#death mark discord

[sleepyminty]

When the other death mark discord has a umineko discussion server

[importantdestinydefendor]

Bringing this to everybodys attention! as @emberstoriesandtales already said, join us if you want! We would be very happy about it.

Me and @importantdestinydefendor have decided to make a discord server for the spirit hunter games! If anyone wants to join here is a link for the server!

https://discord.com/invite/aB6SsgTP

[enjoyjellime]

That time once again, Happy Man Mansion Monday everyone

[rainbowchaox]

Kazuo “Woke not broke” Yashiki

And

Satoru “Punch a homophobe” Mashita

[shouts-into-the-void]

Can't believe I accidentally fixed a plot issue with the Moe Goes to College fic solely because I wanted to bring Abe in for an enemies to lovers arc

[ayyy-pee]

ℍ𝕚𝕕𝕕𝕖𝕟 𝔸𝕗𝕗𝕒𝕚𝕣𝕤

Discord 18+ - Twitter

Pairing: Sanemi Shinazugawa x Female Reader

Summary: But you can see - in those deep violet eyes of his - three little words swimming behind them that he's been itching to say to you for quite some time now. You want to say them too, have for as long as you can remember. 

But you're both Hashira. It's already enough that you both keep towing this dangerous line, finding yourselves in this exact predicament more often than not.

or

Sanemi is just so down bad for reader.

Story Warning: Smut, Alley Sex, P in V sex, Profanity bc c'mon...it's me, Vaginal Sex, Jealousy, Jealous Behavior, Fingering, Unprotected Sex, Creampie, Sanemi being bad at feelings, Secret Flings, Secretly in Love, Sneaking Around, Some canon Giyuu hate from Sanemi, Reader is a Hashira too!

Art by: krit961 (Twitter)

A/N: This is my first time writing for this fandom ever, but the Sanemi brainrot has been so INSANELY strong I just had to write SOMETHING up. It's nothing crazy and I'm rusty because it's been awhile for me but ugh. THIS ONE IS FOR YOU SANEMI!!!! Also shoutout to @lemonlover1110 for helping me with the title!

“We should head back…” You sigh, breaths coming rapidly. “Before…” A quiet gasp interrupts your words when you feel the sting of teeth sinking into your neck. “Before the others notice…”

”Fuck the others,” a gravelly voice growls into the juncture of your neck. Large hands grasp your thighs hard, holding them wide open as a hard form sits between them. “Don’t give a fuck if they notice, either. Maybe Tomioka will stop staring like a lovesick puppy if he figures it out.”

He buries his face further into your neck, grumbling against your skin. Something along the lines of “I hate that guy” and “I should gouge his eyes out”.

Your fingers slip into the snowy white tresses at the nape of his neck, gripping hard and pulling so that you can see his face. Pretty, long lashes cover hooded purple eyes that soften the moment they catch sight of you. The softness is such a contrast to the deep, pitted scars scattered along his face. But he’s beautiful all the same.

“Sanemi…”

At the sound of his name on your lips, he rolls his eyes. “If you’re gonna defend him–”

“Sanemi –”

“I don’t wanna hear it.” 

Your lips set into a deep frown, and Sanemi matches your expression, stubborn as ever. “What is your issue with Giyuu anyway?”

Sanemi scoffs, “Giyuuuuuu,” he mocks with a nasally tone. “Stop talking about him.”

“You brought him up!”

His mouth finds yours, rough and hungry, all consuming. It’s all teeth and tongue, nipping at your lips because he knows they’ll still be just swollen enough by the time you both get back. He’s marking his territory in his own way, as much as he can. Possessive and jealous, even when he knows he has no reason to be, no right to be. But he can’t help it.

You don’t belong to him, you don’t belong to anyone. Because you know it wouldn’t be smart to commit to any one person. Not in this line of work.

Sanemi has you pressed against the bamboo fencing in the darkest part of an alleyway, just outside of the Ubuyashiki Mansion with your legs wrapped tightly around his waist. It’s your usual meeting spot when you’ve been separated for some time, both of you too impatient to wait until the early morning hours when the Hashira meeting has finally ended to see each other.

“Fuck me,” Sanemi groans against your lips. He places an arm beneath your ass, holding you up as his other hand hikes your uniform skirt up to your waist. “Swear this gets shorter every time I see you.”

A giggle slips past your lips, because it absolutely gets shorter every time he sees you. You do it on purpose because you know it drives Sanemi up the wall to see little peeks of your ass and not be able to do anything about it. Makes him even crazier that he knows others can see it, too, and he can’t do anything but shoot death glares at anyone who dares to let their gazes roam. 

But you can’t let Sanemi know that. So you pout, laying your palms against his exposed chest and tracing his scars with your fingertips. You watch as his eyes flutter, sensitive to the touch. “You don’t like it? I can always request a change in uniform…”

Sanemi groans, leaning forward and kissing you hard. “Don’t you fuckin’ dare.” He presses his groin into your, evidence of his arousal against your soaking core. “You look so good in it.” His hand slinks between your bodies, thumb going straight to your clit, where he presses down, a shit eating grin spreading across his face when your back arches off the wall and you moan. “Look even better in it when you’re making that face.”

Your nails dig into his scars and Sanemi’s reaction is automatic, hips rocking forward roughly and now you’re both whining into each other’s mouths. You’re sure if anyone came across the two of you, you’d appear as this horny couple who couldn’t bother to wait until they got home to dry hump each other. And outside of the couple part, they’d be correct. Sanemi ruts against you, his erection running deliciously along your clothed cunt. Your lips slot together, tongues deep in each other’s mouths as Sanemi grunts into yours, and you keen into his.

There’s not much time to waste, you’re meant to be at the mansion soon. It would be suspicious if one Hashira, let alone two were missing when the Master arrived and if asked, the crows would spill your secrets in a heartbeat. You need to hurry. And Sanemi feels the pressure too. Even though he loves to annoy you pretending he doesn’t care about being late or cluing in the others on what’s going on, he would never disrespect the Master. 

Pausing his movements and leaning back to peer down at you, Sanemi sighs. He’s so painfully hard, his length throbbing within the confines of his uniform as he drinks in the sight of your kiss swollen lips, just the way he wanted them. And your face flushed, pupils blown wide as all hell with arousal. He’s sure he looks much the same, knowing you’re just as possessive as he is, though you hardly show it. It’s simply easier to hide your little territorial marks, the scratches you leave on him when they blend in so well among the rest of his scars.

Your fingers ghost along his chest, finding his nipples and you pinch the hardening buds, smirking when you see the way Sanemi’s eyes almost roll back. He can’t take another fucking second of this teasing. Not after he hasn’t seen you in who knows how long. He wants you badly that even your voice is enough to make him ruin his pants right now. It’s the semi-annual Hashira meeting tonight and he’s not willing to wait until Himejima is done yapping to have you.

Sanemi tugs at his uniform, getting his pants down just barely enough to pull his cock out. The tip is angry, red, just as desperate to be inside you as Sanemi. It glistens with his desire for you and you only.

“Gonna fuck you now, okay?” He tells you, hooking a finger into your undergarments and pulling them to the side. He runs his digits through your folds, hissing when he feels how drenched you are. It helps when he slips two fingers into you, mouth falling open when you throw your head back with a cry, your walls clamping around him. This Sanemi’s favorite part. Watching the way your brows knit together, how your pretty teeth dig into your plush bottom lip to bite back your moans, how your pussy makes the most lewd noises as he pumps his fingers into you.

You are glorious.

Always have been. It’s why he can never get enough of you. You’re insanely strong, clearly. You’re a Hashira, standing alongside him and some of the strongest in the corps. But you’re also blessed with a beauty that rivals every woman Sanemi has ever laid eyes on. He’s drawn to you in ways he cannot explain, ways he doesn’t need an explanation for. It’s why he hates catching the little glances from a certain other Hashira. Not that anyone knows what you two have going on, but all Sanemi knows is that he –

“Sanemi…” you whimper, eyes gazing softly at him. “Please. I need you.”

And he doesn’t need to hear more. His lips crash against yours as he swiftly pulls his fingers from you, gripping his length tightly and pumping himself. “How bad do you need me?” He asks. Because he needs you so fucking bad right now he can’t think straight. His mind is foggy, his body burns with his lust for you. 

“So, so bad, Sanemi,” you loop your arms around his neck, kissing him just as eagerly as he kisses you. “I need you more than anything.”

Sanemi groans, pressing the tip of his cock to your entrance. But his eyes never leave your face, even as the tip breaches your walls and makes him want to shut his eyes and focus on not cumming embarrassingly fast. He wants to see you, watch the way you lose yourself when he splits you open. The thought of it has him pulsing painfully in his hand. He rolls his hips forward, slowly, gritting his teeth when your wet warmth envelops him. “Still so goddamn tight for me,” he grunts. “Your greedy cunt is sucking me right in, fuck.”

Your nails dig into the fabric of Sanemi’s shirt, hanging on for dear life as Sanemi pushes deeper and deeper into you. As many times as you’ve been in this position with Sanemi, it always feels like the first time. He’s so long and thick, you have to adjust every time he slips into you.

“Oh my god,” you whine, and Sanemi pauses.

“You okay?”

“Yes…just…fuck me, please, Sanemi…”

He grips your thighs, pushing you back against the bamboo fencing to hold you in place. And then he thrusts forward, bottoming out in one swift motion and you both cry out in unison, the overwhelming pleasure making you both shudder.

“Fucking hell,” Sanemi sighs. He places his hands beneath your ass, keeping you still while he rears his hips back, only to slam back into you over and over. He pounds into your pussy at a relentless pace. Half because you’re on one hell of a time crunch, and half because he can’t help it. He feels animalistic when it comes to you, fucking into you mindlessly because it just feels so goddamn incredible. Every thrust feels better than the last, your warm walls clenching around him with each snap of his hips.

“I can’t go that long without you again…” Sanemi croaks, catching himself because he feels he’s getting too sentimental. “...without your pretty little pussy.”

“God, just say you missed me, you asshole.” You tell him, moving your own hips to meet his strokes. Though your words come out as more of this pathetic whimper than an actual demand and it makes Sanemi’s hips stutter. Just briefly. His hands on your ass lift you up before pulling you to sink back down on him.

Sanemi chuckles, leaning back just enough so that he can look between your bodies, watch the sticky strings of your slick connecting you, watch how his dick disappears. “Did you miss me?”

“Yes!” You cry when Sanemi hits a particularly tender spot. “Shit, I missed you so much, Sanemi.”

His brows rise, a little surprised by the confession, and a loud one at that. “Oh?” He kisses you hard, keeping his pace. Your confession turns him on more than he’s willing to admit. He missed you, too, though it’s harder for him to say so. Instead he fucks all of his feelings into you. 

How he misses you when you’re apart, because his thoughts are dangerously distracted wondering what you’re doing, who you’re with, if you’re alive.

How he wishes you’d be assigned missions together, so he could watch you tear a demon's head straight from their shoulders. Then find somewhere to stay the night so he can fuck you on every surface possible (He’s done this with you before. He wants to do it with you again).

How he wishes he could open his mouth and tell you how he truly feels.

But those feelings have always been foreign to him. Sanemi is lucky you understand his silence, that you accept his actions for what they are and let them speak for him. You accept everything he gives you happily. And as you tighten your legs around his waist, as you quietly let your pleasure be heard by him and him alone, as your walls clamp down around him with your release, convulsing and pulling him into you, Sanemi can only thank the Gods for every shitty circumstance that led him to you.

Does he deserve you? Probably not. Does he care? Absolutely not.

Because you chose him. This secret…whatever this is. Out of anyone in this world, you chose Sanemi.

And it’s enough to send him over the edge with you, gasping desperately for air as he tries to find your lips again. He closes his eyes, pushing himself as deep as he can as his release floods your walls. It’s so much, a build up over time and he knows his seed will be dripping out of your core before he’s even had a chance to pull out. It’s always this way. Because Sanemi doesn’t bother entertaining other women when he’s away. He only wants you. So the second he’s within the same vicinity as you, he has literally so much to give.

You never seem to mind.

Sanemi breaks the messy kiss, placing gentle, sweet pecks to your cheek before he leans back to stare down at you. That fucked out look on your face almost has him getting hard again. But you don’t have time for that, so he just watches you and you watch him. And he’s glad for the fact that you can’t see the way his mind is racing with only thoughts of you, thoughts of this feeling he’s buried so deep trying to claw its way up Sanemi’s throat.

But you can see - in those deep violet eyes of his - three little words swimming behind them that he's been itching to say to you for quite some time now. You want to say them too, have for as long as you can remember. 

But you're both Hashira. It's already enough that you both keep towing this dangerous line, finding yourselves in this exact predicament more often than not.

It's a little more than ridiculous actually, the way neither of you can resist sneaking glances, hiding touches, making excuses to leave on missions together. You and Sanemi…you're drawn to each other, your strings of fate knotted tightly together. It’s become impossible to leave each other alone. You don't think you'd be able to resist what you're doing even if you met as two civilians on the street. Hell, you couldn't resist each other all those years ago when you were low ranked corps members. 

Training was a confusing hell back then, every session filled to the brim with fury and a strange and thick tension neither of you could put your finger on until way down the line. It wasn't until one particular training session when Sanemi had you pinned to the ground, his strong hips pressing into yours, that you then understood what that tension was. The evidence was apparent in the way Sanemi's hard stare bore into yours, how the heat between your legs began to ignite when you felt Sanemi’s thick length pulse against you, how something akin to a whimper fell from his lips when his gaze snapped down quickly just in time to watch the hem of your uniform skirt slip further, enough for him to see the way your bodies seemed to just…fit.

Then his eyes were back on your face, your lips, now parted as harsh breaths escaped you. Your eyes, wide and wanting, peered up at him from beneath your lashes and Sanemi remembers this being the very moment he stopped denying what he had always known. You are breathtakingly beautiful. He also recalls this being the moment he knew he was done for. 

So when your hands found themselves placed against his not yet scarred chest, balling the sweaty fabric of his shirt in your fists…when he leaned closer and curiously rolled his hips against your clothed core and heard you let out the most captivating sound he'd ever heard, a sound he's been obsessed with since he's heard it…when he pressed his lips lightly to yours and you whispered into his mouth “I've never done this before”.

Yeah, Sanemi knew then that he was fucked. 

And though that night was not the night you'd given your virginity to Sanemi - that would happen years later - it was the night Sanemi tasted you for the first time. And he devoured you time and time again like a man starved. He would have you any way and any time that he could, if you allowed him. 

That was only the beginning.

Not much has changed in the years that you have been keeping up this arrangement with Sanemi. It's the only thing that you both keep coming back to, the only thing that feels solid. Though you both know it's stupid to feel as if anything in this line of work is not at risk. 

Every night that you lie awake, together or not, is a reminder. Every semi-annual meeting with the Hashira, mentally taking a headcount of everyone is a reminder. Every Hashira meeting without Rengoku, without Tengen is a reminder. 

Death is always standing just outside your door.

You can't afford to delude yourselves into thinking you can freely love and care for each other. Not until this thousand year war is over. Not until you are free to roam beneath the stars together without the scent of blood, the cries of pain and loss tainting the night. 

So, as you and Sanemi slip into the gates of the Ubuyashiki Mansion, your fingers brush together just briefly - a silent display of those words you dare not mutter aloud. You make your way to your respective places amongst the strongest of the Demon Slayer corps; you, next to Tomioka and Sanemi beside the Serpent Hashira. And while you quietly mingle with those around you before the Master appears, you miss the hushed conversation further down the line. 

“You reek of her,” Obanai remarks. Resting around his shoulders, his snake whips his tongue out at Sanemi in almost an agreement. 

“Shut up.”

“You're more tense than normal. Did you finally confess? Did she reject your advances?”

“I said shut up,” Sanemi growls. The chatter of everyone is already grinding on his nerves and your voice is not helping. He wants to look at you. See what - or who - has you giggling and speaking so sweetly that it's making him sick. It shouldn't matter. You can talk to whoever you want.

‘Except Tomioka,’ Sanemi thinks. But it's only because he's so clearly in love with you! He can't understand how you don't see it.

“Looks like Tomioka is making his move,” Obanai notes quietly, like he read Sanemi’s mind.

Sanemi can hear the teasing tone in his voice. The asshole is really getting a kick out of this. Even still, it's enough to have Sanemi’s gaze snapping over to you just in time to see Tomioka and you smiling sweetly at each other, nodding and whispering amongst yourselves. 

It shouldn't make Sanemi as upset as it does, just seeing you enjoy yourself with him, seeing him enjoy himself with you. Your smiles, your laughs, your kindness. It should only be for Sanemi. But you're a kind person…too kind. So kind you'd allow a monster like himself to fall in love with you.

Tomioka is much kinder, more understanding, better for you than Sanemi could ever be. 

And so, seeing you and him bond…Well, it fills Sanemi with a rage so hot he finds himself standing, eyes locked on the back of your head. You must feel it, his gaze beating down on you like rays of heat from the sun itself, because you fall silent and your head snaps around. Your eyes find Sanemi's immediately, gaze wide and questioning. 

Tomioka looks confused as well. ‘Good,’ Sanemi thinks. He can't wait to see the look on the Water Hashira's face when Sanemi does what he's been wanting to, but admittedly too scared to do for so long – claim you as his in front of everyone.

He lets the fumes of his anger fuel him, gritting his teeth so hard his jaw hurts. And then he's opening his mouth to speak, tongue on the roof of his mouth as all other chatter dies and the eyes of the other Hashira land on him. 

“I lo-”

“The Master has arrived!” Twin voices call in unison. 

And it's like muscle memory for every single Hashira, falling in line on one knee with their heads bowed as the Master approaches. His arrival extinguishes the fire that burned hazardously within Sanemi just seconds before, soothes the scorching left behind. His head is clear now, the reminder of why you both choose to keep your meetings between just you two evident.

You have a job to do. Defeating this evil comes before all things, even you. Though with the way Sanemi almost blew the lid off of your secret, he's not sure how much longer can go on without openly being with you. 

But it sparks something within him - a new fire. One that burns solely for one purpose. 

To defeat Kibutsuji Muzan…so that he can finally, and fully have you. 

[occamstfs]

Talismen II: Gamer Grows Up

One episode of toxity too many leaves Nicky forcing Rick on a journey to maturity despite his best attempts to remain an asshole

Hope you enjoy! I’m always very happy with my bear TF’s haha! Hope you all feel similarly :) Same deal as last time, I’ll throw a poll up on Sunday the 8th and we’ll keep the ball rolling! Best! -Occam

Doing his best to put down subconscious alarm bells that something amiss has happened to his boyfriend, Nicky gets back to the main event of his morning: running it down in League. It’s not intentional of course, his duo and friend Louis was trying something new and he clearly should have spent some time in the practice tool before queuing up. In call, Louis is uncharacteristically sullen, trying to salvage both the mood and game, Nicky alternates between giving gameplay tips and trying to raise his friend’s spirits, “It’s just a completely different playstyle Lew. Besides, it’s just a norm, not like anyone’s gonna flame-” 

Little did the kindly magician know, before the words even finished falling from his mouth that elsewhere in town, Rick, their less than pleasant mid-laner had begun typing up quite vehement digs directed at the struggling bot duo:

[Team] Yasuoorbust: Are you fckrs 14 or what????? Fckn L2P 

Nicky’s lips tighten into a grimace as he hears a sigh loud and clear over discord, followed promptly by the familiar in-game announcement: An Ally was Slain accompanied by his support’s portrait. This, of course, immediately incited another outburst from their needlessly aggro teammate. The game proceeds like this for a good while. After racking up a handful more deaths and a good deal more insults from the midlaner, Louis is over it and implores Nicky to just mute and move on. Jaw-clenched and blood boiling irrationally, Nicholas instead opts to fire back, 

[All] Heartstolen: Guys can you report Yas- He’s been flaming my sup all game.

[Team] Yasuoorbust: LMAOOOO fckn litttle btch

[Team] Yasuoorbust: *****

Reaching the fifteen minute mark, the ticket out arrives and Louis immediately throws up a surrender vote. Clearly he wasn’t ready to Sett support and would promptly be getting back to his pool of enchanters and mages next game. Before freedom arrives however, Rick lobs a few more clearly bannable slurs at Louis that the support doesn’t see. Nicky, before submitting the final surrender vote, sees red in more ways than one. Eyes glimmering and fingertips burning crimson as he sets to type a message directly to the asshole.

(whisper) To Yassuoorbust: Chill out dude. It’s a game. Grow Up.

Laughing at the response, as trolls are wont to do, Rick smirks and begins to lambast the perceived loser before hesitating. He’s never seen red text like that in game. Hesitating, he’s caught off-guard and hasn’t a chance to reply before he sees their nexus blowing up and the announcer finally calls it: Defeat. Still distracted from seeing the bizarre message from the ADC, Rick doesn’t make it to the lobby before the duo have left and blocked him, preventing him from flaming them any further or contacting them at all.

“Whatever-” Rick whispers to himself alone in his bedroom, illuminated only by the blue light from his computer screen. Hearing the cold wind of an empty lobby in his headset, Rick scoffs and rubs at his monitor as he sees a red smudge on the screen. If he didn’t know any better he’d swear it’s exactly the spot on the screen where that pussy’s little message was. He licks his thumb and goes to wipe it off. When his spit covered thumb makes contact he’s filled with a bizarre sensation. A shiver, rather than a shock, courses through him. Hands go numb and an uncomfortable prickly burning fills his chest. He struggles to breath and his eyes go wide as he experiences anxiety for the first time, amplified to a degree beyond overwhelming. 

Gasping, he clutches at his ratty shirt and his whole screen flashes red before, just as quickly as it began, it’s over. Catching his breath the feeling in his hands returns and he grimaces as they sting with pain from being clenched far too hard. Looking back at the league client he briefly imagines closing it and going to do something that even has the semblance of productivity. Instead, he shakes out his hands and clicks through to queue up once more, winning will make him right as rain. He’s sure of it.

Once in game it becomes more than clear that this is not to be the case. At every opportunity the shoe is on quite the other foot for the troll. The champion he hovered was banned, he was immediately first blooded, both the enemy team and his own gang up to taunt and tilt him. Worse yet, anytime he opens chat to aggress, or even just to defend himself, he’s struck with a searing headache. His hands keep cramping up and he’s fat fingered more abilities than he’s hit. Despite years of dedication to the game, Rick is playing at a level that even a CPU would struggle to lose to.

His head burns with rage and his jaw remains clenched in so much fury that it’s a wonder it won’t lock up like that. About halfway through a game where he has spent more time waiting to respawn then playing Rick finds more discomfort begin to arise each time the irksome retort from Nicky returns, Grow up. His whole torso begins to itch, almost as if he were allergic to the stained t-shirt he had been wearing for two days straight. Forcing a greasy hand under his shirt to get at his skin, he is thoroughly shocked to find it suddenly dragging through a treasure trail rising well past his belly button. The shock almost knocks him out of his gamer chair, he tugs at a hair or two and sharply exhales as he yanks a strand from the new forest slowly inching its way up towards his chest. 

Before he can examine it to discover the prodigious length he respawns and gets his head back in the game. Or at least he tries to. He has to take his headset off as the volume makes his headache worse. When the enemy jungler goes in on him, he furrows his brow in confusion as she uses abilities he can’t even discern. Rick scratches at his chin as his foggy mind struggles to even name the champion that has just killed him. Grey screened once more he puts his head in his hands and groans as playing the game any longer becomes untenable. He throws up a surrender vote and is promptly mocked for doing so. 

Punching the table in irritation he scratches at his chest through his shirt and taps his foot impatiently as he waits for the game to end on its own. Pulling at his shirt to let air into his hot, itchy chest he fans his body odor upwards and grimaces as pits seem to be harboring a stink that his axe body spray wouldn’t be able to cover. When the enemy team finally wins the game he kicks back from his chair and races to the bathroom, struggling to get his shirt off en route as it gets trapped on his sweaty back. Never could he be prepared for the sight he finds upon his arrival.

Where his pale thin chest once was barren, where it should still be hairless, there is now a contiguous line of body hair from his pubes to his collarbones. His lanky fingers and sweaty palms drag across his stomach and his lips twitch to stop from grinning in excitement at finally having any real form of masculinity to point towards. The toxic gamer immediately grabs his phone to snap a picture of his new form, performing some clearly forced, jaw-forward expression to highlight how manly he is now. 

There are butterflies in his stomach as his fingers continue to play with the hair in the center of his chest. Trailing to the lengthier and thicker forest in his pits he purses his lips as he begins to consider how this possibly could have happened on such short notice, maybe it is an allergic reaction? He closes his eyes in concentration and the words flash in his mind once more, Grow Up. Before he can react to this there is a ping on his computer and he races to find, just as Nicky had predicted, his account has been banned for the week. 

“What the fuuUUCk!” He doesn’t even blush as his voice cracks, assuming it to be from his heightened emotional state rather than the Adam's apple for the first time bobbing on his neck. The gamer rubs his face in anguish, not noticing rougher cheeks due to his sorry state as the faintest hints of facial hair begin to descend into almost noticeable sideburns. Instead, a distraction comes in the form of a painfully rumbling stomach. Rick’s dull eyes stare blankly ahead as he briefly tries to recall the last time he ate.

With a sigh he turns and heads off to grab something from his surly barren kitchen to eat. His dominant hand continues to dance across his newly hairy torso, as if he were worried that if it left, so too would his recently sprouted forest. Strangely enough though, with each ambling step it feels less out of place on his stomach. His head tilts as even his dull mind is able to notice the change. He’s- He’s always had a pretty hair chest right? It can’t have just popped up overnight? That’s not, it’s not possible. He scratches into his chest and stomach, feeling his nails catch and drag against dark strands spreading out further across his chest. Still growing and thickening as he arrives at his fridge.

Rick doesn’t know why he’s shocked to find it empty? Not like he’s ever lived any differently. He’s always ordering food delivered, the most complicated dish he’s ever cooked for himself is canned tomato soup alongside a grilled cheese. When his stomach rumbles once more, he grits his teeth and tears open his cabinet to find all one might expect in a man of his ilk’s pantry; a few packages of instant ramen and a litany of half eaten bags of chips. For the first time all day the usual ire at the world turns inward as he chews himself out for living so irresponsibly as he starts water boiling. 

Throwing a few packages of noodles into the pot as it begins to bubble, Rick starts impatiently fisting stale chips into his mouth. Struggling to satiate a hunger greater than he can understand, he grapples with the alien impulse that this is not how things should be. Something deep within him swears he is more responsible than this, that he is more mature than this. He groans and stumbles, feeling woozy from reconciling how things should be against how they clearly are, he drops the chip bag he was holding and it glides to the floor empty. 

He’s brought back to reality as he hears the water boil over onto the stovetop, which he quickly takes off the burner. Stranger still, something begins to bubble up within himself. While not quite sustenance, the few chip bags scattered at his feet seem to have been enough food to give him indigestion. Rick’s fist goes to his mouth as he struggles against an oppressive urge to burp. Trying to push it down or quiet it in any way only makes the pressure more intense as he feels more bloated with each slowly passing second. After wondering why he’s stopping himself from burping at all, he gives in and releases a burp loud enough to get noise complaints. After the first escapes more are soon to follow. And with each mind-numbing release he impossibly feels more bloated.

When at last he gets peace from his gas, Rick starts to check on his noodles before being distracted by new weight sticking out from his chest. His lips again quiver into a smile and his eyes widen in wonder as his hands move to clutch the unequivocal pecs now bulging off a chest that has never held even an ounce of weight before. Only then does he notice that his chest is not the only place where muscle has begun to pile on, underneath the same dark curls that decorate his chest biceps thicken and forearms surge with strength. Hands whose only use has been tapping on a keyboard suddenly widen as, away from his eyeline, thighs and glutes bulk with haste. 

The momentary self-flagellation at his lazy lifestyle immediately vacates as, at the miracle of transformation, he returns to his arrogant, needlessly cruel mindset. His eyes glimmer with pride as he flexes just to smirk at strength that has been bestowed unto his unworthy self. Tossing ramen sloppily into a bowl he aways back to his gamer station as he is filled with a prideful desire to show those fuckers who they messed with. 

Rick slurps noodles from his bowl as he leaves the kitchen in its sorry state, trash scattered on the floor. With each bite hair continues to spread and muscle continues to pile on. Eating like an animal, he wipes his mouth on his newly muscular shoulder and smirks wide enough to strain his face as he feels stubble outright growing into a beard. “Grow up that little fuck said- Oh I grew up alright!” His voice rumbles deep in his chest as he sits down, getting hard at how much of a man he suddenly sounds. How much of a man he suddenly is. 

Anticipation fills him as he wakes his computer back up to go be absolutely needlessly toxic to people who have not spent a second thinking about him after blocking and moving on. With his mind turning to the pathetic work of mocking his fellow man, his free hand instead turns to fondle a growing cock that has finally begun to rear its head. Heavy balls pulse beneath his dick growing at an explosive rate and his is racked with pleasure more intense and consuming than he could ever fathom before his new form. Bulging veins press into his hand as his cock struggles to harden and rise even further above a thicket of pubes.

For a moment Rick’s so lost in his reverie that he totally forgets why he has made his way over to his computer. Seeing his sneering reflection he remembers as he turns it back on to log onto the rift and show those beta-bastards a real dick- er man. Only? What was he logging into again? Perhaps it's from his lust-addled mind but he simply cannot find the game anywhere on his desktop. His eyes strain as he scans the screen and drool nearly drips from his mouth as he continues to paw at his actually dripping cock. When he sees an icon for his webcam his priorities shift as he decides to demonstrate his superiority in a far more direct manner.

Camera on, Rick begins posing in every way his hitherto camerashy mind can imagine. Through the years he’s at least consumed a fair deal of thirst traps after all- Mostly of uh, women though? Yeah. He shakes off his momentary questioning to get back to what matters. How fucking hot he is. Exhibiting a pride even greater than before, he is far too absorbed in seeing just how high his new bicep can peak, how large his new cock looks on camera, how his scratchy new hair feels in his hand, to notice a harsh crimson glow seep along the border of his monitor. His mouth falls open and hips barely stay from bucking as he continues to feel himself up, languish in his powerful warm muscle and appreciate the deep, slow moans that echo throughout his bedroom.

Only when he notices the red light accentuating his bulging veins in a new way does he see the deep red light issuing forth from the screen. Rick sucks up the drool that almost pooled out of his mouth and grunts in irritation as he sets to investigate whatever virus or program seems to be affecting his PC. Even in his distracted, embarrassingly horny, state he’s unable to quiet the fear as two words return with a vengeance to fill his screen. Grow Up. He blinks and it's written again, then again. In no time at all the words spread to blot out and cover every inch of the screen.

Rick is barely present enough to respond to the bizarre stimuli, when he aimlessly repeats it in his new plodding voice that belies not a single thought bouncing around, “g-grow, uh? Up?” his whole body jerks and he clutches at his stomach as once more it begins to bloat. The gamer groans as weight begins to pile onto his only just strengthened core. Abs are quickly hidden behind a healthy layer of fat, making up for years, decades, of unintentional malnourishment behind a computer screen. Grow up. Apparent years of hunching over a keyboard rear their head as back pain sears through him. His newly grown garden of body hair rapidly spreads to become a jungle of fur he couldn’t control or manscape if he wanted to. 

Lying there moaning and groaning, there’s suddenly a sharp inhale as his head sears with the pain of dozens of hangover’s at once. Rick’s vision blurs and goes spotty as he tries to stand and make his way to bed. Inside his mind, hidden by an echoing chorus of Grow Up, the line between what is and is not begins to blur. The gamer almost cries as things he views as vital importance are sucked from his mind. Long hours spent researching optimal build paths and thoughtlessly mimicking tricks he saw streamers do vacate as his balls grow heavy with desire. The twin bed creaks under his new weight as he continues to grow even still.

Face down, muffling his moans, Rick is unaware as the world similarly begins to shift around him. His gamer station, the epicenter of his changes, is the first to go. RGB lighting and his gamer chair fade and contort into a workstation befitting a not-so-young professional of good breeding. Wrappers and other assorted trash blow off his desk and into a trash can that sits precisely where his Ps5 once gathered dust. His pile of unwashed laundry folds itself and flies into a closet as cheap, not even comfortable, clothes expand to fit his larger body and alter into relatively expensive, and elastic, fabrics.

Still lying in bed, pain gives way to pleasure as he has no choice but to welcome the loss of identity. Thicker hands clutch his bedspread as his bed bursts into a queen size and he begins humping into it. Powerful thighs and a heavy core thrust up and down as his balls almost burn with a need for release, a compulsion to cum. His eyes cross as he becomes so set on this end that he doesn’t feel the sheets changing underneath him, see pictures appearing on the wall, hear the sound of the world changing from his abject situation into something better. He does not notice as he changes to someone more mature.

It is not long before he indeed loses control. His new silky sheets are stained and his hairy stomach splattered as his thick arms lose strength and he falls down into his mess. Having spent far more energy than he had stored on this session, Rich passes out and his snores echo deep. His expanded diaphragm pushes against the bed as he produces enough sound that it would be a wonder that anyone would sleep alongside him and yet, unbeknownst to him, reality has plans far greater than the pointedly cruel man would ever deserve had Nicky not willed him better, willed for him better. Despite himself, the hands of a greater man tuck him in as crows feet and smile lines begin to etch themselves around his sleepful eyes.

When he awakens from the most fitful slumber he has perhaps ever experienced, Rich struggles against a mind slow and foggy, as expected when one wakes to a new world. Bleary eyes look out into something impossibly unrecognizable, and yet truer than himself. Groaning and scratching at his hairy belly and itchy ass, Rich walks past a note left on his desk to instead brush his teeth and wash his face. Minty foam soon filling his mouth and falling into his beard he smiles and once more flexes in the mirror with a healthy amount of affection for himself.

Spitting into the sink and wiping his beard clean with a hand towel he sees a second toothbrush sitting in a toothbrush holder and freezes. That can’t- Who? His mind races to recall something that he knows, something, someone he should know. Does he live with someone? When did he even get a toothbrush holder, he’d never- His eyes clench as some deeply ingrained instinct of never even putting forth the smallest effort on propriety, order, or cleanliness. I mean, what is he? Gay?

He lurches forward, only just catching himself on the bathroom counter as his mind stings and his face burns. Looking back up at his reflection, one eye jammed shut from pain he forces a smirk and begins laughing, well, duh? His belly jiggles as he lets loose a deep throated laugh and pats it, winking. Flickering back to the toothbrush a misty figure in his mind begins to fill out, become more real. No time to dwell on the matter as his stomach rumbles and he is instantly aware of a hunger that he must fill like anyone else alive. 

Despite something in him trying to compel him into the kitchen to prepare food he recalls the all too real memory of making all the ramen he had left last night and instead dials up the chinese food restaurant next door- “Hey Hi- This is Alex with Wok-n-Talk! What can we do for ya!” Rich clears his throat, “Ahm- Afternoon Alex I-” before he even finishes his sentence he freezes up once more, that’s not- He must have a cold. His veins chill as he tries to reconcile the crackle of age that sounds like an alarm in his husky voice.

Fortunately for the man, Alex speaks up to save him, “Ah! Afternoon indeed Mr. Adams! Hope things are well! Y’all just getting the usual today?” Rich grunts in the affirmative to prevent speaking up and Alex simply laughs in response, the bear somehow hears a wink through the line, “I’ll toss a couple extra egg rolls in there for ya big guy! We’ll have a family meal up for y’all soon! See ya in a jiffy sir!” For the moment Rich ignores being referred to as sir to instead focus on something even stranger. His beard and brows grow thicker as reflexively makes the gay bear face in thought- Adams isn’t his last name?

The massive man stands frozen in thought for some time as he tries to unpack that, unaware that he has begun to fidget with a new silicon ring hugging his left hand ring finger. When Alex arrives with the food he unconsciously returns to his apparent usual self as if he had met the young man hundreds of times. Receiving an impressive bounty of food, Rich sees the young man off with a pat on the shoulder and a cash tip that the once-gamer can’t quite recall having in his wallet before now. In fact, when did he even get a leather wallet- no matter. 

His mouth waters as he may as well float over to the pile of take-out containers that cover his kitchen counter. Family meal huh, is this really what he orders for himself? I mean it’s not like he has other mouths to feed. His head twitches as behind him photos on the wall show three faces and a door appears in his den to a bedroom that has never and always been there. Pushing down the buzzing headache, his still rumbling stomach takes precedence as he begins tearing into food meant for three.

The meal is evaporated with a haste that is inhuman, compelled to fuel the final aspects of a transformation he is unaware of, Rich simply eats until something within him says he is finished. The elastic waistline of his pants strains as his new gut will evermore push out from his hips, just like he likes it. Just like his- partner likes it. His hairline begins to recede and grey hairs speckle his beard as his new lived reality begins to take hold. Just like his husband likes it. He smiles kindly as warmth fills him and dense curls begin their crusade over his shoulders and up his wide back.

His husband, Ben Adams. Rich feels a hole that has existed longer than Rick had been alive fill itself. Whatever palty dregs of a man who delighted in being needlessly mean, frivolously cruel, pointlessly hateful in and out of game totally evaporate. From his mind, from his sense of self, from reality. Burping as he finishes a chinese meal meant for three the new bear sits on a cozy couch and pats his stomach, groaning as far too much food struggles to digest. In the meantime the cracks left from Rick begin to fill in as he becomes kindly Rich Adams. Not a gamer, not a horny chauvinistic asshole, but a husband, a father, who has matured to the utmost.

Retroactively, Nicky’s unintentional spell is so effective that it was never even cast. Rich met Ben so long ago and fell in love that he never even had the desire to play league, nor the toxicity to troll in any game. Instead the pair hit it off at university and married soon after. Once settling they adopted and have lived lives happier than either man could have expected for themselves. Every so often some beyond repressed alien instinct of his old self cries out and tries to take hold of the man. To compel him to spew vitriol with less strength or coherence than an intrusive thought. Rich treats them with the respect they deserve, laughing them off and redoubling his efforts to a brighter world.

After resting for digestion for some time, sleep once more finds the bear and he conks out on the couch, snoring loud enough to be heard in the hall of their apartment complex. When Ben returns from work he promptly chastises his partner for gorging himself and sleeping away his day off. He then forces the bloated man to get up and the pair head off together into the cool autumn day to pick their not-so-little one up from high school. There’s a chill in the air so Ben sidles up far closer to the bear to get some mileage out of the man’s usually oppressive body heat. All in all Rich Adams can think of no better life than the one he shall now enjoy evermore.

Thanks to all who had suggestions for the next chapter, here are a few of them alongside a couple new ideas of my own! If you've got anything for the next poll feel free to comment or DM :)

Poll Results:

Sorry For The Backwash 34.1%

Back at the gym Simon finds himself quite the personal trainer due to his jockification being contagious (Combined both jock Tfs from previous poll)

BC PD 14.6%

Harassed while out and about Nicky turns a authority obsessed officer into just the primal masculine ideal he’s so obsessed with (Devolution)

Burn Out 15%

Self-important business man forced into a sabbatical to chill out after stepping all over Nicky  (Stoner/general dirtbag TF)

Acculturation 23.6%

Nerdy academic yearns to be closer to anthropological subjects (cultural/racial TF) - might not make the cut for this poll TBD

Sloppy Thirds 12.7%

Nicky and Simon pitched on bringing a third into the relationship whom Nicky accidentally molds to be the perfect brutish third (Dom TF?)

[lizzyiii]

His Lady Love (3)

pairing | aemond targaryen x vampire!mikaelson!reader

word count | 3.7k words

summary | calm before the storm. the queen forces you to go to the targaryen-hightower supper where you finally sit face to face with aemond, (whilst getting interrogated by prince daemon as well.)

tags | reader is just here for the targ drama tbh, fluff, small angst/but reader comforts,

note | I just realised that both rebekah and reader fall for boys that they technically watched grow up (not really, but really tho, also would you consider this pedophilic, since rebekah and reader had mere platonic feelings, while marcel and aemond were already obsessed)

likes, comments, reblogs are much appreciated ✨

𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 — 𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 — 𝐍𝐞𝐱𝐭 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫

It had been a moon's turn since your return, and Aemond had taken to shadowing you through the sunlit halls of the Keep, his presence felt like a specter lurking just out of reach. Instead of confronting you directly, he observed, his violet gaze lingering on you with an intensity that sent shivers down your spine. Meanwhile, the currents of Targaryen drama began to stir anew, this time not over the succession of the Iron Throne, but over the shores of Driftmark and the title of the Lord of Tides.

Lord Vaemond Velaryon was set to make his case, summoned to the court to argue vehemently against Lucerys Velaryon’s claim to the ancestral seat, while the King deliberated on who would wear the mantle of the next successor.

Your mind, however, was torn asunder by the weight of the situation. It was as clear as the midday sun that Rhaenyra's three sons bore the mark of bastardy, the truth hanging in the air like a bitter fog. Yet, despite their dark hair and brown eyes, they were still Princess Rhaenrya's sons, making them true Targaryens, and as long as the crown acknowledged their legitimacy, they had every right to embrace their heritage.

Yet, the specter of justice loomed heavily. They bore no true Valaryon blood in their veins, a fact that rendered their claim to Driftmark similarly disquieting. If they were to inherit such a coveted title, it would be naught but a dagger to the heart of the Velaryon legacy, erasing centuries of honor and heritage in one fell swoop.

But who were you to cast judgment on the matter? You were, after all, a bastard yourself in your own right. With no discernible features from either your father or your mother, the only tether to the Mikaelson name was the multitude of witnesses who could attest to your mother birthing you into this world.

Soon enough, the matter erupted into a grand spectacle, as the Queen had relayed with a glint of grim madness in her eye. Viserys, frail and near death, had heaved himself from his sickbed, a ghost of his former self, to proclaim the legitimacy of his grandsons. That proclamation, laden with tension and bitter truths, secured their claim to Driftmark—an act of desperation that would surely echo through the halls of history. It was not long after this madness that the Prince, Daemon Targaryen, wielded his fury like a sword, severing Vaemond Velaryon's head from his shoulders for daring to call Rhaenyra a whore.

To your great displeasure, Queen Alicent had insisted your presence at the supper of Targaryen and Hightower—a feast destined to spiral into a night of revelry or ruin, most likely the latter. You preferred the shadows, where the light of their self-destructive feud would not touch you, allowing you to observe from afar rather than be ensnared in their political webs. Yet, refusal was a luxury you could not afford.

As the time of the supper approached, you dedicated a substantial time deliberating over your choice of attire. The vibrant hues of black and green were decidedly unfit, signifying discord and allegiances you wished to avoid at all costs. Instead, you selected a gown of soft pink silk, its flowing fabric draping elegantly over your form, a symbol of innocence amidst the clamor of tensions. You wove your hair into intricate braids interspersed with delicate pearls that caught the flickering candlelight, culminating your preparation with a cherished pendant—a family heirloom adorned with the Mikaelson crest.

Stepping into the grand dining hall, you were met with the scrutinizing gazes of the Blacks. Whispers and curious glances darted in your direction as you approached the long table, poised and unwavering, choosing to disregard Aegon's lecherous leers that felt all too familiar. A frown tightened your lips when you spied that both seats beside Helaena were occupied. Resigned yet resolute, you claimed the next available chair—seated close to Aemond.

"My prince," you intoned softly, offering a nod of acknowledgment.

Aemond's violet eye bore into you, a swirl of unspoken thoughts birthing an electric tension between you. Time seemed to stretch as he regarded you, his expression inscrutable, before he replied, "My Lady," his voice low and controlled, yet laden with something you couldn't discern.

With practiced grace, you settled into your seat, the heavy air thick with unspoken politics. You leaned slightly forward, attempting to listen as King Viserys, broken and weary beneath the weight of his crown, delivered a grand speech. He spoke of unity and the bonds of family, though in truth, all you wished for was the freedom to roll your eyes, a habit you had long restrained. His words felt hollow, a poignant irony given his role in fracturing his family as much as he sought to mend it

From what Queen Alicent had confided in you, you were painfully aware of the King's heart-wrenching choice—his decisions that saw his first wife deprived of her future and life, all in favor of the male heir he hoped for. That tragic episode echoed through the halls of the Red Keep, leading to not just his wife but both her and their son's death. And now, as King Viserys eagerly sought the son he so desperately desired, he had all but disregarded Aegon, neglecting the boy from the moment of his first cry.

As the King’s voice echoed in the hall, you caught sight of Helaena, Aegon, and Aemond—each face twisted in quiet agony, a poignant testament to the empty love their father bestowed upon them. In that moment, you felt a surge of empathy and support for them — even Aegon. With a discreet but deliberate motion, you slipped your hand beneath the table, gently covering Aemond’s tightly clenched fist.

He tensed at your touch, but after a heartbeat of hesitation, Aemond relaxed and opened his hand, intertwining your fingers with his. A small squeeze passed between you—a silent token of gratitude that spoke volumes in contrast to the empty words spilling from the King's lips.

As the evening wore on, the air thick with unwelcome tension, your mind began to drift, thoughts becoming a haze as the speeches droned on around you. It was only when Aemond's hand slipped from yours, his presence withdrawing as he rose to his feet, that your gaze sharpened. You found him casting a fierce glare at Jacaerys, who was regaling the gathering with yet another toast.

However, it was Helaena's gentle voice that truly broke through the fog enveloping you. She stood, her lovely countenance illuminated by a warm, sugary smile as she raised her glass high. "I would like to toast to Baela and Rhaena," she declared, her tone carrying a dreamy lightness, "They'll be married soon. It isn't so bad. Mostly he just ignores you... except when sometimes he's drunk."

Her words pierced your heart, the bittersweet truth laced within them shattering whatever sympathy you had harbored for Aegon. With a mixture of sorrow and indignation igniting within you, you cast a venomous glare towards Prince Daemon, who, aflame with mirth, laughed at Helaena’s toast. Yet you were not as discreet as you’d hoped; the piercing gaze of Prince Daemon met yours, a knowing smirk creeping upon his lips.

“I do believe I am yet to have the distinct pleasure of being introduced to our guest,” Prince Daemon declared, his voice tinged with the kind of arrogance that could curdle the blood of the unwary. The room fell silent; all attention was drawn to you, as if you were a curious creature caged among the dragons, and you suppressed the urge to sigh at the mischief brewing in his expression.

Queen Alicent cleared her throat—a notable attempt to extricate you from Daemon’s merciless gaze. “She is one of my esteemed ladies, Prince Daemon,” she interjected, her tone hinting at a subtle warning, though the sharpness of the prince’s wit remained unyielding.

“A lady, indeed?” Daemon’s voice was laced with mockery, his eyes flickering over you as if you were an intricate puzzle, “Yet here she sits, so comfortably, as if she belongs to the very blood of House Targaryen.” Daemon replied, the cunning glimmer in his eye only intensifying. He leaned forward, every inch the contemplative predator. “What is your name, my lady?”

The warmth of the hall contrasted sharply with the coolness of his gaze, yet you met it with unwavering resolve, the remnant courage of your lineage steeling your heart as you told him your name and lied about hailing from The Reach, your voice steady, resonating amidst the stillness.

"Mikaelson?" Daemon mused, his smirk as sharp as Valyrian steel. His silver hair framed a face both youthful and hardened by conflict, and his voice dripped with the playfulness of a cunning predator. "And yet you're no son."

A tight smile graced your lips, the playful banter igniting the spark of your short temper. "My father has enough sons, I assure you, Prince Daemon," you rebuffed, your tone dipped in irritation.

"How old are you? Six and ten?" he pressed, his gaze unwavering, while you caught sight of young Jacaerys approaching Helaena, asking her for a dance. If only irony were not woven into the very fabric of their fates—how you wished Queen Alicent had seen fit to unite them in a more harmonious bond than the betrothal she made with Helaena and Aegon.

But also at that moment, you recognized the precariousness of your own web of lies. Since your arrival at King's Landing, you had deceived the queen into believing you were six and ten, which in truth you were. Oh, how the centuries rolled by, yet your vampiric nature kept your visage untouched, a fragrant bloom eternally in its prime. It was a game of wit and veiled truths, and you knew well how to play.

You met Daemon’s piercing gaze anew, your expression turning steely, tinged with an edge of irritation. “No, your highness,” you replied, your voice as cool as ice. “I am three-and-twenty.”

Prince Daemon raised a silver eyebrow in surprise. “My, my, even older than Prince Aegon,” he drawled, the words rolled off his tongue like honey laced with venom, aimed to sting, "And unmarried, I presume?"

Though you longed to retort with the truth, that you were even older than him, a creature of darkness preserved by the very essence of your nature, you instead offered a demure smile, saying, “Yes. But I prefer it that way. Much more preferable than marrying whilst I was a girl." Your words, though soft-spoken, held a steel beneath their surface—a blade forged in the fires of countless unsaid anger at the world around you.

Daemon’s lips curled into an amused smirk, and he shrugged, seemingly unfazed. “And yet, that is the world we live in.” His tone was laced with the disillusionment of a man who had seen much—his own brand of charm wrapped in an air of indifference.

“Indeed, a world where old men prey upon young girls,” you countered, your voice steady and unwavering, “but I daresay you are no stranger to such tactics, your highness.” The look of amusement that had brightened Daemon’s features dimmed, his smirk wilting like a flower in winter, which you took great satisfaction in.

You jolted in your seat, when Aemond, seated beside you, suddenly slammed his fist onto the table. The cacophony of music and chatter in the hall fell silent as he rose, his goblet held aloft like a rallying cry. "Last Tribute!" he announced, a boldness in his voice that demanded attention.

You glanced around the room, and the unease reflected in the faces of his kin did not escape you. Aemond continued, "To the health of my nephews: Jace… Luke… and Joffrey. Each of them handsome, wise… hm… strong."

A faint gasp escaped your lips as you caught the veiled insult aimed at the Velaryon boys' bastardy. The shocked expressions of the Targaryens around you were a clear indicator that Aemond’s words had struck a nerve. Queen Alicent, her composure straining against the affront to her family, attempted to intervene. "Aemond," she cautioned, her voice taut with concern.

But he paid her no heed, raising his goblet higher, a wicked gleam in his eye as he spoke, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Come… let us drain our cups to these three… Strong boys," he declared, the words echoing through the revelry like a distant thunderclap.

The hall fell silent, eyes turning to Jace Velaryon, whose face had flushed a deep crimson, betrayal etching lines into his young features. He advanced on Aemond with the fury of a dragon, fists clenched tight. "I dare you to say that again," he challenged, his words barely concealing the tempest of wrath within him.

"Why? 'Twas only a compliment." Aemond retorted with a smirk that could cut glass. "Do you not think yourself Strong?" The taunt flew from his lips like a well-bred serpent, and before the words had fully settled in the air, Jace's fist met Aemond’s cheek with a resounding smack.

Yet, to Aemond, it seemed naught but a gentle breeze, his expression barely shifting as he staggered back only a pace. His pale violet eye sparkled with mischief, unfazed by Jace's sudden fury.

In a swift motion, you rose from your place at the table, the wooden chair scraping against the stone floor as you moved to intervene. Aemond, with a dismissive shove, pushed Jace down, the young prince hitting the hard ground with a thud.

Without thinking, you stepped towards Helaena, and gently took her by the arm. “Come, boys are such immature creatures, yes,” you said softly, guiding her away from the escalating chaos that threatened to engulf them both. Her wide eyes flickered with uncertainty, but she leaned into your touch, casting a sorrowful glance back at the scene as you ushered her away.

You watched as Aemond stormed out the dining hall, his anger crackling in the air like the storm clouds that often loomed over King's Landing. As chaos settled around you, you felt an impulse, a momentary lapse in resolve, and left Helaena's side to pursue him.

He strode fiercely through the halls of the Red Keep, the glint of his silver hair catching the flickering torchlight. You hurried to match his pace, concern fluttering in your chest. "Aemond," you called out softly, "are you alright?"

The scent of his wrath surrounded him, palpable as the incense in the court. He did not glance your way, his voice a frigid whisper laced with venom. "Absolutely splendid."

Your brow furrowed at the sharpness of his words, and with a hint of naïveté, you responded, "I sense a trace of sarcasm in your tone."

Aemond exhaled sharply, quickening his steps in a feeble attempt to distance himself from your probing presence, but your determination was steady. "Did my mother send you to chastise me?" he snapped, the words like arrows loosed from a drawn bow.

"No," you responded gently, your eyes softening with empathy. "I am here of my own accord, wishing only to know if you are truly well."

His stormy glare wavered for the briefest moment, as if the floodgates within him were on the verge of breaking, as if realising it was you he was talking to. But just as swiftly, he clamped down on it, his demeanor hardening once more. Suddenly, he halted and turned to face you, the tension palpable in the air between you.

You lifted your chin defiantly, unwilling to cower beneath the intensity of his stare. "Knowing," he began, his voice low and resonant. "And yet I find I do not know you at all."

Your brow furrowed, a hint of confusion playing at the corners of your lips. "I’m afraid I don’t understand what you mean."

He raised a hand, holding out three fingers as if counting off a point. "Three things," he affirmed, his tone matter-of-fact. "I now know three things about you: your name, your home, and that you have brothers."

You paused, gazing at him with wide, innocent eyes, your voice a gentle whisper, "You seem troubled by this knowledge."

He exhaled heavily, pressing a knuckle to the jagged scar that marred his skin, perhaps seeking solace from its lingering pain. A part of you longed to ease his suffering. "It is only my frustration that weighs heavily upon me," he confessed, his tone laced with a mix of irritation and longing. "You hold the knowledge of my life in your hands, yet I know naught of your story."

You crossed your arms defiantly, donning a mask of indifference, "I do not understand the depth of your frustration."

Aemond's singular violet eye bore into your soul with an intensity that made your heart race. "I suspect you do. You are well aware of the affections I hold for you."

A sharp breath caught in your throat as you shook your head, dismissing the peculiar warmth blossoming within your chest. "Those were mere whims of a boy, your grace," you retorted, attempting to cloak your uncertainty in bravado.

His gaze remained unwavering, a storm of emotion swirling within that piercing eye. "Yet here I stand, no longer a boy, and the flames of my desire for you still burn fierce."

"You mustn't speak so," you urged, desperation threading through your voice like a fraying rope.

"Why ought I to remain silent?" Aemond shrugged, a hint of defiance lacing his words. "This is but the truth of my heart."

"Which is wholly improper," you retorted fiercely, the tension between you thickening in the wake of your words.

An awkward silence enveloped you both, heavy with unspoken thoughts, until Aemond cleared his throat, shifting the fragile atmosphere. "You held your own remarkably well against my uncle's incessant probing," he remarked, seeking lighter ground.

You wrapped your arms around yourself as a tendril of chill from the nearby window touched your skin, though the coolness hardly bothered you. "There is only one man who may speak to me in such a manner," you replied with a touch of defiance, "and that is my brother."

“Mhm,” Aemond murmured, his gaze locked onto yours, an intensity in his violet eye that seemed to pierce through the very air between you. “Pray, tell me more.”

You stifled a roll of your eyes, at once annoyed and amused by his insatiable curiosity. "I am the youngest of six," you said, your tone now lighthearted yet elusive, "and my favorite color is pink. Might that suffice for your unquenchable thirst for knowledge about me?"

His lips curved in a smirk, his gaze unwavering. "No," he replied, his voice low and firm. "It shall never be enough."

With a genuine exasperation, you rolled your eyes this time, a small smile betraying your annoyance. "Well, if you must know—"

But your words were abruptly stolen by Aemond’s boldness. His strong hands cupped your face, his touch igniting a warmth that seeped through the layers of silk between you. In an instant, his warm, soft lips met yours, and time seemed to freeze. Your heart raced, an unexpected firework of emotion exploding within you as you instinctively leaned into him, responding to the kiss despite the whirlwind of confusion in your mind.

Yet reality came crashing back as your senses settled, and you hastily broke away from him, breathless and bewildered. The air in the room felt charged, and you glared at him, regaining your composure and a semblance of control

The fool wore a dopey grin, that infuriatingly charming smile that only deepened your ire. You shot him a withering look. “I was speaking,” you pointedly reminded him.

His brows knitted in confusion, a flicker of surprise on his face. “What?”

You planted your hands defiantly on your hips, your indignation brewing like a storm. “I was speaking, and you interrupted me! Not only that, but you did not seek my permission to claim my lips.”

Aemond’s laughter rang like the chiming of bells, an amused glimmer in his eye as he observed your vexation. “Very well, my lady. May I kiss you again?”

Your irritation flared, your cheeks warming with a blend of anger and embarrassment. You took a deliberate step back, confusion simmering just beneath your skin. “No, of course not. You have already stolen a kiss from me, but I shall not so easily grant you another.” You held back the childish urge to stomp your foot in frustration. With a petulant huff, you turned on your heel to storm away, your voice carrying a wisp of indignation. “This is most improper and indecent! Good night, your Highness.”

“Good night, my Lady Love,” Aemond murmured, his violet gaze lingering on you until you vanished around a distant corner. His heart swelled with an unexpected mix of hope and affection, the chaotic Targaryen supper and the impending shadows of war fading from his mind. With a tender gesture, he brushed his fingertip against the spot where your lips had just brushed against his, savoring the memory.

And as you stalked off into the dimly lit corridors of the castle, the weight of his gaze lingered, leaving you with a tumult of emotions swirling in your mind, an echo of the kiss that you could neither dismiss nor desire to forget.

[thewulf]

Entwined Realms || Legolas

Summary: Request: So I thought about this idea with Legolas x reader where the reader is the daughter of Galadriel and Celeborn (which makes her princess of Lothlorien and a very high elf) and she is nervous because its commonly known that Galadriel and Thranduil dont like each other (she is still his superior but you get the point) and the reader and Legolas have a dinner or some council or something together with their parents.

A/N: This was one of my favs to write. Just love everything LOTR... please keep them coming! Thank you for the request @lillisummers

Pairing: Legolas x Female Reader

Word Count: 4.1k +

TW: Talks of war/death

In the timeless realm of Lothlórien, you, the daughter of Galadriel and Celeborn, walked among the golden trees with a heavy heart filled with the weight of ancient grudges. It had been many years since you last tread upon these familiar paths, for you had spent much of your time in Rivendell, aiding in the healing of those who bore the scars of war.

As a princess of the high elves, you bore the burden of your lineage with grace. Yet the tension between your mother and Thranduil, the Elvenking of Mirkwood, weighed heavily upon you. The animosity between them was no secret, and you often found yourself caught in the midst of their disagreements. You were torn between loyalty to your mother and the desire for unity among your people after the war of the ring. Your return to Lothlórien had been sudden, called back by your father during the darkest days of the war. The news of battles raging across middle earth had filled you with dread. Yet, you knew that your place was by your family's side, lending whatever aid you could in the struggle against the darkness.

Despite the discord that lingered between your realms you held onto hope, believing in the power of unity to overcome adversity. The memories of Celebrian's capture and torture haunted you still. She drove your determination to see an end to the suffering that had plagued your people for so long.

As you walked beneath the golden canopy of the trees, you found solace in the familiar sights and sounds of Lothlórien. The gentle rustle of leaves in the breeze, the soft glow of the evening sun filtering through the branches. They spoke to you of peace and beauty, reminding you of all that was worth fighting for in this world. Your steps carried you towards a familiar spot. The quiet glade where the gravestones of those fallen in battle lay. The air was hushed. The only sound was the soft whisper of leaves and the gentle trickle of water from the nearby streams.

Stopping by the gravestones, you traced your fingers over each weathered stone, feeling the weight of loss settle upon your heart. Here, beneath the earth, lay the brave souls who had given their lives in service of a greater cause. A cause that you had fought for alongside them. Your thoughts turned to Haldir, the gallant Marchwarden who had stood by your side in the darkest of times. His laughter, his kindness, his unwavering loyalty… they were memories that you held dear, memories that would live on long after he had passed from this world. At one point you were convinced you would marry him but that was before he was taken so suddenly from you.

Closing your eyes, you allowed yourself a moment of silence. A moment to remember those who had been taken from you too soon. Their faces flashed before your eyes, friends, fighters, and loved ones alike. Each one leaving behind an indelible mark upon your soul. And yet, amidst the sorrow, there was also hope. Hope for a future where their sacrifices would not be in vain. Where the darkness would be banished for good and the light would shine so brightly once more. With a silent prayer upon your lips, you vowed to carry their memory with you always, to honor their legacy in all that you did.

As you stood amidst the gravestones, lost in memories and reflections, a soft voice broke through the silence. She was calling your name. You turned to see your mother, Galadriel, approaching with a gentle smile upon her lips. Her eyes, always so wise and knowing, held a depth of understanding that eased the ache in your heart.

"Y/n," she said, her voice like the gentle rustle of leaves in the wind, "I have been searching for you. It is good to see you home again. You look well my love."

You returned her smile, feeling a sense of warmth and comfort wash over you at the sight of her familiar face. "It is good to be home, Mother," you replied, stepping forward to embrace her.

Galadriel held you close, tight. Her arms a reassuring embrace amidst the turmoil of emotions swirling within you. "You have been missed, my dear," she said softly, pressing a kiss to your forehead.

As you pulled away, Galadriel's gaze softened. Her eyes filled with a mixture of pride and affection. "There is much to discuss," she said, her voice taking on a more serious tone. "But first, I have news that I believe will bring you much joy."

Curiosity piqued, you listened as Galadriel spoke of the upcoming marriage between your niece, Arwen, and Aragorn, the King of Gondor. The news filled you with a sense of anticipation, the prospect of a wedding bringing a glimmer of hope amidst the darkness that had shrouded middle earth for so long. "I would be honored to attend," you said. Your heart swelling with love for your family and excitement for the joyous occasion to come.

Galadriel smiled, her eyes sparkling with pride. "I had no doubt that you would," she said, her voice tinged with warmth. "Come, let us return to Caras Galadhon and begin preparations. There is much to do, and little time to waste." She motioned you to follow her.

With a nod of agreement, you fell into step beside your mother. It felt as though the weight of grief and loss lightened by the promise of love and celebration on the horizon. As you walked the golden light of Lothlórien illuminated your path guiding you towards a future filled with possibility.

Too quickly the day of celebration arrived. The grand halls of Minas Tirith were adorned with banners and flowers, filling the air with a sense of festivity and anticipation. You, dressed in your finest elven attire, mingled with the guests. Your heart was aflutter with excitement and nerves for your niece and the King of Gondor. Amidst the bustling crowd, your eyes scanned the faces of those gathered taking in the sight of strangers and acquaintances alike. And then your gaze met that of a mysterious elven stranger across the ornate courtyard who you did not recognize.

His eyes were a captivating shade of blue. They held a warmth and kindness that drew you in, sending a shiver down your spine. For a brief moment it felt as though the world around you had faded away leaving only you and this enigmatic stranger in a universe of your own making. But as quickly as the moment had come, it was gone. Broken by the sound of laughter and music drifting through the air you tore your gaze away. Your cheeks flushed with a mixture of curiosity and excitement, heart racing with the memory of that brief but electrifying encounter.

Though you knew not who he was, nor what fate had in store for you. You couldn't shake the feeling that this chance meeting was somehow significant. And as you allowed yourself to be swept away by the joyous festivities you couldn't help but wonder about the identity of the mysterious elven stranger who had captured your attention with a single glance.

As the celebration unfolded you found yourself standing beside Arwen, basking in the glow of her happiness as she greeted guests and well-wishers. The air was filled with laughter and music. The joyous atmosphere infectious as people celebrated the union of Arwen and Aragorn. But amidst the revelry your attention kept drifting back to the beautiful blonde elf who had caught your eye earlier. He stood amidst a group of guests, his presence commanding and his gaze holding a quiet intensity that seemed to draw you in.

Unable to contain your curiosity any longer you turned to Arwen with a hint of nervousness in your voice. "Arwen," you began, pointing subtly towards the mysterious elf, "who is that?"

Arwen followed your gaze, her eyes sparkling with amusement as she noticed your interest in the stranger. "Ah, him," she said, her tone tinged with mystery. "That is Legolas, Prince of Mirkwood."

Legolas. The name echoed in your mind. Though you knew little about him there was something about the way he carried himself, the way his eyes seemed to hold a thousand untold stories that intrigued you beyond measure. As Arwen spoke of Legolas' exploits and noble deeds you found yourself captivated by the tales of his courage and valor. And though you knew it was foolish to be so taken with a stranger, you couldn't shake the feeling that there was something more to him. Something that called to you on a level you couldn't quite understand.

With a grateful smile you thanked Arwen for indulging your curiosity. Though your mind was already consumed with thoughts of the mysterious Prince of Mirkwood. And as you turned your attention back to the festivities you couldn't help but wonder what secrets lay hidden beneath the surface of the captivating blonde elf who had captured your attention with a single glance.

As the evening wore on, the atmosphere grew more relaxed. You found yourself drawn into the lively conversations and laughter that filled the air.

As if he had known your every thought, he had come right up to you. A charming smile playing on his lips as he offered you a goblet of wine. "Care for some wine, my lady?" he asked, his voice smooth and all too inviting.

Grateful for the distraction you accepted the goblet with a smile, the cool liquid soothing the nerves that had been fluttering in your stomach. "Thank you," you replied, taking a sip and relishing the taste of the rich, fruity wine.

As you savored the wine, Legolas took a seat beside you. His eyes alight with curiosity as he extended his hand in introduction. "I am Legolas," he said, his tone warm and genuine. "A pleasure to make your acquaintance."

You felt a rush of excitement at the sound of his name, "And I am Y/n," you replied, your voice betraying a hint of nervousness that you quickly tried to mask.

Legolas smiled warmly at you, a glint of mischief dancing in his eyes as he raised his own goblet in a silent toast. "Well then, Y/n, here's to new acquaintances and delightful conversations," he spoke.

As the evening progressed, you found yourself drawn into conversation with Legolas. His easy charm and quick wit putting you at ease. Despite your initial nervousness you soon found yourself laughing and chatting with him as if you had known each other for years. With each passing moment you felt yourself growing more and more enchanted by Legolas. His presence filling you with a sense of warmth and belonging that you hadn't felt in a long time. Not since before your sister had set sail. And as you shared stories and laughter with the captivating Prince of Mirkwood you couldn't help but wonder what adventures lay in store for you both in the days to come.

When the topic turned to your family, you couldn't help but feel a pang of apprehension, unsure of how he would react upon learning the truth. "Your parents must be proud of you," Legolas remarked, his voice sincere as he glanced around at the grandeur of Minas Tirith. "To have a daughter as kind and courageous as you."

You smiled, touched by his words. Though a part of you hesitated to reveal your true lineage. "Thank you, Legolas," you replied, your voice tinged with uncertainty. "My parents... they are indeed proud, though our family is not without its complexities."

Legolas cocked his head with curiosity shining bright in his eyes. "Complexities?" he asked, his brow furrowing slightly.

You took a deep breath, steeling yourself for his reaction. "My parents are Celeborn and Galadriel," you confessed, watching closely for any sign of recognition or judgment in his expression.

To your surprise, Legolas' eyes widened in genuine surprise, his gaze softening with understanding. "Galadriel," he murmured, a hint of awe in his voice. "The Lady of Light herself. And Celeborn, the Lord of Lothlórien."

You nodded, relieved by his reaction. "Yes, though our family is not without its challenges," you admitted, your voice growing quiet. "There are... tensions between my parents and certain others in Middle-earth." You knew he knew, and he knew you knew. The two of you were dancing around your parents disdain for the other.

Legolas' expression grew somber. A shadow passing over his features. "I understand," he said, his tone tinged with empathy. "My own father, Thranduil, can be... difficult at times."

You felt a surge of empathy for Legolas knowing all too well the challenges that could arise from strained familial relationships. "It seems we are not so different after all," you said. A small smile playing at your lips.

Legolas returned your smile, his eyes warm and understanding. "Indeed," he said, his voice gentle. "But perhaps together, we can find a way to bridge the divide between our families."

Touched by his sincerity you could only keep grinning at him like a fool. "I would like that, Legolas," you replied. Your heart swelled with gratitude for the bond that was beginning to form between you.

As the night wore on into the wee hours of the morning you and Legolas found yourselves drawn deeper into each other's company. The hours quickly slipping away unnoticed as you laughed and talked beneath the starlit sky. The connection between you grew stronger with each passing moment. A bond of friendship and understanding blossoming into something deeper and more profound. Unfortunately, the celebration began to wind down. You found yourselves reluctant to part ways. The prospect of saying goodbye filling you with a sense of melancholy. "Perhaps we could extend our stay in Minas Tirith," Legolas suggested, his voice tinged with a hint of worry as if you wouldn’t accept. "There is still so much more to see and do. I have not seen this city without war disparaging it."

You nodded eagerly, the idea of spending more time with Legolas filling you with a sense of joy and excitement. "I would like that very much," you replied, a smile tugging at the corners of your lips. "There is still so much more we have yet to see. You distracted me tonight."

And so, you and Legolas remained in Minas Tirith for longer than planned, seizing every opportunity to steal away moments alone together amidst the hustle and bustle of the city. Whether wandering the streets hand in hand or sharing quiet conversations in secluded corners. Each moment spent in Legolas' company felt like a precious treasure, a memory to be cherished for eternity.

As your extended stay in Minis Tirith came to an end the bond between you and Legolas deepened further than you could have imagined. Your hearts intertwining in a dance as old as time itself. One evening beneath the stars after your going away dinner the two of you sat together in the quiet solitude of the gardens, surrounded by the scent of blooming flowers and the gentle hum of crickets. The words you had been longing to say spilled forth from your lips.

"Legolas," you began, your voice barely above a whisper, "there is something I must confess to you." It truly was now or never for you did not know the next time you would see the elf that had captured your heart so quickly.

Legolas turned to you, his eyes filled with warmth and affection. "Yes, Y/n?" he replied, his voice soft and reassuring.

"I know this is quick,” you began, your voice soft and hesitant, "And we tend to do this slow, but I must admit... I really like you. More than a friend would."

You glanced away, cheeks flushing with embarrassment as you awaited his response. But when you dared to meet his gaze once more you found Legolas looking at you with a tender smile. His eyes filled with a warmth that mirrored your own feelings.

"Y/n," he said softly, reaching out to gently take your face in his hand, "your honesty means the world to me. I too have come to care for you deeply as well. As more than a friend would."

Your heart soared at his words. A sense of joy flooding through you at the knowledge that your feelings were reciprocated. And as you sat together in the quiet beauty of the gardens you knew that your bond with Legolas was something truly special. It was the beginning of a love story that was just beginning to unfold.

You didn’t want the night to end so you kept your wandering through the gardens. "Legolas," you began, your voice tinged with concern, "what do you think about... our families?"

Legolas glanced at you. His gaze thoughtful. "Ah, our esteemed parents," he replied with a wry smile. "Stubborn as ancient oaks and twice as difficult to move."

You couldn't help but laugh at his analogy, feeling a sense of relief at his lighthearted approach to the situation. "Yes, that's one way to put it," you agreed. A smile playing at the corners of your lips.

"But," Legolas continued, his tone turning more serious, "I believe they will come around in time. After all, love has a way of softening even the hardest of hearts."

You nodded feeling a flicker of hope kindling within you. "I hope you're right," you replied, leaning closer to him. "I just want them to see... how much we care for each other."

Legolas placed a comforting arm around your shoulders, drawing you closer to him. "They will, Y/n," he said softly, his voice filled with quiet confidence. "And until then, we'll just have to prove them wrong together."

As your time in Minas Tirith drew to a close, you couldn't shake the feeling that it was time for your parents and Legolas to meet. Despite the tension between your families, you were determined to show them that love knew no bounds, and that their differences could be set aside in the name of happiness.

On the morning that both of you were to depart you knew what you had to do. "Legolas," you began. Your voice tinged with nervousness, "I know it's unconventional, but... what if you and your father were to visit Lothlórien?"

Legolas blinked in surprise, clearly taken aback by your suggestion. "Visit Lothlórien?" he echoed, his brow furrowing in thought. "It's an... intriguing idea, Y/n, but I'm not sure how my father would feel about it."

You nodded, understanding Legolas' reservations. "I know it's a risk," you admitted, "but I believe that if he could experience the beauty and hospitality of Lothlórien for himself, he might begin to understand... and perhaps even appreciate our way of life."

Legolas considered your words for a moment before a smile spread across his face. "You may be right, Y/n," he said, his eyes alight with excitement. "Let's extend the invitation to my father and see what he says."

With a renewed sense of hope, you and Legolas set about preparing for Thranduil's visit to Lothlórien. You knew it wouldn't be easy, but you were determined to show both him and your parents that love could conquer even the deepest of divides. And so, with hearts full of anticipation and determination, you bid farewell to Minas Tirith. You knew that a new chapter of your journey was about to begin.

As Legolas and an initially reluctant Thranduil arrived in Lothlórien, the tension between them was palpable. Thranduil's expression was stoic and reserved, while Legolas wore a strained smile who was clearly uncomfortable with the situation. You greeted them warmly, hoping to ease the atmosphere, but even your efforts seemed to fall flat in the face of the lingering animosity between your parents. The initial interactions were awkward only filled with polite but strained conversation and forced smiles.

But as the evening progressed and the wine flowed freely the atmosphere began to shift. Your parents, Thranduil, and Legolas found themselves gradually relaxing in each other's company. The rigid barriers between them slowly melting away under the influence of hope after the war and shared experiences. You watched with a mixture of joy and relief as the tension dissipated, replaced by laughter and genuine conversation. Thranduil who had initially been so guarded found himself opening up. He began to share stories and jokes with Celeborn and Galadriel as if they were old friends.

And Legolas, too, seemed to come alive in the warmth of his father’s acceptance. His smile growing more genuine with each passing moment. It was as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders finally allowing him to truly be himself in their presence. He chuckled at one of Thranduil's jokes and clinked glasses with Celeborn, a genuine smile gracing his features.

In the midst of the conversation Legolas turned to you, his eyes sparkling with affection. "Meleth nin," he said softly, his voice filled with utmost warmth.

As Legolas inadvertently uttered the Elvish endearment, my love, the words hung in the air laden with the weight of unspoken emotions. Your heart skipped a beat at his slip-up, and you couldn't help but feel a surge of excitement coursing through you.

"Really?" you exclaimed. Your eyes widened with surprise and utmost delight. For a moment you almost forgot that your parents and Legolas' father were present too caught up in the rush of emotion that swept over you.

Legolas blinked, his cheeks flushing with embarrassment as he realized what he had said in front of the parents. "I... uh, I mean..." he stammered, clearly flustered by your reaction.

But before he could finish, Thranduil let out a soft chuckle. The elvenking’s eyes twinkling with amusement. "It seems our children are more than just friends," he remarked to your parents. His tone surprisingly light-hearted.

You turned to your parents with a sheepish smile tugging at the corners of your lips. "I guess we should have mentioned that sooner," you admitted feeling a surge of relief as you saw their understanding smiles.

Celeborn and Galadriel exchanged knowing glances before Celeborn spoke up. "Love has a way of revealing itself in unexpected ways," he said, his voice filled with warmth. "We are happy for you both."

Thranduil let out a small chuckle. His eyes crinkling with amusement. "Young love," he said before shaking his head in mock exasperation. "It seems like only yesterday that Legolas was just a boy chasing after butterflies in the woods."

Legolas rolled his eyes playfully at his father's comment. "I assure you, Ada, I have grown up a bit since then," he spoke. His tone teasing but affectionate.

Celeborn chuckled softly his eyes twinkling with mirth. "Indeed," he agreed, his voice warm. "But some things never change." He motioned to you with a knowing grin.

And as the tension melted away completely, replaced by laughter, and shared understanding, you couldn't help but feel a sense of gratitude for the unwavering support of your parents. With their blessing and acceptance, you and Legolas knew that your love story was only just beginning. You were finally destined to have a beautiful and unforgettable journey filled with laughter, joy, and the sweet promise of a future together. You had waited a long time for this. A very long time.

As the night grew deeper and the fire crackled softly, you and Legolas found yourselves immersed in a comfortable silence. The two of you basking in the warmth of each other's presence. Legolas turned to you with a playful glint in his eyes, taking your hand in his. "Well, my dear, it seems the hour grows late," he remarked, his voice soft and warm.

You nodded feeling a surge of affection for the elf beside you. "Yes, it does," you replied, a smile playing at the corners of your lips.

With a gentle tug on your hand Legolas rose to his feet pulling you up with him. "Allow me to escort you to your room," he said. His voice filled with gentle sincerity.

You followed him, the touch of his hand sending a shiver of anticipation down your spine. As you reached your door, Legolas turned to you. His eyes sparkling with mischief. "Until next time, meleth nin," he whispered, pressing a soft kiss to your cheek before turning to leave.

A faint blush coated your cheeks at his actions. “Until next time, meleth nin.” You repeated. You watched him go with a smile playing at your lips as you realized that no matter what adventures lay ahead, you would face them with him. Oh, what a life.

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[pranabefall]

⠀⠀THE DEVIL'S ANESTHETIC. ⠀⠀⸺ ⠀⠀blade.

syn. you were just a doctor, at the start of it all. then came the chaos, the knife, the bits and pieces of madness and coming horror. and in the center of it all, stood him ( a gentle cruelty ).

TW. ⸺ yandere + smut and dark content ahead. reader is south asian coded, blade is a little fucked up and inevitably fucks the reader up a little too. murder, corruption arcs, medical terminologies i only half know, breaking of medical ethics, the reader is a pathetic wet cat, gang violence, death, manipulation, angst, acts of murder and mentioned dismemberment, suicidal ideation, dub-con, non consensual kissing, hatefucking, blade having violent thoughts, the reader is not daijobu, blade getting off on being killed.

LOG. ⸺ this is another repost of this fic after my old account got deleted on accident. this work has been marked mature for containing smut & dead dove content. readers below the age of 18 / ageless blogs and antis, do not interact. PLEASE READ THE WARNINGS BEFORE PROCEEDING.

"you can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid."

— FRANZ KAFKA.

I. DEATHBED

“We have another one.” The receptionist echoes out from the front desk.

Another one. The words still the twitch in your muscles, the incessant cleaning and arranging and scrubbing away blood from medical chairs and forceps that should not be here. There are thoughts in your head. They’re dangerous ones, lingering in places that are grimy and soaked in something tarred. They should not be there.

Another one and that’s enough to coat your stomach with ugly, stifling coldness. You don’t reply, keep your eyes down and let the man walk in.

There were never any faces to your clients. They had hands, ringed, tattooed, scarred. Some had suits. Some stank of iron. And they all had guns, or bats, or rusty crowbars and attitudes that were knife edged and brutally coarse. This one is much like the rest. He tells you he was shot in the waist and his voice is static and white noise and discord leaking out of your ears in droves till —

“— will you get moving?! It fucking hurts.”

“Yes.” you choke out. “Yes of course.”

It comes easily to you now, after months of repeating it over and over with varying degrees of perfection and prompt. Find the shrapnel, pull it free, clean the wound, suture it. Find the shrapnel, pull it free, clean the wound, suture it. Find the shrapnel, pull it free, clean the wound, suture it. Find the —

( Your thoughts unravel and they’re a mess in your hands like several bits of coloured petals. The scent has washed away. They almost seem to wither, bit by aching bit. )

You step away. “Done.” you tell the suited man and ask for no payments. Your receptionist does not either when he strides outside and it’s smart because patience was a whim when you reeked of viscera. That brazen naivete was drilled out of her a long time ago ( and you too ) and the rules were set forth, rules that must never be broken. You’d seen too many zipped up body bags scattered in the gutters to dare to. You do not want to be one of them.

( Coward, that spiteful half of you snarls and you know it’s right. )

Only he does reach in and throw some loose notes against the counter. You shuffle up to her, nails crusted with brown and red and count fifty kaas. It’s peanuts. It will do.

You were a doctor.

Or at least you’re certain you were. You’d spent the better part of your decade rooted within a small university where standard IPC dialect was taught as a secondary language and the fans hadn’t been replaced for the last thirty years. It was torture during the summer and the hospital adjacent had patients who spoke in tongues you didn’t quite understand. But you manage. You tried, you graduated.

You were a doctor. Your license reads you specialised in paediatrics. Children were all you needed to deal with, some too loud to listen to their parents' chides for silence. Some so young they were small enough to fit in your desk drawer. Some of them liked to talk too and ask questions during checkups and vaccine appointments ( nerves, you reason and you answer the questions ). It wasn’t much. It was peaceful. It was alright. This is your clinic, something you'd built from sleepless nights and mountains of referral literature.

Then you’d see less children and more of those suited men as the streets grow with a cacophony you can’t call safe after this. The carpet was worn down by blood and heavy footfalls, over the thread work and your mother’s faded name in the bottom.

You weren’t treating children anymore.

Still, you hold it together. This is yours, all of this. This is yours and it's a feeling locked away in your beating heart.

When the man returns — and you know it’s him because the birth mark on his hands were hauntingly similar — he brings company. The company in itself would have seemed unassuming, and they were, lingering by the doors speaking in words too fast to comprehend till the gunfire rang out and the windows shattered.

A part of you is thankful that it’s so late, where the streets are silent and the bustle is calm. The files you were rearranging fall to the floor. You duck beneath your desk and stay there, enclosed within tumult, within chaos, within something you wanted no part of ( and you grip your hands tight, quietly wondering if that persistent cat would be fed, if your father would care to know what happened to you ).

You hear glass break, fall, fall and hit the floor with a sadistic sort of tinkling.

You hear frantic footsteps thundering up by the door.

You hear the screaming.

( You hear your heartbeat. You want it to stop. )

Something crashes into the storeroom. It was large, heavy, clothed and it let out a strangled cry before iron clogs up your nose and heat and cold fizzles up and hammers into every crevice and pore and turns your chest inside out. The man tries to shift, to get up and out of the way, shoulders knocking against the shelves in panic that feels painfully palpable. He’s crying. You see that when you bundle into a corner, eyes burning.

His body jerks and is dragged to the door.

“Don’t,” he begs till the desperation chokes his reasoning and it meters into panicked threats. “You’ll be torn apart by this, I swear, you’ll be hunted down — ”

He’s pulled at again, his limp form slipping out of sight. You hear a sick sound — a squelch, the dripping of blood and viscera and the gamey crack of bones. Your teeth dig into your cold fingers. The stinging is numbed, dim and distant, while you press against the wall and try not to wail.

There is only a single set of footsteps now. It paces like a starved animal, like a caged beast. Leave, your thoughts scramble and correct themselves. Just leave. And it repeats, over and over like a maddening chant. Please leave, leave, leave. The footsteps stop at the door followed by a slow scrape against marble. A shadow falls over the doorway. That’s when you see him.

You think he could have been pretty. But there's terror beneath that veil of frozen numbness. You don’t think he’s pretty now, when he’s stalking into the room, bloodied sword in hand ( it’s mired and cracked and mended like kintsugi but twisted and terrible ). He walks like a man who’d been broken and sewn together and he reeks of death and a sickening sweetness.

His gaze meets yours for that fleeting moment.

( it felt like that throbbing helplessness. Of everything going wrong. )

One of the suited men had not died. Not yet, in some inane act of stubbornness. He’s tackled down immediately and you flinch back and finally scream, watching the writhing pile of bodies smack each other down with ease. The swordsman ends it. There’s a chilling disparity in strength with how his bare hands tear into flesh and rips his opponent’s arm off. He’s laughing, laughing like a madman and the insane hysteria sparks a primal instinct nestled in your mind.

You’re moving before you realise it, when you spot his fingers twitch for his fallen sword. Your hands close around metal. You’re surging forward, taut at the edges. That part of you screams into the void, stripping away morality, reason, the simpler parts of shame that could have stopped you then and there.

When your fractured mind pieces together and lets the spinning room rest into clinical stillness, you’re aware of the hysterical laughter that man trembles into. He slumps against your legs, weighted, boneless. He’s still laughing, like the world had whispered a funny joke into his ear and left him to rot.

The dislodged pole slips out of your hands. You watch him crumple down onto the floor, staining the tiles. A swing, a hit to the back of his head, a break to the vertebral artery, a medullary haemorrhage, a stroke, neuron death —

You spend the next hour tucked away in that storeroom, watching the swordsman’s body convulse, then his breathing still and his body run cold.

II. NEWLY DECEASED

Once upon a time, you told yourself that you could get by. You could get by and let yourself think you were a good person despite the ugly cracks tucked away and the bated disappointment breathing down your neck. It’s the human experience, a conditioned way of convincing yourself, a way you wish to live in the quieter corners of you.

It’s a lie. A lie. A lie.

The body does not move, as dead bodies usually do. As a frame of reference, dead bodies don’t do much to begin with. You stand back up and feel nausea coat the back of your throat, then wordlessly stumble to the man. Your fingers press against his pulse. Nothing.

A part of you wants to laugh at yourself for hoping.

The police take it all away. They don’t know what you did. Or maybe they do and care so little they swat that detail aside. Death is so natural here, so common and where is the sympathy for the damned when the damned were everywhere and your kindness wears thin?

( You’re left to pick up the pieces. The cracked photo frames, the toys and magazines salvaged, the bowl of tamarind candy tipped over. Bits and pieces gathered together and sewn back together. There was a heart in these walls. The pain was always there, but a dogged part of you loves this place. )

You answer what questions were asked and let them walk away, knowing they’ll do nothing about the situation to begin with. They never do. Most policemen were tucked up in the pockets and played dogs to gang members. Some lost themselves to apathy. Money could buy loyalty in droves. It was an open secret.

You get back home and let the hot water run into your bucket. You feed the visiting cat. You wipe the counters down and unearth some food from the previous night. You turn the water off. You bathe. You eat.

( “I’m fine.” you lie to Aleena when she calls you, frantic, scared. More frantic and scared than you present yourself to be. You don't tell her you’re a murderer.

“I don’t think you should go back tomorrow. I’m not saying this to get off of work or anything but after all that?” she falls silent.

“Maybe. But I need to keep the income coming in somehow.” )

Walking into the bedroom feels harder than it should. Lead bleeds into muscle as you patter along and try to keep yourself steady against the walls. For a moment, you stop and lean your forehead against it and tell yourself not to cry ( because cowards cry, and idiots cry and it was a pointless endeavour anyway because nothing — nothing about this would change ). Your degree falls into your line of sight, framed up against the wall.

You are a doctor. You are a doctor. You are a doctor.

That guilt knocks you in the knees. The guilt, the disgusted guilt that comes from killing a man.

( It’s engulfing, like tar and cloth pressed up against your face. The breathlessness, the storm rattling against the window, the messiness of it all. You’re screaming at the pillow. You’re clawing at it. You swipe till your arm bleeds and the cacophony dies down. )

The veneer shatters and the frame is clenched and thrown to the floor. The casing cracks. You heave, look at the mess at your feet and think to yourself :

What were those eight years for?

You killed a man.

You killed a man.

You killed a man.

A gasp tears through. It's painful, heavy and it's glass and shrapnel. The voice in your head whispers. Nothing. It's all for nothing.

Another one crackles through the muffled distortion, straining and rattling. A clear “I told you so.” grating past the chaos, disappointed, smug, knowing.

You shut your eyes and dream of jasmine and marigolds.

( You listened to Aleena when you passed the register and took a day off in the end. It’s the one kindness you let yourself have.

You did not eat for most of the day. Your gut gnaws. Your limbs feel weak. But food, as delicious as the thought seemed, invoked a visceral response. Of corpses and blood and things that you thought yourself too far removed to disgust you. A caved in skull did all this. A caved in skull made you retch and empty your stomach out into the toilet.

You think you deserve it. )

Your watchman stops you when you head back out again a few days later for a grocery run. "Are you alright?" he asks, peering through sleep. The cat curls round his legs and he gives it a gentle pat. You can hear the content purr it lets out from where you stand, and you venture a little closer.

"A little." you reply, smiling a little. The watchman tilts his head in consideration. You'd lost count of how long he's been here. Some of the older tenants mention he'd settled in over a decade ago, when the building still had four floors instead of five and a little more space to park out back.

"You still seem scared is all." he glances over at you again. It's the worry in his furrowed brow that makes you give pause. He reminded you of your grandfather then, strong jawed, stern eyed before that softness pervades through when he'd let you scoot over next to him to sneak a look at the newspaper ( cricket scores and stock prices were all he looked at. And the Sudoku ) .

You shift in place, tugging at the hem of your jacket. "It was a little jarring. The sudden attack, that is." you admit. You don't tell him about the death, the way deceitful monsters do.

The watchman shakes his head. "Horrible thing to go through, I agree. Especially for one as young as you." The cat slinks pat his legs and under the bed. he leans forward, tire heaving at his bones and his joints. A decade. One would assume he'd retire at this point given his age. "Try not to let it wear down on you, is all."

"It's easier said then done." You mumble.

"It is." the watchman snorts. "I told my daughter about you though. She's taking medicine too…Oncology. I scraped together every Kaas I had to pay her tuition fee off." he flexes his arthritic hands. You keep listening, that sliver of curiosity winning out. "She hasn't met you…but she knows about your clinic. the children your helping…suited men aside. It gives her a bit of spark at least. So you keep going too."

You feel gutted, eyes stinging a bit. He puts too much faith in you, you realise. But there is a small touch of warmth against the rattling cold. "Thanks…" you nod. The watchman leans back.

Keep going. What a mess, really.

You return to your clinic, the day after. You decide it's the last time you'd let reckless hope bar the instinctive tearing in your gut.

There is a woman sitting on the waiting room chairs with a dangerous smile. She’s dressed well, like those elegant omen-bringers or dapper businessmen. She’s dressed like the coming consequences and it’s there, that sadistic delight, hidden behind that lazy tilt to her head.

“Good morning.” she greets, like she hadn't broken into your clinic. “Hope we’re not intruding.”

You look to her companion next to her.

The dead man ( and he was dead. He was supposed to be — you were certain ) stares right back.

“Do you have anything to drink?”

“There’s a coffee machine…”

“Hm, never mind. I was never too fond of the instant stuff. What do you think Bladie?”

'The man named ‘Bladie’ does not respond. You’d have laughed a little — if your nerves weren't frayed. You’d have laughed over a silly, inconsequential nickname slapped onto some scary looking man, then gone on your way. But the scary looking man was a murderer. And you were certain, so certain, that he was dead.

( His blood coated your hands days ago. You can’t have imagined it — not something so innately ingrained within your psyche like some sadistic firebrand.

How is he alive? How is he alive?! Why is he — )

“I could pick up some tea.” you suggest, because playing meek was the way of a coward and you were that in the end. You still had to open your clinic in another half hour. There are still parts of the storeroom that need cleaning and a window that needs replacing. The woman laughs. She looks at you like you were an adorable specimen. A pet…or perhaps a bug to be stepped on.

( It’s a cruel sort of beauty that edges her face. You’d hate to admit you were staring a little longer than you should be. )

“There’s no need for that.” she looks to the side for a moment. “Bladie was here a few days ago, you know.” you flinch, perhaps knowing the ugly scene to follow. “Got into a bit of a tussle. Of course, I wasn’t worried…he’s got a knack for seeing things through, you know…” She’s staring straight at you now. “And he’s good at not dying, one could say.”

“That’s nice.” you mumble, shifting uncomfortably. Your cheeks are cold. Don’t look at me, you try to tell the should-have-been-dead swordsman. Like that would have worked ( he keeps staring ).

The woman continues. “It's funny though. After that affair at your clinic, I had to pick Blade up at some hospital’s morgue of all places. Quite the detour if you ask me.”

You still.

She knows.

Fuck. She knows.

“I…I see.” you play into stupidity, wring your hands a bit and force a far away smile. “I wonder how that happened.”

“Yes.” she nods, solemnly flicking dust off of her velvet coat. The playful lilt to her tone is back, delicately poking and prodding away and you feel the walls close in bit by bit. You can see the man tilt his head. You want to disappear. “I’d think you know though…so how about you tell us?”

You don’t look at her. You can’t, with that horror filtering through and spotting your vision.

“Now….listen to me.” she stands, saunters up to you and you stay rooted. Your mind fogs over with cotton wool and the aftertaste of wine blooms through your mouth. There is consideration there, her pointedly dragging her eyes across your figure and taking a sick pleasure in the fear that trembles at your fingertips. A tiny part of you that still remains too torturously aware recoils. “Were you the one who killed Bladie?”

“Yes.” you reply and it isn’t you. You wouldn’t have said that. You wouldn’t have.

Her lips curl. “How did you kill him?”

“I hit him on the back of his neck.”

Her face glows. “Good girl.” she pats your cheek. “We have a favour to ask you. How about you hear us out?”

She gives your shoulders a squeeze and you’re gasping for air. “That wasn’t so hard.” she grins. The cotton wool strangles and is caught at the edges, whisping, grasping, stubbornly trying to stay. You still pull at it incessantly while you back away from her touch. It burns. What did she do to you? What did she fucking do to you —

You’re pulled closer. It’s just a tug, a simple coil of her fingers round your arm. “I’m sorry.” you blurt out. “I’m sorry. I never meant it.” There are cracks against the surface, a spiderweb and it keeps going and going and going the more you talk ( you need to shut up ).

“There there.” She coos. “How about we sit down, hm? Bladie, think you could make some space?”

You don’t want to sit down with them. You try to pull back, to run because that’s what you should have done in the first place; instead of entertaining a pair of strangers with that stupid, naive hope of safety. She pulls back. Bladie catches your wrist when you try to squirm free and you’re half dragged onto the seat between them. “Honestly. A drink would have been nice. Oh don’t worry. I could hardly blame you for that.”

The woman fixes her sleeve. “I take it you don’t know who we are?”

“No.” you admit.

“Ah. the IPC influence here isn't as deep, huh? I heard there was an overhaul a few decades ago. The revolt drove most of them out…I wouldn’t count on it staying that way.” She passes you a measured flash of her teeth. It’s all good manners and etiquette you can’t return. “But we’re not here to talk politics. I’d like you to babysit Blade for a while.”

Blade seems to be expecting it. He does not mirror your dismayed shock.

“Why — ”

“Can’t say. It’s all a part of some very important work.” She holds a finger to her lips. “Would you be a lamb and do it?”

You grip at the metal armrests hard. The room is a blurred scape, a watered down stain ( ink tracked against damp paper ). “I won’t.”

“Come now. After that stunt you pulled with him, it’s the least you could do.”

It settles hard. “I told you I didn’t mean it.” you snap. “I didn’t mean to kill him. I didn’t mean to kill you.” Your unravelling seeps into something dangerous. You try to step back. To keep it together. It tangles, knots, frays and snaps and tangles again and the foundations crumble. You cannot think despite the clarity slowly creeping and the fog metering out. You cannot think because the man you killed is alive and right next to you and dead men don’t just come back to life.

The woman forces you to turn her way. “You didn't mean it?” she repeats, inquisitive, amused. “Doctor please, any normal person would have gone for the head. You made a very calculated move there…and I'm sure that pretty little brain of yours knows the consequences that come with it.”

It’s a coveted part of you that dies there, withering, burning, clipped away and cast aside and you shake your head as you’re retrained. “Don’t touch me!” you scream. “Don’t touch me!”

Because humanity despises the naked truths in the world. They’ll deny, deny, deny what stares them in the face for those fleeting, selfish little comforts skewed in ignorance. Better the downy coverlet to the thin blanket, better the sweeter lie that bitter sincerity. You’re no different. Not really. You’re not different at all.

And that woman was not a liar.

III. DISTENSION

Aleena doesn’t take well to a strange man lurking within the backrooms. Her eyes always flit to the doors and her shoulders stay tense as she directs a few straggling patients to the waiting room and updates their details into the salvaged computers. “I don’t like the look in his eye.” she whispers hurriedly. “Doctor. Have you seen him?”

“Yes . I have.” you reply simply. “Could you pull up the files from a month ago? We have a follow up due today.”

She hums, and you nod to the messy clattering from the keyboard. “He’s not from here, is he? His clothes aren’t local.” her voice dips. “Is he an outworlder?”

“Yes.” You flit through a case history. The ink has run a bit, the edges flicked a dirty red. Bile and acid sears the edges of your mouth. You don’t think throwing up here and now would be professional. And your receptionist has a very nice shawl on. “Have the police called?” you add, helplessly rubbing away at the browned stains.

“You know they won’t.” she clicks her tongue, wrinkling her nose to the injustice of it all. You bite back your tired humour. She might descend into an angry little ramble then curse those men in three different tongues. You were guilty of listening in ( it’s amusing, and she had plenty of anger for the two of you, and then some more for the smaller things ). “They’re too busy sipping cha at the local angadi.”

She keeps tap tapping away. “Do you want me to send a soft copy? Or will you directly look into the logs?”

You cease flipping through the files. “Just send me a PDF.” you mutter. “You still have a few cases to input from yesterday right? I won’t hold you up.” Another report is pushed your way. Two more patients, two more medical histories to pore over. The throbbing in your forehead is incessant and stubbornly clinging on.

Gang activity in your neighbourhood has stifled from its initial raucous to a cautious thrum. There were still glimpses and the ignored nods, and that delicate rope-work still standing strong despite men from their brackets dying some terrible death. They don’t suspect you. It would be stupid to ( because you could hardly hold a gun in their eyes, or fight back. Your claws are chipped and your fangs blunted. It’s not a mystery ).

It does not stop the occasional loitering goon up front as parents grow a little braver and a little more desperate to bring their sick children in.

You settle with your work email, tapping your foot against the faint buzz from the streets outside and the waiting area. There is the occasional loud call. Kids being kids, shushed by mothers and fathers with warnings of naughty ones being fed the nastiest medicines for bad behaviour. You’re not cruel enough to do so maliciously, but it quiets them down amidst the worried ogling.

A ping pulls you from sinking further into your pit of thoughts. The document pops up in your inbox and Aleena slows her typing to two finger taps. “Can I take a week off?” She pipes up, nervously picking at her fingers. “Next month, that is.”

“For the agelu?” you guess, a new sort of weariness settling. “I suppose you can.”

Aleena stifles away a relieved smile followed by a : “You're not going?” She looks a little surprised, then lets her eyes sweep across the clinic. “I mean…yeah I guess you won't, given the state things are in right now…”

You wince. Your father had sent a text in. He asks for you, in his own, distant way. Maybe he misses you. Maybe you miss him beneath the hurt and the anger. But feelings were messy, scary things and it was better to look away and stick your head into papers and books and words that could be read. “I’m not sure.” is the soft admission. “It's a little early, I think, for me to make a proper decision.”

( Going home feels like a fever dream now. You’d almost come to loathe the smell of marigold and incense smoke. )

That and you can't be certain if Kafka would pick your guest up any time soon. She never gave you a timing, or any sense of clarity and control in this mad scramble. Blade was to lurk in his little window in the backrooms with all the year-old files for as long as he should.

“Besides.” You finish with a hint of good humour. “I'll take full responsibility for any ancestral hauntings after. Maybe my great grandmother could make a nice home on my couch.”

Aleena purses her lips. It’s says enough. A little more if you squint hard.

“Okay that wasn’t very funny.” you admit.

“No. It wasn’t.” She tilts her head sympathetically, pressing the pads of her fingertips to the edge of the desk, half pushing up against hardwood and paper. “I have plenty to say…but you’re my boss and that would be unprofessional.”

You bite back that twitch to your lips. “A wise choice. Take care of yourself now…and don’t forget about the rest of the reports.”

Primal fear rear its ugly head and scrapes at the bars when you meet Blade’s gaze.

“I have two patients due in the next hour.” you manage to pull out, turning your heel immediately after. Any inch for a quick escape, really. “So don’t come out. You’ll scare them.” you add for good measure, like he’s a child himself, or a feisty dog muzzled and chained up.

( The kind of dogs who bite at anything and everything. The kind who quietly bare their teeth at cruel hands and kind. You aren’t certain of Blade’s stance here and now, if he was pleased with his arrangements — stuck in a room too small for him, with someone who clearly didn't want him here.

Because you don’t. There’s something about you and your face and the way it’s a traitor. It gives away your thoughts, your heart, the things you want to keep tucked away at the back but seep under the doors and stain the carpets. And your displeasure seeing him is on full display.

His corpse comes to mind. Still, dead, cold took the touch with the beginnings of rigour mortis settling when he was hauled over the stretcher and wheeled away. )

He says nothing back, unsurprisingly. He didn’t even bother speaking out as much when Kafka came in and dropped him off with all the unceremonious sneaking and threatening. You think he’ll carry on with his silence, letting whatever this delicate little semblance of distant amiability stay within its stagnant state. An untouched web.

You turn. Keep walking. You really don't want him here, you think miserably. The paradoxical warmth in his body now, when for a moment there was none. His gaze, unsettlingly intense. You don’t want him here at all.

Still, you turn once more. You speak. “Is there anything else you need?” be polite. Be polite.

Blade considers it. He looks at you. You fool yourself into believing the hunger simmering beneath harsh vermilion does not exist.

“No…” he finally relents. His voice is coarse, heavy, the whisper of a growl.

( You leave faster than you should have. )

He follows you home after the day is done ( you wish he didn’t ).

Blade keeps you within his line of sight — just within reach and just close enough to feel that faint prickle of body heat against the back of his neck. It’s an uncomfortable itch. It’s unwelcome. So you turn your head back to his silent figure and test your fingers against your bicep.

“Could you walk in front of me?” you ask.

Blade seems to consider it. “No.” he finally decides with finality edging every word. “You might run.”

“I don’t think you’d let me get very far to begin with.” you mutter under your breath. His footsteps are heavy, kicking aside loose concrete you avoid. Blade still stays an unwanted spectre behind you, treading in a way that is too soft to be human.

“I won’t.” he agrees, sounding sure of himself. Bored even. There is a scuffing sound, cloth against cloth. You’re tense again, anticipatory ( and yet, you don't dare to look back, to look at him ). “It saves inconvenience. That is all.”

You decide you’d like to be an inconvenient annoyance. That should drive him back to wherever he came from.

“I still don't think you should walk behind me though.” You repeat. Your fingers curl. You wish you had a taser. Your last bottle of pepper spray was spent as is on a few other thugs the past couple months. “You look like a creep. And a stalker. You might mug me.”

“I won't.”

“How do I know that?” You keep rambling, hysteria trickling down. It's a leaky tap, that anxious mess in your chest.

Blade blinks. “Kafka told me not to.” ( like it was the most obvious thing. You might be imagining the heavy condescension oozing through ).

That does not make you feel better. Kafka seems as reliable as a tsunami, or a flood, or any natural hazard creeping into its first few stages of utter destruction. It shows on your face, that muted mix of disbelief and horror. Blade's gaze is sharp, not quite the disconnected distance it held before. Kafka was suffocating as is but blade feels like rubble bearing down, down, down. You hate it.

“And it would be pointless, trying.” He continues. “Killing you would change nothing.”

You wordlessly rub at your knuckles, at the pulled skin of your hand. You do not talk to him for the rest of the walk. You should be more polite, you tell yourself. Be more polite. You killed this man, watched him die as his brain slowly collapsed in on itself. The least you could do after those fifteen and a half dumpster fires is extend some basic human decency, right? Be polite.

A scream ringing out gives you another thing to focus on. They're normal to hear, even as it wrenches open your viscera and leaves something sick on your tongue. It continues, growing increasingly hysterical, then stops.

( You almost run for the source, You want to. You do not. )

By the time you slip into the parking lot of the apartment and head for the elevator, you’re half hurrying Blade along. There’s nothing glamorous about the place — a standard five storey tall building just like the other projects lining most lower middle class neighbourhoods. The watchman was found out back, half passed out from his shift and stinking of beedi smoke, leaving the dog that frequented the neighbour's doors to rip into any intruders.

You don't think Blade is wholly impressed as he nudges at him with his foot. The watchman jolts with a huff and a startled snore, then passes out, head lolling to the side a little. The dog does not bark, simply trotting up to accept a few pats on the head. And indignant annoyance flares up. You sharply tug at the hem of his sleeve.

Blade jolts. The vermilion of his stare burns you.

"Leave him alone." you warn, giving his sleeve another tug for good measure. Blade's lips purse, his displeasure a quiet shift on his face for the most part, burying away immediately into the corners and crevices where things were never brought up again. "I hope you like cats." you add. "I have one who visits sometimes. She's a terror and a half…"

He grunts, stepping to the side as you fiddle with your keys, pulling away the string from your key chain and getting your door open. It’s a welcome ritual, feeling the cool breeze from your apartment filter in after a while. The cat is passed out on the balcony floor, cracking open a single yellow eye in greeting when you shuffle forth to take a peek.

“Hello, pretty girl.” you coo, feeling that heavy warmth in your arms and the softness of her fur against your palms. It eases you just enough to face Blade again.

Be polite, you tell yourself because you killed him, because he could snap your neck in two, because you think that the last thing you need is pissing off a pair of seeming psychos. “You won’t mind tea, right?”

Blade leans against the wall, maybe trying to make himself as small as possible within the cloistered rooms. “It’s a waste.” he replies, ignoring everything else; the hum from the streets below, the occasional flicker from the lights, the cat settling on the couch and sleeping an arm’s length away.

“Okay.” you mumble and set down two cups anyway.

You do not like Blade’s silence. His silence means he’d rather think about something and him thinking could involve certain death. There is a disturbed sheen glossing over his gaze. He does not look wholly there, the less he talks. Most conversions your parents had with guests were about the weather, then delving headfirst into some obscure gossip about a family three kilometres away.

Another fleeting glance at Blade has you reason that he’s not one for gossip.

( You let this silence settle in. It’s still a suffocating thing, an unwanted presence and an unwelcome guest. You think of the suited men and the gangs amok in the dirty corners and you think the silence looks like them. )

“So…our first meeting wasn’t…wholly ideal.” You speak up after a while, handing him his tea. Blade looks vaguely surprised when he takes it. “I don’t think ‘ideal’ would be the right word for it…”

“You killed me.”

You swallow. “Yes.” your voice shakes. “I killed you.” Your legs are drawn a little closer to you before you talk and you lower your voice, all that shame and guilt subduing the last bits of that cocktail of fear and tumult and annoyance. “I’m sorry for killing you. Even if you’re still alive…somehow…it wasn’t the best course of action, to be fair — ”

Blade’s lips twitch. He takes a sip of his tea, letting you stew there with your fumbling, your shame. It still goes unspoken. That damning ‘how are you still alive’. You don’t bother asking it. He can’t stay dead — Kafka said so herself. The very notion feels like an existential terror moulded to the shape of a man and you want it to stay far away from it.

“Four days.” he finally utters out, inspecting the last bit of tea staining the bottom of his cup. “I was dead for four days.”

Oh. Oh that stung.

“I’m sorry.” your voice cracks and your eyelids start to prickle. Stupid. Stupid stupid, you curse at yourself, claw at the offending load inside.

Blade snaps his head towards you. There is a twitch in his hands, slow, dog-like in the way strays jolt in alarm. You do not comment on it, awkwardly pressing at the surface of your cup while the tears are quickly wiped away and smudged against your cheeks. There's no use crying over it, you scold yourself. Grow a spine.

“Spare yourself the pity. It is not an uncommon occurrence.” is his uncomfortable dismissal. The words are nonchalant and his forehead crinkles to match the perplexed hitch to his shoulders. He probably wants to say more, speak more, tear you apart. Or he was just too put off by how pathetic you are.

“You’ve been killed before?”

“Yes.”

Horror stirs deep in your gut and a small sliver of morbid fascination shunting beneath the murky waters and glimmering up in those seconds of resurfacing.

( Can he not die? He’s still here after dying from a stroke. Does he regenerate? How does he do that? Do his cells simply have a faster metabolism? That means his neurons can too despite their limited replication in most normal people. Does he — )

The tear tracks are drying. Your face feels stiff.

“I was trying to protect myself.” you even talk like a guilty person ( it does not help. It’s subdued, the way you speak. Beaten down, half hearted. You wonder if you even want to protect yourself at all ). You don’t want to look at him anymore.

“I don’t blame you.” he replies. It’s soft, missable, sympathetic and you know that can’t be the case. Blade blinks slowly, setting his cup aside. “Would you do it again?” he asks solemnly. His hands twitch again, out of its usual bent stiffness. Beneath the dim lighting, the paleness of his skin is a corpse like macabre; greyish, sallow. He seems starved. “Would you kill me?”

Your lips part. Bile and acid burn your throat. You shut it again and shake your head and the desperation, you assume, is enough. No, no never again. You don’t want that nausea. You don’t want any more of the griping aches in your stomach and the incessant pound of your capillaries.

Blade straightens up and gives you a long, thoughtful look. He steps back and returns to his stony silence without a word. The air is restive, poisonous in how it melts away the peace.

You really should pray to that nameless god, to soften that blow. You really should pray because nothing good ever comes out of this. There’s that brush of scale against your foot, the shrinking courage when faced with dour vermilion. It’s wolfish; its jaws bear down. The cat cracks open an eye again, letting out an annoyed mewl.

No, never mind that.

IV. EXUDATION OF BLOOD

You should have prayed. The questionable existence of a god or not, maybe you'd have given yourself that tiny bit of assurance.

Even your ancestors would have done well enough. What would your grandmother say?

( Her old spirit's possibly disowned you, if she hasn’t already. She must have burned your seat in the afterlife and spat on the ashes. Bringing a man into your home, no matter the circumstance would have incited all the wrong reactions. )

You learn quick enough that Blade never sleeps. The third night after spent between lurking within the stuffy storage space and wedged next to old folders, you’d spotted him sitting upon the couch in the middle of the night. “What are you doing—” you croak out after the initial scream. He scrutinised you with clinical indifference, sweeping over your bare legs to your face. You tamp down the urge to pull your shirt down, cheeks burning.

“Thinking.” he says. There is no further elaboration to it. Blade turns to peer outside your window and the dead streets below. There is a faint echo of the strays barking trailing behind the occasional hum of a passing car. Your little town was far sleepier than the cities, where the traffic continues on, long past the morning calls and the reedy music from 24-hour bars.

“You scared me for a moment.” you purse your lips, picking at your hands. Blade blinks. “I mean, you're just standing there.” You try to justify it, fumbling a bit and coming across as far more slow than anything else. Blade tugs at his sleeve and smoothens over the damp spots.

“I'm not trying to kill you.” he reasons.

You dig your thumb down into the thicker skinned parts of your palm. It reeks of iron. He always reeks of iron. “Startled me, then. I thought you were asleep.”

Blade considers it. “I do not need sleep. Not more than what is necessary.”

Uneasiness filters in. Your throat bobs with it, unsure. “Everyone needs sleep.” you stumble out. Blade shifts, tracing along his nape with a purposeful look. His regeneration. Yes, his regeneration. Tissue rest and repair would be unnecessary with that, wouldn't it? Sleep, food perhaps, the little necessities taken for granted — peeling that away and pulling back the blinds to peer down that gaping hole, it's strange.

The grislier parts of his curse seemed to strip away those human needs. It likes to gnaw out any sense of humanity from his bones, in fact, scavenging away the bare ligaments and swallowing it whole.

“So…you’re just going to stay there then...” .

“Yes.”

Blade’s shoulders are set into its perpetual hunch. There’s something unfettered about him, roiling within deeper confines with a sense of wildness and entropy. You take your cautious step back and steel the nerves you have left ( there aren’t many to begin with — you still try ). It’s far from the moodiness he usually holds himself with and the cyclical introspection. “Could you be less…disturbing, then…?” you ask.

Silence. “Disturbing.” he echoes, tasting every breadth of the word on his tongue. You feel metal coming to rest in your mouth and dig into the insides of your cheeks. There’s a flicker from the apartment across and sterilised white shines upon the side of his face. He looks worn down, worse for wear. The darkened spots on his clothes are dyed red round his torso and dried blood crests across the rim of his fingernails. Red. Red on his clothes. Red on the floor. Red on your couch. Red —

“Did you leave this room?” it’s not a question. You’re not asking questions.

“No.”

You don't quite realise it, the scrambling and the frantically locked doors till the cold nip from your room settles against your skin and your shaky hand holds up your phone. It takes a moment for the buzzing numbness to fade to a tumultuous undercurrent and for you to dial down that emergency contact, seconds away from calling —

— a notification.

It's an unlisted contact, and a single message.

Unknown. I wouldn't do that if I were you.

A moment of pause. You don't move, balking at the sight of it.

Unknown. There's a good girl. I hope Bladie isn't giving you any trouble. If he's made a mess, just help him get cleaned up, please.

You. Is this Kafka?

Unknown. Look at you playing detective! That's cute. It is, by the way.

You. How did you get my number..

Unknown. Oh I have my ways. And I wouldn’t call the police. I can’t say I’ll stay quiet and pin the blame on you. It would be easy, hiding a few bodies in your storeroom. I like Bladie, you know. Can’t have him getting arrested and all.

It feels like you’re grasping at ice, with the way it feels cold. Cold, so cold and uncomfortably harsh against your cheeks. You want to tear into something, into your pillow, into yourself. You want to throw your phone across the room and scream till your lungs are hoarse. You want to call the police anyway and shove that into Kafka’s face. You want to cast them out into some forgettable void and be done with this fear and this painful grip in your stomach and…

…you do none of that.

Some small defeated part of you whispers its comfort. You ignore it, cast it aside, call it a fool. You’re gutless, maybe a little brainless and honestly, you half consider going back to your hometown and — no. You will not think about that. Not now. Not ever. You broke that life apart, stepped over the fragments and let your bloodied footsteps lead you here. All that hurt is not worth the quiet defeat.

The door creaks open. You peer back out at Blade. “Sorry…” you mumble. He glances up at you. “I just…i was shocked…there’s blood all over you.” You think about what you should say next. You chose your words carefully. “Did you…”

You don’t get to finish. Blade leans back and shakes his head. “I did not kill anyone.” A wry little tug twitches at his lips. “Not now at least.”

It takes a tentative step, then another for you to exit the room completely. Blade doesn’t look bothered, content in his solitude where sits. You look down at the tiled floor trying to summon forth whatever blind insanity you had. It takes a special sort for this, for this specifically where the cracks fissure into the sides and down down down to the foundations. “What happened?”

“Nothing.” A lie. There’s blood on him for crying out loud.

Still, you do not pry. “Should I…” you stop. It takes some struggle, reaching down deep and wrenching the words out into something stringed and legible. “Do you want to clean up?” you offer softly, motioning to the bathroom. “Just…a shower, I guess. I can get those washed.. Blood’s really hard to get off after all and they’re nice clothes…from my personal experience at least…”

Blade watches you, tilting his head a bit. He does look a little like a dog now, one with a wrinkled muzzle and dark, serious eyes. “Fine.” he relents after some consideration, impassively getting to his feet. He follows you to the bath, delicately sidestepping your frame to enter. You let the water heat before letting it run into the bucket, offering him a pitcher and some soap.

“You’ll have to make do with the towel…I might have some spare blankets around.” you add, because you will not have a naked man walking around your house. There’s so much your ancestors might allow at this point. This would be toeing the line from possibly being dragged into the afterlife.

He spares a grunt in response while bandages come undone. You chew against the inside of your cheek, inhaling stale metal and collecting blotched brown linen from him. He’s hesitant, letting you close, but it takes a quick turn of his wrist for you to pick out the worst of his wounds. These ones do not heal away the rawness and the sick pink of flesh. These ones still bleed.

“Can you manage?” you peep out. Blade stares at his hand, at yours grasping his.

“Yes,” he says after a while. His fingers brush against the inside of your palm as you let him go, and you take that shaky step out of the bath, leaving behind a clean roll of bandages and antiseptic at the door.

V. PUTREFACTION

The woman beside you looks tired, worn away at the eyes and around the edges of her face. “Stay still.” she whispers hurriedly, stuffing her phone back into her purse as she gathers the skirts of her seere.

The boy on the bed does not stay still, tapping his fingers away at his lap as you shoot him a reassuring smile. There’s plenty of nervous energy stuffed away in the cracks and crevices of that tiny body of his, and it barely abates with the ticking second hand from your analog clock. “Are you nervous?” you offer, taking a knee beside him. The boy purses his lips, brown eyes focused wholly onto the floor below.

“No.” he decides to be brave and squares his shoulders up. You appreciate the effort as you press at the inside of his arm.

“That’s nice.” you nod. “But it’s okay to be scared sometimes. I know how scary needles can be.”

“I’m not scared.” he insists. He challenges you, looks at you dead in the eye with the most determination he could pluck away at his reserves and gather together. “Last week I chased a ghost away from my room. I turned the lights on and screamed at it.”

You crack a smile. “Is that so? Did it try to come inside?” you entertain the thought, poke away at his imagination till you find the faint blue of a vein. You see how his mother bows her head down, looking a little sick. The boy doesn’t seem to catch on in the way his eyes light up and he draws himself up. You don;t think she wants him to see. Sometimes there are instances where you see parents squirrelling away those bits of childish innocence like uncut diamonds; biting down at grimy hands that try to snatch it away.

You cannot fault her for wanting him to be happy. He was only four.

“Yeah. I was all GRAAAAAHHHH’!” you flinch at his spirited demonstration. He’s pleased with the audience and the invoked emotion as his mother winces and tries to pull at his ear to keep him quiet. It’s too late given his excitement, ducking down to continue his babbling. “And it went ‘AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH’! Then it left and I went to see if amma and appa were alright. They were and I hugged them to make them feel better.”

“That is brave.” you nod. “You be careful out there, okay? Don’t stop hugging your amma and appa. I’m sure they love your hugs.”

“After this, can I have the chocolate at the desk?” he asks, batting his lashes. He flashes you a cherubic grin, and you might have caught yourself smiling a little wider. It’s a rare instance of silly happiness after the mounting strain on your shoulders and the urge to rip your eyes out bloody and raw. “The one in the big bowl.” he adds for clarity; because adults, he might be thinking, needed plenty of that.

You look over your shoulder to the door with a thoughtful little hum. “It’s not chocolate. It’s tamarind candy. The sweet kind. But it’s sour too.” You admit. “Do you still want some?”

The boy draws his lips back. “I’d still like some. I like tammy-rind.”

“Well, listen to your amma and stay still, okay?” he does, his small hand reaching out to grasp at her seere’s pallu. She holds her hand out and he takes it, tugging at her fingers, then her thumb as the nervousness slowly trickles in and scrunches away at his brow and nose. “Don’t get all stiff. Deep breath in…deep breath out. You can tell me about things you like if it helps…what games do you like playing?”

“I like football.” he offers. “My cousins say I'm a baby so I can't play with them. But I'll grow big and tall one day and I will kick their legs and show them.”

“Don’t start there.” his mother warns. “You’re not kicking anyone.”

The boy makes a face just as you give him his shot, then yelps a moment at the pin prick. His eyes squeeze shut for a second, his grip white knuckled till you finally pull the needle out and pat his cheek. “Done. That’s his DTP vaccine done with. He’ll need to get his booster next year as well so keep a reminder on for that.” His mother nods, handing in the little booklet as you scribble away the recommendations and mark away at the sheet.

The boy grumbles, poking at his arm. “Do I get the tammy-rind now?”

“Of course. The brave kids always get an extra one too.” you appease, walking them out.

“Great.” he’s mollified at least, wiping away any residual tears with a discreet turn away. “And i think you’re brave too. I saw a ghost here. In the door at the back.”

You freeze up a bit. “Did you now?” you’re feeling your voice crack a bit at the end of that question. Even the mother glances over, unsettled. You shake your head and the reassurance returns. It’s nothing, nothing at all, you try to say.

“Yes. He looked super scary. But he just looked at me and told me to go back to amma.” the boy sighs.

“I’m sure that was just one of the boys who helps the doctor.” his mother reasons, her words taking a sterner edge. She’s bustling him out, putting away at his back as she straightens her pleats and fixes her pallu. “It’s not nice saying things like that now. You’d better apologise to that man if you said that to him.”

“I didn’t say anything.” the boy insists as you pause by the door and see them off after handing him his hard earned candy, ( “thank you, doctor. Say thank you to the doctor auntie.” the mother urges. The boy echoes it drolly then slips back into his stubborn insistence, pulling at her arm ). Their voices fade into the faint music playing at the lounge and the chatter in the waiting room. Aleena turns to call for the next person, peering down at the files.

A hush filters through. One of the men stands over the row of seated people. They draw some of their children closer, muted shock and fear splayed across and you feel flayed open. “Tell the clients to leave.” you mumble. She nods and sends the word out. Some of them seemed to catch on quick and pack away their folders and gather their companions. A line of men and women mill out, leaving that sole frame standing, arms crossed in wait.

You keep your eyes down as you motion to the doors. Aleena hides away as she usually does ( you’d torn into her when she’d gotten too mouthy, too brave the last time ).

“Is something wrong? I’m sure I paid off the fee two weeks ago.” you test out.

The suited man doesn’t reply yet, sinking into the backdrop of static and the panicked thudding in your ribs. You vaguely remember Blade hiding away within the archives and hope he doesn’t wander back out again. He takes his time, dragging out the seconds as he idles past your framed degree and a few photos from your childhood home.

“A few weeks ago there was an…altercation in your clinic, correct?” he states more than he asks it, rubbing at his chin.

Oh shit.

“Yes…” you nod when you sense his wait. Your nerves wither away and you lose your sense of touch.

“Some of the men on my side died here. I was sent in to get to the bottom of it all.” His narrowed gaze settles on you. “It’s funny. We know there’s a third party involved but his body went missing from the morgue before he could be ID’d. Any footage of him? Wiped clean, and aeons forbid the police trying anything when it comes to getting witnesses to speak a consistent story.” His footsteps are an echo in the back of your mind, too loud, too distracting. Blade, dear lord, his presence here is a mistake. “Now, I'm here to ask if you had a hand in it, doctor.”

“No.” you choke out. “I don’t.”

“Were you working with that man who killed them?”

“No — ”

“Did you see him?”

You're too slow to respond and it takes him grabbing a fistful of your hair to rattle it out faster. “No I did not!” you insist, squeezing your eyes shut. You recall what you tell the boy, and the empty words about bravery. You feel like a liar steeped in bitter hypocrisy. It makes you want to rip your insides out and claw at your viscera.

Nails dig into the softer parts of your cheeks as your face is slammed into the wall. It draws out a choked, gasping wheeze from your ribs and white hot pain screaming at your skull, your muscles. The small, scared animal in you is crying, crying, crying away into bleak emptiness. It tries to run, eyes blown out and mouth hung open. It tries to make you run before you’re gutted clean through. “Are you lying?” the man asks quietly.

“No. No I didn’t.” You stutter it out, pressing your fingertips into the chipped paint. “I was hiding…I-I was hiding till t-they took the bodies.” The pressure against your head builds, builds till you yelp and struggle, terrified of him digging down hard enough to cut away at your airflow and snap your neck in two. For a moment, you wonder if he’ll do just that when he finally, thankfully, lets you go…

( Your eyes flit up, desperate, moving things and you look at him, actually look at him and the cold death in his gaze. You never assumed someone could look like that — empty and scooped clean of any humanity lingering at the edges. He’s hollow, and angry*.*

You made your mistake. )

…You’re slammed back in. The scream in muffled into your wrist. “You saw nothing?” he repeats, guttural in how he addresses and enunciates every word. It’s like reasoning with a man eater. You nod, nod because it’s all you had. “Nothing at all? No faces?” another nod and the man slips back and lets you crumple to the floor with that warning.

“You better not be lying.” he tells you, slipping to the speedy notes of your local tongue. “There will be hell to pay for that.”

You’re lucky, you think, for getting off that easily. The buzz in your mind builds and smothers you against your spot and you shift a bit when Aleena presses a hand to your shoulder. Blade is right behind her and she’s flattening her lips.

“You’re a nuisance.” you tell him, annoyance and anger and all that frustration meandering and stubbornly oozing through the cracks. Blade fixes you with a glare, drawing his mouth back to a half sneer.

“Who did this?” he asks, voice dipping to trembling danger, entropy brewing underneath all that. “Who did this to you?”

“None of your business.” you snip in turn, wobbling to your feet. Your coat is blotched red around the collar and the shoulders. You didn’t realise you were bleeding till your fingertips came away sticky and wet ( you feel like you’re careening off of the edge of a cliff, in a car you have no control of ). “You’re more trouble than you’re worth.” you add, croaking through your words and the buzz and the annoyance. “So just leave. Leave, tell her I can't babysit you if this…this is what I have to deal with.”

Blade narrows his eyes. “I cannot.” he states and leaves no room for argument as his hand grabs you at the scruff and half tugs you alongside him. You’re not spared any more dignity around him, and he treats you like a wet cat nipping and scratching at his arm. “You.” he adds, turning to your receptionist. “She needs to be tended to.”

Aleena mumbles something under her breath but seeks out the first aid kit. She swats Blade’s hands away once she approaches you again. You appreciate it. You don’t want him touching you and the crawling chilliness of his body invites an ugly sort of desperation that blocks away your throat and nudges at all the parts of you you’re less than proud of.

Blade does not leave. He never does, on that bitter note, looming over the two of you by the wall, that beast twisting in his eyes like a snake.

He unsettles you with the way he stalks the emptiness of your apartment rooms, pressing his body to the wall with shaky breaths. You watch him from the crack of your door and wonder if this is what unravelling sanity looks like. If it is the face of a man ripping open his chest and screaming through the guts until that beating heart is carved clean from the cavity.

Blade is more animal than human in how he walks. The room smells strange too. You do not know what it is, in its pungent notes and the unpleasantness of it all. It’s not rot, you’ve smelled rot before, and tasted that stench of decay lain thickly on your tongue.

This is more rancid, like regurgitated food and butter. You spot a single leaf on the floor, fan shaped and dipped in sunlit gold. Then more at his feet.

His form flickers by, rustling past your door. He’s at the balcony, then he’s not. You pad out and scan the dark streets, spotting his hunched frame nestled within the alleyways tucked at the side. There is a glimpse of purple from Kafka’s hair as she presses her lips to his cheek, whispering something to his ear.

Blade seems to melt and you watch on, half transfixed from the scandal, cheeks warming when Kafka leans to the side and waves, a playful grin curling on her face. She whispers something again and has Blade turn too, and you think you’re almost drawn in, dizzyingly close to the edge of your balcony rails till reason snaps you back and you return to your apartment.

( “Bladie…” Kafka coos at him, her gloved fingers pressing up against the seam of his lips. Blade tries to hide away the dry hunger in his stomach and his mouth. “Do you like this one?” she asks.

He thinks about it. The release of death. The warmth of your hands. The tears. He thinks of the man sawed apart on the concrete, down to tendons and bones and muscle and flesh. He thinks of the scattered limbs and the bruise and your blood.

Her hands press to his cheeks. “Listen to me. Push the mara down…we don’t want to keep upsetting her now do we?” she asks, teasing in how her teeth flash. Kafka feels like a dream lost in the haze of it all. He leans into her touch and lets the flowering roots in his chest rupture and decay.

“No.” Blade admits, surreality dragging him under. He does not spare her a reply to that question. Kafka already knows. )

VI. DISCOLOURATION AND DESICCATION

“Tell me who did it.”

“No.”

Blade looks annoyed, scraping and haunting the walls of your apartment as he follows you through the kitchenette like a ghost. The brewing…whatever it was…from the past couple of days seemed to have cowed after that visit from Kafka, nothing more now than a placid beast ( as placid as a rabid mutt could be ). You clench fist into your knife’s handle a little harder than you should have.

She could have taken him back, her little lover boy guard dog and his strange balcony crawling ass —

Blade hovers close, so close. There’s an absence of heat beside you. He’s always cold, colder than a man, warmer than a corpse. That in-between he seemed to linger in. His limbo. “He hurt you. He will do it again. Tell me who it was.”

“Absolutely not.” You state, voice flattened against bemusement. “You'll just kill him.”

He stills, his eye letting out something of a neurotic twitch. He might just strangle you now, carve you open with that sword, eat your insides…maybe. “He suspects something. He must die.” He says it slowly, irritation budding through the dryness of his countenance. Your nose wrinkles at this.

“That's nice and all but you stink of death enough, and ‘enough’ is still far too much.” You angle your knife, pressing into the tender outer layers of the onion till you slice through it. The blade shudders against the impact and your hand strains into it. You bite back a curse.

( You're thinking about too many things.

You're thinking about Aleena turning in her resignation letter, and her apologies. A marriage, she'd said. And how could she turn down her parents’ demands after everything? They care. Despite the pain, you knew that too. It's that painful kind of love where you'd hurt and hurt and keep hurting them when the choices seemed so sparse. Better a bloodied knife, they'd try to say. Better a few cuts than being torn apart.

She only just found out, she admits. There was an uncomfortable shift in her body. She looked ready to crumple into herself and shatter into a million pieces. She's meant to meet him during the agelu. It's been arranged for.

How did you? you'd asked. You were afraid to ask. You shouldn't have asked. That meant looking ugly things in the eye through to the nauseating technicalities. Aleena swallows. She looks more distressed than she should. You let her weep a little and nurse those gaping cuts. Your bruises don’t smart anymore. You’d forgotten they were there.

She shows you a newspaper. And you stare on with an empty kind of apathy as you spot her details within the bridal adverts, down to her college degree and the colour of her eyes. )

( You were reminded that there's a kind of love fuelled by bitter hate. You were reminded of the sight of her shrinking back and fading into the walls of your clinic, like a collapsing black hole. It's how daughters and duties were here, a little better than the north but broken in a way where broken things couldn't be fixed.

You've seen it in a mirror once, hollow and void and dead in your eyes, and your mehendi stained hands tearing apart the the jasmine in your hair. )

Blade tilts his head and angles the knife just a bit before you could cleave a finger straight off. “I’m being reasonable. He won’t hurt you if you let me.” he tries to reason, playing clumsy diplomacy. But Blade still pauses between his words with that perplexed unsureness. He didn’t know what to tell you when you were sobbing on that couch. He doesn’t know what to say now, when your insides were burning away your peace.

You brush him away and viscerally visualise grinding him to a bloodied pulp with your grandmother’s mortar. The violence in your head helps a little.

Blade keeps watching you, turning his head away from the spattering chillies and the sour notes of tamarind staining your hands. The onions are still a bother. You think it can't quite get worse at this point, with stubborn tunicated bulbs and a dull blade. The over-stimulation you're half subjected to feels like claws on a chalkboard, gratingly demanding every bit of your attention.

“Give it to me.” It's not a request. He takes the knife before you could really mutter out sneering ‘no’. He slices through the onion, passes you a pointed look and keeps slicing ( why does he make it seem so easy? Why??? ).

“Give it back.” you try.

“No.”

“Please…?”

He nudges at your shoulder, towards the stove. Your shoulders sag and a frustrated lump gathers at your throat. At least he’s helping, you reason. You shouldn’t be so angry over this. A normal person wouldn’t want to throw a fuss over a stolen chore and a stubborn wraith. You light the stove and gather what you’d prepared. Blade was done with onions. It’s only been a minute.

…You decide to not question that.

( Please don’t kill me, you add in your mind for good measure. )

There’s something therapeutic in indulging with this familiarity. Your old home smells like this, like comfort and nostalgia in the idyllic sorts of memories. They’re the ones you lock away in a box, nestling that key deep inside your ribs. Even so, that horrible weight swells up like a tumour. It could burst any minute. It’s wearing you down and frying the ends of your nerves.

“Aleena is leaving.” you blurt out. Blade blinks. “My receptionist.”

“She told me.” Blade nods.

“She’s getting married.” you continue.

Blade considers this. “She is…young, yes?”

You nod. “Twenty four.” you swallow. Your throat is parched. “Some families do marry their children off at this age. Not all of them, of course…and not every arrangement is all that bad…I've seen some good ones.” He keeps listening, you know it in the way his head tilts ever so slightly to you. Your senses are clumped together, messy, messy, messy. “It’s none of my business.” you add feverishly. “I shouldn’t be getting upset.”

“...why aren’t you?” the question is sudden. You feel your confusion knock away reason. Blade tries again. “Married. Why aren’t you married?”

“That’s a very impolite thing to ask.” you reply quickly.

“I see.” he struggles, pondering over his next few words. “I will not push further.” You purse your lips, the conversation delicately fraying and fading out. You let the silence stagnate, hovering by the stove with your vessel-full of coconut milk.

Something inside you tugs.

“I was supposed to be.” you mumble. “He was a nice guy, was working for a stable job and had plans to buy a house close to the beach. The kid you’d see in movies, you know?” you laugh a little. “And maybe I was a little swept up. But then we talked and we both realised that…we had dreams of our own. Things we weren’t willing to let go of, a relationship he was serious about.”

The chicken goes next, as the gravy settles into a shade of brown-red. Blade is staring, something in his face set in an odd way. He looks off putting. Hungry, like those night spent pacing through your living room.

“We parted ways. There weren't any dramatic rejections…he seemed just as pleased with it, to be fair. I hear he’s settled nicely with his boyfriend…good for him.”

“So you came…here…” Blade works it out.

“Quite. Those choices weren’t wholly supported by my family. They kept trying to find someone and I kept pushing it away…I was scared I guess, and people got angrier and insistent and I started feeling less…human.” you take a deep breath in. “So I left one day. They never contacted me. My father only started again after my grandmother died. And I opened this clinic up…”

The room is blurred out. All you see are splotches of colour and a blemished, dark blue whee Blade stands, rimmed by the sunset.

You wipe the tears away.

“It’s all I have now.” you whisper, a painful crackle coating the peaks. “All of it. And it’s a nice place…I used my grandfather’s photo frames in the reception…my mother’s carpet too. It was a souvenir from the north. And…and some of the toys were my own. It took some digging and cleaning and repairing but they’re just as good as any other…” It’s flaking at the surface. You aren’t a strong person. It’s always been so easy to crumble with the weight ( like a paper doll ). “So please…please just leave before you make it worse.”

Blade regards you. He always is, watching, watching, watching, like there’s nothing else that could tug him away, take up his mind when he’s not snapping necks till they shatter.

“I cannot.” His brows are set, pulling together just a little.

“You can.” You insist, feeling stupid, childish. Its pointless trying to convince him otherwise anyway, Not without feeling hacked down and near helpless beneath his looming shadow. “You can leave. You and Kafka can, it's not that hard.”

“We have work to do and it must be done.” driven finality settles deep. He feels so far away, repeating words like a robot. It's hard to think of Blade as human in times like these, where he's either too robotic or too animalistic. It feels scripted, all wrong, all twisted up and chewed apart. “You wouldn't understand it. Leave it be.”

“I won't, if it's my business you're intruding on.” You set the coconut milk down, the steel vessel striking polished granite with a sharp ring. Your teeth grit together ( you hate feeling angry. You hate the cloudiness that comes with it ). “What if I run then?”

Blade's glare is cutting. “You will not run.” He asserts, scruffing you so easily, tugging you just a little closer. You fight back the urge to swat at him. At least you could think a little. At least you still had a tiny hand digging it's claws into your self control. “I'll drag you back. I will keep dragging you back till you cease this foolishness.”

( How were you being foolish? All you have are fragmented snapshots, the lingering sense of dread, the knowledge of something sinister brewing beneath the surface. You have a man in your house, a murderer. You have a man in your house you swore you killed. You have a man in this house who doesn't die.

How were you being foolish? You want to scream at him till your vocal chords fray and your arytenoids collapse. But Blade has probably never felt fear. You can't imagine his sympathy.

And you still killed him though. You stop. The guilt is back, and the anxious Turn of it, and the seething edge of your rage burning, burning, burning. )

“Did Kafka tell you to do that too?” poison burns holes into your words. You and Blade are sinking deeper and deeper beneath it, boring holes through your skin.

( You need to stop. You need to stop talking. )

“She wouldn't be as kind.” He asserts simply, rolling his eyes at the mention.

Defeat comes for you from the corners. You huff. “Let go of me.” your arm is shoved back, elbowing his ribs. Blade doesn't flinch, but his grip loosens and he dips his head down in acknowledgement. “Are you ever going to leave me alone?”

“When we collect what we need, yes.”

“...get it over with quickly then.” You mutter, stalking away from him. “Tell me when the chicken is cooked. Leave me alone till then.”

Blade takes a moment. “Alright.”

“Bladie, you're upset.”

Is he? Blade doesn't quite see it. But there is an ache where his heart should be. It's been there since you'd locked yourself away and he’s left to stare at the curry bubbling at the edges. Kafka laughs from the other end of the line, light, airy; she's probably wiping blood away from her swords.

“You are. Has the doctor been softening you up?” She's playful, prodding, poking, stringing along her words. “Cute. Is she why you’re calling?”

“She’s asking questions.” he steadies his phone. It’s so easy, how it slips between his fingers. It’s not the firm immovability of his sword hilt and it’s slippery, almost unusable with his twitching. Blade hears Kafka hum against his ear, kneading away at the issue before her voice picks up again.

“You know you can’t give too much away, right? We need to follow the script and if she meddles too much…”

“I know.” Blade cuts in, apathy sinking deeper. The script, yes, the script. There’s that flash of familiar awareness. The script is something to be followed, right down to the bare details. If pinstripes needed to be worn, then pinstripes must be worn and if Blade must cut a hand off, that hand must go. But even he knows of the variables being difficult, breaching at destiny’s thin skin.

“And she’ll only get hurt, Bladie.” Kafka coos it out gently, placating the tenseness building in his shoulders. “It’s unfortunate how scared little things tend to bite more. Listen to me, try appeasing her a little, yeah? I’m sure a treat or two should keep her from stepping too out of line.”

“How much longer do I have to stay here?”

“You want to leave so soon?”

Blade does not. He can feel the roots tugging at his feet, fixing him down here, leeching, leeching, leeching. The fluttering ache in his stomach has grown worse. Blade fears never slipping away and that won’t do. Wolves aren’t to be leashed. That fractured memory, the writhing ocean in those eyes…there is no place for him here.

( Destiny, destiny, destiny. The unattainable, the inescapable…Kafka whispers something else. He wants to break his wrists. )

And still, Kafka knows. He can practically see the cheshire curl to her lips. “Cute.” she repeats, drawling the word out. “I’m almost done. Just a bit of the usual…we’ll have the stellaron collected in no time and we can head out. Till then, lie low and be a doll for me before I come to collect you, okay?” he can hear the faint echo of her footsteps echoing past empty hallways. She might spare a visit soon, he realises. “And again. Try not to upset the doctor too much, yeah?”

Blade dips his head down, mollified. “Alright.”

The phone cuts away. You’re still in your room, cut away from most of his conversation. The chicken looks cooked so he turns the stove off and gropes about absently till he feels a plastic handle. Then he knocks on your door.

It takes you a moment to open it for him. “Is it done?” you ask. Blade stares down at your wide, tired eyes. “Yes.” he replies, dizzy and blotted out in the centre all at once. He can’t quite stop it, the rapid undergrowth, the rustling call of mara, that need to seize you by the face and tear into the softness of your cheeks, to bite, to taste blood, to break your bones and devour you. To feel the dig of your nails against his arms, something sharper, you scooping out his chest, his ribs and his heart till it’s beat ceases and he curls into your warmth —

“Do you hate me?” he asks quietly, unwavering. Its swelling. “Do you want me gone?”

You swallow, halfway out of your room. Blade wants to grab you, taste —

“I do.” you mumble.

Appease her. Kafka’s echo fades out once more in the back of his head. Blade presses the knife to your hand, holding its edge just over his stomach, pressing till he feels its prickle numb out. It’s where the fluttering was, unfettered when he tore his intestines out upon your couch and let the blood seep into the fabric ( you hadn’t liked that, so he stopped ).

He stops, gripping you just above the beat of your pulse. It speeds up, vivacious, so alive ( Blade is used to his steady thrum, slow, so slow unlike that of a human ). “You can kill me then.” he tells you. “If it pleases you.”

There’s a shift. The handle slips away and you snatch your hand back, face twisting to what he recognises as distress. Then you look angry, slamming the door back shut. “Don’t talk to me.” You scream through, muffled by hardwood.

Blade feels empty. He collects the knife and turns back into the kitchen, temptations spilling out when he lingers a little too long and thinks of sweet oblivion.

He muzzles himself as most dogs should be. His teeth are blunted, his claws filed.

He doesn't want to scare you.

VII. SCAVENGING

Aleena hasn't spoken much since she'd told you about 'the arrangement' ( you make it sound like some cold business deal. A travesty. Maybe you were being far too pessimistic with this whole ordeal, putting in too many chunks of those ugly memories into that basket. You could be wrong. You could be wrong about it all ). It's an all too familiar disconnect, a silent misery that you'd watch every day after. She's letting it fill out her whittled spaces, and it worries you. Worries you in the way your heart twists and your insides turn.

( Won't you be coming, he'd asked again over a messy phone call. There's a lot of things to catch up on. We'll lay off the insisting, we'll let you choose the groom this time. That would be far better, right?

And your father's words meter out to warbled static, spilling through your ears and onto the floor. )

Maybe you should put something out in penance. Let those ghosts keep to themselves and continue their silent vigils. You're not superstitious, and rituals like these feel more a far away dream since you'd moved away.

"Aleena…"

"Yes?"

"How about we go get some cha during our break?" you offer a kind smile, tired, a little neurotic but you think it will ache a lot more if you say nothing at all. That wound up and coiled-away thing in her, pulling at the set to her jaw and the firm stoicism she displays — it slowly lapses. She looks down at her feet, back up at you and blinks a long, slow blink.

"That sounds nice." she croaks out, pushing aside a stack of papers. You check the analog clock above the two of you. A lunch break was due in another fifteen minutes and there a few checkups and medical records to fill in for school diaries. You could finish soon enough."Is it at the local place? I like the one with the cardamom."

"Sure you can."

Aleena seems to think a thousand thoughts all at once. "Thank you." she whispers when you step back, trained down to the keyboard. She's not typing, tracing the plastic frame itself . You leave her be, let her stew a while before gently gathering her up and leading her to the closest stall.

( Blade was cornered in the stores. You tell him not to stir up any trouble.

"Where?" he asks.

"None of your concern. I'd like some time alone with her, please." He reaches out, curling his hands into the sleeve of your coat. His eyes look like smelted iron. You tell yourself not to flinch, to skitter away because you will not be a rabbit. For once you will not be a rabbit. "I'm going." you repeat with more purpose. "You can't tell me otherwise."

Blade lets you go. )

It's crowded as is, and you try not to let yourself be pushed out by the squeezing throng. Not until you and Aleena leave with your tea and a packet of glucose biscuits to sit by a roadside ledge beneath the tree cover.

She takes a few bites before she starts talking again.

"Sorry about the suddenness of it all."

"The marriage?"

"Yes." She picks away at some of the crumbs.

"It's okay." You pat her hand in assurance. "I was wondering if you were doing alright

Aleena seems to ponder over it. "A little. I know him. We went to the same school…so it's not all bad." She drains the last of her tea, throwing the Styrofoam cup into a dustbin. "I'm just…angry I suppose."

"At your parents?" You guess.

"Yeah." She swallows. "They've been pestering me since my second year in college. I had to keep telling them that I wanted more stability…a job. Something. I can't just keep relying on my spouse for money and all that, you know…my parents said I could do that after. That I was being selfish for putting it off."

You purse your lips. "It's good to be stable." You agree. "Sometimes it's easy to point fingers and blame it on unnecessary worry and paranoia…but from my experience, marriages like these are a gamble. You can't be too sure, even with people you think you know." You must be rambling. Embarrassment floods into your cheeks. You have the grace to look a little sheepish.

"Right! And I told them that and…" She shakes her head. "They don't get it, I guess. I mean…I don't mind settling down, really, but they keep pushing me and rushing into it and then they just put up that advert without saying anything and..." Her wide eyed hysteria is palpable. You might want to hug her, steal her away. Familiar pains tend to do that, stinging at your soft insides.

"Am I not a good daughter?" The fragility spotting it aches, unfurling, spreading forth. You shut your eyes.

"I'm sure you are." You tell her honestly. And she is. You know she is.

Aleena's face stretches, pained. "It feels the exact opposite. I might be making it all more difficult…I should be grateful, shouldn't I? They care about me, I know that and…this…" The words are turned over, thought upon. Her hands twitch, gesturing at the air with wild frustration. Aleena is shrinking by the second, cracking at the corners. "What do I do?"

Your throat dries.

"I don't know. I ran away from mine and now my family refuses to talk to me." You tell her. "There's a lot of different ways this could go. Parents react in different ways…all I can say is…you need to trust your instincts."

"I don't want to lose them." She admits shamefully, wiping away a tear. "I'm a coward."

You purse your lips. "I think we all are." You sigh. Your tea has cooled against your fingertips. “But…but I'd say it's better than being miserable the rest of our lives. It's selfish, I agree…” you feel defeat trickle down — defeat, hopelessness, a cocktail of too-many-things-at-once.. “it could work out too. It could work out and it will be alright after that. But there's a lot more before it all as well…I'm sorry. I'm not very good with advice.”

Aleena shakes her head, rubbing at her eyes. "It's better than people telling me that I'm being a nuisance."

"You said you knew him too." You add.

She scoffs. "He might have changed. The most I remember is him pulling at my hair and calling me ugly."

"Oh. Hopefully for the better, then."

Aleena rubs at her knuckles, humming softly as a trill of birdsong echoes above the two of you. "Thanks for taking me in." She says, and it's spoken so softly you almost miss it. "I learned a lot working under you.and you were good to me. Better than some other bosses I had…hopefully I should still be able to work after…" She breaks away.

A gooey sort of warmth trembles inside. It's the sort that cracks you open. "You're welcome."

She kicks out her feet, letting her footwear flap shutter against the balls of her feet, then stands back up. "We'll head back then? I don't think I'd want to leave you with unfinished work on my last day…"

"That would be terrible." you agree, cracking a grin.

Aleena veers the subject away to the common pleasantries. She talks about the weather, the new park in the better parts of the city and the flowers there. She talks about the old lady who invites her to feed the pigeons. You listen as you do, till you slip back into the clinic and start the afternoon shift again. Clockwork, familiar clockwork. Still, you ache. It's selfish.

"Blade." you call out when you step back into the stores. You're greeted with silence. You're greeted with emptiness.

"Doctor? we have another checkup!" You straighten up, smooth away the frazzle, the jumbled nerves and the frayed ends. There is a time and place for panic. Not now. Not when you have work to do. So you work. You work till the minutes and hours bleed in and the sun spills past the concrete rises. You work till the night falls and you realise the silence in the storeroom seems to have grown past the occasional rattle from the shutters and the wind.

You heave in a breath. Aleena has left, pulling you into a final hug. You find yourself looking for him.

( Where is he? )

It's Kafka who drops by after closing. The anxiety nips at you, your face, your hands, everywhere, between Blade still not making a reappearance and now…this.

You hadn't met her face to face in a while and you've almost forgotten the weight she carries. She'd turned you around before you could walks away any further, her gloved hands snaking round your waist and her lips brushing against the shell of your ear. "Sorry for the visit, doc." she speaks out, like you're old friends. "Had some work to look into."

You hunch your shoulders, cowed of any initial annoyance. Something in you draws back, scared around her. It's the cat-like preening, the way Kafka smiles so emptily at you. "Right." you mumble.

"Bladie's been treating you well? I told him to be on his best behaviour."

"He's…he's alright. If you're here to pick him up…well he's been missing since this afternoon. I…i swear I didn't — "

Kafka shakes her head. "Oh no, I sent him on a little errand." she assures you, sitting down in the waiting room. She pulls you down next to her. "I've noticed he's been doing his best around you too…granted I'm sure some of his habits are a little…of putting." That smile is back, razor edged.

"It's fine." You try to say.

"Mhm. If you say so." Kafka crosses a leg over the other. "I've been souvenir shopping between work and all. I might pack up a larger haul after this final matter is dealt with. So many things to do…" She trails off, drumming his fingers against her chin as if deep in thought. "Have any places you recommend visiting? I've heard the silks here are to die for."

You hadn't known that either. "That's…nice." You lower your head, that far away beeping growing louder and louder against the chills clawing up your spine. You breath in, feeling the point of her nails press up against your cheek and turn you around to face her.

"Oh dear. I don't think you're very happy to see me." she coos. "Bladie hasn't been very good to you, has he?"

You open your mouth.

"You don't have to say anything." she cuts in with what seems to be kindness. You were almost fooled by it, set adrift, running straight into that tangle of webbing. Kafka feels predatory the way Blade does, and in ways that doesn't feel like him either, spinning you around and around in circles for those simple little amusements.

"He scares me." you blurt.

"Is that so?" Pity weighs in her sentence, cloying it together like resinous amber and sundew. She looks delighted.

"He does." you nod, feeling helplessness undo your seams. Kafka leans in close, close enough for the warmth from her breath to spill over your jaw. You want to push her off — you should, given who she is. But she clings so close, drinking it all in with strange euphoria. She's still holding your face, and Kafka was far stronger than she presents herself to be.

"You poor lamb. I hope he didn't bite you too hard." She smiles, caught in a trance as you sink further into magenta and pink and the smell of her perfume. "Then again, Bladie's always rough with the things he likes. I'm almost tempted to take you with us."

You shutter, blank out, flail about internally before all reasoning bears down with the impact of a comet. "I don't want to go with you though." You squeak, the words sinking in so quick and it shocks you.

Kafka considers you, tilting her head with assured grace. "Are you sure?" She asks again, thumb pressing up against the apple of your cheek. "It complicates things quite a bit for you. I'd say you'd be more miserable staying here than giving in, no? For one…" She's enjoying herself, her lazy gaze scanning the clinic again. "…you'll be loosing all of this."

You seize up. "…What — "

"This." Kafka repeats. "All of this. It'll be gone soon enough. Bladie and I have dipped into businesses that most should keep out of…I'll spare you the details, really…though you might just have more popping up in that little head of yours." She taps a nail against your temple.

"What are you talking about." You croak out, falling into a gaping bit. The vestiges of horror start taking root in your lungs. Kafka bites her bottom lip, playing coy.

"Oh dear, I've said too much. May as well let you in on it then." She croons. "The IPC don't have much of a hold here, do they? No wonder…granted it made going through this operation far easier." Kafka lets you go. You lean back, back away from her, sputtering. "To keep it simple, we were here to collect something. A very important something…and out of all the possibilities we had…your little route happened to give us the least amount of grief to deal with."

You grip at the armrests hard. "I don't…I don't understand…" You choke every syllable out with a tongue that feels like lead. "I don't understand." you repeat, the mania arching your higher notes. Your clinic, this clinic, the only thing standing between giving up and going back and…Your clinic ( You remember the money, the scraping together and the loans upon loans and that less naive part of you still folded into the walls and corners ).

Kafka shrugs. "I don't expect you to. You've been a tucked away and coddled into this peace your planet has blanketed you with. There's plenty more in this universe you can't quite comprehend; and there are plenty of big bad things out there that Bladie and I could hardly hold a candle to…" She grins. It's a vicious, predatory thing. Your fear is a feast to her, one lazy bite after the other.

"I don't want this. You're lying — "

"In another five minutes…" Kafka begins. "Bladie will come back , dragging a little friend of ours along with him. He'll have sustained a hit to his head, half healed. The hem of his coat will be ripped off." Her gaze darts to the clock. "Tick tock. I'll be busy after that so you'll need to be quick with what you have to say."

You're stunned to silence. Blade. An associate. It's a nightmare in the making. strangling every bit of air from your lungs. Kafka seems terrifyingly sure, watching the way you move, scramble, feeling disjointed and not all there or all quite present in your body.

"I don't want this." You tear up.

She kisses your cheek. "I know, sweetie." Kafka gives your shoulder a condescending squeeze. You may as well be stabbed in the stomach too, revulsion burning your throat, jerking you away from her. It makes you want to grow claws, to make her hurt somewhere, anywhere. "It's too bad, really. Maybe if you were a little braver, a little more gutsy, we might have struck you from that list." She laughs. "Honestly, I find it adorable. You're like a scared little stray…"

A sickening thunk suddenly echoes out back, soft against the tile, and moving trough whimpered struggles. Kafka's eyes narrow. "That seems to be our cue." she comments lightly. You look at the clock. Five minutes.

Your voice is stolen away, a failed note against the hand crushing your windpipe. You feel dizzy, dizzy, dizzy, almost stumbling over the chair. Kafka is drunk off of it, shoulder brushing against yours. It's just her, those footsteps, the smell of her perfume. "So…" she whispers. "What's it like?" Her touch sears at your wrist, edging higher. "Being scared?"

Blade steps between the two of you. His hand coming to grasp at your arm, smearing a brown, bloodied stain against the expanse and dwarfing your wrist ( he can break it so easily ). He stinks of iron and rot and you don't dare to face that monstrous view of him, just like that first day, feeling his pulse recede and the massacre he left behind under the fading colour of his eyes.

( And still, you feel guilty. Because Kafka is right. You are a coward. )

"Kafka." Blade utters, a warning stained against his stressed inflections. "Leave her be."

Kafka's lips pull at the corners, serene, seemingly innocent. She doesn't even try to hide the deception. "Jealous much?" she snickers, letting you go. Blade feels agitated, the beginnings of a riptide streaking beneath a still surface. He yanks at you, fingertips pressing at your cheek, the spot between your ear and the column of your neck. It's the most he's touched you.

( Has she hurt you, he wants to demand. Has she? )

"Don't touch her."

Kafka holds her hands up in surrender. "Okay." she relents, content and entertained with the way things seem to be. From the corner of your eye, you see a mass…something close to human, move. A scream is lodged in your pharynx. Your nails dig into Blade's hand, a hoarse, wheezing sound heaving from the depths of your lungs. The mass stretches, tries to move away. You see red plaster the white tiles beneath it.

Blade's gait shifts to awareness, sharp eyed, watching the man try to escape.

"You didn't break his legs?" Kafka asks.

"I did. This one is stubborn." Blade snarls. He looks dog like, wolf like, fangs borne between a drooling muzzle. Your eyes sting as you try to tug away, away from him as Kafka stands and saunters over to the body, that elusive little smile still present.

"Well, we have plenty to ask of him. He still has a few details to give away now, doesn't he?" She hums a little tune, yanking the man by the hair till his broken whimpers turn to miserable screaming. "Come on Bladie, I need help. And you…" She fixes that stare on the man. "Listen to me. You can't speak anymore, or scream, or cry. Not till I tell you to."

The man's cries fade out into open mouthed gasps, his face a bruised and bloodied mess of tears and snort. Blade was not kind in handling him, not with his torn tendons and the unearthly jut his legs were angled at. Your skin crawls at the sight. You reach for your bag, your phone, shaking past the initial terror to give a final call for help.

Blade looks at you. It's enough to completely shatter it, unwinding, undoing, pressing down harder against the fragile cracks in your walls and letting that mess slip away past the desperate grasp of your arms and down away on the floor.

You shut your eyes and tell yourself you saw nothing.

VIII. SKELETONIZATION

You don't hear much of the man, save for Kafka's questions muffled behind the walls. The whats, whens, wheres and hows that you can't keep track off without giving too much of yourself up ( you're afraid you do, a thousand different things will split. You tell yourself there's nothing there ). You focus in the clock instead, watching minutes after minutes pass beneath the incessant sound of it ticking, ticking, ticking.

Minutes after minutes after minutes.

There's a final exchange of words. You hear a tumble, a body hitting the ground. Kafka walks out, hardly bothered in the slightest and pristine save for that dampness of her gloves. She shoots you a charming smile, taking in how you'd tucked into yourself. "Well you're a sight for sore eyes. Scared, lamb?"

You're scared of a lot of things now, of the woman in front of you and the man outback and the man whose words they stole and the impending aftermath predicted. You're trapped in your own burning house, doors jammed shut and the window too high to take a jump. You'll suffocate in here, choke till your lungs collapse and your organs scream and fragment.

Kafka cups your cheek. "Hm, a pity. Scripts have to be followed though…sorry about that doc." She draws away and you let out a wet little sob. "Don't be too sad about it." She coos, patting your cheek. "On the bright side, I'll be leaving soon. Stay close to Bladie, okay? Can't have you running off and throwing a fuss now."

Dear lord no. Not Blade. Not Blade after all this. It feels like a joke and a half, an empty attempt at drawing out any laughter from an unenthused crowd of blank eyed faces. You stay seated, wide eyed and insistent. "No." you choke for good measure. Kafka's expression glows.

"No?" she echoes, a hand resting against either side of the armrest. You try to make yourself small, edging away from her farther and farther till her knee slots between your legs and you nearly cry out and kick her off. "Come on now." She coaxes, hand tugging at your waist, sitting you up proper. "Don't be too difficult. Bladie's not half bad."

You shake your head, blanking out through her crooning as your struggle intensifies. "Stop it." you repeat, shaking your head, seized and maniacal till your nails dig in. Kafka doesn't flinch. She's still smiling. "Don't you dare tell me I'm being —" You sob. it's messy, so messy and that pain in your chest only grows, spreading across like blooming rot. " — that I'm being difficult." You spit. "After all this, I'm allowed to. You're both insane, you fucks, I — "

Kafka presses a thumb over your lips. You bite, hard.

"Listen to me." She keeps talking. She won't stop. "Stop crying."

You stop crying. Your mind is empty white and fuzzy static stretching out like elastic. You feel her laughter against you. "Good girl." She praises. "Now, go on along with Bladie, okay? He'll do a good job looking after you."

You claw at the walls, trying to protest as your body lifts, padding out back, trapped within the long winding of corridors that didn't quite look like that once. "Kafka." you hear Blade echo again, his hands resting heavy on your shoulders. It sounds exasperated? Why? You're fine. You think you're fine. You see a magenta blur flutter around you and words spatter apart and stitch back together into nonsense and noise.

Blade takes you by the arm. You're half leaning against him, the soft, shaky breaths against his ribs and his heartbeat ( it's a slow, faint sound ). He seems to linger in place, letting you be as your nose screws against the smell of blood spotting his clothes. Then, he's leading you along the less crowded roads, shuffling past the harsh blaze of streetlights. Vaguely, you remember where this route takes you and you try to join the pieces — the memories feel so far, far away.

The mass tucked under Blade's arm moves. You look the man straight in the eye and do nothing. Your mind, your ribs are barren spaces.

You smell salt, hear the sea, the waves, the wind. The man in his arms struggles ( you're not here ). You see the panic stretched across, the way he pales to what looks like ash grey ( you're not here ). You watch Blade turn your face away, annoyance sparking in his eyes ( you're not here ). You look on anyway, as his fingers claw at his throat, so easily tearing apart soft flesh and tendon and muscle till his hands are stained warm red ( you're not here ). You're lain bare to those death throes, a wheezing from a broken windpipe, the yellow of subcutaneous fat and the ruptured arteries ( you're not here ).

"You should have looked away."

Blade's voice pulls you out. You finally breathe. Take it all in again as the cotton and the fuzz and the silk web is untangled from your notches. The man falls to the sand, nothing more than dead weight at this point.

( This could be you. )

You take a good, long look at him, at that tear stricken, marred face, that distended jaw and the awful angle to his limbs. The sand is already soaking up beneath him — he was alive once. You didn't know this person, you'd never met him and…

( You let him die. You're a doctor and you let him die. )

Blade's brow furrows when you take a shaky step back, two clear words; 'do not'. You look around you, spot one clear rout of escape amidst that hopeless need to collapse, the world spinning faster and faster and fraying and burning away at the far extremities. You try to run.

He doesn't lie when he says it's easy to catch you again.

You're drawn close, your back practically colliding against his chest before you could make it too far. That rabid, scrambling beast in your snarls and you sink your teeth into his wrist, kicking wildly till your foot connects with his shin. Blade grunts, and you slip away just a little, an inch, one more. But he's bigger, bigger and stronger and it takes a moment for you to fall to the floor, swiping into the buzz and feeling his heaving chest pressed against yours.

His hold closes round your throat. "No — " You burst out,. "No, no don't — "

Blade doesn't move as much against your kicks, face drawn to stony apathy while you try to pry his fingers away, vision blurring against tears and snot. His thumb presses down against your thyroid, breaths unevenly paced to an animalistic rhythm. He doesn't seem all there with how he seems so steeped in madness and…

…fuck it, you're terrified.

Your hand gropes to the side, closing round the uneven surface of a stone. You drive it into the side of Blade's skull, a faint crack ringing out. He falters, wide eyed as one hand presses against the wound and comes away wet. You take a gasping breath in, pushing yourself up but Blade drives you down hard, down to your back till it hits something soft, and still and dead —

( No no no nono no no no NO NO. )

The vermilion of his gaze burns you ( just like all those nights ago ).

It's already started to heal, collapsed parts of his skull scraping and pushing itself back out, repairing damaged bone and muscle. And Blade looks half drunk, sunken into rapture and starvation, his hand sliding up from your throat to press at your cheeks. You freeze, ceasing your assault to his chest and stomach.

He curls over your form, shrugging and swatting away your hands to pin you down proper. There is a wet squelch against your arm pressing against that open wound. "Stop…" You whine, trying to tug him back. "Blade. Blade stop — "

He presses his lips to yours. You slam your fist into his sternum, tasting his blood in his mouth. His teeth come next, biting against your bottom lip, taking, taking, taking. It feels infecting, like a disease, like something that shouldn't be there and you squirm. Blade's fingers tangle into your hair, giving it a sharp tug. You feel your back press against the corpse's shoulder, practically crushing you against it.

He's not gentle. Blade can't be gentle with the violence that comes with him. It's too deeply embedded into the crevices of his bone and marrow and in his veins and blood. It's the oxygen he breathes in, the lead that poisons his alveoli and files away at the pliable parts of his abdomen.

His tongue peeks through, pushing past your lips to take a taste. There's that heady taste in you, disgusting, curling in your guts and just about threatening to batter out. You kick him again.

His eyes flash, dyed more red than orange. He comes away with spit and blood smeared across his lips. You heave, staring up at him, then break down, sobbing openly. Blade keeps you still, bending down to kiss you another time, just at the corner of your lips.

"Enough." You beg him, sounding small. You feel defeated, the load wearing down the bones of your shoulder till you're crushed and collapse. "Please."

Blade blinks. He sits up and sits you up with him, nestled between his legs. You look behind you, the man's larynx having come turn free from your struggle, hanging out a hairs breath and cushioned by fat and crushed muscle fibres. You croak, tipping your weight over and emptying your stomach out onto the beach; till all you are retching out is acid and bile. He pulls your hair back, halting your mess from getting caught in it.

"Done?" he asks, drawing you back close to him, his gaze lidded. You shut your eyes.

"I want to go back home." you whisper.

"Alright." Blade promises you, putting you back down on the sand. "Don't move." You don't think you can. Your limbs weight down more and more with the passing minute. Blade drags the body out into the ocean, for a moment, disappearing beneath the surface. He returns, of course. He can't drown, or die ( He's not human, never will be ). "Come." he tells you.

You allow it, him gathering you in his arms. You don't make a fuss, or shout. "Keys." he reminds you. You hand them to him, leaning your head into his shoulder. Your tears prickle beneath your eyelids.

He takes you back home.

You don't know how he'd avoided the security guard's questioning, or the neighbours, But Blade sets you down on the little stool, pulling the bucket beneath the tap to let the hot water run. You draw your legs to your chest, thoughts collapsing into each other, fracturing and splintering as your trembling grows worse. All you can think of is gargling till the taste of blood is gone and the memory of that kiss is gone.

Blade fixes his attention on you. "You need to bathe." He says, taking a knee. You're exhausted, too exhausted to protest, trembling when he pulls away at your jacket and your pants, letting it pile up by the door.

"I can do it myself." You mumble. You question the necessity of it. He won't listen, after all.

He unhooks your bra and tugs down your underwear. "You're tired." He states. "Your attempts will not be as effective."

"Does that matter?"

Blade hums. "Kafka mentioned the need for hygiene. You could fall sick. Besides, you are a doctor." Not anymore, you nearly snap. He moves on to himself next, unbuttoning his jacket. "Detergent?" he asks when you squeeze your eyes shut and refuse to see any more. The sound of his belt buckle is next and his trousers being pulled down.

"Cabinet under the kitchen sink." you mutter. Blade steps out and you lean up against the bucket, watching the water steadily fill till it reaches your fingertips. You hear the beeping from the washing machine and Blade's returning footsteps. He settles behind you

"Turn around."

You turn. You do not look down.

He spends a moment regarding you, then empties a pitcher-full of water over your head. It's warm enough and you let your eyes slip shut as he works on scrubbing away the blood and sweat from your hair. That rotten thing curls in your belly, ringing round like a centipede crawling.

Blade's thumb wipes away the smudge on your cheek with sandalwood soap and he tips his chin up. "Don't fall asleep yet."

"Okay." you passively reply, opening your eyes. he hums and continues to wash you, treating your body with clinical indifference. You don't know what's worse, the hunger or the distance. The act of being viewed as anything but human leaves a sour taste in your mouth. "What about you?" You ask, filling the empty space. You don't want to think about tonight. You don't want to think at all.

Blade hums. "You can help." He shrugs right after. "We will be done sooner at least."

"Okay." You echo, reaching for the soap. You come to realise that he does need the help. Pulling the bandages off of him was a hard enough task. They were messily strewn on, almost cutting away his blood flow and he sweeps it aside. His wrists and his forearms are next. You don't undo the one on his thigh, furiously washing the dried fluids off of him.

What are you doing?

A part of you laughs at the obscene humour. A few hours ago, you'd have dropped dead at the very idea of doing this, if the hopelessness wasn't torn away from you the reins and left you on the backseat of a crashing car.

"You can…turn around."

Blade grunts and turns. you spurt too much shampoo into your hands. Some of it spills over. "You're scared." He says.

"I am."

He bends down a bit. It's easier to reach his head this way. "You should be. You should have killed me." He states, severity weighing his words.

Your shoulders slump, fatigued. "Please. Just stop." Your voice dips into a whisper. "Just stop. I want to rest, alright?" Blade falls silent, knitting his brow together. He nods wordlessly as you rake your fingers through his hair, undoing some of the knot building up against the shampoo suds.

( Blade thinks you're still too gentle with him, in how you trace one of his scars. But he feels the shudder, the roiling beat under your skin, the fear. He sees how easy it is to bring the tears out again and turn that mind of yours off.

He turns a little, pressing his fingertips to the softness of your thigh, just in case you try to run again. )

When you're both done, he has you swaddled in your blankets and deposited on your bed, clothes in tow. It's horrible, this tenderness. You don't think he's used to it either, in how he shuffles and cautiously pads at your arm like you're a fragile little thing, like he wasn't the one who took the mallet to it in the first place.

"Will you hurt me?" You ask, dead eyed.

Blade's lips part ( sometimes he does, when the mara blooms forth florets in his chest and stomach and he wants to break something that breathes beneath his hands ). "Will you run?" he asks.

"If I do, will you hurt me?"

"Yes." he replies bluntly, his hand resting on your calves. You know what that means. You squeeze your eyes shut and nod, laying down on the bed and curling up into yourself.

"You're a monster." you tell him with a shaky, illegible slur. All this for a preordained destiny, for convenience, because you're a coward. All this and you'll be left with nothing tomorrow. You think of your clinic and what you'd salvaged before opening it. It's foundations and the grey walls of the empty rooms it once had. Your heart poured into it all. "Both you and her."

Blade lowers his head. "We know."

IX. DISJOINTING

You did not sleep at all, last night. Blade still stalks the hallways at the unearthly hours you wake at ( five thirty on the dot ). A man is dead, a man you barely know, whose body now below the ocean's surface. Maybe the sharks ate him. And your clinic…you curse it all, and you curse that compulsion that has you reaching for your phone.

It doesn't take long to find it after browsing the local news network. A few live footage of the collapsed interior and the busted furniture. Years of work torn apart ( At least Aleena quit. At least she doesn't have to see this ).

"Do you know why they did this?" you ask, your voice scratchy when Blade comes to linger by your door frame. He'd washed his clothes last night, having pulled his trousers back on with a loose fitted tank top. Kafka must have dropped by.

Blade looks away.

"You know." You spit out, fury bubbling up, clouding your eyes, painting it all red. "You know, don't you? Look me in the eye and tell me you do, you little — "

"The man." Blade cuts in. "The man who hurt you."

You grip the sheets. "What did you do?" you whisper, numbness taking foot and taking away more and more reasoning.

"I killed him." he passes you a sharp look. "Letting him live would have put both of us at risk."

You let out a mirthless laugh. "So it's your fault then. You…you come in and just assume I would be fine with you just…" You laugh. You laugh and laugh and laugh till your ribs hurt and your sides ache because it was so unnecessary, all of this. He must be sick in the head, him and Kafka, to twist apart your livelihood and step all over it. Monsters, the lot of them. Monsters.

"Oh god you're a fucking riot. Now what should I do? I have no job…should I go back? Maybe you could get a kick out of me being sold off again, right?" You flash him a bright little smile, mania at it's finest, and anger. So, so much anger it boils your body alive.

He narrows his eyes. "You will not be leaving. They'll come after you next."

You giggle. "Of course they would." You whisper. "Of-fucking course they would. Then I'll just die. Let my father douse my ashes, if there's even a body to cremate because that just seems the best way to go." You lay back down, tugging at your hair with frustration. The mattress dips as he lays next to you, lips drawn against your nape.

It's possessive, demanding of every little thing and every little part you had to offer.

"I won't be leaving." You snarl, feeling all that spite gather. "I can't because of you. remember?"

"I know."

You press your cheek against your pillow. You're tired again. You want to sleep. "You may as well just kill me at this point." You state flatly. "There isn't much use keeping me alive. I've served my purpose right? What was it, some glorified shield?"

His grip on you constricts. You're pulled closer to his chest. "You will not die." He tells you, his nose pressing up against your neck. Blade inhales, tangling his fingers into your hair. "And I won't kill you."

You bare your teeth at him. Then you stop, and press your face to the pillow again. "Enough." you tell him, feeling angry and tired and empty and more. You try to push Blade off of you, the small of your back brushing against him. Blade lets out a hiss, nails digging into your forearm and you freeze.

He's pressed up, half hard against you.

You throw yourself away from him.

Your eye sockets burn as you flinch and struggle. "Stop." He rasps his order, pressing you stomach down against the mattress as you curl over the edge, letting out a panicked whimper, a migraine searing through your forehead. It turns into an ugly sob, into cries that bleed into the sheets, tracking saliva down as you're dragged back.

His weight bears down hard on your back, his mane curtaining your line of sight. You try to elbow him off and he wrestles your hands down, pinning them behind you. He's panting, letting out a stray growl every now and then. The edge of his nails dig a little deeper into your wrists, just as the other hand fixes itself firmly against your thigh.

You shake. You don't try to hide the glassy eyed look. You only shake.

Blade's annoyances seem to mount, his forehead pressing against your temple. ( Appease her, Kafka's voice whispers to his ear. Blade feels too much of you beneath his palm, and it stokes a selfish hunger that comes down violently ).

He trails his hand upwards. You lay slack, surrendering to it with a tense form. It tugs your nightwear down, spreads your legs a little more. You cry a little, then give up on it, his fingers exploring the softness of your thighs and slipping to the inside. He lets your hands go and you come to grasp at the pillows, nipping down at your bottom lip.

"Blade…?" You whisper, unsure.

He traces the seam of your cunt, dipping a finger inside to toy at your clit and you squeak, grabbing his arm. "H-hold on that's — "

Blade turns you over, draping your legs on either side of his hips. You look at him, pupils shrunken down at the sight of him surveying you, his lips pressing over the curve of your knee, then further down. You squirm beneath him, movements stilled by a firm hand on your belly. Blade bites hard, tearing into the skin of your thigh, breaking capillaries and drawing blood.

He pulls away to witness the bruising and the wet wail you shudder out, soothing you with his tongue brushing over the wound like a dog. You slam your foot against his shoulder. Blade simply grabs it and hoists it above his shoulder.

"Let me…" he mumbles, groaning up against your skin, spacing your thighs apart some more. You're squirming, and he roughly pulls you closer. "Stay still."

You can't, you want to say. You can't when he's touching you like that and —

He stills. "You haven't done this before, have you?" he guesses. You want to sink, sink down into a place that was far away from here. Blade's eyes are unnaturally bright, burning like coals against the dim lighting.

"Shut up and get this over with." You rasp. There's nothing here, nothing between the two of you. Maybe a few sick feelings from his side. You want it to be done with and let the maggots eat away at your body after ( if that makes it easier for him in the end ). Blade huffs, vague amusement flitting past his expression. His cheek is smushed against your thigh.

"Your first…" he mumbles, a vague story playing out in his eyes. Your legs are pushed back, and he sits himself down before you, teeth grazing through soft flesh till he latches his mouth to your cunt and presses the expanse of his tongue over your bundle of nerves. You mewl into it, jolting under his touch as his hands come to massage circles at your hips.

You stay steadfastly quiet after that, as the assault continues and he licks a strip up your slit while gauging every little shift and twitch on your face. You could have fooled anyone else with the forced apathy, fooled Blade with you looking at anything but him. He suckles at your clit, rolling it over the tip of his tongue and you twitch, bucking your hips into the grind.

Blade demands. He demands and keeps demanding, eating you out half starved and at a pace you couldn't keep up with; feeling that appendage slip into you at some point of it all. You moan ( this doesn't feel good. It shouldn't. How fucking pathetic are you?! ) trembling at all the new feelings blurring out your mind.

You tell yourself to take it. Take it and let him leave you be after that taste of satisfaction. Blade nuzzles into your cunt, smearing your building slick against your outer lips till smelted orange meets the fatigue in yours.

"You're being stubborn." he comments, pulling away for a moment. You grit your teeth, open your mouth to snap back. Blade dips down then, a finger slipping into you, massaging your insides and pacing himself with more gentleness than you'd expected. Gasping and grasping at the sheets, your narrowed gaze fixates on his, fuming, fuming.

You push his face away when he leans in close and he persists, teeth latching over your neck, licking a delicate strip up the column of it. His chest seems to vibrate — it's not a purr. It rattles at you, it's unnatural.

"Make it quick then!" you sob. "Please."

His finger curls inside you and you curl your toes into the sheets, keening into his hair. You hate this. You hate this. There is a warmth in your insides that stirs and seeps through the cracks. Blade seems to notice and takes it in with a hunger that terrifies you. He presses his pads against that sweet spot, a thumb returning to your clit. You whine, shake your head.

"Good?" he asks. It feels like a taunt.

"Shut up." you grimace, rocking your hips in pace with him. It's little jolts of that buttery feeling that has your mind sink further and farther away. Blade kisses your neck, grinding up against your ass through it all. It's awful. It's all wrong, this facade of gentleness.

You mumble, grinding at his hand as another finger is added and he stretches you out a little, testing your limits with rapture. That heat grows, grows, grows bit by bit, tuned to the way his finger curls into that spot. A moan spills out, then another and you spa a hand over your mouthy, shaking your head. You want it to stop. You want this to stop now and —

Blade's digits nudge against your cervix and he bears down on your clit hard.

It snaps, that warmth. You tighten round his gingers, clenching, sucking him in deeper and his lips part as he watches you fall apart with a jumble of words and begging. You fall back into the sheets as he pulls his hand away, laving at your mess while he undoes the buttons of your shirt. It spares a peak of the sweet of your breasts, the soft expanse of your stomach. He's seen it before. There's nothing new to it.

He bites again, not as deep this time as he pulls his pants down. You spare a glance, snapping out of the afterglow when you catch sight of him. "That won't fit." You whisper.

Blade shudders, his cock resting at your stomach. It's hot, an angry res that makes you feel uneasy. You half expect pain when he slides down to breach you entrance, you expect tears and you expect it with hunched shoulders. Blade is slow instead, thoughtful, almost. He keeps his progress slow, watching you wince against the stretch before he thrusts in deeper, finally nudging his tip to your cervix and staying there a moment.

Somewhere between all that, his hand finds yours, pressing down at your palm in awkward assurance.

You can't take it.

"What are you doing?!" you demand, whining against how full you felt. It's strange, so strange and you think you see the mad ramblings from friends and gossip over how good sex felt sometimes. But this is Blade. Blade, with his violence and his slashed wrists and the way he stank of death.

Blade pushes some of his weight on you. "It's your first time." he replies.

Your first time. A rare consideration. An emotion that bud out too late for your tastes. "Why should you care then?!" You snap, grabbing his tank top. "For fucks sake, stop treating me like I'm your lover! I'm not! You're not doing this to me because you have feelings do you?!"

The question was wholly rhetorical. It's a harsh accusation, mounted by everything else he'd done wrong. Blade falls silent, eyes wide. You leer up at him, then chortle with disbelief. "Oh god, you are." You choke out, feeling violated in a way. Feeling more violated than you were already. Blade keeps staring at you as you cover your face, cackling. "Oh god, oh god this is just unbelievable! You like me? Me?!"

You feel venom drip into your words. You feel that ache, the urge to tear his eyes out then and there. Boys will be boys. The words keep echoing through and it makes you physically ill to think of it.

"You're pathetic. You're absolutely fucking pathetic!" you cut through, grabbing his hair and pulling at it. Blade grunts, annoyed. You don't care, ripping at his face, his neck, his shoulders. "Fuck! Fuck you! After all this bullshit, fuck you!" Blade hisses, trying to shift a bit, move some more but you kick out at his thigh.

"Do not." he grits out, his voice low and angry. "Your anger is an inconsequential thing. I've seen far worse."

"You think I want your guilt, you ass?!" you demand. "You think I want you begging and grovelling for forgiveness?!" Blade thrusts. You dig down, fight against it and the sweet burn it brings. You feel that storm brew in your chest and you spit at him, jarring Blade enough with wide eyed shock ( it's a satisfying thing to see ) to slam your weight into him and roll the two of you over, your hands grabbing at his throat.

He nudges deeper into you and you cry out, feeling his tip coax into your g-spot. Still, you hold on.

Blade still watches, gauging the sudden shift, waiting to see you move. When you take a moment to gain your bearings, he grasps at your hips, guiding you down his cock and you almost falter, feeling his free hand tweak your nipples. sputtering a little, you persist, your thumbs coming to press against his Adam's apple.

Blade lets out a gasp, snapping his hips up again, drawing himself out then back into you. You feel him grind against those sensitive spaces he'd gauged out earlier and a few flustered cries sputter out before your grip tightens round your neck.

He sets his speed, increasing that pace to a faster rhythm, grasping at what parts he could, letting you take from him for a moment. You double over, teeth tearing into his cheek. "I despise you." You tell him. "I hate you for taking everything away from me. I hate you for ruining my life." You pour it all in, all the vitriol and the fury. Blade's eyes shut.

"I know." he grunts, feeling you clench down on his cock.

"I wish you'd stayed dead." You add, feeling it all pile up into a raw mass that eats you alive. "Do you hear me?"

"I know." He repeats.

"I hate you." You sob out, your tears splattering against his jaw. Your thumb presses down harder. Blade moans, his tempo increasing and catching you in it's midst, hitting your sweet spot over and over till it tumbles through to make a mess between the two of you, the baggage and the tucked away harshness. "You're pathetic. Absolutely fucking pathetic."

It feels so fuzzy, the heat, the faint warmth from Blade, blocking out his airflow. His movements grow frantic, almost, his grip on you bruising your hips till finally, you find you release again, legs weakening below you. Still, you hold fast, dragging yourself over the expanse of his body as he keeps up with thrusting faster and faster to a brink of near over-stimulation, all of it animalistic grunts and grows and teeth nudging at your chest.

You press down hard enough and Blade finally cums, his release coming in spurts inside of you. The cartilages in his larynx give out and you feel tissue collapse into itself ( just like that man on the beach with his throat torn out, poetic in a gruesome sense ). You watch him struggle to breath and you push down harder, hysteria bursting as you bare your teeth and drive him closer to another death.

Blade goes still below you. He's cold as a corpse.

You sway a bit, lifting yourself off of his cock, falling into a haze of cotton wool and sick satisfaction, tipping into the space next to him. He's dead. He's dead.

You shut your eyes, and you feel nothing.

You have better to do now, the unsaid and the undone. The empty buzz of pleasure slowly recedes and you grasp your phone between your hands, tapping at the message app. You let out a soft cry, shoulders shaking. There was a life once that felt far too distant. Where you'd been tugged away and folded into silk and gold till you were shackled down and told to stay quiet. 

( There are many things you want to tell them. Many angry things, many quiet, introspective things. Many with a little more love lining your words, a little more longing. They still wait for you, even after shutting their doors. You know this too. )

So, you start to type.

Dear Appa…

Blade wakes when the sunlight filters in, and his arm winds round you in the silence, listening to the rustle down below and the coming commotion. Then, he rises, buttoning his pants up proper and drawing the blanket over your head. "Stay here." he tells you.

You listen to the angry voices and the encroaching footsteps from the staircase outside. Blade summons his sword, stalking out of the room, dog-like, wolf-like, his violence returned to him after briefly being cowed by your venom. 

The doorbell rings ( you know who it is, through the ringing metal and the acrid voices ) and you draw into yourself.

You are not here. You tell yourself. You close your eyes and open them back up, petrichor seeping through and your feet sunk into damp soil. You let yourself stay there, in the garden in front of your childhood home, away from torn flesh and the building agony.

You are not here.

📼 — AUTHORS NOTES + ETYMYOLOGIES //

MANY MANY THANKS TO MOTH FOR BETA READING THIS.

this fic was something that took me months to write ( and honestly it shows with the mess and the rush XD ). either way, tda does touch on a few cultural topics and reflects on some of the good old desi trauma when it comes to the arranged marriage scape, something i wish i could have explored more in depth. but with a fic nearly hitting 20k and my own set deadlines...perhaps another time. so here are some of the stuff i mentioned that were picked straight off of my own experiences :

the newspaper adverts listing out bride and groom details amongst other stuff is a pretty common sight here. within my own personal experiences, arranged marriages are a gamble to say the least, considering i only knew two within my immediate sphere that worked out pretty well. add in the stigma surrounding divorce and hooooo boi.

needless to say, there is a lot of shit to unpack with arranged marriage culture ( specifically down in the south where a lot of women and men are given the illusion of 'control' but are still heavily pressured into it ). it's not as overt or obvious to be fair, nor as deeply touched upon.

there's also the weird dynamics within our families where children cannot wholly cut themselves free from their familial unit, disownment and distancing aside. due to how community takes center stage here, family plays a pretty heavy handed role when we're raised. this is mostly due to assumptions of familial disownment being tied into 'questionable behaviour' in a sense. one of my friends was turned away during job hunting solely because some employers were unnecessarily quick to judge.

add in the sheer dependancy you grow into and how tight social circles tend to be and hoooooo b o i. ( you're dead if you live in a small town ).

the reader here does exist within these two spheres, half pressured into arrangements and a duty to be a 'good daughter' by proving financial stability. the clinic isn't just a ways of keeping her away from her family and the matrimonial expectations they have on her ( and trust me, it's not just the parents ) but also her own little act of rebellion by showing them that she can manage just fine.

some of the stuff are more in line with my own community's practices. the agelu is a feast laid out to pay respects to ancestral ghosts. cha is our way of saying 'chai' within my language.

blade in this fic was also initially supposed to be very unhinged. maybe a little more out there with far darker scenes. there was an instance where the reader was actually married prior but had a difficult relationship with her husband. the divorce was what incited the disownment.

she was also a liiitttlle more involved with the stellaron hunter's plans, but i thought the sheer disconnect and the painting of the hunters in this shadowed, unclear light made more sense XD. that and how i was sadistic enough to write a whole scene depicting aleena's marriage and a few unsaoury aftermaths.

anyway, thank you for taking the time to read tda!!! this fic took a WHILE to write out given my busy schedule so i appreciate it so very much!!!

TAGLIST ノ join the taglist. — @silentmoths @meimeimeirin @sleepynoons @vourfrede @endursent.

@jessamine-rose @ofoceansandtombsanew @chiyoso @4acoffee.

[nineblooddances-if]

NINE BLOOD DANCES

Nine Moons for the Nine Circles of Hell

Ruled by Nine Siblings. Or better known as the Commanders of Hell. Each believed to carry a role in the natural world and each a leader of the Devil’s Army. Each Commander is the personification of their circle and is made with a part of The Devil’s Body.

His Brain. His Genitals. His Stomachs. His Lungs. His Eyes. His Tongues. His Flesh. His Ears. And lastly his heart.

With each part, combined with that of a woman of a different species, flourished the consciousness of the circle, and then from a piece of the circle, a body was molded, creating each commander.

Yet with no one to rule over them.

For the Devil has many things to do and does not have the time to watch over the things he created. So, he gets an idea. A funny idea.

For he wishes not to strip himself of more. So, he goes to a mortal man. One who knew all that of the world, a man who had everything that the mortal heart could desire. Expect love–Yes love. For there is a difference between idolization and obsession and honest love. The mortal man had not that, and so the Devil laughed and lured this man to his death. And when no one showed genuine care for the man at his funeral, he fell into despair.

And the Gods who refused to hear his prayers before now stared upon him and pitied him. And sent the mortal man a gift in order to ease the loneliness.

A gift the Devil needs.

── ⋅ ⋅ ✶ ⋅ ⋅ ──

✶ [DEMO]

✶ [PATREON]

✶ [KO-FI]

✶ [DISCORD]

── ⋅ ⋅ ✶ ⋅ ⋅ ──

You were a gift. Now to whom? No one knows.

All that matters is that you are a gift and not like any of the others of your species. Uniqueness and importance oozes from every fiber of your being. You're important. Everyone says you're important. But why you're so important?

Who knows?

You must figure out what makes you so special and different. You must figure out what drives you through all circles. And you have to figure out why the nine commanders of Hell all have their eyes upon you and wish to have you by their side.

All before the fall of the ninth moon.

☽☽✶☾☾ Customizable MC

✶ [Name, Species(human, fallen angel, vampire, succubus/incubus, etc), Personality, Gender, Pronouns] ✶ [Appearance (markings, scars, wings, tails, horns, ears, etc), Traits, Love Language, Allergies, Diet, Piercings, Aesthetics, and more]

☽☽✶☾☾ Ability to have certain traits, likes, and disabilities

✶[Favorite Foods, Smoking/Drinking Habits, & More] ✶[ADHD, OCD, Depression + more] ✶[Hearing Aids, Prosthetic Arms or Legs, and choosing how you lost your limb]

☽☽✶☾☾ Options that have an effect on romantic and platonic relationships.

☽☽✶☾☾ Choose between nine romanceable Love Interests or None at All.

☽☽✶☾☾ Stats, Personality, and MC Characteristics that will affect the story and characters.

[Harem Route & Poly Routes Optional]

| IMPORTANT VIEWINGS OF CERTAIN FEATURES | ✶Ear Piercings

PERSONIFICATION OF THE 1ST CIRCLE—LIMBO—

COMMANDER AAPO I LIBERTAS

── THAT OF THE DEVIL’S BRAIN

✶ Personality: Aapo is an overly confident, charismatic man who is proud of the ranking he holds, being that he is ranked above his siblings and seen as the current ruler of the Nine Circles. Aapo walks and talks with a smile on his face and radiates this atmosphere of freedom, which is quickly erased by this underlying need for control, and he demands it. He has no reservations to confirm that. Many fear him despite his faux cheery attitude and overly relaxed posture.

✶ Appearance: He stands at [6’1FT ~ 188CM] with pale brown colored skin that is littered with warm brown freckles. He had deep-set shaped eyes while his eyes were the darker color shades of the rainbow, that fluctuated depending upon mood but remained a deep emerald green. He has short mahogany brown hair with a short fringe that seems messy. He’s lean and long, with long legs and arms. Always wearing overly vibrant and eccentric suits of greens and browns, decorated with bronze and gold.

──"CAMBION"—AMAB—HE/HIM ──PANSEXUAL [MASC PREFRENCE]

── ⋅ ⋅ ✶ ⋅ ⋅ ──── ⋅ ⋅ ✶ ⋅ ⋅ ──

PERSONIFICATION OF THE 2ND CIRCLE—LUST—

COMMANDER ANIL/AIDEN II LUXURIA

── THAT OF THE DEVIL'S GENITALS

✶ Personality: Anil is a self-assured, arrogant, aloof, hotheaded woman. Always wearing a scowl or frown of some sort. Her mood changes just as quickly as the wind and follows that of the hierarchy. She demands respect and will expect it. Many of the others stay out of her way and allow her to do as she pleases, since she has no desire to disrupt anything and follow the rules in place. Unless they get in the way of her desires.

✶ Appearance: She stands at [6’2FT ~ 192CM] with deep chocolate brown skin with no blemishes or scars. She has bedroom eyes that are a deep navy blue but appear black until in candlelight. Anil’s hair is jet black hair reaches her waist and is curly, while wet it reverts into a more coily texture. She has long legs and a waist and adds to her height by wearing dark blacks and blues, wearing heels, with a subtle male pirate aesthetic, wearing silver with everything. With the remains of two torn leather wings upon her back, with a long and heavy black scaled tail of a crocodile.

──"INCUBUS/SUCCUBUS"—AFAB—HE/SHE ──OMNISEXUAL

── ⋅ ⋅ ✶ ⋅ ⋅ ──── ⋅ ⋅ ✶ ⋅ ⋅ ──

PERSONIFICATION OF THE 3RD CIRCLE—GLUTTONY—

COMMANDER ALICE III GULA

──THAT OF THE DEVILS STOMACH

✶ Personality: Alice of the three siblings is by far the kindest of them. With a laid-back attitude. She is blunt but kind in her words, and the most approachable. She, just like her Aapo and Anil, expects respect due to her rank, though she cares little about enforcing it, especially with her "siblings". However, she has a mean streak when hungry and can become aggressive toward those who are men or those masculine in nature.

✶ Appearance: She stands at [5’7FT ~ 175CM] with warm ivory-colored skin, that’s covered in what looks to be scars, that are prominent on her throat, the back of her hands, her palms, and her knees which are small scars, while the entire along her collarbone, slanting cut across her entire stomach, and along the outside of both thighs seem like bigger scars, but they’re not. They are instead different mouths with sharklike teeth and crimson red tongues. That she keeps closed unless extremely hungry. Alice also has yellowish blonde hair that is a messy pixie cut, with an eye patch covering her right eye. She always has deep monolid-shaped eyes that are a vivid orange color. She has a sheer clothing aesthetic as while as a leather aesthetic, wearing many shades of orange, black, and white with gold. Accompanied by the small horns of a deer, a shade of white, and the tail of a deer.

──"VAMPIRE"—AFAB—SHE/HER ──BISEXUAL [FEM PREFRENCE]

── ⋅ ⋅ ✶ ⋅ ⋅ ──── ⋅ ⋅ ✶ ⋅ ⋅ ──

PERSONIFICATION OF THE 4TH CIRCLE–GREED—

COMMANDER ERIC/EDWARD IV AVARITIA

── THAT OF THE DEVIL'S LUNGS

✶ Personality: Eric is the quietest of the siblings, rarely speaking unless directly spoken to. He is a loner and prefers to be alone. He is also one of the only siblings who dislikes the hierarchy of siblings, and rarely spends his time commanding his circle, opting to be away, spending his time exploring the other parts and various layers of Hell and the unique punishments.

✶ Appearance: Eric stands at [6’5FT ~ 200CM] with pale skin. With the rest of his features hidden beneath a black cloth that hides his eyes. His black cloth also replicates bandages that covered various parts of his arms and legs. He has shoulder-length curly black hair that he keeps in a ponytail. He has a Dark Victorian aesthetic wearing black, red, and yellow.

──"DHAMPIR"—AMAB/AFAB—HE/HIM/SHE/HER/IT/ITS ──GRAYROMANTIC—PANSEXUAL

── ⋅ ⋅ ✶ ⋅ ⋅ ──── ⋅ ⋅ ✶ ⋅ ⋅ ──

PERSONIFICATION OF THE 5TH CIRCLE—WRATH—

COMMANDER LOUIS V IRA

── THAT OF THE DEVILS EYES

✶ Personality: Louis is a confident, arrogant, egotistical, smart man. Who revels in his circle enjoys using his influence on lower-ranked demons and enjoys spending time with higher-ranked demons. He also throws extravagant parties and chooses to spend most of his time with the Devil, who is the embodiment/avatar of Wrath. Louis tends to his duties well, despite his nasty temper.

✶ Appearance: He stands at [5’7FT ~ 175CM] with limestone-covered skin round bright blue and red heterochromic eyes and short blonde hair that fades into red that cut like a jellyfish. He dresses like that of kings and queens, with a 16th-century royalty aesthetic, wearing that of gold and red. He also has the horns of a ram that are a beautiful gold.

──"HUMAN"—AMAB—HE/THEY ──DEMISEXUAL

── ⋅ ⋅ ✶ ⋅ ⋅ ──── ⋅ ⋅ ✶ ⋅ ⋅ ──

PERSONIFICATION OF THE 6TH CIRCLE—HERESY—

COMMANDER GABRIEL VI MENDAX

── THAT OF THE DEVILS TONGUE

✶ Personality: Gabriel is someone who speaks only of rumors and half-truths. Many don't trust a word he says, and you must force the truth out of it. He gets a lot of humor leading people astray with his words. Even though he is quite knowledgeable and level-headed. He prefers to use his wisdom in more trickster ways, unless threatened, he quickly breaks. Outside of his lies, he is quite kind and fair, yet due to his tongue, no one believes his kindness.

✶ Appearance: He stands at [5’9FT ~ 180CM] with bronze-colored skin and long straight dark brown hair that he keeps in a thick braid, decorated with purple snapdragons, lavender, and vines. Gabriel has a soft flowy cottagecore aesthetic wearing colors of white and purple. While upon his back he has two large gray feathered wings that he keeps tucked away.

──"FALLEN ANGEL"—AMAB—HE/SHE ──AUTOSEXUAL

── ⋅ ⋅ ✶ ⋅ ⋅ ──── ⋅ ⋅ ✶ ⋅ ⋅ ──

PERSONIFICATION OF THE 7TH CIRCLE—VIOLENCE—

COMMANDER DAMEION VII VIOLENTI

──THAT OF THE DEVILS FLESH

✶ Personality: Dameion is laid back, mischievous, charismatic, and cocky. Since he has one of the most popular circles, he garters high respect despite being the seventh. He has overbearing pride and follows the hierarchy of the circles. Still, you will not find Dameion without a cocky smile and relaxed posture no matter where he is. Which leads him to having and being loved by many. Everyone practically swoons when he walks into the room or speaks. This doubles when amongst full-blooded bloodhounds, due to him being able to have a body, unlike them.

✶ Appearance: He stands at [5’9FT ~ 180CM] with honey-colored skin with black armband tattoos upon his wrists and ankles. He has short, shaggy black hair and deep red eyes. With a formal aesthetic, always wearing suits or a more military-type aesthetic. He has two long black tails of a wolf and wolf ears that hide amongst his hair with two red horns of a bison.

──"BLOODHOUND"—AMAB—HE/HIM ──POLYSEXUAL

── ⋅ ⋅ ✶ ⋅ ⋅ ──── ⋅ ⋅ ✶ ⋅ ⋅ ──

PERSONIFICATION OF THE 8TH CIRCLE—FRAUD—

COMMANDER LUCY OR LUCIUS VIII FICTUS

──THAT OF THE DEVILS EARS

✶ Personality: They are an untrusted liar, fake, fraud. Dawning on various masks and looking to deceive whoever they need to deceive. Taking upon titles, achievements, and anything to further their lie, and when it all backfires, they run away and never get caught. Due to this, they are never in hell, nor in their circle, in fact, it's hard to get in touch with them. They also spend a lot of time within the different underworlds and heavens, trying to gain something from the divine. Only to be sent back to Hell without punishment. They are tricksters and unreliable, with no real redeeming qualities.

✶ Appearance: They stand at [5’8FT ~ 178CM] with thick curly gray hair with white faded ends. Their hair is short to their chin and left alone. They have hooded gray eyes and short-bison-like horns with gray bat wings that fade into black with a long rat-like tail. They have varying styles but settle on clothing far more revealing. Wearing pinks and whites.

──"IMP"—[SELECTABLE GENDER] ──GAY OR LESBIAN [SELECTABLE SEXUALITY]

── ⋅ ⋅ ✶ ⋅ ⋅ ──── ⋅ ⋅ ✶ ⋅ ⋅ ──

PERSONIFICATION OF THE 9TH CIRCLE—TREACHERY—

COMMANDER TRENT IX PRODITIO 

──THAT OF THE DEVILS HEART 

✶ Personality: Trent is a sweet talking and kind person. Always understand and be sympathetic. He’s easy-going and easily trusting. He’s a very honest person and falls into his roles, whilst being obedient and submissive. Not wanting to break rules without important reason. He’s a big man with an honest and open heart and tries to live past his title.  

✶ Appearance: He stands at [7’5FT ~ 230 CM] with tan scarred skin and freckles. He has large heterochromic eyes, his right olive and the left mustard yellow. He has messy brown hair that he keeps in his face, partially hiding his eyes. He bulky and tall, but always hunching over with feathered ears that are dark brown and long wispy split bird tail that is also dark brown. Trent wears many colors yet sticks to neutral tones and dark green. 

──"NEPHILIM"—AMAB/AFAB—HE/HIM  ──PANSEXUAL 

AVAILABLE POLY RELATIONSHIPS

TO BE DETERMINED

ⓒ 2023 CVLUTOSGAMES & nineblooddances-if — all rights reserved. Any sort of plagiarizing, copying, modifying, translating, editing of my works are strictly prohibited.

[sleepyminty]

Alright as promise here is the full version

Welcome to death mark discord

[touchd0wn-boy]

the hair. the elfbar.

tom looks like a local dockworker they picked up to drink wine with them

[morrotober]

Morrotober 2024 Prompts

I'm late but this year's Morrotober prompts are finally here!! Come check them out above!

As always, you are free to interpret these prompts however you'd like! And if you'd like us to reblog your work here, be sure to tag @morrotober or mark your post with any of the following tags: #morrotober #morrotober2024 and #morrotober 2024

We will only start reblogging posts in October on the day of the prompt (no early reblogs in September if you choose to start early), and will continue to reblog through November. If you submit a piece later than November, you can also tag our blog, which will ensure we see and reblog it.

Also, come hang out with us in the Morrotober discord server :D

If you have any triggering or sensitive content in your work, please be sure to tag your post accordingly.

For those who can't see the images for the prompt list, please see below for the text format.

Happy almost Morrotober everyone!

Week 1: Elements/Nature (October 1 - 6)

Oct. 1: Elements || Elemental Inheritance || The Difference between Wind and Air

Oct. 2: Water || Downpour || “There’s always a first time.”

Oct. 3: Opposites || Shadows || “Long before time had a name…”

Oct. 4: Dragons || “Where did you get that?”

Oct. 5: Airjitzu || Temporal Displacement

Oct. 6: Colors || “Red is for rage”

Week 2: Reflection/New Beginnings (October 7 - 13)

Oct. 7: Childhood || Full Potential || “Back in my day…”

Oct. 8: Curses || Empty Titles || "You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?"

Oct. 9: Self Discovery || Inner Peace || “I’ll try again.”

Oct. 10: Reflection || Mirrors || Death

Oct. 11: Rot || Mold || “If only I could go back.”

Oct. 12: Memory || Fate vs Destiny

Oct. 13: Crimes || Smothered || Regrets

Week 3: AUs/Free Week (October 14 - 20)

Oct. 14: The Lego Ninjago Movie || “You want me to go back to school???”

Oct. 15: Trying New Things || Baffled by Technology || “Please don’t touch that”

Oct. 16: In Another Life || Disney Villain || "Is that magic?!"

Oct. 17: AUs || Free Day 

Oct. 18: Bow and Arrow || “Put that away!”

Oct. 19: Reading || Movies || “This is better.”

Oct. 20: Outfit Swap || Zero to One Hundred

Week 4: Celebration/Festivities (October 21 - 27)

Oct. 21: Day of the Departed || Remembrance 

Oct. 22: Rice || Ketchup || “I’m hungry, can we eat yet?”

Oct. 23: Snacks || Cooking || "I think that's enough, don't you agree?" 

Oct. 24: Gardens || Flowers || Love

Oct. 25: Climbing || Sunny Day

Oct. 26: Dancing || Music || Laughter

Oct. 27: Gifts || Heirlooms || “I did it for you.”

Week 5: Halloween/Spooky Vibes (October 28 - 31)

Oct. 28: Pumpkins || Moon || Cats

Oct. 29: Ghosts || Hauntings || “I would never leave you.”Oct. 30: Costume Party || Witches || Potions Oct. 31: Halloween || Candy || Bats

[the-muppet-joker]

could you elaborate on your choices for the 4 horsemen for the ponies? i’m deeply curious about your wisdom and insight

Very well.

Famine = Luna

Both are black horses

When Nightmare Moon takes over, there is no sun. Crops cannot grow under these conditions. Her reign is a reign of famine and no harvest.

Additionally, in the episode Cutie Re-Mark, it is shown that under Nightmare Moon's domain, Timberwolves roam free. While they are not directly tied to famine, they have symbolism regarding Harvest as they are known to howl at the first zap apple and attack those who try to harvest them if they are nearby, hindering people's ability to gather fruit.

War = Cadance

Naturally, a pony red with the blood of those slain in war is generally not marketable to little girls, who are unfamiliar with bloodlust and afraid of violence. They settled for a close second: pink.

She is the princess of love. Are you familiar with the phrase "all is fair in love and war?" Wars are acts of passion and bloodshed. Passion? Blood? Both symbolically related to the Heart. And what is her cutie mark as well as the sacred object that gives power to her kingdom? The Crystal Heart.

The Crystal Kingdom, Cadance's kingdom, is frequently under threat of was throughout the series. Queen Crysalis and the Changelings. Sombra. Again, in the episode Cutie Re-Mark, we see a timeline im which Sombra had won. And what is the state of Equestria? A mirror fucking image of how other countries in real life are affected by war. We literally have soldiers Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash and we see Apple Jack working tirelessly to ship out apple mush to feed soldiers for the war effort. This parallel is so clear and frankly I could go on.

Conquest = Celestia

Yes I know the image says strife. I wanted the pictures to be in a consistant style and they used the word strife but it says conquest in the Bible. Anyways, they are both white horses.

I mean. Do I need to spell it out? Celestia is an imperialist. She spreads her and her nation's influence and ideology as far as she is able. Cadance is installed as the leader of the Crystal Empire under her direction. They have conflict with the changelings, so they promote a leader more sympathetic to their nation. The school of friendship? Teaching other species the way to act and behave? Are non-ponies unfamiliar with friendship? Propoganda. And she is the Princess of the Sun. THE SUN. NEVER. SETS. ON. EQUESTRIA'S. EMPIRE. Sound familiar?

Do not make an enemy of Celestia or you will be punished and then brainwashed into submission. Luna? The moon. Discord? Stone. Sombra? Tirek? The list goes on. Again, I feel this is a clear parallel that needs little explanation.

Death = Twilight Sparkle

Indeed this is the most subtle connection. After all, she is not even close to the right color. She is purple! No relation to death whatsoever........ right? WRONG. In the Catholic faith, the calandar is divided into different seasons with associated colors. Purple is the color of death and mourning; priests will exclusively wear purple robes for mass during Lent to symbolize Christ's suffering and death on the cross.

Twilight has a very important role as she and her friends are the bearers of the elements of harmony, with Twilight in the lead. The power of this clearly escalates throughout the series, as the mane six progress from turning Discord to stone to completely destroying Sombra after he is initially resurrected. We watch them become a force that could take away anyone's life force, Twilight especially. And let's not forget the form the elements later take. The tree of harmony. Reminiscent of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, from which humanity committed its first sin and thus were kicked out of Eden, gaining the ability to die.

Twilight will outlive all of her friends. As an allicorn, she is immortal. We see in the last episode that she is in her prime while all of her friends are elderly. How can one be a Princess of Friendship if she sees all her friends to the ends of their lives like a benevolent Reaper? After so many years of standing at the deathbeds of loved ones, she will feel detatched from others. A Princess of Death.

And yes Flurryheart is the fifth Princess but she is a clear allagory for the Antichrist so I did not include her

[remi-harbinger]

I feel like people don’t acknowledge that when lbh fell into the endless abyss at 17, and got out at like. 19. Yes he got really bulked up and miraculously had good fashion sense (black and red cannot go wrong) but what if he became like really cringely emo. 17-19 are still impressionable years imo and if he were stuck with nothing but death, carnage and a crusty old demon he would’ve become like those emo scene kids but way cringier. SQQ meets him again and he’s in so many robes of black that they billow like the inflatable in front of car expos, his hair has been straightened (sqq mourns the curls) and is dramatically swept to one side so that it covers his demon mark and one red eye. All his lines seem to have come out of discord chats - he says Shizun like a discord mod would say kitten. SQQ’s hindbrain knows that he should logically be scared but the largest part of his brain (the hating part) is just laughing so hard and ripping LBH’s outfit and entire personality change to shreds.

LBH notices that SQQ seems to have blue screened, leans closer and says “missed me, shizun?” And SQQ can’t take it anymore all he hears is those cringey discord mod voice lines. To all the HHP disciples it seems like SQQ has snapped. He’s criticising everything from LBH’s hair to the way he walks (now its more like a prowl, seriously you have to stop its embarrassing) When SQQ is finally done and stops to take a breath the entire area is silent. LBH is sobbing like a woman scorned and the HHP disciples are just gaping.

SQQ pats LBH on the head and chirps “It’s nice to see you again though!” And just vanishes. Everyone is convinced that they’re in a fever dream, even SQQ (his logic gets a little wonky sometimes). The next time anyone sees LBH it’s been a week and he now looks like how he looks in canon.