#but on the bright side it was a fun rabbit hole to go down and i did learn a variety of things from it

[vazzrock]

doodled andromache in class today and decided to digitize and color the sketch because i miss her

[its-in-the-woods]

Chapter 3 of down the rabbit hole

Chapter one here , two here , four here

MDNI

Pairing: Walton Goggins x You

Rating/warnings? IDK: Will just keep mature okay. Minors get out. Heavy mention of alcohol, blackouts, drunken shenanigans, hints at SA, awkwardness,

Slow build like novel damn length okay, Very Fluffy, Pinch of Angst, Relationship Development, Hurt/Comfort, Older man/ Younger(30s) women, Alternative universe, fictional work (IDK WHY BUT I AM PUTTING IT) Probably more as I go.

Synopsis: Working in film as a make-up artist is hard enough, but then Walton Goggins requests you, well it's way too easy to fall down the rabbit hole.

Note: they are both single, all for fun.

WARNING I do not have this all written out, I do have it plotted out, but it may be a little slower for chapters to come out. Please bear with me. If you know a Beta to edit please send them to me.

Thank you all for the support! This gets cute and flirty. Let me know what you think. ***

The bar is a hole-in-the-wall place, with the fifteen or so crew and four actors the place is packed. It’s laid out with a bar at the front, couches, and comfortable chairs in the back. You find a spot closer to the back, a gin and tonic in hand. Trevor is talking with Decon at the front, the two men are practically making out. You chuckle and sip your drink. Rebecca from Costumes sits beside you, the woman is all fluid grace. 

“Hey, how’s it going?” She smiles and sips her drink, short hair with sides buzzed, various botanical tattoos draping down her shoulder. Piercing brown eyes and a soft face that always had a small smile. She was draped in all black, which was of course fitted perfectly. 

“It’s going pretty good, nice to get out after a long week.” You reply, watching people mill around the place. You knew almost everyone here, aside from a couple of the extras. Most folks were chatting and drinks were flowing. 

“Oh man, it sure has. I am happy they stuck me in the studio for the next week.” 

“I will take the studio over driving any day. The city is atrocious to get around on a good day. Add in construction I would rather take the studio regularly.” You reply, having lived here for close to a decade and there was never not construction. You weren’t even sure what the construction was for anymore. 

The two of you chit-chat for a while, going over different projects. Discussing a little about the union politics and the fact that the industry was saturated because of the fifteen film schools. It’s nice, even welcomed. You’re now on your third drink and the world is getting a little tipsy. Rebecca has moved over, and Neal from props is talking to you. He was discussing some builds he was looking at doing for a Sci-fi show coming up at the end of the year. You listened intently, you had always loved props and had considered moving to that department at some point. 

The night carries on, you are buzzed now. The realization that you are going to need to get an Uber is at the front of your mind. You make your way to the bar in sesrch for some much needed water. When you look over to see Trevor grinning and moving towards you. 

“Hey sweety,” He says, words tripping over each other. The man was also as drunk as you are. “Me and Decon are gonna probably share an Uber to his place. Do you want to catch a ride with us?’

His eyes are bright if a little fuzzy, Decon is staring at him with hunger in his face. You can’t blame the man Trevor was fine as hell. If he wasn’t gay as a unicorn, you’d be tempted. 

“Umm, I am pretty sure that you both live at the other end of town from me,” You are surprised you can actually remember where Trevor lives, much less that Decon was in the same area.

“Oh. Well,” His face screwed up like he was trying to solve world hunger and not how to get home. 

Walton emerges from the groups of people, his face is slightly flushed, but out of all of them, he is probably the least inebriated. He takes in the three of you, you can see the wheels turning. 

“What is going on, if you’re arranging a three-way I will have to excuse myself, I hate being a fourth wheel,” The man chuckles at his own joke, Decon looks slightly confused looking between all of you. 

You let out a small snort, “No, just figuring out rides home. I live in the opposite direction of these two.” You gesture to the two men who are heavily leaning against each other. 

“Nonsense, I will make sure you get home safely,” Walton says looking at both of them. “You two lovebirds go and have a wild night. I will make sure the lady will get home.”

“You sure Mr.Goggins,” Decon asks, he is a good head shorter than Trevor but built thicker with shaggy blonde hair.

“Walton,” He smiles, “Definitely, she will be taken care of.”

“The lady also agrees,” You sigh, leaning slightly against the older man. You can feel how warm he is, it’s hard not to rest against him

“Okay,” Trevor chuckles, “Have fun, don’t do anything I would do. Or. You know do.”  

You watch Trevor and Decon stumble out of the bar. Part of you is jealous that they had someone to go home to. You relax and going to find yourself a spot on the couch. A moment later Walton slid in beside you. You’re happy your face is already flushed from the alcohol as his thighs touch yours. 

“Hey,” He says in a hushed tone, sipping of what smells faintly of scotch. He hands you a glass of water which you greatly appreciate. 

“Hey,” You reply, meeting his gaze. “How are you fairing?”

He smiles and looks around the room, “Honestly, I am kind of over it.”  

You giggle looking around at the same time. A few people had left, some people lingered in groups, and a few had divided into pairs. The mood has chilled out a little, the music dropped down a few notches. It’s comfortable and cozy, but that might be liquor. 

“It could be worse, we could have to work tomorrow.” You look back at him. The man was now staring at you as if every word you said was important. You fail to hold his gaze, damn liquor was making you melt.

“Mmm but at least I’d get to hang out with you,” He said with a crooked smile gracing his lips. You were pretty positive the man new the effect he had on you. 

“Oh stop,” You giggle, shaking your head and taking another sip of water.  “I know you enjoy the days off as much as any of us.”

“Suppose I do, it doesn't change the fact I like getting to spend time with you.” The Southern slipping in, making you almost choke on your drink. 

You roll your eyes but relax beside him, part of you just wants to lean against his chest and let the alcohol relax your inhibitions. You both talk about traveling, you had spent a few months traveling around the Philippines, Taiwan, and Korea. He talked about being in Japan, and China. Sharing info on some of the favorite foods you had a chance to eat, and how you both looked forward to traveling again in the future. You decide in haze to have a few more drinks, as the two of you continue to chat about the future. 

When the bartender calls closing you go to stand and the whole world spins around. You nearly fall over but someone grabs you before it all goes dark. 

***

Light is peering around the blinds, and you groan at the splitting headache and nausea filling your already foggy brain. Reaching around you find the side table, a bottle of Tylenol, and a glass of water. You take two tablets and bury yourself under the covers, falling into a restless sleep. 

There is more light now, and though your headache is marginally better you still feel like you’ve been run over by a truck. Blinking a few times you realize you’re not in your room. This room is fairly close to the size of the apartment you live in. The walls are basic contractor beige with generic artwork. There is a closet, two side tables, a darkened bathroom, and a chair near the end of the bed where you can see your jacket and purse sitting on it. Your phone is on the side table, plugged in, beside you along with a powerade and glass of water. Swinging yourself out of bed you are grateful to see you are still dressed, sans shoes, socks, and your jacket. Your clothes are uncomfortable but not as if they had been taken off and put back on. You straighten yourself a bit, rubbing your aching forehead. You grab the water and drink most of it. It makes your stomach lurch and for a moment you briefly wonder if the water is going to come back up. 

Settled, you quietly walk over to the attached bathroom. You don’t bother turning on the light, already knowing that you look like hell. You grab a face towel and wash what was left of last night's eyeliner and mascara off.  Making sure to clean the towel well so that it doesn’t stain. You take out your braids and rub at your sore scalp. Giving yourself a moment on the toilet before washing up and rubbing more cold water on your face. You feel a little more human than when you walk back to the room. That cold stone of anxiety rolls around and you try and push it away. Whoever had brought you here hadn’t done anything. You were currently safe and could catch an Uber home. 

Gathering up your things and the bottle of Powerade you slowly open the door. There is the faint sound of music coming from down the hallway. You tiptoe down the way hoping to see a front door to slip out of. At the end of the hallway, the place opened up into a kitchen/living room area. A man was standing in the kitchen singing the song that was playing. The door out was across from the kitchen.  

It wasn’t just any man, it was Walton. Hair fluffed up, wearing a pair of christmas pjs, and white cotton top. Singing and dancing around the kitchen. You freeze and wonder if you should go back into the bedroom and throw yourself out the window. Maybe there would be a fire escape, or maybe you’d just let yourself be swallowed up by the pavement instead of facing him. Letting out a small breath you push yourself into the light of the day, feeling completely at a loss. You weren’t going to be able to sneak out, might as well get the awkwardness over with. 

“Umm. Hey,” You squeak, placing your things onto a chair at the small dining table. 

Walton jumps and turns back to you, his glasses nearly falling off his face,a brief moment of fear is erased by a big smile. “Hey! You’re up. Sorry, did I wake you?” Pushing up his glasses with the back of his wrist. 

You shake your head taking a small sip out of your bottle. The smell of bacon and pancakes makes your stomach growl. How you could be both be hungry and hungover should be studied by scientists.

“No, I am usually up early.”  You give a weake smile. It was true, even on your days off you were usually up between seven and eight. 

“I made breakfast?” He looks so out of place and nervous, pointing to a couple of plates. His usual charisma was replaced with jittery energy. Then again you’d probably be nervous too if one of your drunk co-workers slept at your house.

“That sounds amazing.” You say grabbing both full plates and taking them over to the table. You have no idea what the hell you’re doing, all you wanted to do was leave. At the same time, you were not going to turn him down. The thought of him being disappointed was worse than the awkwardness of staying. 

He slips into the seat beside you handing you a fork and knife, placing some maple syrup on the table. Getting up, again, to grab two mugs and the pot of coffee, he whirls around the place grabbing some cream and sugar too. 

“Thank you, umm for breakfast,” You say, not really sure how to feel about the whole situation. You had very hazy memory about the rest of your evening at the bar. Most of it was just blank. “How did I end up here?”

Walton’s face falls as he looks at you, “Oh, shit. I should have told you. Probably don’t remember coming here.”

You nod your head, suppressing a smile at how flustered he is.

“I tried to bring you home, but you won’t give me your address or wallet. Kept saying you weren’t bringing home ‘no random man’. Kept trying to convince me to just put you in a cab .” 

You laugh at that. “Of course I did.”

“Trevor wasn’t answering so we brought you here. Ahh- I promise nothing happened. I just took off your shoes cause they looked uncomfortable. Plus socks in bed always feel weird.” The jumble of words spilled out as he looked at you for reassurance. 

Your hand finds itself resting on top of his wrist. “Thank you, I appreciate you not leaving me at the bar.” It was kind of him, most people would have just dropped you into a cab and be done with it. But of course, Walton would make sure everyone got home safe, the man was gentleman. 

Walton looks shocked at the last statement. His hand slips up and takes yours. It feels weirdly natural, his larger hand engulfing yours as he rubs his thumb of your fingers absentmindly.

“Oh no. I would never leave you- at a random spot.” He says quickly adding the last bit as his cheeks go slightly pink. You briefly wonder why he would be so flustered, you wouldn’t have blamed him for just letting you take a cab. 

“You're a good man and the food smells amazing.” You smile back, squeezing his hand slightly. It felt so easy just to sit here at the table holding hands. 

Both of you dig into the food, and despite still feeling hungover the food hits the spot. Walton explained as best he could the rest of the night.  You had apparently also hit Leonard, his driver when the man had held your waist trying to help you into the vehicle.

“I will make sure to apologize to him on Monday.” You make a face. “Probably a good reason for me not to go out so much.”

Walton looks taken aback by this, “Leo will be more than fine. I can guarantee he has dealt with the worst. Plus besides that, you were very much welcome company.” 

“Still though.” You shake your head. You grab his plate and stack it before bringing it to the sink. 

The habit of putting things into the dishwasher is in full effect. You help him clean up, and it all feels much too easy. You take a sip of water, the headache still lingers and all you really want is a shower and some sleep. Silently you scold yourself for letting the night get away from you. You had never been a bigger drinker to begin with, and letting yourself get black-out drunk was not exactly something you wanted on your resume. 

“Thank you for- umm- looking after me. I should really get going.” You say feeling flustered, thinking about the fact that you’d love to just crawl into bed with him. Let him tell you stories of his travels as you drift off to sleep. Maybe you could both have a shower and then-

“Can I drive you home?” Walton wakes you from your daydream. “If you are comfortable with me knowing where you live-”

You blink a few times, trying to get your brains to string a few words together. “Oh no, I couldn’t ask you to do that. You’ve already done so much for me.”

He shrugs, “It’s really not a big deal. I promise” 

Your resolve crumbles, what were you supposed to do to disappoint him and say no? No there was not disappointing this sweet man. You’d do near anything just to see him smile. 

***

Walton drives you home, you’re surprised he drives something as utilitarian as a Toyota  4runner. At the same time, who are you to judge, you have been driving the same Honda Accord for almost a decade. You both chat about the city, Walton seems enamored with the mountains, so close to the sea, and tons of places to explore. You talk about your favorite hole-in-the-wall restaurants, and Walton recommends a few decent bars. The chatter is easy, it’s always been easy you realize. The pace and flow were as if you had been talking to him for years ike you were old friends. 

“That’s me,” You say with a weak smile, the idea of having to go home wasn’t as appealing. Your tiny little studio apartment, with its leaky windows and smoke-smelling hallways. At the same time, you know you can’t stay in the vehicle all weekend. 

“So it is,” Walton says, he looks almost as disappointed as you do. “What time should I pick up Monday?”

Taken aback by the question you look at him with your mouth open.

“Your car is still at the studio.” He replies that little mischievous glint in his eye. You wonder if this was his plan all along. 

“Oh. Dang-it. It’s alright I will catch a bus.” You say, trying not to be dismissive but also not wanting to bother him. Realistically he probably had better things to do then pick you up. 

“No. I insist. I was the one that invited you to the bar.”  Walton states a small smile growing as he watches you. You realize that you aren’t going to be able to say no to him, and at the same time, you don’t want to either. 

“I will be outside around 6 am if that works?”

His smile widens, making your heart do little backflips, “Sounds good, I will see you then.”

Chapter four

*This was so much fun to write. I am excited to see where things go next! As always likes comments reblogs are greatly appreciated .*

[littlevices]

Mononoke Movie

I wasn't sure what to expect with this movie, but the fact I dove down a rabbit hole of potential lore, including the different medicine sellers, was not it. The surprises are pleasant, but I truly wish to know more. This character and series has me invested now.

I've already talked some about both Ayakashi and it's Spin-off Mononoke. If interested on my thoughts, mostly about Mononoke, you find it here (beware some spoilers). If not, long story short - I thought Ayakashi was alright, I thought the Bakeneko arc was the best arc, then watched Mononoke, and now here I am, lol.

Disclaimer: Spoilers for the first Mononoke movie - The Phantom in the Rain. However, there will be little to no spoilers concerning Ayakashi: Samurai Horror Tales and Mononoke (2007). Also note, when I say original series, I mean Mononoke (2007). When I mention Bekeneko, I specifically mean the arc from Ayakashi.

So, yes, this thing. First off, I am very happy they kept the animation style and look of the original Mononoke series. The style of the 2007 series was one of the reasons my interest was peaked in not only looking into Mononoke, but also watching Ayakashi as whole (even if I've heard people say you only need to watch the bakeneko arc for that).

This style is still beautiful, they kept the vibrant colors and lines, and even the paper textures. They didn't have to do all that, especially for something that was from early 2000's, but they did and the dedication is appreciated. However, it is a little different from the original. The colors seem much more vibrant and bold, whereas in the 2007 series and Bakeneko they had a more muted tone. I'm not surprised by this given how much older the original series is (almost 20 years old, huzzah -_-), so it was probably just limitations back then. Granted, even then the original series was still very colorful and bright with its colors. This is just an observation, though, not a nitpick. It is more or less the same visual style.

Before I point out the elephant in the room, or rather the seller, let me just touch and talk on the main story a moment.

Much like the original series, the movies touches on some fairly dark themes. Despite the rating on netflix being 14+, this movie takes place in an Ooku, a place where many women are gathered to be concubines for the emperor. Okay, there's actually a lot more to an Ooku than that, but it's a lot of information and I tend to ramble enough as is, so I won't get into it here. Just know that's what the basic function, at least, became by the time period the movie takes place in.

A number of the characters were very interesting here, especially when we are given glimpses of what the other women in the Ooku gave up before working there. The dynamic between Asa and Kame is very interesting. I like how at first, Kame was willing to give up what's important to her for a chance at a better status, but Asa wanted to hold onto what was dear to her. The fact this got turned around at the end was an interesting development, and I wonder how that might affect them later if we see them again in the second movie. Mugitani and Awashima giving up a ball and kaleidoscope respectively make me wonder what they were like before the Ooku. Clearly they were characters with a more carefree lifestyle, so in a way it's sad to see them lose themselves as they did.

I wish we'd gotten more about some of the other side characters, such as Fuki, Saburoumaru, and even that Hokuto man, but I suppose I'll have to wait for the next movie.

The horror elements, while a bit toned down I feel compared to the original series, are still very catching. This movie was definitely more geared towards action, but I thought that was fun. Especially seeing Kon Kusuriuri in action. The animation was stunning, and the scene where the characters were falling down the well was a great way to display how they had all let go of something valuable, important, but Asa hadn't lost everything yet. I loved Kon and how he first, uh, "subtly inserted" himself into the Ooku. Yes. Very subtle. I don't even think Ri could be more subtle than that. Nope.

Oh, yes, the local medicine seller.

So, apparently, this medicine seller is different from the series medicine seller (Kon and Ri, respectively). It's a whole thing, and hopefully it'll be better elaborated on in the next movie or even the third, but I found nacch-an's crash course post very helpful, they even have links to source material for extra learning! (Thank you! I really liked this post!)

As far as this medicine seller goes, I like him. He's clearly got energy and seems rather playful, or more openly playful than Ri, lol. I like his design and the moves he pulls are very eye catching. However, I think I still like Ri more, if only because his whole attitude is a mood and I feel for this man. It's also because I haven't known Kon long, and I might become more attached by the second movie. However, he seems to be a bit more energetic than Ri so far. He's certainly a little more loud, lol. I feel like he's a bit more of a little shit, though Ri had his moments in the original series and bakeneko.

Overall, I thought what the movie was going for was great, but I'll obviously have to watch the next movie and, what I believe, is supposed to be a third one, to get the whole story. Not that I mind.

A part of me is sad that I didn't know about Mononoke before, back when the original series released. However, I don't know if my younger self would have like it the way I do now. Ah, well. I've seen it now, and I am definitely going to see this ride through.

[azulera]

We Go Together

Pairing: Jadon Sancho x Black Reader

Summary: Jadon wants everyone to know he’s yours.

Notes: don’t know where this one came from really bt i literally gave myself b*tterflies while writing it … it was so fun and i think its so so cute. also helloo to the JS25 girlies how are you :) hope u enjoy :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“This is so random, but, I can’t lie. I hate braids. Like, on girls.”

Jadon looked at Reiss from the side of his eye, barely lifting his head from the back of the couch. Maybe they’d been vegetating on the chocolate-colored sectional too long, the blue light exposure from watching TikTok after TikTok finally getting to his friend’s head. It had to be that.

“What, bro?”

“They’re childish, brother, look.” Reiss leaned over, showing Jadon a clip of a girl being spun in a salon chair, with bright blue box braids trailing down the cape around her back. Reiss sucked his teeth twice before the video even ended. “It’s a little kid’s hairstyle, like primary school plaits. I do not rate them.”

Jadon laughed in a loud burst of sound, and shook his head at his friend’s wild take. Reiss’ complaining had triggered an image in his mind that easily refuted each of the critiques he brought up. He pushed the phone away from his face.

“Nah, you’re tripping. Braids are fire. Especially with the little baby hairs out, slicked down and that.”

“Noo, bro, the baby hairs get so extra!” Reiss rocked in his seat. “It’s gotta go, the whole style’s dead.”

“Maybe on gyal you see, but my girl, her things different. I’m telling you.”

“Oh my days– you almost did it, you know? You almost made it ten whole minutes without mentioning Y/N. It’s been 2 years, bro, we get it, you’re locked down, it’s cute, whatever.”

Jadon shrugged, a smile on his lips that he didn’t care to hide.

“I’m jus sayin.”

Reiss laughed, and switched subjects to show him another TikTok he thought was hilarious, but the picture in Jadon’s mind that his friend had summoned was too strong to ignore now, the warm feeling in his chest too sweet to pass by quickly. He half-listened while Reiss explained the meaning behind the joke, and scrolled to your Instagram profile. He went back a few weeks to spring break photos where you were sea-side in a flowy linen outfit with waist length braids falling over your shoulders, caught in the ocean wind. A minute later, he’d reposted the photo to his story, with a caption below.

“I love box braids. 😍 And my girl 😍”

He smiled again when it published, his thousands of followers viewing the image and leaving a flurry of cherry red hearts rising in the corner of the screen. Reiss, realizing he was no longer being listened to, peeked over Jadon’s shoulder, and rolled his eyes.

“You are such a simp, bro. I would banter you more if I wasn’t a little bit jealous.”

“Don’t worry, brother, it’ll happen for you one day. When you stop hating on girls’ hairstyles, I bet. Saying braids are dead, nah, you’re mad.”

Reiss shoved against his shoulder, but quickly slipped back down his internet rabbit hole, and a text came into Jadon’s phone.

Y/N: not u reposting my old pics lol you were lurking?

Jadon: No Jadon: Actually yeah Jadon: Reiss was trashing braids and i had to set him str8 Jadon: Can you come by?

Y/N: you 2 are mad i swear Y/N: and i thought u and him had plans after the match?

Jadon: Nah the braid comment was too much Jadon: I wanna see you

Y/N: yeah thats poor from him. i can be there in an hour :) Y/N: and i just got fresh braids done yesterday, i forgot to tell you lol

Jadon: 😍

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“What’s your middle name then? William? Zachary?”

The question registered only faintly in Jadon’s headset, all his focus instead zeroed in on the pixelated movements of his starting XI as they ran alongside Marcus’ XI. The teams were so well-matched that every possession was a battle, and the 85th minute found them in a deadlock with one goal each. It wasn’t quite the time for casual conversation.

“My middle name? What do you mean? No-no-no-no!”

One of his center backs made a sloppy pass, and a pressing forward had intercepted it. Thankfully, the keeper recovered and the score remained 1-1.

“Stop trying to distract me, bro! It won’t work.”

“M’not, I swear! It’s just the letter there on your bracelet. It’s catching the light and I can see it through the screen. And it’s not J or S, so.”

Jadon looked down at his wrist for a moment, at the thin gold chain draped along the left one with a capital letter and small, earth figure hanging in the center. Marcus was right – the jewelry did shine in the light coming in through the window and glowing from the computer monitor, and the sight twitched the sides of his mouth.

“It’s not my middle name, it’s for–wait, wait–”

Jadon paused the game and Marcus cursed over the headset. Still, he went on unbothered, more than happy to provide context around the question his teammate had innocently or not so innocently posed.

“So the letter, that’s for my girlfriend's name. She bought it for me for my birthday, couple years back. It’s nice, innit.” The grin that had started as a twitch now stretched across his mouth. “And the little earth thing is like, it’s like a reminder. That when I’m away, different country, different city, whatever. She’s always with me.”

Marcus smiled at him over the monitor, shaking his head even as his fingers itched to get back to the match.

“Aw look at you, Sanch, big softie. It’s too bad your missus ain’t here now though, to save you gettin whooped in FIFA.”

“No, you’re lucky she’s not here, really, cause I’d have been on a hattrick. It’s a miracle you’re even gettin a sniff, bro.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, stop chatting then and press play. Five more minutes and then we’ll see.”

Jadon resumed the game and leaned forward in his chair, his thumbs flying over the buttons. When his team paused for a corner minutes later, thoughts of you, which had been simmering under the surface ever since Marcus’ inadvertently brought you up, flashed through his mind. It was hard when he was in Manchester, and you were in London, but the little spiel he’d given his teammate reminded him, just as the bracelet did, that if the two of you could ever be considered “apart” it was only ever in a physical sense, never an emotional one. There was nothing that could separate him from you as far as he was concerned, unless he were to tear his own heart out of his chest or something equally dramatic. He decided instead to raise his hand to his mouth, pressing the letter charm softly to his lips. It was your name he whispered against the gold, uncaring if Marcus could hear, as he sent the cross flying towards the box.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Can I help you find something, sir?”

The salesgirl rested a hand on his forearm as she asked, and Jadon flinched at the touch. He’d been in the shoe store for a few minutes already and no one had noticed him yet, but the intensity of her look told him he’d been recognized. She was suddenly stood so close some of the hair from her ponytail brushed against his shoulder, and he could see the dark clumps in her heavy lashes. Her fingers were cold.

“Yeah, actually,” He stepped away from her while he talked, letting her hand drop. “I’m looking for a pair of those, uh, ugg slippers, slides, the ones with the fur. Do you have those?”

“I believe we do!” She flashed him a smile that lasted too long to be comfortable, and then turned slowly on her heel. “Follow me.”

They walked to the winter footwear section and she lead the way, walking slower and swinging her hips more than was necessary for the 30-second trip. Her performance, however, was lost on Jadon, who had opened up his phone to read his most recent text thread.

Jadon: Baby pick a color, it’s important

Y/N: for what?

Jadon: Don’t worry about it just pick Jadon: Red, blue, black or brown

Y/N: don’t even know what i’m choosing 😳 Y/N: but i’ll say red, it’s our fave

Jadon: 👍🏽

They’d come upon the display of slip-ons, and the girl swept an arm over them, slipping back into a sales monologue about their current popularity with customers, and how the fur-lined interior was more comfortable than any other ugg shoe she’d tried. He thought her boss must be somewhere around, but noticed there was no one near them.

“Do you have the red ones in an 8? And also a 5.5.?”

“Let’s just see!” She bent at the waist, searching the rack of boxes for the numbers he’d requested and making little noises of exertion all the while. Jadon’s eyes were still on his phone, searching for the notes app entry where he’d saved your clothing and footwear sizes and preferences years ago.

“Ooh, I’m sorry, sir, it looks like we only have the red ones in a size 8 and up. Are you sure you need the 5.5?”

She’d moved down into a squat, and now looked up at him through her lashes, biting on her lip. Her eyelids fluttered like there was something stuck on them.

“Yeah, I gotta have them. One second, please.”

Jadon: Pick another color, sorry Jadon: show you why in a bit

He looked up from his phone, waiting on your reply, and found the girl staring back at him. She took his returned gaze as some sort of invitation.

“You know, we sometimes have more stock in the back, extras that don’t make it on the shelves. We could go take a look together, if you want? The door has a lock on it.”

Jadon’s eyebrows flew into his hairline. He looked around the store bewildered, at a temporary loss for words, because all he could think to say was “Don’t you see my girl standing here?” and regrettably you weren’t. He couldn’t believe that anyone could look at him and not see that he was yours.

“Woah, no – absolutely not–” He stepped away from the girl for the second time, putting his hands up between them to maintain the distance. “I’ve got a girl, still.”

“And? I’ve got a man, too. But you’re Jadon Sancho.” She blinked her lashes harder, looking at him again with a challenge in her eyes that he wanted no parts of. Now, he wished he’d said “no” when she’d asked to help him.

“Nah, you have lost it.” Jadon laughed shakily, still in disbelief that she was propositioning him so boldly when he had your name written right there on his forehead. Or at least that’s how it felt. He shook his head and walked to the furthest part of the shelf where the brown colorways were kept, keeping a wide distance from her crouching frame.

“I’ll find them myself, yeah, thank you.”

The girl made a frustrated noise that he would’ve had to strain to hear, before she stood, her eyes still focused on him. She paused a moment, and with a shrug, took off to another part of the store.

Jadon breathed a sigh of relief. Just after, his phone buzzed with your response and it was just as he imagined.

Y/N: brown, then. it looks good on both our skin (whatever it is)

His smile returned.

At the register, he snapped a photo of the two stacked boxes just before they were bagged up and pressed send.

Jadon: Early bday present for u ❤️ Got a pair too cus I wanted us to match

Y/N: 😁 omg! thank u babey Y/N: that’s so sweet Y/N: i didn’t think you fancied them tho

Jadon: ❤️❤️❤️ Jadon: Yeah they look bare comfortable Jadon: And i need people to know we go together when we go out 😭 u don’t kno what i go thru

Y/N: ugh ur so brave, going out in public for me Y/N: thank u for ur sacrifice

Jadon: my **pleasure, innit ❤️

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“That’s what you’re wearing? You're sure?”

Jadon continued primping himself in the mirror beside you, flattening the crease in his jeans, and fitting clear glasses onto his face. Lastly, slowly, he dragged his palms down the lines of his shirt, and turned to admire the details on its back.

“Of course I am, what you mean? Got it customized and everything, just for your special day, didn’t I?”

The shirt was jersey material and a bright lilac purple with two grey stripes down the front, but the other side was what had made your breath catch when he’d pulled it out of his bag. Y/N’S BOYFRIEND it read, in sparkly block letters across the back.

“I love it! I love it so much. I love you! Come here.” was all you managed at first, through rapid kisses to his lips, cheeks, and neck, but now that the shock had passed the meaningfulness of the gesture began to set in. You hugged him from behind then, feeling the prickle of the glittery letters against your chest through your robe. The love and appreciation you felt was overwhelming.

“How’d you know I’d wear purple, too?” You murmured into his back.

“Cause I just know.” He answered, looking extremely proud of himself. His hands curled around yours as they travelled up his chest, bringing the left one up to his mouth for a kiss.

“You'll make me cry, you know. Ruin my make-up.”

“Nah, none of that. Go on, finish gettin ready.” He squeezed your butt gently. “They’ll have shut the lights off already, and I need everyone to see.”

Now, inside the small party being held in your honor you were convinced the shirt looked even better, shimmering under the flashing dance-floor lights and complimenting his tanned skin. Together with your lavender shirt-skirt set you looked like brown-skinned Barbie and Ken, like two halves of the same whole, and knowing so made your “birthday girl” glow increase tenfold.

Through the night you floated between groups of friends and acquaintainces, trading memories, laughing hard, and saying thank you for the thoughtful gifts and warm messages given from those who’d come to celebrate. Jadon stayed by your side without fail, clocking the eyes on his garment as he passed, and it seemed the the edges of his smile extended each time there was a whisper of “Aww” or a gasp of surprise. Every now and then he would drop your hand, letting you stray a little ahead of him before wrapping an arm around your waist or joining hands again, so that anyone who hadn’t seen the first time knew exactly who “Y/N” was. When you realized what he was doing, it first made you laugh, then feel warm, and then drag him onto the dance floor so you could pull your bodies close.

“I’m not gassin it, am I?” He asked into your ear, hands carefully pressing your back to his chest. “I’ll go chill, let you dance with your friends.”

“Nah, you’re exactly where I want you.” You leaned your head back onto his shoulder for a moment, closing your eyes, feeling the gentleness of his hands on your waist, of his voice in your ear. Remembering how it was your name on his back for all these friends and strangers in the party to see. The music bumped and your bodies’ continued swaying to it.

“I’m happy you’re here, baby. And I can’t stop thinking about your shirt.” You let out more of the happy giggling that had characterized the night. “It’s my favorite gift so far.”

He shrugged, and you felt the movement against your back.

“I’ve been out the city for a while, innit. Just want to make sure people know what it is, that they ain’t forgot.”

“Do you think I don’t do that?” Your body stilled between his arms. “Is that why you’re on about it so much?”

“No, I don’t think that.” He guided your waist to keep moving again, making a lazy circle in time to the beat. “But I gotta make sure. You know that with me people always got something to say, innit. Always speculation, rumors and that. So I do what I can to make sure there ain’t no questions, about us, I mean. Cause there ain’t.”

“Well, I don’t think nobody’s gonna get confused after tonight. You couldn’t have made it any more clear.”

Jadon only laughed, his actions tonight already saying far more than a million words could. He ducked his head down into your neck for two, three warm kisses, squeezing at your hip, and his soft lips on your skin made you shiver.

You turned in his arms towards him, wrapping yours around his neck.

“It makes me feel so good, though, that. That you’re so proud to be with me. Makes me feel very lucky, and special, very in love with you.”

“You are special.” His lips twitched, fighting a smile, and you scratched one hand into the hair at the back of his neck. ”You’re everything. And you’ve held me down for so long, baby, there ain’t even nobody else to think about. It’s just you, innit.”

“I love you” you spoke, a smile breaking across your features, leaning against him, cradling his face, parting his lips in a gesture that said mine. He returned the kiss and the three words in one breath, his heart thumping, and the only thought in his head a repeat chorus of yours yours yours.

[nonobadcat]

For @oklolnoty

Down the Rabbit Hole - Five Chapters - 20k words - Yandere Shigaraki Tomura x Rabbit Quirk Female Reader

Chapter Navigation: 1|2|3|4|5 🐇 Ao3 Mirror

Rating: 18+ readers only - Minors DNI

Whole story TW: Noncon, yandere with kidnapping, severe quirk based discrimination, binge drinking, canon typical threats of violence (reader directed), canon typical death (nonreader directed), oral (give/receive), PnV (doggie), breeding, and expensive designer clothing everywhere.

Chapter 3: Choice - 4.1k words

TW: Oral (giving), mentions of quirk discrimination, non-con in entertainment media, and sexual harassment

At exactly 1:56 PM, you turned the corner from the main street onto a wide, concrete alley. Low, overcast ceilings hovered down around tall, glossy buildings. Vermillion hues, a product of human smog more than mother nature, washed the bottom of the clouds. From below the eaves of a grey high rise, a pair of narrow eyes, the same color as the sky, glared at you.

Shigaraki kicked off the hard wall, scratching his neck. “Aren’t you supposed to say something like: ‘Sorry, did I keep you waiting?’”

You hiked your bow-studded messenger back over your shoulder and sauntered to his side. Wrapping your hands around his arm, you smirked at him. “Why? I’m not sorry and I didn’t keep you waiting.”

Tomura stiffened. “What are you doing?!” 

Huh… That reaction? At his age? Guess his mentor sent him to the hostess bar for a good reason.

You clamped down on him and sneered. “It’s 13°C and I’m in yoga pants. Shut up and be grateful for the view.”

Shigaraki’s gaze raked over your outfit. Tactically unzipped to the perfect level, the oversized hoodie gaped open to reveal a grey, ribbed tank almost as touchable as your ears. Its plunging neckline promised more cleavage than it delivered but the way it hugged your tits more than made up for the tease. The yoga pants in question smoothed your thighs and butt into sculpted perfection. Chunky, black sneakers with rhinestone accents added a girlish kick to the casual clothing. Taking a page from Lola Bunny, you wrapped your lop ears high on your head in a velvet bow.

“Hot, right?" you taunted. "It's too bad the club has a formal dress code. I think I causal-up really cute."

He scoffed.

You tugged his arm. "Third floor. Come on."

You dragged your date across the bland, grimey tile and past the money exchange service. A short ride up the cramped elevator carried you to the third floor. The bright, blue and red sign proclaimed “24 hours/365 days a year”. Beyond fingerprint-pocked glass doors lay the hidden depths of “MyStyle Manga Cafe”. You strolled in and dug your membership card out of your bag. 

“I have a reservation for the VIP flatbed pair suite.”

The balding middle age manager scanned your card before handing you a ticket. “Room ten, just next to the copier. Payment is due when you leave.”

You nodded, tugging your victim's arm. Cherry flavored lips brushed against his ear. “I got the one with the locking door. It costs a little more, but you don’t mind paying for the upgrade, right, Tomura?"

Your date inhaled as if he’d been shot in the leg. 

Oh. This was going to be fun.

Only about eight steps from the check-in desk, room ten was a cramped space, barely big enough for two adults. You flopped onto the thick, black floor pads and shoved the foam-stuffed pillow chair aside. The lock clicked from behind. New weight shifted the mat beside you. You rifled through your bag, humming the “item get” tune from Zelda as you produced a cheap USB drive. Within seconds, a pop colored menu burst to life on the computer screen.

“Animal Attraction: Tails of Love!” five different girls cried out from the crackling speakers.

Red eyes narrowed. “What is that?”

“You wanted the real me, right? Today, extra special for your royal pain-in-my-tail, I’m giving you the side I don’t show clients.” You held out a pair of cheap, padded headphones to him and flashed him a crooked smile. “Chase the cat girl, and I will claw your eyes out.”

A few hours later, a fluffy, white haired girl with blazing red eyes and tall rabbit ears stood at the back of an empty lecture hall. She picked at the heart shaped buttons of her pink sundress, refusing to look the player in the eye.

‘The truth is… the professor makes me feel uncomfortable,’ she explained, shifting nervously in her strappy sandals.' ‘Why? Did he do something?’ the player replied. She shook her head. ‘No. Not really. I mean, maybe I’m just imagining it but it just feels wrong. It makes my hair prickle and my stomach hurt when I’m around him.’ Fat tears welled at her pale lash line. ‘He asked me to go to his office hours today to discuss my grades but I... I just… I don’t know. I can’t put it into words.”

Choice:

Calm down. You’re just imagining things.

Your grades are fine, right? Just skip the office hours.

If he makes you uncomfortable, I’ll go with you.

Tomura clicked option 3.

‘Oh no!’ she protested. ‘He hasn’t done anything. I swear.’ Chewing her soft lips, she began to shake. She forced a smile. ‘Anyway, I’m sure I’m just being stupid. I’m sorry to have worried you over nothing.’  As she turned to bolt, the player grabbed her arm. 'Don’t say that about yourself! You’re not stupid!' Hard teeth bit quivering lips. Her nostrils flared. All at once her beautiful face contorted into pure pain. The camera panned high. A detailed CG filled the screen. Crumpled into her thighs, the heroine wailed at the top of her lungs.  ‘I know I’m not! Everyone thinks I am just because I’m a bunny girl!’ she shrieked, grabbing at her ears. ‘I’m so sick of it. Day in, day out it’s ‘Smile for me sweetie. You’re so much prettier when you smile’ and ‘wow… isn’t a bachelor’s degree kinda hard for you?’ and ‘You want to join our club? No problem. Why don’t you grab us some drinks and you can sit here so everyone can see you?’' Twin fists slammed hard against the tile. ‘I’M A PERSON, NOT A MASCOT.’ The player kneeled beside her, their hand hovering for a moment before they pulled it away. “That sounds rough.” ‘It is rough,’ she agreed, fumbling for her abandoned purse. The player held out their hand towel. ‘Here.’ Watery eyes stared up at the player.  ‘Look,’ the player continued. ‘You really aren’t stupid. If you say something is wrong then something is wrong. Even if you don’t want me to come, don’t go by yourself.’ She took the towel with a bright smile and shook her head. ‘No. I want you.’ Red eyes slipped shut as she buried her nose in the terry cloth. ‘I trust you, Tomura.’

Beside you on the floor, the real Tomura sneered. “100% guarantee the professor is a perv.”

You hummed, resting your head on his shoulder. 

His body went rigid.

“Something wrong?”

He coughed, tilting his legs so that his lap remained hidden. “It’s a pretty lame plot device. She should just drop-kick him through a window. Problem solved.”

You clicked your tongue. “It’s not that easy. She’s a senior in college and he manages her internship. If she makes him mad, her chances for getting a reference go up in flames.”

Boney fingers raked his neck. “That’s a load of crap.”

“But realistic,” you argued with a finger wag. “Despite being an indie project, the game got really good reviews specifically because the bunny girl route was such a realistic portrayal of sexual harassment.” A dark shadow filled your face. “Though there were some complaints.”

“Such as?”

Your eye twitched. “Apparently, the bad end wasn’t bad enough. If the player tells her to calm down, she quits school and leaves town, never to contact them again. Several reviewers insisted the professor should have on-camera raped her to really drive the point home that sexual harassment is bad.”

“...so they wanted to watch her get raped so they could whine about how rape is bad?”

“Yup,” you explained, flipping down onto the mat.

“That’s stupid.”

You laughed. “I know, right?! You need to just own your kink at that point! Don’t pretend you don’t like it just to feel morally superior.” 

“You wrote this, didn’t you?”

“Oh no, no, no. I wrote AND coded it.” You slapped the computer and pointed to your head. “There’s more than good hair between these ears.”

“Good hair or good hare?”

“Hares are not the same as rabbits,” you reminded him.

Tomura snorted. “Okay. Okay. I got it.”

“You better!” You shoved his shoulder. “I have no interest in stupid guys.”

He stared down his nose at you. “So why play dumb yourself?”

“No matter what they claim, people have expectations based on appearances,” you muttered with a frown. “A hostess is selling a fantasy. Turns out customers don’t fantasize about smart bunny babes.”

“They should.”

You flashed him a coy grin. “Are you saying I’m not so boring now?”

He scoffed and turned his head, but you caught the pink tinge at the tip of his ears. You hummed knowingly. He scowled and pointed at the screen.

“Why even work as a hostess if you can do this? Was the pay crap or something?”

"No one wanted me."

Tomura raised a peeling brow. "Huh?"

"Well, not for my brains anyway," you huffed, crossing your arms. "One look at my bunny ears and suddenly everything on my resume might as well have read, 'S class whore'. Women whispered behind my back and men kept staring at my tits. No one bothered to hear what I had to say."

Tomura glanced back at the screen. Shining with tears, the bunny girl in the game peered at him from above her declaration of affection. His eyes rolled back to you. "So when did you make the game?"

"College, during my internship." You scowled. "Didn't go so well in the end either."

"The professor?"

You shook your head. "Two 'friends'. One kept demanding I write stuff about heat cycles in the bunny girl route to 'spice it up'. Bunnies don't have heat cycles. They have receptive periods. I tried to explain and he told me I was just being nit picky."

"Receptive periods?"

"Bunnies and cats are induced ovulators, meaning mating causes ovulation. Cats go through a period where they are super horny called a heat. They'd bang anything," you explained, jabbing a finger at the screen. "Female bunnies just become more tolerant of mating for a few days a month called a receptive period. They don’t crave it. It's totally different!"

"And outside that period they claw your eyes out?" he teased.

"Google it if you're so curious."

"So what happened with the other 'friend'?"

“He backed me… At least until I told he figured out I wasn’t just a pussy-machine that you put kindness coins in until it dispensed sex. Then he sided with the other guy.” You pulled your knees to your chin. “I don’t like shallow guys like that, so it wasn’t much of a loss.”

Dry lips pinched into a thin line. 

A mischievous glint sparked in your eye. “Aw… not going to ask me what type of guy I do like?”

He scratched his neck, turning back to the game. 

“Now who’s boring,” you muttered, pressing your cheek to his boney shoulder.

Mechanically, Tomura tapped through the dialogue line by line until the two characters reached the professor’s office. The love interest knocked twice and fixed her companion with a nervous smile before slipping inside. Listening at the door, the player was privy to only half the words shared between the two.

“...concerned for you… Your grades are...” “...doing my best!” “...under a lot of stress.”

Chapped lips quirked into a cruel smile. “Bad flag.”

“Professor! What are you doing!” “...calm down. Just let me—” “No!” THUD.

Tomura whistled. “That escalated quickly.”

You winced at the choices. “This is one of the parts where we got into a debate about the ‘true ending’.”

Choice:

Open the door

Make some noise

Leave. This is not your job.

He tapped the quick save in the top corner. “Two arbitrary choices and an obvious bad end? Pretty typical to me.” He clicked the first option.

The door knob refused to budge.

He save-scummed and clicked the second option.

No one inside the room heard a word.

“Oh.”

You crossed your arms. “The other developers thought the best way to win her heart was to go all ‘hero to the rescue’. However, if you were to do that, she won’t get a reference for a job.” 

Red eyes shifted from you to the screen. With two taps, he quick-loaded the choice again. “Don’t be heroic, huh?” He sneered. “I like it.” 

Tomura tapped the last box. 

The player headed down the hallway, and around the corner. One screen shake later, they found themselves face first in the Dean of Students’ chest. Armed with an authority figure and a set of skeleton keys, the player returned to the scene of the crime. “You lead me on, you little slut!” “No! I swear I didn’t—” “You want to pass this class, right?” “Please don’t!” “Shut up and just—” The Dean shoved his keys into the lock before throwing open the door. “What on earth is going on here?!” Within seconds, the love interest threw herself into the player’s chest. “T-Tomura. I’m so glad you’re here!”

“Work smarter, not harder,” you cheered.

“Chcc…” Brittle nails raked his scabbed neck as he clicked into the next scene. 

Down a long, winding side street, the player walked their love interest back to her home. When they reached the gate, she paused for a moment, digging her toe into the chipping sidewalk. Orange light streamed through the fluffy purple clouds. She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear, glancing at the player from under long lashes.  "You walked me so far just so I wouldn't be scared." A warm flush flittered over her button nose. "Would you… would you like to come in for a snack before you go home?"

Choice:

I'm not hungry.

Sure.

A manicured hand slapped Tomura on the back so hard he jolted forward. Your claws pointed to the second choice as you cheered. "GET SOME, PLAYER!"

Tomura stuck his pinky in his ear, jiggling it to clear out the ringing noise. "Could you be a little more loud?!" he muttered, selecting the latter option.

You hummed and rolled your eyes.

On screen, the player followed their love interest up a short flight of stairs to a violently feminine bedroom. Pink polka dots and chubby cartoon carrots splattered the bedspread like some sort of kawaii-pox. Impractically sheer curtains provided no privacy from the tall windows. Taking a seat on the heart-studded floor cushions, the player listened as nervous rambling poured from their love interest’s lips. “—could get you some tea if you want? You know, like green tea? You like green tea right? Oh, wait, you might prefer barley… Do you? I don’t know if I have barley but I could go get some really quick from the convenience stor— er… oh… but that’d be rude to leave you alone since there isn’t anyone here right now.” She flushed pink from head to toe, furiously waving her hands. “Not that I planned it like that or anything! I mean… well… maybe I did but it wasn’t for that reason, I swear! I just have something to tell you and it was too embarrassing to say in front of people. Oh crap! No wait! No! I mean, I’m not embarrassed by you or anything! I-I’m just not confident in myself!” She melted into her palms, steam pouring from her ears. “Ohmigosh what am I even saying?!” Confused silence was her only reply. A low thumping vibrated from the speakers. The girl quickly gripped her long leg, forcing it to stop tapping the ground. Red eyes looked everywhere but on the screen. Glossy lips trembled. “I… I’m in love with you!” she blurted out, clipping the old speakers.

Choice:

I love you too

I prefer cat girls

The mouse hovered over the second option for a moment. 

“You’re horrible!” you laughed, elbowing him in the rib.

He sneered at you before clicking the first line.

“Tomura… Can I… Could I kiss you?”

A gentle pop smack popped from the speakers.

“M-maybe… just one more?”

Small tongue clicks matched with a well timed lip bite, kept the IRL Tomura’s eyes glued to the screen.You reached for your purse.

“One more?” she begged, her voice raspy with need.

Tomura shifted, tugging at his pants. The back of your hand grazed his thigh. He didn’t budge. Satisfaction filled your stomach. You leaned in for the kill.

On screen, an erotic CG filled the screen complete with a covert cleavage shot and animated drool pooling at the corner of plush lips. Wet sucking noises split the needy whining. “Ah… Tomura… I feel so hot.”

“Ah… Tomura… I feel so hot.”

Your prey jolted as dual bunny girls echoed in his ears. His head snapped to you. You smirked at him and cupped his thigh. 

His breath hitched. 

Peering at him from below your lashes, you shuffled to your knees.

“What—” he gulped, leaning away “—are you doing?”

Your moist tongue flicked out, tasting your cherry lip balm. “That depends.”

Red eyes flashed to your lips. “On what?”

You chuckled, angling your chest until your top gaped open. Manicured nails dragged down bare skin into the valley between your breasts. “How much do you want?”

“How much of what?”

A fake, high pitched giggle rapidly devolved into a sensual sigh. Your lips grazed his ear. Warm breath tickled his cheek. “Of the truth?”

The mouse hit the floor mat with a soft pap.

“Like all truths, there’s a pretty part and an ugly part.” Walking your fingers up his thigh, you pressed onward with your tease. “The pretty part is I always wanted to try something like this with my boyfriend.” With a nod to the computer screen, you nuzzled baby blue locks from the edge of his jaw. “But of all the guys I’ve dated, you're the only one I know is nasty enough to be down for it.”

You snapped the button on his jeans open. He groaned.

“Neh. Tomura. You know that hostesses can get fired if they sleep with their clients, right?” 

His zipper fell. Your hand slipped below his elastic band. Warm sweat beaded in the pile of wiry, pale curls. You combed lower. Something firm jumped at your touch.

“After all, men pay for the chase. If they catch you, they have no reason to come back. No club wants a hostess that loses clients.”

Tomura’s eyes lulled into his lids as you wormed your way down the shaft. More on instinct than rationale, he leaned into the cushion behind him and arched his hips. Little by little you wiggled him loose from the confines of stretch denim and into the cool air. Musky arousal left a sticky trail up your palm.

“But the ugly truth is I don’t want you to come back. You cause too much trouble, crusty boy.”

Crinkling foil caused his eyes to drift open. You wagged the pink rubber in front of his face, before lowering it to his weeping, red head. Gripping his thigh for balance, you leaned down and wrapped your mouth over the strawberry flavored plastic. You tongued it down his shaft. He gasped.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you, Tomura.”

He squinted down at you through watery eyes.

With a smirk, you nodded to the screen. “Keep going.”

Click.

“T-tomura… Ah! Wait! When you touch me like that I—!”

Keeping your lips tucked over your teeth, you teased down with pressure, making him fight you just enough to squeeze into your mouth. One hand cupped his shaft as your fingers made a firm ring. The other slipped lower, gently threading his balls between your rolling digits. 

He moaned, closing his eyes. 

You popped off his cock, giving him a long stroke. “Keep going.”

Click.

“Ah… Your tongue! Hah… so wet. **gulp** It’s so different from when I— ngnn!”

You tugged his shirt and caught his gaze. Your tongue fanned wide, taking a languid taste of artificial strawberry. Saliva pooled at the tip before dripping onto him. With rapt attention, he watched the droplet wind its way between every crease of the condom. When it bulged over the rolled rim, his cock throbbed against your mouth.

Click.

“—feels so hot.”

You plunged down over his length, sucking in your cheeks.

Click.

“M-my brain is kinda… ahhhhh… mu-shy…”

Angling him for mid-throat, you pressed on until coarse hair tickled your nose.

Click.

“Just like that! Ohmigosh Tomura I need—”

Who knew crusty boy was packing a good cock? Not some hentai-worthy pussy destroyer or anything but the curve would have been nice to ride. Too bad the girth made your jaw ache. 

Click.

“Tomura. Oh, Tomura. Right there! Please. Hah. S-so close.”

She wasn’t the only one. Half of Tomura’s hand clamped down on your skull. Sharp nails pricked your scalp as he curled most of his fingers into your hair. Insistent tugs set a punishing pace. Your neck burned. Salty snot dripped from your nose. A stream of garbled cuss words slipped from his lips.

Click.

“—gonna! Mmmm gonna—!”

As the screen flashed white, Tomura stuffed you into his crotch. His swollen head pressed hard into your tender throat. You gagged. He groaned. Cum-filled condom ballooned at the back of your tongue. You jerked your head to the side, trying to free yourself.

He ripped his hand away. “Don’t do that!” he snapped.

Hacking into your fist, you glared at him. “Then d-coughcough-n’t choke me, moron!”

Beady eyes narrowed. He grabbed your shoulder and wrapped his legs around your thigh. The world flipped. Your head collided with the hard mat. Vision spinning, you coughed again through painful tears. Tomura snatched up the torn wrapper, dangling it over your chest.

“Watch,” he commanded.

One at a time, he brought his fingers down onto the pink foil. After four exaggerated pinches, nothing appeared to change. You opened your mouth to tell him off just as all five fingers touched the packet. All at once, dry ash fluttered through the air. Your heart slammed against your ribs.

Welp, that explained why he seemed so touch starved.

“Understand now?!” His hard fist smacked  the padding beside your head. “I could have killed you, idiot!”

Between a tight throat and breathless lungs, no words could escape. Ice snaked through your veins. For the first time in a long time, terror rippled across your skin like a shock from a cattle prod. You swallowed, sniffing back tears.

With a deep breath, Tomura rolled off of you and shuffled away. He picked at the drooping plastic like a child picks at bell peppers. Cracking lips pouted. “How do I get this thing off?”

“O-oh…” You shoved off the mat and kneeled beside him. “Here. Let me—”

When your hand bumped his, every hair on your body prickled.

He pulled his arm away and averted his gaze. “Whatever. Don’t force yourself.

You grunted before lunging for his lap. One hand caught his jaw. The other circled his now drooping cock. You pressed a quick kiss to his cheek before turning him to watch.

“Not uh. Not until you understand.”

Centimeter by centimeter, you carefully dragged the condom free. Your fingers brushed his weeping tip. It jumped from the contact. The hand on his face trailed down his chest, following every dip until it bumped its twin. Three deft twists and a tight knot secured the payload. You swung it back and forth from your fingers and fixed him with a sultry grin.

“Don’t tell a professional how to do her job,” you warned. 

Tossing the condom over your shoulder, you wrenched his face to yours and locked him in a blazing kiss. His eyes bulged. Your knee slipped between his as your tongue dove through his defenses. Nip after nip, you coaxed him into your clutches. 

A low groan vibrated from his chest. His hands slid up your hips.The hair on your neck prickled. You ignored it, pressing slow, sensual affections deep into his skin. A whiff of your perfume slipped by your nose. Something twitched against your pants. Your toothy grin pricked his chapped lips. 

Got him.

Careful to peel away rather than pull, you scooped up your bag and the evidence of your little ploy. Through heaving pants, he shot you a pointed look. You nodded to the computer clock. It read a quarter to nine.

“I have another arrangement at nine thirty, so I have to get dressed. Make sure you clear out by midnight or they’ll charge you extra.” You nudged his now swollen cock with the tip of your toe. He shivered. Manicured nails clacked on the door handle. “Hope the rest of your night is less boring—” You flashed him a wink. “—Tomura. ❤”

You swung your hips and strutted away.

Violent curses chased you down the hall.

Chapter Navigation: 1|2|3|4|5 🐇 Ao3 Mirror

Next Chapter Expected: July 30th, 2023

Expected Completion Date: Mid-Aug 2023

Taglist: @bat-eclecticwolfbouquet-love @shig-a-shig-ah @castershellwrites @smilinghowever @krystalwithakay @iris-goddess @ss-syche @mortallysparklyfun @meameows @magnificentclodpiezonk @betterfettered @utena-akashiya @ventdavi154 @st4rrust @imaginedheroine @the-lady-writes-what @shiggysimp69 @toughbook @naughteehee @tampon-earrings @alotofpussy @derobsawiempleh @jadke-bean @saintvinny @cookiecrumblemoonster @curlyangelsblog @hurthermore @prehistoricfreak @insomniamoth22 @celesterdzc18 @sasuqahs @gloomysel @ohnoitsthatonekid @tracksuit-goth @cinnatwisted @anteabelle @unlikelytrio @meru-the-succubus @diawh0re @linastired @mikeyrights @headmastermephistopheles @omisdolly @nochedeodio @starstruckvega @laurelyna @shiggysimp69 @certainlygay @rxyno @ventdavi154 @patch-workk @paranormal-dude @grenosethino @fancylardbucket @utena-akashiya @toughbook @oklolnoty@zombiegr1 @shyyykat @ushi-uri @flamme-meuf2-shiggy @vampirec0w @perpetual-fangirl900 @nekolover93 @saskenma@betterfettered @thread-knight @st4rrust @sparrowwritesforop @aphorditeslust@pindelighted @tadokorochann @usaggii

@beeandtrees @justineangelrococo @aaangeliii

[queenofhearts7378]

Hi there! Any new SQ content? Been down a rabbit hole of then again haha and I always love your work!

I wrote this just for you because it's been ages since I wrote these boys and turns out I have really missed it.

(Do not ask me anything about Miraculous, I have not watched it since season mid-season 3 and have no plans to. I get all my info from tumblr memes and a single person in the SQ discord who doesn't mind giving loose spark notes.)

.....

"So that's what's been up with me lately, how about you guys?"

Adrien gave a bright grin.

The other three boys stared at him in concern and confused horror for a few moments.

"Dude." Randy said empathetically.

Adrien let his head thunk on the table, "I know."

"And I thought my thing was a lot." Danny said, mostly to himself.

Jake leaned towards him, "Yeah, I actually got to talk to you about your thing. Cause it's starting to affect my whole deal."

Danny waved him off, "Later, we're helping Adrien deal with his mental breakdown right now."

"I'm not having a mental breakdown," Adrien mumbled into the wood.

"Buttercup, I think you need to have one." Randy said.

Adrien tilted to the side until he was laying more on Randy than the table, "I don't want to talk about my thing anymore. Let's talk about Danny and Jake's thing."

Jake threw his hands in the air, "It's Danny’s thing that's affecting me!"

"Look it's not the first time all of reality had to get rewritten so that everybody would forget my secret so I don't know why it's affecting you this time."

Now Jake looked like the one who should be having a mental breakdown. "I was talking about your self-appointed Title!"

"My what?"

"You heard the capitals in that too, right?" Randy whispered to Adrien, who just nodded his head.

"What do you mean reality got rewritten?! Danny did you BREAK REALITY?!?!?!"

"No! Vlad did! I fixed it! Can we go back to the titles thing cause that sounded kinda important. Like proper capitalization important."

"Danny I swear on my ancestors-"

"So like chapter titles or movie titles?" Randy asked.

Jake turned to stare at him incredulously and Randy could feel Adrien shaking from giggling.

He opened and closed his mouth a few times in response, before waving his hands in front of him like he was trying to ward off all of Randy's General personality. "Randy please, I can't deal with you and Danny at the same time."

"Hey!" Danny said in offense. Randy just nodded in understanding.

Jake groaned into his hands for a moment, before straightening up and pointing at Danny. "Phantom has been officially Titled as the Liminal Bridge. No one knows how that happened and are miffed about it. And now I have a bunch of restless spirits that keep bothering me because they somehow figured out I actually know you and they don't know how to reach you."

Danny looked confused, "No one has ever called me that. Why are you saying it like it's a big deal?"

"Because it is a big deal." Jake stressed. "In the magical community, things like that are big deals. I don't just call myself the American Dragon for fun. It's an official Title. And it comes with responsibilities only I can do, problems that only I have the authority to solve. These aren't things you can just give yourself either. It's usually done by someone with higher authority over you, it's passed down from previous holders, some very old and powerful mythical beings can bestow one on you, and sometimes the right magical artifact can if it's sentient and impressed enough. You can't just call yourself a bridge and be like "That's a thing that everybody has to call me now!"."

Danny was looking at him wide-eyed, "I uh….I mean that's kinda what happened?"

Jake's head hit the table with a 'thunk'.

"Man I've just been fighting McFist bots this entire time, y’all’s lives are wonk." "Thanks Randy." The other three chorused.

[thebluestbluewords]

public spectacle

this is based purely on wild speculation of what the plot might be, building off the What’s My Name remix video. 100% silly.

~

Red rolls her eyes. "My mom isn't going anywhere. If you want her gone, you have to play by her rules. And trust me, they're stupid. She makes rules for fun. Wants me to do the same. She lives and dies by her own rules, and if you want her to leave, you need her to make a rule for her leave conditions, and then do everything in your power to meet those conditions. Otherwise, she's here to stay." 

Uma smiles slow and sharp. "I don't play by the rules." 

"You'll have to." 

"I don't let royalty tell me what to do." Uma counters, leaning forward over her desk. "And I don't care about your mom's rules. She's getting out of my school if I have to throw her back down the rabbit hole myself. She can't get through a bushel of swords, can she?" 

"She can get through anything." 

"Magic?" 

Red's mouth twitches up into something that's very nearly a sneer. "Wonderland bullshit. It's not magic, it's just playing by her rules." 

Chloe taps the hilt of her sword. One-two-three, a waltzing beat. Uneven, but beautiful because of it. Red's rebellion is the source of her mother's anger, but maybe if they make it seem like Red is following the rules, her mother will get bored and leave. The Queen of Hearts likes things that are perfect. Red likes things that are broken and lopsided and crooked and lumpy, anything that her mother doesn't like. 

"We could make her win condition a dance," Chloe says, realizing the idea as it's already coming out. "The queen of hearts has rules for dancing, but those won't matter if we can have a council of judges. If we have three of them, and get her to play by our rules, we can weigh the judges in our favor." 

Red snorts. "That's a great idea, princess. How stupid do you think my mother is? She's not going to agree to a rule if it's not working in her favor. In wonderland, she's the one who makes the rules." 

"Two judges, then." Chloe says, warming to her idea even as she's developing it. "My mother performed one of the most iconic dances of all time when she met my father. She's qualified to judge, nobody can say she isn't. And your mother judges sporting competitions all the time, right? I've seen some of the wonderland croquet tournaments." 

"It's hardly the same." 

"It's exactly the same. We can make her leaving conditions dependant on the winner of the dance, and let three teams compete against two judges. If the judges agree, we can determine a winner." 

"I don't dance." 

"And I have a bionic leg," Chloe points out, tapping on her calf so that the metal rings out bright and true. "It hasn't stopped me yet, but we don't have to be the ones competing." 

"Explain."

Chloe bounces in place, beaming. "We use your mother's biases against her. Principal Uma, we have your pirate crew docked nearby, right?" 

Principal Uma lifts a single, unimpressed eyebrow. "They're in the harbor." 

"We know they're good at working together. Red, your mom likes pirates, right?" 

Chloe watches as Red tips her head to one side, thinking. She’s good at plotting, but Red is even better, and if she approves of the plan it might have a real shot at working to get her mother out. "She thinks they're filthy thieves who shouldn't be allowed to exist." 

"Perfect. So she'll never let them win."

"Where are you going with this?" Principal Uma asks, sharp as a knife. “We need a plan, not speculation.”

Chloe bounces on the balls of her feet. "We have the pirates compete, but we make them perform a dance that breaks all of your mom's rules. According to Wonderland law, two wrongs does make a right, and by her own rules, she'll be forced to rank them higher than the other teams. If we bet that they'll win..." 

"It won't work. She'll throw the competition." Red points out. She’s twirling a piece of her hair in front of her face, and Chloe wants more than anything to twist their fingers together.

“That’s the good part. We don’t need it to work, we just need a distraction.”

[theambisinistrousquainterelle]

Welcome to my new series : Ridiculous Conversations in the Universe at the Time of Birth, chapter I, house 1, Sagittarius Rising, Neptune conjunct.

This was originally supposed to be The Portrait of Dorian Gray, part I, but as the characters left me feeling utterly depressed, despite the beautiful and thought-provoking language and story-telling, I stumbled down the absolute rabbit hole that's astrology and found a new hyperfixation.

Scorpio MC (🤦🏻‍♀️) : Ugh... Sag!!

Sag rising (galloping, beaming) : Scorpio, what's up ?

Scorpio MC (side-eyeing) : What's up ? Aren't you supposed to be wise and clever and whatnot? You're up, that's what. You're rising...

Sag rising (still beaming) : Oooh, fun ! It'll be such an adventure ! We are by the way, you know... we're actually very bright. And that's why we know life's meant to be experienced and enjoyed.

Scorpio MC (🙄) : Super fun... WTF is that hair ? That colourful... paint... on your face ? And that abomination of an outfit ? I'm in charge of our public image and I refuse to be seen out like that. Also, what the hell is Neptune doing here ?

Sag rising and Neptune (in chorus) : Chill...

Sag rising (cheerful 🤷🏻‍♀️) : Neptune's conjunct, so whether we want it or not, wherever I'm... er... we're... going, he goes. And obviously he affects our appearence and behaviour too. Aaanyways, Venus will determine what we choose to wear eventually. Also, we're a kid🤨. You're positively morose!

Scorpio MC : Not morose. We're daaark and myyysterious.

Sag rising : You mean sunny, optimistic, positive and enthusiastic.

Scorpio MC : Secretive, quiet, intriguing and powerful. Possibly intimidating.

Sag rising : You mean adventurous, extraverted, friendly, creative and inspiring.

Scorpio MC : Passionate !

Sag rising : For sure!

Sag Neptune (softly) : But mostly we're dreamers. With a penchant for escapism, both in the harsh reality of things and in the mazes of our mind.

Scorpio MC and Sag rising (glancing nervously at each other) : That sounds... interesting😬.

Sag rising (philosophically) : Isn't our mind real ?

Scorpio MC (impatiently) : Of course it is.

Sag Neptune (gently) : Either way, we'll struggle with knowing the difference.

Sag rising (squinting) : We're meant to be lucky, not struggle. This will be a... good... thing.

Scorpio MC (☹️) : Not that I'm afraid of struggling, but you're just going to have to take control, you're supposedly in charge here. Captain of the ship and all that.

Sag rising (sighing) : I need optimism, please cheer up !

Scorpio MC : Perhaps I'd cheer up if we were to change from tropical to sidereal, because then *I* would be in charge.

Sag rising (🤨) : Oh, I see...

Ophiuchus rising (smirking) : Hello !

Sag rising and Scorpio MC (slightly panicked) : Fuck...

[onceuponaloonatic]

i'm bored at work and i thought up this little samo moment for my new fic. sorry it's unpolished i wrote it on my lunch break lol. please let me know any comments (or constructive criticism i'm working on revising the fic rn) !!

(and if your new here here's the stuff i've posted so far for my new fic 1 || 2 || 3 || 4)

tw: angst

“Are you recording?” Sana giggled as she looked up at her best friend.

“Yeah.”

“Momoring!”

“I’m coming, I’m coming.” Sana smiled when her wife emerged from the kitchen. Momo had a huge smile on her face, and Sana resisted the urge to swipe at the frosting on her cheek. Sana moved behind Nico’s high chair, smiling at the confused look on her baby’s face.

“Here you go, princess Nico.” Momo put a tiny bright pink cake down in front of Nico. There was one lit candle burning, and Nico seemed entranced by it.

“1,2,3 Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday to you,” Sana sang her heart out, moving her face next to her daughter’s. As she sang she nearly melted at the huge smile on Nico’s face. “Happy birthday dear Nico, happy birthday to you.” Sana and Momo both blew out the candle at the same time. Nico erupted in giggles, reaching her hands out and digging her fingers in the cake.

“Nico-chan.” Sana giggled, reaching for a paper towel while Nico tasted the frosting all over her hands.

“Let her have fun, Satang.” Momo giggled. “I made it baby sized, just for her.” Momo pulled the candle out of the cake, smiling as Nico watched her every move.

“Mama!” Nico screamed as Momo kissed her cheek.

“Go crazy Nico-chan.”

“Should I still be recording?” Nayeon laughed from behind the camera.

“Yes!” Sana and Momo both answered at the same time.

“Okay okay.”

“Is it good?” Momo giggled as Nico continued to stick her hands in the cake, bringing handfuls of chocolate cake and frosting to her mouth. Momo put one finger through the cake, tasting a little bit of frosting. “Oh no wonder you love it, I did an amazing job.” Momo smiled.

“So confident.” Sana rolled her eyes, moving over to Momo’s side. “It looked good, thank you for making her birthday cake.”

“Mm-hmm. Want a taste?” Momo offered her finger, which was still covered in frosting.

“Sure.” Sana smirked, wrapping her arms around Momo and pulling her into a kiss.

“Eww you two not in front of the kid!” Nayeon whined, Sana and Momo just flashed her a grin as Nico shoved cake into her mouth. “I’m turning this off, you two are disgusting.”

Sana felt tears running down her cheek as the video cut to black.

She knew she shouldn’t be watching videos like this, but she was in a nostalgic mood that night.

It all started earlier that evening. Nico was feeling the effects of sitting at home all day, and in her boredom, she had decided to “make” a parade. She used string and toy cars to create floats for her stuffed animals to sit on, and had paraded across the living room for nearly an hour after dinner. She had even made herself a paper crown and designated herself the line leader. Her stuffed animals kept falling off, and Nico kept pausing to put them back, but Sana thought it was the most adorable thing ever. She took video after video of her daughter, praising her for her adorableness and creativity throughout the entire performance. Nico exhausted herself in the ordeal, so she went to bed early while Sana showered her with kisses. After cleaning up Nico’s toys, Sana had decided to go through her footage.

It didn’t take long for her to fall down a rabbit hole of Nico content. Her album for her daughter was not as big as she wished it was, it was hard to take adorable pictures and videos of her little girl when she had been in and out of hospitals her entire life. Sana tried not to take photographs that would make Nico sad later in her life.

At first, the photos of her daughter’s happiest moments had made her heart feel full, if not a little nostalgic. Nico was growing up fast, and even if there were hard times Sana just wished to press pause on her daughter’s childhood. She was waist deep in her emotions about her little baby growing up when she started coming across pictures with Momo in them. It didn't take her long to stumble across the video from Nico's first birthday.

They all looked so happy. Everyone was smiling, and Momo still looked at Sana like she was everything in the world.

Seeing Momo act like the woman she had fallen in love with again, even if it was just a video, made it feel like her heart was breaking all over again.

[atticcreationz]

This is such a fun thought experiment! Only doing Intrepid Hero seasons or else I'll fall completely down the rabbit hole! Disclaimer, although I work in animation I am not an animator (I'm a background artist). So although I know how productions work, I also am doing this just purely on aesthetic for fun.

Fantasy High: Something in the realm of a Gravity Falls. A style that needs to be able to have the range for the wackiness of the NPCs like Aguefort, deal with the awkwardness and heartbreak of being a freshman in highschool, but also needs to be able to handle the Nightmare forest and other horrors the Bad Kids endure.

Unsleeping City: This one is the hardest to come up with, because I think there's multiple angles you could go with it, so I don't have a straight answer. Some things that came to mind are perhaps certain anime styles, or even something more like DC animation (Teen Titans, Batman, or Harley Quinn)

A Crown of Candy: Honestly? This may be an odd choice, but maybe something similar to Pendleton Ward's work?? With Crown of Candy, the balance is delicate between the seriousness of story versus the bright and silly visuals of the food people, and I feel like choosing a style that leans on too much realism would be a bit too uncanny and also be a real missed opportunity.

A Starstruck Odyssey: I would loooove to see this as some kind of Hanna-Barbera homage (particularly influenced by the Jetsons, of course). Similar to how The Cuphead Show pays homage to 30s/Fleischer animation but has modern sensibilities, I think honouring Elaine Lee and Michael Kaluta's vision with a 60s technicolour depiction the future would be great, rather than seeing it in a hyper realistic style.

Neverafter: I'm sure many others have said it too, but Over The Garden Wall has to be a contender here - I can't get the parallel images of Ylfa talking to the Big Bad Wolf VS Greg talking to the Beast out of my head. On the other hand, with the themes of fairytale adaptations, you'd obviously be tempted to throw in a bit of Disney inspiration in there, more on the side of Silly Symphonies than feature quality. But of course as OP mentioned this show deals with the seams between different worlds and with "coming back worse", another take would be to see a mix of styles used - but that can be incredibly arduous to produce. The Amazing World of Gumball managed to do it though (but it was bloody difficult on Compositors from what I've heard), so maybe taking a leaf out of their book there ahahahaha!

fun thoughts: if a d20 campaign was to get an animated series, what kind of art style would you want to see it in??? i really only have ideas for neverafter since it’s the one giving me brainrot rn but i’d love to see it in a style similar to genndy tartakovsky’s primal. just the grittiness of the style really appeals to me. or if they wanted to go insane and have once and twice upon a time be in different styles (kind of like how i imagine the waking and the unsleeping city would look different style wise) maybe the once upon a time could be a bit more storybook. maybe similar to that of the boy the mole the fox and the horse, a little more whimsical. idk i’m not an artist but it’s fun to think about

[agent-cupcake]

Dramaturgy

Ah yes, another commission to fund my gamer lifestyle from the incredibly lovely and patient @novcaine (thank you <;3)

Pairing: Vampire! Claude von Riegan x f!Reader

Synopsis: Trying to cope with the sudden death of your eccentric father, you fall down a rabbit hole of conspiracy, curses, and your very strange (and very tragic) family history, leading you to the small town of Old Derdriu—and its darkest secret.

Warnings: explicit smut, dub/noncon, kidnap, drugged sex

Tags: horror elements, urban fantasy, blood kink, very unhealthy romantic dynamic, overstimulation, "orgasms make your blood sweeter" trope

Word Count: 27.3k

Notes: I read a few horror stories in an attempt to get the tone right for this one which, as I'm sure you'll notice, heavily influenced me while writing. I really got caught up in lore crafting for this one as well, although the real fun was matching up the serious stuff with Claude's personality.

Act 1

“Thither, full fraught with mischievous revenge, 

Accursed, and in a cursed hour, he hies.”

I.

9th day of Verdant Moon 

As long as I can remember, it’s been just us two. Me and dad against the world. Explorers, adventurers, wanderers. Rogues who chase the horizon to keep the sun close, that’s what he says. Said. There’s always been somewhere new to go, we never stayed anywhere long enough to cast too long of a shadow. 

That’s, more or less, what I said over his ashes. Not that there was anyone around to hear it. A eulogy for nobody. But it was true. It is true. 

Once upon a time (that’s what people say, right?), it must have been when we spent a summer in Arundel living out of a camper trailer because we didn’t have an air conditioner and spent most of the time outside, I asked him why. I don’t know why I remember it so well, but the air smelled like bug spray and pine and campfire smoke. Not ours though, we hardly ever have fires. Dad claims it’s ‘reasonable’ caution. Claimed. 

That night, I don’t know what compelled me to ask, but I did. I asked, “Why do we move so much?” 

He said to listen carefully, and I did, because he never sounded so serious. He said that we have bad luck. He said that it was like water, that it’d pool up around us like a puddle if we stayed still. And I asked why, of course, because that was a confusing thing for him to say. 

And he said, and I’ll never ever forget this, “it’s in your blood.”

I think. Back then, the distinction between ‘your’ and ‘our’ was virtually nonexistent. And maybe, just maybe, my memory is faulty, and he didn’t switch from a collective pronoun to a singular one. I could be seeing ghosts that aren’t there, convincing myself of untruths to explain some of this. It could have been ‘your’, and it could have been ‘our’, but the point is the same no matter how I split it apart. 

I’ve got bad luck. It’s in my blood. I try not to think about that because I don’t want it to be my fault somehow, I don’t even know what I would do if it was. 

But I have to know.

II.

“Excuse me, are you Cheryll Bates?” you asked hopefully, standing at the side of a table where an older woman in a bright pink cardigan sat. Nose crinkled and mouth slightly open in the way only people of a certain age could mimic, she adjusted her blocky red glasses higher to peer up at you. The lenses magnified her small, dark eyes like a bug, not helping the discomfort you felt beneath her unwavering gaze as she scanned you from head to toe. 

“You’re the Macbeth girl?” she finally asked. It took you a moment to realize what she meant. Macbeth, your mother’s last name—a name you only learned of, along with the woman herself, a month previous.

“Uhm, yeah, that’s me,” you said, hoping you didn’t sound as immediately unsettled as you felt. “May I sit?” 

“Be a waste of time if you didn’t,” she said with a slight tinge of an accent, gesturing to the opposite seat with a plump hand. It was the wooden kind with a quilted cushion and long skirt, matching the borderline stifling cozy atmosphere of the cafe. The kind ripe with this musty, dusty, patchouli and tea leaf smell you associated with old women and antiques.

“Thank you for meeting with me,” you said as you sat down, anxiety making your movements awkward. Although Cheryll Bates wasn’t your blood relative, knowing you were related at all was surreal. Throughout your entire life, you’d never heard a single mention of family, of a mom or uncle or grandparents or even a stray cousin twice removed. You should have felt excited, and a part of you was, but you couldn’t stop messing with the cardboard sleeve on your tea, your eyes flitting around the small cafe every few seconds. 

The answers that had gotten you this far had only served to unravel the very fabric of your existence, but you sought them all the same. You had to. Dad used to say that knowing was often uncomfortable, but ignorance was an agony like no other. He said all sorts of wise things, although you learned recently that the truth was not one of them.  

Cheryll’s mouth worked like she was sucking on something, fine lines fanning out around her lips. The sluggishly swaying Tiffany lamp above cast her in an odd, unflattering light, her dark eyes that much more unnerving beneath the shadows. 

“I liked your mama, she was a sweet girl. How much did Indy tell you about her?” 

Indy, as in, your dad. The man who raised you, who cared for you. It was a nickname he had earned in school, apparently, after the titular adventurer and archeologist from an old movie.

“My dad never told me a single thing,” you said, trying not to sound too affected. If you thought about this all as some sort of research project, it was easier. If it wasn’t your life, you could view it dispassionately. So that’s what you tried to do. “I am… aware of what she did though.” 

“It was a terrible thing,” Cheryll said gravely. “Of course she’d already left you in Enbarr with Indy at that point, came home crying that she had a baby girl, that she couldn’t trust herself to even hold you. Nobody had any idea of why she was so upset, we thought she had lost her mind. And then your daddy came to try and bring her back and… well. I can’t imagine how a person could do such a thing.”

Something within you twisted in sympathy of that statement. Even reading an abstract report made your stomach churn. Self immolation as a means of murder suicide wasn’t very common, mostly because it wasn’t practical. The report had no answers for the hows and the whys, only dry facts.

“Do you think it was postpartum depression?” 

Again, Cheryll stared at you with that sour purse of her lips, almost like she was sizing you up. “It was that family of hers,” she said. “I’ll tell you straight, the Macbeths weren’t quite right. Not to say it was their fault, what happened to them, but I won’t glorify the dead, neither. I don’t believe in it. I never wanted my Liv to marry that boy, I knew only bad things would come of it.”

“What do you mean?” you asked. 

“Didn’t you read about what happened to them?” Cheryll asked, an edge of indignation in her voice. “One after another…” She didn’t finish that statement, closing her eyes to visibly, even theatrically, shudder. Then again, having seen the string of death certificates, you didn’t exactly blame her. “I went to a psychic when Liv told me she was getting married to that Macbeth boy, and do you know what they said? Don’t let it happen. But I did. I let her marry into that family, and I’ve had to live with that every day since.”  

“But none of it was on purpose, was it?” you asked cautiously. “The fire was an accident.” 

“An accident,” Cheryll scoffed. “An ‘accident’ that happened right after the two of them had a baby girl. Just like the ‘accident’ that killed your mama’s baby sister. Do you think what happened with your mama was an accident?”

“I thought,” you said slowly, trying to remain calm, wiping that thought from your head and your palms on your jean-clad thighs, “that my mother committed suicide.” 

“All that girl ever wanted was to be a mama. I’m telling you, there was something wrong with the Macbeths and she realized it too late. They were cursed, all of them and especially the girls.” Cheryll paused, contemplating her tea. “That’s why your parents met in the first place. Indy was doing research into the families involved with that tragedy in Derdriu and they were the only two he could find.” Cheryll took a sip, frowned, then continued in an even softer voice. “I s’pose your daddy must have been just as cursed as your mama, but I didn’t know him very well.”

“What tragedy?” you asked.

“The Rain of Blood, they call it.”

“I’ve never heard of that,” you said, getting out your diary to write it down. 

“Reign, not rain,” Cheryll said, peering at your notepad. “Like a king, reign.” 

You erased the word, rewriting it. “Is it a story, or something that happened?” 

“It happened,” Cheryll said. “He and your mama always had a laugh about that, said it was why they had such rotten luck.”

“Rotten luck,” you repeated under your breath, more to yourself than to her.

“They thought it was real funny,” Cheryll said, pulling you from your thoughts. “Indy scorned all the ghost stories, he said that it was a matter of history waiting to be uncovered. It seems like he changed his tune as soon as he saw what happened to them.” 

You thought about your dad who got itchy when you stayed in one place too long, looking over his shoulder like he was being chased by something you couldn’t see. You thought about the puddles of bad luck forming beneath your feet. 

“He might have,” you said, not wanting to think too hard about that. “Do you remember what he said happened? In this Reign of Blood, I mean.” 

Cheryll impatiently waved her hand. “You’d have to find a book or something, I couldn’t tell you other than that. The town burned down after. That’s why you’ve got Derdriu and Old Derdriu. They were connected before the incident, but Old Derdriu had to be completely rebuilt later.”

“So Old Derdriu is newer than Derdriu,” you said, unsure if you were understanding her correctly. 

“Oh, except for the ruins, they kept those,” she said, her head tilting as she remembered. “The castle from way back when Leicester had Kings and Dukes and the like. But I couldn’t tell you any more than that, I’ve never been.”

You wrote that down too, tapping the eraser against your lip as you contemplated all of this new information. Cheryll was drinking her tea, obviously wanting to finish this up. 

“Thank you so much for meeting with me, I really appreciate it,” you said. “Is there anything else you can think of about my dad or…?”

“I’m going to tell you what I wish I had told my daughter,” Cheryll said, looking at you head on. “Leave, now. Go spend the summer on a beach in Enbarr with other kids your age. There’s nothing for you here.”

You swallowed hard, nodding. “Yeah, I… Yeah. I’ll think about it, thank you.”  

III.

21st day of Verdant Moon

Being alone is worse than I thought it would be. Having to do everything by myself, figure out how to buy tickets and schedule stuff and all of that, it’s exhausting. But if I think about that too much I’ll cry and if I cry I won’t stop so all I can do is try to figure out what the hell any of this means. It has to mean something, doesn’t it? Or it’s all just insane nonsense and I’m the unfortunate product of a long line of nonsensical insanity, left to drift through this world with nothing but a payout from a trucking company and ghost stories from an old widow and some undiagnosed madness that was never treated because I had no idea I had a family history of mental illness because I was lied to, over and over again.  

I can’t think like that. 

Earlier, after I left that cafe, I remembered something. It’s weird to have all of these little memories popping up now, things that seemed so insignificant at the time. Maybe they are and I’m just trying to backfill information to explain all of the crazy things I’m learning about my dad and my family. I don’t know. I was just thinking about how during my first year of high school, my dad had a brief stint as a mechanic northwest in Elidure before working through the various little towns scattered around the old border between Adrestia and Faerghus as a construction worker—he even let me borrow the Indech branded pickup truck he’d gotten as a property manager on Lake Teutates to drive to my junior prom. The same truck where I got my first kiss playing spin the bottle with some people I was sort of friends with. I can’t even remember his name. It’s funny, almost. I remember that he tasted like the shitty booze we were all drinking and got way too slobbery and wore a purple tie and that I could see the Big Dipper right above his head but I don’t remember his name. Moving around so much, I guess, I never really bothered to remember things like that. After I graduated, dad and I left it all behind to spend a year on the Rhodos Coast. I liked it there. It was charming. But I always knew we wouldn’t be there long, dad got these twitchy sorts of tics when we stayed anywhere too long.

Anyway, the point is, I mentioned wanting to go east, to Gloucester or something because I heard they had mild summers, and he said no in a completely flat voice, nothing like I had ever heard from him. He didn’t even look me in the eye, just said no. We went to Gwenhwyvar pretty soon after that, and I didn’t bring it up again. Again, it could all be innocuous. It could all mean absolutely nothing. But I wonder.  What if it did? What if there was a reason he wouldn’t take me here? A real, true reason that didn’t have to do with the horrible things that happened to my family? If he seriously thought I was cursed, why didn’t he tell me? What was he hiding? Well, I’ll never know that.

I looked up the Reign of Blood and barely found anything, it’s all some witchy weird occult stuff and ghost stories. The castle itself is called El Dorado, and it’s this sort of icon of superstition, but especially the Reign of Blood which is used as an explanation for why so many people disappeared in the fire. People debate if it happened more than they discuss what might have actually taken place. A part of me thinks that Cheryll was just messing with me, or lying. I don’t know why she would, but it makes more sense than the alternative. Who am I to believe that somehow I’m involved with this huge conspiracy? People who are hurting make up all sorts of weird things to try and come to terms with their pain, I’m just feeding into that. 

I should leave. If dad didn’t think it was a good idea to be here, maybe it’s not. I should move on, that’s what he’d want, right? Keep on moving, never look back, chase the horizon. 

I’ll leave. There’s no point in any of this, it’ll just keep hurting. I’ll leave. Tomorrow. 

IV.

Before you left the city, destination TBD—but that was a lie, wasn’t it? You knew exactly where you were going, you just didn’t admit it because you knew it was stupid and the mark was the last person to admit they’d been conned—you stopped at your mother’s childhood home. It was a white farmhouse style place on the very edge of what used to be a suburban neighborhood but was now quickly giving into the urban sprawl. The Macbeths hadn’t lived there for over twenty years. You could see each of those years weathered onto the house. It was where your aunt died as a young girl. How? You weren’t so sure. Cheryll mentioned illness, but the official record only gave the date of her passing. That was a few years before your grandparents followed. 

If you expected to feel something upon seeing the place, you were disappointed. Not even a twinge of disquiet that’d come with seeing a place possibly haunted by the dead. 

You felt nothing other than a vague curiosity, a pang of regret, or melancholy. Never, not once in your entire life, had you lived in an actual house. The longest you had ever stayed in one place was Enbarr, where most of your earliest memories took place. And then there were a few years in Mozghuz where your dad taught history, and another few in a small Varley town where he worked as a consultant for a local museum. But those were apartments and townhouses and just you and him. No family, few friends. A life of transience, of existing ephemerally, always in a state of maybe or going or somewhere else.

A tingling sense of unease settled through you right then, although not because of the entirely benign house with which you were having an intense stare down. Why were you here? Not only at this long abandoned home, but in Leicester, in Edgaria. What were you searching for other than ghosts? Were you seriously going to believe in the superstition of an old woman who went to psychics and still grieved for her daughter? Bad things happened, sure, but that was true in a lot of families. That didn’t mean anything, you just wanted to assign meaning retroactively because of your pain.

And it did hurt. It always hurt. You lived in a state of in-between and those gaps were yours to fill all by yourself, overflowing with the pain you pretended you didn’t feel. Staring at the old house, you were acutely aware of the in-between. If you closed your eyes, you could imagine him standing next to you, filling up that empty space. 

“Are you lost, Mr. Jones?” you would tease. “I doubt you’ll find the Lost Ark all the way out here.” 

He would groan and ask who told you about that embarrassing nickname, and you would tell him that it was-

Well, you wouldn’t. Because if he hadn’t died, you would never know Mrs. Bates or that you weren’t actually his daughter or that his friends called him Indy. 

The sound of rattling plastic on concrete startled you out of your increasingly dangerous thoughts. The next door neighbor was dragging in his trash bins. He was an older man, his face wrinkled and tan like leather, his posture a little hunched. 

“Excuse me,” you called, trotting over to him. It was a long shot, but better than nothing.

“Huh?” he asked, looking at you with his thick, bushy eyebrows furrowed. 

“Sorry to bother you,” you said. “I was just wondering how long you’ve lived here?”

“How long?” he clarified, his big eyebrows shooting up. “Huh. Gotta be fifty years, give or take.” He laughed, a dry, crinkly sound. “Too long, I say.”

“Did you know the family that lived here about twenty-five or so years ago?” you asked, gesturing to the big white house. “The Macbeths.” 

As soon as you said the name, he tensed up, his friendly demeanor freezing. “Why do you want to know?” 

You raised your hands innocently, surprised by the instant reaction. “I’m their… their granddaughter,” you told him. “I don’t mean to trouble you at all, I’m only curious.” 

His cheeks puffed before he let out a big breath, that defensive posture shifting. “I hate to say that I can’t tell you much. They were always a real private family, kept to themselves mostly. It caused one heck of a scandal, the way everything ended. Don’t s’pose it sat right with anyone, not after-” He cut himself off, thin lips drawing inwards. “No, it’s not my business.”    

“Please, I just want to know,” you said, still placating. “Anything you can tell me, I’d appreciate.” 

He nodded, but his eyes were still cautious. “I’ll tell you this, the missus was very unwell,” he said. “When the youngest daughter died, people spread all kinds of nasty rumors about her involvement. Completely outrageous, what they said. But towards the end, she wasn’t quite right in the head, always talking about some curse. It was no thing ‘sides the agony of a grieving parent, but people took it as an admission of guilt.” 

“It was all an accident though, wasn’t it?” you asked. “Nobody was at fault.” 

“Exactly. If you want my honest opinion, the family had bad luck. There’s nothing more to be said, what with all those little ‘uns involved.” 

Bad luck. The sun beat down on your skin, sweat beading up on your spine and hairline, but you shivered, casting a sidelong glance at the house as if it was somehow watching you, as if talking about these things was dangerous in any way, as if there was a looming manifestation of a bad luck over your shoulder, drooling in anticipation of getting you now that you were the last Macbeth left. 

“I see,” you said, forcing a smile for the man. “Thank you so much for your time and honesty, I really appreciate it.” 

“Of course, have a good day, miss.” 

Act 2

“Who now is plotting how he may seduce Thee also from obedience, that with him, Bereav’d of happiness, thou may’st partake His punishment, eternal misery”

I.

Essar, Hanneman, “Final Look at El Dorado.” 

Excerpt from National Geographic, Vol. 162 

September, 1991

“It was with great honor that I accepted the final invitation to visit El Dorado, the famed yet forgotten home of Leicester’s Duke, and eventual king, Claude von Riegan. The massive, not to mention opulent, castle sits in the cradle between Riegan and Albrecht, kept safe by the steep basalt wall to the south and acres of privately owned forest. For all of its grandeur and majesty, these gilded halls hide dark secrets, secrets that may never be truly known. Historians quibble over the voracity surrounding the chilling Reign of Blood. Was it, as many say, a tragic plague sweeping the population? Could it have been a cult formed following a period of famine? Or, as some fear, does this golden fortress hide a terrifying past of human sacrifice and Faustian bargains? These secrets are what has led to the permanent closure of El Dorado and…

“…For my tour, and indeed, the last ever tour of El Dorado, I was given a set of very specific instructions for the sake of my safety and the conservation of the historic site. The first demanded I stay close to my guide. The second instructed me to only enter rooms filled with natural sunlight. This, I was told, was the surest method of determining which rooms were safe. Truly, health concerns are as much a part of the closure as anything else, it is simply too risky to maintain. I was…

“...Despite the stories of prowling monsters and dangerous curses, nothing came of the tour, save for these beautiful photos I was able to capture in the hopes of memorializing what was once a golden beacon of wealth, nobility, and power. As of today, El Dorado is entirely inaccessible. Trespassers will not only be gambling with their own safety should they wish to enter, they also risk severe jail time and steep fines. As I…”

II.

The Sagittarius Express left Edgaria at nine the morning, and it would arrive in Derdriu around eight that night. Named after the starry archer, it was a fairly straight shot connecting the two major cities. It would be shorter in a car, but you couldn’t bring yourself to get in one of those. After spending the night in Derdriu proper, you would take the gondola up to Old Derdriu.

Settled into your compartment with only two other people—and one of them had been passed out cold ever since you boarded—you continued your research. In general, you were poorly versed in Leicester history. You knew there had been something going on with one of their dukes wresting power away from the nobles to consolidate power and drive out the domineering Church of Seiros, going so far as to annex some of Faerghus’ land, but not necessarily any details beyond that. 

When you looked into the Reign of Blood and Old Derdriu, the castle El Dorado showed as the first result. It was the only structure that remained when the rest of Old Derdriu was razed to the ground. Those were the ruins Cheryll mentioned, the home of Claude von Riegan, duke turned king. Information about the event was sparse. Even when you did find information about El Dorado or the Reign of Blood, to say there was discourse surrounding it was an understatement. And that was assuming you could find historical facts rather than ghost stories. None of this was helped by the fact that, a hundred or so years before the Reign of Blood, King Claude von Riegan mysteriously disappeared. Such a tantalizing yet inexplicable vanishing act gave rise to stories about his occult dealings. Some people said he was cursed by the goddess Sothis for his vendetta against the Church of Seiros. Since El Dorado was his home, his story muddied the waters when it came to researching the Reign of Blood.

As the train pulled out of the station, you pulled up one of the more promising sources you had found: a Xerox of an old Life magazine article penned by some old guy named Hanneman Essar. The quality was terrible, compressed and squeezed dry of detail, but looking at the photos of the once grand castle made you more certain than ever that it was important. Something about the place drew you in, even as you glanced over your shoulder for the cold claws of whatever bad luck your father warned you of. There was no point in asking yourself why, or if you should or shouldn’t—you already knew you shouldn’t—because your course was set in stone. Carved out long before you arrived in Leicester. 

Those sorts of thoughts, the ones that toyed with the idea of fate or destiny, were entertained in the back of your head, the place where you pushed every other unpleasant or undesirable or stupid thought. 

It was better to focus on facts. 

“Are you interested in El Dorado, young lady?” the man sitting next to you asked. You slowly lowered your tablet, looking up at the speaker. A mustached blond man with blue eyes, his eyebrow quirked curiously. “It’s rare to see someone your age taking an interest in history.” 

That bristled you a bit, both his pompous tone and the implication. Even when your father worked other jobs, his fascination with history never waned, and it was the only area of your education that never faltered from constantly moving schools.  

“It’s an interesting place, don’t you think?” you asked in a measured voice. 

“Yes, it most certainly is,” he agreed. “A place most ripe with curiosity and fiction, a paradise for the easily fooled tourists they usher in.”

“What do you mean?” you asked. 

“I should think my meaning is clear. The people in Old Derdriu spread ridiculous stories about El Dorado to stimulate their tourism, all for a place that they have shut off to the public,” he said. “As for the source of my interest, I am Acheron Phlegethon. I don’t doubt you’ve heard of me. I’ve debunked several famous hoaxes across Fodlan, including the fiction of Shambhala’s subterranean civilization. Now I have set my sights upon the legendary vampires of El Dorado.”

“Vampires?” you asked, your eyes widening. 

Acheron squinted at you suspiciously. “I thought you said you had done your research.”

“I only just started,” you said, shrugging in an attempt to hide your ignorance. “I guess that explains why it’s called the Reign of Blood.” 

“Bah, a fiction,” Acheron said, waving his hand. “There is no evidence of the cult they claim existed, let alone of the vampire they insist was the leader. Tell me, if the town or its people were truly cursed, why did retribution stop with a single fire that could easily be attributed to a natural cause? The deaths are the same, nothing more than a result of the violent beasts that are known to prowl that area. As I said, they sell these stories to bring tourists into their town. It really is the most insidious scheme, one that I will not tolerate. My next book will be the most comprehensive look at this scam to date, it’s sure to be a hit.”

“How do you know?” you asked. “Do you have any evidence that it’s a lie?” 

“Evidence?” he asked, baffled. “Why, common sense. There is no such thing as vampires or curses, need I any better evidence than that?”

“Yes.”   

Acheron’s eyes narrowed further, his mustache twitching. “It seems you are too young to be sensible. I recommend you continue to study historical facts instead of believing in superstitious bunk.” He paused, his head tilting. “If you give me your email address, I can add you to the preorder list for my next book. I’ve no doubt that you would find it most edifying.”  

“No, thank you,” you told him. 

“Hm, very well. I shan’t disturb you further,” Acheron said, pulling a pillow around his neck and a set of headphones from his bag. “Oh, and good luck with your research, young lady.” 

“Thanks, you too,” you told him, although he was already pulling on an eye mask and probably couldn’t hear you. 

You turned away from the man to look out the window, your thoughts whirling. If you believed that your family could be cursed, couldn’t you also believe in vampires? The logical side of your brain said no, emphatically rejecting the notion because it was ridiculous. Utterly insane. 

Something in your gut said otherwise. The tight lead ball of anxiety burning in your stomach, the thing drawing you towards Old Derdriu despite everything that screamed at you to stay away. You looked again at the distorted photos of El Dorado, trying to imagine it in its prime. It must have been a sight to behold, unlike anything you had ever seen before. 

It didn’t matter what you did or did not believe. It was just like you told Acheron, you needed evidence first. Rubbing a hand over your face, you returned to your reading. 

III.

24th day of Verdant Moon

I had a dream last night. Sometimes I get these wicked nightmares which I guess makes sense considering what happened but last night it wasn’t a nightmare which almost makes it worse because when I woke up crying, it wasn’t just because I was alone, but because I feel so alone that it hurts, it hurts bad. People aren’t made to be alone. I don’t know how to be anything else than a set, a pair. It was always just me and him and now that he’s gone I have a gaping hole in my chest and I think that if I chase down answers it’ll mean something but I know it won’t, I’ll wake up just as alone as I did this morning. 

My brain conjured this idea of a man just to taunt me, I think. A beautiful man who looked at me like he knew me, and I knew him even though I don’t. I woke up the second before our hands touched and just like that we (we, us) were out in the nothing of Fodlan’s great empty flatlands and there was a high wind warning and a great big semi-truck with Ernest Shipping painted on the side and a “rate my driving” sticker on the back. And then there were squealing tires and creaking metal and crunching glass and so much noise from all sides as the world closed in around me, the cab of dad’s vintage SUV giving way to make room for something else crudely forcing itself through. The wind was screaming, and so was I. But dad wasn’t, he didn’t make any noise as his body got crushed. Dead on impact, the first responders said. And yet, after I wriggled out of the mangled mess of what must have been a car—moments before it caught fire—I was relatively unharmed. A miracle, they said. Lucky, they told me. If dad hadn’t swerved the way he did, it would have been me who died. And it’s not even like I’m traumatized, right? I can write about this all I want, I told it to the police and the lawyer and everyone about it and it’s all fine, I’m perfectly fine, I’m well adjusted and alone and accursed, and I want to scream and be angry and cry until I’m all dried up but nothing, nothing is going to make it stop, all I can do is chase down this fantasy and shove all of this down because if this is what sanity feels like, I don’t want to be crazy. 

In that dream, the man I saw had beautiful eyes. Blue green, like a sea breeze or something else equally poetic and reckless, surrounded by these thick, dark eyelashes. Now that I’m awake, all I can do is ascribe meaning to the meaningless, but it was like he was inviting me to him. I’ll be in Old Derdriu tomorrow and I’m probably just losing it but I keep thinking that it's where I need to be. 

IV.

Old Derdriu was more or less what you expected. Small, quaint, and beautiful. It had the unique mixture of mountainous charm and oceanic appeal, giving the fresh air a green, salty weight. You spent the first day getting a measure of the place, glad for the mild weather. There was some displeasure when you realized one Mr. Phlegethon had checked into a room right next door to your own the day before—he even attempted to catch you in another conversation before you excused yourself—but you were quickly absorbed into your preliminary attempts at researching the small town.  

Although all of it was only a prelude to, or maybe a distraction from, what you truly wanted. After lunch, you rented a pretty metallic bicycle at a place on main street. It fit the scenery, looking a little dated with its tall handlebars and a basket. An uncomfortable reference considering why you were here. All the same, hi-yo silver away, you left town to follow the northeast highway as per the directions on the map you bought earlier. Unfortunately, you quickly realized what you had already known to be true. El Dorado was exactly as inaccessible as Mr. Hanneman explained in his old article. The dirt road turn off was gated and locked, the rusty fence adorned with a large, angry “PRIVATE PROPERTY” sign. Even the famous golden tower could not be seen through the overwhelming barricade of trees.

Standing there on the empty road, the bike propped between your legs and dust and the thick scent of pine filling your lungs, unease worked through you. It came upon you slowly, and then all at once. The world was telling you to leave. Winds quieted, birds hushed, even the sunlight dimmed a shade. But something else beckoned you, calling out so vividly you felt yourself lurch forward a step, the bicycle wheels turning a notch. A wild and insane part of your mind was prepared to abandon it right there and break past the intimidating tree line, damn the consequences or legality. You even thought you could probably find El Dorado yourself, no matter how deeply it was buried, that its call would lead you directly to it. Blood following blood, an innate tracker buried in your DNA that had gotten you this far.

To spite the heavy silence, you laughed at how ridiculous that thought was. A wild, uncomfortable laugh. The trees swallowed the sound whole. 

Turning around, you rode back into town. Only a part of you truly understood the choice you made while standing there in the stillness of the forest, although you knew absolutely that it was the only possible ending. 

V.

28th day of Verdant Moon

I looked it up. People can create false memories, it’s a symptom of trauma or mental illness, our brains are suggestable and weak and we just make stuff up by mixing real things with other information. Other information, like all of this weird shit I’ve been reading about El Dorado and Old Derdriu and the original Lady Macbeth and everything. Witch, wiccan, whatever. Vampires aren’t enough, curses aren’t enough, why not just add in a witch? Why the hell not. 

The dreams I’ve been having, I think it’s something like that. Constructed memories of El Dorado and that same guy, the one with the pretty eyes. It’s weird though, maybe normal, they’re not bad dreams. Just about the castle, and him. It’s a break from feeling like I’m going to suffocate on all of this. They don’t feel real, exactly, just…

I don’t know, there’s no point in dwelling on it, I’m probably doing more damage by thinking about it so hard because then I just remember how alone I am and start tearing up and it’s so stupid. This journal is going to be used as a case study one day. People go wild for crazy women, right? There’s a whole cast of them flowing through my veins.   

VI.

Acheron’s premise that the people in Old Derdriu hoped to make money off of the notoriety of their past was ridiculous. Questions regarding El Dorado were answered bluntly, but icily. Most people seemed like they wanted nothing to do with the dark history, especially not to make a profit off of it. You could say that you understood and respected it, but your frustration only mounted the more you realized how inaccessible the truth was. Your entire life had been built on convenient ignorance of unsavory history, and here you were.

Again.   

That was fine. Your dad faced all sorts of difficulty in his historical research, you remembered him complaining about it on more than one occasion. So you did the thing that wasn’t committing felony trespass and went to the library to gather information. Research. 

The library in Old Derdriu was easy to track down, within a short ride from the inn. What you didn’t expect was what you would find. In the front, it was fairly typical. The reading area and magazine shelves and receptionist desk, even a few computers along the wall. But, behind the front desk was what you could only describe as a tower of bookshelves. The unconventional arrangement had you craning your neck to look up, shocked at how the shelves expanded upwards for what looked like three floors with twisting stairs and platforms providing access to the collection. Every place that could store a book, had a book. You couldn’t even begin to imagine how they were organized.  

A lone girl sat behind the desk in front of the tower of books, the only other person in the front. Her name plate read Flayn, and she twirled one of her long curls around her finger as she idly flipped through a magazine. When you approached, she looked up with a big smile.

“Hello!”

“This is… the library?” you asked. 

“Yes, it is. Welcome,” Flayn responded sweetly. “If you need assistance finding anything, I would be more than happy to help.” 

“I would really appreciate that,” you said, tearing your eyes from the tower of books to look at her directly. “I’m looking for books about the history of this town, specifically El Dorado. I’m not particular, whatever seems the most informative.” 

She blinked, her smile lapsing somewhat. “Of course,” she finally said, standing up. “If you take a seat at a table over there, I will see what I can find.” 

“Thank you so much,” you said with a nod. Slowly, admiring the scope of the library, you walked over to one of the tables and sat down. While you waited, you pulled out your tablet to continue flipping through websites that had mention of El Dorado. This one was old, the kind with a black background and dark red cursive font. There was very little to actually be learned, it was a ghost story that told a risque tale of blood sacrifices and a sex cult.

It was all ridiculous, of course, but one line gave you trouble, made your stomach turn uneasily.

Why was it fire? The author wrote. Not, I think, to rid the town of some undead threat. After all, the vampire was hiding away in El Dorado. No, they chose fire to burn the witches.

“Excuse me,” somebody said, calling your attention away from the unsettling words and up to the narrowed green eyes of an older man.

“Yes?” you asked, trying not to look guilty beneath his piercing glare. You hadn’t done anything, but something about him made you feel as if you had, you just didn’t know what it was yet.  

“From your request, I can only assume you are researching El Dorado,” he said, his voice as stiff and stony as his demeanor. 

“I am.”

“And what, may I ask, is your reason for conducting such research?” 

You floundered for a moment, caught off guard and confused. Finally, you shook your head and shrugged. “Curiosity, I guess,” you said.

“Are you in any way associated with a man who calls himself Acheron Phlegethon?”

“What?” you asked, confusion replacing the discomfort. “No, not at all.” 

“Are you sure?” he pushed.

“Well, I’ve met him. He tried to sell me his books,” you said, frowning. 

“Are you sure that’s all?” 

You realized pretty quickly what this man was actually asking, what he wanted to hear. “I’m here for… personal reasons,” you explained. “This place has meaning to me. Er, it had meaning to… someone very important to me.” 

“I see,” the man said. You could practically see the calculations going on behind his stare, your words reduced down to ones and zeroes as he analyzed them.  

“Is that okay?” you asked. 

“Yes, of course. I would never withhold knowledge from the genuinely curious. I suggest you start with this one,” he told you, setting down a large book bound in green. “It offers the most comprehensive history of Old Derdriu. These,” he set down two more books, “are supplementary material. While I cannot vouch for their factual integrity, they provide further insight as to what researchers have discovered about Old Derdriu.” 

“Thank you,” you said, pulling the books towards yourself, almost afraid he would take them away. There was that feeling, that possessive need. A craving, even.  

His lips thinned out as he considered you, his icy expression locked in place. “I ask that you do not cause any trouble while you’re here. The people who live here have suffered enough harassment.”

“I understand, honestly,” you said emphatically, although his warning made your stomach clench and you weren’t lying, but was it really the truth that you weren’t going to ‘cause trouble’? Did you mean that? Could you? 

VII.

[The following text are segments taken from letters found in the attic of a Derdriu home with other antiques. Forensic analysis can date them as being contemporaneous with the burning of Old Derdriu, however much of the contents have suffered such severe decay that entire sentences and paragraphs are illegible. Due to this, it is impossible to determine the author or glean any further context. Notes have been added in an attempt to clarify certain points, but without support, all researchers can offer is speculation.]

“My dear sister...discovery, but I fear I will not…seems that my death is inevitable, all I can do is…she offered me a chance, a slim hope that is buried beneath the earth…” 

“...sister… bad news… if something good came of it, does that make it right?... better left buried lest we… believe in such stories?... truly be Claude? [this is possibly a reference to Claude von Riegan. The mysterious circumstances surrounding his disappearance have long been a point of interest for those interested in the occult—See page 127 for further information]... put my trust in legend, or… risk my soul for… shall sleep, tomorrow we will return to the site and search for…”

“…I know nothing of the truth, it is obscured by… can trust, she claims… of the Agarthans [The “Agarthans'' are another popular yet unproven occult group based upon an ancient civilization. Artifacts supposedly associated with them were found in El Dorado]... and Lady Macbeth hopes to… blood and soul, I…” 

“...forgive me… of my selfishness and hubris. I am frightened… a blight upon us… she will suffer the curse of Seiros [The goddess of the Church of Seiros, who has historically been used as an occult figure following the purge of faith from Liecester]... and yet it is too late…” 

“He is awake. The Reign of Blood has begun.” 

[This line is one of the most contested within these letters. Since it is on its own page, with this single preserved sentence written in a shaky hand, there are those who argue it was included in order to bolster the cult and supernatural narrative surrounding El Dorado and the burning of Old Derdriu. If these letters are accurate, it is the last communication documented from any of the 257 people who disappeared, likely perished in the fire that reduced the town to ash.]      

VIII.

“Hold on a moment, young lady,” a familiar voice called. You paused, turning to face Acheron as he hurried down the hall, stopping you from entering your room. 

“Yes?” you asked, more than a little suspicious. With the key in the lock to your room, at least you had a swift method of escape. 

Acheron came to a stop, dramatically swiping at his shiny forehead. “I have a proposition for you.”

Your jaw dropped a little at the blunt statement. “I-I don’t think-”

“We have the same goal here, no?” Acheron asked, steamrolling over your obvious conclusion without the slightest shred of self awareness. “To discover the truth behind the infamous El Dorado. And yet we are waylaid by these pesky townsfolk at every turn. I have had enough of it, I say. It’s time to take action.” 

“What do you mean?” you asked hesitantly. 

He looked around the empty hallway before leaning forward, lowering his voice conspiratorially. “I have it on good authority that the castle’s security is not as good as they would have us believe. If one knows how to circumvent it, that is.” 

You considered him for a long moment, chewing on your lip and refusing to openly indulge your immediate excitement. “What are you saying?” 

“Isn’t it obvious?” Acheron asked. “I would see the famed El Dorado for myself.” 

“It’s dangerous to go inside, people get sick,” you said.

“Bah. The stories about any sort of lingering sickness within its walls are wildly exaggerated. The local youths brag about having visited as a rite of passage. If those scamps can make it in and out, I see no reason to believe I should be capable of anything less. I, of course, am extending the offer to you only out of courtesy. You hunger for the truth as desperately as I, do you not?” 

You considered him for a long moment, wondering if this was some sort of setup. 

“When do you intend to go?” you finally asked.

“Tomorrow night,” Acheron told you. “I would quit this dismal town as quickly as possible. All I need is good footage and photographs of the inside.” 

“Do you have the right gear?” 

“Gear?” he asked, frowning. 

Of course it would have been too much to think that a man like him would think this through. “Yes, gear. Flashlights, a map, the right kind of clothes—”

“Is all that really necessary?” he asked, cutting you off. 

“Have you ever done something like this?” you asked, omitting the fact that you hadn’t. But, unlike Acheron, you had common sense and some experience with night hiking. “You can’t just rush in unprepared, you’ll get hurt.” 

“Hm.” Acheron’s mustache twitched and you could tell he was thinking up some way to argue with you. But, eventually, reason won out. “Very well, I shall procure whatever is necessary tomorrow.” 

“If you buy this stuff town, they’ll know what you’re planning.” 

Acheron’s eyebrows furrowed. “Then I shall make a trip into Derdriu and return in the evening, we can meet at the road leading to El Dorado upon my return.” 

You wanted to argue, to deny your interest on the basis of not wanting to break the law. The risk factor was far too high, you were a fool to go along with it.

“I found a book today that has the plans for the inside, I’ll find a way to make a copy of them,” you said, anxiety and anticipation going wild in your gut because you knew how wrong this was, but you also knew that it was what was bound to happen from the start, something you couldn’t change or control. “Let me give you money, I’ll make a list of what we’ll need.” 

Act 3

"The monstrous sight

Strook them with horror backward but far worse

Urged them behind: headlong themselves they threw

Down from the verge of Heav'n" 

I.

31st day of Verdant Moon

This will only end in the hallowed halls of El Dorado, an owed price for the folly of Lady Macbeth, damning her bloodline, bringing a curse to us all. 

Yeah. Like this is some sort of fucking movie or something. I wonder if insanity is a legal defense for criminal trespass. I don’t think I’m insane, but isn’t that what crazy people all say? Yes officer, I only broke into this blocked off historical site because I had a dream where a beautiful man told me to. Also, incidentally, I had to figure out if I’m cursed or not so I can decide if I’m the cause of my dad’s death. Oh, and you might be interested to know that my great great great great whatever grandmother was a witch and vampires might be real.

It’s foolproof. 

II.

Acheron was right that sneaking into El Dorado was easy. Too easy. Disturbingly easy. After you got past the gate, there was only a security booth to creep past which should have forced you into the view of security cameras, but a convenient hole in the fence circumvented that obstacle. If you were even slightly more worried about getting caught, or maybe slightly less desperate to see inside, you would have given up right then and there on the grounds that breaking and entering shouldn’t have been as simple as ducking through some trees and making a tense, but relatively short, trek through the woods.

All sense left you when you broke the clearing into what used to be the grand lawn of El Dorado, the vague threat of getting caught by angry landowners falling far to the wayside as you stood in front of the grand majesty of King Claude von Riegan’s personal castle, staring down the centuries old castle with equal parts trepidation and excitement. 

Other than the cicadas and frogs and slight wind, the night was very quiet. Acheron fiddled with his camera, getting ready to take footage of the inside. All you had to potentially take photos with was your phone, although you weren’t inclined to gather evidence of your crime. It was enough to watch, to look, to commit this sight to memory. 

And what a sight it was. Nothing like you had ever seen, except in dreams that were not dreams but you didn’t dare call memories. Overgrown with thick, possessive greenery and fallen into a state of dull disrepair, the castle was truly a breathtaking spectacle, the years of ruin only added to the sense of tragic mystery. It was nothing like the stout fortresses of the west, or the elaborate Imperial complexes in the south. Terrible with its jagged maw of an entrance, the intimidating golden tower looming above. Beautiful, the result of long lost artistry. Foreboding and alluring. 

No longer were you looking over your shoulder out of paranoia, but staring down each window and shadow of the castle’s aged, inscrutable countenance for some sign of the life you could practically feel thrumming from within. But, even suffering from the hyperactive state of distress, you knew you couldn’t leave. It wasn’t interest or curiosity, it was a fixation, an urge, a compulsion. 

You had to go inside. 

You had to get away.

“Wait, before I forget-” You pulled out the set of walkie talkies you had brought. They were the ones you and your dad used when you went hiking. You didn’t want to think of that. “Testing, testing, one two three.” Your voice, crinkling through the static, exited the other walkie talkie. 

“What is that?” Acheron asked, raising a thin eyebrow. 

“Walkie talkies,” you said, handing him the second. “In case we get separated somehow. There’s no cell service out here.” 

“Do you intend on making a private excursion?” he asked.

“No, but…” you looked at El Dorado, uneasiness once again sinking through your gut. It was as if the castle itself was watching you, the eyeless windows winking in the moonlight. “Just in case.” 

“Hm.” Acheron clipped the walkie talkie onto his belt, and so you did you. It was too bulky for your little sling bag. “Well then, after you.” 

“What?”

“You have had more time to familiarize yourself with the layout, it’s only natural that you should lead the way.” 

You wondered if Acheron was scared. It was difficult to tell if he was any more pale than usual, and he wore the same blustery confidence as usual. It didn’t matter. If he got scared and bolted, you would do this alone. You were getting used to that, right?  

“Okay,” you said. You weren’t scared. Maybe you felt a little nervous. But you weren’t scared. 

Staying vigilant for any strange movement or sounds, you ascended the cracked, overgrown steps, telling yourself over and over that you were not afraid. There were no such things as vampires, ghosts, or curses. And if there were, you would know for yourself. Answers. You would get answers. 

The large door was mostly intact, but it was stuck in a perpetual state of half-open. Almost like an invitation. A horror cliche. There was a pinch in your bladder and your heart thudded too heavily in your chest and the animal part of your brain didn’t want to breach the shadows and go inside. You were propelled not of your own free will, but of some existential force that tugged you forward. Step by step by step until you were inside the breezeway, the central entrance hall of El Dorado. 

The general plan that the two of you had discussed before sneaking into the private estate was to get into the Golden Hall, the three story vaulted ballroom off of the northern wing. It had been the jewel of the gilded paradise of El Dorado, but nobody had seen it for decades because of the infection that supposedly filled the inside of the castle. The path there would take you through the breezeway, the atrium, the courtyard, the pleasure plaza, and the dining room. Not into the heart of El Dorado, but deep into its rotted guts. 

A very quiet, but incredibly persistent, part of your mind pushed you there with the hushed notion that it was where your dreams took place. You had to confirm for yourself that it was completely different in real life, that your mind was making things up. Even if you gleaned no further insight from this misguided exertion, settling that fact would go a long way in convincing you once and for all that you weren’t cursed, just a little mad. At least one of those problems could be solved with medication.  

Broken glass littered the breezeway, hidden like little jewels within piles of leaves and refuse and the broken bits of castle that had wilted to the ground. You tried to imagine El Dorado’s beauty in its prime, shining gold and inviting, sunshine filtering in through the dome ceiling and high windows, wind playfully teasing the long curtains. But you couldn’t, it was too dark. Darker than you might have thought, darker than the thickest section of the woods, so dark that the places outside of the range of your ThruNite seemed to be physically encroaching shadows rather than void of light. 

Hanneman had been told to only go into rooms where the light touched, that it was the only way to stay safe, but that didn’t seem factually sound, did it? Surely that wasn’t the most accurate method of determining which areas were safe. The only thing that actually feared sunlight, if myths and legends were to be believed, were vampires. There was no sunlight now, and you doubted vampires feared LED’s. 

Gripping your light in a sweaty fist, you forced yourself forward, the ground crunching beneath your boots. The terrible, heavy dread got worse with each step. It sat like a weight right behind your sternum, beating behind your eye. The other part of the feeling, the insidious part, was the familiarity. 

Bad. Bad. Bad. 

You wanted to explain the feeling as nothing more than animalistic paranoia and some malignant fear of the dark, but it made the fine hairs on the back of your neck stand on end, your breathing picking up. All across the breezeway—throughout most of the castle, really—balconies lined the halls and rooms. You couldn’t see what was above, there was no light coming in, not even diffused moonlight. Somebody could have been watching from above and you’d never know. 

Keep going. It was fine. Everything was fine. 

“I told you that this place was safe,” Acheron said, startling you. “If it weren’t, this level of upkeep would be impossible. I have little doubt that they hire people to ensure the roof doesn’t cave in for occasions just like this.”

 You exhaled, looking around with that thought in mind. He had a point, the place did seem a little too well maintained for the number of years that had passed. Then again, maybe it was just good construction. Or maybe something that still lived here. Something ancient, something immortal.  

The two of you left the breezeway, entering the main atrium hall. Hanneman had featured many many photos of this room in his article; he had been fascinated by the intricately carved stonework. It was too dark to see much of that now. In fact, you very badly wanted to get out of the atrium as soon as you entered it because of how unnervingly dark it was. Two tiers of balcony circled around the ground floor, shadows lurking ominously right behind what was left of the railing. Every little sound echoed, rippling through the motionless air. High above, a chandelier caught the shine of your flashlights, moving with some breeze you couldn’t feel.  

Something made a sound, a scuffling. To your right, on the stairs. You flicked your flashlight to it quickly, your hands shaking with adrenaline. 

“Did you hear that?” you asked breathlessly, nervously holding the light on the steps as if to keep them from moving. But there was nothing, just the large stone staircase and decaying walls and long-abandoned artistry memorialized and forgotten in some old Life magazine article.   

“Hear what?” Acheron asked. 

You exhaled harshly, looking away from the empty stairs and kicking yourself for being so jumpy. It could just be a stray animal. That’s what you told yourself. Rats, racoons, birds, any number of things could have made El Dorado their new home. 

“Nothing.” 

There was some relief when you entered the courtyard, even if the scent of overbearing foliage and vivid green rot was nearly suffocating. At least there was more air, and you could see the stars twinkling above. Full, or almost full, the moon draped the open space in silvery light. Ignoring the overgrown shrubbery, flowers, and grass, you looked around at the balconies wrapping around the second floor. The construction of El Dorado was almost made for someone wanting to spy on guests. Or intruders. Acheron was talking to the camera but you weren’t really listening, too busy focusing to hear any sign of movement, trying to find what was making you so uneasy.

Vampires in El Dorado. Lurking in the dark, in the moonlight, waiting for ignorant fools to wander in. A missing king, a goddess’s curse, a burning witch. The Reign of Blood. You could almost smell it, the tangy iron of blood and the thick smoke of a town burning to the ground.

“Are you coming?” Acheron called. 

You shook your head in an attempt to cast out those thoughts before scurrying to catch up, passing the large stone fountain that had once been the featured centerpiece of the courtyard before the ripe overgrowth took over. The standout piece was a large, intricately carved deer. Once, it must have been a magnificent beast, but now its head was cracked in half, the prongs of one set of antlers sticking out of a murky film covering the stagnant water settled in the basin. Something dark grew over the broken statue, starting on its fragmented head and dripping down to give the gruesome illusion of blood. It watched you pass with the remaining stone eye, forever frozen in a proud, alert stance.

A breeze trembled throughout the courtyard. The castle taking in a breath. You shivered, pointedly forcing your gaze forward.  

Acheron lagged behind to force you to take the lead under the pretense of messing with his camera, leaving you to enter the so-called pleasure plaza first. Careful to not get caught by the jagged row of broken glass and wooden teeth attempting to bar your entrance, you stepped into the decaying mouth of El Dorado’s recreation wing. This was the place where Leicester’s elite once came to enjoy themselves, a yawning space that time had seen to shambles. Because of the many doorways and hiding spots, this room was even more unnerving than the atrium. You would have to cross it to get where you needed to go. 

If you were being entirely honest, you weren’t sure you had any desire to see the Golden Hall anymore. Rather, you weren’t sure it was worth the stress of getting there. Considering the unreasonable fear you felt going through areas you knew to be safe, you worried what you might find in a place nobody had seen for so long, worried about what secrets were better left to die. And that pulsing, pounding, beating of familiarity just kept getting worse, harder, closer. Louder. 

You needed to get out.

You needed to know. 

Inhaling the sweet scent of rot and age, you continued onward, your footsteps hollow against the sinking floor. Each sweep of your flashlight caused the shadows to move, to crawl away from you as if to hide. It hit each object without any subtlety, erasing details and making the darkness that much darker.

You forced yourself to carry on. Carefully, cautiously, unafraid. That’s what you kept telling yourself. Show no fear and all that. Although, that began with the presumption that there was something around to see your fear. 

Your skin erupted in painful prickling chills almost as soon as that thought came to you. And then, in the same moment or before or after or so close you couldn’t tell the difference, you saw movement out of the corner of your eye. You flashed your light quickly around the room, hoping to catch a glimpse of a rat or some other disgusting but inoffensive animal to reassure yourself that you were safe because you still had hope that this was all innocent, that you were the crazy one for believing in ridiculous stories of the supernatural. 

Something retreated behind the doorway. 

Your stomach sank with freezing cold ice and panic. That was no rat. 

A person? It certainly seemed human sized. Those were footsteps too, weren’t they? Disguised beneath the sound of your own? And if it were somebody with authority, somebody who wanted you to leave because you were trespassing, they wouldn’t be lurking around watching you. So that meant it was somebody doing the same thing that you were. But, somehow, you didn’t feel as if it were another trespassing explorer. You felt it in your gut.

“Acheron, hold on,” you said quietly, stopping. 

“Yes? What is it?” he asked loudly. Too loud, bumbling around with his footsteps echoing against the walls as he turned to face you. You winced, holding up a hand to shade your eyes from the glare of his light. 

“We need to leave,” you told him, speaking softly and calmly. “Now.” 

“But we’ve hardly seen anything,” he said. You couldn’t see his frown, but you could hear it. 

“I’m telling you, we need to leave,” you said softly, desperately trying to remain calm. “We’re not alone.” 

“Someone is here?” he asked loudly, shining his light in a large circle, catching it all on camera. “Show yourself!”

“Acheron!” you hissed. 

“Don’t you want a head start?” an unfamiliar voice asked. No. Not unfamiliar. Jarring though, because you didn’t recognize why you would know it. What memory was attached to that disembodied sound. 

Acheron let out a high pitched sound of terror which scared you nearly as bad as the voice, almost causing you to fall over.

“Who is that? Show yourself!” he demanded. No answer. Of course there was no answer. No sound, not even the faint echo of footsteps. 

“We have to leave,” you murmured, more to yourself than to Acheron, your voice an octave too high with stress. “We have to get out of here.”

“It’s nothing. I told you that the local youths often come here, did I not?” he asked, maintaining that feigned sense of control. “I demand you show yourself!” 

“Acheron, please,” you begged, tugging at his jacket. He kept his camera fixed on where the voice had come from. It was from the hall branching off of the entrance out of the pleasure plaza and into the courtyard, essentially barring your most direct route of escape.

“You really ought to listen to the lady,” the voice said, just as casual, just as playful, just as recognizable. You hadn’t really been aware of a distinct echo beforehand, but the room was large enough to cause the voice to bounce around, to obscure the speaker’s location. Not only disembodied, omniscient. And you were stupid and crazy but you were acutely aware of how dangerous this was, it was a primal instinct to recognize danger. 

Freeze finally ran its course, returning some semblance of sensation to your numb limbs to take flight. You didn’t think, you ran, turning away from the voice to bolt in the opposite direction. Right then, you didn’t care whether or not Acheron decided to follow. Since you couldn’t leave the way you came in, you picked the nearest door. Terror thundered in your chest, a compliment to the sound of your footsteps on the rotting floor. You, with Acheron right on your heels, entered into a music room or another sitting room, or some other area where the wealthy and powerful whiled away their hours of excess. You shouldn’t have looked behind yourself, but you did and you could see, silhouetted in the moonlight from the courtyard, the unmistakable form of another person. And then you were pushing Acheron further into the dark with a fistful of his jacket, driven only by the need to get away. The door was intact enough for you to throw it closed behind you, and the sound rattled through the air.

The scent of wet rot was stronger back here, but you didn’t even think about stopping. The door didn’t open as you both scrambled through the room and into the hall, but you knew from the plans that there were other ways in and out of most rooms in the castle. If not directly, then from above, or even from below. 

“This is the wrong way,” Acheron told you crossly, although his control was fraying with his labored breathing. 

“Just run,” you told him, pushing at his back. You could have let go and run past him, but you were too scared of being alone, of having to navigate this dark, creepy place by yourself. 

He didn’t argue. Or maybe he did, you didn’t even know, couldn’t hear anything over the pounding of your heart and harsh breathing, your body synthesizing musty air into iron-tanged rasps that cut up in the inside of your throat. You had no idea where the hallway you ran into led, but it didn’t really matter. Away, that was what mattered. The hallway was narrow and stank of humid rot, entirely dark save for your flashlights, but the room at the end had windows, filling it with blessed moonlight. Slamming the door behind yourself again, you continued forward, stumbling to keep up with Acheron. 

Until you were yelping in surprise, the floor giving out beneath your feet. There was a brief moment where gravity hooked beneath your bellybutton and yanked, and then the floor hit, and it hit hard. Although you instinctively tried to fall in a slightly upright position, the momentum dragged you into an awkward roll, your body curling so as to protect your head. For a miniature eternity, there was no air, there was no thought in your head, there was no light save for the blinding radiance as impact blazed white hot agony through your head. Gasping, writhing on the cold, hard floor, you blinked teary eyes, staring at the hole that had just eaten you with some vague idea that you were dreaming, that this was all a made up fantasy. It was unreal, and it was painful.  

A moment later, a beam of light hit your face. So bright, like a little sun. You sucked in a lungful of air, tasting blood. Then, almost unconsciously, you jerked sideways and lurched around onto your knees. The pain enveloped you in a mad rush all once, your empty body dry heaving with nausea. Only, there wasn’t enough air to expel the sour bile in your stomach, leaving you to choke and suffocate on nothing instead. That tapered off into a few pathetic coughs a moment later, your entire body shaking and clammy. 

“Oh dear,” Acheron said, his voice thin with fear. “Are you hurt?”

All you could manage in response was a groan, and then a broken sob. But fear was a good motivator to get moving, and adrenaline shocked your system enough to force you upright. Now that you could remember, more or less, how to breathe, the worst of the damage was where you had initially landed on your hip, your shoulder hitting nearly as hard a second later. It sent violent, lurid pain straight down your arm and leg, the entire left side of your body alight as if from a branding iron.

“I’m fine,” you croaked out, not knowing if it was true but knowing that it needed to be true. 

“Thank goodness,” Acheron said, his voice heavy with relief. “I don’t suppose you see any way to climb back up?” 

You couldn’t see anything outside of the hot spotlight from above, your ThruNite had gone dark and skittered away somewhere into the shadows. At first, you only felt panic at the realization, terror that you were stuck in the darkness. It took you a long moment to think past the pain and the dark and the fear to remember that you had a backup light. After a few tries of fumbling with the zipper on your sling bag, you got your sweaty fingers around the yellow plastic base of your second flashlight. It was nothing so good as the hefty ThruNite, emitting a buttery yellow glow, but it was something. You waved it around, although you knew it was a lost cause before looking. The hole you had fallen into was rotted all the way through, leaving a few jagged boards around the edges, some of which you had brought with you on the way down, and parts of which were embedded in your hands and knees. There was no way back up. 

“No,” you said, painfully staggering to your feet and brushing yourself off as best you could. “I’ll have to find the stairs, I think… I think there’s some in the southern wing. Meet me there and we can—” 

“And stay here?” he demanded. “Are you mad? No, no, I simply cannot. I shall… I shall run and send help. Yes, that is the best course of action.”

You squinted against the blinding beam of his flashlight, mute with confused shock for a long, silent moment. 

“Acheron, you can’t do that,” you said softly, more bewildered than afraid. 

“You cannot expect me to retrieve you myself,” he said defensively. 

“No, no. You can’t just… just leave me here,” you said weakly, panic closing in around your heart, ice fizzling out like bubbles in your head. 

“I will not put myself at risk for your own carelessness,” he told you harshly. “If you remain there, the rescuers should find you quickly.” 

And that was it. His light disappeared, leaving you blind and blinking up at the hole in the desperate hopes of seeing his face, of seeing some sign that you weren’t actually alone. 

“Acheron,” you called, unable to keep your ragged voice soft. “Please don’t leave me here.” Nothing. You called out again, and nothing. No footsteps, not even the sound of doors opening or closing, although the violent rush of blood could have covered noises like that. And then there was only your heavy breathing and the sour bite of vomit in your throat and the creaking sound of the castle’s breathing in time with your own. 

With shaking hands, you got out the walkie talkie. It took you two tries to find the button, and then the sound of static. “Acheron?” you asked. “Do you copy, Acheron?”  

You didn’t get an answer. At least, not from the walkie talkie. You heard something. From far away, up above, you heard this howling, like an animal, but very distinctly human. Your guts lurched, a shiver slithering down your sweaty back, all the way through your body. 

You quickly pressed the button down again. “Ah-Acheron?” you asked, looking around the empty room. The shadows of decaying furniture followed your yellowy light, almost mockingly avoiding it. “Acheron, are you alright?” 

The speaker let out a little burst of static, startling you. “Sorry, he’s pretty busy right now,” a crinkled voice on the other side said. “Can I take a message?” 

You paused, your chest clenching. “Who is this?” But you knew. You knew very well, you just didn’t know. 

“Your guilty conscience. Trespassing is a serious crime.” 

“Where is Acheron?” you asked. “What did you do to him?” 

“Do to him?” the man asked, sounding like he was offended by the question. “Nothing. He ran off as soon as he saw me, so now we’re playing a little game of hide and seek. Sorry, no girls allowed this round. You and I can have a match when I win, okay? Okay, so you’d better start looking for a really good spot.”

Your mouth was open, gaping with no sound coming out. You felt nearly as winded by this as you did from the fall, unable to think, to formulate any rational reaction. “I-I don’t understand.”

“You’ve never played hide and seek? Oof, your childhood must have been a real bummer. The point of the game is that you hide and I seek. Simple, right?” 

“I��m not… not playing,” you said. “I just want to leave. Please… Whatever this is, I… Please stop.”

“Come on, where’s your sense of sportsmanship? Even this coward is giving it a chance.” He paused, and then raised his voice, calling out to someone else. “Isn’t that right? Why don’t you tell her what a good time we’re having?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to... We’re sorry, so please don’t… don’t hurt him,” you begged, your voice wobbling with tears and panic.  

“I’m not sure I get why you’d defend a guy who was willing to abandon you here. I mean, who knows what could happen to a girl like you in a scary place like this. It’s practically falling apart. Not to mention all of the creepy and dangerous things that could be lurking around.” 

You shook your head, blinking back tears. “Please,” you said, although you weren’t sure what you were pleading for. 

“I’m in a good mood tonight, so I’ll give you some advice. First of all, the basement is no good. There aren’t very many escape routes, you’ll definitely get cornered. And, I don’t know if this is true or not, but I’ve heard that it's haunted.” 

“Please stop,” you begged. “I’ll leave, I’ll leave and-”

“Hey, hey, don’t panic,” he said soothingly. “You’ll need to save up all that energy for running. Oh, and you might wanna ditch the walkie talkie, it’s a dead giveaway.” 

All this time, you had worried about vampires. But it made more sense that some lunatic would use this place as hunting grounds. Preying on the stupid and reckless and your delusions that you were somehow cursed and connected to this place. You were cursed alright. It was the worst curse of all—blind naivety. 

“Please stop,” you begged again. It wasn’t that you wanted to talk more with the potential lunatic, but hearing his voice was better than not hearing it because at least it meant you weren’t entirely alone down here in the dark. But there was no answer, just some static. “Hello?” You asked, your voice even weaker. “Hello?”

No answer, over. Over and out. Ten-four. 

You stood there for a long moment, sore and sweaty and trembling, your body all at once wrung out and over energized, your heart beating way too fast. The light didn’t reach far enough, it was like the shadows were gnawing at the edges of it, attempting to retake their territory. A little part of your brain understood that you weren’t capable of thinking rationally, the part that recognized the insanity of all of the actions that led you here. But knowing that and overcoming blind, animal panic were two different beasts entirely. 

Escape. That was all you could do. At first you thought about searching for your fallen ThruNite, but you were afraid to linger in here too long. You had no idea where it had ended up, there were too many places in the room it could have been hiding. That left you with the weaker incandescent light and, if that failed, your phone’s flashlight. 

Your past self was a lot smarter than your current one, thinking to bring some water. That cured the rancid tang of metal in your mouth, settling you somewhat as you considered your options. Rather than abandon the walkie talkie, you shut it off. It was stupid, but you couldn’t just abandon your sole source of connection to any living beings. You checked your phone as well, but the same NO SERVICE bar sat at the top. 

There was no other way than forward. The room that you fell into didn’t have doors, only dark, decaying holes where doors might have once been. The one on your left was the source of the dank, rotting scent. It was completely flooded, the water covered with an inky, oily film, your light reflecting off of it unnervingly. When you steeled yourself to venture forward, you realized that the hall was slightly flooded as well. Not more than an inch or so, but enough to make your boots wet, and enough to make each footstep splash and squish, rendering stealth impossible. Then again, the light made that impossible anyway. Shining your light both ways, you debated which way to go, trying to remember the castle plans. The trouble was that you had no idea where you might have fallen. Everything was dark and creepy and awful and you just wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere else. To close your eyes and imagine your way out of the situation, to stay right there without ever moving and escape. 

After a second of despair and terrified self pity, you went right. 

If you followed the hallway, you would find a way upstairs. That made sense, there had to be some practicality to the design of this forsaken place. Or, that was all you could hope for. In reality, the dark and uncertainty threatened to turn your guts inside out, vomit biting your throat as you skirted along the wall. It was so quiet, unnaturally so. In the silence in the absolute void of light, your mind conjured noises. Extra footsteps, the sound of breathing. Echoes where there shouldn’t have been. 

You were afraid to blink, that when you opened your eyes something would appear in the beam of your flashlight. But you didn’t want to see anything, either, it would be better to face death ignorant to its face. You wanted to shield yourself from whatever horrors might exist. 

Staying in place was a death sentence, going any further was uncertain terror. The man said the basement was haunted. By what? Ghosts? Witches? Vampires? Murderers? 

Did it even matter?

Each open doorway you passed came with the anticipation that something would jump out at you. Or, worse, that you’d look in and see the dark silhouette of something inside. Somehow, that thought was almost as terrifying as being assaulted. Animals attacked on sight, true predators were the ones who were patient enough to lurk, to wait, to watch, to toy with the fear of their prey. And that’s what you were. Prey.  

On and on. Down the deep dark hall, your footsteps squelching on the damp floor, down down down to the corner where you turned, your light terrifyingly weak, nothing more than a pathetic glow against the all consuming darkness. The moment you saw a set of stairs, you could have wept with relief. Maybe it was stupid because it wasn’t as if they would lead you anywhere good, but those stairs were the best thing you’d ever seen. You gave into the spine tingling fear and ignored the pain of your body to run to them, splashing out of the water and taking the steps two at a time. 

There was no door at the top, just a sharp bend leading into a wider hall, the stairs tucked away and likely used by the servants. You didn’t care. This hallway wasn’t flooded, and the scent of death and decay wasn’t nearly as strong. It left you with the same problem though. Where did you go from here? Where were you? 

Relief soured into dread. Now that you were upstairs, the game had begun. 

It would have been smarter to shut off your light, but without any source of ambient illumination, you would be completely surrounded by the darkness. You stayed very, very still, straining your ears in an attempt to hear any stray sound, anything out of the ordinary. But there was nothing. The castle creaked and groaned, and your heart raced, and your ears rung faintly. 

Indecision and fear nearly paralyzed you. Like drowning, you had no idea of which way was up, you were merely thrashing in the blind darkness, hastening your own demise in your desperation to live. 

You found yourself walking without thinking about it, clinging to the wall with some idea that it would protect you. Just keep going. There was a sharp turn and then you realized that there was a light ahead. At first you thought it was a trick of your imagination, but you switched off your flashlight and blinked fast to adjust to the darkness, eventually making out that it was light. Soft, pale moonlight. That meant outside, that meant escape. 

Continuing to cling to the wall, you hurried towards the opening, eventually turning to the corner and finding yourself within your originally stated destination. At least you knew where you were. Nowhere near the exit. 

What rotten, twisted irony. You could almost laugh if you weren’t so close to tears. The Golden Hall, now flooded with thin silver moonlight, was exactly as beautiful as the name suggested. You knew it not from the second hand descriptions—they didn’t even begin to accurately describe the sweeping, luxurious ballroom—but because you had seen it before.

Far above, the cold moon observed you through panes of broken glass. So close, yet impossibly far. Taunting, tempting, representing an unreachable whisper of freedom. Your knees almost buckled, giving into the pain and exhaustion as you considered having to brave even more of the castle if you were ever going to get out alive. The Golden Hall echoed your own personal despair, a decaying corpse of what it once was, its profoundly decadent construction fallen to ruin. But you could imagine—remember, it was a memory, constructed or otherwise—how it looked in its prime. Shining, lustrous gold. And a man, one with entrancing eyes and a sly smile. His hands had been cold but the feeling was so warm, your own heat igniting you both. 

“The point of the game is to hide, you know,” someone said from behind you. In your despairing trance, you had gone further into the ballroom. Now you whirled around, clutching your chest in terror. “Although I am impressed you found your way up. Even I get the creeps going down there. Somebody really ought to do something about the flooding.” 

Shaking hard, you flicked your flashlight on, illuminating the man in its weak, yellow glow. He didn’t shy away, looking at you head on. His footsteps were slow and measured, impossibly graceful. Yes, yes of course. So obvious, so brutally, painfully blatantly obvious that it would be him. In the dim glow of your light, the most you could make out was the gold wink of his earring, but you knew without seeing that his eyes were that lovely shade of green, tinged with the romantic oceanic blue, so striking against his tan skin and black eyelashes. You knew that as surely as you knew the creases of your palm, or the constellations in the sky. 

“I admit,” he said, breezing past your silence, “I do have a slight advantage. You hurt yourself when you fell, right? I could smell your blood all the way from the catwalk. I’ll let you know if it tastes as good as it smells.”

“Stay away from me,” you demanded, surprised at how clear the words sounded despite the saliva pooling on your tongue. 

“I mean it, you smell really good,” he said, ignoring you and continuing forward. “Hey, why don’t you make this easy for me and put down that light? Nobody likes a sore loser.” 

“I told you-”

“Yeah, yeah, stay away,” he said flippantly. But he did stop, tilting his head in consideration. “You’re not going to make this easy, are you? Fine. If you’re going to run,” he gestured behind himself at the exit into the dark hall, “now’s your chance.”  

You didn’t think about the cheeky smile he wore, or the mocking tenor of the offer, or the reason he might let you run in the first place. You just did it, just ran, not looking back. There was blood in your throat and your entire body ached and you weren’t entirely sure you knew where you were going, but you didn’t pause. 

Step after pounding step, your heart racing, your breath coming out in sharp little gasps. Through the hall, which spanned miles and miles and miles, into the dining hall with its dust and cobwebs and ruined finery. You hit your bruised hip on the doorway which nearly sent you tumbling onto the ground. The red hot pain was so intense you had to stop and lean on the wall, your body physically refusing to go forward. 

Could you hear him? Were those his footsteps coming down the hall or your own telltale heart with its madness inducing beat? 

There was no time for your pain. If you couldn’t get away from here, you would die. That was a fact. Rubbing your sweaty palm on your hip as if to soothe it and sobbing dryly with all the pitiful disgrace of a child, you took off again. 

When you burst out into the pleasure plaza, the place of that first confrontation, hope reignited in your heart. It didn’t matter that there was still a significant dash to the exit, at least you knew where you were. Ignoring all else, you retraced your original ill-fated steps out into the courtyard. The moon was hidden behind the golden tower, peering into the front of the castle and leaving the courtyard nearly as dark as the halls. It didn’t matter. You raced across, blindly passing the one eyed deer in his long night vigil.

Until your toe caught on a loose rock, and you launched forward onto your elbows and knees, skittering forward across the ground. Once more, your flashlight was flung from your grip and landed somewhere ahead in the dense foliage. A harsh yelp left your mouth and you collapsed, completely boneless and exhausted and in genuine, insistent agony. Everything ached and the terror was relentless, pain consuming every panicked thought and infecting every inch of your body. You were doomed. Damned. Dead. 

Footsteps approached from behind. Easy, casual, measured. You flipped onto your back, wincing at the weight it put on your bruised hip. Your pursuer didn’t look dangerous. The outline of his messy curls gave him an innocent silhouette, and his hands were empty of any weapon. 

“Ouch, that must have hurt,” he said. “You should be careful, you could injure yourself if you don’t watch where you’re going.” 

“Stay away from me,” you got out between gasping breaths. 

“I bet you’re tired from all that running, huh? That’s fine, I think we’ve had enough fun for the night.” Without pausing, he dropped down onto his knees, one between your legs and the other astride your hip. You cried out in protest, getting your trembling arms beneath yourself to crawl backwards, but he caught you by the strap of your sling bag, and then with a fistful of your shirt to keep you in place, caging you in with his body. You couldn’t see the color of his eyes, they were only dark as he leaned down over you. 

“Stop it, please,” you begged, weak and trembling, tears sliding down your flushed cheeks, mixing with the sweat. “Just let me go, please.” 

“I’m sure you get this all the time, but you smell unbelievably delicious,” he said, his nose brushing your sweaty neck. You could feel your pulse jump against the thin skin there and you held completely still, a million thoughts slamming into each other all at once in your head. Vampires, murderers, insanity—anything and everything but most of all was just the mindless, irrational terror and despair. You were going to die. In a final spasm of rebellion, your back arched and legs kicked, but your body was caught between the jagged ground beneath and the firm press of his body above, pinned flat. And your hands weakly pushed at his chest, but it was a lost cause, and he wasn’t listening to your constant mumbling pleas to stop. 

Another pathetic sob hiccupped in your chest. You wanted your dad, you missed him. You needed him. And then you went limp because, now and forevermore, you were alone. 

“Come on, you don’t need to cry,” he murmured sweetly, a smile in his voice. You didn’t respond, staring up at the starry sky above. They were cold and without shape or form. Indifferent to your pain. 

The touch of his lips on your neck was shockingly cool, you almost wouldn’t have believed it was a mouth until you felt the needle-like puncture of fangs. That made you jump, squealing, but he held you in place which was probably a good thing because he was biting your neck and that could get dangerous fast. The pain sharply worked down through the rest of your body, the unnatural intrusion of something beneath the skin sending you right back into high alert. And then his lips closed around the created wound to suck.

A little whimper left your mouth, almost confused because even with the unambiguous pain of being bitten, there was something more. The wet release of sensation that followed the bite bloomed out from the point where his fangs pierced your neck in a flizzling wave. He sucked hard for a moment, but then went stiff against you, pulling back with a sharp intake of breath to stare into your eyes. 

He looked shocked, almost innocent if it weren’t for your blood smeared across his mouth. “You’re…” He breathed out that word faintly, reverently. There was meaning there, a meaning that you understood. Letting out a little laugh, a bubble of genuine exuberance, he released your shirt so that hand could delve into your hair, so he could pull you into a kiss. 

His skin was impossibly cold, unalive, and you could taste your own blood as he licked between your lips to part them. While his eyes were squeezed shut, dark eyelashes resting on his cheekbones, yours were wide open.

The kiss wasn’t violent, it was amorous. And familiar. He held you, practically cradled you against him. He felt it too, he understood what you had known from the moment you saw him.  

There was no way to escape the violently seated weight of your own body, of every sensation and feeling he inspired within you. Although, in another situation, the kiss might have seemed sensual, it was only grotesque and terrible. A display of affection in a moment of horror. You didn’t want it, your body thrummed with fear and pain, but you also felt yourself giving into the overwhelming wave of defeat. Even with all that was unnatural and terrible, this man’s kiss was imbued with some sort of cosmic sense of belonging. 

If the pain weren’t so sharp, you probably would have relented. 

Instead, you used it as an opening, as your final chance to reject this twisted insanity. Your hand scrambled out to the side, blunt nails scraping the ground and open wounds packing with dirt. But you found what you were looking for. Stray rubble, forced up and broken by the relentless roots of new growth, nature overcoming manmade structure. You wrapped your bloodied fingers around the chunk of displaced stone and swung at his head, thrashing against his grip at the same moment. 

It was enough to displace his body from on top of yours, maybe out of surprise because you certainly didn’t feel any human give of flesh and bone beneath the weight of the rock. You didn’t stop to consider that, or anything. He grabbed the strap of your sling bag as you scrambled away and you unclipped it without thought, refusing to let it catch you, to keep you trapped. It didn’t matter, you didn’t need it. You needed to escape. You were little more than a wild animal, the taste of your own blood on your lips, blood dripping down your neck, fear infecting every cell of your being. 

“Wait a second,” he called. Disgruntled, not pained. 

The first few steps, you were practically crawling, your back hunched like a beast as you used pure momentum to carry you into the atrium. And from the atrium to the breezeway, your back painfully straightening out, hip screaming in agony. You didn’t think about it, you just continued forward. Ran out into the night, ran through the woods, sticks and foliage catching your clothes and skin, ran down the dirt path to the road. There wasn’t a single thought in your head to get help, just to get away. And then you were flying through the night on your silver bike, your body pushed past the point of weary, into some territory where you weren’t even sure you were actually alive anymore, just acting because you had to act. Although it seemed to take hours of cycling down the dark road, there was this vague impression that no time at all passed before you were coming up to the inn, the bicycle’s wheels crunching across the gravel alley before you ditched it. 

Your room’s window was still open, the way you left it so you didn’t have to sneak in and out the front. The lights were on and they were warm and bright, inviting. You scrambled in, bloody and filthy and sweaty and shaking, and slammed the glass pane shut so hard it rattled, pulling the blinds shut to protect you from the night. 

And then you wept, and you retched, and you waited for sunrise.  

Act 4

“Die he or justice must; unless for him Some other able, and as willing, pay The rigid satisfaction, death for death.”

I.

1st day of Horsebow Moon

It’s all real. There is something living in El Dorado. He got Acheron, I waited all night and he never came back and they’re saying that he left yesterday but I know he didn’t. I left him there. I abandoned him there. I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault. 

If you find this, it means he came for me too. 

II.

A woman sat in the waiting room of the police station when you entered, her legs crossed as she casually read the paper. There was nobody else around, not even at the desk. A lazy fan swiveled in the corner, whirring loudly but not doing anything to cool the room so much as it just pushed around the warm air. It made the high necked shirt you were wearing that much more uncomfortable. Trying very hard to hide your limp—your hip wasn’t seriously injured, but you’d have a hell of a bruise for weeks—you walked up to the desk, peering into the back to check if anyone was there. No luck. It was almost eerily quiet. 

“Are you here to talk to the police?” the woman asked, looking at you over the top of her paper. 

You opened your mouth to respond before settling on nodding instead. 

She turned to the next page, her attention drawn back down. “What about?”

You hesitated, not knowing how to answer, or even if you should. Before leaving the inn, you hadn’t thought very hard about how you would present your story. The only evidence you had was your sore body, but you had to do something for Acheron. Even if he was annoying and rude and unpleasant, that didn’t mean he deserved to be dead and forgotten. 

“I know all of the folks on the force,” she explained. “I’m sure I could help you out.”  

“I… I’m here to give a statement, that's all,” you told her, aware of how hoarse your voice was. You sounded and looked rough, there was no hiding it.  

“Well, they’re at lunch right now,” she said. “Why don’t you sit down and wait with me?”

You looked at the empty desk, and then at her, and then sat down, once again trying not to wince at the way your hip complained. Really, your entire body complained. You used practically half a bottle of Bactine trying to clean up the mess of shredded skin on your hands, elbows, and knees. Not to mention the bruising. 

“I’m Judith, by the way,” she said.

“It’s nice to meet you,” you said. 

“I take it you don’t know who I am,” Judith said, a hint of amusement in her eyes. That perked you up, just a bit. Not in a good way. So lost in your own miserable anxiety and fear, you hadn’t really considered how off putting her demeanor was before now. 

“Should I?” you asked. 

“You might be interested, at least. I’m the owner of El Dorado and the surrounding property.”  

You felt the blood fade from your face, your empty stomach twisting with guilt and fear, the sore muscles clenching uncomfortably.

“Don’t make that face,” she said, folding up her paper. “I’m not here to report you.”

“I-”

“That’s not to say I couldn’t,” she said, cutting you off, “but I figured I’d give you a chance to do the smart thing first. It’ll save both of us a lot of trouble if we agree that nothing happened last night and move on with our lives.” 

You froze. “I don’t know what you mean.” 

“Do you know the punishment for felony trespass?” she asked. 

“Acheron’s still in there,” you whispered, adjusting your high necked shirt again. “They have to save him. Somebody has to do something.”

“I heard your friend left town,” Judith said. 

“No, I saw him. He was real, and he got Acheron,” you insisted, tears welling up in your eyes. The words didn’t make any sense, even you weren’t entirely sure how much of it you meant. What you thought, what you felt, what you believed. Your head pounded with a violent headache, your entire body sore and clammy. 

“I don’t know what you think you saw, but hallucinations are a side effect of things like black mold,” Judith said, her eyebrow arching. “It’s dangerous. There’s a reason that place stays locked up.” 

You opened your mouth to argue, then closed it. Could that be true? Maybe Acheron had left after all, you weren’t exactly in the clearest of mental states. He could have escaped, it was what he intended. And the rest of it, the man who stalked, taunted, and attacked you, maybe there was some other explanation for that. Maybe you really were losing it.

“You can go ahead and make a report, if you want,” Judith said. “It won’t matter. All of the evidence points to your friend packing up and leaving. Without a body, the only crime here is yours. They’ll bury you in whatever charges they can make stick.” She paused, giving you a sideways glance to make sure you were listening. “None of that has to happen. No report, no paperwork, no crime. You go back to your inn, pack your bags, and leave town. Everybody’s happy.” 

A couple of answers came to mind, and then a couple of complaints. Eventually, you just nodded. 

“See? I knew we could handle this peacefully.”

“I’m scared,” you said softly, the pitiful admission leaving your mouth without thought. 

Judith sighed, looking at you with a disapproving mixture of compassion and pity. “Don’t worry. Even if there was something there, I promise you that it’s not getting out any time soon,” she said, a flicker of understanding in her eyes. That passed quickly and Judith stood up, tucking her paper under her arm. “I have to go. It was nice meeting you. I’d say that I hope to see you later, but-”

“I’m leaving soon. Tonight if I can,” you said quickly, getting to your feet as well. 

“I thought that might be the case. Well, then. Have a safe trip.” 

III.

1st day of Horsebow Moon

I took a nap earlier, while the sun was still out, and dreamed of him. He wants me to go back. Maybe I should, maybe it’d be better if I did. When he kissed me I… I don’t know. I think about it and I’m not scared, I just want to cry. My heart hurts. Why? 

I wish it had been me too. I really do. We could have gone out together in a blaze of glory, us rogues. At least I wouldn’t be alone, I wouldn’t be thinking that when he touched me, I didn’t want anyone or anything else, and I felt-

I can’t think like that. 

The past is written in ink and stone and blood and ash.  

I’m leaving tomorrow morning, it was the earliest time I could find to get out of here. I’ll have to get back in a car. Thinking about it makes me sick, but there’s no choice. She says it’s not real and I know that’s a lie. The bite on my neck is real, I couldn’t have made that up. She’s lying. They’re all covering up for this, that’s all I can think.  Earlier when I ordered food, the delivery guy acted so strange, like he knew. It’s insane to think, but I swear, everybody in this awful little town is in on it. 

I put the note from earlier under my mattress, just in case something happens tonight. For some reason, I keep thinking that it will, jumping at every little sound. The walkie talkie keeps bursting out static, like it’s connected to the other one, but that’s impossible because Acheron had the other one and the range isn’t that long. I could have sworn I heard a voice from it while I showered too. Maybe it’s connected to another channel. Maybe I’m insane. Maybe I’m going to die. Maybe he’ll come for me. 

Death doesn’t scare me, not really, but I don’t want to die alone.

Act 5

"And should I at your harmless innocence

Melt, as I do" 

I.

Fiercely clawing your way out of the heavy shackles of sleep, you shouted yourself fully awake, thrashing in an attempt to escape an unknown threat, sickness churning violently in your stomach. Being awake hurt. Why had you been asleep? Everything hurt. Fear was more potent than pain and you forced yourself to breathe, to focus on your confusion and make sense of the world around you. Unfamiliar, although that in and of itself wasn’t dangerous. You had always existed in a state of ever-shifting unfamiliarity. What was wrong, what was dangerous, was that you knew where you were. Rather, you had a feeling. 

“Woah, woah, easy,” he said, backing away with his hands up. You blinked rapidly, panting, trying to fight your way out of the haze. The tide of unconsciousness threatened to consume you once more, lapping at your heavy head, urging you back down. It was nearly more than you could take to keep your eyes open, but you fought it. Something was wrong, you needed to be awake. As your vision brightened bit by bit, you met a pair of green eyes, and your blood turned to ice.

“It’s you,” you said, your voice soft and close to breaking, mushy in your mouth. Nearly inaudible. Everything was sore and stiff and painful, and it was so unbelievably hard to keep yourself from drifting again. It had to be a drug in your system, but you couldn’t think properly to know how or why. “You… You’re-”

“I usually go by Claude,” he told you with a winning grin. And it was a smile you knew. Intimately, honestly, a smile so familiar you ached. 

You blinked hard, shaking your dizzy, heavy head in frustration, unable to accept what you were seeing and hearing. No matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t remember the last thing you’d been doing before you woke up here, the squishy bit of brain behind your eyes pounded at the effort. And that name. You knew it, you had long attached it to the man in your dreams no matter how little sense it really made.

Or maybe it all made perfect sense, and that was why you were so scared. Claude von Riegan, resident vampire of El Dorado. 

“I… What happened?” you asked weakly, tearfully. “Why do I…? Dizzy…” 

“Don’t worry, that’s from the little concoction I slipped into your food before that kid dropped it off,” Claude said. “It’s not poisonous or anything and, trust me, I would normally never use such underhanded tactics, but I couldn’t have you ruining things by making a big fuss. It’ll wear off soon.”

“No no no,” you muttered, your words bordering on incomprehensible with the effort they took to get out, “this can’t be happening. This can’t…” 

“Would you feel any better if I told you it wasn’t?” he asked nonchalantly, sitting on the sofa across from the bed, his arms spanning the back in a casual position. 

With blurry vision, your eyes took in the room around you. It seemed normal enough, if lavish. Big bed, large furniture. The smell though, that was distinct. Not rot, but old. Aged. 

“You have been having an awful lot of weird dreams lately,” he continued thoughtfully. 

You exhaled harshly, going still. Then, slowly, you met those playful green-blue eyes. They danced with candlelight and mirth. Enticing, exactly like in your dreams.

“I hope you don’t mind, I got bored while you were asleep and had a little peek at your diary,” he told you. “I’d love to hear more about that strange, beautiful man who haunts you in the night. He sounds intriguing.”  

Had you written about those dreams? You couldn’t remember what you might have put down, usually you just went in and dumped as many thoughts onto the page as possible. The invasion of privacy was like a knife to the bone, but you couldn’t think of what you should do about it, the world was too abrasively heavy to know what to do with anything. Tears gathered in the corner of your eyes. Tears! Like you were going to cry! It seemed impossible to fight, like you were just as helpless to yourself as you were to what was going on.  

“It was fascinating to see how much you pieced together. I’m glad you’re smart, I really am. It’ll make this a lot more fun.”

You shook your head again, which didn’t help the dizziness. “I want to leave,” you said, “I don't want to be here, I can't…" Your voice slurred a little, like you weren’t in complete control of your body. Your thoughts too, they kept getting away from you, slipping out from your grasp. 

"Out of curiosity, where would you go?" Claude asked. 

You sniffed pathetically, your thoughts falling to an abrupt halt against the question. "What?"

"If you left town right now,” he said, “where would you go?"

You stared at him, unable to figure out what he meant. 

"You don't know, do you?" Claude asked, but his tone was all-knowing and smug. "I thought as much."

"I do, I just…" you said. But you didn't. You had no idea about anything. What you would do, what you were doing, everything was a confused mess and you just needed to get out of here, get away. Your breathing was picking up, your heavy head spinning with it. 

“Shh, calm down,” Claude said gently, switching from the couch to the bed. It dipped with his weight and you didn’t think to move away, just stayed where you were and looked at him, attempting strength but only managing desperation as you tried not to break down completely. “I can tell you’re scared, but I’m not going to hurt you.” He paused, smiling non-threateningly. “And, you know, I wouldn’t have had to do any of this if you didn’t play hard to get last night. So why don’t we agree we were both in the wrong and move on? Forgive and forget, no harm done.” 

“I-I want to-to leave,” you insisted, taking inventory of yourself to figure out if you were even capable. Everything was so foggy, disoriented, your body unbelievably heavy. It was getting better, but slowly. You weren’t sure you could leave the room, let alone escape. 

"Sorry, but that's not gonna happen," Claude said, and it wasn’t a threat but the casual way he spoke made the statement that much worse. He was simply telling you something that was. A fact, a forgone conclusion. 

"Someone will… will come looking for me," you said with more confidence than you actually felt, grasping at straws to make your case because you didn't have anything else. 

"I wouldn't be too sure about that," Claude said. "They still think that I'm too weak to leave, seeing as the Macbeth bloodline has completely died out and all." He smiled at that, meeting your eye knowingly, unflinchingly. "Without the blood that roused me from my accursed slumber, there's no way I'd have the strength to steal somebody all the way from town and back."

Pieces began to shift into place. Slowly moving, scraping together as your fogged brain did its best to comprehend what he was telling you. The vague outline existed, but you couldn't quite pin it down, couldn't quite see the whole. 

"My blood…" you mumbled, pressing your hand to the puncture wounds on your neck.

"But," Claude continued, ignoring you, "let's say that they know you're here. It's not impossible. Are you really going to place a bet on complete strangers risking their lives for you when they can't even be sure you're still alive? Personally, I wouldn't."

Your breathing, already unsteady, was only getting more out of hand the longer this conversation went on, the pressure behind your eyes mixing a headache with the threat of tears. A hot flush worked its way through your body, a sure sign of genuine panic, some potent mixture of terror and the effect of whatever drug he'd given you. 

“Hey, calm down. I'm not trying to scare you,” Claude said, “but I'm not gonna lie to you either. So let’s get to know each other a little. I’m sure I’ll surprise you.” 

Surprise you? The enormity of what was happening finally settled somewhat. He had kidnapped you, presumably by drugging you. He had killed somebody. Many people, maybe.

“Are you going to kill me?” you asked, your voice trembling and small.

Claude huffed, slight irritation wrinkling his brow. “No,” he said. “Frankly, I’m offended you’d even ask.”

“You’re crazy,” you said. “You… you killed Acheron, you…” You put a hand to your neck again. The needle-like punctures had bruised, the skin tender and sore. 

“Okay, okay,” Claude said, trying to placate you. “I know I might have gone too far, and I’m sorry. I promise I won’t do that again. I was just a little excited, you know? I’ve been stuck in this place for centuries all on my own, too weak to leave and haunted by the ghost of my terrible, yet sympathetically tragic past.” 

He paused, eyebrows up as if expecting you to say something, prompting you to say something. How could you possibly respond to that? He spoke so fluidly that you could almost miss the way he casually threw around the word ‘centuries’ as if it were normal, as if it made perfect sense.

“Doesn’t that make you sad?” Claude pushed. “Doesn’t your heart just ache for the pain I must have been feeling all this time?”

“You’re crazy…” you whispered again, unsteadily sitting up against the headboard, drawing your legs closer to yourself to put as much distance between the two of you as possible. You couldn’t ignore the evidence that there was something weird going on here, but you couldn’t ignore reason either. A crazy guy with razor sharp teeth living in a castle famous for its vampiric and occult ties hunting and killing trespassers was more reasonable than the alternative, wasn't it? You couldn’t just give up and submit to the fantasy, not entirely. You needed to make this make sense, to find a valid explanation other than the impossible. 

“You already tried that one,” Claude told you. “And, for the record, I’m not crazy. If you think about it, and I know you have, this is meant to be. Who are we to deny fate?"

“Fate?” you repeated. “No, that’s…” Crazy. It was crazy. Everything about this was insane.

“Then why are you here?” Claude asked, raising an eyebrow. “Ah, actually, don’t answer that. I already know. Oh! Speaking of which…” He stood up to find something, pawing through the mess haphazardly left on one of the tables before straightening up with a phone in hand. 

“That’s mine,” you said, tensing up.  

“Yeah, you left it here. Aren’t you glad I took care of it for you?” he asked, waving it around as if to taunt you into lunging for it. 

“Give it back.” 

“What’s the magic word?” 

“Give it back.”

“Ooo, how very charming,” Claude said, oozing sarcasm. But he gave it to you anyway, tossing it onto your lap casually before sitting back down. “You know, if you’re going to break into creepy forbidden castles, you probably shouldn’t take something so important. Especially the thing that has all of the information about where you’re staying, what you’re doing, who might care if you go missing suddenly… Or, actually? You should do that, it makes things easier for me.” 

You clicked the home button, greeted with your familiar background, a flower your dad found for you on the lake. That was last year. Not so long ago, but it felt like a lifetime. You weren’t sure what you were looking for as you swiped the screen to unlock it. There was no service here, you already knew that. The phone may as well have been an expensive brick for all the good it did you. 

“I’m astonished by how much information can be crammed into such a tiny little device,” Claude said. “Although, in your case, there wasn’t very much to find. No friends, no family, no home… I’m sorry about your dad, by the way.” His voice lacked all levity when he said that, almost like he meant it. 

“Don’t,” you said, stiffening. But it was a weak kind of anger. Whatever he had used to drug you sent your emotions way out of whack, fear and anger and sadness getting all knotted up and leaving a lump in your throat.

“Nobody to worry that you’ve gone missing. Nobody for you to miss,” Claude continued to muse. “Nothing for you to leave behind. If I didn’t know any better, I’d wonder if you weren’t waiting for this exact thing.” 

“That’s… You’re wrong.” 

“Of course, I do know better,” Claude said, ignoring you, “I know why you risked life, limb, and the law to break into my humble abode. Rather, I know why you think you did. You want to know why you’re cursed, and why all of these terrible things happened to you. You think that when the truth is laid bare, it won’t hurt anymore. Once everything makes sense, you won’t feel so alone and scared. You and I are pretty much the same in that regard. I can’t stand not knowing things.” 

You shook your head quickly, refusing to hear his words. He wasn’t right anyway, he was just assuming, just pretending like he knew you for the sake of some twisted power trip. Then again, he was right, wasn’t he? Your brain wasn’t so focused that you could simply deny the truth, deny that you thought answers would make the pain stop. 

“Amateur prose aside, you’re right about almost everything—the curse, Lady Macbeth, Old Derdriu, me. You are cursed, Lady Macbeth was a witch, I am a vampire, and so on and so forth,” he said flippantly, disregarding the supernatural as if they were matters of tired fact. “But I have to say ‘almost’ because you’ve misunderstood something very important. Honestly, your little tirades border on willful ignorance sometimes. I can’t tell if you’re intentionally missing the point or if you’re just that obtuse… Er, no offense. You know what I’m talking about, right?”

“No,” you said. 

Claude huffed, frowning. “You’re probably the only girl in the world to come face to face with the literal man of her dreams and still insist that you don’t believe in fate. I’m actually a little amazed right now.” 

“You’re lying,” you said. “You’re lying so I… Because I’m…” 

“You’re not insane, if that’s what you’re going to say,” he told you bluntly. “You’re not weak either. No, you just want a way out, don’t you? There’s nothing for you out there, you know that. You’ve been searching desperately for someone to swoop in and give you direction again.” 

“No,” you said again, refusing to hear those words or to believe them.

“Careful,” he said, “if you lie too much, I might just feel compelled to do something about it.” 

Your breath caught, your body freezing in place. “You’re crazy,” you whispered, tears burning your eyes. 

“Aaaand back to square one,” Claude said, rolling his eyes. “Okay, I see we’re not going to get anywhere like this. Time to move on to Plan B.” He twisted up onto his knees, like he was going to crawl towards you.

“Don’t come near me,” you said with wide eyes, clumsily scooting away, covering your neck defensively. Your body wasn’t moving correctly, your limbs awkward and ungainly. Although, if you were honest, he didn’t look that intimidating in the warm light. No, he looked beautiful. That was the point, wasn’t it? Those green eyes, the soft hair with one little curl flopped over his forehead, the pretty face, the little gold earring, all of it was meant to entice. Vampires were beautiful on purpose, they were both bait and trap. 

“I told you, I’m not gonna hurt you. All I want is to get to know you a little better,” Claude said innocently. “Thing is, I’m a hands-on kind of learner.” 

“Stay away from me,” you told him as firmly as you could manage, watching him distrustfully with this terrible tingling sense of anticipation. Like you wanted him to do something.

“I mean it. Fear and pain makes your blood all sour. Pleasure, on the other hand…” He trailed off with a grin, letting the implication speak for itself. “Well, we’ll get there.”

“No,” you said, winding up your arm to throw your phone at him. It was hard to keep your arm lifted, the muscles were so heavy that they trembled with the strain. Claude’s eyes widened, and then narrowed, his irritation obvious. 

“Oh, come on. There’s no need for that.”

“Stay away from me,” you said again, your voice coming out more like a whine. At this point, your thighs were clamped so tightly together that the muscles ached, your arm wavering from the weight of your phone. Claude reached for your wrist, but you dropped the phone before he could do anything, deciding to make your escape instead. 

There was no surprise that you, unsteady and dizzy and drugged, nearly fell off of the bed when you tried to jump onto the floor. You definitely would have face-planted if a set of cold hands didn’t catch you.  

“I know this is happening pretty fast,” Claude said, gently pulling you against him. You couldn’t do much to stop him, your head spinning, your mind on the fraying edge of sense from the sudden shake up of blood. He was inhumanly cold, but the fabric of his buttoned shirt was soft. The smell was wonderful, clove and orange and something lower, masculine. “Believe me, if I could give you more time, I would. But we have to make do with what we’ve got, right? And I’m…” His arms tightened around you, not that you were at risk of escaping. When you nervously peered up at him, Claude caught your eye hungrily. His throat worked hard as he swallowed. “Honestly, I’m starving.”

“Stop,” was the most you could offer, slurring the word. You realized that there was no heartbeat in his chest. Of course there wasn’t, he wasn’t alive. His cold hand slipped beneath the hem of your shirt, tracing along the warm, sensitive flesh of your back, to your ribs. “No,” you protested, squirming. His body was unyielding and firm against your own in the most intimate of ways. You had never been this physically close with another person, not like this. 

“It’s okay,” he told you, his nose brushing the crown of your head. 

“It’s not.” 

“It is,” Claude affirmed, unendingly gentle. He was tracing little patterns on your back that made you shiver. You should have been fighting to get away, but the scent of him was intoxicating, and you felt… Not peaceful, there was too much about all of this that was uncomfortable and scary to be peaceful, but you didn’t feel displaced. “You don’t want to be alone anymore, do you?”

Your composure finally collapsed, tears welling up in your eyes. You hid them against Claude’s cold, empty chest, clinging to him because you had nothing else. 

“It’s okay to let it all go,” Claude told you, continuing to pet your skin sweetly. “I’ll make you forget, at least for a while. I don’t want to brag, but I’m the best you’ll ever have. I’ve had a few years of practice to really hone my technique, you know? You won’t remember a thing by the time I’m done with you.” 

Your heart pounded heavy and hard once, twice. 

“What do you mean?” you finally asked, mumbling the words against him to hide your red face because you had a feeling you knew what he meant, the price he’d demand to cure your loneliness. In a way, it made sense. Another piece of a puzzle that would fit in just as it was meant to, as it had been destined to. 

“Wait…” Claude pried you away from his chest, gripping your chin to force you to meet his eye. You tried to avert your gaze, but there really wasn’t anywhere else to go, anywhere to hide. “What do you think I mean?” 

Your thighs squeezed together, heat rising to your face.

“I dunno,” you said, trying to squirm away, overly aware not only that you were in his arms, but practically cradled in his lap. 

“I can’t tell if you’re being coy or not,” he said. “I guess it doesn’t matter either way.” 

“What doesn’t?” you asked. 

“I’m talking matters of the heart,” Claude said, letting go of your face to wrap an arm around your waist, his grip impossible to fight even if you weren’t still dizzy and leaden from the drug. “And matters of the body. More specifically, your body.” His other hand delved down, slipping beneath the elastic waistband of your sweatpants to press against you through your panties. You hissed out through your teeth, thighs clamping down around his hand like a vice. Claude only groaned, his palm grinding against you. “I’ve gotta say, it’s awfully cute. You’re so warm and soft.” 

“Stop,” you protested, your voice thin and your face hotter than ever. 

“Pleasure makes your blood sweeter,” he said, the air of his words brushing against your ear. “The more, the better.” 

You shook your head, hiding your face against his chest. “I… I don’t…” 

“It’s a fair deal, don’t you think?” Claude asked, his fingers teasing you through the thin fabric, curling to press between your folds, skimming over the sensitive flesh beneath. You squirmed, your hands weakly tugging at his wrist. “We both get something out of it.”

“I… don’t…” you stammered out again, not sure where you were going with it. 

“And it’s much more respectable than a messy quickie out in the courtyard. Blood as precious as yours deserves to be savored in its finest form,” Claude said, dragging his finger over your clit, the extra friction of the fabric adding to the sensation. You shuddered hard, heat sinking low in your gut. “I think we’ll start with three and go from there.” 

“Three?” you asked breathlessly, your head spinning so hard you had to rest it against his chest.  

“Yeah, I’m going to make you come three times,” Claude said, his tone more than a little indulgently condescending. “To start with, at least. You know, to sweeten you up. It’ll soothe your nerves too. As for what happens from there…” He shrugged, the movement impeded by the way he was cradling you. “I like the spontaneity of figuring it out as I go. It’s more romantic, don’t you think?” 

“Nn…no…” you said, your stomach sinking, sickness and something else—something that was decidedly interested in the proposal—swirling dangerously low within you. Claude hadn’t stopped teasing you through your panties, and you weren’t really pulling at his wrist anymore so much as just holding on.  

“What, are you thinking more along the lines of four? Five?” he teased. “We’ve got more than enough time to kill.” 

“That’s not…” You whimpered, holding tighter against him when he wedged the fabric between your pussy’s outer lips to grind even harder against your clit. It bordered on too rough, but it was working as intended, your clit swelling hot and needy, your hips jumping forward in an unintentional chase for more. “I can’t… do that.” 

“Did I mention how good I am at this?” Claude asked. “Not that I get the impression you’ll be too terribly difficult.” 

You whined in objection, squirming in a half-hearted attempt to escape. 

“That’s not a bad thing. The opposite, actually. Like I said, the more, the better,” Claude said, his other arm wrapping around your waist to adjust you, to make it easier for his other hand to work between your legs. You were too sensitive and you didn’t know how much of it was natural and how much of it was from the drug, only that pleasure was pooling up quickly in your core. 

You swallowed against the excess saliva pooling on your tongue, past the lump in your throat. “I… I don’t…” 

“What?” he asked. “You don’t… something. Sorry, I didn’t catch the last bit.” 

“I…” 

“You weren’t going to lie and say you don’t want this, were you?” Claude asked, his cold lips brushing the shell of your ear. Your hips jerked, your mouth falling open. You could feel the way your body was coiling up tense, desperate to come. It would be a quick flash of pleasure, hidden and tight beneath your clothes, but it was still pleasure, it was still good. 

“I’m—mmm…” You pressed your lips together to stifle yourself, holding even tighter against him. The wave of heat was building too fast, too frantically. Exhaustion, drugs, your general mental degradation, you could pin the blame on any number of external factors so you didn’t have to take responsibility for what you felt. The result was the same though, and it was you and you alone who chased the tantalizing build of pleasure.

“Do you feel that? That’s the sweet, sweet feeling of me being right yet again,” Claude said, saccharine and smug. “Feels good, doesn’t it, sweetheart?”  

It was the pet name that really did it. Nobody had ever said something like that to you, and the heavy weight of it in his voice pushed you over the edge with an anxious little jerk of pleasure and a choked noise in the back of your throat, with a hot flash that made your clothes feel too tight, that made your clit pulse beneath his touch, rubbed raw with the friction of fabric. It was awkward and cramped and thin and it was everything, you clung onto him as the fizzles of heat sparkled out, your muscles contracting, your mouth open and silent. 

When it was over, when Claude quit rubbing those evil little patterns over your sensitive clit, you let out a shuddering breath, trying to calm yourself down. Without the distraction of pleasure keeping you on edge, you felt the bite of nausea in your throat. The recognition that this was wrong, and that you had no idea what to do to fix it, or even if that was possible. 

“The thing is that when you come, your body releases all sorts of hormones. It’s a fun little cocktail that behaves in basically the same way as sugar. For me, at least,” Claude explained, unceremoniously dumping you onto your back in a boneless splay. “A couple of orgasms is… It’s like the difference between gnawing on a day-old biscuit and savoring a cinnamon bun with icing.”

“What are you doing?” you asked. You tried to hold onto him, but Claude easily knocked your arms away so he could pull your sweatpants off. They were cast somewhere to the side before he hooked a cold hand under your knee, lowering himself between your legs. “What-”

“I’ve got a bit of a sweet tooth,” Claude explained, looking up at you with bright eyes. He looked so innocent, so sweet. So mischievous. “You don’t mind, right?” 

“Mind what?” you asked, trying to close your legs, to hide yourself from him. The panties you were wearing were old and plain, far from anything even approaching sexy. But the idea of removing them was worse, you couldn’t stand thinking of him looking so forwardly at your bare pussy. The humiliation would kill you. “Please stop,” you said, your voice pinched and small. 

“Oh, wow, would you look at that?” Claude asked, his finger tracing the wet spot soaking through your panties. Your hips twitched, the muscles in your thighs tensing. “It looks like you don’t want me to stop.”

“Don’t look,” you said, squirming in an attempt to get free. 

“Don’t look?” Claude repeated, feigning guilelessness. “So it’s okay if I touch, but only so long as I keep my eyes closed? Good to know.” 

“No, that’s not-” 

He cut you off, his tongue replacing his fingers, dragging over the wet spot with a depraved sort of intensity. And his eyes, as he said, were closed. Already, the sane thoughts of sickness and doubt were beginning to scatter anew, your body responding to the promise of new pleasure. Claude exploited that, continuing to lickyou through the damp fabric of your panties while you squirmed, settling for covering your face in place of fighting him off. Not that he was looking. 

“You’ve been alone for a long time, haven’t you?” Claude asked, hooking his fingers beneath your panties to slowly peel them off. You fought that, but it wasn’t hard for him to wrench the cotton from your grasp, the elastic tearing before he got them all the way down and off. When he ghosted his cool fingertips over the bruise on your hip, you shivered. “I’ve barely done anything and you already came once. Every time I touch you, it makes you twitch. I thought you were just discrete, not writing about any boys in your diary, but the truth is that you’ve had nothing to write about, right? Well, until now, that is.” 

“What are you doing?” you hissed down at him, finally panicking enough to grab his hair, trying to pull his head out from between your legs, shame raging a horrible storm within you. Claude groaned, flashing a grin up at you as he casually tossed one of your bare thighs over his shoulder. 

“Yeah, you can pull my hair all you want. I don’t mind,” he said, his cold lips brushing your inner thigh. You thought of his fangs and how easily they had pierced your neck, falling still as he passed the artery there. But that wasn’t his destination, you realized. Claude separated your outer lips, staring at your bare pussy for a long moment before his head dropped forward. 

You yelped when his cold tongue began to draw relentless patterns over your swollen clit. His fingers kept you spread open for him and you couldn’t breathe, every single muscle in your body pulled taut in preparation for the orgasm you were being enticed into. Disgust and humiliation remained constant, sure, but it wasn’t enough to dissuade your body from the pleasure. 

Even when your thighs closed around his head, certainly suffocating him, Claude didn’t falter. Even when you pulled at his hair, even when your hips jumped against his face, he just groaned, doubling down. He had to have been putting on a performance, considering how loud he was, eating you out as sloppily as possible so you had no choice but to revel in the depraved noises. The rest of it was all you. Your moaning, your whimpering, your gasping. Your body didn’t belong to you, you couldn’t force yourself to stay still, couldn’t stop the noises from leaving your mouth, couldn’t stop the hot coil of pleasure from building and building and building. 

“I c-can’t,” you got out breathlessly, “I-I… I can’t.” 

“Just keep telling yourself that,” Claude said, looking up at you from beneath thick, dark eyelashes. “It’ll make this a fun surprise. For you.” 

Forcing your hips flat against the bed, his wicked tongue continued to push you even closer to the precipice. You whimpered, tossing your head back because there was nothing else you could do. It was embarrassing and awful and you hated it, but you knew you weren’t far off. Heat ballooned up in your core, all of your blood seemingly rising to the surface and making your entire body too hot, too tight, too tense. 

Claude’s lips closed around your clit and sucked and you came with a helpless cry straight out of some trashy porno, your entire body tensing and shuddering and completely overcome with nothing except for the raw sensation of pleasure. By the time you were spent, your fingers were twitching, the rest of your body limp and sweaty. 

“See what a difference a can-do attitude makes?” Claude asked, looking up at you with a big smile. You shook your head, breathing too hard, too fast. Unable to meet his eye. “As in, I can make you do anything I want. Funny how that works out.”

“I-I need… a moment.” 

“No you don’t,” Claude said. Messily, hungrily, he moved up from between your legs, his lips tracing your abdomen, your stomach, your ribs, pushing your shirt up to gain access to more and more of your bare flesh. When you realized he was trying to remove your shirt and bra, you fought it, desperate to retain some modesty. 

“I don’t want-” 

“Ah, ah, ah,” Claude scolded. “Remember what I said?” 

With his supposed can-do attitude, it wasn’t difficult for him to get your shirt and bra up and off, shoved past your shoulders and arms until the knotted wad of fabric dropped onto the floor. You tried to cover your bare tits, but Claude barely paused, simply slapping your arms away so he could map your chest with his mouth too. Palming one breast, pinching the aching nipple between cold fingers, he wrapped his lips around the other. 

“Claude, I don’t-”

He effectively shut you up by biting your nipple. Not with his fangs, and not hard, just enough to make you squirm, writhe against him like you had last night, stuck between his unyielding body and the mattress. Sweaty and hot and desperate, but now for completely different reasons. 

You made another sound that was intended to be his name but didn’t come out that way, it was barely language, and far from comprehensible. 

Claude groaned, the fingers of his other hand pushing into your pussy at the same moment, driving right past the tense muscles of your entrance and deep into you. The weight was enough to make you really moan, the feeling of him stretching out your inner walls electrifying your entire body. You could hear how wet you were for him, feel how easily his fingers curled and scissored inside of you, reigniting the little ember of need low in your core. His mouth switched to your other nipple, leaving the first red and aching, and all you could do was hide your face, one hand threaded through his hair as if looking for an anchor point. You thought you needed a break, but already you were back in it, already wanting to come again.

His fingers fucked into you with a sloppy sound. In and out, curling and scissoring and not at all gentle. Not that it mattered. Your body was entirely pliant, moving with him. More than that, responding to each swipe gleefully, needfully, pulsing around his cold fingers and sucking them deeper, your back arching to press your chest harder against his mouth, your thighs squeezing his hand to keep him in place.  

“You’re tight,” Claude said, pulling off your nipple with a slick pop. “Is it possible that you’ve been saving yourself for that special someone?”

You shook your head, more than a little aware of the way his taunt made you tighten around his fingers. So close. Just a little more and you were going to come for him, the heat having gone from a smolder to hellfire beneath your blushing skin, your entire body wound up.

“Do you mean to tell me that you haven’t been suffering all by yourself, waiting for your prince to show up and take care of you?” Claude asked, making his point with each hard thrust. “Cause, I’ll be honest, that’s what this feels like to me. Sensitive, tight, needy… Those are all classic symptoms of neglect.”

It was difficult to breathe. Difficult to think.  

“Please,” you breathed out and you weren’t sure how he heard you, you could barely hear yourself over the crushing thrum of blood in your ears, but Claude responded with a groan. 

“By the way, that is the magic word,” he said. Despite the quip, he fingerfucked you roughly and carelessly. His mouth on your tits was beyond pleasurable. It was exquisite, terrible. You came again, your entire mind clearing out as pleasure shuddered through you, stoked by each thrust of his fingers. They kept on curling, teasing, grinding against your g-spot, going as deep as they could each time. Your orgasm felt like it lasted too long, leaving you wrung out, shaking and almost confused. Maybe that was just because of how hard you were breathing, your brain wasn’t getting enough oxygen.  

Sweat slicked your skin and tears had dripped down your cheeks into your hair and everything glowed when you managed to blink your eyes open.

“You don’t mind, right?” Claude asked, his mouth moving up from your sore nipple to your neck. His hand hadn’t stopped moving, fucking into you. He pulled his fingers out only to add a third, to add that much more impact to each thrust. 

And he. Didn’t. Stop. Claude didn’t so much as pause when he bit into your neck, pushing you past numb overstimulation, past the discomfort, and right back into the cruel build of yet another orgasm. Unlike last night, the piercing sting of his fangs into your flesh was only good, hazy bright red and sharp, followed by the sweet, cool release of his mouth fixing around the wound to suck. It hurt, but the pain was only an aspect of pleasure. And when Claude groaned happily, his tongue lapping at your blood with the same desperation you felt beneath the assault of his fingers, you moaned openly. 

You came again when he bit into your neck a second time, his fangs digging into your flesh mercilessly. The needling sting made you writhe, but his fingertips curled at the same time to press against your g-spot and you couldn’t help it. At this point you were so wet it was dripping past his fingers, slicking your thighs and the bed. Claude sucked even harder at your neck, enough to make you lightheaded. 

Whining, you pulled halfheartedly at his hair. Not for him to stop, but because you wanted him to fuck you. Actually fuck you. At this point you probably were insane, but you didn’t care, all you could imagine was how full you’d feel, pierced by both his fangs and his cock. 

“You want another?” Claude asked, pulling away from your neck. When he pulled back, his lips were wet with your blood, his green eyes alight. “Some girls would be begging for a break right about now.”

“I…” 

“No, no. It’s okay to be a little greedy sometimes,” he said, grinning, the picture of poise and control despite the lunacy swirling within his gaze. 

“Nn-no, I want you-you to—” You let out a high pitched mewl when his other hand dropped to touch your clit in time with his fingers inside of you, writhing desperately, helplessly. This wasn’t what you wanted, you didn’t think, but already sense had flown from your mind, replaced by the intense dread and need that had reduced you to a babbling, mindless thing.  

He had to have known what he was doing to you, how far your mind had degraded, but that didn’t seem to matter to Claude at all. Torturing you with the dual assault of his fingers, he moved back down your body, muttering for you to hold still before his fangs punctured your inner thigh. Biting the sensitive, giving skin hurt in a different way than your neck, but you were already on your way to coming against and when he sucked hard on the wound, you just whined, gripping his hair in a desperate attempt to stop yourself from falling apart completely.  

Claude moaned, sucking hard as you sobbed and moaned and trembled through another orgasm, dripping and squeezing his fingers, twitching with overstimulation and pain and pleasure and the raw rush of ecstasy. He finally let up when you whined, his mouth releasing your thigh and pulling his fingers out of you with a final little press against your g-spot that made your legs jerk. What little sense you might have had before was long gone. 

“Now… What was it you wanted me to do?” asked as he sat back. “You were mumbling, I couldn’t quite understand.”

You turned your face away from him in embarrassment, still trying just to breathe, let alone speak. Claude laughed indulgently. Warm, sweet, even affectionate. He leaned over you to press a kiss to your neck, lapping at the beads of blood that had welled up. Even as you burned, he was cold.

“Look at me,” Claude told you softly, sweetly. 

And you did, meeting his eyes again because you were beyond refusing. What you didn’t expect was for him to take advantage of the way you were gasping for air and shove his fingers in your mouth. They tasted like you and maybe a distant part of your mind was disgusted by that, but it was so much easier to do what came naturally and suck on them, your tongue cleaning his skin of your wet arousal. The reaction seemed to amuse him, and, curiously, he pushed his fingers a little deeper. Predictably, you choked. Claude pulled them out with a spill of saliva. Filthy, but everything was already so wet, the added mess made little difference. 

“Oop, sorry,” he said without the slightest shred of repentance, sitting up and unbuttoning his shirt, tossing it aside. You could barely remember what had happened to your own clothes. “I’d hate to put words into your mouth, so why don’t you tell me what it is you want.” 

You shook your head, closing your eyes in an attempt to collect yourself. More than ever, reality loomed as a detached concept, floating above you and below you but not quite stable. There were reasons that was probably dangerous, but you couldn’t think hard enough to know. Every time you tried, it was just the heavy thump thump thump of your heart, and sweat, and your heavy, heavy head. 

“How about I tell you what I want, and you can let me know if it's agreeable to Her Highness?” Claude asked playfully. You peeked at him from beneath your eyelashes, barely coherent enough to be surprised that he was naked. Beautiful, the warm tan of his skin belying the bloodless cold beneath. Vampire biology, as it turned out, was comparable enough to human biology. “I want to see how many times I can make you come on my cock before you either beg me to stop or pass out. Preferably while enjoying a little more of your blood.” 

You blinked, some sense returning to your head as your eyes followed the trail of dark hair down his abdomen to his cock. A bit of fear because the sight of his hand stroking it made you very aware of what was about to happen, and then his words registered and you froze up entirely. 

“Oh, don’t make that face, that was a joke,” Claude said, scooping you up. The world rolled, your head heavy and limbs limp. “I won’t let you pass out, you’d miss all the fun.” 

“Dizzy,” you muttered, trying to hold onto him for stability, everything he just said fleeing your head as the reality rolled and twisted and shifted incomprehensibly. You couldn’t be afraid of what was happening when you didn’t even know what was happening, although that was distressing in and of itself. 

“You’re okay,” Claude said sweetly, brushing a lock of hair from your face, capturing your attention back onto him. Something to hold onto. “I’ve got you. Just relax, let me take care of you.” 

Amidst the blurry, disorienting world, his eyes were familiar and clear. Beautiful. You must have muttered something in the affirmative because it made him laugh, the sound rumbling in his bare chest. Claude kissed your lips, your cheek. Then you were turned around and falling forward. It was difficult to balance on your hands and knees. He had to settle for your knees and elbows, your arms were trembling too much to hold you. 

“You really are gorgeous, you know that?” Claude said, his hands tracing over your waist, down your hips. He didn’t put any pressure on the hurt one, simply tracing the very tips of his fingers across the ugly bruise. With how sensitive the skin was, it actually felt good, tugging a harsh shiver down your spine. “I’m serious. I mean… Look at you. Not that you can. I guess you’ll have to take my word for it.”

Shame made a brief reappearance as Claude groped your ass, playing with your body a moment before spreading your cheeks, exposing you enough to run the tip of his cock through your slick folds. That made you shiver even harder, your body tensing up, your pussy squeezing around nothing, dripping a little more in anticipation. 

“A meaner man would make you beg,” Claude said, nudging the blunt head against your hole. You exhaled shakily, desperate and nervous and filled with red hot lust. 

“Claude,” you said.

“You’re lucky I’m so nice.” With that as your only warning, he nudged his hips forward. Once the head was in, you were more than wet enough for him to slide in smoothly. 

But Claude still took his time, holding you tightly against him to fill you with little rolling thrusts, his cock dragging against your fluttering inner walls bit by bit so you could feel everything. He held onto the headboard with one strong arm, the other holding your back flush against him which was good because, especially now that you were so full, you had no control over your body. In contrast to your feverish, sweaty skin, Claude was cold and smooth, his flesh unyielding and hollow. Your pussy worked around his cock, adjusting to his size. Any discomfort was easily smoothed out by how right it felt. How perfect.  

“Scratch that, you’re going to be lucky if I ever let you leave my bed,” Claude said, his voice a bit harsher, more affected, his arm tightening around you. 

You whimpered, your body unintentionally responding to what should have been a threat but only registered as a delicious promise. Claude still hadn’t moved. Every little movement made you tighten and flutter around him, a new reminder of how deep he went, how completely full you were. Claude groaned in turn, the sound muffled against your neck. 

When he bit you again, you could feel the way your cunt clamped down around him, your hips desperately twitching in an attempt to make him move. The piercing ache of his fangs spread through your skull, your spine, and then his lips latched onto the wound as if to soothe it. The sound of Claude sucking against your skin was beyond lewd, sloppy and wet and needful. 

“Please,” you whimpered. Not to make him stop, but to make him move, to fuck you properly. He pulled off of your neck with a slick pop. 

“I thought you’d want me to be gentle,” Claude teased, pulling out of you slowly. He didn’t take on the sensual tone of a lover, remaining playful despite what he was doing. “But that’s not true at all, is it? You want to be used. You want me to fuck you so hard you won’t be able to walk, let alone escape from my devious schemes. Then you’ll have no choice but to be a pretty little blood bag for the mean, mean vampire of El Dorado. Am I right, or am I right?”

The words made your cunt tighten despite yourself. “I-” When he thrust back into you, his hips smacking loudly against your ass, you could feel everything. Every ridge, every vein, it was rough and rocked you forward. Only, he held you in place, leaving you with no escape. 

“Exactly, I’m right,” Claude said, repeating the motion, making you cry out pathetically. “Of course, I almost always am. You’d think I’d get sick of it at some point and say something wrong just for a change of pace, but…”

You weren’t really listening to him. How could you? Each thrust was hard enough to practically throw you forward, but the cage of his arm kept you in place so he could keep up the rough pace, fucking into you like you were little more than a doll. You wanted to meet him halfway, wanted to participate, but you were too far gone to possibly keep up. Luckily, Claude didn’t seem to mind either way. 

His fangs buried into your neck directly on top of the wound from last night and it should have hurt horribly, but instead it threw you over the edge, your pussy tightening around his cock and your body trembling as you came. The sensation was hard and rough and completely physical, pleasure blooming out from the place where his cock slammed into you and spreading outwards in wonderfully sensitive sparks of heat. 

Claude growled. You could feel the vibrations in his chest, his throat. The iron tang of your blood mingled with the filthy scent of sex, and the sound of him slurping at the skin of your neck was nearly as lewd as when he ate you out, like the sex was the same as the blood drinking, the two acts intrinsically linked.

The inside part of your consciousness remained in the heavy, hot confines of your body, desperate for a break so you could come down from the orgasm but unable to deny some hot, painful desire for more. The outside part of your mind floated above, like a balloon, disconnected and distantly interested in what was happening, almost like this was a dream. The two parts warred. One mind focused only on Claude and the pure physicality of it all, the other in a state of disbelief that any of this was happening at all. 

Neither mattered, really. Within your chest, your heart raged in a double time beat, racing against the blood loss and the syrupy thick pressure of exertion. Superficial pleasure raced over your skin like electricity. Claude bit into your neck again, drinking even more of your sweetened blood with desperate fervor. You tensed up, realizing that you were going to come again with a twinge of panic. Your body rebelled at the idea, but it would be more painful to deny the pleasure, it would leave you shaking and wanting and desperate and it would hurt. 

“You just can’t get enough, can you?” Claude asked. You moaned wetly, pathetically. He licked a wide stripe up the side of your neck. Even now, his tongue was impossibly cool against the bleeding wounds. 

He let you fall down, pushing your torso into the mattress. You went without protest, boneless and limp. Claude held you up by the waist, his thrusts slowing down as he experimented a few times. You didn’t really realize the point until your body jerked with intense, almost aggressive, pleasure. 

“That’s it, right?” Claude asked, a smile in his voice. You weren’t sure why he asked in the first place, your body’s reaction to him hitting your g-spot was more than telling. It felt good, beyond good, but it was in an electrified, panicked sort of way because at this point you were overstimulated and dizzy and every time he fucked into you it was unbelievably pleasurable, so much that it hurt. It didn’t help that Claude was being so rough, his thrusts losing tempo. And you just took it, jerking each time, spasming around him, moaning helplessly, that coil of heat building with too much intensity, with too much raw-nerve pressure. 

“C-aa-n’t,” you gasped out between thrusts, your voice heavy and wet.  

“Can too,” Claude told you, twisting your hips a little, enough to add that little bit of extra sensation. You pressed your face against the sheets as you came, your moans coming out practically as sobs because of how utterly overstimulating it felt as your pussy unintentionally clamped down around Claude’s cock, forcing more pressure on your g-spot, cruelly dragging out your own orgasm. He was muttering something, praise maybe, but you couldn’t hear it above the roaring of blood in your ears. 

Pretty soon Claude moaned loudly, layering your name with the heavy sound of pleasure. You realized that he was coming too, slamming into you roughly before his hips stuttered, flush with your ass. You shook and gasped and whined, your pussy fluttering and squeezing him, accepting the torment. Inviting it even, dripping around him even as he buried himself too deep inside of you, finishing with a few heavy thrusts. 

Claude laughed lightly after a few moments, although it sounded more like a sound of exhilarated joy than humor. You hoped he wasn’t laughing at you, although you couldn’t do anything even if he was.

He kneaded your ass, spreading your cheeks to watch himself pull out of you with a rush of wetness. Shame had burrowed deep into your gut, but you felt enough to pull away, to press your thighs together as soon as you had the chance.  

“I may have gotten a teensy bit carried away,” Claude admitted. 

You didn’t open your eyes or respond, not even when he threw himself down onto his side and gathered you against him. He was cool and smooth, his flesh inhuman against your own. You were the feverishly sweaty one, although you realized as he held you how cold you felt on the inside. Cold and sore and empty. 

“I know you’re not asleep,” Claude said, nuzzling against the side of your neck, lapping up the blood before sucking lightly at the freshest wound, groaning at the taste. 

You didn’t move. If you did, if you acknowledged the cold or him or the discomfort or anything, you would have to deal with how awful you felt. Blood loss felt a bit like altitude sickness, at least insofar as it left you lightheaded and nauseous. The sore overstimulation was different, but you definitely didn’t want to deal with that. Mostly, you just wanted to stop existing and shirk the discomfort and pretend that none of this was real. 

Claude pulled away from your neck, smacking his lips contentedly. 

You continued not to move as he adjusted himself, his arm leaving your waist to reach for something off to the side. “Can you sit up a little?” Claude asked. Your head spun as he pulled you upward regardless of your answer, the world lurching. Your pussy leaked uncomfortably, coating your thighs and the damp sheets. Every inch of your body either ached or felt clammy and sour. Your head pounded with a headache. Your skin was too tight, sweat dripping into the scrapes and bitemarks. A straw appeared at your lips, urging you to finally open your eyes. “Here—drink this.” 

You looked at him from beneath fluttering eyelashes, meeting those pretty green-blue eyes before looking at the bottle he held. 

“Whassit?” you asked, your voice slurred and barely recognizable. Your stomach protested at the thought of taking anything, but your mouth was bone dry and tasted like blood. 

“Water,” Claude said, pushing the straw past your lips. You just accepted it. Maybe you shouldn’t have, he already admitted to drugging you, but you weren’t thinking clearly and it was easier to just do what he said. “Humans need a lot of water. Especially after losing so much fluid.” He paused, smiling playfully. “Do you always get that wet or am I special?”

You blinked at him, taking in a few more mouthfuls of water before dropping the straw. Claude set the cup aside, wiping the excess water from the corner of your lips, and then smoothing over your hair, pulling you against his chest happily. It was easiest to let it happen. He really did smell good, spice and citrus and musk and Claude. The man of your dreams, he called himself.   

“They thought they could trap me here forever. After their massacre and the fire, they…” Claude didn’t finish that thought, his voice troubled. There was no heartbeat in his hard, muscled chest, but you could feel the rumble of his voice. “She had family, sure, but her blood was cursed. No Macbeth woman would be able to release me from this place ever again. And then you came.” He paused, petting your hair again. “More than once, if I recall.” 

You groaned softly, eliciting a laugh from him. 

“Yeah, that was in poor taste. Unlike you, who tastes excellent,” Claude said affectionately. A moment later, he sighed, returning to a somewhat serious tone. “Anyway, the point is that, vampire or no, I’m man enough to admit that I needed saving just as badly as you. That’s enough, isn’t it? We really should stick together, us accursed outcasts.”

You didn’t say anything, you weren’t sure what you were meant to say. Your thoughts, still, were little more than confused slush. And, more than that, you weren’t sure that was the sort of thing that needed a response. 

Claude accepted your silence and kissed the top of your head. And then he just held you. Not like he was afraid you would leave him, but like he was afraid you would cease to exist altogether, his arms nearly desperately keeping you pressed against his chest, his hands brushing your back or nose ruffling your hair as he reminded himself that you were still there.

And maybe those thoughts were just projections, but you didn’t think they were. 

II.

1st Day of Ethereal Moon

Now it’s just us two. Me and Claude ruling the world. Explorers, adventurers, wanderers. Rogues who hide behind the horizon to keep the night close. I told him that the other day and it made Claude laugh. It didn’t hurt even a bit to say, either. Dad would like him, I think. Claude likes discovering things and chasing mysteries and all that too. There’s always somewhere new to go, we never stay anywhere long enough for people to notice our shadow. It can be hard sometimes, but I’m not alone. It’s as good an ending as any. 

Happily ever after. 

[erodasfishtacos]

HSLOT WASHINGTON D.C.

Like, comment, share, and come talk if you enjoyed the fic.

*inspired by this *

I write for free - so if you would like to support my work, you can donate here. (plus my bday is coming up in a week 😌)

-

Despite Harry being less than active on social media, it doesn’t mean that he didn’t creep through Instagram and Twitter after the shows.

He used a fake account to scroll, constantly liking pictures and videos of his wife dancing or funny fan signs to his phone.

Tonight, after the Philly show, YN was already fast asleep in their tour bus bed - she had curled into Harry with her leg between his and her head on his bicep.

Harry was trending on Twitter for his show, however, he scrolled a bit further and noticed that a hashtag called #JusticeforYN was trending.

When he clicked on the link, it took him down a rabbit hole of screenshots and videos from the concert.

It doesn’t take long to see what had happened, it was a girl recording herself on Snapchat from the pit during the concert.

The ‘fan’ held up her phone enough that you could see her but also YN, Jeff, Harry Lambert, and Tommy in the background behind the pit.

Adore You started blasting through his AirPod and the girl recorded his wife dancing with their friends - he gets distracted for a moment, watching her have fun and sing along.

He loved her so fucking much.

But then, it’s the next clip, and the captioned text on the video said ‘Harry’s Whore.’

The small smile on his face disappears instantly when he sees where this is going.

In the next few segments, the girl is screaming things at YN who can’t even hear them because of the music but it’s still completely disrespectful.

“Hi, Harry’s Whore!”

“Get the fuck outta here, nobody wants you here!”

“Fuck you!”

It makes Harry rage, even from the comfort of his bunk with his perfect love, and then he digs deeper to find his real fans defending YN.

YN was pretty loved by the fans. She was always kind, posted pictures of Harry (because he rarely did), and made really kickass merch.

He finds the Twitter account of the girl who harassed his wife, her name was Gina, and he read through her tweets.

She was going to three more of the concerts - following them from Philly to Detroit.

One of her tweets said…

‘If you guys are mad about what I said during the last concert, just wait what I have to say to her next time.’

And he also finds out that she had won a meet and greet for the DC show through the record label and Harry already knew what he was gonna do.

-

YN wakes up before Harry, sitting in the small living area of the bus - watching a cooking show on the television and still slightly dozing in and out of sleep.

“Hi bun,” She mumbles, opening her arms and legs to let Harry flop between them. Chest to chest and he was a bit to heavy for this but he liked laying like this.

“Mornin’, my love,” Harry rasps, peppering kisses all over her jaw and the smooth column of her neck until she giggles.

“Shouldn’t you be saying good morning to your whore on tour?” YN replies, her voice is light and unbothered - obviously found out the online drama.

Harry tenses up, looks up at her seriously, and tells her, “M’gonna take care of it.”

“Don’t, it’s fine, bubs,” YN assures him, she’s smiling softly and Harry just…he is so obsessed with the woman below him that he has to kiss her for a long moment.

“No, it’s not. I’m not going t’let someone treat m’wife like that. She won tha’ meet and greet. I’m gonna have a talk w’her when she comes backstage,” Harry tells her, lips brushing on every word and he can help but grind his hips forward against her.

“Always so horny in the morning,” Yn teases but still lets her thighs fall open a little bit more so that the only barrier is their underwear.

“Can y’blame me? Look wha’ I wake up to,” He rumbles, voice getting illogically deeper and raspier when he speaks.

It’s not long before he tugs his briefs down just enough and her panties to the side to get inside her with his lips glued to hers.

He’s whispering things that would make him blush with embarrassment if anyone heard him.

“Can’t believe y’mine after all this time.”

“Y’my perfect match, on m’knees for you whenever you ask.”

“Arena full of people and all I see is you, baby.”

“Feel like heaven.”

“Only y’make me feel like this.”

“Come on, stubborn girl. Show me y’love me.”

-

Harry looks insanely stunning in his purple outfit but honestly - YN always steals the show (without even trying). ***

They’re in a common area, waiting for the meet and greet with the fans - it’s comical how Gina’s face drops when she arrives to see Harry facing away from everyone with YN giggle as he crowds her up against a wall.

They can hear Harry murmur, “Y’alway showin’ me up. Only gonna be able to look at y’during the show, bug.”

“Harry,” Jeff calls to his client, making him turn around and his eyes instantly search the small groups of fans until his eyes land on a girl dressed in a bright pink fishnet dress and boa.

“You,” Harry points at her, his face isn’t giving away any emotion, “Can I have a chat w’you?”

“S-sure,” She stutters, eyes wide and excited - oblivious that Harry actually knows what she had been posted on social media.

The singer takes her off to the side, YN’s eyes keep darting to them as she chats with the friendly fans who are complimenting her dress and her merch designs.

Frank is standing near Harry, prepared to escort the girl out after the conversation.

“Can we get a selfie?” Gina asks, pulling out her cellphone.

“No,” Harry replies seriously, “You also are going to get escorted out of this arena and banned from any of my future concerts.”

“Wh-what?” The girl stumbles, eyes watering as she looks at him in confusion and dismay.

“I need to make this a safe space for everyone who comes to my concerts. That especially includes m’wife. And I don’t feel comfortable havin’ someone scream at m’wife and posting nasty things on social media attending my concert.”

Realization flashes across Gina’s face, “I’m so so sorry. I can apologize. I really didn’t mean-“

“No. I don’t think my whore of a wife would want to hear it,” Harry chuckles with a nasty edge, “Y’can fuck off now. Go find a new artist to harass ‘cause if I see y’face at one of m’concerts - y’getting kicked out immediately.”

Frank appears beside them, gently guiding the hysterical girl out of the room while the fans look back in confusion.

They forget all about it once Harry saunters up to them and gives them a crooked smile, “Hi, m’Harry. How are y’guys?”

The fans don’t miss his hand moving quickly to squeeze his wife’s hip in reassurance before starting to sign things and take pictures.

-

Later that night, the disgruntled ‘fan’ sends out a nasty few tweets where real fans go after her and defend YN.

Also, the true fans are cooing over the fact that Harry is such a good husband.

haleyhs22: omg, could you imagine being called out by the nicest guy on this earth

tpwkjess_young: okay but I wish I had the luck that @ynstyles has to get a manz like that 😩

UsWeekly: Harry Styles bans ignorant fan from tour after nasty videos were leaked attacking his wife

strawberriesinsummer: harry is such a VIBE. Like he deadass kicked that girl out and then spent the whole night trying to seduce his wife with his shimmies and winks - he’s the hoe 🍑

-

[undead-merman]

Heyo! I loved your headcanons for the brothers and Simeon as sirens, they were a truly *chef kiss*. Can we also have siren Barbatos and Diavolo? Yandere too and sfw, please!

Thanks in advance!

I'm always down to write Aquatic monsters.

🧜‍♂️Siren Diavolo and Barbatos🧜‍♂️ as a yanderes GN- reader SFW

Diavolo

Appearance

Diavolo is much, much larger than other sirens. While sirens grow to be about a foot or two bigger than humans, Diavolo is massive, fifteen feet long and with tons of bulk and muscle to match his massive size. He looks more similar in size to a giant than a siren.

Despite his size he is dazzling in the sun. When his crimson hair catches beams of light he looks divine, almost like a holy glow surrounds him as he rests on the rocks. His tail is the same stunning red as the blood red sunset and has a bright pearlescent. His scales are just as reflective and polished as a bright red sports car. His skin is deeply kissed by the sun, making his skin look smooth and shiny. His nightshade red fins are long and butterfly shaped; they trail slightly behind him like silk.

He wears all kinds of jewels and golds, all of them perfectly fit around his skull and fins. They drift perfectly around his large frame and glimmer even in the smallest amount of light.

Diavolo is the only siren able to keep his glamor up even if he’s excited, in the water, or even angry. He has full control over it and only shifts to it when he’s actively trying to strike fear into something or someone. His true form is like that of sea monsters in folktales, monstrous in size and able to take a ship down into the dark depths of the open ocean, to swallow whole crews, and create winds and storms as he lets out a devilish scream which can be heard for hundreds of miles around.

Royalty amongst Loners and Sunken Hideaway

Despite their lone lifestyles, only really enjoying the company of their mates, most Sirens look to Diavolo as more of a god than any type of king or prince despite having the title of prince. They worship his power and bow down to his whims and needs. They bring him tributes in the form of small treasures and Diavolo returns these gifts with blessings of more intoxicating songs, stronger wills, his watchful eye and protection, or just overall greater strength. Diavolo seems to freely give these boons no matter how small the gift.

Since he’s a well known and well visited siren, he’s built his home in the sunken ruins of a castle in a city whose culture and history has died long ago. It’s well taken care of by servants who have pledged their lives to Prince Diavolo and are surprisingly pleasant and tolerable with one another. They equate this to Diavolo’s power and grace but only those who are truly loyal to Diavolo stay here.

His voice can bring either madness or blessings and can be the most beautiful thing your ears could ever hope to hear or one so evil, devious, and grotesque you’re driven into a hypnotic bloodlust to those with even the strongest wills. His lullabies sound so melancholic.

He hides away in a large garden which has its own open air biosphere bathed in light by a glass ceiling which has yet to crack yet bathes the whole garden in a beautiful light. A single golden curly willow grows in the center with dozens of flowers growing around it. Here the air is surprisingly fresh and floats on the surface never touching the water around it like it’s a time capsule. He’ll lounge here to clear his head watching the butterflies that have grown here, alone and have never seen the outside.

Spending time with you

You and only you heard his song and wept. The feelings of his loneliness tugged at your heart instead of your head being filled with euphoric thoughts of power and blessings or instantly pounding through your skull until you screamed. You truly heard his song, understood the lyrics behind them and felt the way he did when he sang them. When he saw your face littered with tears and face hot with sympathy for him he felt his whole body go numb. You were something special, someone truly remarkable. He needed to know more about you.

And so started a passion in his heart to learn everything about you, your traditions, your light quirks, your hobbies and everything he could possibly learn. It sent him down a rabbit hole of studying humans that he refused to climb out of and gladly let swallow him if it just allowed him to get closer to you and understand you better.

He doesn’t mind what form you see him in, as long as he can see you he’s thrilled and happy. He’ll approach you like a dog, his tail swishing excitedly as he asks you questions he formed in his head from the day. He has to be careful in his true form otherwise he can cause a lot of damage to the nearby area and draw too much attention to you two.

He loves to pick you up and hold you, be in his true form or not and travel with you on his back, or when his true form shows in his hands or on his head as he intentionally kicks up some water to playfully mist you. Moments like these make him forget he was ever even alone to begin with.

If you ever wanted to see some kind of sea creature or visit some island he’s happy to oblige bringing the creature over with his divine rule over the ocean or happily just takes you there one day while making you cover your eyes to surprise you. The look on your face makes his heart swell so much he almost feels like it will jump out of his mouth if he’s not careful.

Dark Tendencies

Diavolo isn’t against using others to get what he wants, he'll ruin everything for anyone or anything to get what he wants. He’ll destroy small islands and wipe out ports so nothing can distract you from dates he takes you on.

If he feels like you aren’t close enough to him or are drifting away from him, for some reason or another, he’s simply going to just pluck you away from your old life so you don’t have any excuse to be away from him anymore. You're his now, you don’t have to worry about that silly stuff anymore, both of you can be together now. Why not just get married now? It would be much easier. Siren’s don’t marry, they just pick a mate but he’s willing to put the frills on it for you and your human ways. He finds it cute!

He doesn’t ever connect the dots if you struggle against him or plead for him to let you go, he’s wrapped up in his own delusions of you being a happy little couple that he’ll blame some outside force. If you go along with him he’ll remain peaceful and sweet.

He absolutely hates it when other sirens see you and while he’s not outwardly violent to them he is quite hostile. Grinding his teeth and asking them to look away from you while his tail twitches with the intent to lash out.

He gave you your own little haven to decorate, he gave you the garden all for your own. He even made sure to promise to give you your own space and privacy here, just as long as you come to his call. Don’t worry though, only you, him, and Barbatos know of this place, and you can’t run from him here!

Misc stuff

His scales shed infrequently since he doesn’t get into fights with other sirens since all of them know better. His scales are radiating with his power and are well known to bring massive good luck to all those Diavolo gives them to. He’s always giving you things made from his scales and he’s so thrilled to see you in them. He likes adding them to a circlet crown he had made custom just for you so you can match him. He plans on matching you to him with every little piece of jewelry, even down to matching rings.

He requires you to sleep with him. He can sleep out of the water perfectly fine and just pulls you into a lavish den he made for the two of you. It’s somehow unbelievably cozy sleeping with him. His body is warm and everything he set up is the best out there. He just holds you in his warm arms and nods off with you.

He’s quite a picky eater. He refuses to eat anything he doesn’t like and will only eat it if you so happen to beg him to, but only if you're insistent, otherwise he’s already slowly drifting away from it.

Barbatos

Appearance

For a siren he’s smaller than most. He’s quite slender and not much muscle to him, but despite his size, his appearance is perfect in every way, not a hair out of position, not a scale that isn’t out of polished or asymmetric, and his skin without a blemish or scar to be found. He takes a huge amount of time to groom himself perfectly.

His scales more resemble sea snakes, even having black stripes like them, though his tail is a solid dark seafoam green. He’s not especially radiant compared to others, but he doesn’t mind at all, he prefers to melt into the background more.

His tailfin is wide though, having a lyretail shape with black stripes going across it. It’s the same dark color as his scales and he has only two side fins but they look like long ribbons stretching from his hips to about halfway down his tail.

His glamor when melted away leaves behind an even darker looking creature. He looks like a stormy sea and is covered in nasty sharp thorns that don’t just stop at his elbows but lead down to his hips and thin yet long and sharp claws and stark black webbing in between without a tear or hole.

Serving Another

Serving the Royal Family was an honor his family was born with for generations and one he realizes the importance to. Diavolo is powerful enough to sink ships and cities and he provided some of that power and grace onto him rewarding him and his ancestors before him for loyalty, slowly turning Barbatos’s family into nearly just as powerful creatures as him.

He enjoys watching the whims of a child like god try to make sense of a kingdom, it's good fun to see him enjoying his life he is able to live vicariously through his high energy.

He puts his all into everything he does, he hates wasted efforts so he does everything he can into what he does but it gets tiring. Sometimes when trying to sleep, he finds himself unable. He’s always had poor sleep but he’s dealt with it for so long now that it's normal for him now. He starts his morning eating a small slice of kelp known for reducing head pain, all while preparing for the morning.

Spending time with you

If Diavolo took an interest in a human then you certainly had to be interesting. Well when he met you and saw you drinking tea with a huge Diavolo stretched around the floating garden. He just knew you were a human with a soul like no other.

He often brings you your favorite beverages and chats with you, simply at first to get to know you but he found you captivating, each word you spoke he held onto like it was the last he would ever hear and it was gospel. He smiles as you recall old memories, describing how you ended up here. The way you phrased things was unlike anything he had ever heard.

He’s taken the time to find old waterlogged books that were left abandoned in the old library and help restore them for you to read. Inside you find wondrous and fantastical stories of this old kingdom all of them enthralling, and as you read he’s happy to bring you a beverage once more and enjoy your company even if it’s in silence.

Once he’s grown closer with you he often finds himself giving you lingering touches as he pats your shoulder for your attention or grazes his hand on yours when delivering food to you. He even says the most romantic and poetic things to you without even noticing. He falls in love slowly but deeply and almost innocently. He just treasures your time and you as a person, never judging or doubting you.

There was a day when he had pulled you into a parting hug, wishing you a goodnight as Diavolo would return you to the surface but he had simply fallen asleep in your arms. Even Diavolo was shocked as he had never done anything close to something like this. It turns out Barbatos is at the most ease when he’s with you. All of his sleepless nights had just suddenly caught up with him.

Dark Tendencies

His love quickly shifts one day when he see your finger pricked by a stray thorn from a wild flower and as he wiped up the blood with a handkerchief and sees those butterflies fluttering around the wound to drink the blood he realised just how fragile you really were and how nature and life take advantage of that as soon as it could. He couldn’t take losing you. So one day he calls you and just takes you. You think it's just another visit with Baratos fetching you but he takes you to a deep and dark underground cave. Soft phosphorus moss grows all over in cushioned patches and with every step it glows brighter under your feet.

He explains it all to you, openly and honestly but no matter how you plead or try to reason with you, he believes you need to be down here forever. Away from the outside world that would care so little for the death of you and move on like nothing were to happen. He wanted you safe, around and immortalized; he'll never forget you.

He provides you with an array of pleasantries that would have no chance of harming you. He’s damn near baby proofed the small cave but he ensures it's as comfortable as it can be, bringing you three meals a day, all of your favorite drinks and snacks even if you fight him or give him the silent treatment he’s never neglectful of your needs. He believes one day you’ll come to see how much he did for you and understand he just wants you safe.

Misc stuff

He’s a clean freak and refuses to let you sleep on dirt or muck, he’ll thoroughly wash the moss through and treat it so it feels like you're walking on clouds without feeling any slime, having bugs, or being dirty. It's so well taken care of that they look fake.

He hates crabs. He hates those distasteful bottom feeders, their disgusting pinchers and empty eyes. He’s sure to keep them as far away as he can, if startled by one he slams it with his tail with enough force to turn it into little pieces and he’s still frightened by them despite the power difference.

[radiosandrecordings]

I would love to try and take a stock of the types of diegesis used in audio fiction and how it’s changed over time. It feels in more recent stuff like it’s fallen out of trend to have an in-universe reasoning for the story like “It’s a radio station you’re listening to” or “It’s old recordings you found!” just because that was such a saturated market towards the start of the AD boom that I feel like if you do that now people are going to presume you’re just trying to ride on the coat tails of one of them now (To the point where Night Vale and King Falls AM crew got in a twitter spat about similar themes). I think another reason it’s often passed over these days is just how much it confines your story, to the point where classic AD’s that had schtick’s for How We’re Hearing This like The Bright Sessions or Wolf 359 just gave up halfway through because it became too much of an inconvenience to justify the diegetic formula while still maintaining a good story and not having to shoehorn recording devices in, and this is something newer ones have learned from. 

Giving an in-universe explanation really shapes your story for that reason if you commit to it. Night Vale always stuck to it to my knowledge in some form or another, wheras TMA made the tapes not just a fun layer of meta but crucial to the plot itself. Wheras you might have Zoo or Jar of Rebuke be tape recordings but the reasoning for them seems to be to justify the narrative style of having the main character sharing their inner thoughts diary-style, which creates engagement that you wouldn’t get if they weren’t airing their thoughts to something rather than just having us observe them living their life. 

This can also play into sound design because if you have A Device That Is Recording, your whole soundscape is gonna be based around that. How close are people standing to it. Do they move closer or further away? Does the recording device itself move? Can you use panning here? Does the recording device itself emit a noise? 

BUT these things do also come into play in something without an in-universe recording device, where often one character will be chosen as the POV and audio will be centred around them. This can be especially cool in something like Juno Steel or Kane & Feels where they lean into the noir genre and have a character monologuing for reasons that aren’t actually explained, you’re just expected to run with the non-naturalism because it allows you an insight into the character’s mindset. This can even involve panning and stuff such as the opening of Kane & Feels episode 2 where one character is monologuing to the listener and the other cuts in, interrupting their train of thought because, and they’ve recorded further away from the mic than the close up of the one monologuing because the character is on the other side of the room from the first, giving a sense of spatial proximity and immersion by letting us experience things how the POV character does. 

Then you have things that sort of straddle the line of diegesis because they won’t have a reason they’re being recorded, but they’ll often have fourth-wall breaking elements like The Silt Verses being primarily read as if it’s a story being told to the listener by the character, even if there isn’t an explanation for this, it just is how the story is structured. It leans into being first person and supplements it with actual scenes scattered between. Or Paired, where it’s never stated but from the fact that we move with the character, and you hear bits of static and glitching when needed you’re lead to assume you’re hearing whatever is picked up by the recording device that is the character, but weirdly that’s never a confirmed thing because despite some scenes that mess with the formula and go for second person adressal to whoever is listening, it’s still a bit unexplained and not directly To An Audience 

But of course these are just my personal insights from the AD’s I’ve consumed so I’d love to map it all out and see what the trends are for these sort of things, if creators give specifics reasonings for why they chose a justification or not. Because it’s not something that’s common in film or TV? At least to the extent of prevalence that it is/was in podcasts, and it’s not even really a holdover from radio dramas so I want to know what caused this surge when it came to podcasting. Was it just a case of looking at what everyone else was doing and copying a trend? Found footage was by no means a new genre when podcasts were starting to get big (Using 2012, Night Vale’s start date for lack of a better timeframe) but it did seem to have an uptick in popularity in 2013 in film according to wikipedia. It seems to be a technique almost always used for horror so the fact that a lot of AD is horror could contribute to it, but I think it might share a reason with why movies started to be made like that around the time, and it’s that it was cheap. It was a low budget way to frame things because it excused other production values. Your camera could be shaky, and your sound could be shoddy, and it was fine because you were supposed to believe it was recorded on a handheld camera or phone, it was all part of the framing. Most AD’s started recorded in someone’s bedroom on a tiny budget so they were gonna be poor quality, if you say “well it’s supposed to be, the character could only afford a £10 recording device (I could only afford a £10 recording device)”, or better yet you slap a tape whurring or radio static filter over it to mask the background fuzzy from an uninsulated room and you’re good to go. 

.... Oh, what you thought there was going to be a summary or conclusion for this? Yeah so did I when I started writing it but genuinely I went down so many research rabbit holes I’ve forgotten what it was, so now it’s just an infodump <3

[volkswagonblues]

a lil guide to the Fire Nation for the ATLA fic writers out there

(aka. a no means exhaustive primer on east asia by an asian person)

This is a guide for fic writers want to write a canon-era story set in the Fire Nation, or featuring Fire Nation characters. A quick little primer on the tiny details of everyday life that you might not think about, but certainly stuff that would make me, an asian person, wince if I were to encounter it. BRUSHES, not quills. CHOPSTICKS, not forks. 

(note #1: this was partly inspired by a chat with @elilim​) 

(note: #2:  I originally intended it for zukka fic writers before realizing that other writers might find it useful. so apologies for a slight Zuko-bias for that reason)

(note #3: this is all stuff i was thinking about when writing firebender’s guide, in case anyone was wondering)

1. CLOTHING

Okay, I think the most straightforward way to describe what everyone’s wearing most of the time is “tunic”. They’re all just...tunics of different colours and varieties. Later when Zuko’s the Fire Lord he wears robes. The show provides a better visual guide than I could, here are a few notes to keep in mind:

a) Japanese people wear their collars LEFT crossed over RIGHT

I don’t think this would come up in writing as much as it would in art, but it’s considered bad luck to do it the wrong way because that’s only for dead people. Let my boy Zuko demonstrate:

b) There are no buttons

This is picky, but Wikipedia says “Functional buttons with buttonholes for fastening or closing clothes appeared first in Germany in the 13th century.[6] They soon became widespread with the rise of snug-fitting garments in 13th- and 14th-century Europe.” I kinda believe it. If you look closely, characters’ clothes are always tied together or wrapped in some way with a belt. If there are fasteners, they’re braided frog closures that go into a little loop, like the qipao-style dresses women wear in Ba Sing Se, or Zuko’s casual prince’s clothes in the topmost image. Anyways, I don’t think Zuko or Azula or the Gaang would technically button or unbutton anything when they’re changing clothes. Clothing is designed to be tied, not buttoned.

[so much more under cut]

c) This isn’t a real rule, but there’s something called koromogae, or the seasonal changing of clothing in Japan.

This is something I learned when I was writing firebender’s guide, and I just liked the fun detail about there being a strict calendar for when to wear something. I liked the idea of someone like Zuko, who actually spent most of his formative years outside of the Fire Nation, coming home and just suffering mutely through the summer heat because upper class etiquette says no changing into cooler clothes until August 15. 

From My Asakusa: 

And this website:

Generally, people change from thick, heavy, dark-coloured clothes for winter to thin, lighter, bright-coloured clothes for spring and summer. In traditional Japanese culture, particularly in formal settings such as tea ceremony, it is important to acknowledge the changes of seasons—in such circumstances, not only the patterns and colours of the kimono that are worn but also the utensils and furniture that are used are required to change. By changing their clothing, people notice and appreciate the change of seasons. [Japan Foundation]

Here are some visual guides from the official creators for clothes: (notice how it’s pretty much always left over right)

2.FOOD AND EATING

a) Traditional cuisine

It seems like the most common foods in canon are Fire Flakes and meat, to the point where poor Aang had to eat lettuce out of the garbage at some point.

HOWEVER, the Fire Nation seems to basically a big subtropical archipelago, so I would guess that seafood and rice are common. If you want to write about characters eating, a. quick google for ���traditional japanese cuisine” would help you come up with a menu really quickly.

Wikipedia says:

The traditional cuisine of Japan, washoku (和食), lit. "Japanese eating" (or kappō (ja:割烹)), is based on rice with miso soup and other dishes; there is an emphasis on seasonal ingredients. Side dishes often consist of fish, pickled vegetables, and vegetables cooked in broth. Seafood is common, often grilled, but also served raw as sashimi or in sushi.

But before we get too serious, at one point the Gaang eats a “smoked sea slug” (Sokka’s Master) 

Oh ATLA, never stop being you.

b) Utensils

One thing to keep in mind is chopstick etiquette. Someone like Zuko or Toph, for instance, would have completely internalized all of these.

Another thing is that there are no glasses. Cups and bowls are made of ceramic or clay. Let the Gaang show you:

And another note: characters won’t eat “bread” in the European sense, ie. a baked lump of dough. Steamed buns, yes. Fried pancakes made from batter, yes. Flatbreads, okay I’ll give it a pass. Rice or noodles should be the most common carbs of choice.

3.ETIQUETTE

“In the homeland, we bow to our elders” - angry schoolmistress in The Headband.

Japan Guide has a list of etiquette rules for visiting Japan, which is interesting but not too necessary to read. In general, based on what The Headband tells us, Fire Nation characters would have been raised with a strong nationalist curriculum that values communal contribution over individualist expression. Even someone like Zuko, who openly rebels against that, probably couldn’t help but be affected by it. In general the Fire Nation seems to have an East Asian-ish set of values. It’s patriarchal, all the positions of authority are filled by men; there seems to be a strong emphasis on patriotism; there’s a sense of diffidence and respect towards one’s elders; and finally, there’s an emphasis on “knowing” one’s place in society and fitting into what’s expected of oneself.

I don’t really know how to describe it, but in China and Japan I sometimes feel like there’s rules for everything, and even people born and raised there acknowledge it could be stifling at times. You could go down a rabbit hole researching points of etiquette (for instance, rules on who has to sit where in group dinners...), but to me the most important thing is acknowledging that Fire Nation has a rigid system of etiquette, and also, they’re an imperialist power who’s pretty prejudiced against foreigners. Poor Aang/Kuzon gets called “mannerless colony slob” just for being slow on the bowing action (!!!)

(in firebender’s guide I had a lot of fun imagining the stupid microaggressions Ambassador Sokka has to face in the Fire Nation, so obviously I’m just biased)

4.WRITING AND DESKS

Characters would probably write on paper, with a calligraphy brush. Not quills or pens -- a brush. Technically, old Japanese and Chinese texts should be written top to bottom, right to left, but the show itself doesn’t do this, so I think you’re fine. 

One fun thing about traditional calligraphy is that you don’t use bottled ink. You have something called an ink stone, and then you grind your ink yourself by rubbing the ink stone in a special little dish with a bit of water. In my (very few) encounters with this stuff in the calligraphy lessons of my youth, the ink stones can be plain or have beautiful designs on the side. It looks something like this: 

ATLA is an East Asian-ish universe, so characters are likely to be kneeling at a table, not sitting. To demonstrate, here’s my boy Sokka doing his famous rainbow at Piandao’s:

and here’s the war chamber meeting when Zuko speaks out against a general’s plans to sacrifice some soldiers:

THERE ARE EXCEPTIONS: This is Zuko’s cute little setup when he’s writing his goodbye letter to Mai. In this case he’s writing in a chair and table. It’s possible that some furniture items, like a sitting desk and a bed in a bedframe (not a bedroll or futon) are special royal palace features. Normally in a private setting we see characters sitting on the ground or on a slightly elevated platform with a low table. Maybe Caldera is just different? Or rich people are just different: the Bei Fongs also have a sit-down dining table + chair setup.

(That little rectangular box is his ink dish!!)

5.A NOTE ON GENERAL CULTURE

It’s worth talking about a few general points of East Asian culture. I can’t claim to speak for ALL of Asia, and I don’t think I should. But I do think ATLA fic writers who want to set something in the Fire Nation should take a few moments to at least skim the wiki pages for filial piety and Nihonjinron (literally, "theories/discussions about the Japanese"). There’s a certain...vibe to...asianness... that I’m not sure I can explain without like, a doctorate degree in sociology. 

It’s a bit like gender, I guess. There’s no definitive checklist to what is a woman and what is a man, and we can argue that gender is performative, that it’s a construct, but at the end of the day gender is still (tragically) real in the sense that it still shapes people and affects how we walk and talk and dress and think. Nationality is the same. Obviously, the Fire Nation is a made up place in a made up show, but out of respect to the cultures that inspired it, I do think it’s worth familiarizing yourself with some of these cultures’ codes and values.

Also, ahem, if I can direct you to war crimes in the Japan’s colonial empire. Again, worth remembering that the Fire Nation was an imperalist colonizer too.

I might do a continuation of this post and talk through my more abstract takes about Fire Nation culture - Is Zuko an example of filial piety gone right or filial piety gone wrong? Why I think Zuko’s flashbacks are like, at least part teenage melodrama bullshit (the reason is son preference), how someone like Sokka might be treated once he’s openly Water Tribe in the Fire Nation (probably with racism...), specific aspects of asian homophobia and racism, etc. We’ll see.

This is not a definitive guide. Comments and critique welcome.

If you think there’s a factual mistake, PLEASE hop in my asks and let me know. I also think there’s a huge blind spot in ATLA for South and Southeast Asian representation, so I acknowledge that I can’t speak for all Asians, and there is no such thing as a “pan-asian” identity.

If there’s something else you’re curious about, I’m not a historian or anything, but I like research. Ask me and I’ll try to answer the best I can.

And oh, one last thing, this is how I do research when I wrote firebender’s guide, in case anyone’s interested in learning more (LINK)

[myherowritings]

PART 5. THE INHERENT EROTICISM OF BUTTONING SOMEONE’S CLOTHES

SUMMARY. Todoroki Shouto was a wealthy, young CEO who inherited his father’s enterprise. You were a barista at a local cafe who wouldn’t mind some extra cash. One day, Shouto came in during an early morning shift and tipped you such a large sum of money, you were certain it had to have been an accident. To your surprise and complete pleasure: It was not.

PAIRING. ceo!todoroki shouto x barista!reader

WORD COUNT. 3.0k

GENRE. ceo/barista au, fluff, eventual smut

WARNINGS. sexual tension !! and umm sexual frustration ;p, not explicit but prob rated 16+, just read the title of this chapter BAHAHA

A/N. sorry this is coming a little later than planned ! :( but i hope the dressing room scene can make up for it u.u tysm for reading and for all the feedback! enjoy :3 xx sof

SERIES MASTERLIST

© myherowritings — all rights reserved. reposting, modifying, copying, or translating of any kind is not allowed. do not read my writing as asmr. do not plagiarize.

What were you supposed to wear to a shopping date? you asked yourself. Not that today was a date or anything. Though maybe you sort of wished it were… 

The Naruhata Charity Gala was in a little over a week and Shouto would be coming over to pick you up in less than one hour and you still sat in your room with nothing but a towel on feeling more and more hopeless. 

It was a strange dilemma. He met you in your work apron wearing an unflattering work shirt and work pants. And when you met up over the weekend previously, you never paid too much mind on what you would wear. In fact, you were positive he wouldn’t even care how you looked. So why was it such a big deal to you now? 

Probably because of your recent admission of your growing feelings towards him, you thought crossly. 

In your defense, it wasn’t like it was your fault! Right? Seeing someone everyday… Wanting to see someone everyday… Texting regularly about the most random things, having the most banal objects you saw throughout the day remind you of something Shouto did or said… With all those occurrences it would’ve been practically impossible to not start crushing on him! 

Time passed as you stared at your ceiling blankly. If you kept this up, he was bound to show up in your house and find you half-naked. (Now that you mentioned it, that didn’t sound like the worst idea. But it wasn’t something you’d randomly spring upon someone.)

“Get up, Y/N!” you scolded yourself, rolling off your bed and heading towards your closet. 

In the end, you ended up settling for another variation of your usual go-to outfit and called it a day. It happened to be perfect timing since, by the time you finished getting ready, you got a new message on your phone. 

Shouto: Parked in front of your place

Shouto: Sorry I’m a little early. You can take your time getting ready :)

Y/N: it’s okay i’m ready now!! 

After hitting send, you put your shoes on, gathering your belongings you wanted to bring with you, and headed out the door. Excited to hang out with Shouto again, you walked with a skip in your step down the path until you reached his car. 

“Hi!” You waved through his half-opened, tinted window. To no one’s surprise, his car was a sleek black color with dark, tinted windows, and gold details along the sides. If it didn’t look so oddly sexy you would’ve laughed at how cutely dorky he was for matching his car with his credit card. “This is one hot car.”

He turned his head to the side when you entered the passenger’s seat. “Should I turn the AC higher?” 

“Huh— Oh!” You stifled a giggle when you processed the pun he made. “You’re funny, Shouto.” 

He only looked a little confused. “Thank you.” 

The interior of his car was no less—for lack of better term—sexy than the outside. Leather seats, a large screen for the radio and carplay, and the dashboard and side doors lit up a nice blue color. 

“Pretty!” you complimented, poking at the colorful light.

“Want to pick a color?” 

Your eyes widened. “It can change colors?!” 

Shouto nodded.

“Can it be pink?” you asked intently. 

“Light pink or hot pink?”

“Light.”

He swiftly obliged and with a hit of a touchscreen button, the interior lighting changed from blue to pastel pink. 

“Green!”

It turned green.

“Orange!”

Cue the orange. 

“Purple?” 

Purple. 

Once you were thoroughly satisfied with Shouto showing you the whole color selection (you were almost embarrassed to admit it kept you entertained for a good ten minutes), you settled on a bright turquoise that reminded you of the color of his left eye. 

“Ooh, this color! My favorite,” you said simply, giving him a wide smile. 

A faint blush dusted his cheeks as he developed a sudden interest in adjusting his rearview mirror. “Hm.”

Shouto drove the rest of the way in a comfortable silence, occasionally asking how your week was outside of work and what type of outfit you wanted to wear so he could have a better idea on where to take you. 

“Did you eat?” he suddenly asked when he hit the next stoplight, one hand holding the wheel and the other resting comfortably on the gear shift. 

His hands looked nice and slender and soft to the touch. Pretty hands, you thought but shook yourself out of it because you could go down a rabbit hole of examining his hands and going into detail about them. 

You remembered the single, measly granola bar you had due to your rush getting ready. “I didn’t really eat yet, no. Did you?”

He shook his head and pulled into a food plaza with lots of stores to choose from. The two of you agreed on a noodle restaurant that apparently had some of the best cold soba (once you learned it was his favorite food, you wanted to be able to have some with him and today was the perfect opportunity to do just that) and promptly headed to the location. 

In the shop, a waiter sat the two of you down at a dimly lit booth with the perfect amount of ambience that if someone were to casually look over, they might even mistake this outing as a date. 

You grinned at the thought. 

“Excited for the soba?” asked Shouto, examining the smile on your face thoughtfully. 

That’s not why you were smiling, but it was close enough. “Mhm. And the udon. You can never go wrong with noodles!” 

Yes, you got both udon and soba. But in your defense, where else would the fun in life be if not in sugary sweets and carbs? 

As the two of you waited for your main dishes, you ate some fish cakes and edamame while talking about the ways in which capitalism could be dismantled. Rather sexy of him, if you did say so yourself. 

Before you knew it, you were done with your meal and headed back into his car to go fancy-people shopping. On the remainder of the ride, you asked yourself what color you should pick that would match well with both you and Shouto. After all, nothing said a cute couple who totally liked each other going on a totally real date to a gala like color-coordinated outfits, right?

He parked in front of a street of buildings with a dark glass reaching from ceiling to floor with security guards at the door. Just standing near it made you feel fancy. 

“This is a place my sister told me she liked,” he said, leading you to the store front with his hand on the small of your back to guide you. “I hope you’ll find something to your liking.”

You tried your best not to pay too much attention to the warmth you felt both on your back and your stomach from the fuzzy feelings that spread. 

“Hello, welcome!” the both of you were greeted as you walked through the doors. The interior of the store was lined with designer dresses, some long, some short, and all incredibly stunning. There were only a few other patrons in the store, but all of them looked so elegant as they tried on their dresses. “It’s so lovely to see you again Mr. Todoroki.”

Shouto nodded subtly. “Hello. This is Y/N, my date to the gala who’ll need your assistance today.”

“Hi!” you chimed in at his cue. “Nice to meet you.” 

The worker smiled and made her way over to you. “And you as well. I’m Masuda and I’ll do my best to make sure you leave the store satisfied with your purchase! Did you have a particular style or perhaps color in mind?”

“Umm,” you said sheepishly, looking around the wide variety of clothings and unsure where to start. “I’m not too sure. It’s my first time going to one of these things so maybe something comfortable, but also still...fancy?” You scratched the back of your neck. “Does that even exist?”

“Of course— Just have to find something that feels comfortable to you.” She told you to hold on one moment as she disappear into the rows of fabric. 

As Masuda collected some starter dresses for you to try on, a customer walked by with bags of clothes in her hands, her gaze lingering on Shouto, though neither of you paid her much mind. 

“In this setting, you look almost fit to be a sugar daddy,” you said jokingly, looking around in awe at the sophisticated yet lavish dresses. “You take all your sugar babies here?”

“Only the ones I really like,” he teased back. His voice was deadpan but there was the telltale hints of a smirk on his face to let you know he was only messing with you.

The door chimed to signal that a customer left and by then Masuda had returned with bundles of fabric draped on her arm. She led you away in a hurry and you hesitantly looked back at Shouto who followed in a safe distance. Seeing your moment of panic, he gave you an encouraging smile that somehow was enough to ease a significant fraction of your nerves. This may be new and confusing territory, but at least he was here to help you through it. 

Masuda set a dressing room up for you—it was one of those rooms in the middle of the store with curtains that reached the ceiling and mirrors all around—and placed a bunch of outfits she thought would suit your taste. It reminded you of when a bride would go wedding dress shopping with their family. When you had enough outfits for the first round, she told Shouto to sit down on a leather seat in front of your dressing room while he waited for you to try the different dresses on. 

In a way, it felt oddly intimate: Shouto sitting just a few feet in front of you as you undressed, only separated by the veil of a curtain. Would he offer to help button the back of your dress up, fingers brushing against your bare skin? The thought made you feel almost hot inside as you changed out of your street clothes and into the first dress. 

Unfortunately for you, this dress had no such difficult buttons to reach. 

“How’s it look?” you asked shyly as you emerged from the dressing room. 

The dress was pretty and didn’t feel uncomfortable to walk in, but there wasn’t any sort of attachment you felt towards it. In other words, it was simply...meh. 

Shouto looked up from his phone to take in the sight of you. He smiled. “You look amazing as always.” 

“You think so?” You spun around and curtseyed jokingly and he chuckled. “I don’t think it’s bad, but I’m not sure if it’s the right one.” 

“We’ll be here until you find the right one you want, then. Take your time, Y/N.” 

His voice was normally on the deeper side, but it sounded even more sensual and gravelly at this very moment. You felt goosebumps on your arms and it wasn’t just because of the sleeveless dress you currently had on. 

“T-Thanks, Shouto,” you murmured, turning around and walking back into the changing room to hide the look on your face. You didn’t even know what kind of look you had on your face, but you knew it was one that might give too much away. 

It wasn’t fair that he had to be so sweet and caring and thoughtful and handsome and rich… Most guys you met barely fit into one of those criteria, let alone all five. (Sure, the last two weren’t necessary in your opinion, but you couldn’t deny they were a nice bonus.) It was too bad you had no clue how he felt about you. 

There were moments where he felt flirty and teasing, like maybe he viewed you in a more-than-friends way. But other times he was so polite and proper and you couldn’t help but wonder if he was just being nice because that’s simply the sort of person he was to everyone. 

While you were trying to sort through all your thoughts, you completely forgot to change into a new dress the whole time you were in here. 

You saw a shadow at the floor of the curtain before a voice said, “Y/N? Are you okay in there?” 

Jumping at the sound, you scurried to put the next dress on, a blue one with almost translucent fabric and a delicate neckline. Judging from the proximity of Shouto’s voice and the shadow of his shoes, he was right next to you as you changed. 

“I’m okay!” you managed, hoping you didn’t sound as wobbly as you felt. You held the dress closed at the back, fumbling with the fastens. “I just, ah, needed help buttoning this one up.” 

A light ruffle on the curtain then a pause. “Should I...come in and help?” 

Your eyes widened, not expecting him to actually offer to button it up like you fantasized earlier. You fully thought he might called the worker to aide you just so he wouldn’t risk making you uncomfortable. (Not that he would’ve. At all.) 

“I apologize,” he said somewhat tensely after you didn’t respond. “That was indecent of me—”

“No, no!” you said profusely, poking your head out of the curtain while holding the fabric at the front of your dress to your chest. You tilted your chin to meet his gaze with a determined one of your own. “I’d love your help, Shouto.” 

With a dusting of pink coloring his cheeks, he nodded and entered your dressing room. “This dress is a nice color on you.” His voice was loud against the silence. 

Shouto ran his hand down the length of your spine and then up to unfold the column of buttons on your dress that curved inwards at your movement, his knuckles grazing against your skin like lightning striking water. You jolted at the sudden feeling but he didn’t remove his touch when he felt it.

“Sorry.” His voice was low, almost like a whisper. “Was just getting the buttons out.”

“N-No worries!”

His fingers began working on the bottom-most button at your lower back as he applied a steady pressure on the base of your spine to control the motion. Shouto slowly began his way up, fingertips cold to the touch. But you knew that wasn’t the only reason you felt yourself shiver. As he fastened the dainty buttons with immense concentration (much more concentration than was actually needed to fasten buttons, you were sure), you felt the heat of his breath tickling the back of your neck. You almost couldn’t keep yourself from arching your back in a mixture of anticipation and delight at his constant touch. 

When he finished the last button, Shouto let one hand rest on your hip, grasping the fabric between his fingertips to examine its silken texture. Your breath caught in your throat as you stepped back and bumped into his chest, but he was already there to steady you. 

With his arm on your waist and your back leaning against his chest, you made eye contact through the mirror in front of you. You weren’t sure if the pounding you felt was from your heart or his or a combination of both. 

There was something almost erotic about holding each others’ gaze in the mirror after Shouto just helped you dress, the two of you still not letting the other go despite the task being complete. 

“The dress… You look gorgeous,” he said, not taking his eyes off you for one moment. 

You nodded slowly. It did look amazing on you. And it was breathable and soft. (Plus, Shouto liked it, which made you happier than you’d care to admit.) “The only downside would be I need help getting into it.”

“We could get ready together so it’s no issue.” 

“I’d...also need help getting out of it.” 

You held your breath as his eyes darkened, his grip on your waist tightening ever so slightly in a way that made you curve your back before you remembered you were flush against Shouto and he could feel even the most subtle of movements coming from your body. But by the time you stopped yourself, it was too late. He already felt it and you wanted more.

His voice was hoarse. “I could help you with that too.”

Instead of beginning to unbutton the dress like part of you thought he would, he surprised you by spinning you around to face him, your shoulder blades pressed against the cool glass of the mirror and your palms lingering on the muscles of his warm chest. The contrast of the cold glass and Shouto’s body heat left a shiver down your spine.

“And how do you plan to help take off my dress when you can’t even see the buttons?” you said challengingly, a smirk on your face despite knowing full well your body was showcasing just how affected you were by this situation. By Shouto.

He tilted his head to the side in response to your daring tone, hands swiftly finding their way to your back and unbuttoning the top five buttons. It wasn’t enough to completely expose your breasts, but it was enough to loosen the fabric at the neckline in a way that made you gasp. 

“Seems doable to me,” he commented. 

You tugged him down slightly by the collar of his shirt. “I don’t quite believe you. Maybe you should prove it.” 

A guttural noise sounded from the back of his throat as he cupped your jaw and leaned in closer. You inched forward, eager to meet his lips. But before they could touch, a knock came from the wall next to the curtain, causing the two of you to freeze in your spots, bodies pressed against each other in an intimate flush.

“Hello, Y/N?” said Masuda cheerfully, blissfully ignorant about what was about to happen in a public dressing room in the middle of the store. “How are the dresses coming along? Did you like any?”

“Ah, actually…” you trailed off, exchanging frustrated but amused glances with Shouto. “I think we’ll take this one.”

a/n: so...mirror sex/sex in a dressing room as a bonus chapter? u.u why yes of course. i’m one step ahead; did u even have to ask? LMAO and hm i wonder if y/n’s fEeLiNGs~ are reciprocated skfkfkdg ALSO THEY WERE SO CLOSE TO KISSING BUT DIDN’T I CRY hopefully the wait will be worth it ;3

what to expect in the next part:

GALA TIMEEEE

yes y/n finally gets the fancy candy they so desired

we get to see shouto’s sexy penthouse

shouto says eat the rich >:c