#empty sea of faith

[betweenthetimeandsound]

--"crying at the empty sea of faith" inspired by chapter titles from Pictures and Tears: A History of People Who Have Cried in Front of Paintings

A girl waits on the edge of time, with curls undoing themselves like knots tied to a basket offering an unworthy sacrifice. Everything inverts on itself; knowledge only exists on diluted ink, silence rules this wretched realm.

But a rowboat drifts on by; the rider lost to their own inhibitions and grandiose ambitions. Gold drags out onto the oars; peaches rot and wait for the betrayer to come and steal one on the way to heaven.

Who would want to test their luck against a viper? Who wants to step in an empty sea of faith and watch as everything dissolves like a pearl in vintage wine?

The girl steps onto wet sand, glass and syringes penetrating through her soles; escape becomes a mirage like a ballerina in the desert.

Twisted hands only prophecy through linear time; universes open themselves, only to leave fragmented minds floating and crashing on Vela's sails before falling into Eridanus.

Time unravels, a memory loses a silver key, little mercies find themselves shipwrecked with pearls of sorrow. Marigolds meet the moonrise and dissolves; golden waves crash on crystalline shores, an altar for a thousand sacrifices.

A sour tongue keeps a girl alive; but leaves her on borrowed time. To flourish is to surrender to a virulent sea; cinerous dreams give way to a bejeweled dawn. --Elda Mengisto

[pseudowho]

Deliverance

Hunting down a monster, you are led to an isolated little town...and into the arms of its enigmatic priest, who harbours a dark secret.

Warnings: 18+, MDNI, Vampire!Priest!Nanami, monsterfucking, winged vampire, soft!Dom/pleasure!Dom Nanami, loss of faith/disillusionment, enemies to lovers/forbidden lovers, haematophilia, corruption kink

Very much inspired by Mike Flanagan's exceptional "Midnight Mass" which I highly recommend.

Soundtrack: "Take Me To Church" by Hozier, and "All Around Me" by Flyleaf

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The bridge to the mainland lived most of its saltcured life underwater. It rose, skeletal against the fog, as if the wreck of a ship from some bygone era, only twice a day, at low tide.

You were, by now, well-established into this friendly little town; a much-needed teacher to its handful of muddy-toed children. They did now know of your armory, your deadly weaponry. They did not know of your vow to hunt down the monsters that stalked the night.

And, they did not know how you suspected that the beast responsible for the deaths of at least 20 men on the mainland, may be one of their very own. 20 murders all occurring at low-tide, and only low-tide, could not be a coincidence.

They were all scum, you mused to yourself, all rapists, paedophiles and murderers...so perhaps it does have some sort of moral code. It must be here, you reasoned, fingers tapping the woody shelves of your little school cupboard in thought.

Your hunt was hampered by the timekeeping of this sleepy fishing town; often up before sunrise to take to the sea, and back before the sun broke above the horizon, it was not unusual for its residents to sleep during the day, and rise in time for the sunset. Its little church even held an evening mass, attended by plentiful nocturnal residents, after dinner.

"Hello?" A rich baritone, which was beginning to feel so intimately familiar to you, stirred an illicit want in your belly. He called your name. You could not help but run to him.

"--sorry, I'm-- I'm here! In the cupboard!" You called out, breathless in...what? Your rush to get to him? Anticipation? Something...more?

You flurried round the corner, all eager smiles, flyaway hairs and dimples. Your eyes melted so softly upon each others' forms, both sighing with relief. Neither of you knew how the other stirred within.

"Ke--...Father Nanami. What a lovely surprise. You're not usually up so early."

Nanami Kento cut an imposing figure in his cassock and white collar. He was a big man, with mountainous shoulders, and long, broad hands. You remembered the heat that pooled in your belly, the first time he had rolled up his sleeves to help you to move supplies into the schoolhouse, his forearms so alluringly thick and corded. His size belied an easy grace, and the elegant quick-step of a busy, intelligent man.

"I found myself unable to sleep," Kento admitted, his head bowed and hands clasped as he stepped to you. He seemed paler than usual, as he continued, "I was thinking abo--...just, thinking." He finished weakly. His eyes drew so fleetingly to your fast little pulse, thrumming from your throat, down your cleavage. His mouth dried, a double-edged hunger climbing down his abdomen.

"...thinking?" You offered, slowly closing the distance between you. You ached to remove it completely, your respect for his holy vows the only thing that contained you. Kento cleared his throat, running one strong finger between his neck, and corseting black and white collar.

"...wondering. If you would be attending mass. Tonight. I have miss--...you have missed the past week, I believe."

Ah. Yes. There was rarely another time when the homes of the local residents were empty enough to allow for investigation. You had only a few more to ransack, to find your monster, and you could feel yourself closing in on it. You felt a heavy rock of regret in your belly, and you clasped one of Kento's cool, pale hands in your own. His cock twitched, to feel the burn of your flesh against his, in ways so much less intimate than what he had imagined, alone at night.

"I'm so sorry...not tonight," you frowned, and you hurried to reassure Kento as he visibly deflated, "But tomorrow, I promise you. I'll come. Truly." Kento's face, so angular and strong, softened down at you with the hint of a smile.

His hand raised up for a moment, hesitating, before cupping your cheek. You felt your heart skip a beat, the tips of his little and ring fingers ghosting over your pulse point, while his thumb swiped beneath your eye.

"...chalk," Kento whispered, seeing your pupils dilate under his inherent, dangerous magnetism. He wished nothing more than to lean down and taste you, clutched against him and whimpering in the schoolhouse. You heard thunder rumble in the distance, and smelled the petrichor of an oncoming storm.

"...I can't wait," Kento whispered, stepping back from you, with just one backwards glance before sweeping out under the wind and blotting clouds.

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Your hunt had amounted to nothing. Either, your monster was meticulously careful, or your suspicions were incorrect, and it did not reside on this island. There was just one more place you had not explored, and you resigned yourself that you may be heading home sooner than you thought.

And yet, you felt a rope behind your navel, a red string around your finger, holding you here. You decided to complete your final investigation at the home of the priest, who had become the lifeblood that ran inside you, at midnight. He generally stayed late at the church, completing administration. You would be undisturbed.

Armed, rogue-like, you blended with moonlit shadows until you reached the windows outside his bedroom. You peeked through the gaps in the wooden blinds, and were met with an image of Kento, erotic and resplendent, that seared itself into your brain for the rest of your days.

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Kento didn't need sleep, ever since his God had forsaken him. Yet still, he craved that sweet embrace, to take him away from the twisted torture of what he had become. His resolve to die this way, as some fallen angel, had been unexpectedly fractured by the will to live-- fractured by you.

Kento switched the shower off, the last droplets of water running down his back. His cassock and collar were discarded, all woven lies against the skin of a faithless hypocrite. Kento wrapped a towel loosely around his waist, stepped past the empty mirror, and out into his bedroom.

His gut churned to see his empty bed. It had been weeks since he had fed. Years since he had taken a woman for the last time, before taking his vows. Weeks, since you had begun to consume him, mind, body and soul.

Kento had been losing his faith before the change. He had grown further from God, as countless monsters died beneath his teeth. But it was thoughts of you, spread, penetrated and whimpering beneath him, that took Kento beyond redemption.

Kento shuddered at the aching greed within. He lay back on his bed, hair still damp and floppy, but desperate for sleep to grip him and pull him under. His cock, rapidly thickening and tenting beneath the towel, made him curse, one broad arm flung over his eyes, while the other tried to squeeze himself into submission.

Kento squirmed with guilt, his semi-erect cock gripped in his palm. He thought of you, your fingers dipping into your needy wet cunt, the vibrator on your clit doing nothing to relieve the ache in your soul. He thought of the way you had squirmed and begged, to your god, and to him, to be granted your release. He thought of the way you had sobbed as you came, curled round yourself, your fingers desperately trying to reach the sweet spot that would make your orgasm climb all the way into your belly.

He didn't need to imagine it, Kento thought blithely, his thumb now stroking slick pre-cum under his foreskin, and over the sweet swollen head of his cock. He didn't need to imagine it, because he had seen you, through the gap in your curtains in the dead of night. Watching you, a pale angel in the rain, hunting for the forgiveness of a body he couldn't allow himself to sully.

Kento's hand had begun to masturbate himself instinctually, to the thought of you crying out for him. For him, and he could do nothing but pretend he hadn't seen you fall apart, to the dream of him inside you.

Kento groaned, low and rumbling, his hand gripping tightly around his throbbing, heavy length, longer than his thick fist could cover. Dripping with pre-cum, Kento began to fuck into his own fist to lubricate himself. He moaned in time to the memory of you, writhing and mewling against your pillow.

Kento's other arm reached round above his head, and he sunk his sharp teeth into his pillow, licking at it, imitating how he would flick his tongue against your pert little clit with a ragged moan. He pictured you above him, riding his mouth and nose as the length of his cock fucked down your throat to the tune of sweet wet gags. Kento whispered filth into the dead of night, trying to rut himself to orgasm.

"--take it-- good girl...cum down your throat-- cum in my mouth...shit...fuck you through it soon, angel-- promise, I promise--...ahhhh, shit, SHIT--"

Kento cursed, spitting venom, his balls heavy and sore, his own hand so woefully inadequate. His canines had lengthened, his mouth twisted into a teeth-baring snarl, and he gripped his cock harder. Trailing his other fingers to his mouth, sucking on his fingertips with a shiver, Kento pierced them until he could taste the hot rush of blood, imagining it was you quenching his thirst--

At the window, completely unnoticed, you gripped the windowpane, weak-kneed. Your other hand clapped over your mouth. Kento lay naked on his bed, sprawled and ethereal under strips of moonlight, masturbating with gasps and groans that you only wished you could hear.

Those hands, that you had spent night after night, wishing were inside you. That cock, thicker and longer than you had pictured...and oh. The way he rutted into his fist with such devastating ferocity, left you jealous of his hand. Your mouth watered.

What would he do, if you knocked right now? If you offered yourself to him, spread bare and pleading? Would he forsake his vows for you? Would he turn his back to God, as he stroked his cockhead to orgasm between your wet folds, singing your praises, and spattering hot, thick cum over your clit--

You were drawn back out of your head as Kento convulsed, his anguished, sloppy moan breaking through the windows, shooting through you like a knife. You gasped, delighted by Kento's twitching pleasure.

Kento hit his orgasm with the turmoiled strength of a stormfront, breaking. His final image was of you, cradling his sore cock between your legs, humping him inside you while you whispered to him and he whined into your hair and got lost in the smell of you, god, the smell of you, he could smell you now--

Kento spasmed, crying out as cum spurted in heavy stripes up his abdomen, his orgasm threaded with a tinge of horror-- fuck, he could smell you, you were here nearby, he knew the smell of that skin and that blood and that cunt--

Kento sat up with a jolt and a snarl, still gasping, the power of the hunt crashing through him. His teeth bared, animalistic, he wrenched his window up, sticking his head out into the night.

The smell of you, quickly fading, was being carried away by the wind. And Nanami Kento was losing his mind.

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You could barely compose yourself, walking into Church the next evening. The night had crept in fast; another storm churning over the water, was pulling the moon in with it. You felt overburdened with...guilt? Desire? You could not hide it, you were sure.

You could not hide it, as Kento's rich voice embraced the pews. You could not hide it, as your voice trembled its way through hymns. Kento's stern, impassive face remained unreadable, as you took communion from him. You met each others' eyes, both thinking about the same thing; his finger grazed your tongue, and gazed upon your sweet face, open-mouthed and doe-eyed, kneeling before him.

And despite all this, it was each others' company you craved more than anything more carnal. You found excuses to stay, in the church, loitering as Kento bid the crowds a warm goodbye. As the last person left, finally alone, you turned to each other. You both held your breath.

After a few moments, yours released in a twinkling laugh, and a blush, that had Kento's chest clenching in possessive adoration.

"I...have neglected you, father," you offered, brushing your hair behind your ear. Kento huffed, at first, pinching the bridge of his nose, before laughing. A genuine laugh. Deep, velvety, and rich. You were putty in his hands, and he didn't even know.

"Alas...it is the life of the clergy. Our own needs, go...unmet." Kento grimaced, a forced half-smile. His hands clasped over his lap.

You felt the tinge of bitterness at the edge of his words. You swallowed, thickly. Your fate balanced on the edge of a knife.

"Not...not all of them, surely? You could...you could join me for dinner?" You couldn't miss how Kento's eyebrows raised fractionally, his pupils dilating. Kento felt a dangerous hunger.

"I...I'm not sure-- I shouldn't--"

"Of course, you're completely right--" you flapped, taking a step back, and Kento's hunger gripped you back with jealous need.

"...I shouldn't be long here. An hour, maybe? If...if you'll allow it." Kento could feel himself twist under the need to possess you, one way or another. Judging by the smell of you, you would be wet, supple under his lips.

"Perfect," you blurted, standing up on your tiptoes for one happy moment, "perfect. I'll cook. We can...we can talk. I can't wait."

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A brisk knock. You hurried to the door, biting your lip, briefly abandoning dinner on the stove.

"Father," you cried, damning yourself for sounding so excited, "you're here...I'm glad. I was afraid you wouldn't...anyway..."

You hurried back to the stove, leaving the door open. After a moment, you looked up, seeing Kento leaning against the doorframe, looking at with with something...unreadable, in his eyes. He simply stood, drinking you in as you cooked.

"...Father? What are you waiting out there for? Come in." Blinking, chuckling to himself, Kento stepped over the threshold, closing the door behind him and gently placing a bottle of wine on the table.

"Please. Call me Kento. It seems...silly, if we're having dinner, and a night together." You felt heat blossom through you, at the accidental double-meaning behind Kento's words.

Dinner together was soft, intimate, the food and wine smoothing over an already glossy conversation. You were made malleable by the wine. You were intoxicated by him. Kento looked into you with such knowledge of you, that you were laid bare beneath his gaze.

Sat facing each other on the sofa, Kento had abandoned his white collar, the buttons of his cassock and white shirt undone to his chest. He rolled wine around his glass, his head leaning on one hand, smiling as you talked. The wine made you stupid, and you blurted out;

"Why? Why...did you join the church, Kento?" It was, in part, rhetorical. A cry of despair against the crime of Kento being made untouchable. His answer surprised you, and you found yourself shuffling closer as he talked.

"I ask myself that same question every day. Ever since..." Kento bit his tongue, thinking of the night he was turned, on a missionary trip abroad. Thinking about the day you walked into his parish, setting him aflame with unquenchable burning thirst. Kento cleared his throat, swirling his wine. He felt his primal magnetism drawing you to him like a moth to the flame, and he could not stop himself.

"...I have become...disillusioned, with the church. I am...torn," Kento admitted. Your knees were touching his now, and you leaned towards him with lovesick eyes. Kento felt the thrill of the hunt, feeling the sting of his teeth lengthening. His cock twitched as your breath passed over his cheek.

"...torn?" You felt a quiver of fear now, in the way Kento's eyes darkened, his hand slipping over to grip behind your knee, pulling you into his lap. He set aside his glass. It should have rung alarm bells. You were so drunk, but you had only had one glass of wine. Kento smelled so intoxicating. You were warm, floppy as he pulled you to straddle his lap, cupping your face with both hands.

"...torn," he whispered, his nose brushing yours. Kento's hunger overtook his panic for you, a victim to himself. Kento whispered against your lips, watching your eyes flutter closed, your head heavy and lilting to the side, exposing the pretty thrum of your throat to him.

"...torn," he continued, gliding his tongue up the pulse in your neck, feeling his cock jump against your clothed pussy, "...all because of you...if God has forsaken me, I hope he never wants me back. If only you would let me worship you, instead."

Kento's lips hovered over yours, barely quelling his urgent need to feed on you, until you whimpered his name. Kento snapped, and pulled you in by the back of the neck, crashing his lips to yours with the ragged groan of a starving man.

Your head swam with Kento, clutching his open collar and falling against him, allowing him to devour your mouth with bliss. You murmured against his lips, sloppy and licking, tasting the sweet allure of him, and his grip on the back of your neck grew crushing, his weight now bearing over you to press you back into the sofa, a sharp sting on your lip--

"Ow! I...ugh, sorry...I'm bleeding--"

As you moved to sit up, shocked back out of your reverie, Kento had pushed himself back to the other side of your sofa. One hand had clasped over his mouth. He trembled, and shook, white-knuckles clasping the sofa. You heard a sharp gasp, as if Kento was in pain.

With blood on your lip, you reached for him-- and stopped. Your eyes fixed on the switched-off television opposite you both. You stood, slowly, moving towards the hallway, and your bag, trying to control your terrified little heart.

"I'll just...get a cloth, for my li--"

As you pulled a blade from your bag, standing up to spin around, you were thrown back to the wall, your head cushioned by Kento's hand. You cried out, feeling him bracket you against the wall, his cassock now abandoned, his form seeming to grow and swell before you. Kento's face pressed to your neck, and you felt the hot throb of his growing cock against your belly.

You stood this way, both panting into each other, your knife pressed over Kento's heart, and his teeth pressed to your throat. Your heart broke, fragile beneath Kento's twisting form, and hungry mouth. You hiccuped, your hand and resolve faltering.

"...I never wanted...I wish it wasn't...why did it have to be you?" You sobbed, your arm starting to lower. Kento growled against you, already two feet taller, his enormous chest trapping you in against the wall. You felt the lights blotting out around you, as vast, black, velvety wings unfurled from Kento's back.

"...always...you always knew...just couldn't accept--" Kento gasped, his tongue darting out against your neck, ridged and trembling. His chest burst with pain to feel you sob beneath him.

"I can't do it," you cried, your knife hand lowering again, "just take what you want, because I can't-- I love you-- I'm not strong enough." Kento's teeth gritted, his face crumpling against the soft copper scent of your skin. His enormous hand gripped yours, raising the knife to press to his chest. You gasped and cried out, resisting his pull; a bead of blood sprung up around the tip, pressed to Kento's chest.

"From the moment you arrived," Kento growled, his teeth pressing gently over your pulse point, starving and needy, "...my life...everything I am, has been yours to take. I would know you, blind and deaf...and I would be honoured, for you to take my life as penance for my sins."

You gritted your teeth, completely releasing your grip on the blade. It clattered to the floor. You reached up to trail hands up Kento's enormous, powerful shoulders. Your fingertips grazed the soft base of his wings, and Kento shivered, shuddering into you. He felt a dribble of pre-cum soak his stretched, ripping boxers.

"Then I condemn you to live, Kento," you whispered, pulling his face up to yours. His pupils were dilated, bursting with lust, inky black in pools of crimson, "...and take me. However you want me."

Kento snarled at you again, pressing himself to you, pinning your arms above your head with one thick hand; "You have no idea what you're asking for," he hissed, "I will eat you alive." He felt you tremble, seeing the golden resolve in your eyes. You leaned forwards to his mouth, begging.

"Then eat me...or fuck me, like you fucked your hand to me."

Kento cursed, snapping, lifting you against him. You wrapped your legs around his hips, feeling Kento reach down to shred the clothes off himself, completely absorbed by the need to possess you, to love you.

Flung backwards onto the bed, you gasped at Kento's monstrous form. Eight feet tall, broad and exquisite, his great black wings folded and unfolded against his back. His aching cock dripped with pre-cum, so much bigger than when you had seen him cum into his own hand. His face, still undeniably Kento, stared into you, owning you. Heat pooled between your legs, as he grasped his cock in one great hand, groaning and shuddering.

You crept forwards, still drunk on him, and his nephilim glory. Kento's hand stuttered around his cock as you licked the tip.

"--fuck-- too big for you-- you can't--" Kento uttered a strangled moan, to feel your hot little mouth engulf his cockhead, your lips stretched wide, gulping him to the back of your throat, all hot little licks and sucks. Every fibre of his being needed to buck forwards into your mouth, and you felt two great hands tangle in your hair.

When your hands joined your mouth, stroking down his aching length, masturbating the parts of his cock your mouth could not reach, Kento rutted involuntarily. Moaning, begging and whining your name, his voice ran deep and ragged around his sharp canines.

"--darling, I-- shit I-- so good...so good for me...taking me s--so well, haaaaah...not-- can't last-- like this--"

You hummed around his cock, swallowing down a trickle of salty pre-cum, feeling the gentle pressure of his fingertips against your head. So aware of his size and strength, Kento handled you like a china doll, with the utmost love and affection. Kento moaned with abandon, his head thrown back, his great wings furling and unfurling with divine pleasure.

Swallowing around Kento's thick tip at the back of your throat, you felt his cock leaping in warning. Kento tried half-heartedly to pull you off him, whimpering and moaning with fractured cries of your name;

"--can't swallow-- s'too much-- ohhh fuck, my love-- c-cumming, I'm cumming-- fffuuuck yes, swallow-- all of it--"

You squeaked as his cock jolted and twitched in your mouth, Kento's balls clenched tight as he hunched around your mouth, pressing your head to him. Your mouth and throat flooded with Kento's bitter seed, cooler than that of a normal man, and you swallowed him down with pride. Kento's groans and breaths ran ragged, as you licked him clean.

Kento panted, glossy-eyed as he came down from his high, his cock still half-hard against his thigh. Crowding your body against the bed with his, his fingertips grazed the dress you wore, before ripping it from you with a bared-teeth growl. You felt your bra snapped in the middle, as if it were paper. Your breasts heaved, nipples peaked under Kento's ravenous attention.

Poking his tongue out to tease it over one hard nipple, you felt your clit throb to feel the otherworldly ridges and grooves running along his tongue's sides and tip. Whining as he sucked your pebbled nipple into his mouth, you shuddered to feel Kento's sharp teeth graze your sensitive peak. He savoured you, lathering your nipple against his tongue, until you felt you could cum from that alone.

His other hand rose to engulf your second breast, your nipple rolled so tenderly between two great fingers. You felt a trickle of arousal soak your underwear. Kento could smell it, and pressed his hand to your lower belly, feeling vaguely for the telltale swell of ovulation.

"...made a mistake, angel...letting me take you like this-- nothing of you left, by the time I'm done with you--mine-- all mine-- fuck--"

Trailing kisses down your belly, sniffing you and eager to fill you with his smell, his body thrummed for you. Kento threw your legs over his shoulders, ripping the sides of your underwear and tossing the scraps aside.

His eyes fixed on your pussy, slick and clenching. Kento shuddered, feeling his cock beginning to bound to life again. It flopped, heavy and twitching against his thigh, filling again in preparation to fill you. Kento felt a vague desire to ensnare you, trapping you inside his drunken intoxication, to fill you, and fill you, and fill you, until your belly swelled, oozing his thick, white seed.

"...Kento...please..." Your sweet begging pulled Kento out of himself. Despite his monstrous form, his face softened, his eyes fixed to yours as his tongue, long and ridged, stretched out of his mouth. You saw stars as it lathed insistently from side to side, spreading your folds, stroking back and forth over your aching, pearly clit.

Kento mumbled into your pussy, tasting you, his long tongue fucking into your cunt while his nose nuzzled your clit. Mewling, your hands flew down to sink into Kento's hair, and you felt your hands grasped and pinned against your belly. Kento knew, with a faint pang, that if your fingernails scratched against his sensitive scalp, he would surely spill his seed all over your floor.

Kento draped his other forearm over your belly and hips, pinning you down as you twisted beneath his attention. He lapped, sucked, and nipped at you with the softest bites to your clit, his tongue fucking in and out of you with inhuman dexterity.

You bucked your hips down the bed, eager to feel his tongue sink into your deepest parts, and Kento obliged with a wet moan. You felt his tongue lathe against your spongy spot, pinned down as he devoured you.

"--just there...harder please, please-- god I need your cock in me, please-- fuck me please-- please--"

You begged and pleaded your way to orgasm, your arousal seeping out around Kento's tongue as you came with a jolt and a cry, your thighs clamping around Kento's head, feet tickling against his sensitive wings. Kento continued to fuck his tongue in and out of you, lathering you with his spit, tasting your arousal, desperate to taste more of you.

You reached down, trying to pull Kento up your body. He almost laughed at your casual management of a true to life vampire, about to fuck you into the mattress. Kento allowed it, settling above you, his pupils narrowing at the insistent beat of your throat. Suddenly, and with a strangled growl, Kento knocked your head aside, his teeth grazing at your throat, and his monstrous cock throbbing at your entrance.

You trembled beneath him, heaving and gasping from your high. All of your resolve left you, beneath his tongue, and you uttered words you knew to be true;

"...I trust you, Kento."

Kento pressed into you, with teeth and cock and a husky moan. You felt a sharp pierce at your neck, his teeth just deep enough to feel the hot splash of your blood against his tongue. Kento almost finished then and there, his seed threatening to spatter into your folds and entrance, instead of in your belly, as he had promised himself. Kento drank you, his mouth clamped around your neck, one great hand cupping your head to the side while the other gripped your hip.

With a squeak and a protracted, broken moan of his name, you felt Kento's cock stretch through your wet velvety walls. You squirmed, trying to climb up the bed, feeling Kento growl around your throat and yank you back down.

Kento was enormous, by far the biggest cock you had ever taken, splitting you with a dull sting. Your fluttering hole soothed as Kento began to rut his length into you. His red, leaking tip bullied your cervix, bumping it up against your womb, with inches of him still outside of you.

You uttered strangled little moans, completely pinned beneath his hulking form, feeling him rut as much of his cock inside you as he could fit. With a shiver, Kento denied himself of any more blood at your throat. His tongue stroked your wounds, clotting the blood there, as he fucked gently into you.

Kento's wings caged you both in, and he stared down at where his cock tried to stretch your pussy out with dopey, lovesick eyes. A trickle of your blood ran down from the corner of his mouth, and he was struck with a sudden burst of pride for you. Kneeling back, Kento pushed your knees up to your chest, crushing over you in a mating press.

You writhed, as Kento managed to sink more of his cock into you, groaning which each stroke he watched enter and pull out of you. Your slick formed a translucent white ring most of the way down his cock length. Kento was eager to see it drip down his balls. He gasped down at your prone, fucked-out form, and gently began to press and roll the fatty flesh around your clit, making you buck up into him with pathetic little mewls.

"--fit it in--fit all of me in...if you cum again-- fuck you through it, baby...fuck you through it...fuck you through it..."

Kento repeated this like a mantra, every gradually strengthening thrust into you taking him deeper, your pussy stretched to its limits around his terrifying girth and length. Leaning over where you joined, Kento spat a smooth mouthful of spit, stroking it around his base, lubricating you both, before upping his pace and intensity again.

You cried out, head thrown back as you arched, feeling Kento so deeply that you clasped your belly. Kento planted one hand over yours, his fucks growing gradually more feral as he bared his teeth, determined to finally take what was his, after so many years of miserable self-denial.

"--mine make you mine make you mine--leave it behind...leave it all...for you...shit-- so tight, just--milk it out-- all my cum-- all yours, I swear..."

As you came, your pussy clenching and spasming, Kento finally bottomed out. His head flung back with a cry of success, slamming into you with abandon as he chased his high, desperate to see you filled with his cum. Cursing, and spitting, teeth bared and blacking out the room around you with his wings, Kento came with a roar, and you felt your pussy and belly flooded by him.

His cock jerked long, protracted twitches inside you, spurting thick bursts of cum, with nowhere to go but up, plugged by his enormous girth. You were pliable and dazed, taking it with the sweet relief of his love for you, his seed soothing your swollen inner walls like a balm.

Kento faltered above you, staggered and dazed. Keeping his cock stuffed inside you, manoeuvring himself onto his side, he swept one great wing beneath you, and one above you. You felt yourself cocooned, sleepy and full, reaching into hand up to tangle into Kento's hair. He pressed a lazy kiss to your palm.

"...you're a...terrible vampire hunter..." Kento slurred, fading out into soft snores, just seconds later.

He's not wrong, you reasoned to yourself, wondering and drifting to sleep in his arms and wings, maybe he'll help me.

[serpentface]

The god Od depicted in a symbolic representation of the word's creation as a docile bull awaiting sacrifice at the altar.

It carries the foundations of the world in its horns (via a very old cross and wheel motif representing cyclical totality, now mostly used as a visual shorthand for the world). It has three sets of horns in the form of the lunar crown, a mostly obsolete symbol of Wardi royalty. The altar is decked with an orange lily motif, after a hardy native water lily capable of regrowth in waters that dry seasonally. This symbol of rebirth and fertility in a sacrificial scene evokes the sacrifice-rebirth cycle initiated by Od's primordial slaying, which is fundamental to the world's functioning.

This is a rundown on interpretations of the god Od, a deity that has a long history in the lands surrounding the Mouth of the eastern inner seaway, and the impact (or lack thereof) of its primordial sacrificial nature in religious practice.

The god Od appears in religious practices throughout the region, having the utmost significance to the Imperial Wardi faith and lesser or separate significance elsewhere. The five religious practices wherein variants of Od has longstanding historical significance are the Burri Faith, the (Imperial) Wardi faith, the Old or 'Heathen' Wardi faith, the faiths of the Hill Tribes, and the Wogan faith.

—

The name Od and most significant elements of this god have origins in the Burri faith, which was transferred across the sea to the Wardi, Wogan, and Hill Tribes in the time of its second and third empire.

The Burri Od is described as having been the first being. The universe began as a cosmic sea and empty, eternal sky, loosely representative of a primordial and fundamental female and male dualism. Od appeared at their borders as a result of their interfacing, in the form of a giant aurochs or bison whose hooves touched the seafloor and horns touched the sky. He dipped his head down to the silt and lifted it out of the sea in his horns, thus forming the foundations of the world. His semen spilled into the cosmic sea and created the first seven gods, who then killed and divided their father, giving the world its form with his body.

While significant to the creation story, Od is of relatively little importance in everyday practice of the Burri faith and is not commonly worshiped (rather his seven children are, as they were the original and most powerful group of gods and created life).

Though the Burri Od takes on a sacrificial role in creation, animal sacrifice is not central to the Burri faith and is only performed in specific contexts (some festivals and holidays, in times of great strife, and to a few specific gods within a wide pantheon). The Burri faith does not involve a sacrifice-rebirth cycle as foundational to the world's functioning and god's health, and offerings are instead mostly gifts to please and rightly venerate the gods (or avert the malice of less savory deities). Offerings of food, drink, and precious materials are preferred by most gods. When animal sacrifice does occur, bulls ARE generally favored, as a reflection of their primordial counterpart.

—

The modern/Imperial Wardi Od is partly an import of the Burri tradition, which fused with both native monotheistic/animist worldviews and animal cults during the reign of the 2nd Burri Empire and developed into a new faith, which has presently become the state religion of the Wardi Empire.

‘Od’ in the Imperial Wardi context is best translated as capital G ‘God’ (anyone saying 'God' is, in-universe, saying the word 'Od'). Its creation of the world plays out in a very similar fashion, but the first human life (rather than other gods) is created by Its semen mingling with the cosmic sea. It willingly sacrificed Its body at the hands of the first people, who formed the world with its remains. Its shed blood spattered the earth and can be found today as meteoric iron, and animal life emerged from the mingling of the blood and the soil. Its death initiated the eternal cycle of sacrifice/death and rebirth, with each begetting the other and necessary for the world to function.

Od's body is dead and the world is Its corpse, but Its spirit survives in seven 'faces' which govern specific functions of reality and society. The connection of Its spirit to Its body is maintained by right practice, right prayer, and right sacrifice (in the form of food/drink offerings, bloodletting, common sacrifices of animals and occasional sacrifices of people).

The Imperial Wardi Od is generally regarded as genderless and dual-sexed, and referred to with a unique deified pronoun most effectively translated as capital I 'It'. Its sex is of relatively little significance to everyday religious practice, and discussions of Its dualism are more likely to occur in scholarly and philosophical contexts (like debates on the minutia of how Its semen, milk, and menstrual blood are all mentioned in old accounts of creation, and how the implications of this should translate to body politics and taboo).

—

The Old Wardi or ‘Heathen’ Wardi faith is a separate branch of old ethnic Wardi religion with significantly less Burri influence. This is a minority practice that only survives intact in isolation. Its practitioners are often hostile to all foreign influence and the Imperial Wardi faith, and suffer minority status and religious suppression.

Its version of Od is a more intact surviving remnant of ancient Wardi monotheism, as an androgynous creator god who lost physical form in the act of creation, and lives on as innumerable spirit aspects of its whole. This deity is referred to as Od in describing its primordial form, but is mostly referred to as a unique word for spirit, which is 'the Koya'. Practitioners of the old faith often identify the seven-faced Od as a twisted, foreign misinterpretation of the Koya.��

This practice is somewhat animistic in nature and involves veneration of individual spirits that form a larger whole. Every aspect of the world has a spirit (plants, animals, minerals, bodies of water, etc) that exist in an ideal balance and as strands of an interconnected death-rebirth cycle. Each spirit is referred to as 'the [noun]-koya'. All discrete forms of life/matter have at least one attached Koya, while living beings also have a soul (which is separate from the Koya and reincarnated upon death).

Each Koya exists as a quintessential essence (ex: the lion-koya, the maize-koya, the iron-koya, the salt-koya) rather than separate individual objects having separate individual Koya, though unique landmarks do have their own (the Brilla River-koya is separate from the Yellowtail River-koya, though both share the freshwater-koya). Each individual may have multiple spirits (geese have the goose-koya, but also the bird-koya, the freshwater-koya, etc), a system that categorizes the world by intrinsic natures and precisely dictates how each physical body has unique metaphysical significance.

Animal sacrifice plays a somewhat similar role in Old Wardi religion to Imperial Wardi religion in the sense that it intends to maintain the stability and oneness of the divine spirit and a death-rebirth cycle. In this case, in freeing part of the spirit, balance can be brought to the Koya totality and restore the death-rebirth cycle. (Ex- in times of drought, the sacrificial release of the migratory goose-koya can encourage the return of the rains). This is far from the only way to re-balance the Koya. The most significant rites come in the form of songs that summon, release, or expel individual Koya as needed.

—

The Od of the Hill Tribes is a mingling of the Burri/Wardi Od and a much older goddess of fertility and agriculture, and is strongly associated with cattle and barley. This version of Od did not create the world and is only one of many gods, though she is said to have been born from the sea and carried up fertile soils with her (which is likely a direct result of Burri/Wardi influence). A few tribes venerate Od as a chief or patron god, though none are fully monotheistic (outside of converts on individual or clan levels).

She has a distant common ancestor with the Finn goddess Morgren (as the various Hill Tribes are descendants of a single proto-Finn population who migrated across the Viper seaway in prehistory), who is also a goddess of agriculture associated with fertility and barley (though in Morgren’s case, she is THE god of the staple crop barley and lacks the cattle association, and has no direct influence from the Burri/Wardi Od whatsoever)

Most of the tribes of Greathill do not practice animal sacrifice but offer grain and fruit to Od, and create a sanctified mix of crushed barley and oil that is anointed on livestock and people to confer Od's blessings of fertility. In some cases, the dominant cow in each herd is considered to belong to Od and will not be milked or slaughtered, and is buried with full rites upon its death.

—

The Od of the Wogan religion is distant to the rest of her counterparts, though has absorbed some Burri and modern Wardi elements over time and is referred to by the same name (a definite foreign import). She shares the fertility aspect ubiquitous to other Od variants, and is occasionally depicted as a cow.

She is a goddess of the earth and sea, who was wed to Iapedi, the god of the sky. The ocean is functionally her womb (which may be trace Burri/Imperial Wardi influence, or merely coincidental) and all life emerged from within. 

These are the only two true gods to the Wogan, though there is an additional element wherein the mating of Od and Iapedi also created innumerable spirits found throughout nature that act as an animating life-force. The concept is very similar to the Old Wardi '-Koya' (as the two faiths had close common ancestry), though this one lacks the sort of taxonomical system of its counterpart, and only ascribes spirits to living things. Each spirit in the Wogan religion is distinct (rather than each type of animal, plant, etc potentially having multiple spirits), and the spirits existing in each body are part of a greater whole that exists as a sentient consciousness that can be communed with (ex: each lion has A lion spirit, all part of The lion spirit, the latter of which can be engaged with).

Wogan religion strongly retains ancient animal cult practices common across the ancient Wardi-Wogan sphere, some of which have been translated into the faces of God in the Imperial Wardi context (both religions share commonalities of lions, snakes, albatross, migratory ducks, and cattle being significant sacred animals). The function of animal worship to the Wogan is communication and interface with the greater spirit of each animal (which can range anywhere from gaining personal blessing and protection, to dispelling plague, to 'lay off on eating our crops').

The Wogan faith does not involve animal sacrifice (though ancient variants almost certainly did). This is connected to traditional vegetarianism among the Wogan (as a means to avoid offending animal spirits), which some view as a point of pride and a mark of distinction against their Imperial Wardi majority.

[headlinxr]

( 罪 ) FATHER, L. HEE SEUNG ، ݃﹆⊱

𓏲 ┈─ ៵ what a pity drinking water isn't a sin! it would taste so good then!. . 𑁍 ࣪˖

̼ ̼ ̼ ̼ ̼ 𓆸 TO THE OTHER SIDE ⸝⸝ ; father hee seung can't stop thinking about you ˖ ៹

𓈒 𓄹 ⊹ , 夫妻 father!hee seung x fem!reader × ִֶ

𓆤 ; 廣告 IN THE NIGHT, I SPILL THE LIGHT ຳ the reader had a little adventure with jay, father hee seung, you must not sin, you are an amalgam of ideas 𓏲

٬ ៶ ૂ 通告 , This is a work of fiction. Unless otherwise indicated, all the names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents in this book are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. ༉‧₊˚

៹ 𓂃 HEADLINXR ִ ۫ ּ ֗ ִ 為了你，為了我 ؛ ៹

The silence of the church was dense and profound, a stillness so palpable that it seemed to envelop everything, like a velvet cloak that absorbed even the last of the whispers. The walls, old and worn by centuries of prayers, breathed in time with forgotten supplications, as if the entire temple were alive, pulsing with the memory of the sacrifices that had forged it. Father Hee Seung, wrapped in the cassock that fell over his body with the same seriousness with which he had embraced his vocation, was at the back of the sacristy, trapped in a sea of files and papers that seemed to whisper stories of lives and deaths intertwined with eternity. The dust covering each page was a testament to the years that had faded away, leaving no trace but the ink that slowly slid across the paper, like the inexorable passage of time, which, like water, erodes even the hardest rocks. Each page that passed through his hands was a reminder of the heavy burden of his existence: A monotonous routine that, despite being his choice, was beginning to feel like an endless sentence. The task before him was nothing more than a mundane act, a repetition of empty gestures that reminded him of the insignificance of his being in the face of the divine grandeur to which he had dedicated himself. Each of those papers, frayed by time, seemed to him a metaphor for his own soul, cracked, wrinkled, and exhausted by years of sacrifices and renunciations.

Fatigue enveloped him in silence, a subtle yet relentless force that sometimes threatened to consume him. He was not unfamiliar with the shadows that lurked in his spirit, those that emerged in moments of solitude, when the brilliance of faith, so bright and warm on clear days, dimmed like a lighthouse extinguished by fog. In those moments, the struggle against doubts became titanic, like a river eroding stones over time, and the agonizing question assailed him: How could the life he had chosen to serve God sometimes turn into a prison of endless silences and unsustainable sacrifices? The eternal peace he had sought, did it truly deserve the high price of his torn soul? These questions swirled in his mind, and as he moved the pen over the papers, like an automatic act of faith, he couldn't help but let the ink, black as the uncertainty of his being, become the only possible comfort. It was as if his existence, reduced to those simple gestures of recording names and dates, was the only way to find an echo in the vast void of his own sacrifice. Hee Seung felt trapped at the crossroads between duty and despair, between devotion and the silent rebellion of his being.

Despite everything, faith was his only salvation. It was the anchor that kept him steady, even when his soul was crumbling into pieces. The light of faith, although sometimes flickering, never went out completely. Despite the fatigue, he knew he had to follow the path he had chosen, like Christ at Golgotha, who, with each step under the weight of his cross, showed salvation in sacrifice. Hee Seung understood that her destiny was to bear her own cross, no matter how heavy, and that in that suffering she found her redemption. Just as the shadows dissipate at dawn, his faith promised him that, after the darkness, there would always be a glow. But even in that sanctuary of peace, where the scent of incense floated in the air like a reminder of the closeness of the divine, the desire to escape rose like a specter. Sometimes, the desire to flee, to leave behind the endless hours of service, the repeated prayers, the empty and solitary days, would overwhelm him. Did he not deserve to rest, for a moment, from the weight of his weary soul? But his faith, firm and solid, was greater than any human impulse. Devotion, though worn, always drew him back, like the magnet that keeps the faithful attached to the altar.

It was then, like a whisper among the shadows, that a soft voice broke the deafening silence of the sacristy. The voice slipped through the folds of the air, like a celestial song resonating with the sweetness of angelic choirs. Hee Seung turned slowly, not immediately recognizing whether the voice came from his consciousness or from a tangible being. And there, at the threshold of the light filtering through the stained glass windows, your figure appeared, one of the new nuns who had joined the community. Your presence seemed to overflow everything he had known until then, as if the very celestial light had taken human form. Your eyes, deep and serene, reflected the diffused light that passed through the colored glass, as if Christ himself had decided to illuminate with his eternal gaze. Hee Seung, accustomed to the stillness and austerity of convent life, felt overwhelmed by the softness and delicacy of the young woman. The vision of you, almost ethereal, appeared to him as a being from another world, as if purity itself had taken flesh before him.

It was as if the Virgin Mary, with her immaculate grace, had descended from the heavens to walk among men, and Hee Seung, upon beholding you, recognized in you a vision that transcended the limits of reason. Each of your movements, delicate and serene, seemed imbued with a peace that transcended human understanding. You were not simply another nun; to Hee Seung, you were a manifestation of the divine, an incarnation of the pure light he had worshipped in the scriptures, but now presented before him with an almost unbearable proximity. Your white habit fell over your figure with the softness of a celestial cloud, and on your face, so serene, Hee Seung saw the promise of redemption, of a purity that seemed brought directly from the celestial realm, like a gift offered on earth.

Hee Seung's heart skipped a beat. His faith, which had been a rock and refuge, shattered for an instant at the sight of you. In that instant, the stillness of his being transformed into a whirlwind of emotions, something he could neither comprehend nor control. The temptation, disguised as light, had infiltrated his soul, challenging everything he had built. How could it be possible that, in such a sacred place, purity itself became an object of desire? The Virgin Mary had been for him an unattainable symbol, a beacon of eternal grace that guided the faithful towards salvation. But you, so close, so real, represented that same purity, and yet, the desire to approach you, to touch you, felt like a transgression. The priest, caught between his faith and his own impulses, realized that his struggle was not just against the temptation of the body, but against the fragility of his humanity.

—Father Hee Seung… Do you need help?— Your voice pulled him out of his reverie.

He blinked, forcing himself to lower his gaze, as if he could extinguish the fire that had ignited in his chest. The sweetness of your voice, serene and filled with a divine stillness, seemed to challenge his very faith, as if God were testing him. In that brief moment of suspended silence, Hee Seung understood that his devotion, although solid, might not be enough to withstand the test of his humanity. The temptation had come, not as a dark shadow, but as a blinding light, so pure and so dangerous that it threatened to consume him.

—No, sister, I'm fine— he replied hastily, caught between courtesy and an irrepressible desire to flee. He averted his gaze to the disordered papers, but the pounding of his heart was so intense that he feared you might perceive it.

When you bent down slightly to pick up a folder that had fallen to the floor, Hee Seung felt a pang of guilt pierce through him like a thorn from Christ's crown. That closeness felt like a profane act, a subtle betrayal of his sacred vows. Your beauty, so delicate and radiant, evoked in him the representations of the Virgin Mary; however, the holiness of that thought was overshadowed by an earthly longing that filled him with terror.

—Excuse me, I must... I must take my leave— he stammered, leaving the room with hurried steps, like a penitent fleeing from a temptation too great to resist.

In the following days, Hee Seung couldn't help but look for you with his eyes. Although he sought refuge in his duties, every time he saw you in the cloister, in the chapel, or tending to the garden, his heart would fill with a mix of awe and torment. It was as if the divine light he longed for in his prayers now reflected in that woman, but in a way that made him teeter between spiritual fervor and human desire.

—It's a sin to look at a sister in Christ like that— he reproached himself as he gripped the rosary in his hands with such force that the wooden knots dug into his skin. However, his attempts to distance himself were in vain. Like a wandering pilgrim in the desert, he found in you an oasis that irresistibly attracted him, even knowing that drinking from it could condemn him.

What ultimately unleashed his anguish was the growing closeness between you and Father Jay, another priest from the church. Jay, always charismatic and affable, engaged her in conversations full of laughter and camaraderie. From a distance, Hee Seung watched them, feeling how envy, a sin he thought he had overcome, seized his soul like a shadow stretching as evening fell.

—If the love of Christ is infinite, why does my heart insist on reserving a portion for her?— he pondered in his moments of reflection. He felt like Peter stumbling over the waters, unable to keep his gaze fixed on the Lord. Every time he set his eyes on you, it was another step towards the abyss of his own weakness.

One day, while he watched you pray in the dim light of the chapel, he compared you to the Virgin Mary again, but this time, the weight of guilt felt like a hammer striking his conscience. —The Virgin is an intercessor, not an object of desire— he reproached himself, but he couldn't quell the overwhelming force of his feelings. You had become the personification of a spiritual dilemma: The most demanding test of his faith and also a revelation of the abyss of his fragility.

Finally, determined to confront his emotions, he went to the confessional, not in search of an immediate absolution, but to face the internal battle he could no longer ignore. As the words flowed from his lips like a held-back tear, he understood that his struggle was not only against his heart but also against the very essence of his vocation. The faith that had been his rock was wavering, but it also invited him to immerse himself in the unfathomable mystery of love: A love that, like the cross, could be both redemption and burden.

—Father, I have sinned— he murmured with a tremor in his voice that betrayed his shame. —My heart has been occupied by thoughts that dishonor my vocation. I have felt impure desires towards... Towards a sister of our community—

The silence behind the lattice seemed to stretch longer than necessary, as if the priest on the other side were processing the words with a mix of surprise and curiosity. Finally, a deep and familiar voice broke the silence:

—Go on, brother. Tell me, which sister are you talking about?— asked Father Jay, with a tone that, although firm, had an almost imperceptible hint of sarcasm.

Hee Seung felt a shiver run down her spine upon recognizing Jay's voice. He had naively hoped that it would be another priest who would hear his confession, someone who didn't know the context of his torment. He swallowed hard and continued with difficulty:

—It's... It's Sister (y/n). Since she arrived at our church, I haven't been able to help but look at her with... With thoughts that embarrass me. I have tried to fight against them, but the more I struggle, the more this attraction consumes me. I feel like I am betraying my calling and dishonoring God—

An unexpected sound filtered through the lattice: A brief, contained, but unmistakable laugh. Hee Seung's eyes widened suddenly, his face flushing with disbelief and humiliation.

—Oh, brother!— Jay exclaimed, stifling laughter. —You too have fallen under the spell of the sweet sister. But let me tell you something, something that might surprise you—

Hee Seung felt a knot form in his stomach, but remained silent, unable to interrupt what was to come. Jay, with a tone that mixed cynicism and confidence, continued:

—Brother, I must admit that I have already shared very... Close with Sister (y/n). In this very church, under these same sacred roofs. Does it surprise you? Does it scandalize you? You shouldn't. After all, we are human, not angels—

Jay's words struck Hee Seung like lightning in the midst of a storm. It was as if the very structure of his faith was shaking before that revelation. Confessions should not be profaned with mockery or the cynicism of those who trivialize the sacred.

—How can you talk like that?— Hee Seung replied, unable to contain himself. —This is blasphemy! We have sworn to serve God, to renounce the temptations of the world. And you...? Have you betrayed that?—

Jay sighed, as if speaking to an innocent child.

—Brother, sin and virtue are two sides of the same coin. We strive for perfection, but our humanity always drags us into the mud. If we don't understand our weaknesses, how can we help others overcome theirs? The sister (y/n)… She is a woman, like any other, and I am a man. Neither more nor less—

Hee Seung abruptly got up from the confessional, unable to stay another second in that space tainted by irreverence. His footsteps echoed on the stone floor as he left the chapel, feeling torn between anger, sadness, and a profound spiritual disorientation. The figure of Father Jay had lost all authority in his eyes, and the image of you now appeared to him as an even more unfathomable enigma.

In the solitude of his cell, Hee Seung fell to his knees, seeking solace in a prayer that never came. The weight of the confession and Jay's words were a burden that sank him deeper and deeper. —God, enlighten me— he pleaded, but the echo of his prayer only returned a crushing silence. He had learned that not all the walls of the church were sacred and that even in consecrated hearts, corruption could nest.

Father Hee Seung bowed his forehead over an old missal, the yellowed pages of the book imbued with the fragrance of incense from years past. His trembling fingers toyed with the beads of the rosary, like a castaway clinging to the remnants of a shipwreck. The candle on the table cast shadows that danced erratically on the walls, drawing shapes that seemed at times like guardian angels, at other times like mocking demons. His prayer was an erratic whisper, words that dissolved like grains of sand between his dry lips.

A discreet knock on the door broke the stillness of the moment, a sound so faint it seemed more like a whisper of the wind than a real interruption. But before he could react, the door creaked open, and the sound of the hinges filled the space like an echo in an empty cathedral.

On the threshold, enveloped in the soft halo of light filtering in from the hallway, you appeared. Your habit, cinched with an almost virginal simplicity, reflected the candlelight, but your eyes shone with a brilliance that seemed to contradict their modest appearance. There was in your gaze a disconcerting mix of devotion and defiance, a fire that seemed to have been ignited by a purpose higher than mere obedience.

—Father Hee Seung— you said, your voice sweet but firm, like a bell calling to mass. —Excuse my intrusion at this hour, but I couldn't wait any longer—

The priest stood up immediately, his cassock brushing the floor with a nervous whisper.

—Sister (y/n)…— he murmured, his voice laden with a mix of surprise and alarm. —This is not right. You shouldn't be here—

You closed the door with a deliberate movement, your hands moving with the serenity of someone who knows there is no turning back. You advanced towards him, your steps light as the flight of a dove, but your presence weighed in the room like a chalice filled to the brim.

—Father, I cannot ignore what I have seen in your eyes these days— you said, your voice enveloping the words with a delicacy that disarmed any resistance. —You have looked at me as someone searching for something beyond what the world can offer—

Hee Seung felt the heat rise up her neck, a blush that burned like a glowing ember.

—Me... I don't know what you're talking about, sister— he stammered, his voice broken as if the very air refused to cooperate —If I looked, it was... just distraction, nothing more

You smiled then, and that smile was like the light filtering through the stained glass of a chapel at dawn, soft yet penetrating.

—Distraction...— You repeated, almost as if the word caused him tenderness. —Father, my arrival here has not been by chance. I have been sent to fulfill a divine purpose. I have come to relieve the forsaken hearts of this church. And yours, father... His soul, tormented and burdened with chains, is one that I must free—

Your words were like an echo from Genesis, where the voice of God separates light from darkness. But in this case, the two seemed to intertwine, and Hee Seung felt her spiritual strength crumble like the Tower of Babel amidst the chaos.

—Sister, what you're saying is... It's blasphemy— he tried to retort, although his voice lacked the firmness needed to convince her, or to convince himself.

You took a step closer, closing the distance between you, until both your breaths merged in the air thick with incense and something more.

—Blasphemy would be ignoring the voice that led me here— you replied —The Virgin is not only a symbol of purity; she is also a refuge for the lost, for those who have forgotten the way. If her eyes seek me, is it not my duty to be an instrument of her redemption?—

Your hand, delicate as an olive branch, rose to brush against Hee Seung's face. The contact was light, barely a touch, but within it there was a magnetic force that made him close his eyes, like someone who fears looking directly at the sun for fear of burning.

—Father, allow me to be the flame that illuminates your darkness— you whispered. —If your faith has led you to this trial, let me be the answer that reconciles you with yourself—

The silence that followed was dense, laden with possibilities and contradictions. Then, as if an invisible thread were pulling him, Hee Seung leaned his face towards yours. The kiss that followed was an act of surrender and rebellion, a wordless prayer ascending to the heavens while defying earthly rules. It was like the clash of two opposing worlds, where the divine and the human met in a moment overflowing with meaning.

When they parted, the candle on the table extinguished with a faint whisper, as if even the flame recognized that its light was insufficient to illuminate what had just occurred.

You looked at him with a serenity that contrasted with the turmoil in the priest's heart.

—This is just the beginning, Father— you said —Our path will be difficult, but divine grace always finds a way to guide us—

Hee Seung fell to his knees as you walked away towards the door, leaving him alone with his thoughts. His mind was a whirlwind of guilt, desire, and a question he couldn't answer: Was this an act of redemption, or the first step towards his downfall?

In front of the crucifix hanging on the wall, he whispered a prayer: —My God, if there is still hope for my soul... Show me the way—

But the silence that followed was neither condemnation nor absolution, just an abyss in which the struggle between flesh and spirit continued, incessantly, like a battle that would never be fully resolved.

[melanchol1cs]

FRUITS OF THE FLESH.

widow!reader x priest!leon

word count: 3.4k summary: a man reaps what he sows. masterlist | taglist | wips

18+ MDNI. catholicism, religious connotations, no specific time frame but i’d like to say victorian era-ish, alot of allusions to the lord or god, reader’s dead husband idk, inner conflict, denial, guilt, leon asking for forgiveness like a hundred times, kissing, oral(r!receiving), fingering, unprotected sex.

a/n: started this like two months ago, just had the motivation to finally finish. i don’t really know how i feel about my writing on this one… i feel like i’ve lost all my skills after not writing for a few weeks

grief is truly a horrible thing. an all-consuming force that threatens to eat you from the inside out.

it’s a shadow that lingers, a specter that moves silently but persistently, weaving itself into the fabric of every moment. it does not announce its presence with fanfare, nor does it depart when you will it to. instead, it creeps, slow and steady, like the cold wind before a storm, pressing against your chest until breathing feels like a sin.

grief is not a feeling; it is a presence. it is a weight, heavy and suffocating, as if drowning in a dark, endless sea. the surface is so far above, unreachable, and the water presses in from all sides, choking the breath from your lungs. there’s simply no escaping it. eve when you close your eyes, hoping for a moment of peace, it finds you there too.

grief is a thief that takes more than just what you’ve lost—it takes time, peace, and clarity. it takes pieces of you.

and ever since your husband’s death, you’ve been trying to pick those pieces back up. but they slip through your fingers like sand, scattering in the wind, impossible to gather in their entirety. every attempt to rebuild feels futile, as though you’re trying to piece together a puzzle with missing parts, the picture never quite forming the way it once did.

the room is relatively empty, save for a few devout attenders who are spread out in their pews. the priest stands on the altar, the candlelight casting a soft glow on his features as he continues the mass. it’s a somewhat traditional ceremony, filled with prayers and rituals that you’d grown accustomed to.

the priest stands before the small congregation, the words of the mass flowing effortlessly from his lips.

you sit near the back, hands folded tightly in your lap. the rhythmic cadence of the priest’s voice, the latin prayers echoing in the cavernous space, should bring you some semblance of peace, but it doesn’t. it feels distant, as though you’re watching the service through a veil, separated from the others.

the priest's voice drones on, a familiar melody that fails to soothe the ragged edges of your heart. you feel like an outsider, a stranger among the devoted faithful. even the rituals that once brought comfort now seem hollow, the prayers falling flat against the weight of your sorrow.

as the mass draws to a close, the priest's eyes meet yours, his gaze piercing and knowing. for a moment, you feel like an animal trapped in his sights, vulnerable and exposed.

the priest's gaze lingers on you a moment longer than necessary as he processes the end of the mass. the small congregation begins to file out of the pew, murmuring gentle blessings and well-wishes to one another. he watches them go, his eyes lingering on each face, before turning to face you once more.

the nave slowly empties, leaving only a handful of devotees behind, including yourself. he remains at the altar, hands folded in quiet contemplation. the soft rustle of the evening breeze carries the scent of damp earth and decaying leaves, a melancholy reminder of the passing seasons.

"you stayed behind," leon observes, his voice a gentle whisper.

"is there something on your mind, my child?" he approaches you slowly, his large frame casting a long shadow across the stone floor.

“no, father, everything’s fine," you lie through your teeth, your voice barely a whisper.

"is all well?" there's a pause, and in it, you sense an invitation to share your burdens, to unburden yourself to this man of the cloth. but the words stick in your throat, tangled around the aching void your husband left.

what could you possibly say? what good would it do? the priest's eyes search yours, his face etched with compassion. then, he nods, as if he understands the futility of words.

he accepts your silence, his gaze softening with understanding. in this sacred space, he knows better than to pry, to force confessions or unburdenings. instead, he allows you the solitude you crave, the quiet contemplation you so desperately need.

the silence between you stretches on, a fragile truce that exists solely in this sacred space. it's a comfort, of sorts, to have this shared quiet, a reminder that even in the depths of your grief, there are still moments of solace to be found.

"i'll leave you be for now," leon says eventually, his voice a gentle murmur that breaks the spell.

"thank you, father." he nods, a small, reassuring smile playing on his lips as he takes his leave, the soft rustle of his robes the only sound in the hallowed space.

eventually, you rise, stretching your stiff limbs. the cool stone beneath your feet is a jarring contrast to the warmth of the pew. making your way to the front of the church, you light a candle, your fingers brushing against the smooth glass as you set it upon the altar. the flame flickers to life, casting a warm, golden glow over the surrounding statues.

you linger a moment longer, savoring the peaceful atmosphere, before making your way out.

the church is bathed in an eerie, moonlit glow when you return late that night. the candle you lit earlier still burns, its flame a slowly dying down.

you move with a quiet reverence, your footsteps muffled by the soft carpeting as you make your way to the front row of pews. you've come seeking answers, but none present themselves as you approach the altar. the statue of the crucified christ looms above, his suffering face a poignant reminder of the pain that accompanies loss.

the shadows cast by the statues seem to deepen and twist, taking on a life of their own in the dim light. a shiver runs down your spine, the fine hairs on the back of your neck standing on end. something feels off, a discordant note that you can't quite place.

you pray, hoping it’ll all go away, but unease persists.

it's subtle at first, a whispered thought on the edge of your consciousness. but the longer you have your back turned, the more you feel as if someone is behind you. but you don’t dare look.

not until it speaks.

“what are you doing here, my child?," you hear him say softly, his voice carrying a note of gentle warning. "you shouldn't be here this late."

his words send a chill down your spine, the softness of his tone at odds with the tension emanating from him. you slowly turn around, your heart pounding in your chest. leon stands just behind your seat, his silhouette large and imposing against the blackness outside. his eyes glint in the candlelight, a predatory keenness that makes your blood run cold.

"father," you stammer, trying to keep your voice steady. "i... i just felt the need to pray," he takes a step closer, his footsteps deliberate and heavy.

"at this hour? prayers can wait till morning. you shouldn't be here, not alone, not now.”

“but, why?” you ask, a hint of fear creeping into your voice. “does the church not allow visitors at any time?”

guilt pricks at his heart, a sharp pang of conscience that he's not entirely sure he wants to acknowledge. “no, of course not. the church doors are always open. but this is late, and you're alone... it's just not safe,” his tone is gentle, but there's an undercurrent of something else - a hunger he's trying his damnedest to suppress.

“is that really the reason, father?”

guilt gnaws at him, a growing sense of unease that he can't quite shake. "of course, that's the only reason," he lies, his voice wavering slightly. but the truth lingers in the air, a palpable tension that he can't seem to dissipate.

he takes a step closer, drawn to you like a moth to flame despite his better judgment. "perhaps... perhaps i misjudged. the church's doors are always open, for the faithful and the lost alike," his eyes roam over your face, drinking in the curves of your features, the softness of your skin in the candlelight. “especially to you.”

a low groan escapes him, half-desire, half-anguish. "forgive me, child. i should not be saying these things,”

“no, wait—“ you softly reach for his arm.

he freezes at the touch, his breath catching in his throat as your fingers make contact with his arm. the sensation sends a jolt of electricity through him, his resolve crumbling like sand beneath the tide.

"don't," he whispers, his voice rough with strain. "please, don't." but even as the words leave his lips, he can't bring himself to pull away, to sever the connection between you.

“but i haven’t done anything, father,”

"you've done plenty, my child," he murmurs, his voice thick with a mix of longing and self-loathing. "just by being here, by existing... you've awakened desires i thought long buried." leon's breathing grows ragged, his hands clenching into fists at his sides.

he steps closer still, the heat of his body radiating towards you like a physical manifestation of his turmoil. "i am a man, not a saint," his confession hangs in the air, heavy with the weight of his forbidden attraction.

“and…” he shakes his head, a bitter struggle that leaves him weak-kneed and aching. "i should send you home," he murmurs, his hand coming up to cover yours, to hold it in place. "before we both regret this.”

“no, please don’t push me away, father,” you plead.

his eyes flicker closed, as if in supplication to some higher power, as the admission spills from his lips: "i'm sorry, child. so very sorry for what i am about to do.”

his body crowds yours, crushing the air from your lungs with the sheer force of his need. his mouth descends, claiming yours in a bruising kiss that sets your very soul ablaze. the world narrows to the taste of him — smoke, spice, and something uniquely his own.

it's overwhelming, consuming, and yet, somehow, it's the most natural thing in the world.

and when you end up pushed up against his office desk, the wood cold and unforgiving against your back, you know things have gone irrevocably awry. his hands, so recently devoted to guiding prayer, now roam the curves of your body with a reverence bordering on the religious.

your lips part on a gasp, allowing him greater access, and he seizes the invitation with a fervor that leaves you breathless. large hands roam your body, mapping the contours of your frame with a desperation that belies his years of discipline. he breaks the kiss only to trail open-mouthed kisses down your jaw, your neck, the rapid beating of your pulse point a siren's call he's powerless to resist.

he's shaking, the tremors starting deep within, spreading outward through his muscles like ripples on a pond's surface.

"forgive me, lord," he whispers to himself, as if seeking divine absolution from the sin that he’s about to commit. but even as the plea leaves his lips, he doesn't let go. instead, he raises your hand to his lips, pressing a soft, reverent kiss to your knuckles.

then he's on his knees in front of you, hands grasping at the hem of your dress. the fabric rustles as he pushes it upward, baring your thighs to his hungry gaze. his breath is heavy, face mere inches from your center.

"tell me to stop," he pleads, his voice a ragged whisper. "command me to sin no more, and i will obey.”

for a moment, he teeters on the brink, the line between devotion and lust blurring until it's nearly indistinguishable. "please," leon's eyes lock onto yours, searching for the strength to resist, to obey his vows. but what he finds there is surrender, a silent plea that sends his resolve crumbling like the weakest brick.

"father," you breathe, his name a prayer on your lips.

he closes his eyes, a silent, anguished prayer issuing forth from his lips. his hands tremble as they part your legs wider, stealing a breath from your chest. slowly, reverently, he leans in, finally dragging you underwear down, exposing you to his gaze.

"you are so beautiful,"

his voice cracks on the words, a mixture of awe, reverence, and raw, animal desire. he can't tear his eyes away from your unveiled flesh, drinking in the sight like a man dying of thirst.

"pray with me," he murmurs, his breath hot against your slick folds. "ask for forgiveness, for the sins we are about to commit." even as he speaks, he's dragging his tongue along your inner thigh, the sensation making you gasp and shudder.

"our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name,”

his hands roam your hips, gripping the soft flesh as if to steady himself against the waves of his own depravity.

“thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,"

each curve of your body yields to his touch as his fingertips traced a path of fire across your skin. desperation and control tangled within his gestures, gripping onto the softness beneath his hands as he strives to anchor himself against the tumultuous waves of desire and decadence that threaten to crash over him.

“glory be to the father, and to the son, and to the holy spirit…”

the words are a broken whisper, a plea for mercy that's drowned out by the urgent throb of his own need.

“amen.”

he brings his mouth to you at last, and with a groan of surrender, he begins to eat you out with a hunger that knows no bounds.

he laves at your clit with a fervor that leaves you panting and weak-kneed. you're a mess of whimpers and moans, your hands fisting in his hair as he works you over. leon's grip on your hips tightens, his fingers digging into the flesh as he eats you out with a single-minded determination.

"yes, yes, just like that," you babble, your voice a desperate chant, even as your vision starts to blur at the edges.

one of his hands drifts lower, his fingers seeking out the entrance to your womb. he teases the delicate skin, tracing the outline of your slit before slipping a finger inside. a low groan rumbles in his chest at the slick heat that envelops him, urging him on.he works two fingers in and out of you in a steady rhythm, the lewd squelch of your juices only further fueling his own desire.

"please, father, i need—" the words die on your lips as a particularly intense thrust of his fingers sends you plummeting over the brink.

his eyes blaze with an unholy light as he takes in your ravished expression, his own need reaching a fever pitch. he surges to his feet, shedding his robe and shoving his pants down with a desperate haste. he reaches for you, pulling you forward effortlessly, as if you weigh nothing at all.

he wraps a hand around himself, stroking himself in time with the frantic beat of his heart. "i'm sorry," he whispers, his voice raw with anguish and guilt. "so very sorry."

he hovers over you, his thick length prodding, seeking entrance to the very core of your being. you help guide him in, a hand slowly pushing back on the back if his neck as the thick head of his cock breaching your entrance with a slight burning sensation. he groans, his hips bucking forward as he sheathes himself fully within you.

for a moment, you're both still, letting the intensity of it all wash over you.

and he starts to move forward, inch by inch, the wooden desk creaks in protest beneath you. his eyes squeeze shut as he buries himself to the hilt, your slick walls clenching around him like a vice.

"oh, my lord, forgive me," he breathes, his forehead coming to rest against yours as he struggles to still the tremors that rack his frame. "i am a man undone.”

he starts to move, slowly at first, each thrust a testament to the effort it takes him to resist the primal urge to rut into you like an animal in heat. his hips rise and fall in a deliberate rhythm, each stroke drawing a gasp from your lips.

"you feel so good," he rasps, his breath hot against your skin. he pulls nearly all the way out before plunging back in, the slick glide of his thick length a pleasure unlike anything you've ever known.

sweat drips from his brow as he pounds into you with a fervor that borders on religious ecstasy. each thrust is a prayer, a confession, a plea for absolution. his eyes never leave yours, searching for some glimmer of forgiveness in their depths.

"i'm— i’m close," he warns, his voice strained with the effort of holding back.

your head rolls back, a silent moan escaping your lips as the pleasure mounts. his hands fly to your face, cradling your cheeks as he forces your gaze to meet his.

"please, please, don't look away." he leans in, his lips brushing against yours in a chaste kiss. "i need to see you," he murmurs, his hips stuttering in their relentless rhythm as he fights for control.

he can feel the pressure building, coiling tighter and tighter within him until he's teetering on the precipice. his hands roam your body, kneading and squeezing as if trying to imprint every curve and valley onto his very being.

he's a hairsbreadth from the edge, the tension coiled so tightly within him that he's not sure he can contain it much longer. but for you, he'll try.

he'll endure the sweet agony of restraint. he leans in, his breath mingling with yours as he whispers a final plea.

"dear god, i'm so very sorry." the words are a prayer, a plea for forgiveness not just from the divine, but from you. he knows that what he's doing is wrong, that he's violating the sacred trust that he's been entrusted with as a man of the cloth. but in this moment, caught up in the maelstrom of his own desire, he can't bring himself to care.

he hooks an arm beneath your knees, pulling you higher up on the desk. the new angle allows him to drive even deeper, the head of his cock brushing against that spongy spot that has you seeing stars.

your body responds, arching up to meet him as a keening wail tears from your throat. he watches, entranced, as ecstasy washes over you in waves, your face a mask of rapturous bliss.

you finally feel his heat as it floods your innermost depths just moments later.

he collapses onto you, his weight crushing in its intimacy as he buries his face in the crook of your neck. his heart pounds against your ribcage, a frantic with regret and release.

he stays there, draped over you, his breathing ragged and uneven as he tries to regain some semblance of control. his body is slick with sweat, his muscles trembling with the aftershocks. slowly, he pulls back, his hands still cradling your face as he looks deep into your eyes.

his breath comes in ragged gasps as he struggles to regain some semblance of control, to quiet the chaos that rages within him.

"forgive me," he whispers, the plea hanging heavy in the air between you.

he knows it's not enough. he's broken the trust, violated the sacred vows he's taken. there's no going back from this, no easy path to redemption. the knowledge that he's failed, that he's fallen so very far from the path of righteousness, fills him with a deep, abiding shame. but for now, in this moment, he can only cling to the thin thread of your forgiveness and hope that it's enough.

tags: @crowleyco @withonly-sweetheart @fanilkychae

[gladiatorcunt]

- DO LEVIATHANS DREAM OF ALIENS? | 1a.

this is a low flying panic attack (cybersex is holy)

cw: kinktober prompt (aliens made them do it - bc he asked them too), nonconsensual voyeurism, extreme dubcon, yandere jacaerys, reader has a pussy, 4.6k of porn with plot, getting your back blown out in the 2001: a space odyssey trip scene, inspired by the mentioned movie, old valyria lore and obvious au where the valyrian gods are aliens, restraints, stray mpreg mention at the beginning, world building before the fucking, pussy slapping, piss kink mention

please do not repost, translate, or feed this work to ai

kinktober 2024

2 BC, Gaelithox Star System inhabitant number 616. Subject Name: Earth (Human Outreach Base)

In the wake of doom, the world smoldered. Every realm, known and unknown, was reduced to scalding ash. Except for a volcanic island guarding the entrance to Blackwater Bay by the name of Dragonstone. A century later in his eternal wisdom, Lord Aerion Targaryen set his three children, Aegon, Visenya, and Rhaenys to take to their dragons and scour the vast emptiness for a miracle. In another universe, there were countless bounties to acquire and lush land to conquer, gilded crowns to pass on to the heirs shared between them. However, this was not to be. Visenya’s sharp eyes spotted gigantic chunks of metal in the narrow sea that resembled castles. One was as black as her brother’s dragon’s, Balerion, scales and as all encompassing as the volcano Valyria’s capital city was built in. The other, a muddier brick red with specks of green and even bigger than the former. She shouted to her siblings, pointing and informing them that she was going to land Vhagar on one of them. Rhaenys and Meraxes followed quickly after her, then Aegon and Balerion.

The violent winds assaulted their skin as they dove down, their blood rushed to their hands and caused a pounding sensation in their ears. It felt akin to a leap of faith, they were lighting a match and tossing it onto a pile of Godswood. Blasphemous and crazed. When flayed open, Targaryens are revealed to be plundering leeches with flaming branches for veins. Birthed from white fire, they are harbingers of calamity and tragedy, some say the heat slowly singes their bones and then their brain until they die. Ripping through an ill-omened husk that wails tears of blood and exhales soot.

All three dragons hissed as their claws kissed the unfamiliar material. It was only for a moment, and strangely they titled their heads up and roared into the skies in unison, a jubilant chorus as if they were connecting with the truest parts of themselves. Visenya and her siblings watched in confusion until they were done. Then their focus shifted to the ginormous metal ovals beneath their feet, Visenya and Rhaenys were on the smaller one while Aegon was on the largest of the two. He walked along the cool surface and stopped at what appeared to be a window of sorts, an opening into the inner workings of the beguiling monolith. Before he could consult with his sisters, he tossed them a self assured grin, pulled open the hatch, and jumped boot clad feet first through it.

When he landed with a harsh grunt and the feeling of his bones being briefly jostled, he discovers that the inside closely resembles the innards of a ship. Unlike the traditional boats that traverse on water with their sails made of flax and their hard wooden bodies, this one seemed to be purely metal. Sleek and shiny, light coming from the opening bounced off of his sword as he used it to gain a feel for his surroundings. It was just as massive on the inside, he had the thought that you could very well fit every major family of Old Valyria in there along with their dragons. Though he did not mind being part of the only ones who could benefit from it, perhaps it was the gods' choice to allow only them to survive.

There were many flashy brightly colored knobs, and Aegon felt out of his depth at the sheer amount of them. A command center maybe, a gravelly voice inside him whispered, controls the entire ship and every single facet of it. He would have to explore this specific mechanism further with Visenya, his eyes wandered elsewhere down the hall to his left. The shadows beckoned him forward, and forward he went.

As he explored the ship, Aegon mentally noted the presence of personal quarters, kitchens, places in which one could conduct work, and all the things one would essentially need to live a happy life. It bore familiar cornerstones of Valyrian architecture, winding spiral spires and exquisite detailing. There was even its very own dragon pit resembling the Bojurlion arena that once sat parallel to the palace in the civic center of Valyria, stables and all sorts of riding equipment and armor included. He strongly felt that such a thing surely proved that this was the miracle his Lord father had sent him to find, from the teats of the gods and into the lap of their chosen one. They must have delivered them a shelter and a way to blaze their trail anew, this time the flip of the coin was in the Targaryens’ favor.

To the Targaryens in the long gone days of Old Valyria, survival was a choice when you were doomed to be the middle of the pack, never soaring higher or lower than where the gods put you.

He climbed through the same opening hours later, eager to catch up with his sisters. It turns out that they had an adventure of their own, their ship was similar to the one Aegon had explored, though they described it as having a much lighter energy and a deceptively cozier atmosphere. The three siblings climbed aboard their dragons and took to the skies once more, carrying hope and fierce determination in their hearts. Lord Aerion was relieved to hear of the gods’ saving grace, and in no time at all, their belongings, dragons, and servants were all ushered into either of the two ships after numerous exhaustive back and forth journeys. Remnants of Old Valyria, maesters, descendants of blood mages from the Anogorian, workers from the bathhouses, soldiers who served in the Valyrian navy, and even merchants from the street markets.

It was quite the shock when the ships shook terribly as soon as their doors closed, and gasps wrung out when the main area was flooded with white light as the vessels rose into the heavens and beyond them.

Soon both ships teemed with life, Honorary Queens Rhaenys and Visenya were wed in Dragonstone’s church. They even had biological children with the help of maesters and the ship’s wildly advanced scientific center. A miraculous device allowed their DNA to mix together and be planted in Rhaenys’ womb, with no need for a man’s contribution. Two sons were born, Maegor and Aenys. On The Red Keep, King Aegon found love with the son of a blood mage newly finished with his apprenticeship, and soon they too were wed and bore heirs of their own. Three daughters, one named after Aegon’s first love, a Baratheon. As the centuries went by, these communities in space grew much like they would have on the ground, however they do dock on Dragonstone island occasionally. It was agreed that life would be better spent among the stars than battling to live to see the next day in the dirt. They took all their human ways with them though, buried under their jewels and extravagant lifestyles, their hierarchy and ruling class and debatable penchant for fire and blood.

124 AC, Gaelithox Star System inhabitant number 460. Subject Name: Valyrian Peninsula Cluster (Interior Quadrant)

It is said that The Red Keep eclipses the Earth’s sun but Dragonstone intimidates it, depicted as having a presence so foreboding that any celestial body dims when the insidious ship passes them by.

Hopeful Would-Be-Prince Jacaerys kneels before a marble statue of the Mother.

“There is something very wrong with me, Mother.” His shake, an icy chill floods through his veins in the lukewarm temperature controlled chapel. “A sickness… a hunger… today I nearly bent my servant over while they drew my bath and tongued their cunt, I do not know if their resistance would have stopped me.”

Their tears would have looked transcendent in the reflection of the steaming hot water.

The statue’s eyes glow and emit a monotone beeping sound, standard routine for every prayer and confession.

The usually pleasant and well mannered prince frets, chewing at his fingernail in thought. Artificial breeding is all too available an option, these days one merely has to go to a maester and undergo the procedure, creating almost spontaneous life from the DNA one already possesses. Such things do wonders for couples with incompatible reproductive organs and those that want to be parents on their own, but it’s not enough for Jacaerys.

You could still be distant. There is no corner of the ship where you are free from his reach, but the prince would very much prefer it if you did not feel the need to scurry off at all. He thinks of himself as a wondrously different young man in comparison to his uncles and stepfather, Jacaerys loves you like a dragon loves a sleep. Helpless to the fear of being devoured by his hunger, but he’d keep you and roll you into a cotton ball in his mouth, savoring the pristine hairs left behind in the grooves of his forked tongue.

Wrestling you and bringing your body to the maesters, watching as they plant his child in your womb, would be meaningless to him. He wants to say he’d conceived your children in your marriage bed, as his family had done for generations before him. The advancements in technology had caused a decline in the tradition’s popularity, and that is precisely why Jacaerys wishes they had never set foot for the stars. You’d be more capable of succumbing to him if you were made to endure the pleasure he knows you could feel, without the miracle procedure. You have not yet mentioned a desire to carry children, not that that topic typically is shared between a servant and their liege.

The population on the ship is declining, the Targryens not producing the numbers they have in the past and various deaths in the family and amongst the smallfolk being a couple of the reasons. Madness from a lifetime of staring out floor to ceiling to wall windows of the same sparkly abyss, the traditionalists who spurn the technological wonders of the gods and grapple with complications in childbirth, the murders brought on by cabin fever. Unfortunate events have given Jacaerys the answer, the gift of a perfect reason to have you. To indulge in the murky facets of his soul, nursing from your bitter burning cup of wine and you in turn his.

If he were to be so goddamn lucky as to be in the same room as you, you would stumble out of there with a tummy full of triplets and a bounty of stretch marks.

“I would give all I am and have to be a loving husband, a dutiful father, if you would see it fit for that to be my path.” He bows his head and brown curls cascade around his face, an angel in the mouth of the guillotine. “At least cure me of this ailment if not, I can hardly stand the teasing from my uncles when I lose focus during the training simulations.”

Nightmares are becoming dreams in my darkest hours.

“My deepest thanks for hearing my prayer, I… I apologize, it is rather foolish I admit. I am not sure what’s come over me.”

The statue's eyes dim and it whirs as it powers down upon the prince’s exit. A most trouble occurence for one of their very own, but once this message is approved and received, the Gods will know the apt solution. Dragon eggs are their own star systems too, the cracks betwixt specks of color in the scales their own constellations, and the men born from them are the apples of the gods’ chromatic rainbow eyes.

A ghostly roar nips at Jacaerys’ heels as he strides towards his chambers, kicking off and throttling the silver pipes.

“For what it is worth, I am of the opinion that your brown hair and brown eyes suit you. Being around your family is no different than going for a stroll in the snow, but you stand out as the tree of solace in the middle. Sturdy and warm in its own way, something you rest on when you grow weary of the world around you.”

Your widening eyes are the first things he sees when he next wakes up. Jacaerys is content to consider this a dream until he moves to brush some of his hair away from his face and is stopped by a harsh clang.

The universe is howling.

He looks down to see valyrian steel chains dragging on the floor attached to cuffs around his wrists. The chains are of considerable length, he imagines that he could walk around the entire room and never get the bindings to go tight. His cuffs are so loose they hardly serve their purpose at all, but his flesh stings when he attempts to touch them. They would likely singe his skin off to the bone if he was their true prisoner and resisted. You have similar ones, but as soon as Jacaerys relaxes his chains vanish and he sits up to take stock of the room you are being held in.

Something sort of like an atrium, gleaming metallic tones with high ceilings and a large divot in the floor where the bed you both are on stands. Tall pillars showcase scrolling led screens, high valyrian scrawlings are preserved and repeated in scarlet pixels. The walls are replaced by windows into the vast openness of space, but it is different from what Jacaerys is used to. Outside is a sea of pure black, neon colors make up the waves, they seem to continuously bleed and fold into each other at the midpoint. There are no stars, no planets, but if Jacaerys squints and pays close attention he can just about make out the heavy flap of leathery wings.

“Shh, shh, it’s alright.” The prince whispers, turning his focus to your panic and stroking a finger down your cheek. “If we were supposed to be dead, we would not even be having this conversation.”

“The princeling is correct. You are safe in *indistinguishable*, this designated facility, our audience chamber, so long as you comply with us and our own.” A chorus of deep and crackling voices boom all at once in both of your minds, their syllables and inflections in their speech overlapping and melding together. “We have heard his prayers for your companionship and have decided to grant Jacaerys Velaryon his heart’s deepest desire. For he has raised valid concerns, this blessing is a multi purpose one.”

“Think of it as a bedding ceremony, and all that that name implies. Once conception is confirmed, you will face the brunt of a painful headache as we leave you. When you stumble into slumber, whether wrapped in an embrace or seperate, vessel number *indistinguishable* Dragonstone will house you once more.”

You gasp as the voices go quiet, and Jacaerys knows you must be aware of the feeling of being watched. It makes the hair on the back of his neck stand up, and gives you goosebumps down your forearms. Goose-pimpled flesh that Jacaerys traces with his fingertips, it’s the least he can do to give you a moment to calm down and get your bearings. Perhaps this is a sign that he has gone truly mad, because he can’t find the same trepidation in your expression within himself.

How often do prayers get answered? Yes, having a swarm of otherworldly all knowing beings witness your love making is quite unusual, but there is nothing Jacaerys would not put up with to form an everlasting covenant with you and your body. So he lays beside you, watching the fabric of your uniform shift and swish as you stretch your legs, a bumbling baby deer finding its footing.

He would smile and laugh, because he’d truly believe no one had ever been happier in their lives than he, but you probably would not take it all that well.

You shut your eyes tightly, either coming to grips with the bizarre reality you now found yourself in or desperately clinging to the hope that this was all a dream brought on by contaminated rations.

“M-my prince… this is not how i envisioned this moment.” You murmur at last, your eyes opening to meet his.

He wonders what you mean by that, could you really have wanted him in all the ways he has wanted you? Surely not all of them, but in the most basic and carnal of them.

Suddenly he knows in his bones that is what the two of you are meant to do, that this is so impossibly right that it must be woven in the grand fabric of fate’s design.

Jacaerys tuts and extends an offering of peace, entertaining his fingers with yours, “I’ll be gentle, this is my first time as well. It was not like I could practice without you finding out about it, I did not wish to hurt your feelings.”

Your brows pinch as he speaks, an instinctive coo gets trapped and tangled in his vocal chords. That expression is precisely why he is glad to be relying on scandalous hologram demonstrations and enticingly hedonistic data scrolls, amusingly numerous and often exuberantly descriptive. His confidence is triple what it was once years past, and Jacaerys would dearly love to lead you by example.

Fake it till you make it, but he is cocky enough now to believe you will never have to pretend in the first place.

A lock must have opened inside you, an opening made ready for him, because your brow lines smooth out and you go lax on the bed spread. You blink up at him as if trying to eat your nerves with your eyes by overindulging on the sight of him. Your face must be hot to the touch, as brave of a front as you’re putting on, you are not immune to embarrassment or fraying nerves.

Jacaerys sharply inhales and takes the tentative first step, settling a hand at the top of your chest and dragging it downward. His fingers catch on the buttons in your bodice and he undoes them with only a couple minor fumbles here and there.

“Ah.” The prince groans, peeling back the black panels in your uniform to uncover the skin beneath. “These breasts are wasted on servant rags, they’re so beautiful. You’re so very beautiful, my love.”

Your teats are round and perky things, so over encumbered with themselves that your flesh pushes out in between his fingers as he squeezes them softly. You softly moan and recline even further on the bed, as much as you are able with the chains still holding onto you. Jacaerys chuckles and lifts each one as if here debating on which decorative jeweled necklace weighed more, the rubies or the emeralds.

“Thank you, my prin- Jacaerys.” You sigh, never forgetting your well taught manners, and then gasp, “Wait, do not just grope them like that- Gods-“

Upon further investigation, the ruby, your right breast, is marginally heavier and bigger, but Jacaerys refuses to have favorites so resolves to love the emerald just as much. He rolls them in his palms for a bit before departing with a loving pat to your nipples.

His palms softly fall to bracket either side of your head, caging you in. “Now come, grant me a kiss, your nerves will fade with practice. What is there to be afraid of?”

His voice grows shakier than he’d like it too, a genuine hint of uncertainty shining through. In this he knows, at least, that it would do you a world of good to take your own leaps of faith. It would have been cruel to ask you such a thing when he had been sitting farther away, but now he is oh so close, the tips of your noses brush against each other is a shy sort of kiss.

Your eyes flick down to his lips and before he can say anything else, you’re leaning forward as much as you can and pressing against them. Jacaerys is pleased that his earlier assertion of your temperament was correct and turns his head, deepening the kiss and slotting his lips in the empty spaces left by your own as they part.

He laughs when the kiss is broken, airy and on the wings of a more formidable beast than love. The beings watching must already be impatient, for when he presses his chest further into yours, he notices a sudden lack of clothes. As if the Gods had grown tired of waiting for you to undress each other properly, not that Jacaerys minds all that much.

The prince snakes a hand in between your bare bodies, slipping down to cup your mound. He sweeps you up in another kiss so as to not afford you the opportunity to shy away when his digits sink into your slick.

“This cunt is overflowing, is this where it feels best? My thumb is right on your pearl just. like. this.” He teases and sketches tight circles on your bud, shifting his body weight to keep you down when you kick out your legs reflexively.

You keen into his open mouth, a high pitched bottle rocket about to go off and explode into bursts of bright color “Yes! Jace, just like that, don’t stop, oh my Gods- I’m so wet, how am i so wet?”

You ask him about your own body like you’re genuinely bewildered and Jacaerys is so charmed, so in love. He wouldn't peg you as the type to go a long while without slithering your hands up your skirt and delivering an unsatisfying orgasm, this much liquid must be drowning you. He takes his sweet time, flicking and playing your pearl in an obsessive fashion, taking your plush breasts into his mouth as his tongue lavishes them in saliva.

You’re making such melodic sounds, one of the songbirds must have escaped from the automated menagerie and fluttered their wings into his arms. Pinks and oranges and greens and purples and oranges spill across the void in his peripheral vision, but this bastardized marriage bed is the only thing Jacaerys cares about. It doesn’t matter that there is no sound save for the squelch of his fingers in your cunt and his rose petal pink lips popping off your tits repeatedly.

Jacaerys has seen many moons during the ship’s travels through the vastness of space, but the way your hips are arching off the bed in search of more of his touch would make any one of them bleed red in embarrassment.

Amused, he teases you now, slowing down his concentric circles into loose ringlets. “So this is not enough?”

“Jacaerys, please- You know it’s not.” You glare but still grind your hips up into his hand, not even bothering to address him by his title, he’ll let it slide in this instance.

He dips down to press a few last kisses to your breasts, nipping at your pebbled nipples and sliding a finger into your cunt. He crooks his fingers, going at a leisurely pace and waiting until you’re near tears to insert a second.

“Mmh, who knew i’d come by such a hungry cunny, almost carnivorous in its attempts to keep me inside its snatch.” Jacaerys grins and pumps his fingers, going faster as he slips a third and then a fourth one in, feeling how your walls cling onto their shape.

You’re like a leech, suckling at his flesh to the point of blood loss.

“ ‘m not…… don’t talk about it like that. Fuck, yes- Jace- take what’s yours already, i’m burning up.”

He kisses you again and abruptly pulls his fingers out of you, slapping your clit in one heavy strike. For all his efforts of taking things slow and keeping the atmosphere gentle and loving, you inspire such a deep teasing streak in him. He could never seriously hurt you, but quick smacks resulting in your eyes flashing with lightning aren’t off the table.

You whimper, wetting yourself under the heel of his palm. The intense colors around you swirl into a psychedelic kaleidoscope pattern, rhythmic beeping comes from the pillars and the atrium seems to hold its breath. You don’t notice when your mind begins to unravel, babbling about needing it being too much and you need to pee. Because there’s a drop of shame that your intuition injects in you, something more than being on the brink of a climax.

“You’re so sensitive, my love, did the slaps make it worse?.” He coos, serving you slap after slap after slap, nothing worse than what would make his hand and your mound sizzle. “Good, you can piss if you need to, there is nothing to be embarrassed about with me.”

You’re so cute, he could never understand how people could stand marrying for anything other than love. The worry that his heart will expand too quickly and splatter around the rungs of his ribcage, that you feel when you lay with someone you love, is a sensation he would slay his kin for. He is aware of its luxury, that he is lucky to experience it at all during his life on the spaceship he will live and die in. He sends a brisk thank you to his ancestors for taking yours with them when they departed and took flight from Earth, the beauty of your swollen tits and stomach will honor them.

And oh, how he wants to make you come on his tongue and around his fingers and every other way possible. In the depths of his soul, Jacaerys wants you to feel as if you were falling from a very high tower, a royal with no choice but to fall skull first into the great nothingness of the beyond. The fragments would adorn the cobblestone just like how your tears frame your lashes.

No, the first time you shatter and crumble to nothing will be around his cock. Stardust sprinkled over the void, scattered like ashes.

Perhaps the worst sin Jacaerys will commit tonight is that he is too impatient to continue the foreplay. He knows that no amount would prevent you from enduring any pain, but he also knows that he did not do enough. He, and the celestial Gods hidden in the stellar bushes, wants you to feel the burn of his cock stretching your walls. Commencing a wedding of sorts between your cervix and his throbbing tip.

“W-wait, ah!”

“Be pliant for me and take my seed, stop being so stubborn and let yourself have this, allow it to blossom and it can just be us for the next round, sweetling. I swear it.”

He will guide you through all the details later.

The neon waves crash against the windows, and the led scrawlings on the pillars glitch and scramble and unscramble themselves as you come together. The atrium dissolves into numbers after you’ve fallen asleep for the final time in the chamber, Jacaerys’s hand clutching your belly and your head pillowed on his chest. Giant wings cradle the pair in their center, ghastly creaking and groaning as they slice through the shifting rainbow patterns. Each moon along the journey is full and winking.

Jacaerys thinks he sees a comet fly over your heads when he’s halfway to consciousness, and he traces the valyrian letters for ‘I love you’ into the bloated skin of your stomach.

The chapel has mysteriously changed places on Dragonstone by the time of your actual wedding, the statue lies dormant.

[infi8ity]

nsfw. | MDI.

∞

NANAMI KENTO WOULD LEAVE HIS WIFE FOR YOU. a truth that crystallized with an intoxicating certainty after a week of nights spent watching your set at the gentleman’s club.

always front and center, whiskey in hand, suit undone, he lounged with his arms draped over the plush velvet red sofa he paid a hefty sum for each night—just to throw you quadruple that on to the stage. if it weren’t for his old lady at home, he would empty his wallet at your feet without a second thought.

after late nights at the office on a business trip miles from home, he could never forget how he had stumbled across club and caught a glimpse of the flashing marquee: “dirty diana.” your name alone sent a thrill throughout him, pulling him in like a moth to a flame.

one glimpse turned into a nightly ritual, each visit an escape from the job slowly eating him alive and failing marriage quickly driving him to insanity. each moment with you a tantalizing promise he couldn't resist. each gaze shared, full of lust and curiosity— intensified his temptation of infidelity.

he could do nothing as he was sucked deeper into a world where all he could think about was you.

you moved under the dim LED lights with a sultry confidence that captivated him completely, each sway of your body around the steel iron pole a siren’s call that lured him further away from his faithfulness. as you danced, every movement seemed to whisper promises he longed to fulfill. a sea of men came to watch your performance every night, but your gaze only found him.

and with that— he knew nothing about you, only that he needed you.

he needed you so badly that the moment you approached him after your fifth set of the week to thank him for his generosity and support, all of his morals shattered in an instant.

he needed you so badly that it took every ounce of restraint not to cum in his pants the moment he heard you speak for the first time—your voice a sultry melody that wrapped around him like a warm embrace. he needed you so badly that within an hour of meeting and sharing a few drinks with you, he was driving you back with him to the penthouse suite of his hotel down the road. he needed you so badly, that he didn't dare feel an ounce of shame when binding your hands together above your head with the tie that his wife gifted him last christmas.

he needed you so badly, that he didn't even have the decency to remove the silver wedding band on his left index finger as he palmed your beautiful tits in between his fingers or as you sucked your own juices clean from his digits.

how could he feel like a horrible person for cheating when your pussy felt as if it were made for him? when your sighs were delicate and pretty, and the way you looked at him beneath your lashes made him forget every worry and trouble he’d ever faced.

with his dick buried deep inside of you, he was lost in a world where guilt didn’t exist.

his wife never fucked him like this. her arch wasn’t as deep as yours… she never drained his cock dry, nor has she ever deep throated his length with such soft and pretty lips. hell she wasn’t even as beautiful as you.

overall, she just wasn’t you.

as you clenched tightly around his dick, your cunt slick with a mix of your climaxes, nanami decided that if he were to die in this very moment, he would die the happiest man on earth.

you knew he was married. you had seen the ring. the way he discarded his phone without a care in the world every time her name flashed across his screen. but you didn’t care. you had never done this before and you should have felt shitty but with every thrust into you, his chants of leaving his wife for you had your orgasm soon crashing over you. voices filling the room, a symphony of praises for each other. he whispers sweet promises of giving you the world.

you’d never have to dance again. at that revelation, you put your all in to satisfying him and he could not get enough of you.

nanami wanted to fuck you for the rest of his life. he wanted to gaze in to those beautiful eyes for all of eternity. dawn broke over the penthouse after countless rounds, and whilst bending you over against the kitchen island and pounding into your sore pussy relentlessly; it was you he let you break the news his wife. in response to her ten missed calls and 17 unanswered messages— under his instruction, you texted her four simple words.

"I want a divorce."

for hours following, he continued to have his way with you, his only regard for you as the new mrs.kento.

∞

© infi8ity. do not repost, translate, or modify my work.

[captain-camille]

_𝐠𝐨𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐧 𝐜𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐦𝐚𝐝𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐞_

‣ Jack Sparrow x f!reader

‣ As a young woman of noble blood, society is a golden cage. There is no mention of you unless the subject is marriage or manners while your trip to Port Royal has become a rescue maneuver. One faithful night aboard the Dauntless you finally snap. And meet the captive Captain Jack Sparrow...

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 18+ language, old society rules, emotional chaos, very light angst ‣ 3,4k words

Your dress weighed heavy on your shoulders, the corset strangled your lungs to a delicate point where you began to feel dizzy.

Silver cutlery laid untouched next to your empty plate. The hunger had long passed. 

Either way was it impossible to properly eat with this torture device crushing your ribs. You would fetch a banana later.

“Miss Sheffield“ Lord Somerset hardly drew your attention while he adjusted his white wig “I find myself greatly invested in the many stories of your brother. They're indeed impressive, are they not?“.

It took nerves to hinder your eyes from rolling.

Instead, you gave him an appreciative but short nod. There was bitter sarcasm within the subtlety of your gesture.

Another man's head, adorned with a teal hat with feathers, turned towards you. Father.

“They are, clearly“. You verbally lend weight to your faux-assent as your father's stern gaze fixed on your face.

You suspected him pleased now.

However, his interest in you promptly vanished and a song of praise of someone else continued to fall from his pale lips.

Sweet, boisterous praise for your great brother, of course. 

You were sick of it but with time had begun to see it as an opportunity to reign over your own life as freely as possible.

For as long as possible.

Every eye and word was on your brother while you, the sister of the new Governor of Nassau and member of the Privy Council, were neigh invisible.

And still you could never leave the shiny prison that was the English noble society. Like living in a nightmare that had occasional sunlight in it but was full of madness anyway.

As the men's triumphant laughter echoed across the room, you pictured how Davy Jones' Locker would be a better place to bide your time.

Or maybe you should run away and live a seamstress' life. Alternatively, a barmaid.

In the corner of your vision you saw Norrington slightly leaning over to you. The new Commodore stationed in Port Royal, as he was.

“You look fabulous tonight, Miss“ he cooed, voice low.

His blue gaze rested on the glittering necklace you wore. A collective of silver, sapphires and pearls Lord Somerset had gifted you upon boarding the Dauntless.

Or perhaps Norrington's gaze laid on your cleavage but if so, he concealed it well.

He had to. Hell would come upon him.

You flashed him a polite smile and a demure “Thank you, Commodore“ before your eyes wandered off to the sea that was painted in the colors of a tropical sunset.

The windows were small but still incapable to diminish the glimmer. It went straight to your heart...

“Since you are a young woman, too-“ the man continued, hoisting a chalice to his lips. Beneath the table, your hand balled in a fist.

It did little to soothe your nerves, though.

“-I wondered whether you would think Elizabeth liked such jewelry as, um, a wedding gift?“ his smooth voice asked but the hesitant tone betrayed him.

You had long seen it in his eyes that Norrington's desires to marry Swann's daughter weren't as honest as he tried to make it seem.

Just as Elizabeth struggled to let go of the young blacksmith Will Turner she was currently trying to rescue.

Just fellow souls lost in this noble dilemma, you almost chuckled to yourself.

Luckily, you were quick enough to bridle any inner jests and looked back in Norrington's eyes.

“I’m most certain she would be delighted. However, it occurred to me that Miss Swann prefers silver to gold.“ you advised him before he got dragged back into a naval discussion with the men. 

Not even thanks were left for your input.

Once again your brother's name was thrown around like a cricket ball. 

The urge to just leave this charade of a dinner grew stronger while darkness began to fall upon the majestic Dauntless.

Candle light reflected in the men’s white and grey wigs like it would in the feathers of doltish pigeons.

Nearly scoffing, the focus of your eyes blurred.

Thoughts wandered off to the small bits of information you had grasped throughout the last two days; a business trip to Port Royal had turned into quite an amusing rescue maneuver as Norrington spotted the smoke signal Elizabeth was sending from a lonely island. 

She was brought onto the ship along with a mysterious pirate who turned out to be none other than the notorious Captain Jack Sparrow.

Lord, he seemed so different to the men you were used to. So interesting…

“Yn, the Lord's question was, would you be his companion on a visit to your brother?“ The raspy voice of your father suddenly cut through your thoughts like a sharp knife. 

You cleared your throat, hiding a muttered “god, no“ along the cough.

No, you simply couldn’t do this any longer tonight.

Tomorrow morning the misery would begin anew and the nights were too short anyway.

Dinner was over for you, you decided and shot up, heading towards the door. 

“Young Miss, where do you think you are going?“ your father called across the room, causing you to spin and face him along with everyone else seated on the grand table.

An unreadable expression settled on your face, lips moving on behalf of your temper. 

“Father, I do believe you won’t miss me much while conversing solely about my brother“. 

Norrington let out a shaky breath, his head turning to expect your father’s answer. Obviously, he was used to Elizabeth's docile manners.

The grey wig beneath Lord Sheffield's hat shifted slightly as he cocked his head.

He looked ridiculous. 

“Then go, yn. I do not have the time nor the patience for your behavior right now“ he sighed, waving his hand in an enervated gesture of dismissal “Check on Miss Swann when you pass by“.

The stingy sensation of the corset fighting your big breaths vexed you, along with your father's aloof attitude.

Nevertheless, he granted you exactly what you wanted; to leave and mind your own business.

A business that had preferably sparsely to do with these men.

“Thank you, sir. I will“ you curled your lips, forcing a hasty smile before your knees bent in a curtsy. “Lord Somerset, thank you again for the generous gift. Commodore“.

The Lord stood up with his chest puffed, trying to address you. “The pleasure is all mine, Miss Sheffield. I wish you a good-“  

But the rest of his irrelevant set-phrase was cut off by the door closing behind your back. It snapped shut with a soft rock of the Dauntless.

As if she felt sorry for you.

Taking a big breath of the fresh sea breeze your tongue finally spoke some truth. “Damn you, Somerset“.

It felt good, even if it did little to improve your situation.

You knew you had to get away from the cabins or else your words of pent-up frustration would eventually find them.

Maybe you would find solace on the quarterdeck instead?

As you marched up the stairs with a grimace on your face from how impractical the heavy dress was, a young maid brushed past you with filled wineglasses on a silver tray. 

She smiled with respect, but could barely hide her excited look at the luxurious necklace.

Her soft lips parted when she spoke up in awe “If I may, Baron Somerset really is doting upon you, Miss“.

At her comment, the matching earrings with the similarly cut sapphires began to itch.

“So it seems“ you answered flatly, still trying your best not to let it all out on the innocent girl. 

“I happen to have overheard him talking about how beautiful your children would be“ she added with enthusiasm, unaware of your aversion to said nobleman.

You felt your gut twist and tighten at the vision alone. 

Children with this man? No.

On the brink of screaming or crying, your hand flew up to grab one of the glasses.

“Did he now?“ You hoisted it and bathed your upper lip in the sweet taste of Portuguese wine “Golden me“. 

Hearing her colleague call for her, the maid quickly curtsied and made her way down to the main cabin.

You sighed heavily, taking another sip.

Up on the spacious quarterdeck you wasted no time, set the glass down on a random barrel and began to take off your earrings. 

They were burning on your skin now.

Anger, chagrin and despair rioted in your veins like a hurricane.

So untamed, you didn’t even notice the man at the helm observing your actions through curious eyes.

“To hell-“ you shouted, kicking your right foot so that your shoe flew overboard in a wide arc “with you, father“ the other shoe followed suit.

“And Somerset“ you tossed one earring into the black sea, holding the other one while you unhooked the expensive necklace.

You didn’t hesitate a second to proceed with this macabre yet somehow weirdly freeing act of rebellion.

With your right arm outstretched, jewelry in your hands, you stood at the ship’s railing, wind in your face.

“And to the depths with this society of hypocrites and it's stupid rules“ your now hoarse voice exclaimed bitterly before your tossing arm got stopped mid way. 

What?

Twisting on your stocking feet, you ended up only inches away from Jack Sparrow’s face who was grinning at you with a pleased sparkle in his dark eyes.

You didn't dare to breathe, mouth agape.

He was still holding onto your arm even though you had lowered it in a mixture of shock and awe.

“Not good. Ye wouldn't wanna be doin' that, lassie“ the pirate purred, gold teeth adding to the captivating shine of his eyes.

Since the Navy took him prisoner, you had never spoken to him. Only eves-dropped when he had persuaded Norrington as if it was easy.

And now you could feel his breath fan across your face, the scent of the sea and rum intoxicating your brain.

Slowly, he unwrapped and lifted his fingers off your arm. One by one like a fan.

“Why not? You cannot stop me“ you eventually found your courage again and yanked your arm away. 

The man scrunched his brows, lips closing. The many trinkets in his dreadlocks clinked as Sparrow cocked his head.

Your eyes were slaves to his eccentric mimic for a little while before you finally got to step back.

His presence somehow calmed you down, brought your nerves to a halt. All the way to the point where you remembered your manners.

“My apologies, Mister Sparrow. I didn’t mean to-“ you began to apologize for the snappy behavior but he interjected with a finger pointing at you.

“Never be sorry for disobeying rules that aren't worth following, luv“.

Irritated by the unexpectedly wise words, you found yourself at a loss for an answer.

This man was a real pirate after all. The closest thing to an anarchical life there was. 

Your heart pumped awe through your veins that began to pacify the storm within. 

Features dropping from trained, polite distance to honest distress, your gaze darted down to the jewelry in your hand. It was worth at least as much as your entire collection of summer gowns. 

The blue stones seemed somewhat black tonight.

As grim as your future. With Somerset. Or any other noble, dim-witted aristocrat. 

The pirate just stood and watched the tragic poem being written all over your beautiful face. His silence allowed the gears in your mind to shift.

Then, you seemed put.

“What even are you doing at the helm, Sparrow?“ You asked to avoid any potential questions when you mindlessly chucked the bundle of jewelry to him.

He grinned again as an audible clink and clatter signaled you that he had caught it.

You were sure that Sparrow had a better use for it than you did. Whatever it may be.

Admittedly, you would have just thrown it overboard or locked it away in a random jewel casket for eternity.

A husky gravel met your ears when he cleared his throat after sinking the necklace deep into the inside pocket of his brown jacket.

It was as if he knew you didn't have any expectation of thanks or desire for inquiring about your deed.

“Isla de la Muerta can only be found by those who already know where it is-“.

Slow steps of heavy boots on wooden tiles neared you from your left.

“And rumors have it me, meself and I have a heading Norrington doesn’t, savvy?“ Sparrow slurred, snapping open a compass as he leaned his back against the railing next to you.

With your eyes raking over the dusk ocean, you couldn’t help but risk a peak over to his hands.

You grimaced. The compass obviously didn’t point north.

Was he tricking the Commodore?

Suddenly, Jack chuckled, clearly having seen your expression.

“Nah... tale for another night“ he simply stated closing the small, brown box again.

His intense gaze crawled all over your side profile and pinned updo. “Tell me somethin’ about ye, Missy. Plagued by those wig-suckers, eh?“ 

You gave a snort of laughter, enjoying his unfiltered way of addressing the men you were used to calling 'Lord', 'Governor' or 'Commodore'.

“You know exactly who I am. Do not call me Missy“ you snapped, biting down a playful smile no one had ever elicited as easily as the foreign pirate did.

Perhaps it should worry you but it didn’t in the slightest. 

Jack arched his figure to lean back more and study your edged expression from the front. You tried to shoot him an unfazed look but the pirate saw right through it and smiled widely. 

How he could read you so emphatically was far beyond what you were used to from men. It confused you. 

Just as it puzzled Jack that your behaviour was so devoid of any of the hospitality and judgement he had come to expect from your class.

It only drew the both of you deeper into whatever this conversation would become.

“Apologies, me bad. Miss Sheffield“ his deep voice cooed, finally cracking your surface and putting a soft blush on your cheeks.

“It never occurred to me that Pirates can be this charming“ you snickered with a hint of irony, eyes resting on Sparrow’s unique features for a moment.

His tanned skin was reflecting the flickering light of oil lamps. Sparrow was a handsome man, you realized.

Effortlessly and in tune with the ship's rocking, the man pushed off the railing to trail behind you.

“I always expected Pirates to be more- rogue, I suppose“ you mused, more to yourself.

Sparrow tsk'ed but he didn't seem hurt.

Your head cocked when you felt his hot breath close to the nape of your neck.

“A Shilling that I can alter your outlook on Pirates all by me onesies, eh?“ His comment was nonchalant and smug but in a swinging way.

This man had nerves. 

“Didn't I just give you a collier worth far more than one Shilling?“ you asked rhetorically, amplifying the perky tone.

The pirate hummed, as if contemplating. “Alright, then. Consider your debt paid“.

It was utterly refreshing to converse so freely without any rules or boundaries. You grew fond of it with every passing second. 

When Sparrow didn’t re-appear on your other side, you turned around to spot him chugging down the wine you had abandoned in your rage.

“Sorry, it’s no rum but-“

“-good. That’s good“ he complimented the red liquid, analyzing the ornate chalice through narrowed eyes before he sat it back down.

Carefully, with his pinky stretched out with decorum.

You caught yourself giggling but promptly covered your mouth with a palm. Habits. 

“So, Miss Sheffield...“ the pirate urged you, swaggering closer until he stood by your side again. His elbows were quickly propped on the reddish railing.

“Pray tell“.

You sighed. However, the will to empty your heart was unbreakable. 

It was easier when your gaze found shelter in the darkness of the Caribbean night but Sparrow’s stare lingered on you nonetheless. 

“I- I feel like- No, I am trapped. Trapped in a golden cage with only dull bumbles who want to possess women of standing as if they were accessories for their prevalence-striven plans“ you began to complain, your words gaining speed and intensity throughout the sentence. 

Honest pity flashed behind the pirate's charcoal outlined eyes.

The man had never thought he was capable of pitying those who were born with a silver spoon in their mouths.

And still, there he stood, stricken by the pain in your melodic voice.

You gasped for air, your mind wanting to go on but your throat began to burn on the verge of crying.

“I must behave according to the rules of society, no matter what it is I truly desire. All the poisoned praise goes to my brother while I am only of importance when the subject of my marriage is discussed“.

“Ye brother be the new Governor of Nassau?“ Sparrow eventually asked, his gaze sliding down to where your nails were nervously scratching lines into the wooden railing.

You couldn’t help but scoff in annoyance of his title. “Yes, that be him“. 

The man next to you shrugged his shoulders, the trinkets and charms once again clinking. You would love to find out where he got each of them from.

“I could, in fact, sack Nassau port for ye as soon as I rip me Pearl from Barbossa’s slimy, old hands“ a tad of disgust infused his bold words at the foreign name.

“Jus' a humble offer. What ye say, lassie?“. 

Sparrow was trying to cheer you up.

A small smile began to reign over your lips again, toes curling. “That would only get you killed, fierce pirate“ you noted, trying to sound as judicious and rational as possible.

Instead, he grinned even broader and spread his arms in an eccentric, self-presenting pose. “I’m Captain Jack Sparrow, luv“ he declared as if it was self-explanatory.

For the first time in a while the sea breeze caught and carried your sincere laughter.

Sparrow’s braided goatee twitched as he found himself biting his lip at the pretty sound and look.

You were a stunning woman in noble clothes with noble blood in your veins but with a spirit as wild and ravenous as his own.

You enthralled him.

“Bring this to my daughter. She shall eat, at least. The Commodore risks too much by rescuing young Turner, he cannot afford to see his fiancé unwell“ Governor Swann’s order suddenly boomed across the main deck, followed by hasty steps of a maid.

Instinctively, Sparrow snaked his hand around your shoulder, across your chest and pulled you back with him.

Out of sight.

His rough hand on your mouth muffled a shrill cry just enough. 

“They thinkin’ yer asleep, eh, Miss Sheffield?“ His voice was lowered, almost just a husk and yet it was filled with this mischievous, flirtatious tone.

God, this man sent shivers down your spine like no other. 

But he was still a lawless pirate.

A prisoner, even.

Suddenly, whyever, the gravity of your situation and the futility of tonight's zeal made you feel how cold and wet the floor was without shoes.

Brown dreadlocks pressed against the back of your head irrevocably disheveled your updo. 

“Asleep, as I should be...“ you muttered, infused with a hint of re-surfacing anger and despair.

You wriggled yourself out of his protective grasp. The pirate's brow was raised, eyes narrowed on your face.

There was a haze of danger and waywardness about Jack Sparrow that made you question your own courage and spirit. 

“Why did I even tell you all that in the first place?“ you exclaimed, hands thrown up. Slowly stepping away from him, you felt all the emotions crushing your mind.

“You most likely do not care, neither do I profit by wailing. It doesn’t bear contemplating...“.

Sparrow wrapped his right hand back around the handle of the helm, looking rather unfazed by the confusion that was spreading in your system like the Portuguese wine in his own. 

Heavy silence and the occasional laughter from the men in the Captain’s cabin mingled with the soft splash of sea water. 

Your feelings were now as erratic as the rhythm of the crashing waves.

“Look 'ere, luv“.

Your gaze was just about to turn from pleading to the usual bored emptiness as you saw his free hand wander down to his leather belt.

A smirk adorned his bearded face when skilled fingers rapidly detached the compass and threw it over to you.

Stumbling slightly as the ship rocked, you caught the brown box before it could hit the ground.

You heard Sparrow mutter a muted “Thank god“ that made you want to snap at him but the gesture was too interesting not to query.

Why would he think you needed a compass?

Fluster painted your features when you met his weirdly satisfied expression.

“Aren’t you Captain Jack Sparrow? Don’t you need a compass for... that?“ You asked with less challenge in your tone than initially planned.

He chuckled beautifully, shaking his head with eyes closed.

“What?“ You probed when his dark gaze began to rise up from the floor, along your figure.

“I may be without me compass but not without heading and a plan“ the pirate finally explained, taking another step closer to the helm “You, contrastingly and tragically, lack both“. 

Your arms came up and crossed defensively in front of your chest.

But his words and the tight corset made you drop them again rather quickly. 

He was right. You had been lamenting about your situation barely three minutes ago.

“So? What exactly is your compass going to change about that, Sparrow?“.

You peered down at the inconspicuous looking box.

“Everythin'.“ Sparrow stated with a touch of mystery. “Listen what ye heart wants and the compass is gonna give ye a heading, savvy?“.

A big part of you wanted to believe what this infuriatingly interesting man promised while another voice was whispering to you how it was literal magic he was implying.

Magic. 

With a hesitant gesture of offering it back to him, you hoped to find out which voice to listen to.

“But you would want it back, right? It is yours after all“ you commented your action with genuine concern and a small smile.

Plus, the fear that Norrington would kill Jack if he couldn’t find the Isla without his compass. 

Captured by the pirate for one last time, you watched his gold teeth flash in a wide grin, his tattooed hand spreading on his chest as a sign of integrity.

He was being honest, you felt it.

“I will be gettin’ it back, luv. Don't ye worry“. 

Before you creeped down the stairs and eventually headed for your cabin to ponder on your heart's desires, the last you saw of Captain Jack Sparrow was a charming wink. 

The last for now, at least.

♡ thank you so much for reading my very first POTC fic ever ♡

𝐝𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐮𝐩 𝐦𝐞 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬, 𝐲𝐨 𝐡𝐨

@mochie85 @holdmytesseract @socksracoon10 @goldencherriess @chronicallybubbly @kcd15 @always-on-hiatus

[softonshanks]

Underwater love

Characters: Shanks x female reader

Total word count: 1449 words

Plot: After a night of wild partying on their ship, the Red-haired pirate are drunk. Shanks falls out of the ship into dark water, but Y/N is ready to do everything she can to save her Captain.

Author's note: I was listening to this song, Underwater love by Faith no more and the title made me think about this dumb thing.

Let me know if you like it (: English isn't my first language so I apologise for any mistakes.

The air was quiet now. The party had died down, the last echoes of drunken laughter swallowed by the night’s swell. The ship rocked gently, cradling the worn bodies of pirates deep in their dreams. A few lanterns still burned low, casting long shadows across the deck.

Shanks sat on the edge of the rail, a bottle dangling from his calloused fingers. His vision swayed with the sea, the stars above him like pinpricks of light. He couldn’t remember when he’d had his last sip—only that everything felt warm, dizzying, like the world itself was drunk alongside him. Tonight, he recognized he had drunk far more than usual.

Y/N leaned back against a barrel, eyes half-lidded, watching him with quiet amusement. Her shirt clung to her skin, the salt of the sea lingering, but she liked it that way. The air was rich with the scent of rum and ocean spray, a scent she had come to associate with freedom. She was finally living the life she had only dared to dream about: no more rules, no more useless tasks—just her and her greatest love, the sea. Like the rest of the crew, she drank a fair amount of rum that night, but she left as soon as she felt the alcohol start to kick in. She didn’t feel like getting drunk this time; she just wanted to appreciate what she had earned: the beauty of the waves, the peace of the night sky, and the sound of the waves gently rocking their ship.

Shanks was laughing about something to himself, words slurred, his red hair wild as always. He tipped his head back and howled into the night sky, laughing and jumping around, spilling the rum from the bottle he was barely holding.

“Shanks, you should sleep,” Y/N called out softly. “You’re gonna fall off if you’re not careful.”

But Shanks was far past careful. He stood, balancing on the rail now, arms outstretched as if he could catch the stars themselves. “I’m the Red-Haired Shanks! I fear nothing—”

And then, predictably, he toppled backward, disappearing into the dark waters below with a splash.

Y/N didn’t hesitate. She was already moving, jumping, and diving into the cold, black sea. The water engulfed her, a shock to the system, but she forced her legs to keep kicking, pushing her toward him. She found him quickly, his red hair bobbing in the water, a shadow beneath the surface.

His eyes were closed, but he was breathing.

“Idiot,” she whispered as she grabbed him under his arm, struggling to keep both their heads above water. He was heavy—dead weight in her arms—and the sea was unforgiving. But she held on. She always held on. Her arms fought against the waves while Shanks's body was pressed against her shoulders. Her legs got tangled in his long black coat, so she decided to untie it. She watched the rough fabric get swallowed by the sea before raising her gaze and noticing that the ship’s lanterns above had become distant, hazy spots of light as the waves closed over her head. Screaming would have been useless, and even if she could, none of the crew members would have heard her.

The night was long. The stars seemed to drift in and out of her consciousness as she swam, Shanks’ breath shallow but steady on her shoulder. The ship was gone from sight. The ocean was vast, but Y/N never stopped moving. Her muscles burned, her skin raw from the salt, but the thought of letting go never entered her mind. Not once. The horizon remained empty, the waves high, but she swam, breath by ragged breath.

As dawn broke, painting the sky in shades of soft pink and gold, Y/N saw a distant speck on the water. The ship. Their ship, anchored in the harbor. She pushed herself harder, her limbs numb, her mind fogged with exhaustion. By the time they reached the shore, her body was nothing but a bundle of aching nerves, and she had to bite back a cry as she hauled Shanks over the side, collapsing beside him.

When Y/N woke, the world was soft and quiet again. She was in a bed below deck, wrapped in a blanket that smelled faintly of smoke and seawater. Her body was heavy with exhaustion, every muscle protesting as she shifted beneath the sheets. It was then she felt him. Shanks was beside her, lying on the edge of the bed, his eyes red-rimmed and glistening with tears. His face was inches from hers, close enough that she could see the rawness of his fear etched in every line of his expression.

“Y/N…” His voice was rough, barely above a whisper.

She blinked, her vision still clearing, and saw the tear that had fallen to his cheek. She had never seen Shanks cry before. He had always been the fearless captain, the one who laughed in the face of danger, who roared with laughter even when the odds were impossible. But now he was trembling, his eyes desperate as they searched hers, and she realized with a start that he was terrified.

“I thought I lost you,” he said, his words stumbling over themselves as if he couldn’t hold them back any longer. “You… you…”

“What happened?” she asked in a feeble voice, signaling him to pass her some water. He got up, still shaking, and grabbed a bottle of water to give her.

“They found us passed out on the shore. They noticed we were missing at dawn. Luckily, you managed to swim beside the ship for like three hours before arriving here.”

Y/N listened silently.

“Y/N, you saved me. I—damn it, Y/N. What if—” His voice broke off, and he shook his head, his hand gripping hers like a lifeline. “I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t…”

She lifted her hand weakly, watching him shed a tear on his cheek. “You’re a fool,” she said softly. “But you’re here. That’s what matters.”

His breath hitched, and he leaned his forehead against hers, closing his eyes. They lay like that for a moment—no words between them, just the sound of their breathing, the gentle rocking of the ship beneath them. The storm of fear that had been in Shanks’ eyes slowly ebbed away as he exhaled deeply, grounding himself in the warmth of her presence.

When he opened his eyes again, they were softer, though still glistening with unshed tears. His thumb brushed lightly across her knuckles, a touch so gentle it almost undid her.

“I’m sorry about your coat, though. Guess it belongs to a lucky fish now,” said Y/N to break the tension. She was just like her captain, always trying to resolve things with a joke, incapable of keeping it serious. This time, though, Shanks didn’t join her laugh. He greeted her with a small smile, still holding her hand.

“Y/N,” he whispered, his voice trembling. “I don’t need my stupid coat. I need you.”

She felt something inside her chest tighten, the emotion so raw and unexpected that she almost gasped. Her heart beat loudly in her ears, matching the rhythm of the waves. And in that moment, as his hand slipped to cradle her cheek, she knew. She closed her eyes and leaned into his touch, the heat of him so close. And when she opened them again, she saw the shift in his gaze, the way his lips parted slightly as if he were about to speak again—but he didn’t.

Instead, he kissed her.

It was soft, hesitant at first—like a man reaching for something fragile, something he wasn’t sure he deserved. But then she kissed him back, her fingers curling into his hair, and it was as if the dam broke. Every emotion they had pushed aside, every unspoken feeling, flooded into that kiss. It was desperate and sweet and filled with the ache of two people who had danced around this moment for far too long.

When they finally pulled apart, breathless, Shanks rested his forehead against hers once more. His tears had stopped, but his eyes still glistened with something she had never seen before—something deeper than affection, something close to awe.

“You saved me,” he whispered again, his voice rough but sure. “Not just last night.”

Y/N smiled softly, her fingers tracing the lines of his face, memorizing every inch of him in the early morning light.

“Then let me keep saving you,” she whispered back.

Shanks laughed softly, still holding her hand, knowing that it would be a gesture he would do daily from now on.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Symbols

To describe a physical symbol, it might be easier if we first focus on its individual elements, then perhaps integrating all of these elements to create a more coherent whole. Below is an overview of elements or basic shapes that we typically find in symbols.

The Basic Shapes of Symbols

There are elemental structures that occur repeatedly, not only as component parts of more elaborate symbols, but also with rich meanings of their own.

It’s probably true to say that the simpler the symbol, the more scope there is for interpretation; ergo, the more meaningful it is and, paradoxically, the more complex it becomes.

These primary shapes transcend barriers of time, geography, and cultural context, part of a universal language that goes before, and beyond, words.

SPACE

The elements of a symbol are defined only by the space that is a part of its construction.

Like the wind, the effect of space is gauged by its effect on the things within it or surrounding it.

The concept of space, the void, is a profound part of our experience.

To reach a state of “emptiness” is, for many, the ultimate spiritual experience and a way of connecting to the Absolute.

To be aware of the possibility of space within a flat, two-dimensional representation is to give that shape substance and a new kind of reality that lifts it off the page and makes it real.

The realization that “nothing” can be “something” marked a profound leap forward in man’s development.

All creation myths begin with a Void, symbolic of potential.

Although attempts to explain the concept of space are inevitably faulty, it might help to think of a blank page.

Before a mark is made upon the paper, the potential for what might appear there is so vast as to be unimaginable, a consideration which causes consternation for some artists and writers.

Without this space, there is no arena for anything else to exist.

This absence of any thing means that no thing is the most important symbol in the World.

DOT

A dot might seem to be an unassuming little thing, the first mark on the pristine sheet of paper.

In this case, the dot is a beginning.

But see what just happened there? The dot, an essential component in the structure of the sentence, closed it, making it a symbol of ending.

Therefore, the dot is both an origination and a conclusion, encompassing all the possibilities of the Universe within it, a seed full of potential and a symbol of the Supreme Being.

The dot is the point of creation, for example the place where the arms of the cross intersect.

The dot is also called the bindhu, which means “drop.”

The bindhu is a symbol of the Absolute, marked on the forehead at the position of the third eye in the place believed to be the seat of the soul.

The presence of dots within a symbol can signify the presence of something else.

A dot in the center of the Star of David marks the quintessence, or Fifth Element.

It also acts as reminder of the concept of space.

The decorated dots that surround the doorways of Eastern temples are not merely ornamental devices but have significance relevant to the worshippers.

Dots frequently appear in this way, acting as a sort of shorthand for the tenets of a faith. Examples:

In the Jain symbol, the dots stand for the Three Jewels of Jainism.

The dots in each half of the yin-yang symbol unify the two halves: one dot is “yin,” the other “yang.” Together they demonstrate the interdependence of opposing forces.

CIRCLE

Effectively an expansion of the dot, the circle represents the spirit and the cosmos.

Further, the circle itself is constructed from “some thing” (the unbroken line) and “no thing” (the space inside and outside this line).

Therefore, the circle unifies spirit and matter.

The structure itself has great strength—think of the cylindrical shape of a lighthouse, built that way in order to withstand the fiercest attack by a stormy sea.

The physical and spiritual strength of this symbol are there because the perfect circle has no beginning and no end; it is unassailable.

This power is the reason why the circle is used in magical practices such as spell-casting.

The magic circle creates a fortress of psychic protection, a physical and spiritual safe haven where unwanted or uninvited entities cannot enter.

Hermes Trismegistus said of the circle: "God is a circle whose center is everywhere and circumference is nowhere."

Where would ancient man have seen the most important circles? Obviously, in the Sun and the Moon.

As the Sun, the circle is masculine, but when it is the Moon, it is feminine.

Because the passage of time is marked by the journey of the Sun, Moon and stars in orbit around our Earth, the circle is a symbol of the passage of time.

In this form, it commonly appears as the wheel.

Because the circle has no divisions and no sides, it is also a symbol of equality.

Example:

King Arthur’s Round Table was the perfect piece of furniture for the fellowship of Knights who were each as important as each other.

ARC

Perhaps the most prominent arc of the natural world appears in the elusive form of the rainbow, which primitive man saw as a bridge between the Heavens and the Earth.

As a part of a circle, the arc symbolizes potential spirit.

The position of the arc is important:

Upright, shaped like a cup or chalice, it implies the feminine principle, something that can contain the spirit.

If the arc is inverted, then the opposite is true and it becomes a triumphal, victorious, masculine symbol.

As such, the arc can take the form of an archway.

The vaulted or arched shape of many holy buildings, from a great variety of different faiths, represents the vault of the Heavens.

The arc shape often appears in planetary symbols.

VERTICAL LINE

Man stands upright, so the vertical line may represent the physical symbol of the number One, man striving toward spirit.

This simple line is the basic shape of the World Tree or Axis Mundi that connects the Heavens, the Earth and the lower regions.

It is not only a basic phallic symbol but also signifies the soul that strives for union with the Divine.

The upright line tells us where we are at a precise moment; think of the big hand of the clock, vertically oriented at 12 o’clock.

HORIZONTAL LINE

Represents: matter, and

the forward and backward movement of time.

This line also signifies

the skyline or horizon and man’s place on the Earth.

CROSS

Here, the vertical and horizontal lines come together to create a new symbol—the cross.

There are countless different types of cross. Despite any embellishments or devices, however, the basic meaning of the cross stays the same.

The earliest example of the cross comes from Crete and dates back to the fifteenth century BC although the sign is much older than this, ancient beyond proper reckoning.

It is an incredibly versatile and useful sign with many interpretations.

As the convergence of the vertical and horizontal lines, it symbolizes the union of the material and the spiritual (think of the sign of the cross given by Catholic priests).

As a geometric tool, it has no equal; if you put the cross inside the circle, then you are able to divide the circle equally.

Similarly, the cross is said to “give birth to” the square.

Because of its four cardinal points, the cross represents the elements and the directions.

Examples:

In the West the cross equates with the number 4,

but in China, it is associated with the number 5 since the “dot” in the middle of the cross, where the two arms intersect, is also included.

The cross is sometimes disguised as another symbol, such as a fourpetaled flower.

All over the world, the cross is a symbol of protection.

SQUARE

Said to be the first shape invented by Man, the square represents the created Universe as opposed to the spiritual dimensions depicted by the circle.

The square represents the Earth and the four elements.

Plato described the square, like the circle, as being “absolutely beautiful in itself.”

Like the cross, the square is associated with the number 4.

A square has four corners; to speak of the “four corners of the Earth” is something of an anomaly since the Earth is round, without corners.

All the symbolism of the number 4 is encompassed within the square, and it is interesting to note that, just as the square represents the created Universe, in the Hebrew faith the Holy Name of the Creator is comprised of four letters.

The square gives man a safe, static reference point, and a stable, unmoving shape as opposed to the continual motion of the circle.

Temples and holy buildings are often built in the form of a square, solidly designed to align with the four points of the compass.

Examples: The Ka’aba at Mecca; the base of the Buddhist Stupa; altars.

Square shapes define limits and create boundaries.

To speak of someone as being “square” means that they are fixed and unchangeable.

LOZENGE

A diamond shape often with rounded (rather than pointed) ends, the lozenge is often overlooked, but is actually a representation of the female genitalia.

As such, its most popular appearance is probably as the vesica piscis, the sacred doorway through which spirit enters the world of matter.

In heraldry, for example, the lozenge is used in place of the masculine shield, to denote a coat of arms belonging to a woman or a noncombative male, such as a member of the clergy.

TRIANGLE

The triangle shares all the symbolic significance of the number 3, as a shape, and therefore represents the many things that come in groups of three, from the Holy Trinity to the triple aspect of the Goddess.

Triangles appear in lots of different signs and symbols.

In ancient times, the triangle was considered synonymous with light, and the meanings of the triangle vary according to which way up it is:

When it sits firmly on its base, then it is a masculine, virile symbol, representing fire.

The other way up it becomes the water element, a chalice shape, emblematic of the feminine powers.

Balanced on its point in this way the triangle also represents the yoni, further underpinning the Goddess aspect.

The equilateral triangle is a harmonious form, used to indicate the Higher Powers, providing a framework, for example, for the All Seeing Eye of God.

As a symbol of strength, the triangle reinforces the corners of the square, both physically and meta-physically.

The solid shape of the triangle also makes its appearance in yogic positions, for example in the Trikona Asana or Triangle Posture.

DIAGONAL

The square can be divided into two diagonal triangles.

Because the length of these shapes has no simple relationship to its sides, the Greeks concluded that the diagonal must be a symbol of the irrational.

Therefore, the diagonal, or oblique, has come to be associated with the incomprehensible, occult world.

ZIG-ZAG

However it is interpreted, the jagged shape of the zig-zag carries with it the idea of heat, energy, vitality, and movement, the archetypal sign for lightning or electricity.

The double zig-zag that makes the astrological glyph for Aquarius could be water or it could be the life-force itself.

The serpent that spirals up the Caduceus is a softened zig-zag shape.

There is an inherent danger in the zig-zag, and the deities that carry it in their hands do so as a sign of their own authority and power.

Source ⚜ Writing Notes: Symbolism ⚜ Writing Notes & References

Hope this helps. Do share with me your writing if it does. I'd love to read your work!

[persuasivetfs]

A Concerned Friend

Funny thing about churches, for all their talk about faith and trust in their fellow man, they always locked their backdoors, at least all of the different churches Carlos used to attend with his parents did. The back door of Our Lady of Sacred Contentment church seemed to be an exception to the rule. Not only was their backdoor unlocked, but unmonitored by the barest of security systems. It was almost as if they were daring someone to break in. Thankfully Carlos wasn’t there for anything malicious, he just wanted information.

The lanky youth still struggled with the door though. It was heavy, made of a thick wood that required his whole weight to push open. Once inside though he was alone. Carlos made sure to pick a time when, according to the bank’s outward facing security cameras across the street, there was little movement in and around the church.

Slinking through the carpeted back rooms and hallways of the church, Jeremey stealthily made his way into the back office. Closing the door quietly behind him, he then drew the blinds, before sitting down at the office computer. While Carlos would have been ill-prepared to deal with a locked door due to his low physical strength, he was more than ready to tear into the church’s firewall. He had arrived with his flash drive, connective cables, his laptop, and years of experience hacking into the security system of his old high school. Except, like the back door of the church, the computer was left practically wide open to infiltration. Private files, including that of financial records and the personal notes of pastors were all helpfully labeled and the computer didn’t even require a password to access. Only a slight movement against the mouse.

Shaking his head with disappointment, Carlos nonetheless began pouring through documents. At first, he started with a broad scan of words including “testosterone”, “hormones”, and “steroids” but came up empty. So he broadened his search to include “body-building”, “strength”, and “masculinity” which brought in new results but not the kind he hoped. What he was expecting to find was a miracle drug, not articles encouraging “sportsmanship” in church league basketball and notes for sermons around “healthy masculinity” based on the life of Jesus. So, desperate, he broke the one rule he set aside for himself. He looked for information on Dwayne.

Before the church, Dwayne had been his best-friend since high school. Two nerdy non-white boys in a sea of white faces that ruled over AP courses like their own exclusive club. Carlos had even been excited that they were staying in town together, even if Dwayne himself didn’t have plans beyond high school. He always hoped that as soon as his programming career took off, that he would convince Dwayne to join in on the gold mine with him. Then the two of them could move to Silicon Valley and live comfortably, maybe even together, Carlos had hoped together. Then Dwayne suddenly joined the Church and everything changed.

It was like his whole personality changed. Everything was about Jesus, and when it wasn’t about Jesus it was about basketball, and when it wasn’t about basketball it was about Keyon.

Keyon said this, Keyon said that. As if Keyon hadn’t stopped hanging out with them the second he realized he could get more respect playing sports than he ever could on the mathletics team. Dwayne, too, had become a stranger. An extremely attractive stranger, but one who wouldn’t even look at Carlos anymore. It frustrated him to no end.

All this time Carlos had assumed it would be him and Dwayne against the world, but now he didn’t need him anymore. He had Keyon and his girlfriend and his sports, and Carlos had what? His computer? His ability to peer into any security camera system he wanted? The hope of a well-paying career in the face of climate collapse?

At that point, Carlos had even floated thinking of joining the church outright. Homophobic or not, he had seen the church’s results on his former friend and all the bizarrely muscular and attractive Christian men in town, and God did he want that same body for himself. At least if he was in the Church, he could likely fuck all the hot sexually repressed men he wanted, but then he thought, why give them the satisfaction? At least by taking the information directly, he might find a way to look that good and not have to join a cult.

As he searched for any information on Dwayne, he was surprised to find not only detailed notes on his former friend, but many other active members of the Church. Hidden in a file labeled “mental evaluations” Carlos found scores of information detailing people’s personal lives.

Under Dwayne he found notes like, “Subject remains content and blissful in the Lord’s love, but his attachment towards Keyon may require further conditioning. Seems to have no recollection of his former life. Pastor Carter is supervising his continued development but requests advice from a more experienced pastor.” This by itself suggested a level of emotional manipulation and control that Carlos feared but partially expected from Christianity, but there was also a list of all of Dwayne’s personal relationships including those he had before he joined the church, but none of those names were his own. Carlos scoured the list. Identities included second and third cousins and that time Dwayne signed up in a robotics competition with that girl from their AP British Literature course, but not Carlos.

There was a polite knock at the door.

His heart dropped. The door opened and Carlos threw himself to the carpeted floor, facedown. Hoping out of a bizarre strain of luck that the stranger would see the darkened office and then leave. He struggled not to breathe.

“Find what you’re looking for?” a male voice asked from above him.

Spitting out carpet fibers, Carlos raised his head to find one of the pastors looking down on him. A white guy. Fuck.

Instinctively he smiled.

“No hablo inglés,” Carlos tried sheepishly. He went to gather his things while keeping his head down. If the pastors were as trusting as they were with their building’s security, maybe they wouldn’t suspect him if he pretended not to speak English. The pastor cocked his head to the side and smiled warmly.

“Saludos mi amigo de habla Hispana? ¿Qué estás haciendo aquí?“

Fuck. Carlos stopped gathering his things.

“I’m about to be arrested, aren’t I?” Carlos asked, his voice tipped with dread.

“No, but I would like to have a chat. So if you wouldn’t mind, let's take this conversation to the sacristy. Away from the computer,” the pastor said with barely concealed snark.

He stood in the doorway like a teacher as Carlos walked past, the older man following him with his eyes as the pastor shut the door behind him. He led them to the brightly lit room that Carlos had first entered on breaking into the church, then bade him to take a seat in one of two uncomfortable looking purple chairs. Carlos took the one on the left, closest to the office. There was no real chance of escape with his laptop that held all his personal information in the next room. The pastor took the second chair, stretching his limbs like a sleepy cat before he sat down. He crossed his legs like a girl, then leaned forward, his smile wide and unnerving.

“I’m not undocumented,” Carlos blurted out.

“That’s good to know, but if you or anyone you know are, we have many services focused on supporting immigrant communities. I know I have some pamphlets somewhere,” the pastor said, searching his jacket pockets.

“I’m fine. Thank you. If anything I’m just surprised, considering your church’s conservative politics,” Carlos said, eyeing him suspiciously.

“Our Church is a place of God and we welcome all people. Part of our church’s mission in worldwide evangelization is a world free of borders and man-made oppression,” the pastor informed him, cheerfully.

“Right, the only acceptable oppression is the kind ordained by God,” Carlos said, sarcastically.

“Correct,” the pastor answered without a trace of irony.

“Okay, cool,” Carlos said, sinking into the back of his seat.

“So let’s talk about why you broke into the church’s private office today, but first an introduction. My name is Pastor Agosti, and you are…” the pastor trailed off.

Carlos wanted to tell him a fake name. Something cool like Big Papi or Axel Steel. Instead he said, “I know about your church’s mind control program!” He slammed a hand to his lips before he could say anything else asinine.

The pastor blinked.

“How much did you…” he trailed on and at that Carlos immediately cracked. He told Pastor Agosti everything he knew. The secret personal files, the surveillance of church members, the church’s terrible security, the blatant attempts to control people’s personal relationships, the obviousness in which the Church was changing men’s bodies and minds to be more pliable for the church. By the time he finished, Carlos was exasperated. To his surprise, despite the pastor not having left his spot and there being no one else in the church Carlos found a glass of water next to him on a coffee table. Not thinking too much about it, he drank quickly, grateful it was there. As he spoke the Pastor had merely listened attentively, staying quiet and nodding his head every once in a while.

“What do you want, Mr. Rodriquez?” the pastor asked, dropping into a thick Italian-American accent that hadn’t been so prominent as when Carlos began rattling off what he discovered.

“Money? Your friend back? Please, blurt it out at your nearest convenience,” the pastor mocked, leaning back into his chair, folding his hands across his chest like he was a Sicillian mob boss. Carlos gulped.

“I want to be hot,” Carlos admitted to the floor, unable to meet the pastor’s eyes. He felt so stupid speaking it aloud to someone.

“Excuse me?”

“I want whatever you did to Dwayne, minus the Christianity. The beautiful face, the muscular, well-toned body, the confidence. Every man walks out of here looking like a sports model and I want that. Desperately. To be honest, I’ll even take the exact same route you had for Dwayne. Put me on the church intramural basketball team, I don’t care. Hell, I’ll even sit through whatever Church service you want if it means I’ll have a body every gay man drools over. Please, that’s all I want, please just help me,” Carlos practically begged. Just the thought of Dwayne or Mr. Khan or that Bulgarian preacher with the swimmer’s body was getting him hard.

“You know, maybe you’re right, Carlos. Maybe our church has been playing fast and loose with its security. I suppose, us pastors have been so convinced of the Lord’s protecting grace that we foolishly believed we didn’t need to lock our doors or hide the personal changes we’ve brought to some of our followers. Maybe we need to adjust our tactics because if a boy fresh out of high school can soak up so much information behind our backs, we may be in danger,” Pastor Agosti said, nodding his head in thought. Then his gaze fell back upon Carlos who shivered.

“But then again, Mr. Rodriquez, you haven’t been that boy for some time,” Pastor Agosti said and Carlos could only watch as his body began to inflate from underneath him. His fingers, once long and nimble, perfect for fast-paced computer work became short and stubby, more accustomed to holding a pen than they were to typing on a computer. His t-shirt, baggy on his wiry frame, started to strain and tear apart as Carlos’s stomach and pecs pushed outward. His bony ass and narrow hips that had been so easily contained to the cushioned chair, soon became restrained by them as his ass cheeks sagged outward from under the plastic handrests.

“This isn’t what I wanted!” Carlos yelled, breathing heavily. “I wanted to be muscular and athletic!”

“Oh there’s definitely muscle under there, Mr. Rodriquez, just atrophied. Age will do that to a man,” Pastor Agosti said with fiendish delight.

Carlos in a panic felt his hair and sure enough it began to recede under his touch. His hair, once covering his eyes, was shrinking away, his hairline moving back across his skull inch by inch until it nearly disappeared entirely. By the time it was done, only a small pool of hair was left at the very top of his head, and even that was starting to thin out. Yet as his head hair receded, his nose twitched as facial hair grew out over his chin and under his nose.

Carlos wanted to scream again, to thrash and throw the chair at the foul creature that had done this to him, but seeping into his brain came a strange and debilitating calm. He tried to fight it, he tried to resist, but his own body was betraying him, relaxing him, easing him into the changes. He released a deep breath against his own wishes and sighed with relief, his thoughts slowing down. With his increased age and bulk, Carlos was feeling tired, worn down when he should have felt energized and full of fear.

“You no longer have the body you once did, old man. Accept it,” came a thought and on great urging from his body, he did. Maybe when he was younger, Carlos had the luxury to be so wound up and full of nervous energy. It was how he did so well as a wide receiver back in high school and college, but in his middle-age, he no longer had the energy to get too worried about things. Still, as tired as he was, this chair was so uncomfortable.

It was nothing like his own office chair. His office chair was double wide and properly cushioned, allowing Carlos to sit for hours without complaint. Not that he didn’t have much time for sitting during the day. Carlos was far more used to striding across the air conditioned interior of his private car dealership, shaking hands and smiling at prospective clients as they came looking for good prices on new and used cars.

He tried to shake himself out of those thoughts, to focus on what he loved about computer programming and hacking and all the nerdy things he loved all his life, but that sounded just so needlessly difficult. Carlos worked at a car dealership because he was born with a silver tongue so it was easy, he loved sports because everyone else he knew loved sports, he joined the Church because everyone he knew loved Jesus, he hated homosexuality because-

At this his thoughts stopped, confused. He looked down at the shreds of his former life, evidenced by his frayed shirt and tattered shorts.

“What am I even doing here?” Carlos asked himself in a daze. From his straining boxer briefs, his dick was hard at full mast, his balls significantly larger and pressing up against the fabric. It left him tremendously horny, deisiring men, but why would he be doing that if he hated homosexuality?

Upon noticing his confusion at his current state, Agosti willed it so Carlos’s clothes began to shift as his body had done. His torn apart graphic t-shirt depicting a Japanese cartoon, blurred until it became a white collared shirt. His cargo shorts lengthened and widened as they became a pair of black slacks, fastened by a leather belt. His dirty sneakers shifted into a pair of brown loafers while a scarlet tie slithered and tightened around his throat. Meanwhile, his underwear, once the freest piece of clothing on his changed body became its tightest, shifting into a pair of ball clenching white briefs that kept him hard and pent up throughout the day. Then to finish his outfit change, a black Apple watch materialized on his wrist, full of message notifications from his employees at the dealership. He smirked. They were helpless without him.

“Mr. Rodriquez?” Pastor Agosti asked. The heavy set man blinked.

“Right, I forgot. We were talking about faggots weren’t we, pastor?” Carlos asked, his newly deepened voice unsteady.

“I believe we were, yes. You had an observation about them I believe,” Pastor Agosti said, curiously, watching him like a cat playing with a ball of string. Carlos, not picking up on this, smiled at the pastor confidently.

“Yes,” Carlos said, voice rumbling. “I find that the sin of homosexuality stems from a lack of stable Christian parenting, yet even this can be corrected with the right instruction and guidance. It's unfortunate that so many could grow up so confused. A secretary of mine, unmarried, has a son she suspected of such confusion, a man I see like one of my own sons, but after a man to man conversation with the boy I found that all he needed was a slap on the ass for him to return to the path of the straight and narrow.”

“That’s a beautiful story, Mr. Rodriquez. I’m sure it must be difficult with such feminine temptations at work with your own wife working in another state.”

Carlos reflected on the gold ring on his finger, and the precious 16 year marriage he shared.

“Don’t you worry about that pastor. She’s spreading the word of God just as you do. Besides, we find ways to reaffirm our love to one another, even if at a distance,” Carlos said smugly and the pastor nodded.

“I’m glad to hear that, though I have to admit that neither I or to my knowledge any of my fellow pastors, have any need for a new or used vehicle. Your input however is greatly appreciated,” Pastor Agosti said formally, his accent pulling away like a 2008 Jeep Cheroke.

Blinking again, Carlos came to accept the pastor’s words as true. It would make sense that he would corner the priest in private where there would be no one and no pressing responsibilities to take him from Carlos’s pitch. He was a shark, he never gave up on a sale. It would be like fumbling the ball inches from the touchdown line.

“I understand your point of view, Pastor, and I respect it, but as a fellow Christian I feel it would be dishonorable for me not to tell you what I’ve heard from others in town about your choice in vehicle. Some erroneous negative opinions, but if you don’t want to hear it I’ll just leave,” Carlos said, getting up from the chair. He took a few steps and entered the church’s private office. There he gathered his open briefcase full of car listings, and his old laptop, an aged device he barely used anymore and went to leave.

“What possibly could people in town be saying about me? What could you possibly know about it?” Pastor Agosti asked, incredulously. Carlos smiled but wiped it away before the priest could see it.

“Talk is that you're a repressed homosexual yourself, pastor,” Carlos said, quietly.

“What did you say to me?” Pastor Agosti fumed, his left eye twitching.

“Now you didn’t hear it from me, but some people here think that with your rundown sissy Lexus-“

”Rundown Lexus? It's called humility. It’s a good thing, I don’t buy a brand new car every year. So what if it's a Lexus? People won’t think that makes me gay, does it? Does it?” Pastor Agosti asked, displaying an anxiety Carlos didn’t know the normally in control priest had.

”Now, I defended you, truly, swear on the Bible, honest to God, said you were a good Christian and that you practice what you preach, but your choice in vehicle certainly made it… difficult,” Carlos said expressing his unease. His memories were loose in his head, but he could at least piece together a narrative about the priest that he could exploit even if it wasn’t true.

“Then what am I supposed to do? I don’t want the congregation to believe I’m spending their donations to the church on materialistic frivolity,” Pastor Agosti opposed, shaking his head and wiping away sweat. Carlos put a firm, confident hand on the man’s shoulder.

“Pastor, come down to my car dealership whenever you get the chance. I’ll see you in the best used modestly priced car that will finally put those sissy rumors to bed. Here’s my card,” Carlos said with a carnivorous smile, handing him a business card that appeared just as he reached for it. The pastor nodded and took it, eyeing him nervously.

Another alert on Carlos’s Apple watch came up.

“I hate these newfangled things. I need one of my sons just to use my Ipad,” Carlos said with a sigh. He patted the priest’s back.

“Well, I should be off. They can’t do anything without me down there,” Carlos said with a chuckle. He headed for the door.

“Wait, Carlos- Mr.Rodriquez-“ he corrected, “what do you know of Dwayne Taylor?”

Carlos frowned, scratching his head. His life was mostly solidified but there was that last loose end that left him untethered. A vague sense of wanting the two to work together in California of all places but then it hit him.

“Why, he’s a brilliant young man on and off the court. I’m hoping he considers my offer to sell cars for me. He might rival my eldest in terms of natural charisma, though neither of them come close to me,” Carlos said with another proud chuckle, his wide stomach jiggling.

“It's good to hear, Mr. Rodriquez. I was just working on a hunch. I’ll see you down at your dealership real soon. Promise,” Pastor Agosti said, his smile not faltering until he watched Mr.Rodriquez leave the church, step outside, and drive off in his sleek luxury car.

Panicking, Pastor Agosti immediately called Lawrence on his private phone.

“Yes?”

“We have a problem. Multiple ones in fact, but first I need to know. Does driving a Lexus make me look gay?”

Carlos didn’t go to the office. At least not right away. He had some husbandly duties he needed to handle first.

At home, at midday he had the house to himself. There he shed his recently acquired clothes and took a series of nude pictures for his wife. His dick ached at the thought of filling her up with another one of his seed. He hoped it would be a boy, their fourth. Thinking of a world full of big, burly Christian men got Carlos hard in a way that could compel him to rip out the bathroom sink.

“Tell me how much you want to fulfill God’s plan?” Carlos asked in text along with the pictures. After he sent them, he leaned against his office desk and moaned in desperate want. A world full of big men, that’s what he wanted the world to be. Muscular, fat, both, he didn’t care.

All he had to do was keep the faith and surround himself with like-minded men like Dwayne. Then maybe, just maybe, Carlos could see the Lord’s vision fulfilled.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Matt Davies

* * * *

President Carter, may you have fair winds and following seas

Steve Schmidt

President Carter was one of the six presidents who was born in the first 25 years of the 20th century.

Those six presidents led America between 1960 and 1992, before the first baby boomer was elected.

During this speech President Carter talked about the trauma faced by that generation specifically, and the country in general. He talked about the loss of faith, trust and belief in the future that was taking hold and was being driven by many factors. He painted a picture of the road that would lead to Donald Trump 37 years later.

Jimmy Carter reached out to the American people, and spoke a truth that hurt him politically, but this speech was among the most profound an American president has ever given about the American spirit.

He diagnosed a growing lassitude that was driven by consumerism and emptiness. His entire life was a living devotional towards resisting the temptations of a meaningless life for a principled one. He never cashed in, and never changed anything in which he believed. His convictions were backed by deeds. His wisdom should be better known.

There has never been an American president that lived as long as Jimmy Carter, and no American citizen lived longer as a former president than Jimmy Carter. His life has ended, and all of the politics and recriminations, judgements, actions and decisions of a life that has endured for almost 100 years are gone now.

What is left is the full record of an American icon, global statesman, Navy submariner, Sunday school teacher and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. He was married to his wife Rosalynn for 77 years.

Every person who knows him says the same thing. They all say that the Jimmy Carter who became the most powerful man in the world came home as the same Jimmy Carter who left. He led a life of service and integrity.

He was a peacemaker who loved his country, and served it long and well. He was the last surviving member of the generation that fought and won the Second World War, and kept the peace in the dangerous hours of the Cold War.

Wherever there was suffering and injustice in the world the oppressed peoples knew of Jimmy Carter and what he stood for because he stood for them. He stood for the American idea and ideal all through his noble life.

The American people should take a moment and say a prayer of gratitude for Jimmy Carter. Whatever ails America, it still produces people like Jimmy Carter.

Godspeed, Mr. President, on your last journey.

May you have fair winds and following seas.

Thank you for all of your service to America and to all of humanity.

[Steve Schmidt]

+

Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince, And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!

William Shakespeare‬

[ane-doodles]

Okay so, let's start with the goat, shall we? (Sorry, this is a long post!)

• In this dimension there is no prophecy to fulfill, there is no chosen one or a mission. On the other hand, there is an overpopulation of goats, which has led them to kill or hunt them without much remorse, considering them undesirable (for this reason, families usually separate in order to have a better chance of survival). While there is nothing illegal/wrong about interacting with goats, it is usually avoided most of the time.

• The goat's original name is Jonah, he used to be a kind of thief to earn a living since he was a child, since he was separated from his family at a young age. He ends up joining a ship as part of the crew for some time, but when he is caught stealing from the captain he ends up being thrown into the sea tied with weights to die.

• In this dimension it is assumed that after dying you are guided to the other world, to be added to the queue to reincarnate with a new life at least a century later. But Jonah is instead taken out of this line by Yuridia (the equivalent of Narinder in this world).

• Jonah is offered the opportunity to return to a new life, on the condition of "freeing the goddess who was unjustly imprisoned by her siblings", but he refuses, simply not interested. Yuridia ends up convincing him by striking a chord with him, acting affectionately and manipulating him with the idea that after she is freed he is going to marry the goddess (I want to highlight the fact that she did not say that they would both be married , but only him with her). And this is how the poor goat, already hungry for affection, ends up involved in the mess of the bishops and the goddess.

• Yuridia usually acts all loving and kind, presenting herself as someone sweet but with a strong character who constantly makes empty promises and flirts. She treats the goat - which she has renamed Kairos - as her knight who will come to save her. This ends up generating a kind of obsession/dependency in him to do what she tells him, in exchange for the goddess treating him well.

• Kairos' mission ends up being fulfilled in ten years in which several things happen:

+ The cultists hate the idea that the beloved ancient goddess Yuridia has chosen a goat as a vessel (which we already know was a not very beloved species), so they are not very respectful or kind to it. Furthermore, the fact that Yuridia possesses the goat during sermons and usually spouts aggressive doctrines has generated a rumor that probably part of the sermons are inventions of the leader.

+ During this period Kairos also learns that Yuridia's confinement was orchestrated by herself, and that in reality she only wanted to destroy the bishops so that she would be the only one with power over the lands of the old faith. Despite this he decides to continue.

+ Even though the order is to kill the Kairos bishops, he ends up just stealing their crowns and giving them to Yuridia, who disables them so that no one else can use them. The bishops are thrown out and returned to their lands as mortals.

+ Kairos also meets Yuridia's sons/guardians, who warn him that he should abandon the mission of helping the goddess for his own good and that of the world in which they live.

+ The goat also begins to know Yuridia's true intentions and behaviors as she witnesses the mistreatment of her children and various discussions about doctrines that usually end in discipline, but ends up downplaying it, blinded by the goddess's pampering and manipulations.

• After completing his mission, Kairos voluntarily gives his life, his heart being torn out by the goddess as a sacrifice. Yuridia takes back the crown as the sole goddess of the lands of the old faith and the goat is revived.

• The wedding takes place as a kind of private ceremony between the two, but ends up being somewhat one-sided since only Kairos marries Yuridia and not vice versa. This leads to him constantly asking her (maybe begging hehe) for the two to actually get married, but she just ends up postponing it or saying she'll think about it.

• Little by little Yuridia's affections turn into simple dominance, and the manipulation becomes more evident for Kairos who also little by little begins to distrust her. The goddess treats him as a kind of pretty trophy that she takes care of, although she doesn't really give him any more attention than necessary. [I think we could summarize their relationship as those people who have little purse dogs, all cute but who really take little care of them]

• After Yuridia's rise the former bishops try to steal their old crowns with the intention of making them work again, but the goat's job is to keep them away.

• As such Kairos is displaced, since he is no longer the leader of the cult and Yuridia does not need him by her side, so he dedicates himself to exploring. It is thanks to this that he stumbles upon a way to travel to the dimension of the lamb.

• Thanks to the latter, he runs into Yuridia's third son, who has ended up reincarnating in the wrong dimension. He decides to help him reunite with his brothers by bringing them to the dimension of the lamb where they will no longer suffer the mistreatment of their mother.

• Years go by and more things happen:

+ Kairos ends up falling out of love and begins to fear Yuridia's temperament, so being by her side at this point feels like being imprisoned.

+ He spends more time in the dimension of the lamb, things that the goddess does not like.

+ Kairos accidentally revives the lamb's sister (story for another post) and somehow ends up liking her, considering leaving his dimension.

+ The Lamb ends up giving him the final motivation to leave his dimension and finally get away from Yuridia.

• The day arrives and Kairos intends to leave Yuridia's cult, but she decides to prevent him by almost torturing him in order to stay since he belongs to her. However, by trying to kill her, the weight of the promises she made during her false imprisonment ends up killing her from within, allowing the goat to escape, thus condemning her old dimension to a world without gods (or so we believe).

• After recovering Kairos settles into the cult of the lamb where he can finally be at peace.

Aughhh here is the first loredump! It's a bit long, sorry!! I would have liked to add some doodles to make the reading easier, but I really have no ideas at the moment QwQ

[hail-brod]

A Tale of Woe

Masterlist

Jack Sparrow x FReader

Summary: Gibbs tells Will about the time he saw Captain Jack Sparrow fall in love, betray, and shatter from his own undoing.

︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶

A/N: haha I'm back. Just a short one and it's a Captain Jack Sparrow fic! Didn't see that one coming, eh? You can probably expect more of it. Soon. I'm rolling with so much love for this pirate and other Johnny Depp characters. They'll come around, don't worry (✿◡‿◡)

For the meantime, lemme just release this into the wild. I can't keep suffering like this anymore and not post something TT

Credits to the owner of the GIF; got it from Pinterest.

Warning/s: light angst, betrayal, break-up (heartbreak), alcohol, bit of self-deprecation.

WC: 569

︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶

William Turner could not believe his ears. Hearing the tale Gibbs was relaying unto him was nigh unimaginable.

The Captain Jack Sparrow, reckless and mad and unpredictable, was once a man who could love a woman, leveling his love for the seas. Not a one time thing, but quite a serious one.

“The betrayal part, that I can still imagine. But what exactly happened?” he asked, leaning and intently listening.

The old man darts his eyes around cautiously before answering his question. "Left her alone by the hands of the navy. An’ he just fled from there, choosin’ treasure over her darling freedom. Noble she was. Her family wanted her back. But she didn't want to.”

"So this woman," he started with a frown. “sailed out just to be with Jack?”

“Aye," Gibbs agreed. "Lovely woman, I say. Shame i’ had to end that way.”

The man swigs a drink from his tankard as it clanks back down on the table. Will prances at the thought as he strayed his eyes somewhere behind Gibbs. Could Jack actually do that to someone that's dear to him? To be honest, there shouldn't be much faith given when it comes to him but surely there are some things that could be excused. Maybe a valid reason that could justify his actions?

Even a heartless choice at that?

Who is he kidding? Why should I even bother defending that mad pirate?

“Did Jack even regret it?" he asked once more.

But all he received was a bubble of grumble as it erupts into a chuckle. Hints of redness spreading on his cheeks from the alcohol. “Of course he did. Even more so when he saw the lass again. Shattered him real good. Or bad.”

That perks Will’s attention up, brow raised. "Why?”

"Funny how I don't remember allowing you to share my sob story, Mr. Gibbs.”

The pirate himself stood before them, elbows tucked at his sides as he slightly swayed, eyeing one of them. Eyeing Will.

He didn't look upset, but it unnerved Will seeing the cold expression Jack wore. It was so unlike him. But it was also quite sad. Somehow.

Before he could utter an unflattering apology, Gibbs himself beat him to it.

“My apologies, Capt’n. Rum’s might've gotten through me head too much than usual.”

Even as Gibbs tried to explain himself, Jack didn't break his stare on him. The man walked closer towards Will, staring him down under his nose. At this point, Will isn't even sure if he's actually pissed or just being the unpredictable person that he is.

Moments after, Jack was now bending down onto his level. “Curious, are we?"

Will eyed him suspiciously, wondering what's going through the pirate's mind. “What if I am?" he bit back, tipping up a nod.

Jack Sparrow just smiled. One that can easily be mistaken as satisfaction, but Will can see it. The tight creases at the ends of his smile and the empty hollowness that resided in his eyes. He didn't know Jack Sparrow was capable of such emotions.

The said man leaned back up again, standing on his always wobbly toes. The front of his expression daring to fall.

“Right,” Jack said. "Why don't we start with her good ol' merry family of both husband and children? Sounds about right for self-condemnation, aye?”

Maybe Captain Jack Sparrow is not so heartless as he seemed to be.

Ko-fi?

[lyculuscaelus]

How much stuff from the Homer should we keep in our vision of the Trojan War story?

Do we keep everything Iliadic and Odyssean here? Do we retain every event, every detail, despite the fact that some of them contradict other traditions? Or should we change something to adapt other accounts, or should we try to find a reconciliation in-between?

Do we omit Palamedes in our telling of the recruitment of Odysseus so the ones being rude were just the Atreïda, or do we go with the Cypria as well as other sources where Odysseus faked his madness and got exposed by Palamedes?

Do we have Achilles and Patroclus in Phthia joining the war eagerly, or do we have Odysseus using the trick to find out Achilles in disguise hiding in Skyros?

Do we have Achilles leading the Achaeans to plunder around before reaching Troy, or do we have a storm scattering the fleet so that each king returned to his own kingdom while Achilles came to Skyros and married Deïdameia there?

Do we have Achilles being able to bleed in battle, or do we make him invincible other than his infamous heels?

Do we have Astyanax as Hector’s only son, or do we allow the existence of another son—Laodamas—to live even longer by his mother’s side?

Do we have Anticleia dying of mostly old age and sadness, or do we have Nauplius bringing false news to Anticleia, causing her to hang herself?

Do we hold Aegisthus responsible for the seduction of Clytemnestra and the death of Agamemnon and Cassandra, or do we have Clytemnestra orchestrating it, and give her an axe to deal the death blow?

Do we have other Achaeans returning and staying home safe from war and sea, or do we have the most of them wandering still to found many cities in places like Italy?

Do we find Neoptolemus staying in Phthia waiting to marry Hermione, or do we see him reigning over in Epirus?

Do we know Aegialeia as the faithful wife who’d tear for her husband in her empty bed, or do we see her as the queen who betrayed her king upon his return, for reasons up to interpretation?

Do we have Diomedes reaching home safe and sound, or do we need him exiled to Italy so he could start founding cities?

Do we keep Odysseus’s journey in mythical islands and seas, or do we have him wandering in Italy (even to Iberia) like others, founding cities and leaving some tombs of his crewmates behind?

Do we agree that the Telemachy took place in Pylos and Sparta, or do we find Telemachus going to Crete to see Idomeneus?

Do we follow Homer’s claim that Odysseus’s lineage was a line of single sons, or do we consider Telemachus’s statement here merely dramatic thus allowing all those other “sons of Odysseus” to exist?

Do we agree that there were no Nausithous or Nausinous, or do we have Odysseus leaving them both behind on Ogygia forever?

Do we know Penelope as the loyal wife that she was, or do we find her consorting with one or more suitors resulting in the birth of Pan?

Do we have Odysseus and Penelope reuniting by each other’s side at last, or do we see Odysseus exiling Penelope because of her “disloyalty”, so that she wandered in Lacedaemonia and Arcadia to Mantineia where she finally died?

Do we have Athena and Zeus intervening in the fight between Odysseus’s household and the suitors’ family to establish an everlasting peace, or do we leave this matter to Neoptolemus’s hands just to see Odysseus exiled?

Do we make him finish his oar quest and return immediately, or do we keep him in Thesprotia where he marries another woman and had another son and fought another war and returned again?

Do we agree that Telegonus wouldn’t exist, or do we have him stabbing Odysseus marrying Penelope giving his mother Circe to Telemachus to wed?

Do we give Odysseus a peaceful death from the sea, or do we not?

[nthspecialll]

When it comes to Dutch Van Der Linde and Evelyn Miller, it is natural that there are going to be parallels, such as they both excuse their suicides by not being able to fight their own nature, as Dutch was an avid follower of Evelyn, however it goes way deeper than that.

The main theme of the three Evelyn Miller books is that man is a creature of both action and thought, if he was just action he would be animal, was he just thought he would be god, however America in its attempt at bettering itself has denied itself thought and descended to the way of animals and as such is being led by a desire for desire for earthy possession to its death.

"Men are fixated on greed, on desire, and on the acquisition not of experiences or pleasures but the ability to acquire. People are fixated on wealth. Man is reduced to the desire for desire. Wanting is all that matters. Not loving, not being, not having, but wanting. We are killers for desire."

Man does not want something, the man wants to want, and while it has cut itself from thinking, it has cut itself from loving, from feeling, from being. And while Dutch seems to want to change this America and slowly descend into the wanting man, he was always the wanting man.

While the want for a better world seems to be making Dutch a better man than a person like Colm who simply desires money, it is not truly the only desire he has. Dutch shows desire from the very start from the small thing.

He has a stunning woman like Molly who has given him everything, yet he wants a young girl like Mary-Beth whom he practically raised.

He has, yet he still wants.

Throughout the game, Dutch asks for loyality, for faith, but he cannot get more for the entire camp has given it to him, they have given him their life for him to lay in the ground should he so wish. He has it, yet he wishes for more, he asks for more, and as he asks for more he gets less. It is his constant asking, pleading as if he has the right to their lives that causes them to take it from him. They realize his greed and withdraw because it isn't that they will not give more, it is that they cannot.

Dutch is the symbolism of the America that Evelyn Miller hates, the man who takes and takes, the man who does not desire for anything other than desire itself. Even with all the talk of heroism and ideolism, he is as much as a slave to desire as the America he has vowed to hate.

"For inside, he is nothing, so all that moves him, all that he understands is the external, the great churning sea of desire. It is not freedom. It is an impression of freedom for people who have not the capacity to see further. And why can they not see further? Because they have not been taught to see."

He might be aware of this desire, because he knew that like a drug he was addicted to desire and if not freed he would lose himself. He reads Evelyn Miller not for the chance of a better world but for the chance of an out. He knows he is empty, he knows he is desire and he wishes to be freed from it.

He watches as he hurts, he watches as he pushes away all those around him because desire overtakes him. While freedom from the desire he is a slave to seems better, the urge to continuing the search is stronger, continuing to desire is stronger, what morphine is to Swanson, desire is to Dutch, while Swanson found salvation, Dutch found a steep decline.

"Mutate us into thinkers who can never quite think for we have been denuded of the ability to feel?"

For in the end Dutch lost himself, his desire took away his ability to feel, his emotions, in the end Dutch's desire to desire became stronger than his desire to help his family, his people, the people he had vowed to protect. He would rather sacrifice those whos trust he had gained and had abused, yet continued to demand, than he would sacrifice his desire for desire.

"We are not fools, for fools cannot see their idiocy. We are somehow, worse than fools, for we will ourselves to do things of such profound stupidity despite knowing that we hate what we have built.-" "-we are as Adam, eating once more of the apple, only this time knowing full well of the consequences."

Dutch continues to rage on, he continues to hurt, he continues to demand faith, loyalty and life knowing that he hurts those around him, knowing what the outcome will be, however he cannot stop. He is a fool for he knows the outcome will not be good, he knows he is driving Arthur, John and Susan away, he knows that they are finally starting to see who he is, whom he has always known he is but has hidden from their sight, fearing that they will leave him. His desire for unending loyality is as based in fear as it is in desire itself. He needs them to rely on him to be able to feel achieved, to be able to justify his desire and mask it as a search for a better world.

And while Dutch may be aware of this, he has yet to admit it as Evelyn does in his final book which he died writing.

"But still my thoughts came upon me like wolves. My needs swamp me. My desires overwhelm me."

But what came of his desires in the end, at the end of his life? His desire had changed, while he still desired, he did not desire for desiring, he desired for an end, for the hurt to stop, he had seen what he had caused yet he could not admit to it openly. In the end he jumped because he could reach his desire without breaking the facade that he had build.

"I ran mostly because I am a terrible coward, but also in part because I was searching for something. In this way, I was both vain and a coward."

Is part of Evelyn's final book, he admits his cowardism and while Dutch never came to read this and would never have admitted to his own cowardism, he would have understood, however not in the way that Evelyn Miller wished to be understood because that kind of understanding required self awareness and acceptance that Dutch could never dream of achieving.

Evelyn Miller swore to finish his book before eating and as the book did not come together he knew that his end was near. While food was laying in his cabin he had the strength to starve himself to death, he had the strength to be able to stick to the promise he had made, and he knew he was dying because he wrote that he wished to be burned so he could fly with the eagles rather than rot in the ground with the worms, and as so he did.

Evelyn's death might seem foolish, because how can he continue on his desire when he is dead? But the truth is that from an academic point of view it makes sense because he pursued knowledge not for the practical use but for the beauty in it. He died searching, he died following his desires yet his death was not his final desire. He knew that by sticking to the promise that he would not eat before he had finished writing meant that he would never be able to continue searching, he would be obstructing himself from ever pursuing his desires again and because of that he freed himself from them. In his death he was free from his desires and he gained the freedom of the eagles he wrote about in his final wish.

Dutch on the other hand, his desire was death, he gave in to his direct desire and because of that he was trapped by them even in his after life, he was trapped to the mortal desires in death and as such trapped to the ground with the worms while Evelyn were free to roam the skies.