#fierce protector in full force

[livelovecaliforniadreams]

5x22 | 6x4

[plutonianeris]

Medusa

Then Athena proclaimed, “I will turn you into a Goddess in your own right, a deity of monsters.”

Medusa in the 1st house

Medusa in the 1st house and/or conjunct ascendant feels like walking into a room and knowing people are immediately drawn to or threatened by your presence. There’s something about your appearance, the way you hold yourself, that has a piercing effect on others. You might remind people of the untamed, the powerful force within that they can’t control. You are a storm rolling in over the ocean, dark clouds swirling, mesmerizing yet dangerous. You are both the calm before the storm and the storm itself. People can't look away but are afraid of what they might find in you or themselves. You turn heads wherever you go, but not everyone can handle what they see.

Medusa in the 2nd house

Here, Medusa’s energy connects to how you value yourself and what you own. It may feel like you have to fiercely protect what’s yours whether that’s money, possessions, or your sense of self-worth. There could be a fear of others trying to take what you’ve earned or distort your value. You are a dragon guarding its treasure in a cave. People may see the gold, but they don’t understand the cost of reaching it the sacrifices, the scars, the inner battles. You’ve fought for every bit of worth you have, and no one can devalue it without facing your wrath.

Medusa in the 3rd house

In the 3rd house, Medusa speaks to your communication style and the way your ideas are received. You might feel misunderstood, as though your words have a sharpness or edge that makes others uncomfortable. But this is also where you wield power your voice can cut through illusions and lies. You are a lone raven calling out in the forest at dusk. The sound pierces the quiet, sending a chill down spines. Your words aren’t just heard, they echo through people’s minds long after you’ve spoken. Your words have a bite to them they’re sharp, unsettling, but impossible to ignore.

Medusa in the 4th house

Medusa in the 4th house can feel like haunting your own home. Family dynamics may have made you feel judged or like an outsider, leading to a feeling of never truly belonging. The power here is in reclaiming your roots, creating a sanctuary for yourself that no one else can taint. You are an abandoned mansion on a hill, overgrown with ivy and hidden from the world. Inside, it’s full of secrets and memories, but it’s your sanctuary. You’re both haunted by the past and the keeper of its mysteries.You carry the weight of your ancestors’ stories, but you’re the one who decides how they’re told.

Medusa in the 5th house

In the 5th house, Medusa’s energy can come out in your creativity and how you express joy. There’s a wildness here, an uncontrollable need to create art, love, or experiences that challenge norms. Others may see your expressions as rebellious or too raw, but that’s where the power lies. You are a bonfire on the beach at midnight, flames licking the sky, with music and wild dancing. It’s primal, untamed, but full of life. People are both drawn to and wary of this raw energy. You create without boundaries, and your fire burns brighter because of it.

Medusa in the 6th house

Medusa in the 6th house brings her energy to your daily life, your work, and how you serve others. You might feel judged or criticized in work environments, as though your efforts are scrutinized more harshly than others’. But this also makes you a fierce protector of justice and integrity in your routine.You are a blacksmith at their forge, hammering metal with intensity and focus. The heat is overwhelming, but you thrive in it. Your work isn’t just a task it’s a transformation, bending the world to your will, shaping it with your hands. Your work is your battlefield, and you wield both hammer and shield with precision.

Medusa in the 7th house

Medusa in the 7th house reflects how you experience partnerships and close relationships. There’s an intensity here people may project their fears onto you, seeing you as too powerful or difficult to handle. But this placement also means you have a gift for seeing through others' facades. You are a mirror that shows not just a person’s reflection but their deepest truths, things they would rather keep hidden. You reveal people to themselves, sometimes in ways they weren’t ready for.In relationships, you’re the mirror people are afraid to look into but they can’t resist.

Medusa in the 8th house

In the 8th house, Medusa’s energy goes deep into the underworld of transformation, power, and hidden truths. You’re no stranger to the darker aspects of life whether it’s dealing with issues of death, intimacy, or shared resources, you often find yourself walking through the shadows. A shadowy forest, with deep pools of water reflecting moonlight. The air is thick with mystery, and danger lurks behind every tree, but you know how to navigate it. You see what others can’t, and you’re not afraid to go there. You’ve walked through the shadows and made them your allies.

Medusa in the 9th house

Medusa in the 9th house brings her energy to your quest for knowledge and belief systems. You may find that your views challenge traditional wisdom or that others find your perspective unsettling. But this is where your power lies you’re meant to shake up the status quo and introduce new ways of thinking. You are a lighthouse perched on a cliff, shining its light far into the stormy sea. You illuminate the path ahead, but not everyone wants to see the truth you’re pointing to. Still, your light keeps cutting through the darkness. Your truths may be unsettling, but they light the way for those ready to see.

Medusa in the 10th house

With Medusa in the 10th house, the energy shows up in your career and public life. You may find yourself in positions of authority or power, but not without facing judgment or opposition. People may see you as intimidating, but your strength is undeniable. You are a fortress on a mountaintop, standing strong against all who try to breach its walls. Your reputation is both admired and feared people respect your power but also fear your judgment. You stand strong in the spotlight, unshaken by the winds of judgment.

Medusa in the 11th house

Medusa in the 11th house connects you to groups, communities, and collective goals, but you might feel like an outsider here. Your vision is often ahead of its time, and others may struggle to understand or accept it. But this is where your magic happens you’re meant to challenge the norm and lead by example.You are a lone figure on the horizon, walking ahead of the group, leading them toward a future they don’t yet understand. You’re the visionary who sees where others can’t, but you may walk alone for a time. You’re the visionary who doesn’t fit in but that’s exactly why you’re needed.

Medusa in the 12th house

Medusa in the 12th house brings her energy to your unconscious mind and hidden realms. You may feel misunderstood on a deep, spiritual level, but this placement also gives you access to profound wisdom and hidden power. It’s the energy of the sorceress, working in the shadows to heal and transform. You are a hidden temple deep in the mountains, shrouded in mist and mystery. Few know it’s there, but those who do seek it for its hidden knowledge and power. You’re the keeper of secrets, the one who understands the invisible forces that shape reality. You wield a power that is unseen but felt by all who encounter you.

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

In The Gloomy Depths [Chapter 7: Sapphire] [Series Finale]

Series summary: Five years ago, jewel mining tycoon Daemon Targaryen made a promise in order to win your hand in marriage. Now he has broken it and forced you into a voyage across the Atlantic, betraying you in increasingly horrifying ways and using your son as leverage to ensure your cooperation. You have no friends and no allies, except a destitute viola player you can’t seem to get away from…

Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), parenthood, dolphins, death and peril, violence (including domestic violence), drinking, smoking, freezing temperatures, murder, if you don’t like Titanic you won’t like this fic!!! 😉

Word count: 5.2k

💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Tagging: @nightvyre @mrs-starkgaryen @gemini-mama @ecstaticactus @chattylurker, more in comments 🥰

💎 Thank you for reading (and tolerating all my nautical puns)! 💎

How can love be a curse? How can it be something to fear, to condemn, to break?

She has dreamed of him all her life. First he was a protector, almost fatherlike, and then a remote, bewitching phantom as she crept into adolescence, and then when Harwin Strong died Daemon sailed over Saint George’s Channel to offer her solace in England, and at last the fantasies she never would have confessed to anyone were fulfilled, two marriages and four children later. Rhaenyra remembers what he told her in the mist-draped lakeside cottage where they met in secret, crossing paths like an asteroid striking a planet: My wife means nothing to me. She’s not like us. She is young, and weak, and afraid, and I could never respect that kind of person. Her father owns the last Connemara marble quarry in the world, and I needed a son. But the only woman I want is you.

Aegon fires the pistol as he chases her through the corridors of A-Deck, and when she shrieks nobody hears, or if they do they don’t appear to rescue her; the ship is full of people screaming, sobbing, clawing for their lives against wet walls and locked doors. He shoots and misses again. There’s something wrong with his hands. He keeps fumbling with the gun and almost dropping it, hissing in pain as he squeezes the trigger, and there’s blood staining his fingers.

Good, Rhaenyra thinks. I’m glad he’s hurt. I hope he’s dying.

She sees an open room and ducks inside, slamming the door behind her and barring it with the weight of her body as Aegon rams it with his shoulder. Rhaenyra is surrounded by the trappings of another family who purchased first-class tickets: chairs with velvet upholstery, a faux fireplace, paintings by Rousseau and Boccioni and Homer. The lights flicker and the steel beams of Titanic groan, low and disastrous. There isn’t much time left.

“Daemon!” she yells as loudly as she can. If he hears her, he’ll come running. I have to get to a lifeboat. I have to live for my father, for Jace and Luke and Joffrey, for the children I will one day give Daemon.

Rhaenyra struggles with the lock as Aegon batters the door and it quakes on its hinges. Just as she latches it, he fires the pistol through the door. Wood cracks and splinters; a bullet pierces Rhaenyra’s ribcage like a blade. There is unbearable pressure, and then a sharpness, a pain she believes she cannot stand until it keeps getting bigger, deeper, ripping her open and filling her with dark wet weight like the ocean surging into Titanic. She crumples to the floor. When she coughs, blood spurts out onto her lips. Rhaenyra wipes it away and then stares at the red on her palm.

I can’t die now. My life just became what it was supposed to be.

Aegon punches a hole through the mangled door large enough for him to reach in and unlock it. Then he stands in the threshold looking down at her, his hands shaking but his eyes hard, fierce, unflinching. Rhaenyra has never seen him like this before. She didn’t know he could be good at anything.

“How the fuck did you get on the ship?” Rhaenyra snarls as she scrambles away, hacking up more blood. The black opal ring Daemon gave her gleams like onyx or obsidian, something born of heat and earth and insurmountable, ancient gravity.

Daemon and I were made for each other. The same blood, the same bones, the same will to carve treasures from the bleakest places.

Aegon follows her across the floor, slow stalking steps. He doesn’t answer; instead, he shakes his right hand a few times—steadying himself, casting out tremors like demons—and then grips the pistol with it. He raises the gun, the barrel aimed at Rhaenyra’s face.

“Daemon?!” she screams, but he isn’t here. Then she asks, sudden desperate confusion, her blue eyes wide: “Why are you doing this?”

Aegon’s voice is calm. “Because she can’t be free unless you and Daemon are gone.”

That girl? Daemon’s sad, stupid wife? I’m dying because of HER?

“Father never loved you,” Rhaenyra seethes, red on her teeth, blooddrops spilling from her lips like rubies. Her eyes are cold, glinting sapphires, pools of freezing water that only needs minutes to stop the heart. “Just like Daemon never loved her.”

“I know. And I used to care. It almost killed me, it almost ate me alive. But now I’m better. And I finally know exactly who I’m supposed to be.”

Aegon pulls the trigger.

~~~~~~~~~~

As Daemon descends the Grand Staircase, you crawl down towards the next landing, your head spinning, your hands empty, writhing on your belly like a snake.

The dagger???

But you can’t find it, and you don’t have time to stop and search. Daemon is only a few steps behind you. When your palms hit B-Deck, you try to drag yourself upright, grappling for the banister; but before you can get your feet under you, Daemon kicks you and sends you hurtling down the next flight of stairs. You tumble towards C-Deck, clawing in vain for something to break your fall. Your head strikes the English oak wood and you hear your father’s bewildered voice as he sat at the dining room table in Lough Cutra Castle: Where are you going? When will you be back?

Never, never, never; and now from somewhere below you recognize the roar of rushing water.

“You were going to kill me?!” Daemon taunts as he bears down on you like a storm. Blood soaks his throat and the white shirt beneath his black suit jacket. His eyes are bright, feral, monstrous. “After all those times I spared you when I could have drowned you in a river or a hot bath or the sea? You’re so fucking useless. You really can’t do anything right. All you had to do was shut up and endure, and you could have lived to be an old, old woman with all the comforts my empire afforded you. Now, my dear, you will never see another sunrise. And when Titanic sinks, you’ll be buried with her.”

Down, down, always down towards the ocean floor, you crawl faster away from him as his footsteps grow louder.

“Help,” you moan weakly. Aegon? Anyone? But the only reply is the echoing of your own voice and the sounds of the dying ship: breaking metal, distant screams, gushing torrents of seawater.

You crash into C-Deck and again try to stagger to your feet, but Daemon is here, shoving you as if from a cliffside or off a balcony. And as you plummet down the Grand Staircase towards D-Deck—where the First-Class Dining Saloon is, where Thomas Andrews once assured you that Titanic was unsinkable—it is not hard wooden steps you collide with but swirling ice-cold seawater. You plunge beneath the currents and then come sputtering up to the surface, your white wool coat drenched and threatening to pull you below again like an anchor. You struggle to shed it with arms that are rapidly going numb.

I’m so cold, I’m so cold, if I don’t get out of the water I’ll be dead in minutes—

Daemon’s fingers close around your throat and he forces you under the waist-deep water. You thrash and try to push him away, to pry him off of you, but your muscles seem to have disappeared, they have been scraped off your bones and now you can only wait to die, your breathless lungs burning as your body freezes. You have a sudden vision of Daemon in his firelit study at Lough Cutra Castle, marveling at a shard of Larimar dredged up from the Caribbean Sea and quoting the first known treatise on gemstones, written by Theophrastus in the time of Alexander the Great: Of things formed in the earth, some have their origin from water.

“No!” you scream through the depths, bubbles rising up to air you cannot taste. You claw at Daemon’s hands, but you cannot wound him, cannot get a grip on him, and hasn’t that been true since you married him five years ago?

The dark, freezing water makes you want to give up. It makes death feel easy, painless, inevitable. You imagine faces you’ll never see again: Draco, Aegon, your parents, Fern. You hope Carpathia will be here soon to rescue the survivors. You wonder what will happen to Aegon’s paintings.

Through the water come the muffled booms of explosions, four of them, surely something catastrophic, the ship splitting in half or a distress flare misfired or boilers bursting and shearing through what’s left of the hull. Then Daemon’s hands vanish from your throat and someone is hauling you up out of the icy currents, they are freeing you, they are disinterring you from an oceanic grave.

“I’m here!” Aegon is shouting as you burst into open air, gasping and flailing. He drags you towards the Grand Staircase where you can climb out of the flood, but you’re looking for Daemon. He is a few yards away and floating face-up, one hand clasping his chest and a gurgling sound leaking from his throat. The water around him is turning red. He’s fading, but he’s not dead yet.

“Aegon, he’s still—”

“I know. I’ll take care of him once you’re out of the water. I don’t have any more bullets left.”

“I want to do it.”

“We need to get you dry and warmed up—”

“I want to do it,” you say again, and Aegon lets you go.

You twist off your black opal engagement ring and throw it into the water beside Daemon. Then you place both of you hands on his chest and push him beneath the surface, Aegon standing just behind you with the barrel of the pistol in his grasp in case he has to use it as a club. The glacial seawater froths and whirls as it rises over Daemon’s hemorrhaging chest. He startles—a death rattle, a late rite—and resists feebly, gazing up at you with glassy, disbelieving eyes. They ask: How did this happen? I was supposed to kill you, remember? I own you. I own jewels trapped in subterranean darkness all over the world, and you are the very least of them.

“Draco isn’t yours,” you tell Daemon as you force him under. “Rhaenyra isn’t yours. And I’m not yours either. Now sink and die and make me free.”

He twitches, he bares his crimson teeth at you, but after all this time finally Daemon is the weak one. The rising water flushes maroon around him, his skin goes a frail and translucent bluish-white, his heart is drained until the chambers are cold and grey and empty. You hold him beneath the water until the bubbles roiling up from his nose and mouth disappear. He will never touch you again, he will never hurt anyone, he will never bruise or break or ensnare or captivate. And who will inherit his mines scattered across the planet?

Draco. His only son. And my family and I will act as trustees until he’s eighteen.

“We have to go,” Aegon is saying. He must have taken off his coat before he went into the water after you. He stands shivering in only his white shirt and green corduroy pants, the ocean now lapping at his chest.

“Rhaenyra?” you ask.

“She’s gone. I’m sure.”

“It’s over,” you say softly, feeling weight like stones roll off of you, feeling warmth like sunlight on your face.

As if in reply, the listing ship groans and the lights flicker again. “Not yet,” Aegon says, grabbing your hand. “Let’s hope there’s a lifeboat left.”

You wade to the steps and climb out of the water. Aegon helps you wring out your soaked hair and the skirt of your gown, then snatches his black wool coat off the steps where he left it and puts it on you. You race up the Grand Staircase to C-Deck, and then B-Deck, and then the A-Deck landing where you find your green handbag with Aegon’s tiny aluminum lighter still inside.

“I think you dropped this,” Aegon says when he spots the dagger on a nearby step, still covered with Daemon’s blood. He wipes it clean on his corduroy pants and then passes it to you. When you hesitate to take it, he grins. “Who knows. You might need to stab someone else tonight.”

“I never want to draw blood again.” But you accept the dagger and place it in your handbag, the captive gemstones glimmering there: amethyst, tiger’s eye, black opal, emerald, ruby, bloodstone, sapphire like the North Atlantic Ocean that is swallowing Titanic down into her cold, crushing belly. Then you ascend one last flight of steps to the Boat Deck, passing the bronze cherub statue and the ticking clock, stealing a glimpse up at the dome of glass and wrought iron that will soon shatter when the sea punctures through it like a bullet or a blade.

Outside the night air is so frigid that ice crystals begin forming in your hair, and the hem of your blue gown begins to stiffen as it freezes. You are barefoot, you only now realize, and if splinters from the pine planks of the deck needle their way into your flesh you won’t be able to feel them. There are only two lifeboats left on this side of the ship, one of which is already being lowered down to the sea. Officers are still directing women and children into the other. Benjamin Guggenheim and his companions are very drunk, clumsily herding frantic first-class passengers towards the boats. The string quartet is now playing The Merry Widow by Franz Lehár.

“Come, come quickly, Lady Targaryen!” the officers shout when they see you, knowing by your gown that you belong here, perhaps recognizing you from strolls on the Promenade Deck or when you and Daemon boarded Titanic in Cork with much fanfare. Aegon helps you into the lifeboat, his wounded hands cradling yours. Another distress flare is shot into the sky, metallic rain, doomsday portents.

We’re going to be alright, you think. We’re going to survive this.

“Darling, you’re sopping wet!” one of the women in the lifeboat exclaims, and they all begin to fret over you. There are dogs here, a Pomeranian in one lap, a Yorkshire terrier in another.

“Get her under a blanket,” Aegon is saying. “Keep her warm or she’ll get pneumonia. Give her a lifebelt.”

“We will, we will,” another lady shimmering in jewels—a mother of two boys in heavy coats and blue-striped pajamas—promises him. “We’ll take good care of her.”

You turn back to Aegon. “What?”

He tells you, his voice quiet: “Petra, they’re not going to let me in.”

“No, no, you can’t stay here—”

“Women and children only!” an officer booms, then begins waving several shrieking maids towards the vessel, just moments from launching.

“Aegon,” you say, horrified. He’ll die if he stays. He’ll drown or he’ll freeze and he’ll be entombed at the bottom of the Atlantic. “No.”

“I’ll be okay.”

“No you won’t,” you sob, then look desperately at the officers. How can I change their minds? “He’s a Targaryen, he’s a first-class passenger, he must be allowed aboard!”

“A Targaryen?!” one of the officers says distractedly as he battles with the rigging. “I know all the Targaryens on Titanic, and he’s not one of them!”

“Just look at him,” the other officer mutters, meaning: He isn’t dressed like someone with castles or mansions or titles or mines. He can’t be someone who matters.

“He is,” you plead, tears stinging on your cheeks as they freeze. “He’s Aegon, he’s a Targaryen, please, he can’t be left behind—”

“Women and children only!” the first officer barks at you as the other pushes away a group of panicked young men in black suits trying to bribe their way into the vessel. “And if you want to stay here with him, that’s your business, but get to it so the rest of us can try to make it off this ship alive!”

“There’s more than enough room for him, for Christ’s sake, there are dogs in here!”

“There will be other lifeboats, love,” one of the women tells you as she drapes a scratchy wool blanket across your shoulders, but you don’t believe that’s true. The maids are climbing into the lifeboat; the officers are beginning to lower it with sharp lurches that make the occupants gasp.

You reach for Aegon, your hands catching on his drenched shirt, the thin layer of ice cracking beneath your fingers. “No, no, Aegon, I can’t go like this.”

“You have to,” he says calmly, and he holds you face still and touches his lips to your forehead, a kiss goodbye, gentle and lingering.

“No—”

“You have a kid. You have to go. Draco will be looking for you on Carpathia.”

“You deserve to be free too.”

“I’ll stay out of the water for as long as I can,” Aegon says like a vow. “I’ll try to find something to float on. And once Titanic goes down…maybe the lifeboats will come back to pick up any survivors.”

The water is too cold. I’ve felt it, I’ve been paralyzed by it, once you go under you only have minutes. “You can’t…you won’t…”

“Petra,” Aegon says, and his eyes turn desperate. He knows it’s his only chance. “Make them come back for me.”

“I will,” you swear to him.

And he pries your fingers off his shirt and rips away from you before your resolve can weaken. High above and through tears that blur your vision, constellations of stars gleam like diamonds.

~~~~~~~~~~

He runs to the other side of the Boat Deck, searching for lifeboats that haven’t launched yet. He can’t find any. There are swarms of passengers weeping, shouting, jostling, and officers trying to restore order. Pistols and flares are fired, chairs are tossed overboard for passengers to cling to as they float. But Aegon knows that won’t be enough; if they stay submerged, they will die.

I need something bigger. I need something I can lie on. A door or a dresser or…

He shoves through the crowd to get to the ship’s railing. Below, the ocean has gotten so much closer. He sees a lifeboat bobbing in the waves, just far enough away that someone brave enough to leap could not get to it. Inside, along with perhaps twenty first-class women and maids, Aegon recognizes Laenor Velaryon and his ever-present Parisian friends. They are puffing on cigars and toasting glasses of brandy, celebrating their good fortune. They must have successfully bribed their way aboard.

“Fuck,” Aegon sighs, his breath fog in the frigid air.

How am I going to stay out of the water long enough to survive until I’m rescued?

Then he replays the evening in his mind—his first night with Petra, perhaps his last night on earth, red silk and candles and oil paint and the warmth of her beneath his hands—and Aegon gets an idea. He sprints back to the Grand Staircase and soars down to B-Deck, seawater ankle-deep on the floor. He splashes through the corridors to the staterooms once occupied by Daemon Targaryen’s wife and child, now rid of him, now waiting for what will come next. Aegon hurries through the sitting room, passing the taxidermied tiger head above the fireplace and the large, heavy chest where Daemon made Petra lock up the art she bought in Paris.

She didn’t remember to put the real Picasso’s paintings in a lifeboat, but she saved mine, Aegon thinks. If I make it out of this alive somehow, I’m marrying her the second we dock in New York.

He goes to the bedroom, finds what he needs, carries it with him as he returns to the maze of hallways. Now the icy water is nipping at his knees.

~~~~~~~~~~

The ocean is calm, the lifeboat rocking placidly on inky surf. The women comfort their children and their dogs. You take Aegon’s aluminum lighter out of your handbag and light yourself a cigarette, then pass it around so the other passengers can thaw their lungs with hot plumes of nicotine, here in the early hours of the morning when it feels like you’ll never be warm again. The officer who took command of the vessel—the same one who shouted at you and refused to admit Aegon—is rowing vigorously as you and several other women help him, staring horror-struck at Titanic as she goes down by the bow.

“We have to get away from the ship,” the officer keeps saying, and he sounds genuinely petrified. A woman in a glittering gold gown steers with the tiller. “Or she’ll suck us into the water with her.”

There are shadows of other lifeboats nearby, also fleeing from the condemned Titanic, that miraculously colossal and opulent triumph that everyone had told you was unsinkable. You wonder which one Draco and Fern are in, undoubtedly cold and frightened but safe.

Aegon deserves to live too. I have to find him, I have to save him.

Now there is seawater flooding over Titanic’s deck at the bow, where you and Aegon saw third-class passengers—now dead, or very soon to be—kicking around pieces of the iceberg that they didn’t know had doomed them. The ocean surges higher, covering B-Deck, and A-Deck, and finally the Boat Deck, where the towering funnels collapse and you can hear shrieks and guns firing. You know you won’t be able to see Aegon from here—you won’t be able to tell if he made it into a lifeboat somehow, or if he is one of the figures that falls from a lethal height into the waves, or if he is crushed or shot or trapped below deck and drowned—but still, you cannot stop looking for him, peering through the night to where Titanic glows in her spotlight of white-gold electric luminescence.

As the bow sinks, the stern begins to rise, higher and higher until the tension cracks the ship in two, and the passengers you share the lifeboat with wail and sob as the ship’s lights blink out for the last time and the gravesite goes dark. Women call out the names of their husbands, fathers, brothers, adult sons, knowing they must be dying. You can only watch with tears streaming down your face, thinking: How could he survive that? How could I have left him?

The stern bobs for a while in the nightscape sea, a shade, a phantom, and then it plunges into the ocean. The water—indifferent, dispassionate, not a mortal but a titan, here long before humans and destined to outlast them, not unlike the treasures of the earth—gulps down metal beams and pine planks and split bones and shredded flesh. There are screams, so many, so pitiful, so loud they fill the sky, and the howling women in the lifeboat cover their ears and those of their children so they will not have to try to exorcise the sound from their memories later.

As soon as the stern has been consumed by the depths, you say to the officer: “We have to go back to look for survivors.”

“Are you mad, Lady Targaryen?” he snaps at you; but there are tears in his bloodshot eyes. “We’ll be mobbed if we sail into that. They’ll pour into the boat until we go under too. Do you want to freeze to death with them?”

“People will die quickly. They are dying already, the water is cold enough to kill in minutes. If we start rowing towards them now, most of the passengers will be dead by the time we get there. And then we can rescue anyone who’s left.” Please still be alive, Aegon.

“Not a chance in hell,” the officer says.

You turn to the other women. They blink back at you in dazed, timid terror. “It’s murder to leave your men behind,” you implore, you beg them to agree. “Help me row to them.”

But the women only weep softly to themselves and look to the officer to tell them what to do. He smirks at you victoriously, an expression of no humor but rather grim, fearful misery that could drive someone insane. In the lap of one woman, the Pomeranian whimpers.

I can’t leave Aegon, you think. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.

You open your green handbag and pull out the dagger, the blade pointed at the officer. He shouts and bolts away from you, incredulous, furious.

“You’re threatening to kill me?!”

You shake your head. “I’m offering you a gift.” You turn the dagger around so the officer can grasp the handle. His gaze catches, transfixed and wondrous, on the gemstone spheres like perfectly aligned planets. “This dagger is worth more than you would make in a decade of work. Go back for survivors, and it’s yours. Refuse, and when we are rescued and my son inherits my husband’s fortune, I will make it my life’s work to destroy you. I will follow you anywhere on earth. I will ruin you. So take the dagger as payment and break my curse, and let us save the people who are left.”

The lifeboat sways in the small, serene waves, and the stars revolve high above in a moonless sky, and you and the other women wait for the officer to reply. After a minute or more—we have to go back now, right now, we don’t have much time—he finally lifts the dagger from your open palm and tucks it into his belt.

“Fine,” he says, picking up his oar again. “Let’s go. I cannot abide your damnation. I’ll be haunted by enough ghosts already.”

He and several of the other women row into the throng while you find the flashlights stored in the bottom of the lifeboat, then perch at the bow searching for Aegon. Instead you see hundreds of bluish corpses floating in their lifebelts, dead men and women and children, some of them first-class or crewmembers of the ship but most of them third-class passengers: Italian, Polish, Greek, Syrian, Russian, Chinese, Irish, discarded people, good for dying in the operations of mines or factories or railroads and little else.

“Aegon!” you shout over the water, but he does not answer. There is only the mist of your own words and the sound of cold currents rippling as the lifeboat cuts through them.

Your group saves two people from the sea, both nearly frozen to death and unable to speak: one man floating on a table washed out of a dining room, one little girl clutching her dead mother. Then a long time passes with no living souls to salvage.

“Have we done enough now, Lady Targaryen?” the officer asks you gravely. “Have you seen a sufficient number of the dead to assuage your wrath?”

“Not yet,” you say, steely, your eyes fixed on the water as the flashlight illuminates lifeless faces, scraps of wreckage, nothing, nothing, nothing. And then the light settles on him.

When the stern of Titanic went under, so did Aegon: there are ice crystals in his hair, and his clothes are freezing to his skin, and his lips are blue, and he’s shivering violently. But unlike over 1,000 other passengers, he didn’t stay in the depths long enough to perish as the cold stopped their hearts and lungs. He had something with him, a life raft, a second chance, a treasure mined not from some far-flung crevice of the earth but from the bedroom where he uncovered you, where you found each other and never wanted to go back to the way life felt before.

Aegon is sprawled across the oval-shaped mirror that once stood beside your bed, the fractured glass reflecting the stars that glimmer in the night sky. His ravaged hands cling to the wooden frame. And when the beam of the flashlight skates across his face like moonshine, Aegon knows you’ve come back for him, and he reaches for you until your hands link with his and help pull him aboard.

~~~~~~~~~~

Carpathia arrives an hour later, just before four in the morning on April 15th, and as the sun rises over the North Atlantic Ocean you and Aegon find Draco and Fern on the bow deck, where stewards are distributing blankets and tea to the survivors. Women wander the ship pleading for help finding their lost loved ones, weeping endlessly for their brothers, their fathers, their husbands. Your tears have stopped entirely.

Carpathia’s passengers are generous. They offer in charity their food, their clothing, even their rooms. Children share their books and toys with Draco. Fern teaches him how to play marbles; you read him The Story of Saint Patrick. A doctor onboard disinfects and bandages Aegon’s hands, and assures him that he will be able to play viola again, not now, perhaps not even soon, but one day.

That first afternoon, as you and Aegon are taking a stroll on the Boat Deck, you spot a man painting a scene of the sunset: gold, tiger’s eye, ruby, red beryl. Aegon shows him some of the portraits from his scuffed leather portfolio…though, of course, one in particular is not suitable for mixed company. The man is so impressed that he insists Aegon must not be deprived of the ability to create such beauty for lack of supplies, and gifts him an easel and some paper, brushes, and oil paints.

It’s difficult with his sore, bandaged hands, but Aegon still wants to try, and when his brush begins to shake he asks you to help him. Aegon explains things to you as you steady his hands: chiaroscuro, scumbling, alla prima, glazing, impasto, a foreign language that will soon become familiar. Already, you are learning. And as Carpathia sails into New York Harbor on the evening of April 18th, Aegon takes a paintbrush and draws a circle around your ring finger in vivid, sapphire blue, a worthless gift of no gleaming gems or metal, a vow that means everything.

It’s been years, but Aegon remembers the way to his mother’s house. He leads you, Draco, and Fern to the doorstep of the Hightower mansion on Fifth Avenue. He knocks and a butler answers, a middle-aged man who gapes at Aegon in shellshocked disbelief.

“One…one moment, sir, if you’d be so kind to…to…to just wait here, please,” the butler stammers, then disappears inside. A few minutes later, a different man appears in the threshold. He must be Aemond, tall and white-blonde and precise in every movement, his left eye concealed by a black leather eyepatch. His remaining eye, a clear alert blue, darts to where Fern is holding Draco on her hip and then to you and Aegon, his bandaged hands resting so lightly on you they could never leave a mark.

Then Aemond’s face softens, and there is a kind sort of relief that seeps in, and you imagine your parents will look the same way when you return to Lough Cutra Castle. “You’re home,” he says quietly.

And Aegon smiles and replies: “We all are.”

[thewulf]

Until the Morning Light || Aragorn

Summary: Request - I wanted to see if I could request an Aragorn x reader. You don’t have to write anything! No pressure <3 It is a bit cheesy, so…Maybe something where they started having strong feelings for each other during their travels to destroy the ring and are so desperately longing after the other, just that they never confess and even the encouragement of the fellowship doesn’t help... Read Rest Here

A/N: Gosh I just adore this man! Thank you for the request always!!

Pairing: Aragorn x Reader

Word Count: 5.1k +

TW: Violence, orc violence, death, blood, crying, angst, Battle of Helm's Deep, lotr warnings

Born under the vast skies of Rohan you grew up amidst the rolling plains and the echoing calls of horses. From a young age you were not just a child of the land but its protector, honing your skills with a blade as well as you could listen to the whispers of the earth. Your heart was fiercely loyal and brave and tempered by the tender tales of your mother. She bestowed upon you a rare gift, a deep connection with nature that allowed you to sense and communicate with the world around you in ways few others could.

This unique ability was distinct from the innate affinity that elves hold with the forests and rivers. Unlike the elves whose communion often involves a harmonious coexistence and a capability to influence nature’s growth and health your gift did not extend to bending the will of the woods or the waters. Instead, it manifested as an intimate understanding. An almost magical perception that let you hear the secrets of leaves rustling in the wind and feel the subtle shifts of the earth beneath your feet. It was a communion, but of a different kind. A silent dialogue that did not seek to alter but to understand and empathize, providing guidance and comfort where it was most needed.

Such a profound connection to nature brought with it a heightened awareness of the creeping darkness that threatened to engulf Middle earth. The very land you communicated with now echoed with the distress of encroaching evil. A warning you felt deep in your bones. It was during this time of growing shadows that tragedy struck your life profoundly. You lost a beloved family member to the dark forces spreading across the land. An event that shattered the peace of your world but also forged a new resolve within you. Carrying the weight of this loss, you vowed with a heart heavy yet unyielding to protect your homeland and its people. This vow was sacred and resolute. It sharpened your resolve as much as your blade and became the echo of your every step on the path of the Fellowship.

It was during these turbulent times that Gandalf the Grey came to your village. The wise wizard saw in you not just a skilled warrior but a unique spirit whose abilities were as rare as they were needed. With words as compelling as the winds of your homeland he requested your presence in the Fellowship. "Middle-earth needs hearts like yours," he said. His eyes twinkling with a mixture of seriousness and kindness.

Thus, with a heart full of resolve and a spirit called to a greater cause, you joined the Fellowship. Not just to honor your vow but to fulfill a destiny that seemed written in the very leaves of the trees you so loved. As you set out from Rohan the wind seemed to carry whispers of encouragement and the land itself seemed to nod in approval. Its daughter now a guardian in its most desperate hour.

Upon your arrival at the rendezvous point where the Fellowship was gathering you were immediately aware of the intense gazes of many. Their eyes scrutinizing every new face—evaluating, assessing. Yet, when you first met Aragorn his gaze was different. It was calm, welcoming, devoid of any judgment that demanded you prove your worth. He seemed to see right through the facade that others often expected you to wear. The mask of a warrior constantly proving herself. Instead, Aragorn acknowledged your capabilities as if they were as clear to him as the daylight.

As you both shared the duties of setting up camp that first evening Aragorn asked you about your journey from Rohan. His genuine interest was refreshing, and soon you found yourself teaching him about the unique properties of the athelas plant found in your homeland. Its healing powers far greater when used with the right incantations. A secret you had kept closely guarded. To your surprise he not only listened intently but also shared his own knowledge creating a beautiful exchange of wisdom.

As the journey progressed Aragorn often sought your company for the watch shifts. During these quiet hours under the vast, starlit sky, you both would sit by the fire. The crackling flames casting flickering shadows on your faces. It was here in the solitude of the night that you shared stories of your pasts. You spoke of your family in Rohan. Of the laughter and tears of your childhood and the deep connection you felt with the land.

Aragorn, in turn, shared tales of his travels. The burdens he carried and the hopes he harbored for peace in middle earth. These exchanges that were filled with laughter and sometimes a comfortable silence laid a strong foundation for your growing affection. There was an ease between you. A mutual respect that flourished without the need for words making each shared moment a treasure.

One evening deep into the journey after a particularly taxing day when tensions within the Fellowship seemed to strain the very air around you Aragorn noticed your weariness. Without a word he took up your watch insisting you rest. "We all have our strengths," he said softly with a gentle smile playing on his lips. "Tonight, let me watch over you." It was a simple act. But in that moment his kindness felt soothing to your soul. It solidified a bond that was quickly becoming as vital as the quest itself.

These moments under the stars with Aragorn where you didn't have to prove yourself but were simply accepted were what you cherished most. They were reminders that in the looming shadow of war there existed moments of peace and deep, unspoken understanding.

Aragorn's presence became a constant in your days and you found yourself increasingly seeking his company. Whether strategizing for the next leg of the journey or sharing a quiet moment away from the rest of the group his steady demeanor brought a comforting consistency to the unpredictable days. After a particularly fierce skirmish against a roving band of orcs you sustained a slight wound. Aragorn was quick to your side. His fingers skilled and gentle as he tended to the injury. His touch was always gentle and careful. It sparked an unfamiliar warmth in your chest. His concerned eyes meeting yours with an intensity that made your heart skip.

As Aragorn wrapped your wound Legolas strolled over with an amused twinkle in his eye. "I see our esteemed leader has found yet another calling… nursing the wounded with such tender care," he commented lightly. His gaze flickering between you and Aragorn with a knowing smile. Aragorn responded with a dismissive grunt. His cheeks tinged with a faint blush, but his eyes remained warm and soft as they met yours again.

Gimli has overheard the exchange and joined in with a hearty laugh. "Ah, but it's a good thing we have Aragorn for both fighting and mending. Saves us calling for Elrond every time someone gets a scratch!" he boomed before clapping Aragorn on the back with such force that it drew a surprised smile from the usually reserved ranger.

This playful banter brought a light-hearted moment to the group easing the tension of the long journey. Later that evening as you sat by the campfire the teasing continued. Gimli’s loud snoring eventually became the subject of jest, and you all shared a hearty laugh. Emboldened by the relaxed atmosphere you nearly confessed your growing feelings to Aragorn. But just as you gathered your courage he turned contemplative, his gaze lost to the horizon.

"I sometimes wonder what lies ahead for all of us," he said softly. A distant look in his eyes. "The weight of this quest, it's much to bear—for all of us." His words were heavy with the burden of leadership and the uncertainty of the future, and they momentarily stalled your confession.

Despite this the bond between you only deepened, strengthened by each shared challenge and quiet moment of understanding. Legolas and Gimli’s lighthearted teasing served as a gentle reminder of the friendship and affection that blossomed even in the darkest of times, adding a touch of warmth to the journey's cold nights.

As you and the Fellowship arrive at Helm's Deep the air is thick with the weight of impending conflict. The massive stone walls of the fortress loom over you, their stark, gray surfaces a harsh reminder of the battle that awaits. Shadows stretch long across the ground as the sun dips below the horizon casting an ominous glow that barely penetrates the gathering dusk.

Around you, soldiers move with a sense of urgency. Their faces set in grim determination. The clanging of armor and the sharp ring of sword against stone fill your ears. A constant reminder of the stakes at play. Despite the hustle and bustle a heavy silence hangs over the assembled troops, each person lost in their own thoughts of the coming night. The air is cool and carries a hint of moisture. The breeze whispering through the battlements as if in mourning for lives yet to be lost.

In all of this your gaze finds Aragorn. His expression is one of resolve marked by the burdens of leadership and the knowledge of what everyone is fighting for. His presence is a steady force amid the chaos, and you feel a strange mixture of comfort and unease as you stand beside him knowing the challenge that lies ahead.

In the midst of this anxious bustle your childhood friend, a charismatic warrior named Ealdred from your village, unexpectedly arrives to aid in the battle. His arrival brings a sudden surge of warmth to the cold stone surroundings of Helm's Deep. As soon as Ealdred sees you his face lights up with a wide, infectious smile and he strides over with open arms.

His greeting is loud and joyous in the subdued murmurs of the assembling warriors. "Ah, if it isn’t the bravest shield-maiden of Rohan!" he exclaims while enveloping you in a hearty hug that lifts you slightly off your feet. The familiarity and comfort of his embrace, reminiscent of your shared past filled with training and childhood adventures, momentarily lift your spirits.

Laughter rolls easily from Ealdred as he sets you down. His presence a stark contrast to the tense air around. "I told myself I wouldn't miss a chance to fight alongside you again," he chuckles before clapping you on the shoulder with a warrior's camaraderie. The sincerity in his voice and the joy in his eyes are a balm to the unease that has been gnawing at you since your arrival at the fortress.

From a short distance away, Aragorn watches this reunion unfold with a complex whirl of emotions. He notices the brightness in your smile. A glow he has seldom seen during the long and perilous journey. Your eyes sparkle with laughter, reflecting a happiness that stirs a pang in his heart. The ease of your interaction with Ealdred, the way your body leans slightly towards him in familiarity and comfort, does not escape Aragorn’s keen observation.

Each laugh shared between you and Ealdred, each nostalgic look exchanged, seems to draw a line of subtle tension through Aragorn. He tries to focus on the preparations at hand, but his gaze involuntarily drifts back to you. The way Ealdred's hand lingers on your back, the warm, open smiles, the apparent joy of your reunion… it all fans a flame of jealousy that Aragorn struggles to suppress.

Though he attempts to dismiss these feelings as trivial they gnaw at him with an intensity that surprises him. The sight of your unabashed happiness with someone else plants seeds of doubt and worry that even the din of the oncoming storm cannot drown. The moment crystallizes something crucial within him. The realization of how deep his feelings for you have grown and how much he fears the possibility of not being the one who brings such joy to your eyes.

As you and Ealdred laugh over shared memories such as recalling the escapades of your youth in Rohan, his arm casually drapes around your shoulders in a brotherly gesture. The familiarity and ease between you two are evident. But to an observer like Aragorn each laugh, and touch seem to whisper of something more.

From his vantage point Aragorn watches the interaction his chest tightening inexplicably with each passing moment. The way Ealdred looks at you with such open admiration and joy, ignites a flame of jealousy in Aragorn’s heart that he can neither quench nor fully understand. His grip tightens on the hilt of his sword. A subconscious echo of the turmoil brewing within him.

Ealdred, ever observant, catches the intensity of Aragorn's gaze from across the way. With a mischievous glint in his eye, he leans closer to you, lowering his voice so only you can hear. "I believe the great ranger isn't just watching out for danger, you know," he teases nodding subtly towards Aragorn. "The way he looks at you... it’s as if he’s trying to will you to notice him. Quite the admirer, our King-to-be, wouldn’t you say?"

Your eyes widen slightly. The comment catching you off-guard. For a moment you're lost in thought considering Ealdred's words. You glance over at Aragorn observing his now averted gaze, the stoic mask momentarily fallen, revealing a hint of vulnerability. The idea of Aragorn, a king, having such feelings for you seems almost unfathomable. Yet the possibility stirs a flutter of excitement deep within.

Laughing softly, you shake your head trying to mask your sudden nervousness with humor. "Oh, Ealdred, don't be silly. Aragorn and I—we're just friends," you reply though your voice lacks conviction. "Besides, how could a king ever see anything in someone like me? I’m just a warrior from Rohan. Certainly not a lady of court."

Ealdred gives you a knowing look, his smile suggesting he sees right through your casual dismissal. "Well, even the mightiest kings need true friends and perhaps something more," he murmurs while giving you a playful wink before turning his attention back to the bustling activity around Helm's Deep. “Go to him, I will see you around.” He gives you a push.

As Ealdred walks away you're left with a curious mix of doubt and wonder, pondering his words. The thought lingers in your mind mingling with the echoes of what might be unspoken truths between you and Aragorn. The idea feels both impossible and thrilling, setting your heart racing as you watch Aragorn commanding his men with natural authority. Could there really be more to your friendship? The question hangs in the air, unanswered but increasingly impossible to ignore. Of course, you wanted more but when you learned of his destiny not so long ago you let those thoughts fall away.

Meanwhile, Legolas and Gimli, having observed Aragorn’s unusual demeanor, seize the opportunity for a bit of light-hearted ribbing. "Come now, Aragorn," Legolas chides with a graceful arch of his eyebrow, "your warrior's stare is more intense than any orc's glare we've encountered. And far more directed at our friend than any foe."

Gimli chortles, adding his own gruff commentary. "Lad, you're as subtle as a dwarf in an elf’s dance," he laughs before slapping Aragorn on the back. "Even the blind could see the way you look at her!"

Aragorn was caught between his role as a leader and his personal turmoil and offers only a rare, tight-lipped scowl in response. Though the corners of his mouth twitch, betraying a reluctant amusement at his friends' observations.

Once the teasing subsides Aragorn's gaze drifts back to you, now mingling with a quiet reflection. The light-hearted jests of his companions echo in his mind, stirring a resolve. Perhaps it was time to confront these feelings. To explore the truth behind the glances, the smiles, and the unspoken yearning that had begun to shape his heart. As night falls over Helm's Deep, the looming battle stirs a newfound courage within him. A courage not just to fight enemies, but perhaps to also voice the truth of his heart.

As the day before the battle approaches the air at Helm's Deep grows tense, filled with the weight of impending conflict. Soldiers go about their final preparations. Their movements sharp and focused, while commanders issue last-minute orders with stern expressions. In this bustle, Aragorn finds himself repeatedly glancing your way. His usual calm demeanor overshadowed by a restless concern that has little to do with the battle strategies at hand.

Finally, unable to contain the turmoil stirring within him, Aragorn approaches you. His stride is purposeful yet there's a hesitation in his eyes that you've seldom seen. "I need to speak with you," he says, his voice low, drawing you away from the others under the pretext of discussing the morrow's tactics.

You follow him to a quieter part of the fortress where the sounds of preparation are but distant echoes. As you stand there facing him in the dim light of the torches, Aragorn seems to struggle with his words. His gaze intense and searching.

"A moment ago, I was thinking about our positions for the battle," Aragorn begins, his tone tentative. "But truthfully, that's not why I asked you here." He takes a deep breath. His hands clenching and then relaxing at his sides. "I... I've noticed a distance growing between us while we’ve been here, one that wasn't there before. And I fear," he pauses, his voice tightening, "I fear it might be due to misunderstandings... emotions left unspoken." His admission hangs between you, stark and revealing. The air feels heavier as if charged with the gravity of his words. His eyes never leave yours, seeking, perhaps, a sign of your feelings.

You feel a knot form in your throat. Your own emotions a whirlwind of confusion and revelation. The thought that Aragorn might share even a fraction of the feelings you've struggled to hide sends a shiver through you. But there's also fear—fear of what such an admission means in the face of the darkness that might claim tomorrow.

"Aragorn," you start, your voice barely above a whisper, "I... I've also felt something change. But I believed you saw me only as a… friend in battle, nothing more. With the shadow of war over us I thought it best to keep my feelings to myself." Your confession feels like shedding armor you didn't realize you were wearing, leaving you exposed but strangely free.

Aragorn steps closer. His presence enveloping you in a sense of warmth and safety that contradicts the coldness of Helm's Deep. "I have long admired you, more than as a friend," he confesses, his voice steady but filled with emotion. "But I too feared to speak, to disrupt the bond we have with uncertainties of heart. Yet on the eve of such uncertainty… I find that silence is a greater burden than the risk of sorrow."

The distance between you diminishes with his words bridging gaps formed by unspoken doubts. As you look up into Aragorn's eyes, reflecting both the torchlight and his earnestness, you realize that regardless of what the morrow holds, this moment—honest and raw—has changed something fundamental between you. No longer just allies but something deeper. A connection forged not just in the heat of battle but in the vulnerability of shared hearts.

The emotional confrontation beneath the shadowed walls of Helm’s Deep leaves the air between you and Aragorn charged with newfound understanding and fragile hope. As the initial shock of your mutual confessions fades, the reality of the coming dawn—laden with the uncertainty of battle—sets in, lending a poignant urgency to your words and thoughts.

Aragorn’s eyes that reflected a mix of resolve and tenderness, lock with yours. “We stand on the brink of war, a war that may consume us all,” he says, his voice steady despite the turmoil you know roils beneath. “But this moment… this truth between us, cannot be overshadowed by what tonight may bring.”

You nod feeling the weight of every word. His hand was still holding yours. He squeezes gently trying to ground you. “I have carried this in my heart, thinking it unwise to speak, fearing the complications it might bring,” you admit. Your own voice stronger than you feel. “But now, facing the unknown, I see only the folly in silence. My heart, just like yours, cannot bear the burden of what-ifs.”

Aragorn’s face softens. The warrior’s mask yielding to the man beneath. “Then let us make a promise,” he proposes. His gaze searching yours for hesitation. Finding none, he continues, “If we survive this war, if fate grants us passage through this darkness, I promise to explore this path with you. To see where our hearts might lead us, unburdened by duty.”

Moved by his words you feel a resolve awaken within you. “I promise, too,” you respond, the night air around you bearing witness. “To find you again. In a world at peace and discover the depth of what we might become together.”

The pact, sealed with the sincerity of shared heartbeats, seems to carve out a small sanctuary against the chaos of the impending battle. As you both stand together the day turns to night and the distant sounds of the encroaching army grow louder, yet, in this secluded moment, there’s a sense of peace. An oasis of calm before the storm.

Aragorn gently lifts your hand to his lips. His kiss a feather-light promise against your skin. “No matter what comes,” he whispers, his breath warm against your fingers, “know that tonight has changed everything.”

As you part ways to prepare for the night ahead, each step back to your respective duties is reluctant but necessary. The promise of a future, however uncertain, fuels a quiet courage in your heart. A courage not just to fight, but to survive, to return, to begin anew.

The stars overhead that were witnesses to your solemn exchange, twinkle with a hopeful light. They cast a soft glow over Helm’s Deep. In the quiet before the battle, you hold onto the memory of Aragorn’s words, the warmth of his touch, and the promise of tomorrow. A tomorrow where you might explore the uncharted paths of both peace and passion.

And in the quiet before the storm with the world held at bay, it is enough.

As night envelops Helm's Deep, the distant roar of the approaching enemy fills the air. A grim reminder of the battle that lies ahead. The walls were thick with the tension of awaiting warriors and bristle with weapons as the moonlight casts long shadows across the battlements. You take your place among the defenders. The weight of your armor familiar and reassuring against the chill of the morning.

Across the way, Aragorn readies himself for combat. His eyes briefly meeting yours across the crowded space. In that fleeting glance you find a silent exchange of resolve and reassurance. A mutual understanding that whatever the day brings, you are not alone.

The battle erupts with the thunderous sound of orc drums and the clamor of arms. Waves of enemies crash against the fortress's defenses. Each assault more ferocious than the last. Amidst the chaos you find yourself fighting back-to-back with Aragorn. Each move synchronized with an instinctual precision that speaks of your deep connection. His presence by your side is both a comfort and a spur pushing you to fight with a fierceness you hadn't known you possessed.

As you parry and thrust Aragorn covers your flank. His swordplay a seamless dance of deadly grace. Every time an orc breaks through the line threatening to overwhelm you, Aragorn is there, his blade swift and sure. In return you guard his back with equal vigilance, your own combat skills honed by years of training now coupled with a personal drive to protect him at all costs.

From the corner of your eye, you catch brief glimpses of Legolas and Gimli, their unique partnership effective and deadly against the enemy. Despite the severity of the battle, you see Legolas shoot a quick, satisfied glance towards you and Aragorn, a small smirk playing on his lips as he loses another arrow into the horde. Gimli, engaged in a competition of his own with the elf, nonetheless nods approvingly in your direction after cleaving another orc with his axe.

The battle rages on. Each moment a blur of sound, motion, and adrenaline. But within this turmoil your bond with Aragorn becomes your strength. When fatigue begins to claw at your limbs it is his steadfast presence that reignites your resolve. When despair whispers in the shadows of your mind it is the promise of a future together that keeps the darkness at bay.

As the tide of the battle shifts with every orc felled and every moment you and Aragorn continue to stand, the hope for victory grows. It was fueled not just by the strength of arms but by the power of the unity you have forged in the heart of conflict. The knowledge that someone fights beside you not just for the fate of middle earth but for the promise of a shared tomorrow is more potent than any weapon forged by dwarves or elves. Together, you fight not only to protect Helm's Deep but to preserve the future that you vowed to explore. In the heat of battle that promise binds you ever closer. A promise that against all odds you will survive to see what lies beyond the war.

As the echoes of battle fade and the sun begins to rise over the now-quiet walls of Helm��s Deep, the air is filled with the heavy scent of rain and renewal. The fortress, though scarred by the night’s ferocity, stands resilient. A showing of the courage of those who defended it. Among the weary soldiers there’s a palpable sense of relief mixed with sorrow for those lost. A bittersweet victory.

In the aftermath as others tend to the wounded and recount the close calls you find yourself seeking out Aragorn. You find him standing alone looking out over the battlements at the dawning day. His profile etched against the lightening sky. His stance is one of a man who has carried too much, seen too much, yet stands ready to face whatever comes next.

Approaching quietly, you stop beside him, sharing the view in silence. After a moment he looks down at you, his eyes reflecting the myriad emotions of the night. Without a word he takes your hand. His grip firm and warm, anchoring you both in the now.

“Aragorn,” you begin but he shakes his head slightly, asking you to stop.

“Let me speak before the world rushes back in,” he says softly. His gaze holds yours, intense and unwavering. “Last night in the middle of this mess I realized something beyond the fear of losing what is precious. I realized what it means to truly love.”

He pauses, searching your face for understanding. “I have loved before,” he continues, “but never like this. Never with such clarity and raw hope. Last night I fought not just for middle earth but for the chance to see what lies ahead with you.”

Tears gather in your eyes as his words wash over you. Each one landing with the weight and warmth of a cherished caress. He continues as he uses his thumbs to wipe away your shed and unshed tears. “You have given me a reason to fight. A reason to return no matter the odds. And if this battle has taught me anything it is that I want to face whatever comes next. Not as a king. Not as a ranger. But as a man hopelessly in love with you.”

Aragorn's confession was simple yet profound. It stirred something deep within you. A surge of love and commitment that mirrors his own. You step closer diminishing the space between you and rest your head against his chest listening to the steady beat of his heart. “And I, too, want nothing more than to face the world with you, Aragorn. To build a life where love is our strength.”

Aragorn begins to speak, his voice low and filled with emotion, confessing his love and the revelation that had come to him amidst the chaos of battle. But as he speaks, something within you stirs. A fierce, overwhelming rush of feeling, amplified by the adrenaline that still courses through your veins.

Before he can finish you close the distance between you were driven by a surge of emotions too powerful to contain. Your hands find his face pulling him down towards you, and your lips meet his in a kiss that is anything but gentle. It's a kiss full of life, of survival, of shared battles and shared dreams. Your bodies press together, each curve and angle molding into the other, as if you could somehow merge into one being united against whatever may come.

Aragorn responds with equal fervor his arms wrapping around you to lift you slightly off the ground deepening the kiss with a passion that mirrors your own. His touch is both a claim and a surrender. A recognition of the bond that has been forged in the heat of battle and sealed in the quiet of dawn.

As you finally part, breathless and hearts pounding, you rest your forehead against his, eyes still closed as you savor the closeness. "I love you," you whisper. The words barely audible but heavy with meaning. "I fought for this, for us."

"And I," Aragorn replies. His breath warm against your lips, "will continue to fight for every day we have together. For a chance to love you as you deserve, fiercely and freely, without the shadow of war."

The promise hangs between you profound and sacred. As you step back still encircled by his arms the world around you seems to awaken. The sounds of the fortress stirring to life, the calls of soldiers and the distant cries of those mourning their fallen. It all fades into the background as you look up at him, seeing not just the warrior or the king but the man who holds your heart.

The sun was now fully above the horizon. It bathes you both in golden light, its rays like a benediction over your newfound commitment. You prepare to face the new day with him. Not just as survivors but as partners bound by love. Each beat of your hearts proof to the battles you’ve endured and the future you will fight for together.

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[brattyfics]

Swampbound II

Adla shot up from sleep, jolted by the sound of something heavy dragging outside. The old porch creaked under the weight, those worn boards groaning like they were telling her to stay inside. For a heartbeat, she thought it was just a remnant of a bad dream. But then it came again—slow, deliberate shuffling, as if someone was moving through the dark with purpose.

She kicked off the sheet, her bare feet gliding over the cool floorboards. Reaching for the shotgun, she crept to the window, quiet as a whisper in the night. Pulling the curtain back just a crack, she squinted into the gloom.

A figure loomed large, hunched over, moving as though it was in pain.

The wolf?

No, that shape was all wrong. Its movements were jerky, struggling to stay upright. Then she spotted it—clawed hands gripping the railing, barely managing to hold on. Her breath caught as the figure slumped, twisting and warping in a way that made her skin crawl.

The truth slammed into her, sharp and unforgiving.

This wasn’t just any wolf.

Adla tightened her grip on the shotgun, heart pounding in her chest. Every instinct told her to retreat, but something gnawed at her—a pull she couldn’t explain. The stories whispered through the town—tales of beastly protectors and vengeful spirits—had always danced at the edges of her mind, but tonight, with this strange presence lurking outside, those old myths felt like a warning.

Whatever was out there, it wasn’t just a man, and it sure as hell wasn’t just a wolf.

Fear gripped her as the shadow twisted, revealing the shape of a man. She blinked, praying to wake from a nightmare, but when her eyes opened, it was still there. The dried pool of blood pooling beneath him turned her stomach.

What kind of trouble had she stumbled into?

Piercing blue-green eyes, both wild and human, locked onto hers through the dim light. She gasped, every muscle screaming at her to run, but there was nowhere to go. The massive man raised one hand, then the other, pounding against the walls of her little house so insistently that the whole place rattled.

She flinched at the frantic banging, the noise shaking the thin window panes. It sounded desperate, but not dangerous. And then, through the chaos, she heard it—a rough voice, weak but clear enough to make her freeze in place. “Help me... please.”

Her instincts urged her to stay put, but that voice—it was broken, pleading. She bit her lip, torn between caution and compassion. She couldn’t rush headlong into a mess, but could she really turn away someone who was hurt?

Shifting her grip on the shotgun, she edged toward the door. "Who’s out there?" she called, her voice steady but low, trying to mask the tremor in her heart.

"Just need a place to catch my breath. I promise I won’t cause no trouble. I’m just trying to escape something that ain’t right. I ain’t gonna hurt you, I swear. Please, just let me in for a minute—I’m beggin’ you."

“Lord, have mercy...” Adla muttered under her breath, caught in a bind. She’d always prided herself on being sharp and cautious, but her heart? Too soft, too generous—sometimes for her own good. “What brought you all the way out here?” she asked, frustration creeping into her voice.

“A whole string of bad luck. If I had anywhere else to go, I wouldn’t be standin’ here, believe me.” She shook her head, eyes on the lock, knowing this was the dumbest thing she’d ever done. Slowly, she twisted it open, pulling the door just wide enough to peek through the screen. 

There he was—wolf turned man, bigger than any person she’d ever seen. His body, thick with muscle, seemed almost sculpted from stone, hard to ignore, even with the bruises and cuts marring his skin. He was bare as the day he was born, flaccid yet exuding a raw strength. She swallowed hard, forcing her gaze upward. He had a face that was almost too beautiful, framed by full lips and those captivating eyes. A fierce, primal energy radiated from him, pulling her in and sending a shiver down her spine.

Letting in a naked stranger was easily the most reckless thing she’d ever done.

He was hunched over, leaning against the front of her house like he was too weary to stand on his own. Each second felt like a battle for him, swaying as if the ground beneath him were unsteady. His eyes, weighed down with exhaustion and pain, locked onto hers, drawing her into a tug-of-war between caution and compassion. “You best not be thinkin’ I’m a fool,” Adla warned, flipping the lock on the screen door. He reached for the door, but then jerked his hand back, hissing as if he’d been bitten by a snake.

“What now?” she asked, her brow knitting in confusion as she took a cautious step back, the tension in the air thick enough to cut.

“You gotta invite me in.” His voice was ragged, as if every word cost him. She frowned, not quite understanding—didn’t she already by opening the door?

“Come on in,” she finally said, stepping back with her shotgun still in hand, not fully trusting him yet. “Just don’t ruin my floor with all that blood.” He limped inside, his gaze never leaving hers, before collapsing clumsily into a chair in her kitchen.

“What the hell happened to you?” Adla asked, watching as his big hands explored his injuries, assessing the damage. He didn’t answer, too focused on his wounds.

“Hey!” she snapped, needing answers. If she was about to shelter some strange, naked wolf-man, she deserved to know what mess he was dragging to her door. “I asked you a question. Why are you here?” His gaze slid over her, assessing, and suddenly she felt exposed—the cool night air making her nipples pebble beneath her thin nightgown. Shifting uncomfortably, she caught his eyes snapping back to her face.

“Just passin' through. My cousin, Mike, and I ran into some trouble with the wrong crowd back in town. I got hurt, lost track of him, wandered off, and ended up here." He hissed, the twisting and turning only aggravating his injuries even more. "I'm just tryin’ to keep it together long enough to find him.”

“And what’s that gonna take? You getting yourself together?” Adla's skin prickled with unease, a warning that she had stumbled into something far beyond her understanding. She needed him out of her space and her life—pronto.

“You got any vinegar?” His voice rasped, dry as a corn husk.

“‘Course I do.” Adla replied, moving around the kitchen with purpose. Her hands worked quickly yet deliberately, keeping him in her line of sight. She set the bottle down on the table, her eyes sharp and filled with suspicion. “What’s that gonna do?”

“It’ll help me heal.” The words came out strained, frustration simmering beneath the surface, though it was clear he was in no shape to argue. She could feel his urgency, a mirror to her own—both of them itching to be rid of each other.

“What else you need?”

“Baking soda and cayenne powder.”

“That’s it?”

Adla raised an eyebrow but gathered the supplies anyway, her movements smooth but laced with tension. She reached for each item from the cupboard, swaying with practiced ease.

“Fresh garlic wouldn’t hurt, if you have it. Maybe some moonshine.”

She paused, lips pursed. Was he fixin’ to heal or cook?

In no time, her table was cluttered with mismatched items—baking soda, vinegar, garlic, cayenne. It looked more like the makings of some old root-worker’s brew than anything meant to patch up a man.

“Pour the vinegar first to clean it out,” Terry instructed, his voice steadier now despite the pain. “Then mix the soda and spices.” He reached for the garlic bulb, popping it open with one strong press, the sound cutting through the silence. She jumped at the display of casual strength. Just how strong was he?

“Please.” His tone softened, pulling her from her startled state.

Adla shot him a wary look, but something in his voice—a strange vulnerability beneath that tough exterior—made her hesitate. He wasn’t lying; she could feel it deep in her bones. Without a word, he grabbed one of the cloves and swallowed it whole. 

With a slow breath, she set her shotgun by the counter, still close enough to grab if things took a turn. Her daddy would be turning in his grave if he knew she was doing this, but something about Terry had her ignoring every warning bell that usually rang loud and clear.

Standing behind him, she stared at the raw, twisted wounds crawling across his back, almost like vines. “Go on,” Terry grunted through clenched teeth.

Steadying herself, she poured the vinegar down his back, watching it stream over the jagged flesh and trickle down his long legs. Terry tensed, letting out a sharp hiss as the vinegar hit the open wounds. His skin bubbled, frothing where it met, as if fighting something deep within. Adla mixed the baking soda and cayenne in a bowl with water, then followed his instructions to spread the strange paste over his back.

She froze as she saw it—right before her eyes, the skin began pulling together, like unseen threads stitching him back together. It wasn’t fast, but it was happening, slowly mending him back to who he was.

Adla’s breath caught in her throat.

Magic wasn’t something she doubted—any Black woman raised out in the marsh knew better than to dismiss it—but seeing it unfold in her own kitchen? That was something else entirely. Her fingers twitched as she stepped back, eyes wide with awe and caution.

“Keep goin’.” Terry grit out, his voice rough but laced with urgency.

She rolled her eyes, cutting him a sharp look. “Mind how you talk to me, mister. You're in my house.”

Terry mirrored her, letting out an exasperated sigh and tapping his foot impatiently as she took another look at his injuries, making sure she hadn’t missed anything. His muscles tensed and flexed, discomfort rippling through him as the mixture worked its way into his wounds. Whatever it was doing, it sure wasn’t gentle. She caught him tilting the moonshine bottle to his lips, her eyes narrowing. So that’s what that was for. She bit her tongue, figuring now wasn’t the time to fuss about him treating her liquor like his own. He probably needed it more than she did right now.

She knelt to check his leg wounds, only to find herself face-to-face with his... package. Her heart skipped a beat as she noticed it seemed to be swelling—whether from the pain, nervousness, or something else entirely, she didn’t know. Her gaze darted away just as quickly.

"Would some aloe help?" she asked, curiosity edging out any pretense of concern. The fabric of her gown grazed his bare skin as she stood, the warmth of her scent wrapping around him like a blanket. He drew in a deep breath and then his eyes fluttered shut.

“Nah, this’ll do,” Terry muttered, his jaw tightening as he shifted again, turning away from her. He could feel the heat radiating from her, the soft curve of her body just inches away igniting something primal within him. Every movement coiled his muscles tighter, and he fought to keep his breathing steady, hyper-aware of her scent wafting through the air.

Finally, she stepped back, breaking the spell.

“Rest’ll heal on its own. Thank you.” There was sincerity in his tone now, softer than before, though the longing still lingered in the air between them.

“What are you?” She asked softly, testing the waters. She didn’t mean any offense; under the circumstances, it seemed like a fair question.

Terry stiffened for a moment, then met her gaze. “Terry Richmond,” he said, a faint, strained smile flickering across his lips. “But what I am... well, that’s a bit more complicated. Some call me a shifter. I just call myself a survivor.”

“Survivor, huh?” she replied, running the dishrag over her bloody palms. The image of that massive wolf flashed in her mind, and she couldn’t shake the thought that he could swallow her whole without a second thought. “Well, as long as you ain't tryin’ to survive off me, we’ll be alright.”

A low chuckle rumbled from Terry, deep and rough—an echo of a man who’d weathered too much. “Don’t worry, I’ve got enough on my plate without addin’ you to it.” He paused for a beat. “What they call you, miss?”

“Adla.”

That thing between them—the charge—was heavy and palpable, and Adla felt it coursing through the air like a summer storm, but she wasn’t about to act on it—at least, not yet. Just as she opened her mouth to speak, Terry froze, his body going rigid, as if he sensed something dangerous lurking.

“Somebody’s comin’,” he muttered, forcing himself to his feet despite the visible pain.

“What are you talkin’ about? I don’t hear anything—” Adla’s voice trailed off as she moved to the window, squinting into the early dawn. Her breath caught when she saw a police cruiser creeping down the slick, muddy road. The lights were off, but the car moved deliberately, as if searching. Morning had crept up on her, the sky shifting from inky black to pale gray-blue, the sun just starting to break the horizon.

“It’s him,” Terry growled, his expression hardening with anger. He stood, wincing, but what stopped her cold was the intensity in his eyes—hungry, vengeful. “I’m gonna kill him,” he growled, his words cold and laced with hatred.

Her pulse quickened, a dozen questions racing through her mind. Who? There were plenty of officers driving cruisers like that, but the way Terry spoke made it seem like he knew, like he could smell them.

“Hold on a minute,” she snapped, stepping closer to him and placing a hand firmly against his chest. “You just got back on your feet, and you sure as hell ain’t in any shape to fightin’.” She pushed against him gently, but with enough force to drive her point home. He winced, the pain breaking through his tough exterior.

“This is my house, my land, my rules. Sit down and keep quiet. I don’t need them knowing you’re here. You can get your revenge later—on your own time.”

Terry stared her down, jaw clenched, clearly battling with his pride. He was a man used to taking charge, not letting someone else handle his problems—especially not a woman. But Adla met his glare head-on, refusing to back down. They stood at an impasse, tension thick between them like the heavy air before a storm. She didn’t flinch; his size and predatory presence didn’t shake her, not after she’d pulled him back from death’s edge.

With a quick flick of her wrist, Adla grabbed her old housecoat from the hook by the door and pulled it on, tying it tightly around her waist. She shot one last glance at Terry—his wild, dangerous eyes still trained on her—before stepping out onto the porch, her bare feet meeting the wooden planks. The door clicked shut behind her, a barrier between him and whatever came next.

She marched toward the fast approaching car, steeling herself for what was coming.

Police Chief Sandy Burne rolled down his window, a scowl carved deep into his features.

“Good mornin’, Chief,” Adla greeted with a nod. He didn’t bother to return the courtesy, his eyes narrowing as he cut straight to business. “You seen anything strange out here lately?”

Well, yes. There’s a damn wolf man in my kitchen!

“No, sir.”

“You sure, gal?” His tone dripped with skepticism. She bit down on the inside of her cheek, holding steady before speaking again, her voice calm but firm. “Yes, I’m sure.”

This was the same tired routine they played whenever their paths crossed. Her daddy had taught her to show respect for the law—not because they earned it, but because they wielded the power to make her life hell, and that was especially true now that he was gone. She was a lone woman in this world, with no safety net outside her own grit.

“Ain't nobody been by? No strangers nosin' around or passin' through?” he pressed, his voice sharper than the edge of a rusty knife.

“No, sir,” she replied, holding his gaze steady, her heart pounding like a war drum. Terry, Jesse—neither were his concern. This part of the marsh was her domain.

Burne’s eyes locked onto hers—beady and treacherous. “Take a look at these pictures. You best be sure,” he warned, passing her sheets of sketches from his window. One was definitely Terry; she recognized him instantly. The other bore a resemblance too—slimmer but sharing the same wide nose and full lips. That must be the cousin he mentioned.

“I ain't seen either of those men,” She lied with a smile, handing the papers back to him. Turning on Terry would be easy, the safest thing to do, but she wouldn’t be complicit in whatever Burne was cooking up. He’d already gotten away with too much. Doubt flickered in the grey-haired man’s eyes. He knew she was lying; she could feel it.

“Alright then. I trust you’ll give me a holler if that changes.” Irritation crossed her face before she could mask it, like a storm cloud rolling in on a clear day. “You got somethin' better to be doing, girl?” There it was again, that single word dripping with the venom of prejudice. Her fist clenched at her sides.

Low growls rumbled from her kitchen, echoing past the porch and into the yard. Adla's heart raced. There was no way that brother was turning into a beast in her kitchen.

“What’s that noise?” Burne demanded.

“A dog,” she replied, keeping her voice casual. “Found him after the storm. Crawled up on my porch and wouldn’t leave. Felt sorry for him, so I let him in. Ain’t like he’s been alone in the house yet.” She prattled on as he swung open the door of his cruiser, stepping out with the confidence of a man with something to prove.

“I thought you said you didn’t see anything.”

“Just a dog,” she insisted, her heart racing as he prowled around her. If he made it to the porch and caught sight of the blood—

“Chief, we need you.” His radio crackled to life. “Got a report of a violent altercation happening over on Flower Street. It’s Mr. Simmons; the family is requesting you personally.”

Burne narrowed his eyes, his tone sharp as he stepped closer, his breath hot against her cheek. “Watch yourself with them dogs, especially the ones you don’t know. Get too close, and you might end up with fleas. You don’t want that, Ms. Bennett.” He leaned in, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “If I find out you’re keeping secrets from me, you’ll wish you hadn’t.”

She felt her teeth clench at the threat. 

The growling continued, rising in a way that sent chills down her spine. 

“I’ll call if I see anything worth mentioning.”

Burne gave her one last intense look before climbing back into his cruiser, kicking up mud as he drove off down the winding road. The nerve of that man! Anger simmered in her veins as she imagined him ripped apart, piece by piece. The sensation coursing through her felt electric, tingling deep in her bones like a storm brewing on the horizon.

She marched back into the house, her voice steady but firm. “You can rest and pull yourself together, but after that, you gotta leave, and don’t even think about coming back.”

Terry nodded, understanding the finality in her tone. As much as he wanted to jump into action against Burne, he wasn’t ready. He and Mike had stumbled into this trouble by underestimating Burne. If Terry was gonna get Mike back, he had to regain his strength, and that meant he needed to rest.

“Don’t move. I’ll find you something to wear,” Adla muttered, tugging a storage bag down from the top of the closet. Her fingers sifted through the men’s clothes she hadn’t had the heart to toss—each piece a remnant of her Daddy’s spirit, lingering like a ghost in her memories. The thought alone weighed heavy on her heart.

“Here,” she said, passing him some of her Daddy’s old things, the ghost of his scent still clinging to the fabric. Terry’s fingers grazed against hers, lingering just a moment too long before she turned away from him.

With a sigh, she led Terry to her childhood bedroom, gesturing to the too-small twin bed where she once dreamed of escaping this very life. No way was she inviting him into her own bed. That was a can of worms she feared would never close if she pried it open.

“Thanks,” Terry said softly, standing too close. The way he looked at her sent a shiver down her spine, like he was weaving an unintentional spell. She shook off the feeling. “Ain’t no thing,” she replied, her tone casual but guarded. “Just get some rest. I’ll be right out here if you need anything.”

Sinking onto the plastic-covered sectional, she felt the crinkling beneath her as her mind raced. Thoughts tumbled over one another, tangled like the Spanish moss outside. Something about Terry being a shifter tugged at her like an old tune she couldn’t quite place—more than just town legends.

One thing was for sure: she’d never seen skin behave the way his had. That was a memory she’d never shake.

Jesse’s grandmother had been a healer, claiming she could cure anything as long as the healed soul accepted the consequences. That same woman brewed her soothing teas on nights when her father was away on the fishing boat, filling the gaps her mother left behind. As a child, Adla had believed in her magic without question. But the older she got, the more it felt like a fairytale—yet perhaps it had been right there all along, hidden in plain sight.

Minutes passed before loud, unmistakable snores broke through the fog of thoughts. Terry sounded every bit like the beast she knew he could become. Rising, she moved to close the cracked bedroom door. She didn’t trust him alone in her space, but the openness felt like it was clouding her ability to think clearly.

Glancing inside, her gaze roamed over his sleeping form. He lay stretched out, exuding a readiness even in slumber. Her eyes lingered on the defined veins in his arms, the ink marking his bicep.

He was undeniably attractive.

Terry hadn’t bothered to wear any of the shirts she’d given him; the faded sheets barely covered his waist. With each breath, his abs flexed, drawing her in closer. A rush of heat flooded her skin as her mind wandered to what lay just beneath those sheets. She felt like a trespasser in her own childhood bedroom—caught between the past and a present that dared her to let go.

Terry stirred as the door creaked open, a tired smirk curling at the corners of his lips. “I don’t mind a little company while I dream.” He drawled, voice low and easy, like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like he was her man, waiting for her to slip into bed beside him, not some stranger she'd only met a few hours ago.

She gasped, her face growing hot. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t tryin' to disturb you or nothin’.”

Terry sank deeper into the pillowcase that held her scent—a calming blend of saltwater and magnolias, with a hint of citrus underneath. She couldn’t deny how it felt seeing him there, laid out in her bed with his hands tucked behind his head like he belonged. And it was clear he liked it too. The thought stirred something deep inside her, intoxicating and undeniable.

“I just wanted to close the door, that’s all. You were snorin’ like a bear, and I—”

Her mouth hung open as he shifted on the bed, the sheets slipping down just enough to reveal more of his toned torso, the warm light from the window casting soft shadows across his skin.

“This here’s your house, your rules, don’t forget,” he teased, a playful edge to his tone but laced with something sharper.

The idea of climbing in beside him was oh-so-tempting. She’d never felt a heat like this pooling between her thighs, searing and intense. Adla had always feared falling in love, haunted by how losing her mother had shattered her father, but she had nothing against the thrill of hot flings. She loved the playful banter and the slow build to something deeper with a man. With Jesse, it took years to reach that point, but with Terry, the heat flared too quickly. He made her want to toss caution aside, and that sense of risk sent shivers down her spine.

“What do you take me for?” She shot back, one hand perched confidently on her hip.

He remembered how she’d pushed him earlier, bossing him around with that fierce spirit. He craved her fire, even if it meant getting burned. “A woman who knows how to take charge and go after what she wants. Ain’t nothing wrong with that, is there?”

He had that look about him—sure of himself, like a cat toying with a canary, or maybe a werewolf eyeing a Southern belle, ripe for the taking. "Quit playin' around with me." She turned to leave, but he caught her arm, pulling her down to the edge of the bed. She didn't fight him. "You ain’t scared, are you? Thinkin' I might just gobble you up?"

"Just caught off guard, that’s all." Her gaze lingered on his lips, like a wild cat reduced to a purring house cat. Heat pooled beneath her skin, making her feel as if she needed to shed layers. “I ain’t scared of you,” she insisted.

Terry’s soft, seductive smile shifted into a confident smirk. "You got no reason to be," he replied, leaning closer, his warmth wrapping around her. “I ain’t gon’ bite… ‘less you ask real polite.”

A deep pulse thrummed through her core, something fierce. She felt like prey, yet made no move to escape the gaze of her predator. His focus sharpened on the pulse in her neck, and he leaned in, his soft lips grazing her skin as her blood rushed to the surface. She trembled in his embrace. "Don’t you worry, Ms. Adla. You ain't asking for it... not yet."

She gasped as his warm tongue flicked out, pressing against her skin, meant to soothe, yet it sent her heart racing. “Please,” she breathed, torn between desire and confusion.

“Please what?” he asked, pulling back to meet her big brown eyes. She looked like a doll, wild curls escaping from beneath her scarf, the bright blooms of her nightgown drawing his gaze. Her soft curves were undeniable, making it nearly impossible for him to tear his eyes away.

“Don’t devour me,” she whispered, the weight of her words thick with the understanding that she wouldn’t survive if he did. Already drowning in sorrow, she struggled with the truth that the supernatural was real and had come knocking at her door. Her mind raced back to Jesse's grandmother—wait, Jesse.

In an instant, she jolted out of his arms, springing up from the bed as if it had caught fire beneath her.

Terry watched her, a mix of frustration and amusement dancing in his eyes. Her chest rose and fell in quickened breaths, and he couldn’t resist the urge to laugh, a low, rumbling sound that echoed in the quiet room. "You okay, there, sugar?"

“Yeah, I'm fine,” she replied quickly, her voice shaky. “I just... I gotta think.”

“You sure ‘bout that? You look a tad flustered to me.” Terry’s eyes danced with mischief as he grinned, leaning back against the tiny headboard like he owned the place.

Adla felt the tension crackle between them, electricity simmering in the air. “I’m not about to get caught up in whatever foolishness you’ve got goin’ on,” she declared, though her voice wavered, betraying the strength she wished she had.

“You’re already knee-deep in this swamp with me. Ain’t no runnin’ from that now.”

Chapter Three.

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[eliotrosechild]

The Seven Archangels

Lucifer – The majestic archangel of unparalleled beauty and power, Lucifer was once the brightest of the heavenly beings. His presence commands respect and awe, as he radiates elegance and grace. His wings of pure energy and amber light represent his divine origin and his connection to heavenly realms, even after his fall. He stands tall, regal, and mesmerizing, a figure of both light and shadow, embodying the complexity of rebellion, pride, and the quest for ultimate freedom.

Michael – The fierce warrior archangel, Michael stands as the eternal protector of righteousness and the leader of the heavenly armies. His wings blaze with pure amber energy, symbolizing his strength and determination. Michael holds a sword of light, prepared to defend against any threat to divine order. His presence is intense and commanding, inspiring courage in those who follow him and fear in those who oppose him. He is the ultimate force of justice and divine power.

Gabriel – The majestic archangel of revelation and messenger of God, Gabriel carries an aura of peace and divine wisdom. With wings of amber light that spread gracefully, he brings messages of hope and guidance from the divine realms. Gabriel’s presence is serene, calm, and full of grace. His trumpet symbolizes his role in delivering important divine messages, sounding the call to awakening and transformation. He is the voice of clarity, speaking the words of the heavens.

Uriel – The majestic archangel of wisdom and enlightenment, Uriel stands as a radiant guide, holding an orb of divine knowledge. His amber wings shine with the light of ancient truths and higher understanding. Uriel’s presence is calm yet powerful, representing insight, foresight, and the illumination of the mind. He is the one who brings clarity in confusion and light to those walking in darkness, offering the wisdom of the ages and a connection to the divine mysteries.

Samael – The mythical archangel of death – The majestic archangel of wisdom and enlightenment, Samael stands as a radiant guide, holding an orb of divine knowledge. His amber wings shine with the light of ancient truths and higher understanding. Uriel’s presence is calm yet powerful, representing insight, foresight, and the illumination of the mind. He is the one who brings clarity in confusion and light to those walking in darkness, offering the wisdom of the ages and a connection to the divine mysteries. destruction, Samael is a figure of mystery and power. His wings of amber energy exude an ancient, almost primordial force. Known as both an angel of death and a figure of temptation, Samael walks the line between divine judgment and rebellion. His role in balancing creation and destruction gives him a complex and enigmatic nature. His presence is both alluring and terrifying, embodying the mythic forces of life and death intertwined.

Azrael – The fierce archangel of death, Azrael stands as the guide for souls transitioning from life to the afterlife. His wings burn with amber intensity, signaling his role in escorting souls through their final journey. Azrael’s presence is both comforting and formidable, representing the inevitability of death and the solemn duty of releasing souls from the physical realm. His fierce demeanor reflects his role as the angel of death, who stands firm in the face of life’s greatest transition.

Raphael – The mythical archangel of healing and protection, Raphael’s wings shimmer with a soft yet powerful amber light. His presence is one of warmth, healing energy, and divine care. Raphael holds a staff, the symbol of his connection to health and the healing arts. His aura is infused with a gentle strength, capable of mending both physical and spiritual wounds. As the healer of God, Raphael guides and protects those in need of restoration, bringing peace and harmony wherever he goes.

[anika-ann]

Ochraňuj me (Protect Me) - sneak peek

Pairing: Knight Steve Rogers x witch!reader Word count (peek): 600 previous installments: Pomiluj mě -Love Me Tender and Očaruj mě -Bewitch me

Warnings: mentions of death; plus you might be a tad lost if you haven't read the previous fics

He nuzzled his face in your hair, his chest expanding with a generous inhale, a steadying breath which made his heart race faster, as if attempting to outrun the very storm you had felt arriving.

You ran your hands down his broad back, feeling your own heart leaping into your throat as the silence between you, often so sweet and comforting, stretched ominously.

“Steven… love,” you whispered, attempting to shift in his embrace, only achieving his hold growing firmer, his muscles almost shaking with effort. Oh Steven… What terrible feat had been laid upon him? “What has happened?”

Finally releasing your body, his hands were quick to cradle your face instead, achingly gentle, even as his eyes roamed your face wordlessly, brimming with so much emotion it stirred your unease further.

“Rytier moj?”

Steven’s face softened minutely, thumbs stroking your cheekbones as tenderly as butterfly wings despite the power – or the lack of it – in his grip.

“My love…”

Lips curling in a tiny smile, you mirrored Steven’s affection, reaching to settle your palm against his cheek, fingers of your other carding through his hair; you heart fluttered when he leaned into your touch, a wavering breath escaping his lips before they pressed against your palm to sooth the scratch of his beard against your skin.

Despite the dulcet image he made, eyes fluttering close for a blissful moment of nothing but love shared, you felt his body pulse with anxious urgency seemingly seeping into your fingertips.

“I did not sleep well…” you confessed, his already pursed lips turning down. “I had a heavy feeling in me. Now I know the gods had not warned me simply for their own whims. What’s happened?”

Steven opened his eyes again; with a single caress of the breeze, he straightened, his aura of a knight – a fierce protector, a loyal friend, a humble determined servant – returning with its full force as did his worry.

“I need your help.”

A simple plea.

A simple answer.

“Always, rytier moj. Anything,” you promised.

One would expect relief to fill your lover’s features; instead, dread twisted them into a frown of dismay. Almost as if he had been hoping for your rejection.

Why?

The whisper of death among the trees grew louder, haunting, sending such a shudder through your body not even your lover’s warmth could hope to protect you from it, another urgent question scratching at the back of your mind.

Death, the trees seemed to whisper.

Whose death?

“Oh bosorka moja…”

Not Steven’s. Never. Not on your watch. Not as long as you walked this realm.

And not your child’s. You’d claw a throat open with your bare hands had anyone tried to take them away. Take her away. You had dreamed two nights prior, dreamed of a girl with Steven’s beautiful eyes and your hair caressed by the wind, her laughter filling the air as he sat her on his shoulders and she placed the daisy crown on his head-

The image had been so full of hope, so bright, so full of promise; it battled the current scent of death fiercely, one blending into another, and it felt you were stood in the middle.

Your choice. Your power. Your victory; or your loss.

You gulped, your gentle hold on Steven’s face growing shaky; with fear or the weight of responsibility, you weren’t sure.

“What is it, love? You are worrying me… come in. Tell me what weights down your-“

“Prince Anthony has been poisoned,” he said at last.

The whisper of the wind turned into a screech of a gale, even as the tree leaves and grass barely rustled.

Bringing drama, y'all! But don't kill me just yet!

...after all, there might be two parts, because have you met me?

May your September start well 💕

[mehiwilldoitlater]

Since day one in Aaru village, your life has become... less difficult, to say the least. Since that fateful night where Candace had brought you under her care, the elders of the village became aware that your presence could have brought problems and that the other archons would clam up your head and the lives of the villagers as punishment for the crime of hiding the "imposter". But Candace was adamant about the matter: you were nothing but a victim of some circumstances, and the village would have not turned its head to the other side on a travaller in need of help.

Dehya, besides being one of the few who wanted you far away from there, decided to follow Candace in her judgment. Not because she feared that glim of protectiveness that she showed to you, but because, after all, there was truth in her words. You were fragile, a flower that was supposed to burn under the scorching sun.

She never understood the protector, and then something changed.

Maybe it was that, despite what others from other nations said, you never actually claimed to be the Creator or something. Y/n, such a simple name—so human. Why would someone who could easily make people believe that they are indeed the creator, the allmighty, the one who rules their world just go around without even thinking about that possibility?

Maybe it was that gleam in your eyes? The one that wandered over the desert, seeing it as a place full of wonders and adventure, but still respected it, not taking it as a mere desolated pile of sand?

Maybe it was the fact that, every day, you greeted Candace with a smile that could even compare to the sun while trying to sound nice even to her, despite how harshly you were with her at the beginning? Maybe it was your laugh while plaing with the children, taking care of them, helping people around...

Maybe it was something around each of these suggestions, but she could even understand that questioning gaze when she politely asked you to just sit on a cushion with a brush in her hand.

"...W-why..."

"Well, firstly, because I noticed that your ingested harm can't even take care of your basic needs...and because I thought it could be a nice gesture..."

She felt waves of embarrassment clashing with her. It was a stupid idea, but she honestly thought that could ease your mind! She likes taking care of her own hair; it makes her head less heavy!

"I-I...forget it, it was a stupid i-"

"NO! No, no, it's not... I would love to, really!"

There was a slight chance that, maybe, that was more an act of politeness than the actual desire to spend some quality time with her, but it was something, right?

You never thought that Dehya was harsh or aggressive. Well, she was in battle with her enemies, but she was usually protective of the people for whom she genuinely cared. Her hand massaged calmly on your scal, the brush caressed gently on your length, and her nails were so gentle on our skin. It was relaxing. I remember a nice moment when someone who cared for you treated you this way. You could swear that you heard Dehya humming something behind her sealed lips.

"You right, it feels nice."

"It does? I'm glad then, but don't think I'll do this often; I'm still needed around here, you know"?"

"Y-yeah..."

Another thing came to our minds. It was more of a question that, in the end, was a normal thought that wanted to come out of your mind. Your finger is scratching the skin of your opposites, catching a Dehya face connected to some small knots in your hair.

"You're not forced to be nice to me."

She stopped all of a sudden. A strange questioning look on her face was facing your own.

"I know that I can be troubled. That's why Candace is working to find me a new home! I just thought that if you want to avoid me, I'm not blaming you!"

"Cut it."

It was more of a growl than a request. Her eyes turned a fierce one, yet she remained composed on her seat, reaching with her free hand for our arm.

"If I hadn't wanted to be here, then you wouldn't have seen me at all. I'm not nice with you by force; I'm nice because I want to."

Her grip wasn't painful at all; it felt comforting, but not as much as her words. Then a small blush appeared on her cheekbone, and she started to scrawl with her other hand, the brush still in her hand.

"You have it hard. I must say you are pretty much stronger than you believe. I never met someone who could be this nice after all the hell they've been through. So..."

Another thing you learned was that Dehya wasn't the girl you thought she was—she was even better.

[agalychnisspranneusroseus]

My raised in amphibia AU is so big in my head. I will never write it because I don't have the time or energy to do so but if I did it would be like 50 chapters long 9k words each.

In my head it spans over 20 years. Anne used to be the protector of the valley and Sasha her arch-nemesis. The three girls all get married in their teens. Sasha may or may not fund a separate kingdom with toads as the upper caste. Marcy is being possesed by the Core but very very slowly. She grows her hair incredibly long and then cuts it all during a mental breakdown caused by her father. She may or may not become Queen. There is a war. Sasha is a war criminal. Sasha is fiercely protective of her wives. Sasha tries to force herself to stab Darcy - it's not Marcy anymore, it's not her - but she can't. Darcy tears apart Sasha's arm with her bare hands in front of Grime, whose revenge plan against Sasha has consisted on cutting off her good arm ever since she cut off his at age 13, so now his revenge was stolen from him. Adult Sasha needs to team up with her old childhood abuser to get her wife back. Anne had a little kindergarden backback with her when she was transported to Amphibia which Hop Pop stole and hid for 20 years. It had this little folder where she used to draw and practice writing and it has her full name on it - Anne Savisa Boonchuy, and little stick figure drawings of other humans, of her parents. It even has the contact information of her parents! There's their telephone numbers! There's their names. After so many years wondering about her origins and her family, she now has this - and her grandfather hid it for 20 years. Anne steals the box and leaves her family and her wives behind to meet her parents, but now that she's in her birth world, with her birth family, she can't help but feel she doesn't belong here.

Not all necessarily in that order.

[maternity-morningstar]

Character Profile: Aurora (aka Venus/Dawn)

Full Name: Aurora Morningstar
Alias: Venus, Dawn
Title: The Divine Consort, Mother of Angels, Queen of Heaven
Species: Primordial Celestial Being (Goddess)
Role: Wife of God, Mother of the Archangels and Seraphim, Goddess of Dawn

Appearance:

* Height: 15 feet tall (does adjust her height when needed)

* Build: Gracefully tall and statuesque, with an aura of ethereal elegance and divine power.

* Hair: Flowing golden locks that cascade like sunlight, often shifting in hue depending on her mood, sometimes appearing like the soft glow of dawn or the fierce blaze of a star.

* Eyes: Luminous and ever-changing, from a warm, nurturing gold to a piercing cosmic blue, reflecting the eternal sky and heavens.

* Clothing: Draped in celestial garments of soft, shimmering light and flowing silks that move with the grace of the cosmos itself. Her attire often resembles the constellations, stars, or sunrise and twilight skies, symbolizing her connection to creation.

Personality:

* Benevolent & Nurturing: Aurora is a loving and protective mother figure, not only to her children but also to all beings created by her husband, God. She exudes warmth and compassion, always concerned with the well-being of her creations.

* Graceful Authority: As the Queen of Heaven, Aurora commands immense respect and carries herself with regal dignity. Her power is unquestionable, but she wields it with kindness, wisdom, and justice.

* Fierce Protector: Though gentle and nurturing, Aurora is fiercely protective of her family, especially her children. She will not hesitate to use her divine power to protect them from harm.

* Eternal Optimist: She sees beauty in all of God’s creation, constantly reminding her children of the importance of balance between light and dark, creation and destruction, love and justice.

* Mourning & Compassionate: Aurora has suffered much sorrow, particularly over Lucifer's fall, but her love for him remains. Despite this, she does not interfere directly with his fate, believing in the balance of free will.

Abilities & Powers:

* Primordial Creation: As a being older than the universe itself, Aurora has the ability to weave and control the fundamental forces of creation, shaping worlds, stars, and life itself.

* Cosmic Light: Aurora can summon light from the furthest reaches of the universe, using it for healing, protection, or destructive power when necessary. Her light has the capacity to purify souls or banish darkness.

* Empathy of the Divine: Aurora can sense the emotions and thoughts of any celestial or mortal being. She uses this gift to guide, heal, and comfort others but also to understand their struggles.

* Temporal Manipulation: She can slow, accelerate, or even momentarily stop the flow of time within a given space, a reflection of her eternal nature.

* Divine Wrath: When provoked or when her children are threatened, Aurora’s wrath can manifest as powerful storms, cosmic disruptions, or the blinding radiance of the stars.

Relationships:

* God (Husband): Aurora is the equal partner of God, sharing in the responsibility of guiding creation. While she may have differing views on how to manage the cosmos, she respects His authority and works in harmony with Him.

* Lucifer (Son): Aurora loves Lucifer dearly and mourns his fall from grace. She often prays for his redemption, even though she understands that his path is his own to walk. Her sorrow over his rebellion has shaped her into a more understanding and compassionate deity.

* Archangels & Seraphim (Children): Aurora is the mother to all angels, and she has a deep connection to each of her children. She raised them with wisdom and love, guiding them to their roles in the celestial hierarchy. Each of her children looks up to her with reverence and love, seeing her as the ultimate source of divine wisdom.

Backstory:

Aurora was born from the same cosmic force that brought God into being, predating the universe itself. As God created the heavens and earth, she stood by his side, nurturing creation and giving life to the first angels. Her role as the divine mother expanded as more angels came into existence, and she became the guiding force behind their development and growth.

When Lucifer rebelled, Aurora’s heart broke, though she did not blame herself or her husband. She recognized Lucifer’s fall as a part of the cosmic balance but still held hope that one day he might return to the light. Her sadness over Lucifer’s descent deepened her compassion for others, leading her to take a more active role in guiding souls and offering solace.

Aurora remains a central figure in the celestial hierarchy, revered and loved by all beings of heaven. While God is seen as the creator and lawgiver, Aurora represents the nurturing and guiding aspect of divinity, a balance to His omnipotent power.

Symbols & Iconography:

* Dove & Star: Aurora is often represented by a dove carrying a glowing star, symbolizing peace, hope, and divine guidance.

* The Morning Star (Venus): Her connection to the planet Venus, the morning star, represents her role as the first light, guiding both angels and mortals.

* Lotus Blossom: A symbol of purity, beauty, and rebirth, reflecting her role in creation and nurturing.

[acourtofquestions]

Shoutout to the lovely @archerons-elain for inspiring this post thanks to their genius comments, shared theories, & fun fandom appreciation🥰

This started out with the note/theory of Elain & Aelin as an Anagram

(among other fandom theories I’ve started looking into for funsies while reading TOG & waiting for (what I’ve started calling😂) ACOTAR 5 & 1/2) as they are both great characters, that on first glance feel like such opposites… yet when I think about it… they actually feel more like a “what if” of similarities.

I think Elain is what Aelin would have been had she not lost her parents, kingdom, (& most crucial to this point) Aedion. — Vice-Versa— I think Aelin is what Elain might have been under the same circumstances, or if left without Nesta. The paralells between both young Aelin & Elain, and grown Elain & Aelin (while trapped in Celaena).

Though a character/person’s credit is to their own, and their are always pros & cons without “what if’s”; I do think without Nesta, Elain would be a drastically different character: Nesta was Elain’s shelter, her ever-fighter, her great love, her best friend. Nesta fought & fostered Elain to bloom; she gave Elain the chance to grow up, to know some semblance of safety, to have any ray of light among the gray dark winter, and the room to be that beautifully resilient demandingly bright light even amid gloom.

In contrast, sometimes I think of Elain’s upbringing like a potted plant: Created to be beautiful & seen; yet never its full nature or heard. Safe & surviving, but never alive & thriving. Seeing the whole world from a point of beauty; but always through glass. Safe from the storms but deprived of the rain, dosed with sunlight but never in all its unabashed rays. Never to know thorns but left defenseless without them, unable to recognize weeds yet always to grow upon false impositions. Rooted in place with such strength, yet tethered to that place; able to tone the brightest of blooms, but never the room to take full shape. — I always find it interesting that she loves the gardens & yet never entered the woods; I think it serves her character well, soft, overlooked, cultivated, pruned, beautiful, & earthen in home; but never wild, always grown, always made to bloom never to just be; and yet the places she loves most are that.

If put into Aelin’s position; if stolen from her sisters & home; or without her person & protector (Nesta) I imagine Elain would have been used & shaped like a tool, beautiful but without room to breathe. Never witnessing the truth of pure innocence & never knowing the undying ferociousness of love.

Meanwhile you have Aelin & Celaena.

Aelin of the wildfire; because she was wild like the flowers covering Terrasens emerald green & thrown at her feet in adoration, because she was abundantly unstoppable yet always caught before she could make her leaps (safe, but never soaring), because she was bright, free, & simultaneously a cloistered wild-thing signed up to be something before she learned to breathe; she was always the fire heart of a nation; but above all the costs & heavy crowns she was happy, she had something a family a home, a protector best friend fierce love to adore her as she did in Aedion; and she was learning, she would have been given the chance to grow & cultivate into more, to remember & know what it is to be so loved (As Elain knew without doubt). Instead, she was stolen. Aelin, who he even Aedion says he wishes he would’ve been taken with, while he may not have been able to save her from Arobynn, she would have grown up knowing more than just that; the loss of love, the empty colorless world forever in winter without flame; she may have never needed to be Celaena. She would have at least grown up period, instead of being frozen in time, burned alive again & again until there was nothing but ashes to forget or die with, forced to be a phoenix; rising over & over, but with a price. As they say “she became death, to escape it”; where she had been all things alive; she became cold as the river in which she drowned, foreign as the new land, gone with her world. She was shaped into a tool, a weapon, an assassin. Celaena survived, but at all costs; she paid every price for it (without even signing up).

— Then you have these key character points that survived in them both —

They both have similar core motivators/“dreams”:

They wish for peace, for a “normal” life (while this is general enough that it could be applied to many characters, there is a specificity to its value they carry far more; especially in what they are willing to give up to achieve it; and the mundanity they would take with it). They wish to run away from all the chaos of their world & just be in love (or even alone) & just be happy; (once again, while many may have this wish) the difference is they would (& have tried to) actually run away for it. Not many people carry that kind of bravery; fierce, wild, untamable joy.

They have the same line “in the sand”:

They have a line (even to their own dreams); best summed up as love & loyalty (they will be stubborn for) their people; and all that sweet idealism will burn if it is crossed. Let us not forget; Elain made the first true strike on Hybern (not some naive innocence; but painstakingly, heart-torn, brutal, filled with rage & vengeance, & a fierce sort of love that endures) much like Aelin’s many decisions shown to parallel. While, that love also does not easily blind them (let us not forget despite the many “oblivious” accusations Elain receives; she is called “the seer” for a reason ;)

… if anything it is that loyalty & love that makes their line so messy & misunderstood. On occasion it manages to seduce them; the sense of comfort, of defining one’s self as someone else’s, the ability to fall into it & no longer carry the weight of every decision upon your presence in the world; the loyalty to disappear within. — But even that; fiercely loyal as they are, their morals & love carry a torch too (though this can flicker more visibly in Aelin; remember I’m saying they are like versions; not identical, but twin souls).

For Aelin her love & loyalty begin and end with everything she has become because of her people (or lack thereof), her family, (her own being) was stolen from her; sometimes it makes her confuse morality & justice with the vengeance of survival becoming her only true consistently loyal ally. Or the times her loyalty becomes stubbornness (a trait often overlooked in Elain) but very clear in Aelin’s light of such similarity.

In Elain I think it is both best seen & misunderstood in her love for Nesta. Elain loved Nesta period. Even when Nesta could be cruel, she was loyal in that (not because Elain was naive to it; she just knew her sister; beyond the bristling thorns, and loved her enough not to care; Elain has never seemed to mind the thorns that accompany roses. She stubbornly does not garden with gloves). She was still loyal to loving her sister when she drew that line in the sand (that seemed to break it into misunderstanding) but it was because Nesta’s self-loathing was destroying them both; Elain loved her enough not to allow it out of fear of a fight; she would rather her sister hate her and survive, than play nice as she drowns herself in sorrow and alcohol. Just as Elain loved Feyre before the woods AND after; she may have made mistakes (love doesn’t fix all things; Nesta felt abandoned because something did change (however she did not leave Nesta; not in her heart; she loved her stubbornly & without reason). Elain has never been “perfect” as people pretend; honestly, it’s part of her beauty, the actual truth of it), but she loves her sisters (that is important; it’s not a fix, but it is a key). She was loyal to that; the way she loves (and stubborn in it). — Buying paints when they were poor (perhaps privileged, maybe ignorant) but still kind nonetheless. is something else there within them. And then there is that stubbornness (even when imperfect) Elain was stubborn in her love for their father; while it may have been given to her further than the others (fostered to begin with as opposed to forgotten or never given) she must have felt it; Nesta’s resentment, Feyre’s desperation, her fathers own heartbreak, the grief of her mother, the failure; and yet she remained adoring (possibly a fawn response) but also a stubborn loyalty determined to prove goodness true. Feyre reminds it, too; how strong it was to hope and be kind. There’s a poem like that, to remain soft among such cruel, sharp things. Elain has that piece (Aelin in contrast had it stolen) as I said, they are not the same). However, in that morality to love & loyalty…

… Aelin can be viewed similarly, loved Dorian & Chaol; long after they were “in love” (partially as she learned to reshape it; with Dorian becoming her friend, and Chaol & her learning to forgive their pasts). It’s messy though; as I mentioned, her loyalty does not leave easily. It’s why she keeps making promises to a love she knows she cannot be with. She didn’t know how to keep the love & have it change, how to hold many loyalties at once (she apologizes for that later too) for making it sound like she’d come back to Chaol. But she does stay loyal to both; the truth that she could not be with Chaol anymore, & the ring she wore for months after; because she meant it when she said it as much as she meant it when it ended. It reaches the greatest conflict for her when it snaps; when her “sister” is taken, & those loves & loyalties are all pinned against her; she falls into a habit, the practice of “justice” & the seduction of a loyal vengeance (that has kept her alive; even if at a high sometimes called “selfish” price; it is survival). — And in those aforementioned traits; Aelin often gets told she is stuck-up, privileged, ignorant, selfish (and maybe at times she is; though it never sums up a person) I would say the key lies in what she loves & appreciators, her will to live & be more than an existence, much like Elain.

They both however, try, continue, keep doing it when it comes to learning, giving, & building more than existences.

They have a similar gift trait:

They both have an ability to understand people, to “see more” (young Aelin fought the Valg king without even knowing it) & even see those shrouded in shadow (both literal & metaphorically speaking; Azriel & Rowan as primary examples). And with it carry an ability to reach out, to have kindness that endures (often Aelin’s ability to laugh, to smile, despite it all is mentioned; the way she cares for Evangeline & Fleetfoot as reminders of it) & Elain’s quote (once again) about having a different kind of strength; the ability to remain kind & hopeful among tragedy & hardship. They have an attention to detail; Elain notices what makes the man of shadow laugh, she gives him a truly thought out gift, she saw beyond the dark masks and facades enough to note & notice. Aelin saw Chaol, the guard beneath the mask, his favorite poem, his favorite meal, she remembered his birthday, she made the cake.

They have similar coping mechanisms:

They keep the fire burning, hope & heart in hearth. They disappear for a while, they go into their own world. They cling to the known, to the souls they remain loyal, to the familiar. They have their little moments of normalcy among their world to keep a grasp on sanity; both go to the earth, one to the gardens & one to the woods. Elain goes out in her best dresses onto to kneel in the dirt, to spend hours baking, or convincing moments of peace & celebration into existence. Aelin goes to the woods, to the grounds, to her other worlds of books, to the city, to the stores, to take time & take care & primp proper, to dance, to compose, to be a “normal” girl; neither princess nor assassin. As mentioned before, they both have the need to be more than existence and retain some normalcy within it.

They get viewed poorly for certain stereotypical “girlie traits”, or being called “selfish”, “dumb”, or “ignorant”:

The amount of hate I have read toward Celaena’s sass, love for fashion, appreciation of perfumes & nice things. For calling her selfish, temperamental, ignorant. Or Elain’s softness, kindness, warmth, gentleness, love to bake or garden or wear nice dresses. Calling her ignorant, naive, or just plain stupid… It saddens me… Everyone has a right to their opinion, there is argument and validity to it; however, I think a character can be a kick-ass assassin and also love pretty ballgowns without becoming “unfeminist”, I absolutely do not think Elain is a “damsel” or ditsy idiot. I think there is something lovely to representing all sorts of female characters for all sorts of people! I think the two of them carry over some traits and possibilities while being so different that they are a great reflection of that. They have a great deal of difference (obviously) and I quite appreciate both the crossover and uniqueness!

For all they are “alike” they are also different :-)

(As I aside ⬆️)

They both love pretty dresses & nice things.

They have a call to nature.

They are beautiful. And they use it as a weapon.

They are underestimated and carry a power in that.

They are women & can be “stereotypically feminine”. They they are bad-ass.

They know the power of sisterhood. They are loyal. They are compassionate. They are loving. They are stubborn as hell.

They notice details. They see more. They keep track. They carry wit. They do not fear the shadows.

They are bright. They have a levity even after living in the heavy. They are expected to be “one thing” (the “happy one” the “hope” the “chosen perfect” the “invisible”) and it can be exhausting. They can fade into backdrops, sometimes they need to hide, they aren’t fully seen. Yet, they are never becoming less. They have a right to the trauma they carry. They remain more than it, refuse to just be that. They long for domesticity, for freedom, for wild & peace. They have more than what meets the eye.

They were sweet children, protected, gentle, bright. They went through hell. One had a shelter in the storm. One had to become the storm. One kept everything, even so far as to not see the world to believe they kept it. One lost it all, and stopped believing in the world at all. One learned forgiveness, one learned vengeance. One knew love, one knew loss, they both grow to know each.

Where Elain was soft, Celaena grew sharp, learned she had to be.

Elain can bake, Aelin has a whole chapter dedicated to how she cannot. 😂 While Nesta is the dancer, not Elain, Aelin is (actually I think Aelin is a good blend of Nesta, Elain, and even some Feyre (though the latter contrasts match the extremes a little more interestingly)). While Elain’s face was a prize to be paraded Aelin’s was a secret to be masked (I know these are getting silly, I’m just listing😂). Aelin/Celaena seem more Extroverted or Ambiverted (as she rarely gets to pick for herself; I think her love for books & piano, time to eat her cake alone leans more toward the latter) Elain is more introverted (though I do think she also has lacked the ability to have room for presence). Their love stories have differed yet been VERY similar; both had love & lost it, both lost a dream in it, both ran out of time and fate; and while one had their mate and could not face it, the other was the opposite.

Where Celaena ran, Elain stayed. Where Aelin fought, Elain could not. Both have had to play many games, wear many faces to survive/exist in their societies.

Where Elain was allowed not to see Aelin had not choice, and where Elain was thrown into the world Aelin got to choose what part to play.

Without Nesta, without room to grow, Elain might’ve drowned, might’ve had to claw herself back up and back together until she grew thorns. With Aedion Aelin might’ve stayed sheltered, might’ve become more princess than warrior, might’ve gotten to grow up and be herself, become a diplomat, become a hearth instead of wildfire & hellfire.

I think she would’ve resented being quiet and tame. I wonder sometimes if Elain does; if she’s sick of being “the happy one”. Of being everyone else’s and having none of her left for herself. Of not getting choices, just getting thrown in and around. I wonder if Aelin is sick of the definition too of being too wild or too tame, of being the bright hope or tragic grief, of being used or things for other people, of knowing herself and yet not knowing.

And while Celaena’s story becomes Aelin’s and eventually (when I read it) has her full circle & end. Elain has yet to have her story told. I look forward to seeing it. And have enjoyed looking at these pieces… they are drastically different and drastically similar, I think it’s a cool what if to compare… so there’s a random ramble of little things about two characters I’ve really grown & continued to love.

[whattraintracks]

2. Revenge - TMNT 2012

Raphael gets revenge for a fallen brother.

Raph stands over Leo's fallen form, heartbreak and fear in his eyes, and Leo almost gives up right then. But Raph steels himself just as fast. He turns to their enemy, fists clenched, the picture of righteous fury. He has always been their protector.

And with every ounce of force in his body, he boldly declares, "Don't worry, Leo! I'll revenge you!"

Leo really tries not to giggle with Mikey at that for the sake of the game and the fierce little five-year-old holding fast above him.

Predictably, Donnie's head pops up from behind the couch cushion barricade. "Actually, Fai, it's avenge—or, wait. Maybe both are right? You'd usually say—"

His impromptu grammar lesson cuts to a screech when he gets a face full of little turtle. The two of them tumble into a tight ball, Raph struggling with all his might and Donnie striking that careful balance between fight and play they've all had to learn the last few days to protect a brother much smaller than usual.

Leo rolls onto his plastron, pillow-induced death forgotten, to keep an eye on them. Raph's always been pretty rough and tumble, and even at 5, they could take some good hits in a spar. But it's still a little scary to wrestle with him when he's this small, to check their strength, to remember that your partner doesn't remember all the steps to your lethal dance.

Game forgotten, Mikey romps off to help Sensei carry in the tea and snacks Raph had adorably insisted on before his afternoon nap today.

"Man, Sensei, were we really this much work as kids?"

Leo rolls his eyes fondly at Mikey's moaning. All he'd done was crouch behind couch cushions. Meanwhile, Leo and Raph had fought for their lives to overtake Donnie's masterfully built pillow fort. Leo fought with honor and fell valiantly, thank you very much.

Splinter hums thoughtfully, "Yes. And no."

Mikey groans again, more playfully this time.

Leo can picture the twinkle in their father's eyes. Raph is laughing so hard he can't possibly be breathing, so Donnie's hands cease their tickle assault to hover anxiously over him.

"The four of you were certainly a lot to handle," he hears Sensei continue, "But you could usually be counted upon to care for and entertain each other."

Leo looks over just in time to catch Mikey's broad grin.

Splinter beckons Leo, and Donnie's not far behind, lugging an enshelled Raph.

"He's alright," Donnie preempts, "Just hiding from the nefarious tickle monster." Echoey giggles emerge from the little shell in agreement.

Leo basks in the comfort of taking tea with his family, of Donnie and Mikey doting on their little big brother, of Sensei watching over them with fondness and pride. They all try not to laugh at Splinter's disgruntled expression when Raph dunks his animal crackers into his teacup, suppressed snickers turning to full-bodied laughter at Raph's sly grin.

Then Mikey announces nap time, and Leo can't help the feeling that something important is slipping away from him. Raph lifts his arms sweetly, all sleepy and sated, to be bundled and whisked away. He calls I love yous and good nights over Mikey's shoulder.

Leo's heart hasn't stopped clenching since Donnie's panicked shout drew them all to the lab and revealed his much-shrunk brother, but it twists painfully again when he returns that call.

A furred claw settles on his shoulder. "Something troubles you, my son?"

"He's just," and Leo's not even sure he can put it into words, "so much more, Sensei."

And he doesn't mean it like Mikey did. Sure, the little guy needs a lot of care and attention, but Leo could never be frustrated about that. All he ever wants is to care for and attend to his brothers, and that Raph isn't pushing him away out of some sense of teenage pride fills him with warmth and sweetness.

What he really means to ask is, where did it all go?

Where did this happy little turtle go? The one who had bouts of hot anger but could be soothed with hugs and kisses. Who cried fat tears when he thought he'd hurt his brothers even accidentally. Who shrieked with joy at the sight of a beloved toy, or movie, or treat. Who said I love you as easy as breathing. Who felt so much so loudly and so brightly.

Sensei nods sagely. "Raphael has always been a sensitive child with large emotions. He has better control of them at your age." But Donnie's looking right at Leo, something fragile in his eyes. Guilt, probably, and understanding.

And Leo wonders sometimes after things go back to normal. When Raph is big again and still himself, always himself, but closed off in his anger, quieter in his fear and sadness and guilt, secret in his joy and love like they're a weakness and not the strongest parts of him. He wonders if maybe there's a part of Raph who still just wants to be hugged and held and loved when his emotions get too big for his body.

[ltash]

A small part from my novel on wattpad.

In that moment, as I crouched behind the haystacks, my hands trembling around the gun, the echo of gunshots filling the air, I had a sudden realization. This man, this protector, meant more to me than I had ever acknowledged. The way he fought for me, risking his life without hesitation, revealed he was more than just my guardian. He was something much more significant.

The weight of the small gun felt foreign in my hands, yet the memory of Simon's unwavering confidence in me bolstered my resolve. Each gunshot that rang out was a reminder of the fierce battle he was waging for my safety. My heart pounded, not just from fear, but from the deep, burgeoning affection I felt for him.

As the chaos swirled around us, I made a silent vow. I would surrender my body and soul to him. I would stand by his side, through whatever trials came our way. Simon had shown me a trust and devotion that I had never known. In return, I would give him all of me, unconditionally.

In that instant, amidst the terror and turmoil, I found a clarity that I had been searching for all my life. Simon was my protector, my confidant, and my love. And I was ready to embrace that truth with everything I had.

Turmoil raged through my veins, and the only prayer on my lips was for his safety. Ghost was fighting all alone, and the sounds of battle echoed in my ears, each gunshot a reminder of the danger he faced.

Suddenly, I heard someone running toward the stable, their voice uttering something in Spanish. My heart raced, pounding against my ribcage. They were the enemy, and I had to shoot them immediately.

I tightened my grip on the gun, my hands trembling. The footsteps grew louder, closer. I could feel the adrenaline coursing through me, sharpening my senses. Then, he burst into the stable, his gun pointed straight at me.

"Dont you dare!" I shouted, my voice quivering with fear and determination.

I fired, but the bullet missed. My horse, startled by the noise, reared up and kicked the intruder in the chest, sending him sprawling to the ground. I knew I had to act fast. I stood up, my heart pounding in my ears, and aimed at his head. My hands steadied, and I pulled the trigger.

The gunshot echoed in the stable, and the man lay still. I lowered the gun, my breath coming in ragged gasps. The reality of what I had done settled over me, but I couldn't afford to dwell on it. There were more out there, and Ghost was still fighting.

The sounds of gunfire had settled, and an eerie silence filled the air. It seemed he was the only one I had killed. I stood there, the gun still in my trembling hand, my whole body shivering as the adrenaline began to wear off. My knees felt weak, and my core was about to give out.

Suddenly, I saw Ghost emerging from the far corner. Relief washed over me, but my strength gave way, and I fell to my knees. The gun slipped from my hands, clattering to the ground. Tears started streaming down my cheeks as the realization of what I had done hit me with full force.

Ghost ran toward me, his face a mix of concern and relief. He reached me just as I collapsed completely, wrapping his arms around me and holding me close.

"I... I killed him," I sobbed, my voice barely above a whisper.

"You did what you had to," Ghost said softly, his voice steady and reassuring. "You saved yourself, and that's all that matters."

He gently lifted me, cradling me against his chest as he carried me back toward the mansion. I clung to him, my tears soaking into his shirt, but his presence gave me a sense of safety and comfort. Despite the chaos and the horror of what had just happened, I knew I wasn't alone.

[btr-rewatch]

BTR REWATCH MINI POST

Big Time Rush Season 1, Episode 8: “Big Time Break”

While I will not be covering this episode in full (I do have some gifsets from it, though), I do wish to ramble a bit about Kendall and Katie, because they've got some great moments together in it.

So. Shows that portray close and healthy sibling dynamics. Makes me insane, right? Right. Siblings who love and look out for each other. When each one manages to be The Protector of the other in some way, regardless of age difference. Brilliant stuff.

And for a show that so often relies on absurdity and just plain off-the-walls humor, it manages to have depth as well, if you're looking for it. Which I am. Why else would I have created this blog but to analyze this delightful series?

Kendall and Katie may possibly be one of my favorite fictional siblings. From the very first episode, there's such a strongly established bond that you can sense even though they really don't interact that much. You see it in the way that Kendall immediately (happily) complies with Katie's request to hear the "Giant Turd" song and when Katie is going on about how often Kendall sings—including when she can't sleep at night.

I won't go into all my thoughts and feelings on the Knight family situation and how a lot of who Kendall is was likely forced upon him when he became "man of the house," but...those thoughts are there. Might explore them at a later date in another post or in a fic, but anyway! As you make your way through the first season, their relationship solidifies more, and you see the warmth. The way that they look out for each other, and the fierceness with which they love each other. Katie is an independent, tough cookie, but she's still a little kid who sees her big brother as a role model and needs his guidance. And Kendall, being the guy who always tries to be there for others and set a good example, does a wonderful job of looking after her while also knowing when to step back. In a lot of ways, he's a combination of brother, father-figure, and friend, which I have OTHER thoughts about (because that is a lot of weight to carry around at 16).

Focusing in on "Big Time Break" though, Kendall's storyline deals with him still wanting to get to know and befriend Jo, even though she has a boyfriend. At one point, Katie overhears Jo on the phone and discovers that Jo doesn't have a boyfriend at all; she's been pretending to have one for fear of romantic pursuits interfering with her career. Perfectly understandable to want to prioritize in life, of course, but Katie is not happy to hear of the deception.

Jo has been LYING to her dear big brother?? Now, she could just sit back and not get involved. After all, Kendall and Jo are older and have their own confusing, teenage lives. It'd be okay if she wanted to shrug and let them figure it out themselves. It doesn't have to be her business.

But Katie Knight can't do that. She goes right over and pulls Kendall from his conversation in a way so very fitting of her character.

This is another aspect of their dynamic that I really like: Katie's complete lack of fear to take charge when needed. Kendall isn't listening to her? She just rolls her eyes and drags him by his ear. Katie Knight, expert on gettin' things done.

She then lets Kendall know that he's been getting played "like a fiddle." Not wanting Jo to be suspicious of their conversation, she cleverly advises Kendall to turn and give Jo the "my little sister is crazy gesture," to which I must include another gif because I love Kendall's execution. He's got the best expressions.

They end the conversation with Katie essentially challenging Kendall to do the right thing, which, in her mind, is to confront Jo and get the truth out of her.

And I love this for two reasons. 1. Katie's vaguely threatening reminder that she looks up to him and 2. They have an adorable handshake! When did they come up with this?? It's so sweet, and I love them.

Lol, so much for a "mini post," but oh well. Kendall and Katie are wonderful siblings, and it delights me. I'm glad they didn't go the route of them being the type of siblings who are always bickering with each other or who ignore each other/generally just don't care. Give me siblings who love each other, who get invested in each other's lives, and who have silly little secret handshakes.

[mylordshesacactus]

Suncrest Epilogue: Worldstate

Hey, I got around to this post eventually, right? Surely that's what matters.

So, as established in this post: Working together and with the help of some allies, the party managed to ensure Max the bard held concentration on a Wish spell to save the world for ten-plus-one full rounds.

In doing so, all hostile fae were banished back to the Faewild. Friendly forces from the Wild Court of Summer were also banished--Shasta, nearly an archfae in her own right, could have resisted but chose not to, exchanging a respectful nod with the party before closing her eyes and allowing the Wish to send her back to her wife and kingdom. While fae-touched, the remaining friendly werewolves and warlocks of the Feathered Serpent were spared from Max's world-healing wave--that was an exception that the party had to earn, and was in fact their reward for reaching the top of Round Seven.

Interestingly, the unicorns--the party's friend Albion, and his sister Cambria whom they rescued from a Dominate Creature spell in the Summer Palace--were not affected. Unicorns are as much celestial as fae, always; and unlike the other Wild Court reinforcements, they were drawn through their own portals in accordance with their own nature. They can always find a path to that which they exist to protect.

Albion, ultimately, stays only long enough to reunite with his sister and say his farewells. He's done good here--but he only crossed over in the first place in pursuit of the Silverlight Hound, the original true-fae werewolf that he'd been battling in his home forest. He stayed to protect that werewolf's victims--as his failure to defend his home forest had caused their pain, they were now his responsibility as well, and he could hardly abandon them in the face of a full-scale invasion. But that danger is past now--and his own home is without protection while he remains here.

He goes home--but Cambria stays. Her charge was the rabbitfolk village of Little Ivywood and its surroundings...the village that the party found brutally slaughtered, killed without mercy. No one escaped that massacre. The only survivor of Little Ivywood is Splinter, the rabbitfolk that the party rescued from the Summer Queen's harem (along with a rapidly-triaged group consisting of those in a condition to run once freed....and also those for whom death, once they broke the stasis magic, would be a mercy centuries in coming.)

Splinter is...exhausted, and traumatized, and fae. The city of Suncrest is misery to her. Instead, the Ranger sends her to his own home village of Thistledale--a small, quiet farming village very similar to her own, deep in thickly-wooded mountains. Cambria stays with her, and Thistledale becomes her new protectorate.

But that Wish spell didn't stop at just ending the invasion. That was all the power of the universe, channeled with grim determination into pure, uncorrupted love for the city of Suncrest, and her people, and everything the party had endured in order to get this far. That kind of power soaks into the earth, pools in the city's foundations. For the next decade, Suncrest--which has always had a reputation as a rugged but honest city, clear-headed and independent but tight-knit, fiercely protective of their own, proud but not arrogant--becomes the truest sanctuary in the Spellbound Dominion.

Fae cannot enter the city by any means--and they also can't remotely charm anyone in the city. In fact, all charm, domination, possession, and other mind-control effects shatter on contact with the city. Anyone whose free will has been taken from them, once they enter the gates, finds it returned. Magical fear effects die against her walls; no one within the city can be magically Frightened against their will.

Of course that kind of power fades eventually--an unstructured echo of simgle spell that was more plea than command, it could never have maintained itself forever. But something does remain.

That final battle took place in what was once the working-class market square--not the center of the city, it's actually distinctly the eastern third of the map--but very much the heart of the campaign. It was where the Firelight Festival was held, it's where most of the party's conversations with Olassa happened when she wasn't in her office at the guardhouse, they crossed that part of the map a million times while in the city. Under the corrupting half-annexation of Suncrest, as it was being forcibly merged with the Faewild...the city became unrecognizable.

It was, at the time, a gutpunch--this massive, gnarled, twisted fae-touched monster tree, filling the market square and making it unusable. It made the whole area into difficult terrain, it burned when exposed to fire, the roots ripped up the cobblestones--it was the ultimate sign of how bad the situation had become.

When the Wish takes effect, all of those choking, invasive fae plants retreat, magically repairing the damage they'd caused in the process. But that great oak, an absolute behemoth of a tree--the diameter of the trunk is best measured in hundreds of feet, and it towers over the skyline, its branches covering at least two-thirds of the city--remains. And for a decade, it's fed on that echo--that last-chance Hallow spell that's defended the city of Suncrest, and everything it means.

The great tree's magic is more subtle, but also more stable. Even though most of the city is in its shade the shadow is warm as sunlight in the winter, and cool in the summer. As the Hallow effect fades, people no longer snap back to themselves dramatically the moment they step foot within the city--curses no longer break on contact, fae charms don't run into a wall of solid silver the moment they try to reach out to a dreaming mind in Suncrest. But...those spells are less effective. People fight them off more easily. Things that once made you freeze in terror now seem possible to fight. "Mechanically", the tree grants permanent advantage on saving throws against mind-control effects. But from a Watsonian perspective...

So long as that tree remains--and it will remain for hundreds if not thousands of years, unless some calamity befalls it--anyone within sight of it, or within the reach of its massively sprawling root system, will find it just a little easier to be free.

Its leaves, no matter the time of year, are always a gorgeous tapestry of red and gold--an impossibly massive oak tree in perpetual autumn, forever heralding the end of Summer.

[theflyindutchwoman]

Rosalind Dyer just escaped. […] Lucy, if you change your mind, you just say the word.

| ANATOMY OF A SCENE - CHENFORD EDITION 5.01 - Double Down

With everything that happens in this episode, it'd be so easy to overlook this little moment… but I just love how it brings out their core dynamic.

Ever since Lucy's rookie days, they both have been able to reach each other in a way no one else has. We saw how Tim can provide her with stability when she starts to overthink and panic, like in Redwood when she got stuck with that needle. And this got even more true after Day of Death. So it is understandable that the moment they hear about Rosalind's escape, Tim's first instinct is to grab her hand and ground her to the present, knowing how this news must be rocking her. But I tend to think that this gesture is also for him, to reassure himself that she's there with him. Just like back then, he needed to hold her, cradling her and keeping her in his arms. There's only so much he can do under the circumstances but he needs that physical touch, that anchor, just as much as she does… And does she ever! Lucy is so blatantly unsettled by the news regarding Rosalind's escape : her body language completely changes, as she appears to grow numb, almost dizzy with the way she gets closer to Tim. The sound effect in particular is perfect, with all the muffled noises and only Tim's voice breaking through her daze. We can feel the walls closing in on her for a few seconds, and the fact that she has to stay in-character and is stuck in an airplane with no escape in sight is certainly not making things better.

Tim is being the quintessential protector here : he is grounding her, offering her a safe space and a short respite where she can process her emotions and feelings… But he's also not overbearing. He trusts her judgement and respects her agency to know what's best for her. He offers her an out but when she refuses, he backs her up. And this is the essence of their relationship : they balance each other and respect each other so much. He might be the "fierce protector", but never to the point of undermining her. And despite her shock and obvious turmoil, Lucy's inner strength is in full force. Just like in Redwood, where concentrating on procedure stopped her from spiralling, focusing on their undercover mission allows her to regain a modicum of control. As Tim said, she has no quit in her. But I like that she still took a second or two to pause and consider what he was saying first, before deciding to push through. The fact that it's Tim who's with her definitely helps her. As I said earlier, she's been able to take comfort and draw support from his steady presence in the past and she does it again here... only in a (much) more physical way than usual. But that part of the scene deserves its own spotlight.