#day two: hair

[kale-theteaqueen]

Rite of Passage

---

The braiding of an Illyrian warrior's hair was a sacred part of the preparations of the Blood Rite.

It was a privilege reserved for the next of kin: family, or the one who held their heart.

Wearing the plaits, the colored beads, was one of the highest honors, especially for those who had braved the peaks of Ramiel, and lived to tell the tale.

One year after the Valkyries won the Rite, Cassian delights in having a mate adorn his hair.

But not everyone has someone willing to take up the practice, and when there is no one to braid Emerie's hair, he takes it upon himself, an honor that is both humbling and something that fills his chest with unabashed pride.

An Emerie & Cassian sibling bonding fic for @cassianappreciationweek Day Two: Hair

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Tag List: @c-e-d-dreamer @podemechamardek @talkfantasytome @moodymelanist @whyisaravenlike-awritingdesk @doriansgf @eerievixen @sweet-pea1 @thewayshedreamed @agents-assemble @jsmelodies @aelinchocolatelover @unlikelypersonalknight1 @slipknotvol3 @stylishmuser @lady-winter-sunrise @bri-loves-sunflowers @misswonderflower @acourtofladydeath

[wishcamper]

Cassian Appreciation Week Day Two: Hair

Happy @cassianappreciationweek! Here is my first offering for Day Two: Hair. You can read it here or on ao3.

Enjoy!

My Sweetest Downfall

A Nessian re-telling of the biblical story of Samson and Delilah, set during the first war for human liberation.

CW: consensual sexual content, reference to sex trafficking

Art by Terry Strickland

Oh, we couldn't bring the columns down Yeah, we couldn't destroy a single one And the history books forgot about us And the Bible didn't mention us, not even once "Samson”, Regina Spektor

She was the most beautiful female Cassian had ever seen.

Woman, rather - the rounded edge of her ear had been what caught his eye, entranced by the freshness of her face, the self-possession of this human woman weaving through the sea of fae in the lower markets of Adriata. All visions of using his shore leave to drown himself in wine, blow all his wages at the tables, and bed as many females as possible vacated his mind the moment her blue-gray eyes met his over the heads of the crowd, the exact color of an Illyrian sunrise.

She belonged to one of the pleasure houses, as evidenced by the copper bands at her wrists and throat, likely one of the more expensive ones gives the fine silk of her gown, the glint of her golden brown hair braided about her head like a crown. He searched for days until he found the right one, coming across her at last at the Golden Thread. He wasn’t even really sure what he wanted, just to be near her, to feel the heat of her body, the thrum of mortality under her skin.

More than anything, he wanted to understand that tug in his chest, the pull that urged him to crash himself to the ground for her, even if it reduced him to rubble.

—

He was a force of nature, wild as a winter wind yet gentle as the crush of petals under bare feet, a mountain of a male whose waters ran deep and smooth.

And in spite of it all, she still had to break him.

She pushed down her guilt, her disgust at the task before her. They’d been all over each other for a week, stealing moments in hidden coves, remote beaches, even once behind a corner stall in the market when the vendor was away. Despite having paid for her, and handsomely, he seemed to want only what she gave freely of her time, her body. What he wanted lay beneath, he said, a chance to listen to the symphony of her human heart for however long she’d allow.

That same human heart condemned her, left her helpless to the forces of power and control that bound her tighter than any ropes ever could.

The stories of him in battle had spread across Prythian long before his arrival in the great Summer city, of the Illyrian foot soldier who razed armies with his deadly dance, blessed by the Mother herself. Enalius reborn, they called him, and the Lord of Spring wanted him eliminated in neutral territory if they were to have a chance at winning the war. Ten thousand gold marks they'd promised to her if she could find the source of his power.

She knew she condemned herself with this cursed bargain, much less her people, but there was no way around it. She’d never make enough with her body to free her family, to protect them from the ravages of the fae without the riches they dangled in front of her.

And so when he slipped through the lavender curtains of the Golden Thread, she hoped to hate him. Prayed he’d be despicable, possessive and brutish like the other males, head swollen large enough so just a single pinprick could deflate it. Instead, that first night he came to her plush, dark chambers she found a tenderness that stunned her and knew this would be so much more damning than she’d ever imagined.

He was willing to sacrifice everything for human freedom, he told her in the wake of their joining, dark curls clinging to his brow. The shame consumed her knowing he’d fulfill that promise, even if his martyrdom would come not on the daybright battlefield as he imagined, but rather with the breathless gasp of a knife in the night.

For the next week he worshiped her body in their beachside bungalow, ran his fingers over and under the copper cuffs as if he’d rip them off with his bare hands.

“And how would one shackle you, Lord of Bloodshed?”

“No bonds can hold me, sweetheart, save for those given by the Mother.”

He promised to smuggle her out between presses of his lips against her skin, or else to buy her freedom, to win the whole damn war by himself if that’s what it took. She only smiled and called them beautiful words, nothing less, nothing more. At night when he slept, she lay awake tracing the fresh scar cleaving his eyebrow, the lines of tattoos swirling over his chest and arms.

Make a bargain with me, he said, hazel eyes sparkling with something too painful to look at for more than a moment, like staring into the sun. Tell me what makes you so strong, she said, tell me what gives you the power of ten males, a hundred. She watched her warrior spar with his own heart, and though he denied her in the end she felt a relief in it, that they could have one more day, one more night with none to witness what bloomed save for the stars, the moonlit sea.

She’d ask him twice more, she told him, and he grinned in a way that broke something in her, something she could never repair.

In the cradle of seclusion, long-buried hurts began to emerge, the throes of pleasure giving way to tears that flowed like wine. He held her pain like a bird in his hand, stroking her jagged edges gently. Unafraid of what lay within her, the blink of her mortal life.

Why do you touch me so?, she asked, and he ran a hand up her thigh to the crook of her waist, following the path his mouth had blazed before they’d collapsed in satiety. 

She asked him the second time in the cove off the beach, the one he’d flown her to on those resplendent wings. The white sand floor glowed under turquoise water, casting his body in an unearthly light, their echoing moans giving way to laughter that ricocheted off the rock, through her chest. He told her of his days training, the foolish arrogance of his youth before it was shattered by the war. She shared a memory of stealing sweets from a shop when she was a child, the rush of her first taste of sugar, of the successful con.

“And is victory always sweet for you, siren?”

Mostly not, she told him, and a challenge sparkled in his eyes, one that made her blood go hot. She forgot for a moment why she was there, the trap at the center of the maze, and let him fly the long way home, skimming the waves with her fingertips as they chased a pod of dolphins playing in the surf.

When they returned, he disappeared for a short time while she bathed, stepping back through the leaning door frame as she was toweling off, arms laden with gifts from the market. That night she claimed her victory in all the ways she wanted to, the Lord of Bloodshed under command of his interim queen.

“Please,” she begged the Spring lord through the mirror he’d given her, the forget-me-nots in his golden hair either a cruel jest or devastating providence. “Please spare him. Take his power but do not take his life.”

The High Lord laughed in answer, and the guilt stretched her to the point of breaking, her skin a dull hide drying in the sun. “It seems the hearts of human sluts are as open as their legs.”

She knew he felt her sadness, her fear when he returned from a swim in the ocean, salt glittering on his wings like diamonds in the sunset glow. He lifted her into his arms and retreated to the bathing chamber, showed her where to touch them to bring him to his knees, to make him fall apart with her name on his lips.

Ask me, he said, ask me once more.

“No.”

“Why not? Have you given up on me, sweetheart?”

He couldn’t want everything that came with her, she told him, wouldn’t desire her if he knew the wickedness of her heart, the crumbling ruins of her soul.

“How can I prove it to you?”

Her fingers clutched at his shirtfront, begging him to stay, to run, to see the deception at her core.

“Tell me the source of your strength. Tell me what gives you the power of ten males, of a hundred. Show me your weakness and I shall show you mine.”

Her faithful lover brought his forehead down to hers, resting it lightly, drew her hand up to bury it in the soft curls at the nape of his neck.

“If my hair is cut, I lose my strength. I am as weak as any other until it grows long again.”

She grabbed a handful of it in her fist, pulling his head back sharply. But he only looked at her with that sun-bright devotion, the passages of his heart open to her to walk through as she pleased. She decided to leave a footprint there, the barest trace. Hoped it was enough for him to remember.

“I have a daughter to the south. She does not know what I am. All I do is for her.”

Something like understanding passed through him then, but she didn’t get the chance to question it for he captured her mouth with his own, sinking her down into the deep waters where only they lived, borne along by the current.

Moonlight glinted off the shears where she hovered over him hours later, praying for him to wake. To grab her wrists and throw her against the wall, or else to kiss her desperately and fly her as far as those wings could take them, past the edge of the world.

But he did not wake, and instead she cut each lock from his head, the thread in her chest ripping violently with each traitorous snip.

—

They paraded him through the temple in chains, the jeers and taunts hitting his back like a volley of arrows. The warrior god shackled like the slaves he so foolishly defended, reduced to the bastard-born nobody he feared lived at his core.

He found her at once among the crowd assembled, her beautiful face broken with agony, and even though he knew he should hate her the space where his anger lived felt hollow. The absence of her was more devastating than any of the whips that lashed at his back, the blunt blows to his chest, his legs.

His power gone, the feeble call of it sluggish in his veins, he could only watch as they brought the ropes forth. They lashed him to the great column at the center that held up the ceiling, painted with scenes of resplendent High Fae, their faces cold and cruel. He tried to tell her to go, to run, but he was too weak to speak, knew from the way she clutched the collar at her throat she’d never leave while he was still alive. He only hoped she’d be far enough away to miss the worst of it.

I’m sorry, he said as best he could, feeling the imprint of her body on his skin, in his bones. I’m sorry I couldn’t save us from this. I’m sorry I didn’t know until it was too late.

Hazel eyes lifted skyward, a prayer to the Mother on his dry, cracked lips. With a great heave he twisted, rammed his bound fists into the pillar he leaned against, ripping apart the world.

Stone rained down and there was screaming everywhere, thick dust pouring into his lungs and he waited for the crush, the flash of pain before it all went quiet and still. In the long tunnel of time he hoped to return as a tree somewhere in a quiet wood, to feel her sit in his shade, or else to be a clear pool she drank from, the splash of him over her face washing her clean.

And all at once he was shoved aside, a great boom echoing somewhere overhead, soft hair tickling his face, soothing his heated cheeks.

He opened his eyes to find her body splayed over him, taking the blow of the stone that would’ve been his death. A shimmer of gold disappeared into the dust engulfing the ruined temple, and he felt the pull in his chest begin to break, ever-reaching and grasping at the building darkness.

“Don’t go, sweetheart. I didn’t get enough. I want more. We should’ve had more.”

This brave human woman, his mate, her body broken and bleeding, reached a hand up and touched his face lightly, pain and love in her dawn-colored eyes.

“I’ll find you in the next world, the next life. I promise. And we will have time.”

A fierce, burning pain seared along his scalp. He heard someone shouting, felt a wave of night-dark power sweep over him before oblivion dragged him under, stealing the only thing he wanted, one last memory of her face.

But all he was left with were the spikes of an eight-pointed star on the crown of his head, the only remnant of her final words, his failures. Their future snatched away by the greed of death, the indifference of fate.

Five hundred years passed, and Cassian searched every face for hers, heart leaping at every flash of golden brown hair, every knowing grin in a crowded market. He’d almost given up the day he stepped into the Archeron manor when he saw her glaring across the room at him, when that thread in his chest yanked so violently he thought he’d been shot by an arrow, straight through. She didn’t remember him, of course, but he could’ve sworn a flicker of recognition passed through her, the past lingering in the core of their bones, woven into their skin.

And he knew in that moment, more than he’d ever known anything, that he’d rip every hair from his head for her. That no matter what war he had to win or building he had to shatter, he’d free her from the shackles of the world, from those in her heart, her mind. 

That they would have time.

---

Thank you if you got this far! I'm pretty proud of this one so I hope you enjoyed aka it didn't hurt too much. Shoutout to all the other awesome creators putting out amazing work this week. There is so much more to come!

[soaked-doors]

the history book on the shelf is always repeating itself

[emberglowfox]

birds of a feather

[dunno-rambles]

what if she was an ex borg drone and you dont like her but you're the best mechanical engineer on the ship and you have to work on the maintenance of the remaining - and most crucial - implants on her body and the monthly check ups are always strangely intimate-

what if

[papanowo]

vampire danbert au but make it whimsigoth

[scribbleymewzaque]

This is how I described Dandadan to my brother

[cheesy-two-liner]

So you know how in the show, Annabeth is a black girl? Annabeth in the books is always mentioned to not be very careful of her appearance. She has curly blonde hair that she never really takes much care of and stuff, for instance. But in the show, she has really nice braids, etc. Now mind you, annabeth ran away from home when she was 7 years old, and her stepmom is Asian in the books and canonically wasn’t the most caring to annabeth for the years they spent together. This means, to me, that show-Annabeth never had anybody to teach her how to do her hair. She gets to camp half blood at 7 little years of age and is obliviously running around with a messy head of hair that she has no idea (and also probably doesn’t really care) how to take care of. My headcanon is that some black girl from the Aphrodite cabin saw her and was like “not on my watch” and took it upon herself to both braid annabeth’s hair and to teach her how to do it herself.

I also like to think Percy 100% learns how to braid hair just for Annabeth. And she doesn’t even know it because it happens during some school year. He stepped inside a braiding salon a couple of blocks from his apartment one day and was like “hi, sorry to bother, I wanna learn how to braid my friends hair” and the ladies at the salon where enchanted with this weird kid who came out of nowhere and who would NOT stop yapping about this cute black girl at summer camp who he absolutely was in love with but none of the ladies had the heart to tell him that because he seemed oblivious to his own feelings. So they taught him for free as long as he helped around the salon. And then one day at camp, he goes to get her at the athena cabin and Annabeth is sitting in her bed with a couple of mirror and a cloud of hair all around her and Percy’s like “need a hand?” And Annabeth’s like “as if you could help, seaweed brain” and percy just goes “is that a challenge?” And he helps her part her hair which can be a pain to do by yourself and then they both sit on her bed for hours doing knotless braids (Annabeth was wholly unconvinced he knew how to do them until he started working on a section of hair and it was all she could do to not hang her mouth open in surprise). Percy wasn’t quite as fast as annabeth had gotten after so many years of doing her own hair, but with his help it took half the time it would’ve taken her alone. The other kids of the athena cabin would stare at them from the door of the cabin and proceed to hightail it out of there. The amount of gossip going around camp that day was astronomical. But the two of them were oblivious in their little hyperfixated adhd bubble. After that it became tradition, as long as he could, Percy would help Annabeth braid her hair.

[zephyrchama]

(A bit of OM! Mammon comforting MC. TW: Lots of crying? Depressive episode? No specific cause is mentioned, the reader is free to use their own scenario, but anyone who is uncomfortable with scenes of crying and being really upset might not like this one.)

The loud rustling of a plastic bag falling to the floor, its contents shifting noisily as they dropped, drew your attention. Mammon stood there dumbfounded.

He knew you were probably upset that he ate your ramen. He expected some harsh words, maybe a light berating and a slap on the wrist. That’s why he preemptively went and bought replacements. The spicy kind that he liked, some fancy new steak flavor that seemed cool, and a bunch of the tried and true classics. That way you’d have nothing to complain about.

He expected a cold shoulder. Playful teasing. A punishment, like having to eat one bowl with ten ultra spicy flavor packets. He never expected to find you curled up in tears. Eyes red and swollen. Your face looked pale with visible streaks trailing from your eyes and nose. Your expression remained a quivering frown when you weakly looked up, and it didn’t change as you buried it back into your knees.

How long had you been at this? he wondered. Was all this over a cheap pack of noodles?

Deep down somewhere, Mammon knew this wasn’t about the ramen. But he didn’t know what this was about, and it scared him.

You needed a tissue, or a glass of water, or a big hug. Mammon had no idea which to get first. He hadn’t even shrugged off his outdoor jacket yet. It slid down his shoulder as he scampered towards the kitchen for a glass, then stopped. He couldn’t leave you alone like this. His hands rooted around in his pockets which held only receipts and some loose change. No tissues or anything suitable for nose-blowing.

Up close, your shoulders shook. Your back heaved with every fresh sob. It tore his heart to little pieces. Your sleeves and the front of your top were soaking wet, no doubt from attempts to curb the crying. Mammon had a difficult time approaching you, unsure what to do or if he could even take being rejected when you obviously needed him.

Overthinking things was not his strong suit. Mammon didn't like the feeling of being stuck, of not having a plan. He was the kind of man with a goal in mind who always gets results. The goal right now was to see you smile, to eat some ramen and joke around. Most importantly, it was to get your mind off of whatever was currently happening. He wasn't going to change that by standing around like a fool.

"Hey." This wasn't his usual boisterous voice. It was a hushed tone filled with concern. You hardly acknowledged him, you had enough going on inside your head already and anything outside just felt like an afterthought. Mammon lowered himself next to you and fidgeted awkwardly with his jacket zipper. "What can I do?"

You weren't in a state to respond, that much was clear. Your answer was to shudder and hug your legs tight against your face.

Your knees were as soaked as your top. Seeing that was Mammon's last straw. He didn't want to be rough, but he was a man of action. He tried to coil an arm around your shaking shoulders, resolution only growing stronger when it caused you to cry harder.

"Knock that off, c'mere." Tough words never sounded gentler. You had no energy to move, but luckily, Mammon had plenty to spare as he brought you in to lean against his side and draped the edge of his jacket over you. You blindly cried against the first surface you could press your face against - his shirt. It smelled of deodorant.

"Don't forget, you're my responsibility, aight? When stuff like this happens, ya gotta come straight to me."

The silence wasn't as awful with Mammon around. It didn't feel suffocating. It took time, but the heartache began to fade. Your sobs became more infrequent. Mammon patiently waited the entire time, occasionally tugging you closer. Occasionally murmuring things like, "you're gonna have to use me as a tissue. I don't have any." Or, "just say the word, I'm gonna beat that sadness into a pulp. Gonna show it I'm the boss around here."

He may not be most eloquent of speakers, but he's got the right spirit.

Even after calming down, Mammon didn't budge and you remained locked against his side. Perhaps you still didn't have the strength to move yet, but you could manage to whisper out a grateful "thanks." A word that finally eased the pain tugging at Mammon's conscience.

He ruffled your hair and leaned down, placing his head against the top of yours. "I always tell ya, I'm the best. Call for me if this happens, ok?"

[themakeupbrush]

Margot Robbie at the 2024 Golden Globes

[egophiliac]

IT'S BUNNY TIME EVERYBODY

(feat. Dilla)

(bugle accompaniment by Yuu)

[mabbbish]

wonderful day to remember ninjago has a canon highschool au

[scrolpencer]

I gave the lark ears, what about horns and antlers?

Clémmie's horns are growing out so who better than to practice (play) headbutting with other than Perrine (antlers, horns- they're close enough!) Thinking about baby goats learning how to headbutt has inspired this idea.

[juniper-clan]

Moon 13 (2/2)

PREVIOUS l NEXT

[feanorianethicsdepartment]

look if finwë’s kids are like this, and his grandkids are like that, i feel pretty secure in saying the elf himself must have been an absolute fucking nightmare. melkor made sure to take him out early because if given the slightest opportunity to level up he would immediately become unstoppable

[collophora]

"Let's fix this drawing" *redraw the whole thing*