Breton, Estelle, was by the fire, working on some sort of sewing.  She was the only one Elyssa hadn’t formally met; they told her she was of a skittish disposition, particularly around strangers.  From what was mentioned, the Count had found and rescued her from bandits who had badly abused her.  Until she got used to a new person, it was advised for that individual to leave her alone unless absolutely necessary.

Anise, a Bosmer, was at the nearby dining table, a table that was a much smaller twin to the grander one of the main hall.  She….definitely looked like she was still asleep, her small head propped up by her arms at the table.  Narcolepsy was something Ophelia had mentioned; apparently Anise had trouble finding someone to hire her in a ‘traditional’ job because of her condition.  But the household wasn’t perturbed by the idea of narcolepsy, and had hired her practically on the spot the moment she revealed she was perfectly comfortable with the idea of serving vampires.

Ophelia herself was busy cutting an impressively large portion of an equally impressively large loaf of sweet smelling bread.  Elyssa recalled that when she had previously asked what the Imperial thought about living here, the older woman had merely scoffed.  For Ophelia, it was just tradition; her family had served House Ravenwatch for a handful of generations.  She had literally grown up in the castle.  So, naturally, she was quite fine with it all.  

Kalin, one of the ones Elyssa had spoken to the most (but ironically knew the least about), was lounging about at the wall near the kitchen, eyeing her carefully.  The only information she had on the Dunmer was that he was the oldest and longest serving of all the mortals who stayed there.

“So our guest yet lives…”  He said, that slow sardonic drawl of his hanging in the air. “Do tell; how does it feel knowing you survived a night in a vampire’s stronghold?”

“Got better sleep here than in most inn rooms.” She responded, grinning. “You all seem to get along really well with each other.”

He laughed.  “Indeed….we’re quite….close with each other…”

“Kalin,” Ophelia warned.

“Some of us ….closer…than others.”

“Kalin.”

“You might even say it’s a regular Ebony Flask around here--”

Ophelia banged her knife down flat with a loud clunk, staring him down with a none-too pleased grimace.

“What’s an Ebony Flask?” Elyssa asked, looking back and forth between the two of them.

“Now you see?  She’s only going to start asking more questions…” Ophelia said.

“What…Is it something bad?”

“Not at all…” Kalin continued, an exceptionally wolfish grin lining his face. “Ophelia is only upset because sometimes even she—“

“That’s it!”  Ophelia pointed her knife at him from afar. “You. Out of my kitchen!”

“My work here is done…” Kalin stated in monotone, impish grin still on his lips as he strolled out the basement doors.

He held it open for Gwendis, who had found her way downstairs.

“Gwendis!”  Elyssa approached her “Kalin said it’s like a regular Ebony Flask around here; what does that mean?”

Whatever emotion Gwendis’ face had before vanished as she stared off into the distance with pursed lips.  She took a deep breath through her nose…

….Then turned and walked right back through the basement doors again.

“Wha-Gwendis?!”

“Never you mind that, sweetie.”  Ophelia interjected with an almost strangled voice.  “Why don’t you come and have some breakfast?  I made you some eggs and bacon too; I think you could use the protein, going out to fight as you do.  Might even put a little meat on those bones.”

Melina was next to come through the doors, clutching her satchel of runes and yawning all the while. And Elyssa immediately abandoned her breakfast plate to jump on the opportunity.

“Melina!  Kalin talked about an ‘Ebony Flask’.  What does he mean by that?”

Melina paused mid yawn, a curious expression forming on her face.

“Oh Elyssa…” She sighed.  “I’m afraid I’m much too tired to have this conversation.  We can have this talk after I’ve taken my rest…”

“My lady, I must protest!” Ophelia exclaimed.

Melina gained a rather mischievous smile at Ophelia’s outburst. “Very well.  We can have this talk after I’ve taken my rest AND after Ophelia has gone to bed.”

“My lady, please.”

Elyssa grinned as Melina gave her a little wink.  Seeing that, Ophelia’s protestations started to die down into more of a sputter.

“Herding cats around here…” Elyssa could hear Ophelia mutter under her breath as the older woman re-doubled her cleaning efforts. “Some days, I swear…”

But Elyssa was far more interested in what Melina was doing: heading towards one of the stone coffins in the main area of the room.  

Melina caught sight of her following close behind.

“Curious, are we?” She asked with a slightly amused smile.

“I just want to see what’s in it.” Elyssa beamed back at her.

“What might you think is in it?” Melina cocked her head slightly.

“I…”  Elyssa tried to think of all the vampire stories she knew.  Which wasn’t very helpful. She knew they supposedly slept in coffins, but she never really heard any stories about what they slept with. “…Jewels?”

The lady vampire laughed. “I’m not a dragon!”

The coffin lid scraped across its base as she moved it, revealing a cushioned lining, a small horde of pillows and a patterned blanket.  Though the outside was drab stone, the inside looked…rather homey.  For a coffin.

“Not quite what you were hoping for?” Melina asked, as it seemed she noticed her dismay.  

“I don’t know.”  Elyssa frowned.  “Why not just sleep in a bed then?”

The vampire bit at her lower lip in contemplation.

“Well…I can’t speak for the others…But in my case…”  She shifted uncomfortably.  “I--the first days of my new life were spent constantly under threat from the sun, even when I tried to sleep….especially when I tried to sleep.  I developed a bit of a phobia for it.  And after a while, I just started to feel…more at ease in places that were dark and enclosed.”

She fondly traced the edges of the lid.  “Sleeping in a box of some sort is the easiest way to accomplish that.  But they don’t usually make human shaped cargo boxes...And asking for one would likely raise too many questions…But coffins…”

The vampire waved towards her open resting place.

“...Coffins are requested all the time.  Even coffins ordered to your exact specifications; no one ever bats an eye over measurements…It’s a convenience, really.”

“So…you could sleep in a bed if you wanted to?”

“The bed itself certainly wouldn’t kill us.  But….our reactions aren’t always fast when we’re groggy and it’s the middle of the day, so if someone were to open the drapes on any of us while we lay exposed and slumbering…”

“But all of the windows here are glazed over; I could open all the drapes in the castle and the sun still wouldn’t touch you…And I mean…there can’t be that many people who would do something that horrible to you in the first place…”

“That’s very sweet of you to say, Elyssa.”  Melina smiled kindly.  “It isn’t true, and I think you know that, but it’s very sweet of you to say nonetheless.  There are plenty of people out there who wouldn’t hesitate…so…Just…think of the coffin in the same way you’d think of a stuffed toy that a child would cling to; it brings me comfort and assurance to know the sun can’t touch me so long as I’m inside.”

“I’m guessing you’re going to sleep now?”   Elyssa watched as Melina kicked off her shoes and settled down among the bright interior of her coffin.

“Mmmm…Indeed.  I just simply can’t keep my eyes open any longer…”  She sighed happily as she nuzzled one of her pillows.  “Won’t you be a dear and close my lid for me?”

“Wait…”  Elyssa gestured to the coffin opposite of hers.  “Before I do, I wanted to ask: there’s five coffins total, but I thought there was only four of you…”

“Oh…that one would belong to my dear, sweet brother…”  Melina lazily said, already with half lidded eyes. “You won’t likely meet him; he’s gone and locked himself in the cellar.  Out of abundance of caution, mostly.  He’s been having difficulties these days, and…oh, well, he’s such a sweetheart; he’d do anything to make sure he doesn’t hurt anyone…”

“I see….” Elyssa said, suddenly solemn as she stared out towards the cellar hatch.  “I hope he feels better.”

“Indeed, as do I.  I so hate to think of him stuck down there, but it was his choice and my Lord approved…”

She let out another yawn.  “Ah…oh, excuse me.  I’m so sorry, Elyssa.  But I must really bid you a good day; I cannot possibly stay awake a moment longer.  Please promise you’ll stay safe.  I’ve already become a bit fond of you, and I would hate it terribly if you were injured….”

“I’ll promise I’ll try not to die.  Have a good night…erm…I mean day.  Have a good day, Melina.”

Melina gave her one last, sweet smile as Elyssa pushed close the lid.

…It was a lot heavier than anticipated.

She had to shove her shoulder against it just to get it shut.  The clunk of the stone finding the indentation on its base was louder than she’d thought it would be and caused her to jump.

Giving one last look towards the cellar hatch, as if expecting another vampire to appear any moment, Elyssa went back to the table.  Eggs, bacon, and honey bread were shoveled down as fast as she could manage.

~~~

She walked out of the basement a little too full; Ophelia had insisted on giving her a second helping of eggs and bacon, and had even tried for a third.  Given the sort of conversations that had accompanied breakfast, Elyssa had a nagging feeling that the older woman had been desperately trying to distract her from Ebony Flasks.  And, of course, that did nothing but make her more curious.  

Chances were, Ophelia would manage to talk Melina out of explaining it later.

So instead of heading towards the front door with her pack, she made a quick beeline for Gwendis, who had gone back to lounging atop her coffin.

“Psst….Gwendis?  Gwendis, what’s an Ebony Flask?”  She gave the vampire a few pokes in the arm that was covering her eyes.  The skin was oddly cold compared to a mortal’s.

…And the vampire didn’t budge.

“I know you know.  You had that look on your face when I asked about it before, so don’t think you can pretend otherwise.”

And the vampire still didn’t budge.

“Aww come on.  You can’t be asleep already.  And even if you were, there’s a tasty mortal inches from your face nudging you with her fingers.  If that doesn’t wake up a vampire, I don’t know what would.  So what’s an Ebony Flask?  Is it a type of skooma?  Do you all get together to use skooma?  I won’t judge; I promise.”

She could see Gwendis’ lips twitching against her pale face, but otherwise she continued to remain still.

Elyssa huffed.  “Fine.  Be that way.  I give up.  Have a good nigh—day.  Day!  Ugh.  Whatever.”

She passed by Verandis’ study on her way out.  He was still in there, working away at his books, as usual.  Elyssa was partly tempted to go in and ask him about Ebony Flasks and what that had to do with House Ravenwatch.

But she was still too irritated at him to even make the attempt, and that pushed all other thoughts away; so much so that she simply headed outside without so much as a ‘goodbye’ to him.

The bright sun greeted her as soon as she pushed open the heavy oak doors. She stopped to stretch out as she basked in the warmth.

“Hey don’t forget…” Gwendis’ voice came echoing through the halls behind her, proving that she hadn’t been asleep after all, “…Watch out for the weregoats out there.”

Elyssa’s irritation was matched only by the intensity of how hard she slammed their front door shut.

“I hate you all.” She muttered under her breath.  Not that she completely meant it.  

But her irritation only grew further as she noticed a bloodfiend at the edge of town, happily gorging itself on a dead citizen.  

…

……It was like breathing; such an apt description that Verandis had given her earlier that it became hard for her to think of it otherwise.

Warmth filled the tips of her fingers, a growing sensation that shifted through her palm like a liquid.

Coalescing.  Expanding.  An extension of her arm, of her will.  She often found she only needed to hold the image of a spear in her mind for it to form.  And with two steps taken, her momentum helped to send the whole thing forward, hurling through the air.

What was only mere moments resulted in a motionless bloodfiend, a bright spear of solid-like light skewered into its chest.

Unfortunately, it seemed she attracted some attention; another figure lurking in the shadows manifested itself right next to the dead bloodfiend.  She readied herself another spear….

…Only to then dissipate the light in her hands when she realized the second figure had cat ears.

And she winced when a rather irate Adusa-daro came towards her.

“H-Hi…Adusa….”  She nervously greeted.

“Adusa would appreciate…” The Khajiit began with a glower.  “…If the young one would please stop throwing such powerful holy magic so close to this one’s fur…”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!  I just didn’t see you there when you’re dressed in all black like that!”

“Yes yes; this is exactly the sort of thing Adusa is worried about…”  Adusa grumbled, but she didn’t actually seem too upset at her.

Then again, it was difficult to tell; the Khajiit’s black and flowing cloak was surely thick enough to ensure no sunlight ever peaked through, and most definitely dark enough to obscure any body language.  It looked to be made of the same fine material as the one she’d seen Verandis wear the other day, and she was sure that, like Verandis’, it held a dark grey outline of their house crest on the back as well.

…Although Verandis’ cloak didn’t exactly have cat ear protrusions on the hood; that would have been a definite improvement. (She made a mental note to herself to tell him to get some cat ears on his cloak.  Since he was so eager to give her ‘suggestions’ before, he surely wouldn’t mind receiving ‘suggestions’ in return.).

Elyssa frowned as she attempted to figure out where among the bloodfiends the vampire had been lurking.  She only found more bloodfiends.

Which only made her frown more because…well….bloodfiends.

“How can you stand all this going on right outside your doorstep?  With these poor people like….like this…?”

She vigorously gestured towards a few of the creatures shambling close by.

“Patience, young one.  Tell this one; what is the most important thing we must focus on?”

“Killing Montclair?”

“Yes, good.  And what else?”

Elyssa strained herself to think: what else was there besides killing Montclair and dispatching bloodfiends?

“….Er…Killing Montclair…a second time…?”

Adusa groaned. “The living, Elyssa.  Living people are important, yes?  We must kill Montclair and make sure any living survivors are safe.  These are the two most important of all things that we must do.”

She could hear the khajiit grunt in disgust as she waved towards the bloodfiends.

“These….creatures.  They can wait until later…The dead will always be here later…The living?  Not so much.”

“Sorry; I guess I just took it for granted that we’d help the survivors.  I mean…why wouldn’t we?  But these bloodfiends here…they do still bother you…right?”  Elyssa asked in a quiet voice.

Adusa was in the process of taking down fabric around the face area, which suggested that the cloak, like typical Breton hoods, had a built in face mask.  

“We may not have always spoken much to the people here…” Adusa said. Pain on her face as cat-like eyes scanned over the town.  “But the ones of Crestshade…they were good people.  They do not deserve such a fate.  It is….very, very difficult to watch.  These townsfolk deserve to be put to rest, and not wander like filthy beasts.”

“Is there a chance that Montclair would use these ones for his army?”

The khajiit shook her head.

“Look at them, young one.  They are baking in the sun, and they do not even realize it hurts…Montclair would not win this war on the backs of freshly burnt carcasses falling to pieces.  No, the bloodfiends sent here were clearly only meant to coax the people out of their homes and scattered on the winds.  To turn to the curse any of those who could not make it out…less people he would have to cow to his would-be rule…”

Adusa’s fangs protruded as she softly snarled, her ears hunched back.  “…This one also thinks he may have been trying to mock us a little as well…Send bloodfiends to attack the town while we all were away as an insult to all of our efforts…”

Elyssa remained silent.

She didn’t know how to respond except to look out again amongst the bloodfiends stumbling across the ground…

Their bodies did seem like they were coming apart at the seams; many of them had sun wounds that burrowed straight through their skin, creating gaping holes that only hindered their movements more.

“We must rest and work and focus on the two most important things, Elyssa.  Never forget the priorities. And speaking of which: Adusa is glad to have caught you before you left.  She has need of you.  You will help, yes?”

“What needs to be done?”

“Adusa has been scouting to see how far Montclair’s army has taken its curse, how far it has spread.  They have taken over a small town called Moira’s Hope in the south.  This one could smell the blood of the living there...but there are also many, many bloodfiends as well.  She will need help to cut a path through…and perhaps help with the survivors as well; they are more likely to trust a fellow mortal than Adusa, and there may be need to get them out quickly…”

“Right! I’m with you; I just need to go and get Justice ready…”

“Justice?”  Adusa followed Elyssa around back to their stables.

“My horse.”

“…Is that not…How does one say?  ‘A little on the nose’?”

“Oh I didn’t name her that.  That was the name she came with.  If you can believe it, I got her for free from this cranky old Imperial man.”   Elyssa’s face screwed up as she recalled the memory. “All eight of his horses were white Imperial thoroughbreds, and ALL of them were named Justice….”

Adusa looked at her with incredulity.  “…Did he not have trouble telling them apart?”

“He was so angry; I was afraid to ask too many questions.” She flashed Adusa a nervous smile.

“Very generous, a whole horse….”

“I don’t think he could afford to take care of them all after he’d been displaced from the war.  And I think he was also looking to help other citizens of Cyrodiil, because he only offered her to me when he found out I was a fellow refugee…”

Her comment cut short and her muscles tensed up when she came face to face…with him.

He was hanging out, casually, by the awning of the stables, right next to Justice.

He lifted his head to watch her as she approached.

Her arch-nemesis.

The bane of her existence.

                                     The damned goat.

Her blue eyes narrowed in on him; her stance braced for impact.

He stared back, creepy little sideways pupils watching her as if to size her up.

She took a few sidesteps to the right, maintaining eye contact.

He mirrored her maneuver, his soft bleating filled with obvious faux innocence.

She stopped.

He stopped.

The irritating fiend was playing hardball.

Slowly, she inched her way towards her horse, eyes dead center on her foe in anticipation of the slightest mo—

“What...”  Adusa’s voice intervened, “…In the name of the blessed moons are you doing?”

“Your goat is pure ev—“

Only a moment; Elyssa had only looked away from her dreaded foe for a moment, and the beast, sensing weakness, lowered its horned head to charge.  Just barely was she able to escape the horror of it all by scrambling up the stable post with a yelp.

Adusa stood where she was, her arms crossed, and surveyed the scene with eyes aglow with amusement.

“Hibiscus must like you.  She does not usually react in such a manner with anyone else…”

“You call this liking?” Elyssa grimaced as she clung to the stable post and tried to shoo the goat away by waving one foot while trying to balance on the other.  “Look at the eyes, Adusa!  Those are the eyes of a bloodthirsty creature who has killed before…and will kill again!”  

“Speaking as one who knows bloodthirsty creatures, Adusa can assure that Hibby is both safe and does not consume blood,” Adusa began to make her way back around the castle.  “This one will see you at Moira’s Hope, then.”

“Wha-you’re leaving me??!”  Hibiscus the goat was already making the attempt to scale up the stable walls just to get to her enemy.

“Adusa has every confidence you can handle little Hibby.  If not, Hibby’s treat bag is at the right of yourself. Feed her no more than three whole apples; a fat Hibby would make Anise very concerned.”

And with a wave over her shoulder, the hooded Adusa was gone.

Elyssa turned to her adversary.

“So….You’re a girl goat, huh?  That’s quite a coincidence.  I happen to be a girl human.  We have so much in common; please stop trying to kill me.”

The horizontal goat pupils didn’t seem to falter, and she idly wondered if goats were carnivorous.

Her fingers strained as she tried to reach the treat bag, but she only ended up in an awkward, stretched out position with her torso still at the post and the weight of her upper half held up by her reaching fingers.  She looked at her horse, who was calmly grazing at a pile of hay.

“A little help?” She asked, not actually expecting her horse to respond.

Sure enough, the horse stared back at her, unfazed and ignorant of her situation, before dipping its head to take in another mouthful of hay.

“First Adusa, now you; the double betrayal hurts just a little bit.”  She said, purposefully overdramatic.  If only to make herself feel better about the whole situation.

The goat seemed to be getting impatient, as it begun to ram its horned head against the sides of the stable.  As if to try and knock her down.

“I have to wonder if you really are trying to kill me…” Elyssa winced as she made a solid lunge for an apple peeking out of the leather bag.   Another effortful motion and an apple was tossed as far away as she could manage.

It was a gift from the Gods that Hibby’s priorities involved eating first and everything else second; Elyssa was finally free to drop down.  Not necessarily in an elegant way, given her strained position; she ended up with a face full of hay, with her horse making the move to try and lick it off her face.

Straightened up with hay brushed off, she moved to get her horse’s tack on as quick as she possibly could before the demonic goat got back.  Part of which required giving a jealous Justice an apple of her own to get her to cooperate.

Her weapons and pack at the ready, she hoisted herself up atop her steed; just in time to watch a distraught Hibby cower from Justice’s mightier hooves.  Up high on a horse, she felt a bit more like a knight, regardless of whatever her image in the mirror had shown her before.

Ready to take on the world itself.

A click of the tongue and a flick of the reins, and she was well on her way.

Racing past the bloodfiends as the sun shone in the sky.  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Final Author note: Bold of you to assume Verandis wouldn’t adopt your rebellious mortal ass, Elyssa.

[patchworkstateofmind]

Returning A Favor | A Marvel AU Fanfic, Chapter 2

Sooooo, this is Chapter 2, I know that this one will not be very neccessary for the storyline, but I hope it will make it easier to understand things on the long run. So I hope you enjoy it and lets get to reading!

Of course youre very welcom to leave me a message if you want to help my better my writing skills or want me to continue this story

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Title of Chapter: The Maze and Underground

Word Count: 1,7k Words

Other Chapters: Ch.1, Ch. 2

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You make your way down the dim lit corridor. Every sound is blocked out, only the electric sizzle of the lights above you and your footsteps on the cobblestone below you. About 50 feet in down the hallway is a stone wall. You stop right in front of it and look to your right.

The tube lights hanging from the top of the tunnel flicker when you press your fingertip to a little control panel beside you. The wall emits a dark rumble and there’s and electric tension hanging in the air, as the façade of the stonewall changes into a metal one. The control panel beeps, and you reach out for the door that appeared in the middle of the wall.

Behind it the ruin like look of the tunnel outside is completely thrown overboard. Dark Marble tiles are arranged on the walls, only the ceiling is dressed in a dark obsidian, occasional lamps are set into the stone. Hallways spread out from the corridor in front of you like tree branches, you remember that when you first went through them a few years ago, you got lost. The hallways are a labyrinth itself, trying to confuse and misdirect everyone who is setting a foot in it.

You take the 21st aisle on the right down the corridor and walk down to the passage. The aisles are crooked, sometimes they coil like swirls and your favourite part, there are doors that lead to hidden aisles. The doors that actually lead to rooms can be counted on six hands and one of these rooms is yours.

The door is unlocked, it’s not really necessary to lock them, you know that no one would actually dare to walk around the maze itself but even if it was so, there is nothing in your room that is worth locking in. Yet you lock the door behind you. The walls are empty and cold, just like the outside. The room is dark, the only light illuminating the room coming from the devices that are stacked in the corner of the room. You press the light switch on the wall beside you and look around the room.

Its not big, not at all. About 170 square feet, but its enough to fit a bed, a small desk and a closet. On the left side of the room there’s a small recess, separated through a curtain, behind it there’s a sink a toilette. Showering is only possible on the overground levels of the building. You take the hair tie out of your hair and let it fall onto your shoulder. You sigh. This has not been the best day of your life you must admit. After you had left the gala you had made your way back to the headquarters.

The headquarters are actually a company. A gigantic Corporation of businessmen and women sitting in a large penthouse building in New York. And deep beneath the ground, accessible through a hidden elevator lies the headquarters. Well, about 3 miles away. The elevator leads to a hidden tunnel, connected to an underground hall, almost as big as an airplane hangar, separated on three different floors, each one as big as the other.

The Maze itself is in the Corporation headquarters in New York, one level higher than the tunnel to the Hangar. The Maze is the level for the rooms of the hidden people working for the Company, including You. People who are responsible for the things that should be hidden from the eyes of other people and too important to be out of sight.

So, when you had come there after the gala you were already expected. You exited the expensive Limousine, one of the many company cars, this one especially reserved for driving you wherever you want to go. “Y/N, I see you are back early, I assume you didn’t have time to actually complete your mission and speak to governor Kollan?”, deprecating words welcomed you back. “Mr. Racher”, you greeted back and couldn’t helped it but in matter of your outfit you offered a little bow. “Why are you here so early, what happened to your mission?” You gathered the layers of your skirt and walked past him.

He followed you up the stone steps in front of the building, catching up and opening one of the glass doors. You two go straight through the lobby, ignoring the Receptionists. Though they shed a simple “Welcome back, Mr” and they focused their gaze back on their Screens.

The security guards didn’t even spare a look to your outfit, of course not, everyone had spoken off the gala already weeks before the actual event. The Company is renowned for their extravagant Events.

You and Mr. Racher walked down the hallways of the Building, occasionally turning left or right, you kept silent. It is better to keep such talk from getting into the wrong ears. Finally, you arrived at a conference room. Mr. Racher pushed the doors open and walked in, you caught the door before it swung back into your face and entered behind him. It’s the same room you had been in when they put you into the dress.

“So Ms. Y/N, I remember you to be responsible for keeping an eye out for Governor Kollan.”, he crossed his arms and leaned onto a table. Mr Racher is a greying man, possibly over 50 but you can’t really tell, he has always the same expression on his face. The same face since you first had met him. He’s wearing a suit, a velvety dark green suit, though he now pulled off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves.

The door opened again, and three people walk in. Each one dressed in dark green clothes too, a simple pair of jeans and sweatshirts, matching masks cover their faces. They didn’t talk, but you recognized them from earlier in the day, they were the ones who stuck you into this dress. They silently circled around you and picked at your hair, jewellery and nig nags of your outfit, one of them settled themselves behind you and tugged at the cords of your corset. The third one picked at the seams on the side of you skirt, trying to get it off your body.

“I was indeed”, you said but took a moment to lift your arms over your head to make it easier, as the masked still pushed and pulled at your body. “But I was interrupted. The Avengers, they were there”. “Of course, they were, we invited them. Tony Stark is Leader of Stark enterprises, its only reasonable to send out invitations, even if we would rather see him off dead.”

You stepped out of the skirt that now pooled around your feet, just after that the petticoat underneath, leaving you only in your panties. “Not Stark, I know about him, he wasn’t there, he sent his little minion. I mean Captain America, he wanted to talk to me.” “Really? I didn’t see that coming, I’m sure the president would really like to hear about that. What did he want?”, although his words implied his interested, Mr Racher didn’t raise his voice, kept it monotone as always. You took a deep breath; they finally peeled the corset off your body. You didn’t mind standing half naked in the middle of the room, you’ve had to give up the privilege of intimacy years ago. “He wanted information about Hydra, I guess they’re still onto them.”

The Masked left the room, taken the dress and accessories with them. They left an outfit for you, simple, black. They never put you in the colours of the company. You pulled the tank top over your head and the simple yoga pants up. Slipping in the fleece jacket you tied your hair up in a ponytail, took a seat on the conference table and pulled on the socks and slippers they had also left. “As for the president, you don’t need to care about that Mr Racher.

I have a meeting with the president tomorrow morning, I will discuss the details of the evening with her personally. This is not your business anymore. I wish you a good night”, with that you swung yourself off the table and left the room. You took the next elevator to the basement level and swipe your card through the control panel. From there on you can only go deeper with a key card. On level 02 you stepped out and changed into the other elevator right next to it, down to the tunnel leading to the maze and off to your room.

Now you are sitting on your bed, the firm mattress beneath you. In your hand you hold a small mirror and with a wet wipe you try to wipe away the remains of the makeup you couldn’t get away in the bathroom. You had changed into a short pair of sweatpants and a simple bralette.

Surrender, you think and throw the wipe into the bucket on the other side of the room and place the mirror on the floor. You had killed the light and the room was dimly lit by the little lamp on your bedside table. Taken the cell phone off the table you check the new message you had received about two minutes ago. `Y/N, I expect you to deliver an in-depth report of the evening and your conversation with Mr Rogers. You will receive a new training schedule tomorrow morning and I expect you to prove a spotless attendance. – President Monroe.´

You throw the cell phone back on the beside table and take a glass out of the sideboard on the wall and pull the curtain to the side. You fill the glass with cold water. Well, there Is no warm water in the rooms. You open the medicine cabinet over the sink and take out the little box of pills. You take one, each morning, each night. You don’t exactly know what they are for, but you also don’t question the company anymore.

Back to your bed. You put out the light and pull your covers up to your chest. You let out a deep breath and close your eyes.

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Thank you for reading!

Leave a heart or a comment if you liked it, or if you want to help me better my writing skills. Happy new year and I hope you have a great day!

[greyias]

FIC: Smoke and Mirrors - Chapter 17

Title: Smoke and Mirrors Fandom: SWTOR Pairing: Theron Shan/f!Jedi Knight Rating: T Genre: Pre-Relationship, Slow Burn Synopsis: Something’s rotten on Carrick Station, and Theron won’t rest until he finds out what. But picking at the frayed threads of suspicion quickly unravels a conspiracy much larger than even the Republic’s top spy can handle on his own. (A mostly canon-compliant retelling of the Forged Alliances storyline, as seen through the eyes of Theron Shan.) Author’s Notes and Spoilers: See Chapter 1.

Chapter Index: 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | Crossposted to AO3

As soon as he was inside the door of his apartment, Theron had the chip out of his pocket and inserted it into his datapad. The first file on it wasn’t any official SIS document at all but apparently a note, written especially for him:

So here I am, minding my own business, when this intel request comes across my desk from none other than your old buddy, Rian Darok. I pulled it, but then I asked myself, what does a SpecOps officer need with this information? From what I can tell, cracking down on cargo smuggling isn’t the highest of priorities for him and his team. I pulled a copy for you too, since you’re so interested in “oddities” right now. I don’t know what you think is going on, but you know this guy has clout right? And not just in SpecOps. Watch yourself. — JB

Theron tried not to roll his eyes as he paged to the next file on the chip. Jonas was a good man to have along on a mission, but sometimes he could get hung up on something. Apparently in this case it was the havoc that Rian Darok could cause for an unsuspecting SIS Agent. Which wouldn’t be a problem, because Theron was suspecting everything right now. Which was probably good for his survival chances in the short term, but would probably give him hypertension if he ever lived long enough to see old age.

He scanned over the pulled file, but as Jonas said it was… just odd.

"Known Smugglers: Inner Rim" was just what it said. A giant list of cargo smugglers that operated in the Inner Rim. And by giant, he meant several thousands names. It would take far too long for him to cross-reference every name by hand. He was going to need to get creative on this.

He sat down at the terminal in his apartment, and began to start typing. The programming required to cross-reference the names against what he knew about the Korriban and Tython ops was complex, and he had to be very careful to hide his trail in case it dinged anything classified. The SIS didn’t keep it’s data on the HoloNet, but it definitely had its own hooks into the system. If he needed to do a deeper search on any of the names of the list, he could do that manually, but he needed to narrow this down to something manageable, otherwise he could be chasing a dead lead for months.

The chronometer had already ticked well past midnight, and he was nearing the end of his coding efforts when his implants alerted him to a new message in his inbox. He finished his train of thought, then pulled away from the data terminal, feeling his muscles protest at the motion after being hunched into one position for so long. Scooping up his forgotten datapad, he opened up his inbox to see who had written.

To: Theron Shan From: Greyias Highwind Subject: Late Reply

I must apologize for the delayed reply. Our latest mission hit a slight snag, and I only now have had time to catch up on my correspondence. Barnaba is a very lovely travel spot, as long as you don’t mind the occasional internal spat between royal houses. Kira wants to buy a timeshare here. She says that it would be a fun vacation spot. I tried to remind her we don’t collect a salary (as you accurately pointed out), but Doc nixed the idea before I could, saying this visit gave him too much work already and doesn’t want any more gray hairs. He can be a bit vain at times but is probably right in this case.

It sounds like you have been keeping yourself busy as well, even if it was perhaps less exciting work. Did you ever find what you were looking for in all of that data? I don’t know if it helps, but in a letter about the ongoing reconstruction efforts at the temple, the Grand Master mentioned a missing Rakata artifact. I unfortunately didn’t have much time to spend in the archives during our initial reconstruction efforts, but I didn’t see any artifacts tucked under anyone’s arm while they were leaving. Perhaps it was extracted during the original raid? I must confess, if the Council was hiding a piece of Rakata technology, then they did not want it falling into the wrong hands. In my own experience it is rarely used for benevolent purposes.

If the artifact was included in the SIS’s reports, I wonder if it is mentioned there the exact nature of the device. I could enquire further with Master Satele regarding it, but I am afraid I am not very good at concealing the truth from her in matters such as these. It is probably best if I don’t attempt it unless you think it’s necessary.

I think I hear my self-appointed keeper returning. I must wrap this up before he confiscates this datapad as well. I will continue to wait to see if you discover anything considered “noteworthy”.

I have a feeling you will know exactly where to find me.

As he finished the letter, Theron couldn’t help the frown. A missing piece of Rakata tech definitely could have been among the missing items. He’d have to check into the official report, but it would take a few extra steps to keep his name from showing up on the logs since they’d closed out the investigation. Surely the Empire wouldn’t have conducted an entire raid in the heart of the Republic for just one artifact. Surely their resources would have been better directed elsewhere. The more he tried to fit the pieces of all of this together, the less this made sense. There was something else going on here, he just wasn’t connecting the right dots.

He glanced back at the data terminal, his back screaming in protest at the thought of returning to the hunched over position so soon. He began to perform a series of exercises to try and stretch out the kinks, carefully balancing the datapad so he could re-read the contents of the letter again as if it might magically answer any of the questions it raised. As he focused on the details to see if he missed anything regarding the artifact, the reason for the delay in reply started to prickle at him. The letter had definitely been written with far more reserve than the previous ones.

As he finally worked free the knot in his lower back, he pulled up the HoloNet and ran a search on news articles for the Tapani sector. He didn’t need to look far to find the buzz about a daring rescue of an entire orphanage from the nefarious plot of a rogue minor house trying to curry favor with the losing house in the Barnabas succession. They apparently took the building as a hideout concealing a hidden stash of weapons and had planted dentonite around the perimeter. All orphans had safely been pulled from the exploding building and while the article didn’t say there was going to be a statue erected in a certain Jedi’s honor, Theron half expected it to. He was already scrubbing a hand across his face by the time he got to the end. Beyond being possibly the most disgustingly cliched do-gooder he’d ever met, the woman was a giant flashing neon sign that attracted attention wherever she went. What the hell had he been thinking bringing her in on this? There was no way they were going to remain under the radar if she stopped what she was doing every five seconds to rescue kath pups and nexu kittens.

He opened up a new message, and stared at it for a few moments before he began writing out his reply:

To: Greyias Highwind From: Theron Shan Subject: Interesting

I’m sure the life of a Jedi Knight is very busy, especially one that seems to wind up on the top of the HoloNet News feed as often as you do. It’s understandable that you can’t always reply to every piece of mail you get right away. Although I do admit I was thinking I’d hear back sooner than a week. 

But your reply, even delayed, is appreciated. I hadn’t gotten far sifting through the data, but I’m going to double-check the report when I get in tomorrow to see if I can find the piece of tech you mentioned in the log. If the Council had it locked up, I doubt they were willing to share with the SIS the exact nature of the device. But hey, maybe we’ll get lucky and everyone will have been in a sharing mood. Hope springs eternal right?

Speaking of the Council, I think you’re right in that we should probably not share anything with the Grand Master right now. All I have right now are threads and suspicions, but nothing concrete. We need to figure out what’s going on before anyone’s going to take us seriously. I’m getting there, but it’s slow going. I’ve gotten some leads on Darok, but they’re just… odd. He’s started requesting intel, like on the weaponization of the Iso-5 on Tython. That makes sense. My other lead is just confusing, and I’ve got no idea what it means. I was actually working on it when your message came. If anything comes from it, I’ll let you know.

Theron stared at the blinking cursor, trying decide if he should end it there, but something was still nagging at him. Rescued orphans aside, there was nothing in the report that indicated why it took her an entire week to check her inbox, seeing as that incident had occurred almost five days ago. It was none of his damn business and he didn’t care. He really didn’t. Not beyond keeping an eye on a potentially valuable asset for his operation. Still, it felt as if he didn’t quite have control over his fingers typing out the last portion of his reply.

Now, it’s not my business or anything, but in my line of work I’m used to reading between the lines. I couldn’t help but notice you mentioning everything but exactly what delayed your reply. If I do find something, are you going to be up to joining my investigation? Or do I need to write your medic for permission first? Hopefully you managed to hide that datapad from him successfully enough so you don’t have to smuggle another one just to check your mail.

I’ve got to finish running down this other lead before I call it a night. If I find anything new, I’ll be in touch. Try not to blow yourself up rescuing another orphanage in the meantime.