The Sword’s Legacy
Series Summary: As the heir of your father's lands, you have grown up knowing that one day you must wed to your House's advantage, and there's no better catch than the younger son of the Magister himself. Meanwhile tensions within the king's court are set to come to a head at any moment - it just needs that spark to send everything ablaze. Now in a court more dangerous than the one you entered, you find distraction and joy in the company of the beautiful boy with the beautiful eyes. You can only hope to weather the storm you can sense brewing in the horizon.
Masterlist
Chapter Fifteen: Dreams and Revels
Pairing: Eren Jaeger x Female Reader
Genre: Royalty AU, Historical Fantasy AU, Romance, Politics, Warfare, Eventual Smut (future chapters)
Length: 14.2K
CW: Explicit sexual content (masturbation, M) / blink and you'll miss it: mentions of dub/noncon behavior / Period Typical Attitudes
Being the Magister’s son, Eren finds, does nothing to acclimate him better to this kind of attention. The feast is well underway, though, and the storm of his discomfort has already passed. The worst of it, anyway; he really can do without the occasional gust.
“Here’s to the future lord consort!” a man-at-arms slurs, Anatoly by name, you whisper to Eren with the merest hint of laughter in your voice. He is a great tub of a man with a wine-keg belly and a big bushy auburn beard. It is a wonder the table can bear his weight.
He speaks too soon, as it is; Eren can hear the table creak alarmingly as the man raises his tankard to the dais above the salt, slopping beer all over his hand and the board beneath him. “You had best serve the ‘lil lady well, milord, woman’s like her deserves nuthin’ less’n the best fuck o’ her life!” he roars, blissfully unmindful of the snail shells and bits of bread his fellows are pelting at him as he stands with one foot on the buttered garlic snails. “May your sword stand tall ’n proud ‘n ne’er bend in battle!”
The storm rages anew. Never had Eren wanted to melt into the floor and disappear as much as he did then. Beside him on his right, you let out a tinkling laugh as Anatoly is helped down from the table, staggering and slumping, his face so red it is hard to tell where his beard ends and where his flesh begins. To add salt to Eren’s mortified wounds, the rest of the hall pound their cups on the tabletops, shouting, “Hear, hear!” The familiar first notes of ‘Lusty Boys to Lissome Girls’ begin to play as the musicians strike up a new tune to further compound his shame.
You can well laugh, Eren thinks a little sullenly. You are too trained never to give anything away, never to falter nor show your discomfort no matter the incitement. Knowing you, though, the titter is genuine. A new weapon has been handed you, of course you will be well-pleased; you are sure to use this against him once you resume your new game of flirtation. He both dreads and welcomes the prospect, contrary boy that he is.
For the first time in his life, he wishes he had a courtier’s face, if only to keep his dignity intact. He does not even know what kind of face he is making. A highly amusing one, apparently, to judge by your expression. And your sister’s.
“Best hone your sword well, future brother of mine,” Lydia sings after a bite of dormouse. “You wouldn’t want it to bend after the first stroke. Sister should have some joy of you, at least.”
“I don’t see how my sword is any of your business,” Eren snaps back hotly, flushing even more at the unabashed snort of laughter that escapes you as you reach for your goblet of wine and nearly spill the contents, your mirth making your body rock back into your seat. “How is your little bedmate? I hope you haven’t killed him off already.” He knows, even as he says it, how pathetic that rejoinder is. He has never thought himself a lackwit (he likes to think he is at least reasonably witty) but, gods, does he feel like one now.
Lydia smirks at him from her place on the other side of her sister, clearly in accord with his disparaging self-assessment. “Oh, he’s alive and well, brother dearest, have no fear. I keep him in a small glass bowl for now but I’ll commission a bigger tank for my rooms, to keep him in comfort. He goes by Renren now, I’ll have you know,” she grins at him, the little imp.
“Peace, Sister, you’ve had your fun, now leave my betrothed be. You’ve tormented him enough,” you chide, seemingly taking pity on him at last. Lydia gives him one last puckish smirk before returning to her meal.
Eren graces you with a smile. With his gratefulness comes chagrin, though. He cannot help feeling unmanned. Is he truly so slow-witted that you should have to resort to defending him from your own sister? Can he not even keep it together long enough to turn a phrase, parry Lydia’s words with his own sharper set?
He stamps the feeling down as best he can. He has always prided himself on staying away from the broader courtiers’ circles, away from the frivolity, the lies, the masks. Such webs as they spin with their words put him off, so above them he flies where they cannot touch him. Now he finds himself hopelessly entangled, by a mite no less, a slip of a girl not even half the match of the slimiest sycophants at court, turned round and round until his better faculties left him.
And in front of the woman who he would be equal to. He does not want nor need more reminding of how far removed he is from you, a young woman quickly shaping up to be a courtier as masterly as any of them. Much as he wants to be your equal, though, doing so will have him don a mask, and he will sooner not.
“Let’s go elsewhere,” you murmur to him, the very moment your father stands from his seat on Eren’s left.
“Where to?” Eren whispers back, watching the Lord Rhyzkov stride down to the trestle tables below the salt so he can speak and mingle with his men. Just as Father would do.
You nod to the tall arched entryway of the Great Hall’s terrace, off to the side of the spacious chamber. “The night air would do us good.”
For a moment, Eren takes the measure of you, takes in your smile, which seems to be the precursor to an even wider one, to be given to him once you are well away from prying eyes. A smile held back but not a courtier’s smile - this is all you and not the mask of Rhyzkova.
Perhaps it isn’t a matter of putting on a mask. Perhaps it is simply a matter of restraint.
His gaze slides down the smooth, naked expanse of your back as he trails your progress, admiring the gleam of the chain of diamonds and rose quartzes that traces the dip of your spine as you hail and kiss your lady mother’s cheek further down the table, on your way towards the balcony. He can be restrained. He will be your equal yet.
All at once, the gods see fit to test that restraint. The sway to your hips as you walk, that proud, confident stride that he has come to love so well is even deadlier in this dress - a charovma, he knows now, the southron halter dress that near made him groan aloud the first he saw you this night before the feast.
He had never felt so cunt-struck and so irritated in his life.
“Do you really want me to… break decorum that badly?” Eren had blurted as you sauntered down the empty corridor of the guest wing toward him, holding a crown of silvered laurel leaves studded with emeralds.
“Whatever do you mean?” you blinked up at him, innocent as the purest of maids. A maid you were, and pure, but innocent you were not.
Minx.
It passed as a simple sleeveless vevda at the front, this dress of peach silk with its white lace paneling and belt of diamonds and rose quartzes. Would that it really was a vevda. Oh, how he wished it was a vevda. And it seemed such a safe dress, much safer than that sheer alabaster wisp of a chelya you wore earlier that day. Your breasts were not like to spill out of this one, at least (a fact he both rejoiced and regretted).
The back wreaked torment enough. He could not have asked for better fodder for his torrid fantasies. The charovma left your entire back bare, from shoulders to waist, now he knew what you looked like naked from behind. No longer would he be reduced to trying to conjure up images of your nakedness from what little had been given him. Well, not truly. But it was one thing, one sight more that was allowed him. Until the wedding night. Not even a day had passed in his stay at Arsechkala and already he had seen more of your beautiful body than he had in your year-long betrothal and friendship.
Still, he could not help feeling… baited.
He had narrowed his eyes at your impeccably artless face. “Don’t toy with me, my lady. Must you always dress like… this?” he gestured at your form gracelessly, made inarticulate by the strength of his turmoil.
The innocence left your face as the imp took over. “I always dress like this at home. I’m sorry if it offends you so, my lord, but you had best get used to it for you will be seeing more of the like.”
And more of me, your smirk seemed to say. It was then that he knew without a doubt: it was no happenstance, that you had your back turned to him when he exited his chambers. You had wanted him to see, and masked your ploy under the guise of examining the tapestry of the first Yelena Rhyzkova hanging on one of the walls down the hall.
Yelena Rhyzkova’s heir had lifted the wreath in her hands and pressed it down on Eren’s head before he could react to her preceding statement.
“Handsome,” you said, tweaking a couple of leaves by his right ear and eyeing the whole arrangement, pleased. “How do you like the fit?”
He glared at you a moment more before answering, “I like it well enough, it’s not uncomfortable.” He was no stranger to the sensation of metal leaves encircling his skull. Being the son of the eminent Magister entitled him to wear the hallowed wreath, reserved for southron guests of the highest acclaim to match their noble hosts. His noble hostess had foregone one for a simple chain of silver and rose quartz, artfully arranged over the elegant plaited knot of her hair.
“Good to see you haven’t forgotten where the podonza should be placed,” you went on, plucking at the white garment he had worn over his vevda of indigo damask with its elbow-length sleeves, belted at the waist by a chain of diamonds. The podonza was a garment of the well-to-do, a long sheet of cloth worn over the vevda (and the tube dress povevda, sometimes the chelya), wrapped about the body beneath the right arm by the right hip and fastened at the left shoulder by pins or brooches. Podonzaya were often fringed, with decorative scrollwork for the simpler palette, with gemstones for those of a more opulent bent. Eren was in no way opulent, yet the podonza he donned was dripping with diamonds to match his belt, like icicles hanging down the eaves of some snow-crusted roof.
“Told you that, did he?” Of course he would. Armin took entirely too much pleasure in telling you tales best left untold. Preferably when Eren was out of the picture. “In my defense, I’m a Midlander. How in all the levels of hell was I supposed to know which shoulder this contraption should be draped over?”
“Your minders would’ve put it on you, properly, had you not been a stubborn little mule of a colt. Not that things have changed much. Still a mule, not so much a colt.” You had him there. Not that he would ever admit it, stubborn mule that he was. “The only time we should expect to see you with the podonza fastened on your right shoulder is on a bier at your funeral.” The levity on your face had vanished then, to be replaced by a dawning sense of disquiet. And fear. “Gods forbid that time come soon.”
He had scrambled to revive your cheer but you drew yourself up, shrugging off the dread as you would a stifling thick fur pelt, and took his hand in yours. As though only his touch could drive away your troubles. You left the guest wing thus, slipping back into your comfortable banter.
Eren stares at the back of you, led along as he had been in the guest wing. It is never a pleasant thing to see fear mar such beauty yet he finds it pleasant still. It is an honest sentiment on an honest face. Yours. Not Rhyzkova’s. You are learning. You will be rid of Rhyzkova in your more intimate moments, he can see that happy prospect now. He will have all of you. Your fears, your grief, your anger, your joy and cheer and laughter. Your truths.
He will have all of you.
Around you, the feast is steadily descending further and further into uncontained revelry, as is the nature of these things. A rowdy group has commenced playing a knife game; more than one man will leave short a finger or two, Eren wagers. Yet another lot is trying to outdrink each other, to the tune of their fellows’ rallying calls. One man is already out cold and lying sprawled atop the table, beer foam trickling down his mouth to soak into his beard. The last two are well at it, though not for much longer, Eren can tell. Those whose purses rest with the beardless ashen-haired boy will find them heavier by bout’s end. His older, supposedly more seasoned opponent is lagging, lifting his tankard to his lips as if it is filled with stones and not beer; the eyes visible above the mug’s rim are comically crossed.
A man with a spade-shaped beard snatches at a passing serving girl as you and Eren draw level with his table. Eren looks away as the man pulls the girl onto his lap and slips a hand up beneath her skirts. The crash of her dropped flagon echoes in Eren’s ears as he looks elsewhere, anywhere but at the woman in front of him.
The increasingly familiar aggravation surfaces from his depths once more. He is no shy and blushing maiden boy- well, a maiden boy he may be but shy and blushing he is not. Not until you, anyway. Somehow, you manage to make him regress and dither and fumble like a halfwit loon. He should be long past feeling embarrassed by the sight of randy debauchery. He had been (vocally) randy with you, he should not be dilly-dallying between virginal and sensual.
Now that he thinks on it, though, since when had he ever been embarrassed by lust? Never. He had seen more, seen them at it in the hallways during feasts, seen stableboys tumbling their wenches amidst piles of hay, seen people fuck and be fucked by countless others in the brothels. Not once had he ever shied away.
This girl is something else entirely.
He finds himself glaring at your beautifully supple back. You really ought to have let your hair down. Or worn a robe. Or a shawl, even a podonza. It wouldn’t cover everything but it would still cover something. “But charovmaya aren’t supposed to be worn with a podonza,” he recalls you telling him earlier, blinking that sham of an innocent blink at him.
Oh, how he wanted to kiss it off you.
He is learning more of southron women’s fashions than he cares for, to be sure. They are as revealing on other women as they are on his betrothed. Lydia and Lady Theresia are both clad in chelyakin. His future mother by marriage is elegant in black; tiny rubies dangle down the fringe of the deep crimson podonza she is wearing, adding to the lady’s overall sophisticated ensemble. As low-cut as the strap dress is, Eren deems it more compelling on her eldest. Lydia makes it look a deal more modest. She has dispensed with a podonza altogether, though she hardly needs one to cover herself. Her pink chelya at least has a scooped neckline, quite far removed from her mother’s deep vee.
He cannot understand how all of that inherent sensuality in southron fashions eluded him. He has never truly been susceptible to women’s charms, though, southron or otherwise. And yet he is susceptible, so susceptible to you.
What is it about you that draws him so?
Is it that sweet and pretty smile that is the delight of his eyes? Is it that gentle kindness he oft receives from you in his lesser moments? Is it that spirit, that passion, that fire that smolders within, the true you beneath the mask of Rhyzkova? Is it all of those at once and more?
The jewels sparkle bright against your naked skin, a sight reminiscent of the myriad women he has seen clad in only such. Not one of whom could have held his attention for more than a night.
It is not the garment but you.
The orange glow of lamplight washes over him as you pass through the tall arch of the terrace’s entrance. The strains of ‘The Forest Lass’ fade into the backdrop as you progress deeper into the balcony. Suddenly, he is alone with a fae enchantress, walking as one enchanted. You lead him beneath the trees, brushing past the trailing vines, your hand in his so much smaller yet strong, firm, imperious.
He had always wondered why Prince Rodion risked all for that forest lass, Alena, who had more than a drop of fae in her, the singers say. But perhaps now he knows something of what the prince felt when his maid spirited him away that day into her bower and left him with an insatiable longing no mortal woman could sate.
What were vows and a kingdom worth compared to a woman’s love?
The answer to that verse was clear, once. He is coming to find that it is not so simple as all that.
Arsechkala still yet lives even at this hour. The Great Hall is situated away from the sea, and so the city and the surrounding countryside are your only concessions to a view. The city, indeed, has its charms, as you said. Lampposts still illuminate the slowly emptying plazas, faint music drifts through the streets from some far-off revels; even the smell of cooking permeates the air, something fried and savory that piques Eren’s interest, though he had done the feast great homage mere moments ago. Leagues and leagues away, the line of the Greatshield is a dark starless void against the vast starry immensity that is the sky.
You let him go and lean against the banister, staring up at him. The light from the nearby posts gives you an ethereal cast. Your eyes are deep pools he can drown in. And the better part of him does not want to surface.
“Feeling better now?” you murmur after a time. “You looked like you needed to be away. I don’t know which was redder, your face or Tolya’s beard.” You reach up to take his face in hand and tilt his head up a little, the better to catch the light. “Not so red now.”
Eren threads his fingers through yours and holds you there a moment, savoring the warmth of your palm, before drawing both your hands down. Neither seem eager to be the one to let go and so you remain handfast. “Is that what I should expect as consort? Seems like a raw deal on my end,” he notes sardonically.
You chuckle. “They’ll grow on you. Don’t your men treat you the same at home? They’ll be yours, too, in time.”
Yet more reminders of his subsequent role. It is a strange thought, and surreal, but he is coming to reconcile himself with the fact every passing day. His resolve to be a good consort and knight of your household returns, stronger than ever. He had sworn such before you and your gods, a thousand years ago. It was his first vow to you. So much has changed since then. The boy anxiously waiting in front of the godstone need not have worried about the lady in the red dress. You are no Elva Riehl, no wife that a man can revile, he knows that now. You are a damn sight much better, so much better.
"Being home seems to agree with you."
You smile and release his hand, leaving him bereft. You turn to stare out at your city, hands splayed upon the gray stone banister. “Does it? Well, I’m always glad to be home. It’s just so freeing. It’s like waking up from some long, strange dream… one that seems more nightmare than dream, sometimes… in the end, you’re just glad to be awake and away from it all.”
Eyes of gray glass glare at him from the darkness. He blinks and looks down at the tiled floor beneath his sandaled feet, shaken. But only your eyes return his gaze when next he looks back up again. Concerned, and not condemning. “Are you all right?” you say, cupping his face into your hand once more. “Do you want to rest? We’ve had a long day.”
Eren leans into your touch, taking comfort. He is awake and away from it all; he will not let his ghosts chase him even unto his waking hours. “I’m fine.”
The loud peal of feminine laughter spares him the need to change the subject. Some man-at-arms is tugging a serving wench into the balcony, clearly looking for a quick tumble.
“I knew it was too good to be true,” you sigh, dropping your hand from Eren’s face. “I thought the terrace was unusually empty for this time and this sort of occasion.”
You do not lead him back into the light of the Great Hall, as he thought you would. You are staring at the unheeding pair through the arched colonnade that parts the balcony in half, a detached sort of curiosity in your expression as you watch the man push his giggling girl up the nearest wall and smash his mouth to hers. Darkness swallows them in its grasp. Not enough to be free of scrutiny, though, to those most interested in their commerce.
Somehow, your composure steadies Eren in what is supposed to be a moment rife with awkward tension.
“Do you like to watch?”
It takes him a moment to understand what you are getting at. The air grows hotter in an instant.
“In the brothels, when you go with your lads. Do you like to watch them at their play?” The girl’s legs are now wrapped around her lover’s waist, whose hand crawls beneath her skirts in a trice. The shadows cloak their congress but naught else. The night comes alive with the sound of her moans. “Does it give you pleasure watching them tease, kiss… fuck whatever slut they bought for the night?”
It is obscene, indecent, improper, and yet it isn’t. It is not in Eren to squirm beneath his betrothed’s gaze. Not now. Curious. “I don’t seek it out but I won’t look away when it’s before me.” He stares down at you, quite unblinking. Steady. “Sometimes, it gives me pleasure. When I make what I see mine. When I take the place of the lads, in my fancies at night, in the dark where no one can see.”
Your lips curl up slightly. “There’s freedom in the dark, don’t you think? Beneath its cloak, you can be free with anything. Free with your favors. And your pleasures.” The look in your eyes is… riveting. It is one he has never seen there before. He does not know what it is. He wants to draw it out and examine it further, see what is it about it that makes his heart race.
The woman’s moans take on a new timbre and are soon interspersed with the man’s grunts. Neither of you looks round at the source of the sounds of loving. Eren lets it wash over him and fade away into the distance. The lady in front of him is a more spellbinding thing by far.
“Would you… like to visit the sanctum? You have yet to see it again.” The dark pools of your eyes drink in the light of the nearby lamps.
“Will we be alone, my lady? In the dark?”
“There will be lamps. Except in the corners where there are none. Then, yes, we will be alone. In the dark.”
The call is tempting, so very tempting. It will be so easy to cross that threshold into more intimate terrain. Within the night, he can find himself becoming your lover as much as he is your betrothed. You are willing, he will not need to coax you too much… you can love before the godstone and have the old gods grace your union, and afterward, he can crown you with flowers and tell you… tell you…
A frisson races down his spine, shocking him. The dream is a bolt of lightning that leaves him just as stunned as if he has been struck in truth. He curls and uncurls his fingers, and forces himself to hold your entrancing gaze.
His is a dream too wonderful and too frightening to consider. For this night, at least.
“Perhaps we could go in a less dangerous hour. With you in a less dangerous dress.” And with me in a less dangerous disposition.
Your eyes search his face for several heartbeats. He wonders what it is that you are looking for, what you are seeing. Whatever it is makes your rousing gaze lose its heat, and all that is left is soft tenderness. You offer him a hand, smiling. “In a less dangerous hour, then. Let’s go and leave them to their play.”
Eren stares at you a while, taking in your gentle face, so different from the sultry front you’d worn mere moments ago. The lights shine dully on the jewels that adorn you, on your hair, your ears, your arms, your dress. A lady of surpassing grace and beauty. Beauty most of all. He smiles and takes your hand.
An altogether different sort of scream leaves the serving wench’s mouth the moment you pass her and her lover’s little love nest. The man fumbles as she instinctively tries to hide herself, but you hush down their panicked floundering and tell them to carry on, smooth as silk. Eren has to choke back a laugh.
The brightness of the Great Hall is almost blinding after all that time spent beneath the dimness of night. The feasting and the revelry had gotten a deal more lively during that brief time you spent away. Lord Alexander had returned to his seat at the high table, deep in discussion with Sir Grisha Dunayevsky, his castellan, who had taken Eren’s seat at the right hand of his lord.
Eren feels a thrill course through him, that old thrill of seeing a celebrated hero in the flesh in the same room as him. Before serving as the Rhyzkov castellan, Sir Grisha had led the royal fleet to victory in the Storming of the Causeway during the War Without almost thirty years ago, beating back the combined might of the Cydamaic navy and the corsairs they had hired to bolster their strength at sea.
Sir Grisha turns his head to take a sip of his wine, giving Eren a glimpse of the ropey scar that mars his mouth, a relic from some hard-fought battle. The blow had slashed him open, from the middle of his upper lip to the lower right corner of his mouth. It was not a deep cut, by the look of it, yet Eren knows he had lost a good amount of teeth for his trouble. The old knight had long since replaced the enamel for gold; even at this distance, Eren can see the nubs in the man’s mouth flash as the metal catches the light.
He hopes you can be prevailed upon to… ease his way into a conversation with the living legend. He had wanted to converse with the man the very moment he learned who he was all those years ago. It is not often he claims what rights he has as your betrothed to ask for favors. Perhaps you can oblige him in this; he will sweeten his suit with strawberry cream pie if he has to.
Eren finds his wish coming closer to fulfillment as you proceed to the dais, determined to play Rhyzkova and keep yourself briefed on the matters of your future fiefdom. He cannot help but admire your sense of duty even at this time of celebration.
“If it’s not too much to ask… if you could put in a good word for me to Sir Grisha, I would forever be beholden to you.”
“You mean you aren’t already beholden? If our betrothal isn’t enough to bind you to me… why, then, should I grant you this boon, Sir?” You are smirking though, as you near the heads’ table. You give the next table a wide berth, this one the rowdiest by far. Two curly-haired lads, with the look of brothers about them, are dancing on the tabletop arm-in-arm and armed with tankards sloshing beer everywhere. Someone had stolen some musician’s fiddle and is playing a bawdy jig. The Virgin Queen has shed her silken slip to show her silken skin, the men sing uproariously as you and Eren pass them by, careful not to get caught up in the carousing.
“I would be more beholden to you than I already am,” Eren amends easily, then adds, “I can make it worth your while.” He hesitates for a fraction of a heartbeat and slips his hand across the soft, smooth silk of the skin of your naked back. Gooseflesh forms beneath his fingers almost at once, and he feels you shudder just that merest bit. He smiles.
You press closer to him as if you cannot help yourself. “I could… put in a word, formally introduce you as my betrothed. You can carry on from there.” The breathiness in your voice sounds sweet as a nightingale’s trill. Triumph has never tasted this good. And he didn’t even need to ply you with pie.
---
He wakes up hard as a rock and randy as a whore.
Eren blinks up at the canopy of his bed, dazed and bleary and skin prickling with heat. He had kicked the blankets partially off himself sometime in the night, leaving all of him exposed but for his right leg. The haze of sleep reduces him to staring blankly at his cock. Stiff, erect, and weeping copiously with his arousal.
He stares at it a moment longer before turning his attention to his balcony. Not that he can see past the pillars’ drapes, which he had drawn closed before retiring. Faint gray light shines through the fabric, slowly illuminating the room. The hour of the cow has just dawned, by his reckoning. Too early. He will not be getting up until it is at least halfway through the hour. He should not be up at all, but for that dream.
Eren runs his hands down his face and sighs, looking once more down his naked body at his insistent cock, which is quickly (and loudly) making its grievances known.
He had as well take care of it.
His own touch makes him flinch, when he reaches to take himself in hand - already, he is so sensitive, so quick to respond, it will not take him long to reach his pleasure.
It was a new dream, this one. This time you were in the sanctum, which you had shown him the day before. The significant changes to the place suit his fancies well. It is not so dark, not so wooded as before; he could see every hint and spasm and flicker of the pleasure he gave you as he loved you before your gods, who looked on in silent, benevolent benediction.
In the dream, you had slipped into the gardens during the feast, with no one any wiser. In the dream, he had succumbed to the lure, with no compunctions. It is the only place where he is free to slip into temptation. They cannot take him to task for dreams, as dreams hold no consequences. And in them, his sentiments, those newfound feelings are not as frightening and can be overlooked for something baser, more carnal, more sensual. Just for a time, just for a while.
He had you on his podonza, that white, bejeweled sheet, which he had spread out beneath you on the grass. The both of you were, more oft than not, naked in his dreams. Only he was fully stripped bare this time. That ravishing, sinful peach dress was bunched about your waist. You were nude otherwise. Your body in moonlight was a thing of immaculate perfection. In this light, you were as ethereal as a fae maid. And beautiful, as a wild animal was beautiful: unbound, untethered, uninhibited. You in your truest form.
A grunt escapes his mouth as his hand slips down his cock, slowly pulling on the hard flesh and lightly thumbing beneath the flushed swollen head. A bead of arousal drips down to further wet his shaft; he is leaking so much he doesn’t even need his own spittle to ease himself along.
For the hundredth time, he wishes the hand now pleasuring him belongs to you. You can pleasure him better than he ever can himself, he is sure of it.
You would ride him some nights, in his fancies, rolling your hips against his hard and fast and eager while he held on to your waist, sometimes guiding, sometimes holding on, merely holding on, needing something to cling to to steady him lest he lost himself entirely to his desire.
Tonight, he rode you. As he does most every time. As much as he loves the thought of you claiming him for your own, nothing brings him greater pleasure than the prospect of just bearing down on you, taking you as he will, hard and fast and eager, and having you at his beck and mercy.
Eren moans, soft and breathless, as his unoccupied hand comes up to tease his nipples, pinching and pulling one and then the other until they stand hard and stiff on his chest. His back arches a little, and his eyes, already half-lidded, close entirely. He likes to shut his eyes, likes to keep his world of sin dark. For in the dark, his hands are yours.
You run soft tantalizing fingers over his nipples for a moment more, circling, rubbing over the fleshy nubs, before lightly scratching down the ridges of his abdomen. His breath hitches and his stomach tightens at the touch, getting tighter still as your hand slips down to the dark thatch of hair at the base of his cock, sliding down further until you are cupping his balls in your palm and gently rolling them in your hand.
A louder, strangled moan breaks the silence in the chamber; your questing fingers have stolen behind his testicles and pressed firmly on that spot, that stretch of skin there that gives him such pleasure. His hips rut up into his fist, and he feels himself get wetter as his cock leaks further arousal over his steadily tightening grip.
Some nights, you would leave a trail of kisses up his body, running lips and tongue and teeth across his skin until you could capture his mouth with yours and let him taste the sweetness of your tongue. The tongue he would have tasted had duty, that poxy bitch, not called him away.
A hint of displeasure bleeds through his ecstasy. His hands can do much and more in the way of sensual satisfaction but they can only do so much. The rough pads of fingertips and the scratch of fingernails are poor stand-ins for the soft wet heat of a pair of luscious lips. But they are all he has, so he has to make do.
In his mind’s eye, he can see you hovering over him, smiling that gloriously sultry smile that he has only ever seen of late. Amid the comforts of home and away from the stifling court, the passionate young woman seems to bloom. Your hair drapes over you as you bend ever closer to his face, lending your congress further intimacy.
This brief scene is not as satisfying as it could have been, however. He cannot smell your hair, your scent, your body. The token you had given him the day of the Warrior’s Tourney would have helped compound his illusions. He keeps the piece of cloth in a clean box, away from anything that might adulterate your scent. It is, unfortunately, locked away in his chest of belongings. He had not needed to use it ‘til this morning, would that he had it now to enhance his dream…
Your perfume of apples and winter roses is still deeply entrenched in the cloth, along with your scent, a scent far sweeter and more intoxicating than any fruit or flower. He would have drowned in it as you lowered your face to his and kissed him. For a moment, he is tempted to get up and fetch your favor, make all of this a thousand times better, but his hand is locked into place, he cannot get up even if he wants to. And does he want to?
So, again and as always, he has to make do.
It is not your favor that drives him closer to bliss. Suddenly, he can smell your drying sheet, and the memory of the sensation hits him hard as a charging bull. His mouth is moving against yours, yet the taste of air is the only thing he knows. But he can smell your hair, your scent, your body, the essence of you you had left behind on your linen, stronger and more intense than it is on your favor.
He is bearing down on you all at once, back in the sanctum, back in the dream of the night. It is easier to imagine how you’d look now, with all the glimpses he’d had the past couple of days. Your breasts bounce with the force of his thrusts while he ruts into you madly, hands tight around your lush hips as he presses you down against the ground for better leverage. You are gasping for breath, fingers twisted in the white of his podonza, eyes squeezed shut in ecstasy.
His hand picks up pace around his cock, his thumb rubbing over his dribbling slit, once, twice; his fist is slathered with his arousal, making him slip easily through his steadily tightening grip. The wet slaps of flesh on flesh are all the sound in the room, interspersed with his pants and pleasured groans.
White-hot embers begin to flare up in the base of his stomach, but he is not there yet, still he wants more, wants to further play with this pretty spectre he has conjured and bring you to your own peak…
He bends down and takes a nipple between his lips, suckling hard, flicking his tongue over and around the nub so he can further draw out your moans. You oblige him so eagerly, your back curving into a beautiful arc. The most sinful moan sanctifies these sacred grounds; never has he heard a sound so divine. Your hands come up to run through his hair as he moves to worship the other breast, pressing him close, closer, as close as you can to your yearning flesh.
His hands slide down, from your waist to your thighs. Your skin slips beneath his fingertips, the softest, finest silk he has ever felt, until he is hooking his arms beneath your knees and rearing up between your legs, lifting you a little so you can take him better as he starts pounding harder, faster, hips slamming into yours with wild, frenzied strokes.
Loud cries and whines take the place of your moans, blending in perfect accord with his groans and grunts and the wet slaps of flesh on flesh. Wind sweeps through the sanctum, proof of the gods’ favor, but he cannot feel the gentle cooling touch on his skin. It is so hot, he is burning, burning, and he is glad to burn, fire has never felt this good…
His hips are twitching, wanting more than his hand, wanting more than the tightness it can give him, wanting more than his own wetness. He wants to thrust into the real you and not this spectre, feel how tight you truly are and how wet, have the truth of that pleasure that is so acclaimed of his friends and that he can never get from any other because they will never be good enough, never enough.
Eren tightens and loosens his grip around his cock as he pumps himself faster, an attempt to mimic the sensations of a woman’s cunt at her peak, that most maddening, pleasurable sensation that they spoke of, of your tight, wet, and warm walls massaging his shaft as it strove to bring him to complete and utter euphoria.
His cock throbs; close, he is so close, his hips are moving erratically, so out of his control as he thrusts into his jerking fist, panting and moaning and chanting out your name, the most lustful hymn, the most sinful of prayers.
You are a crumbling mess beneath him, clawing at his chest, crying out and sobbing from the strength of your pleasure, your body near folded in half while he continues his rut, grinding, slamming his cock into your sweet, wet cunt. Your ankles are now draped over his shoulders, toes curling as your peak comes barreling closer, ever closer. You chant your own hymn and call out for him desperately, “Eren, Eren, Eren,” begging, pleading for your climax, let me come, please, please, please…
Hot, sticky spend coats his hand and splatters all over his chest and stomach as he reaches his pleasure with a loud cry, almost screaming his ecstasy into the silent chambers. His back arches, fire lancing up his spine and white heat engulfing him, and for a thousand years, he stays there, drowning in the fount of rapture that is his lady.
Seed still leaks from his swollen tip as he comes to bit by bit. His hips continue to thrust until pleasure becomes too much like pain and his movements slow to a stop. Eren releases his softening cock, letting out a satisfied huff of air. His torso is slick with sweat and spattered with spend but the familiar haze of sated pleasure is stealing over him, leaving him heavy-limbed upon his bed, too sleepy to clean himself off.
His seed will look better dripping down your cunt, he thinks, running a finger absently through a milk-white puddle pooled in the creases of his muscled abdomen. It will be proof of his presence, that he had been in you, had taken you in all the ways you could be taken. He will be secure in the knowledge that you are his in every sense. And he will not need to clean himself up. Stones weigh down his eyelids.
The man glares at him from the dark, eyes wide and gray and glassy. And filled with terrible anger. Eren jolts awake, heart hammering. He stares up at the bed’s dark canopy, suddenly averse to turning his head and looking round the room, dreading the sight of glass eyes staring back at him from the dark.
Contempt for his fear rises in him several heartbeats later. He is the Knight of Highridge, blood of Godfrey the Loyal and the Falcon Knights, a Falcon Knight himself, ghosts have no hold over the likes of him.
He turns his head almost defiantly, daring them to haunt him in his waking hours. They do not dare. Not today. It is lighter now than it had been before, and the muted illumination reveals nothing and no one. No vengeful man, no mournful boy, no accusing gray eyes. He is alone. As he should be.
Sleep has well and truly deserted him. He had as well get up. Perhaps you will be awake by now. The Alyfeis is today, he remembers with a happy jolt. The prospect of enjoying the day’s revels makes him shoot up from bed. He grimaces at the dirty, sticky feeling of dried seed on his skin and resolves at once to wash.
With his revulsion comes some amusement, though. Once, he would have been mortified facing you after what he’d just done. He had fucked himself to you so many times, shame is beyond him at this point. Now you know, beyond all doubt. And seem to love the idea. That is the best thing by far.
Eren stands from the bed and glances down at the emerald sheets. He will not need to launder them himself this time, he notes, pleased. That is the only thing that gives him some measure of embarrassment for his deeds. There is something so discomforting about servants being privy to his desires; it does not bother him overmuch nowadays, yet having control over who he welcomes into that part of his life gives him ease.
He pads naked toward the pillars and pulls back the drapes. Gray is leaching out of the world, leaving only color. Duns and browns and whites and reds. Blues and greens. That most of all. He breathes in the salt morning air, feeling the brief horror of the dawn vanish like the mists of morn. The day is promising to be a good one. Perhaps it can lead into the night. With any luck, he will dream of you again.
To dream of you every night will be sweet. Desire is always better than the dead, after all.
Dearest Miks,
I hope this letter finds you well. I am doing all right, thank you for asking. It is so strange to see the palace this empty and the court nonexistent, the place is so much larger without people in it.
It’s boring without all of you in here. I thought being a Guardsman would be a lot more exciting than this but all we do is stand by doors and stare down corridors. It is an honorable post, don’t get me wrong, but I didn’t expect the slow times to be so… slow. At least Bertolt is with me, having a friendly face around makes it better. I’ve never truly appreciated the chap until now, I’m glad to have him as a sworn brother.
Speaking of brothers, I can’t believe I can call Sir Levi and Sir Erwin that. I still feel like a squire around them half the time… maybe because I’m the youngest of the bunch. Can’t say I like the feeling. I’ll work hard to show everyone I earned this, I’ll be a proper Guardsman in time, they’ll see!
I miss you and Karanes. Even Martin, even though he is a little snot. I’ll make a fine knight of him, between the two of us House Springer will rise to the skies!
Training is deadly dull without you here. Is it the same for you there without your trusty and ever-loyal Connie? Best keep your skills sharp, you’ll need it when next we cross swords. This’ll be the year I will finally throw you down, mark my words.
I hope you get this before the Alyfeis. I hope the Alyfeis here is as fun as it is back there. Thank the gods we’re allowed some fun. Just have to endure a couple of hours of guard duty and I’ll be free to frolic. I would say don’t frolic too hard without me but I know who I’m talking to, I’ll have no fear of that. I don’t think you can say the same for me, though, you know how Sasha is. Bless her.
Please write me. The occasional friendly word would do wonders. Really looking forward to the winter reconvene and seeing everyone’s mugs again.
All the best,
Connie
The letter had come as quite a surprise. A pleasant one, at that. Connie Springer, lowbrow, practically unlettered Connie Springer, is writing her. Mikasa places the missive on her desk, smiling to herself. It must be drearier in Midford during the reprieve than first she’d thought. The plaintive note to his last paragraph tugs at her heart. Is it truly that bad? She reaches for a fresh sheet of parchment and her quill.
A soft tap sounds on the wall beside the entrance to her bedchamber. “Come,” she calls out, lowering her hand.
Louise Ledovskoya brushes back the dark blue velvet curtains that serve as the room’s doors and steps in. She bows her blonde head. “My lady. I am come to dress you for the rite.”
“Of course.” Is it that time already? Mikasa turns her head about to glance down the mullioned window behind her. It would seem so. Cityfolk swarm the streets of the capital below, headed in the same general direction, toward the temple of the Gardener. From the vantage of her tower bedroom, the lively masses are no more than ants trooping back into their hill, come home after a day’s work done in the fields. There is no work to be had for the day, though, and the human swarm is off to worship and make merry; home is far from anyone’s mind.
Not from Connie’s, however. The scrap of parchment lying on her desk seems a dejected thing, and Mikasa feels the weight of it on her back as she leaves her bedroom for the bath. She feels a twinge of guilt. She must needs answer at the best opportunity. Tonight, after the festivities. First, she must give the gods their due.
Her new handmaid is a chipper thing, and chatty, quite unlike the lass before. The Neven girl had been passable as handmaids went, and served her well and ably for three years. She would have served for longer were it not for her light fingers. A chambermaid had caught her filching Mikasa’s jewels earlier in the year, and so she was dismissed, sent home in utter disgrace. Mikasa has never been a flashy girl, and could care little and less for the lost jewels, but thievery is thievery and should be punished in due course. It is the principle of the thing.
“Finished, my lady.” The new girl - Louise - steps back as she finishes the intricate task of clipping Mikasa’s veil to the back of her head. She glances at her reflection. A proper little lady gowned in copper and salmon stares back at her. The future Lady Ackerman, Lady of Karanes. The Shieldmaiden is nowhere in sight.
She stands from the vanity and straightens the sheer silk of the split sleeves that trail down her gown from the elbows. “Let’s go.” She does not deign to grace the painted stranger in the mirror another glance.
This year’s Alyfeis is already proving to be quite extraordinary. Lord Ludwig Ledovskoy is standing beside her lord father on the pulpit of the temple balcony, quite unmindful of the pointed stares and whispers coming from the floor below as the commons gossip amidst the ongoing rite. The more politically savvy ones have heard of the Lord of Ajdoje’s visit and know what that entails.
The scent of burning produce drifts up to the Ackermans on the gallery, where they always observe the rite, the better to have some privacy. Still the commons whisper even as the Bailiff’s voice echoes throughout the building to consecrate the year’s sacrifice and plead with the gods for another year of great bounty. Lord Lukas merely stares at the proceedings, seeming far away. Lord Ludwig is as stern and tight-lipped as he usually is.
Only Mother seems to disapprove of the buzzing impropriety. It is a comically ironic thing that a foreigner would find more offense in the blatant irreverence breaking out within these holy grounds. Especially considering she shouldn’t give a fig about a faith not her own. But so it is with the Lady Otsune, Azumabito as was, Ackerman now. And she has been for twenty-odd years; a developed attachment for the mores of her new home is only to be expected.
Mikasa wonders how they celebrate the harvest in Hizuru. Perhaps it is a festival of great beauty, like the Feast of Flowers. Her parents took a brief tour of Hizuru a year after she entered court, and they had brought her along. They had gone in the spring, in time for the feast. It was the most magical feast she had ever attended. She never knew that flowers could be so… beautiful.
They never seem to be, at home. They make a riot of color, true enough, reds and whites and yellows, purples and blues, endless, endless pink. Yet it was only in her mother’s motherland that she had ever truly appreciated them. Lovayan cherry trees are not half so enchanting as the ones in Hizuru. They had sat beneath them on blankets, eating local delicacies and drinking local vintages. All the while the petals fell, those pale pink snowflakes that were never cold to the touch. Around them, the Hizurites would whisper, only whisper, all reluctant to break the spell of the moment with noise and volume.
The whispers here sound a deal less reverent. Those and stares follow them to the Bulwark. Mikasa trots astride her piebald palfrey Mitsu, keeping pace with her mother’s litter as their small party navigates Middelfoort’s busy cobbled streets. All and sundry stare them out of countenance. The festival commences as it should, with plays and entertainments, music and dancing and laughter and flowers, with the trade and display of the best of the harvest.
But alongside the beets and carrots and peaches and pears comes a different sort of crop. The best of the gossip is on sale as well, prompted by the highborn passing. Everywhere they turn, only one thing seems to be in everyone’s minds. Mikasa wonders if they would have attracted half the attention they are getting now without their honored guest tipping the scales, as it is.
There he sits atop one of the biggest destriers she has yet seen, a massive dark bay beast with powerful flanks, conversing with her father with no more care for the eyes around him as he would a fly buzzing about his ear. His standard flies before him carried by a bearer, a teal banner with the red fess of his House. The Ackerman pennant is not to be outdone beside his. There it flies in the hands of another bearer, the three longswords of Ackerman crossed upon its blue field, the proud and ancient sigil of a proud and ancient House.
‘Swords, swords, swords,’ Mikasa seems to hear everywhere, at every turn and corner, until it begins to sound like a call to arms, a demand for Lord Ackerman to call the banners and ride to northern aid. Middelfoorters are hardly the most war-like of people; the whispers sound more conspiratorial than anything, curious, even excited at the thought of what these northmen could want, if Lord Ackerman will raise swords.
This is why Ledovskoy is here, she knows. To tell Father of the Ajdine clamor and their discontent with how the Zhelevic were treated. These northmen seem an intimate bunch. Wrong one and you wrong all. In many ways, there is something admirable in that. Many will call it prickly, though. And it is one of the many reasons the rest of the realm takes issue with the North.
The crowd that tailed them from the temple has grown larger and is growing larger still as they near the Bulwark. These will settle on the bridge and one of the courtyards of the castle to prepare for the harvest feast and further sell their produce. Many and more will wait for the autumn audience, to be held later in the afternoon. Here they will offer Lord Lukas the pick of their crops and perhaps bring forth a petition to be settled. The evening is reserved for the harvest feast, one in the castle for the highborn and their household, the other for the commons down in the courtyard.
Father is having little joy of this year’s festival. He had spent the entirety of the audience only half in attendance, absently dispensing his judgements as he pondered other, more pressing matters.
Now, Mikasa sits quietly listening in as Lord Ludwig apprises Father of the building malcontent of his commons, reassuring his liege that he is doing all he can to stem their mutinous flow.
Some assistance will not be unwelcome, says the Ledovskoy lord, him with his hard, lined face with the square, clean-shaved jaw and his long blond hair, which he has tied back behind his head with a red ribbon. The eyes that lock onto her father’s are a muted hazel, green with a faint brown ring about his pupils. Lord Ludwig is handsome, for an older man. And bears a strong resemblance to his daughter, Mikasa’s new handmaid.
This homegrown northern matter seems to be a good deal more pressing than first she’d thought. Both men had vanished during the entertainments, leaving the rest of the household spare and idle. Which worried Mother, Mikasa senses, as she comes over much later to bid her good night and seek her blessing. This further feeds Mikasa’s own foreboding as she makes her way to Father’s solar for his blessing.
He is standing in front of the tall window, hands clasped behind his back as he looks down upon his still rejoicing city. Lord Ludwig is nowhere in sight. Father does not turn around when she announces herself and enters. For a long moment, there is silence, broken only by the soft snaps of the fire in the stone hearth to her left. Above, the glass and iron chandelier shines its balmy orange light over the chamber, lending a certain warm homeliness to the space.
Several more heartbeats pass until at last, he sighs and strides over to his desk, which is standing beside the mullioned panes in front of a shelf of books and knickknacks. The blue and gray carpet underfoot muffles his steps.
A sheepskin map is rolled open on the surface of the table, its corners weighed down by books. A map of Karanes, Mikasa sees, as she strides nearer. There are no markers, no marks upon the painted hide. She wonders what it is that Father is looking for, what he is noting.
“Well, it was only a matter of time. I can’t say I’m surprised, you know what they’re like.” He leans down on the desk, hands spread out on the map. The first two fingers of his right hand lay pointing at the Lord of Ajdoje’s stronghold, up in northern Karanes.
“Northmen are northmen.” She walks to the lounge situated in front of a wall of books to the right of the desk and sits down.
“More’s the pity. Oh, to be a pure Midlander as we were of old… What even are we Karanesi now? Midlander or northmen? We’re not quite one, not quite the other. And both so different from one another. It’s a wonder any man could herd this lot for all this time.”
“Our family has always been able,” Mikasa says, quite awkwardly, not knowing how to address her father’s laments. It is something she is little versed in, to her chagrin. She is little versed in dealing with people generally, a fact which gives her no small amount of anxiety. Especially considering the station to which the gods saw fit to call her.
“If only our family weren’t so… able.” Karanes is the only one of the States spanning two fronts, the Midlands and the North. The Ackermans of old, however, had settled further south than where their descendants now rule, in present-day Neustadt ruled by the Vukasins. Some Reiss king rewrote the Lovayan map and placed his Ackerman lord in the middle of the State as a buffer, a serjeant best suited to handle the insurgent northmen whenever they rose up (which they did often and well even to this day).
The Ackermans have ever been a martial family, producing warrior king after warrior king throughout the millennia until the Titans came and beat them down to vassalship, as they did all the other kings and queens in fair Lovaya. Who better to be a bulwark against the wild than one with warrior’s blood himself?
It is a suit of armor her father is never comfortable wearing. He is an oddity, as far as Ackermans go, more scholarly than warlike, happier with a book in hand than with a sword. This had caused no end of strife between him and his lord father, Klaus Ackerman, who slapped the Vukasins and their dogs down to heel during the War Within decades ago. Lord Klaus’s death had freed Father of his father’s scorn. And he has never been happier.
As happy as duty can make him, to be sure. But Mikasa knows he would rather have the pain of duty than the pain of a father’s derision. Lord Lukas sighs, world-weary. “We hear the same clamors as the rest of the North. It’s not just Ledovskoy. Neven and Brzenska are reporting malcontent as well, at this point, it’s only a matter of time before I hear from Zackly and Zacharius.”
Another sigh, and suddenly, he has aged a decade, as though that last breath of air was his very vitality itself. Father sits down heavily upon his chair, with little grace. He stares hollow-eyed at the map before murmuring, “Ledovskoy is more an Ackerman than I. Hard, stern, dependable, martial. It’s no wonder he speaks for our North. He’s what people want me to be. People think he is me. That’s why I avoid standing next to the man at gatherings, if I can help it, they all think him the Ackerman.” An easy enough mistake to make, in hindsight. Both men are fair as the sun, and the current Lord Ackerman is famously gold as opposed to the ravens their House tends to be.
Lukas Ackerman turns to his daughter at length and smiles, tired yet affectionate. “You’re what people expect of this House, a true warrior and fierce. Perhaps they’ll have more joy of you than they ever had of me someday.”
“But I never wanted any of that.”
That gives her father pause. And brings remorse and pity, that most wretched of sentiments, out into the light. She almost regrets saying anything then.
“You cannot know how sorry I am that this was thrust upon you,” Father says softly. “But it pleased the gods to bring your brother back into their graces and so we have no choice. If I could spare you the chains of commanding, I would. The best I can do for you, ultimately, is to ease the way and prepare you for your calling.”
And what a calling it is. She will forever hate the wild salt sea for forcing it on her and robbing her of a brother and a simpler life.
“Ah, you did not come here to hear a lord’s burdens. Come, let me bless you and bid you good night. May your dreams be more pleasant than mine tonight.” She stands from the lounge, receives her blessing, and goes with her own good night, imparting a gentle kiss on the stubbly cheek and hoping that will give him ease.
She has so much to tell Connie. As he does her, she can see it now. She imagines a thick scroll of parchment tied to the leg of a floundering dove as it flaps frantically outside her window, desperate to enter and snatch rest. The thought makes her snort. The boy would be lonely indeed if he ever writes anything longer than a foot.
It suddenly occurs to her much later, as she settles into bed warm and snug and content, that she had barely thought of Eren today. And it feels… good.
A great rousing cheer answers your father’s foreword, and with that, the festivities proceed apace.
You gaze down at the hundreds gathered below Goldhaven’s presence balcony, smiling your courtly smile and feeling inordinately pleased that you were not asked to give the speech this year. You are equal to the task and will do so if prompted, yet the desire to remain free of the duty of addressing the public is strong in you. You can address all the courts in the world if you have to. When your time comes. And the gods only know how many speeches there are in your inevitable future. What’s one less speech to that endless repertoire?
Lord Alexander turns to you with a smile. “Off to the Great Sanctum-”
“I’d like to show Eren around for a while before we head there. If it please you,” you say hurriedly, hoping against hope for leave.
Bemusement dances across Father’s face before he smiles once more, ever accommodating. “It pleases me to grant you leave. Before sundown, the hour of the dove. You have until then for your frolics.”
You beam and stand on your toes to kiss his bearded cheek. You turn to Eren behind you, still shining. “Get dressed.”
“I’m already dressed,” he points out, perplexed.
“Not in plain clothes, you aren’t. You can’t explore the city in cloth-of-gold. You’ll blind everyone,” you tut, grabbing his arm and marching him off to get changed at once. Pretty as he is in your House colors, he can hardly run about the streets with a podonza threatening to slip down his shoulder half the time. Which is a-wasting.
His orange tunic with its brown trim and belt is markedly less blinding. And brings out the green in his eyes so beautifully. You yourself have changed out of your teal and gold sleeveless vevda for another simpler one, a white knee-length garment paired with a pale blue floor-length underskirt trimmed with meanders in white thread along the hemline. A thin pale blue cord ties the whole thing into place about your waist. Nice and simple. Its only concession to frills is the pair of gold chains looping above your left arm, which is left bare; your right arm is encased in a long sleeve that is fastened from your upper arm with gold buttons.
You lead him through the castle gates and into the bustling streets, both now suitably dressed, joining the throng of servants and soldiers on leave as they pour through the walls to partake of the revels. “No guards?” Eren asks, glancing around for an armored tail, only to find none.
“I have a pact with Father. I avoid the docks and the seedier areas of the city, the guard stays well away from me. Not too far that he’ll be unable to come to my aid if need be. He’ll be keeping a close, and unobtrusive, eye on us. From afar.” You draw your white lesos over your head to keep off the worst of the midday sun.
“What brought this pact on?” Bareheaded Eren quirks an eyebrow at you as you enter one of the city squares. Dmitriy Rhyzkov sits proud and fierce astride his rearing stallion in the middle of the plaza, his noble likeness forever captured in stone atop a tall granite pedestal. The crowd grows thick as you lead Eren on.
His query makes you grin. “Father had a long talk with me after I slipped my guard one too many times. I just couldn’t stand having a solemn bore breathing down my neck as I explored my city.”
“What if you did get into trouble? They can be hindrances but they’re useful to keep around.”
Says one who also ran away from his hindrances the first chance he got. “We don’t have tails in Belris.” At last, you spot your destination. You pull him along, weaving nimbly between festive folk headed in the other direction, one of whom drapes a crown of flowers over Eren’s head before prancing away. You laugh at his startled expression.
“We don’t have tails because the Golden District is safe as can be. Belrish dregs live by the walls,” Eren says, once his surprise had passed into the void. He reaches up to pluck at the crown, seeming gratified.
Around you the crowds make merry, piping their pipes and fiddling their fiddles, dancing and scattering flowers and petals everywhere. Red and pink and gold gently rain down upon you as you breast the human tide. From the buildings around you, more petals fall from homebound roisterers. You turn your head a little to look back at your betrothed, smiling slightly. “You’ll keep me safe. Won’t you?”
“Always.”
His sudden solemnity makes your smile slowly fade, and you have to look away at length. The heat pricking your cheeks is not from the sun’s harsh rays, you do not think.
The Blue Pearl’s hands are as welcoming as ever, its fare as excellent. Custom is meager owing to the festivities; most everyone is lunching in the Great Sanctum, including your family. But Eren is due his tour of your city and you can think of no better day to start than today. The Pearl is one of your favorite haunts and the staff know you well as a patron. Eren is subjected to a light (yet serious) dressing down by the barkeep, who warns him off of ‘doin’ the ‘lil lady dirty.’ Whose face heats up again at the young knight’s grave denouncement of such conduct.
You leave the tavern well-fed and hankering for something sweet and fresh. You direct your path to the packed produce arcade, feeling more than a tad anxious. Here you will see the fruits, as it is, of your labor. Those weeks spent in constant correspondence with your heads of house, all the organizing, allocating, supervising, negotiating, advising… here it will all culminate at last.
The proof in the autumn pudding.
You are far from disappointed. Every stall and stand and cart display the bounty of Vascalin. Apples, figs, pomegranates, dates and plums and lemons - fruits shine bright as jewels next to bundles and bundles of vegetables: leeks, fennel, radishes, cabbages and artichokes and olives. An excellent haul. The gods have blessed you this year.
And you are not to be held accountable for the failure of the crop. That is the best thing of all. All at once, you can breathe easier again.
“Good haul this year. Well done,” Eren commends, grinning down at you, making you glow at the praise. You glow even more when he proceeds to buy you an apple from one of the stalls. It is only fair you have a taste of the gods’ blessings and relish in their favor, he claims, as he buys you both your sweet. You have one more thing to thank them for tonight. Never had you had an apple so sweet as the one you ate that day.
Things sour for you as you move on, however. The foot traffic, already thick, has grown even thicker near the market square, and so you are forced to take the bypass you had wanted to avoid like the plague. You dash through one of the high-end avenues where some of the most expensive and upscale brothels are located, the area busy but not so packed as the square nearby. You practically fly through the street as though the very hounds of hell are at your heels.
Eren staggers behind you, bewildered, feet tangling over each other as he is dragged along like a leashed pup. Nothing diminishes his comely countenance, apparently, however ungainly a sight he makes at the moment. Half-dressed and undressed whores lean out the windows, calling out for patrons. More than a handful call out to your betrothed, to your extreme annoyance. Flower petals rain down on you from the sluts and their basketfuls of blossoms. You impatiently brush a yellow petal off your lesos and march on doggedly.
“H-hey, can you let up a bit, please?” Eren pants, loping beside you to keep up. His crown of flowers has vanished, torn from his head during your headlong rush. “What’s the rush? It’s barely past the hour of the lynx, we still have another hour…”
You give a vague grunt and keep your silence, just as a whore draped in jeweled chains and nothing else calls down to Eren coquettishly from her trellised balcony. Your stomach lurches unpleasantly, then lurches again with something more buoyant as you pass the fountain that marks the end of the avenue.
“Jealousy truly becomes you, have I told you that lately?”
You refuse to grace him with your attention, misliking the tone of his voice. The look on his face is only fit to be smacked off, you are sure, if you ever deign to look at him now. You jolt, surprised, as his arm wraps around your waist and holds fast, forcing you to look at him. Behind the teasing grin is something more insistent. Honest. “Eyes only on you,” he says simply.
The day is sweet, oh-so-sweet indeed.
In time, you find yourselves exploring the arcades, acquiring yourselves chains of flowers from the stallkeeps in the process. Eren amuses himself by picking at the many garments on display in the fashion arcade, flourishing dresses at you at random. Most of which have sharp vee-shaped necklines.
“Are you trying to tell me something?” you ask, entertained, as Eren brandishes a sleeveless emerald green vevda at you. One with a deeply slashed neckline, of course. “I regret to say I don’t own nearly enough breast-baring dresses for your tastes. That’ll look pretty with a silver belt.”
“It will, won’t it?” Eren beams, then carefully places it back on its display as you walk off. “Pity about your dresses. Charms as lovely as yours aren’t meant to be hidden away.”
You laugh. “Pity the court has such blue noses for all their love of randy chatter. More charm can be a useful thing up there. But court fashions have their own allure. It gives you only enough to tease at the truth and all that. Gives you something to long for, think about.”
“That it does.” His eyes sweep down your body, slow and sensual. You shiver, as though he had caressed you all over with his hands instead of simply looking. “I have much to long for, true enough.”
It is a feat of remarkable ability, you think, that you can stand here still and brave his flames. You are getting better at that as time progresses. Then again, you are a being of heat, after all; who better to brave his flames than you?
The smell of salt wafts pleasantly toward you in the fashion arcade, sited as it is near the docks. The snatches of conversation that leap out at you from the many stallkeeps are glaringly less pleasant. Even this far south, news of the North still haunts you. That it has managed to trickle down here of all places concerns you. Was the clamor getting that bad? You do not want to think about what awaits you all when court reconvenes the next season.
It is an utter relief when you pass through to the next, less gossipy arcade.
The sight of all the handmade crafts - furnishings, figurines, toys - reminds Eren of his niece and the present he owes her as an uncle visiting a place of note. “There’s a qaxan parlor by the docks, did you know? The only one in Arsechkala,” you inform him as he examines a carved wooden dragon overlaid with silver leaf from one of the many stalls. “I could take you there sometime, see how you go up against someone else besides me. Thus will we know your true capability.”
Consistency has entered Eren’s court at last, to your utmost pleasure. His first true win back in Friedfurt wasn’t entirely a fluke, it turned out. Your games after that have been more balanced. At last, Eren is making up his lost ground, steadily winning game after game after game. Your pride knows no bounds.
“I’ll know my true capability when I can go up against Armin at last,” Eren says, as you move on to the last of the line of stalls, leisurely browsing.
“I think that’s too high of a goalpost… A step at a time, yes?” You will not soon forget your games with that golden commander. Any and all wins you can scrape against him are much treasured.
“He hasn’t written back yet, has he? I wonder how his Alyfeis is going. His dull and dreary Alyfeis.”
“It’s only dull because it’s what you’re used to. You’ve experienced it all your life and so the magic of it’s disappeared.” You tramp down the steps of the arcade, emerging into another relatively less packed street. Little stalls are still scattered about the area, those of vendors unable to secure a lease to hawk their wares in the arcade proper.
You stop by a table bearing little wooden figures of the twelve sacred beasts of the Creed. Which in itself is a surprise. The Creed has never been strong here. The small temple of the Gardener in the city had held its quiet celebration earlier, for its handful of Arsechkalan believers. Eren turns to you, fingers wrapped around a figure of a lynx. “Do you find your Alyfeis dull?”
That brings you up short. “Point conceded.” You have never found the harvest feast dull and will never.
The rumble of sound about you seems to grow louder. It is then that you notice how thick the throng is getting. Before you quite know it, a host of people is passing through, as though a sluice gate has been opened to let the tide in. Eren moves to take you aside and away from the carousing crowd.
“Oh!”
Someone knocks into you and then you are stumbling, crashing into something hard and warm, who lets out a yelp of his own as he staggers back into the table behind him, scattering wooden figures everywhere. His arms fly up to wrap around you on instinct, and it is all you know. His strength, his heat, his scent mixed with that of flora. Wide green eyes stare down at you. Beneath your palms and the crushed blossoms, his heart races.
Thump, thump, thump.
Fire and water fill your world, from the flame of his shirt and the sea of his eyes, and for a long while, he is your everything.
A thousand years pass until you can think to look away. A cluster of carvings had landed by your feet. An eagle, a wolf, two serpents twined. The Sun, the Moon, the Lovers.
“M-milady!”
The elderly stallkeep had gotten to his feet, toothless mouth agape, pale blue eyes bulging with shock before he remembers himself and bows. Your lesos has fallen about your shoulders, displaced from your head by the commotion earlier. The stallkeep straightens up from his bow, his long, wrinkled fingers tangling together nervously. “M-milady, such a surprise- ‘s an honor to see you ‘round this parts, and by me shop, too! The honor-”
“It’s my pleasure, goodman. Please pardon us for jostling your stall- here, let me-” You move to step away from Eren’s warmth and pick up the fallen figures. His grip tightens around you, and you think he would not let go, but let go of you he does. You can feel reluctance leech into you. His own or yours, you cannot say.
“Ah, no, milady, can’t possibly let you trouble yourself-”
“It’s fine, we knocked over your wares, it’s the least we can do,” you reassure the man, smiling and putting his worries to ease. Beside you, Eren has set to, helping you scoop up the figurines and carefully placing them back on the table.
The elder bows once more, stammering out his thanks as you place the last carving on the counter, and offers you a gift of his wares, which you swiftly wave away. In the end, he makes you a present of the twined serpents - which you still insist on paying for, a handful of coppers, for his trouble.
Money well spent, you think, admiring the skill and the craftsmanship that you can tell went into the making of this piece. The serpents weave about each other, an endless loop, unbreakable. Eren weaves his fingers through yours, and away you go.
“The hour of the dove,” you state, catching sight of the tall clocktower ahead, with its triple arches spanning the river Goldtide. And so you set your steps toward the Great Sanctum, following the tide at last instead of going against its current.
He has never been, Eren had told you, so you take great pleasure in showing him the greatest pride of the city, one of two marvels of the Old Way. The largest godstone in the realm stands at the heart of its little island in a lagoon not too far off from the coast. You pass through the wardens’ commune, home to the holy isle’s caretakers, through the arched gate and onto the narrow stone bridge that connects the isle to the mainland.
The sea breeze blows strong here. You take a deep breath of the clean salt air, cheerful and content and alive. Overhead, seabirds fly, gulls and sandpipers and terns. Your cheer is mirrored in Eren’s face to mate with his awe. He glances down at you, grinning, and his eyes are the sea surrounding him, blue and green and sparkling. He takes the sea with him, wherever he goes.
“It’s massive,” Eren exclaims once you step foot on the islet at last, craning his neck back to gawk at the godstone and its hundred feet of glory.
“Magnificent,” you beam with pride and no small amount of reverence. The stone god carved into its face is majestic, stern yet kindly, a true king of the gods. Four hundred years' worth of salt air and rains have eaten away at the august face, however, to your and the Old Blood’s dismay. No mage now can keep nature from doing what she will to this sacred effigy. Powerful as they are, not even the gods are a match for that wild sovereign where their earthly forms are concerned. It is now for the caretakers to do all they can for the gods. And that must be enough.
“The most beautiful sanctum,” Eren remarks, glancing about at the rows of trees ringing the island as you break away from the still-long line of worshipers passing through another gate to the foot of the godstone, where mounds upon mounds of produce are heaped. Perhaps they will have offered enough for yet another year of bounty, to judge from the sheer quantity you had glimpsed through the hallowed entrance. You lead Eren on, to the spot in the isle where your family usually gathers. It is custom for you to picnic behind the gigantic godstone in that patch of grass beneath the trees, beside the viewing platform, which is open to the sea.
“You think the Great Sanctum more beautiful than the godsway?” Through the trees, you see a garlanded little boy running, trailed by his father, young and tall and dark, with his hair in its loose knot behind his head, a chain of flowers about his neck. You look after them, heart pounding, but they have melted into the mass, one of many families taking their joy of the festival. You wonder if they are vision or muddled truth.
“Even more beautiful.”
There is nothing muddled about your betrothed’s truth, and you cling to that. He is a vision, yet true and living and tangible. His is the only truth you’ll have.
He seems to hesitate a moment before asking in a quiet voice, almost bashful, “Do they allow weddings in front of this godstone?”
You smile, at the question and at him, this sweetest of boys. “Yes, they do.”
He looks away, out at the great salt sea. The tips of his ears have gone that sweet shade of pink, pink as the blooms of pink princess about his neck. “The sanctum in Midford- I mean, I’m not saying it’s not a good sanctum to wed in but- only if it please you and your family, of course- and the hassle of travel and all that-”
“I think we should say our vows in here.”
His head whips back around, so fast you are astonished he did not crick his neck at all. His eyes are wide for several heartbeats before he smiles, the softest, most tender smile you have yet seen from him. It is then that you are resolved. You must see that smile again, every day of your life. From this day to the end of your days.
“Yes, I’d like that very much.”
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A/N:
Happy belated birthday, Eren! Have some smut in honor of his happy day! (Not the real thing, though, sadly, we'll get there, we'll get there.)
(Now I'm obliged to do a masturbatory scene for YN so, uh, there's that).
The first NSFW scene. And not the last. At last one goal done.
Nerdy info dump 2. Just to help clarify the many, many styles of southron clothing, I'll list them out the best I can:
Chelya - strap dress
Charovma - halter/backless dress
Povevda - tube dress
Vevda - catchall term for southron clothing for both men and women. Everything not mentioned above is a vevda for simplicity's sake (except for the tunic/pants combo). All of this is inspired by Greco-Roman culture (tweaked massively for my own worldbuilding), if you can't tell, and gods, they had A LOT of clothing terms to sift through. I hope I managed to get my descriptions right...
Also, added a slight change to the way I described the Great Sanctum in chap. 3 cause I hadn't really fully envisioned what it looked like til now. Just a couple of sentences for continuity's sake.
Oooh, yeah, happy belated birthday to Jean, too, I guess. (Lol, nah, I love you, too, Horseboy. Not as much as Eren but still. You're great!)
Thank you so much for following! Til next update <3
Tagging: @alekstraszas @lukepattersin @tojis-discord-kitten
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