#fic: away on the mountainside

[rapturously]

𝐬𝐮𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐬 𝐧𝐢𝐠𝐡, 𝐝𝐫𝐚𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐞.

┊ count orlok x fem!reader.

✠⠀༷ ゜ 𝐒𝐘𝐍𝐎𝐏𝐒𝐈𝐒: intended to be a sacrifice for the strigoi haunting your village, your escape brings you face-to-face with death incarnate.

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 5.4K.

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: smut, dubious consent (mild hypnosis/dreamlike state), loss of virginity, monsterfucking, vampire antics (scent kink, bloodplay), stockholm syndrome, mild title kink (heavy use of my lord), shadow sex/fingering, female masturbation, voyeurism, extreme possessive/obsessive behavior.

𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫’𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞: this is arguably the most enjoyment I’ve had writing a fic in a long time. I really hope that you love it as much as I loved writing it! any support is greatly appreciated! I would absolutely love to write more Count Orlok after this, for sure!

ICE-LADEN GALES NIPPED AT BARE FLESH, LIKE THE COLD PRICK OF A KNIFE — ONLY TENFOLD. ROPE CHAFED RAGGED AGAINST SOFT SKIN, AND YOUR FEET SEEMED TO CARRY YOU FAR AWAY, INTO THE DESOLATE HILLSIDES OF TRANSYLVANIA.

A sacrifice — a sweet, mourning lamb, given to the butcher, bound together to keep the darkness from devouring your village. That was what you were, some pious creature to be torn apart by a wolf that prowled through shadow.

Only the cruor of a virgin would expunge the evil that lay within the mountains, your blood, offered to the devil.

Many girls had come before you, maidens that willingly succumbed to their fate, screams snuffed out with the trees as their witness. There was not an ounce of subservience within you, no desire to meet your end alone, to become another notch on the post.

Tears stained your cheeks, liquid salt chilled as it settled upon your features, now steeped in dirt as you stumbled through forested wilderness. Winters were dangerous — the biting ice gnawed at your bones, threatening to rip away your extremities.

Before your fellow villagers could put you to the blade, you fled — naked, bitten by frost, alone with only monsters to nip at your heels.

Their desperate cries echoed into the night, the sound of begging — pleading to be spared without their tribute. Groomed to become an inevitable feast for the creature that tormented your village, you could no longer sit idly by and wait to die.

Beneath your breast, your heart clenched, pounding like that of a drum as it howled within your ears. The whiplike scratch of the wind raked across your body, leaving you heaving, fighting against encroaching exhaustion.

In the distance, torchlight grew dim — those who knew of Nosferatu did not dare venture into the woods or the nearby mountainside. Strands of garlic and crucifixes shrouded the borders of your village, superstitions workings to keep the creature at-bay.

Twigs and undergrowth beneath the snow scraped across your feet as you continued to blindly stumble through the forest, emerging onto the other side, where the bridge rested. Beside it, an obelisk — holy relics, strands of garlic, a sign.

‘TURN BACK, OR MEET DEATH’, it read, the script having weathered with the passage of time. The bridge led to a winding path, a path that could only lead to your inevitable demise. Blood began to ooze from your soles, flesh agitated, lips becoming chapped by the wind.

The Carpathian Mountains stood vigil, an impenetrable wall of ancient rock that kept you from the castle that lay between snow-laden peaks. Wisps of snow fluttered from dusky skies, illuminated only by silvery slats of moonlight.

A haze surrounded your vision — exhaustion coupled with the inevitable shroud of frostbite, and yet, something propelled your forward. Respite awaited you in the form of cold earth and maggots if you continued, the spectre of death hovering above you.

With weak steps, you crossed the bridge, hands still bound together, rope having ripped away at the velvety flesh around your wrists. Shadows became listless, alive, as if something moved within the forest, and still, you wandered forth.

There were worse creatures than wolves and bears in the forests, mere fodder to something archaic, an ancient evil feared by your village for decades. Old maids whispered tales of the Castle Orava, home to a den of monsters considered to be servants of the devil, a harbinger of hell.

Foul magic was at-work, they claimed — and yet, you felt drawn for reasons unexplainable. It was as if you were being lured into open waters, dark and treacherous, as black as a bottomless pit. Despite the heaviness of your body, you carried on, bare and blistered.

The path became even, a seemingly-endless stretch of black woodland that broke away to reveal a gate, as ancient as the landscape itself. Even through your blurred vision, shapes danced within darkness, as if they were grinning.

A wheeze of exhaustion bubbled up within your throat, parched and hoarse, flesh beginning to submit to the earth below. You could not recall when you had fallen, crawling toward the gate as if it would be your salvation.

Hoofbeats crackled against the dirt, a distant dream, like the wisp of a memory that soon dissipated — only, it was reality.

Before your body gave way to the blissful kiss of death, a shadow approached, casting its oppressive hand across you. It was veiled by darkness, a presence most enigmatic, something that you hadn’t experienced before.

Nails as sharp as talons ghosted above your satiny flesh, now marred by bruises and by nature’s cruel sting. Your breathing became shallow, strained by a sudden wave of nauseating terror as this shadow swallowed you whole, blanketing you in what you believed to be eternal darkness.

Oh, how you longed for it — for death’s final caress.

Dreams muddled themselves with waking nightmares — and you were trapped, the lamb screaming in the woods, unable to run free. It was the same stretch of dark forest, eyes following you from penumbra, a gloom so dour and terrifying that it rattled your spine.

Running, running, running — it was all you could remember, falling to your knees in the chilled earth, stone biting at your flesh, bones begging for rest. The gleam of torchlight and the shimmer of the blade still haunted you, the executioner preparing to give your blood to protect your village.

In the howl of your terror, the wood seemed to close in around you, like a wrought-iron cage, its thorns drawing blood from your ragged skin. You wanted to scream, to cry out, beg for a savior — and yet, no sound emerged, only ash.

There, in the endless obscurity of a long night, was he — the creature.

Claws that extended from ashen digits reached for you, took hold, and you felt his grasp close in around your throat. No pleas of mercy escaped your tongue, now turned to stone. Death was what you expected in the maw of this shadow — and it never came.

Its hands did not squeeze, with no intent to snuff the air from your lungs. It wasn’t the hold of one desiring death, like that of strangulation, but the embrace of lust. It was unfamiliar — cold, exhilarating, unyielding — and yet, you never wanted anything more.

No visage ever emerged, only the sheen of crimson-stained fangs that sought your breast, the stench of something foul permeating your surroundings. There was no pain — his bite was akin to the caress of a lover, lacking maliciousness, lacking the gnash and tear of a predator.

Hunger — you could feel it burning like an open flame within your throat, his famine. A creature that starved, with an appetite so unorthodox that it was your blood he craved.

With a strangled gasp, you awoke.

Woodlands were exchanged for the frigid, stone interior of an ancient castle, fixtures remarkably old, possessing macabre decor. Your gaze flickered to the ghoulish countenance of a gargoyle hanging above a roaring hearth, heart nearly leaping from your chest.

Whatever dream you awoke from, you could not discern it from reality, a thought that frightened you to no end. Surrounded by the thick, cured hide of a grizzly, you found yourself bare, still lacking a scrap of clothing. The hide was large enough to preserve your modesty, if you had any left.

The rope that had shackled your wrists together was no more, nonexistent — only raw wounds remained. This castle was cursed, a place of horrors beyond your imagination; you could not explain the semblance of reprieve that you felt.

Licks of comforting heat soothed your icy bones, the simmering fire bringing you a semblance of peace, no matter how threadbare. This newfound environment seemed haunted, decrepit — the furnishings were covered in a layer of dust.

It was luxurious, fixtures fit for that of nobility, a lifestyle that eclipsed your own existence back in the village. Now, you belonged to nothing, with no home to return to. Your traitorous actions would be met with punishment, if you were to return.

The floor beneath you was crafted of stone, covered in a layer of dust. Tangles of cobwebs stretched across the mantle above the hearth, roused only by the ghost of a draft that fluttered throughout the room.

Beside the hearth, sat a tub — the gold had tarnished, making it appear dilapidated, as if it were weathered by the elements. Steam rose from the water inside, as still as a silent pond.

A soft groan escaped you, body wracked with the frigid sting of agony, one that made your stomach turn as you approached the bath. It was unusual, the placement — your desire for cleanliness outweighed your skepticism.

Wobbling legs trembled like leaves upon a windswept branch as you sank into steaming water, causing you to hiss at the intrusion against your wounds. The heat did wonders, offering relief from the stab of ice, from the cruelty of the Carpathian cliffsides.

It was still dusk, the hour of the bat, a night that left you with a constant presence of dread. The creature, the man you saw — his shadow had not left you, as if pieces still lingered within your heart as you scrubbed yourself free of grime.

The groan of withered hinges gave way to the weight of the cast-iron doors, adorned with the heads of snarling hounds. Light pooled in from the crack in the door, causing gooseflesh to rake along your spine, followed by a shiver.

Something pulled you — like a puppeteer orchestrating a show, strings that bound you to some medieval presence beyond the doors. The flames within the hearth began to flicker, their light diminishing, waning to little more than smoldering embers.

Fear took root within your heart, its tendrils seizing within you, filling you with a wave of disquiet. Despite the warmth of the water, your flesh screams with an icy chill, throat growing thick as you reached for the bear’s hide.

Shame rippled through you, still bare and exposed beneath the mountain of fur. Firelight illuminated the next room, far more vast than the one you awoke in. Shuffling forward, you grasped at the edge of the door, benumbed iron firm beneath your palm.

A dining hall stretched before you, an ornate table lined with tall chairs that were made from the finest of pelts, yet worn by time. In another lifetime, this castle might’ve been beautiful — instead, it was a mausoleum of the damned.

An ornate candelabra sat atop the table, wisps of smoke drifting from extinguished wicks. A sizable pitcher sat beside a pair of wine glasses, glass contained within some metallic design that twisted around the base.

Two chairs had faced the roaring fireplace, a hearth that dwarfed the size of the one in your quarters. Your footsteps were feather-light as you crossed the threshold, carrying yourself closer to the table.

“Hello?” Whispers to an empty room stirred something within the shadows, accompanied by the garish bark of hounds. Icy dread coalesced within the pit of your stomach as you looked around, fearful of your intrusion.

A door opposite of you opened, moved by a nameless shadow, whose frame eclipsed all slivers of light — an ominous void, as black as pitch. Two hounds snarled at the spectre’s heels, leering through the corridor’s darkness.

Strigoi — the revenant of pestilence, now standing before you. You should’ve been terrified, thrown yourself at its mercy, but instead, you remained petrified where you stood.

For the briefest of moments, your eyes fluttered, and the shadow no longer occupied the space within the hallway. The door slammed shut, the thunderous crack of iron reverberating throughout the room.

The hounds paced forth, growling at you as they settled somewhere along the fringes, laying down alongside scaling stone columns. You swallowed the growing lump within your throat, chewing at the inside of your cheek.

Flames shuddered in the wake of an archaic presence, akin to an icy gale, and with it, the aura of something horribly foreboding. The shadow appeared at the head of the table, each ragged breath evoking a low, guttural growl.

“Sit.”

It was inhuman, his voice — akin to thunder shaking the mountains, like the roll of a dark tide, dragging sailors into its unforgiving seas. He spoke your native tongue, Dacian, and yet it sounded harsher from his lips, wrought with blades.

Through pools of dim firelight, you caught a glimpse of his visage — sharp and pointed, stone-faced and garish. His features, whilst gaunt, possessed all of the markings of a nobleman, attire bearing sigils of royalty, crafted of fine pelts.

With trembling hands, you lowered yourself into your seat, shrouded by the warmth of the grizzly’s hide, ensuring that you were concealed from his view. That pang of hunger you felt in your dream, a ravenous appetite — you could feel it again.

The plate placed before you is nothing more than a generous portion of bread, somewhat stale from constant exposure to acrid air. Your stomach gnashes with hunger, the sting of starvation — you dared not touch it.

“Eat,” His command reverberates throughout the hall, enough to cause a wave of gooseflesh to permeate your skin, dancing along your spine. “Thou shall refer to me as thy lordship.” You had not yet extended your gratitude — he must’ve plucked you from the snow.

Without an ounce of hesitation, your teeth greedily sank into bread, pulling it apart with the fervor of some wild animal. You were not a noblewoman, nor a maiden with any title or dowry — merely the daughter of a carpenter.

“My Lord,” What did one say to a creature that once terrorized your home, to a myth now manifested into flesh? “I — I must thank you, for your hospitality.” Reduced to a mere shrew in his presence, you chewed whatever piece of bread lingered in your mouth.

It was you, his lamb — intended to be his sacrifice, his sated hunger, sparing your village from the terror of his curse.

Another snarl emerged from him, accompanied by each rasp of his breathing, a noise that perplexed you to no end. Strigoi were dangerous — servants of hell itself, creatures born of dark sorcery, ones that had no place in the natural world.

Akin to a mere wisp of shadow, he manifested at your side, pouring a goblet of wine for you, the liquid a dusky crimson. Your gaze never dared to look him in the eyes, feeling the ghost of his finger dance across your cheek.

Such warmth, such feebleness — the beating of your heart only seemed to race with a pang of exhilaration. His flesh was akin to an endless winter, as cold as ice, like roughened leather, decaying beneath the earth.

“Drink.”

Your lips had not tasted wine as lavish as the chalice he presented you with, and it felt saccharine upon your tongue. Greed consumed you, prompting you to drink as if it were your lifeblood.

Long had this castle stood, many centuries of history contained within walls as old as time. A Count, a nobleman he had been in life, a black sorcerer. You, this enchantress, maiden of nothing — you would be his bride, his obsession, his unmaker.

From the rotten gloom of his fortress, he had preyed upon your village for years — years spent in-fear of this serpent, feeding upon the young and old. Blood was blood, and it did not matter the age, so long as his appetite was satiated.

“What do you intend for me?” Your voice was little more than a trembling mewl, expecting to be submitted to dark magics or something far worse. A low grunt stirred within his throat, nail dragging along the curve of your jaw.

With great restraint, his hand recoiled, leaving your warmth as he considered your inquiry in silence. You were intended for him — not as a sacrifice, but as something more, if you were willing.

Centuries spent in his eternal tomb, centuries spent waiting for you — Orlok had crossed oceans of time, wading through endless night to find you.

“Thou must rest — no blade shall find you here.” He rumbled, looming like some dark cloud above your head. It was your scent that drove him to madness, drowned within the concoction of oils placed into the bath. It was a scent he would covet fervently.

A hitch formed within your throat, and your terror had diminished, but only enough to keep you from shaking with dread. You did not understand what he wanted from you, why he did not tear you limb from limb, the fate that had befallen many of your kin.

No blade that wasn’t his own, you pondered, chewing at the inside of your cheek until the flesh was raw. Blood coalesced, sanguine drops attracting the sudden, sharp ire of your host, whose black eyes glittered with bewilderment.

“My Lord, I — I do not understand …” Uncertainty began to permeate your tone, cadence wrought with a newfound fright. Your blood ran cold, heart leaping into your throat as your chest tightened with a great and terrible worry.

“Rest.” His growl ripped through him, reverberating from his chest like the snarl of a feral beast. You skittered from the chair, still swathed in bearskin as you retreated to the room you came from.

Perhaps, he had mistaken your fear as something ungrateful. He had not slaughtered you yet, making you an unwitting guest within his home — you should’ve been offering your gratitude without protest.

The flame within the hearth had dissipated in one fell swoop, as if some storming gale had swept throughout the hall, stealing all light with it. Darkness swallowed your surroundings, and the Count had disappeared entirely, as if he had manifested into shadow.

A shudder coursed along your spine, sending you clamoring into the false comfort of your chambers. The door had shut before you, as if propelled by some unseen force, prompting you to move towards the bed behind you.

Not even the velvet curtains could offer you security, as if they were transparent, or nonexistent. You could still feel the chill of his breath against your cheek, the sensation of his claw tracing along your jaw — you should’ve been repulsed.

Instead of abhorrence, you felt a deep-seated yearning — a blistering desire that you hadn’t experienced before, a tether that anchored you to this being. You feared yourself, the amalgamation of sensations rousing within you as you crawled beneath the sheets.

Sleep would not find you — not here.

Your dreams were no longer yours, bound to him — whatever slumber you could find, you were subject to these visions, lascivious in nature. Whatever rest you could find was disjointed, interrupted by dreams so real that you were convinced of their tangibility, as if you could reach out and touch.

It was him you dreamt of, coming to you at an ungodly hour, claws raking across your bare flesh as he unraveled your sheets. The constant penumbra kept him concealed from you, and yet, you burned to see him fully.

He touched you in your dreams, appearing between your legs as you bared your soul to him, a figure so impossibly large and intimidating. It was guilt and trepidation you should’ve felt, laying with the scourge of your people, a baneful serpent.

Instead, it was euphoria — a desire to bind yourself to him, to cage yourself within his grasp. Spindly digits caressed along your body, nails ghosting above your breasts, traveling to the plane of your stomach.

Unclean — that was what you were, piety now stained in his shadow. Even that did not perturb you as you reached for him, wisps of air being stolen from your lungs as he leaned closer, teeth scraping against your sternum.

“Please,” You had begged him to continue, to bring you a pleasure that you had not yet experienced. “Do not stop.” Whatever pleas fell from your mouth had been for naught — and you awoke with sweat-slick skin and startlement.

As your eyes fluttered open, you were flustered to find the heavy warmth of arousal between your thighs, sheets tangled around your body. Embarrassment turned to frustration, throat dry as you adjusted yourself to the darkness of your chambers.

“Thine body yearns, starved for embrace,” Like the clash of thunder, his voice shook the room, emerging from the pitch surrounding you. You did not know where he was, but he was here with you — physically. “A lamb seeking the shepherd.”

An icy breeze fluttered throughout your quarters, moonlight glistening along the curtains surrounding the bed — and you saw his shadow beside you. Exposed, you drew the sheets around you, with a shame so sharp, and yet your skin gave so easily.

That familiar knot of dread bubbled within your stomach, gooseflesh crawling along your body as you wrapped your arms around you. “I feel your shadow upon me — I should not want you.” You whispered into the gloom.

A growl stirred from the strigoi, and he burrowed into your shame, settling into your bones. “Thine will is your own — it is in your nature,” He rumbled, and that was when you saw him, lingering at the foot of the bed. “Give thyself to me.”

It was your agonizing shame that kept you from crawling to him on all fours like some beast, starving for any scrap of touch. You wanted him, in your own twisted way — wanted him to shield you from your kin, to take you, to live within your ribs.

There was no life left for you in the village — the kin that amassed to put you to the blade, left in the woods for him were not your friends. Perhaps, that was what drove you all along, pushing you into his embrace.

His tendrils wrapped themselves around your mind, no thoughts left untouched, each crevice now surrendered to the Count. He could taste your burning lust, your desire to belong, to belong to him — and he craved such sentiments.

“What little life you had, now belongs to me. Give thyself, willingly — I shall satisfy this craving, and your flesh will be mine alone.”

In the slim fade of silver, you saw him — gaunt and pale, like that of an apparition. In life, he might’ve been called handsome, comely — your disgust should’ve kept you away, made you flee. You were rooted to the bed, able to meet his stare.

Hues as black as pitch, swirling with a hunger unending, an eternal appetite that demanded to be sated by you. He watched you hawkishly, his shadow descending upon you, the phantom sensation of fingers dancing across your collarbone.

Enraptured by the Count, your enticement only seemed to blossom, unfurling from your chest with a wave of want. Instead of hiding yourself from him, you sluggishly allowed the sheets to drop, breasts pebbling from the chilled air.

“I am yours — and only yours, my Lord.”

With a breathy declaration of your devotion, a snarl bubbled from his throat, a sound that sent shivers cascading down your body. Your legs untangled themselves from the sheets altogether, nakedness now exhilarating instead of humiliating.

It was as if you were eased down by some unseen presence, as clawed, shadowed hands bid you to recline into the feathered bed beneath you. The Count did not move from the foot of the frame, leering at you with an ugly obsession.

“Think only of me.”

Whatever supernatural abilities he possessed, he used them, as if you were placed back into the vision you’d had before. His tone rattles your insides, a booming timbre wrought with something dark and enigmatic.

Phantom sensations drift along your body, the touch of another foreign to you. You have used your own hand before, but this feels exhilarating, like a gale of frigid wind ghosting across your frame.

Arousal coalesces between your legs, a slick heat that oozes onto the sheets. It is your scent that vexes him so, the scent of a siren, the call of your sanguine soul.

Without a thought, your hand shyly drifts to your chest, kneading into one of your breasts. Your skin prickles when he makes a sharp, throaty growl of satisfaction. His ghostly claws rake along the supple flesh of your thighs.

A moan escapes you, one of delight as you begin to sink into his presence. For now, he is content to observe, his shadow partaking instead of his physical being — it will not be that way for long.

Soon, your flesh would join — you would become bound to him, and he to you, a union abhorred by many. He reveled at the thought of you, flesh eternal, revealing yourself to him like the unfurling petals of a flower.

No longer shrewd beneath his covetous glower, you freely touch yourself, squeaking out a myriad of sounds from your throat. “Take all of me, beloved.” You exhale, the pad of your thumb flicking across your swollen nipple.

The use of such an intimate title evokes a ragged, strained exhale from your paramour, whose obsession rages like that of a tempest. His phantom claws trace along your body, circling your unattended breast.

It kneads just as you do, sharp talons continuing to tease the pebbled bud, drawing out a mewl from your sweet lips. Gooseflesh erupts across the back of your neck, another wave of arousal flushing through your frame.

A heated ardor burned between your thighs, soon to be soothed by the ghost of gnarled digits. Spectral claws continue to revel in your velvety flesh, seeking your arousal as the shadow traces across your cunt. It makes you writhe, one hand grasping desperately at the sheets.

A strangled whimper emerges from you, back beginning to arch into his salacious embrace. He continues to watch from his place at the foot of the bed, breathing unnaturally hoarse, strained with a wanton need.

Warmth exhumes from you like the lick of an open fire, extinguishing his gravely chill. The Count’s gaze greedily consumes your contorting form, able to hear the erratic beating of your heart, your mouth torn open, his name upon your lips.

No curse had befallen you, save that of devotion.

Phantom digits find the pearl of your cunt, teasing the clutch of nerves before vigorously circling it. Your knees buckle, eyes fluttering shut as you succumbed to such unholy appetites.

“Give in to thine own desires.”

That gravelly purr coaxes you to seek your satisfaction, and you mechanically obey, as if transfixed by his voice alone. A sharp exhale splits your ribs, and the hand that once grasped the sheets soon finds its way between your legs.

An unnatural sheen permeates his black hues, one that seems appeased with your subservience. No dead heart could beat — his skeletal frame had not felt such fervor for centuries.

Again, you look to him, as if wanting him to witness your lust, fingers dancing along your swollen folds. Your digits seek to roll across your slit, eliciting a whine from you as you begin to touch yourself.

Dragging your legs against the sheets, you keep them parted, two fingers sluggishly rutting against your nethers. A phantom hand caresses along your stomach, nails raking from navel to sternum, and then to your throat.

The pressure sends a spike of adrenaline through your body, the sensation unfamiliar, but not unwelcome. You think of him in an untoward manner, unbecoming of a maiden, lascivious fantasies that make you sigh.

Ghostly caresses layer themselves across your chest, and you swear you hear him shift throughout the room, drawing closer to you. Your thumb languidly circles your pearl, teeth gnashing at your lower lip.

A throaty moan rips from your diaphragm, wrought with ecstasy as you pleasure yourself, one palm kneading at your breast. The other is spirited, ministrations laced with desire as your digits find your entrance.

His shadow is oppressive, a force that blankets itself across your body, and for a moment, you see a vision of him, crawling over your flesh. Your thoughts are molded to him, able to be toyed with — your Lord makes you see his own whims.

It became difficult to discern dreams from reality, imagining his hands roaming your form, claws sinking into your flesh, his brand. You call out to him, a whimpering plea that begs him for release.

Arousal mounts, burning heavy within the pit of your stomach as you squirm, pushing two fingers into the tight heat of your cunt. The noises are sinful, a myriad of strained moans intermingled with crass strokes of your digits.

The Count’s phantom hand continues to squeeze at your throat, nails digging into the silken flesh of your neck. A sharp exhale emerges from your lips, toes beginning to curl at the concoction of sensations assaulting your body.

You alone had grown intimately acquainted with your own body, and yet he handled you as if you had been lovers for centuries. Ghostly digits begin to toy with the pearl of your cunt, causing your muscles to twitch.

“Please,” A supplication to the shadows, wanting some release for your overwhelming pleasure. It swarms you from all around, senses invaded with his dominating presence. “My Lord, please!” Your cunt clenches around your fingers.

A growl erupts from the pitch, his gaze fixated upon you as he looms closer, hovering above your writhing frame. The scent of your cruor ensnares him like a wolf to a rabbit, and he finally moves to perch beside you.

His garb only makes him seem impossibly statuesque, hand hovering above you as his sorcery intensifies. Your back arches, feeling his shadow purse around your pearl, enough to make you fist at the sheets.

Ecstatic digits piston themselves in and out of your nethers, coated in a thin layer of slick, thighs shifting together in an attempt to relieve any ounce of friction.

Higher — you climb toward your release, chasing after it with a thinly-veiled desperation. Shadowy sensations move across your body like liquid smoke, squeezing beneath your jaw, continuing to circle around your clit.

You are temptation incarnate — his devotion to you is a powerful thing, just as yours is to him. Sharp, jagged teeth hover above your breast, and the Count succumbs to his hunger, at last.

Pain blossoms throughout your breast, and yet you hadn’t felt an ecstasy quite like this. It was blinding, white-hot as it consumed you whole, swallowing you within the abyss of lust. Teeth break flesh, tasting your cruor upon his tongue.

No drink could compare to that of your sanguine ichor, no sensation — the Count drank from your breast, a possessive snarl ripping through his chest. He bristled at the feeling of your warm palm cupping the nape of his neck.

A crescendo of moans tore through you as you approached your peak, digits continuing to dip inward, curling within your cunt. It became strained, body trembling with an onslaught of ecstasy.

Claws begin to stroke along your tresses, as if easing you into submission, coaxing forth a release that makes you scream. Your body curls toward him, cunt slick with your mess as you find your satisfaction, at last.

A warm rush of your essence soaks the sheets, the scent enough to drive your paramour to madness. It furthers his bloodlust in a way that entices you, another wheezing exhale leaving him.

A rough tongue slithers against your sternum, stained in crimson as he openly feasts from you, and you do not recoil. Your peak seems to work in-tandem with his appetite, feeling his claws ghost above your breast.

Muscles ache with spasmodic twitches, chest flourishing with the sting of agony as it spreads throughout your sternum. Instead, you invite him closer, digits stroking at the greying, decayed flesh, allowing him to sup upon you.

His gravelly voice seems to intensify within the recesses of your mind, speaking to you through a distant haze. “Thine flesh belongs to me,” He rumbles, and you hold him closer. “As this flesh belongs to thee.”

He does not touch you, leaving you with some aching void that can only be filled by him — he alone will satisfy the craving.

[writingsbychlo]

UNWIND | azriel

summary; azriel is caught up in his head, and needs to fuck out his frustrations with the woman he loves.

word count; 8543

notes; I can’t tell if this is hot or pure shit so lmk because this is a little more than my usual smut levels. also, this is a vague follow up to ‘focus’ but very very loosely. can totally be read as a stand-alone fic.

The lights were flickering in the halls as you walked along, the steady bursts of uncontrolled power bursting throughout the House of Wind, thrumming like an irrational heartbeat. The closer you got, the stronger the pulses became, the more frequent the flickering was, and the thicker the air seemed to get. 

You’d known Azriel for decades now, long enough to have seen these moods before. It wasn’t the worst one, not by far, nothing compared to the night Rhysand found himself trapped, or Feyre was taken back to Spring. Nonetheless, it didn’t make it any better. 

Cassian had fled after dinner with Nesta in his arms, the Townhouse looking like a very appealing prospect to visit for the night, and you knew that even though the ripples of his errant power never reached as low as the library, even the priestesses would be on lockdown from Azriel’s mood tonight. 

He’d never lay a finger on anyone, he never had, but it didn’t make the tumbling stones shaken loose from the mountainside any less scary, or the mass of writhing shadows and rage any friendlier.

It felt like plunging your head under water as you stood outside of his bedroom door; breath held, utter silence thick around your ears, heart beating so hard it was resonating audibly inside your skull. When your fist tapped against the wood, you barely heard the echo. A steady thrum of power was all you got in response. A warning, a threat, a question of who had dared come close, you weren’t sure. 

No more came. 

The bursts of power seemed to simmer, to become like a crawling, bubbling mess, so close to boiling over, spitting around your feet instead of steady pulses. The door finally creaked open, when you’d just about given up, wood scraping across the stone tiles to reveal the chaotic darkness inside.

As soon as you had cleared the entrance, the door slammed shut behind you. Only through the flickers of wild shadows could moonlight filter through, all of the lights on but none of the glow reaching you, and it was only by the one velvety shadow curling affectionately around your wrist that you were able to find any guidance through the onyx tornado at all. 

The shadow at your wrist dipped down, twirling between your fingers like the phantom touch of another’s hand in your own, leading you in slow stumbles through the room. The cold of the night hit you before any moonlight did, and it was only when you stumbled through the streams of shadows like a curtain that your lungs let you take a deep breath once again. 

Chilled, cold air wrapped around you like a blanket, bursting through your senses and renewing your mind once again. The touch at your wrist slipped away, a rogue tendril that rejoined the frenzy now that you were safely through the storm, and Azriel stood before you. Hunched at the waist, forearms braced on the stone balcony railing as he stared out at the endless distance. 

He was tense, built like stone and mountains, walls of solid muscle pulled so taut that his wings didn’t even touch the ground. His bare feet clung to the stone, skin pebbled in goosebumps everywhere except his covered legs, swirls of ink over his shoulders disappearing into the night sky. 

Tonight, Azriel wasn’t as flirty as he normally was. Tonight, he’d shut down entirely. That line that had been crossed weeks ago in the training ring felt like a million years ago now as he shut you out. He was so caught up in his own head that you weren’t even sure if he knew you were here. 

“Azriel?”

An answer to your question, as he jumped in shock, straightening to his full height, and twisting to face you. His eyes were dull and yet burning with rage, face contorted into a frown that you weren’t used to. Normally, he offered you a sweet smile, a smirk or a wink. A soft kiss to your forehead or cheek, a brush of one scarred finger over your blushing cheeks. 

None of it came now.  

“What are you doing here?”

You swallowed thickly, throat like sandpaper as you tried to form a response, to form words under the ire of his glare, but refusing to back down. He may be terrifying to the world, but he was the world to you. “Your shadow came when I knocked. I assumed you sent it to open the door.”

His gaze flickered angrily over his shoulder, like in the swirling mass he’d be able to pick out the traitor precisely, a snarl on his lips before he was looking back to you. “I didn’t. You shouldn’t be here.”

It was a dismissal, one he punctuated by turning his back on you and resuming his lean against the railing, breath clouding in the air as he let out a world-weary sigh. “Azriel…”

“Did you not just hear me?” His fingers clenched on the stone, so firmly that his knuckles turned white. The mountains practically shook again with his shout; “Leave!”

That power thrummed out again, heavy bursts that hummed over the building and rattled the glass windows as you stepped closer, flares of glittering blue from his siphons where they sat in a pile, useless to the rippling power now on a table beside him. Daring to take another step closer, he stiffened again.

You moved, closer and closer until you were within reaching distance, the space between you both swallowed up, but you didn’t dare to touch him. His wings twitched on either side of your body, tightening in like they did when he was preparing for a fight. Instead of reaching out, you cleared your throat softly, letting him know just where you were behind him.

He growled, turning slowly, cautious to ensure that no part of him touched any part of you, and the air was all but crackling with unshed tension around you. Insults, curses, harsh words were conveyed in his gaze, everything in an attempt to get you to leave that he had yet to say. 

Before he could say any of them, you raised your hands slowly, making sure he could track every movement as his eye widened, like taming a beast instead of a man. When your palms settled over his cheeks, the preternatural stiffness and stillness he’d taken on melted, his shoulders began to slump, like he was being dragged down into the very earth itself, even as he still towered over you. 

“Az, sweetheart…”

Still, he did not touch you. Even as the anger in his eyes only softened to pain, and the clench of his fists smoothed his hands out from fists by his sides. “You shouldn’t be here.” It wasn’t a threat this time, but instead was a plea, begging you to leave with a tenderness you were familiar with from him.

“Why shouldn’t I be?” You murmured, voice unable to reach above a whisper in fear of shattering the fragile peace. Sweeping your thumbs over his cheekbones, his throat bobbed, eyes held steady with your own. “Let me be here for you.”

“You can’t be here, because I’m not okay. If I hurt you, I don’t think I could ever forgive myself.”

Your heart shattered at the admission, his shadows pulling in closer and closer to you both, no longer afraid of their master but seeking to comfort, a blanket wrapping around the both of you at the base of your legs. 

You didn’t reply verbally, instead, you gave him every chance to pull away, to stop it, as you leaned up, taking your time as you rose, until the breath was shared between you both, his steady breaths now shallow pants. 

Your lips met his jaw first, just to the left of his chin, a soft kiss that wasn’t nearly enough. Another just a fraction higher, and another, until your lips were pressed to his cheek and he was letting out a shaky breath by your ear. 

“Baby…”

“Do you really want me to leave, Az?” Your lip skimmed over his, reciprocated by his pucker but you didn’t give into it just yet, sliding one hand to the back of his neck and the other up over his cheek. Slipping your thumb between your mouths, you stoked over his lips once, his haze fixed. “Tell me you don’t want me here and I’ll go. But, I don’t want you to be alone, when I’m here for you if you want me. I’ll always be here for you.”

The message was clear, and you gave him a single and fleeting kiss to his lips, tearing away from his space and falling back to the flats of your feet. One step back, just enough to think. 

Your foot lifted, never making it as far as a second step away, before he was finally reaching out. His hands gripped at your hips, yanking you forward roughly until you were falling into his body, colliding with cold skin and solid walls of muscle. 

“I don’t want you to go. I just want you here with me. I always want you here with me.” The confession sounded like it pained him, hoarse on a throat yelled raw already, the Azriel you know fighting the darkness enough to break through to you for a moment. “I don’t know if I’m ready to show you this part of myself, I don’t want you to be scared of me. I can’t lose you.”

The hands settled on your hips flexed, like he was trying to be gentler but they came back just as tight, spaces where there would be bruises in the morning. He’d tried so hard to resist touching you at all, but now, you weren’t sure you’d be able to break free even if you wanted to.

Tracing your arms over his arms, back up to hold his face, this time, he tipped into your touch, lashes fluttering shut for just a second as he sucked in a breath. 

“You don’t scare me, Azriel. No part of you scares me. Not your shadows, not your knives, not your moody scowl. I know every part of you, I care for every part of you. This isn’t about me, I’m not the one in need.” You weren’t sure what had happened in Hewn City, only that it must’ve been bad. Whatever he’d seen, whatever he couldn't stop, it was dragging him down into despair and rage. “So, tell me, do you want me to stay or do you want me to go?”

His forehead came down, leaning on your own. “I want you to stay.”

Your noses bumped, a smile forming on your lips as he nuzzled in as close to you a she could get, his arms wrapping around you and holding you firmly to his chest, until your heartbeats echoed together. “You didn’t come to dinner. I was worried about you. Maybe we should get you some food?”

“I don’t want to eat,” He whispered, the words like ice over you as the softness dropped from his tone once again, the wild animal rampaging in his mind taking over once again. One hand was sliding up from your waist now, loose enough to travel over the expanse of your body, across your torso and over your breasts until his fingers were flexing once again, but this time around your throat. 

In one swift movement, you were being spun, back pressing into the unforgiving stone of the wall railing, cold spreading along your skin as your shirt rose behind you. His eyes were darker now, the pretty caramel shade you loved so much almost swallowed entirely by the dark, his lips forming an equally dark smirk to match. But he waited, he was like a predator waiting for the prey to give permission to be hunted. 

And you did. 

A single nod was all it took, until he was surging forwards, lips crashing into your own, a kiss so urgent and fierce that the breath was knocked from your lungs. The implication was clear, everything about Azriel was an open book tonight, unlike his usual way of hiding his emotions. 

He didn’t want gentle, he didn’t need soft. What Azriel needed most was to let out this energy, to use it for something other than self-destruction and hatred, to burn off every angry part of himself in a way that would make him feel good. He’d once told you that your mind was unfocused, on everything but where it needed to be, and he’d helped you clear it with his fingers between your legs. 

His mind needed the opposite, needed to let go of what he was clinging to, to release it. He didn’t need to focus, he needed to let it all go. Perhaps a mindblowing orgasm would do the same for him.

His lips were unyielding against your own, a scrape of his teeth over your lower lip until you yelped, and his tongue plunged into your mouth at the opening. The hand on your neck flexed, your whimpers cut off by his lips and you had no chance at all, drowning in everything front he feel of him to the taste of him. Stolen kisses had nothing on this, this crescendo of overdue emotions and pent-up feelings, and despite it all, there was still a reverence underneath that told you your Azriel was fighting all the while to hold onto you.

Through every gasping breath you managed to take between assaults of his lips, you got less and less oxygen, vision spotting until you felt almost delirious from the burn of your lungs. When his hand loosened just fractionally, his mouth torn from your own only to leave wet marks across your jaw and neck, you heaved in breath while you had the chance. 

“Azriel, let me touch you. Let me help you, make you feel good…”

“Oh, you’ll make me feel good, baby. Don’t worry about that.” His voice was sharp and lethal, like a blade slicing across your skin where he mumbled it into the juncture of your neck. His teeth followed, a bite on your skin, your head tossed, back arching until you were dangling over the balcony, his hand at your neck all that kept you stable. 

You were on the tips of your toes, bared for the man he pulled back, licking over kiss-swollen lips and using a half-lidded gaze to take you in. 

“So fucking beautiful. Inside and out. So kind and sweet and godsdamned perfect. All for me.” He whispered, your heart skipping a beat in your throat because, despite the fire in his gaze, there was honey in his voice. “I hate myself for how much I want to fucking ruin you.”

“I want nothing more than that,” Your promise made his head snap up, his admiration and longing taken over by raw desire and anticipation. Once furrowed brows smoothed out, relaxing enough for him to raise one in solitary judgement. 

“You’re going to regret saying that, sweetheart.” Unlike when you’d said it, the pet name was laced with venom and rough promises, coated in something that made your skin break out with a shudder once again. He closed in on you, even closer, until your toes were hardly touching the floor at all, dangling at his mercy entirely as he hummed to himself, eyes scanning along you as he considered to himself just how he wanted to proceed. “I bet you’d do anything I asked of you right now, wouldn't you? Would you get down on your knees for me, pretty girl?”

“Yes.”

“Would you let me fuck your pretty mouth until I was satisfied?” Your legs clamped together, one of his fingers dragging your lower lip down, biting his own eagerly, before he was slipping two fingers into your mouth, cutting your answer off. His smirk told you he already knew the words you’d have uttered, anyway. “Show me. Show me how good you’d be if it were my cock in there, instead.”

Your lips sealed around his fingers, your tongue dragging along marred and ridged skin within your mouth, as far as you could go until your eyes watered and you were suppressing the urge to gag. His lips parted, gaze fixed on where his digits disappeared between your lips, the thrill of it sending a shock of electricity down your spine, coiling at the base of your stomach with hot need. 

The look on his face was nothing short of worship, even if he was in control, you still held the power. 

Lapping at the skin, you grazed your teeth lightly over his knuckles as you pulled back, his soft growl your only clue of his reaction before bobbing your head back down again. Before you could repeat the motion, however, he was tugging his fingers back, a wet pop and a trail of saliva snapping, and the hand on your throat tightened to lift your head up for him again. Your sights clashed, and he already looked about as ruined as you felt. 

He was shaking with need, you could see the vibrations in his shoulders, the hum of the occasional shadow that darted up high enough to dance over his shoulders, before joining the pool at your waists. 

Those two wet fingers dragged down, a shock of coldness over your bare skin before his fingers were snapping the elastic of your leggings against your hips. He only chuckled at your gasp, before his hand was dipping under this time, fingers teasing down between your legs until he was dragging a moan from you at the featherlight touch over your clit. 

“Oh, look at that. You didn’t need to get my fingers all wet for me after all, you’re fucking dripping for me.” Swirling two digits through the wetness already accumulated, your head fell back, a whimper of his name carried away on the winds. 

“You once told me that I was too in my head. You helped me focus, just like this. Let me help you unfocus now. Let me touch you, let me make you feel good.” One hand gripped at his forearm around your throat, gentle but firm, holding you secure where you all but balanced over the edge. The other reached for his hand, hidden under your leggings and the swirl of shadows as he dipped one finger into your core, sinking it slowly into you. “Az…”

“Making you feel good, sweetheart, watching you come undone is what’s going to help me. I want you to scream my name so loud I can’t hear any of the bad thoughts, just you.” As he spoke, he pulled his touch back, only to snap back in with both fingers instead of one, and your back arched again with a cry of his name. 

Again and again, his fingers dragged over every spot within you that made yous hake only to snap back against you, not letting the limits of your clothing stop him at all. Then again, it never had before, either. Just like in that training ring, he started to tease. The palm of his hand over your clit, grazing with each thrust that was never quite enough. Your hips rolled down to meet him, scrabbling, desperate for more, and his condescending laugh was hidden in your skin, but you felt every piece of it. 

Heat flooded your skin, the begging you were rapidly approaching sitting like bitter acid on the tip of your tongue. Your fingers scratched anywhere you could reach, clinging to him while demanding more, thanks and request all in one. You could feel it, the whisper of pleasure over your nerves, so close but not enough, and a sob fell from your lips as his taunting. 

He knew exactly what he was doing.

With a simple flick of his wrist, he was twisting his hand, reaching deeper, using all the things he’d learned about you like muscle memory to find every spot that he needed to.

“Please, Azriel!”

“Please, what?” He echoed, pulling back enough to set his forehead on your own again, lips brushing, feeling your pants wash over his face, letting him taste everything he did to you from your needy whines and gasps. “Tell me what you want.” He threw your own words back in your face, you’d made him ask you to stay, and now he wanted you to ask him to make you come. 

Your lips stopped the words, another cry of his name, shaky and pathetic as he held your orgasm just out of reach, his fingers slowing to almost a stop, barely moving at all, and your frustration was so palpable you felt like electricity was jumping from your skin to his own, every hair standing on end. “Azriel! Please, please, let me come!”

“There’s my good fuckin’ girl.”

With the perfect crook of his fingers, Azriel had you shaking, hurtling towards an orgasm that would leave your mind spinning, head empty when that was what you were supposed to be doing for him, but the pleasure was too heady for you to care. 

His fingers buried deep in your cunt, his lips on your neck, tongue and teeth stinging and soothing as he marked you, mumbled praises interspersed with filthy promises, it was all too much. With a heavy swipe of his thumb over your clit, his name finally fell in a true scream from your lips. 

He didn’t let up, not when your clit began to throb or walls pulsed. Not until you were shaking so hard through your orgasm that you were all but crawling up and over the edge of the balcony did he stop, leaving you unable to breathe for an entirely different reason as he wrung your body out for pleasure.

His hand finally left you, catching you at the waist when your knees buckled, his fingers tucking into his mouth to suck the taste of your from them, a lewd act that had your cheeks flushing with heat and your stomach tingling with need again already. Clinging onto him, your nails left crescent moons in the exposed skin of his chest, red marks on his forearms where you’d clawed at him, but he didn’t seem to care. If anything, he looked wilder now then he had before. 

“That… that was even better than last time.” You panted out. He’d used all those tips and tricks he’d learned about your body from the last time to play you like his favourite game this time, driving you to an earth-shattering orgasm with a few touches and buttons pushed, knowing you too well.

Your only reply was a harsh kiss, his tongue forcing its way between your lips to let you taste yourself as he held you solidly to him. Your lips were slow and languid where his were hurried and desperate, mind still working far too quickly, still holding onto so much, the night nowhere near over if he hadn't started to let it go. 

A shadow swiped across the back of your legs, your body sinking slowly towards the ground as this time he doesn’t bother to correct you, this time, it was intentional. Your lips are torn apart, your knees meeting the stone as he sets you down, with enough care that your teeth don’t clatter and your knees aren’t cut, a flash of your love in there despite the monster taking over his body. 

“Gods, I knew you’d look good on your knees for me. Always so pretty, baby. So fuckin’ pretty.” He swept your hair over your shoulders, a finger under your chin to tip your head up, shadows so high around you that if he willed it they’d go over your head entirely, smothering you within them and taking you prisoner. “Bet you’d look good if your mouth was stuffed with my cock too, huh? Shall we find out?”

Your legs clenched at his words, a dizzy wave of arousal slamming into you at full force. You’d thought about Az bossing you around before, the voice he used at training or on missions, hoping he’d one day turn it on you between the sheets too. This was so much colder and crueller than that, it was almost mocking, like he truly was taking you for the toy you’d offered yourself up to be, his to use for the night until he felt better, and he wore that role like a second skin.

His leathers sit low on his hips, sharp hipbones exposed to you along with the deep dip of his muscled stomach, trailing down with a patch of hair from his navel to disappear between the laces. Leaning in, you left a light kiss over the soft hairs just above the hemline, a hiss on his lips as he watched you, and you watched him through your lashes.

Another kiss, this one to his hipbone, and then to the other, his hand clenching and unclenching by his side as you left scattered kisses along the base of his stomach, tongue occasionally flicking out to tease. When he’d seemingly had enough, his hand settled on your head, fingers weaving into your hair, gathering the strands up threateningly in his fist but not tugging yet, just making his presence known, taking back every shred of that power. 

Sliding your hands up his legs and over the front of his trousers, he let out a low moan at the pressure of your palms, his hips rolling into your touch as his erection strained against the fabric underneath. Your fingers toyed with the ends of each lace holding them shut, barely managing to contain him now. 

“Go ahead, pretty girl.” His words were powerful but his voice was straining, watching through hooded eyes as you undid the laces slowly, unable to hide the smirk on your face as you teased him. Inching them down a little at a time, more and more of him was revealed to you, until the leathers were tight around the middle of his thighs, his cock red and angry, standing tall before you, shining with the smears of precum that already escaped him. 

When you leaned in, hands still clasped at his thighs, only to leave a tantalising lick from his base to his tip, he growled. You did it again, enjoying the way the danger of riling him up anymore seemed to make you tremble with want. You cleaned the taste of him from his skin, salty and rich, merely a hint of what he’d truly taste like and yet your mouth was already watering, begging for more, needing it more than you needed air to breathe. 

Another lick, and his restraint finally snapped. A shocked sound left your lips as he yanked your head back hard by the first in your hair, taking his cock within his other hand, and slapping it against your cheek. “Open up, before I fucking make you.”

Your jaw fell open of its own command, lips parting and tongue sitting flat, and there was far too much pride in his gaze as he grinned down at you, letting the head of his cock hover millimetres from your lips. 

“Say please.”

“Please.” You were breathless, the word rushing from you, and the grin on his face was wild enough that your stomach felt like you’d fallen through the sky. The same flipping and turning that Azriel would do when he carried you through the air, just to get a rise out of you. Somehow, he managed to do the same thing when you were on the ground, too. “Please, Az, let me make you feel better.”

“Alright, baby, I’ll let you help.” With that, he was pressing himself between your lips, hot skin sliding across your tongue, the taste of him the only thing you could focus on as he slipped into your mouth. He didn’t stop, not until he was tapping against the back of your throat, a deep moan falling from his lips as he struggled to keep his eyes open, to keep his focus on you as your lips sealed tightly around him. “Fuck, sweetheart. I’ve always dreamed about what your mouth would feel like, but this is so much better than all of it.”

Your moan was muffled around him, tongue tracing the throbbing vein along the underside of his cock, and the hand in your hair tightened until tears were lining your eyes. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” His hips rocked a little, pulling back only to push back in, setting a slow pace, fucking your mouth a little more each time. He built back up again, his smirk growing with every gag you gave him. He was teasing himself and you, never daring to push any further but showing exactly what he wanted, exactly where he wanted to be, and with another sharp pull of your hair to angle your head up for himself, he took it. 

Pushing himself in, he kept going, until your nose was brushing against the base of his cock, and breathing became impossible. Choking around the thick length filling your throat as he held you there, his other hand came to cup your face, squeezing roughly until he was pulling out entirely, giving you a few seconds to gasp for breath, lungs burning and head spinning.

“Is this what you wanted, huh? When you offered to help me? Wanted to cry, choke on my cock in your pretty mouth?” He was trying to scare you, to see if it was all too much, to see if you would go back on your words and leave him. His face was like stone but he couldn't hide the flash of insecurity in his eyes, and you shook your head. This time, you moved before he could control you again. 

Surging forward, you pushed past everything you knew, nails digging into his thighs and his knees shaking as you caught him by surprise, burying his length down your throat once again, and the stream of shaky curses left his lips. With a weak growl, he scrabbled to regain control, to think around the smooth of your tongue at his base, the lips sealed tightly, the tight swallows at his tip as salty precum filled your mouth. 

Tugging on your hair, the muscles of his legs tightened, all the way over his ass and up to his wings as he pulled them taut to his body. Stroking his thumb over your cheek, he pressed against himself through the skin, holding you in place even as you tried to pull back. “Shit, sweetheart, look at you. You even look pretty when you cry.”

Catching one tear with his thumb, he raised it up, licking it from his finger and allowing you to pull back, to free one hand and stroke his spit-soaked length as you caught your breath. “Just for you, Az.”

Your voice was rough, croaky as you tries to speak around the dull ache so worth it, when he looked down with heat in his eyes and parted lips in shock. “Better be. You’re my girl.”

You lapped at him, using your fingers for everything you weren’t mouthing at, alternating between teasing his head until his legs shook before working your way back down, until your tongue was smoothing across the tops of his balls and he was letting out breathy sighs of your name, only to repeat it all over. Again and again you went, until a steady line was flowing from his tip, every drop being caught as he leaked, your scalp stinging from the grounding grip he had on you.

He was growing more and more impatient, no longer the patient man you fell for as he tried to guide you to where he wanted you, adoring gaze turning wicked once again. “I’m gonna’ cum, and if you keep teasing me, you won’t be getting the same pleasure again.”

You stilled, the promise in his gaze of more was enough to make you give in, the tone of his voice a dark threat underneath. Remaining still, your lips parted, tongue hanging a little before him and the widening of his eyes was enough to show his arousal at your obedience. With a single move, he was back in your mouth, fucking at a sloppy pace as he chased his high, your nails clawing at his thighs to keep him in place, your name an endless moan on his lips, curses and praises thrown in as his head fell back. 

Once taut wings were now hanging loose, his entire body shaking, before he came; “Don’t swallow yet.”

Hot bursts of cum coated your tongue, and he held you in place, his body jerking through the intensity of his orgasm, until it was all too much, and he was pulling back. The last of his release spattered across your lips, sitting heavy in your mouth as he panted. The hand in your hair finally slipped out, your eyes almost crossing at the relief of it, and his hand slipped down to rub at the pearly beads coating your lips, pressing them into your skin before tipping your chin up.

“Let me see it.”

Parting your lips, he let out a broken moan at the sight, the coat of his release over your tongue, and nodding his head. His cock twitched, never softening but only bouncing more, an angry red beginning to take over as his need still recessed evidently, watching you swallow before helping you to your feet. 

As you stared up at him, he smiled, dipping down to kiss your sticky lips, licking the taste of himself from them as you panted against his mouth. He said he wanted to ruin you, and yet you’d never expected this. You were taken apart, piece by piece until you were nothing but a shattered mess in his hands, and he was all that was holding you together. 

Your thighs were slick with your arousal, rubbing together unashamedly as he kissed the taste of himself from your tongue, a soft contrast to the bruising grip he’d had on your hips, your neck, your hair, only moments ago. His mouth trailed up, a sweet, wet kiss left on each cheek, before his nose was coming back to bump with yours. 

“You’re so fuckin’ perfect.” The words came with a sharp smack across your ass, the skin stinging, threatening to leave a mark there too, and your body jolted into his. “Since you’ve been so good, I’ll let you choose how you take my cock first. You’ve got one minute, and I expect you naked on my bed, in whatever position you want it.”

Another smack, and you were being dismissed, stumbling over shaky legs as excitement coursed through your body. Stripping your shirt off and over your head, you left a trail of clothing as you went, bra next, then your leggings, shoes and socks gone and panties last, until you found yourself at the baseboard, staring at the large bed designed for maximum Illyrian comfort, threatening to swallow you whole when you crawled onto it.

Shadows swirled around you, traces up your legs until you shivered, a cool swipe over your heated core, through your messy hair, tweaking at taut nipples until you whimper, mind a frenzy as you tried to work out what to do.

Azriel moved like water in the night, silent and invisible, until he was pressed up behind you, one hand splaying over your waist and the other shifting your hair over one shoulder. A disapproving noise left his mouth as he lowered it, pressed a kiss to your skin, and your head fell to the side to give him more space, eyes fluttering shut.

“What did I say?”

Your lips fell open to respond, to explain yourself, but all that came out with a surprised cry of his name as his teeth clamped down against your skin, pain and pleasure blurring into one. He licked across the mark, before doing it again, never enough to break the skin, but enough to leave his imprints on you. Marked, bitten like two wild creatures in the heat of it all, and that was exactly how you felt. Trembling in his arms, he shushed you quietly. 

“I told you where I wanted you, you didn’t listen.”

“I couldn't decide!” His lips were skimming your skin again, the other side now, teeth grazing, but pausing at your words. “I’ve thought about you so much, about this, I didn’t know what I wanted most.”

He pulled back, kissing his way back up your shoulder until he was nuzzling a hot kiss into the skin of your neck, your panting the only sound to fill the room as he turned your face towards him with one finger. A soft kiss was placed on your lips, no tongue or teeth but full of emotion, and he barely even pulled back to speak, “I love you.”

Your eyes snapped open, meeting his as a cold shock broke through hot, hazy lust, but he wasn’t ready to linger. The darkness still had a tight grip on him, those few words breaking through didn’t stop the tidal wave of need, because your mind had yet to catch up before your cheek was pressing into the bedsheets, hips being pulled up as Azriel manhandled you to the centre of the bed.

Your fingers grasped at cotton sheets, knees digging in for purchase on the soft fabric, as he layered himself over you, kissing at the top of your spine and surrounding you entirely. His wings were like a blanket, covering you on either side, his arms on your hips, gripping tightly. Now, you could feel all of him. He must’ve shed his clothes when you did, because that thick length was pulsing against your core, pressed up and rocking in slow motions as he created the most delicious friction, your eyes rolling.

When the head of his cock bumped against your swollen clit, a pornographic sound left your lips, something sinful and dark, and he chuckled as he left little nips along your skin as he shifted back. 

His slap across your ass was electricity sparking over your skin, continuing to abuse your clit while giving you nothing at all, clenching emptily as he left a matching spank to the other side. “You look so good decorated with my handprints.”

“Azriel, please, stop teasing, I need you.” Your cries only made him laugh, holding you firm as you rocked back to meet him, desperately seeking something more, and embarrassed heat flushed over your cheeks, blending into tear-soaked skin and pretty love-bites. 

“You don’t need me, you need this,” He taunted, lining himself up and fucking into you with one quick thrust. A scream left you as he did, stretching you so perfectly that your eyes crossed at the intrusion, a burning as he let you settle, to adjust to his length, that left you squirming, hips rubbing against his as he sat at full depth. “I bet you feel better now, sweetheart, full of my cock. Does that make you happier?”

“So, so happy…” Your babble was senseless, tailing off into more pleas of his name as he set a steady rhythm. 

The last of that feral anger came through, unhinged and needy as he fucked out every bit of pent-up anger. His thrusts were brutal, hips snapping into yours hard enough that you were pushed up the bed, gripping at the bedsheets to hold steady. Everything else in the room, in your mind, slipped away, until you could only focus on the sloppy rhythm of his pounding into you, every connection, every thrust as he hit spots inside of you that made you see stars. “So godsdamned wet for me, so warm and soft. If my heart gave out from fucking you, and I’d die happy.”

“Oh, gods…” 

“No gods are watching over you now, my love, just me. If you’re gonna’ moan anyone’s name, I want it to be mine.” Your toes were curling with the pleasure, the knuckles in your fingers aching as you clung onto the sheets for strength, body shaking. He left kisses up and down your spine, bites and spanks until every part of your body felt like it had been touched, been played with, another part taken away only to be put back better. 

He was breathing just as hard as you were, moans of your name coming out in broken sighs, his hand closing over your own as he fell atop you with the sheer intensity of it all. Your bodies were moulded together like you were made for it, his face tucked into the crook of your neck, skin covered in a light sheen of sweat that made everything so much more erotic. 

The scent of him overwhelmed you, stronger and deeper with his arousal, the smell of sex in the room thick and heavy, and you cried out his name as it all blended into something indescribable. 

Reaching his other hand around you, scarred fingertips skimmed over the apex of your thighs, a few messy circles was all it took to send you spiralling over the edge. “Oh, fuck, Az!”

When you came, it was like a storm crashing onto the beaches, your body spasming until not even your knees could hold you up, collapsing down into the bedding and freeing yourself of his movements for only a second, before his body was following you down. His hand, still trapped under your body kept going, until moans turned into cries and sobs, pleasure you couldn’t take anymore, it was so good. 

Your body was lax, pliant in his arms as he flipped you over, his for the taking as he pried your shaking thighs apart to bare your sopping cunt to himself again. 

“Need y’to give me one more, my love. Can’t get enough of your pussy, can you give me another?” His lips closed over your own, and his tongue playing with yours could barely count as a kiss, your mind hardly worked, just a filthy collision of his lips with your own. “One more, yeah?”

“Yeah, Az, I can do it. I want it…” Lifting up your legs to latch at his hips, your heels dug into his firm ass, pressing him forward again, and he took the hint. In one easy movement, his hips were cradled between your legs, his hands on either side of your head and he was sheathing himself inside of you once again. 

Your back arched, a scream in his ear as his head fell forwards, damp foreheads pressing together as he dove back into a messy pace. What had already been uncontrollable before was now a chaotic mess, jerks of his hips as he frantically followed his own high, curses spilling from him and muscles tense.

When he couldn't hold himself up anymore, he dropped to his forearms, putting everything he had into those final movements, the grinding of his body lighting you up. Your nipples scarped his chest, the base of his cock thumping your clit with every sporadic movement, and your screams became silent as white-hot bliss flooded your body. 

He gave your front the same treatment, teeth and lips leaving no spot untouched, committing you to memory with his mouth as he left stains and splotches across your skin with his rough touch. 

“Azriel, Azriel, Azriel!” Like a chant, you were incapable of saying anything else, even your own name escaped you as you focus on him, the vision of him before you, jaw clenched and eyes sparkling, never looking away from you for even a second. Your body was utterly boneless, your finger shaking as you reached up over his shoulder, clamping your teeth down against his shoulder the same way he had done to you, and brushing your lips down over his wing.

That was it, a soft stroke and a cruel bite, and he was shattering above you, a burst of power unlike any of the others, the door rattling and the winds trembling as he came. An explosion, the feeling of his heat filling you up sent another orgasm cresting through your body, shuddering up your spine until your head was pressing into the bed, his head in your neck. He never stopped moving, riding both of you through your peaks until it was too much, finally coming to a stop, still tucked deep inside of you, and his body collapsed down on top of yours. 

His head remained where it was, breathing evening out as he took steady breaths. His heart was pressed to your stomach, the beat of it synching to your own as both of you began to even back out. The chill from the open patio doors finally started to take effect, swiping the heat from the room and taking the intoxicating smell of sex and your combined scents with it, leaving only the palpable tension between you both. 

Your body was still trembling, still spasming with the occasional twitch, a feeling flooding your body that you knew would take hours to go away as you pulled yourself back together from the way Azriel had torn you apart. 

Your fingers were tracing up and down his spine when you felt him stiffen, when the shallow breathing that had almost convinced you he’d fallen asleep was a ragged gasp. He lifted his fingers, pulling back a fraction only to push your jaw to the side, tracing across your skin slowly, from one patch to another, the more he distanced himself. 

Rocking back onto his knees, his length finally pulled from your sensitive core, a sound of true pain now leaving you as the soreness began to kick in, and he winced as he settled into with one hand holding him up above you. He didn’t look down, not for a second to the seed of his own dripping from you and ruining the bedsheets, but instead, an anguished look took over his face as he traced softly over your skin. 

Propping yourself up weakly on your arms, you watched him, brows furrowed in confusion as he became more and more hurt. 

“Oh, fuck, baby. I-I’m so sorry…”

Now you understood, watching him trace the tip of his index finger over a bite on your shoulder, down to a bruise on the side of your breast, made by his lips in the throes of passion. “Azriel-”

“What did I do to you?” His voice cracked, the spiralling already starting, and you freed your arms, collapsing back into the bed only to pull you with him, ignoring his resistance and tugging his body back against your own. 

“You didn’t do anything I didn’t want you to do!”

“I hurt you!” He sniffed, the outburst watery and broken, and your head shook urgently, leaving kisses dotted along his cheeks when he pulled back enough to look at you.

“Stop it, stop it right now, Azriel.” You rarely took such a tone with him, the pain on his face only worsening with confusion as he stared. “You didn’t hurt me. You gave me every chance to leave and I chose to stay. What we just did was fucking fantastic, and even if you were locked up in your head, you were here with me the entire time. These marks mean nothing, because every touch was so full of love, Azriel. I could feel it. These marks don’t mean you hurt me, they show me just how much you love me.”

His lips were pursed tight, still attempting to pull away, and you had no choice. Using all that training he’d put you through, in the midst of his distraction, you flipped him over, cautious to avoid catching his wings, and leaving him sprawled out on his back. Settling into his lap, your hands found his shoulders, pinning him to the bed and pressing your forehead to his.

“I love you, Azriel.” His eyes widened, swollen and kiss-bruised lips parting, and a smile finally tugged at your own. “I love you. I love you so much, and I wanted to be here for you. If you don’t stop, you’re gonna’ break my fucking heart, because it’ll mean you don’t trust yourself for me, to know what we need.”

“Of course, I trust you.” His whisper came immediately, setting hesitant hands over his marks on your waist, holding you reverently instead of demandingly now, tugging you a little closer to his chest. “I just… fuck, seeing you like this at my doing-”

“I think I left my fair share of marks on you too.” You dragged one finger over a scratch on his bicep, a hiss through his teeth as he looked down at it. Looked down at all of them. His marks would be gone by morning, that Illyrian healing already kicking in, but the look of awe growing on his face would never fade.  “This one,” Tracing your finger beside the scratch instead of over it, you drew his attention back to you, “I gave you this one because I love the way you smile at me.”

You moved to another, tracing a bite on his shoulder where your teeth had sunk in to hold back a scream. 

“I gave you this one because you never let me feel sad or alone.”

“I gave you this one,” He cut off, voice a little shaky as he tried to rewrite hatred to love, running his thumb over a kiss by your nipple, but never dropping your gaze. “I gave you this one because I love how brave you are.”

You smiled, his own smile coming back, as you looped your arms around his neck. “See? These are not marks of hurt, they’re marks of love. They’re called love-bites for a reason, you know?”

He only chuckled, tracing his fingers over the reddened skin of your ass, still raw from his palm. “I gave you these spanks for making cheesy jokes.”

“You love them.”

“No, but I love you.” He spoke, catching your lips a second later in the gentlest kiss yet. He leaned back, taking you with him, his mouth never leaving your own as he settled back into the pillows, shadows closing the balcony doors and settling like a blanket around you both. “Thank you for being here for me.”

“I’ll always be here for you, Az.” You shifted, settling your cheek on his shoulder, and pulling the real blankets across your bodies for warmth, his arms curling protectively around you to hold you there. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No. I don’t want anything like what happened to ever touch you.” His lips brushed your forehead, and you pressed a little further into his embrace. “I feel better, though. So much better, just for having you here in my arms. I don’t want you to ever leave them.”

“I guess I could stay for a while.”

“I want you to stay forever.” His mumble came through a lazy breath and the cloud of sleep hanging over you both, exhaustion weighing in at last, but you smiled despite it all.

“Forever it is, then.”

[thedovesaredying]

Fire Meet Flesh | Simon "Ghost" Riley x F!Reader | Dragon AU | Part 1

(GoT Screenshot)

Ghost is the last remaining dragon. He, alongside his human rider, Johnny, patrol their kingdom's border and protect its people from those who would do them harm. Just the threat of a fully grown dragon is enough to deter enemy kingdoms from striking, but this leaves Ghost rather lonely. That is until he discovers you.

He's determined to win you over, but even with no competition, can a dragon who has no idea what he's doing earn your heart?

A/N: Fun little AU fic where Ghost and Reader are both dragons! Body-wise the dragons are more like wyverns, with a set of wings and one pair of legs.

Words: 1,430

Warnings: Unedited.

Masterlist: CoD Masterlist

Next

“The hell has gotten into you, Ghost?” Soap groans for the umpteenth time that morning, yanking on the reigns attached to the dragon’s chest only to sigh in exasperation when Ghost simply continues on regardless. Nothing the Scotsman can say will sway the dragon from the task at hand, they’re on a mission of the greatest importance, even if Soap doesn’t know it yet.  

At another round of expletives from the brunette, Ghost shakes his head with a snarl, refusing all attempts at getting him to turn around. They’re deeper into the mountain woodland than they’ve ever travelled before, completely uncharted territory. While most dragons are trained from a mere few days of age to obey their riders, Ghost never had such an education, the only remaining member of the now extinct wild dragons.  

He was captured as a fledgling and locked away as part of the spoils of war. While the rest of his species were slaughtered, and the handful of domestic dragons battled against one another, Ghost was left to rot in a dungeon far too small to contain his rapidly growing body. Brothers turned on brothers, sisters on sisters, and parents were made to kill their own hatchlings in the name of their human kings. His once golden scales faded to a sickly white after years of living in darkness, and his throat, snout and legs were permanently scarred from the chaffing of iron chains. Humans had done nothing but bring pain and suffering to him and his fellow dragons, used their loyalty to their riders against them to bring about the ruin of their species.  

Soap was originally brought before him as another prisoner, someone he was supposed to burn and then consume – the first meal he’d seen in several weeks at that point – but the strange human had been smart enough to convince him they could work together to escape. He only bonded with his Johnny with the intention of leaving him the moment they were free, but it would seem the connection between a dragon and their chosen rider goes much deeper than Ghost had realised at the time.  

Even if he wanted to, Ghost couldn’t get rid of the damn human, they were bound together for life and Ghost wouldn’t be able to have another rider until Soap’s death. If he survived the pain of a lost partner, that is. Begrudging as he was to admit it, he really couldn’t see himself bonding with another, they would either perish together or Ghost would return to the wilds, the last of his kind.  

At least, that was what Ghost had thought, what the silly little humans and their so-called scholars had thought. But Ghost knew the scent of dragon, could pick it up from miles and miles away, and somewhere on this mountainside? There was another dragon.  

For hours he’s forced Soap to circle the same patch of land, breathing in lungful after lungful of the delightful smell. It sends tingles down the entire length of his spine every time he catches it, but he’s not entirely certain why. That isn’t what he’s focusing on, however, rather he is more interested in trying to pinpoint where the smell is coming from. It’s difficult with how dense the trees are, but eventually, he spots a clearing large enough for them to safely land.  

He twists about in the air, drifting just above the tops of the pine trees, before he lowers his legs and drops down onto the grass below, none too gently if Soap’s pained grunt is anything to go by. He tries to send something akin to an apology down their shared bond, but it’s no doubt overshadowed by the rapidly climbing excitement building within him.  

Johnny just huffs at him, swinging his leg over his saddle, before clambering down Ghost’s back to the ground. “Now, what’s got ye so full o’ beans?” the human grumbles, petting at the side of Ghost’s face when he offers it. Unable to verbally explain, he merely whines and starts stepping from foot to foot, entirely restless. The display, unfortunately, just gets Soap to laugh at his enthusiasm.  

Deciding to ignore his rider’s cruel mockery of his eagerness, Ghost is quick to put his snout to the ground and begin sniffing. If he were a dog, his tail would have been wagging at a mile an hour, but he’s a dragon, and dragons compose themselves with much more dignity, and so, Ghost will deny any claims Johnny makes about him practically wriggling with excitement when he catches a trail he can actually follow.  

The scent takes him away from the open grass and further up the mountain, through some of the sparsely growing trees, before he finally sees physical evidence of his target. Where the trees have begun to cluster closer together, several of them have been knocked clean over, torn up roots and all, covered in deep claw-shaped gouges.  

The destruction doesn’t go unnoticed by Soap, who starts trying to deter him from his search, but Ghost has a clear path to follow now, and instead picks up speed. He’s not exactly subtle as he crashes through the short bushes and branches at get in his way, and Johnny certainly isn’t helping the matter with his panicked yelling. Fortunately, he’s not so distracted that he misses the massive, gaping hole in the side of the mountain, screeching to a halt when he realises that’s where the scent is freshest.  

Ancient trees form a thick canopy above the cave’s entrance, hiding it entirely from the air while still creating a space large enough for a dragon to easily enter and exit. It’s the perfect spot for a lair, far superior to the dragon stables Ghost is currently forced to live in, miserably lonely wooden structures that no longer even smell like the dragons they once housed.  

This dark cavern, surrounded by only the sounds of nature – the wind, the birds, the bubbling stream nearby – and smelling strongly of a lair is perhaps the most enticing place Ghost has ever encountered. He could easily see himself choosing to roost here, hunting the grasslands at the base of the mountain and indulging in a long nap or two beside the cool stream in the midday heat.  

Poor Johnny had only just caught up with him, reaching out to rest a hand on his hind leg, only for Ghost to start moving again, much to the man’s disapproval. He pokes his head into the cave, noting that it’s much deeper than he had anticipated, with tall ceilings and even a small pool of water at its centre. It’s dark inside, so much so he almost entirely misses the large form settled at the back of the cave, mistaking it for a large pile of stone.  

He realises perhaps too late that the rocks are moving and is more than a little stunned to find a pair of bright green eyes blinking back at him. As his eyes rapidly adjust to the darkness, he sees the large, powerful form of the dragon who had been resting moments earlier. Your scales are completely black, blending in seamlessly with the shadows, and a large frill juts all the way from your neck to the tip of your tail. Your horns are long and sharp, pointed like the tips of deadly spears, and a deep emerald green is glowing from between your bared teeth, evidence of the flames you’re more than ready to unleash on this unknown dragon.  

It hits him like a bludgeon to the face when he takes in another breath of your scent – you're not just a dragon, you’re a she-dragon. He’s not only found himself a fellow dragon, but perhaps the very last female of his species. He’s so enamoured by this discovery that he completely overlooked the fact that the two of you aren’t alone. A gasp from Johnny is all it takes for your attention to immediately shift to the human currently gaping at you from your own doorway.  

It’s rather embarrassing having to later listen to Soap gripe and groan to Price and Gaz about almost being toasted by you when Ghost had to rather quickly snatch him out of the literal line of fire.  

The two of you might have got off on the wrong wing, but Ghost is certain he can win you over. He’s not exactly sure how his species usually try to court one another, but he’s seen how humans attempt to woo their mates, so surely it can’t be too difficult, right?  

[coldfanbou]

Full Body Relaxation

Alrighty, so here we are with the fic that is purely smut. Thank you to Blep for the idea. Here today, we have a G!P Kiss of Life using Julie, with the reader getting a piece of her, too. This one was a little harder to do due to the amount of people involved in one scene but I wrote it as best I could.

G!P Natty, Belle, Haneul x Julie x M reader

Length 2.4K

On the Japanese mountainside, Julie smiled to herself as she finally arrived at her ryokan. The heavy snow had nearly made her decide to turn back, but she had spent too much money not to go. The inn was shrouded in steam from the onsens it held. She entered the inn, feeling the immediate warmth the moment she opened the door. She shivered slightly but moved toward the counter, worked by an elderly woman. She gave her name and signed in. As the elderly woman slowly finished the paperwork, she chatted with Julie. “It’s nice to have you here, miss. You’re only one of a handful of guests; most decided not to come because of the snow.”

Julie nodded, understanding, “Right, they probably didn’t want to get caught in the storm.”

“They’re missing out,” The elderly woman snapped. “Our onsen has the best effect when it's so cold like this. You should get out of those clothes and hurry along to join the other guests.” She says as she begins to lead Julie to her room. “This is going to be your room. Dinner will be served at seven. Enjoy yourself and relax until then.” The elderly woman left the room before realizing she forgot to tell Julie the onsen was currently a “special” bath but figured that Julie would find out on her own.

“Right, thanks,” Julie said as she put everything down. She dropped her jacket to the ground and opened her suitcase before thinking about the bath. “I should really check it out.” She put her things away and headed toward the bath. As Julie entered the onsen area, she remembered having to clean herself before entering properly. She stripped off her clothing and sat on one of the small stools, using the shower head to clean herself. 

The door that led to the onsen was made of glass; the other guests began watching as Julie washed herself. You looked over at the pair beside you. Natty and Haneul, Natty craned her neck back and moaned as Haneul’s small hands squeezed her tits. The younger woman had been nipping at Natty’s tits for a long time as Natty gave her a handjob. Your view is momentarily blocked as Belle rests against your chest. You pull Belle down, your hands digging into her flesh as her walls tighten around you. Belle groans as your shaft pushes deeper into her ass. She watches Julie get closer to the door and strokes her cock, about to cum. “Don’t cum before she even gets in.” Belle looks at you with pleading eyes, she is desperate to cum, but you wouldn't let her. “If you’re going to cum it’ll be in her.” You say as you push Belle off your cock. Belle stumbles into the hot water; Natty and Haneul move closer to the edge of the bathroom, their cocks stiff as Julie steps outside. 

Julie gives a shy wave as the cold air hits her, making her small nipples stiff. “Hi, everyone. My name is Julie.” Julie quickly covers her body with her hands as she walks toward the bath. Natty, Hanuel, and Belle rise from their spot, flashing Julie with their stiff cocks. Belle was already stroking hers as she took in every inch of Julie’s body. Precum leaked from the tip as she moved toward Julie. Julie, for her part, felt her nether regions tingle as the women approached her. She didn’t notice her fingers moving along her slit. Belle and Natty got to her first, leaving Haneul out for the moment. The pair dragged Julie into the shallow water, their hands running along her body until they found what they were after.

Natty’s hand replaced Julie’s; she pushed her finger inside and felt Julie’s walls squeeze it. On the other end, Belle was tracing Julie’s asshole, poking and prodding the puckered hole. She kissed the back of Julie's neck; the pleasure made Julie’s body feel like it was burning. She started to rock her hips against Natty’s hand and wrapped her arms around the younger woman. You watched as Natty placed her hands on the backside of Julie’s thighs and lifted her. Her cock prodded the older woman’s cunt, ready to take her. Belle had her cock in hand and pressed it against Julie’s ass. It would be no easy challenge; both Natty and Belle were big, easily enough to fill Julie by themselves. Together, they would turn her into a complete mess. Julie looked back at Belle, grasping how big she was now, “W-wait a second, I’ve never had anything-SHIT!” Julie’s mouth is wide open as she gasps; Natty and Belle impaled her on their cocks. Julie could feel their cocks rubbing against each other through her walls. Her ass felt like it was on fire; Belle’s cock tore through her. Belle climaxed as she buried herself inside the older woman. She pressed her body against Julie’s as her cum filled the older woman’s ass. Julie felt full; Belle’s warm cum continued to pour into her. 

Natty kissed and sucked the woman’s neck, leaving hickeys on her as she slowly dragged her cock out of her tight cunt. Julie hung her hands around Natty’s neck, her mind going until she felt Natty ram her cock back in. 

Belle began to move, too, waiting until Natty’s cock was entirely inside Julie before moving. Her cum ran down Julie’s walls, painting them white as she pushed her cock back in. Despite her legs feeling weak, Belle wouldn’t give up her spot inside Julie. “You’re squeezing me.” She whispered into Julie’s ear. The older woman shivered as she felt Belle’s tongue lick behind her ear. 

Sandwiched between the two women, Julie let out moan after moan as they began moving. Julie can feel Natty’s nipples moving across her chest as she bounces from one cock to the other. The two women’s hands wander her body, touching and grabbing every part of her, driving her crazy as the pain from Belle ravaging her ass turns to pleasure. A euphoric smile begins to form across her face. 

You watch this happen before you, stroking your cock slowly before noticing Haneul off to the side. Her hand was gliding up her shaft, and her hips were thrusting as she watched Julie become a sex toy for the older women. You get up from the deep end of the bath and come up behind Hanuel, your hands on her stomach before moving up to her small breasts. “You want to get involved, don’t you, Haneul?” While you squeeze her breasts, you hear her whimper. “You liked playing with Natty’s tit earlier, and I know she has a thing for rimming. Why don’t you help her out while she’s playing with Julie?” Haneul wets her lips at the thought and leaves your side, heading straight toward Natty. 

The older woman was too busy having her way with Julie to notice the youngest reach her and get into a kneeling position. The water was at Haneul’s stomach, splashing around her from the movements of the others. Her eyes were solely on Natty’s bottom; she spread the woman’s cheek and moved in. With her tongue sticking out, she moved around Natty’s ass. 

Natty felt the warm appendage around her ass, and it sent shivers down her spine. Her rhythm was broken as Haneul’s small tongue circled her puckered asshole. She whined, and her hips bucked uncontrollably from the pleasure. Haneul pushed things further as her tongue pushed inside Natty. “Shit,” Natty moaned as she pushed her cock further into Julie. Even though she had stopped moving, Belle’s thrusts were keeping the pleasure flowing as Julie’s body shifted. It didn’t help things that Natty could feel Belle’s cock rubbing against her through Julie’s walls. Natty was on the verge of cumming. Julie was close as well; her walls began to strangle both Belle and Natty, trapping them inside. The women’s moans mixed as they reached their climax. Cum poured into Julie’s cunt and ass, filling her to the brim. The pleasure she felt was unlike anything else; her entire body twitched, and she squirted her sweet nectar all over Natty’s cock as her walls milked the two women dry. Natty and Belle slowly pull, their cum practically dripping off their cock. 

Once they let go of Julie, she fell, her legs too weak to hold her weight. Haneul backs off from Natty and, as the older woman moves toward the deeper end of the bath, comes face to face with Julie. Hanuel smiles at her. Julie’s mind was far from home in the afterglow of her orgasm. Haneul crawls closer to the older woman and plants her lips on her. She drags Julie’s hand to her cock, moaning into the kiss as Julie instinctively starts stroking it. 

Julie’s palm rubbed against the head as her hand easily wrapped around Hanuel’s shaft. Hanuel was much smaller than Belle and Natty, but Julie liked it all the same. She began to imagine it inside her, spewing more cum into her already full cunt. Seeing your chance to get involved, you walk up beside them and interrupt their kiss using your cock. They welcome you to the party; you groan as Hanuel and Julie’s tongues move up and down across your shaft. “Hanuel, you’ve been waiting a long time. Why don’t you take your turn with Julie?” You tell her. Hanuel’s smile tells you everything you need to know. You pull your cock away from them and move Julie onto a towel just outside the bath, laying her flat.

You get beside her and spread her cheeks apart so Hanuel can see the mess that is her cum filled ass and cunt. Hanuel struggles to contain herself, jerking off to the sight. “Come on, Hanuel, choose which one you want.” Hanuel hurries out of the water and gets behind Julie. Hanuel, with her cock in hand, presses against Julie’s warm cunt and slips in with ease. She’s rocked by the feeling of Julie’s walls gripping her tightly, releasing a loud moan. Julie’s legs bend at the knee, and her body jerks forward as Hanuel quickly thrusts her length into the older woman. Julie raises her head and opens her mouth, wanting your cock. Letting her have what she wants, you get in front of her and push your length down her throat. Her lips are tightly wrapped around your cock as her tongue moves around it. You stare into Julie’s lustful eye as you slowly move your hips, letting her tongue rub against the head. Her moans caused her throat to vibrate, which only made her blowjob more pleasurable. 

As you and Haneul spit-roasted the older woman, you tilted Hanuel’s head up, stealing a kiss from her as she dug her hand into Julie’s soft ass. Hanuel was desperate to cum; her hips moved quickly, and she was practically throwing her entire weight into every thrust.  Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Natty and Belle sitting back, watching you and Hanuel while they stroked each other’s cocks. You smirked as you continued to use Julie’s mouth. Your attention was quickly taken by Hanuel’s whine as she buried her cock into Julie, filling her with even more cum. Julie squeezed her walls around Hanuel’s cock, muffled moans coming from her as she felt more warm cum pour into her. “Hanuel, you came too quickly.” You complain before getting another idea. You wave over Natty and Belle as you pull your cock away from Julie. “Belle lay down here. Natty, I need you to stuff little Hanuel for us.” The pair smile, more than happy to get involved again. 

You had Belle lay on the floor, with Julie on top of her. By Belle’s head were Natty and Hanuel. You planned to have Natty fuck Hanuel in front of Julie, giving her a cock to suck on while you and Belle fucked her abused holes. You took Julie’s ass, sliding in with little resistance due to Belle’s leftover cum. You moan; Julie’s ass tightened around you as Belle slipped herself inside Julie’s cunt. Julie could hardly keep herself up as her arms grew weak, but the sight of Hanuel’s flaccid cock had her hungry. 

Natty made her move, moving her fingers along Hanuel’s slit, excited at the prospect of fucking her. Hanuel’s cock slowly came back to life. It twitched while it became hard again. Julie reached forward, forcefully pulling Hanuel closer and wrapping her lips around the small cock. 

Hanuel whimpered, the feeling of Natty pushing her big dick inside her tight cunt and Julie’s warm mouth quickly becoming too much. She grimaced and whined as she came within moments. Julie felt the hot liquid pour into her mouth, but she spilled more than a few drops due to you and Belle. Hanuel shot the last bit of her cum onto Julie’s face covering her mouth. 

Even though Hanuel just had her second orgasm, Natty wasn’t done with her just yet. She fell in love with how tight Hanuel was and continued to drive her cock into Hanuel’s womb. “Hanuel, Hanuel, Hanuel!” Natty yelled as she picked up her pace. She moved her hand up to Hanuel’s tits, squeezing them roughly as she pounded away at the younger woman’s body. 

Julie was becoming overwhelmed by the pleasure; she struggled to do anything but keep Hanuel’s cock in her mouth. She was growing more dizzy the longer this went on. You slapped her ass in between thrusts, watching it grow bright red. Julie’s walls tightened around you and Belle. Each thrust brought you both closer to your orgasm, and you were going to make sure Julie couldn’t take another drop. 

With everyone nearing their climax, you all put the last of your energy into the final thrusts. You and Belle dragged Julie’s lower half onto your cocks, stuffing her as you shot your cum into her guts. Hanuel screamed as she came again, giving Julie another drink. Natty pressed her cock into Hanuel, forcing her cunt to take in every drop. You all remain in that position for what seems like forever. The mass of bodies slowly came undone. Julie was a wreck; her asshole was left gaping, cum spilling out of it as it winked at you. Her face had cum dripping from it, but you wanted to add a little more. Kneeling by her tired face, you slap it with your cock, dripping more cum onto it. Julie lazily moved toward your cock, sticking her tongue out. The others laughed at this and did the same, hitting Julie’s tongue. You watched as Julie reached down and began playing with her clit.

“Julie, it’s nice meeting you. Why don’t we all continue this in your room?” Julie just nodded her head as she attached herself to your cock.

[enigmaticxbee]

Tropes & More - Fic Recs

All the tropey-goodness!

Body-Swap:

Underneath Your Skin by crescentmoon222 - Dreamland AU, NSFW

What if Feels Like for a Girl by @mldrgrl - Dreamland AU, NSFW

Dreamland III by @admiralty-xfd - Dreamland sequel

Flea Market Economy by Punk

I’ll Show You Mine If You Show Me Yours by Tv_Saved_The_Teenage_Girl

Masters of Time by @sisterspooky1013 - time travel to 1960s Masters of Sex, NSFW

Times Colliding by onlytheinevitable- time travel 1998/2018 body swap, NSFW, WIP

Cubed by Louise Marin - Scully wakes up as an alternate version of herself, NSFW.

Parallel by @sisterspooky1013 - Scully wakes up as an alternate version of herself, NSFW.

Fake-Dating:

Never by Allison Kinney - Undercover, NSFW

Diversion by @sisterspooky1013 - Stakeout, NSFW

Just Another Dinner Party by @somekindofseizure - Undercover at a swingers party during Arcadia

Amish Country by Lolabeegood - Undercover with the Amish, NSFW

We’re Married Now by @skinfull - Undercover in a cult, NSFW

Hallowed by onlytheinevitable - Undercover in a cult, NSFW

More Than a Feeling by @sisterspooky1013 - Undercover at a carnival, NSFW

Undercover Swing by 2momsmakearight - Undercover at a sex party, NSFW

It’s Just Pretend by @storybycorey - Undercover in a motel, fake sex turning into real sex, NSFW

The Marriage Spectacular by @cecilysass - Lost FBI agents. Stormy weather. A marriage retreat in a mountainside inn with one room available.

The Newlywed Game by onlytheinevitable - While going out for dinner, Scully runs into an ex and Mulder valliantly pretends to be her husband. However, that little lie traps them into having to play the Newlywed Game in front of a bunch of strangers and they have to navigate admitting feelings they haven't even admitted to themselves.

Baseball Metaphors by @leiascully - Scully runs into an ex and they pretend to be dating, NSFW

Just Go With It by @skinfull - Mulder runs into old high school classmates and they pretend to be married, NSFW

The Annapolis Grant by @slippinmickeys - AU, Scully pays Mulder to play the role of her boyfriend, NSFW

Wedding/FBI Ball Date:

Plus One by @alienqueequeg - Mulder convinces Scully to let him be her plus one at an old friend's wedding, NSFW

Hardball by Missy Pennington - Scully gets a sexy red dress to wear to the FBI ball when she finds out Phoebe Green will be attending

Five Ballrooms by @admiralty-xfd - Five Christmas parties. Five separate POVs.

The Twelve Tropes of Christmas by @mangokiwitropicalswirl - Christmas ball and all the tropes

Holidays:

far away and to the west by @audries - Thanksgiving with the Gunmen

at the close of the day by @audries - Thanksgiving on the road

Fairies, Skip Hence by @slippinmickeys - Christmas at the Scullys, NSFW

Shades of Winter by @piecesofscully - Christmas at the Scullys, NSFW

Marshmallow World by @agoodwoman - Christmas 1998, set Season 6, our beloved agents are working under AD Kersh. Mulder and Scully get into the holiday spirit. NSFW

Regular People by @chimerical1975 - Thwarted Christmas plans, impulsive decisions, and unexpected visitors make two extraordinary FBI agents into regular people. NSFW

Chicken Dinner by @cecilysass - Dinner at Mrs. Scully’s. Mulder overhears Maggie speaking to her friends about her daughter’s relationship with her partner. What he hears floors him.

Gingersnap by @cecilysass - Holiday baking, NSFW

if the fates allow by @all-these-ghosts - Christmas with Mulder and Scully, 1993-2016

Birthdays by @syntax6 - seasons 1 through 7

One Bed (see Faking Dating above too):

Let’s Play a Game by @danasculllie - Motel room Truth or Dare, NSFW

Truth or Dare by Adrienne - Mulder and Scully have a wicked game of Truth or Dare while sharing that hotel room in Rain King. NSFW

Twenty-Questions and a Winter Storm by @danascully77 - NSFW

Designated Mulder by onlytheinevitable - Mulder had always wanted to see what Scully would be like drunk, but he didn't anticipate it would finally happen on the one night they had to share a bed. NSFW

Sexy Snowed-In by @peacenik0 - Mulder and Scully are snowed-in together, will they find a way to escape their boredom? NSFW

Hot and Sticky by Megan Reilly - One hotel room, two FBI Agents...and it's a hell of a hot night besides. NSFW

One room. One bed. by spooky66 - NSFW

Free Merlot at the Cool View Motor Court by @sarie-fairy - post The Rain King, NSFW

Turn that damned thing off by @sunflowerseedsandscience - The Rain King missing scene.

Time Enough At Last by bayloriffic - The Rain King missing scene.

Conversation in the Dark by Cass - The Rain King missing scene.

Stop Me by Gina Rain - post The Rain King, NSFW

Unbidden by @phillippadgettwrites - NSFW

Bunkmates by @leiascully - There's only one hotel room, and it's got a special surprise.

Expense Report by 13th_blackbird - The Bureau conducts an audit, and Scully considers the costs.

Scully/Other:

Universal Invariants by @syntax6 - set over the course of a canon-parallel version of season 1 and early season 2 where Scully’s boyfriend Ethan who was cut from the pilot sticks around. NSFW

Early On by @sunflowerseedsandscience - Mulder and Scully are drawn to each other from the start but Scully is still with Ethan. NSFW

Homicidal Tendencies by Swikstr - Casefile crossover that pairs Scully with the detective from Homicide: Life on the Street. NSFW

You He Did Not Fail by extraordinarily_ordinary - After Scully leaves the X-Files for a position in LA a case brings them back together. Starts Scully/Other but ultimately MSR. NSFW

Original Sin by @syntax6 - post FTF Scully moves to Utah. Scully/Other but great MSR. NSFW

Arizona Highways by Fialka - Visions of Melissa lead Our Heroes on a case confirming the existence of a series of Emilys. But does Melissa really have a message, or is it all in Scully’s head? Scully/Other but ultimately MSR. NSFW

No Regrets by MystPhile - During Arcadia Scully reconnects with Detective John Kresge. Ultimately MSR but not until the very end. NSFW

Promises to Keep by Prufrock’s Love - post Requiem Scully/Skinner, I really struggled with this one, but still an interesting read. NSFW

Heart’s Desire by @malibusunset - post Two Fathers/One Son Scully reconnects with an old boyfriend during a case. My favorite Scully/Other fic - ends in MSR, but it’s probably the only fic where I’ve thought that Mulder might be the wrong choice. NSFW

La Lacuna by @aloysiavirgata - Scully explores her feelings after Milagro while investigating a murder. Scully/Other but ultimately MSR. NSFW

Mulder/Other:

The Waters of Babylon by @aloysiavirgata - As they prepare to become Rob and Laura Petrie, Mulder thinks back on his life and the paths not taken.

Seventeen by @scapegrace74-blog - Explores how Mulder's sexual relationships shaped (and mis-shaped) him as a man. Each chapter represents a different partner. Mulder/Other, ultimately MSR, NSFW

Triptych by @iconicscullyoutfits - married to Diana AU, ultimately MSR

To Love Somebody by Tess and Jacquie LaVa - In the midst of attempting to have a normal romance, Mulder's escalating feelings for Scully, and her deteriorating health due to her advancing cancer, make it impossible for him to commit... Mulder/Other but ultimately MSR. NSFW

The Guts by @wtfmulder - How would Scully react if Mulder dropped an open condom wrapper in front of her? MSR but dealing with Diana.

Dr. Scully's School for Exceptional Boys by Prufrock’s Love - post series, Mulder/Other and MSR, NSFW

One for the Road by @phillippadgettwrites - post breakup, Mulder has a girlfriend but mostly MSR, NSFW

Pregnancy/Baby/Family:

The Family G-Man by Neoxphile and FelineFemme - A double tragedy strikes Mulder the week before Christmas of 2003. What if he could go back and change things, save the son one lost and give the other the family she wanted? Could it keep them safe? NSFW

Five Years and a Lifetime by @monikafilefan @slippinmickeys - One night stand AU. Five years later, Scully and Mulder work at the same pediatric hospital, and Scully's four year old daughter bears a striking resemblance to the picture of a dark haired girl that sits on Mulder's desk... NSFW

In the Best Interest of the Child by @mldrgrl - AU When tragedy strikes, Mulder is forced to take guardianship of his young niece, but the matter is complicated by the arrival of a sister-in-law he's never met.

The Way Things Are by Sukie Tawdry - One night and their whole lives were changed forever. Season 1 AU. NSFW

Right Hand Return by humphreywrites - Scully is returned from her abduction with a baby, no memories of anything prior to her captivity and some PTSD.

All That Is Dark and Bright by @malibusunset - Emily lives AU. NSFW

Five Years and One Night by Shalimar - Scully leaves the X-Files post-Emily but gets drawn back in when Mulder discovers Emily wasn’t the only child created. NSFW

Intimacy Deux by Mojo - The one in five billion happens. NSFW

40 Weeks by @malibusunset - What if the IVF attempt in Per Manum had been successful? NSFW

A Boy and His Fox by 6hoursgirl - What happens when two FBI agents have a platonic relationship based on trust and mutual respect...and an exchange of genetic material. NSFW

The 13th Sign and 7 Days in May by Prufrock’s Love - Post-Deadalive. Mulder saw no reason for life, death, sex, Armageddon, or emotional dysfunction to stand in the way of true love.

Hurricane Season by rah and beduini - Post-Existence week at the beach with the Scully family and baby Wim. NSFW

Terra Firma series by @malibusunset - Post-Existence domestic family drama, a classic comfort read for me. NSFW

Misc:

Partners With Benefits by onlytheinevitable - Friends with benefits, NSFW

Truncated by Lysandra31 - Scully and Mulder find themselves in a tight spot. Spooning ensues.

You Send Me by @spooky-nerd - Portals keep popping up around Mulder. It's rather inconvenient until he realizes it's possible the universe is trying to tell him something.

[screebyy]

Part 4

Prev | Next | Start

I really thought there were only going to be 2 more parts but the """finale""" is rapidly spiraling out of control so I think there will actually be 4 more parts (at which point I will probably switch to primarily written fics bc I am Sick In The Head and this AU I have established has given me a powerful outlet for that sickness)

ID below cut

Panel 1: Wide, side view of Crow and Jolyon walking up a set of white stairs on a mountainside. Jolyon is in front of Crow, and glancing back at Crow over his shoulder. Crow is looking up at him, a couple of steps behind. In the background, many mountains in the dreaming city are visible poking up out of the mist. It is dusk, with just a bit of a pink glow from the sunset illuminating the scene. Jolyon: “I’m sorry about the other day. This is… difficult, for me. I guess you understand why.”

Panel 2: Mid-shot from in front of Jolyon and Crow. Jolyon is looking back at Crow over his shoulder with a neutral expression. Crow is looking up at him attentively. Jolyon: “To tell you the truth… I had kind of decided to hate you.”

Panel 3: Jolyon turns ahead and continues walking, looking down with a passive expression. Crow glances down and away from Jolyon, looking unsure. Jolyon: “That would simplify things, at least.” Crow: “...”

Panel 4: Side view of Crow and Jolyon. Crow stops walking suddenly, looking down while Jolyon carries on ahead. Crow: “Listen…”

Panel 5: Shot from behind Jolyon. Jolyon stops, half-turning back towards Crow. He looks mildly confused. Crow (offscreen): You don’t have to do this, you know.

Panel 6: Front view of Crow. His head is tilted down and he is looking up at Jolyon with a serious, guarded expression. Crow: “I remember how it felt, watching the traveler resurrect our friends as Lightbearers. For it to be him, after everything… I’d understand if you never wanted to see my face again.”

Panel 7: Close up of Crow’s eyes as he glances away with a sad, distant expression. Crow: “If you’d rather hate me… that’s fine. Really- I’m used to it.”

Panel 8: Close up of Jolyon, staring back at Crow over his shoulder with a neutral expression. Jolyon: “... I don’t hate you.”

Panel 9: Jolyon turns his face back towards the front, away from the viewer. His expression looks distant and sad. Jolyon: “I don’t have it in me.”

Panel 10: Mid-shot from in front of Jolyon and Crow. Jolyon is turning ahead, continuing to walk up the stairs as he glances back at Crow with a grin. Crow’s expression looks guarded and uncertain. Jolyon: “And if I didn’t want to do this, I wouldn’t have asked.”

Panel 11: Close up of Jolyon’s face in profile. He is looking ahead with a distant expression. Jolyon: “You’re here now. There’s no point in pretending otherwise.”

Panel 12: Close up of Crow as he listens to Jolyon. He looks guarded and uncertain. Jolyon (offscreen): “I want to know you. Or at least, try to.”

Panel 13: Crow’s expression softens, and he smiles softly as he lifts his head. Jolyon (offscreen): It’s just… A little weird.” Crow: “... Yeah.”

Panel 14: Wide, rear view of Crow and Jolyon as they continue up the staircase, now walking side-by-side. Crow: “If it helps, it’s all been pretty weird for me too.” Jolyon: “I can imagine.”

[nariism]

i loved you on a moonlit summer night

pair. diluc ragnvindr x gn!reader

content: tooth-rotting fluff, love at first sight, allusions to reincarnation but no actual instances of reincarnation

synopsis. diluc knows that he doesn't belong in mondstadt anymore. he doesn't belong anywhere— no place to truly call home and nothing in this world but vengeance in his heart. but on a wintery day on dragonspine, he finds his salvation: a box of cecelias, a fire seelie, and the owner of the best flower shop in the city.

wc. 8.4k

a/n: thank you to my beautiful @hyomagiri for beta reading, helping edit and hyping this fic up to the max. i ended up feeling confident enough to post this because of her, three cheers for ellie i love you to the moon and back <3

WINTER

It wasn’t his fault. How was he supposed to know that buried beneath blankets of snow and sheets of ice, there would be Cecelias?

Fire seelies are usually reliable with a bounty of treasure waiting at the end of their path. He isn't sure why it led him here, to some inconspicuous pile of snow which he hastily melted without realizing there was something precious hidden within.

The mistake doesn’t register with Diluc until the sweet scent of flowers and ash and burning wood wafts under his nose. He blinks in confusion at the pile, perfectly burnt to a crisp and resting at the tip of his boots.

Boxed up flowers? What are they doing out in the middle of the mountain?

He remembers then, a story someone once told him— he can't put a name to the voice but it echoes in the hollow chambers of his heart:

"Did you know that you can preserve the freshness of flowers? All you have to do is box them up nice and tight and store them in the snow."

It's an interesting tidbit of information. He can't for the life of him remember where he heard it from, though.

Wind howls in his ears, powdery snow from over the horizon plowing down the mountainside and into his face. It doesn't deter him from examining the scene. The fire seelie floats just above his shoulder, quiet now as it looks at the pile.

He’s entirely distracted by the sight, unsure of what to make of the strange discovery, until he hears the crunch of snow behind him. With the Fatui lingering around the foot of the mountain, he expects to whip around and face an enemy. He even braces himself to be knocked off his feet by a wild boar.

Instead, his sudden movement frightens you and makes you stumble back until you fall flat onto the ground.

There’s a long pause of silence that stuffs the air, neither you nor him tearing your eyes away from each other. You freeze like a deer caught in headlights, so still that it looks like you've succumbed to the frozen climate of the mountain. He breathes a slow sigh of relief when a wavering exhale leaves your lips in the form of a puff of cloudy air.

The heart resting in his chest stirs. An ancient dull ache, thrumming in the depths of his body as he looks at you in surprise.

Again, there's a voice in his ear. This time, he recognizes it as his father:

"Your mother? I fell in love at first sight."

Growing up, he never quite understood that string of words. First sight? How could someone fall in love at first sight?

Diluc Ragnvindr is a million things, but romantic is not one of them. Love at first sight is a silly fairytale that parents tell their children to tuck them into bed. It's something that could never exist in such a cruel world, plagued by monsters and evil.

It's easy for him to close his heart off to the idea of something as ridiculous as love at first sight, despite the way his eyes haven't left yours. And he's painfully aware of the way you're looking at him too, but he does his best to ignore your gawking.

Maybe he's catching a cold. He doesn't feel well all of the sudden.

Your gaze drifts to the pile of ash just behind him and you sigh, putting your head into your hands wet from snow.

"You found my seelie," you murmur, sounding very unimpressed. He blinks at you until you continue, "Those were important, you know. They were for a very special occasion."

Diluc takes in your form, clothes thin and unfit for the snowy conditions of Dragonspine. Even without the chilly altitude of the mountain, this winter in general was particularly bitter. He almost wants to scold you for dressing so thoughtlessly, even though he doesn't know your name.

"My apologies. I will reimburse you whatever the cost, and more."

"It's... not about that," you tell him from your place on the ground, still not looking at him. You seem stressed. His heart squeezes terribly.

"Not about what?"

"Mora."

He falls silent, so quiet that you finally peer up at him wondering whether or not he's even still standing there. And he is, regarding you with a thoughtful expression. His presence is so unnoticeable despite being right in front of you that it makes your skin crawl.

"How can I make it up to you?" He asks, extending his hand for you to take. Your clothes are soaked through already, cold and frozen from the subzero temperature. It doesn't help soothe his worries that he can feel a storm coming. He should get you out of here as soon as possible.

You huff, allowing him to drag you to your feet. It's then that you realize how warm he is, almost hot to the touch. The faint glimmer of a Vision dangles on his hip. Your eyes flicker back to his and he nearly jolts out of his skin.

"Don't worry about it. It's alright," you tell him though you sound disingenuous about it. You're obviously distracted, probably wondering how to explain to your client that their expensive flowers ended up as a pile of ash.

"It was my mistake. Please, let me know if there's anything at all I can do," he replies earnestly.

"Really, it's fine," you sound slightly exasperated by his stubbornness. If it were anyone ordinary, they would have taken your mercy and left you to freeze on the mountain without a second thought.

Diluc Ragnvindr is no ordinary man.

It takes him a moment to realize his hand is still gripping yours rather tightly. He recoils with an awkward cough.

“What are you doing out here in the mountains?” He asks. It dawns on him then what a stupid question it is, since you’ve obviously come to collect your frozen flowers. You tell him anyways:

"I buried some flowers further up the mountain a few days ago," you sigh, "not sure if I can find them anymore, though. That's why I've been following this little one around."

You scratch under the seelie's chin. Well, where you would imagine its chin to be, at least. It seems thrilled by the affection.

"It's going to storm soon. You should head back down the mountain and try again later."

"It's urgent," you insist, ready to brush past him and continue the trek up.

He stops you with your wrist in his hand. "Then please, let me accompany you to the top of the mountain. It isn't safe with the Fatui lingering around. It's the least I could do."

You eye him hesitantly, but then your shoulders relax and you sigh again. "Okay, okay. We should hurry and get out of here, then."

He wordlessly follows you up the trail, watching your movements carefully. While you don't seem suspicious, he can never be too sure when it comes to the Fatui. Save for the rustling of pine trees and the soft crunch of snow beneath your boots, empty silence fills the air.

It drives him crazy. So crazy that he decides to speak.

"What's your name?"

The name that leaves your lips makes him smile. He can only think that it really does suit you. 

"My name is–"

"Diluc. Diluc Ragnvindr, right?"

Heat creeps up to his cheeks. Of course you know who he is. He's the most famous person in all of Mondstadt, for Archon's sake.

"I've seen you around the city," you quickly explain, awkwardly fumbling over your words. "And at festivals and such."

Before he can dwell too much on it, your seelie chirps— once, twice, three times as it dives into the snow and slowly melts it away. You suddenly halt in your steps, crouching down to sift through the remainder. An exhale of relief leaves you when you dig out a box, intact and frozen to the touch.

He looks on in curiosity. Your hand brushes the snow off the top of the box and you open it, revealing another couple dozen Cecelias.

"Thank goodness..." and your seelie seems to agree, because it dances around your head with a pleased noise.

You're too busy admiring the flowers to realize the snow has kicked up. He's too busy admiring you to notice, either. It isn't until the seelie dips in front of your face with a panicked garble that you finally tear your eyes away from your box of flowers.

"It started to snow..."

Diluc's gaze drifts from you to the darkening sky. It's much too late to make your way down the mountain. In his time in Snezhnaya he learned one very important rule of surviving the cold: you can't outrun snow.

Your seelie leads you to a small cave in a section of rock, covered in starsilver and crystalflies. There isn't any kindling to make a fire, and he isn't willing to brave this type of storm just for some wood.

Diluc shrugs his coat off his shoulders and wraps it around your shoulders in a single motion. Heat envelops you, warmer than the fire seelie that guided you through the mountains. It’s a warmth that fills you from the pit of your stomach all the way to the tips of your fingers.

The seelie floats between you, trying to do its best to keep the both of you in its light.

It's comfortable and quiet for a while— not a peep from either of you as you listen to the howling of wind and snow outside. 

How did Diluc ever end up here?

Bad luck, karma, anything that would explain why he ended up snowed in atop Dragonspine with you— anything at all other than it was in the stars' design that he be with you right here and now. Fate mocks him.

Even worse, there's a voice in his head telling him that this is exactly where he needs to be right now. He's getting a migraine.

Diluc watches you sift through the remaining ashes of the burnt box, trying to see if there's anything you can salvage. Unfortunately, Diluc's Pyro vision was only good for combat and keeping you warm at this moment.

"I'm... really sorry," he says again, looking away sheepishly. He can't bear to look at the disappointment furrowing in your brows.

The sound of a sigh echoes in the cave, and he finally manages to look at you. To his surprise, you're only staring back at him with soft eyes: no contempt, no anger, no disappointment. It makes his heart sink, not only with guilt, but also because there's just something so sweet about you that it makes him want to hold you closer.

"It's okay. At least a majority of them survived. It'll be plenty."

"If you don't mind me asking, what were they for?"

"A bouquet for a wedding. The bride specifically asked for Cecelias, since it was the first bouquet he ever gifted her," there's a fondness on your face that makes him snort. You look at him funny. "What? It's romantic."

"They're just flowers. What's so sentimental about that?"

"They're not just flowers," you frown, scooting a little closer into his side to soak up more of his heat. The fire seelie's light flickers against your face. "Cecelias only grow in extremely windy places. They're illustrious and elegant, even after growing in such harsh conditions. Isn't that just..." you smile at him, slow and warm. "It's beautiful."

Diluc considers your explanation for a moment, tugging his coat around your shoulders tighter. "I suppose so."

"You suppose?" You laugh. "My my, I didn't know Diluc Ragnvindr was so down-to-earth when it comes to romance."

Your laugh is doing terrible things to him. There's something about it that reminds him of the days he spent wandering the Winery as a boy with Kaeya in tow. The nights he would spend catching crystalflies. Times long since passed. He suddenly aches to be back among the grapevines.

"I don't indulge in that sort of thing."

He never could, so long as there was something ugly and bitter and tainted in his heart.

"You've never fallen in love?"

"Not once."

Love like that doesn't exist. Not in a world like this.

He repeats what he believed was true, chants the mantra in his head until he's dizzy as if trying to convince himself that he isn't already lost in you. The warm orange glow of the seelie dances in your eyes, lights up your smile in a way that makes his stomach turn.

I fell in love at first sight. They were words that he couldn't understand until today.

"Is that so?" You muse, slotting your head in the space between his jaw and shoulder. He doesn’t move away. "You're an unusual man, Diluc."

"Maybe I am."

But he knows that the moment he met you, everything was about to change. You don't even dignify him with a glance as you say it:

"Let's fall in love, then."

The demand is simple and he's absolutely positive you're joking. Something in his soul tugs anyway. He swears one thing at that moment: someway, somehow, he'll make it all up to you.

You are, after all, the first person to remind him of home in a long time. Every aspect of you is so comforting and familiar, even if he can't quite place his finger on it yet.

You reach out to pet your seelie, even though you know your hand will phase through it. "You sure did lead me to some strange treasure, hm?"

It trills happily with a little twirl.

Diluc meets you in winter, in the valley between the peaks of Dragonspine. He meets you, and it smells of burnt wood and ash and Cecelias. It's so cold that you can't feel your fingers but you're smiling in the afterglow of a seelie nonetheless, and so is he.

SPRING

He learns that you own the little flower shop at the edge of Mondstadt, just within the front gates of the city.

You're teaching a young girl, Flora, how to nurture them. And he finds it a little endearing, the way you're so gentle not only with Flora but with the flowers you're showing her: daisies and tulips and Windwheel Asters, all of which are in season right now.

Diluc recognizes you when you open back up for spring, surrounded by boxes stuffed with fresh bouquets. You seem to be in a rush getting organized, holding a stack of boxes instead of taking them one by one and clumsily scattering them around so you can go through them.

He stops you by stepping in front of you, two hands on either side of the stack to steady them as you stumble to a halt.

"Diluc?" You peer from around the boxes. He can only see your curious eyes from this angle. He laughs.

"Sorry to interrupt you when you're so busy. Do you need help?"

"Well–" you do a little hop to straighten up the boxes in your arms, "–it would be nice to have an extra set of hands getting everything ready for the Windblume Festival." You contemplate his offer for a brief moment, then ultimately decide against it. "But I would hate to steal you away from your other responsibilities. You're helping with the festival too, right?"

"I owe you one. Think of this as a favour from a friend," he refutes stubbornly.

"I'm sure many would be missing the help of Diluc Ragnvindr," you tease, shifting around so that your body tilts toward him.

It's then that he can finally look at you fully, with a soft orange apron tied around your waist and Windwheel Asters in your hair to match.

One day, you would go on and explain to him that it was sort of like advertising, and that showing off how nice the blooms look as an accessory brought in a lot of business. Right now all it does is render him breathless.

"They can afford to miss me.” He can't help the smile that creeps its way onto his face at the sight of you— he feels silly about it too, like some lovesick little boy.

You hand off the boxes into Diluc's arms. "Can they? I heard you were supplying all of the wine for the festival. That's a tall order," you giggle, bending down to grab another two boxes of flowers.

"It's... manageable," he answers, making a mental note to himself to buy Adelinde dinner some time as a thank you. "What about you? What are all these boxes for?"

"We're holding a flower gifting service in the plaza, on the night of the big party." He looks at you curiously as you continue, "You can send someone you care for a flower or two, or you can send them anonymously if you just wanted to make someone's day!"

"Sounds..."

You smile knowingly. "Romantic?"

Diluc places the boxes down on the ground and pries the lids off, revealing more and more ready-to-bloom flowers. "Yeah. Romantic," he sighs.

"These will all be in full bloom in time for the festival.” You lean down behind him where he's crouched down, until your chin is nearly resting on his shoulder. He's sure his breath hitches so loud that you can hear it.

The following weeks entail complete mayhem. With the end of spring rapidly approaching, excitement buzzes throughout the city. Notably, he overhears many talking about your business and the new flower gifting service.

The Windblume Festival is a special time for Diluc. His father used to take him and Kaeya as children, back when the world was a little happier. On the night of the festival, he stands at the booth contemplating. Unlike a majority of the citizens of Mondstadt, he has not a clue who to give a flower to. Flora frowns.

"Um, mister, are you ever going to write a name down?"

The quill halts just above the piece of paper. "I don't have to sign my name, do I?"

"You can send it as a secret."

Diluc looks up from where he's bent over, observing you from a few feet away. You're conversing with some ladies who are interested in your bouquets. It was a good business idea to do something like this.

He only meant to support your idea as a friend. Now he's conflicted on whether or not he should dare to write your name.

You look absolutely radiant tonight with magical crystal chunks strewn about your hair and a crown of flowers circling your head. He isn't sure he's ever seen someone so beautiful.

He finally decides. When you turn back around to give him your attention, he's gone.

He's sure that will be the end of it, and that after tonight your brief and strange relationship with him will come to an end. But then you come bounding up to him just as he's about to head out.

"Look! A flower!" You exclaim, shoving it into his face. He's pleased that you like the one he picked out for you.

"Yes, I see that. It's nice."

"Nice? Nice?! It's adorable! I've never gotten one before."

He looks at you funny. "Never?"

"Nope," you laugh sheepishly. "I don't really get out much. Too busy running the shop."

He takes the flower from your hands and tucks it just behind your ear, adding it amongst the crown of Asters surrounding you like a halo.

"It suits you.”

"Does it?" You ask him quietly.

His heart beats furiously. How could he ever steel himself when you have such a big smile on your face, adorned with flowers and gemstones?

"Will you dance with me?" The question leaves him before he can stop it. You look at him in wonder, with his fingers brushing the hair from your face. Whatever evil overtakes him in that moment, he'll have to thank later, because without hesitation you're dragging him into the middle of the plaza with glee.

You come to learn that he isn't exactly what you'd call an elegant dancer. He only knows movements that he learned at banquets held by his family— basic steps born from obligation. 

"I thought you'd be better at this," you tease, allowing him to pull you along by the waist.

"I don't dance," he huffs. "I haven't in a long time."

"We should dance together more, then."

Diluc sighs, but there's a tiny smile spreading across his face. "I guess we should."

"This flower... do you know what it represents?" You gesture to the bloom tucked behind your ear. He shakes his head and you continue, "It means everlasting love."

He laughs at the irony.

"I see. How... fetching."

"I wonder who it was," you smile to yourself. He thinks you look breathtaking.

Diluc's lips curl at your joy. He twirls you under his arm once, twice, then pulls you back into his body as he considers your words.

"Yes, I wonder who," he mutters with an amused expression that you just barely miss. And he knows exactly who, but he's not sure if he could handle seeing you melt into a lovestruck puddle at his admission.

Diluc dances with you in spring, under the warm glow of lanterns and the taste of grape juice staining his tongue. He dances with you, and it smells of the Windwheel Asters that crown your head and mint jelly on your breath.

He tugs you a little closer, just because.

SUMMER

If you were to ask Diluc how he felt about these big "charity" events, he would scoff in your face and lecture you about how they were nothing more than money traps set up by the Knights of Favonius.

He would say it purely out of spite, of course, mostly because he knows Jean is too kindhearted to allow for such shady business. Openly, at least.

His distaste for the Knights and all they stand for are not hidden deep in his heart. He sneers when there's a casualty— mocks their inefficiency at any given opportunity.

You never knew him to be such a bitter man when it came to the Knights. Diluc was good at keeping up his polite and indifferent charade to their practices.

It wasn't until the beginning of summer when you realized his loathing. It was their own incompetence that led a horde of slimes directly into the city, nearly smashing your little shop to bits.

You've never seen him so furious.

Outwardly, he was simply curt with them. He had only a few choice words lined up when they apologized with their heads hung low, watching them with his arms crossed over his chest.

Inwardly, you could see the anger swimming in his eyes.

That was three weeks ago. It leaves a bitter taste in his mouth to think that just three weeks ago, they were leading danger straight into your shop and now here they are, asking you to donate to their cause.

"You're sulking," you tell him from across the table. He immediately sits up straight, jaw relaxing.

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"You know," you smile at him, moving one of your pawns forward, "I think the Knights are happy you're here. Relieved, at the very least, that you don't seem mad at them anymore."

He only frowns whilst knocking your pawn over with a bishop. "I wasn't mad at them."

"You were. Even I could tell."

"They almost got you hurt."

"Almost," you remind him with a small huff. "They were just slimes! No harm no foul."

You make a fatal move, but he doesn't even gloat because he's too busy cursing out the Knights in his head.

"I just find it in poor taste that they would ask for your hard-earned Mora after endangering you like that." He shrugs you off nonchalantly, as if you can't see the fire blazing in his eyes at the mere thought of it. 

You blink at the chessboard as he checkmates you, slumping back in your seat with a tiny pout. "Once again, you've bested me."

"It seems I have," he says, lips finally twitching up into a small smile.

"Don't you ever get tired of beating me at this game? I sure do."

"That's a shame. Same time tomorrow?"

He watches with a laugh as you grumble in irritation. You can't help but notice how quiet it is, even over the chatter of the people in the plaza. There's something off about him today.

It's clear that he doesn't want to be here, volunteering his time to the Knights for a cause he has no faith in. It was a favour for Jean, he told you, to which you mused that he owed a lot of friends favours.

To be a noble in Mondstadt, and especially the wealthiest, Diluc is obligated to attend all sorts of gatherings he detests. You can see it written all over his face.

"Hey," you call out to him softly, leaning over the table. Your voice is a hush as you tell him: "Let's get out of here."

He glances around. "I'm expected to be here, you know?” He laughs once more, though he seems to be considering your offer. He decides to indulge you. "Where would you like to go?"

You think for a moment, brows furrowed. He watches the minute twitch of your lips, the creases of your smile; everything about you is so alive and beautiful.

Then, you point. You point high, with a breathless giggle. 

"There," you say, gesturing toward the giant statue of Barbatos, "let's go up there."

He almost flat out rejects you, wanting to scold you about how dangerous it would be and that, for someone without a vision, you sure do have the gall to even suggest it.

But then he sees the excitement twinkling in your eyes, which are already scrunched up from how big your smile is. How could he refuse?

Diluc ends up trailing behind you, inconspicuously hugging his coat close to his body. You don't realize why until you're standing at the feet of the statue.

You gasp at the bottle of wine tucked into his coat. "Did you steal that?"

"The Winery provided all of this. I would hardly consider it stealing," he chuckles.

You nudge him with your elbow, a grin on your face as you accept the bottle into your hands. "I didn't know you were so sly, Diluc."

"I used to do this all the time when I was a kid."

"Steal wine bottles?" You look at him with wide eyes and an impressed smile.

"The maids forbade me from drinking at the Winery's banquets. Try telling a thirteen year old boy not to do something, see what happens," he huffs in amusement.

"You don't even like wine," you remind him. Diluc only hums in response, grabbing it and stuffing it back into his coat as he takes his first leap up the stone.

"Consider it a gift.” He twists around so he can look down at you where you stand, watching him with a mixture of fascination and horror.

His hand extends to yours. For as many times in this life as he is willing to offer it, you would take it.

He helps haul you up to the very top, barely breaking a sweat as he watches you climb beside him. After all, he withstood countless adversaries in his time in Snezhnaya: climbed mountains as tall as the sky with nothing but his claymore. 

When you ask how he's so calm about this, he only tells you that he used to climb to the roof of the manor when he was a boy.

He had a lot of secrets kept caged up in his body, you realized many months ago. Diluc was never too vocal about his time before he returned to Mondstadt.

You do remember, however, that at the banquet they threw for him to celebrate his return home, he seemed cold and indifferent to the warm welcome. In fact, it was like his mind was entirely elsewhere. You can picture the day well— it was the largest order of flowers you'd ever received after all.

You're glad he's settled back into Mondstadt, at least. You just never thought you'd have a chance to actually meet him.

He watches as you nervously teeter over to the edge of the statue, peering down with a nervous gulp. You relax when his hands steady you, gently guiding you to sit down in a more safe position.

"I've never been so high up off the ground!" You cry out toward the city, feet dangling over the edge of the Archon's hands.

"It's nice, isn't it? Much different than the kind of heights you feel on Dragonspine."

You take in a long breath of fresh air, as if savouring the wind at this height. "It's pretty.” You finally conclude. There's a dreamy sigh on your lips that makes him laugh.

He uncorks the bottle he lugged up with him, passing it over to you. Instead of taking it, your head tilts back and he takes the opportunity to pour the wine past your lips himself.

Silence festers between you two as he pours the sweet alcohol into your mouth, all rational thought being carried away by the wind.

He isn't sure how long you stay that way: shoulders touching, hair blowing, and feet dangling in the air. For someone who wanted to climb the statue to see the city, you sure are being shameless in your staring directly at him.

You're looking at him in a way that makes him melt— eyes so laser focused and crinkling with your smile. You look at him like he's the only person in the world. Right now, he might really be that important. His heart swells in his chest.

"What is it?" Speak your mind. Let me hear all your crazy thoughts.

"You came all the way up here with me. You came up here. With me."

You emphasize your point by extending your arms out to your sides, feeling the breeze wash over you.

He knows what’s coming next. You love clichés. And he doesn't stop you, for some reason, when you open your mouth again just as he predicted.

"I think I'm falling for you."

"I would hope not. We're pretty high up in the air."

You swat his arm with a huff, face turning a little more serious. "I mean it!"

Diluc grows quiet, looking out toward the city. His home. The place he grew up, and the place he'll spend the rest of his days. The distant sound of people chattering, water flowing from the fountain, music playing: all sounds he's grown so familiar with and yet—

"I love you."

—he never thought it could be so beautiful until he climbed up here with you.

"You love a lot of things," he muses.

"Like what?"

He looks at you softly. "Like Cecelias. Mondstadt hashbrowns for breakfast. And you say you hate the cold but I know you love it up in Dragonspine— think it looks so pretty with all the snow."

You nod, mulling over his statement before asking: "What else?"

"I know you love that orange apron; Flora's mother sewed it for you herself, didn't she? And you love Anemo slimes, think they're the cutest thing in the world even though I've seen them explode in your face multiple times before."

You're listening to him intently, watching his lips as he lists off all the things he knows about you. And he's been going for so long that you have to wonder if you've really only known him for eight months.

"You love Starfell Lake and making wishes while you blow away Dandelion seeds. You love fire seelies and tea imported from Liyue and going to charity events like this even though you don't owe the Knights any of your time."

Another silence settles between you.

"So I'm a romantic. Even then, you still won't accept that I love you?" You ask him quietly.

He hesitates only for a moment, but you still catch it. "I won't."

"What is it with you and your cynicism about romance?"

"It's not like I don't believe love exists—" He’s looking at you right now, after all: living, breathing proof that Diluc could love something. "—I just... it's not for me."

"Not for you?" You repeat back to him in disbelief. "Love is beautiful, you know. You don't even want to give it a chance?"

You're looking at him earnestly, both hands pressed against the stone of the statue beneath you as you twist to stare him down.

"It's complicated," he murmurs, tearing his eyes away from yours. In his peripherals, he can still see you facing him. He doesn't dare look at you again for the sake of his own resolve.

Love was always a messy emotion for Diluc. To love was to trust completely, to be vulnerable and open. But he's been betrayed one too many times for his heart not to ache at the idea of falling in love so willingly.

It terrifies him— to have someone holding his heart in their hands with the chance that they could crush it into dust with the snap of their fingers.

Diluc was alone for many years in the northern region of Snezhnaya. He's good at being lonely. It's a part of the air he breathes, something engraved deep into his bones, terrible and grim and consuming his flesh until he's nothing.

He hadn't even realized he had grown accustomed to it. Not until he met you. Not until you stole his heart at first sight. Not until you made him understand all those times his father would speak of his mother once she was gone. It was always easier to be alone until he met you, and suddenly you came along and flipped the whole world onto its head.

Now Diluc can't be alone— he was losing the ability to sit in solitary silence without his thoughts screaming in his ears. He was constantly thinking about you. And it was always distracting things, like wondering when he would see your smile next, or when you would ever dance with him again.

Your head falls against his shoulder, hair tickling under his chin as you rest there. As if it were a remnant of eons past, his lips find the crown of your head reflexively. And you don't pull away by any means, allowing him to be affectionate the only way he can and accepting him as he comes.

The words don't need to be said anymore. He already knows. It's a story rewritten a million times over, buried somewhere deep in his soul.

He decides that maybe, just once in this life, it would be okay to take the risk. If it was you, he would be alright.

His arm comes around your waist protectively, pulling you closer into his body as if you'd disappear with the wind if he let go. He holds you there quietly, listening to your soft murmurs.

Diluc Ragnvindr deserves to be loved, is what you're telling him.

And despite the scars littering his body and the chains wrapped around his heart, he allows himself to believe it.

Diluc loves you in the summer, in the hands of the Anemo Archon. He loves you, and it smells of Dandelion Wine and the lingering scent of sweet flowers in your hair and all the things that make him dream of you.

For the first time since he returned to Mondstadt, he doesn't feel alone.

AUTUMN

It's the anniversary.

Diluc remembers the day too well— the smell of blood and flesh and how cold a corpse is. Sometimes it's all he can think about.

He cried when his father passed, as all boys would. Then, a fire replaced the hollow sadness in his heart, something fierce and dangerous and unhinged.

Fierce and dangerous and unhinged. Descriptors that he would consider second nature to him behind closed doors of the Tavern and hidden in the grapevines of the Winery. No one would ever know the real Diluc Ragnvindr, hellbent on vengeance since he was only a boy crying at his father's grave.

It wasn't until you came along that he felt something new blooming within him— something like beautiful flowers and a heartbeat slow and steady as waves on the shore, a yearning so powerful that it displaced the ugly bitterness in his heart.

Nowadays, Diluc felt like a confusing mixture of both light and darkness— treading the thin line that separated him from living in the moment with you, and seeking revenge for the past.

He doesn't realize the conflict within him has been bubbling into a raging fire, tearing him in half from the inside out, until today.

He talked to you about his father once, over a plate of sugar-frosted slime and Liyue imported jasmine tea. It was a day like any other, with you seated across from him having an afternoon snack.

My father liked sugar-frosted slime, he told you. It was the first time he'd ever let it be known that Crepus was on his mind, ever so present. A ghost haunting him. You didn't think much of it. Diluc seemed perfectly content living through his memories.

It was coincidence that brought you here on the exact day the world lost Crepus. Or, perhaps, the nagging voice in the back of your mind telling you to get out of bed and come here.

Your son is a wonderful man, is what you first whispered to the grave. And then you couldn't stop the words from pouring out of you, rambling on and on about how he raised a good boy, and how Diluc had taken your heart the moment you laid eyes on him.

He finds you sitting there in the rain with a sad excuse for an umbrella popped up above your head. His father's grave is adorned with flowers of all kinds— a respect that no one had ever paid him before.

You don't realize how much you move him with such a simple act. He had long since lost faith both in the Knights and the citizens that once looked up to his father so much; after all, it was only he and Kaeya who ever came around to visit.

It's not until he crumbles to his knees beside you that you even notice his tears, your smile fading as he looks at you in confusion.

You're not sure you've ever seen Diluc cry before.

"What are you doing here?" He asks, head tilting into your palm when you reach forward to wipe his tears with your thumb.

"Saying hello," you respond as if it's the obvious answer.

"You... huh?"

"It would be rude to fall in love with you without at least introducing myself first."

"You didn't have to do—" Diluc gestures to the grave, "—all this."

You smile. "I wanted to.” And the truth is as simple as that.

You were too good for this world. Something beautiful in a place where only ugliness lives. He almost hates how much hope you give him.

The world was always black and white for Diluc. Recently, he's been finding it hard to distinguish the two. 

There was right and there was wrong and there you were teetering between them, balancing hope and despair. It scared him to think of all the ways he could lose you, how he could one day end up bringing flowers to a grave with your name on it just as you did for his father.

What's the point of love if all it ends with is hurt?

He's sniffling, trying to chew on his bottom lip to distract himself from the ache in his chest. You notice his sudden quietness, turning to look at him.

"Hey.” Your voice is soft, as if he would shatter if you even spoke to him wrong right now. He might. "It's just me. It's okay."

"I don't cry. I hate crying," he admits through his tears.

He can't remember when he had cried last. Was it the day he came home? Or was it longer, like during those lonely nights spent hiding away in the mountains? The only vivid memory he has with tears staining his cheeks was the day his father died.

"You don't have to be ashamed of crying," you tell him, using your thumbs to wipe his lashes. "There's nothing wrong with that."

"I'm Diluc Ragnvindr. I'm not supposed to cry."

"You're Diluc Ragnvindr," you repeat back slowly, pulling his head toward you and cradling it against your shoulder. "You're human. What's wrong with that?"

Diluc doesn't feel human. He hasn't felt human in a long time. He's been something more like a ghost wandering around the places he used to love. Memories tainted by hatred and grief, it was as if he would never find beauty in this world again.

"I'm not," he breathes. "I'm not anything."

You pry him off of you. He blinks at you through his tears.

"Do you really believe that?"

He goes quiet, only staring at you as he soaks in your earnest eyes.

"I don't know what I am. I don't know what to do in this world anymore."

He's a mess of emotions— he almost wishes he were back in Snezhnaya where everything made sense. Where his entire existence was built up of seeking retribution. To a time when he knew where he belonged.

Diluc Ragnvindr only ever knew revenge. Only ever knew how to inflict pain. Only ever knew how to break kneecaps and hide in shadows and keep his lonely body warm with his Pyro vision.

He doesn't know love. He doesn't know how to do it without fighting the fire burning in his stomach when he grieves—

"You're just Diluc. Do you ever need to be anything more than that?"

—or maybe he hasn't given it the chance it deserves. The chance he deserves.

He realizes then, what love must be. What kept him up at night, the feeling raging in his chest:

There was no corner of Teyvat he could ever call home without you anymore. He belonged here, with you.

And accompanied with this realization is something that he hasn't felt in many years. Peace. A stillness in his body and the calm in his mind which was usually racing with contemplation— something he never thought he would feel again.

And it's because of you. Only you. It would only ever be because of your love.

"Would you accept me as I am?"

You smile. "I always have."

"You don't know who I am. The things I've done."

"Are they that bad?"

"Awful."

You hum in thought, thumb mindlessly brushing his cheek back and forth. "We have all the time in the world for you to explain," you add with another soft smile, "I believe you have your reasons. I believe in you."

He laughs, exhales shaky. "You're insane."

"Am I? But I think you're falling for me anyways."

So what if he is? He can't find a single reason wrong with it anymore.

The rain has started to let up, the world around him lighting up with warm sun. And you look so radiant like this, surrounded by the fog brought in by the storm and shining in sweet sunlight.

"Do you think we have your father’s approval?"

He doesn't have to answer that. Not when you're already leaning in closer to him.

The diminishing pitter-patter of rain against your shabby umbrella fills his ears. You're so close that he swears he can hear your heart thundering in your chest. 

Diluc has always been brave; he was a terrible troublemaker of a child that grew into a body too big for a boy— some part of him that he kept locked away for the sake of living his life as his father would have wanted. If he wanted to lead an empire of a business, he would need to grow up eventually.

He's always been brave, but he was still too much of a coward to stop using his father as a way out. Because he knows Crepus would have wanted Diluc to find happiness, not vengeance.

It's about time he stopped being afraid.

"I think he wants me to tell you something."

"And what's that?" You smile.

"That in this life—" he breathes, "—in this and the next and the one after until the stars of Teyvat run out, I will love you."

You snicker. He can feel it rumbling in his own chest. "How romantic," you tease with his breath in your lungs.

He shuts you up with his mouth.

Diluc kisses you in autumn, with the golden leaves of change. Diluc kisses you warm and sweet and long. He can't remember what was filling his senses at that moment. Your bodies were too close for him to care.

WINTER

Winter was always a bothersome season.

Even in his days away from Mondstadt, in all the time he spent roaming the north, he never quite grew accustomed to the freezing temperatures and harsh weather.

When Diluc left for Snezhnaya, he left his childhood behind, too. He abandoned who he was on the doorstep of his manor, put all his funds into the hands of Adelinde with no intent of returning, and left in the middle of the night without a word.

Half of him expected to die. The other half expected to not return by choice.

For the first few months he spent adjusting to the northern climate, he tucked himself away in a hidden cavern away from the Capital where the Tsaritsa resided. He was in no condition to battle, let alone challenge a god.

He spent many days stealthily hunting down lower ranking Fatui— people that no one would miss. At eighteen years old he had enough blood on his hands to guarantee Celestia's smiting. Blood that, as he learned, does not wash off.

He had to teach himself how to travel through thick snow. Through blizzards and hail and subzero temperatures nothing alike to those felt on Dragonspine.

And when he finally returned home, battle worn and hardened and cold, he couldn't stand the snow. Every crunch under his boots reminded him of the times he had to lug around his greatsword through treacherous enemy lines. Even the sound put him on edge for incoming attacks.

It wasn't like he was ever particularly fond of the cold but for a long time, as a boy, he would simply tolerate it. He had his Pyro vision, after all, and it never truly caused him any harm.

When Kaeya received his Cryo vision, things took a turn.

The cold represented nothing but death for Diluc. It was pain and grief and sorrow— loss in magnitudes indescribable to anyone else. It was bloodshed, the terrible stench of flesh, metal on metal. It was homesickness.

There was nothing poetic or beautiful about it. It only reminded him of all the things he had lost.

He would roll his eyes when Venti sang about the first snowfall of the season. His Pyro vision would glow until the ice melted around him. It's impractical, he told you when you first met and he was guiding you back down the mountain. It doesn't do any good except make you slip and fall.

Diluc remembers quite vividly how you snorted at that. And, like always, you went on to say things that would make his head spin. Find beauty in life even where you think it doesn't exist.

He didn't heed your advice all too much, instead grumbling about how his claymore was getting heavy and that he wanted to get back to the Winery as soon as possible.

But then he found that it was hard to ignore your words. Especially when you were showing him exactly how to do it— popping frozen grapes into his mouth that were somehow a little sweeter; mixing him hot cocoa the way your mother taught you; throwing snowballs at him from behind trees and thinking you've won until he nails you straight in the face in retaliation.

Winter always brought a smile to your face. And how could he not smile when you are?

The best part of it all was that the cold made you cling to him a little closer. A little tighter. So close that he swears he can hear your heart beating in his own ears, savouring his warmth unlike anyone he'd ever met before.

"My personal fire seelie," you joked once. He pinched your cheek until you slapped his hand away and buried your face back into his chest.

Diluc is pretty certain that he hasn't been this happy in a long time. Not since before his father passed, at least. Even with the nervous sigh that leaves him, you're urging him forward.

"I can't believe you never learned how to skate!"

"It's... not something noble families would have approved of."

"But you have this whole lake in your backyard!" You gawk. He only stifles a laugh, stumbling clumsily into your arms. You catch him as if you'd done it a thousand times before.

"Show me how it's done."

"It's like dancing," you say with an encouraging grin, pulling him along with you slowly. You're half right. Some aspects of it do remind him of a warm spring night, with music playing and your laughter in his ears. On the other hand, he can't seem to keep his skates straight.

"The ice won't fall through, right?" He murmurs anxiously, nodding at the Pyro vision hung on his belt.

"If it does, I'll save you!"

"I don't think you'd be able to carry me up from the water," he deadpans.

"I'd save you," you insist.

"Really?"

"Yes, really! For as many times as you need me to save you, I will."

And you did save him. Though, that statement is better left unspoken for the sake of the heat rising to his cheeks. Instead, he leans in to press a kiss to your forehead.

"I love you," he whispers into your skin.

Find beauty in life. Another set of words he never thought he would understand. But he's staring at beauty right in its face and it smells like Cecelias. Dances like a shooting star. Loves unconditionally.

Diluc always loathed winter, until you redefined it into a thing he missed dearly—

Home.

© ALABOADOA 2023 — please do not translate or post my works to other platforms.

crossposted to ao3!

🏷️ @rintosei hi babe its up <3

[naffeclipse]

I'm honored to reveal that I'm @darthsuki's secret Santa for the DCASS2023 event! When I saw that Howl's Moving Castle was one of the movies you love, I was immediately possessed by this AU for the DCA! I had so much fun crafting this fic along with Eclipse, Sun, and Moon reimagined in such a setting, and, of course, the reader! There is so much fluff and romance; I hope that's alright! Please enjoy!

Eclipse's Moving Daycare

Eclipse & Sun & Moon x Reader (SFW)

You can also read this fic on AO3!

Word Count: ~5,500 Warnings: N/A

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In the heart of the castle-like structure, smoothly crawling over the snowy mountain peak with bending, robotic appendages that sink claws into the fresh, cold powder, is a room alight by a fire demon. The creaking and grumbling of the house have long since faded into a familiar drone in the background of your senses. A few candles burn and flicker, dripping hot, white wax. The main source of light, in the late hour on a blistering cold night, emits from Sun in golden radiance.

You stand over the fireplace. It holds a small cauldron upon its embers. Water bubbles and pops with gentle wisps of steam rising, rising up into the chimney. Behind you, the great light of the room begins to shift, shadows leaning away from the approaching presence.

“What is my darling brewing tonight?” The fire demon saunters close behind you. Sun’s voice brushes against your ear, flickering with life so powerful, it only leaves ash in its wake. The heat sinks into your back—a soothing reprise from the chill circling the moving daycare. “Could I be of assistance to your crafting?”

“Yes, if you don’t mind, Sunny,” you say softly. 

You turn around to face him, almost squinting your eyes against his brilliance. The fire demon flickers with flames, set soft and low in a gentle yellow light. The energy burns over a body of deep, dark charcoal and embers. Red pulses in between the burnt aspects. His head, large and flat like a disk, flickers with a great grin. The very pale center of his eyes holds a blue tint not unlike the very tips of great flames. A crown of red fire circles his face, and you marvel how he has never once burned you—part of his magic, of course. He decides when and who shall be scorched.

“Oh, you haven’t answered me yet.” He looms over you, the fey-being easily entering your space in the way smoke fills the air. “Is it a special potion? Perhaps a liquid that would set itself on fire should someone sing a sour note? Or a drink for trees that allow them to become ready fuel, set to torch the mountainside for a bit of warmth on this dreary winter day?”

You smile. When does he not suggest you concoct some sort of fiery potion? You certainly don’t recall. The fire demon is what he is.

“Neither,” you answer and strip a thorny branch of herb, dried and well preserved, of its flat fronds. You turn away to toss them into the cauldron. “It’s soup.”

The light of the room dims in the briefest moment before flaring with fresh vigor. Dancing heat becomes almost sweltering at your back before a hot hand slips around your waist, wrapping you up in a cozy embrace. Your eyes flutter when Sun’s mouth presses to your shoulder, sharp teeth grazing your skin exposed by the stretched neckline of your tunic.

“We’ll save the pyromania for later, but soup! Yes, that would warm you and Moon and Eclipse.”

“And you.” You hold up the thin dry branch, as he likes it, to the fire demon’s mouth. “I’ll make it for all of us.”

“Oh, I don’t do well with soup. Too watery for my taste,” he says mournfully. 

You watch a lick of flame wrap around the branch and pull it into his mouth, leaving your hand empty. His jaw bumps slightly against your shoulder as he chews, fire splitting and cracking the fuel over his tongue. He swallows and the light grows brighter around you. For a moment, you swear you understand what a candle wick feels like sitting in all that great light. He holds you tighter.

“I will make it so you can consume it, too,” you say, and pat his arm as it hugs your waist. The flames flatten underneath your palm, whipping and flaring at your presence, but never biting. A bit of soot smears across your hand. “Now let me get the rest of the ingredients. You’re holding me captive, love!”

He laughs with the boisterous gale of a bonfire. “How else am I supposed to keep you safe on a freezing night such as this!” 

“I’m plenty safe with you here, and I’m in need of soup.” You turn your head to catch his twin flame eyes. 

When he lets you go, he does so with a smoking sigh as if you intend to leave the moving daycare rather than simply his embrace. You keep your smile to yourself at his theatrics. He remains before the cauldron as you search a few cupboards, gathering several spices, herbs, and a few bits to toss into the soup. You turn to the kitchen counter, the wood rich brown and well worn with your work.

In a few moments, the great cold of the night has taken hold and your shoulders shiver. Setting the glass jars down, you breathe in a rattling breath. It’s getting worse outside. Over the quiet motions of the building shuffling along is the great howl of wind.

You must hurry with the soup. Eclipse will be home soon.

Taking a few ingredients, you turn back around only to be greeted with a fire in your face. Sun grins, the blue in his eyes dancing brightly. You almost drop the spices in your startle.

“Poor thing, you’re shivering! Allow me to warm you up.” The fire demon coos impishly before taking you by the hand. His warmth laces between your fingers. Your other arm is crooked, cradling the glass jars as Sun lays his hand on your waist, and in the fashion of a waltz, spins you the short distance back to the cauldron. 

You gasp, pressed tight to his body with little but spice containers between your heart and the deep red pulsing in the fire demon’s chest. The small clinks of glass echo like notes to the movement of the song Sun carries you along to with his swift steps. His crown of flames waver in excitement, snapping and flickering. He sets you down for a moment. 

“Oh, you’re already so pink!” He touches your cheek with hot fingertips before slipping away the spices with a small flick of his hand, magically tugging the jars from your grasp and setting them on the edge of the fireplace. You sputter, head spinning in his fiery whirlwind. “There! Aren’t you toasty?”

“Sun!” you laugh. You lay your hands on his chest as he gathers you closer, his arms wrapping around your waist. His heat seeps deep into your body, chasing away the awful chill. “I am making us soup! Let me go, you fiery fiend!”

“Ah, but how can I? You’ve bewitched me.” He twists you around—much to your amusement and surprise, dipping you low as you cling to his shoulders. “My darling, I simply can’t let you grow cold for even a breath.”

You melt like mountaintop snow in spring, his pale, lovely gaze burning with intent so promising. You become warm—not of body, but of soul. Slowly, softly, you find his mouth hungrily reaching. You answer with a soft, chaste press of your lips upon his fire, closing your eyes. The light glows through your thin eyelids, sparking blue at the edges in the center of deep, passionate gold. He has never burned you. He never will.

The light increases until it becomes as bright as noon in summer—as bright as his name.

He brings you back to your feet in a careful rise though his hands have yet to unlock from your waist. The distant boiling of the cauldron sends you back to your senses before you lift your head. You gaze adoringly at the fire demon, tasting cedar-turned-ash on your tongue. Reaching with one hand, you run a few fingers through the brightness of his head flames, now tinged with blue at the very tips. 

Oh, he’s satisfied.

 “I am making soup, and you can’t seduce me away,” you say firmly, before pecking his fiery mouth once more. His teeth almost catch your bottom lip but you manage to slip away.

“But I’m already starving!” He half cries, placing one arm across his forehead in a swoon-worthy of the theater. “If you leave, I will vanish into smoke and soot!”

You reach up into a cupboard dusted with black powder and snatch up one lump of coal, small enough to eat in one bite, and turn around. You promptly set it into Sun’s mouth. His wail is muffled by the press of your fingertips until he begins chewing with a rather disgruntled look. The blue in his eyes pales slightly.

“I’m glad to see you have an appetite.” You smile. “Save the rest for soup.”

The heat lingering in your fingers is warm and tingly. You quickly snatch up a small wicker basket from the counter. The yellow light of the fire demon follows at your back as you make your way across the large living space, the cold quickly returning. Then, you enter a long hallway.

“Stay here,” you call over your shoulder, “I need to fetch a few things from Moon’s room and he doesn’t like you in there.”

A protest around a mouthful follows but you’ve already knocked and quietly opened the door, the room thick with darkness, before shutting it behind you. The fire demon is left in the heat of the living space.

You stand in Moon’s room. The clotting blackness hangs like a mist around your shoulders. You squint into the dark collection of shelves and small comforts, such as loveseats and chaise lounges and of course, several beds shoved up against the wall. You’re not certain if he sleeps in any one of the furnishings—if he sleeps at all.

“Moon?” you call out softly.

The nightly shade shifts in the slightest. Tendrils of shadow creep around you, waving like the petals of a flower before you feel a hand slip over your hip from behind and another hook under your jaw to take your chin.

“Hello, jewel,” he rasps low in your ear. A cool but pleasant shudder falls down your spine.

“Hello, scarecrow.” You allow him to tug you around to face his shadowy visage, his hand caressing your cheek as you gaze up at the fey-being. “Might I get into the food storage? I need beef and potatoes along with a few other vegetables.

His eyes, round as moons and pale red, drink you in. Underneath the brim of an old, sun-bleach straw hat that he stole from a scarecrow, the shadow demon tilts his head to an unnatural degree. A curve of silver light flashes across half of his face, like a coin winking under midnight light. 

“Of course.” His body stretches slightly, thin and elongated, like darkness at sunset. A few inky colors of red flare out around his neck and waist, the cold energy wavering about him, before his hands hook into your hips. You gasp once when he effortlessly lifts you off your feet and carries you to a chaise lounge dyed a deep ocean blue. 

Your eyes slowly adjust to the stark dimness when he sets you down. He kneels to sweep your ankles up and lay your legs across the couch.

“Moon, I need to get a few things,” you remind gently.

“I’m aware.” He, in a blink of darkness, has your basket in his hand where it swings slightly from side to side. His smile flashes with teeth reflecting a bony color. “Stay here.”

“If you insist,” you give with a chuckle. You lean back until you’re reclined on the cushy backrest, feeling much too elegant for someone who still has potion stains on their apron. “It’s dark now. You can come out. Sun is in the living space with me, helping me cook.”

“ Helping ,” the shadow demon echoes incredulously.

You snicker.

“Yes, he is, and I need your help as well.”

Moon slips into the darker corner that your weak human eyes can’t decipher. Soft rummaging echoes. The storage space is under a hatch in this room, and seeing as it was already so dark behind, Eclipse allows Moon to claim it as his own—provided that Moon allows you access to whatever ingredients you require when you are in need. 

You can’t think about Sun’s room without wincing at the amount of ash, gold relics, half-burnt walls, and little fires no doubt still running rampant in there. Eclipse placed a clever spell to keep it from spreading to the rest of the rooms and daycare.

The darkness moves as if ripples in water. You try to peer at a few dolls nestled onto a top shelf above one of the beds, their visage adorned with bows and curls but the strange distortion carries across the room. They must be for when there are children in the daycare again. Moon does love to give gifts to the little ones.

Then, a quiet sound of a wicker basket touching the floor. You jump before registering the slow blink of pale red eyes before you. At the end of the chaise lounge, Moon begins to creep forward. One hand follows the other, sliding along your legs and up your hips before one grabs onto the top of the backrest and the other reaches for your face. He hovers above you like a vulture in the sky.

The shadow demon brushes his thumb over your lips. The cool caress causes you to shiver but not from the cold.

You stay motionless. He hums a low sound; the beginning of a lullaby. He lays a soft touch of a cool knuckle over your cheek.

“Did you get what I ask?” you murmur, distracted by how he strokes the shell of your ear with soothing motions.

“Yes,” he grumbles. You’re glad he can see much better in the dark than you.

“Thank you.” You grin up at him. “Help me make soup, won’t you?”

You slide out from under his shadow. Back onto your feet, you hook the handle of the basket, now heavy with ingredients. You straighten only to find Moon’s sharp teeth curved into a wicked smile before you. In a split second, he pecks your mouth with a rush of midnight cool air and syrup-sweet darkness. You blink.

“You’re welcome.”

You stop him before his form can melt into the darkness. Snatching his wrist as he attempts to slip between your fingers, you step closer. The shadow demon makes a low sound of surprise. You grin as you press forward on your tippy toes into the darkness to find what you hope is his mouth—it often disappears in his face when he’s not actively showing his teeth. You kiss a smooth, satin-soft cheek.

“There, a proper kiss,” you murmur, falling back onto the fall of your feet.

A low, husky breath disagrees. Shadowy coils slip over your arms and your waist, creeping higher and higher until one hangs around your throat like an onyx necklace. The familiar and comforting weight of his embrace encircles you completely. 

“No,” the entire darkness seems to whisper in Moon’s rasp, “Let me show you a proper kiss.”

A dark finger tilts your chin up. You find his eyes as ghostly as red moons hanging above you, bathing you in unholy light. Moon hums softly. He lowers his mouth, teeth sharp but yearning, onto yours.

Cool and gentle, the shadow demon tastes your mouth. He presses to your lips in a silent declaration of fondness so sweet, it stains your tongue. His shadowy tendrils softly tightens around you in a tender crush of affection. A little nibble along your bottom lip teases his dangerous jaws, but you only gasp softly, pleased.

He releases you, unwinding from around you to slip behind your back. You, in a near daze, press towards the door and push it open. A soft hiss at the candlelight aggravates Moon for a moment before he adjusts and slithers into the living space. You catch your breath. Sun stands before the cauldron, feeding it logs but leaving it scorched with marks in the shape of his hands.

“Oh, Moon!” Sun turns around with a sharp clap of his hands. Moon hisses when his golden flames spread their light, eating away at the heavy pools of shadow at Moon’s feet. “You have been held up in that dreary room all day! Some company will do your shadows some good.”

“Ease your light,” Moon growls then slinks to a corner near the dark window overlooking the mountain peak. Pale red eyes glare before Sun inclines his head with a mischievous glint, but draws down his flames to a deep orange simmer over his charcoal body.

“That’s better, isn’t it?” Sun asks with a much gentler tone.

“Yes,” Moon mutters but eases, the coils of shadows at his feet twisting with a relaxed aspect. “Are you going to sit with us while we dine?”

“Sit? I’m going to dine with you—I’m afraid I haven’t been given a choice!” Sun drops against your shoulder—a feat that would otherwise push you to the ground if he wasn’t holding himself back while maintaining the illusion of slumping over you. His hand immediately takes your own and squeezes it. “Our darling potion maker insists the only options are to starve or eat soup!”

“How can you eat soup?” Moon asks in a curious rasp. His straw hat swivels slightly to focus on you. Playfully, you roll your eyes and reach out to take a small stack of bowls from the cupboard.

There’s so little difference between cooking and the science of potion making, you’ve found.

“Are these doubts for my craft I hear?” you question.

Two sharp objections follow one loud and crackling, the other low and gravelly, causing you to laugh and break away from what was supposed to be a stern facade. 

“Good. I won’t hear any more complaints then.” You pat Sun’s cheek though you weren’t certain what part of him you’d end up touching. He’s still hanging onto you with the clinginess of a burr. You fish within the basket to snatch up a paper-wrapped and chilled pound of beef. 

“Sun?” You hold up the meat, “If you don’t mind?”

“It would be my pleasure, darling!” He snatches it up, his flames immediately eating away the paper concealing it. He cradles the meat in his palms. You feel his heat shift, concentrating to a steady and low red crackle in the black coals of his hands.

“Please remember to not burn it.” You turn away to search for a sharp knife in the drawers and withdraw one. Sun’s light sheds much-needed aid over the drawers.

“I would never! Well, maybe a little, to make sure it’s cooked and blackened as it crumbles to ash—”

“Sunny.”

“Yes. Not burnt. As you wish.”

“Thank you, sweetheart.”

The light flares for a moment, brighter and brighter, before calming down for poor Moon’s sake. He hisses once. Sun flashes a cheeky grin.

You smile as you turn around, only to jump slightly when Moon is already standing before you, reaching out to take the knife. His half-silver face, reflecting even sharper in Sun’s light, winks. His pale red eyes stare into your own. You shiver in his presence, caught between a revolving world of hot and cold.

“Potatoes, celery, and carrots, Moon, if you don’t mind,” you ask softly. 

“Of course,” he answers in a murmur and takes the basket away to work on the opposite end of the counter. You study the kitchen for a moment, pleased.

Moon and Sun both hum a low song they both seem to know. A lullaby of fey beings, you suppose.

Now, you’re missing someone.

A soft woosh sounds outside, right on time. You jump slightly when a metal clank follows as if you haven’t heard his arrival a hundred times.

“Please continue what you’re doing,” you say while dusting your hands on your apron. You rush for the stairs. “Eclipse and I will help when we return.”

“I hope the buzzard isn’t freezing to death,” Sun exclaims, “It’s a brutal night in the cold.”

“He shouldn’t have left,” Moon mutters in an ominous but concerned tone.

You don’t stop to answer them both as you take two steps at a time. He was gone all day. Your heart has been wrung like wet laundry before being hung out to dry. The fool—the wonderful fool. 

The howl of the wind grows as you near the outside of the moving daycare. The top of the stairs leads into a long hallway, doors branching off to yours, Eclipse’s, and Sun’s rooms, but you continue forward until you reach the end. There, you push open two frosty glass doors to see who stands on the balcony but Eclipse himself.

The wizard of the moving daycare. The balcony is dusted in snow and the metal gate separating you and him from a severe drop down the mountain face is dark and wrought. You sweep your gaze over him from head to toe and wingtip to wingtip until you’re satisfied. He’s back in one piece.

His wings are intricate mechanisms of bronze and black iron that click softly as gears whirl within the joints and settle at his back. Deep and dark feathers cover the internal workings of the frame, but sometimes, you can catch a metallic glint when he shifts just slightly. A deep red hat, pointy and rumbled, sits upon his disk-like head with bursts of yellow in the fabric. His expression is carved into two—one bright and sunny, the other lunar and dark. His eyes flash, two-toned with yellow and red, upturn in relief. Tall, even taller than Moon and Sun, he bears a willowy aspect in his white shirt and dark trousers. Robotic arms softly click with his movement. 

“Eclipse, you’re back,” you say softly. Your breath mists the cruel wind and fierce cold of the mountaintop. You immediately hug yourself, the thin sleeves of your tunic doing little against the blizzard.

“Hello, dearest. I’m terribly sorry for being away all day.” He opens his arms wide. His wings flutter, clicking and clunking with thick sweeps of dark feathers. The electric glow of his eyes softens. “I missed you.”

You run into his arms. Catching you as if you were falling, Eclipse spins you around once before spreading his wings. His plumage falls over you with a gentle breeze and all at once, the wind howls and the bitter cold dies. It is you and him, again.

“Did you find any children in need?” you ask against his chest. He’s terribly cold but you don’t mind as you rest your cheek on his wind-tugged shirt.

“I did. We should make it to the village in two days.” His fingertips stroke the back of your hair, softly scratching against your scalp in a way that lulls you into forgetting every dangerous and terrible thing that could take your loved ones away.

“That’s wonderful.” You press your smile against the metallic plates of his chest. “I’m so glad you came back safe and sound.”

“As I am. Oh! How’s our family?” he asks.

“Sun has missed playing with the children and Moon has more dolls to give away. They were worried about you. Both are helping me make soup.”

“ Helping ? Oh, I’m afraid to see what they’ve done!”

“All three of you are the same,” you snicker, “believing you can’t help me when that’s what all three of you do!”

“Hm, dearest, I don’t believe you understand.” Eclipse’s feathers ruffle when he leans low to press his forehead against your own—the frigid metal sends a great shiver down your back. His eyes glow as soft as starlight. “You are the one who keeps our heads on our shoulders. Without you, Sun would still be running away from angry villagers, Moon would still be trapped to that scarecrow pole, and I… well, I shouldn’t have to tell you how lost I’d be without you.”

His hand takes your own and gently lays it over his chest. Underneath your palm through the fabric of his shirt, a great thrum of a machine pulsates with timed clicks as quiet as a clock. His bronze and geared heart. You did put it back in his chest.

“Both can be true,” you whisper. You close your eyes. “You and Sun and Moon mean so much to me.”

The alternative is desolate. The vision behind your eyelids is sad and abandoned, a little rundown shack in the middle of dirt and rocks, and you, all alone, believing that’s what you deserved for so long. None of your potions would cure you of this wretched existence. You sunk into the numbness.

Until one day a wizard with wings swept by in his moving daycare, cruel and cursed until you found his bronze heart. Then along his adventures, you discovered a fire demon in need of fuel and comfort from running, and a poor shadow demon cursed to be blistered by the sun in his stationary pose, begging for aid and a kind hand.

You found your family, and you found you deserve their love, too.

“We know.” He draws back slightly. Squeezing your hand tenderly, Eclipse holds your gaze with the softness of a gentle night and the hope of rest. “We might not believe it, but we know.”

Despite the freezing temperatures, your heart melts inside your chest. A deep flush heats your cheeks. You wrap your arm around his waist and duck slightly to hide your face.

“Come in before your joints freeze,” you gently insist. Eclipse allows you to drag him inside before he flicks a metallic finger. The door shuts away the brutal winds and the screaming rush. You, at last, sigh, much more content to linger in the slightly warmer hallway and feel his feathers and arms become less frigid, easing your concern.

“Ah, that is immensely better,” Eclipse hums. 

He shifts, allowing his wings to lift and tuck behind his back. The beautiful feathers catch on the bit of firelight cast up the stairs, no doubt from Sun’s determined will to cook the meat without burning it. Distant chops of a knife against wood echo in rhythmic knocks, sounding of Moon tending to the vegetables.

“Next time, wait until after the storm, won’t you?” You fix his shirt so that it doesn’t fall so low down his chest—not that you don’t mind the intricate design of his bronze and steel frame, but you do intend to feed him a civilized meal. “I had worried I would have to send Moon to fetch you then thaw you out in Sun’s fire.”

“I apologize again, my dearest heart.” He bends low to cup your cheeks in his cold hands. You shiver once, eyelids trembling. In gentle regret, he strokes your cheekbones. “You worry too much, but I do adore how much you think of me.”

You glance away, frowning. Of course, you think of him and Moon and Sun too much for your own sanity, but how could you not? They’ve captivated you wholly. 

He leans closer, drawing your eyes back to his mournful expression. The brim of his deep red hat almost touches your hair.

“Forgive me?” he breathes. 

You slowly reach up to cover his hands, rubbing your thumb over the delicate yet strong design of his metallic wrists. The sleeves of his loose shirt are beginning to warm, too.

“I forgive you, always.” You press under the intimate shade of his wizard hat, and Eclipse stills at your smile. “I missed you, too.”

Before he can answer in relief, you lay your lips upon his face plate, over the grin that mystically shifts about his expression as if he were human and not a machine. A taste of the sweet crispiness of apples and the chilly darkness of twilight slips into your mouth. The large hands that cradle your face softly spasm once. Eclipse then captures you, pulling you deeper against him as the teeth of gears and the tangy metal of his mouth give into your affections entirely. Feathers flap softly, and you are concealed in the eclipse of his wings. 

He allows you to break briefly away to breathe—he once took your kiss for so long that you fainted in his arms (for which he never stopped apologizing)—and the living hum in his body harmonizes with the great pulse in your chest.

“There,” you murmur. You look up into the wizard’s gaze and how much he’s softened in your embrace. “Come downstairs and let’s eat.”

Eclipse taps your bottom lip once before straightening. A black feather slips from his back but you catch it beside his shoulder before it can slip to the ground. You carefully tuck it into your apron pocket. His eyes upturn into crescents.

“Lead the way, dearest.”

You take him down and into the warm, bright living space, cast in comfortable shadows. The scent of cooking meat causes your mouth to salivate. Eclipse’s wings relax when he views the sight. Moon and Sun lift their heads from their tasks and greet Eclipse with gladness and relief. Their family member is back safe.

“Did you find any children?” Moon rasps low but his eyes wink with piqued interest.

“Yes, several. They’ll need our help once the daycare arrives in a village in two day’s time,” Eclipse nods.

Moon and Sun exchange wide looks of excitement. The shadows below the dark demon stir and flicker. In contrast, the fire demon’s body burns brighter.

“Eclipse, won’t you gather my tiger’s chaudron jar?” you ask with a soft squeeze of your hand around his, “Be very careful. It’s temperament and might fizz and overflow if it's upset.”

“He’s helping with the food?” Sun mocks a great gasp of incredulousness. “I was under the impression you wanted to eat tonight!”

“Oh, stop it, you,” you chastise before leaning over the table to press a kiss to his hot cheek. Straightening, you release Eclipse’s hand to stand close behind Moon and slide your hand over his arm to gather a few chunks of potato he’s cut for you. “Thank you, dollface. Here, let me take these to the cauldron.”

“I will do my best,” Eclipse promises in amusement before flitting back upstairs with a soft breeze under his wings.

“Oh, he’s far too cold. I can feel how much heat he’s lacking,” Sun chitters in that rapid-fire concern of his. You silently direct him to add the meat to the cauldron. 

“You’ll sit beside him while we eat, won’t you?” you plead softly. Nabbing a wooden spoon, you begin to stir the contents. Sun wraps an arm around your waist and presses his blissful warmth against your side.

“If he won’t mention anything about me setting his wings on fire—which was once, mind you!”

Moon snickers. You press a hand over your mouth to stop a chuckle. 

“Yes, I’ll make sure he doesn’t,” you nod. “Moon, can you bring the rest of the vegetables?”

He slips behind you silently. When you turn your head to find him, you jump slightly at how little distance is between you and his dark form. Smiling wide, he reaches a hand over your shoulder and plops the remaining carrots and celery in.

“Oh. Thank you.” You quickly catch his chin and plant a kiss against his cool, smoky jawline. Moon becomes still as night. His eyes gleam with quiet delight before he slips his hand under your elbow and begins softly caressing his long, inky fingers along the sensitive underside of your arm while you stir.

A gentle ruffle of feathers glides in behind you. Before you can turn your hand and break away from the two demons, metallic arms slide over your shoulders and gingerly uncap one of your potion jars. A green clump of flowers falls into the cauldron. The concoction briefly throws small emerald flames about the surface—the key ingredient to allow Sun to consume it, as well as providing a slight spice to the dish. It will feed you all.

Eclipse’s hand withdraws only for a moment before reappearing to gently slide underneath your jaw and trace the bone tenderly. The familiar presence of the wizard with his chin resting on the crown of your head warms you, and you sigh softly. 

Surrounded by fey beings and their great powers, they attach to your presence as if you were a great sorcerer and not a humble potion maker. Their hands warm and cool you. Their bodies softly press against your ribs and spine. They don’t mind sharing.

You have your family, and they have you.

You take out the spoon with one satisfied tap against the rim of the cauldron.

“Soup’s ready, my sweethearts.”

[somanyratsinthewalls]

Burning Hearts Chapter 1

HI WELCOME TO MY FAVORITE PROJECT! This series is what my fic Prescribed Medicine was loosely based on. I've decided to bring it to life in a multi part series! This chapter is sfw and building background. I will probably post to AO3 since the series lovers live there.

Pairing: Wyvern Devil Fruit Reader (female) x Law

Burning Hearts Chapter 1: A Heated End. A Cold Beginning.

Summary: You were teleported across the globe in an instant, away from your crew. Your body was badly broken and beaten, thrust into the harsh landscape of a Northern island. You are discovered by the Heart Pirates and brought back to health. Startled upon waking up in a foreign place with an unfamiliar crew, you are shocked with the news that you’ll be spending two years there. Trafalgar Law, the captain of the Heart Pirates has made a promise to train you, but will it become something more than a mentor relationship?

Background: O/C (Rito Daisy) is a Strawhat Pirate. Long hair, dark brown with a streak of grey hair coming from the crown. Heterochromia, one eye brown and the other grey. O/C (Daisy) has a Zoan devil fruit power, although she is unaware what type of creature it came from. She was forced to ingest the fruit as a slave, therefore is resentful and only uses it when completely necessary. The only powers she has harnessed are black, bat like wings, and refuses to explore her powers further. O/C joined the Straw Hat Pirates a brief time before the Water 7 Arc. 

— —

Chapter 1: A Heated End. A Cold Beginning. 

Milky, iridescent ribbons of northern lights swirled quickly across your range of vision. Were you laying on the ground? You felt your long hair tickling your back, nothing impeding it. With nothing above or behind you, you were whizzing through space and time. You tried to move your hands. 

Your feet. 

Your wings. 

Nothing. You couldn’t move an inch. Your head spun with dizziness and confusion. What happened? Where were you? The last thing you remembered was-

“Wait Sanji-!” You called out after being face to face with the padded paw of Bartholomew Kuma on Sabaody Archipelago. 

“Don’t touch her you brute!” Sanji’s eyes flared with aggression as he aimed a kick towards your attacker. 

And that was the last thing you saw. You had been bested badly by Kizaru and Kuma, just as the rest of your crew had. You knew you had broken bones. You realized this now that the adrenaline had worn off and you could finally feel your injuries. The delicate tissue of your wings was ripped to shreds and you felt it deep in your flesh. You couldn’t even retract your wings and resume your full human form. You were helpless in your involuntary stasis. How long had you been flying away? The northern lights begin to meld together in your vision and your eyelids flutter closed again… 

— — — 

*WOOOOSH* *CRASH*

Your body crashed into the side of a snowy mountain like a dropped bomb. Pine branches snapped. Squirrels and foxes scampered away quickly. Boulders shattered at the sheer force of the impact. For a moment you were able to open your eyes. 

You were blinded by bright white. After a few moments of believing you had died and were ascending into the heavens, the craggy mountainside came into view. But before you could fully assess your situation, the rock face beneath you gave way and you were falling again. 

You scream but your mouth was quickly covered with snow from the incoming avalanche. You feel more of your bones snap. The pain is unbearable. Your head spins… 

— — — 

“Way too fuckin’ cold…” Penguin struggles to lift his legs from the knee deep snow as he trudges towards the woods on the mountain. 

“Captain said to get wood. You wanna tell him you were ‘too cold,�� Penguin?” Ikkaku snapped at her exploration partner while she too, struggled to move through the snow. 

“I’d like to see him out here in this shit! I can barely tell my hand from my dick in this blizzard!” Penguin shot back. 

“That’s probably because you can barely see your- Ooof!” Ikkaku trips over something in her path and takes a nose dive into the fresh powder in front of her. 

“Hah! Karma, bitch!” Penguin laughs and pulls his hat back. Upon clearing his vision, he sees what his crew mate had tumbled over. A pair of denim clad thighs and a slim waist. “Wait… Ikkaku…” 

“What is it? Help me up already!” 

“It’s… it’s a girl!” 

“What?” Ikkaku shakes her head to shake off the snow. 

“There’s some lady buried in the snow! We gotta get her out!” Penguin panics and starts scraping heaps of snow off the frozen body. 

“Oh shit, you’re right. Let’s pull her out.” Ikkaku reaches through the snow until she feels a lifeless skull lolling around. She places a gentle hand behind the body’s neck and pulls it out of the snow. It was a beautiful woman, long brown hair braided with flowers and vines that had been frozen and wilted in the snow, a large grey streak spread from a corner of her forehead. Ikkaku grabs the shoulders while Penguin grabbed the legs of the lifeless form. 

“Why isn’t it moving?” Penguin pulls on the legs. 

“Hmmph! It’s stuck on something… Hmmmpph!” Ikkaku tries to jostle the body free of the ice and snow. The duo pull and push on the body until something finally gives and it is released from the grip of the mountain. Suddenly, on one side of the body, a tattered black wing breaks free from the ice and flops back down. The second wing followed and slumped lifelessly next to the unconscious form. 

“What the hell is this thing?!?” Penguin exclaims. 

“I don’t know…” Ikkaku looks down at the strange person. “But Captain is definitely gonna wanna see this…” 

The two wordlessly agree to carry the body back down to the Heart Pirate safe house at the bottom of the mountain. 

— — 

“Captain! Law! Hurry!” Penguin yells as he runs into the base backwards carrying the legs of the unknown body. 

“Bring it to the med bay, if there’s any chance it’s still alive he’s going to want it in there.” Ikkaku hurries Penguin down the hallway to Captain Trafalgar Law’s surgery room that connected to his secluded office. 

Doors swinging open quickly, the pirates hoist the winged figure up onto the surgery table. The body laid lifelessly on the table while the shredded wings flopped lazily at its sides, tips nearly hitting the floor. Penguin collapsed against the wall behind him, breath heavy from the long, arduous journey back from the mountain with their new addition. 

The door to the adjoining office was flung open. 

“What the hell is this?” Law burst in and began pulling on a pair of blue rubber gloves. 

D, E, A, T, H.

H, T, A, E, D.

He slipped the gloves over each finger and moved towards the surgery table. 

“We found it on the mountain, Captain.” Ikkaku responds. “Under a blizzard and a landslide. I doubt it’s still alive.” 

Law wordlessly peruses the body. He stops by it’s neck and presses two fingers against it’s pulse point. 

E, A.

“There’s a pulse. She’s alive.” 

Ikkaku and Penguin look at each other and their eyes widen. 

“Bepo!” Law shouts. 

“Yes, Captain?” A large polar bear in an orange jump suit enters the operating suite. 

“Ready the surgery room.” Law eyes Penguin and Ikkaku gawking at each other. “You two, prepare for a procedure. Get Shachi too. This won’t be easy.” 

“Aye, Captain!” The duo immediately went to change their uniforms and scrub up for the procedure. 

—- —- —- —- 

“I need more stitches, Bepo.” Law states, muffled by the surgical mask in front of his nose and mouth. 

Law sits on a doctor’s stool sewing up the sinewy flesh on the being’s wings. It had taken him 2 hours, but Dr Trafalgar Law had already sewn up one wing and was finishing the other. It didn’t look good, even Law could admit that. He was just trying to stop the bleeding from the micro veins and tissue in the wing webbing. Bepo had hooked up the creature to machines to monitor its breathing and heart rate. 

“I-It’s a vampire. W-we should have left it out there.” Penguin says from the corner of the operating room. 

“If you can’t be helpful, leave.” Law states calmly without looking up from his work. 

“It’s not a vampire, you idiot.” Shachi remarks from his spot next to the body. “It’s that Straw Hat girl. You guys don’t remember her from the auction house?” 

This peaked Law’s interest. 

“Straw Hat? She’s with his crew?” Law takes a moment from his hunched position over the wing to look at the body’s unconscious face. He notices her button nose, full bottom lip, and her frostbitten skin. Law cocks his head. He remembers her from Sabaody now. She was with the young man in the Straw Hat. He recalls the information on her wanted poster. They had only left the chaos a few days earlier. 

“The botanist…” He mumbles under his breath. 

“Yeah! That’s it! They call her the Earthly Devil… Rito Daisy I think..” Shachi confirms. 

“Daisy…” Law says pensively. He looks at your peaceful face. His gaze lingers for a moment before returning to his work stitching up the flesh of his new patient. 

“Must be a Zoan type.” Bepo says from over Law’s shoulder. “She’s certainly no mink. The question is what kind of Zoan type makes wings like that…” The bear has worry and concern his voice. Law sighs and rises from his chair. 

“It’s not important right now.” He ties off his stitches and moves towards the body’s torso. “We need to set the bones. If we don’t do it now, it’ll be a lot more painful when she’s awake.” 

Law cracks his knuckles.

D, D, E, E, A, A, T, T, H, H. 

His crew members look at him expectantly.

“Well, let’s do it.” 

— —  

Burning. Bright. Fluorescent. 

“Ow… my eyes…” You mumble as you wake from a deep slumber. All you could see was artificial lights and steel ceilings. You knew you were not on the Sunny anymore, ToTo. You try to reach your arm to rub your eyes and found that both of them were shackled to the table you were laying on. 

You were a prisoner. 

Again. 

You heart throbbed in your chest. Your stomach dropped through your whole body. Someone had taken you captive again. How could this happen? You had aligned yourself with the strongest pirates the worst generation had to offer and yet here you were, strapped to a strangers ship just like was 8 years ago. 

“Hey…” You try to sit up.

“HEY!” You pull your body up further. 

“GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF HERE! HEY! HEEEEEY!” You try to lurch your body forward but you were met by sharp, extreme pain throughout your whole being. 

“Hey woah hold on relax it’s okay! We’re going to help you!” 

A voice comes from the corner of the room you couldn’t see due to your restraints. 

“Who… who are you! Get away from me! Let me go!” You shouted. 

“I know you’re freaking out right now but I promise we-“ 

You see who the voice was coming from. 

It was an 11 foot tall real-life anthropomorphic polar bear wearing an orange jumpsuit. Your eyes crossed in shock. 

“GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME YOU FUCKING CARNIVORE DON’T FUCKING TOUCH ME!” You pull at your restraints, ignoring the searing pain in your body. 

“No no! I wouldn’t! Please stop!” The bear raises his hands in front of his chest to signify he meant no harm, but you would’t believe it. You scream.

“AAAAH!” The metal restraints holding you down to the table broke under your strength, the material melting slightly. 

“CAPTAIN!!!! HELP!!!” The bear shrieked and cowered. 

“DON’T TOUCH ME!” You shouted and pushed yourself off the operating table and into the cabinet across the room, breaking the glass. You honed your eyes in on the polar bear. 

You spread your broken wings and they crash against the furniture in the cramped operating room, knocking over carts full of medical equipment. 

“Shit!” You groan in pain. 

“ROOM.” 

Suddenly, the air around you tuned light blue. You spun your head around, trying to see where the voice came from. 

“Shambles.”

You felt a body behind you. You breathed hard in suspense. 

“Shit, that burns!” An arm around around your torso pulls back. 

“Wha-?” You felt a sharp jab in your neck and then your eyelids closed. 

Three fingers pushed down the plunger of a syringe.

E, A, T. 

— — — —- —- -

“I have to go to Marine Ford. Picking up a patient. You stay here and make sure this patient stays sedated.” 

It had been a week and Law had been taking care of his new patient in his medical bay at the Heart Pirates safe house. Law had made sure that Daisy would stay unconscious during this time, pumping her full of sedatives. He needed the patient’s bones to heal. 

“Keep her sedated. I’ve left the exact measurements of medications in the folder on the desk. Make sure she stays unconscious. If she were to wake up now, the sheer volume of her broken bones would send her into another shock-like state.” Law gives the instructions to Shachi and Penguin. 

“G-got it Captain! You can leave it to us!” Penguin nods at his captain. 

“It might be a few days. Call only if it’s an emergency.” Law tosses Shachi a transponder snail and heads out of the base towards where the Polar Tang was docked, Bepo at his heels. 

“Great. What did you do that landed us in charge of the vampire girl? If she wakes up we are so fucked.” Penguin remarks at Shachi. 

“She won’t wake up. If we keep giving her meds, we’re in there like swim wear. It’s an easy gig.” Shachi laughs. “And if she does, so what? We just shoot her full of one of these…” Shachi grabs a syringe from a medical cart and squirts it into the air. “So what if she’s a Straw Hat? She’s their gardener. She’s about as dangerous as their damn musician. No real threat.” 

“I don’t feel real great about this, Shach…” Penguin remarks while rubbing his brow. 

[keto-keyes]

[So, I've been bored lately and watched The Acolyte with my fam. Had a weird idea I wanted to try out and figured this was like a take 1] [Here's a The Acolyte fic, feat. Osha pairing Qimir (the stranger) with Wife!Reader]

THE NIGHTHOWLER: 

Osha clambered over rocks and slippery grass on the mountainside terrain of her new home. Qimir had told her to practice sensing things, but there wasn't much out on the rocks for her to sense, and certainly nothing too big. 

A sudden noise startled her into slipping and she cut her hand on the sharp rocks underhand. It sounded like a woman's singing voice, but Osha was so startled by the stinging in her palm that she couldn't tell. In the very corner of her senses she could feel something large, probably a human-like shape. But her pain was limiting her sharp reactions. 

"Are you alright?" asked a voice above her, "That's a pretty nasty cut." 

It was a woman's voice and it was very melodic. Osha glanced down at the cut, up at the woman, and then back to her hand.

"It's fine," she replied, "I can patch it up." 

"No no please let me," the woman insisted, "He'd be mad if you had to take a few days off, at both of us." 

Her insistence shocked Osha. Qimir had told her that the planet was deserted and nobody knew where they were, but here the woman was. Osha decided to follow her back to a rocky cottage up the hill a bit. 

"Please sit. I'll bring some tea or something, then we'll get started on that cut." 

Osha found herself doing as she was bid almost immediately. The woman had a small build and a thin waist, but a motherly aura that made her easy to trust. The hut smelled like nice herbs and flowers. 

"Here, drink this. It'll make whatever pains you're feeling dim a lot," the woman hummed, passing Osha a cup of nice-smelling liquid. 

It seemed to do just what she'd said, and soon Osha didn't even notice the pain. But just as the woman was grasping her hand between her own soft palms, Osha sensed Qimir chambering up the rocks towards them. The woman must have been a force-user, because she pulled away and gasped, "You'd better get back. He's looking for you," while bustling back into the kitchen area.

"O-oh ok thank you!" 

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Part 1 fin

Part 2

[elwenyere]

fake imperial husbands!! I would like to see them 🥺

For this WIP game, I got asks about the Codywan Fake Imperial Husbands AU from @oathkeeperoxas and @leewardly: thank you so much, friends!!!

The full working title of this fic is Fake Imperial Husbands of the Infinite Sith Sadness, or FIHOTISS, and it’s inspired by/in collaboration with this ‘verse created by the wonderful @frostbitebakery. This fic was also the first choice in this WIP poll, and I have currently written 30 of the 38 sentences promised to lovely voters.

Here's a wee snip from the second section of the 5+1:

From the cockpit of the imperial shuttle, the man known as Tash watched the peaks of Kijimi City recede from view. The forms of the snowtroopers were almost impossible to distinguish among the crags of ice, but the burnt-out husks of downed speeders and cracked blaster cannons littered the slopes, and here and there the thick furs favored by the insurgents stood out against the mountainsides, like the treads of a large machine had sunk into the snow and churned the dirt it covered to the surface. Obi-Wan took in a slow breath. He reached inside, for the place where he was roiling away from himself like a struck python, and he peeled back a thin, crawling layer like a skin - held himself open under the prickling shame, revulsion, anger, fear, regret.  It was still hard to do: much harder than he’d thought when he’d first found Wooley casing the spaceports on Tatooine and imagined he could fabricate the Sith Lord Tash out of the sour pit Wooley’s story left gnawing at his stomach. Obi-Wan hadn’t known about the chips then. He’d never pressed further on the flat, unseamed surface that had spread over his men’s minds in the moments before he’d been shot down. When Wooley had explained to him that the chips had started to fail - that here and there a clone trooper had seen something that cut through the task logs and command prompts and maintenance cycles and left them in control of their own limbs again - Obi-Wan had thought about the woven nap of hundreds of minds threading through the Negotiator, about the warm knots where they’d met and snared. He’d thought about Cody.

[beatinginavoid]

You guys wanted fics so... here you go! This was actually a gift for someone, but I'll share it here now.

-------

The scenery was beautiful in a faintly nostalgic way. Rugged rocks and patches of bare mountainside presented themselves in shades of grey, brown, and rusty red. Dirt and grass switched interchangeably in swathes and patches, various species of flowers reached proudly into the air and swayed gently each time a breeze blew softly by.

Soft, wispy white clouds drifted lazily in their high up ocean of light blue. The sun was a little too warm to be strictly comfortable, but the intermittent breeze afforded some amount of respite from the heat. Some, but not enough for one of the two people currently traversing the mountain.

Tifa frowned, huffed, and stared at the spiky tufts of blond hair on the back of Cloud’s head as she walked behind him. Did he not feel the heat? Was it a SOLDIER thing? She would be jealous of his abilities if she didn’t know the toll that acquiring them had left on her childhood friend.

She wasn’t even sure why they were making their way up the mountain in the first place. Something about an herb or a flower? Some kind of plant at least. One that only grew inconveniently at the summit of a couple of the nearby mountains.

“Are we high enough yet?” she asked.

Cloud raised an eyebrow, unseen by Tifa, at the possible context of her words. He chose to ignore it and take the words at face value, gazing upward and trying to gauge distances.

“No.”

A blunt and to the point answer, just like this version of Cloud that she had stumbled across, miraculously back from the dead. Red eyes narrowed at his back for a moment before she closed her eyes and sighed. Her friend was physically here, but sometimes she wondered if her friend was truly alive in that body.

“What are we looking for again?” she asked casually, hoping for more conversation.

“An herb.”

She waited. And waited. No more words were forthcoming.

“And this herb looks like…?” she prompted.

Cloud absently kicked away a loose rock. “Shiny leaves, waxy feeling, with a stem covered in stinging hairs.”

Tifa pulled a face at that, momentarily glad that Cloud couldn’t see her face. “Sounds lovely,” she said, tone sarcastic.

The gradient of their chosen path steepened until they were climbing more than walking. Tifa watched him carefully, putting her hands and feet in the same places he did, secure in the knowledge that they were tested and safe. As a native of Nibelheim, and especially considering her past, she knew intimately just how treacherous mountain terrain could be.

The last thing either of them needed was an accident to occur.

Things were quiet aside from the scraping of boots on rock. Not even the chirping of birds was audible up here and it was disquieting. She was a little tired, her breathing a bit heavier. From what she could see of Cloud, he looked like he was unaffected and could keep going for hours.

The SOLDIER had planned to go on this mission by himself, but Tifa didn’t like the idea of any of them going off alone, so she immediately volunteered to go with him. He was perfectly capable on his own, though something in her heart quivered and refused to settle until she was by his side. She knew the likelihood of him vanishing for another several years was low, but still…

She had no plans to lose him now that she had him back.

Some areas were steep enough to turn their progress into an almost sheer vertical climb. Tifa admired his athletic form before grumbling under her breath and reaching for the nearest handhold. She was almost to the top when her boot slipped. She gasped, red eyes blowing wide as her hands and fingers suddenly took on the task of supporting her entire body weight. Her boots scrabbled against the sheer rock, desperately searching for a foothold.

“Tifa!”

A hand wearing a glove wrapped around her right wrist. His grip was firm, and a little on the tight side, and he grunted softly as he heaved, lifting her up carefully. She tried to help as best she could, hauling herself up and over the edge the moment she could. Once every part of her body was no longer dangling in danger, she took a moment to catch her breath and looked at Cloud.

His eyes were locked on her, his usually impassive face held a small, worried frown. The Mako glow of his eyes was faint in the daylight, but his gaze was intense enough without it. She saw him looking at her up and down in assessment. Tifa knew Cloud was not checking her out, he was searching for injuries. 

She wasn’t sure if she should feel any disappointment about that.

It certainly didn’t help that Cloud was as dense as a box of rocks about girls and romance. Tifa and Aerith, and even Yuffie, had discussed it more than once. It had been the reason for many girlish giggles between them.

“I’m okay,” she assured him. Tifa let herself close her eyes as she laid there, processing what just happened.

A breath hitched. It wasn’t hers.

Her eyes flew open and she looked over to see Cloud holding his head in pain. Oh no, not again. Her poor friend had these weird episodes that left him tired, drained, and off-kilter. He always went to lay down when they ended, needing to sleep them off. For one to hit now was the worst possible timing.

Tifa scrambled over to him and covered his hands with her own. “Cloud? Cloud, can you hear me?”

His teeth were clenched and his breathing was a bit haggard, a frown etched on his face. He shook his head, sending blond locks swinging, and grunted in pain, giving no indication that he could hear her.

“It’s me, Cloud, it’s Tifa. I’m here, I’m with you, I’ve got you. Let me know if you can hear me, Cloud, come on!”

“No, Tifa!” he said breathlessly.

He slumped forward and the martial artist braced against the weight.

“No, no, no…” he muttered. “Not again. Not again!”

Tifa had no idea what he was talking about but she knew whatever he was experiencing wasn’t good. She did her best to wrap the fingers of her left hand around his, while her right hand sifted down through his hair to cup his cheek. Her thumb gently rubbed over the apple of his cheek and he froze.

“No!” he cried out. Cloud got up and lunged, right arm outstretched, and dove over the edge, sweeping his childhood friend along with him.

She gasped and instinctively clung to him, hoping the landing didn’t hurt too much. Cloud’s arms wrapped around her and he twisted in the air, putting himself beneath her to absorb the damage.

“I won’t let you fall alone again,” he whispered just above her head.

There was a loud THUD and Tifa slammed into Cloud, bouncing back up as far as his grasp would allow, then falling back onto him. His breath was knocked out of his lungs by her weight and he arched his back up slightly as she bounced. They both settled and all that could be heard was shaky breathing from her and shallow breathing from him.

Tifa was curled into his chest, unwilling or unable to move. She could feel his ribs rise and fall and there was a drumming beneath her right ear.

Bathumpbathumpbathumpbathumpbathumpbathumpbathumpbathump-

Cloud’s heart was racing, probably fueled by fear and adrenaline, much like her own. She focused on the sound, strong and steady despite the pace. It was undeniable proof that he was alive and still with her.

“Cloud?” she asked softly. Her red eyes opened and she tilted her head up to look at his face.

He moaned and turned his head fractionally, eyelids fluttering for a moment but staying shut. It took a lot to knock down a SOLDIER, enhanced as they were. She was sure the episode he had just suffered was the main reason he was unconscious. She carefully moved off of him, mindful of injuries, and quickly checked him over.

There was a small bleeding wound on the back of his head, and some inconsequential cuts and scrapes on his arms. His back was going to be a mass of nasty bruises, but nothing seemed broken at least. She turned him on his side and wrangled the massive sword off his back, setting it aside and letting him lay flat again.

She was anxious and fidgety, bitterly wishing she had a potion or Cure materia. It only took seconds before Tifa rested her head on his chest again, on his left pectoral. She couldn’t shake this niggling feeling that he would somehow disappear on her again. His heart had slowed, unlike hers, and she listened to it attentively – the only thing completely reassuring her that he was still with her.

Ba-thump…ba-thump…ba-thump…ba-thumpathump……ba-thump…ba-thump…

What was that? Did she need to be concerned? Had her weight on him when they landed done damage she couldn’t see? She bit her lip and brought her left hand up to her face, placing her palm flat on his sternum with splayed fingers.

Tifa could feel the faint impacts of his heart against his ribs and sternum in time with the thumping in her ear. The rhythm was mostly steady with the occasional hiccup. His face didn’t register any pain and his breathing was unaffected, so she eventually decided it was harmless. It might even be normal for him, she simply didn’t know.

Time passed and Tifa found herself lulled into a near doze by the heart thumping steadily, for the most part, in Cloud’s chest. Despite any irregularities, the strength behind each beat was undeniable. No matter what the blond had gone through he had lived through it, life pumping in his body with a fierce strength she couldn’t help but admire.

Ba-thump…ba-thumpathump……ba-thump…ba-thump…ba-thump…ba-thump…ba-thump..ba-thump..ba-thumpathump...ba-thump..ba-thump..ba-thump…

The rate increased slightly and her eyes opened immediately, finding his face. He was frowning and his blue eyes cracked open. Tifa sucked in a breath and gently patted his sternum. She couldn’t quite bring herself to move away from that oh so reassuring sound just yet.

Cloud groaned, the sound low as it vibrated through his chest. “T’fa?” he mumbled.

“I’m here, Cloud,” she said clearly. The patting turned into rubbing as she tried to give him some warmth and a sensation he could ground himself with.

He tightened his grip on her absently. “You fell,” he stated.

Something clicked in Tifa’s mind. “No, no, no, that was years ago, remember? We were just kids.”

He shook his head. “N-no. Not then. You fell,” he insisted.

Tifa really didn’t want to tell him the truth – that he had jumped and taken her with him. She sincerely doubted that he would take it well. “I’m fine,” she said gently but firmly. “I’m right here, with you, safe and sound. You can see, hear, and feel me, can’t you?”

The blond made a non-committal noise. His grip tightened fractionally and he took a slow, deep breath, blue locked onto red.

The thumping beneath her hand and head slowed slightly as he took in her words and her presence. The rhythm was steady, no more odd skips or stumbles, as he calmed. The tension bled out of her as he relaxed. His impromptu hug became more protective than restraining and the pair didn’t move or speak.

He looked up at the sky and she took the opportunity to scrutinise him. The faintest tinge of pink dusted his cheeks and she smiled, feeling accomplished for no particular reason she could discern.

“Do you have a potion?” Tifa suddenly asked.

Cloud blinked and looked down again. “What? You said you were fine,” he said, his voice holding a tiny sting of betrayal.

She rolled her eyes. “I am fine. The back of your head is bleeding.”

One of his arms moved from around her and his hand ran through his hair. His gloved fingers snagged and he tugged them loose with a tiny wince, bringing them around to take a look. His lips turned down at the ends at the smears and flakes of red on his gloves.

“Oh.”

They went back to laying there in silence, though Cloud’s arm didn’t wrap around her again. It was a bit disappointing, but Tifa was inordinately pleased that he was allowing her to remain on his chest.

The pair returned much later, herbs in hand.

[lovelyladyabsinthewrites]

From the Ashes Pt.46

Pairing(s): Pairing(s): Rhaegar Targaryen x Lannister!Reader, one-sided!Jaime Lannister x Lannister!Reader, Jaime Lannister x Cersei Lannister

Warnings: slow burn fic, changing povs, MC POV

Words: 7517

Part 1 Part 2  Part 3  Part 4  Part 5  Part 6  Part 7  Part 8  Part 9  Part 10  Part 11  Part 12   Part 13  Part 14  Part 15  Part 16  Part 17  Part 18  Part 19  Part 20 Part 21 

Part 22 Part 23  Part 24  Part 25  Part 26 Part 27  Part 28  Part 29  Part 30  Part 31  Part 32  Part 33  Part 34  Part 35  Part 36  Part 37  Part 38  Part 39  Part 40 Part 41 Part 42 Part 43 Part 44 Part 45 Part 47

Taking the mountain passage once more, your stomach appeared better equipped this time as Inniros’ shadow swept you up to deliver you outside the secret tunnels of the Shadow Hills. Everyone else agreed upon this fact. Rhiannon came out with a slightly pale face, but her citrine eyes still held a healthy shine when she smiled up at you.

When you turn to look out at the landscape before you, you realize that this was a different exit from where you had first entered with the darkin. You stood on an unfamiliar mountain range that lacked any sort of foliage except for column-like mountain peaks. The sun weakly attempted to break through the permanent bog of the Shadowlands. In the distance, you could see where the mountains finally ended to the tall spires of a forgotten city, lost to time and darkness: Stygai.

You creep over the cliff’s edge to find the descent to be a long and arduous one. No wonder you had been awaken so early in the morning. Jagged rocks jutted from the sides, assuring anyone who fell over a painful death. Eyes roving back to your cliff, you see an extremely narrow path along the mountainside, barely noticeable by the naked eye. Casually winding down the summit.

“We will have to travel in a single file.” Lovissa nods to the beaten path. A black veil covers the bottom portion of her face. Bright and early, she had risen both you and Inniros out of your slumber. You had almost forgotten that you had spent the night outside, securely tucked underneath Latilth’s wing. Her naturally hot body kept you warm and content all through the night. Behind her waited Weles and the others of your group.Along with a foreign figure you hadn’t met the day before. Tall with wild, long black hair that reaches down to muscly calves. His limbs were long and sinewy, the only definition to them was large muscles. Loviisa had introduced him as Qheen. His true face was hidden behind an eerie mask that was hard to look at. Perhaps it was the mask’s stretched-out smile that disturbed you, or maybe how Queen stood still at attention like a statue. He merely nodded his head as his form of greeting.

You knew it was a custom in Asshai for many to wear a mask when leaving their homes. Thought to keep evil spirits away, the more terrifying the mask, the better.

Latilth, having the luck of wings, took flight and soared as the rest of you were forced to make it on foot. Seemingly watching everyone in case someone slipped. Not that she was large enough to carry anyone on her back, let alone eight people. In the gloomy atmosphere of Asshai, her scales still shimmered without the help of the sun.

Thankfully, you had never been one to fear heights; you grew up on Casterly Rock, a castle high up on a bluff much like this one. Although there was much lovelier scenery there than where you were at the moment. This, however, did little to soothe you when you misplaced your foot as it slipped too close to the edge. Your heart would run up into your throat, and you broke out in a cold sweat. Moments like that reminded you that you didn’t have wings like Latilth and could possibly die by one silly mistake.

A sweaty hand reaching out to the side of the mountain offered you some small support and assurance.

Deep breath, (y/n). You remind yourself and slowly side-step behind Loviisa.

Loviisa, Qheen, and Inniros quickly slinked along with skillful feet.

“Inniros. . .” Ray spoke carefully, eyes trained on his feet. “You once mentioned training on a mountain ledge. Is this the very one?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Like baby birds, the masters would push us off the cliff, one by one, with the hope we would shadow dance to prevent our death.” Even though she was upfront, you could hear the resentment in Loviisa’s voice. After that, many remained quiet except for the soft gasps emitted as someone’s foot ultimately slipped along a tapered ledge.

Pebbles that were dislodged tumble softly down, warning of your fate if you were to do the same. You kept your conscious focus on the shuffling feet in front of you. Loviisa made no noise and was nearly dancing precariously and effortlessly. The back of her blue head was done up in extravagant braids and swirls that made you dizzy as you tried to make out a design.

Every so often, Latilth would glide beside you and everyone else; eyes like bursts of fire watched you in a guarding manner before veering off to explore the barren forest scattered around the mountainside.

“Now she’s just showing off.” You hear Rhiannon complain, taking all your restraint to turn your head to look at her pouting face. You giggle a little bit.

“I thought Shadowlands still fostered living dragons.” Weles mutters.

“It’s true that dragons originated from the Shadowlands, but now they are scattered and in hiding. They only come out to hunt, which I doubt you will want to be around then.” Loviisa corrects him flippantly.

The idea of seeing another dragon excited and scared you. If you did stumble upon a dragon while it was hunting, everyone would be immediately killed. Latilth was still smaller than an adult horse, and there was no chance of her winning any fight against a fully grown dragon who had been alive for who knows how many centuries.

Still, you were hopeful whenever you looked up into the sky. You learned that Latilth possessed a natural sense of empathy and understanding. She was smart, and her intelligent eyes revealed that much to you when she looked at you. Were all dragons as intelligent? Maybe you could find one that didn’t have a naturally aggressive personality.

Unable to reel in your wild imagination, you let it entertain you. Before realizing it, you were at the end of the mountain trail, finally stable ground to walk upon.

If it hadn’t been for your previous training at the temple, you would have been drenched in perspiration. Instead, a few beads of sweat that gathered at your hairline were all that you suffered. That and the lightheadedness from the elevation change.

Rhiannon did not fare as well. The collar of her dress was discolored with sweat as she placed her hands on her knees and took deep breaths. She wasn’t used to physical exertion. Unlike Sirvart, who was an actual member of the Fiery Hand, Rhiannon had no background in fighting and had not even held a sword in her hand. A mere acolyte of the temple, Rhiannon spent most of her time in spiritual exercises with the rest of the red priestesses and doing other chores around the temple.

You pat her on the back, ignoring how damp the material of her clothes was, and smile. “Hey, you did really well!”

“I need to work out more.” She groaned in reply and straightened her back to fully stand. Her hair pulled back into her signature braided ponytail and fluttered against the slight breeze that drifted through the air. Light brown strands escaped from their ties and loosely fluttered around her face, reminding you of when Thalina had long hair. It was just as pretty, if not wavier than Rhiannon’s. Hard not to compare the two sisters. Your chest always thumped harder in your chest during moments like that when she reminded you of her older sister. You wondered if Rhiannon thought the same of you. Were there moments she experienced when you reminded her of her deceased sister?

Melisandre gazed up at the barely spruced trees. “How much longer until we reach Stygai? It must be midday by now. If we stay out till dark-“

Loviisa quickly reassured her, “It will be another hour or so before we reach the gates of Stygai. You will not have to worry about the dark.”

Not wanting to discover what happened after dark in the ruined city, you wrap your calluses fingers around one of Latilth’s horns. She was clearly happy to finally have your group back on the ground where you were safe. Well, it's moderately safe. There were still unknown forces that the darkin hadn’t bothered to tell you about. Only Inniros had half-asleep, muttered the creatures you might encounter in the wild of the Shadowlands. Deformed monstrosities that had no name lurked, especially in the crumbled architecture of Stygai. Mutated animals also called the dark region their home. Many rivers and streams were polluted, causing defects in what little animals thrived there. An unlivable land, whatever life managed to live was secluded to nighttime activities.

The bog you experienced on the ground level started to overwhelm you as everyone followed Loviisa and Queen once more toward a vaguely decipherable pathway. It would be quite the walk until you reached Stygai. The valley you passed through is a narrow cleft in the mountains that stopped several miles from the border of Stygai. This was known as the Vale of Shadows.

To make the time go by, Loviisa gave everyone a rundown of the city. “If you have any weapons, best sharpen them as we walk. Stygai is plagued by demons of all types. Things you would have never imagined to be walking. Some have bodies like a scorpion. Others could look like you or I. But these are corrupted beings. Dark magic lingers heavily on the earth there. You will never be safe in the city, so keep guard. And do not break away from our formation until I say so.”

Only Latilth remained unperturbed by her disturbing warnings.

This might have been the most terrifying thing you were willingly walking into. Scarier than when you were dying from poison; it even beat out when you were stuck in that damn lion cage. The fact that you had beaten the darkin master Batur, nothing comforted you. Darkin may have been different from your mother's tales, but you guessed Stygai was very much the nightmare-inducing place. Was this the right choice? Did Loviisa think this was the only way to help you better reach out to your past life? She could be lying.

You became heightenly aware of Qheen’s presence. An ambush could easily be performed with Loviisa in the very front and Qheen in the rear. Inniros, unperturbed by the new darkin’s presence, gave you a slight peace of mind. With time, your paranoia declined; the worry of them betraying you faded. Having not really spoken with Qheen, he was more suspicious than Loviisa. So far, Loviisa has only instigated a quiet kindness. Qheen’s aura held no warmth like his female counterpart. If you had a chance to speak with Inniros alone, you would ask him about this darkin.

Decaying archways of Stygai greeted you, and your group was finally pausing to assess your surroundings. At least when you walked through Asshai, it had some semblance of life, as seen in the candles you spied in the windows and the subtle movement of curtains. Stygai didn’t even have a breeze to break the staleness of the air. The only sound was the dirt and other miscellaneous debris that crunched under your feet.

Remnants of a great wall could be traced as thick vines clung onto whatever stones were left standing.

Great trepidation weighed heavily inside of you as you slowly passed under the curved structure. Even the atmosphere felt like it was pushing you down to the ground. How was it possible that people used to live there?

You kept your palm rested against Lightbringer’s pommel, your security blanket. From the entrance into the forgotten city, it was a straightforward path to the heart of the city. Much like Loviisa had described to you, the atrium of Stygai had a circle of black obelisks. Only the towering obelisks were fully intact among the decrepit buildings and structures. Surviving even after the city’s doom.

You swore you could hear gentle chants in the film of mist that overran the streets. Ghosts of the lives lost so many centuries ago from whatever plague condemned the City of Night.

Loviisa stops right outside of the obelisk circle. You could make out the carved inscriptions in the stone, although you had no idea what it said. A language beyond your comprehension, but the darkin that accompanied you stared at it with a certain type of reverence.

“This is it?” Weles asks incredulously.

Melisandre scowls at him before shaking her head. “You would be wise to check your tone in this place. We are but intruders.”

Eyes closed for a moment, Ray murmurs a prayer of protection.

“So what’s (y/n) supposed to do?” Rhiannon turns to Loviisa and Inniros for an answer. “Do you guys have a spell or something to activate it?”

“Like I told (y/n), I don’t know if this will work, but it’s worth a shot. All different types of magic run through the earth here. While the city looks dead, it’s pumping full of certain enchantments. You see the inscription on the stone? Part of it warns that whoever can withstand its intensity can access the deepest corner of their soul. It will unlock that you could have never achieved alone.”

Quietly, Ray speaks up “Isn’t it also rumored that it was the obelisks that also brought on the death of Stygai?”

“Who really knows what slowly killed Stygai. It’s been thousands of years.” She merely shrugs, doing nothing to bring hope to the rest of you.

Would these rocks actually help you? You encountered so many crazy things during your travels in Essos. Flaming swords, dragons, darkin. . . It wasn’t exactly that insane once you remembered all of your other ventures. Viewing everything with an open mind, you convince your body to start moving forward. Collective breaths were held and you were certain you could hear Weles’ heavy breathing. Taking a massive amount of self-control to stop him from following you. Leader of the Fiery Hand, it was his immediate instinct to be near you in case any misfortune was to befall you. Jaime had been much the same. Did he regret not going with you? You were certain he did. When you had last seen him on the docks of Volantis, his eyes had radiated concern, hands clenched, and feet grounded. If he didn’t ground himself, his body would move on its own and leap after you.

You wished he were there. Now that your anger toward him had cooled down, you longed to have your older brother at your side. In the end, it was for the best that he stayed behind. Tyrion was there and needed a familiar face to help him familiarize himself with the temple. A tinge of jealousy, you envied your little brother, who was able to bask in Jaime's security. To know that in the morning, he would be able to easily see Jaime’s face, or if fear struck him, he could instantly grab his hand.

A heaviness of the heart weighed down your steps and caused you to hesitate over the threshold. If things went bad, there would be no Jaime to fight alongside. Your partner was gone.

Something nudging your back startles you.

Latilth lowly coos before nudging you again.

Jaime may not be present, but Latilth was. She would be the one to give you courage, to offer you comfort.

Grateful, you smile at her and continue to pass into the center of the circle, the temperature dropping dramatically. You could see your breath in the freezing air. The gentle chants had even been choked into silence. Once, a gentle mist became a thick fog that blocked you from glancing at your friends. Barely able to catch a few muffled voices, they, too, grow quiet.

Inhaling slowly, you wander to the black stones that were like a gate to some unknown world. ‘Alright, (y/n). Let’s get this over with so we can get out of this creepy place.’

You squint your eyes at the chiseled writing, begging to see some clue or that magically you could read it. To you, it was simply a bunch of scribbles that meant nothing to you. Not even when you stared at it for several minutes. Idly, you run your fingers over the thin dips and run the tips over the outline of the strange hieroglyphics. Surprisingly, the stone felt smooth, almost as if it had been polished recently. Not like the rest of the city, where the architecture lay in ruin, taken over by weeds and vines. Rugged and crumbling.

An exhaustion that you hadn’t felt prior took a grip on you.

Closing your eyes for only a moment, you open them back up to a dark hallway. ***

(y/n) abruptly disappeared as a thick fog descended on her.

Weles began to run but was tugged into a halt. He looks over his shoulder at Melisandre. Garnet's eyes held him down as her stern expression gave him reassurance and told him to be faithful in (y/n). He didn’t like feeling so helpless, so weak. Restlessness tingled in his veins. The red priestess was right though, Weles needed to have more faith in his acolyte. He trained her, after all, did he not? She had proved herself a ready student and developed her skills from when she first started. Scars that now littered her once flawless skin were testament enough to her progress.

She wasn’t weak or helpless. That had to be enough to console Weles as he stepped back to stand beside Melisandre and Rhiannon who couldn’t wipe the dread she was experiencing off her face. Letting (y/n) go by herself wasn’t easy for Rhiannon either. Her concern remained internal as she prayed inside her head for (y/n) to be safe.

Inniros and Loviisa stood together. The red haired darkin couldn’t help but inquire “How long should we give her?”

Deep blue eyes stared at where (y/n) had vanished. Through her shadows, she could feel that the girl was still there physically. Standing still. With that knowledge, Loviisa allowed her eyes to cautiously glance to the side where a partial tower stood. Perhaps once, it had been tall and proud, looking over whatever residence passed by it, but now it was no taller than a hedge. Other buildings, scattered here and there, were all left of the main city courtyard.

They weren’t alone though.

“That depends on how long we’ll be left alone.” She could feel it.

Inniros followed her gaze. Loviisa had always been sharper than him. There was indeed a presence, many, hiding behind the cracked stones and bricks. “We need to spread out, surround the obelisks so nothing gets through.”

Loviisa nods and relays the message to the others. Qheen, who had been silent during the hike through the mountains, sidles up to Inniros. In a raspy voice from lack of use asks, “Do you really think that will be enough?”

His red brows furrow, and he shoots the masked darkin with a dark glare. Something in the way he said it didn’t sit right with Inniros. A condescending tone underneath the question.

He could practically hear the ugly smile that distorted Qheen’s mouth. “What happened to not believing in any gods let alone R’hllor.”

“You haven’t seen what I have. Haven’t seen her glory.” Inniros stonily replied.

“Glory.” Qheen chuckles to himself. “You’ve never concerned yourself with glory. Last I heard of you, you were cutting throats along with the rest of the Golden Company.”

Inniros would never deny his past. The many lives he had ruined and the blood that forever tainted his hands. He couldn’t resurrect those that were dead. There weren’t enough apologies he could make to ever amend the wrongs he had done, such vicious and violent acts against all of humanity. (y/n) should have killed him when she had the chance. Only his death would erase his mind clear of his sins.

But (y/n). . . When the Fiery Hand wanted his head, (y/n) offered mercy instead and took him back to the temple. As unpopular of a choice as it was, (y/n) remained loyal to her conviction and didn’t bow down when the others voiced their dissent. The shock he had suffered when they had spoken to one another for the first time. She was timid and childlike when introducing herself. At that moment, she treated him like he was still a person. Like he was a human being. And when she had pierced his shadowy tendrils with Lightbringer, a spark of understanding had fanned into a raging flame. The warmth of a connection. Something came alive in him because of (y/n).

He could never truly explain it and had ceased to find an answer. Content with the feeling of having a purpose for once in his life. “Yes. It is quite odd.” Inniros admits aloud to both himself and Qheen. “Maybe once you feel her fire, you’ll understand.”

Hardwood floor beneath your boot produces a clicking noise as you walk down the hallway where it gradually became the entrance to a dimly lit tavern. The sound of metal strings being strummed tickles your ear and makes you follow it around solid wood pillars and abandoned chairs and tables. Until you come across the bar, which is just as empty as the rest of the establishment.

That is except for the musician.

He sat alone but apparently happy to be playing. You only saw his side profile and muscular arms, which managed to hold his instrument so tenderly. A mane of thick, black hair fell off his shoulders, yet you could spy a few strands of white hair peeking out. His beard, however, remained like that of a raven’s feather.

You were afraid to disturb such beautiful playing. Loviisa said the obelisks offered you a view into the deepest part of your soul, but you had never met this man before.

“You know who he is.”

You hadn’t heard that voice in quite a long time. You turn around to see the Warrior smiling kindly at you. Your older self. How had you not realized her true identity sooner? Now, it seemed so obvious. She even possessed the scar above your left eye. Even her wisened, green eyes were your own.

“We are one and the same. All three of us.”

No. . .

Doing a double-take at the mystery man, you search what features you could see for anything familiar. This. . . This was really Azor Ahai?

Shy feet glide closer to where he sat.

His voice rolled smoothly past his lips, deep and harmonious. “I’ve been waiting to meet you, (y/n).”

He knew who you were. Of course he did. Azor Ahai was really part of you after all. The foundation of your soul.

“I-I’m. . . I’m honored to meet you, Azor Ahai.” How else were you supposed to great the man you were reincarnated from?

The music stopped, and he actually laughed and waved off your formality. Finally, he turns around to face you fully, barrel chest and all. Now that he set aside his odd string instrument, he stands to his full height. The man was a giant. While the rest of his hair may have been pitch black with shocks of white, his bangs were completely grayed. “I don’t want to hear any of that. We are closer than that. After all, I’ve been with you this entire time.”

He pulls a chair from the bar and gestures for you to sit down. You do so and watch as he leisurely throws himself into his chair. You are in complete awe at how different he is from what you imagined. It’s difficult not to gawk at the legend himself. Definitely friendlier than the image you had painted in your mind. His dark arms were thick, nearly rippling with the muscle underneath, and covered in various burns and scars. Fingers that had strummed ethereal notes were especially burned, you suppose, from forging Lightbringer.

“Not what you imagined?” Azor laughs.

Oh, his smile. How was it possible for someone else to have Rhaegar’s identical smile? Bright and inviting. “Not exactly. . . But you’re really Azor Ahai, aren’t you?”

Still grinning, he nods. “I get it.” Then, as if on second thought, he reminds you jovially, “Don’t forget there’s something important to ask me. I doubt your friends want to stay waiting long in Stygai.”

You nod. Right. You couldn’t waste time, although you had dozens of questions to ask him. “How do I show Master Batur that I’m truly you?”

He hums, having already known what you planned on asking him. “I’ll let you in on a big secret. Something that the surly Master Batur may know, but definitely not the younger darkin. A secret passed among the elders until the darkin pupil surpassed them in battle. It’s given only by the lips of the dying. I’ll share the secret of the first darkin with you. Only if you vow to never tell anyone else until your dying breath. You must only share it with one other person who is at your side during your final hours. They must take this very same vow, for the name of the first darkin becomes the wax that seals their promise. It holds magic to it that makes a person follow through with their vow.”

His eyes are dark and almond shape, drilling into you with a new sense of severity. “Do you promise this, (y/n) Targaryen?”

“I do.” You confidently reply at level your own serious gaze on him. “You can trust that I’ll safe guard this secret. Until the day I day.”

Azor smiles. “I know.”

They emerged, one by one, from the crevices and bones of the courtyard. Odd shaped beings that at first couldn’t be deciphered due to the mist in the distance. Deformed monstrosities that crawled out of the lower bowels of the underworld. What had appeared as the torso of a human man stopped at the waist as a scorpion body takes form. A large, pointed tail bobbed as it’s many legs creeped over the earth. Its misshaped head and big, black eyes blink at them. Clicking noises emerged from a pincer like mouth.

Rhiannon nearly lost her courage but remembered that right behind her was (y/n). In the distance she could hear the chanting spells of Melisandre and Ray, the orange light of fire emerging. It was up to Rhiannon to finish the circle that her seniors were casting.

When the scorpion creature spotted Rhiannon, it grew faster in its steps. Right for her.

Grimaces, Rhiannon held her hands out and chanted “Ñuha āeksio, ōños hen, lēda troubled prūmia nyke māzigon naejot ao. Renigon ñuha sīr nyke sagon hen ñuha. (My master, divine light of the heavens, with troubled heart I come to you. Touch my spirit so I might be alleviated of my anguish.)” Words spilling out, sprigs of flames rushed out from the ground, putting it off it’s forward path to her. Her heart beat rapidly, it even crawled up to her ears so that she heard it’s frantic pace.

Others were now being brave and slithered into view. Demons that shouldn’t be alive shrieked so terribly, angrily leaping at the heat of R’hllor’s flames. As her chanting grew more rapid, the higher and fiercer the flames grew. Such an exertion of concentration fatigued Rhiannon though. Her endurance had never been good but she held on.

“Hey! You’re getting better!” Thalina’s smile grew as she crouched down next to her sister who was holding a candle that possessed a small flame that threatened to go out if she dared to even breathe on it.

An improvement it may have been, a young Rhiannon frowns with frustration. She would never be talented like her older sister at this rate. Slow with lessons, Rhiannon grew discouraged and would nowadays rather be watching the Fiery Hand practice than learning with the other young girls in training to be priestesses.

Sensing her sister’s frustration, Thalina makes her safely set down the candle so that she could hold her small hand. “I know it hasn’t been easy. I’m sorry I haven’t really been around to help you either. Ever since they tested me on my flame reading, my own lessons are being piled up.”

Rhiannon shakes her head. “I know. My progress is too slow to my liking though.”

“Sometimes its better to take things slow. And there’s nothing wrong with that.” She leans her head against Rhiannon’s. “You don’t have to torture yourself like this. Take a step back.”

Finding the memory a point of concentration, she replied it over and over again to keep her mind off of the spell draining her energy the longer she held it. Relishing at the memory of her sister’s support and confidence in her younger sister.

The tavern melted around you like watercolor. New warm colors brightened a small, shabby room that held a clay stove and fireplace. Brutal wind beat against their tile roof and rattled their wooden walls.

You and Azor still sat in your same tavern chairs, watching the scene in front of you unfold. A young man stoked the fire, humming happily to himself. He bore no scars that told of hard times. Not yet at least.

Nearly blown off its hinges, his door is thrown open and bangs on the wall behind it. In stumbled in a young woman, bundled up and struggling to close the door. Azor scurries to his feet to help her out.

When they manage to close the door securely, the woman airily laughs. “My goodness! I felt like the winds were about to sweep me up!”

“I warned you about going out, ñuha dyni (my goblin).” He laughs when she starts slapping his bicep.

“Will you ever stop calling me that?” She fakes a tired sigh as she starts to shed her layers. Underneath was the figure of an hourglass with hair so long and wild that it was hard to get control of it. Her skin glowed in the warmth of the fireplace, dark and blemish free except for her chapped lips which were quickly thawed by Azor’s in a kiss that had her melting into him.

“The first darkin given the gift of shadowdancing was my beloved, Nissa Nissa.” The Azor Ahai right next to you said in such a longing tone that it broke your heart. The very same Nissa Nissa whom he plunged in the heart in order to create Lightbringer. Seeing them being playful with one another, it was clear how in love they were. He did the unthinkable to one he cared deeply about. You recall fighting with Inniros, the first time your sword burst into flames was when you stabbed his shadow before he got away.

“Nissa was the only one after that to bequeth the gift to those she deemed worthy. No other darkin was able to do that. After. . . After I killed Nissa, the only way new darkins were brought into the world was through the usual act of passing it down through progeny. The people she chose in those early years became my first trusted allies.”

“Then how could you kill her?” You accidentally blurt out and quickly cover your mouth with your hands but the damage was done.

He wasn’t angry. Eyes cast down to his folded hands, he looks torn. Nissa Nissa, thought quite demure most of the time was a stubborn and defiant woman. If she thought something was the right thing to do, there was nothing that could stop her from doing it. Chosen by R’hllor, she was able to get an answer on how to make Lightbringer.”

She had insisted on her own death, much like Thalina had once she foresaw her end in the flames. Both were ready to do what was best for the majority.

“I begged both her and the unseen R’hllor. There must have been some other way. That couldn’t be the only solution.” He shakes his head.

The two of you are now in some sort of tent. Azor, covered in grime from hours in his forge, had his back turned to Nissa Nissa. “That is a cruel joke you tell me.”

“It’s not a joke.” Her voice is firm. “ Vēzos (Sunny), I’m not trying to upset you but that is what R’hllor has revealed to me.”

Cynically he laughs but it almost sounded like he was weeping. “Why must all gods be so cruel.”

Her hands flutter to his shoulders. “Don’t say that. R’hllor has given us so much. My death will be for the greater good. Tis the price we must pay.”

“Damn the greater good!” He bangs his fist on a table, scattering the pieces that represented his army. “Damn the whole world if killing you is the price.”

“Look at me.” So stern she had grown, Azor reluctantly turned around. “Do you honestly think death is the end of us?” Her hands slid down his arms to his hands which she held firmly. The pads of her fingers smooth the rugged skin of his knuckles, damaged from encountering hot temperatures while in his quest to make Lightbringer. “I’ll be a part of the weapon that will be used to slay the Others that bring the night.”

“No. I can’t do that to you.”

Abruptly, she grabs his face in her hands and yanks it down. “Listen, I want there to be a world for our children to thrive in. To enjoy life and grow old in. That’s the least we can do as parents.”

Now you could hear the high pitch laughter that is often associated with kids at play. Nissa goes to the flap of the tent and pulls it back to show a sunny day outside. Four little ones pranced outside.

“Don’t you want them to live without fear?”

“She always had to be right.” The Azor Ahai that sat next to you grudgingly admits with a small smile.

You knew you were short on time, but you wanted to know “How are they able to be brave enough to accept their brutal deaths? People like Thalina and Nissa Nissa I mean. Aren’t they scared?”

“Oh I’m sure they must be terrified. Love for others can give you the courage to do just about anything. Nissa was a devoted mother that literally wanted the world for her children. Thalina loved and raised you knowing you would do great things.”

You had the answer you were looking for, but you were reluctant to leave. “There’s so much more I want to ask you.”

His warm hand lands on the top of your head affectionately. “You already have the answers. You don’t need to ask me.”

You blurted out something that you had buried deep inside of you. The doubt that ate at you. “I’m afraid I won’t be able to succeed in what everyone expects of me. What if I fail?”

“You won’t.”

Tears blurred around your vision. "How can you be so sure?"

“(y/n),” He must have spoken to his children in the same comforting tone. “I know you won’t. I’ve watched you suffer pains the likes which I have never had to experience. The lion’s den, losing your baby, you’ve survived all of it and more. Not by sheer dumb luck. You have a strength all your own, (y/n). A spirit that refuses to die.”

Many of the people who should have loved you in your childhood had beaten you into submission with their cruel words. So easily you had become convinced that everything they’ve said about you was true. Your father saying behind closed doors how much of a disappointment you were. Refusing to even pay you the simplest kind of affection. Instead he lavished it all on Cersei and Jaime, they could do no wrong in his eyes. Not to even start counting all the things Cersei had done to you.

And. . . even Rhaegar had made you feel like you were never enough.

Hearing the Azor Ahai calling you strong ironically resulted in your tears flooding over your lower eyelid and onto your cheeks.

He tenderly holds onto your hands and presses his lips against your forehead to bless you. “Do you understand now?”

You close your eyes, nodding your head slightly forward. Azor gives your hands a squeeze before letting go.

“Then you’re ready to go back.” His sad yet kind face is still there in front of you when you open your eyes. “I really wished I had more time to talk to you. There’s so much I want to tell you and warn you about.”

A deep breath brings a small smile onto your face. “Me too.” You’d be okay though.

Azor led you to the Warrior who had been waiting so patiently with a knowing glimmer in her eyes. She holds out your hand to you. You don’t hesitate to take it, but once you do, the Warrior’s body bursts into light that you gradually reabsorbed through your skin. Gazing at your once tan skin, now glowing with a brilliant light, you feel your body become heavy before you realize the fog that had once enveloped you in the real world had once again descended into your vision.

Something from above released a booming call that almost sounded like thunder. Lifting her face up, Rhiannon watches a winged creature glide above and plummet into the fog encased (y/n) and Latilth. Then, another of the same breed did the same until more took flight in the same direction.

Her head snaps back behind her, hoping to see some sign that (y/n) was okay. Rhiannon could see nothing, and a great debate tore at each part of her brain. If she left her position, the flames she had conjured would gradually die out, allowing more monsters to get through. It already sounded like the others in her group were in the midst of their own fight for life. That piercing clang of swords and death screams emanated from the dwellers of Stygai.

Beyond the flickering tips of her holy fire, many others besides the scorpion had gathered. Teetering back and forth to find an opening like their flying brethren.

Then, there was the unmistakable sound of Latilth in distress. Her roar was loud enough to break through the spell that hid her. The piercing point of her tell slashes out of the barrier, offering Rhiannon a view of what was going on even for a brief moment before more fog came back in. (y/n) was standing utterly still, her hand rested against the stone’s surface as chaos ensued around her. Possibly dozens of flapping winged bodies are flitting about before they attempt to attack (y/n)’s frozen form. Latilth, biting into one that had bit into her back and flinging it off, opens her mouth to a cyclone of fire. The heat hit Rhiannon fully in the face, making her shield her eyes.

Shaking off the ground underneath her, Rhiannon saw the top of one obelisk come dashing down when Latilth’s burly body was slammed into it. What if it was the one (y/n) was under?

Rationality fled her. The darkin, even though they numbered at just three, was enough to stop the monsters that would slip through in her departure. Without thinking about the repercussions, she breaks through the fog and enters the eye of the storm. Latilth’s lashing body and fire offer Rhiannon the light she required to spot (y/n). Now, with a closer look, she wasn’t exactly unharmed from the spray of rubble. Small cuts were dashed across her face, and there was a long line of blood trailing from one nostril, but it didn’t look like she was seriously harmed.

She thanked R’hllor, hand about to touch her shoulder until something sharp sank into her ankles and abruptly pulled her down harshly to the ground. Her chin smacked painfully into the cobblestones of the floor. A tooth may have cracked, too, but she had no time to assess the extent of the damage. She’s pulled across the surface, and something else rips from her side. The set of teeth on her ankle now swings its head back and forth. Spitting out a quick prayer, it was enough to engulf them in flames. They made exceptionally good fodder for R'hllor's fire. Greedily, the dancing flames gobbled up whatever flesh and bone was available.

Latilth, noticing Rhiannon, draws closer to her while still fending off her own assailants. They formed a small protective guard around (y/n).

Something warmed her back, something bright too, for the fog dissipated in its presence. Rhiannon got her complete sight back and saw the small fights that had sprouted around the outside of the obelisk circle.

An iridescent hand cups her shoulder. (y/n)’s hand. Wide-eyed, Rhiannon takes in (y/n)’s glowing form, for she is covered in the sun’s fire. Both she and Lightbringer shined in a celestial light. The streak of blood that had dripped from one of her nostrils seemed to disappear, as did many features of her face, becoming lost in the bright light that had consumed her.

She passed Rhiannon, and she tore through the horde in one fell swoop of her sword arm. The obelisk ring was alive with fire, yet even though flames licked at the bottom of her skirts and arms, Rhiannon was not burned. Like (y/n) had control over the intensity of her magical blaze that spread rapidly. The others jumped back out of instinct when they realized the fire was about to pounce on them, but there was no need to. Red Priest Ray dipped his hand into the many tongues that flickered from the ground and watched how they only affected the monsters that had appeared from the shadows. He grins and raises his hands to the sky; a joyful litany of Valerian bursts from him.

The Darkin Qheen, having witnessed the others unharmed, also experimentally moves his hand out to caress a wayward tendril of fire. There was no biting pain from the blaze; a mellow warmth greets him, and he remains even when he pulls his hand away.

Behind his morbid mask, yellow feline eyes watched the unassuming young girl take on the role of a warrior with her dragon thrashing at her side. They made a fearsome sight, and Qheen would only admit to himself that he stood there in awe and admiration, becoming witnesses as her dragon danced alongside her in a macabre flurry of movement. Neither bumped into the other as they slid and struck. Whatever she had been looking for, (y/n) definitely found it.

Master Batur's utter expression of disbelief gave you immense satisfaction; a weight on your shoulders that you had not yet noticed was lifted. You felt you could stand a little taller and breathe a bit better.

Pinprick's blue eyes stare at you, and his mouth normally pinched into a scowl, goes slack. Probably the most emotion Batur has ever displayed in his life is that he looks at you; he really looks at you and takes in your presence. Could he see a change in you? You certainly felt something. No longer grasping out in the dark for answers and reassurance. You were whole, complete now, with Azor Ahai's blessing.

In front of Batur, you get down on one knee and bring Lightbringer to balance on the palms of your hand. Instantly, flames swirl to life, and the hesitance it had once displayed was vanquished. "Master Batur, the last thing I want to do is bring pain onto the darkin. I know it won't be easy seeing the red priests again, but I promise you that they will not subjugate you to slavery. Not like before. They'll have to go through me before that were to happen. Please, fight by my side once again as equals. I cannot defeat the Others without the power of the darkin."

To your confusion, Batur commands you to rise in a somewhat embarrassed tone as he keeps his gaze averted from where you are. You extinguish Lightbringer, returning the sword to its scabbard. Deep lines across his forehead are still furrowed even when it's he now who kneels in front of you. "I will not have our champion in a state of prostration," Batur grumbled.

For the first time since arriving in Asshai, your smile truly shined.

Taglist:

@boywivlove

@esposadomd

@domoron

@yentroucnagol

@enchantingcupcakecollectionfan

@bregarc

[danikamariewrites]

More xaden fics please I love your xaden fics 🛐🛐

Midnight Picnic

Xaden x reader

A/n: thank you anon bc you sparked my Xaden creativity again (part of the No One Left Behind universe lol)

Warnings: none just soft Xaden

You felt something poking at your cheek and heard your name softly being called. You shot up, looking around your room until you spot Xaden kneeling next to your bed. He sends his shadows out to soothe you. The dark mist like extensions of Xaden trail up and down your arms to calm your racing heart.

An annoyed sigh escapes your lips and you put your face in your hands. “Gods Xaden! you scared the shit out of me.” You whisper shout at your boyfriend. He chuckles lightly and turns the light on. Sitting on your bed he grabs your hand, rubbing circles on the back of your hand with the rough pad of his thumb. “I'm sorry sweetheart, but I have a surprise for you.”

Looking at the clock on your bedside table that reads midnight you look back at Xaden, eyes narrowed. “What surprise needs to happen at midnight?” He gives you a dangerous smirk, “Well you're going to have to get dressed and find out.” You groan and kick the covers back, placing your feet on the cold wood floor.

After you dress in casual warm clothes like Xaden he helps put your jacket on and zips it up, placing a kiss on the tip of your nose. He takes your hand pulling you toward the door, holding a finger to his lips, reminding you to be quiet.

Once you make it to the Flight Field through the secret passage, you spot Sgaeyl and Cadmus waiting for you. You notice a small bag and rolled-up blanket at Sgaeyls feet. Turning to Xaden you give him a questioning look, “Where are we going?”

Xaden gives you the biggest smile you've ever seen on his face. “I know the last few weeks haven't been the best, so I thought we could sneak away for a little bit and have a midnight picnic.” Your heart melted at his kindness. The thought of sneaking away from the college and being alone with Xaden made you extremely happy. “I'm just sorry this is the only time we can do this.” You throw your arms around him, “It's perfect. Thank you.”

About fifteen minutes later you and Xaden land in a small clearing on the mountainside. You dismount and the dragons take off. Xaden lays out the blanket and starts unpacking the snacks from the bag. You plop down next to him and start to unwrap the food. Pausing, you ask, “How did you sneak all these out?” Xaden smirks, “I have my ways, sweetheart.”

For a few blissful hours, you and Xaden relaxed. Truly relaxed. You took turns feeding each other and gazed at the stars while laying on his chest. Looking at him lovingly, tracing his face you let out a content sigh. “What was the sigh for?” He asks, turning toward you. You trace his crooked nose, tapping the top of it. “Just thinkin’ about how much I love you. And how beautiful you are.”

Xaden’s chest shakes as he laughs. “You think I'm beautiful?” He pulls you so you're fully on top of him, your foreheads touching as he nuzzles his nose against yours. “I think you're beautiful too.” He whispers, only for you to hear.

Your lips meet, moving slowly against each other. You continue this dance until Xaden growls and slowly pulls away from you. “We need to head back. The sun is going to rise soon.” You pout your lips and your brows furrow. He runs his fingers over your brow, smoothing them out, and traces his knuckles down over your temple and cheek, ending with his thumb pulling at your bottom lip lightly. He hates that look you give him. He’d do anything to make sure you were never sad again.

But unfortunately, you had to leave behind the little bit of peace you found. “I'm sorry.” You lay back down against him, tucking yourself under his chin and wrapping your arms around his shoulder. Closing your eyes you ask, “Can we stay for five more minutes?”

He places a large, warm hand on the small of your back and brings the other up to gently massage your scalp. “Yeah, sweetheart, five more minutes.”

tags: @auggiesolovey @bubybubsters @baybay123455 @msiecrane

[mythicamagic]

Two Black Sheep Entwined (Scar x Frover fic) Chapter One

Summary: “I'm here to offer you a deal. Everyone in Jinzhou is running around like frightened lambs, fretting for their lives because the big bad Fracsidus member is free from jail and on the prowl, right? Well the solution is simple. I'll sit nice and pretty, unable to commit crimes or mischief- but I'll only behave if you're under the same roof, Rover.”

“What?” She croaked, staring. Surely she'd misheard. Rover cleared her throat and tried again. “You want to…live with me?”

Aka: forced cohabitation with Scar x Female Rover

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Rating: E (eventually)

Read on Ao3

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The news came in the form of her beacon blaring at her, flashing an angry red. Rover paused in her hike in the Desorock Highlands, wiping salty sweat from her brow and unhooking her beacon from her belt with a frown. The alarm died down, but only a brief moment of silence punctuated the air before a sharp pinging noise echoed off the cliffs. Accepting the incoming call from Yangyang, Rover faced her projection as it was cast upon the rock face. 

“What’s wrong? Was that a distress signal?” she asked, catching her breath from the climb.

“I’m afraid so,” Yangyang’s flickering image clasped her hands worriedly. “I don’t know how else to say this but…not too long ago- Scar escaped from Jinzhou prison.”

Rover felt her stomach drop. A strange rush climbed up her spine in tandem with her heart thundering; sending pulsing waves through her body. Something inside her clenched. She suddenly felt exposed. Too out of breath, feverish. Too high on the mountainside like a lost lamb that had strayed too far from its shepherd. She could be seen from leagues away if someone had the right equipment. 

He could find her easily. 

Muffled words caught her distracted attention, and she fought to refocus on Yangyang’s worried gaze. 

“Sorry- what was that?” 

“I was just suggesting you hurry back to Jinzhou. The magistrate seems to be too busy with the commotion to summon you herself, but I feel she’d agree. You’re better protected here until we either catch that madman or frighten him off from the area.”

Rover took a breath, a frown marring her brow. “Logically speaking…even Scar wouldn’t be desperate or stupid enough to try anything with me right now. He just escaped. He’ll probably want to hide and flee, as a first priority.”

Concerned blue eyes wavered. “Still…” Yangyang squeezed her hands tighter in the projection, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. 

Knowing nothing would stop her from fretting, Rover gave a smile. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to be cautious though. I’ll head back. Besides, Chixia will get angry with me if I make you worry unnecessarily.”

Her friend visibly brightened. Her shoulders dropped in relief. “Y-yes!” she forced a light laugh. “And she won’t treat you to any free meals at Panhua’s either!”

Rover gave a soft noise that could pass for a chuckle, “the horror.”

 Waving at the projection with what she hoped was a reassuring smile, she waited until the transmission ended and the projection vanished completely. She then sighed, sinking back against the mountain face. She took a moment to just breathe, resting a hand over her chest and feeling the responding ‘thump, thump, thump’ of her thundering heart. Even her legs were shaking, from the strenuous climb or the news, she couldn’t say.

She wasn’t afraid of Scar. Many people thought she was, and inadvertently encouraged her to be. Maybe it would've been smarter to give in to their suggestions and let fear take over. Scar was dangerous. He had a reputation for a reason, and he'd been a force to be reckoned with as an opponent. 

No, what frightened her more than anything was the alternate reason her body was filled with adrenaline, high on the thrill. The prospect of just seeing him again. He wasn’t an ordinary person to navigate around, and their encounters often left her with more questions than answers. Even when she’d visited him in Jinzhou’s underground prison and he’d been powerless to harm her- that thrill, that anticipation had been there, strung tight in her lower stomach.

No force on earth would make her ever examine that reaction too closely though. She had expectations to fulfil, a duty to uphold; protect the people at all costs. She had no reason to entertain any thoughts about him, and wouldn’t join his ridiculous cause. 

Rover fixed her gaze on the distant spec of white in the distance; Jinzhou city laying quiet and peaceful.

She wouldn’t be swayed. Even by the likes of a confusing, conniving Black Sheep.

It only took a little while to reach a resonance beacon that teleported her back to the main city, but from the moment Yangyang and Chixia saw her they sprang into Protect Rover Mode. She’d been practically frogmarched back to Yangyang’s residence; a quaint little apartment opposite Shifang Pharmacy. Baizhi had soon joined them, sighing and rolling her eyes at their dramatics. Chixia sat next to the window the entire time they chatted, looking outside with the trained eye of a sniper rather than a goofy patroller. 

Nothing of note happened though. No news came through about Scar’s capture, but neither were there any sightings. It was like he’d just vanished into thin air. 

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay for the night?” Yangyang asked again for the umpteenth time as they all lingered outside City Hall together. 

Chixia nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, or you can even crash in my bunk? Or better yet, take one of us with you back to your apartment! We don’t want you to feel scared or alone while that creep is roaming arou- ow!”

Baizhi straightened after elbowing her friend, resting a calm gaze on Rover. “Just tell us honestly and put the matter to rest; will you be alright by yourself tonight?”

She couldn’t help but grin at her friends. “In City Hall? The place with the highest security in all of Jinzhou? Yes,” she giggled softly. “Yes I’ll be just fine. Besides, if it comes down to it, I’ve fought Scar a few times in the past. I like my chances,” she lifted a shoulder, backing away with a short wave. “Please stop worrying, everyone. I’ll sleep like a rock, I promise.”

“Message us once you’re home! A-and again before you go to bed! Just in case!” Yangyang called, voice growing fainter as Rover jogged away, smiling a carefree smile. 

The moment she stood inside City Hall however, Rover let the painful upturn of her mouth drop. She sighed and rubbed her eyes tiredly. Her friends were wonderful, but honestly their worry had burned through her energy quickly. Tension could only be sustained so long before fatigue set in, and Rover felt herself crashing. 

Swiping the wall, she stepped into the offered elevator and took it up to a higher floor.

Bed. I just need my bed.

Guards were the first thing she noticed as she stepped off onto her floor. They flanked the elevator entrance, and gave her a short nod when she passed by. 

"We did a sweep of your apartment miss, under the Magistrates orders. Nothing of note was found," the shorter one spoke up. 

I suppose security will be even tighter the next few days. 

She thanked them and continued on, confidence bolstered. Fishing out her apartment key card, Rover stopped at her door, looking back at the distant figure of the guards down the pure, cream coloured hallway. She then leaned in and swiped her card, letting the door scan her eye for identification. 

“Identification failed. Please present an alternate method of sign-in” the door’s security screen uttered stiffly. 

Rover frowned. That had never happened before. Usually she’d be let in so easily. Maybe the security features had been updated because of Scar’s breakout. 

Remembering what Sanhua had said about alternate security measures, Rover presented her hair, swiping her longer strands over one shoulder and pressing the stands to the screen, allowing them to be scanned. The door clicked open. 

Stepping inside her familiar, and fairly bare-bones in décor apartment, she immediately sensed something amiss. The faint sound of water trickling.

If she were smarter, she would’ve instantly turned on her heel and alerted the guards in the hallway. She would’ve called someone, anyone to investigate. 

But she wasn’t afraid, and therein lay the problem. Rover shifted her weight carefully, moving to press her back against the wall of her little hallway. Gradually slinking furthering into her apartment, she bypassed the living room, giving it a courtesy glance and finding nothing amiss. As she moved with all the grace of a jungle cat, her fingers wrapped around the hilt of her sword, sliding it gently free from its scabbard. 

Her bathroom door was ajar. Steam curled out of it lazily. Rover’s eyes flashed. 

You’ve got some nerve. 

Undaunted, she pressed her fingers to the polished wood and pushed. Steam enveloped her immediately, a figure immediately appearing in her line of sight. He seemed to have purposefully neglected to use the shower curtain. 

Scar’s hair was a splash of white and red strands in the haze, his lithe yet muscular build sharpening into focus the closer she moved. His back was turned to her, because of course it was. Out of arrogance or confidence she wouldn't play dirty perhaps. Broad shoulders shifted as he raised his arms, sweeping sharp nails through wet hair as he dipped his face back into the shower's gentle spray. She couldn’t help but notice how water droplets ran down the pale column of his neck, dipping down between his shoulder blades to rest at the base of his spine. 

His ass was surprisingly cute, perky even. Rover scowled harder. She did not need to know that. 

Looking past the well-toned muscle of her enemy however, the more obvious details of his body painted a picture of his life; that of painful, seemingly endless scars criss-crossing over one another in places, licking broad burns across his flesh. Old and new- the faded ones covered by fresher, angrier bruising pepping his ribs and flank.

Rover rested the cool metal of her blade against his neck from behind, shower water hitting it softly.

Scar shifted, his usual spiked hair slick and hugging his face. Mismatched eyes found her instantly. He brightened, grinning at her as though seeing each other in her apartment was the most natural thing in the world.

“Ah, welcome home!~”

He then fully turned to face her, delighted grin melting into a smile of pure satisfaction as her eyes widened in horror, flicking downwards just once- before mentally kicking herself and refocusing firmly on his laughing eyes. 

“I must say, thoughts of you certainly kept me company during the past few weeks of confinement- but nothing compares to the real thing standing before you in the flesh, now does it?” he purred. Letting out a faint sigh that was almost lost in the fall of humid spray, Scar leaned affectionately into the side of her blade. “You’re a sight for sore eyes, my dear Rover.”

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[flowersbane]

As someone who is seriously thirsting over Joshua Rosfield, I would not object to seeing more fanfics of him with a reader... >>; *coughpleasefeedmyaddictioncough*

I have been thinking about what to write for more Joshua content (since ppl seem to be on board for it) when I heard a song that inspired me to write this piece, which I now dedicate to you. Lol, I would gladly help a fellow fan satiate their hunger for more fics!

(=´∀｀)人(´∀｀=)

Light A Fire

Joshua Rosfield x Reader

You and Joshua are caught in a sudden storm during your travels. As his sworn protector, you guide him to shelter, but on the treacherous path, you both lose your torches. Inspired by the song Light A Fire, by Rachel Taylor.

Rating: Teen

Word Count: 1.1k

Tags: Dangerous Travels, Sworn Protector/Sworn Protectee, Hugging, Hint Of True Feelings, Comfort, Cuddling For Warmth, Unedited

Cold winds beat down on the two of you. Snow swirled with the air and cut any exposed skin like a thousand needles. Joshua kept an arm over your shoulder to help you through the storm. He wasn’t coughing, but if you didn’t find shelter soon, he would start to.

In the thick of the storm, there was little your eyes could make out. You kept your hand on the stone of the mountain as you followed the treacherous path. Careful with your steps, you made it onto the mountain pass.

“Is that a cave?” Joshua’s voice was barely audible over the winds and your heavy clothing.

You followed his gaze until you caught sight of what he was looking at. Relief washed over you, but it is short lived. The path to the cave was narrow, even more so than the one you had just made it onto. One wrong step would send either or both of you tumbling down the mountainside.

You turned back to him and held out your hand. “Take things slow,” you instructed.

He nodded, taking your gloved hand in his. You led the way forward. The winds picked up. You pushed through them. Every step was as slow as the last. Though the cave wasn’t far, it could’ve been miles away with how difficult the path was. Your boots threatened to slip, but you kept them firmly planted on the ground.

By the time the two of you finally reached the cave’s entrance, you were breathing heavily. The cold air burned your throat, but there was little to do about that. The stone guarded you from the wind as soon as you entered. You glanced back at Joshua. He was clearly exhausted, but by Greagor’s grace, he hadn’t started coughing yet.

You pulled out the torch from your bag. Joshua did the same. He lit his own with a wave of his hand and touched the end to yours to share the flame. You nodded your thanks before continuing further into the cave. Even with two torches, your surroundings were dark, as though brought on by some enchantment. You continued with as much caution as you had on the cliffside.

“We shouldn’t wander too far,” said Joshua. “We don’t know what creatures may have also taken shelter in here.”

You agreed.

“And stay close to me.”

Despite the cold, a warmth blossomed in your chest. “And you to me,” you reminded him. “I am your sworn protector, remember.

He agreed, but only after a moment’s hesitation.

The two of you didn’t travel much further before the floor gave way under your feet. A loose rock or a faulty foundation, all you knew was that one moment, you were standing, the next, you were falling. A cry escaped your lips. Your torch tumbled from your grip. Your hood fell from your head.

Joshua reacted immediately, catching your hand before you could follow the torch into the dark abyss. In his haste, he placed his torch down, only for it to tip over the edge as well. He whispered a curse, but wasted no time in pulling you back up. You fell into his chest, heartbeat still thunding from the sensation of being suspended a hundred yards above solid stone. He wrapped his arms around you, holding you close enough that you could hear his heartbeat and feel his breath.

You stayed like that for longer than you needed to. You began to relax, but he didn’t seem to. His hold didn’t loosen. His breath didn’t slow.

“We should–”

“No.” His voice took on the commanding tone you knew he didn’t use unless his emotions were running high. He seemed to catch it as well, for his tone changed when he spoke next, heartbeats later. “Please. Not yet. Just a little while longer.”

You didn’t refuse him.

He held onto you as though he were afraid you might evaporate into the air if he did not. Several minutes had passed before he was willing to let go. “Let us continue.”

You nodded.

Your travels led you to a small area, hidden from the main tunnels, but not too far from the entrance. Your supplies were soaked through from the storm and both of you had lost your torches.

“I’m sorry. If I had been more careful then–”

“Do not shoulder the blame on your own. The same could be said for my own failings.”

“I would never say–”

“Then do not speak of yourself in such a fashion.” Your jaw snapped shut. His tone offered no room for argument. “It is pointless to concern ourselves so deeply with things that we cannot change. For now…” He raised his hand. A ball of flame burned to life in the palm of his hand. He suspended it in the air. “This will have to do.”

“But it will drain you–”

“It will have to do,” he repeated, more firmly this time.

You chewed on your bottom lip, torn between your respect and your concern for him. He spoke before you could decide on what to say.

“Come here. We will have to stay close to keep warm.”

He took a seat against one of the cave walls and held open his arms. You flushed at the prospect, but knew there was no better way of keeping warm. “Do I…?”

He reached up, took hold of one of your wrists, and pulled you into him. You landed between his legs and your face suddenly did not need his proximity nor his flames to warm. “I will keep you warm.”

“What about you?”

He chuckled. You felt the sound vibrate against your skin. “The Phoenix does not fold so easily to the cold.”

You looked up to gaze upon his face. He was still mostly hidden by fabrics, but your eyes found his. In that moment, you saw through his saintly exterior. You saw the young man that harbored the flames of the Phoenix. “You would have me believe you are invincible. You might very well be. But even if you are, that does not mean you must shoulder every burden on your own.”

A flicker of surprise lit up in his azure eyes. “I–”

You do not give him a chance to argue with you. Instead, you adjust to lean into him, pressing the side of your face against his chest. “Good night.”

You could hear the way his heartbeat quickened, even through the many layers of clothing. Joshua shifted beneath you only a little before quickly settling down.

As exhaustion began to claim you, his arms tightened their hold on you. Through the haze of unconsciousness, you weren’t sure if your ears heard correctly when you heard him say, “for you, I would.”