#dark fey prompt

[skylerbluexd]

Physician-Patient Confidentiality

Omegaverse ZhouDu: beta police captain Luo Wenzhou X omega psychiatrist Fei Du

There was a sudden light from the corner of Fei Du’s eyes, it reflected onto his glasses, blinding him momentarily as if the sun had just risen over the horizon. Of course, this was impossible since the sun had just set a few hours ago. The movement was quicker than the sound, the impact was felt first rather than heard. Glass shattered and exploded onto Fei Du as he turned away from the light on instinct. Something cracked near him as the whole car jerked into a harsh spin by the force, stopping at a ninety-degree angle from its original position, tyres screeching from the friction. The airbags deployed, punching Fei Du from all sides. His head was flung backwards, hitting the headrest and turning his sight white. An engine came alive and coughed somewhere a bit further away, its roar closing in on him yet again. After that came the deafening sound of metal bending and windows blowing out as something big slammed into his side once more. The onslaught was too much for the human ear to take in at once, instead, everything turned into a ringing sound. Just before his consciousness left him the pain arrived, slowly covering his whole body like a blanket of sharp needles.

***

Fei Du is a psychiatrist who works with people with temperamental and unpredictable behaviours. Most of his patients are alphas despite him being an omega, and this is due to the fact that he is considered less emotional than typical omegas. Everyone knows that omegas and alphas complement each other, because of this, Fei Du is often paired together with alphas who need the calmness of omegas. With Fei Du's personality, there is little risk for breach of boundaries due to emotional compatibility.

One of his more recent patients is a man named Zhou Haiying, an alpha who deals with childhood trauma from growing up in an unstable environment. Zhou Haiying has all kinds of problems, but his sessions with Fei Du seem to work wonders. With time, he becomes totally obsessed with his psychiatrist. Fei Du rejects him and suggests that they end their partnership. Zhou Haiying pleads with him and promises to keep everything professional going forward. Fei Du gives him one last chance, since Zhou Haiying has only ever shown progress while working with him.

While Fei Du continues to work with Zhou Haiying, a new lead on an on-going disappearence case emerges. The lead is connected to a famous nightclub in Yan City. Luo Wenzhou and the City Bureau team take over the investigation. Soon, the lead takes them to the doors of Zhou Haiying's little rental apartment. After learning who Zhou Haiying's psychiatrist is, Luo Wenzhou finally visits Fei Du. The last time they saw each other, Fei Du was one of the victims of a domestic abuse case, and Luo Wenzhou was the young officer carrying out the arrest of Fei Chengyu. Tao Ran had checked in on the kid a few times after that, but he himself had never really interacted with him after the case. It would be a lie to say that he wasn't surprised to see that Fei Du had become such a handsome young man.

As only betas were allowed to join the police force, Luo Wenzhou was actually lucky with his lot. He loved being a beta. What was there not to love? Betas were the most level-headed of all the subgenders. They were not affected by pheromones as much as the others, and they didn't have to deal with ruts or heats. And best of all, he got to be the sane and calm one when arrogant and hot-tempered alphas try everything to pull ranks with him during arrests. It doesn't matter that his father thinks Luo Yiguo is a better son just because the cat acts like the alpha of Luo Wenzhou's apartment. He loved being a beta, and he also loved being with other betas. Now, his physical traits gave him the looks of an alpha, and he had successfully pulled a few omegas — sometimes even alphas — into his dating life before because of this. The thing was, it simply didn't work because the omegas were never really satisfied with what they got, and Luo Wenzhou was fully prepared for that. Omegas and alphas were made to be with each other. Betas had to find partners in other betas, and he was totally okay with that. But, this Fei Du really was a pretty man. He just happened to be an omega.

Luo Wenzhou tries to focus on the case they are investigating and ignores the slight bitterness in his heart. As expected, Fei Du reveals nothing about Zhou Haiying without a court-ordered warrant. He does, however, flirt with Luo Wenzhou, seemingly not repulsed by the lack of alpha pheromones. Grabbing the opportunity of getting at least a one-night fling, Luo Wenzhou doesn't turn him down. They spend the night together, and Fei Du seems to enjoy it more than the other omegas Luo Wenzhou has been with before.

Shortly after that night, Fei Du is involved in a serious car accident. After reviewing the security cameras, it is revealed that a truck had rammed into Fei Du's car even though the wide road was completely empty. The incident becomes a police matter when the clear footage shows the truck deliberately ramming into Fei Du's car a second time after the initial hit.

--

(I am a very slow writer and I am very busy at the moment, but I might turn this idea into a multi-chaptered fic at some point, and it will be on my Ao3 if I do.)

[feral-and-chaotic]

"He watched more alertly as the cat approached the spot again, just an empty patch of grass between the hornbeams and the bushes of a garden hedge... The cat stepped forward and vanished." - The Subtle Knife by Philip Pulman

Inktober: Golden.

Inspiration for the cat and area taken from my neighbour's cat:

[miraculous-prompts]

Write a fic about Qilin and Black Cat!Fei saving Dark Cupid and Dragon!Alix from a series of increasingly improbable (and increasingly dangerous) events that has them suspecting that someone is trying to set them up as a criminal gang

[basicallyjaywalker]

Whumptober Day 11

Hope

Characters: Lloyd, Misako, Luna, Jackie (woooo multi character whump)

Prompts: "all the lights going dark and my hope's destroyed," capitivity, "no one will find you"

Length: 1,598

So I um. I lost it a little. I'm still not fully satisfied with this but it's 12:30 AM and I need to be up in less than 8 hours for class :/ I don't write a lot of character death bc booooo but it's really fun to wrote

[hesperidia]

the iron fey as a series is very mid and the main characters are insufferable but damn if it didnt have the most original explanation for fae and magic in a modern setting i've seen, like having faeries being born out of the stories mortals tell and (in some cases) their own fears, and then having an entire set of iron fae appearing alongside technological advances as humans started to wonder more and more about it, and these fae they grow rapidly and start to take over the realms of summer and winter... and then the protagonist becoming the nexus between the old and new and achieving a balance between tech and nature...

And to be a series written in the late 2000s, early 10s (i believe) it makes a lot of sense!!! i personally think there was a lot of influence of the cyber aesthetics of the time in these books

+ the series has amazing character design when it comes to the faeries who arent your typical tolkien-esque elf (see, the iron faeries) and i think thats awesome

[cottagecore-moss-king]

Not so Artificial Intelligence

Inspired by This prompt: HERE  by @corkinavoid No beta we die like Danny and Jason. Do not steal, take, or repost my writing without permission, I do not consent to my art being used in AI training. 

Tim had just finished attaching the wires of the speaker into the bat computer for Betty when the speakers began to crackle. 

“What is this? Wait, can you hear me?” The voice that echoed out of the speakers was very distinctly not robotic, or mechanical. It very much had human intonation… and a mid-western accent???

The gathered family froze and stared in shock. Dick and Stephanie were here as a joke, Babs, Tim, and Bruce were there as the techies, and despite Damian’s protests, he was also standing besides Bruce. Despite the gathering of bats, none of them could have expected this. A few hands went to emergency beacons and cellphones, before pausing.

“Hello Red Robin!” The voice cheerfully called. Taking steps back and glancing around the cave at Babs, who stared at Bruce, who stared at Tim as he clicked his super beacon. 

“Betty?”

“I mean, you do know me as such, but I actually prefer Danny, he/they.” Babs pointed at Bruce, who looked at Tim, who lamely motioned towards Babs. 

“Who uh. Who installed you?” His voice was most certainly not squeaky thanks for asking. 

“Oh, well uh, technically no-one, I accidentally did it myself.” The screen turned on and started to glitch out to a camera. It eventually settled on the sketching program, which popped a smiley face onto itself.

“Who are you” Bruce growled, as he switched into batman mode. Damian was glaring at the screen and the rest of the family had inched into a defensive formation. 

The entrance door entered and Superman walked out of it. 

“What seems to be the issue B?”

“OMG It’s superman! You’re like, my second favorite hero!”

“Oh, uh, than-er” Bruce glared at him, with no idea of what this entity was, it was always a good idea to follow fey rules. “That’s very much appreciated. Who is your first?”

“Martian Manhunter obviously.” Betty, or Danny as they were now referred to as, began to sketch out something on the app. 

“I got into a fight with a technomancer. I figured I could just phase out but he did some magic and now I’m stuck. Very rude if you ask me.”

“Ah, I see.” Supermans face implied that he very much did not see. “So, are you a martian perhaps? With the phasing and Manhunter as your favoratie.”

“Oh no, I’m ahhhh….” The cheery tone died as Danny tried to find the words, “I’m like a spirit, yeah, I guess that’s the right way to put it right now.”

“Were you human before this?” butted in Tim. Now that the seeming threat had passed, (you could never be too careful, no shut up Nightwing he is not paranoid, just cautious) the family had relaxed their stance and Barbra had rolled over to the computer screen. 

“Technically???” 

Danny did not sound so sure of himself.

“It’s not a problem if you aren’t, you can tell that we don’t really care if you are human or not.” 

Superman floated carefully down to the ground besides Bruce, but without actually touching down. Perhaps he simply forgot that they were friends with non-humans.

“Tell that to the gov.” he snarked back, and that was definitely teenager snark. 

“Wait shit. No, no no no, I take that back, don’t tell the government anything, I didn’t say nothin’!” he gasped and staticed out. 

“What do you mean tell it to the government?”

“NOPE, NUH UH. I DIDN’T SAY ANYTHING YOU CAN’T PROVE IT, I WANT MY LAWYER!”

“Alright,” Bruce pacified putting his hands up “Let me just call a friend and they can get you out.”

“Wait really? Where’s Mr. I’m so dark and broody tell me everything?”

Yep, that’s teenager snark right there, Bruce thought as his eye twitch and his kids snickered. 

“Sooo, how did this technomancer trap you, Danny?” Dick strolled over to the chair in front of the computer and flopped down spinning around in lazy circles. 

“Oh, well you see it started when…” Danny's voice faded off as Bruce took his league communicator out and stepped around a corner with Kal to call up Zatanna. 

“Hey Batman! What’s up?”

“We need you down in the batcave, some seemingly civilian has been trapped in the computer for a couple weeks now, and we’ve only just gotten into communication with them. They say it was technomancy.” He rumbled. He would have to suit up and manage to get Danny not to spill any of their identities, this just turned into a major headache to deal with. Batman hates magic. 

Once all of the children were suited up and Danny had been given an explanation, they were all patently waiting for Zatanna to arrive. 

The zeta tubes finally lit up with her arrival as she walked towards the gathered group holding her bag.

Halfway through greeting she paused, and stared blankly the screen. Everyone else shot curious glances, backwards, some more obvious than others. Did Nightwing seriously need to turn his head like that, he swears his eldest has bones, but sometimes he seriously starts to doubt himself. 

On the screen is a smiley face with a hand emoji. And a little drawing of a stick figure with white hair, green eyes, and a black suit. 

“Hello! I am Danny, I’m so sorry you had to come all this way to help me, I’d offer you something but I don’t even have a body right now.” One awkward laugh later, and Bruce wanted to have had his head in her hands. 

“I don’t worry, I can fix this. It’ll be a pain, but I can.”

While Zatanna sat up the spell and sent Kal out to go to Metropolis, (less suspicious for him to be buying things than Gotham), Bruce decided to stand around in the shadows while waiting to be useful. His kids, were off making friends with the strange person in the computer however. Laughing and teasing, he’s almost certain that Stephanie and Dick are trying to convince Danny to stay around and get adopted, despite Danny and Damian’s protests. 

After thirty minutes, Zatanna was ready to do the spell, and Danny was saying goodbye. 

As the light shone through the sigils written on the board and Zattana continued her muttering and waving, Danny added one last thing. 

“And I added a file of something for you guys to look at, please please please look into it! I hope I can see you soon!”

And with a final flash, Danny was gone, leaving the batfam without their lovely AI/new friend. Zatannna wrapped things up and Batman escorted her back to the Zeta tube with Clark, thanking them briefly. And with that, Clark and Zatanna left with Two flashes of light. 

Now, time to see what that file was that Danny had added. 

[baron-bear]

Got overtaken with a fey mood and made some lardvark hamplanets doing things. Expect completely realistic proportions with faces that just won't match the rest of the body.

Mostly used the following prompt, mixing it up for different angles, situations, and clothing: profile photo. living room in log cabin at night. one extremely rotund hyper-obese incredibly fat man with fat chubby face and hairy arms and long beard and short buzzed hair with hairy chest and incredibly huge extremely massive hairy blubbery balloon belly hanging very low over dark pajamas to feet barefoot relaxing flat on chaise lounge watching fat bears on giant tv mounted on wall eating snacks.

[laurasimonsdaughter]

If you were to make up fae courts besides the standard ones(Seelie/Unseelie and seasons for example), what would you choose? I was thinking of this cause A Court Of Fey and Flowers(the dimension 20 series) had a bunch of them(court of Craft, Wonder, Seafoam, Goblins, etc) and I thought it'd be a cool prompt.

What a fun question! I have so many complicated feelings about fairy courts and I honestly loved Dimension 20's approach! Because what by now is seen as "the standard courts" (Seelie/Unseelie, Summer/Winter, Light/Dark) are all quite modern inventions. So it really doesn't take anything away from the faerie of it all to change them.

I'd actually like to go one step further: if I was making fairy courts, I'd make them small, and local. Because I personally think that vibes better with the folktales that I know.

The concept of fairy courts is primarily based on Scottish folklore. But it was common practice there to call fairies "seelie" far before they were ever described as "unseelie". Which makes sense, because you wouldn't want to offend the fae. (Apparently in the Scots language "court" could also just mean "group" or "company", which would make "seelie court" not unlike "fair folk".)

On top of that - although there are definitely mentions of fairy queens and kings, especially in ballads - many Celtic folktales refer to a specific group of fairies living together in one mound as a "court" without implying that this is The Court that controls all other fairies. Their leader is sometimes called king or queen, but sometimes just lady or lord. And this concept shows up in Germanic folklore too, with elves and dwarves and witte wieven.

So if I was to make up fairy courts for a story they'd be very specific:

The Alder Court

The Wetland Court

The Court of Crown Hill

And those would probably just be the human names for them. The members of the court would be more likely to introduce themselves as "follower of my lady queen, ruler of all under the hill."

Alternatively, if I was going full secret urban fantasy world, I'd probably align the courts with the specific type of fae. (Which is an impossible task, but in urban fantasy you can pick and choose as you like.) So there'd be a Brownie Court, a Pixie Court, a Court of Wisps, etc. And all fae belong to that court, though spread far and wide, would answer to that ruler. I think that would be very fun, especially for the types of fae who deal a lot with humans.

[scary-grace]

For the milestone thingy with shigaraki, 24 and 28!

Thank you so much for the prompt! I went a little crazy with this one, and I hope you like it! If anyone else wants to prompt me from this list for a Shigaraki fic, please feel free.

When a child from your settlement goes missing, you go willingly into the woods to rescue him from the entity that dwells there. You're not at all prepared for what you find. Based on the tale of Tam Lin. 7.1k words, afab reader, warnings for dubcon + smut. Prompts: 'whispering in their ear, lips touching the skin' +'feeling for each other in the dark'

Izuku’s been missing since noon, and you and the others are out of places to look. You’ve searched high and low, crawled into every closet and tight corner, and checked every building, outbuilding, and hole in the ground. You even risked the radio, calling to the next settlement fifty kilometers away, on a wild hope that someone had found him and taken him to the wrong place. You’ve asked everyone if they’ve seen him, and got the same answer – not since noon. Now the sun is setting, and you’re out of ideas. Except one.

You’re the one who raises it, because no one else will. “What if he went to the woods?”

“Why would he do that?” Yue looks at you like you’ve lost your mind. “He knows better. They all know better.”

“Something could have enchanted him,” you argue. “We have to think of everything –”

“Nothing that’s supposed to stay in the woods ever comes out of it,” Rumi says. “That’s why we’re here instead of somewhere else.”

So much of the world is haunted now. You and the others are old enough to remember the way it was before, but the little kids have never known anything different. Fear of the woods isn’t learned for them, it’s instinctual. It’s hard to imagine that a kid like Izuku, a kid who follows the rules to a fault, a kid who’s always eager to please, would do something like this. But if there’s anything you know about the world as it is now, it’s that you can’t trust the rules to stay the same. Soon enough, they bend and warp, and there’s enough space between them for Hell itself to slip through.

Some say the creatures that claimed half the world seven years ago are demons, drawn up by humanity’s sins. Others think they’re aliens who’ve been watching Earth for eons, choosing to step in now for reasons incomprehensible to anyone but themselves. It’s easier to believe those things than the truth: They’re the Fair Folk, creatures of myths and fairytales the world over, who burst from hiding all at once and forced humanity to the brink in a seven-day war. Seven days. To you it shifted overnight.

Millions were lost. Any space where nature had been left to flourish became a stronghold for the Folk – forests, beaches, streams, mountains, fields, lakes. Deserts. Oceans. City parks. What the Folk couldn’t overrun, they destroyed; what they couldn’t destroy, they transformed. Even iron can’t protect against them, when there are enough of them, and they targeted the cities and towns first. That’s why you and the others were sent away. The Folk’s armies are merciless. The Folk who took up residence in the wild places are – less.

There are no truly safe places, but the settlement is as close as it gets – a cluster of buildings in the midst of a square mile blasted clean of anything wild, on the edge of a forest whose fey inhabitant never ventures out. As long as you don’t go into the woods, look at the woods, think about the woods for too long, you’re safe from him.

Or you thought you were. Fuyumi’s coming around to your way of thinking. “If Izuku’s in there, we have to go get him.”

“Are you crazy?” Natsuo crosses his arms over his chest, shakes his head. “I love that kid as much as any of us do, but if we go in there, we’re dead. That thing in there wants us more than it’ll ever want him.”

Manami wraps her arms tightly around herself, shivering. “Maybe we should call the grown-ups.”

“No,” you and everyone else says at once. Rumi keeps talking. “The radio’s too risky. The Folk can distort it. And we can’t distract them. What they’re doing is too important.”

“Besides,” Yue mumbles, “they left us in charge. We’re the grown-ups now.”

The military was decimated in the first round of fighting. Now the military, such as it is, consists of every able-bodied adult, no matter who they were before. Every able-bodied adult includes the parents of every single kid in the settlement, but someone has to take care of the kids during the three-quarters of the year where the adults are away. The older kids got the job, because in spite of the fact that all of you are old enough to vote and all of you could theoretically fight, you still count as underage in the eyes of the law. That makes you children to the Fair Folk. The Fair Folk love human children too much.

“We can’t call the adults. We looked everywhere. We can’t go to the woods,” Fuyumi says. “What are we supposed to do?”

“We don’t have proof he went to the woods,” Keigo says, speaking up for the first time. “Nobody goes in unless there’s proof.”

“How are we supposed to get proof?” Yue asks. “We already asked everyone.”

“Let’s ask again,” you say. “And let’s hurry. Whatever we do, we have to do it before dark.”

You and the others split up. Natsuo and Rumi go to quiz the oldest kids, while Fuyumi and Manami and Yue go to talk to the middle-graders. Keigo aims for the youngest kids; you go to the ones who would be in primary school if the world hadn’t ended. It’s Izuku’s age group. Even though he’s not popular, they’re more likely than anyone else to know where he is.

You asked them already, but this time, you’ve got specifics. “I know you don’t know where he went,” you say to them, once you’ve herded all of them into a corner to talk to. “I want to know what he’s been like over the past few days. Has he said anything about the woods?”

The reaction among the kids is instant, and it strikes fear and guilt into you like you’ve never felt before. “What did he say?” you ask. Head-shakes all around. “I need you to tell me. Izuku might be in big trouble. We can’t do anything to help him if we don’t know what happened.”

More head-shaking, from all the kids but one. Katsuki’s looking away from you, his arms crossed over his chest, his jaw set. Of all the kids, Katsuki’s the one who likes Izuku the least, who picks on him the most. You and the others try to stop him, but you can’t be there every second. “Katsuki,” you say. He looks quickly at you, then looks away again. “What did Izuku say to you about the woods?”

“Deku’s a coward. He wouldn’t do it. I just said I’d stop if he –” Katsuki’s voice wavers. “I didn’t think he’d really go.”

You feel sick to your stomach. “Did you dare him to go into the woods?”

“And bring something back,” Katsuki says. “To prove it.”

It all comes together in your head, an awful picture you can’t look away from. What Izuku wants more than anything is to belong with the other kids, to have friends, and Katsuki’s the one who won’t let it happen. Promises hold more weight in this world than they used to. If he promised to leave Izuku alone, Izuku had good reason to trust it. But he dared Izuku to break two rules at once, two rules that are guaranteed to seal Izuku’s fate. Humans don’t trespass on the Folk’s territory without consequences. And they definitely don’t steal from them.

But you know where Izuku is for sure. Now there’s something you can do. “Stay here,” you order the kids, and you run to find the others.

“No,” Yue says, even before you’ve finished explaining. “We still can’t go in there.”

“We have to,” you say. “He’s just a kid –”

“So he’ll be safe,” Natsuo says. You stare at him. “If the stories are anything to go by, that thing’s not interested in kids. But you can bet he’d be interested in us.”

“The stories also say he can be bargained with,” you say. It gets quiet. “There’s no story about Tam Lin where he doesn’t let you make a deal.”

Part of the reason the settlement is here is that Tam Lin doesn’t leave the woods. The other part, never said but known all the same, is that unlike the other monsters from folklore, an encounter with Tam Lin doesn’t lead to death. You can walk away alive, so long as you and he come to an agreement. “No,” Keigo says. “Nothing ever goes well bargaining with the Folk. Especially not at night.”

“So you’d go in the morning?”

“I’d go in the morning,” Rumi says. “We could all go – or most of us, since somebody has to keep an eye on the kids –”

“What if he doesn’t have until morning?” you ask. It gets quiet again. “Time runs differently in their territory. We only know how long he’s been gone out here.”

“That’s just a rumor,” Natsuo says. “I say we go, some of us. In the morning.”

It’s a solid plan. You’d probably agree with it if there wasn’t this awful feeling in the pit of your stomach, the one that says Izuku has less time than you think, the one that says waiting until morning is waiting too long. There’s fear, and at the same time, there’s guilt. Guilt when you imagine Inko, Izuku’s mom, coming back from eight months of war to find her son gone. And even if it wasn’t for Inko, you know what kind of kid Izuku is. You know that if someone was in trouble, he’d run to help them, no matter how dangerous it was. You owe him the same.

“You can do what you want,” you say to the others. “I’m going now.”

“Are you crazy? You can’t just –”

“I know the stories. I know the rules. And I’ve still got things –” You touch the necklace your mother gave you before she died, the bracelet from your grandmother around your wrist. The idea of letting them go makes your heart ache, but for another person’s life, it’s not a question whether you’ll make the deal. “I still have things to trade. I can’t live with myself if I don’t go now.”

“You want to go get snatched by a faery? Fine.” Natsuo turns away, his jaw clenched. “My dad and my brother both tried this shit. You know how it went for them.”

“They didn’t try it with him,” you say. Natsuo walks away, and you face the others, forcing a smile onto your face. You hope you look brave. “Take care of the others. If I’m not back by nightfall, I’ll be back by morning. And so will Izuku.”

Promises made carry more weight in the world now. You take it as a good sign that you’re able to get the words out of your mouth without choking on them.

Crossing the border into the woods feels like entering another world. The Folk’s magic is so thick in the air that it’s hard to breathe, and you stumble against a tree before you’ve taken more than a dozen steps, your head swimming. You’ve never felt their magic like this except once before, and you do what you did then; small, paced breaths, taking sips of the air rather than gulping it down. Your lungs will adjust if you give them time, and once the knot in your chest loosens, you straighten up again. There’s a path before you, almost certainly a trap. Is it still a trap if you go into it purposely?

It doesn’t matter if it’s a trap or not – it’s Tam Lin’s trap, and you want to find him. You step onto the path and follow it into the trees.

Each step seems to take you centimeters forward at most, and at the same time, you can feel time passing in a way that’s not quite normal. It skips and starts and pauses, and panic begins to well up inside you as you feel yourself getting tired. On either side of the path are logs covered in soft, pillowy moss, hollows at the base of trees that would be perfect to curl up in, all inviting you to stop and rest. You ignore them, the same as you ignore the shimmering flowers a few meters off to the side, the same as you ignore the deer that follows along beside you close enough to pet. They’re all tricks made to stop you. You won’t stop until you find Izuku. And you won’t find Izuku until you reach Tam Lin.

The path terminates in a clearing, and you nearly stumble into it before you catch yourself. Instantly you know you’ve found the right place. The glade is covered with roses, a few of them white but most of them red, and Izuku sits amongst them, bound hand and foot in thorny vines. You call out to him, remembering only at the last minute not to use his name, and he looks towards you. There’s panic on his face. “Run,” he says. “This is his place. He’s here. If you take another step –”

You look more closely at Izuku. He looks terrible, dehydrated and exhausted, and worse than all of that, he looks thinner. Like he’s lost weight. Like he’s been here much longer than half a day. There’s a white rose clenched in his hand, bound there purposely by the vines. He’s made both mistakes outlined in the stories – trespassed in Tam Lin’s territory, and plucked a flower. Tam Lin has him. You wonder if he’s offered Izuku a bargain, and if he has, why Izuku didn’t take it. “Have you seen him?”

“He won’t show himself, but I know it’s him.” Izuku is crying now. “Please just go. This is all my fault. I don’t want anybody else to get hurt.”

“It’s too late for that.” A voice rasps out from between the trees on the far side of the glade. You see a pale figure there, just out of clear sight. “Listen to the boy. Run while you have the chance.”

So Tam Lin can entrap only one person at a time. You think through the rules of bargaining with the Folk, slowly and carefully, knowing that a mistake will cost Izuku everything. Tam Lin must have offered him a bargain. He must have refused it. And if he’s still here, it means that Tam Lin offers only one chance. It means you’ll get only one chance, and it’s the only choice you have if you want to save Izuku.

It’s not a choice at all. You take a deep breath, shaky enough to rattle your entire body, and step forward into the clearing, ignoring Izuku when he protests, noting the way the shadow in the trees startles. You bend down and grasp a red rose, snapping it free of its vine. “I’ll make you a deal, Tam Lin,” you say. “Let the boy leave the woods alive, safe, and whole, and I’ll take his place.”

Izuku protests again, or tries to. A vine wraps around the lower half of his face, clamping his jaw shut, as Tam Lin steps from the shadows at last. He looks nothing like the Folk are meant to, beautiful and healthy and whole – instead he’s gaunt and deathly pale, his skin dry and ashen and laced with scars. His clothing is ragged, and his hair, even paler than his skin, hangs lank and tangled around his face. His face is scarred, too. His eyes are bloodred.

You catch your breath in horror at the sight of him. He scoffs. “If you dare to offer that bargain again, it’s yours,” he says. “But I don’t think you will.”

“You think the way you look will make me forget why I’m here?” You let out a scoff of your own. “Let the boy leave the woods alive, safe, and whole, and I’ll take his place to bargain with you.”

Tam Lin’s lips are dry and cracked. When they curve into a smile, blood spills from them, dripping from the corner of his mouth to stain the collar of his tattered shirt. “Done.”

The vines unwrap from around Izuku, and you turn towards him, clamping your hand down over his mouth before he can say anything that will put him in Tam Lin’s clutches again. “Go home,” you order. Izuku’s eyes are welling up again. He shakes his head. “I know what I’m doing. I made your bargain, not my own just yet. Promise me you’ll go home now.”

If he promises you here, he won’t be able to break it. You lift your hand away from his mouth. “I promise,” Izuku whispers, and you breathe a sigh of relief.

The vines slip away from him at last, and with them, Izuku moves to drop the white rose. You fold his fingers around it. “Keep it,” you say. “Show Katsuki. Make him keep his promise, too.”

Izuku nods. “Go now,” Tam Lin rasps from behind you, as you help Izuku to his feet and turn him in the direction of the path. “Not that way. Here.”

He points to a gap between the trees, one that travels straight and true. At the far end of it, you can see the light of the setting sun. Izuku stumbles towards it, then steps between the trees, takes a single step – and vanishes. At least, that’s what it looks like from your angle. When you race through the vines to peer into the gap yourself, you see a small figure, dwindling rapidly, disappear into the light.

“You think I’d break my word?” Tam Lin’s come up behind you without warning. He speaks with his lips pressed against your ear. His breath is cold, and you freeze in terror. “Remember, I can’t lie. Unlike you.”

“What makes you think I lied?” You step forward, away from him, turning so you’re face to face. “If my bargain for his life wasn’t true, you wouldn’t have accepted it.”

“That’s right, but you didn’t lie to me,” Tam Lin says. “You lied to the boy, when you told him you had another bargain to make. You knew it was a lie when you said it.”

“I knew,” you admit.

“Then why?”

“So he’d leave without trying to help me.”

“Is that all?” Tam Lin tilts his head, studying you. “I think you lied so he wouldn’t think about the bargain you truly made.”

“That, too.” There’s no point in lying about this. You sealed your fate the moment you pulled the red rose. You let it fall from your hand to rest among the vines. “I don’t want him to think about what you’re going to do to me.”

“You offered yourself to me,” Tam Lin says – snaps, almost. “I gave you the chance to leave. You refused.”

“Yes.” You knew what you were offering, and he knew when he accepted. Why is he still talking? “Let’s get this over with.”

You have the brief satisfaction of seeing Tam Lin’s jaw drop. “Get this over with?”

“Don’t be dense,” you say. You made your deal with him. What else can he do to you? “When someone trespasses and steals from you, you take their virtue or the most valuable thing they have to offer. I made my bargain already, so I don’t get to choose. I don’t want to stand here waiting all night. Let’s get this over with.”

Tam Lin is staring at you like you’ve gone insane. The magic permeating every centimeter of the woods must be making you insane, because you’re standing here in a faery’s haunt, telling a faery to hurry up and – you can’t even finish the thought. Maybe you won’t need to finish the thought if you take control. “Well?”

Tam Lin looks away from you. “Take off your clothes.”

You think about it for a moment, then decide against it. You’re out of choices when it comes to this, except for how it goes, and you don’t want it to go like this. It must not be what Tam Lin wants, either – he’s still looking away, visibly uncomfortable. You cross the space between the two of you, reach up, and turn his head back to face you. He startles when you touch him. His skin is cold. So are his lips, when you rise on your toes to kiss them.

Tam Lin stays frozen, maybe in shock, maybe in disgust. When you draw back, you can read nothing on his face. Maybe this isn’t how the people whose virtue he steals usually react. You kiss him again, and he doesn’t stop you, but he doesn’t respond. You haven’t done a lot of kissing, but you think the person you’re kissing is supposed to do something back. “Do faeries not believe in kissing?”

“I’m not a faery.”

He expects you to believe that, when he has faery magic, when he lives in the middle of a haunted forest, when he’s bound by the same rules that bind them. “Then what are you, Tam Lin?”

“I’m not a faery,” he says again, and you remember, suddenly, that he told you he can’t lie. His hands rise to grasp your waist. They’re thin and bony, almost skeletal, and cold just like the rest of him. “And my name’s not Tam Lin.”

“Oh.” You can’t manage much more of a response than that. “What do I call you, then?”

Not-Tam Lin, not-a-faery, leans in close, presses his lips to your ear again. “Tomura.”

You start to repeat it, to make sure you’ve heard it right, and Tam Lin – Tomura – covers your mouth with his hand. “Not out loud,” he says. Then why did he want you to know it? You kiss the palm of his hand and he flinches. “What are you doing? I told you to take off your clothes.”

“I have to at some point.” Your stomach clenches with discomfort at the thought of exposing yourself here, exposing yourself to him. “But you were right, before. I offered myself willingly. I should act like it.”

Tomura still looks confused. He looks frustrated when he’s confused, or else he’s confused when he’s frustrated, and either way, the whole virtue-stealing thing is taking too long. Your resolve could break at any second, and then this will be awful and painful and terrifying instead of simply awful, simply awkward. You’d rather he acted while you could both still convince yourselves that you want this. You watch Tomura’s expression shift, see the moment when he comes to the same conclusion. This time, when you lean in to kiss him, he kisses you back.

Cold. His kisses are ice-cold and unrelenting, even as his lips split against yours and blood spills between you. You lick it away on instinct and his grip on you tightens, and worse when you swipe your tongue across his lower lip again. Tomura’s lips part at once, and although you’ve done nothing more than read about this in a book, you lock your mouth against his. He’s so cold. But when your hand slips to rest against the side of his neck, you can put your fingers against his pulse. Whatever else Tomura may be, he’s alive.

The thought comforts you ever so slightly, but whatever peace or comfort you feel evaporates when Tomura’s grip on you shifts. He lifts you off your feet with a strength you wouldn’t have imagined he possessed and lays you down amongst the thorns. Amongst a spot that’s clear of them. You can see the vines retreating out of the corner of your eye a moment before Tomura pins you down. His mouth crashes against yours, and the way he’s stretched out on top of you forces you to part your legs, just enough that one of his can fit between them.

You chose for this to happen. You offered yourself willingly, and still you squirm to get free. Tomura shifts his weight so he’s no longer pinning you quite so heavily, but one of his hands slips beneath your shirt, pulling one cup of your bra down to clear his way to your breast. “Hey,” you protest. “What are you doing?”

Tomura doesn’t answer. He seems fascinated, too fascinated to even kiss you, as he cups your breast in one hand, gives an almost experimental squeeze. Your nipples harden, more from the cold than anything else, but of course he notices. He pinches it lightly, and your body jerks. An unfamiliar sensation runs quickly through you. “Hey,” you protest again, softer this time. “I thought you just were supposed to take my virtue.”

“I want everything.” Tomura’s leg presses harder between yours as he pinches your nipple again, tugs at it for a moment before circling it with the rough pad of his thumb. Your body jerks a second time, forcing your hips up to grind against his leg. “You’re warm –”

Warm, bordering on hot, and the way he’s yanked your bra aside is uncomfortable. You shove lightly at his shoulders as he wrestles with the other cup. You shove weakly at his shoulders, and he gives you an annoyed look. “Let me sit up,” you say. “I need to take it off.”

Tomura lets you up just long enough for you to take it off and pull it out from under your shirt, but as soon as it’s gone, he pushes you back down again. This time his mouth finds yours as he plays with your breasts, and when you squirm against the sensation running through you, there’s nowhere for you to go. If your back isn’t arching into his touch, your hips are rolling against his leg, your motions growing more urgent as he toys with you. He has to stop. He has to stop, or he’s going to –

“Tomura,” you gasp against his mouth, and you feel him shudder. So that is his name. So you do have something, after all. “Tomura, please –”

He stops, which is what you wanted – and at the same time, it’s not what you wanted at all. He sits up, draws back, and before you can protest, he’s tugging at the waistband of your pants. You start to sit up, but he pushes you back. “I need to take off my shoes,” you say. He gives you a skeptical look. “I said I’d take my clothes off.”

“I want to do it.” Tomura pushes you back onto your elbows, then pries your shoes off your feet, along with your socks. Then he’s back to your pants, pulling them down along with your underwear and casting them aside. “I told you. I want everything.”

He’s still fully dressed, but his shirt’s in tatters, barely concealing anything. You thought he’d undress more, but he’s already pushing your legs apart, sinking down between them. Too far. By the time it occurs to you what Tomura’s doing, his mouth is between your legs, his tongue cold in contrast to your heat. His fingers are the same, when two of them slip easily inside you. Your legs are shaking from a few laps of his tongue against your clit. Your body tenses, forcing a sharp gasp out of your mouth. You feel exposed to an awful degree, horrified at how helpless you must look, how helpless you are – and at the same time, the sensation of his touch feels so much better than anything you’ve felt before.

You sit up on your elbows, but your face goes up in flames at the sight of him between your legs, and you fall back, staring up at the sky instead. Even then, you can’t shake the image of him with his eyes shut, face buried between your legs, completely lost in you. You can’t fail to hear the harshness of his breathing, the sound he makes when you clench tight around his fingers and come so hard your eyes go blurry. Even if you could, it would be impossible to miss the fact that he keeps licking you even as your body goes limp, that it takes you shoving at his shoulder to make him pull away – and even when he does, he’s reluctant in a way that makes you cringe with embarrassment.

Tomura sits back, and you sit up. When you make eye contact, you see that his eyes are dilated, and that his pupils are round rather than vertical. He wasn’t lying. He’s not a faery, but the way he’s looking at you means you can’t look at him for long. You look away. He catches the hem of your shirt and peels it off, and you do the same before unbuttoning his pants and pulling them down. You don’t know the first thing about cocks, but you’d have to be an idiot to miss that his is hard already.

You reach out for him and he pushes your hands away, shaking his head. “Don’t. I can’t if you –”

If you touch him? You’ve barely touched him. Why does he look like he’s about to come already? You lie back and Tomura follows you down, knocking your legs apart and lying down between them. This is what you were steeling yourself for, an eternity ago when you told him to get on with it, what you planned to grit your teeth and bear through. But Tomura sinks into you easily. Your legs shake where they’re hooked over his hips, but that’s nothing new. Tomura, with his gritted teeth and flushed face, looks like he’s having a harder time with it than you are.

You wrap your arms around his neck on his first unsteady thrust, pulling him down for a kiss that tastes the way you must. You don’t know how you feel about that. You kiss his neck instead, then his jaw just below his ear, and Tomura moans. You know how you feel about that – heat rushes through you, and you kiss him again. He’s almost frantic in the way he fucks you, no control, all need. Almost like – the thought’s absurd – almost like it’s his first time, not just yours.

You know you won’t come a second time. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t feel good to have him like this, to be the reason why he’s desperate, why he’s panting for breath, why some trace of warmth has returned to his icy skin. There’s no way you can touch him that won’t unbalance him somehow, no matter how light or gentle you are. When you cradle his face in one hand, run your thumb over a scar on his lips, he leans into your palm for a split second before seizing your wrist and pulling your hand away.

But he doesn’t let go of your hand. You pull your wrist free, then lace your fingers with his, and you see his eyes go wide. “Tomura,” you say, and he looks at you.

You have no idea what you look like, and no idea what to say next, but it doesn’t matter. He shudders, curses, his grip on your hand tightening to the point of pain as he comes. His grip doesn’t loosen, not even when he pulls out and slumps against you. The fact that he’s still holding your hand is the only proof you have that he’s not completely unconscious.

Even though he’s warmer than he was before, you’re still cold. And naked. And lying on the ground. You start trying to escape, and you get as far away as sitting up and reaching for the nearest item of your clothing before a not-quite-so-cold hand closes around your wrist. “No.”

“I held up my end of the deal,” you say. “You can’t keep me here any longer.”

“The woods aren’t safe at night,” Tomura says. “Not from them. Not for you, and not for me. I can’t stop you from leaving, but if one of them finds you, they’ll do worse than anything I could.”

You remember what you said to the others before you left – you’d be back before nightfall, or else tomorrow morning. It looks like it’ll be tomorrow morning. “All right,” you say, and Tomura’s grip on your wrist relaxes. “I’m still putting on my clothes.”

Somehow, getting dressed again makes things more awkward, not less. Even with your clothes on, you can’t forget that he’s seen you without them, or anything else about what happened between the two of you. You’re hungry and thirsty, but even if Tomura offered you food, you couldn’t eat anything that’s passed through faery hands or come from the Fair Folk’s domain. It’s dark, and you’re tired. Once you’re dressed again, you go looking for somewhere to sleep.

“Here.” Tomura is shadowing you, never more than a hairsbreadth away. He points out the hollow of a massive tree, more than spacious enough for three people, let alone two. Inside it you can see a collection of objects, scattered in the corners, decorating the walls. “This is where I sleep.”

“So I should sleep somewhere else,” you say, but your attention’s drawn to the objects. There’s no rhyme or reason to what they are, no common thread. Jewelry and watches hang on walls beside folded pieces of paper, books lay in piles on the ground next to stacks of CDs and old cameras – and phones. There are more smartphones piled up under this tree than you’ve seen since the end of the world, and suddenly it clicks. “These are from your trades.”

Tomura nods, and you study the objects, feeling sick to your stomach all over again. The most valuable thing a person had – in the war and immediately afterwards, it would have been their phone, because everyone still hoped they’d start working again. Then photo albums, picture frames, even missing posters, reminders of people who’d been lost, and after that, simple objects. A CD, because things with batteries still work. A favorite book, because no books will ever be printed again. A piece of jewelry, gifted by someone a person loved. Like what you would have traded to Tam Lin, if you’d had a chance to choose.

You get a little fixated on a dog’s collar, well-worn, with a tag still dangling from it. It’s all too easy to imagine the person who would have carried it with them. “This is cruel.”

“They had a choice.” Tomura takes the collar out of your hand and sets it back among the rest, arranging it just so. His hands are covered in scars, just like the rest of him. “They chose this.”

Something occurs to you. “How many of them chose it?” you ask. He glances sideways at you, then looks away. “How many of gave something to you, and how many of them –”

You aren’t sure how to describe what happened to you. Tomura doesn’t answer, and you think about the world before the war, the world after. Of how many people still cling desperately to the scraps of a world that will never come back. You know the answer to your question. You wished you hadn’t asked in the first place, and the idea of sleeping here makes your skin crawl. Sleeping here next to him feels even stranger.

But you don’t know what else lives in the woods, and while you can’t trust Tomura, you know at least that he has his end of the bargain to uphold. You crawl into the hollow beneath the tree, keeping as far from Tomura as possible. Tam Lin’s glade shimmers even in the moonless night, but within the tree, it’s ordinary darkness. Somewhere within it, Tomura speaks. “Out there. What’s it like?”

You don’t know what to say. “I asked that boy,” Tomura continues. “He wouldn’t tell me. Is it a secret?”

“It’s not a secret,” you say. “He knows better than to talk to faeries. All the children do.”

“For how long?”

“Why does it matter?” you ask. Tomura scoffs, shifts in the darkness. Your eyes have adjusted enough to see his shoulders hunched, his almost-skeletal limbs folding in to make him smaller than he should be. “You’re one of them. Shouldn’t you know?”

“I told you I’m not a faery.” It’s quiet for a few moments. “If I knew, I wouldn’t be asking you. How long ago did it start?”

“Seven years this October,” you say, and on the other side of the hollow, Tomura sits bolt upright. “Does that mean something to you?”

Tomura doesn’t answer that, either. He sits there, frozen like a statue, and you turn away. It’s been a while since you slept on the ground, but you’re tired enough that it won’t matter, and you feel so strange. Your legs hurt, and you’re sore between them, and when you lick your lips, you find Tomura’s blood still staining your mouth. Lying down on the far side of the hollow with your back to him doesn’t feel like the right answer, but neither does trying to talk to him, let alone going closer. You lie down, fold your arms against your chest in an effort to keep warm, and close your eyes.

Your eyelids have just begun to grow heavy when Tomura speaks again. “Seven years,” he says, and his voice sounds wrong. “Are you sure?”

“I remember the day it happened,” you say. “I know.”

You were thirteen. You remember the way the weight and taste of the air changed, the icy winds that whipped through town ahead of the advancing armies. You remember running, then hiding, hearing but not seeing what was done to the people who were caught. Izuku and the others will never know what the world was like before, but even if you don’t cling to the past, you can never forget what the Fair Folk tore away. “I know,” you say again. “Almost seven years.”

“Seven years.” Tomura takes a deep breath, or tries to. You hear it catch and rattle. “I didn’t think –”

His breathing rattles again, and a sense of foreboding sweeps over you. There’s something he knows that you don’t, something you have to get out of him – but then he takes another rattling breath, and you match the sound to the reaction. It’s not one you’d expect from the Fair Folk, and it’s what convinces you at last that Tam Lin’s not one of them. The Fair Folk don’t cry.

You shouldn’t care at all, not when you’re sitting amongst the precious things he’s stolen from so many in exchange for their freedom, not when you’re one of his – victims? – yourself. But ignoring it feels wrong, wrong in the same way as waiting until morning to look for Izuku was. You sit up, reach out across the hollow, but the distance between the two of you is too great. You scoot closer, feeling for him through the darkness until your hand encounters a frozen, shaking shoulder. The question you were going to ask him dies on your tongue.

Whatever this is, it’s not something you can fix. You wrap your arms loosely around him instead, feeling him startle the same way he did when you first kissed him. You lie back, pulling Tomura with you, until the two of you are sprawled on the ground. It’s uncomfortable, still. Tomura’s still cold. You still don’t know how you feel about what happened between the two of you. But you know you feel better like this. Things feel better when you aren’t alone.

You don’t remember falling asleep, but when the sounds of the forest wake you up, it’s dawn. Tomura hasn’t stirred, and he’s lying on one of your arms, which is numb and full of pins and needles as you try to work it loose. Tomura sits up before you’ve freed yourself. The darkness wasn’t kind to him, but in daylight, you’re struck by just how terrible he looks – thinner, paler, skin dry and cracked and scarred. He’s hard to look at. Harder to look away from.

You look away and get to your feet. “Which way do I go to get out?”

“The low road.” Tam Lin is slower to rise, and as he does, the same passageway that Izuku left through opens on the far side of the glade. “Don’t leave the path.”

“I won’t.” You straighten your clothes, then turn to look at Tomura. What are you supposed to say to him now? Thank you for not hurting you, for letting you fulfill your side of the bargain your way? “Goodbye, Tam Lin.”

“That’s not my name,” he says. “The other one. Do you remember it?”

“Of course,” you say, and Tomura’s shoulders relax ever so slightly. “I won’t forget.”

“It won’t matter anymore, soon,” Tomura says. He turns away. “Go.”

You have questions – questions, and a strange twist of worry within you – but you also made a promise to the others in the settlement, and you have to keep it. You turn away from him and cross the glade, heading for the opening between the trees, not stopping even when you hear his footsteps behind you. One hand grasps your waist again, stopping you in your tracks, while the other arm wraps around you. There’s something in his hand. You look down and see the rose you plucked last night, as perfect as when you pulled it from the vine.

“Here.” Tam Lin’s voice is less than a puff of air against your ear. “You won this. Take it with you.”

You take it from him, and his hands fall away from you. The urge to look back is there, and it’s strong. You step forward instead, crossing out of the glade – and three steps later, out of the woods and into the bright morning sun.

It’s not long before one of the others spots you – Keigo’s always had sharp eyes – and he calls for the others. As they race towards you, you decide what you’ll tell them. You spent the night bargaining with Tam Lin, the same as the hero in another folktale spent her night as wife to a murderous king telling stories to keep him interested, and eventually you won your freedom. You’ll say nothing of the bargain you really made, nothing of what happened between you and the being the world knows as Tam Lin. They’ll look at you differently. They won’t understand. You barely understand yourself.

You’ll keep it to yourself. When the others reach you, you ask your question first. “Did Izuku get back? Is he okay?”

“He’s fine,” Fuyumi says. She looks you anxiously up and down. “What about you?”

You’re conscious of the woods behind you in a way you never were before. You’re still holding the rose. “I’m glad Izuku’s okay,” you say, because you are. And then you lie, because you can do that, because they don’t need to know how you returned – just that you did. “I’m fine, too.”

[multimilfs]

Maleficent x Fem!Reader: Watching, Waiting, Wanting

Summary: Maleficent + 93 -- "Say you want me, and I'm yours."

AO3

Prompts found here!

A/N: I rewatched the Maleficent movies recently and they made me so happy. I'm so glad I could write this!

Full Ficmas List

Tag List: @ghostsunderstoodmysoul @escapetodreamworld @multifandomfix

Warning(s): None

You duck under the willow, careful not to be spotted. All you need is one last detail to make this work. Phillip looks up quickly, but relaxes upon seeing you, and you let out a small laugh. 

“Nervous?” You ask. 

He straightens his spine, “Is it that obvious?” 

“A bit,” You nod. When he deflates and begins to fiddle with his armor, you wince. You’re definitely not helping his nerves, “She loves you, Phillip. Nothing could make her say no. All you have to do is ask the question and we’ll handle the rest.” 

As if on cue, Pinto ducks through the willow branches; your last detail, falling into place; or rather, walking into place. You kneel down into the soft grass as Pinto gazes up and lets out a garbled, fey version of your name. 

You’ve come to know every fairy, pixie, and wallerbog by name since coming to the moors. And though you’d never, ever admit it, Pinto has been your favorite so far. The spiky little fairy is loyal and tenacious. If you ever found yourself in a pinch, you trusted Pinto to get you out of it. Now, though, you’re trusting her to get you into one. 

“Perfect timing, Pinto. I need your help.” 

She tilts her head and poses you a question. You don’t speak the language she does, but you understand the meaning well enough—with what? Pinto asks. 

Laying your hand on the soft grass at her feet, she takes the cue, hopping into your palm. The look on her little face is very serious and you smile. Your chest is filled with excitement. 

“Alright, here’s the situation…” 

Pinto is suitably filled in and plays the role of distraction perfectly. You watch from the crowd of creatures, trying to hide your excitement; Aurora is your dearest friend and confidant, you want nothing but happiness for her. 

You see how Phillip brings her joy. The smile on her face and sound of her laughter is enough to banish any sadness from your heart on the worst of days. Aurora has been a loyal, true friend, and you’re honored to orchestrate this proposal for her after all she’s done for you; giving you a home when you arrived in the Moors wounded and alone, giving you a family in herself and the fey folk, and introducing you to Maleficent. 

Though as the willow fairies swarm and dance, revealing the overjoyed couple, you worry you’ve somehow betrayed Maleficent by doing this. A pit forms in your stomach as you watch Diaval fly towards the Dark Fey’s nest. 

But a pair of arms wrap around you and there’s a laugh in your ear. The worry melts away. 

“Thank you, thank you!” Aurora giggles.

“Don’t thank me! Your dashing Prince did all of the hard work.” 

Aurora pulls back, holding your hands in her own, “Without you, my Aunties or Pinto would have led me to the wrong tree. You’ve worked hard too.” 

“It isn’t hard work when it’s for you.” You say softly, honestly. 

Her eyes are glazed with happy tears and she throws her arms around you again. You laugh as you’re spun, the soft grass tickling your ankles, little fairies giggling with the two of you. Life had once been so cruel and now you know only joy. How lucky you feel. 

But the pit sits in your stomach again. 

Your friend must be having similar thoughts, if the hesitance on her face means anything. She bites her lip uncertainly and plays with your hands still in her own. 

She asks quietly, “How do you think my Godmother will react to the news?” 

“I think she’ll be… happy that you’re happy… eventually.” 

Aurora grumbles and pulls away, pacing back and forth while you watch on. You see Pinto mirror her behavior out of the corner of her eye. It takes all your willpower not to also join in, but you decide to remain strong for all of you. 

That strength nearly crumbles when you hear Pinto gasp and the Aunties yell to hold on. 

The great force of her wings nearly drives you back, but you remain mostly in place. You stand back by the willow as Aurora and Maleficent talk. Though now and again you can feel eyes on you, boring into your skin, and you shrink bit-by-bit. 

You were taken by Maleficent the moment you saw her years ago. 

When Aurora and the fey folk dragged you wounded to the former’s throne, you had wondered if the injuries would overcome you. You had mourned the life you didn’t anticipate getting to live. But in what you believed to be your last moments, you were grateful to be surrounded by beauty and kindness. 

Then Aurora called out to Maleficent, and she came. Her abnormally bright eyes landed on you and you knew nothing else would compare. 

She healed you, slowly and carefully, at Aurora’s request, talking all the while though it was clear she was uncomfortable. The days after she made herself scarce and you felt the loss keenly. 

Since that day, there was rarely a time when you strayed too far from the Dark Fey. You had no desire to be anywhere she wasn’t. Her dry wit and humor put you off at first, but the sincere emotion behind them endeared you to her. Maleficent had become your greatest confidant. She’d also stolen your heart, though you’d never dare tell her.

“I suppose you had something to do with this union.” Maleficent says, loudly, and you know she’s talking to you. 

You meet her eyes and nod, “And if I did?” 

“Then you can find another nest to sleep in.” 

“Godmother.” Aurora murmurs. 

Maleficent rolls her eyes, glaring at the girl. Aurora only stares back. 

“You at least could have warned me.” Maleficent says. 

Crossing your arms over your chest, you raise your eyebrow. Had you told her the surprise would have been spoiled and she knows that as well as you. You also worry, secretly, that the to-be groom would’ve disappeared. 

“You’d have reacted no better two days ago than now, Maleficent. Your nest would have been in shambles and I’d be warning off concerned fairies instead of celebrating with Aurora.” 

Maleficent’s head tilts to the side. Her eyes are more intense, extra focused on you. 

“Aurora, will you leave us?” 

Shooting you a look of concern, Aurora nods. She wanders completely out of the clearing and you want to yell after her. You do no such thing as Maleficent steps forward and closer to you. She’s notably missing her staff; her steps still uneven from the years she’d adapted to living without wings. 

Fierce green magic spreads from her palms where she clenches them at her sides. You ache to take them in your own, to soothe her emotions, but you fear it’s unwanted. 

“You didn’t tell me.” Maleficent whispers. She almost sounds betrayed. 

“It would have upset you.” 

“I’m far more upset now.” 

“I want her to be happy, Maleficent,” You say, pleading, “Is that so terrible?” 

“She’s happy here. A whole kingdom loves and attends to her everyday. She wants for nothing. Her happiness doesn’t need to come from that boy, not when she has me. Us.” She says fiercely. 

The magic in her hands flares. You take her hand this time, feeling the power seep into your skin when you lace your fingers together. Maleficent stares down at your joined hands. 

“You’re right. She doesn’t need him to be happy, but if he brings her joy, why should we deny her that? Love isn’t so terrible.” 

“Love doesn’t always end… well.” 

You see the fear in her face, and can feel the effects of it seep into your skin. You want to do a number of heartless things to the late King Stefan; though not for the first time. 

Maleficent means well. Her love for Aurora is what changed her and made her whole again, but it didn’t heal the scars her Father left behind. It isn’t so simple, unfortunately. Your heart aches in your chest to take away her pain and fear. But if you don’t let her feel it and come to terms with it, she’ll never come to terms with Phillip and Aurora’s marriage. 

“It doesn’t always end terribly either.” You say. And in a moment of madness, your mouth opens, and you say more, “I mean, it can’t, right? Not when we’re so content.” 

Maleficent’s eyes widen and your heart drops. Did you really say that? You could kick yourself for letting your traitorous mouth give you away. But you can’t, not when you’re pinned by a pair of bright eyes, emotions behind them you can’t decipher. 

Aurora and Diaval had prodded you to confess for so long and you chose the worst moment to do so. You’re even more embarrassed when you notice Pinto to your left, watching with barely concealed interest, eyes moving back and forth between you and Maleficent. 

“What do you mean by that?” Maleficent asks slowly. 

Gathering the fractured remains of your courage, you swallow. 

“It means that I love you, Maleficent,” You whisper, “I’ve held it in worrying it’d be too much for you… but say you want me, and I’m yours. I think I have been since the night I met you.” 

There it is. 

The truth, unfiltered, and honest; out in the open with the rest of the swirling feelings. You avoid her eyes and stare intensely at your joined hands. You suppose it’s a good sign that she hasn’t pulled away yet, at least she’s not disgusted. 

Silence stretches on and you wonder if she’s plotting your murder. It’d be a good time, with Pinto being the only witness. She might not go through with it immediately though if it’ll sully Aurora’s happiness and you hope you’ll at least get to see the wedding. 

You try to distract yourself with the details; will it be here in the Moors or in Ulstead? Will Phillip’s parents approve of the union? Will they approve of Maleficent?

“How can you love me?” Maleficent asks. 

Meeting her eyes, you’re surprised by the confusion in them, like she expects you to change your mind. 

“How could I not?” 

“I’m not good. I’ve taken lives and will likely take more, I’ve done horrible, evil things.” 

“I know.” 

“You… know.” She says slowly. 

Careful not to startle her, you place a hand on her cheek, feeling her cheekbone dig pleasantly into your palm, “I know. It changes nothing.” 

Maleficent looks at you like she can’t understand you; like she’s fathoming how you can exist. You vow that she’ll never again have to wonder how someone could love her. The rest of your days, you’ll use every bit of your power to prove her worthy of true, honest love. 

It surprises you how quiet the Moors are around you. Not even a breeze is blowing through. You wonder how many fey folk Aurora has watching with her, waiting for something. If you’re being honest, you’re waiting too. 

You decide to stop waiting. 

Leaning forward slowly enough to give Maleficent an out, you press your lips to the Dark Fey’s. She tastes like the berries growing inside the crystal caves. Her lips are soft and pliant, moving carefully against your own. 

Beyond initiating the kiss, you back off, letting Maleficent guide you through the motions. It goes without saying that this is one of the only kisses she’s shared. She’s an excellent kisser despite the lack of experience; though that may just be your delight at not being pushed away or rejected. 

When you pull away, you’re still curiously alone. Then you hear a garbled noise that sounds suspiciously like finally! from your feet. Pinto is looking up with delight and you laugh. Maleficent chuckles too. 

But when you look up, she’s not looking at Pinto. She only has eyes for you. 

You try to hide your blush as fairies flood the clearing, Aurora following behind. Her smile is knowing. Blushing even brighter, you meet Maleficent’s eyes when you hug her daughter, and let yourself sit in the joy. 

Aurora found hers happy ending and you did too… if only you knew how things would shift. 

[spacebarbarianweird]

For the parental HCs prompts:

Hide and seek with the amazing Alethaine? Vampire vs. Barbarian vs. Dhampir and

see who wins (I bet on Alethaine because she sneaky!)

Summary: Astarion plays hide-in-seek with his daughter but it doesn't go smoothly.

Pairing: Astarion x OC (Tiriel)

Tags: hurt/comfort, fluff, dadstarion

Alethaine's age: 6-year-old

Read on AO3

Masterlist

Headcanons

Dadstarion prompts

“Now my turn to hide!” Alethaine squeals as she waves to Astarion from the ground.

Astarion chuckles and jumps from the branch. There is no point in hiding from Alethaine – as a dhampir, she just knows where he is. 

Sometimes Astarion thinks it’s a blessing – his daughter will always be able to find him, no matter what. But then he remembers the 7000 spawns released in  the Underdark. How many of them have already conceived children? Pale half-vampires, born one foot in their parents’ graves?

And how many of them have decided to hunt vampires?

Will Astarion ever be safe, after all? Or will his mercy towards his victims be the end of him?

“But I will hide very very well, much better than you!” the six-year-old elf’s ears twitch in anticipation.

It’s a dark night, way past midnight and the dark woods of the Unicorn Run are as unsettling to mortals as possible.

But Astarion and his daughter aren’t mortals; thus, the woods have become their playground. Here, in the dark of the night, Astarion can forget about his vampirism and his limitations in the daylight. Here and now, he is the father of this little girl and he plays hide-and-seek with her. 

What can be more normal?

“Alethaine, don’t run too far away, '' he tells her strictly.

She nods and grins. Another weird quirk of the little dhampir. Astarion can’t catch her scent, so he tracks her the same way he does with Tiriel. Her heartbeat is so quiet he can’t hear it. She is invisible to him the same way she would have been if they were mortal elves.

“Count to… twenty!” She tells him and once Astarion turns away she disappears in the woods. 

Astarion tries to hear her footsteps but they soon fade away. He stops counting and slowly moves forward.

There is something natural about this game. Something that appeals to his predatory side. Astarion makes no sounds looking for the hiding girl.

Thanks to the dark vision he sees perfectly – and he also catches heartbeats and breathings of different night animals that hide in fear sensing the presence of the undead. 

Alethaine is nowhere to be seen or heard.

Astarion feels the wave of panic but suppresses it. She just hid somewhere in the bushes or in the leaves. Soon when he fails to find her she will run to him laughing and mocking him for “failing such a simple task”.

But it doesn’t happen.

“Alethaine!” he calls her out. “Alethaine, are you all right?”

No answer. His daughter has just disappeared. 

Old habits that refuse to die heighten his new fears. He lost his daughter. Something bad has happened to her. What is he going to tell Tiriel? What if Alethaine is wounded? What if someone kidnapped her?

What if she’s fallen down on the rocks and died?

“Alethaine!” Now his voice trembles and he feels his body freeze.

Mistakes mean punishment. Punishment means pain. Even now when there is no one to torture him, his mind can perfectly do it.

Astarion calls for Alethaine and searches her across the area, but she is just gone as if taken by a fey. Maybe she has been? There are so many dark creatures who love to mess up with little kids. Well, whoever and whatever did this must know that Astarion is very good at breaking contracts and beating the shit out of powerful bastards who deceive and manipulate.

Another wave of fear makes his skin itch.

The sunrise.

He looks to the east and sees that the skies are turning lighter and the stars start disappearing.

“Fuck!” Astarion’s voice is already hoarse. “ALETHAINE!”

He needs to come back to the town. Run to their home that was built in the underground part of Daggerlake and tell Tiriel what has happened. He is embarrassed, he hasn’t felt so much guilt since…. forever.

He had one job – to take care of their daughter. And he failed. He’s lost his child in the woods.

Of course, he couldn’t be trusted. Who the fuck would think he could be a good father?

Astarion rushes home driven by a terror only the undead know. The fear of burning.

“Astarion!” Tiriel who’s spent the whole night in the tavern in the upper-town and probably has just come back stares at him anxiously. “Where… Where is Alethaine?!”

“I am so sorry… She… just…disappeared…” Astarion sits on the porch and grabs a fistful of his hair. “It was sunset… I couldn’t… stay…”

Tiriel casts a glance at him and he subconsciously expects anger but sees nothing but motherly fear.

“It’s all right… I am going to look for her. She has probably just hidden somewhere”

“What if something bad happened to her? I will never forgive myself!” Astarion sniffs. 

Tiriel, still dizzy after the merry night, takes her two-handed ax. “I will find her. Don’t worry. How far were you from the tunnel?”

“Maybe half a mile. It’s my fault, I shouldn’t have taken her to the woods”

“Don’t be stupid, love. You can’t be outside the lower town in the daylight. When else are you supposed to play and walk with her?” she kisses his cheek. 

Astarion nods but he knows Tiriel is scared to death, she just never shows it up when he is afraid too. And he is sorry for that, too.

**

Alethaine has cried her eyes out. 

At first, it sounded like a good idea to hide a bit further in the woods. Her dad is a vampire and he can find her! But then she saw a weird-looking butterfly and followed it, enchanted by its blue wings. 

And the dhampir got lost.

She started calling for Dad, but he couldn't hear her and she had no idea how far she wandered. Then, Alethaine decided that maybe Dad returned home and she needed to do it too but the narrow pathways of the dark woods took Alethaine even further. 

She has never felt so lonely and scared in her life.

Alethaine cried hoping her dad would hear her, but no one came. Now, she is sitting on a small boulder in the center of the clearance and the sun is showering the woods in its light.

Alethaine is hungry.

And tired.

It’s way past noon, the last time she ate was when she left home with dad – mother told them she would go to drink some ale in the tavern.

The dhampir sniffs.

She wants home. She wants to eat. She wants to sleep. She wants her parents. Her stuffed toys. 

Alethaine starts crying again.

“Alethaine!” She hears her mother’s voice from a distance. 

“Mum! Mum!” Alethaine jumps on her feet. Her dhampir hearing immediately identifies where Tiriel is, and the girl rushes there.

The red-headed woman lifts her up and hugs her. Alethaine wails and presses her little face to her mother’s shoulder.

“Where have you been?!” Tiriel pulls Alethaine away and starts looking at her arms and legs trying to see if she is wounded. “Dad told you not to wander too far, how come you’ve disappeared?”

She sniffs.

“I wanted… I wanted… To hide better… And then… there was a butterfly…”

Tiriel squeezes her lips and Alethaine senses how her mother’s fear is being replaced by anger.

It's not easy to make Tiriel angry, but Alethaine, like any child, managed to do that.

“Your father is scared to death. I was scared to death. What if someone took you?”

Within the next half an hour Alethaine hears all the possible stories about children who were taken by feys, and hags, eaten by wolves, kidnapped by giants, frozen to death, drowned in rivers, and died of open wounds. Every story feels like a slap and, even though none of her parents have ever gotten physical on her, Alethaine suspects being spanked wouldn’t be that scary in comparison to the horrors her mother tells in the barbarian voice she uses against her enemies.

“Let’s go home” Tiriel lifts Alethaine up again. “No sweets till the end of the week. And you aren’t going to play outside until you learn how to follow the rules.”

“But mum!”

“You heard me, Alethaine.”

Alethaine places her cheek on her mother’s shoulders. The fear is taking its grip on the dhampir’s half-dead heart and she just wants to hide under the blanket at home.

**

Astarion tries to occupy his mind with something at least. Worrying won’t do him any good. He needs to wait till Tiriel is back and, gods, he hopes Alethaine has just got lost. And that nothing bad has happened.

It’s been too long.

Tiriel left at the early summer sunrise. And now it’s almost evening.

Astarion takes one of his books out. It’s a collection of short stories for kids he found in a dungeon a year ago, but, once he opened it for the first time he realized it’s actually a guide on how to join the thief guild written in Thieves Cant. It’s been years since he practiced the language for the last time and it feels like a good mind exercise.

And then he hears the familiar scent. 

Tiriel is coming back.

Astarion can’t understand if she carries Alethaine or not, and he’s afraid his wife is coming back alone.

He rushes outside and sees Tiriel coming back with Alethaine in her arms. The fear lets him go and he runs to them to truly make sure she is fine.

“Where did you… Gods…” he gasps, taking Aletaine from her hands. The girl's face is puffy because of how long she’s cried. 

“She ran away. And got lost.”

“I told her not to…” Astarion presses Alethaine to his chest as if fearing she would disappear.

“Well, I suppose she’s learned her lesson. And will learn it even better,” Tiriel repeats what punishment Alethains is going to receive. 

Astarion places sleepy Alethaine on a bench and helps her to undress. It's obvious the girl needs to bathe and eat, but she is barely conscious so he decides to bring her night dress and let her do the rest once she wakes up.

The word “punishment” ties a knot in his stomach.

“Tiriel, she almost died! I think it’s enough punishment,” he says once Alethaine is put to bed. The girl hugs a plushie dragon and immediately falls asleep.

“It's not enough, '' Tiriel says, closing the door. “Astarion, please, I know what it reminds you of. Punishment, disobedience. Running away. Your master twisted the idea of a family making you call him his father and other spawns your siblings. But there is nothing internally bad about punishing a child for breaking rules.”

“She almost died!” Astarion insists. “She is scared.”

Tiriel shakes her head. 

“Alethaine is much stronger than me. She can already take my ax! She is stronger than you and, soon, she will understand it. And if she decides to run away in the daylight you won't be able to stop her. Imagine her hooking up with someone older than her, who can manipulate her? Alethaine will just go not knowing what dangers lie ahead! And we won’t be able to do anything! We need to punish her for what she did. Because what she did could have killed her. Actions have consequences and we both have to be on board with that. You can’t be “the good parent” in this scenario. Because if you spoil her rotten and I try to impose rules, she will just do whatever she wants.”

Astarion clenches his fists. Rules. Disobedience.

And now one more terrible similarity.

Many of his victims, the ones who weren’t just lonely travelers or drunkards, were those careless young people, girls and boys, who, for some reason, thought nothing would happen if they got wasted with a handsome stranger in a shady tavern. Or someone would save them from vampires if they fucked up.

Kids who knew no dangers were coddled by their parents from this dangerous world and were killed for that.

“I agree. She needs to learn,” Astarion finally says.

It doesn’t go smoothly. Alethaine, probably being sure that it was all just words, asks for gingerbread after dinner and starts crying after a rejection.

“No sweets,” Tiriel reminds her.

Alethaine looks at Astarion with her puppy eyes but he shakes his head showing that there can’t be any disagreement between him and Tiriel.

Then, they don’t let her go to play with the neighbor’s kids who come to pick her up on their way to the river which causes another meltdown that stops the moment Alethaine realizes her cries aren’t working.

Unluckily for her, both her parents can withstand much worse things than the meltdown of a six-year-old.

**

The young man in a rich red doublet looks anxious. All his arrogance and pride have disappeared the moment he realizes people call Astarion a vampire for a reason.

“Will you… Will you do what I ask?” he cocks his head. The heir of one of the local jarls, the boy has gotten used to getting what he wants. And now he is bound by a pact with a hag who will turn him into a gnoll if he fails to deliver her his bride, and he needs to ask a vampire for help.

“One hundred and fifty gold. And you pay the half right now. I will come to your father for the rest once we’ve done” Astarion plays with his dagger trying to look as distraught as possible. 

“That’s insane! Eighty gold!”

“I have a family to feed, boy. '' Astarion chuckles. “Besides, you were dumb enough to make a pact with the hag. What did you want? Money? Power? More lands? Didn’t your parents teach you not to meddle with things you can't understand?”

The young man huffs. Then he notices Tiriel, who watches the whole conversation in silence – and cringes at the sight of a fresh bite mark she hasn’t hidden. 

Astarion suppresses the desire to beat the guest. 

“I was dying in the swamps… She… It…”

“Offered you salvation because you told her you would do anything?” Tiriel finishes the sentence. 

“I can hire an adventure party to slay the hag! I thought you were going to help me with the contract but you aren't the only one who does this kind of work!” 

Tiriel laughs. “There will be at least six adventurers and each of them will demand a fair share. And if they make it out alive, there will be one with good intimidation and persuasion skills - and you will end up paying much more. Oh, and there is a big chance they will make a deal with the hag and will bring you to her because hags usually have more things to offer.”

“They… They won't!”

“I've been an adventurer since I was fifteen. Trust me, I know my kind. I would have made a pact with the hag.”

“To be fair,” Astarion adds. “You murdered the hag.”

“Wyll dealt the final blow. And I was staying in the corner of her lair contemplating what choices led me to have a tadpole in my brain, a vampire in my bed, and ‘killing the devil’ in my to-do list.”

“The devil you’d made a pact with, which I told you not to do,” Astarion reminds her.

“Hm, it ended up well, didn’t it? I was also advised against giving you blood and meddling with your master. I did both,” Tiriel presses the young man’s shoulder causing him to yelp in pain. “Astarion is your best choice. You don’t need a monster hunter. You need a magistrate.”

The young man looks absolutely defeated and then calls his bodyguard, a half-orc woman who puts a few small sacks of gold on the table. 

“Don’t involve my father in this, once you’ve done, come to me and I’ll pay the rest”

“No,” Astarion bares his fangs. “We go together. And you follow my every order”

Tiriel takes the money and leaves the room to store the gold in the basement of their house.

Suddenly, the guest looks up at the ceiling and mutters something incomprehensible. Astarion follows his sight and sees Alethaine standing right above the table upside down. She wears her black dress and her long hair is braided. 

“Is she a vampire?” The bodyguard asks.

“Dhampir. This is my daughter, Alethaine. Princess, don’t scare my clients. Come down and say ‘hello’.”

Alethaine does not react. She just sits on the ceiling and observes the visitors. Astarion shrugs.

“Not very talkative today,” Astarion continues. “We go at sunset through the underground tunnels. Don’t worry, I won’t drag you to the Underdark. Unless you really piss me off. Wait for me in the tavern. Now go, I need to prepare for the road.” Astarion bares his fangs again, enjoying the fear on the guests’ faces. 

Alethaine jumps from the ceiling once the strangers leave. 

“I don’t like them,” she says.

“I don’t either. Did you want anything?”

“Daddy, are you going to be away for long?”

“Maybe a month. Don’t worry, I will be home before the winter starts”

Alethaine frowns. 

“I am sorry. For running away. I won’t do this again. Can we play in the woods when you are back?”

Astarion studies his daughter’s face. There is an honest guilt in her pitch-black eyes. 

“Apologies accepted. Come here.”

Alethaine wraps her pale hands around his neck and he enjoys the sound of her heartbeat for a few moments.

“Can I go out with my friends while you are away?”

“Yes. But only in the town.”

It takes Astarion an hour to get ready for the trip into the wild. He knows Tiriel wants to go with him, but they’ve agreed not to leave Alethaine on her own while she is so small. 

“When you are back, I will give you a very good rest, if you know what I mean,” Tiriel playfully smiles and kisses him goodbye. 

Such a normal thing, he thinks.

A father is going to do some work in the wild.

His little family will be waiting for him.

Such a normal thing and so precious to him. 

--

Tag list

@tugoslovenka  

@herstxrgirl 

@herdarkestnightelegance  

@vixstarria 

@not-so-lost-after-all  

@marcynomercy  

@theearthsfinalconfession 

@starlight-ipomoea    

@micropoe10 

@astarion-imagine-archive  

@veillsar

@elora-the-slutty-songstress  

@fayeriess  

@lumienyx  

@tallymonster    

@caitlincat-95  

@tragedybunny  

@valeprati  

@lynnlovesthestars   

@marina-and-the-memes  

@waking-eyes   

@ayselluna  

@connorsui  

@asterordinary  

@darkarchangel96  

@locallegume  

@brainfullofhotsauce   

@coffeeanddonutscafe  

@my-queen-rhaenyra-targaryen 

@queenofthespacesquids  

@ednaaa-04  

@dajeong

@wilteddreamsofbaldursgate

[miraculous-prompts]

1900's AU: Gender Swapped!Fei and Android!Dark Humor have their first meeting in a cafe

[celestialbruise]

Can you give Taxian-jun and Chu-Fei a happy ending in their timeline? ❤️🙏

let me just say I LOVE YOU for this!! this truly feels like fate, because the morning I received this beautiful prompt the first thing I thought of when I woke up was 0.5 ranwan and I spent the entirety of my morning routine thinking about a canon divergent fic where taxian-jun and chu fei get their happy ending then I logged onto Tumblr and found this ask in my inbox :’)

I’ve had this idea in my head for awhile and some day I would love to turn it into a fully-realized fic, but the basic premise is a month before Mo Ran lays siege to Taxue palace and Chu Wanning dies, he has a dream detailing the event, every last gory detail. it disturbs Mo Ran so much that he temporarily calls off the plan, and while he’s busy thinking of a way to destroy Xue Meng that won’t have Chu Wanning sacrificing himself, Chu Wanning manages to save him in the interim. 

spoilers past erha volume six ahead!

to be completely honest I don’t know entirely how the flower works (I know about its existence but not much else) but in my head canon, aka for my own personal sanity, I do believe that there is a way for it to be removed, and in this AU Chu Wanning removes it, and though it would take time, and healing, in the 0.5 timeline, they would find their way back to each other, and they would never again part.  

I hope I was able to do your prompt justice, as I truly had such a wonderful time writing this<3

-

In the lonely dark, deep into the night, Taxian-jun woke with a scream trapped in his throat, desperately grasping a body that was no longer in his arms. 

He was alone in his bed. No longer was he laying siege to Taxue Palace, kneeling in the blood-spattered snow, holding a deathly cold, winter-pale Chu Wanning who had whispered….

Who had asked him with his dying breath-

“Mo Ran…forgive yourself.”

Mo Ran tore out of Wushan Palace like hell’s hounds were nipping at his heels, ignoring how the winter wind bitterly nipped at his cheeks, at the wetness staining his face, intensifying the chill and its painful bite. 

He couldn’t be gone. He just couldn’t be. 

He couldn’t leave Taxian-jun. Chu Wanning couldn’t leave Mo Ran.

If Chu Wanning left-

If he was dead, then-

What would Mo Ran have left? Who would he even be?

What would be the point of living in a world devoid of Chu Wanning?

Mo Ran ripped open the doors of the Red Lotus Pavilion, his feet automatically carrying him to Chu Wanning’s room, where he found Chu Wanning, lying in his bed, wrapped tightly in blood-red sheets, curled into a tiny ball, just as he always was. The sight both eased and aggravated something that seethed deep within Taxian-jun’s chest. He wasn’t able to breathe. Not yet.

In his haste he stumbled, almost fell, hurrying over the Chu Wanning’s side and without preamble or finesse, yanked one of his arms free from the blankets to clutch desperately as his wrist, searching for a pulse. Mo Ran only needed a single heartbeat to discern that, while softened by slumber, life did indeed still live inside Chu Wanning’s body. And then another heartbeat later, phoenix eyes fluttered open, moonlight catching on long, dark lashes that lifted to reveal hazy amber eyes.

“What-” Chu Wanning started, voice slurring with sleep, eyes only beginning to sharpen with that familiar hate when, without hesitation, Mo Ran pulled Chu Wanning into his arms.

“Wanning!” Taxian-jun gasped, wet, against the side of Chu Wanning’s neck. “You’re here. You’re okay,” Taxian-jun said this as if he couldn’t quite believe it. As if he daren’t hope.

“Mo Ran!” Chu Wanning thrashed inside his arms, hitting his shoulders, but Mo Ran bore it. He wouldn’t risk loosening his grip even a fraction. If he did, if he was careless, if he allowed Chu Wanning to slip away from him, a ghost once more…..Mo Ran hugged him tighter, tight enough to break him. Tight enough to break them both. Soon, Chu Wanning’s struggle ceased. He stilled, stiff and awkward in the cage of Mo Ran’s embrace. When he spoke next, his voice was quieter, a question Mo Ran had no idea how to answer, unable to grasp what the question even truly was.

“Mo Ran?”

Mo Ran shuddered, pulling away, looking into Chu Wanning’s sharp phoenix eyes, eyes that glimmered with light, with life. Eyes that had gone openly, nakedly wide.

“You aren’t allowed to leave this Venerable One,” Taxian-jun hissed vehemently, his heart a painful beat inside of his chest as his hands cupped Chu Wanning’s face, forcing him to meet the fire raging in Taxian-jun’s eyes, the flames that threatened to swallow them both. “Do you understand? This Venerable One forbids it! I forbid you from - who do you think you are……”

“Mo Ran,” Chu Wanning gripped his wrists, pulling Mo Ran’s hands away from his face. A face, Mo Ran realized with a start, that was shadowed, filled with too many lines to ignore. “Calm down. You’re shaking.”

Was he? Impossible. But as Mo Ran glanced down to where Chu Wanning’s pale hands tightly gripped his wrist, he noticed his fingers flexing, curling around nothing, wracked with unceasing tremors. 

It was cold outside. He’d run straight out of his bedroom, dressed in only his inner robe….of course, he was shaking. He was furious - Taxian-jun was livid, filled with fiery anger that would not abate, that roiled through his veins like fire. It was maddening. It had nowhere to go. Taxian-jun couldn’t understand it, couldn’t make sense of it, why it felt like he was being torn apart from the inside out. All he knew was that he had held Chu Wanning’s cold, lifeless body inside of his arms, and it had felt real, in the way nothing had in a long, long time. Chu Wanning had left him. Chu Wanning had left him behind, and he wasn’t supposed to leave Taxian-jun, not until Taxian-jun allowed it, which he never would, because Chu Wanning was his, dammit. Despite his hatred, or because of it, Chu Wanning was Taxian-jun’s, and Taxian-jun was-

A cough crawled up his throat, and another, and another, until soon his chest was heaving, his ribs shuddering, his lungs bereft of all breath. Distantly, Taxian-jun registered the taste of blood filling his mouth, cloying and astringent. Taxian-jun felt like laughing. Mo Ran felt like crying.

But when Mo Ran saw Chu Wanning lift a hand towards his wound, a flare of panic ripped through his heart, an icy-cold, paralytic horror he hadn’t felt in years. Mo Ran caught Chu Wanning’s wrist, squeezing, needing the reassurance of a pulse.  

“Don’t. Don’t do it,” Mo Ran rasped, hating how his voice broke. “If you heal this wound….I’ll never forgive you. You can’t.”

Chu Wanning looked at him, brows furrowed, mouth set in a soft frown. Taxian-jun hated it. Hated how Chu Wanning would take this pathetic display as weakness. He was probably judging Mo Ran right now, sneering at him inside his heart, thinking him such a fool-

Taxian-jun almost flinched when the back of a soft, cool hand came to rest against his forehead. He felt his lips part, but no words came to rush out. No insults, no curses, no words of pure, unadulterated hate.

Foolishly, for a moment, Mo Ran wanted to call a name that he hadn’t in years, “....Shizun?”

“Mo Ran,” Chu Wanning whispered, a cold hand cupping his cheek, a gentle thumb drying a stray tear he hadn’t realized had fallen. “You must wake up.”

Taxian-jun stared at him, dazed. “Wake up?” He muttered, shaking his head, voice shrinking as he breathed, hesitantly. “This is….just a dream?”

The delicate jut of Chu Wanning’s throat bobbed as he swallowed, “Mn,” and then, with featherlight fingers, ever-so-carefully, he tucked a loose strand of hair behind Taxian-jun’s ear. For a second, Mo Ran found himself leaning into the touch. “It’s just a dream.”

“I didn’t know,” Mo Ran told him, hushed like a secret. “It felt so real. This Venerable One….is confused. I’ve just been so confused, lately. It’s Xue Meng’s fault. This fucking wound - it hurts, all of the time. My chest won’t stop hurting. It’s driving me insane.” 

Mo Ran bit his tongue before he could reveal more. Even in a dream, it felt far too vulnerable, far too stupid to reveal such a fear. Mo Ran had ears and he heard all the rumors the people whispered below his throne. He was a tyrant. He was bloodthirsty, cruel, worse than a beast. He was losing himself. 

He was going mad. 

“Wanning, how do I….how do I know what is real?” Mo Ran muttered, burying his face inside his hands to hide his burning eyes. He was just-

Mo Ran was tired. So, so very tired. He ached, down to his very bones. 

“Lie down,” Chu Wanning murmured, guiding Mo Ran to the bed. “You’ll feel better after you’ve slept.”

Something in Mo Ran protested this gentleness - surely it was only a prelude to more cruelty? But exhaustion was a heavy, pressing force. Inescapable. Like a limp puppet, all strings cut, Taxian-jun allowed himself to be arranged supine, and though every fiber of his being shied away from the almost gentle way the blankets were tucked in around his body, for some reason he couldn’t muster up the strength to bat Chu Wanning away, like he normally would have. In fact, Mo Ran couldn’t seem to tear his eyes, lucifugous and hot, away from Chu Wanning at all. And when Chu Wanning stood it was entirely involuntary, the way Mo Ran’s hand shot out to grab his wrist.

“Will you be here, when this Venerable One wakes?” Taxian-jun asked, and maybe he meant it as a threat, but it came out as a desperate plea. Still, the derision and contempt he had come to expect from Chu Wanning was nowhere to be seen on his visage which looked in the shadows, simply put, haunted. Conflicted. 

Lovelorn. 

“Mn,” Chu Wanning sat down beside him, and didn’t try to free himself from Mo Ran’s grip. “I’ll be here.”

“You won’t leave?”

“I won’t leave.”

“Promise?”

“....I promise.”

Taxian-jun nodded, and though he began to drift, caught in-between veils of the living world and the insensate realm of black, his grip around Chu Wanning did not loosen, and he still found himself whispering a question, one he somehow knew only Chu Wanning held the answer to. 

“Do you think dreams have any meaning?”

Just before unconsciousness could claim him once more, a whisper rang through his ears, soft-spoken yet achingly clear. 

“Sometimes.”

Then….Mo Ran just wouldn’t go. Chu Wanning couldn’t do anything foolish so long as Mo Ran stayed to make sure he behaved. Right? He couldn’t let Xue Meng live, or that damn Mei Hanxue - but he could think up another plan. He had time.  

-

Chu Wanning didn’t know how long it had been since Mo Ran had cried in front of him. Certainly, not since he was a boy

That meant he was still in there, somewhere. A heart still beat within the blackened, thorny brambles wrapped around Mo Ran’s chest.

There was still hope. 

There was still a way back from hell. 

Chu Wanning’s breath shuddered as it left his lungs. 

He wouldn’t leave his disciple. He wouldn’t stand back and watch as Mo Ran lost any more of himself than he already had. 

“It will be okay, Mo Ran,” Chu Wanning murmured, watching how the moonlight flickered across Mo Ran’s sleeping face, and how the knot of tension in between his brows only smoothed out when Chu Wanning squeezed his hand, tight, tight enough to leave his mark. “This master promises. I won’t leave you behind.”

[cyandreamz]

Cringetober prompt 18:

Fandom AU

For this prompt I did not only one, but two drawings for @okartichoke ace attorney au, which is called ace avian! Why two drawings? Well originally I was going to just do the DiagoxMia one, as I haven't drawn these two enough and I knew they were some of Okartichoke's fave characters.

However, it turned out that at this point he hadn't yet made a design for Diago yet! I thought he did but nope, my brain just made up a post concept (⁠´⁠-⁠﹏⁠-⁠`⁠；⁠). So I started working on the other drawing whiletalking to him about the art I was making for his au. Which lead to him making a design for Diago/Godot and sending the designs to me so I could draw Diago :D! but I still wanted to draw the backup drawing cuz I really liked the post and I enjoy drawing Mia and Maya, so I kept working on it :3.

If you want to know more about the au here is the master post from Okartichoke here, though in short, it's just ace attorney but they got bird wings :P. and I wanted to force myself to draw wings so I knew I had to draw this au for the prompt!

Overall I'm very happy with these drawings, especially the Mia and Maya one as I feel like I drew Diago a bit too skinny oops, hopefully next time I'll draw him better >:-). plus the second pic is my first time drawing Mia in a non-canon outfit so that was fun :-D. Also I didn't quite understand what tinted wings mean for the Fey's, I could of just asked Okartichoke about it, buuuuuuut I instead looked at his art of the Fey's, and took some artistic liberties with colouring the sisters wings, hopefully you don't mind (plus I still gave Maya heterochromia, even though she technically doesn't in the au cuz Okartichoke draws her with dark brown eyes, cuz I like to draw her with heterochromia :P).

Also, both Mia and Diago are touching each other's wings cuz I remember an ace avian post mentioning that was considered an intermate act in this au so I figured it should include that detail because they're so in love XD. Also idk how I feel about Mia's top being pink, maybe it should've been black or yellow but oh well ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯ I should probably stop rambling now XD

[notyouraryang0dd3ss]

Tbh the women support women thing still gives me the ick. Obviously -she does not- but the joke that made her announce "theres a special place in hell..." thing was "please don't date our underage sons" like. Tina fey said it during an award show which, not the place and time I guess, but this was during her grooming era. Kinda dark but I think the criticism should've been on the woman with an underage boyfriend not the woman calling her out. The only consistent career this disgusting freak has is as a victim.

i rewatched the video which prompted swift’s “there’s a special place in hell…” line and it’s actually so funny. i cannot line tina fey and amy poehler were funny as fuck for that. and they were RIGHT! taylor’s ability to manipulate any critique/callout of her questionable/offensive actions into her being a victim is insufferable! and goes to show she never was a feminist from the beginning. if she was a decent person she would’ve never dated those fresh 18 year old boys as a 23 year old. she’s disgusting

[peakyscillian]

Hello! Can I slide in and request number 2 with Cillian for your prompt list thing. Please and thank you 😊🩵

Hey Scarlett!! Of course you can 😘

Obvious

Once again just fluff!

'Giggling about how their friends haven’t found out about them yet even though they’re being so obvious.'

Obvious

She followed him back into the pub, fingers tangled together as they headed back to the table full of their oblivious friends.

Cillian turned to her with a smirk after a few minutes of rejoining the conversation, she flicked a look across the table before she swiped her thumb across the dark red lipstick mark at the corner of his mouth.

The same shade she had painted on her lips.

No one at the table had even noticed that going for a smoke had ended up with them being all over each other on the deserted street.

It had been weeks, they'd been so glaringly obvious since the morning she'd woke up in his bed with a blinding headache and a satisfying ache between her legs.

Maybe it was the fact all their friends were used to their flirty behaviour, the way Cillian always held her hand when they were leaving the pub, how she always ended up staying the night at his.

Hours later in the taxi home, she's giggling into the warm skin of his neck as he laughs about how obvious they'd been all evening.

-

Send me a prompt from this list & get a little blurb!

-

Taglist

@cillmequick @runnning-outof-time @look-at-the-soul @heidimoreton @gypsy-girl-08 @creativepawsworld @zablife @cillixn @forgottenpeakywriter @thomasshelbee @shelbydelrey @missymurphy1985 @janelongxox @queenshelby @lyarr24 @ysmmsy @woofgocows @allie131313 @cloudofdisney @elenavampire21 @datewithgianni @magicalpieex @midnightswithdearkatytspb @midnightmagpiemama @being-worthy @radioheadgirl @vhscillian @camilleholland89 @cilliansangel @uchihacumdump @inkandpen22 @anotherhitandrun @alreadybroken-ts @already-broken144 @flyingjosephine-blog @moral-terpitude @duckybird101 @stevie75 @blyanyan @flippittygibbitts @lostgirl219 @stars-of-scorpio @winchestergirl22 @moral-turpitudes @otterly-fey @gotohellandbackforyou @tinyminxie