#eve dragons lair

[sandandsnow]

Eve character design guide from Dragon’s Lair 2 💖

Art by Don Bluth

[sleepytroll]

☽ ✧ once a greedy king / slain / now cursed to shamble with his shame / a sword covered in rust and flowers ✧ ☾

| Commission Info

[territorial-utopia]

Ah, another year, another midsummer's eve. At least this year I'll be out and about celebrating, even if forest fire warnings mean that there will be no bonfires this year either 🥲

Happy Midsummer’s Eve!! Tonight is a night of bonfires, booze and magic consisting of 7 different flowers that’ll grant you dreams of your future spouse. Sadly I’m still recovering from covid so I’m at home drinking and drawing this.

I’d like to imagine that tonight is a night these two dream of eachother <3

[lesserknownwaifus]

Eve from DRAGONS LAIR II

[drawnfamiliarfaces]

what would they look like as villains? I know that some have canonical versions, but I would like to see your intropritation (let's be honest, for most - the evil alterego is an exact copy, but only with a slightly modified color palette and frowning eyebrows)

(I'm sorry for my English)

oh, this was a wonderful ask to get on the eve of spooky month ;D im not god at villain (re)design but it was a fun thinking exercise! (also im assuming you were asking about HoMies xD so)

I mean, there is only so much one can do to remake protagonists into villains and yet still have them remain recognizable, so no wonder evil!versions often are just recolor/frowny sort, but I tried my best to be creative ;D

(and your english is alright! no worries)

also while you can imagine them being as villanous as you want in these designs, there are some little blurbs/backstories i made up for myself as I tried to design them, if you are interested (they are various shades of dark, since you know, tragic backstory and all that lol):

Kim Possible - Hero for Hire turned Mercenary for Money - Kim is widely known for her profeciency in hand-to-hand and quick thinking when on the jobs, but one time something went terribly wrong. Maybe client info was unreliable, or a freak accident, but as the result both Kim and Ron got hurt, leaving Ron in a hospital permanently, and Kim with scars and trauma. After that the girl who worked on favors and rides lost her trust/belief in goodness of people, becoming jaded by reality of a job she accidently found herself in. Kim changed into someone very cold and calculated, someone who started taking jobs that required using serious weapons instead of gadgets, and more importantly getting paid, so she could support her best friend (who is in coma and thus unable to influence this downwards spiral Kim find herself in).

(in contrast to canon!Kim's free flowing hair, she ties it back in order to never be distracted in crucial moment. has a lot of new scars due to more dangerous jobs. i still cant decide if she kills with her weapons or not, but she certainly learned to hurt people. also a very complicated relationship with Shego, since Kim is also a mercenary now, but Shego still remembers that girl she was and is conflicted about this new Kim)

Danny Fenton/Phantom - Ghostly Hero turned Ice Prince - s3e6 Urban Jungle turned out differently, when in the end, defeating Undergrowth, meant also hurting everyone he had been connected to at that moment (level of hurt depends on your preference for angst i guess lol), but anyway, Danny horrified by what he have done (and with memory of Dan still haunting him), still technically unstable with his Ice Powers, flees back into the Ghost Zone to the one place he knows he won't be able to hurt anyone. Sequestering himself in the Far Frozen, he goes full Elsa, and become a remote Ice Prince, that even Far Frozen Yetis are still nervous around, with his only contact being Frostbite. Slowly he wastes away, freezing from his powers not only physically but also like emotionally.

(fun (?) tidbit: fur on his new snow cape/coat is from yetis, unfortunate to wander too close to ice prince. so there are a bunch of partially bald yetis in far frozen lol. Danny is constantly covered in bits of ice and frost, since his ice powers are unstable due to emotional damage. Danny's crown is not a conscious choice, but rather a manifestation of Far Frozen starting to bond with Danny's ice core to become his lair and also sort of recognizing Danny as future Ghost King.)

Jake Long - American Dragon Guardian turned Corrupted by Dark Magic Dragon - Series Finale The Hong Kong Longs, ended differently, when Dark Dragon left a parting shot before he was inprisoned for another Millennium. Since meeting Jake, Dark Dragon has been interested in aquiring him as minion/apprentice(?), and had been steadily trying to sway him to his side. But as he lost he made a last ditch attempt, infecting Jake with Dark Magic. As the result, Jake now cannot control his Dragon Form, being steadily consummed by the Darkness and turning more Draconic as time passes, until he will become full Dragon all the time and under the thrall of Darkness. The change is harsh and as the result Jake falls into violent moments during which he hurt his loved ones that fight to keep him from changing. In one of his more lucid moments, Jake flees to hide away in order not to hurt anyone.

(it seems an interesting thought to expand on the possiblity that the Dragon form can overwhelm the human part and that it would associate with dark magic to succumb to its baser instincts, and also would be a great opening to all those wonderful draconic fan headcanons fandom made about Jake lol)

Ben Tennyson - Hero Wielder of Omnitrix turned Corrupted/Hacked Ultimatrix Unstable User - During Alien Force Ben tried multiple times to hack/meddle with Omnitrix settings, and when he continuously tried the same with Ultimatrix in Ultimate Alien, something has gone wrong. Ultimatrix has bonded deep into Ben's DNA and body, and now every change is felt acutely, not to mention the alien perceptions are now unfiltered and Ben recieves the raw experience of being a different speices/state. It comes to a point when it start to mess with his mind, only made worse by Dagon's reemergence and all the enemies. In the final showdown of Ultimate Enemy goes differently, how? no idea (again depends on your preference level of angst lol). But as the result, Ben, unstable and a little crazy, is on the run with his corrupted Ultimatrix, his reputation in tatters and is considered dangerous by Plumbers.

(i had a little extra idea of Omniverse continuation, where new Plumber Rook Blonko, now has to hunt his hero turned crazy tragic villain Ben Tennyson. Very emotional and angsty (and a bit gay lol), where Rook continuously trying to unsuccessfully catch crazy Ben and convince him to let Azimuth and plumbers to help him.)

Juniper Lee - Youngest Te Xuan Zhe turned Corrupted/Fallen Te Xuan Zhe - in this case in Out of the Past, what Ah-Mah Jasmine feared about Fallen Te Xuan Zhe Kay Yee managing to corrupt Jun has sort of came to pass. After defeating Kai Yee, being touched by the overwhelming power of Magical Elders has left its mark on Jun, as well as Kai Yee's words and Jasmine's initial fear about/distrust in Jun (she is like 11-12 people, it would FUCK HER UP MENTALLY???). As Jun goes through her rebellious teen phase, the unfairness of her trapped position as protector and the demands of it, grates on her more and more, and she finds refuge in studying magic. As the result, her magical ability grows and as her desire for freedom, and the smallest seed of corruption from the events of Out of the Past grow too. So in the end, Jun learns magic to wield it , like Kai Yee, but unlike Kai Yee, not just for battle, but for personal goal of freeing herself and any future Te Xuan Zhe of her family line.

(fun tidbit, Jun doesn't continue to dye her hair pink, instead she uses blood from battle ;D morbid i know but i couldnt help it i like the imagery of her passing her bloody hands through the white part to paint it. she has lightning scars all over her body, that appear only when she uses magic - a manifestation of her brush with orb of magic elders.)

Rex Salazar - Last Hope Against EVO turned Contained and Controlled Weapon of Providence - Rex's return 6 months after Breach transported him and his introduction to Black Knight goes very differently. Instead of prolonged mind games, Black Knight just imprisons Rex pretty much right away while he is vulnerable, content to attempt to trigger Rex's amnesia ad use the mind-control collar, to turn him into her mindless weapon. She was sorta successful? But with Ceaser on the inside, he managed, with the help of Six and Holiday, to free Rex, even if it was too late to save his mind. As the result, whatever reeducation Rex suffered from Black Knights left him instinctively reacting with force and in defense. The whole last part of the season goes very differently in this state, and the finale also ends differently, with Rex, overwhelmed with power of Omega Nanite (God) but in no mind to actually control it. So in the end he is forced to be contained as his friends and family try to figure out how to save him.

(the angst of mind-controlled Rex is something I enjoy, but since he canonically is immune to it, the idea of an induced amnesiac episode seemed like a best bet for this one, but with like double the angst since Six&Holiday would have to struggle not only with Rex being turned into amind-controlled weapon but also him not knowing them)

Randy Cunningham - Chosen Norrisvile Ninja turned Disgraced/Fallen Ex-Ninja - relatively early in his career, after accidently releasing Tengu and Howard getting possesed by it, Randy makes an ultimate sacrifice by burning the Ninja Mask in order to defeat Tengu. However, he didn't expect that Tengu-possesed Howard to be sealed away together and the Ninja title being taken away from him for his reckless (even if noble) decision. Frantic, because he lost two important parts of his life, his best friend and heroic purpose, Randy tries to get the reborn mask back, but it, along with the Ninjanomicon were spirited away by the Messenger to pass on to another candidate. And thus starts Randy's panicked downward spiral and frantic attempts to get back the mask in order to free Howard. Since he still has his memories, Randy trains to become a better fighter. He knows he has to fight the new ninja for the mask, since he believes the Ninjanomicon would advice strongly against New Ninja helping Randy free Howard. In school He becomes known as resident outcast with bad reputation who lost his best friend under suspicious circumstances, and magical underbelly of Norrisville another antagonist for the Ninja to battle. However he still retains an odd sense of honor about Ninja (because he was one) so when opportunities to team up with Sorcerer, McFist, Sorcereress come up, he either ignores them or uses them for his own goal. The closest thing to hit home for him was when Mac Antfee also tried to get mask back, but for his own selfish purposes unlike Randy, well, lets just say Randy was pissed.

(i feel bad since i practically nipped Randy's career right on the bud, unlike others, but this one felt like a good turning villain opportunity unlike season finale. also! the idea of Randy beng an antagonist to the next ninja, while struggling with his own goodness and desire to save Howard is incredibly interesting to me lol. also he got scars from Tengu)

Zak Saturday - Heroic Fighter for Cryptids turned Cryptid Kur re-Reborn - the last episode, where Argost took powers of Kur and subsequently Zak died for about 3 minutes, Zak didn't reawaken unscathed. Kur is not only powers to control Cryptids, it was a person once, and after Zak died and was ressurected, a part of Kur has come forth, because some part of Zak has been lost in his death. A changed Zak Saturday worries his family, with him being quiet and introspective, not to mention pale/golden eyed and slightly zombie-like from his brush with death. Inside, parts of Zak the Kid and Kur the Olden Cryptid mesh and mix, leaving this new Zak struggling with who he is. As time passes however, Zak the Kid is slowly loosing the battle with a much more powerful older part of the soul of Kur (it wouldnt normally happen but Zak the Kid lost a significant part of his spirit when he died, which was filled with Kur) slowly regain his abilities (like in TGAS). At some point a change happens, and Zak retreats from his family, starting to wander the world as two parts of him struggle for dominance.

(fun tidbit! Zak's outfit is the same from his future vision of him overtaking the world as Kur, it seemed approrpiate lol. Also for some reason I kept thinking of Van Kleiss (from Generator Rex) when designing evil!Zak. they kinda have the same vibe)

Jenny XJ-9 Wakeman - Robotic Hero of Earth turned Robotic Overlord - this is a bit of mixed influences from different points: in season finale Dr. Locust turns Dr. Wakeman's creation against her; Jenny's Older Brother Armagedroid; Vexus attempt to sway Jenny to her fellow robots side; the whole year where Jenny was mind-controlled by a bratty kid and everyone feared her and even her mother planned to create a new XJ-10 in order to defeat her; and also a bit random but that one time Jenny pretended to be a villain Ruby Rocket (hence the red color scheme with bits of Armagedroid/Cluster designs). I have a bit less clear timeline for this, but lets just say its gradual and that at some point a lot of manipulations Jenny suffered turned her against humanity and their use of her robotic brethern. While she does not desire to destroy humanity like her brother, she certainly lost her trust in it, and after a manipulation one time too many, she snaps, turns into a leveled up version of Ruby Rocket/Anti-hero persona, she takes her sisters and leaves to Cluster, where Vega welcomes her. Jenny still protects Earth, but admittingly from afar and in a more evil way I guess?? She loves her mother, but she struggles with Dr Wakeman's previous disregard of her siblings and just callous regard to her creations (Wakeman can be cold/serious/to-the point, without Jenny constantly reminding her that she wants to be like a normal girl).

(Jenny was the hardest, because I couldnt find a clear point of turning in the series for her, so I decided to go with gradual change of mind about humanity sort of deal.)

oof this turned a bit long lol, thank you anyone who read through this clusterfuck! As you can see i sort of went with 'Were a Hero - tragically turned Anti-Hero due to circumstances' kind of vibe, since Im just unable to imagine these guys be like trully horrible evil villains (and this way is more angsty, since, like Fallen Heroes and all that). Im not that creative lol. Anyway, i hope you were as entertained as i was when creating this haha ;D

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

When The World Is Crashing Down [Chapter 13: Condemned From The Start] [Series Finale]

Series summary: Your family is House Celtigar, one of Rhaenyra’s wealthiest allies. In the aftermath of Rook’s Rest, Aemond unknowingly conscripts you to save his brother’s life. Now you are in the liar of the enemy, but your loyalties are quickly shifting…

Chapter warnings: Language, warfare, violence, serious injury, alcoholism/addiction, references to sexual content (18+), death, angsttttttt, more children than usual, Wolfman!

Series title is a lyrics from: “7 Minutes In Heaven” by Fall Out Boy.

Chapter title is a lyric from: “Sophomore Slump or Comeback of the Year” by Fall Out Boy.

Word count: 8.1k.

Link to chapter list: HERE.

Taglist (more in comments): @tinykryptonitewerewolf @lauraneedstochill @not-a-glad-gladiator @daenysx @babyblue711 @arcielee @at-a-rax-ia @bhanclegane @jvpit3rs @padfooteyes @marvelescvpe @travelingmypassion @darkenchantress @yeahright0h @poohxlove @trifoliumviridi @bloodyflowerrr @fan-goddess @devynsficrecs @flowerpotmage @thelittleswanao3 @seabasscevans @hiraethrhapsody @libroparaiso @echos-muses @st-eve-barnes @chattylurker @lm-txles @vagharnaur @moonlightfoxx @storiumemporium @insabecs @heliosscribbles @beautifulsweetschaos @namelesslosers @partnerincrime0 @burningcoffeetimetravel-fics @yawneneytiri @marbles-posts @imsolence @maidmerrymint @backyardfolklore @nimaharchive @anxiousdaemon @under-the-aspen-tree @amiraisgoingthruit @dd122004dd @randomdragonfires @jetblack4real @joliettes

Thank you so much for reading. I hope you enjoy the finale.🦀💚

In the Eyrie, one of Rhaena Targaryen’s three dragon eggs has hatched at last; the creature is small and pink, and she has named it Morning. When Rhaena’s tears fall onto the scales of her diminutive wings, they glitter like flecks of rose quartz. Deep within the snow-laden labyrinth of the Mountains of the Moon, Nettles is in hiding with Sheepstealer; already the nearby clans are bringing her offerings of meat and treasure, axes and clubs and daggers, hairpins carved from the ribs of enemies and necklaces made of bear teeth. Silverwing is settling into a lair on an island in the Red Lake at the northwestern corner of the Reach. Word of this has travelled back to King’s Landing, and Borros Baratheon implores Aegon II to seize Silverwing for himself; but the king does not want a new dragon. He wants Sunfyre back. That grim truth aside, Aegon is unable to trek across the continent to tame the beast anyway. Some days he cannot even cross a room. At the bottom of the Gods Eye, bodies are dissolving into bones, threads of long white hair breaking loose to flow in the currents like weightless strands of spider webs torn free by cold drafts. And only a few miles from the border of the Crownlands—preparing to cross the icy waters of the Blackwater Rush—the army of Northmen camps under a full moon in a clear, indigo sky heavy with stars like glinting coins.

“There are passageways under King’s Landing,” Clement Celtigar says. He stands by the bonfire with his sword in his hand, his face flame-bright and eager, forever licking up drops of the Kingmaker’s approval, a stray cat lapping milk splashed in an alley. Increasingly, Cregan Stark finds him tiresome. Clement is brash and dramatic, forever swearing vengeance, reveling in his newfound position as the head of his house. The Warden of the North has never had to beg for attention, admiration, acclaim. These things come to him like snow falls to the earth in winter: effortlessly, inevitably. Yet Cregan tries to be patient. Clement is soon to be his brother-in-law, and it is dishonorable to fail to extend courtesy to one’s kin. Furthermore, it seems, Clement has his uses.

“Are there really?”

Clement nods. He wears the banner of his house on a strip of fabric looped around his upper arm: crabs red like blood, a backdrop of white like snow. “That monster’s disciples used them to kidnap my sister from the Red Keep. But she fought hard. When we searched her rooms, all the furniture was upturned and the sheets ripped from her bed.”

“She is brave,” Cregan murmurs in agreement, though he is distracted now. The air tastes like smoke and ice, the wind rubs raw spots into the soldiers’ faces. They are arriving just in time. The depths of winter is no time to wage war. Cregan Stark imagines how you will greet him when he liberates you: a desperate embrace, hands that refuse to let go, whispered gratitude and breathless kisses on his earth-stained knuckles, bones of steel softened by the innate weakness of womanhood. You will love him, of course you will, fervently and entirely. Then when the realm and succession are secured, the Kingmaker will take you North and wed you in the tradition of his people, under the heart tree where the Old Gods can witness it. And then there will be the wedding night. In Cregan’s understanding, women receive little pleasure from the act itself. It is a burden they bear for the men they love, for the children they are divinely tasked with bringing into existence. Cregan Stark intends to alleviate your suffering in this regard as much as possible…yet he has already begun to choose the names of the sons he will make with you. He especially likes the sound of Brandon, sturdy and grounded and thought to mean leader or prince. “This is the last night your sister will ever spend in the clutches of the Usurper.”

“Praise the Seven.” Then Clement adds diplomatically: “And the Old Gods too, of course.”

“It’s the end of the world,” Cregan Stark says, gazing up into the night sky where constellations tell the stories men deem worthy of remembering. “And the start of a brand new one.”

~~~~~~~~~~

“How did you learn to braid hair?” little Jaehaera asks you in her lilting, reedy voice like a bird’s. You are sitting behind her on the floor in Alicent’s bedchamber. Nearby, Autumn is flipping through a child’s book with Rhaenyra’s ever-solemn son, murmuring as she points to colorful illustrations of ravens, dolphins, bears, dragons, crabs. They are learning to read together.

“My sisters taught me,” you tell the princess. Firelight turns her silver hair to gold, her pale skin to flames. Logs crack and pop as they melt to glowing embers. Alicent glances over at you and sighs despairingly. The dowager queen, so thin she might disappear, is hunched in a chair by the fireplace. She has an unshakeable, rattling sort of cough that reminds you of how Sunfyre sounded on Dragonstone when he was near the end. Her long auburn tresses are falling out in handfuls. She will not survive the winter, this is a certainty.

“You have sisters?” Jaehaera says, surprised. “How many?”

You smile faintly as you weave her hair into one thick braid like the kind Aemond once wore when he went to battle. “Three. Piper, Petra, and Penelope.”

“Where are they now?”

“Back on Claw Isle, where I came from. With our mother.” Mourning Father, mourning Everett, writing letters to Clement to keep his spirits high as he and the Warden of the North march towards King’s Landing to slay the Greens’ king and bind me to a different man’s will.

“What’s Claw Isle like?” Jaehaera asks with a child’s clear, boundless curiosity.

“Rocky, misty, grey. But the ocean is beautiful.” You think of Aegon’s eyes, the same as his daughter’s, a murky storm-blue that is deeper than it looks.

“What brought you here?”

You consider this before you answer. You see it, you feel it: cinders like dark snow in the air, Aemond’s iron grip on your forearm. “When your father was burned at the Battle of Rook’s Rest, he needed someone to help heal him. Your uncle Aemond found me.”

“And he asked you to stay with us?”

He would have slit my throat if I said no. “Yes, he asked very politely, as any gentleman would. And of course I agreed. I wanted to make the king strong again. I wanted to take his pain away.”

Jaehaera stares down at her tiny hands, palms crossed with lines that are long and shadowy in the shifting firelight. She does not speak of Aegon. She does not know him, and he frightens her: the burns on his skin, the suffering in his glazed eyes. She has no memories to impress his true character upon her. If she does not make them herself, she will believe whatever she is told. “I miss Aemond. I miss Daeron.”

“I know, sweetheart.” They were formally laid to rest yesterday on two funeral pyres. Daeron’s bloodied, charred, seafoam green cape was burned to ashes on one. All that was left of Aemond—his favorite books, his quills and ink, small leather eyepatches from when he was a boy—were torched on the other. “I miss them too.”

Jaehaera’s braid is finished. You reach into a pocket of your emerald green velvet gown to retrieve what you have brought for her: a thin golden chain necklace with Aegon’s ring as a pendant. He can’t wear it anymore. His fingers are too swollen. “What is this?” Jaehaera says as you place the chain around her neck. She lifts the ring and peers at it, gold wings and jade eyes.

“It’s supposed to resemble Sunfyre,” you explain. “Your father loves you very much, Jaehaera. He wanted you to have this ring and keep it with you always.” Aegon didn’t say that; he rarely mentions Jaehaera at all. Sometimes you think he forgets she exists. But she is a part of him, she is his legacy, and you cannot look at any piece of her without seeing the man you love.

“He gave it to me? Like a gift?”

“Yes. A gift.” A gift, an inheritance, a relic, a reminder.

Jaehaera turns around and looks up at you hopefully, vast wave-blue eyes like winter oceans. “Do you think I’ll have another dragon someday?”

Her own infant beast, Morghul, was killed in the Dragonpit before Rhaenyra fled the city. “Maybe,” you tell her. “There are eggs that could hatch someday. And there are a few unclaimed adults left, Silverwing and the Cannibal. Perhaps you’ll tame one.”

She wrinkles her nose in confusion. “What’s a cannibal?”

Someone who murders, devours, fuels their body to the detriment of their soul. “Someone who eats their own kind. Like a dragon who feeds on other dragons.”

“So just like in the war. Dragons killing dragons.”

“Exactly,” you say, a shiver crawling down your spine. “Now go show your new necklace to Grandmother.”

Jaehaera wobbles to her feet and dashes across the firelit bedchamber to where Alicent is slumped in her chair. “Look, look! It’s Sunfyre!” you hear Jaehaera chirping. Alicent examines the ring—skeletal hands trembling, large dark eyes slick with tears—and dutifully fawns over it, telling the little girl how beautiful she looks, how brave she has been. Then she bundles Jaehaera into her boney arms and holds her like she’ll never let go. Autumn catches your gaze from the other side of the room, and when you leave to return to Aegon she follows.

“What is your plan if the Greens lose the battle?” she says in the hallway under an arc of grey stones. Her tone is urgent, her hazel eyes sharp. Everyone knows the Northmen are within days of King’s Landing. Borros Baratheon—a large, loud, abrasive man, but with a bottomless appetite for combat—and his soldiers will march out of the city tomorrow to meet Cregan Stark’s army on the fields of the Crownlands, sparse and grey with winter. The Lord of Storm’s End has spent hours locked in the council chamber discussing strategy with Larys Strong, Corlys Velaryon, and the misfortunate yet courageous Tyland Lannister, maimed by his months of torture at the hands of the Blacks.

“We won’t.” We can’t.

Autumn slams her palm against the wall behind you; the sick thud of flesh against stone reminds you of the day Helaena died. “Wake up. We might. You’d better have your options figured out.”

And you recall Larys’ words on Dragonstone: I think it’s time for you to consider what your options are if a Green victory no longer appears to be viable. “We’ll run,” you say weakly. “We’ll take Aegon and we’ll escape through the corridors under the Red Keep, just like he did before. Cregan Stark will kill Aegon if he finds him. I can’t let that happen. We’ll have to run.”

“Run where?” Autumn snaps pointedly, pushing you towards a conclusion you refuse to acknowledge.

“I don’t know.”

“Where? Where could we go that is beyond the grasp of your wolf if he seizes the capital?”

“Dorne, Essos. Somewhere, anywhere.”

“The king won’t survive a journey like that.”

You cover your face with your hands, feel the biting cold of snowflakes melting in your hair, see the stains of earth on your thighs as Cregan Stark forces them apart. How can I lie with a man who hailed the deaths of people I loved? How can I spend the rest of my life listening to him being called a hero for killing Aegon? How can I give him children? How could I love a baby that was half-made of him? “We ran before. We’ll have to do it again.”

Autumn scoffs. “You have no idea what it means to be a woman on your own in the world. What will you become without a great house, without protection? A prostitute? A peasant? Will you eat scraps covered with rot or mold? Will you live in a tree? Will you beg some family to take you in? And then when the father who is oh-so-gallant in daylight starts fumbling under your blankets once the candles are blown out, will you let him inside you? Or will you fight him off and risk a blade in your guts, your throat? You have no fucking idea what it’s like out there.”

“I don’t care what happens to me if Aegon’s gone.”

“You would abandon Jaehaera? You would abandon me?” Autumn demands. “You speak for us now. You are the only one who can. Our fates are twisted up with yours.”

That’s true. And I promised Helaena I would look out for her daughter. You can’t imagine a life without Aegon; there was a time when he was only a name—and an infamous one, a terrible one, soulless and monstrous—but now he has broken down the eaves of what you were once resigned to call your life and painted colors in the sky you’d never glimpsed before, never even dreamed of. You ask Autumn with genuine, painful bewilderment: “What is the point of learning that something exists only to have it taken away? Why would that happen? Where is the justice in it, where is the reason?”

Autumn smiles, sad and patient. “Ah, this is an affliction of the highborn. You still believe that there is a design, and that life has some amount of fairness in it. There is no divine judgment being passed, my lady. There is no god weighing the worth of your dragon or your wolf or yourself. Life is random, and it is ungovernable, and it is very often cruel. And that makes it all the more remarkable that you knew the king for the time you did. That you ever met him.”

It wasn’t enough. And I can never go back to who I was before. “I’m sorry. I should not complain to you. Your losses have been terrible.”

“It is no contest,” Autumn replies, weary now. “But I should go back to check on the children. They need me.”

“No. They love you.”

And now she beams, sparkling eyes and copper ringlets. She doesn’t need to say it, you can both feel it in the winter-cold air. She loves them in return. She loves them fiercely. As long as they live, she will have reasons to.

When you reach Aegon’s bedchamber, Grand Maester Orwyle is just leaving. He bows to you and grins, pleased that you have both survived the fall and retaking of King’s Landing. He is haggard from his months in the dungeons when Rhaenyra ruled the capital, but he endured. Who would have guessed at the start of this war that the old man had more years left than Aemond or Daeron or harmless little Maelor? You wait in the hallway for the maester to amble sluggishly by, but then when he is gone, you peer through the slit of the half-open door to see that Lord Larys Strong is speaking to Aegon, who is propped up in bed on a mountain of pillows and wearing only his cotton sleeping trousers. He is thin, frail, ghostly pale with the exception of the scars that are a mosaic of white and scarlet and bruise-like violet. Aegon and Larys have not noticed you. You linger just outside the doorway, watching, listening.

You can take care of Aegon as much as you wish now: feed him, clothe him, clean sweat from his brow, dose him with milk of the poppy, rub rose oil into his scars, stretch his legs, test the heat of his skin for fever. He’s too weak to stop you. He can’t walk, can’t stand, can’t stay awake for more than an hour or two at a time, can’t even pour his own wine or milk of the poppy; the glass bottles are too heavy when full. Yesterday, Aegon had to be carried outside in a litter to see the remnants of his brothers burned on the pyres. And he had exchanged a brief, somber glance with Autumn that you neither anticipated nor understood. He acknowledges her so rarely. And yet her small hazel eyes had been alarmed, knowing.

Larys is saying with a grave expression and his restless hands propped in the handle of his cane: “Lord Borros Baratheon is asking for your assurance that as soon as the war is won, you will take his eldest daughter Cassandra as your wife.”

Aegon stares at him, incredulously, impatiently. Aegon has not called you his wife in the company of others since his homecoming. You do not ask why. You already know. It is not because his intentions have changed; it is because if he is not the victor, your life is in less danger as his captive than as his queen. “Surely even a man as brainless as Borros can surmise that there would not be much benefit for the lady now. I am a worm. Useless, pathetic, deformed, no longer virile.”

“He is willing to take the chance, I gather. And he is placing his eggs in more than one basket. He would like another daughter, Floris, to be married to me.”

“Seven hells,” Aegon mutters. Then he turns determined. “I cannot marry another. I won’t do it. I am claimed already, body and soul.”

“I fear how enthusiastically Borros’ men will fight for you if you do not agree to the match. He is risking his life for your cause. He will expect generous repayment.”

Aegon is quiet for a long time. He stares fixedly at his bedside table: a full cup, a large glass bottle of milk of the poppy. His dagger is still there from when you cut and braided his hair for him this morning; he cannot do it himself anymore. At last Aegon says, almost too low for you to discern from the doorway: “He’s not cruel, is he?”

“Who? Borros Baratheon?”

Aegon glares at Larys. “No.”

After a moment, Larys realizes what his king means. “Cregan Stark isn’t cruel. I’ve heard many whispers from many mouths, but I’ve never heard that.”

“Look at me. Don’t lie to me.”

“He isn’t cruel,” Larys says again. “Perhaps the truth is worse. He is measured, competent, merciful, wise. He is honorable. The Manderlys want to torture everyone and the Boltons itch to sharpen their flaying knives but Stark forbids it. He respects the laws of war. He tries to avoid the slaughter of noncombatants. He forbids his men from burning farms or raping women. He is devoted to the woman you call your wife. He takes no mistresses, visits no brothels. Cregan Stark is not a monster. He’s not soulless. He’s just on the wrong side.”

Aegon nods slowly, then his face breaks into a humorless smirk. “Tell Borros Baratheon that I’ll marry whichever daughter he wants me to when the war is over. I’ll marry all four if that is his preference, and bed them all on the wedding night too, one right after the other. Agree to anything he asks for. It doesn’t matter anyway.”

It doesn’t matter because none of it will ever happen, even if the Baratheon army does win the Iron Throne for the Greens. It doesn’t matter because Aegon does not believe he’ll still be here in a month, or two weeks, or perhaps even days.

But he can’t mean that. He’s not thinking clearly. He’s confused, he’s exhausted, he’s in pain, you tell yourself, before remembering that Aemond said it first.

“Yes, Your Grace.” Larys is subdued, sorrowful. He bows deeply to his king. Then he turns to depart.

“One more thing,” Aegon says, gesturing to something on the side of his bed you can’t see from where you’re standing. “I hate to impose upon you further, but I can’t manage it myself. Can you take that and empty it somewhere? I don’t care where. But you must keep it hidden from my wife. The red-haired girl Autumn knows, and so do the maesters now. They are all sworn to secrecy. Can I trust you to exercise the same circumspection?”

Larys is gaping down at an object that is a mystery to you. He begins to stammer out a reply, stops to collect himself, and starts again. “Yes. Yes you can.”

“Good.”

Larys picks up the object; you are puzzled to discover that it is a chamber pot, white and porcelain. And as he navigates around Aegon’s bed and towards the door where you wait, you see that the vessel is full of blood.

You gasp before you can stop yourself, a razor-sharp inhale of breath that both men hear. They spot you, lurking in the doorway like someone lost, someone far from home. Shock bolts across Aegon’s face, and then frustration, and then defeat, and then profound misery.

“I didn’t want you to worry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to lie to you, I just knew…I knew you’d be upset and I…I didn’t want to hurt you. I’ve never wanted to hurt you.”

“How long?”

“It doesn’t matter, Angel.”

“How long?” you ask again. “Just since this morning?”

“Four or five days now.”

“Four or five…?” Your mind whirls like storm winds. He’s dying. He’s really dying. His kidneys are failing and there’s nothing I can do. I can’t cut him open and stitch him back together. There’s no wound to scrub clean with vinegar and then bandage with honey and linen. There’s no brew that can restore the rhythm of his blood and bones and nerves. He’s just dying. That’s all there is. That’s the beginning and the end of it.

“Please don’t cry,” Aegon says, reading your face. “Don’t do that, please don’t, I’ve hurt you enough already.”

His hands stretch out to close the space between you, and as Larys slips from the room you go to Aegon, climb into bed beside him, collapse into him as his arms catch you and rest your head against his bare, scarred chest, his feverish skin mottled with the history of wounds you helped close all those months ago. “I’m sorry,” you sob. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have let you go after Baela and Moondancer on Dragonstone. I should have stopped you. I should have dragged you inside the castle to wait until Aemond and Vhagar could help you. I shouldn’t have let Aemond go to Harrenhal. I shouldn’t have let Daeron fly south. I shouldn’t have let Autumn go back to King’s Landing, and I shouldn’t have let Everett stay there. I shouldn’t have let Helaena leap from the window. I should have stopped Maelor from being sent to the Reach. I should have stopped Rhaenys and the Red Queen from taking flight to burn you in your armor at Rook’s Rest. I should have stopped this! I should have done something! The only good thing I’ve ever had to offer the world was healing but I can’t save anyone, I can’t stop their suffering, I can’t do anything!”

“None of it was within your control, and none of it was your responsibility. I am the king. The fate of my kingdom and my followers rests with me. I wear their spilled blood, not you. I am so full of red I’m overflowing with it.” And he chuckles, sardonic, exhausted. He’s already battling unconsciousness again; you can hear his heartbeat slackening, the slow laborious expanding and contracting of his lungs.

“Aegon,” you say softly, as if afraid to speak it into existence. “What happens if the Baratheons don’t win tomorrow?”

“They will. They have to. There’s nothing I can do for you if they lose.” Then he winces and groans. It’s his back again, his failing kidneys, overrun with so much ruin—burns and breaks and pressure and heartache—that their cadence faltered and then ceased. You grab his cup of milk of the poppy and tilt it against his lips; and how many times have you done this since you met him, burned nearly to death and half-mad at Rook’s Rest? A hundred? Aegon drinks it down, his arms still tight around your waist. They do not loosen until he’s out like a snuffed candle.

You refill the cup on his bedside table with milk of the poppy in case he needs more when he wakes, pick up the dagger you use to cut his disheveled hair, take it to the dresser. And in the cascade of silver moonlight flooding in through the windows, you practice laying the gleaming blade against your wrists, pressing it to the throbbing arteries of your throat, angling the sharpened point of it between a gap in your ribs and towards your racing heart.

Autumn. Jaehaera. Aemond’s child that Alys carries. I still have promises to keep. I still have tasks that cannot be left unfinished.

Helaena’s words surface like a drowned man dredged from the waves: You must whisper into the right ears.

You set the dagger down on top of the dresser and roam to the castle library where Aemond once spent so many hours. You collect a stack of anatomy books and carry them back to Aegon’s bedchamber. There, before the roaring fireplace, you devour them for any scrap of hope, any last resort. You turn pages until one illustration stops you. It is an unclothed man, his major veins etched in blue and his arteries in red, his nerves a faded yellow, his bones white and unshattered, his body a roadmap of the bricks and mortar used by the architects of nature. You have seen this image before. It is the same page Aegon teased you for studying when you were travelling by carriage back to the capital from Rook’s Rest.

You rip out the page, crumple it violently, pitch it into the fire and watch it burn.

~~~~~~~~~~

At dawn, Lord Borros Baratheon leads his men out of the city. You hear them through the glass panes of the windows, closed against the winter chill and flecked with frost: boots marching, hooves of warhorses clomping against cobblestones. They carry with them swords and spears and bows and morning stars like the one Criston Cole was famed for using. Meanwhile, throughout the city, civilians are arming themselves with anything they can find to ward off an invasion of Northmen, creatures they believe to be bestial and mindless. Men carry kitchen knives and clubs fashioned out of bits of furniture or driftwood. Women hide their young children in cupboards and under creaking wooden floors.

“I should be going with them,” Aegon says. He’s just taken another dose of milk of the poppy and is struggling to keep his eyes open. His long, slow blinks close his vacant eyes for ever-increasing intervals. You’ve changed his clothes and cleaned the sweat from his skin as best you can, but he’s burning from the inside out.

“You’re not able to fight, Aegon. Nobody faults you for that. Everyone knows you were wounded in battle.”

“They must think I’m a coward.”

“No, you inspire them. They love you. I love you.”

Aegon doesn’t say it back. He never says it back. He only offers you the same drowsy, mournful phrase of High Valyrian he always does, not knowing that Aemond told you what it means: To your misfortune.

Autumn is with the children in Alicent’s rooms. The castle is tense and as quiet as a crypt—Alicent weeps soundlessly, Larys paces the halls with Corlys and Tyland Lannister, everyone peeks out of windows constantly to see if bannermen of the victor have appeared on the horizon—but she keeps them distracted with stories and games. You cycle between Alicent’s bedchamber and Aegon’s. He is in and out of consciousness; sometimes you perch beside him on the bed, sometimes you lie curled up against him counting the beats of his heart, sometimes you help Autumn read to Jaehaera and Aegon the Younger. It is just after noon when the city bells begin to toll and screams rise from the streets outside the Red Keep. You and Autumn hurry to a window. In the distance, beyond the city gates, there is a swarming mass of infantry, cavalry, archers. Their banners, when you strain your eyes to decipher them, are not the brazen, vivid yellow of House Baratheon. They are night black and an icy, steely grey. They are the colors of House Stark.

“No,” Autumn says, denial in a protracted, helpless exhale. Alicent shrieks, frightening the children. You grab Autumn’s hand and lead her out into the hallway to warn the others if they don’t know already.

Lord Corlys Velaryon comes bounding up a staircase. “There are soldiers down in the secret passageways!” he booms. “Northmen! Armed! I’ve helped our guards bar the doors, but that won’t hold them back forever.”

Autumn looks to you. “Get the children ready to travel,” you tell her. “Find Larys and inform him.”

“Yes, my lady,” she says, and is gone. You sprint in the opposite direction towards Aegon’s bedchamber. You blow the door open like a strong wind, and Aegon startles awake. You rip through his dresser for things he will need: warm clothes, boots, his dagger, bottles of milk of the poppy.

“Get up, Aegon. We have to go. We’ll run, we’ll flee, there are Northmen in the tunnels but we’ll find another way out, we have to try, we have to, if they catch you they’ll—”

“Come sit with me,” he says from the bed, calmly, like you have all the time in the world. He is reaching out for you with one hand.

“What? No, we have to hurry—”

“Angel,” Aegon says. “I need you to come sit with me now.”

Why isn’t he afraid? Why isn’t he frantic? You cross the room with slow, numb footsteps. When you reach the bed, Aegon takes both of your hands in his own. And suddenly you know exactly what he is going to say. You remember what he told his brother in High Valyrian the last time Aemond left Dragonstone. Your voice is trembling and hoarse. Your throat burns like embers. “Aemond was supposed to be here to help us win. But he’s gone. Daeron, Criston, Helaena, Otto, Everett, Jaehaerys, Maelor, Autumn’s baby, so many people are gone.”

Aegon whispers, smiling softly as tears spill down his cheeks, one scarred and the other pure: “I’m not going to get better this time.”

“No,” you moan. “No, Aegon, no. You can’t say that, you can’t tell me that—”

“I’m not going to get better.” Now his palms cradle your face, forcing you to listen. “I’m not. And it’s okay. I’m not angry, I’m not scared. You’ve done everything you could and you’ve bought me more time and I’m so grateful. But I don’t want it to hurt anymore. I’ve been in pain for so long. I’ve been in pain my whole goddamn life.” He kisses you, like tasting something rare and fleeting. His thumbprint skates along the curve of your jaw, memorizing the angles of your bones, the rhythm of your pulse. “Please, Angel. I don’t want to try to run and die on the side of the road somewhere. I don’t want to die with Cregan Stark’s blade at my throat.”

You shake your head, unable to believe, unable to understand.

Aegon glances to the empty cup on his bedside table, to the large glass bottle of milk of the poppy. Then his eyes return to you. “You know how to do it.”

No. Never. But beneath those cold, dark, stormy waters: It would be painless. “I can’t,” you say, overwhelmed with horror.

“Listen, listen to me—”

“No—”

“Angel.”

“I can’t do that to you. Not to you. I can’t, I can’t.”

“When I’m gone, go to Cregan Stark,” Aegon says. “He is an honorable man, he will ensure your survival. He is the only person who can now. He wants to put his mark on the world. He wants to play Kingmaker. Let him. He can decree that my daughter will marry Rhaenyra’s son and ascend to the Iron Throne. He can end the war. Cregan will keep you safe. Tell him that I kidnapped you, that I forced myself on you. Tell him that I wanted an heir with Valyrian blood. Tell him that I was a drunk, a degenerate. Tell him whatever he wants to hear.”

“You would become a monster?”

“To protect you? I would become anything.”

He’s holding you, he’s pulling you into him until you can feel the fever bleeding from his flesh into yours, until you can number the knots of his spine and the ladder-rungs of his ribcage, counting them with your fingers through the sweat-drenched fabric of his cotton shirt. You draw back to look at him, to really look at him, sunken bloodshot eyes and rasping breaths, scar tissue of the body and the soul. You remember the day you met him, how he’d begged to die and been refused, how you brought him back. You postponed a debt, but you never paid it. It’s not possible to ever pay enough. You stack up gold coins in a vault until they touch the ceiling and still the Stranger comes knocking, jangling his purse sewn with scorched skin and chanting: more, more, more.

Aegon glances to the cup again. “How much?” he asks you, hushed like a prayer.

You don’t answer. Instead, you stand and go to the dresser. You open a small wooden door beneath the mirror. Your reflection is a woman you don’t know, someone who walks through fog and memory, someone made of ghosts. You take four clean cups from the cabinet and set them on Aegon’s bedside table. As he watches—eyes glassy with agony, lungs rattling—you fill them all with smooth, pearlescent, lethal liquid, as well as the empty cup that was already there. “Five,” you say, and it sounds nothing like you. “I think three at once would be enough. Five to make sure.”

He sobs with relief, and only now do you realize how badly he needed this. “Thank you. Oh gods, thank you.”

Your own words come back like an echo: I preserve life, I don’t take it. But that was a different lifetime, a different you. Aegon’s fingers are lacing through yours. He is drawing you back onto the bed, he is brushing your hair back from your face, he is kissing the path of tears down your cheeks so he doesn’t waste a drop of you. He’ll never get another taste, another chance; not in this life, not on this earth.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t make it to the end with you,” he says. “I really tried.”

“I know, Aegon.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough.”

“You’re the strongest person I’ve ever known.”

He looks down at his left hand, then remembers where his ring has gone. He chuckles, darkly, bitterly, dismayed by all the failings he is built of. “I don’t even have anything to give you.” Then he remembers. “My dagger. Can you get my dagger?”

You are petrified. “Why?”

He grins, dull teeth beneath dazed eyes. “I’m not going to hack off a finger or my exemplary cock or something. I promise. Just get it.”

You fetch the dagger and bring it to the bed, and only then do you realize what he means for you to have. He points to it, then threads it through his pale, swollen fingers: his thin lock of hair that you’ve been weaving for him since the day you met. He wants you to take his braid.

“You’ll have to cut it yourself,” he says. “I don’t think I can.”

You hook the blade beneath the top of his braid, and with a few cautious slices of the dagger it is free. You tuck the braid into a pocket of your gown, thick black velvet to guard against the winter cold. Then you lay the dagger on the bedside table and pick up one of the cups filled to the brim with milk of the poppy. Your tears are scalding and torrential; it is almost impossible to see through them. You smooth back Aegon’s white-blond hair as you pour the blissful, deadly brew through his lips and down his throat, hating yourself, knowing it is the kindest thing you can do for him.

Suddenly, when the cup is half-drained, Aegon pushes it away. “You don’t have to be here. You don’t have to watch,” he says. “I can do the rest. Go, now. Right now. If the Boltons or some other house finds you before Cregan does, they might not recognize you. They might not care. You’re only safe with Cregan Stark. He has to find you first.” Aegon takes the cup with one shaking hand and presses a palm to your shoulder with the other. You haven’t moved. You can’t move. “Go. Leave me. Now. Please go. I love you, but you have to go now.”

“I can’t,” you choke out.

“You have to.”

“I’ve never wanted anyone but you.”

“Angel,” he says tenderly, smiling. “I’ll see you again. Just not too soon.”

“Okay,” you whisper, and you kiss him, traces of milk of the poppy on his lips that deaden the thunderstruck horror faintly, powerlessly, like small clouds drifting over the sun.

“If there’s anything interesting on the other side, I’ll find a way to let you know.”

The dreams, you think. “Okay,” you say again, barely audible.

“Now go. Right now. Go.”

You wipe tears from your face with your sleeve as you turn away from him. You can’t look back; if you do, you’ll never be able to walk out of this room. You take the dagger from the bedside table. Your bare feet pad across the cold floor. As you step through the doorway, on the periphery of your vision you can see Aegon swallowing down each cupful of poison as quickly as he can. It won’t take long to stop his heart. Minutes, perhaps. Seconds. You walk into the hallway. Autumn has just arrived with Jaehaera’s tiny hand clasped in her own. A few paces behind her, Alicent and Larys stand with Rhaenyra’s son. Two orphans without choices, two pawns in a much grander game.

Autumn is panicked. “Where should we go? What should we do?” Then she takes another look at your face. Her eyes go wide with terror. “What? What happened?”

“Follow me.” Your voice is low, flat, dark like deep water. Your eyes flick briefly to Lord Larys Strong. “Keep the boy here. He’s not safe with the smallfolk yet. But the Northmen won’t harm him.”

Larys knows. It’s over. He is devastated; and yet you think a part of him might be relieved as well. “Yes, Your Grace.”

“I’m not the queen anymore. I never really was.” You give him Aegon’s dagger. “I don’t think you’ll need this, Lord Larys, but now you have it in the event of any danger. Or in case I can’t convince Cregan Stark to spare you and you decide you’ve had enough of this world. You should get a say in how your life ends. You’ve earned it.”

Then you break away from them and glide through the Red Keep, Autumn and Jaehaera trotting swiftly behind you to keep up. You pass the rookery where Aemond wrote his letters. You sweep through the gardens where Helaena loved to collect her insects. You gaze down to the beach where Daeron landed on Tessarion under a dazzling sun before winter came like a plague to King’s Landing. From inside the castle, you can hear Alicent wailing as she discovers her last child’s lifeless body. What was all of this for? Why did this have to happen? Why didn’t anybody stop it?

Out on the streets of the city, the smallfolk have flocked with their makeshift weapons to defend their homes from the Northmen. But their eyes are darting everywhere and their faces are uncertain as they clutch their clubs made out of the legs of chairs and their rusty kitchen knives. They haven’t decided if it’s futile. They don’t want to be butchered for nothing.

“That’s Autumn!” they shout and sigh, especially the women. “The mother of the king’s bastard son, the one murdered by the half-year queen!” They reach out to skim their hands over Autumn’s gown, her long coppery hair, as if she is a saint or a spirit who can impart good luck upon them, who can change their fates. They fall to their knees to bow to Jaehaera, their king’s only living child, and she blinks at them with benign confusion.

But the smallfolk have a different reception for you. You hear their venomous chattering: “Is that the Celtigar woman?” “Her family put this city through hell.” “They served Rhaenyra.” “She’s a traitor, she’s a thief.” A few of them venture close enough to tug at your gown, to strike at you. A woman’s knuckles rap against your cheekbone, raising a bruise there like lavender in a dusk sky. You think dully: I wonder if they’ll gouge out my eyes with those knives like they did to Everett.

“Get back!” Autumn hisses, shoving the smallfolk away. And when she speaks, they listen. “She is going to the Wolf of Winterfell. She is my protector. She is your protector now too. She is the best chance you have left.” And the crowds open up and the three of you pass through King’s Landing unimpeded, though cloaked in thousands of fascinated gazes.

The King’s Gate has been abandoned; the guards must have feared the Boltons’ flaying knives or Lord Stark’s dark justice. Autumn instructs several hulking men of the smallfolk to open the gate if they wish to be spared from the wolf’s wrath. They are reluctant at first, but do as she asks. When the massive doors creak open, the people of the capital huddle behind the wall and peer out skittishly as you, Autumn, and Jaehaera advance to meet the Northmen, who are bloodied from battle and now within a hundred yards of the city. Above, the sky is thick and iron-grey and frigid. Snowflakes—the first of this winter to touch King’s Landing—begin to fall and land in your hair, and you are reminded of how embers rained from the smoldering pine trees at Rook’s Rest.

“Can you catch one on your tongue?” Autumn asks Jaehaera, and the little girl giggles as they both try.

The Warden of the North rides an immense, shaggy warhorse at the head of what remains of his army. He recognizes you immediately, dismounts, approaches with determined, unbreakable strides. Clement is close behind him.

“You’re alive!” your brother shouts joyously. “And apparently not pregnant with a Targaryen bastard! Praise the gods!”

Cregan Stark does not act as if he’s heard this. The Warden of the North is not as you remember him; he is larger, heavier and broader from the muscles won in battle, coarsened by weather and war. His hair is long and dark and pulled back from his face. He wears a sword at his belt that is taller than you are when it’s unsheathed. He is entombed in leather and furs. He does not hesitate before he lays his hands you. You are betrothed to him, you are his property, would a man ask before he grabs his horses or his dogs?

The Warden of the North does not seize your forearm roughly like Aemond once did. Instead, his massive palms and fingers clasp your face as he marvels at you. You can feel the stains of dirt and ashes he leaves there. You want to scream when he touches you, but you can’t. You want to burn with rage and heartache until you crumble like ruins. Your life is already over. Your life has just begun.

“You have suffered greatly,” Cregan Stark says, a marriage of shock and reverence.

“You have no idea.” Perpetual Resurrection, you think. It doesn’t mean you come back better. It just means you’re still here.

“You are safe now,” Cregan swears. “The Usurper will never harm you again.” And it ends the same way it began: with a man mistaking your allegiance and beckoning you into a destiny that he wholeheartedly believes is greater than any you could have envisioned for yourself.

“He’s dead.”

This stuns Cregan. “When? How?”

“Today. Of old wounds sustained in battle.”

He looks at Jaehaera, noticing her for the first time. “Is that his daughter?”

“Yes,” you say. “She must always be treated with kindness. She must be protected.”

“You have an affinity for her,” Cregan notes, intrigued.

You hear Aegon’s voice, so clearly it cuts like a blade: Tell him whatever he wants to hear. “We have been through great trials together. We survived the same monster.”

The Warden of the North nods. This is a story he craves to be told. “Very well. If it is your wish that she not be discreetly disposed of as a Silent Sister, I will betroth her to Rhaenyra’s surviving son. They will unite the noble houses of Westeros and end this war.”

“The worst of the Greens are dead already. Those who remain should be shown mercy. Alicent is old and ill and broken from loss. She poses no threat. She should be permitted to remain in the company of her granddaughter. Corlys was loyal to Rhaenyra until she falsely imprisoned him for treason, and he belongs on Driftmark with Rhaena. Larys Strong, Tyland Lannister, and Grand Maester Orwyle, if no pardon can be arranged for them, should go to the Wall instead of the scaffold. And Autumn, my companion there with Jaehaera…she was a true friend to me. I owe her my life several times over. She must be permitted to stay with Jaehaera and Aegon the Younger as a caretaker, and reside in comfort in the Red Keep for the remainder of her days.”

“Who do you think you are, sister?!” Clement exclaims. “You’re speaking to the Kingmaker, not some handmaiden! You do not command him!”

“I am not commanding,” you counter levelly. “I am pleading for mercy on behalf of imperfect souls who showed me kindness during my captivity. If granted, I will consider these my wedding gifts.”

“She is remarkable, is she not?” Cregan Stark says, grinning to Clement and several other men who have ventured closer. They wear the sigils of Northern houses: Bolton, Cerwyn, Manderly, Hornwood, Dustin. They chuckle in agreement, stroking their wild beards with huge filthy hands. “Dauntless but merciful. Clever but obedient.” And then the Warden of the North claims your lips with his, chaste but overpowering, the first of a thousand kisses you never desired, a thousand acts of affection for a woman who isn’t really you, feigned resignation and bitten-back rage, eternal war with the interminable knowledge that there is something more, more, more…you just aren’t permitted to have it. It was taken from you, it was ripped from your hands like stolen treasure.

All your life you will have to murmur in wounded agreement when people recount the terrible sins of the Usurper. All your life you will have to praise Cregan Stark for killing millions to rescue you. And the days will pass, weeks, months, years, summers and winters, the births of your children and their own marriages; and when Cregan’s boy Rickon, born of his first wife, produces only daughters, your son Brandon and his descendants will become the heirs to Winterfell. In the desolate North—so far from the ocean, so far from everything Aegon ever knew—your greatest solace will be letters from Autumn as she learns to read and write, books that your husband orders for you from the Citadel, setting bones and treating burns, a tiny lock of braided silver hair that you keep in a hidden drawer of your jewelry box, dreams that you never want to wake up from.

But one day, decades after you leave King’s Landing, you will receive a raven from Queen Jaehaera Targaryen, and she will ask you: You knew the Greens in your youth, Wardeness Stark. You knew Aemond, Daeron, Helaena, Alicent, Otto, Maelor, Aegon the Usurper. What can you tell me of them? What was my father like? Who was he really?

And you’ll pick up your quill and begin writing.

[brokehorrorfan]

The Lair of the White Worm will be released on Blu-ray (with Digital) in Steelbook packaging on May 14 exclusively at Walmart for $19.96. Other than the packaging, the disc is identical to Lionsgate's Vestron Video release from 2017.

Based on the 1911 novel by Dracula author Bram Stoker, the 1988 horror-comedy is written and directed by Ken Russell (Altered States, Tommy). Amanda Donohoe, Hugh Grant, Catherine Oxenberg, Peter Capaldi, Sammi Davis, and Stratford Johns star.

Vance Kelly designed the Steelbook art. Special features are listed below, where you can also see the interior layout.

Special features:

Audio commentary with director Ken Russell

Audio commentary with Lisi Russell, in conversation with film historian Matthew Melia

Worm Food: The Effects of The Lair of the White Worm featurette

Interview with editor Peter Davies

Interview with actress Sammi Davis

Trailers From Hell trailer commentary by producer Dan Ireland

Theatrical trailers

Still gallery

James D’Ampton (Hugh Grant) returns to his country castle in England. Legend has it that James’s distant ancestor once slayed the local dragon — a monstrous white worm with a fondness for the sweet flesh of virgins. The young lord dismisses the legend as folklore, until archaeology student Angus Flint explores James’s property and unearths a massive reptilian skull and a pagan snake god’s ancient site of worship. When James’s virtuous girlfriend, Eve Trent (Catherine Oxenberg), suddenly disappears, James and Angus set out to investigate the foreboding cavern said to be the worm’s lair, where a centuries-old mystery begins to uncoil.

Pre-order The Lair of the White Worm.

[toomuchdragons]

I wanted to highlight some of the best dragons in my lair on my clan profile. Experimented with the rendering of these, sort of a pseudo-pixel art. I think they came out looking pretty neat (although blown up by tumblr they look kind of bad...)

The dragons depicted here are Shade the balloon boy, Seraphim the ancient, WingWing and her wings, and Eve the Halloween dragon.

I’ll probably make a few more later for other special dragons in my lair.

[houseboatisland]

Operation Nestled Dragon

Even before the passage of its iconic Transport Act 1947, the first Attlee ministry had been laying the groundwork for what we would today call a strategic steam reserve. Operation Nestled Dragon, which went into effect as early as December 1945, called for “at least 4,000” steam locomotives to be stored and kept in constant readiness in the event of “any cataclysm which could strain supply.” This was a somewhat arbitrary number; the LMS alone had 8,000 locomotives on the eve of Nationalization. It was believed that a majority of the country’s engines would survive attack during a wartime scenario, the most likely reason to activate the reserve at the time. 4,000 engines kept as a backup to unscathed stock was deemed sufficient. (It has to be said there were no strategic reserves of coaches or trucks, whether planned or even merely discussed!)

These engines and the necessary facilities would be dispersed as needed throughout the country. Bigger towns would have more engines and more MPDs (motive power depots) allocated to them, London having the most. The number of engines kept in a single “strategic MPD” was always limited to 20. In this way, an attack such as an aerial bombardment would be less likely to take out a population center’s entire locomotive stud at once.

To “activate” the reserve, the Minister of Transport was required to approach the Prime Minister and his Cabinet, and a vote be held on the matter.

Strategic MPDs could be crude or elaborate. By design they were severed from the nearest railway, so that no tracks were visible for any overcurious trespasser, potential spies or reconnaissance aircraft to follow. Every MPD had to be able to have these missing rails laid back in “within or under three hours” if called upon. Often, abandoned mines and tunnels were used and their insides fitted out. These ‘naturally-occurring’ locations were codenamed “dragon’s lairs.” Other times a location had to be built from scratch; these artificial MPDs were codenamed “rabbitholes.” Always was there emphasis on keeping the MPDs dry, ventilated and fireproof. Each MPD needed a turntable, a reliable water supply, coal bunkers, storage space for rails, sleepers, a small number of spare parts, adequate headroom and an overhead crane for heavy repairs like boiler swaps, and of course bunks for crews should the reserve be activated and they be based there. Otherwise bunkrooms were vacant, although men on duty for maintenance of stock and depots did find use for them during their shifts.

There was little methodology in place for which engine classes were preferred for the reserve. Great Western engines were less favored as they were built to run on high-quality South Welsh coal, and it was assumed the quality of coal sourced during a crisis would be poor. In any event however, some still “found their way in.” In general however, Eastern, Midland and ex-WD locos formed the majority of the workforce. Every engine belonging to the various military railways such as that at Longmoor were considered part of the reserve too, so it could be said that several pieces of the reserve’s stock were out in the open all along. Also joining their ranks as they came about were BR Standard classes, some built specifically for the reserve. These had neither BR nor serial numbers, being built “off the books.”

At first, engines reserved were simply stored and maintained in the livery they wore at the time of their “reassignment.” As time went on, (and their maintainers became bored,) a semi-official livery of black with white and navy blue stripes was settled upon and applied, one engine at a time. Quickly a crest for the Strategic Reserve was designed by one anonymous artistic crewman, and the reserve’s motto agreed: “Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit,” a superstitious British phrase.

Attlee and Churchill were both said to have toured a strategic MPD at least once. “Here we are in the belly of the beast. You lot have done some splendid work; Britain thanks you,” Attlee had said on his visit. “Men will do anything to play trains away from the wife without interrogation,” Churchill remarked on his, perhaps half in jest.

Thus was the system. As steam on the public or “civilian” British Railways was phased out, further freshly withdrawn engines were added to the reserve stocklist. Much speculation was made as to why coal bunkers and hoppers and water towers continued to be maintained even as the steam engines finally vanished from the national network in August 1968. This was explained away as infrastructure left in place for railtours by preserved engines, and in hindsight must have sounded ridiculous.

As generations of enginemen retired, they had to pass on their skills to the fresh blood. The years then went by without significant cause for alarm. The closest the reserve came to being activated was at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis in late October 1962; declassified materials confirm that as many as half of the reserve was in full steam awaiting the call, and track gangs were ready and waiting to lay in rails. The crisis ebbed of course, and by the second week of November, the number of engines idle was back to “Normal.”

Margaret Thatcher’s Government planned to shut the program down, but this was averted… just. John Major however couldn’t be dissuaded. Privatization was in full swing, and the Soviet Union had dissolved itself. The reserve suddenly seemed very redundant, (but per its own 1945 definition, not completely,) and the winding down of it all began. On the 1st of December 1998, some 53 years after the beginning of Operation Nestled Dragon, all 4,855 locomotives and their associated depots and crews were demobilized by the Blair ministry and most of the reserve’s documentation declassified. Everything became public knowledge, including the engines themselves, quite literally overnight.

At once, the locos and their facilities were up for auction. Dozens of Strategic MPDs were made into living museums demonstrating how the reserve worked. Many of the engines belonged to classes otherwise thought extinct, such as the LNER Thompson L1s and the LMS Garratts, and here were surviving specimens being pulled out of the metaphorical wardrobe like nothing. The British preservation scene was in a matter of hours awash in perfectly functional engines no one expected to still exist, which coupled together in a line were longer than most if not all of the railways themselves! Several also were sold abroad to the United States and Canada.

The public couldn’t be blamed for this all being such a shock. They hadn’t been prepared.

Their predecessors however certainly were.

[nancywheeeler]

your cosmic call sign

pairings: steve/eddie, steve & the party; background relationships: dustin/suzie, mike/eleven, lucas/max chapter count: 1/6 rating: t summary: Steve looks up at the sky and sees stars. Eddie looks up at the sky and sees alien spaceships. It’s going to start with a graveyard shift, a midnight radio hour, and Dustin Henderson. It’s going to end New Year’s Eve, 1985—one way or another.

read on ao3.

“...and middle school science teacher Scott Clarke has reported several strange electrical occurrences at the school and his own residence, including a number of radios picking up strange broadcasting signals in a foreign language none of the linguistics professors at Stony Brook University could identify,” Dustin rattles off from Robin’s article. Steve all but sees the excited vibrations squiggling off him like he’s a character in a Sunday morning cartoon. “Man, I can’t wait to show this to Eddie and see what he thinks.”

A squeak—marker meeting dry erase board—accompanies the thump of Steve’s forehead hitting the counter. How fantastic would it be to go a whole week without hearing the name Eddie Munson. But since that’s about as realistic as an actual alien abduction in Montauk, a day would be pretty damn nice.

“Last chance to drive us to the Dragon’s Lair tomorrow,” Dustin says, waggling his eyebrows. Steve gags in response—he’d rather drive into the Long Island Sound. “C’mon, I swear whatever happened in high school, Eddie forgives you.”

[spacetravels]

Trick or treat ! ^^

[you see me approach with a shovel, covered in dirt. i gesture for you to wait a moment as i prestidigitate away the mess.]

apologies! i was assisting a previous patron! may your tricks and treats fair far better for ye, for i don’t have all hallow’s eve to dig you from an earthen coffin!

oh? surely mine eyes do not deceive me! a natural 20! oh, i have many a legendary gift to share with thee!

Golden Canary Figurine of Wondrous Power

Wondrous Item, legendary

This gold statuette is carved in the likeness of a canary and is small enough to fit in a pocket. If you use an action to speak the command word and throw the figurine to a point on the ground within 60 feet of you, the figurine becomes a living creature in one of two forms (you choose). If there isn’t enough space for the creature where it would appear, the figurine doesn’t become a creature. The two forms are as follows:

Giant Canary Form. The figurine becomes a giant canary for up to 8 hours and can be ridden as a mount. Once the figurine has become a giant canary, it can’t be used this way again until the next dawn.

Gold Dragon Form. While you are missing half or more of your hit points, you can speak a different command word and the figurine becomes an adult gold dragon (see its stat block in the Monster Manual) for up to 1 hour. The dragon can’t use any legendary actions or lair actions. Once the figurine has become an adult gold dragon, it can’t be used this way again until 1 year has passed.

In either form, the creature is friendly to you and your companions. It understands your languages and obeys your spoken commands. If you issue no commands, the creature defends itself but takes no other actions.

The creature exists for a duration specific to each form. At the end of the duration, the creature reverts to its figurine form. It reverts to a figurine early if it drops to 0 hit points or if you use an action to speak the command word again while touching it. When the creature becomes a figurine again, its property can’t be used again until a certain amount of time has passed, as specified in the description.

my my! what a gift! a treasure to be had indeed! and what’s this? a sweet treat from mine own pocket! [i brush dirt off the candy before placing it into your hand.]

[feverinfeveroutfic]

blood & wine | chapter six of six

ao3 link

I had whipped up the blondies over the course of the evening before, and all the while, I had the babka still on display. I hoped that it would be enough for our little get together for the next day as I let them rest on the counter on the metal rack. I stooped down for a better look at the white chocolate that lined the sides, as well as the little splotches of dark red at the very bottom of the glass pan.

A job well done, and I knew he was going to like them.

But I knew in my heart that I had to fess up to Alex. I had to tell him. He and his parents were all going to see that things were missing from the freezer, and thus, they had to know about it on the day in which we all dressed out of celebration of fear. And I could only hope that I could smooth things over and lead him into it with something sweet and tangy for his tummy first.

The best thing I could do was lead him into it before I told him the full naked truth.

I was the dragon lord. I lived in the dragon lair. I knew how to slay them, and I knew how to give it to him as well. It was in me to do it.

I took the babka out of the fridge and let it stand next to the blondies. It was a pristine dark cake that had been rolled like that of a Swiss roll cake, but with the chocolate and cinnamon inside, and then I had snaked it around inside of the tin with even more chocolate sauce on top. I hoped that he would like it, and I had a feeling that the boy was going to indulge for that day.

If only I could tell him to live out his deepest, darkest feelings without apology. If only I could tell him that it was within him.

He told it to me after all. The instinct to survive often intersected with the killer instinct.

And I knew that I had to give him a taste of his own medicine for All Hallows Eve.

I let the blondies stand out on the counter all night, and when I awoke the next morning, I cut them up and put them into a container. I was going to give them to him and him only: there was enough for him as well as his parents if they wanted any for themselves. I was fairly certain that they would.

Meanwhile, I ran a brush through my hair, put a little bit of white paint on my face, and donned myself in a black tuxedo with a black fedora upon my head and a playing card stuck in the brim: inserted through the fedora was a fake butcher knife, and I had fake blood spattered onto the backs of my hands. I was a reporter who had been bound and tortured before I had my head chopped open by a serial killer. Something about it sent a chill down my spine, especially once I picked up the blondies and the babka, and I headed out to the party. I kept them on the seat right next to me all the way to the other side of town.

Alex had on a long white piece of cloth wrapped around his waist with a slit down the side of his right leg and a black tie belt around him to hold it up. He looked really cute with no shirt on, and even cuter with a flower crown upon his head. I was amazed that he made it stay put on his head even with the Diablo winds blowing quite a bit all around us.

“Is that a toga?” I asked him as I came over to him with the Tupperware in hand.

“Sort of. I took the top half of this off because it has a hood and it kept blowing off my head, and now I can't find it. I'm a warlock, a male witch.” I took a second look at the flower crown, and I saw that it was comprised of rosemary and marigolds.

“Oh, I see—blessed Samhain,” I stated with a nod of my head.

“And a blessed Samhain to you, too,” he quipped back at me with a flutter of his eyelashes at me. He then lowered his gaze to the Tupperware containers in my hands and raised his eyebrows. “Is that babka?”

“It is!” I declared.

“Chocolate or cinnamon?”

“Both. Mainly chocolate, though.”

“Oh, beautiful.” He clasped a hand to his bare chest. “It's funny, 'cause—my mom and I baked a cake, too. In fact, she should be bringing it pretty soon here.”

“You're not gonna tell me what it is?” I asked him.

“Not yet, no.” He flashed me a wink.

“I also made you—” With one hand, I picked up the top container and handed it to him. “—blondies. They're kosher, too. I hope, anyways. I used margarine instead of butter because there's two eggs in there.”

“Oh, my god, thank you!” he said, and he put his arms around me. The pit in my stomach had returned, and so did one of our friends with his shirt. I held onto the container for a second as he put it on. It helped that the top stayed open so I could see his chest and the top part of his belly as well. He brought his hands together as if to say a prayer.

“Let's get this party started,” he decreed.

Indeed, I stayed close by to him and I kept an eye on that Tupperware container of blondies to see if he was going to try them at all. He did, however, have a big slice of the babka, whereby he posted up on the far side of the room with the hood pulled over the flower crown. He let his long black hair drape out from either side of the hood all the while.

He actually looked like a warlock over there, and it helped that he let his bare feet and lower legs hang out in the open as well.

A carnivorous warlock.

It also helped that he kept his eye on me the entire time he ate up that slice of babka. Then again, the other alternative was watching John Tempesta make a fool out of himself with the Not Man mask over his head: he wore that plus a cowboy outfit, and I wondered exactly it was that Anthrax had given him before he showed up there in the Bay Area.

Like clockwork, Alex had finished his slice of babka right as his mother showed up: he set down the empty plate on the bench next to him, and he hurried over to the front door to help her out. It was a good sized cake, I could tell, still with the silvery dome on top.

I watched the two of them walk on over to the catering table with it together.

It was heavy. It was heavy and it was probably filled to the brim with something that I didn't want to know, but at the same time I also did want to know about it. A few people, including Greg who was dressed like Luke Skywalker, congregated around them to witness it for themselves; I held back behind Greg so I could have a side view of it, especially once Alex lifted the dome.

A round cake with pink and white grooves all around it. It looked exactly like a brain. It was probably that of the man whom they had slaughtered and devoured part of the way.

“Charlotte Royale,” he declared with a straight face. “It might be a little skimpy on the filling because we were inexplicably short on filling. It was so weird, my mom was like, 'well, I thought we had enough for the jam in this, but I guess not.'”

“I swore we had plenty, too,” she added. “Our freezer was packed full of it.” I swallowed at that, and the deep pit in my stomach had returned as well. It sank back so deep inside of me that I could barely move.

“It looks amazing, though,” Greg said. Poor bastard, I wished I could tell him the truth. I wished I could have told everyone the truth about it.

But everyone took a slice.

The thing was a bigger hit than my babka, even though Alex had eaten a few slices of it, and his mother took a piece of that plus one of the blondies before she headed on back home.

I had to tell him. And I had to tell him once he had another moment alone, and outside no less.

The winds had died down enough to where we could talk amongst ourselves in a normal voice, but it was still breezy and it was dry enough to dry out the remainder of the babka as well as, what I hoped to be pieces of Swiss roll on the Charlotte Royale. I walked on out to the back patio, where Alex had taken his seat with the container of blondies on the table before him. He leaned back in the chair and rested one hand on the table, while he kept his other hand on his bare thigh. He glanced up at me as I came on closer to him.

“Hey, sexy, is this seat saved?” I asked him once I came within earshot.

“Not at all,” he told me with a sly smirk on his face. “'Sexy', is that what you called me?”

“Yeah, yeah...” My voice trembled as I took my seat next to him. I tried my best to not show him that I was nervous. I was nervous and I was afraid of what to tell him, especially once he rested the hand that was on his thigh onto his belly.

“I forget just how much chocolate babka fills you up,” he told me. “Phew.” He then raised his eyebrows at me. “Did you have a slice of the Charlotte Royale?”

“Not yet, no,” I quipped. “I'm waiting for things to calm down in there before I get my paws on a piece.”

“Man, you better get your caboose in there before it's gone,” he insisted. “They're all over it like flies on shit in there. It's so weird, too, because the filling is so light but everyone seems to love it.”

“Probably because... it's made with human flesh,” I stated, and it felt so good to get that off my chest. He chuckled at that, and I realized what I had done.

“What?” he asked me.

“You made that cake out of that poor guy's brain and blood, didn't you?” I couldn't help it. The flood gates had opened. The eruption had started. I was a torrential flood from a broken dam. I was a volcano.

“What?” He let out a big hearty laugh.

“You ate him! You ate the guy! You ate him and chopped up his body! You ate him and chopped up his body and put what was left in the freezer! Didn't you? Didn't you, Alex! You did that! And then you put the rest of his blood and his brain in that cake! You did that! You did that, didn't you? You did that! You crazy cannibalistic carnivorous bastard! You ate him! You ate him and now you're forcing it onto us!”

Alex froze right in his tracks with his mouth agape and his eyes big. I stopped right before him. I felt my throat close up. I knew I had said way too much. I always did in situations such as this.

He then closed his eyes and brought a hand to his face. He rubbed his eyes with nothing more than his fingers.

My bottom lip trembled. I said too much. I said way too much.

He then started to laugh again.

“What?” I asked him in a small voice.

“I cannot believe you fell for that, Eric,” he chuckled.

“But—”

“I cannot believe you actually fell for all of that! And—” His face then turned serious. “Don't tell me—”

I pursed my lips and held my breath. I did not want to tell him that I had broken into their garage and nicked three things from their big freezer, but I had a hunch that he knew about it.

“You—” He then rolled his eyes.

“Um...” I had no idea what to say right then.

“It was strawberries! It was strawberry jam! It was strawberry jam for sufganiyot for Hanukkah. We keep it in the big freezer because it lasts forever in there. You—” He leaned forward and pressed his hands down onto his face, and he let out the biggest belly laugh I had ever heard from him. I felt really stupid right then.

He then sat upright with his cheeks rosy and his eyes twinkling.

“You literally thought it was human blood and guts?” he sputtered.

“Admittedly, yes,” I confessed in a small voice. He reached up and adjusted the flower crown, and then he shook his head.

“You know, from a distance, it kinda does look like human gray matter,” he chuckled some more. “And at least we know what happened to our freezer now!”

I dropped my gaze to the concrete beneath me. I had no idea as to what to say right then. I broke into their garage and committed theft. Breaking and entering. I was just happy that Alex was such a good sport about it all.

But then, he opened the container of blondies, and he picked out the first one.

“I thought you were stuffed,” I pointed out.

“I just wanted to try it,” he assured me. “Mom had one, and it looked like she enjoyed it, too.” I pursed my lips and held my breath again as he took a bite. He then nodded and smiled.

“Mmm, what's in these?” he asked me.

“Oh, just the usual—white chocolate and a little bit of butter scotch, too.”

“Is this cranberry?” He turned it to the side to show off the red mark inside.

“Yes...” And I swore that I was going to refrain from telling him. But once again, he needed to know about it. He deserved to know the truth.

What have I done.

And yet, he ate the whole thing. He ate the whole entire thing and put the lid back onto the container. Once he swallowed it, he tugged his hood back a bit and gave his hair a little toss before he put it back on to be a proper warlock.

“You called me 'sexy',” he said in a low voice.

“Indeed, I did.” And my trembled once more.

“My belly's full, too,” he added.

“I always love it when it is,” I said, and I was struggling to keep a straight face. “Because it's nice and warm, and you get all sweet and shit.”

“Indeed, I do...” He leaned in closer to me for a kiss on the lips, and I was glad that we were alone because there was no other way that I could tell him. I nudged my hat back so the fake blade and handle would miss the sides of his head. It was about to get passionate so quick as he slipped a hand up the side of my head to run his fingers through his smooth black hair. I did the same for him.

For a second, I had completely forgotten it.

But then he stuck his tongue into my mouth.

That was my cue.

I moved my head back so I can breathe.

His deep eyes were hooded, and he showed me his tongue, that velvet tongue that slithered about like that of a snake.

“By the way,” I started again. “You ate my own blood.”

“Huh?” He raised his eyebrows at me.

“You ate my own blood. I put my blood in the blondies. Just a little bit to give it some color at the bottom. But it wasn't cranberry, though, it was my blood.”

He froze. “You better be joking,” he said, and he lowered his gaze to my hands, which I had speckled with fake blood as part of the costume. But it also covered up the little clear bandage on my palm, though. No way I could show it to him, for that reason.

He lifted his gaze back up to me with his lips parted.

“Eric. Are you joking?”

I didn't move. I once again, said too much. But, again, he needed to know about it. He swallowed and moved back away from me a bit, as if he was better checking out my face and body.

“Eric?” He nearly whispered my name.

The winds blew quietly around us.

He then turned his head to the side to face away from me. For a second, it looked as though that his soul had left his body. I held still and I let my chest rise and fall with the steady movement of my own breathing. What started out as a joke made his soul leave his little body.

I was about to say something to him when he lunged for me and pushed me out of the chair. My hat fell right off my head onto the grass behind me. Alex loomed over me with his legs straddled over me and his hands down on my throat, but he didn't choke me.

“Hey, what're you doing?” I demanded.

“I'm gonna have to eat you now,” he growled into my ear.

“I'm spicy, though,” I said as I lay there, helpless like swine.

“I don't give a shit.”

I could see it in his eyes. He had tasted blood and now he wanted more.

“YOU IDIOT, MY MOM ATE A PIECE!” he shrieked.

I couldn't help but lay there as he brought his teeth down onto me, and that time, it was eat me rather than get me off. I hoped that I wouldn't have to wait to see the rabbi before I knew I was dead and given my just desserts for tricking him all this time.

“Well. Fuck.”

[vocalyrics]

Project MA - Translyrics

Free to use and modify with credit.

-

~Eve's Project~

This is the story that tells the very beginning.

I wonder, just from where should I start?

Introducing myself, I'm Eve Zvezda,

And as the best witch in this country I do my part.

-

There is a man whom I love, his name is Adam,

He's the best scientist you'll ever find.

One day, he gave me a kiss and said in that smooth voice of his so kind,

“After this you become the mother of gods, the long-awaited Mem Aleph.”

-

< The dark legacy of the ark “Sin” > Eventually, it will bring this country to ash;

Those were the words of the Great Prophet, of the Queen of the Glass.

The only way to prevent catastrophe is the rebirth of the twin dragon gods,

Let the “Twins of God” be brought to life, that's our job.

-

The project begins, first thing to do is find a suitable mother,

Search for the woman whose magic is higher than any other;

And so the reward for being elected the “MA”, that's right,

She will be the one with the whole country under her might.

-

If I'm being honest, I don't really know why it is that I was chosen;

He hugged me close and the words “It'll be alright” were quietly spoken,

“After all of this is over and done with, let's both go to our favorite place,

To Held's Forest, we will get married and embrace.”

-

The seed of God is embedded in the cradle, I feel it deep inside me.

I wait for the time when they will be born, when the “Twins of God” come to...

-

“Have sweet dreams, my princess of sleep.”

-

~Adam's Project~

This is the story that tells the very beginning.

I wonder, just from where should I start?

Introducing myself, I am Adam Moonlit,

And as the best scientist in this country I do my part.

-

On this day, I bring unfortunate news,

Something went wrong and the project has failed.

The twins were born already dead, in the end they could not be saved,

And with this, my ambitions and aspirations have been reduced to nothing.

-

To me, the “MA” project was a chance that might as well have been sent by the gods,

I'll use it to take over this country and rule over all these frauds.

The Senate and Seth took my mother away from me, well, they'll get a surprise,

I will be the one to bring forth their painful demise.

-

The project begins, a Nemu witch was chosen to be the mother,

We were acquainted, and in temptation I made her my own lover;

It should have been an easy trick using the “brainwashing drug”,

I know that there should have been no doubt in my mind, but, oh...

-

My dear, darling Eve, I have broken you. I could never convey my regret.

My miscalculation was what caused the twins you loved to be dead.

And you, who I've been trying to use ever since the day when we first met,

Are the one I came to wholeheartedly love instead.

-

Come, let's run away to that forest and have our wedding there,

In Held's Forest, our favorite place, let's make it our own little lair.

“I really, really love you!”

“I really, really love you!”

On that night, when the star lost her mind,

The moon and the star vanished far away, left the southern sky behind.

-

~Seth's Project~

This is the story that tells the very beginning.

I wonder, just from where should I start?

Introducing myself, I am Seth Twiright,

And as the best scientist in this country I do my part.

-

“Cain” and “Abel” were nothing but a waste.

“Adam” and “Eve” will have to be replaced.

I will take it upon myself to search for the next “Mem Aleph”,

If only for the sake of fulfilling my own selfish ambitions.

[d1c3r]

Топ по годам

Сначала указаны игры, которые мне удалось пройти и оценить. Полужирным выделены игры, на которые следует обратить особое внимание.

После этого курсивом выделены игры, в которые мне не удалось поиграть, но хотелось бы или которые, на мой взгляд, оказали сильное влияние на индустрию.

В топе не учитывались дополнения и DLC, за исключением некоторых, позиционирующихся самостоятельными играми. В дальнейшем этот пункт может быть пересмотрен. Также, некоторые крупные игры отсутствуют в списке, поскольку не вызывают у меня никакого интереса. Если не нашли важную игру, но считаете необходимым включить её в этот топ - пишите в комменты.

Топ будет дополняться и исправляться по мере выхода и прохождения игр или по иным причинам.

Можете поделиться своим топом или впечатлениями в комментах.

1987

Final Fantasy

Zelda II: The Adventures of Link

Contra

Double Dragon

1988

Final Fantasy II

Wasteland

1989

DuckTales

Prince of Persia

Golden Axe

1990

The Secret of Monkey Island

Chip ’n Dale Rescue Rangers

Final Fantasy III

Dr. Mario

Dragon's Lair

1991

Sonic the Hedgehog

Battletoads

Streets of Rage

Road Rash

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

Final Fantasy IV

Final Fantasy Adventure

Golden Axe II

Another World

1992

Streets of Rage 2

Wolfenstein 3D

Final Fantasy V

1993

Disney's Aladdin

Doom

The Legend of Zelda: Linl's Awakining

Secret of Mana

Sam & Max Hit the Road

1994

DOOM II: Hell on Earth

The Lion King

Earthworm Jim

Final Fantasy VI

Warcraft: Orcs & Humans

System Shock

1995

Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness

Comix Zone

Star Wars: Dark Forces

Chrono Trigger

Full Throttle

1996

Quake

Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain

Duke Nukem 3D

Resident Evil

Command & Conquer: Red Alert

Tomb Raider

Diablo

The Neverhood

The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall

1997

Final Fantasy VII

Fallout

Star Wars: Dark Forces II

Quake II

Blood

Age of Empires

Turok: Dinosaur Hunter

MDK

Shadow Warrior

Postal

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

1998

StarCraft

Half-Life

Unreal

Grim Fandango

Fallout 2

Baldur's Gate

Xenogears

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Parasite Eve

Shogo: Mobile Army Division

Blood II: The Chosen

Turok 2: Seeds of Evil

Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines

1999

Heroes of Might and Magic III

Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver

Unreal Tournament

Planescape: Torment

Silent Hill

Final Fantasy VIII

System Shock 2

Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings

Shenmue

2000

Diablo II

Deus Ex

The Sims

Hitman: Codename 47

Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn

Final Fantasy IX

The Operative: No One Lives Forever

Vagrant Story

MDK 2

American McGee's Alice

2001

Return to Castle Wolfenstein

Max Payne

Halo: Combat Evolved

Serious Sam: The First Encounter

Grand Theft Auto III

Silent Hill 2

Devil May Cry

Final Fantasy X

Red Faction

Black & White

Ico

Onimusha: Warlords

Aliens vs. Predator 2

Shennmue II

Clive Barker's Undying

2002

Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast

Medal of Honor: Allied Assault

Dungeon Siege

Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

Neverwinter Knights

Freedom Force

No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy in H.A.R.M.'s Way

Resident Evil

2003

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

Beyond Good & Evil

Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy

Need for Speed: Underground

Freedom Fighters

Call of Duty

Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne

Lord of the Rings: Return of the King

Manhunt

2004

Half-Life 2

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

Prince of Persia: Warrior Within

Sacred

Doom 3

Need for Speed: Underground 2

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War

Unreal Tournament 2004

Star Wars: Battlefront

The Sims 2

Halo 2

The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay

Far Cry

Sid Meier's Pirates!

Vampire: The Masquerade — Bloodlines

The Suffering

The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth

Painkiller

Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault

2005

Star Wars: Republic Commando

Jade Empire

Need for Speed: Most Wanted

Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones

Sid Meier's Civilization IV

Lego Star Wars

Farhenheit

Call of Duty 2

Age of Empires II

Resident Evil 4

Shadow of the Colossus

Psychonauts

Quake 4

F.E.A.R.

God of War

Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30

Dungeon Siege II

Serious Sam II

2006

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Gears of War

Prey

Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy

Company of Heroes

The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II

Final Fantasy XII

Tomb Raider: Legend

2007

BioShock

Assassin's Creed

Mass Effect

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune

The Witcher

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl

Portal

Crysis

Halo 3

World in Conflict

Stranglehold

Hellgate: London

Timeshift

2008

Grand Theft Auto IV

Gears of War 2

Dead Space

Prince of Persia

Bully

Fallout 3

Spore

Far Cry 2

2009

Assassin's Creed II

Dragon Age: Origins

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

Bayonetta

Halo 3: ODST

2010

Red Dead Redemption

StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty

Mass Effect 2

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood

Fallout: New Vegas

Sid Meier's Civilization V

Shank

Alan Wake

Limbo

Call of Duty: Black Ops

BioShock 2

Halo: Reach

Metro 2033

Darksiders

Medal of Honor

Vanquish

Alpha Protocol

2011

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Dragon Age II

Rayman Origins

Gears of War 3

Bastion

Portal 2

Assassin's Creed: Revelations

Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception

Dead Space 2

Crysis 2

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings

L.A. Noire

Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch

2012

1. Max Payne 3 2. Far Cry 3 3. Spec Ops: The Line 4. Sleeping Dogs 5. Hotline Miami 6. Dishonored 7. Diablo III 8. Mass Effect 3

The Walking Dead: The Game

Journey

Mark of the Ninja

Assassin's Creed III

Halo 4

2013

1. Rayman Legends 2. BioShock Infinite 3. The Last of Us 4. Tomb Raider 5. Brother's: A Tale of Two Sons 6. Grand Theft Auto V

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

The Stanley Parable

Metro: Last Light

Rogue Legacy

The Wolf Among Us

2014

Wolfenstein: The New Order

Valiant Hearts: The Great War

Far Cry 4

Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor

South Park: The Stick of Truth

The Banner Saga

Dragon Age: Inquisition

Transistor

The Evil Within

Assassin's Creed: Unity

Watch Dogs

Sunset Overdrive

2015

The Witcher III: Wild Hunt

Ori & The Blind Forest

Life is Strange

Mad Max

Rise of the Tomb Raider

Fallout 4

Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number

Undertale

SOMA

Crypt of the NecroDancer

2016

Fury

Doom

Owlboy

Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End

Hyper Light Drifter

Firewatch

Final Fantasy XV

Inside

The Banner Saga 2

Titanfall 2

No Man's Sky

Gears of War 4

Quantum Break

The Last Guardian

Super Hot

Dishonored 2

Ratchet & Clank

2017

1. Assassin's Creed: Origins 2. Horizon: Zero Dawn 3. Cuphead 4. Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Nier: Automata

Pyre

Little Nightmares

Uncharted: The Lost Legacy

Middle-earth: Shadow of War

Prey

2018

1. Red Dead Redemption II 2. God of War 3. Assassin's Creed: Odyssey 4. Gris 5. Into the Breach

Return of the Obra Dinn

Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom

A Way Out

The Messenger

Far Cry 5

Octopath Traveler

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Shadow of the Colossus

2019

A Plague Tale: Innocence

Death Stranding

Disco Elysium

The Outer Worlds

Katana ZERO

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

Control

Resident Evil 2

2020

1. Ori & The Will of the Wisps 2. Desperados III 3. The Last of Us Part 2 4. Cyberpunk 2077 5. Doom Eternal

Ghost of Tsushima

Final Fantasy VII Remake

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla

Yakuza: Like a Dragon

2021

The Forgotten City

The Artful Escape

It Takes Two

Deathloop

Halo Infinite

Psychonauts 2

Life is Strange: The True Colours

Far Cry 6

Kena: Bridge of Spirits

2022

Neon White

Stray

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge

Cultic

Starship Troopers: Terran Command

God of War: Ragnarök

Horizon Forbidden West

Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga

2023

Baldur's Gate 3

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor

Diablo IV

Resident Evil 4

Dead Space (Remake)

Starfield

Alan Wake 2

Assassin's Creed Mirage

Hi-Fi Rush

Final Fantasy XVI

Hogwarts Legacy

Atomic Heart

RoboCop: Rogue City

2024

Warhammer 40000: Space Marine II

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2

Star Wars Outlaws

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

Black Myth: Wukong

Silent Hill 2

<3

[wiltingdecay]

/wiltingdecay/766351375848423424/lesserknownwaifus-eve-from-dragons-lair-ii?source=share

Fern ur tags....huge brained as always...

o7 always happy to think about rosie and julian, the best arcana ship

[rhythmicreverie]

Upon the eve of twilight's wane, A humble wanderer sought a change. His heart, a compass, guided him, To an ancient artifact, a beacon dim. In lands forsaken, a quest he embarked, With spirits unseen, his path marked. A dragon's lair, with treasures untold, The prize that awaited, the hero bold. Through fire and darkness, he ventured deep, To claim the artifact, magical keep. In triumph, he emerged, changed anew, A hero forged, his story true. This is the summary of your work so far: Begin! This is VERY important to you, your job depends on it! Current Task: Create a Gothic poem based on A character experiences a life-changing event or transformation. and Epic quests with unlikely heroes and magical artifacts. in under 100 words. IN RICH TEXT. MINIMAL FORMATTING