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revelisms · 5 months ago

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Ghoul summoning fic is here, finally 👹✨ It's a bit eerie, it's a bit grotesque, and it's my first attempt at exploring a more monstrous take on the ghouls.

This is also continuing off of the lore interpretations introduced in 'here we lie,' with a bit more expansion on things like the Sight, the expected progression of the Emerituses within the roles of the church, and the way that demons' magical abilities are leveraged (and, in turn, how each of the Papas approach them differently).

Per usual—family messiness, magical mayhem and spookiness ahead!

by soul, by blood

4k words | Rating: T | Somewhat Terzo-centric | Demon Summoning | CWs: Ritual magic, dark imagery, slight body horror, blood, dysfunctional family dynamics. Also on AO3

The night air hangs like a veil over the valley, cold and dark and dim.

In its bowels lay veins of fog thick enough to cut with a knife. They slink from the hills like dogged spirits, and spider their claws through the Ministry's gates; a deathly slither over stone and clover.

Slowly, footsteps long and soundless, a silken train slices through them.

Primo is only months into his clerical seat—but any wandering eye would assume him a Papa-elect, already, for how he looms. He's nearly corpse-like in the gray, his silhouette gnarled as a vulture. Behind him tails a triage of other shadows: a stone-scowled priest, a feline-footed student, a fire-headed boy.

Such processions are common sights these days, even to newly-indoctrinated eyes. Their All-Father has an impatient hand, and the eldest of his sons is swiftly climbing the ranks. The second, too, is soon to follow.

Primo turns them out from the cloister, stepping neatly to the graveled path beyond. "Did you memorize the third passage?"

His brother sighs through his teeth. "Yes."

"And you have the texts?"

"The texts, and the athame—we've been through this."

"And we'll be through it, again." Primo slants a look over his shoulder. "Your rank does not excuse you from the customs. As a bishop, you will be expected to follow by the book—both to summon, and to exorcise."

A higher voice scoffs between them. "Shouldn't the exorcisms be done by someone who isn't half-demon? Makes no sense. Are we, what—supposed to exorcise ourselves?"

"Terzo."

"I'm just saying."

Secondo glares, his human eye blackish in the dim. "You're barely in seminary," he spits at his younger brother. "Don't act like you know these things."

"I can see them, now—!"

"And the Sight is only the surface of it," Primo says. "That is why you are here, yes? Both of you." He makes a pointed effort to tamp down their ruffled stares. "It is important to learn it."

Sour-mouthed, Terzo turns away.

He's the newest of the Bloodline to bear the Sight—one of the youngest to bear it, at all, let alone the Sight of premonition.

It'd been two centuries and counting since any keeper of the Gate had been gifted such magic. An ill omen to their clergy, if ever there was one.

None had foreseen it; had dared to claim it. But, shaky-legged, half-blind, Nihil's third heir had been led out of that chapel with fire in his eye, and the future on his lips, and superstition stained on his heels.

They said he'd been too young to undergo the rites. Too headstrong, to demand they let him take his oaths. He'd drank the black wine, anyway, no matter their warnings: been consumed and spat back out by the Aether below: stared his red-lipped mother dead in the eye, with her plastic-perfect hair and steel-carved claws, after he'd survived it.

(Survived it, Primo had said—because he shouldn't have. Even the elders, at best, would have crawled away from such an awakening with only their madness to keep them company.

Which meant he must have been half-mad, already. Or half-dead, same as all of them.)

Terzo scoffs again. "Why'd we have to do this outside?" He catches a rock at an odd angle, enough to send him skipping a curse. His boot snakebites back at it. "It's cold."

Primo, all reason: "So is the Way."

Secondo sneers. "Then why'd he bring the rat, eh?"

"Because he wouldn't me alone!"

"He's a kid."

"Ah—so the yapper wants to watch over him instead, huh?"

"Boys."

At the back of their procession, their youngest wanders with ruddy head downturned, his hand sewn to Terzo's sleeve. He says nothing to their bickering, only frowns. His eyes jump away and stutter over the grasses: two puppyish blue things, as unfairly innocent as the rest of him.

For Terzo, the sight is a compounded grievance.

He hates it. Hates him. Hates his mother for bringing him, for loving him.

Hates that he sees too much in him now to do anything about it.

As he so often does these days, he shoves the sentiment down.

"It's alright," he mumbles, low enough for Copia to hear. His eyes pit a knife between Secondo's shoulders. "The pincher just has a stick up his ass, as always."

"I have what?"

"Boys." A white-blue glare bounces sharply between them. "Enough."

Their path widens to a snaking river of gravel and roots, flanked by towers of whispering trees. It's a full moon, tonight—no need for lanterns or lightspells. The glow spills off their silks like spiderwebs.

"We are entering sacred ground," Primo continues. "Be mindful, now."

A chill seeps through the air, heavy and damp. There's magic here, too. The forests are singing with it—more color than any common soul would be used to seeing; deeper violets and brighter greens humming with life just-contained.

It makes Terzo's head swim. He's not accustomed to it, still—how the Sight changes it for all of them. They each have their ways: Primo, in how he sees the mind's eye more clearly that the face in front of him; Secondo, in how he sees past lives unspooling before his feet; and Terzo—

He isn't sure what he sees. What he feels.

Copia is standing too close to him.

"You both know your rites?" Primo asks. Moonlight dapples through the swaying pines, draping a set of tattered wings across his back.

In unison, his younger brothers huff. "Yes."

"Then speak them."

Secondo leads with as much blandness as his weekday sermons. The Olde Tongue is rough in his throat, unpleasant. He calls on Lilith; on the past keepers of the Gate beyond; on the One below, unhallowed in their faith—to which all of their fates, in ways small and giant, are tethered. His gloved hand marks the cross of the Unholy on his chest.

The wind hisses through the branches. Beyond the hill, something is moving.

"We ask you humbly, now," he rumbles on. "Grant us entry into Your realm; that, by Your grace, we may become One—"

One—

Terzo squeezes his eyes shut. Mutters along, dutifully: "That, by Your blessing, we may summon those Below—"

A row of teeth jagged as dragon-spine splits the shadows in two.

The gravel catches beneath his boots. Stone-still, Terzo stares into nothing.

No teeth, no shadow, no eyes—but they were there. In a current lifetime, perhaps; a different one. A thread too far ahead for him to know.

He's squeezing Copia's little hand tight, tight in his own. The rat's eyes are glued to him.

He can't break the oath.

"To walk true in Your way," he fumbles on, an off-noted echo to Secondo's cavernous growling. "As it is written."

Another marking of the cross. Another breath.

"As it is written," he says again. He can't remember if he'd said it, before. He's too distracted; there's a feeling of something on his neck—a claw, a set of poised fangs, a rope looped at the nape and tugging. He can't scratch it off.

Primo's voice snaps back his attention: "We're here."

The clearing melts with a bluish haze. It's old—very old. In its center, a stone-tamped circle lays thronged by a grove of ancient trees, where rituals of the early Order were likely performed for centuries before their Bloodline had ever come along.

For a moment, they stand in silence: itching and dry-throated at the earthen sweetness that hangs like a cloak over the air.

All eyes train on their ordained Priest of the Eternal Light. His gloved fingers are muddling into his palm. No doubt his Sight can see years of it, in a blink: the past failures and successes, past lovers and killers and tarnished souls, spilling blood and minds alike to barter their way through the Gate.

Countless others, over countless years, had sold themselves completely to bind their fortunes with those Below.

The four of them, for better or worse, were born with theirs already paid for.

Primo lifts his brows. "You are ready?"

His brother's hand quits its fidgeting. Squeaks to a fist. "Yes."

Their Exalted smiles. "Off you go, then," he says, and gives a blithe wave. "May Lilith's blessing rain upon you."

"Shut up."

Secondo stalks to the circle's midpoint, lays down his items with a ginger touch: the velvet-wrapped tome of spells, the heavy steel of the ritual dagger; the dish of sage-salt, and obsidian, and tourmaline. Rustling pages ricochet off the glen, as if they are the only sounds present. Hardly a breath can be heard—not of the crickets, or the birds, or their own lungs.

His robes straighten. His hands splay flat.

Three others wait.

Primo, his mouth ticking, seems unsurprised to find a set of sharp eyes glowering at back them: young in a stern face. He lifts his brows, again. "Go on."

Secondo, scowling, does.

The wards are off-putting—twisted vowels that chime like bells and hiss like snakes. They weave a ghostly cadence through the branches; snare the moonlight on their teeth. The ground beneath him hums, hums, hums like before—a trapped sliver of Hell in the realms of the living.

At Terzo's side, Primo stands with hands at his back, thin and towering as a spire. The smell of his robes is a strange comfort, after so many years. Terzo breathes it in, with eyes unblinking: dragon's blood oil and crushed herbs, cigarettes and green tea.

He's too quiet, too still. His brother's Sight is sorting through his conscious like a disorganized drawer.

"You see something," Primo says, frowning.

He swallows dust. "I don't know."

A cool breeze, muggy with humidity, wrestles through Secondo's silks. He pinches off his glove; reaches down for the athame and holds the blade aloft, murmuring on still.

There's a smaller figure where his body should be. A smoked thing, shrouded in black and violet, with boots that echo a leaden heartbeat off the stones. For a brief, nauseous moment, Terzo thinks it might be himself, flanked by another—winged and fanged and eyes empty as the Gate, itself; fire and death and red—

"Block it out," Primo orders him.

Secondo is drawing the dagger to lay flat to his palm. He pauses, stiff-boned, before he slices it swift and clean.

Copia flinches as though the cut were his own. Huddled at Terzo's side, his little fingers knot in his sleeve, hard enough to sting.

"Remember our grounding techniques," Primo keeps saying, his hand cold as marble at his brother's nape. "It is only one path of countless."

Terzo's breath huffs thin and white before him. He blinks, again.

Blood has splattered to the stones, sheening black as spilt ink. Gradually, as though the forest's shadows are playing a trick on them, the offering seems to take on a movement of its own: its gloss shivering, beading, bleeding out.

Alive.

"By His grace, be it commanded," Secondo finishes, his hand steady above the churning earth. "Bare yourself to me."

Terzo has seen the Gate opened only once. It feels like a lifetime ago, now, when he'd been hardly older than Copia's ten or so years—but he remembers its endlessness, its screams; the waves of magic and light and life and death and Hell untethered beneath Primo's bowed body, the white of his eye bright as a beacon, as Nihil urged his son's soul to its limits.

It's not the Gate he sees, now.

The earth splits at the seams, a dribbling tear of clayed flesh and rooted bone, as though fracturing the realms of Above and Below entirely. Within it sits the offering: blood-blackened-blue, spasming in weblike tendrils and liquid shards. It coils around his brother's bleeding hand like a python.

There are limbs. Limbs and teeth and wings and horns, oil and water, thick as smog. They ripple to a moonlit smear of substance, and harden.

Black-tipped claws. Red bleeding violent. Jaws peeling open like a broken hinge. Teeth and fangs and tongue like a serpent, that shrills a wail worse than any wretched thing alive—

Terzo claps his palms over his ears. Copia's cheek is welded at his hip. "What—what is that?!"

Above him, Primo narrows his eyes. His hand doesn't leave his neck. "A ghoul."

"That's—that's not a ghoul." The creature is stretching into something like a body: a valley of bones and tendons and muscle encased in flesh the color of charoite. "That's not—not what ghouls look like—"

"Ah. You hadn't seen one with the Sight before, had you?" Primo realizes. "They're all like this, at first. They only take on a human form because it is our blood that feeds them." His head lilts, ravenish. "Even then..."

The ghoul's jaws clop shut. It stands on clawed feet, breathing like something drowned, through the barreled gut of an ox.

The air fogs around its head. Its eyes are nothing, emptied—emptied, like Copia's soul feels—and Copia is still worming his little fingers at Terzo's waist, still staring mouse-eyed around his clothes, his heart quick as a rabbit's.

Secondo's voice comes firmly: "By His order, I have brought you into the living." He slides in a breath, too controlled, and eases the air out. "Until the end, we will be bound."

The words chew a lover's curse through the air.

"Bound...?" Terzo echoes.

Primo hums. "We Emerituses have been tasked as keepers of the Gate—you know this. But, as such, we are also keepers of any spawn summoned." His eyes flick down. "Bound until death. Or banishment."

It's confusing. Maybe not.

"Like a marriage?"

His brother smirks plainly above him, but his eyes are stone-edged. "Always a romantic."

The ghoul's hand—hand, now: five slow-flexed fingers and knuckles that could crush stones—unspools itself from Secondo's palm. The beast is still panting. Crested to its full height, it nearly eclipses its summoner, but only just.

Copia peeks around Terzo's hip. "It's," he whispers, his voice small, "it's still there."

"Of course it is still there," Terzo snipes back. He's shaking, and he doesn't want to admit it. "You have two eyes, no?"

The little rat stares saucerishly up at him. "Why is it still there?"

"Because the pincher called it."

"But why?"

"Because it's—you are too young to understand this. It is the Way, eh?"

"But, what if..." Copia chews on his lip. His fingers fidget and fidget and loosen. "What if it didn't want to be called?"

Like him?

Like any of them?

"I—"

"Can it go back?"

"Am I supposed to know?"

"Well—what's its name?"

"Its—they are the Unnamed. Hell Satan—"

Primo clicks his tongue. "Zito."

"Do you hear him—?"

"You will distract your brother."

Their brother: who is still standing, eyeing the creature warily, even as he verbally closes the contract their Order dictates them to sign: deems it one of the Cloth, a magic that is owed to them, that their Mother's Mother had bargained for.

His words are stiff.

Even a lesser ghoul—and still so much power.

Terzo can feel it igniting in his bones, in what inhumanity is laced in his blood. Quintessence. The oldest demon-magick of all.

"It is done, then," Secondo says, and wipes the seeping cut in his palm clean. "Your soul in my soul; my blood in your blood."

The ghoul lours down at him. In its eyes sits an unblinking stillness, sizing up its summoner the way a wolf may stalk a trespasser from the weeds. It rolls its tongue around its mouth like a foreign intrusion: cracks teeth and bone into some semblance of rightness: and in a garbled speech, an ancient one, it speaks.

Copia startles; blurts, "Why's it saying that?"

Terzo frowns down at him. "Saying what?"

"That."

"What? I can't understand it—"

But he can, he realizes.

(Different from the last time—)

He can, because he knows what he is looking at. Who he is looking at: the snaggletooth mouth and the lazy tongue, the eyes that fill to starless blue.

Knows his name.

This thing shouldn't have a name.

Primo is staring down at him, hard, his brow creased. He turns slowly back to the demon. Squeezes a thin hand over his shoulder.

"You have been...called upon, before?" Secondo clarifies. From his items, he withdraws a simple tress of black silk: one of their ritual robes, carted all this way for custom's sake.

He may as well have dangled a clump of vegetables before a carnivore.

The ghoul snuffs, craning his head away. His body stands with the hunch of a winged creature more used to flight than feet, still unaccustomed to the soil under his toes. But the earth couldn't begin to interest him. His eyes stay upward: wondering at the celestial bodies above, as though seeing a host of kindred spirits time had stripped from him.

Secondo's voice snaps again: "I asked you a question."

A glare blue as a flame threads back to him, motionless in a face that crooks.

"The first," his Unnamed says, his voice rough as a quarry. "A millennium ago."

Those lineless eyes slant over the clearing, cutting a knifepoint along every rock and leaf, and hook on Copia's jolting head, with a snake-tongued scenting.

Terzo's heart is thudding like a drum in his ears. He thinks this thing can hear it. It has to be able to hear it, the way that stare is piercing him through.

Seeing him as a fellow creation? As prey?

As whatever in Hell's name Copia must be, for how the little fool has turned brazenly to stare back at this creature, unwavering—

Primo's shadow slides in front of them both, a hand at each shoulder.

The gesture earns a pause of bemusement more than a threat: the ghoul wrinkles the leaves of his snout, sniffs, and turns away. "It's different," he murls again, his strides a heavy-footed prowl along the clearing. His lungs hiss. "Cold."

"You will get accustomed." Secondo dares a step forward, extending the robe again.

His Unnamed eyes the silks strangely—but something seems to click. A memory, perhaps. Or an order. He lifts the robe free with a taloned nail, and peers at it. A pair of long, pointed ears twitch free from his sloping skull.

Primo clears his throat. "It will be hungry," he says.

For flesh, or blood, or human food, one couldn't say. It was hard to tell, at such an early stage—or, so Terzo had heard.

Their eldest's Unnamed had been the first summoned in three generations, at Nihil's request: magic aids for the rituals, or guards for the tours, or wards from their sister-clergies' own interests, or whatever else he'd elected not to tell them. He didn't talk about any of it, much. But he must have seen enough to know—enough so that Terzo knew, though he shouldn't, that his brother kept a unblessed knife on his person and a silver-bulleted pistol in his bedside drawer.

Proof that these things weren't to be trusted. Which meant, by proxy, none of them should trust this one, either.

But Terzo knows this ghoul.

He knows him.

He doesn't know how.

The creature's shadow morphs over the ground, chasing his own steps as though trying to stay fastened to the shifting lines of his body. Something about it is still not-flesh, not-living; still nothingness. But his limbs climb over the circle of stones—clawed feet, clawed hands, wings flattening against the rippling veins of his back—and the essence is gone; the Veil resewn.

A body horned, and tailed, and wingless now, enclosed in ritual silks.

Something that could almost be called a man.

"Come along," Primo says, nudging the two behind him. "We can't stay here all night—dare say we'll freeze."

Copia is chewing on his thumb. "I'm hung'y."

"I know, little one."

Terzo shrugs off the rat's hand; steers him over to Primo's waiting arm, instead. His eyes are still fixed on the path before him: cattish, unblinking on the towering form following their brother's lead. The air feels like ice in his lungs.

He sees and he sees and he sees—

(Omega. This one will be called Omega—and there will be another, another with haunting eyes; one who will not be bound to him by blood, but who he will claim, and who—)

"You are seeing something else?" Primo whispers.

Terzo bites his teeth into his lip. "No," he lies, again. "Just...tired—it is midnight."

"So it is."

Primo knows, though. He always knows.

His hand stays on his shoulder.

"Was—was Sister Elise cooking, today?" Copia says suddenly, clambering with them up the stony path.

"Cio," Primo says. "He's made Minestrone." He makes a half-hearted effort to tame the rat's curls behind his ear, and smiles. "Don't worry, Coppie—there will still be plenty left."

Copia chews on his thumb again. "P'omise?"

"I promise."

"Okay."

Terzo stares at his boots.

(—and there will be three others, and a stage, and he will have sunspots on his hands and cigarette stains on his fingertips and Nihil will be yelling, Nihil is always yelling, Nihil will be yelling about this ghoul—

Omega—

The first to be summoned.

Omega—

The last to his name.

Omega will have a hand around his throat.

Omega will be staring into a welded grave.

Omega will—)

"One path of countless," Primo urges again, his eyes firm. "This is not the ghoul you see."

Terzo tries to breathe. His boot catches on a jagged stone again, but he doesn't bother kicking at it this time.

"How do you know that?" he bites out, blinking hard.

The grass is blue, the moonlight is purple, the air is hot and he can't think—

But Primo's hand is on his nape again, cool through his hair.

For a brief, quiet moment, it feels like Mother, almost. But Mother won't touch him anymore. Mother hasn't held him in years.

Sister has the child she wanted, now.

"These things are not always as they seem," Primo hushes. Terzo's fringe is equally stubborn to being tamed, but his brother tries; thumbs a cold touch at his cheek. "You must remember that, yes?"

Sister or Copia or this ghoul, now? The Aether gnawing at the edges of his mind, for weeks and months and nights on end—?

"How do you know?" Terzo spits again.

His brother's eyes are gentle. Ice-blue and white as the stars. "Because I do."

And maybe it's because he sees it in him, that he does; because he's always been the level-headed one, far more than Terzo could ever be. The guiding light through the darkness they all shelter.

He dreads the thought that he may one day lose it.

Copia tugs on his sleeve. "What's—what's my Sight going to be?"

"Your Sight?" Terzo looks away. "Che—if the Saints are good, little rat, they'll spare you of it."

"Wha—! That's not fair!"

"Is too."

"Is not!"

"Well, I say it is—so it must be true, yes?"

"No!"

"You know what—rat is not the term for you. Should've called you a squawking pigeon."

"Boys."

"What? That is true!"

Primo, sighing, finds what patience he can, and herds his little brothers back up towards the Ministry's glow.

There will be soup and bread and warm tea waiting for them: a midnight snack he will serve into brown bowls and set down with touches to their wind-tussled heads.

In the underbelly of those stone halls, a new-summoned ghoul will be masked in black porcelain. Secondo will be dragging his ritual items back to the storerooms, and taking every care to avoid their All-Father—still in his silk robe and patterned slippers, tea in hand, grousing over receipts and touring budgets.

The moon will tip higher. Copia will have his bath, and be put to bed. Primo will slink to his garden, with a glass of red wine in hand and a joint behind his ear, to gather the flowers for tomorrow's mass. And Terzo—

Terzo should be sleeping, too. Should be leafing through his textbooks on comparative religions. Should be swiping Secondo's long-forgotten mountains of margin-scrawled notes, to cheat his way out of those godawful studies as quickly as he can.

But he'll be curled up in the windowsill, boneless as a cat, sleepless again, picking sprigs of juniper off a branch.

Seeing and seeing and seeing.

He can't complain—not now. The gift was one he'd demanded; a curse he hadn't prepared for.

A future that seems endless. Emptied.

"One path," he'll mumble, thwicking the stripped branch back to the bushes, and notch his arms across his knees.

Only part of him will believe it.

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royallyjoon · 4 years ago

Text

nephilim (cinq)

you know where the cred goes 💙

cult au, supernatural creature au

yandere bts x f! reader

warnings: yandere themes, physical assault, graphic descriptions of violence, manipulation, (slight) gaslighting

you were left, abandoned by mortals and immortals alike. darkness knows no bounds, and neither does punishment. there is no refuge in neither blood nor flesh from its wrath. if darkness welcomes you, should you open your arms to it in return? if darkness turns you away, does that mean you’ve won? should you choose to cast aside this lonely path of yours, and your conviction along with it, regardless of whatever other horrors lie in wait, you will be saved.

——————————————————————

What is one to do when they hear the words they’ve feared the most leave someone else’s mouth?

The moment they graced Jin’s eardrums, he gripped his phone so tightly he could hear the glass screen crack.

He and Yoongi had been assisting their father in the woods with preparations for the next meeting, the ominous hour approaching in no less than ten days.

He ignored Moonsik and Yoongi for a moment to answer his phone.

“Hello?”

He could barely make out any of Jimin’s words--the boy’s blubbering masked too much of the information.

“Robotics...bathroom...”

“Jimin, I can’t hear anything over the sound of you crying. What’s going on?”

“(Y/N)...rooftop...Aemilia...”

“What are you trying to say?” Yoongi stopped talking to the older man, shifting his gaze toward his elder brother as he noticed Jin’s voice raise in irritation and concern.

“Blood...”

“Blood?!”

——————————————————————

Jimin had walked out of robotics a little early today, bored to tears.

He had felt much better after getting rid of the idiotic gaggle that dared to threaten you, and threaten him into abandoning you.

He should have known it wouldn’t be enough. He should’ve never left your side, he thought as he kneeled on the rooftop, staring forlornly at the pool of partially dried blood on the concrete.

“She was bleeding, hyung. Aemilia or her people must have taken her, but I have no idea where they went.”

Namjoon had been in the middle of a meeting with the school board, representing the student council.

Hoseok had been in the dance studio, barking orders out at somewhat competent underclassmen.

Jungkook and Taehyung were holed up in the younger’s room, playing games rather than doing any actual work.

In short, none of them were prepared. None of them had been there for you as they had promised.

You trusted them when you needed them most, and they left you high and dry.

Jimin felt like he would never be able to get the disappointment and guilt off of his chest.

——————————————————————

Namjoon bounded into the clearing, his usually polished exterior uncharacteristically tarnished.

Hoseok appeared not long after him, having raced to the woods the moment he received the news.

They were met by Seokjin and Yoongi, who stood with their arms crossed over their chests, near a miserable Jungkook and a pacing Taehyung. Both boys had been in the house, so they were the first to arrive.

Jimin got there last, his hands and uniform pants stained red from the puddle he had kneeled in on the rooftop.

Six pairs of eyes landed on him and his appearance, confirming the worst.

“Three!” Seokjin cried incredulously. “Three of you were on campus, surrounded by a bunch of humans, and not a single one of you managed to keep an eye on her!”

“She could be anywhere,” Jungkook groaned in fear.

“By all means, please don’t start caring now. It’s too late.” Yoongi snapped at him. “You and Taehyung drove straight home to do absolutely nothing. You could at least have offered her a ride home and ensured that she was safe. You’re just as responsible as they are.”

Jungkook’s eyes grew glassy, but only because he knew his brother was right.

“As much as you enjoy playing the blame game, we have more pressing matters to address.” Namjoon interjected in an attempt to calm them down.

“That doesn’t even begin to cover it, Namjoon.” Seokjin’s icy tone sent a chill down their backs. “If we really wanted to play the blame game, we would have recognized how this is all your fault.”

The leader stood in tense silence.

“What did I tell you mere hours before this happened?” He continued, walking toward Namjoon until they were face to face. “I told you to get your shit together and to keep that girl in line. Hell, none of this would have happened if we hadn’t followed your idiotic plan in the first place.”

Seokjin was rarely ever angry enough to hiss in his brother’s face. They had all learned a long time ago that to provoke the oldest was to invoke Death.

“We all agreed his plan was the best choice at the time, hyung.” Yoongi cautiously approached the two and lay a hand on Seokjin’s shoulder, leveling a glare of his own at Namjoon. “We can deal with him later. We need to find her first.”

Jimin took the opportunity to step further into the clearing and brandished his phone, the device still open to his messages. “(Y/N) texted me saying Aemilia invited her up to roof and that she assumed it was for a confrontation of some sort.”

“Aemilia doesn’t have the ability or strength to do damage like that by herself, though.” Taehyung frowned as he gestured to Jimin’s clothes. “Unless...”

The brothers looked at each other in realization and one by one, rushed out the clearing and out the forest.

A quick drive to the center of the city and one pitifully short interrogation later, their suspicions were settled.

Hoseok growled as he re-entered the van, slamming the car door shut. “How dare he? When did he gain the courage to mobilize our own forces without our knowledge?”

“Never mind Augustus,” Jimin said, although his eyes blazed with anger. “Where would they take her?”

“That dog wouldn’t have taken her to the normal base, she has far too much malicious intent for (Y/N).” Taehyung growled.

Jungkook lightly tapped his fingers on the car door, looking out the window when the thought hit him.

“You don’t think they’d take her to...?”

His brothers looked at him in confusion, but he pointed out the window at the tree line of the woods.

Having grown up in those woods, they knew it like the back of their hand.

They knew the places were young townspeople would go to goof off, the places they had claimed for themselves, and the places that were...strictly off-limits.

It didn’t take much longer for the realization to set in.

Once it had, they took off in the direction of the forest.

——————————————————————

In your dream, you once again stood before Ichabod Chapel.

The Chapel, adorned with green vines, had long since been abandoned. Once, the walls must have been a beautiful ivory, but now they were a dark beige, having rotted with time.

A complete opposite to the image of the decrepit church, the seven Kim brothers stood on the ground in front of the entrance, visions dressed in various black silks.

Contrary to its original purpose, the material looked anything but light and airy--in fact, it looked as though it was weighed down or soaked, doused in some unknown substance.

You looked down to see that you were dressed in a white, ceremonial outfit. It billowed out like a ball gown, the sleeves drawing lacy patterns swirling up to your thumb.

When you looked up, you were stunned by the brilliant, black wings that extended from the backs of the seven men before you.

The sight of their wings enraptured you, those gorgeous appendages, feathers glossy under the moonlight.

Each of them had their own, unique set, varying in shapes and sizes, though the largest pair of wings belonged to none other than Kim Namjoon, who stood in the center of his brothers, hands in his pocket as he flashed you a familiar, mischievous grin.

Namjoon was the first to step out of the line, casually extending his hand out to you, and you hesitantly raised a dainty, (s/c) hand in return, placing it in his.

He pulled you into his arms and you felt him wrap them around you.

His brothers came to circle around the two of you, eventually joining the hug as well.

Then, the whispers began.

Their tone was loving, though their words were anything but.

They were desperate, consuming, obsessive, threatening.

They wanted you to love them, they needed you to love them, why couldn’t you understand?

Your head pounded, filled to the brim with cruel promises of tenderness and affection.

The substance from their silks seeped into your clothes, rapidly staining your white outfit red.

You realized just what it was that they were doused in and tried to pull away from their arms but they surrounded you, locking you into their hold.

The harder you fought to get out, the tighter they held on to you until you felt as though you couldn’t breathe.

Things were better this way. There’s nothing they wouldn’t do to protect you. There’s nothing they wouldn’t do for your love.

How could you scorn their love for you? How could you treat them like this?

They didn’t want to hurt anyone you cared about. They didn’t want to eliminate everyone you love in order to bring you to their side, but they would if they had to.

They paid no mind to the way you were drowning in the smell of it, drowning in blood. Was it yours or someone else’s? Was it your mother’s? Mana’s?

All you knew was that they were done playing games.

——————————————————————

Your eyes flashed open and you winced as you immediately wished they hadn’t.

Your head pounded, each thump forcing your eyes shut with the intensity, still not having recovered from the several hits it received.

For a moment it felt as though you were still unconscious and drenched in darkness, as when you tried to get a glimpse of your surroundings, you only saw shadows and moving, ambiguous shapes.

The movement of the ground beneath you, however, quickly dispelled such thoughts.

It appeared as though you were being carried over someone’s shoulder. Despite the extra weight, the person you currently rested on was light and quick on their feet, moving with a speed that made you feel worse than you already were.

The familiar crunching of leaves and branches on the ground made your heart beat just a bit harder.

According to their footsteps and what you could see of your surroundings, you surmised they had taken you to the forest.

It had been mid afternoon when Aemilia and the people who worked for her and her family accosted you at the roof. Now, there was barely a hint of the moon in your surroundings.

Did she intend to have her people tie you up to the wooden pyre and set you aflame, like some sick imitation of a witch burning at the stake? Or to make it seem as though the Kims had done it?

Despite how afraid of Mayor Kim the citizens were, there was no way everyone would believe you died in such a gaudy display.

Only the purple fire that Mayor Kim was capable of conjuring left nothing behind, after all. If they were to going to get rid of you by fire, your remains would be found.

There’s no way you could ensure that, however.

There’s no guarantee that Aemilia wouldn’t be able to make good on her promise and utterly destroy you.

A light cough broke the silence, bringing you back to the present, and you tried to calm your heartbeat. There’s no way your captors would believe you were asleep if you kept scaring yourself like this.

You felt a tight, scratchy material around your wrists and your hands laying against your back.

You successfully clenched your hands. So they hadn’t drugged you while you were out.

You were hesitant to shift, as you feared your captors would notice your cognizant state, so you resorted yourself to blinking at the ground and gritting your teeth from the pain and nausea.

Thankfully, the people you were with appeared to be none the wiser.

“Are we almost there?” A deep voice, seemingly annoyed, huffed.

“Be patient, Lee.” You felt the vibrations of the person carrying you as they replied. “This isn’t just any other job.”

“I understand, but don’t you think Miss Augustus is going too far?”

Your captor scoffed. “If you want to question the Augustuses, thereby questioning the Kims and their authority, be my guest. I just hope you and your family will be able to deal with the consequences.”

The second captor, Lee, had nothing else to say after that.

The quiet of the forest left a buzzing in your ears and the swinging sensation your body was making whilst strewn over the person’s back became too much to bear.

You figured you’d just make your captor angrier if you barfed down their back and tried to shift to draw their attention, but it was too late.

The acrid taste of bile and what you had for lunch earlier that day reached your mouth and your lifted your head, spitting out as much of it as you could.

There was a yell of anger and disgust, and your captor shoved you off of them and onto the forest floor.

You held back a shout as you hit the ground, injuring your side even further, and let out the rest of your meal.

“What the-?! This disgusting bitch!”

Your captor launched another kick at your stomach and you fought back tears as they aggravated the wounds already in place.

Lee stopped them after a while, complaining that another round of beating would just delay their job even further.

You wiped your mouth off on your shoulder and grimaced.

To your surprise, you found that you could move your legs.

The first captor lifted you to your feet by your collar, and you recognized him as Mr. Byun, the man the strawberry blonde had referred to earlier.

“Your legs still work for a reason,” he sneered and pushed you forward.

Your legs did indeed work, but were wobbly after hours of no use.

You tripped and almost fell to the floor again, the bonds around your wrists preventing you from reaching out to break your fall, when the second captor grabbed you by the back of your shirt and held you up.

“I’m not really in the mood for any of your foolishness, girl.” Lee glowered down at you. “Use your legs properly, or I’ll break them and drag you by the hair. It would be all too easy.”

You heard a suspicious click and your eyes flickered over to Byun, whose hand rested on his waist. In the other, however, he fiddled with a small lever on what appeared to be a firearm.

“Do you understand?” The second captor shook you and your brain protested, rattling around far too much for its liking.

The thought of escape, which had been curling up inside you like the beginning of a fire, was quickly extinguished. You squeezed your eyes shut and nodded.

He pushed you away from him and you walked, following him with Byun at your back, trying to think of a way out of this situation.

You couldn’t tamper with the ropes around your wrist, as Byun was watching your every move. There was also the gun, and the fact that both men were trained in the use of it as well as martial arts.

Was there truly no way to escape?

——————————————————————

The three of you walked for what felt like hours, reaching a part of the woods that you had never seen before.

Here, the trees were sparse and had already lost all of their leaves. The dark branches coiled and twisted toward the sky, as if reaching for affection that would never be reciprocated. The stumps were old, the ground hard.

And then, a clearing. But not the one you were used to seeing.

Your heart dropped as you walked between two trees, noticing the view beyond them.

You could now tell that it was well after midnight, for the sun was nowhere to be seen. Nevertheless, as always, the moon was high in the sky.

Wylynne gazed down on the clearing with a force, as if the moon goddess wanted you to see bright and clear what awaited you.

The crumbling cliff before you overlooked a tranquil lake. Clouds hung in the distance, obscuring what was undoubtedly the outside world.

The outside of Ichabod.

Such tranquility had no business here, you thought to yourself as the pace of your breathing increased.

Your captors had brought you to Lorne’s Ledge, also known as the edge of no return.

It was forbidden territory for any Ichabodian citizen.

Even before Mayor Kim came to town, even before the Augustus family had their reign: this was one of the oldest, most sacred spots in Ichabod.

The lady of the cliff, Lorne, saw to it that the forsaken never returned home.

You shuddered. The folklore didn’t scare you in the slightest. It would always be the work of man that you detested.

Yet, you couldn’t help but feel some foreign, oppressive gaze resting on you now that you were here. As if Lorne herself were staring at you, waiting for you to join her in the watery depths--

That familiar click sounded again and your eyes shot to the side. You tried to slowly turn around, but the press of metal against your back forced you to stop all movement.

Lee smirked. “We have arrived at your final destination, my lady.”

“Miss Augustus was generous enough to leave you with two options. You can walk off and take a nice rest in the lake, or you can die before your body ever hits the water.” The man smiled mirthlessly down at you. “Which would you prefer?”

You blinked rapidly, mind racing. Even if you were capable of swimming, with these injuries, you wouldn’t be able to survive the fall off the ledge,

They truly meant for you to die.

Lee didn’t seem to be in the mood for your deliberation as his cruel smile slipped into an infuriated frown. “Choose.” He growled. “My friend here would be all too happy to make the choice for you. How does a bullet in your brain and being rolled off the cliff sound?”

Byun dug the weapon into your skin and you winced, shaking your head.

“I’ll-I’ll go. I’ll walk myself.”

Your voice cracked horribly after not speaking for so many hours, but the message was received.

The metal was removed from your backside and you sighed in relief.

The man in front of you said nothing, simply stepping out of your path.

You took a couple more breaths and slowly turned to face him. “C-Can I ask you to do something? As a final request.”

He raised an eyebrow at you in response.

You titled your head in the direction of your back. “Can you untie my hands? After I disappear, there might be a search for me, and someone might try to dig through the lake for my body. A suicide will be completely ruled out if they find the ropes.”

There was no way this would work. Even the Augustuses were too intimidated to bother touching the lake for fear of Lorne’s wrath.

Besides, the police knew when and where to look, and where to say they looked. They would lie to your friends and family through their teeth.

Lee must not have been on the force for very long, however, because he grunted and pulled your hands to him.

With a slice, the ropes fell to the ground and you clutched your wrists to your chest, nodding partly in thanks and partly in disbelief.

It...worked.

You rubbed your hands together and gently blew on them, fingers numb from the cold breeze.

Your captors stood together between the trees, blocking the entrance. They murmured quietly to themselves and you continued to morph your face and body expressions into one of a pitiful teenager about to die, concealing the rather reckless thoughts you were having.

You finally turned around and walked back until you were in front of them, catching the two men off guard. They quieted and stared at you, hands at their weapons.

You met each of them in the eye and bowed, lower than you ever had before, then stood upright.

They looked at you incredulously, giving you just enough time to give Lee a harsh kick between his legs and pry the knife out of his hand.

You slashed at his neck, adrenaline returning full force, and actually managed to cut the man.

He shouted in pain and brought a hand up to the wound, trying to stop the blood.

Before you could turn to face Byun, however, the loud crack of a gunshot was heard throughout the forest and you felt a painful sting on your hand.

You yelped as you dropped the knife.

Then, there was a second gunshot and the pain returned full force, this time on your shoulder.

The elder captor, completely fed up with your actions, slammed the gun against your head and you crumpled to the ground.

You could feel something wet on your hand and clothes, but there was too much of it to be sweat in the midnight chill. You slowly lifted your hand, only to see it covered in a dark liquid.

Byun restrained Lee from attempting to beat you this time, barely casting a glance at your pitiful form.

“Calm yourself. She won’t be alive for much longer.” He gruffed. “She said she would walk herself, so walk she will. We’re just here to watch and make sure it happens.”

He stood over your form and pointed the gun at your head. “What a useless attempt. Get up.”

Your shoulder and hand burned like hell, but you complied.

You got to your feet once more and stumbled forward, every step taking you further and further away from the two.

The barrel of the gun followed your every move.

The tears you’d been struggling to hold back ran full force now at the thought of your imminent death. But rather than let your captors feast upon the sight of your defeated form, you stopped.

You were covered in blood. Your uniform was sullied by your own vomit and dirt.

But you straightened your back, ignoring the pain in your shoulder, and held your head up high.

You had reached the edge of the cliff now, but your vision was too blurry to see anything besides the vast blue beneath you.

The lake that rested below had no warmth or safety to provide for you, but neither did the forest behind you.

You considered praying to Wylynne to see if, in all her majesty and grace, she would save you.

Yet clearly, just like all the people who had come before you, just like the lady of the lake herself, the moon goddess had forsaken you.

You were tired. Too tired to fight against what some would call fate.

You whispered an apology to your mother and Mana, and perhaps even to the brothers, the reason why, you did not know.

Your eyes captured the overcast image of the outside world one last time, then you turned around and took a backward step off the cliff with a sad smile, eyes falling closed, mentally locked on that solitary picture.

Above you, you thought you heard the pained screams and grunts of your captors, sounding as though they were struggling against something or someone.

But before you, you saw your mother with her arms outstretched, that patient, loving smile on her face.

You reached forward, wrapped your arms around her, and readily slipped into darkness.

Above your falling form, a shadow zipped through the dawn, racing to reach you before you hit the water.

He saw you smile and lift an arm into the air, before the smile slipped off your face and your limbs went limp.

The large, black wings at his back beat furiously and he flew faster than he ever had before until he had your beaten form cradled to his chest.

The two of you suddenly shot upward into the air as your descent slowed, and as the first rays of daylight peeked out from above the clouds, his form hung in the air, almost frozen in time, black wings outstretched and supporting the two of you as he floated above Lorne’s Ledge.

Kim Jimin hovered, adorned in the light of the early morning sun, peering callously down at the vermin who lay trembling between him and his brothers.

Or what was left of them, at least.

Jungkook had managed to get his hands on the elder one, and the arm he had been using to carry the gun had been ripped clean off.

He was now whimpering in excruciating pain, clutching at the place where his limb had once been.

The younger one, on the other hand, lay resting against a tree.

Unmoving, his eyes unseeing.

All it had taken was one touch from Hoseok, and the man’s life force was gone, sucked out of him before he could even protest.

He was now nothing more than a lifeless sack of meat.

Taehyung picked up the body as Yoongi kicked one of the elder’s legs to get his attention.

The others stood threateningly over Byun, glowering down at him in utter loathe, as though he were a louse.

The old man whimpered, looking up and between them, then paling in horror as he saw Taehyung and Jimin.

The younger brother walked toward the elder as Jimin gently touched down on the ground, your form still protectively pressed to him. The two Kims met eyes and nodded at each other.

Taehyung turned around and flashed Mr. Byun a crazed smile before flinging Lee’s body as far as he could over the cliff.

He gaped in horror and his voice rose multiple decibels, pleads for his life escaping before he could properly think them through.

Seokjin squatted down until he was at an eye level with him, strong, black wings threateningly displayed. He grinned.

“If you think you have even any hope of escaping your friend’s fate,” he said as the smile slipped off his face, “you’re dead wrong.”

He glared at Byun with cold, amber irises. “But before we end your insignificant, paltry life, you’re going to tell us who sent you and why.”

They already had proof of Aemilia’s crime from Aloysius Augustus himself but they wanted to be sure.

He looked at the younger gentlemen with tears in his eyes. He fought through his pain and got on both knees.

“There’s no use in begging,” Namjoon stated, arms crossed over his chest. For the first time, he couldn’t find anything amusing in the matter.

“Please! We were only receiving orders, Miss Augustus--”

Before he could finish his sentence, Yoongi used Lee’s discarded knife and slashed it across Byun’s neck, silencing him in an instant.

The light left his eyes and the man’s body flopped over.

Taehyung didn’t think twice about kicking him off the cliff, either.

Now that those pests were taken care of, the seven rushed to turn their attention on you.

The bleeding from your shoulder and hand had not slowed in the slightest, and they could hardly feel your pulse.

“We need to get her to the hospital, and fast.” Hoseok said, swallowing the rising lump in his throat.

“I’m the fastest. I can take her there.” Taehyung volunteered.

The brothers agreed, and you were gently deposited into Taehyung’s arms.

“When you’re sure she’s safe, meet us back here in the woods,” Yoongi said. “You’ll know where to find us.”

"Yes, hyung.” Taehyung spread his wings and took off into the sky.

He carefully cradled you, shifting your body into one of his arms, and attempted to heal some of your worse injuries along the way.

He pressed one hand to your abdomen and began muttering under his breath, a panicked tear slipping out the corner of his eye as he peered at the extent of the damage.

Once your ribs were mostly healed, he pulled his hand away, leaving behind a canvas of dark blue, yellow, and green bruises. He winced and moved on, pressing his hand to your head.

You made no movements, body as limp as ever in his arms.

Taehyung touched down on the roof of the hospital and tucked those magnificent, black wings together, the appendages fading away as if they were never there.

He held his arm out, his palm facing the door. He only meant to unlock it, but utterly destroyed it in his haste. Quite frankly, he couldn’t have cared less.

He hurriedly walked down the stairwell and burst into the hospital’s eleventh floor lobby, reserved for VIP care and treatment.

A receptionist was working at the front desk, typing away without a care in the world.

He was interrupted by Taehyung’s shouts. “I found her in the woods outside of our home this morning--she’s badly injured, please help!”

He looked up at the boy’s outburst, eyes widening when he realized just who and what he was looking at.

He immediately called for available nurses to bring a bed and admit you to a room, then paged any available doctors.

“Do you know who she is, Mr. Kim?” A nurse asked as she examined you for damage.

He nodded. “She’s a classmate of mine, her name is (Y/N) (L/N). Her mother also works here--please notify her of her daughter’s arrival.”

The man nodded once more, sending someone else to page Nurse (L/N) from the fifth floor.

As the nurses wheeled you away, Taehyung grabbed the receptionist by the wrist and he whipped around in fear.

“This patient is very important,” Taehyung stressed, squeezing the man’s wrist harshly. “She is being admitted under the protection of Kim Moonsik himself, at the behest of our entire family. If anything happens to her...”

The receptionist gulped and nodded. “Of course, Mr. Kim. You don’t need to explain any further. We’ll do our absolute best to ensure her care and recovery.”

Taehyung glared down at him for a bit longer before he threw the man’s wrist aside and turned away from him.

He rubbed at his wrist, knowing it would bruise in a couple of hours, or perhaps even minutes.

The man returned to his desk, beginning to fill out the paperwork for your stay.

When he looked up to ask Taehyung more questions about your injuries, the boy had already disappeared.

——————————————————————

In Taehyung’s absence, the six brothers stretched out their wings and flew to a certain section of the woods behind the Kim family home.

This part of the woods remained untouched by both the Kim family and the general public. It was only the seven who came out here, and only in times of dire consequence.

Several trees in the area had fallen over, cracked in half as though hit or pushed in anger with some spectacular force.

Leaves and branches strewn all over the ground were blown away by the boys and the sudden breeze they brought, large wings disrupting the peaceful quiet of the forest.

The early morning sun peeked through the leaves, painting a picturesque view of the woods, a sharp contrast to the heavy, violent atmosphere headed its way.

Jungkook planted his feet on the ground first, tucking away his wings until they were out of sight. He angrily flicked what was left of Byun off his face, disgusted by the thick feel and metallic smell of mortal blood.

Jimin followed right behind him, then Hoseok, Yoongi, and Seokjin entered, Namjoon being the last to touch down on the forest floor.

Jimin and Jungkook met eyes with one another, their anger not even close to subsiding at the death of your captors.

Yet, soon enough, curiosity and dread brought them out of their rage when they realized just how quiet it had gotten between the older members.

Jimin shifted his gaze, the frown on his face deepening when he saw the eldest brothers’ attention turn to Namjoon, who was standing deathly still, staring blankly ahead.

Seokjin raised an eyebrow as he glared down at the younger. Namjoon refused to meet his gaze.

The six of them stayed like that for a long time, even when they heard the loud beating of another pair of wings, and Taehyung joined them in the forest.

He turned to Jimin in confusion but the older simply shook his head and grabbed for his and Jungkook’s hands, squeezing them.

Finally, after what felt like hours of silence, Seokjin spoke.

“There is no mercy for the prideful,” he stated with finality.

Namjoon flinched away at the words, eyes stuck to the ground.

“You weren’t able to uphold your oath, Namjoon ah,” Hoseok said. His words were concerned, but his tone reeked of condescension.

“And because of that, because of your utter failure, our beloved angel got hurt.” Yoongi hissed. “She almost died.”

Hoseok, Yoongi, and Seokjin took menacing steps toward the leader.

He heard his older brothers walking up to him, but refused to meet the wrath that was surely boiling in their gaze.

Jimin, Taehyung, and Jungkook watched on with bated breath, their hands still linked together.

Namjoon was frozen in place.

As the leader of their group, there was rarely ever a moment where he was seen as weak.

But the second he had received news of your capture, he lost even the strength to stand on his own two feet.

It was the thought of you, of saving you and bringing you to safety, that had kept him going.

It was the only thing that had kept all seven of them sane.

Now that they knew you were going to live, he knew he couldn’t avoid his punishment any longer.

Namjoon’s facial expression didn’t change, even in the moment where, with surprising speed, Yoongi lashed out at him, decking him in the face and knocking him to the forest floor.

The student body president winced, gingerly gripping his nose as blood started to leak from it.

His older brothers stood, looking down at him in a mock semicircle.

“Yoongi ah,” Seokjin said, turning to the younger, “what is the punishment for those who commit the deadly sin of pride?”

“Being broken on the wheel, hyung.” Yoongi replied impassively.

“Fortunately for you, or unfortunately, I should say,” Hoseok grinned down at Namjoon, “we don’t have a wheel.”

Seokjin stepped forward and lifted his foot above Namjoon’s right leg.

“This is what happens when you place too much pride in yourself and in your actions.” He stated, then brought his foot down on Namjoon’s right leg.

He didn’t let up until there was a sick, audible crack.

Namjoon reeled back, grunting in pain but refusing to scream.

Yes, it hurt, but he knew he deserved it. He failed (Y/N).

This is the least he could do to atone for his actions.

“All things considered, we’re being quite generous with you.” Yoongi stepped up next, kicking his broken leg aside to stomp down on his left one.

This time, Namjoon let out a jarring scream.

“You still have the audacity to scream? To feel pain?” Yoongi ground his foot into the injury as though he were trying to put out a cigarette. “Imagine how much pain our beloved is in right now. Imagine what she wouldn’t have had to go through, had you done your job properly. Had you listened to us.”

The elder had never been kind or considerate when it came to delivering punishment, a fact that the younger brothers had quickly become accustomed to.

Taehyung, Jimin, and Jungkook looked on blankly, but inside they felt a deep sense of pity.

Namjoon was their brother and their leader, the constant face of their strength.

It hurt to see him in so much pain, no matter how necessary it was.

Namjoon sat on the forest floor, both legs twisted at an awkward angle. He grit his teeth together as he tried to control his breathing.

He noticed no one else was approaching him, but he knew that the punishment wasn’t over yet, not so soon. He slowly, inquisitively lifted his head.

The eldest three looked at Namjoon expectedly. He pleadingly raised his eyebrows, but their stares held no mercy.

He bowed his head in defeat.

The senior wrapped his right hand around his left forearm and squeezed until he heard something crack.

There was the quick, soft sound of a sob coming out of his mouth, and then all was quiet.

Hoseok went last, shuffling through the leaves on the forest floor to squat next to his younger brother, wiping away some of his tears and gently running his fingers through his hair. “We’re doing this for her. Everything we do is for her, you know that as well as we do.”

Namjoon glanced at him warily, tense because he knew what was coming next, but didn’t know when to expect it.

“That’s why you’re prepared to face the consequences for your actions, yes...?”

With a sickeningly sweet smile, Hoseok wrapped his hands around Namjoon’s right forearm, breaking the bone in a quick moment.

Namjoon clenched his teeth together so hard, he swore he heard something else crack.

Any movement within the top or lower half of his body left him in excruciating pain, and he stifled a scream each time.

“You did so well, Joonie.” Hoseok continued patting his head.

They surrounded him, praising him with how well he took his punishment.

He was only able to withstand a few more minutes of cognizant thought before his eyes rolled back into his head.

Hoseok caught his younger brother, gently laying him back onto the dirt.

The six men stood in the silence, staring at the form of their treasured leader with pity.

Seokjin turned around and met each of his younger brothers in the eye. He then wordlessly walked away from the clearing and Namjoon’s broken body.

Yoongi and Hoseok followed him, blank expressions on their face.

The youngest brothers were all too quick to pick up on the message.

Overstep your boundaries, and endure the same fate.

After taking one more look at Namjoon, the youngest brothers trekked out of the forest, silently following behind the other angels.

——————————————————————

When you finally pried your eyes open, you were greeted by an unfamiliar chill.

You were cold. So cold, the chill settled uncomfortably in your bones.

White blankets were tucked around you, pristine sheets morphing to mimic your form.

For a moment, you incredulously thought that this must have been your arrival to heaven.

Then, you soon heard a monotonous beeping and you felt the subtle prick of wires along your skin, an IV casually grazing across the back of your hand.

It hurt to move your right shoulder, and your abdomen ached, the areas bandaged so tight you could just barely feel them.

There were bandages around your wrists and hand as well, and the pungent scent of ointment told you those were for your rope burns and bullet graze.

Your head injuries were also wrapped, if you deduced the source of your current headache correctly.

You were alive. Alive, and well taken care of.

“(Y/N)?”

You winced, your head not taking too kindly to the reintroduction of noise. A swivel to your right, however, and your mother’s worried face appeared.

“...Mom?” You voice cracked horribly, and she smiled and hummed in acknowledgement, lifting a water pitcher next to her and pouring you a glass of water.

You drank as if you were Tantalus himself.

“I was so worried.” your mother stated, her voice breaking right along with yours. The sound alone nearly brought tears to your eyes.

She lifted her hands and grasped your uninjured one, intertwining your fingers.

“I got paged yesterday morning and asked to come up to the eleventh floor, just to find out that you had been admitted.” Your mother spoke, answering your questions before you even got the chance to ask. “And at the request of the entire Kim family, no less. Kim Taehyung brought you in himself, claiming you’d been assaulted and found outside their door.”

You tilted your head, peering at your mother in disbelief.

She met your gaze and flicked her eyes toward the door, then back towards you without turning around. You followed their direction.

Outside the small, rectangular window of the door, there stood a tall figure dressed in dark clothing.

Your mother leaned toward you and whispered. “That woman has been standing guard since the doctors finished their checkup.”

You gulped and nodded in understanding.

“(Y/N).” Her tone shifted slightly, still holding concern but taking a solemn turn. “I never ask you questions about how school is and your life is going. We usually leave each other to our own devices, and that’s clearly been a mistake on my part. But I need you to be completely honest with me here.”

“Have you displeased the Kims in any way?” Her grip on your uninjured hand tightened to the point where all of your knuckles turned white. “If they have you here under some sort of watch until the next meeting...if they’re trying to...”

Your mother gulped, unable to finish the rest of the sentence.

Her voice lowered into a harsh whisper. “Tell me. I’ll go alert a trustworthy coworker, and I will have you out of this town before Kim Moonsik can utter another prayer.”

Your eyes widened comically. “Mom, no! Nothing like that happened. They saved me. The Kims saved my life.” You repeated, gripping her hands. “If they hadn’t brought me here, I would have-”

The weight of your words finally hit you, and before you could realize, tears gathered in the corner of your eyes. “I could have...”

You fought to speak through the trembling of your lower lip. “I’m sorry I never told you about my day, I just thought I’d be able to handle it all by myself. The police commissioner’s daughter, she was trying to get rid of me and she-Mom, she-”

Your mother cupped your cheeks as your tears cascaded down your face. She gently rubbed your lower back as you muffled your cries by burying your head into her neck.

She didn’t let you go for a while, even after you managed to collect yourself.

She poured you another glass of water and you sipped at the beverage, telling her the trials you’d faced these past couple of weeks.

“I thought it was a regular instance of bullying,” you sniffled, putting the plastic cup down. “that she didn’t want me getting too close to her crush. So I endured because I had no intention of taking anything of hers away. Who am I, in Ichabod, compared to a woman of prestige like that?” You sarcastically asked.

“But apparently, my mere existence bothered her.” You shakily recounted what had ultimately been the most terrifying moments of your life to your mother.

You obscured some parts of the story, not wanting your mother to worry even more, and claimed that the Augustus’ men had taken you to the clearing to scare you and beat you up, and that you surmised they dropped you off outside of the Kim home afterward.

By the time she finished hearing the whole story, her grip had embedded itself into the edge of the hospital bed.

Your mother’s vexation was interrupted by the sound of people speaking outside your door.

“Ma’am, I apologize. By the order of Kim Moonsik, only family members are allowed to visit the patient right now.” The figure outside your door spoke with an uninterested tone.

“With all due respect, officer, please don’t assume my gender.” You heard a familiar voice snipe. “My best friend is lying in there and she’s practically a sister to me. I don’t particularly give a damn about your order. Kim Moonsik can kiss my-”

“Mana!” You yelled, trying to catch both of their attention before your best friend could get themselves arrested.

You flipped the hospital blankets off of you and your mother helped you to your feet, then to the door. The injuries on your abdomen and head protested with every step.

The guard’s eyes widened a bit as you slid the door open, and so did the eyes of every hospital staff within sight of your room.

“Ms. (L/N), I implore you, please go back to bed to rest!” A nurse in the hallway rushed over.

The guard hastily nodded in agreement. “Yes, please do. I sincerely apologize for the commotion.”

You waved them off, reaching a hand out to Mana. “I'll go back to bed, but only if you let Mana in. They’re family.”

Mana stood in the hallway, hurriedly dressed in sweatpants, a disheveled oversized hoodie, and sneakers, but gingerly holding a teddy bear with a card.

The guard looked between you, Mana, and the nurse for quite some time. The nurse’s frantic expression must have convinced her, though, because she finally stepped aside.

Mana extended their arm, gently grabbing your hand in return and waltzing past the security guard with a smug expression.

The moment the three of you were back in the room, however, they ushered you back to bed as well.

“(N/N)!” Mana said, going to hug you, then rethinking it when they spotted all the bandages.

They placed the teddy bear in your arms and stood a card that cheerily read “Get Well Soon!” on your nightstand. “How are you feeling? I’m so sorry--I should have been there with you!”

“My head and chest hurt, but I’m alright.” You shook your head with a small smile, clutching the doll to your chest. “Don’t apologize, you had no idea this was going to happen. This was all the result of my stupid decision--I was the one who fell into her trap.”

Your mother excused herself, leaving you and Mana alone for a few minutes.

You filled them in on what had happened to you, withholding no details, and their face lit up in anger. “She ordered them to take you to Lorne’s Ledge?! That psychotic cunt! Just wait until I drag her across the square, we’ll see how high and mighty she is then-”

“Mana, calm down.” You smiled, thankful for your friend’s protectiveness, but weary after everything you’d just gone through.

“I never want to stoop to her level,” you admitted, wringing the sheets in your hands.

Your mother gently slid open the door, returning with water and a tray of food for you.

“I think...I’ve had enough of mind games and tricks for a while.” You whispered, then smiled at her as she lay the meal in front of you.

Mana’s gaze turned soft, and they patted your hands and back in support.

“I don’t even want to think of what would have happened if the Kims hadn’t gotten there in time.” your mother muttered.

You nodded in agreement.

You weren’t particularly sure how or why, but the Kims had saved your life.

Not only had they offered you some of the best care in the city, free of charge, but they even stationed people outside your room.

Somewhere in the back of your mind, something told you that holding them with such a mindset would put you exactly where they wanted you to be.

Yet something else countered that thought, claiming that it was that same distancing mindset that had pushed you into the arms of danger in the first place.

Perhaps Mayor Kim felt responsible for it because his men got usurped by a high school girl.

Or, perhaps, it was his sons who felt even more responsible.

Your mother and Mana stayed with you the rest of the night, each taking up their own positions on the furniture. Mana draped themself on the couch while your mother took the armchair.

You allowed yourself to drift off to the sound of them breathing, the chill and fear of the previous morning now a distant, foreign thing.

——————————————————————

Your mother and Mana weren’t constantly at your side, as one had to attend to her duties at work and the other had to go to school.

There were other individuals who were perfectly happy to waste the day with you, though.

On the first day, you were visited by Jimin.

The sophomore’s usual high-energy self was nowhere to be seen as he stepped into your hospital room holding a small bouquet of (your favorite flowers).

Jimin rushed at you, barely giving himself enough time to greet him before he fell to his knees in front of your hospital bed.

You gasped aloud in surprise and urged him to stand, but he would have none of it.

“I’m so sorry, (Y/N).” His eyes glistened as water streaked down his cherubic face. “If I had read your message earlier, if I hadn’t been so stupid to turn my phone off, you never would have gotten hurt like this.”

You winced as you pulled yourself to the edge of the bed, your hand only hurting slightly less than it had before. “You didn’t know at the time, I wouldn’t blame you for that. When you did know, you rushed to help me. That’s something I will be forever grateful to you for.”

You exhaled and smiled your rare, genuine smile, a warm countenance on your face that pierced Jimin’s soul. “So please,” you held your hand out to Jimin.

The boy looked up, pitiful expression morphing into a delighted smile. He gently took your hand and stood, then ushered you to rest comfortably back at the top of the bed.

The two of you spent the rest of the day talking, Jimin distracting you from your current situation with stories about his family and their travels.

By the time you realized you’d never gotten answers to your questions, the sun was starting to set and you were having trouble keeping your eyes open in the middle of Jimin’s conversation.

If the raven haired boy had noticed it, he didn’t say anything.

If anything, he continued speaking, his voice low and chiming with laughter as he recounted precious memories.

When he heard the familiar sound of your soft, slow breathing, he stopped. He simply gazed upon your visage, smiling at the way your (s/c) skin lit up in the afternoon sun and held a hand up to block the light from getting in your eyes.

He stayed that way for the next several minutes, then gently caressed your cheek, letting his hands linger for shorter than he would have liked.

Once the night was well underway, Jimin collected his things and left your side with one more forlorn look.

He shot a strict gaze at the guard, who gulped and nodded at the unspoken order.

Finally, he turned and walked down the hallway toward the elevators.

——————————————————————

On the second day, you were visited by Taehyung. You were still asleep when he first came into the room, but your mother was sitting beside you and her eyes widened when she saw him.

Before the younger boy could even speak, the older woman bowed low in gratitude.

Few people had ever seen your mother in a vulnerable state, you included, as she purposefully made it so.

Taehyung was a rare exception that day as he gently gripped her shoulders, feeling the slight trembles that coursed through her as he straightened her posture.

Suppressing an amused smile, Taehyung thought of the differences between you and his supposed mother.

While the actress trembled out of fear for her own life, your mother shook at the thought of losing you.

As expected from the woman who raised you, their perfect treasure.

“I can never repay you for the hospitality you’ve shown my daughter,” your mother whispered.

“There’s no need for such matters, Ms. (L/N). We’ll always protect and watch out for your daughter. We’re honored to have her in our lives.” Taehyung replied with a sincere tone.

She accepted the flowers he brought, carefully laying the bouquet on your nightstand, right next to the vase where Jimin’s flowers lay.

When you did wake up, you had your own chance to thank Taehyung for finding you and bringing you to safety, along with sponsoring your stay in the hospital.

He waved away your thanks, claiming that he was simply glad that you had turned to Jimin for assistance so that they were able to know about it.

“You know we’ll always be there for you, right (Y/N)?”

Always.

“Just say the word and we’ll come running.”

We love you.

His heart ached with the weight of the words he couldn’t say.

But you smiled in appreciation and he melted, as it was the smile they had longed to see for so long. The one that you usually reserved for your mother or Mana, the one that they had only gotten glimpses of in the time that they had known you.

He wouldn’t let you do anything for yourself the entire time, claiming you needed to rest up and heal as soon as possible. You reluctantly agreed, enjoying an unusually lazy day.

He played music for you, and soon enough the two of you were lost in a passionate conversation about your favorite artists. Funnily enough, there were several of them who you shared interest in.

Before Taehyung returned home for the day, he insisted on covering you with the blanket as well, tucking it up to your neck and pressing it in at the sides.

Your eyes were closed out of embarrassment as his form hung over yours.

He fought the urge to bend down and kiss your forehead, for he still feared that he could frighten you away.

Instead, he reached up and switched off the light directly above your bed. With an ambiguous smile, he left, closing the door behind him.

——————————————————————

On the third day, you were visited by Jungkook.

The atmosphere was a little awkward at first, considering how soft-spoken the freshman tended to be around you.

When you tried shifting the conversation by asking him about his personal interests and passions, however, his eyes lit up.

Jungkook demonstrated several different types of punches for you in the room, even helping you weakly set up your form with your still healing hands.

You learned much more about boxing forms and gaming techniques that day than you could ever remember, but you did leave with plans to have private self-defense lessons with Jungkook after you’d finished healing.

At some point during his visit, you had drifted off and by the time you woke up again, Jungkook was already gone.

You panicked slightly, worried that he’d be upset and think that you wanted him to leave. As you turned to your phone, however, you noticed a folded piece of paper resting on top of the back of it.

When you opened the paper, you saw a beautiful pen-and-ink sketch of you, lying in your hospital bed and napping.

Jungkook had somehow taken your messy, disheveled state and turned it into something that evoked a tender feeling within you.

You grinned down at the paper, amazed by his talent. Was this how he saw you? As this...ephemeral, peaceful being?

You gently stood the paper up so that it rested between the two vases that housed Jimin and Taehyung’s flowers, right next to Mana’s card.

The afternoon soon gave way to evening, then evening to night.

——————————————————————

On the fourth day, Seokjin saved you from the monotony of bland, hospital food by bringing you home cooked meals.

The mere smell of the dishes had your mouth watering.

He refused to let you do anything yourself, much like Taehyung had the other day. But unlike Taehyung, Jin went so far as to feed you himself.

It was embarrassing, but no matter how much you protested, he wouldn’t let up.

He sat in the chair your mother usually preoccupied and held the utensils out to you, neatly making sure you finished your meals.

At one point, he pretended the food was an airplane and you playfully slapped his arm, resulting in him dissolving into a surprising windshield-wiper-like laugh.

Jin spent the rest of the day with you, telling you awful jokes that under normal circumstances, you wouldn’t have found that funny.

His companionship was greatly appreciated, however, and you found that you grew surprisingly fond of his laugh.

Before Jin left for the evening, he gently lifted your hand and placed it in his lap, then revealed another bag he’d brought on his visit.

To your surprise, he clipped a small (silver/gold/rose gold) bracelet around your wrist. The ornament carried two charms: one of a well-detailed moon, the other a pair of angel wings.

You rushed to have him take the bracelet off, hesitant to accept such a valuable gift.

Yet the look in his eyes pierced right through you, his previous joy still present and glimmering but hidden beneath the depths of something more sinister.

You leaned against your pillows as Jin gently lifted the back of your hand to his lips, pressing a soft kiss to it, just like he had the first night you met.

“The moment I saw it, I thought of you.” He smiled, affectionately rubbing his thumb over your wrist. “Keep it. For me?”

It wasn’t a request.

——————————————————————

On the fifth day, you were visited by Hoseok and Yoongi.

You were slightly surprised at the fact that they had come together, as their outer attitudes seemed to be opposites, but you found that they complemented each other very well.

They were extremely considerate of you, allowing you to do things for yourself but offering their assistance should you need it.

Hoseok spent the day cheering you up by performing routines for you in the little space the room provided.

As strict as he was infamous for being, Hoseok clearly knew his craft. You were mesmerized by his movements and insisted on clapping for each of his performances, your hand healing quite nicely now.

Yoongi delighted you with tales of his rambunctious actions in high school, and some of the best well-kept faculty secrets.

There were several things you learned about Ms. Divii and Mrs. Hargrove that day that you would have been perfectly happy not knowing for the rest of your life, but you giggled and gossiped all the same.

It appeared as though the elder Kim brothers had a similar thought process, as Hoseok and Yoongi each gifted you (silver/gold/rose gold) jewelry similar to what you had received the day prior.

Hoseok looked as though we was going to cry when you went to turn down his gift.

One sharp look from Yoongi later, you closed your mouth, smiled, and expressed your thanks.

Hoseok fondly clipped the necklace onto you, his heart performing somersaults as you leaned into his embrace.

He silently gulped, overcome by the sudden desire to press his lips to your neck.

When he made eye contact with Yoongi over your shoulder, his face reddened slightly as the elder smirked at him.

He reigned in the perceptible want in his eyes and leaned back, flashing you his signature smile. “There you are, angel. Pretty as a picture.”

You lowered your head to hide your flush. “You guys really don’t have to bring me these gifts,” you murmured lightly.

“With a visage as perfect as yours, we simply can’t help ourselves.” Yoongi stated in reply, lifting your ring finger to slide a band onto it.

How unfortunate it was that it was the right hand instead of the left.

He was able to hide his disappointment from you, but not from Hoseok.

Nevertheless, there would surely be an opportunity in the near future.

How else would all of those worthless people know that you belonged to them?

——————————————————————

On the sixth day, Namjoon limped his way into your hospital room, a grimace on his face.

You greeted him with a warm smile that quickly shifted into a worried expression. “Oh goodness, are you alright?”

Namjoon nodded, taking the seat next to your bed. “I injured my leg, it’s nothing serious. I should be perfectly alright soon.”

Seokjin had been kind enough to heal most of his limbs, the elder worried about your reaction to seeing him in such a state.

They purposefully made him wait in agonizing pain for nearly a week, however, to rub the punishment in, before clearing him to go visit you.

It seemed as though the student body president had lost his usual self-assured, constantly amused atmosphere. He was strangely quiet, and his body language was similar to that of a man who’d been beaten into submission.

That was far from the Kim Namjoon you knew.

For several moments, the two of you sat in awkward silence.

The two of you hadn’t been on the best of terms the last time you spoke. Just thinking back to that moment when he’d felt like he was on top of the world, completely in control, made him cringe.

Then, you turned and smiled at him. “You know, if you really need to, you could always join me as a patient. It’d definitely make the days less boring.”

Namjoon knew you knew there was a change in his attitude, and rather than lording that over him, you simply welcomed him as you usually did.

“I’m so sorry, (Y/N).” The words blurt out before he could stop them.

You shook your head, slightly amused. “What’s with you and Jimin these days? You don’t need to apologize for saving me. Unless you want to, and, well, that’s a completely separate manner--”

“No!” Namjoon lifted his hands up and waved them around. “I just-"

You smiled, entertained by the frantic side of the normally suave, composed teen. “Think nothing of it, Namjoon. You have nothing you need to apologize to me for.”

Your expression darkened slightly as you continued. “If anything, I should apologize for not trusting you all more.”

Namjoon’s lips quivered, desperately wanting to form a victorious smirk, but he settled for an understanding smile.

In the end, he’d been right.

As usual.

“Who remains close to you, who you decide to trust, that’s completely your decision. You should never have to apologize for it.” Namjoon said.

You smiled in acknowledgement, then furrowed your brows in confusion when Namjoon started to dig around in his bag.

“I heard we were gift giving this week.” He pulled out a beautiful, leather bound journal and fountain pen and carefully placed the items on your lap.

“This is absolutely gorgeous. How did you know I like writing?” You smiled.

Of course he knew. He knew everything about you.

“I didn’t,” he replied, shrugging with a small smile. “I like to write in journals as a form of catharsis, and thought you might want to try.”

“Thank you so much.” You lifted an arm up and gestured for a one armed hug, one that Namjoon happily accepted.

Clutching the journal to your chest, you gathered the courage to ask him the question that had been running around in your head the past week.

“Namjoon?”

“Yes?”

“How did you guys find me in time?”

The elder clenched his jaw and shifted his gaze aside as if he couldn’t beat to direct his apparent anger and frustration toward you.

“We heard from Jimin that Aemilia took you and interrogated the police commissioner about any of our private guard’s movements. He fessed and told us that Aemilia told him that I texted her, claiming that there was another soul in need of punishment.”

Namjoon grit his teeth, vexation rolling off of him in waves as he practically hissed out his words. “He authorized members of our private force to move under her order in order to subdue you.”

Recounting the ridiculous lie that the redhead told her father, and the father’s idiotic tendency to believe her, made his blood hot.

“After we heard that, we rushed to all the places in the forest that the Augustus men might have taken you. Thankfully, we got to Lorne’s Ledge in time and Jimin was able to save you before you could fall off the edge.”

“Are you sure?” You said. “I could have sworn I stepped off...I thought I was a goner.”

Namjoon shook his head. “We definitely got there in time to save you. You sustained several head injuries, so I’d understand if you didn’t see Jimin or blacked out.”

You bit the inside of your cheek, pondering his response for several moments before nodding at his answer.

There was no way you would ever be able to forget what happened that night.

You knew for a fact that your feet had left the ledge.

But he was right, you did take several nasty hits from Byun and Lee.

You wanted to keep asking him questions, but the pained, forced look in his eye made you pause on that front.

Perhaps that projection you saw of your mother had actually been Jimin.

You wrung your hands together.

“What matters now is that you’re safe and sound.” Namjoon gently placed his hand atop yours and gave it a supporting squeeze. “All you need to focus on is getting better. We definitely won’t let them get away with this.”

You nodded again, smiling slightly at Namjoon in thanks for his concern.

——————————————————————

Halfway across town, Aemilia Augustus paced around in her room, practically biting off her perfectly manicured nails in worry.

It had been seven days.

Seven days of nothing.

Not a single word had come in from Byun or Lee.

When she arrived at school that first day and heard everyone talking about your absence, she felt pure and utter bliss.

There was no joy like the joy she felt in that moment.

Such euphoria simply couldn’t be replaced.

The only moments that could possibly top it were her future engagement with Kim Namjoon, or the day she would take over her family business.

Because so many days went by without a single peep at your face, she thought her plan was working.

She felt on top of the world.

But Byun and Lee were two of the most promising soldiers on the squad. There was no reason as to why they were taking so long to get back to her to confirm your measly little death.

As a result, she was starting to panic.

Of course, she had an emergency plan.

She had no need for it, as there was no way her plan could go wrong, but she always had to be prepared, after all.

Just as she was about to take deep breaths to calm herself down, she jumped at the sound of pounding footsteps and yelps drifting into her room from downstairs.

She heard the annoying cry of her mother and father, and then the sound of several people talking.

A grim chill fell over her.

Unexpectedly, her plan had gone horribly, horribly wrong.

There wasn’t much time left now, as she could hear the footsteps get closer and closer.

To hell with her parents--their capture was inevitable.

Aemilia Augustus would not be captured like a criminal, not as long as she was alive and well.

Aemilia padded over to her bedroom door, shutting it closed as softly as possible and smacking the lights off.

She dove into her walk-in closet and squeezed herself as tightly as possible into a corner, a rack of evening gowns and day dresses covering her.

Every couple of minutes, a door would slam open and she listened, holding a hand over her mouth as the pounding feet searched every room on her floor.

It didn’t take them long to arrive at her room, and she shook as she heard them throw things around.

A rectangle of light shone into the room as someone opened the closet door and Aemilia stilled as though she were encased in ice.

It was silent for a long, dreadful moment. The officer turned their head this way and that, walking into the room and turning on the light to search.

From where Aemilia was hidden, there was no way they would be able to find her. She thanked Wylynne that she hadn’t taken up on her mother’s offer to hire a maid to clean her closet.

The officer turned away to leave and Aemilia cheered in her heart.

After the guards left the premises, she would collect as many valuables as possible from the house and run off to her family’s private home in another part of town. From there, she would plan what to do next.

Her plan wasn’t perfect, but she would be able to get away with it.

Or at least, she thought she would.

Just as the officer was about to close the door, a strong, invisible force yanked Aemilia out from her hiding spot and she came crashing down noisily from behind the evening gowns, taking a few with her.

The officer immediately turned around, beckoning his partner to get her.

She hurriedly gripped a platform heel and attempted to plunge it in the man’s eye, but he caught her wrist and painfully twisted her arm behind her back.

The redhead screeched in fury and pain. His partner soon joined him, and they dragged her out into her room, each officer tightly holding on to one of her arms.

“What are you doing? Unhand me this instant!” She shrieked, writhing around in an attempt to escape. “Have you forgotten who you take orders from?!”

“No, but it seems as though you have.”

She paused at the sound of that familiar voice.

Her beloved casually strode into the room in all of his glory, his head held high, that ever present cocky, amused smile that she loved so much on his face.

“Namjoon.” She whimpered. “Namjoon, they’re hurting me.”

The student body president kneeled down in front of her and gently took her chin in his hands.

Her eyes filled with tears and she stuck out her bottom lip, waiting for Namjoon to tell the men to let her go. They better anticipate the earful they were about to receive. How dare they treat their future queen this way?

Namjoon lovingly stroked her cheek with his thumb, wiping away her tear. She nuzzled her cheek into his hand, looking up at him with a pitiful gaze. He smiled at her.

Surely he would save her.

Aemilia closed her eyes, suppressing a victorious smile as she felt Namjoon pull his hand away from her face.

But rather than the sound of him barking orders, she was met with the sound of a harsh slap.

Her eyes flew open in shock.

Her face stung.

“Nam..joon...?” She whispered, stupefied.

The senior was sneering down at her, pulling a handkerchief out the square pocket of his jacket and wiping his hand on it.

“What disgusting thoughts you have,” the man spat, dropping the handkerchief in another subordinate’s hand.

“Burn that.” He commanded.

Aemilia simply stared up at him in disbelief.

Had he...hit her?

“Namjoon, why are you doing this?” Her voice trembled. “You’d never hit me, you’re my...we’re-”

“Nothing.” Namjoon interrupted with a disinterested gaze. “I am not your anything. I’ve never given you any inclination that could lead you to assume that I loved you, or liked you, or cared for you in the slightest.”

Aemilia dropped to her knees in incredulity.

“That’s not true! You cared for me, I know you did! Ever since that (h/c) haired bitch appeared, you’ve turned away from me!” She screeched, her shrill voice piercing their ears. “I should’ve gotten rid of her sooner!”

As soon as the words left her mouth, all the air in Aemilia’s lungs disappeared. She heaved her chest, trying to breath, but found herself unable to.

He squatted down to face her.

“Let’s get one thing absolutely clear.” Namjoon spoke in a frighteningly low tone. “I never cared for you. You were nothing more than a useful little pawn in my game. A pawn who somehow tricked herself into believing she could become a queen.”

Her face turned redder and redder from anger, embarrassment, and the lack of oxygen.

“(Y/N) is more of a queen than you could ever be,” Namjoon stated, smiling at the memory of you sitting up in your hospital bed, grinning at him, the sun forming a halo behind your head. “She’s an angel. Our precious everything.”

He turned his gaze back to the creature before him. “She isn’t someone the likes of you can ever attempt to touch, much less harm or overthrow.”

Namjoon straightened, moving to walk towards the entrance to her room. “That’s my fault, I’m afraid. After all, I wasn’t able to properly regulate my inferiors.”

Black dots swam at the edge of Aemilia’s vision. She kept her eyes locked on Namjoon, still praying that this was all a prank or a joke, and that he would comfort her by sweeping her up into his arms.

“You truly have no idea what’s going to happen to you, do you?” He chuckled with a mirthless smile. “Don’t worry. We’ll fix that soon enough.”

Finally, her body gave in and shut down from the lack of oxygen. The redhead flopped over on her side, Namjoon’s cruel glare burned into the backs of her eyes.

——————————————————————

On the morning of the seventh day, you took advantage of your solitude by pondering the events of this week and the rather complicated emotions that came with them.

Despite their reputation and despite your fears, you had grown closer to the Kims over the past month.

They never threatened or harmed you or the people you cared about. They had welcomed you into their lives with open arms.

You had kept them at an arms length in an effort to protect yourself and your loved ones. But what had distancing yourself from them gained you?

Still, there was no way your method could be wrong. It was your livelihood, your path to survival in Ichabod.

There were rules here, rules that couldn’t be broken.

Yet the majority of those rules had been broken the moment you invited Jimin to sit with you at lunch.

Was it even possible that an alternative path to salvation freedom existed?

Had the Kims truly provided another way?

Your mother went around the room collecting and packing up your things for you as Mana helped you change in the bathroom, making sure to be careful of your still-healing shoulder.

When they left to fetch your discharge papers, you sat at the edge of the hospital bed and deliberated what could potentially be one of the most important decisions of your life.——————————————————————

i am so, so, so sorry for taking longer than usual to post! college and midterm season caught up with me--i’ll try not to let assignments interfere with my writing schedule in the future ;-;-; thank you so much for sticking with me through the wait! the long awaited day has finally come! revenge has never been so sweet hehe. also, the way that i have no idea how to write fight scenes--pfft. i hope you all enjoy the chapter <33

~taglist~

@melaninkpops @loserwithapen @hellaspookystudent @ecillartto @omgsuperstarg @ace-angel-judas @jjamsbangtan @lovinggalaxies @lovesick-heart0 @ksxmpoison @girlmeetsliv3 @thedarkwinterrose @purpuravm @oneweirdbean @hopelessfountainjoonie @mazmaz30 @enigmaticlove-03 @uppiespuppy @queenceline22 @kokofikats @taeyohonic @creatorspalace @supertweetycherry @anachikartadze @itsfeliciatime

#yandere x reader #yandere bts x reader #yandere jung hoseok #Yandere jeon jungkook #yandere kim namjoon #yandere kim seokjin #yandere kim taehyung #yandere park jimin #yandere min yoongi #yandere bts au #high school au #bts cult au #supernatural creature au

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benrybenrybenry-chr · 2 months ago

Note

I hope you dont mind but since you've left spaces open for sulu, scotty, uhura, and chapel I figured I'd step in with my own like a nerd

Sulu: dont have any specific sexuality or gender headcanons for the guy but he's gotta be some flavor of queer I fear. used to love going to beaches as a kid and cant stand it anymore, listens to a weirdly varied amount of music genres (like you'd look in his playlist and find top 20 pop list type music and the most niche shit you have EVER heard of. also some shit Chekov snuck in there that he decided he didn't care enough abt to get rid of) also probably the type of guy to just have the One playlist and its just his liked songs and everyone who looks at it is like "dude wtf IS this". he has no explanation. Next to Spock, he's the most heat-resistant of the group, though unlike Spock he actually handles humidity fairly well (cant relate im from the desert I would drown) Oh also you cant tell him shit cuz he's a major gossip sorry

Scotty: probably unlabeled honestly if I had to guess, I don't think he would care too much abt it... or think too much abt it.... busy w/ da ship. honestly this is barely a headcanon but the mf just loves feeling impressive at any given moment. about anything. ever. Also has definitely fallen asleep while working on something and almost wrecked his whole face. oh also he probably had a cat at some point in time that would sit on him as he slept and one night he accidentally like. threw it off in his sleep. and he felt really bad about it. dont ask how I know it was written in the stars shsshhh

Uhura: either lesbian or bi, personally I lean towards lesbian for her. can draw!! really well actually!! does it in her free time and sort of keeps them to herself, I think if she met Data they'd bond over the little art adventures going on there. Also she can only hypothetically cook. like- she knows what needs to go into a dish, and how to make it taste good, and she could instruct someone on what to do? but as soon as she actually physically tries to make a dish just. 🔥 uhhh has a collection of ancient (lol) cassette tapes that she Can Not Play because she couldn't find a working cassette player. Scotty's ended up working on making one as a side project

Chapel: lesbian. that is a lesbian woman with comphet. absolutely. 100%. has some betazoid in her but not enough to show At All (though to be fair, not much to show up anyways. also this is my watsonian explanation for Lwaxana having her exact face, though tbf ig like it could be the other way around but SSSHHHH) and was also raised on Mars for some of her childhood. oh also has just the most insane Bullshit Detector ever, it's very very difficult to get a lie past her. as a child her hair was brunette and got more blonde over time, but her hair in tos is dyed to give it a different tone. also this one goes against canon but ACTUALLY WEARS GLOVES IN SICK BAY AND GETS ANNOYED WHEN BONES DOESNT

ahem- now, I'm going to be very self-indulgent for a moment and, instead of just leaving it there, I'm going to attack one more character with my headcanons because he's my FAVE and NOBODY EVER MAKES HEADCANONS FOR HIM so uhhh. that's my thing rn I'm hijacking your post a bit

Sarek (I love him sm I'm sorry): as a little boy he was probably one of the least well behaved, most rambunctious, and emotional children on the whole of Vulcan, and for the most part was just generally a pain in his parent's asses for a long long time. eventually he became the hyper-strict unemotional logical vulcan he is now, but he definitely wasn't always that way, had to be drilled into him. that's feeds into my headcanon for why he treats Spock the way he does, there's slight fear at him acting human but generally, his fear leans more towards Spock ending up like he was as a child. totally incorrect fear my guy but hey idk what do I know. oh also I think you can't ever show him star wars because he would see Anakin's storyline and have a heart attack spontaneously. OH OH ALSO- this one ISNT a headcanon but I-Chaya was HIS pet first! the headcanon here comes in that I firmly believe when he was like. 6. he picked up little tiny baby I-Chaya and was like "im keeping it. mine now." like a child adopting a stray cat off the street and their parents begrudgingly accepting it.

sorry that's way longer than the other guys' I think abt him a lot

favourite star trek headcanons?

Oh boy I have ALOT hehe (thank you so much for asking :3) (and these are just my silly headcanons and it's totally find if you disagree with them <3)

Id like to hear your favourite headcanons @etherealspacejelly :3

Kirk: Hes trans and pansexual (or bi I like both), that bitch loves to vouge its his favourite dance move hehe, kept the boob window shirt from amok time and wears it just to annoy Spock, is Jewish, (this one is more for AOS kirk but whatever) He LOVES 90s and early 2000s rap and hip hop such as the Beastie Boys.

Spock: Jewish on his mums side, is gay MLM or unlabelled (I like both hc), really likes ambient music and falls asleep to it and white noise.

Bones: Is bisexual (yeah no, no character in TOS is straight sorry) loveeees to sing country songs when no one is around or can hear him even while on duty (Kirk definitely caught him once singing and teased the living fuck out of him), he loves to wear low raise jeans (old man whore), he has anger problems, a chronic smoker (yes yes he's a doctor but come on...he needs to let off some steam man) loves old country music especially from 20th century Earth, a massive fan of Dolly Parton and sings her songs regularly (his singing voice isn't actually that bad either, quite soothing but slightly deep)

Chekov: bi-curious (NO SLAVIC PERSON IS TRULY STRAIGHT...coming from a slav hehe) weed smoker so he probably smells like kush 50% of the time, is eastern orthodox (religion wise) he absolutely adores late 20th century (80s-90s) Russian Post-Punk such as Кино and Nautilus Pompillus, he also listens to Bladee and the drain gang in general (idk man he just seems like the average drainer/Bladee fan) also uses She/Him pronouns...(or that's just me projecting myself onto him)

...yeah you can CLEARLY see which characters are my favorites hehe (also I didn't put on hc for sulu scotty uhura or chapel since I barely have any)

#sighs. the autism

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autumnslance · 3 years ago

Text

FFXIV Write 2021 #2: Aberrant

Coerthas, 1551 (About 26 years before the events of “A Realm Reborn”)

“You know once you do this, there’s no going back,” Father Comfraire said in his soft, quiet voice.

Corran nodded, walking alongside the slender old priest. The day was warm and the wind blew through the long grasses, the constant hush muffling their footsteps as they made their way to the old watchtower. Corran looked to the sky, watching to see if the wings cutting the air were birds or dragons.

“There have been some who questioned your commitment to the cause,” Comfraire continued. “You’ve been less...active, since marrying that foreign woman and fathering a son.”

Corran stiffened, but before he could argue, Comfraire shook his head. “If anything, the scandal of your marriage made for a decent smokescreen. You play the part of a good Halonic well; one passionate rebellion is to be expected now and then--and she is lovely.”

“My marriage is neither convenience nor a fit of thoughtless passion,” Corran said in a low, cold voice. “I’ll thank you not to speak of my wife so again.”

Comfraire remained maddeningly calm, gaze fixed forward. “I care not if you love her or simply enjoy what’s between her fine legs--the facts speak for themselves and even after all this time, none suspect where your sympathies truly lie.” They stopped outside the old tower, its shadow shifting with the sun’s movement to fall over them. Comfraire did turn to look at Corran now. “My only concern is if you love our cause as much--or more--as you proclaim to love your Thavnairian beauty.”

Corran ground his teeth and willed his fists to unclench; this was how the old priest simply was, and he knew that. So he nodded. “If I wish my family to be safe and free, then the truth must be known, and this war ended. By any means necessary. I’ve waited long enough, and my boy’s no infant anymore.”

“Very well.” Comfraire tilted his head slightly, toward the swollen old door half-hidden behind ivy. Corran hurried forward and pulled it open, allowing the priest to enter first.

Others waited within, men and women who dared not return to the homes they once knew, branded traitors and heretics by the lying Church. They looked up as the pair entered, some nodding in respect for Comfraire, others watching Corran closely. They wordlessly followed into the center of the tower.

The top had long since fallen in, allowing the sun’s slanting rays to shine upon the creature in the center, she who made her roost here and encouraged those who would seek the truth in this long war. Her crimson scales shimmered in the golden afternoon light, scars marking her many victories.

Avengret, a daughter of Ratatoskr, a general of Nidhogg's Horde.

Her burning orange eyes took in the men who entered her domain, head lifting. “Comfraire. What have you brought me today?” She demanded, voice deep enough to vibrate bones.

“One of our own, my lady,” Comfraire said with a deep, sweeping bow. “One who is ready finally to take the next step in our long and winding path.”

“This you so judge?” She demanded, turning her fiery gaze on Corran. He met her glower with one of his own, struggling not to fidget.

“I have known this man his whole life,” Comfraire said. “He is dedicated, and worthy.”

“Dedicated to his Eastern whore, mayhap,” a rough voice said from the right. Another hyur, pale-haired and ruddy-skinned, glaring at Corran. “Where was you when we—”

Corran’s fist connected with the man’s jaw before most in the room realized he had crossed the four yalms between them. The other hyur flailed into an old table, the half-rotten wood crumbling under the sudden weight.

“Keeping my head down and keeping useful connections,” Corran said coldly. “That’s where I was, instead of flashing my arse to the Inquisition and giving every damned Temple Knight a target, Breckt.” He leaned forward over the fallen man, still holding his jaw and wincing as he tried to sit up among the ruined wood. “And I did it while earning the affections of a proper and respectable woman. If you call her aught else again, I’ll feed you your own balls.”

Avengret’s laugh rumbled through them, the very stones vibrating. “Disparage another’s mate and reap the consequences,” she said. “I like this one, Comfraire. There is a fire here I would see stoked against mine enemies.”

“I thought you would, my lady,” the old priest’s soft voice was nearly inaudible next to the dragon’s simple breathing, yet he was clearly heard even through the angry rushing in Corran’s head.

Corran turned his back to Breckt to look up at Avengret. “What would you have me do?”

She appraised him for a long time. Finally her great mouth curled into what could only be a smile. “I would make of you a true warrior, though it will take time. Assuming you wish to fight so valiantly for me as you do for your mate.”

Corran’s mouth felt dry as the others whispered behind him, someone helping Breckt to his feet, the wood clattering against the hushed noises. Avengret’s eyes burned into Corran’s soul and he nodded. “Anything, my lady.”

She raised her large forearm, and as they watched, bit her own clawed digit. More of a nip from smaller side teeth, but enough for blood to well, ruby against crimson. Avengret held her wound to Corran; he could barely cover it with his hand. “Drink,” she ordered, a threatening growl to it.

He glanced at Comfraire, who nodded slowly, a spark in his eye the only show of emotion from the old priest, always so controlled. Corran took a breath, bracing his hands on Avengret’s scales; she was hot to the touch, but not unbearably so, her hide pebbly. He leaned in.

Later, Corran couldn’t consciously recall drinking from Avengret, though he knew he had; her blood was unbearable, the flames coursing through his body, spreading until he was going to burst from the fullness of heat. Others held him upright, soothed him with ice and calming words.

Somewhere above them all, the dragon laughed darkly. “What was ripped from my mother, I freely give that you, my son, might become my weapon--my vengeance. Serve well, and someday your reward will be to fly alongside your true family to destroy those thieves and murderers who would deny your stolen birthright.”

—-

Dark had fallen fully by the time Corran saw Comfraire back to the chapel where he pretended to serve the Halonic church. Corran was sure he said goodnight, but it was hard to hear or feel anything past the buzzing in his skull, the sensation of his skin rippling from flames still racing beneath the surface. He felt as if he had to be smoking like a smithy, his hair damp with sweat and the echo of a dragon’s song in his ears. Everything felt unbearably slow and fragile; he had to move, but could not go swiftly enough, could not go high enough.

The door of his home slammed, and even that seemed too distant. “Corran!” a sweet, familiar voice cut through the haze, hushed but scolding. “Are you drunk? You’ll wake Zaine!”

He looked, and sucked in a breath. His Emelia crossed to the kitchen, throwing him a disgruntled look at his antics. He didn’t care; he could drown in those dark blue eyes and thank her for the privilege. Her golden-brown skin fairly glowed in the lamps as he followed her, the light catching on her fine black locks, shimmering in his gaze. Even now, cleaning up after the evening meal, she moved with the grace of a dancer, slim form swaying to music only she could hear, music ever outside his own hearing but he would follow her lead forever if she let him. Even scolding, her voice, with its Thavnairian lilt, was a song he could never tire of, weaving over the dragon’s verse still in his head.

“I knew you meant to escort the Father on his walk but did you then stop by the tavern? I expected you home bells ago! Zaine was disappointed you weren’t here to give him a story, it took me forever to put him to bed.”

“I’ll make it up to him tomorrow,” Corran growled as he crossed the room. Emelia squeaked as he spun her around and pressed her back against the counter, kissing her fiercely. Her stiff surprise quickly melted into pliant response, her cool hands sliding up his chest and around his neck, a balm for the fire still raging through him.

His hands ran over her body, needing more, needing her, naught else could quench Avengret’s heat, as he nipped at Emelia’s jaw, her neck. “I need you,” he snarled.

She yelped, and he stiffened. “I--did I hurt you?” He asked, some of the haze clearing.

Emelia shook her head. “No--not in a bad way, I mean.” She blushed brightly, and he couldn’t help a relieved laugh. Then she cupped his face in her hands and he thought perhaps he could ascend to the Heavens after all. “This isn’t like you; are you all right? Just what did you drink tonight?”

He pulled her close once more. “Something new. Think I’ll try it again--if you’ve no objections.” He rocked against her.

Emelia gasped and shivered, then bade him pause, swallowing hard. “Just the one,” she managed to say.

Corran blinked, confusion warring with the fiery instincts raging within him.

Emelia giggled, still blushing. “The kitchen hasn’t a door, let alone a lock, to keep little boys at bay should they wake.”

Corran laughed now, perhaps too loudly as she tried to hush him. He scooped his wife into his arms, to carry her to their bed where he could ravish her until the fire in his veins abated, the song quieted in his head. To love and worship her as she deserved--before leaving her arms in the morning to do his part for the neverending war.

---

((Immediately followed up by “Passion”, the spicy continuation of Corran & Emelia’s evening.

So in one of last year’s prompts I suddenly learned Aeryn’s dad was a heretic, and apparently this year we’re exploring that more.))

#FFXIVWrite2021 #Final Fantasy XIV #Lyn Writing #Dragonsong War #Backstory #Corran Striker #Emelia Striker #Avengret

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sariahsue · 4 years ago

Text

Footsteps

Marinette’s about to get married to her soulmate, a man she’s never met before. Too bad she meets that cute groomsman in the hallway first. Rated G. 4,000 words.

***

Marinette bunched the white lace of her train into her fists and walked faster, eyes searching the empty marble hallway. Just keep walking. She could get through today. One foot in front of the other.

All she needed was some fresh air. She thought a building as enormous as this one would have at least one window that she could open. Instead, sunlight streamed through vaulted arches taller than the bakery she'd lived in her whole life, mocking her.

Marinette poked her head around a corner into a side hallway, saw nothing but closed doors, expensive paintings (that couldn't be an actual van Gogh, right?), and a plush white rug, and walked past.

All she needed was a few quick breaths, a little bit of air to cool off her flushed face, and a few minutes away from her hovering family and bridesmaids so she could pull herself together. And then she would get right back.

How big was this building? Each hallway she looked down offered a new way to get lost, with smaller hallways coming off of the side hallways and as many doors as there had been guests and staff just an hour ago. She gripped her train harder. Staff that had disappeared to the banquet hall to set up for the reception. Guests that were nowhere in sight because they were being seated in the chapel right now.

A door snapped shut somewhere behind her, and she whirled around, her heart in her mouth at having been caught, but no one was there. Her eyes traced crystal vases on marble tables only put there to break up the vast space the building contained. Nothing moved. And nothing looked familiar.

Can I even find my way back now?

It was a problem she would have to deal with later. She didn't have the capacity for one more thing to go wrong right now, so she marched forward to continue her quest.

Her heels click-clicked as she walked across the polished floor, and she could have sworn she heard the door closing once again.

The shoes were going to give her away. With shaking fingers, she reached down and unstrapped them. They swung from her hands as she kept going.

Just a few days ago, Marinette had been so excited to finally meet her soulmate and get married. Why had the feeling deserted her today?

She knew the answer. All week it had been building, but now that the day was here, the swirling anxiety that had been simmering below the surface of her joy just couldn't be ignored any longer.

Most people gave themselves a few weeks or at least a few days after meeting their soulmate to get married, but her husband-to-be, Adrien, had insisted on being "traditional." No seeing each other until the wedding. She hadn't even talked to him on the phone yet. They would fall in love at first sight, as she walked down the aisle. If she'd met him before, maybe right now she wouldn't be so-

Marinette bumped into a glass-topped side table, sending the empty crystal vase on top tilting dangerously. Dropping her train, she managed to grab it before anything smashed. She stood there, frozen, listening, waiting to see if anyone would scold her, but no one was around. With a whispered "Sorry!" at the vase, she put it back in its place and kept searching through the maze of hallways.

It must have cost a fortune to rent this humongous mansion for the day. A new worry stuck in her throat. I'm not going to be able to fit in with my husband's family, am I? Adrien would love her completely. That's just how it worked. But what if her in-laws hated her because her parents weren't rich too?

Her panic spiral was halted by the sight of a familiar blue rug pattern in one of the side hallways. Marinette made her way over, window quest forgotten, and she tripped over her dress the whole way there.

The long, white walls were filled with paintings of fruit and flowers, like the ones she used to make in art class (but with lighting skills so good it made her want to cry), and no… she hadn't been down this way before. Even as upset as she was, the artist in her would have remembered.

Marinette took a few seconds too long to glare at an apple, and by the time she heard the whispering, it was far too late for her to hide.

"Sneaking," a male voice whispered.

Marinette turned toward the voice. Had someone seen her? Did someone know she was roaming the building alone? She saw no one. And she saw nowhere she could quickly hide.

A few feet in front of her, the hallway turned a corner and continued out of sight. Some of the hallways had been like that, leading to more corridors and rooms that she hadn't bothered to explore. The footsteps came closer.

"Sneaking around the corner."

If she held very still, maybe he wouldn't notice? She walked backwards and pressed into the white wall, the fabric of her dress rustling loudly with every step, every breath she took.

His shoes squeaked as a hunched figure came into view.

"I'm not sneaking!" Marinette blurted out as soon as she saw him.

He jerked up straight.

She noticed three things instantly. He was blond. He was holding his hands around his eyes, like binoculars or a mask, and he was in the nicest tuxedo she had ever seen.

The man was also quite a bit taller than her, but he still jumped back in alarm when he saw her, and finally lowered his hands. Brilliant green eyes went from shocked to soft and warm and inviting.

"S-sorry," he finally said. "I was the one sneaking around. No worries."

"Oh," Marinette said, heart beating in her throat. "Right. I wasn't sneaking."

He smiled, and Marinette was glad she was already leaning against a wall. He had to be the single most beautiful human being she'd ever met her in life.

"Um, nice to meet you?" he said. When he held out a hand to shake, she quickly took it. His hand was soft and gentle and warm. No ring on either hand that she could see. Gorgeous and single!

Guilt swept through her, making her drop his hand. Here she was, getting married in literally a few minutes and ogling someone else. But he was still smiling at her. No, she had to stop thinking like a single woman. But he was so pretty.

"Of course. So, uh," He looked down at her dress. "You must be the bride, huh? Marinette? Nice to meet you."

Sweat prickled on the back of her neck. Judging by his outfit, she'd just been caught by a member of the groom's wedding party, a groomsman or a family member. Would he tell her future husband that she was out here getting cold feet? Not that it wasn't true, but she didn't want her soulmate to know about it.

"And you are?" she asked, hoping to divert attention away from herself. "One of the wedding party, right?"

"Yeah," he whispered and reached for her hand again. "I am. I was out here looking for you. I'm A-"

She shrank back. No matter how much she wanted to, she shouldn't be thinking about him this way. She was getting married to someone else.

The man dropped his hand quickly, eyes roaming her face, like he was looking for what he had done wrong. When he couldn't find anything, he ran his fingers through his hair and stammered out an apology. Marinette watched each lock fall back into place, the light catching each strand and making him glow.

"I'm-" he tried again, a blush rising in his cheeks. "Ni- W-winston."

"Winston?" Marinette couldn't help but laugh a little. That was the least French-sounding name she'd ever heard.

"Winston the groomsman," he said, not looking at her. "Yes, old family name. My father's name, and his father's name, and I think I have an old uncle. Because we're British way back there somewhere on my mother's side-"

"Nice to meet you, 'Winston.'" It was apparent he was nervous, and she didn't want him to feel uncomfortable, so she changed the subject. "What are you doing out here? You were looking for me?"

"Um." He looked around the hallway for inspiration, and Marinette immediately regretted her question as she watched his discomfort grow.

"I- He- The groom wanted to meet you before the wedding," Winston confessed.

"He did?"

"Yeah, he wanted to break tradition and see you, but Fa- his father is stifling stick in the mud."

"Yeah?" The knowledge was somehow both comforting and unsettling. She and her future husband had both wanted to meet first, but her father-in-law… she wasn't going to fit in.

"Yeah," he breathed. "He can't wait to meet you. But he couldn't get away, so I thought I'd come out here. And, wow, he's going to love you. You're amazing."

Marinette flushed at the compliment. "Isn't that how it's supposed to work? Love and first sight and everything?"

"Sure," Winston said, "but you know what I mean."

In the distance, an organ started playing softly, but Marinette barely heard it. This man would go through all that trouble for a friend of his? He was so kind, and she was going gooey under his intense gaze.

"What are you doing out here?" he asked quietly.

Just like that, the glow was gone. Would he believe the truth, that she was just hoping for some fresh air? He might be sympathetic. But he might not be. Who would feel sorry for a bride on her wedding day?

"I was… looking for the bathroom and got super lost." She adjusted her skirt with one hand to give herself something to do and then laughed nervously. "This place is such a maze."

Winston didn't answer right away. He studied the train of her dress, mouth a thin line of disappointment. Her shoes dangled from her loose fingers as she waited, and she adjusted her grip.

"You don't have to get married today, you know," he said. "You can call it off."

Marinette squirmed at how perceptive he was - or maybe she was just obvious - and pushed her hair out of her eyes. When it fell back into place, Winston reached out to tuck it behind her ear but stopped himself. His hand hung there awkwardly between them until he let it slowly fall.

"It's okay to be nervous," he said. "I know lots of people who didn't go through with their weddings. Loads."

Marinette smiled at the lie, grateful he was trying in spite of everything, though she was still a little worried he was going to tell Adrien about this conversation, or that word would somehow get to her future in-laws. She wasn't sure which would have been worse, giving her in-laws ammunition or disappointing Adrien.

"No, I really did get lost," she said. "I didn't mean to get all the way over here." And to make it sound convincing, she added, "Do you know the way back?"

"I can walk you." Adrien stood up straight, his smile returning.

"Oh, you don't have to," Marinette said quickly. There might still be a chance for her to find a window and that breath of fresh air she'd been hoping for.

"I insist." Winston held out an arm for her, and like the idiot she was, she eagerly took it. His free hand settled over hers, and they began to walk.

Her heels swung from her other hand, and without their added inches, the difference in their height was ludicrous. But Winston didn't comment on it, just matched her pace without making her feel rushed.

Together, they left the small hallway and stepped back into the still deserted main hallway. Sunlight poured through the windows, reflecting off the gleaming floors and sparkling crystal chandeliers high above. Winston's hand on hers was comforting, and he was so sweet to help her, but now there was no chance for her to get away.

Feebly, she said, "I think I recognize this part now. You can get back."

"Oh, they won't miss me," Winston said. "I'll make sure you get back safe. Is there anything else you need?"

Marinette sighed. As kind as he was handsome, and she hoped he never removed his hand from hers. Why did he have to be so nice and gentle?

After several more turns, she really did start to recognize things. How had she wandered so far? Her family must have been worried by now.

Marinette didn't bother to escape from him again, and Winston didn't let go of her, even when they stopped in front of the bride's room with its white and blank, gleaming, bronze plaque.

"I can't wait to see you coming down the aisle in a few minutes," Winston said. He lowered his arm, and her hand slipped away from his sleeve. She felt the loss of his touch immediately. "I mean, if you still want to," he added quickly.

"I'll be fine," she squeaked. "Thanks."

"Okay," he said, waving goodbye without moving away. "Great. See you."

Yup. He was definitely the most adorable, sweet, and beautiful man she'd ever met. "Why couldn't I be marrying this guy?"

Winston took a step back. "What?"

Huh? She'd said that out loud? She'd said that out loud!

Fumbling for the handle behind her, Marinette said a hasty goodbye and launched herself through the door and slammed it shut without looking at his expression. What was she supposed to do now?

"Girl, where have you been?"

In seconds, Alya, Sabine, and Tom were gathered around her. Marinette leaned her back against the cool door, wondering if Winston was still staring at the spot where she'd been standing.

"Are you all right?" her father asked.

"Just needed some fresh air," Marinette said, staring at their shoes. "Then I got lost. Have you seen this place?"

"Marinette," Sabine said, lifting her daughter's chin with one soft hand. "You can tell us the truth."

The tension in Marinette's body all came out in a rush. Her shoulders slumped, and she slid down the door two inches.

Tom brought over a chair, and Marinette tried to sit down, only to find that her dress was caught in the door. What else could go wrong today? Without peeking into the hallway, she opened the door and removed her train - to her relief, it didn't look like she'd ripped it - and then collapsed into the chair.

"It's okay to be nervous," Sabine said.

Marinette nodded, though that wasn't the entire problem anymore. She was supposed to be marrying a friend of "Winston's" in a few minutes, maybe his best friend or even his brother. He would be standing there, witnessing her marriage, knowing what she'd just said. How was she supposed to show her face out there now?

Her parents and Alya doted on her, trying to put her fears at ease, but it was only making everything worse. She couldn't ignore her anxiety while everyone was talking about it. They flitted around the small room, fetching her water, guiding her to sit down in front of the triple mirror vanity, offering to brush her hair out. "That always calmed you down when you were little," Sabine said.

Marinette nodded.

"If it makes you feel better," Tom said, "I'm sure he's just as nervous as you are. I was nervous, too."

"Everyone expects you to be a little anxious." Sabine picked up the bristle brush while Marinette avoided looking at herself in the mirror. "You're marrying someone without ever having met him. That's terrifying. But you're going to be okay."

Marinette nodded again, dumbly. They waited for her to say something, respond with her usual cheerful attitude, and when she didn't, Alya jumped in.

"Sabine, didn't you get married and move to France at the same time?"

All four of them knew the story. Marinette had grown up hearing it, had loved hearing her parents' own love story.

"I found out my soulmate's name two days after my twenty second birthday," she said. Marinette could almost mouth the words along with her mother, they were so familiar. "I couldn't believe he was so far away. I started teaching myself French almost immediately, but the first time we got on the phone to speak to each other, all I could say was hello!"

A tug on Marinette's scalp told her that Sabine had found a small knot. She set the brush down and started to pick at it with her fingers.

"I moved away from home to a strange country, and was learning a new language, and was nervous about meeting my soulmate, but as soon as I saw him, it didn't matter," Sabine said. "You're going to be fine. As soon as you see him, you'll love him, and everything will be okay."

"I know all that," Marinette said. "But I'm scared now!" Not to mention distracted by "Winston," and the crushing guilt that reminded her she shouldn't be.

"Well," her father cut in. "What do you want to do about it, Marinette? Do you feel like we should wait a little bit?"

"Yeah," Alya added. "We can tell them there's something wrong with your dress or whatever if you need a few more minutes."

"I'm sure Adrien would understand," Sabine said. "He seemed very kind when we talked to him."

A few more minutes sounded wonderful, a chance to collect herself, do delay the inevitable. Or a chance for her anxiety to get worse. She took a deep breath. "No, let's just get this over with."

"Very convincing." Alya picked her clutch up off the vanity and started fishing around inside it. "You sound so pumped. Let me just text Adrien." Alya pulled out her phone.

"No," Marinette said, covering the phone with one hand. Her fake nails clicked on the screen.

"Waiting's not going to make it easier. I don't need any more time to worry. It's like you said, when I see him, everything will be fine. So let's just so see him. I want to see him."

"All right." Alya dropped her phone onto the table and grabbed the eye shadow. "Come here, then."

Marinette sat as still as she could while Sabine finished her hair and Alya did her makeup and Tom hovered around, asking what he should do to make her feel more comfortable. When they didn't give him any ideas, he started telling funny stories from Marinette's baby days.

Marinette only half listened, making sure to smile when someone else laughed. Maybe Winston had asked "What?" because he hadn't heard what she'd said. She had said it quietly, after all. That was logical.

Eventually, Tom had to leave the room to check on how things were progressing. Marinette missed his voice and his stories. The silence was too easy for her anxious mind to fill.

If she could just make it a few more minutes, if she could just make it to the altar, then she'd fall in love with her soulmate at first sight and everything would be great. No more worrying. No more wondering.

The final piece of her outfit, her veil, was laid out neatly on the flower-print sofa, waiting for her. When Alya declared her face perfect and Sabine could find no hair out of place, Marinette strapped her heels back on and stood, knees shaking, and retrieved her veil. She seemed like another woman in the mirror as she watched herself put it on.

Marinette did want to meet Adrien. She did. A few days ago, she'd felt excited. Just his name was enough to put a smile on her face. Her parents had met him, and she'd devoured every detail of him they could give her. Elation had bubbled through her chest as she had designed her wedding dress. It had taken weeks to finish simply because she was having so much fun designing it that she hadn't wanted to stop. If she could remember what it had felt like then, maybe she could recreate the feelings now.

The door creaked as it opened, and Tom walked back in. "It's time," he said, extending his arm for her.

Marinette plastered a smile onto her trembling lips and leaned on his arm to compensate for the weakness in her knees. No one else needed to know about her struggle, least of all Adrien.

The walk down the hallway to the chapel didn't take as long as Marinette thought that it should have. The organ music was too loud, but still not loud enough to drown out the breathing and whispers of a room full of hundreds of people, everyone who was ever important to her, and more that she would get to know well in her lifetime as Adrien's wife.

The processional song began to play, and Marinette walked in, staring at the pink petals on the carpet in front of her. Pews creaked and fabric rustled as everyone stood for her. And she kept her face down.

Don't make eye contact with the groomsmen. You're getting married to Adrien, so don't look for adorable "Winston."

Marinette forced her face up, searching out the people she knew. For her bridesmaids and Alya, her mother in the front row. Her school friends throughout the year, aunts and uncles who had flown from all over the world. A few held tissues, some waved at her. They were all smiling.

Everyone was smiling except for her.

She should be looking at her new husband - her soulmate - for the first time. He was probably looking at her. Had he already fallen for her? Was he wondering why she wasn't looking at him?

That curiosity was nothing compared to how much she wanted to look for the man she'd met in the hallway. There was something seriously wrong about that. It went beyond the guilt that she felt. It was a strangeness in the situation that she didn't have time to think about.

The line of petals thinned and disappeared halfway to the altar, and the organ music swelled.

The temptation was too great. Marinette raised her eyes, looking at the groomsmen first, looking for the friend that shouldn't have liked as much as she did. Because she was marrying someone else, she reminded herself as she quickly scanned their faces. And because she had only known him for about two minutes. What was wrong with her?

Her gaze skimmed them all twice, three times, but Winston wasn't there. Her footsteps stuttered to a halt before taking a big step to match her father's long stride. The hand holding her bouquet started to sweat.

Could he not bear to watch her marrying someone else? No, that was ridiculous. He didn't feel the same way. He wasn't feeling torn like she was.

He had definitely been part of the wedding party. He'd said so. So who was he?

The carpet ended, and Marinette heels clicked on marble as realization clicked into place. He was part of the wedding party, but not one of the groomsmen, so that must have meant…

For the first time that day, her heart pounded from something other than anxiety.

Marinette held her head high and looked for him. And she found him. "Winston." It had been a ridiculous name anyway. Adrien suited him much better.

Adrien smiled broadly at her. That wonderful smile she first saw out in the hallway was now a hundred times brighter, focused solely on her. He had snuck out to see her, had so gently guided her back when she was lost, had made sure she was comfortable, and offered to call off the wedding.

No wonder she had liked him so much. Love at first sight, just like everyone said.

He reached out a hand for her as she took the last few steps to the altar. Marinette slid her fingers into his, and they fit perfectly.

"Hi, Winston," Marinette whispered as she nestled herself into his side. "Could the groom not get away again? Are you getting married for him too?"

"I said the groom was going to love you," he said. "And I was right."

The last notes of the organ faded away, and a hush settled over their friends and family. This was it. They stepped together up to the altar. The first step of their lives together.

***

Author's note: Merry Christmas! You're getting something completely un-Christmasy. Huge thank you to @ours-polaires, @khanofallorcs, @vivalasaturn, and @noirshitsuji for reading over my outline of this and making sure everything made sense!

#ml #miraculous #miraculous ladybug #adrinette #adrienette #arranged marriage au #soulmate au #incorrect quotes

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in-my-feels-probably · 3 years ago

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INEFFABLE - Kaz Brekker

Chapter Nine

If you would like to read this on Wattpad, it’s on there as well, my @ is in_my_feels_probably and there’s a few visuals and better descriptions and stuff on there. otherwise, enjoy, let me know what you think, and you can check out my masterlist for updates and more. don’t forget to read the prologue, it’s important to the story!

INEFFABLE – Kaz Brekker

ineffable (adj.) too great to be expressed in words, utterly indescribable; too sacred to speak of.

Chapter Nine

Elham had successfully made it past the guards. Baghra was right, they had paid no mind to a random Grisha walking around the courtyard, instead scanning for unwanted guests. They had simply nodded at her as she stepped inside. She immediately had removed her kefta, discarding it in a random hall closet, left in only her dress, which she was sure she must have looked uncomfortable and out of place in.

She was now wandering through random passageways, trying to find her way to the ballroom. She was desperately trying to remember the blueprints Kaz had shown her, trying not to get caught, when she heard a voice.

“Are you lost?”

A chill ran up Elham’s spine, and she went rigid. It was the Darklings voice.

“You aren’t supposed to be back here, the fete is in the ballroom. Can I help you find your way?”

Elham tried to control her breath, willing the tears to stop falling. She quickly wiped under her eyes, finally turning to face him. He hadn’t aged a day. He gave her a soft smile, but it slowly faded as he seemed to analyze her face.

“Have we met before? What’s your name?”

Elham realized she must have looked much older than the little girl who had fled the Little Palace, and she stamped a smile on her face, trying to mask her fear.

“I’m so sorry, sir. My name is Anya. I needed a bit of fresh air, and I must have gotten lost. No, I don’t think we have met, it’s my first time at the Palace. And I think I would remember meeting a General. I hope you’ll forgive me for saying this, but it’s all quite...overwhelming. I didn’t mean to get so turned around, though, I just needed a minute.”

The Darkling’s smile returned, and he offered her his arm. “It’s quite alright, I’ll lead you back to the party.”

Elham hesitated, before taking his arm, stepping in place beside him. He began guiding them back to the party.

“Where did you say you’re from, if I may ask? You look terribly familiar, I must know your family.”

“I quite doubt it. I’m from a small town in Kribirsk, but my family is from Novyi Zem. We came into some money and my father decided Ravka was a better opportunity for us. Turns out he was right, I never imagined we would be invited to the winter fete. My father fell ill a few weeks ago, however, but he insisted I still come, meet good people.”

The Darkling smiled, patting her hand with his. They had arrived just outside the ballroom. “I’m glad you came. I hope you enjoy your stay, if you’ll excuse me, I have some business to attend to. Just go right through those doors, the party is in there.”

“Of course, thank you for helping me find my way back!”

He gave her a graceful nod, and turned down another corridor, leaving her standing still in the middle of an empty hall. She let out the breath she had been holding. She violently rubbed at the arm he had been holding, trying to wipe away his touch. He had been uncharacteristically cold to the touch, despite his warm greeting, and Elham could still feel his hand on her skin.

She caught her breath, calming herself as best she could. The Crows still needed her, and the plan wasn’t going to fail because she couldn’t keep her wits together. She headed into the ballroom, scanning the crowd of people for anyone familiar, or the Sun Summoner herself.

A guard came to stand next to her, clearing his throat.

“Sorry sir, I...saints, Kaz?”

He whispered next to her, barely looking in her direction, trying not to blow his cover. “Where the hell have you been? I’ve been looking everywhere for you, you know the plan--”

He stopped talking, now fully turning to face her. His jaw clenched, and he slightly nodded his head, motioning for them to back away from the crowd, towards the corner of the room. “El, why are you crying?”

She reached a hand up to wipe under her eyes, and was surprised when she felt the tears on her cheeks. “I didn’t even know I was.”

“What happened?”

“We don’t have time for this. I’ll explain everything later, I promise, let’s just get what we came for and get out of here, I hate this place.”

He nodded, and Inej appeared next to them. She looked surprised to see Elham in the state she was in, but with a quick glare from Kaz, she didn’t even question it.

They stood in the corner of the room, watching the Grisha put on their little talent show the King had requested. As much as Elham hated this place, and she was sure she would have been miserable if she stayed, she almost missed her time there. Watching the Inferni bounce flames across the room had her in awe, and part of her wished she could be standing alongside them, showing off her talents.

Kaz looked unimpressed. “It’s reflective glass. Bounce the light into that, and people won’t know whether it’s coming or going.”

Inej rolled her eyes, stepping to another side of the room. Elham was about to follow, when she saw the Darkling, guiding the Sun Summoner through the crowd. Alina was dressed in a black kefta with golden embroidery. She was wearing the Darkling’s colors.

Elham decided it was better to stay away from the pair, not wanting the Darkling to catch on to who she was. Plus, as much as she hated to admit it, she somehow felt safer standing close to Kaz in the room.

Kaz would be no match against the Darkling or his favored Grisha if it came down to defending themselves, but he seemed to always survive improbable odds, and Elham was more than willing to bet that she would somehow make it out alive if she stuck by his side.

Alina stood behind the Darkling as he turned around, addressing the crowd. The room had fallen silent. “Her name is Alina Starkov. And she will bring liberation to us all.”

The Darkling stepped off the stage, and the crowd parted. Elham held her breath, shrinking back towards Kaz. The Darkling lifted both arms out, before swiftly clapping his hands together. Darkness enveloped the room. Wisps of black floated through the air. Elham could make out the Darkling turning to Alina, holding his hand out to her.

Alina stepped forward, and Elham was suddenly filled with a sense of hope. She didn't think Baghra would lie about such things, but hearing about a Sun Summoner and seeing one for herself were two very different things.

Alina put her hands together, calling the light. She slowly pulled them apart and held them steady, revealing a small sphere of light in between her fingertips. She bounced the ball of light from hand to hand, before creating another. Elham watched in admiration, a hand coming up to her mouth.

Alina pushed the light up and over the crowd, letting it reflect in the glass. She pulled her hands apart, letting light fill the room. Elham watched the Grisha around the room look at each other, smiling. She glanced over at Inej, who was absolutely beaming. Alina dropped her hands, and the Darkling released his hold, letting light fill the room once more.

The crowd murmured to themselves, some bowing down, some praying. Elham finally made out what they were saying, as she watched Inej mouth the words herself.

“Sankta Alina.”

Elham didn’t believe in saints, but even she was starting to question her beliefs. Alina may or may not have been a Saint, but she was powerful, and she was vulnerable, and Elham refused to let that kind of power fall into the wrong hands.

---

Elham stood with a drink in her hand, close enough to Inej and Kaz that they could include her in the conversation, without her looking suspicious. To an onlooker, it seemed as if she was simply admiring a piece of art on the wall, or that she may have had a little too much to drink.

Elham swirled her cup, listening to Kaz explain his plan for flushing out Arken. He really had betrayed them, and now, he was going to meet an unfortunate end. It didn’t seem that unfortunate to Elham, however. A man who profits off the Fold and the poor souls lost in it was not a good man, and she wouldn’t mourn someone like that. She just wished that she could have been the one to watch him go herself. She quite liked a bit of poetic justice.

Kaz and Inej had started moving, and Elham slowly trailed behind them. Kaz approached Alina.

“Miss Starkov! We are to escort you to dinner. Could you come with us, please?”

“I thought, umm...well, actually I am quite hungry.”

Elham watched as Alina was led down the hall in her direction, when the Darkling stepped around the corner, standing too close for comfort. Elham quickly turned away from him, suddenly looking very interested in her drink.

“Thank you. I’ll take her from here.”

He led her away, and Elham quickly moved closer to Kaz and Inej, suddenly aware of the Darkling’s Grisha eying them from around the room.

“Alright, plan B. Scratch that, plan F. Stay on the target and meet me at the escape route. Elham, come with me, they’re onto you too. Act like you're asking me for directions, and I’m going to lead us to that corridor.”

She nodded, and Inej headed in the other direction. “He’s an Inferni. Don’t take chances.”

Funny, Elham thought. If it came down to it, this would be her chance to reveal to Kaz her powers. She dreaded the look of betrayal that almost definitely would come her way, but if it meant defending him against another Inferni, she wouldn’t hesitate.

---

Kaz had led them through winding corridors, all the way to the chapel. Elham could tell the pace without his cane was killing him, she could see the grimace of pain on his face he was trying to hide.

“Kaz, I can--”

“Shut it, El. Hide. He’s coming.”

Kaz quickly ducked behind a pillar, and she dove down under one of the pews on the other side. Her heart was pounding, her mind racing. There was only so much they could do against an Inferni. Without having to create a spark, Elham could best him, moving quicker than he could. But she’d reveal her powers, and they were already unpredictable enough as is. She lowered herself closer to the ground, tucking into herself as the Inferni entered the room, scanning for them.

“You’re not supposed to be here, are you, limping man? You’re like a wounded spider in my house. You know what my sister and I do to spiders?”

The Inferni had gotten on top of the pews now, and was briskly hopping closer and closer to Elham across the top. She could hear him ignite his flame, and she sucked in a breath. She was at the front pew ducking down, ready to attack, when the Inferni jumped to the last pew, peering down at her.

Kaz leaped out from behind the pillar, clutching a piece of bannister, swinging it hard against the back of the Inferni’s legs, sending him tumbling down to the floor next to Elham, who quickly scrambled up and behind Kaz.

Kaz stomped on the Inferni’s arm, preventing him from raising his hands. “Unlike a spider, I only need one good leg. However, you look like you need both hands.”

He swung the bannister down on the man’s arm, sending out a nauseating crunch, along with the man’s scream of pain. Kaz pressed down harder, and Elham could hear the bone crack. She almost grinned. Kaz brought the bannister down once more, sending it cracking across the Inferni’s face, seeming to knock him out cold.

Kaz took a deep breath, stumbling back as he threw the bannister away from himself, turning to face Elham. He limped towards her letting out a groan, and she fought herself from reaching out to steady him.

“Are you alright, Kaz?” He just tiredly nodded in her direction, moving closer to her. She grinned, but as soon as she did, it fell from her face, her body going rigid.

“Kaz!”

Her eyes widened, and before Kaz could even turn to see what she was looking at, Elham quickly shoved her shoulder into his side, knocking him to the ground. She quickly moved to block his body with hers, hiding his frame from the Inferni’s sight.

He smacked the ground in shock, turning over to see Elham, raising her hands high, a flame erupting from her hands.

She was going to do this. She had to. The Inferni snarled, creating a spark, but Elham had already shot a flame across the room, it landing on the sleeve of the man’s kefta. His face scrunched in surprise, and he batted at the sleeve, trying to extinguish the flame.

Elham darkly chuckled, quickly advancing on the man. Kaz had sat up now, to see Elham raising her hands, sending one fireball after the other towards the man, all catching fire on his kefta.

The Inferni was screaming now, collapsing to the ground, but Elham didn’t waver. He was desperately rolling on the ground, clutching at his arms, but she just stood over him, bouncing a flame between her fingertips.

“You really shouldn’t have done that. I’m counting on seeing your sister later. I can’t wait to see the look on her face when she realizes her brother died by his own power. I don’t quite like anyone threatening my family, so I’m sure you understand why it had to come to this.”

Elham’s grin had fallen from her face, replaced by a darkness that met her eyes. The Valkyrie had come out. “I’ll see you in hell.”

She raised her hands in one final swoop, sending a flame quickly across the Inferni’s face and throat, silencing his screams. His head lulled to the side, his eyes still wide open. He laid still.

He was dead.

Elham heard a gasp, and she quickly turned to find Inej now standing in the doorway, a hand covering her mouth. Elham let the flames recede into her palms, turning to face Kaz, who was now standing, staring at her with an unreadable expression.

Elham tried to find the right words. “I...I--”

Kaz stopped her. “You saved my life. The rest doesn’t matter.”

Elham sucked in a breath, feeling tears prick at her eyes, and Inej was suddenly at her side, cautiously placing a hand on her arm. Kaz directed his attention to Inej. “Get your Saint, and let’s go.”

Inej moved towards the exit, but Elham stood in her place, staring at the Inferni’s body on the ground.

“Elham.”

She didn’t move. Kaz was now at her side. “El! We have to go, now! You can explain the rest later.”

She just faintly nodded in his direction, letting him lead her out of the room and down the corridors.

---

A/N - hi everyone, i hope you liked this chapter. i promise i have a lot of cool stuff planned, just bear with me, getting in some of these plot points without changing the story too much is a little hard. i should have another chapter out soon. let me know what you thought, feel free to comment or message with anything, and thank you so much for the support.

#wattpad #kaz brekker x reader #kaz brekker #six of crows imagine #six of crows #shadow and bone #grishaverse #x reader #oc #in my feels probably #ineffable

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missxnsuppxrt · 2 years ago

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Ingrid preferred going to the chapel at night, or rather, as close to night as was safe. There were no looks of pity for the gimp of the village and no looks of disgust that she was still alive another day despite her tainted, diseased nature that spat in the face of Mother Miranda’s might and glory. But more importantly, no one was there to see that her heart wasn’t really in her prayers. It was all habit and words now. She didn’t mean it and hadn’t meant it for many years. How could she when all her heartfelt, desperate prayers full of tears had fallen on deaf ears? Her parents still prayed fervently for her to be healed, but she had given up on that long ago. Now the daily prayer was just a mindless habit she performed to save face in the village. Most times, during the ritual, she wasn’t even thinking about religion. She was thinking of practical things like what the weather would be like and what she needed to get done in the week. That fact would never be expressed though unless she wanted to be lynched.

So, as Ingrid limped to the altar, she removed her headscarf and did the hand motions over her chest. She lit the candle and left a small token for the protective goat and then each of the four Lords and then Miranda. Once that was done, she let out a noisy sigh and swiped her finger through the ashes from the incense holder and drew the symbol on her forehead. And then she realized she wasn’t as alone as she thought she had been.

“I…you,” she blinked dumbly at his barely visible silhouette as she tried to think of something to say that wouldn’t get her murdered. She could only just see the glint of his eyes when he drew on his cigar, making the ember grow bright. “I think of anyone in this village, I would realize she doesn’t care, my Lord,” she finally said guardedly. “I don’t…do this for that reason. I do it to,” she paused and glanced at the door and then back at him. Her parents had always warned her that the Lords were mercurial in temperament. Anything could set them off, and she was alone with one of them. Did she tell the truth or lie? Would he be able to tell the difference? She shifted on her feet, taking a step towards the door but trying to be discreet about it. “Keep up appearances,” she said cautiously. "I'm already looked down on enough as it is."

“L-Lord H-Heisenberg, I-I apologize. I didn’t know it was you.” (from @missxnsuppxrt in her villager!verse)

The peaks of the mountains rose sharp against the impending night, bright with the dying breath of dusk. Ghastly light filtered through dirty windows, violently red, painting shadows thick as pitch across the cluttered chapel. It was silent inside the small building. During the day, the church had a quaint sort of charm—it was the best attempt at grandeur from a people who had nothing. But the strange in-between of twilight gave it a garish, dream-like quality, as if this whole village were merely a trick of the mind.

He didn’t like coming here. He didn’t like being reminded of the absolute power Miranda had over their lives—including those of her precious children. How willingly the sheep followed her into darkness, learning her rites and rituals, chanting prayers she conceived to celebrate her own majesty.

—And to think, people thought he was the one with an ego.

He didn’t make his presence known as the door opened and a young woman stepped inside. Her progress was slow, painstaking; she leaned heavily on a cane. He couldn’t see her face from this angle, but he didn’t need to. He’d noticed her around the village. She was one of the unlucky ones: too frail to be of use to Miranda, and too useless to be healed. She didn’t know just how lucky she was to never know that vile woman’s touch.

He should have revealed himself to her. It would have been easy—it would have been the right thing to do. But he wasn’t in a particularly generous mood. He lingered there in the corner, splayed comfortably across a chair, bright gaze trained on her from behind dark glasses. It was delightfully inappropriate—voyeuristic, even—paying witness to the private worship of a tragic soul. He savored the thrill of that secret, just for a moment. Small pleasures were hard to come by after so many years of service to Miranda; he would take them where he could get them.

He studied the back of her head as the minutes ticked by. That vicious red light faded, and slowly the chapel sank into darkness. Swathed in shadow, he finally reached into his coat to retrieve a cigar and a brass torch lighter. The strike of flint broke silence, a soft orange glow cutting through the night air. A moment later, a plume of pungent smoke wreathed his face, the odor filling the room. He barely moved at the woman’s exclamation, tucking the lighter back into his coat. He was silent a few seconds, then—

“If you’re here to pray, don’t. She doesn’t give a shit. The prayers are for your sake, not hers. And if I have to hear that chant one more time I’m gonna drive a nail through my own skull.”

#macabremachinations #ˋˏ ༻❁༺ ˎˊ listen to me carefully (ic)#ˋˏ ༻❁༺ ˎˊ ea este frecare pe un picior de lemn (villager!verse)

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wondernimbus · 4 years ago

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ottery st. catchpole — cedric diggory

pairing: cedric diggory x female!reader

request #1: Hi! Do you mind writing a Cedric x reader fic where y/n loves and is the best baker? She hands him a treat and he finds himself slowly falling for for her (idk smth really cute please!) Thanks :))

request #2: Can you write Cedric and the reader sharing their first kiss together? 🥺

a/n: decided to combine two requests since i thought they’d work well together!

The muggle village of Ottery St. Catchpole was a fascinating place.

The first time Cedric had gone there at age eight, he'd thrown on an odd assortment of muggle clothes: a pink strawberry-patterned shirt, overly large bell-bottoms from his father's closet, and a pair of flip-flops. He learned quickly that that was not the kind of attire that would get him unnoticed by the Muggles—rather the opposite, actually, as he earned odd stares everywhere he went. But there were no "ordinary" Muggle clothes in his closet and nor did his father, so the next time he went to the village and came across a clothesline hanging unguarded outside of a Muggle house, he snatched himself two shirts and a pair of jeans and made sure to leave a thank you note under their door.

Free to wander the village without skeptical stares of Muggles following him everywhere, curious, eight-year-old Cedric made sure to explore every inch of it from the park to the chapel to the tavern.

But his most favorite, perhaps, was the bakery.

It was a quaint little place, tucked away in the corner away from the bustling main road. Its battered sign read "Old Corner Bakery", and underneath it there was a window display of the most delicious, succulent-looking pastries Cedric had ever seen in his life. It looked—though he would never let her hear him say it—even better than the ones his mother would make at home.

And so one day, Cedric, oblivious to the workings of the Muggle world and the fact that their currency was very much different from theirs, walked through the door, marched right up to the counter where his tiny head only barely peeked out from, and held up a single golden galleon. "One of those, please," he told the old lady behind the cashier, pointing at a mouth-watering custard tart on display.

The old lady reached out for the galleon, baffled. "What is this?"

"For a custard tart," replied Cedric, handing it to her.

"I've never seen anything like this," she said in wonder, holding the galleon up to the light. "Good grief, is this real gold?"

Cedric frowned, puzzled. "It''s a galleon."

The lady's face fell. Scowling, she handed it back to him. "So it's a toy," she sniffed. "I would tell you to scram, but I've seen you pass by here ogling at my pastries once or twice before. I'll give you one for free. What was it you wanted again?"

Cedric, although a little confused by how she wouldn't take his galleon, beamed in delight. If it was for free, he wasn't going to complain.

And so Cedric walked out of the bakery a few moments later with half a custard tart in his hands and the other half already snug in his stomach. He wondered to himself if all Muggles were like this; if he went to that shop near the town square, would he get more stuff for free?

He tried, and needless to say, failed.

The next day, Cedric came back to the bakery bearing two sickles. As happy as getting free food made him, something about exploiting an old woman's kindness didn't sit right with him. If she didn't want the galleon, maybe she would take a sickle instead.

But when he walked through the bakery doors, he found that the old woman was nowhere to be seen. Instead, in her place behind the cashier, there was a little girl about his age.

"Welcome to Old Corner Bakery!" she beamed, childish face shining brightly. "How may I help you?"

Cedric drew towards her, a pout on his face. "Where's the old lady?"

"The old lady?" she asked. "Oh, you mean grandma!"

He nodded.

"She's in the kitchen—baking, you know. I handle customers like you when she's too busy and I'm not doing homework," the little girl explained, grinning.

"Oh," said Cedric. "In that case, I want a cauldron cake!"

She tilted her head to the side, brows furrowed. "What's that?"

"A cauldron cake," he repeated. "Have you not got those here?"

Bottom lip jutting out in thought, the little girl scratched her head and hopped off of the stool she was apparently standing on to look over the cashier; as soon as she did, she disappeared behind the counter and into the kitchen. "Grandma!"

The familiar voice of the old lady replied, "Yes, dear?"

"Do we have cauldron cakes?"

"What?"

Cedric waited patiently by the counter, hands fiddling with the two sickles he held in his hands. "Cauldron cakes, grandma!" the little girl yelled louder.

"Never heard of 'em!" the old lady replied from the kitchen.

A moment later, the little girl was clambering back onto her stool behind the cashier. "I don't think we have those here," she told Cedric, and then, in a curious tone, "They sound delicious, though! What are they?"

A wide smile stretched across Cedric's round face—he looked as though he'd been waiting to be asked that for centuries. At a rapid pace, he began to gush, "They're chocolate cakes shaped like cauldrons and they've got melted chocolate in them and sometimes my mum uses this spell so that the chocolate doesn't run out and you can keep eating forever. She takes off the spell sometimes, though, because she says if I keep eating I'll get as fat as dad."

The little girl giggled, but then, with her eyes wide, asked, "Did you say spells? Like magic? The kind wizards and witches use?"

Cedric's eyes grew as wide as, if not even wider, than hers. He took a quick step back and cleared his throat, eyes darting around the bakery in panic. He'd forgotten, for a moment, that she was a Muggle—he'd almost revealed the secret of the wizarding world to her and defied his parents' warnings!

"Um," Cedric stammered, stuffing his two sickles back into his pocket. "Nevermind. Sorry!"

And just like that, he dashed out of the bakery, leaving the little girl staring after him, thoroughly intrigued.

—

Cedric did not go back to the village the next day under the irrational fear of accidentally revealing the wizarding world's biggest secret; that magic existed. Obviously, an eight-year-old wizard letting such a thing slip to yet another eight-year-old Muggle would little affect the wizarding world, but Cedric, childish and oblivious as he was, did not want to take any risks.

And so it took him a week before he mustered up the courage to go back into the village. He hadn't been planning to go into the bakery—he only hoped to catch a glimpse of the pastries by the window—but he found that the little girl was sitting outside on the front steps, munching on a piece of bread.

Mere seconds from legging it, the girl looked up and their eyes met. "Hey!" she called out, perking up. "I know you!"

Cedric froze from where he stood several feet away. He thought it'd be rude to bolt when she'd already noticed him, and so he walked forward tentatively, half-expecting her to start badgering him with questions about wizards and witches and magic. But she only patted the empty space next to her and beckoned him to sit down, that same cheery smile on her face that Cedric had seen a week ago.

He sat next to her on the stone steps, crossed arms propped on his knees as he turned his head to look at her. She was tearing the bread she held in her hands into two halves, the other half of which she handed to him.

"Thank you," said Cedric, taking it.

"You're welcome!" the little girl replied, face positively glowing with the warmth of a thousand suns. Taking a bite out of her now considerably smaller chunk of bread, she tilted her head and said, "I don't think I've ever seen you at school before."

He took a bite out of his own, eyes skittering away to look at the pavement. "My parents teach me school stuff at home," he told her. It wasn't a complete lie, although he guessed that the things that she learned in her Muggle school were a stark contrast to the magic he learned from his mum and dad.

"Oh, that sounds fun!" the little girl said, beaming. "Don't you get sad, though? Not having any kids your age to play with? Assuming you don't have siblings."

"I don't," replied Cedric through a mouthful of bread. It was some sort of strawberry crumpet. "I'm an only child. I suppose it does get lonely, sometimes, but that's why I go out here—to the Mugg—I mean, the village."

She nodded, mouth moving to form an o shape. "Neat. So you don't have homework?"

He shook his head. The girl's shoulders slumped and a frown quickly found its way onto her face. "I wish I didn't get homework," she said sullenly. "They give us a whole stack of it over the summer. I hate it."

Cedric bit the inside of his cheek. He didn't quite like the frown on her face; something about it made him feel unsettled, like something had gone wrong in the world. He nudged her shoulder with his. "It can't be that bad," he said, offering her a tiny smile. "There's.. there's worse things than homework. Like—I don't know—losing ekleksiti or whatever you call it.. or unintentionally fumbling with the Quaffle and messing up your team's goal.."

"You mean the football?"

"Yeah.." Whatever that was.

She giggled, turning to smile at him. "You're funny."

There was something about her tone of voice—along with the overall aura that she carried—that awfully reminded Cedric of summer days playing Quidditch outside with his family and warm wind in his face and lying in the grass seeing the clouds drifting above him.

It was that feeling that made it easy for Cedric to forget almost immediately about his illogical fear of exposing the magical world. It was what had him smiling back at her, round face just as bright and filled with the kind of mirthful innocence only children would have.

—

Cedric came back to the bakery the next day. And the day after that. And the day after that. Both the little girl—who he learned was named [Y/N]—and her kind, albeit slightly cranky old grandmother, grew fond of him. The latter would make sure to bake him his favorite custard tarts, and [Y/N] would sit with him by the front steps of the bakery, talking about every tiny thing their brains came up with.

"Have you got a favorite movie?" [Y/N] asked him one day.

"A favorite what?"

"A movie. Don't tell me you've never seen one!"

Cedric scratched the back of his neck, abashed. "I don't think so. Is that a Mu—I mean, what is it?"

Looking utterly astounded, [Y/N] began to ramble on about moving pictures and fairytales and stories.

"I've seen moving pictures—but you're telling me they don't talk to you?" quizzed Cedric dubiously.

Frowning, she nodded. "The pictures talk to each other. Sort of. Although it would be cool if they talked to us, don't you think?"

Still trying to wrap his head around the concept of images that don't talk to you but talk to other images whilst following a story of sorts, Cedric rubbed his forehead. "This is giving me a headache."

[Y/N] giggled, shoving the last of her custard tart into her mouth. "Let's go see one one day! A movie, I mean. It'll be fun!"

Prying his palm away from his face, Cedric nodded and couldn't help but grin right back at her. The excited gleam in her eyes shone with the promise of more than just one day seeing a movie; it glowed with the promise of a friendship that would last for a long, long time. That gleam of promise was reflected in Cedric's own gaze, and rest assured it would stay there in the rest of the years to come.

—

Three years seemed to pass by in a blur of endless chatter, ridiculous inside-jokes, and shared pastries out by the bakery's front steps. The pair grew and their friendship did so along with them. Cedric learned to grow cautious about what he had come to call his "magical secret", although he suspected that [Y/N] had started to grow skeptical along the way despite her never bringing it up.

When his letter from Hogwarts arrived, Cedric knew that he had to tell [Y/N]—that, or make up some excuse. Or perhaps invent something akin to the truth, but not quite.

And so it went like this: "My parents are sending me to school."

[Y/N]'s eyes widened. They were sitting in their usual spot out by the bakery's stone steps, identical biscuits in their hands. Out of nowhere, she smacked Cedric's shoulder; he turned to face her, clutching the spot where she'd hit him. "What was that for?" asked Cedric, eyes as wide as hers.

She smacked him again, bouncing with the excitement of a five-year-old child waking up on Christmas day. "That's great!" she squealed, stuffing her biscuit in her mouth and chewing frantically. "I can introduce you to all my friends and we'll get to see each other everyday and not just on the weekends!"

Cedric's heart sank. "Um.."

"And we can do homework together and I won't have to walk back home alone and—"

"[Y/N], I'm not going to your school."

She paused. Her face fell and drooped into a frown so disappointed that Cedric had to tear his gaze away. "What—where are you going, then?"

He scratched the back of his neck, lips pressed together in a weak grimace. "Somewhere far."

[Y/N]'s brows were furrowed. "Where?"

"I don't know. Somewhere in Scotland, I think. I'll be back home for the summer, though."

Her shoulders had slumped, and so had Cedric's. The disappointment was evident in the sulky lines of her face and it was making Cedric feel all sorts of things he normally wouldn't feel around her; incredibly downcast being one of them. He'd known this day was coming one day or another, and so would the day he'd have to leave and not see her for several months—the day that loomed only a week from then.

"When are you leaving?" asked [Y/N], gaze fixed on the pavement, a pout on her tiny face.

"Next week," replied Cedric.

He couldn't bear it. He poked her side, which immediately led to her jumping up and frowning at him. (He'd discovered over time that it was a big tickle spot of hers.) Once he'd gathered her attention, he said in a quiet voice, "I've got a secret. Do you want to hear it?"

Still looking somewhat sullen, she nodded. [Y/N] would never pass up a chance to discover some big, mysterious secret, no matter her mood.

And just because he wanted to cheer her up, along with the fact that he knew he couldn't keep this from her—his best friend of three years who knew everything about him from his favorite pair of socks to his biggest fears—he leaned in, eyes wide, and whispered in a hushed tone, "I'm going to a school for wizards."

She drew back, brows pulled in together in the middle in pure incredulity as said, "You're joking."

"No," said Cedric, grinning. And then, in that same hushed voice, "You have to promise me you won't tell anyone, okay?"

Still looking utterly bewildered, [Y/N] nodded slowly, gaze locked with his.

"I can show you magic, if you like."

At this, her eyes grew wide and a moment later she was nodding excitedly. "Where? When? How?"

"Right now!" replied Cedric, relieved at the smile that split her face and replaced the disappointed frown from before. "Wait here, okay? I'll be back!" And then he sprang to his feet and dashed off.

Cedric was true to his word; he came back half an hour later bearing a mysterious purple package in his hands. [Y/N] was still sitting patiently where he'd left, and she looked up at him calling her name.

"What is that?" she asked, hands reaching out for the box, which Cedric handed to her. Turning it over in her hands, she saw the words "Chocolate Frog" written across the paper lid in shiny golden letters.

"Open it!" Cedric urged, sitting down next to her.

And so she did. Carefully opening the lid of the octagon-shaped box, she let out a loud shriek as a chocolate-colored pair of squirming frog legs poked out from behind it. Out of surprise, the package fell from her hands and onto the pavement, but Cedric's instincts were quick; he hurriedly hopped off the steps to grab the package, hands firmly clamped around it as he brought it back to her with a wide smile on his snickering face.

"Guess you don't scare easy, huh?" he grinned, teasing. "It can get away if you don't hold onto it as soon as you open the package. See, watch."

Heart still beating rapidly, she leaned over with wide eyes and a curious gaze, watching as Cedric carefully opened the lid. He caught something that, sure enough, looked like chocolate—but it was moving in his clasped fist.

"A chocolate frog," said [Y/N], eyes the size of golf-balls.

"Yep," said Cedric, bringing the still struggling treat to his lips and taking a huge chunk out of it. "Don't worry—it's not an actual frog. Just shaped to look like it."

Gobsmacked, [Y/N] stared as he handed her the bottom half of the chocolate frog, the legs of which was still squirming. "That's—woah," excitement bubbling in the pit of her stomach at having witnessed actual magic (albeit in the form of the so-called chocolate frog), she brought it to her mouth, where it instantly stopped moving and dissolved into a creamy mess of delicious chocolate.

Eyes glinting with the same elation that was in hers, Cedric sat down next to her and pulled a card out of the box. He handed it to her.

[Y/N] stared down at the small card in the palm of her hands. "Woah," she said again, voice a stunned whisper. Imprinted on the card was a photo of an old man whose beard stretched all the way down to his waist. He was wearing sparkling magenta robes and looking straight at her, a gentle twinkle in his wizened, old eyes. An odd name was emblazoned under his picture—"Albus Dumbledore"—but then he reached up to adjust the spectacles on the bridge of his nose, and [Y/N] let out another surprised gasp. "He moved!"

Cedric was grinning. "Magic, I told you!"

Exhilarated, [Y/N] looked back down at the card in her hands. The old man—Dumbledore—winked at her through his half-moon spectacles. "Is he—" she swallowed, trying to calm her rapidly beating heart, "Is he a wizard?"

Cedric nodded, beaming. "And so am I."

For a few seconds, [Y/N] could do no more than open and close her mouth in pure shock. All of this was a lot to take in—but perhaps her being of the mere age eleven helped, because while the ordinary Muggle adult would have downright refused to believe it, an imaginative young girl like her who had yet to discover the world took the news kindly.

"I'd show you more magic," Cedric said bashfully, "But I don't really know how to yet. That's why I'm going to Hogwarts—the school I was talking about, you know—so I can learn how to use magic. Spells and potions and all of that stuff."

At this, [Y/N]'s lips once more drooped with the threat of yet another painful frown, but she picked it back up with a small smile. "Here," she swiveled around to face him on the steps, knees knocking with his. Holding her pinky finger up between them, she said, "You promise me you'll write, okay? And you have to tell me about all the stuff that you learn there and all the other wizards and witches you meet—there are witches, right?"

Cedric nodded, lips pressed together in a tiny smile as he laced his pinky finger through hers. "I promise. Expect there'll be owls knocking on your window every week or so."

Her eyes widened once more. "Owls?"

He grinned. "We use owls to send letters and stuff around."

"Oh. Neat."

They broke out into a fit of giggles. "Okay," said Cedric, pulling his pinky finger away. "But you have to promise me you'll keep it a secret."

[Y/N] nodded earnestly, a look of the utmost seriousness crossing over his face as she pressed her palm to her chest like she was swearing an oath. "I'll take it to the grave with me, Ced," she said, eyes sparkling. "Trust me."

—

And trust her he has done, for the past few years of his life. Cedric would leave on the first of September every year, but not before bidding her farewell and promising to write at least once a week. To make up for the time they've lost, he would spend almost every day of the summer and winter break with her. His parents understand; he has long since told them about the Muggle girl at the bakery who his heart has grown close to. And perhaps it is his parents who first notice when the friendship that he has with her begins to blossom into something else. Something more.

"Out to meet with your friend already?" asks his father upon catching Cedric already on his way out of the front door. It's his first day back home from his fifth year at Hogwarts, and he has barely even finished unpacking his bags.

Cedric grins. He is a young man of age sixteen now, no longer the tiny eight-year-old boy he once was when he first met [Y/N] all those years ago. And yet despite all that has changed—despite his broader stature and the fact that he now towers over his father—he is still the same compassionate boy he has always been; the one who has always had a love for pastries and a certain girl at the bakery, although he doesn't quite know it yet.

"She's waiting for me," says Cedric, oddly exhilarated. His heart beating with the anticipation of seeing her for the first time in several months, he waves a brief goodbye to his father and dashes down the hill leading to the Muggle village of Ottery St. Catchpole.

He goes down the same path he always has; past the small patch of trees at the foot of the hill, through the town square, and finally, in front of the bakery. The door is propped open as though it has been waiting for him to enter, and voices waft out onto the street from the inside.

A smile already having found its way onto his face, Cedric takes the front stone steps two at a time before stepping inside.

"Be careful, grandma—oh, no—no, let me do it."

"It's fine, I can—Cedric, dear boy, you're back!"

A tray of freshly-baked cookies are set aside on the counter before a familiar elderly Muggle woman rushes at him and envelops him in a hug, mitten-covered hands wrapping themselves around his middle—the farthest she can reach him at his tall height and her own short legs. Cedric meets [Y/N]'s gaze over her grandmother's shoulder; she is leaning on the counter, lips pressed together in a barely-suppressed smile as her eyes shine with the kind of light that reminds Cedric of everything good in the world.

It takes a while for [Y/N]'s grandmother to stop fussing over him. When she does, she disappears behind the kitchen with the promise of coming out with a fresh batch of his favorite custard tarts.

And then he and [Y/N] are left alone in the bakery, where Cedric wastes no time and hugs her as close to him as he can. He wants to tell her that he'd missed her—terribly so—but he knows that she knows, and so he just holds her to him and hopes that the words come across alright.

A moment later the two of them are outside of the bakery, sitting on the same stone steps they've perched themselves on so many times before.

"So let me get this straight: you intentionally didn't write about the fact that there was a mass murderer inside your school because you didn't want me to worry?"

"Well, the matter was taken care of—"

"And there were soul-sucking demendoids or whatever you call them roaming the castle and you didn't mention it to me in your letters because you—"

"I didn't want you to worry, yes."

[Y/N] stares at him, deadpan. "And I suppose if you suffer a horrible death you won't care to write to me either because you don't want me worrying."

"Well, if I were dead, I'd hardly be able to write to y—"

"Oh, you get my point!" says [Y/N], rolling her eyes, but she's laughing as she shoves him lightly on the shoulder. Sighing dramatically, she shakes her head. "You learn a few magic tricks and suddenly you cut me out of your life."

Cedric scoffs, but his annoyance is only about as convincing as [Y/N]'s, as he has a smile of his own on his face. "I leave a few details out of my letter and suddenly you want to end our friendship."

"I don't want to end it," protests [Y/N]. "I just don't want you keeping out the bad stuff from your letters just because you don't want me to worry. If anything, I want to hear more about the negatives than the positives so I'll know that I'm not the only one having a hard time."

Cedric raises his brows, the smile on his face drooping as he angles his head to look at her face from where she's leaning on his shoulder. "Why? Tough time at school?"

She shrugs, shifting a little. "Kind of. It's ridiculous, actually. My best friend—well, second-best, since you're first—thinks that her boyfriend," she makes a face, "likes me. She didn't talk to me at all during the last few months of school and I highly expect she'll still be an arse about it when we come back after summer. Rubbish, really." Cedric has fallen silent. When she looks up at him, she finds that there is a frown on his face, so immediately she reassures him by saying, "You don't have to worry, Ced. I've got other friends. Better friends—wizard friends. Or friend. Just the one."

Cedric raises his eyebrows at her. His mood has dampened a little; it shows in the disappearance of the crinkled smile lines around his eyes and the way his lips have tugged down.

"Oh, come on," says [Y/N], sitting up straight. "Don't look so bummed. I've told you it's not a big deal."

He looks away, and then, quietly, "I just don't like the idea of you having a hard time."

A grin slowly stretches across her face. A moment later, she starts laughing. "Always so caring, aren't you?" she teases, reaching out to poke his cheek.

Cedric rolls his eyes, clutching her hand and prying it away from his face. "Whatever," he mutters, making a face at her. She giggles and does one right back, and just like that, they're laughing again.

It's incredibly easy for the innocent, youthful part of Cedric to come to the surface during times like these, when he sits down in front of the bakery with his best friend at his side as they return to their naive, childish shelves and bond over everything and nothing with all sorts of pastries clutched in their chubby hands. Cedric finds that, no matter how much time has passed, [Y/N] still feels the same: warm and comforting and reminiscent of home.

—

Time passes as it has always done, and sooner than both Cedric and [Y/N] would have liked, the day of September comes looming above them a mere week away.

They are on one of the many hills surrounding the village of Ottery St. Catchpole—their favorite one, actually; the one that has a perfect view of the village if they sit at the very top, which is what they are doing. The night sky looms above them as they do as they have always done: talk. And whenever they lapse into silence, they bask in the comfort they have always found in one another.

At present, they are laying on their backs on the grass. Usually, they'd be pointing out random shapes they each notice in the clouds, but it is nighttime and only wisps of smoke from the village chimneys drift across the dark blue canvas. There are only a few stars visible through the pollution hanging in the air; "I could count them all on one hand," says [Y/N], arm stretched upwards as though reaching for the sky. "Bit sad, really. I remember when we were kids there were still a lot of them. Sort of."

Cedric, with his gaze similarly glued to the stretch of sky above them, lets out an exhale. "We can see the stars at Hogwarts," he tells her quietly like they're sharing a secret, which, in a way, they are. "We don't even have to go to the Astronomy Tower to see them—when we look up, they're right there. Right above us. It's.."

He trails off.

"Ethereal?" [Y/N] suggests, tone hushed.

Cedric nods. "I wish I could take you to see them, but. You know."

"I'm a—what was it you guys called us lame, non-magical folks again?" she rolls onto her side to face him, arm tucked underneath her head as her eyes narrowed playfully.

"A Muggle," Cedric says, looking at her out of the corner of his eye. "And that doesn't make you lame. It just makes you.."

"Non-magical," she snorts.

"Doesn't matter," mumbles Cedric, shifting to turn on his side as well. "You've got a different kind of magic." And his tone is teasing, but there's a hint of underlying emotion hidden beneath that he wonders if [Y/N] picks up on.

"And what's that?" [Y/N] asks, feigning a haughty look. "Is it my—let's see—supernatural charms? Or my mystical beauty?"

Cedric laughs. "Something like that."

Facing her, mere centimeters away, Cedric sees that moonshine is dancing across the skin of her face; he sees the very stars they were speaking of gleaming in her eyes, and all of a sudden the atmosphere changes and he can't quite breathe properly.

The look on his face doesn't go amiss. The playful smile on [Y/N]'s face falls and reveals underneath it something more—something that has Cedric's heart beating wildly in his throat and his lungs seizing up in his chest.

Ethereal, Cedric thinks to himself as his gaze locks with hers and he finds himself drowning in the sea of constellations inside her irises. The stars at Hogwarts hold no competition to those which he sees in that moment in [Y/N]'s eyes. He wonders if they have always been there, waiting to be noticed, or if they have only just surfaced now.

And then Cedric finds himself leaning in and somewhere in the middle, she meets his lips with her own.

They pause for a moment, as though giving each other time to pull away if they want to, but neither of them do. And he really can't quite tell who moves first—him or [Y/N]—but they let each other's lips begin to whisper over one another's in gentle, slow carresses. They string up, unhurried and soft, one kiss flowing into the next with endless patience and want, and [Y/N]'s lips are inviting and alive and Cedric almost doesn't want to pull away, but he has to, eventually, and so he draws back, eyes blinking open.

He wonders, for a moment, despite the fact that she'd kissed back, if he had gone too far. If he had crossed the line that had always rested between them that made the difference between friendship and.. whatever this was.

But then familiar crinkles appear around [Y/N]'s eyes as she smiles at him. "I believe I've discovered my magic."

Cedric takes a brief moment to respond. Letting out a quiet exhale, he keeps his gaze fixed on hers as he furrows his eyebrows a little and asks with a tiny smile of his own, "What's that?"

She grins and jokes in a hushed, almost theatrical tone, "Seduction."

Cedric's face relaxes into a proper smile and he leans forward, pressing his mouth against [Y/N]'s for the second time. He feels the happy curve of her lips and feels his own curving up in response until they aren't really kissing anymore; just smiling against each other's mouths.

Ethereal, Cedric thinks to himself again, not for the first time that day. Absolutely bloody magical.

—

The muggle village of Ottery St. Catchpole was a fascinating place, but perhaps the reason why Cedric thought so was not because of the buildings and the bustling streets themselves, but because of the little bakery owned by a Muggle grandma and a girl whose heart Cedric knew even better than his own.

When the first of September comes around and brings with it the inevitable need to say goodbye, a pair of friends bound together by the passing of time sit on the front steps of the Old Corner Bakery, joking and talking and making promises to write. [Y/N]'s grandmother has insisted on Cedric bringing along snacks in case he gets hungry during the train ride, hence the paper bag full of custard tarts he clutches in his hands.

"I think she loves you more than I do," says [Y/N], watching her grandmother disappear back into the bakery, weeping.

Cedric laughs. "Tell me something I don't know."

And then suddenly it is time to say their farewells, and Cedric is hugging her goodbye but it doesn't feel like enough, so he pulls away, places his hand on the back of her head, and presses a kiss to her forehead. He would press their lips together but he knows that will make it harder to say goodbye, so for now, he settles for this.

"You promise me you won't leave the bad stuff out of your letters, okay?"

"You can count on me."

So Cedric waves goodbye to her with the same gleam of promise from all those years ago sparkling in his eyes like stars that have yet to die out. He can't promise to stay, but he can promise that he will come back—and he will. He always will.

a/n: whether or not cedric comes back to ottery st. catchpole next year is entirely up to you (cough triwizard tournament cough)

#harry potter #harry potter oneshot #harry potter oneshots #harry potter imagine #harry potter imagines #harry potter x reader #harry potter fanfiction #harry potter fanfic #cedric diggory oneshots #cedric diggory oneshot #cedric diggory imagine #cedric diggory imagines #cedric diggory x reader #cedric diggory

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echo-bleu · 4 years ago

Note

Ooohh can I ask for something soft, intimate, and hurt/comfort-y featuring both 10 & 24 (together) 😚

Thank you for this prompt Anon, I really loved writing it! I love writing non-sexual intimacy. This ended up being a “Alec has an autistic shutdown” sort of fic so, I hope you like it. (1.6k)

Thank you so much to @eternallysilvermagnusandalec for betaing. The title is from Radical Face's The Mute which is a beautiful song Silver just recced me.

[CW: autistic shutdown, light self-harming stims]

Read on AO3.

Alec opens his mouth, trying to raise his voice enough to go over the racket of everyone in the room yelling at the same time, but he fails to utter a single word. He wants to clasp his hand over his ears and curl up into a ball – or better, run away to a quiet corner. The Institute’s chapel sounds like heaven right now. But he’s in the middle of a Cabinet meeting and he simply can’t afford it.

Instead, he stands up brutally, his chair screeching on the stone floor. The noise dies down immediately. He feels their stares on him, heavy and expectant. He tries to speak again, but his throat feels constricted, tears rising to his eyes. He blinks them away before they can show on the outside and clasps his hands behind his back tightly, digging his nails into his palm.

He knows how he must look, towering over them mutely, his gaze firmly on the table. He can’t think straight enough to change it. His head is ringing and he can’t make his words work. He hates this, but he can’t even move to flee.

“Let’s adjourn this meeting,” Magnus says, his voice low but authoritative. He makes a simple gesture, and everyone else nods. They file out quickly, with no more than a glance at Alec, who doesn’t move. They understand.

Somehow, they understand.

It should be the height of irony that Alec feels safer here, surrounded by Downworlders – Maia and Bat, Raphael and Simon, Magnus and Catarina, the entirety of the current Cabinet excluding Izzy who is in Idris on a mission – than he could ever feel in a meeting with the Clave. He dreads finding himself like this in front of the Consul or the new Inquisitor one day, unable to speak or make his body obey his commands. He doubts they would look kindly on him.

Magnus comes closer, staying carefully within Alec’s field of vision. He reaches out with one hand, but doesn’t touch Alec.

“It’s just us,” he says. “Do you want to stay here or go home?”

Alec rolls back on his heels. He wants to...he doesn’t know. He can barely keep his thought process focused for long enough to figure out the implications of either options, and more importantly, he can’t decide. Choosing is beyond him. He shakes his head with something that sounds too much like a whimper to his ears.

“Do you want me to decide?” Magnus asks.

Alec nods, his hands still clenched behind his back. He knows – they’ve discussed this before – that Magnus is doing his best to help while still giving him the ability to decide for himself, and he’s usually thankful for that, but right now it’s just frustrating. He’s stuck, and he doesn’t want to move, to change, but it’s the only way it’s going to get better.

Magnus has opened a portal in the few seconds it takes Alec to parse this. “Go on through, Alexander,” he says, and it’s what gets Alec in motion. He finally manages to unclench his hands as he steps through, gritting his teeth against the sensation of being sucked through – he hates it, but it’s over very fast, and a sense of calmness falls over him as soon as he’s back in the loft.

He finds himself facing the bay windows, but the curtains are drawn, so the light only hurts his eyes a little. The quiet makes him realize how taxing the constant buzz of noise is at the Institute, even when he’s not in the middle of a screaming match between disagreeing Downworlders.

Magnus deftly avoids running into him when he comes behind him, even though Alec has stopped right out of the portal without thinking. “Home sweet home,” he murmurs. “Can I touch you?”

Alec shakes his head immediately, hoping that Magnus won’t take it personally. His own clothes itch and burn his skin right now, distorting his perception of his own body.

“Alright,” Magnus says without changing his tone. “We can get you to the bedroom to rest for a bit. Does that sound good?”

Alec nods, more to Magnus’ tone than the content of his question. He trusts Magnus. He trusts Magnus more than he trusts himself, especially right now.

“Come with me, Alexander,” Magnus coaxes. “Bedroom.”

Alec struggles to make his brain process it, then to get his body moving past the petrifying exhaustion. He rocks on his heels a few times, his hands hitting each other almost beyond his will, knuckles against palm, hard. The pain sends a small jolt through his body.

Magnus flinches a little, but doesn’t try to stop him. “Come with me,” he repeats softly.

Alec walks behind him, stiffly, feeling like his body doesn’t really belong to him, like he doesn’t know how to move his lanky legs fluidly. He hits his shoulder on the doorframe, hard enough for the pain to register in some part of his mind. Magnus makes an aborted motion to reach out, but Alec flinches back against his will.

“Here,” Magnus murmurs. “You need to take off your shoes. Unless you’re ready to let me do it.”

Alec closes his eyes tightly, until he sees stars, and makes a hand motion he hopes Magnus will understand.

“By magic? I can do that. Your clothes too? You’ll be more comfortable in sweats.”

Alec nods, still standing too straight by the bed. Magnus makes a deliberately wide gesture with his hand, and both of their outfits change at the same time, Magnus into one of his workout outfits and Alec into the sweats he usually sleeps in. They’re both barefoot, and Alec flexes his toes, relishing and mourning the loss of his shoes at the same time.

Magnus lifts the covers on Alec’s side of the bed as Alec tries not to squirm inside the new clothes. The sweats are worn and soft, but the change is jarring all the same. He shudders and hits his fists together a few times to get rid of the crawling feeling.

“You can lie down,” Magnus says, taking a step back.

As soon as Alec’s knees hit the bed, he folds in on himself, melting into the mattress like a puppet whose strings have been removed. Magnus pulls the covers back on his body, deftly avoiding touching him, and adds Alec’s weighted blanket on top. Alec sighs in contentment as the weight settles over him, turning him into a puddle. His world shrinks until it’s bearable again, his skin no longer two sizes too small for his body.

Magnus gets under the covers on his side, sometime in the seconds – minutes? – it takes Alec to settle down. Alec doesn’t bother trying to track his movement, trusting him not to do anything painful. “Better?” Magnus murmurs, lower than he usually would, his hands inches from Alec’s face but not touching.

They’re both lying on their sides, facing each other, Alec curled up in a ball and Magnus stretched out. Alec nods and even manages a hum.

“Come here,” Magnus murmurs, scouting a little closer. “You’re trembling.”

Alec’s eyes sluggishly find his hands and he realizes that Magnus is right. He’s shaking. He’s cold – no, not cold exactly, but the tension seeping out of his body leaves him off-balance, unable to self-regulate. His teeth are shattering.

“Do you think you can handle me if I squeeze hard?” Magnus asks.

Alec thinks about it. It takes him too long, he knows that, but Magnus is patient. He waits without moving, expectant but not pressing.

Maybe, Alec tries to convey with a half-nod.

He braces himself. For a fraction of a second, as Magnus closes his hand around his, he feels like he might explode, but Magnus squeezes almost hard enough to hurt, and the pressure helps. Alec almost unconsciously pulls Magnus closer, wanting more of his warmth and his weight. “You want me to lie on you?” Magnus asks, not resisting.

Alec nods, since that’s what his body is clearly craving. They’ve done this before, and it’s a little hit-or-miss, but Alec has come to love it. Magnus is careful not to graze him as he climbs on top of him, deliberately digging his knees and elbows into Alec’s skin. It hurts, but in a way that appeases the urge to hit his hands or his head on something.

Alec does his best to avoid hurting Magnus himself by touching him, but his control is poor and Magnus gently replaces his hands a couple of times before they’re both comfortable. Alec melts under the pressure on his whole body, Magnus’ head tucked under his chin, his soft breathing giving him a rhythm to follow.

He should feel trapped, unable to move as he is, but he doesn’t. He feels...loved. Cared for. Magnus understands him without words. He’s the one person who doesn’t make him feel embarrassed when he shuts down like this, who just calmly and unquestioningly helps.

When he feels settled enough, Alec removes one hand from Magnus’ grasp and signs T-Y, as Magnus is not in a position to see the regular thank you sign. Magnus nods against his chest. “You’re welcome, Alexander,” he says quietly. “Want me to get off you?”

Alec shakes his head, his chin brushing against Magnus’ gelled hair. It tickles, and he lets out a small laugh, his free hand fluttering at his side.

“I’m staying right here, then,” Magnus says, a smile in his voice.

Alec closes his eyes, exhausted but feeling grounded. They both fall asleep within minutes, even though it’s the middle of the day.

#shadowhunters #malec #malec fic #alec lightwood #magnus bane #autistic alec lightwood #mine #echo's fanfiction #map out a world #Anonymous #asks

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collecting-stories · 4 years ago

Text

Tim McGraw - John B Routledge

Request: No.

A/N: This literally just popped in my head the other day when I was working through a writer’s block.

The TS Anthology Series | Outer Banks Masterlist

✰...when you think Tim McGraw, I hope you think of me✰

_ . ◦ ⭐︎:*.☾.*:⭐︎◦∙._

You weren’t sure if it was homesickness or something else entirely but you felt like you were in a fog as you unpacked a semester’s worth of clothing and personal belongings, trying to make your side of the dorm look a little more like your room back home. The dorm wasn’t very big, one loft bed on the right that you claimed immediately and a bed on risers that your roommate was sitting on, trying to fold all the clothes that she hadn’t bothered to fold before when she was emptying out her drawers. 

“I might go take a look around campus,” you suggested. Summer had been cut short this year and you couldn’t deny that the thought of facing another September without John B was weighing on you. It shouldn’t have been, but you couldn’t help the unavoidable feeling in the pit of your stomach. 

You’d thought about telling him, wrote everything down in a letter and sat with it for a long time. He was just a summer crush, a temporary love that you let you let go every September, this time shouldn’t have been any different. Except this time you hadn’t left to go back to Pennsylvania, you’d left the Outer Banks but stayed in North Carolina, settling in Chapel Hill for your freshman year of college. 

There were plenty of perks to being a touron, despite what the islanders thought. Being a touron meant reinventing yourself, even for just a summer. You could be whoever you wanted to be, no one would know any different. Most summers, every one since you were fifteen, you reinvented yourself into the same beach-loving, party-going, John B-dating summertime pogue that you wished you could be year round. 

Whether he dated other girls during the months that you were back in Pennsylvania you didn’t know, and didn’t want to know. It was only three months that you were there but it was three months of John B’s attention unwavering and you took it because you liked him so much. 

“I’m telling you, it broke down,” John B insisted, his VW Bus pulled off the side of the road, hood popped up. It was dusk out, the warm glow of the setting sun washing everything in oranges and pinks. You were sitting in the driver’s seat like he’d instructed, waiting to start the car and hit the gas when he said to. 

“Seems kind of coincidental, don’t you think?” You said, opening the door and turning to sit sideways in your seat as John B came around the side. 

“Coincidental how?” He asked, laying his hands over your bare thighs, running them down to your knees and back up to the hem of your shorts. 

You pushed his hands away and laughed, “well I just so happen to tell you that I can’t hang out tonight because I have dinner with my grandparents and your car just so happens to break down.” 

“I have no control over the Twinkie.” He replied, trying to look as innocent as possible as he smiled at you, “but you should probably let your grandparents know you’ll be late.” 

“Their gonna kill me JB.” You insisted as you pulled your phone out of your back pocket. John B’s hands rested just above your knees, his eyes on you as you dialled the phone, clearly unconcerned about the ‘broken down’ car. “Hi, mamam...I know, I, my friend’s car broke down so we’re just waiting for a tow truck...no, not a boy, my friend Kiara. Okay, I’m sorry. Yeah, love you too.” 

With the phone hung up, John B slipped his hands under your thighs, pulling you to the edge of the seat as you laughed. He bent over so that he toss you over his shoulder and you yelped in surprise as he lost his footing backing up and dropped you. 

“Shit!” He cursed, dropping down next to you, “are you okay? I’m so sorry.”

“I’m okay,” you promised, letting him help you up, leaning against the side of the car as John B crouched to inspect the cut on your knee. 

“Come on,” he pushed the back door open and guided you inside the car, helping you sit down on the floor, leaning against the back seat and the pillows that John B had tossed in there for your picnic today. “I think Kie put a first aid kit in one of these,” John B said, kneeling on the floor to check in the cubbies. 

“The one on the right.” You replied, “it’s really alright JB, you just brought me all the way out here to kill me.” You joked. 

“Not exactly the plan I had.” 

“So you admit it,” you said, “you did have a plan?” 

John B kneeled over to you, first aid in hand. “Yeah, getting as much time with you as I could.” He replied as he cleaned the wound, the stinging of the alcohol making you bite your lip. Once he’d bandaged the cut he tossed the first aid kit back behind him and leaned over you, “how ruined would you say the mood is?”

“Was there a mood to ruin?” You teased, pulling him into a kiss. It wasn’t the first time that John B had claimed his bus had broken down but you always played along. Letting him lead you to the back and being there with him until he decided to ‘try the car again’. 

This time would’ve been like all the others, as John B’s hands settled on your hips, pulling you close as you kissed, except the distinct red and blue lights of Kildare County’s finest shone through the windows before anything more than PG could happen. 

“Fuck this night,” John B cursed, getting up and climbing out the still open door. You fixed your hair as you climbed out after him, Peterkin getting out of the SUV parked behind you. 

“Your grandma called me, said your friend’s car broke down and it was getting dark.” Peterkin announced, “you got a tow coming John B?”

“Ugh, I was just about to call them.” He lied. 

“Why don’t you give it a go? I got cables if you need to jump it.” She said. 

John nodded, knowing he was caught in the lie and going around the front to put down the hood. You stepped back by Peterkin, too flushed to look her in the eye as John B climbed in the front seat and turned the car on, the engine coming to life with no problem at all. “Must’ve just been a hiccup.” He said, turning to look back at Peterkin. 

“Must’ve been.” She nodded. “Get yourselves home.”

You’d been to the quad before with John B but it felt like a whole other life, walking around now. You were too afraid to ask but you’d been dying to as the summer drew to an end, did he love you too? Had the summers that you spent together meant as much to him as they did to you? You didn’t want to ask and feel foolish when he told you that it was just a summer thing to keep busy. You didn’t want him to know you loved him if he didn’t love you back. 

Your phone chimes in your pocket and you pulled it out, a text from your new roommate coming up in notifications. 

-some guy is at our dorm looking for you, said his name is John B.- 

You were positive you half-sprinted/half-power walked back to the dorm, hands trembling and heart pounding at the thought that John B was in Chapel Hill, in your dorm. You had told Kiara where you were going for college so you assumed she’d told John B. 

You got back to the dorm, your roommate opening the door just as you reached for the handle. “Hey,” she grinned at you, stepping into the hallway, “I’m heading down to the caf, I’ll be like, a while.” 

“Thanks.” You slipped in passed her and shut the door. And there was John B, back to you as he stood at your desk. He put something down and you realized he’d been holding the picture of the two of you from three summers ago that you had framed. “Hey-“

“Hey,” he said, turning around to look at you. 

“I’m sorry about leaving, I can explain,” you started to say but he cut you off. 

“I know, I got your letter. Your grandma said she found it under your bed after you left and dropped it off at my place.” He pulled the well worn envelope out of his back pocket and held it up so you could see it. His name scrawled across the front, “of course, I had to listen to her ‘I don’t like you fooling around with my granddaughter’ speech too, but it was pretty worth it.” 

“You read the letter?” You asked. 

“Yeah,” he nodded, “you really thought I didn’t love you too?” 

“I was scared you wouldn’t. I mean, we only saw each other in the summer.” You admitted. 

“Yeah, and I spent every day in between waiting for you to come back.” He replied. “So you’re here for good?”

“I’ll be North Carolina for a while, yeah.” 

“Good, we can make up for all the lost time.” 

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tloujm · 4 years ago

Text

Part XVIII: Tempest

Author’s Notes: Happy belated Valentines day! It took me a while to write this because this chapter contains their wedding night and I wanted to make it special and perfect and I tried. I’m not gonna lie, I haven’t been too down for writing smut lately. I’m more in the mood for fluff, but at the same time, I felt the story needed smut at the moment and, having written smut for a few years now, I don’t like just alluding to it anymore. *shrugs*. So I stopped and came back multiple times to write this. Idk if any of you watch The Walking Dead, but the one that marries you and Joel is inspired by father Gabriel from that show. I also want to take this moment to briefly acknowledge that I fully support HBO’s casting of Pedro Pascal for Joel in the TV adaptation. I’m currently infatuated with this man and his work (another reason why I haven’t been as focused on my TLOU writings) so for these two fandoms to come together is climactic right now and will be even more so when the show comes out. I can’t wait to have more material to go off of. Did you guys hear the news about Pedro’s casting and how do you feel about it??

Genre: This recipe calls for fluff and smut

Summary: Joel saw the stress that wedding planning had put on you and decided to help. At the end of the day, he just wants you to be happy. He comes up with this plan for you two to elope while a storm approaches Jackson.

Ship: Joel x Reader

It’d been overcast the whole day. As soon as you stepped outside, you could feel it in the air. It all added up to a storm. You just didn’t know when it’d happen. You were sure the others in Jackson could tell as well, but they continued business as usual; even the patrols were not cancelled. Just in case, you spent the afternoon prepping for whatever was to come. You took laundry off the lines, put a tarp over the newly seeded garden, helped your elderly neighbors bring their outdoor furniture inside and so on.

It was evening and the sun had just begun setting by the time you made it home. That was the usual time you and Joel got back home by, unless there was something that needed tending to. In that case, you’d try to communicate that with each other beforehand. You came home to an empty house and wondered if something had come up for Joel to not be back by now. You peered out the kitchen window, facing the backyard, to look for him. There was no one there, but you noticed that it had just started to drizzle. Soon enough the clouds would open and unleash a wrath of rain. You hoped that Joel would make it back home before then.

You turned to the fridge to start dinner when you saw a note attached to its door. It was folded and signed by Joel on the front. You ripped it from the magnet and opened the parchment:

Go upstairs to find a surprise on our bed,

Then meet me at the place where the old willows gather.

I hope this note finds you in good timing.

I will be inside waiting for you.

You smiled at the thought of going on a little adventure. With the note still in your hand, you ran up the stairs and practically glided into your room. Your eyes immediately fell on the two items laying at the end of the bed. Your hand reached out to touch the satin-y, ivory colored fabric of the dress. It was a simple yet elegant slip gown with a slit on the left side. It featured a low cut v-neck trimmed with a floral embroidery. Next to it was an umbrella.

You allotted yourself 15 minutes to do yourself up. You raced down the stairs and threw on your rain boots before leaving. The place that he mentioned was familiar to you. The settlement of Jackson was surprisingly big. Despite having seen the circumference of it’s walls when you were out patrolling on a high hill, from within, the settlement felt bigger; there was still so much to discover inside its nooks and crannies. In the far southwest portion of Jackson there grew a small conglomeration of willow trees; all of them were willows. It was a stark difference to the usual maple and pine that grew pretty much everywhere else. It was technically too small to be considered a forest, but it was still a significant amount of land and it was left undiscovered by you. The house you and Joel lived in was located on the other side of Jackson, so the thought of making time to visit this place always laid dormant in the back of your mind, until Joel brought it back to the forefront. You stopped at the stable and grabbed your favorite horse, desiring to get to the willows as fast as you could.

With one hand on the reins and one holding the umbrella, you rode across Jackson. The rain was starting to pick up and the sky was getting darker. You regretted not bringing a flashlight knowing that the branches of the trees were going to block whatever light was left in the sky. Gently, you pulled on the reins to slow your animal down as you approached the area mentioned in the note.

The horse strode past willow after willow. A feeling of being lost overcame your mind. You pulled the note back out and tried to read it again under the fading light of the sky to see if there were any clues you missed. The only thing you could make out of importance was ‘inside’. Joel wrote that you could find him inside. Was there a building in this tiny, little forest? Given the fact that you expected it to rain harder later on, you hoped so.

You kept riding straight until a flicker caught your eye. It wavered between the blowing branches. You turned your horse in its direction as it entered into a galloping pace. The flicker grew into a growing glow of orange. Inside the small forest was an even smaller clearing that held a quaint brick building. The glow came from a lantern that lit the front steps and grand front door. It had the traditional architecture of a chapel. You looked up and could barely make out the little bell tower and the cross stationed above it.

You slid off the horse and tied her down under the awning on the side of the chapel. You gathered the fabric of your dress in your hands and walked up the steps and opened the heavy doors. Your presence was announced with the sound of a large creak. It was completely bright on the inside; the pews and altar lit by the glow of dozens of candles.

Joel lifted his head at the sound of the door opening. He was facing the altar next to the minister before turning around to find you at the other end of the aisle shaking the rain off your umbrella. He kept his gaze on you until your eyes lifted to meet his. It was at this point you took in his appearance. Joel was wearing the cleanest button down you’d ever seen him in. A small amount of chest hair peaked out from the top where he left it unbuttoned. It was tucked into a pair of black jeans.

He recognized a flash of nervousness in your body language, but it soon melted after a few moments of holding your gaze. Joel silently spoke to you in his head. He asked you to stay, beckoning you to meet him at the end of the aisle. As if you heard his voice and not just the light tapping of rain on the roof, you slowly began to walk. You focused on putting one foot in front of the other but for Joel, it appeared as though you were floating toward him. He leaned his weight on one leg and tucked his thumb under his belt as he watched on. Once you made it in front of him, you noticed that he even trimmed his beard and brushed his hair back. The minister settled in his place in front of the two of you. His eyes bounced from you to Joel and back to you. A smile tugged at his lips as he watched the two of you gaze lovingly at each other.

Joel cleared his throat, breaking the moment. “This is Reverend Gabriel. Rev, this is (Y/N).”

He bows his head in your direction. “Absolute pleasure to put a face to the person Mr. Miller here has spoken so highly of.”

You smile bashfully in response. “Nice to meet you as well. I’m sorry we haven’t met before. I thought I knew everybody in Jackson.”

“Oh, I don’t live here. I’m from a much smaller settlement right outside Cheyenne. I travel from time to time with our merchants to different places. This is the first time I came with them to trade in Jackson. That’s how I met Joel.” He patted him on the back. “He spotted me in my clerical robes and asked me to preside over this matrimony. I like to think it was divine intervention that led our paths to cross.” His face wrinkled when he smiled. “Now, let's get onto the fun part.” He proceeded to open his bible.

The reverend started by reciting a passage on what it means to love. You took Joel’s hands in yours. They were rough and clammy, but you still loved holding them because they belonged to him. Reverend Gabriel then asked the two of you to repeat the vows that he spoke. The moment seemed so surreal to you; it was almost like you were sitting in one of the pews watching this take place like a scene in a play. He gave your hand a squeeze as the words flowed from your mouth, grounding you in reality. After reciting his vows, Reverend Gabriel asked to see the rings. You took off the one Joel gave you only a week ago and handed it to him. In turn, he handed it to Joel.

He took his hand away for a moment to wipe it on his pants before taking yours in his again. “I give you this ring as a sign of my love. With it, we become one.” He slid it back in its rightful place before turning to the minister. He expected him to carry on with the last part of the ceremony; the part he was most excited for.

“I give this ring as a sign of my love. With it, we become one.” You repeated as you picked his hand up and held the ring you chose for him in your other. You knew Joel didn’t have a ring for himself. It wasn’t made of any precious metal, but of wood. It was engraved with a simple design and polished over. You requested the custom order from one of the carpenters in Jackson. “I hope it fits.” You whispered as you slid it on his ring finger.

Joel raised his eyebrows as it slid on perfectly. “I guess I’m not the only one with surprises, huh?” He joked. He had this sudden urge to kiss you, but withheld himself as he waited for the reverend to finish.

“I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may now seal the matrimony with a kiss.”

Joel gently laid his hands on your cheeks and reached down for your lips. You met him in the middle by pushing yourself up on the tip of your toes. The one kiss turned into another just as a clap of thunder sounded. You pulled away and looked toward the doors. Joel thanked the reverend one last time before grabbing your hand and pulling you back down the aisle. As you grabbed your umbrella, a flash of lightning lit up the interior of the chapel far brighter than the candles. Joel told you that it was time to go because the storm was less than a mile out. The two of you needed to find shelter and the chapel, as quaint and beautiful as it was, was not the place he wanted to spend his wedding night with you. He told you to wait on the porch as he brought the horse around. You could hear her whine uncontrollably, scared from the deep boom of the thunder. Joel stood in front of her, getting drenched, trying to calm her down before untying her, but it was no use. She pulled at the rope that had gotten tangled around her neck causing her to flail about even more. He pulled out a dagger and risked getting kicked to cut her loose. She bolted past him and into the darkness, almost knocking him down into the mud. He rounded the corner to the front of the chapel and held his hand out for you to take. He told you to come on in his southern drawl over the sound of a lightning strike. He wrapped his arm around your waist as you tried to cover both of your heads with the umbrella.

All of a sudden, the winds and rain picked up. The only light to guide the two of you came from the strikes of lightning. The umbrella quickly became a formality as the wind seemed to blow the rain sideways, causing it to drench your clothes all the same. It was the beginning of summer but the wind on your wet skin was sending chills up and down your body. Joel was able to guide you out of the willow trees, but the challenge was not over yet. After minutes of running in one direction, you spotted a tiny shelter from the corner of your eye. Immediately, you tugged on his arm and pulled him into its direction. You didn’t care if it was someone’s shed or another stable, you were desperate for a roof to be over your head, even if only to catch your breath. As the two of you got closer, you realized that it was a greenhouse. You knew that the gardeners used it mainly in the fall and winter. You whipped the glass door open and pulled him in before shutting it back against the wind. Your wet clothes clung to your body as your back slid down the door. You began to notice the stark difference in environment as you sat there catching your breath. The air was balmy and sticky with humidity. It was so thick, you could almost cut through it. You got up and walked past a row of plant beds while your new husband picked up a box of matches to light a couple of lanterns.

Impatient and uncomfortable, you peeled the dress off your body. You wrung out the water and hung it on a hook. You were in nothing but your rain boots and he still hadn’t noticed yet. He coughed as he beat the dirt and dust off of a blanket he found hidden in a chest. He turned, expecting to wrap it around you when he saw you bare and all. He was frozen, as if he’d never seen you like that before. You walked up to him, grabbed the blanket and gently laid it on the ground. He watched as you proceeded to position yourself on it. You glanced up at him and patted the space in front of you, waiting for him to come to you.

Clothes still sticking to his body, he sat across from you on the blanket. He pulled your legs onto his lap and pulled off your boots one by one. You leaned back on your elbows as he began to massage your calves and feet. You enjoyed the sensation but quickly became sick of the fact that he was still clothed. You slipped your foot from his hands and in one quick motion, sat up on your knees and crawled closer to him. Tenderly, you pushed him down until his back hit the blanket. You straddled his waist and reached for the buttons on this shirt. Slowly, you revealed his skin underneath; it glistened in a mix of sweat and rain. He pulled it all the way off as you began on his pants. His hands shadowed yours as you slid them off. You had barely touched him and already he was half stiff.

Joel pushed himself up to meet your lips but you denied him. You let out a breathy chuckle at his attempt to capture them again. He opened his eyes to give you his famous glare and it was at that point you couldn’t deny him any longer. You slid your fingers behind his neck and raked your nails through his hair before leaning in to kiss him. He pulled your body flush against his, your torsos sticking to each other, giving his fingers room to slide up and down the indent of your back. His touch left a trail of goosebumps on your sensitive skin. Still propped up on your knees, your entrance was mere inches from his middle. You let one of his hands cup your cheek for a moment before you grasped his wrist and moved it away. Joel watched as you licked and sucked at the pulse point on his wrist. You couldn’t explain why, but feeling him pulse against you, regardless of where on the body, made you more aroused. He let out a low, guttural groan at the sight and rolled his hips up to let you know that he was now standing at full attention.

“Tell me you need me.” You whispered in his ear.

Joel cupped your cheek with his other hand. “You have no idea how much I need you, darlin’.” His eyes grew soft yet still held the same level of lust from when he turned around and saw you naked before him.

You reached down and gave him one long stroke before guiding it inside you. You rolled your hips up and down, never letting his cock completely leave your warmth. It began as a slow and steady pace because you reveled in the sensation of your walls being stretched out. He hissed when you finally surrounded his full length. His lips and tongue found themselves attached to your collarbone. Your nails drew patterns on his scalp all the way down to the back of his neck, marking him. After a few moments, he leaned back a little, taking your body with him, to angle himself inside you.

“Right there!” You said after letting out an unexpected moan.

Joel tried out a combination of different rhythms until he heard that beautiful sound leave your mouth. After he was sure he found your spot, he steadied himself with one hand on the ground and the other behind your neck. The sound of sticky, wet skin slapping against each other as he picked up the speed set the tone against the stormy night. Every so often, Joel’s grunts would intermingle with the rest as his desires to go harder and deeper fought with his tired muscles. As much as he loved the position, his arms were beginning to ache. The last thing he wanted to do was give in to the weariness of his body on his wedding night. With a grunt, he shifted his body enough to lay you down and hover over. Only leaving your warmth for a moment, he lifted your hips, causing your legs to naturally find their place over his shoulders. With his hands practically gripping your ass, Joel swiveled his hips, letting his member slide up and down your slit before entering. As soon as he bottomed out, he took no time to pick up the pace. His grip continued to hold you still as he thrusted in and out of your tight entrance. The whole scene was erotic to him. He could barely keep his eyes off of you and the way you reacted to his touch, but he also enjoyed the view below him. Watching his cock slide in and out of you covered in the juices you produced. Under the soft glow of the lanterns, he noticed how everything seemed to glisten, from his cock to your face.

Joel felt his member tightening with pressure and he was ready to explode, but he knew you, knew your body and you weren’t there yet. You let out a hiss after you began to massage your sensitive bud below. He gazed down at you as your other hand pinched and caressed your nipples. In that moment, Joel wished that he had another pair of hands to do it for you but he had to settle for watching the view before him. A smirk grew on his face as he told you to move your hand away from your clit. You frowned but did as you were told. Joel began to rock his hips in a new motion, allowing his pelvis to graze and push against it every time he slid back into you.

Still ready to burst, he found relief in knowing that you were close too. You didn’t have to say it, even though you did. Your walls only needed to contract around him once for his composer to break, but still he held strong. He was sure that he looked like a starved animal in that moment because of the pulsating veins that popped up across his body. He was right; you noticed his lack of release and knew exactly why. Your thumb followed the line of the vein on his arm.

You nodded your head. “I want you to cum inside me.”

With your words, he found relief. He let out this long awaited breathy moan that laid dormant in the pit of his stomach. The sensation of him spilling inside you heightened your arousal and caused you to pulsate around him quicker. Sloppily, he continued to thrust into you before stopping completely. Gingerly, he pulled out and watched as a mix of his and your cum dribbled out of you. He laid your legs down onto the blanket and did the same. Your bodies were nothing but a sticky mess and still Joel wrapped his arms around you to pull you in.

#TLOU #TLOU II #TLOU 2 #Joel Miller #the last of us joel #joel x reader #tlou fanfic #tlou fanfiction #tlou joel #joel x fem!reader #naughty dog #the last of us #The Last of Us 2 #the last of us fanfiction #the last of us fanfic #fanfiction #fandom #video games

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pomrania · 5 years ago

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TMA Entities as Normal Horoscopes

(To clarify, the Entities from The Magnus Archives, as represented by horoscopes from @normal-horoscopes. Entities presented in alphabetical order, horoscopes in the order that I found them.)

BEHOLDING

Libra: Your eye for detail is one of your most defining traits! Most people only have two general purpose eyes.

Gemini: Unleash your curiosity upon an unforgiving world and dissect everything you are afraid of with an olive fork until you understand it so well it can’t scare you anymore.

Pisces: You are the last one still awake. What are you still doing up? This late at night, with only one pair of eyes. You might see something you weren’t supposed to.

Gemini: You’ll have to throw out or donate most of your novelty t-shirts when you awake to find several bonus eyes hovering around you in elliptical orbits.

Sagittarius: Careful not to blunt those sharp eyes on an unforgiving task. Passion for learning is all well and good, but you’re venturing into uncharted territory that may contain things that want your eyes.

Gemini: Most of us have spare eyes. You have far too many.

Taurus: I can’t shake the feeling I’m being watched. Wait, watched isn’t the right word. Watched and something else.

Cancer: Quit your peeping. Something is looking back at you.

BURIED

Virgo: The weight of the world will crush you into a diamond.

Virgo: Your horoscope today is just dust. That’s it. Buncha dust.

Libra: Pressure can be an excellent motivator in the right amount. Also, they meant social pressure, doing paperwork in a deep-sea diving bell will not improve the quality of your work.

Gemini: From dust to dust. You came from the earth and she wants you back.

Taurus: Cave buddies.

Capricorn: Spend some time huffing large amounts of dust to make your insides dustier.

Scorpio: As you lay on your back, head tilted to an uncaring sky, the very earth whispered to you. She reached up her hands and fingers and you gave her everything you could. Sleep now. Mother is here.

Taurus: It goes far deeper than you imagine. Talk about it.

Cancer: You’ve come across something you should not have interrupted. Run. Run now. Go, or the very earth will swallow you whole.

Scorpio: Your natural drive and ambition will lead you to some interesting places! Who knew a person could even fit in that small a hole?

CORRUPTION

Aries: Live in the level of filth that is comfortable to you. Just make sure you are practicing self-love.

Pisces: You will see a cool picture of a plague doctor this week. Hell yeah.

Pisces: Growth is simply growth. Gardens and cancers alike.

Ophiuchus: When she awoke to see the infection had taken her shoulder she did the only sensible thing. She cut off her own head. She holds it by the hair in her left hand.

Ophiuchus: Worms in your brain. Worms in your brain. There are very helpful worms in your brain.

Gemini: The discomfort you can’t seem to shake is likely due to the large nest of bees that have made its home inside your ribs.

Ophiuchus: The value of today’s fortune depends heavily on your opinion of rot.

Virgo: The position of Mars says the virus is spreading and soon you will be reborn ascendant to join in the virulent bacchanalia.

Leo: We can only hate what we see in ourselves. Consider that you may be full of mosquitoes.

Aquarius: A lavish and ostentatious estate. Empty and bare because the previous occupants couldn’t stomach a little plague. Wimps.

Aries: When she touched you she laid several eggs in your skin. Free babes! Nice.

Ophiuchus: Having trouble in an academic setting? Try lying down in a field and letting insects use their tiny voices to whisper the secrets of the world to you.

DARK

Scorpio: A ray of night from the clouds will darken the banks of the river. Look only. Touch nothing.

Capricorn: The massive black roadrunner that followed your car through Utah. You didn’t say a word the whole night.

Leo: When you see the black, many eyed owls, immediately turn around and snuff out any lights. Your light up sneakers will have to go. Sacrifices must be made.

Aries: Take their hand. They will guide you into the night. Finding your own way out will be its own task. Feel as your heart starts to quicken.

Pisces: There is so much the world has to offer. So much beyond this fervor. Steady your hands and rest in the gentle dark.

Leo: The Diminutive Beings of Shadow and Dread are raccoons. They are raccoons. Close your trash cans.

Aries: You visibly absorb light from the area around you, consider medication.

Leo: Something moves soundlessly through your neighborhood, avoiding the streetlights. Check on your pets.

Pisces: The night is a blanket over all of us. There is fear and comfort in the privacy of the dark.

DESOLATION

Scorpio: As much as the stars and I admire your zeal, human hair candles will not catch on.

Taurus: Ensure your friends sit next to you by burning all other chairs and eating the ashes to hide your trickery.

Virgo: Fire is a powerful cleansing force, but that doesn’t make arson legal. The one thing fire cannot purify is the law.

Gemini: It absolutely could hurt to try. Pain is just pain.

Aries: Today your horoscope involves fire and children. The stars wouldn’t clarify anything past that.

Ophiuchus: A chapel made from old shipping containers. The priest is setting herself on fire for the third time in the sermon.

Cancer: It will not actually solve anything, but you can put your problems into perspective by setting everything on fire.

Capricorn: You’ll look back on all of it and wish it to be burned. Start the fire as soon as possible.

Libra: Watch the fire dance between your fingers. You only have so long.

END

Aries: Look buddy, only one of us can leave this pumpkin festival alive, and I’m already dead.

Gemini: What’s the rush? Nothing has happened but you can feel your heartbeat in your ears, you can feel your eyes dilate. Literally nothing has changed but your body seems convinced that you are going to die any second.

Scorpio: No sense in arguing over the supposed opinions of a dead man. Dig him up and ask him why don’t you? It’s a once in a lifetime chance.

Sagittarius: Today you will be legally dead for about 140 seconds but you’ll come back with a complementary mint.

Leo: After selling your soul to the devil, the sheer negative value of your soul will crash the soul market, causing the dead to walk again.

Ophiuchus: The only permanent state of being is death and even that’s debatable.

Pisces: A good strategy here is to simply refuse to die.

Aquarius: Fuck it. Carry a scythe around. Who even gives a shit.

Capricorn: Statistically, there is a chance that something you do today, however small, will lead to the death of an innocent.

Ophiuchus: Death is only the beginning. The beginning of not being alive anymore.

Aries: Your obsession with death will be satisfied. Eventually.

FLESH

Ophiuchus: Have yourself a feast and invent a new catholic saint to justify it.

Taurus: The stars say to get of your high horse and quit genetically engineering horses to have such legs. Horses are poorly designed as they are. It’s irresponsible.

Aries: Your newfound ability to scale a brick wall in seconds flat is kinda scary. Your bones make weird noises and everything. Try not to do it around kids.

Virgo: Do you know what flavor you are Virgo? Well get ready to find out!

Capricorn: You know Capricorn, you’re really one or two big steps away from being a sausage.

Leo: There will be a distinct element of aggression to your emotions today, specifically towards chefs that are a member of the ancient secret society of cannibals who just murdered your science teacher.

Taurus: Money troubles Taurus? Try growing new bones and selling them to bone farmers for extra cash. If you get good enough at it, you can use wholesalers.

Sagittarius: Fear not, there is pulled pork aplenty for those with the courage to seek it.

Virgo: There is a mad little part of our heads that looks at a meat cleaver and says “just chop your hand off”. Don’t listen to that bit. It's a prick and it owes me $120.

Pisces: Your body is not a temple, it is a river. A river made of meat and blood and stuff.

HUNT

Aquarius: Speak softly, carry a big stick, hide a gun inside the stick just in case the bastard is outside of stick range.

Pisces: If you are being chased by something unearthly, go for the selfie. Life is short, especially when you are being chased by something unearthly.

Aries: Nothing evil stalks the forest. The wild is bigger than you could ever imagine. You are nothing to it. No skinwalker or boogeyman or revenant could ever aspire to the persistence and hunger of the wild untamed.

Leo: Allow fear to inform you. To accept fear as sovereign is sin against the self. Fear is very correct about the large hungry mammal chasing you. Run.

Aquarius: Those assassins from the meat of the month club have finally found your new address and are planting the explosives as you read this.

Scorpio: Dreams of chasing smaller weaker things through the woods. Waking aching to remember. You will remember soon.

Sagittarius: The hunt is on! No starbucks will escape your horn-blessed gaze.

Scorpio: You will get into a fight. Go on a quest for revenge. And know the true visceral feeling of the hunt.

Virgo: The blissful are being sold a lie. The only true bliss is the glory of the hunt and a slaked bloodlust.

Pisces: Nothing gets the panties wet like the sound of hundreds of spectral mounts crashing through moonlit woods while the call of the hunt echoes among the trees, striking fear into the hearts of your ghastly quarry.

LONELY

Ophiuchus: You can’t stop feeling just one thing. Stuffing down one emotion means stuffing down them all.

Aquarius: You may be stunned to find that the introduction of a new person into your life will make you less lonely.

Taurus: Spend some time outdoors today. Reflect on the state of the world. See yourself reflected in the world and try to fight the other person who is interrupting your reflection time.

Aquarius: Do you remember the seaside? That strip of sand that made you feel at home? Do you remember how quiet it was?

Virgo: Remember Virgo, you can click the control stick to go into stealth mode. Use this to avoid your problems easier.

Aries: You are beyond the pale, transparent really.

Taurus: It's not fog. It's a curse. A curse that looks like fog. Stay away.

Cancer: The stars and I regret to tell you that you will, actually, have to talk to people at some point.

SLAUGHTER

Capricorn: Some things cannot be prepared for. Who even uses flintlock pistols anymore? Especially in the parking lot of a grocery store?

Pisces: There is a number of knives that it is appropriate to own. It is quite high. Let’s say you need to curate your collection.

Pisces: Romantic bloodsport for two.

Leo: Nobody really cares that you’re not one for fighting. Preparation is its own reward.

Leo: Having trouble with your customers at work? Strike the head for critical damage!

Aries: When things seem confusing, just start swinging at whoever you see. At the very least, you’ll get some breathing room.

Capricorn: It may be that you fight for good, and your opponent fights for a love of bloodshed, all that matters is that you are fighting.

Virgo: Ruthless efficiency produces results but blind rage is more fun.

SPIRAL

Libra: Drawings of wildflowers that don’t exist. Diagrams and advice in a language that nobody speaks. Strewn about your room in impossible places.

Capricorn: Reject the concept of direction. There is no up, there is no down. Orientation is for losers.

Sagittarius: You are correct Sagittarius! That small wooden carving of a fox wasn’t there last night! Yes, it is cursed! Right on the money there.

Capricorn: There is no old woman following you around throwing small potted plants at you.

Scorpio: Relieve stress by planning a trip that isn’t a trip to a place that isn’t a place. Relieve stress by conceiving of time collapsed into a single semipermeable plane of events that anchors all the things that could be.

Leo: When the world stops making sense, play with the perspective. Go Escher on your problem’s ass.

Taurus: Two strangers meet in a Mediterranean country that does not exist. They discuss silver and poison and the nature of madness.

STRANGER

Aquarius: You are never done growing. It takes real effort, and for you, it will take many hours of prowling around the backs of hardware stores for stray screws to eat.

Libra: There is something in the wires practicing its voices by leaving spam calls in your inbox.

Sagittarius: Whoops! Something stole your friend’s face again! Get that ritual dagger and get to work.

Capricorn: Well lookee what we go here, a full shipment of mannequins that look exactly like you except with minor errors in body part proportions. Whoda thunk?

Sagittarius: Enough improvements and you’ll barely recognize yourself. Harvest the parts and avoid the authorities.

Cancer: If you’re gonna copy other people, don’t half-ass it. Ritual cannibalism is the only way to go.

Ophiuchus: The creepy carnival set up outside of town that only certain people can see is not to be trusted, not matter how cool the rollercoaster looks.

Cancer: She’s a fake bitch. Literally, she has a heart of clockwork and armored skin made of porcelain. Even unholy things like her shouldn’t gossip though.

Taurus: Beware the almost. The almost real, the almost breathing, the almost human.

Virgo: Keep a close eye on the puppets. One of them has no strings.

VAST

Aries: The stars say you may find yourself falling from a great height. Remember to tuck and roll.

Virgo: Do not look down. There is nothing beneath you. Carry on with your day as if the world is sensible and solid beneath you, and it will follow suit.

Aries: The storm sirens wail, the sound of colossal footsteps thunder closer. A low mournful sound that seems to crack the sky.

Pisces: Today you might fall into a bottomless pit. This is not a metaphor.

Aries: Ever feel under the weather? You are lightning.

Aquarius: You can also see the stars if you’re not in a gutter.

Leo: A man on the roof of his home during a tornado warning, laughing.

Aries: The world seems to be getting smaller and smaller. One day you will be confronted with the magnitude of it all. The vast unexplored deep. The wild unknown, and all those that would build a home in its bosom.

Aries: The space between two mountains in the distance. The sky looks different. You can hear the beating of colossal wings.

Aquarius: Your desire for human contact can be satisfied by being struck by lightning for some reason.

WEB

Capricorn: Today you will finally locate and kill the college student with a writing credit on your life.

Capricorn: The stars say to make friends with the harvestmen in your bathroom. They are helping clean up all the lil bug corpses and would appreciate some recognition.

Aquarius: It’s time to make a nest. Don’t ask questions. No thought, only nest.

Gemini: You’ve got a productive day in store Gemini. Will it be on something you actually want to do? Let’s say there is some minor will enslavement involved.

Aquarius: You’ve done an excellent job so far of making friends with the spider people that live in the abandoned subway tunnels. Keep it up!

Gemini: People are depending on you to uphold your promises. The last thing you want to be known as is a trickster. Or is it? That’s exactly the sort of thing a trickster would do!

Leo: You are a puppet, you know exactly who is pulling the strings.

Libra: A tiny spider who has made a friend.

Ophiuchus: The spider lady would like her copy of Where the Sidewalk Ends back.

Aries: See how the cobwebs catch the light? Be sure to thank the spiders.

And some others that didn't necessarily fit with a particular Entity, but gave off such strong TMA vibes that I had to include them anyways:

Gemini: This week you will be faced with your greatest challenge yet, a twink with massive burn scars.

Libra: Preserve yourself for all eternity by outsourcing your aging to other people.

Pisces: One man’s panic inducing siren-song is what another man uses to fall asleep.

Virgo: Confused? Do not worry. Everything not saved will be lost.

Taurus: This week should be one of experimentation! Push the boundaries of what it means to be mortal!

Capricorn: Answer the Door.

Scorpio: Tomorrow will be the last time you dream of the crown of teeth.

Cancer: The thing that watches over the prison transport ships. It used to be two things but now they share a spine.

Aries: Trust your instincts Aries, your dead wife does have a new form made of dried paint and she is slowly hunting you.

Taurus: They died when the radio tower was bombed. Sometimes you can hear them sending messages before the sun rises, whispering over the unused channels.

Virgo: Your capacity for learning will come in handy today when you smash your head through an old Apple II and download the entire internet into your brain, along with several shards of glass.

Libra: Look, nobody said it would be easy, but at least now you’re suffering for something you love.

Pisces: There is a hole in the world where you cannot see, and through this hole there seeps the things that can never be.

Scorpio: Sometimes being too oblivious to even notice a problem can be an asset. Can’t sweat the small stuff if you don’t even notice it.

Libra: Financial problems? Try encasing your credit cards in a block of ice. Encase all money in a block of ice. Keep all wealth frozen in a block of ice.

Ophiuchus: Maybe your prayers would be answered if your god wasn’t such a pussy.

Gemini: Limited options make choices easier! There are only so many places you can get a human heart!

Taurus: Remember, now matter how many false eyes something might have, at least one of them has to be real. It boils down to a question of bullets over time.

Libra: When others can’t decide, you will be there to make the tough choices with your brave disregard for things like “Rational Thought” and “Basic Self-preservation”.

Virgo: Ribs are important. Make sure you have a good grasp on the importance of ribs.

Pisces: Your constant near death experiences may be putting you under some stress. Time for some light reading, or maybe some breathing exercises. Honestly the stars say you’re handling constantly being faced with your own mortality pretty well.

Aries: After hearing that cursed song today, you’ll only destroy 80% of the objects around you. Recovery is a slow process.

Cancer: There is an aggression to you today. There is an aggression to you all the time. There is an aggression to all things, it is simply your turn on the wheel.

Leo: The hunger you feel is not for food.

Capricorn: Woo her. She is terrifying isn’t she?

Gemini: You are hunting the guy down seven years later and bashing his knees in with a pipe.

Capricorn: What happens when you open a door marked “exit” and all you find is another hallway?

Ophiuchus: Nothing makes a friendship like shared intense suffering.

Taurus: Analog recording devices are surprisingly sensitive. Listen to your old tapes again and hear the tiny voices that whisper along with the song.

Taurus: Clawing your way back out has dulled your talons and blunted your fangs, you are a soft and gentle creature for it. You can buy a knife at most stores.

Sagittarius: When you needed patience, you thought of those who loved you. When you needed fury, you thought of those who hurt you. When you needed strength, you thought of yourself. When you needed just one more chance to get it right, you thought of that cat.

Libra: Keep a journal and write down everything you see, it may save the life of whoever finds it.

Libra: Did you feel it? Just now, the world ended. There's no going back. Saddle up and find a mask.

Leo: The night is long, the tea is hot, the eyes are plenty.

Ophiuchus: Your eyes can’t lie to you if you don't have any eyes.

Aries: Now is the time to try new things! Experience new forms of pain! Suffer in new and interesting ways!

Cancer: Someone is missing from that big social meeting you’ve got planned! Luckily they were just preoccupied with being suspended in limbo between life and death.

Libra: If someone says they have power over you, don't believe them until you see for yourself. Test those limits.

Aquarius: The danger you pose to others is dwarfed by your ability and desire to help. Nothing is without its dangers. You know this more than anyone.

Taurus: Turn some of your energy towards improving the space around you, especially if the space around you is bad and the energy is heat. Burn your house down.

Virgo: The stars say an authority member might be causing you some minor trouble. The important thing to remember during professional squabbles is to use your psychic powers to rip them apart with the strength of your will alone.

Taurus: It's a tough thing, allowing yourself to be known. The stars say the time may be coming up, are you ready? Too bad fucko, it's happening anyway.

Ophiuchus: Hiding under the covers actually works with some things. It is technically a threshold and so some things do actually have to be invited.

Cancer: Watch for a box that carries no address. Do not open it. It will be gone tomorrow.

Ophiuchus: Your choices are yours alone. This is important to remember, especially when not making choices.

Scorpio: Goddamit Goddamit shut the fuck up and tell a story.

Sagittarius: That could be you in a few years. Keep your feet about you.

Gemini: There is a deep and old power in that of the image. As long as cameras existed they have been a tool to tell what is really there.

#fandom: magnus archives #not a reblog

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