#for those of you that understand god bless you and yours

[coquettepascal]

felicitas and her general

summary: general acacius has caught your attention after being the first mortal to worship you in decades. you only face one challenge: don't get too attached.

warnings: rated g, contains spoilers for gladiator ii, follows the timeline of the movie somewhat, reader is the goddess felicitas (who is the goddess of good luck,) this fic is basically just an add on to the movie.

tags: goddess!reader x general acacius, emotional infidelity, lots of roman mythology stuff, writer is basing all her knowledge out of what she remembers from PJO and HoO, worship, complicated feelings, marcus does not cheat on lucilla physically, yearning, pining, grieving, guilt, major character death(s), stalking (kind of), a lot of obsession/dedication, angst, hurt no comfort but also hurt with comfort.

a/n: i watched gladiator ii and then was too emotionally devastated to finish this fic the way i planned. i really hope you all like this!! also, this fic is also dedicated to my dear friend @pascalssbabyy because she is my biggest cheerleader and i love her <33

wc: 7.2k (not beta read)

It was he who woke you.

A quiet sacrifice in the evening that felt like the freshest breath of air you could have, more intense than what you could have atop any mountain, near any spring. The scent of burning meat and smokey vegetables grasped at your lungs, and you almost choked on it. How long had it been since someone had offered you something so kind? Real food, not just scraps of something they didn’t wish for. 

You’d never complain about how difficult it is to be a minor Goddess, you know that you could be a mortal, but most don’t think of how Gods can fade. It’s a physical process, one where you’d notice how your fingertips passed through things like chalices and bowls, how a spoon slid through your hand once. The clatter of gold on the table was embarrassing, even though you were alone. Nothing about being forgotten, or fading, physically hurt. It was only mentally taxing, knowing that you weren’t as important as you once were, that mortals found you insignificant.

Generals used to come and offer things frequently sometime ago, but you couldn’t even begin to understand how long ago that was. When you’re immortal, or supposed to be, mortal lives seem fleeting. You had taken them for granted, and regret it now, for all you have now are the empty clouds above your temple. 

The last offering you can gather was from a young boy, who wanted to win a board game against his sister the next day. He had given you half a bun with strips of meat. Sure, it was thoughtful, but this was something rich. 

You finish inhaling the offering, and then hear the offerer's voice. But it’s muffled, and you want to see who it is anyways, so you swipe through the clouds and create a window to see. Then you can hear him clearly.

Someone who is clearly a general kneels at your altar, which is chipped and dirty. The ashes of the food are in front of him, smoking still, and you can taste the wealth in his meal. It can’t distract you from him though, he is striking.

Broad shoulders support a heavy, curly, grey, head of hair, which is bowed in honor of you. His body is widely built, sturdy for battle, and his voice is just as powerful. You’re so focused on hearing his voice you only catch the tail end of his request.

“... Allow me to come home safely, if not for Rome, then for my wife.”

Your heart squeezes, and you swear you can feel the ichor gushing through your veins. Scarcely when a General came to give you an offering all those years ago would he mention a wife, only ever wishing for luck in the upcoming battle or war. But here, now, you’ve been given a respectful request and offering. It isn’t a thought in your mind to not favor him now, your eyes closing and your mouth murmuring a blessing to him. It feels intoxicating to use some of your power again, especially on someone who asked for it. It also feels intoxicating to watch this General leave.

He looks around before he goes, seeming to note how degraded your small temple has become. The statue of you that lies ahead of your altar is yellowing, and ironically, multiple fingers have broken off. The General seems displeased by this, sighing as he exits the temple.

His gait is heavy, sandaled steps weighted as he walks down them and into the torch-lit night. You find yourself looking for him even after he’s disappeared from your sight, the warmth of gratefulness hugging around you. Part of you knows better than to play around with the thought, but still you wish to know more about him.

—

It worsens when he comes back. A few times a week he returns, offering rich foods. It’s been a month now, and you are coming back to life.

Fading didn’t feel like anything, but coming back feels like so much more. The first few offerings had your body feeling alight again, like the ichor in you was flowing again, but within the last two weeks you’ve gotten your fingertips back. They were tingling for a day and then the next you were able to properly grasp things again, nothing was slipping through you.

In that time you had also learned his name. A guard had come looking for him one night, and stood behind him whilst he prayed. You had found yourself smiling when he didn’t interrupt himself, instead acting aggravated once he had finished. The guard had apologized for interrupting and let him know that “Your wife wishes to speak to you, General Acacius.”

Acacius. 

You still don’t know his first name, but it is enough. You can think of it when you feel lonely, when you are bored. Something to associate with the offerings, with the blessings. The fact he has been so consistent hints at a desperation, which would usually repel you from blessing him, but he is the only one who seems to recognize you. His efforts are not going to go unseen by you, not when you have so little to do.

You can feel yourself conceding to your need to know him more, but just as you begin to fight yourself again, he shows up.

Tonight he’s dressed a little nicer. Usually he arrives in a plain tunic but this one has golden trim on it, and his hair is a little more tousled. He stumbles into your altar holding something in a cloth, but he’s walking like he’s… drunk? 

Acacius meanders to your altar, grabbing a torch along the way, and then empties the contents of the cloth. It produces a small dessert bun, a Libum, or honey cheesecake, and your mouth waters. So much of the food that is given to you is savory meats, masculine foods that are heavy on the senses, but this is sweet and delicate. You can, of course, eat whatever you’d like. You’re a Goddess, and though you aren’t major, you are still very fortunate.

But this feels thoughtful.

The General drops to his knees after lighting the bun ablaze, swaying slightly, and now you know he must be drunk.

“Goddess Felicitas,” he begins as normal, “I am sorry I am later than usual. Though I don’t know if Goddesses sleep. I was… caught up in other affairs, but I made it in time.”

He is less eloquent than usual and seems particularly focused on how it is nearly past midnight.

“I brought you this though,” he gestures to the half burnt bun. “I wanted to bring you something different than meat and… things. I thought a dessert would be fitting for that task.”

Acacius pauses now. His thoughts are probably muddled from whatever he drank, and you find yourself smiling. Foolery has never been so endearing to you.

“You have been listening to me, I suppose. My requests for luck in battle have been answered, as well as my safety being ensured. Your blessings have brought my wife peace of mind, something I could not previously afford to her.”

He looks so small in your temple tonight. Normally he is not so vulnerable, but his shoulders sag as he mentions his wife. Some sort of shame runs over him at the idea that he could not ease his wife’s worries, but it makes you feel better that you could help. 

“Goddess Felicitas, I come here tonight bearing no requests, just gratitude. Your blessings have soothed wounds I could not see, and I feel like a young soldier again. You invigor me.” 

Then, he leaves. 

You watch helplessly as he stumbles back down the steps and away from your temple, and more than ever you wish to chase him. The love he has for his wife is clear, and you hold no jealousy of that, but you wish it were you. Something in you is deeply attached to this General now. He has awoken you so much more than rekindling your power as a goddess, more than releasing you from the grief that comes with fading. Yes, Acacius has made your heart beat again, your mind curious again, and you feel seen. Being worshipped is not the same as being loved, if that were true you’d have had many children by now, 

But after so long being forgotten, this feels like what you remember being loved as.

—

You try not to interact with the other Gods for the most part. They tend to meddle in things they don’t need to, and are sensitive. You are not exempt from this stereotype, but that’s only more reason for the distance. 

But today, you venture to meet another deity.

Morpheus is not hard to find. He is pretty stationery where he is, usually lounging on a rock or bench near his temple, or above it in the clouds. He is a bit…dramatic, from what you remember, but wise. 

Today he is stretched out on a cloud above his temple, eyes shut. His pale skin stretches taut on his bones as his lean frame breathes deeply. But, he is not asleep. 

“Morpheus,” you speak. 

His body rolls toward your direction, eyes still shut, but a small smile on his face.

“O young goddess Felicitas, what brings you to me?” He questions.

It’s hard not to feel embarrassed. You’ve spoken to Morpheus on very rare occasions, but he’s always been somewhat helpful, though nosy. Dreams tell a lot about people, and when he’s the one giving them to people, it’s hard to hide anything at all.

You don’t want him to know of your true affection for General Acacius, just that he is… worthy of a visit. 

And so you begin to describe it to Morpheus, your need to visit Acacius. He doesn’t open his eyes at all, but he raises his eyebrows a lot and seems bemused at your situation. You’re only halfway through your rambling before he raises a gangly limb and waves at your words.

“Felicitas, you think you are the only Goddess wishing to visit her admirer? You need no explanation,” he says jovially. 

Morpheus reaches into the air and pulls 6 black berries into existence, then drops them into your open palm.

“When you know he is asleep, bite down on one of these and think of him,” he describes to you.

The berries smell like nothing, but a powdery residue is left on your skin as you roll them in your palm. It doesn’t repel you at all.

Tonight, you will visit him and express the same gratitude he did to you. 

—

Marcus lays next to his wife, Lucilla, with her hand in his. She fell asleep sometime ago, leaving him to lie awake by himself.

He didn’t make it to her temple tonight and the guilt is festering in his body. Marcus knows that she is a Goddess, that he probably isn’t a thought in her mind. He knows that he is just another whiney mortal, giving her food that isn’t nearly as good as whatever Gods eat. His insignificance grows as he feeds into his guilt. 

Stress has permeated his life for much of it, from his time as a young soldier up until now, as a General. Battles, politics, and his family, have created a breeding ground for him to be wracked with anxieties, but he stays strong. Thanks to his time in Felicitas temple, it’s been better.

Which is why failing to make it to her temple tonight is making him feel so bad.

He grabs at the linen sheets of his bed, stressing and trying to reassure himself until he falls asleep finally.

—

Being in a dream is weird. It feels much the same as it does when you disguise yourself as a mortal, the out of body experience is semi-familiar, but it’s weird because someone else is there.

You’ve been watching the General enjoy the lake in front of him for a few minutes now. He hasn’t slipped into it, but just walks along the waterline. It seems like he is looking for something. Surely his dreams usually contain more action, or perhaps are memories, so you assume it may be strangely understimulating for him.

The appearance you’ve chosen is one of modesty, but elegance. A seafoam green peplos hangs off your frame delicately, with golden clasps at the wrists and waist. You did your hair so it would be tucked out of your face. There is no guarantee that Acacius will recognize you like this, but you look much like your statue that’s within your temple.

Swallowing your nerves, you shimmer yourself into visibility. The grassy field is odd beneath your feet, and you walk toward him with uncertainty in each step. You’ve never met with a mortal before, and you haven’t stepped on anything earthy in a long while. His broad stature only becomes more daunting as you get closer, especially since he seems so focused.

You will have to speak first. You’re much too quiet in this environment, and you must act fast lest he wake before you get his attention.

“General Acacius,” you speak firmly, though your hands shake. 

This is so unfamiliar to you. You’ve barely even seen his face, as he’s usually bowed at your altar. It is the first time you’ll see him at an equal level, the first time you’ll have brought yourself to him rather than him to you. 

He turns quickly, an instinctual aggressiveness toward the unknown. You stand about 10 feet from him, eyes widening.

Acacius is striking. His nose is what you focus on first, strong in shape and line, but behind it are his eyes which look to you with wide acknowledgement. His hair curls around his head in greying ringlets, like a permanent laurel crowning him. The wide expanse of his back was once impressive, but now you can see the solid wall which he becomes when facing you. Nothing could push him over it seems, a man built to stand.

Your heart squeezes the way it did the first time he gave you a request, a tender rush tingling your whole body. No words come out of either of your mouths, and the General drops to one knee instantly. 

He recognizes you.

“Goddess Felicitas,” he rushes out in a breath. His chest is heaving as he bows his head and no, no this isn’t how you want this.

Your feet are moving before you can focus on your anxiety, bringing you so close to him that you can kneel too. Maybe a goddess should not kneel before a mortal general, but you are just on your knees rather than putting yourself below him. Your peplos billows a little as air rushes through it when you hit the grass.

He is above you like this, and you tilt your head to see his face again. His strong brow is furrowed, eyes squeezed shut like he is afraid of you. 

“Acacius,” you say softly, “I am not here for… for ill reason. Please relax yourself.”

You lean back as he relaxes, head tipping upwards as he kneels in front of you as well. Now you can meet his eyes, see the crinkles that are beside them, and really take him in.

An energy of anxiety is shared wordlessly, with him stiff from the sight of a literal goddess, and you with the fear of… something. 

The identity of your anxieties isn’t something that you can figure out. Maybe it’s too much to see such a handsome mortal, or maybe it’s that you’re going to thank him for his offerings so personally. Maybe it’s humiliation from this act. What would other Gods think of this? Is it not degrading to become so attached to a mortal? Are you no better than Zeus or Hermes, the gods who interact too intimately with mortals? 

The sound of his labored breathing alerts you, calls your attention back to the present moment. 

“I wanted to thank you,” you admit meekly, “for your offerings. You have been very generous and… devoted.”

His eyes are shifty, and you can see the terror in him still. You don’t want him to fear you, but you can understand why. Visits from Gods or other deities can mean trouble, but you aren’t significant like that.

“General Acacius you are the first mortal who has acknowledged me in a long time,” you offer a vulnerability, perhaps trying to soothe him.

It feels so backwards for you to be kneeling in front of him, speaking. He has done so in front of your altar for many weeks now, but now the spots are switched, yet you are still in power. You avert your gaze as you speak up, wanting to request something of him.

“You’ve been so generous to me, General, I was hoping to know more about you.”

And now, rather than scared, he seems suspicious. 

“To know me?” He clarifies. 

You nod.

“I only know your last name. I think I could offer more luck and splendor if we were more… personal.” 

Gods that felt awful to say. You’re no better than the whorish brutes on their thrones, offering petty glories for intimacy. Everything feels flirtatious but that’s not what you’re looking for. Acacius has a wife he clearly loves, you would never want to interrupt that. 

He seems to hesitate, but he knows he cannot refuse you. So far your blessings have brought ease to his life, he wouldn’t want to lose that.

“Then… yes, I suppose I can offer myself if it would please you.” He responds stoically. 

And it does please you, to know his name. Marcus Acacius, the one who woke you, the one who has saved you from being a fragmented memory within the temples. 

Marcus Acacius, who you are too fond of.

—

You visit him 3 more times. In an attempt to space out the usage of the berries Morpheus gave you, you only visit him once a week. The bleak tasting berries are sour on your tongue, a rotten sour which lingers once you wake up, but it’s worth it.

The two of you have grown closer, with Marcus opening up more. He tells you about the stresses in his life, how much anxiety is buried in him. But, he’s confident for the sake of his wife. You’ve learned that her name is Lucilla, and much more about her. Marcus talks about her a lot, in passing or retelling something she told him. In the small amount of time you’ve gotten to know him, you’ve gotten to know her as well.

It burns you with a strange warmth, a desire and envy which makes your stomach growl. You are hungry for him to admire you in the same way, to speak of you, but doesn’t he already? Shame grips your throat when you think of it. You are a Goddess who he sacrifices to, who he wishes to have blessings from. What more do you need? A mortal couldn't offer you what another deity could. 

After the fourth meeting, you found yourself lonely. Lazing back in the clouds above your temple, you woke with a deep hunger. Marcus is beautiful, an admirable man, and he loves passionately. You are already being such a glutton for even speaking with him, meeting with him repeatedly, so why must you yearn for him too? 

Worship isn’t enough, you want what you will never let yourself to have.

Nothing hints that he might feel similarly. His starry gaze which lands on you is not due to your beauty, your personality, or anything more. You have blessed him, and that is why his eyes glitter. Goddess status has never made you feel so low and isolated. Still, you are happy to help him achieve what he wishes, even as it cripples your heart.

Tonight you plan on visiting him. That fourth visit was a week and a half ago, he may be wondering where you are. He still comes to your altar each night, but the prayers are less personal. Marcus saves his stories and ramblings for when the two of you are in the field, or near the lake, when the two of you are really alone.

—

You bite into the berry at around midnight. Its tangy yet death-tasting juice floods your mouth, clinging to the crevices between your teeth and staining your gums. Closing your eyes, you think of Marcus, and his curls, and his eyes, and his nose, and his strong hands.

And then you are there, and he is waiting. 

It seems like his subconsciousness has picked to be at the lake today, and he’s sat in the sand at the edge of the water. You walk over to him, but notice how… down he appears to be.

“She is not happy with me,” Marcus confesses before you even sit down.

You stand a few feet back from him, looking at how his curls fall around his bowed head.

“Lucilla?” You ask softly.

He nods.

A wicked feeling begins to steep in your heart. She is upset with him, he is in need of you for something more than a blessing. 

And so you listen. 

It’s one of the longer meetings the two of you have had. Marcus doesn’t cry, but he seems truly upset. He’s been called to go off somewhere far again, to fight and kill. Reassurances that you will protect him as best you can only soothe him so much. 

He doesn't care if he dies, he cares that his beloved is distraught over this. 

The more the two of you talk, the closer you get. There are marks on the sand from where you originally sat, but now you kneel in front of him, with creased brows and worried eyes. This isn’t something you can fix, you aren’t familiar with love and its intricacies. 

His knees were tucked closer to his chest before, but they’ve loosened now and his fists rest atop them, clenching. Frustration sits on his face like a mask, one you wish to take off him.

Touching is not… something either of you partake in. Sometimes your shoulders will brush when you sit together, but nothing more has ever been initiated. 

That is why it doesn’t surprise you when he flinches as your hand reaches out to rest on top of his right clenched fist. 

“Marcus,” you say softly, wanting to offer comfort, but he cuts you off.

“Don’t,” he replies swiftly.

At first it hurts, watching as he waves off your hand from his own, but then you look at his face rather than where your hands were joined. The frustrated look on his face is gone, replaced with something worse, something guilty. His eyes aren’t glittering at you like usual, nor are they hardened with anger.

They’re soft pools of conflict that mirror your own.

It doesn’t soothe your burn, satiate your envy. You can see in his eyes that maybe you aren’t alone in these feelings of admiration, of want, but maybe this is not what you want.

Maybe you want a different universe, one where he doesn’t have to be a mortal and you, a Goddess. So you wouldn’t have to worry about him dying, and have this friendship survive off death flavored berries. Maybe you want a universe where he isn’t married, where he could be yours and you wouldn’t feel like a spectator to his heart.

Maybe you want that, but you won’t get it.

Instead the flames of jealousy die in your chest and are replaced with tumors of guilt. Your whole body feels bloated, embarrassed, and ugly. 

The pair of you stare at each other, a stupid realization between the both of you as you realize that your secrets have been spilled, even though it’s the same one.

His eyes don’t move from yours, so you move from his.

The sandy edge of the lake does not look so bright now, even though there are no clouds in Marcus’s dream. 

“When do you leave?” You ask softly. 

You will not follow him into whatever battle he’ll win. Don’t embarrass yourself, Goddess.

He tells you two weeks. You say you’ll see him before then.

Then you wake on a cloud again, with a cavity of guilt in your chest.

—

Marcus wakes alone. 

Lucilla had not wanted to sleep with him that night, choosing to stay elsewhere. She didn’t tell him where, she left in a quiet flurry of tears and anguish.

It’s easier for him to feel guilt over his Goddess than it is to hurt his beloved, even if it is the same.

In a moment of frustration he grasps at the sheets, turning over and biting at his pillow. The bed is so cold, and the room smells like stale air even though the window is open, the night breezy. 

He knows she is beautiful because she is a Goddess. All Goddesses are beautiful, ethereal beings that mortals cannot even comprehend at times. Marcus knows he is lucky to even perceive her, for her to have chosen to visit him.

Yet through all her blessings, he feels cursed.

A plague of emotional infidelity is crawling through his body, sticking to his bones and making him stiff. Everything he does has felt flat for so long, from pretending he is grateful to the Emperors, to now pretending nothing is wrong in his marriage. He’s scared, and exhausted.

Marcus rubs a hand over his face after rolling over and sitting up in bed, groaning into his palm. 

At first he tried to blame her for it. What would a Goddess want from a successful General other than a demigod hero son? What could truly be so special about him? He assumed she was manipulating him, using some sort of power to morph his heart, but now he knows it is not true.

If she had wanted to, she would have had him by now, and he knows this. If she had wanted to, her hand would have stayed where it was tonight, and pushed him further. It isn’t unlike the Gods to force themselves on a mortal, but she didn’t.

Instead, his hand feels hot where hers rested, and his mind is spinning. 

Marcus doesn’t fall asleep again, afraid that he’ll see her. 

—

You wait for a full two weeks before you visit him again. He had been coming to your temple less, and you had assumed he was busy with preparations for the coming battle. 

The stubbornness you felt that night has not left you. At first you did not leave your temple in fear that you would grow attached, now you remain there because you have grown attached. 

“Enough is enough,” you had thought to yourself. 

But it is hard not to miss him, and his soothing prayers. The way his offerings tasted of smoke and sweet, and how he’d always burn such a large portion. Marcus never gave you scraps, he seemed to refuse to. 

However, you can only distance yourself so far. 

It is quiet when you approach him. He is sitting in the field this time, the lake a distant glitter in your eyes. He does not face you, but his head isn’t bowed like before.

“Marcus,” you greet, your voice muted.

He raises his head, turning over his shoulder and nodding, as if to direct you to come closer, and so you do.

Tonight’s visit isn’t vulnerable, or even pleasant. Marcus seems so distant as he dryly tells you about how he’s preparing, and his wishes to return safely. His eyes barely meet your own as he talks, and he continuously twists the ring on his finger.

It grows tiring, watching him ramble about politics you could care less about, listening to him say things that have nothing to do with him. He’s so far from the friend you thought you had made. When the air between you goes quiet, you don’t fill it for a while. You listen to the sound of the wind in the grass as his eyes still will not meet yours. It’s breaking you apart.

This is the last night you’re able to visit him, unless you visit Morpheus again. You will not waste it like this.

“What is ailing you, General?” You ask, deciding to prod more than you usually do.

To your surprise, he scoffs in light laughter.

“You,” he responds quietly.

His words don’t hurt, at least not yet. You have the option to walk away now, wake yourself and leave him with his final blessings, but of course you don’t.

“Me?” You ask, “what have I done?”

Marcus rolls his shoulders back, lifting his head to look into the everblue sky above the both of you.

“You have made my life difficult, Goddess.”

Difficult? You have made his life difficult?

You have half a mind to tear him to pieces, curse him with something awful like snakes for toes, or spoons for teeth. After all that you’ve done for him, all the safety you’ve provided, he is telling you that you make things difficult? How dare he? Be outraged, Goddess, for he disrespects the holy luck which you bestowed to him.

That’s what you should think, that’s how most of you should feel.

But instead you feel small, and hurt. Yes, he is disrespecting all that you’ve given, but also you feel like a failure. Your physical existence is because of him, because he did not let you fade. All you wanted to do was make his life easier, help him to have an eased mind and a safer life.

But instead, he’s telling you you’re difficult.

It feels like your body is shrinking in the white peplos you’ve worn, the sheer fabrics swallowing you. Shame is flooding in the form of tears behind your eyes, wetting your orbs with an unexpected outburst of emotion.

“I am sorry,” you manage weakly.

Marcus does not look at you while you cry, and you want to believe it is because he cares too much to watch, but you cannot verify that.

The wind picks up again, but it does nothing to hide the soft cries you can’t hold back. Once you were a fading Goddess, now you are just a failing one.

There is no luck involved with love.

Eventually he speaks again, with his head turned away from you.

“I am sorry too,” he says. There’s a finality in his tone that makes you ache.

So much is said in such little words. He is sorry to you, for you, and with you. A sorrow is shared between the two of you, knowing that your hearts ache for one another as they are worlds apart yet on earth together. 

This last berry was only supposed to mark the end of your visits, not the end of everything. It feels like this is all there is for the two of you, since it’s too complicated to continue on like this.

That’s why he doesn’t move away when you move closer and rest your head on his shoulder as tears leak down your cheeks, or at least that’s what you’ll believe. 

—

Time moves weirdly when you’re immortal, but it all happens so quickly.

Marcus stopped coming to offer things for you, and so you were blessing him less. Admittedly you had kept an eye on him, but not a keen one. It didn’t feel right, not when you and him weren’t… friends anymore.

But this feels too soon, too fast, too unfamiliar. Has your sadness caused you to be blind?

You watch as a man kneels in front of Marcus, panting and bloody with a sword beside him on the ground.

The only reason you are here was because you had felt the roar of a crowd all the way at your own temple, a wide distance away. It had drawn you in, and instead you had found this.

That roaring which you had heard crescendos to a new height around you as you shimmer into existence, cloaking yourself to the mortal eyes in the stands of the coliseum, but existing enough to touch him.

Arrows stick out of his front, more crushed beneath his back, as he is slumped on the white, gravel, ground. His hair is curled with tacky blood streaking through it, and he is so, so, still.

You drag your hand across his forehead, feeling the remaining heat, and in the echo of the crowd you begin to sob. 

Everything around you is moving, changing, fighting, and screaming, but you sit invisible in the center of the coliseum, running your hands over the now dead General Acacius. There is nothing you can do to bring him back, to ease Lucilla, to save him and apologize. He is dead beneath your fingers, with arrows lodged deep in his irreparable, mortal, flesh. 

You were supposed to keep him safe.

Hot tears run down your cheeks as you keep grasping at his armor, unable to move him or yourself. The last visit felt official, but this feels final. There is nothing more for you here, no friendship in a corpse.

Thoughts are running through your mind at the rate that your breath is puffing from your chest. The question of where he will end up in the afterlife is overwhelming you, and the chance for him to go to Elysium feels reasonable. It’s where he should be, where he deserves to go, especially after all he had done for Rome. You don’t even care why he’s here, or why he seems to have been brutally killed, but after the time you spent with him, Elysium seems right for him.

—

It’s where he should be. Elysium is where he should be.

And it’s where you find him.

His place there is somewhat similar to his and Lucilla’s home back in the mortal world, with lush greenery and airy drapes that flutter in various colours. It seems like he has left space for Lucilla here too, with space left in the chests for her things, and a permanently made half of the bed.

Elysium offers a true celebration of life for heroes, demigodly or not, and you’re sure Marcus has been enjoying that. Anything that he had been shackled to in his mortal life was gone now, and it seems that all he would have to miss is his wife. 

Most of your time is spent there, in his afterlife home. You peer from behind curtains when he comes back, hidden in drapes and keeping yourself small. 

He is already dead, but after the last time you abandoned him, you cannot bear to leave him alone again.

The vision of him, bloodied and murdered on the coliseum floor, flickers into your mind every time you see him lying in his bed. It’s an obsession to be near him, to be looking after him. Pluto might not even know you’re down here anymore, but what does it matter?

Marcus Acacius was the last living mortal to worship you. In the underworld, you are beginning to fade. Your fingers are slipping from you again, which is making it easier to lurk near him, but it is a painful process.

You want to speak to him. No longer do you yearn for his love, not after being in his home and seeing how dedicated his heart truly is to Lucilla, but you yearn to speak to him again. A panicked emotion runs through you at the thought of fading alone, of being entirely forgotten. 

It didn’t matter before he died, fading was just something bound to happen, but now it’s more. Is he forgetting you?

—

You’ve lost most of your arms by the time you work up the courage to speak up. Lucilla arrived sometime ago, joining Marcus in the afterlife. Watching them together brought some warmth to you, some kind of happiness that you couldn’t have for yourself, but seeing it for him was enough.

You sit on the terrace of their home, invisible to their eyes, and somewhat to your own. From the tips of your fingers to just below your elbows, you are a specter. Grey shadow fills where your limbs used to be, and they pass through all objects. You couldn’t tap his shoulder if you tried.

Oftentimes you sit, hidden, and ponder by yourself about more than Marcus. There were so many things you were adamant about when he was alive, and you regret it all now. Your determination to avoid your feelings, or at least not show them, and your need to not become attached… it bites at you now, a stinging, grieving, venom, that won’t leave. Your status as a Goddess blinded you to how tender that friendship could have been, and now you sit as a ghost spectator to his afterlife, obsessed with a mortal as a fading immortal. 

The tips of your fingers pass through the glass you try to grab as you think of this on the terrace. You’re glad that you’re such a minor deity, so at least you do not have to feel so humiliated about fading. A smile has just graced your face as you feel blessed for being so unimportant you can essentially stalk this mortal, when suddenly his voice cuts through the humid air of the space.

“Felicitas?” Marcus’ voice asks.

It’s so hesitant that you think you’re imagining it. You thought you had their home to yourself right now, thinking they had gone to do… whatever souls do in Elysium, but when you turn your face, he is there.

Marcus has not worn fancy clothing in a long while now, and right now is no different. He stands before you in a plain looking tunic, which just graces his knees. To see him at ease has been so nice, but he looks distressed at your sudden appearance.

You cannot find your voice as you awkwardly stand up, trying to think quickly. There is no good way to explain what you’re doing here, hidden away in him and his wife’s home. You could just vanish into thin air, but that feels wrong. He has seen you already, any attempts at pretending you aren’t here would be ridiculous.

His eyes scroll from your face down to your arms, and the smoking shadows that used to be there. Concern pinches onto his face with knitted brows and pressed together lips.

Something in you wants him to turn away, so you don’t have to think about why he is worried for you, even after all the trouble you caused, but he doesn’t.

His sandaled steps are heavy as he comes to you, reaching for your hands but finding the gesture fruitless as his own slip right through yours.

“Dulcissima,” he speaks weakly, shock woven in his words.

You had told him about fading a little while ago, when the two of you were in that field. Now it seems the severity of it has hit him.

What is hitting you is the name. Dulcissima, or sweetest. How long had it been since you had been referred to so fondly? All at once you are being remembered, recognized, and shown some affection. It feels like too much and tears are falling out of your control.

“I’m sorry,” you manage, “I was supposed to– to keep you safe.”

Marcus is shaking his head already, refusing your apology.

“No, no. You did keep me safe, you did. I pushed you away, I couldn’t control myself and I caused this,” he argues. 

It does not comfort you that you both blame yourselves. You wish to reach out to him and touch his face like you should have when he was warm and alive. You want to know if he is cold now, and it’s as if he hears you.

Marcus places a hand on your cheek, a softness in his eyes and hold that says that he missed you.

“I saw you,” he claims, “when I was on the ground. You were the last thing I saw.”

Somewhere between life and death for mortals, there are moments of godly clarity. Some see the light, others see their families and memories, but in that tiny glimpse of time, some see Gods. 

He was able to see you as you knelt over him, sobbing as you were cloaked to any mortal's naked eye.  You were the last thing he saw, and the last thing he truly regretted. 

All you can do is stiltedly nod at him, feeling like you were in trouble even though it seems he’s not upset.

For a moment, his eyes flick away, contemplative, but then he meets your gaze again.

“I told Lucilla of you, before I died. Not– not of my feelings which I struggled with, but that you were a close friend, a blessing in many ways.”

A blessing in many ways.

Another choked sob is wracked from your chest, your bottom lip curling out embarrassingly as your face contorts. He almost coos at you, the thumb on your cheek rubbing away your tears.

“Goddess, I have missed you,” he admits. 

Stupid nods are all you can offer, your voice imprisoned in your ever tightening throat which cries. When he was alive he was never this tender, too confused and insecure to ever touch you, but it seems he has been regretting things too.

“Felicitas,” he says quietly, “do you come here for ill reason?”

You shake your head this time, rather than nodding. You have no reason to be here, other than the fact that guilt has taken over your mind and heart since he died.

“Then relax, dulcissima. I have an offering for you.”

Marcus relaxes his stature, eyes still gazing over you. He looks at your fading palms and you watch him swallow nervously.

“I will worship you again, lending you offerings here, and all I ask in return is for our friendship again.”

It’s the opposite of how you met, almost completely, but it’s everything you need. You will not fade, he will not struggle in marriage, and you will have one another again. 

Again, you are nodding stupidly, but soon you’re embraced by him and nodding into his chest. His hands grasp at your back as he tells you how much he missed you in his final weeks, how he regrets losing you entirely, how he requires you as a friend. 

You are satiated in his arms as he comforts you, awakening you again there on the terrace. Unbeknownst to you, Marcus has let tears slip down too as he holds you close. 

“You will keep me safe here?” he asks jokingly.

It makes you smile, the idea of offering luck to a man who already died.

“Yes, General. I will keep you safe here, from all the horrifying glory and splendor,” you assure.

The two of you laugh, breaking the embrace but staying close. A passionate connection is still between the two of you, but in a different way now. Maybe when he was alive it was romantic because it is all you could think of, but through his death the two of you have come to understand it more. 

You require one another in a unique way, and leaning on one another does not have to be intimate the way he is with his wife. Marcus does need you, just as you need him, and now that you are both immortal in a way, you will never be separated again.

please leave a comment, like, reblog, askbox, or ANYTHING. i'd love to hear thoughts on this <33

tags (people who seemed excited for this) (sorry if these dont work)

@pascalssbabyy , @moonshapedflan , @gossipgirl-03 , @kyloispunk , @frannyzooey , @coocoolahh , @bug-boy32 , @honeymarvel , @magicalmorg , @1deakybass , @tuquoquebrute , @harryshousewhore , @teeagain, @chewie-bars , @vampyyweek , @queenslandlover-93 , @amijenn , @aquanatalie

[agirlwithglam]

How to get over negative experiences in your life.

Whether it’s heartbreak, failure, feeling unloved, left out, not achieving something,

Always learn the lesson, then get over it. Life is short, you should not be dwelling on something that has happened!! Don’t let a small part of your day ruin the entire experience of this wonderful life!

It’s like for example: if you had $86400 and someone took away $60, would you be mad? Of course, but would too just give away the remaining $86340 to them? No, that would be stupid. The same way- you have 86400 seconds in a day and something happens, do you just let that consume you the rest of the day? Absolutely not.

That’s why here, we’re all about growing and evolving as people. We know that God gives us everything for a higher purpose, a reason that’s much bigger for you.

So any situation or event he gives you, LEARN FROM IT. Because why would you let something happen to you for nothing? Figure out the lesson, write about it, make a video about it, journal about it, or spread the message about it so more people can learn. But what’s important is that you understand the lesson God was trying to give you and so that experience doesn’t feel like a waste anymore. Instead, it feels like more of a blessing.

Like you also need to understand that all the advice I have and I right about on my blog, I have learned from personal experiences- and that’s how great those problems can be. Heartbreak and failure is your superpower if you know how to use it in a way to boost yourself.

[natequarter]

[ID: a series of images of Clara Oswald from Doctor Who, each with a textpost edited onto the image so she appears to be saying it.

Clara in a car with Danny: "come closer i exhibit normal and not obsessive behaviours".

"do not go to therapy. enough people went to grant us all herd immunity. we are all fine and we will all be fine God bless".

Clara at work: "It's really important when you're at work to go out there and really give it your 60%. Maybe 35%."

"Well this bell could be tolling for anybody".

Clara talking to Madame Vastra and Jenny Flint: "it's because you're always sexualizing that damn senior citizen".

"every night before i go to sleep i get on my knees at the foot of my bed and pray to god that he sends me a toxic situationship to consume myself with all winter long".

"I think it goes without saying that hubris is the most attractive quality a woman can have".

Clara talking to the Twelfth Doctor: ""you don't have to perform around me" sweetheart i have to perform in front of myself".

"yoooo theyre playing my fucking leitmotif in here this party rules (hearing it change to minor key) Oh Shit. Oh Fuck".

Clara in the TARDIS with the Doctor: "put those big brown eyes away dude now is NOT the time".

"shoutout to girls who do not understand the difference between ‘the bit’ and ‘waging psychological warfare’".

Clara in a diner with the Doctor: "it's always “why did you sacrifice yourself and leave me behind” and never How was the sacrifice Was sacrificing yourself fun it looked fun".

/end ID]

its her day again

[talonabraxas]

Archangel Raphael Talon Abraxas

Green Ray - Green Flame and Archangel Raphael

The green Ray of light represents concretization, crystallization of substance, knowledge and science. The green Flame is the Flame of balance and Truth. It leads to analysis and development of ideas, especially Divine ideas and impulses that have been conceived in the First Ray of the Blue Flame. Those ideas ultimately and inevitably produce wisdom and light. The fifth Ray of light brings the energy of exploration which might eventually produce separation and crystallization. The discernment and thoroughness with which the green Ray operates produce in the mind of man an act of final understanding and revelation of the Truth. This is the Ray of concentration, as a manifestation of the undisturbed sustained attention, which is attained by consecration. In the green Flame we recognize the seat of the physical healing and perfection.

The Green Flame Invocation is performed on Thursday when the fifth green Ray especially strongly manifests its energies.

Archangel Raphael is an Angel of healing and consecration. A physician, minister, student and every devotee, who out of his/her free will consecrates his/her strength to serve life, stand under the special blessing and protection. Archangel Raphael forms the heart of every single individual who is supposed to take a new incarnation. Marry, the Mother of God, a being full of mercy, grace, compassion and motherly love is the Divine complement of Archangel Raphael. Mother Marry is the Hierarch of the “Temple of Resurrection”, together with Jesus. The Temple is filled with the Green Flame of healing. It combines many different healing places that possess healing streams of energy, like for instance, Lourdes, the water of Saint Petka, and many others. Those are the places where a constant prayer ascends to heaven, towards God.

Archangel Raphael represents the power of sight and vision - vision of the Truth. He can help you develop your third eye - the inner vision, or Divine vision - and the resort to the power of creation by visualization. Archangel Raphael can improve your concentration and extrasensory perception. Archangel Raphael is a guardian of the blind; He brings healing in every respect, supports the healers, helps the physician and all spiritual therapists. Archangel Raphael supports all people on their Divine path.

Archangel Raphael will bring you healing, health and wealth, if you just ask Him for help. He will help you develop intuition and improve your vision, he will bestow upon you the Divine energy of self-healing. Surround yourself with the green light of the fifth Ray and pray for whatever is necessary. You know that honest and pure prayer will always be heard and fulfilled. You can rely on Archangel Raphael while traveling, as He is the guardian of those on the road.

Archangel Raphael will teach you to consecrate yourself every day when your eyes look at something which is less than perfect. In that case you can utter the following prayer: “Beloved Father, forgive me for disrespecting Your law of love. Beloved Archangel Raphael, once again consecrate my eyes, so that I can see only perfection! ”

When you hear something negative, when your hands are impatient in some move, when you demonstrate indignation, when your tongue and lips utter only one wrong word, then, say to yourself: “Beloved Father, forgive me for the misuse of Your energy.” You should repeat this sentence often, until you have understood and corrected everything.

Your individual life stream is found in grave danger only if you do not rise up again, clean up the dust from your knees, and make another step once again. Archangel Raphael will alway enlighten your four lower bodies once again, whenever you need this and whenever you ask Him to. Do not hesitate, ask Him again and again. Ask Archangel Raphael to become aware of nothing less than the perfection, so that you can see perfection, hear perfection, and speak perfection, for now, and for always.

The representatives from the world of crystals for the Green Ray (Green Golden Flame) are blue sapphire, indigolite, sugilite and sodalite. These crystals are connected to the sixth chakra - the ajna chakra.

[laswells-ashtray]

It's me yet again. I need me some slightly tipsy Kate and John in a lighthearted sparring match while her wife and Nik stand off to the side and gossip about their respective partners. (Again, take your time. Don't burn yourself out )

Now, because I can't describe movement for shit. I'm an internal dialogue like the Green Goblin voice or a banter typa muppet this interaction will mostly be between Nik and Laswell's wife. and I'm using my interpretation of her whom I have called Sarah if only because typing out Laswell's wife so many times makes the words stop looking real

"I cannot see this going well in the long run." Sarah Laswell, very proud wife of a certain Kate Laswell. It's not often she sees Kate get tipsy in front of anyone who isn't her, she'll indulge in a drink or two but never to the extent of this. However, it'd be dumb to assume that combining Kate, John and alcohol that Nikolai, bless that man, was paying for would lead them anywhere else.

"And yet you make no move to stop it." Nikolai doesn't bother pretending that he isn't amused, it's deeply humorous to watch two of the most fierce people he knows spar each other.

"Neither do you, don't think I can't see you staring at his ass."

"You haven't stopped looking at your wife's chest since she took off her jacket."

Okay, they're both deviants.

John is in what are probably his nicest jeans, not very suitable to a lot of movement given that they must've been painted onto his arse.

Kate is wearing a dark blue tank top that Sarah bought her absentmindedly last week and for the briefest moment, she considers just dragging Kate to the nearest closet and hoping it's soundproof.

The two move in such fluid ways that it's clear they've sparred together before. Even with a few drinks in both of them, it's the most gracious violence she's ever seen.

When John narrowly avoids Kate's elbow to the face Nikolai does little more than chuckle, he clearly isn't worried about his partner and he enjoys the smug grin on the other man's face.

"Tempted to video this." Sarah mutters, watching them both in awe. Even if her main reason for watching was to shamelessly admire her wife in all her glory, she can't deny how impressive Kate is. She throws a hit with enough force that Sarah almost pities John and she takes an equal hit with such little care. God, if there was to be a walking advertisement for lesbianism it would be Kate Laswell.

"That would involve taking your eyes off of them."

"Nevermind."

Nikolai understands, he truly does. His three favourite Johns are fucked senseless John, John when he's asleep and purring against Nik's chest like a cat and John when he's fighting just for the fun of it. Watching his biceps flex, testing the tight stitching around the sleeve of his t-shirt is a damn near biblical fucking experience.

Maybe the greatest bit of their little sparring match is how happy the two look to be there, throwing hits at each other while simultaneously muttering their banter in a way that neither Nikolai nor Sarah can hear. Carefree for once in their lives, it's no secret that their jobs weigh down on the both of them and to see them in a position so laid back, it's endearing.

"Those the socks Kate bought him for his birthday last year?"

"Да."

"Thought so, I picked them out."

"I assumed so."

"What gave it away?"

"The word cock printed on the soles." Sue her, she thought it was funny and given the expression on Nikolai's face so did he.

She watches John swipe out Kate's legs from under her and feels pride settle in her chest when the other woman immediately pulls the Englishman down with her.

She spares Nikolai a knowing glance, it would appear the both of them are going to be enjoying their nights when they head home.

Kate moves so quickly that Sarah can't help but think of one of their cats back home as she pins John to the mat, their sparring might be lighthearted but she wouldn't make the mistake of thinking Kate would let herself move.

Her muscles are taut as she holds the struggling Englishman in place, her back arched and a downright gleeful smirk on her face. Strands of hair fall into her line of vision, fallen loose from her typical bun and they frame her face in a way that can only be described as angelic. If angels were the single most fuckable woman that Sarah has ever interacted with in her entire fucking life, Jesus Christ.

As much as John is losing, he does so proudly. Who better to lose to than Kate of all people. And Nikolai isn't complaining, John's t-shirt is riding up and he's offered the perfect view of the happy trail he has every intention of running his face over later.

Their little sparring match comes to an end, with both participants walking over to their respective partners before heading to grab their shoes and the jackets that had been dumped carelessly on the floor.

It's only when Nikolai catches the two sharing a look that he realises they've been played. Kate and John are both too smart to start a friendly spar for no reason. And it isn't a coincidence that both Sarah and he are desperate to drag their partners away for the night.

They were putting on a show. Sly bastards.

[hamletthedane]

follow for more extremely niche shitty texas/iliad culture-fusion memes that @thegreatblondebalrogslayer makes me post

[burningconnoisseurdetective]

We know you better than this, Mr. Santana! *cues the lyrics to The Things You Said by Depeche Mode* We know you better than that. We know you better than that.

[zukkaoru]

people on twitter will say the wildest most out of character things and i just have to read them with my own eyes bc there’s no good way to curate your timeline

[hasarjunadoneanythingwrong]

Day 743

never forget magical girl arjuna

[transgaysex]

truly the people who do like the pkmn scvi professors confuse me

[mymp3]

i love love love reading your takes on minato and p3 in general ... like minato gets mischaracterized and flanderized by people sooooo much but you really truly get him i think

This is genuinely such a high honor of an ask to get, thank you very much anon.

I love talking about my playthrough and experience with P3 as i move along. it's a very hard hitting and impactful story. this story could not work if minato wasn't the character he was and i think that's brilliant.

I haven't seen too many takes on him yet honestly, but it's sad that he apparently gets so frequently misunderstood. understanding the vessel in which the story is told through is key in understanding the full picture i feel, and its nice of you to think i get him. :)

[acourtofquestions]

KINGDOM OF ASH (by SJM)

Chapter 48

THE FAMILY REUINION🥹😆😭🫶& MY SOULLL

But when they reached Princess Hasar's battle tent, when they had all gathered around a map of Anielle, they had only a few minutes of discussion before they were interrupted. By the person Chaol least expected to walk through the flaps.

A moment later, Chaol was glad he was sitting down.

Nesryn breathed, "Holy gods."

Chaol was inclined to agree as Aelin Galathynius, Rowan Whitethorn, and several others entered the tent.

They were mud-splattered, the Queen of Terrasen's braided hair far longer than Chaol had last seen. And her eyes ... Not the soft, yet fiery gaze. But something older. Wearier.

Chaol shot to his feet. "I thought you were in Terrasen," he blurted. All the reports had confirmed it. Yet here she stood, no army in sight.

Three Fae males-towering warriors as broad and muscled as Rowan—had entered, along with a delicate, dark-haired human woman.

But Aelin was only staring at him. Staring and staring at him.

No one spoke as tears began sliding down her face. Not at his being here, Chaol realized as he took up his cane and limped toward Aelin.

But at him. Standing. Walking.

The young queen let out a broken laugh of joy and flung her arms around his neck. Pain lanced down his spine at the impact, but Chaol held her right back, every question fading from his tongue.

Aelin was shaking as she pulled away. "I knew you would," she breathed, gazing down his body, to his feet, then up again. "I knew you'd do it."

"Not alone," he said thickly. Chaol swallowed, releasing Aelin to extend an arm behind him. To the woman he knew stood there, a hand over the locket at her neck.

Perhaps Aelin would not remember, perhaps their encounter years ago had meant nothing to her at all, but Chaol drew Yrene forward. "Aelin, allow me to introduce"

"Yrene Towers," the queen breathed as his wife stepped to his side.

The two women stared at each other.

Yrene's mouth quivered as she opened the silver locket and pulled out a piece of paper. Hands trembling, she extended it to the queen. Aelin's own hands shook as she accepted the scrap.

"Thank you," Yrene whispered.

Chaol supposed it was all that really needed to be said.

Aelin unfolded the paper, reading the note she'd written, seeing the lines from the hundreds of foldings and rereadings these past few years.

"I went to the Torre," Yrene said, her voice cracking. "I took the money you gave me, and went to the Torre. And I became the heir apparent to the Healer on High. And now I have come back, to do what I can. I taught every healer I could the lessons you showed me that night, about self-defense. I didn't waste it-not a coin you gave me, or a moment of the time, the life you bought me." Tears were rolling and rolling down Yrene's face. "I didn't waste any of it."

Aelin closed her eyes, smiling through her own tears, and when she opened them, she took Yrene's shaking hands. "Now it is my turn to thank you." But Aelin's gaze fell upon the wedding band on Yrene's finger, and when she glanced to Chaol, he grinned.

"No longer Yrene Towers," Chaol said softly, "but Yrene Westfall."

Aelin let out one of those choked, joyous laughs, and Rowan stepped up to her side.

Yrene's head tilted back to take in the warrior's full height, her eyes widening-not only at Rowan's size, but at the pointed ears, the slightly elongated canines and tattoo. Aelin said, "Then let me introduce you, Lady Westfall, to my own husband, Prince Rowan Whitethorn Galathynius."

For that was indeed a wedding band on the queen's finger, the emerald mud-splattered but bright. On Rowan's own hand, a gold-and-ruby ring gleamed.

"My mate," Aelin added, fluttering her lashes at the Fae male. Rowan rolled his eyes, yet couldn't entirely contain his smile as he inclined his head to Yrene.

Yrene bowed, but Aelin snorted. "None of that, please. It'll go right to his immortal head." Her grin softened as Yrene blushed, and Aelin held up the scrap of paper. "May I keep this?" She eyed Yrene's locket. "Or does it go in there?"

Yrene folded the queen's fingers around the paper. "It is yours, as it always was. A piece of your bravery that helped me find my own."

Aelin shook her head, as if to dismiss the claim.

But Yrene squeezed Aelin's closed hand. "It gave me courage, the words you wrote. Every mile I traveled, every long hour I studied and worked, it gave me courage. I thank you for that, too."

Aelin swallowed hard, and Chaol took that as excuse enough to sit again, his back giving a grateful tinge. He said to the queen, "There is another person responsible for this army being here." He gestured to Nesryn, the woman already smiling at the queen. "The rukhin you see, the army gathered, is as much because of Nesryn as it is because of me."

A spark lit Aelin's eyes, and both women met halfway in a tight embrace. "I want to hear the entire story," Aelin said. "Every word of it." Nesryn's subdued smile widened. "So you shall. But later." Aelin clapped her on the shoulder and turned to the two royals still by the desk. Tall and regal, but as mud-splattered as the queen.

Chaol blurted, "Dorian?"

Rowan answered, "Not with us." He glanced to the royals.

"They know everything," Nesryn said

"He's with Manon," Aelin said simply.

Chaol wasn't entirely sure whether to be relieved. "Hunting for something important."

The keys. Holy gods.

Aelin nodded. Later. He'd think on where Dorian might now be later. Aelin nodded again. The full story would come then too.

Nesryn said, "May I present Princess Hasar and Prince Sartaq."

Aelin bowed—low. "You have my eternal gratitude," Aelin said, and the voice that came out of her was indeed that of a queen. Any shock Sartaq and Hasar had shown upon the queen bowing so low was hidden as they bowed back, the portrait of courtly grace.

"My father," Sartaq said, "remained in the khaganate to oversee our lands, along with our siblings Duva and Arghun. But my brother Kashin sails with the rest of the army. He was not two weeks behind us when we left."

Aelin glanced to Chaol, and he nodded.

Something glittered in her eyes at the confirmation, but the queen jerked her chin at Hasar. "Did you get my letter?"

The letter that Aelin had sent months ago, begging for aid and promising only a better world in return. Hasar picked at her nails. "Perhaps. I get far too many letters from fellow princesses these days to possibly remember or answer all of them."

Aelin smirked, as if the two of them spoke a language no one else could understand, a special code between two equally arrogant and proud women. But she motioned to her companions, who stepped forward. "Allow me to introduce my friends. Lord Gavriel, of Doranelle." A nod toward the tawny-eyed and golden-haired warrior who bowed.

Tattoos covered his neck, his hands, but his every motion was graceful. "My uncle, of sorts," Aelin added with a smirk at Gavriel. At Chaol's narrowed brows, she explained, "He's Aedion's father."

"Well, that explains a few things," Nesryn muttered.

The hair, the broad-planed face ... yes, it was the same. But where Aedion was fire, Gavriel seemed to be stone. Indeed, his eyes were solemn as he said, "Aedion is my pride." Emotion rippled over Aelin's face, but she gestured to the dark-haired male. Not someone Chaol ever wanted to tangle with, he decided as he surveyed the granite-hewn features, the black eyes and unsmiling mouth.

"Lorcan Salvaterre, formerly of Doranelle, and now a blood-sworn member of my court." As if that weren't a shock enough, Aelin winked at the imposing male. Lorcan scowled. "We're still in the adjustment period," she loudly whispered, and Yrene chuckled.

Lorcan Salvaterre. Chaol hadn't met the male this spring in Rifthold, but he'd heard all about him. That he'd been Maeve's most trusted commander, her most loyal and fierce warrior.

That he'd wanted to kill Aelin, hated Aelin.

How this had come about, why she was not in Terrasen with her army ... "You, too, have a tale to tell," Chaol said.

"Indeed I do." Aelin's eyes guttered, and Rowan put a hand on her lower back. Bad— something terrible had occurred. Chaol scanned Aelin for any hint of it. He stopped when he noticed the smoothness of the skin at her neck. The lack of scars. The missing scars on her hands, her palms. "Later," Aelin said softly. She straightened her shoulders, and another golden-haired male came forward. Beautiful. That was the only way to describe him. "Fenrys ... You know, I don't actually know your family name."

Fenrys threw a roguish wink at the queen.

"Moonbeam."

"It is not," Aelin hissed, choking on a laugh.

Fenrys laid a hand on his heart. "I am blood-sworn to you. Would I lie?"

Another blood-sworn Fae male in her court.

Across the tent, Sartaq cursed in his own tongue. As if he'd heard of Lorcan, and Gavriel, and Fenrys.

Aelin gave Fenrys a vulgar gesture that set Hasar chuckling, and faced the royals. "They're barely housebroken. Hardly fit for your fine company." Even Sartaq smiled at that. But it was to the small, delicate woman that Aelin now gestured. "And the only civilized member of my court, Lady Elide Lochan of Perranth." Perranth. Chaol had combed through the family trees of Terrasen just this winter, had seen the lists of so many royal households crossed out, victim to the conquest ten years ago.

Elide's name had been among them.

Another Terrasen royal who had managed to evade Adarlan's butchers.

The pretty young woman took a limping step forward, and bobbed a curtsy to the royals. Her boots concealed any sign of the source of the injury, but Yrene's attention shot right to her leg. Her ankle. "It's an honor to meet all of you," Elide said, her voice low and steady. Her dark eyes swept over them, cunning and clear. Like she could see beneath their skin and bones, to the souls beneath.

Aelin wiped her hands. "Well, that's over and done with," she announced, and strode to the desk and map. "Shall we discuss where you all plan to march once we beat the living shit out of this army?"

[nezuscribe]

𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭

pairing: gojo x fem!reader

summary: gojo satoru was the most notorious man across the land. he was the strongest soldier the north had ever produced, the most brilliant of minds, and somebody who slept his way through the noble ranks. his parents set him up in a marriage agreement with you, hoping that a tie with a ring would help save his image. you know gojo never wanted this, and you try to act as if that was normal. but soon, without you or even him realizing it, he comes to the conclusion that while he never wanted this marriage - he's beginning to want you.

warnings: 18+ mdni: arranged marriage, angst, slight no comfort, gojo is emotionally constipated for a bit, heavy making out, eating out (fem! receiving), fingering, (naoya)

word count: 19.7k (sorry)

note: inspired by this drabble. i'm so happy this behemoth of a fic is done!! art credit: _3aem

jjk masterlist + series masterlist

Gojo Satoru was the most powerful man alive. 

Not only physically, though some people chalked him up to being half god, but his name held even more control. The Gojo family of the North was as old as the gods themselves, and they’ve been making sure it’s been kept that way. They owned so much land that you would walk to the ends of the earth and circle back around and it would probably still be theirs. They had armies of unfathomable sizes under their command, so much riches that they could probably buy an entire nation and still have plenty to spend. 

His presence was just as large as his name created him to be. Any ball he went to, all eyes would fall on him. On the battlefield, men feared to see the flash of white hair, knowing that his strength was unbridled. 

And his physical beauty? Most people assumed he was blessed by the gods himself. Gojo had a certain look that just made your knees weak, your heart palpitate, and your cheeks heated up. The handful of times you’ve seen him from afar you’ve been able to understand why all the girls (and some of the guys) yearned for his attention. His eyes were a piercing blue as if somebody had held a mirror to the sky when creating them. His hair had grown whiter with the years, as white as the snow that sunk deep into the grounds of the north. Gojo had the build of a soldier, and he towered over most people. His bulky build was intimidating, but you heard some girls whisper behind their hands about how he must look underneath all those ceremonial garments. 

The lord of the North was power itself. 

Which would make you, by martial association, the North's most powerful lady.

And for somebody who grew up with the same respect as a stable boy, it was all too much too soon. 

And yes, while on paper you still had your father's last name and legacy tied to it, you weren’t really a daughter to your parents. Your mother, though you had to call her by her name whenever you weren’t in public, seeing how she wasn’t really your mother, made sure it was kept that way. Your other three half-sisters should have been in your spot, either one of them more true to the family name than you. But seeing how they’re already married, you were the final resort. 

Gojo Satoru, though you’ve seen him countless times (something common because of how close in ranks your families were), had only acknowledged you a couple of times. You didn’t care much, never did, because that's what you were used to. After all, it was a common fact that you were what they nicknamed “the bastard daughter” of the West.

But it didn’t seem to matter much to his parents, as they offered their son up to you in a marriage arrangement. 

And who were you to turn that down? 

They, his parents, assured you that their son was looking forward to this union. He was the one to offer it, they said, which you were skeptical of but weren’t stupid enough to question. You knew how much Gojo Satoru was tarnishing their reputation with his promiscuous ways, but as long as he was okay with this arrangement you couldn’t find any part of you that would disagree with it. 

After all, you knew that this marriage wasn’t out of love, fascination, or even a mutual understanding, but because of the strength your own family (more so your father) held, and how you were the only feasible option for a bride. 

So, after weeks of rocking back and forth on agreements, paperwork, dress rehearsals, and grueling dancing lessons (and still no sight of the man himself), you found yourself standing at the end of the aisle, your arm linked around your fathers as a large smile plasters itself on your face. 

Ever since you were young you had convinced yourself that the only man who would want to taint his name enough to marry you would have to be either a troll or an ogre, so that fact that your future spouse was human was better than anything you could have asked for. 

And you’re not daft. As your heart hammered loudly against the limited space of your chest, waiting for your cue to start walking, you reminded yourself that this was just a mutual agreement. It’s hard for people at your level to marry for love, but even then, you can’t help but hope that you can make a decent friendship out of this. 

You glanced at your father next to you, catching his eyes as he nodded once, staring ahead of him into the small crowd of just your two families, and patted your arm. 

You still remember the music playing, the instruments harmonizing together as you took a tentative step forward, feeling warm under the eyes of people you didn’t know, but you kept reminding yourself that this was the best thing that could’ve happened to you. Either you died as an old maid in the little room you had near the kitchens at your old home or got married to some warlord who wanted an entire village as family. 

The orchids that surrounded the venue still infiltrate your nose as you think about it, the way the silk of your dress felt against your skin that had been scrubbed raw earlier that morning. 

And there you saw him, standing at the end of the aisle. At that moment you realized how much of a mistake this was,

Because the man that stood there, the man who you were about to marry, seemed like he’d rather be dead than be your husband. 

—

You blink out of your trance, sitting up straighter in your seat as you mindlessly stop tearing up pieces of your bread, rubbing your fingers together to get rid of the remnants of flour. 

The dining hall was huge, far bigger than the one back home. Though you rarely ate there, you could still remember it, and it definitely wasn’t as big as this. Yet, despite its size, you felt like you were a little grain of rice in its vastness. 

The Gojo estate itself was humongous. His parents resided in a smaller house near the ocean now that you’ve moved in, but you would bet that the word humble they used to describe it was anything but humbling. You’ve been here for weeks and yet you feel like you’ve only discovered half of what this place has to offer.

There were guards at every corner, but at this point, you’re convinced they're just for decoration. If your husband is as decorated a warrior as they say he is, he could protect this entire estate with no help necessary. 

You stare at your plate, at the array of food prepared just for you, different sorts of cured meats, loaves of bread, cheeses, fruits, and juices from all over, and still, you feel no hunger. 

Months ago you’d be ecstatic to see how much your life has changed. You get new clothes that fit you, food whenever you desire, people at your beck and call. Your room is no longer that cramped space you’d been given to hide you away from the rest of your family, but twice the size of your father's old bedroom. You wake up earlier and sleep later, do whatever you want, but none of it feels deserved.

The only thing you can bring yourself to think about is how the last time you saw your husband was the night of the wedding. The look on his face when you made your empty vows to one another, his faint lingering kiss on your cheek. You can blink your eyes and still see the way he left, his jaw clenched as he ignored the calls from his parents. How, even here, rumors seemed to follow you. 

Safe to say, you spent your meals alone. 

Not only that, but your rooms were entirely separate as well. You were told that you had to consummate the night of your marriage, but from what you’ve heard, your husband sleeps in an entirely different wing of the estate, with walls and corridors between the two of you. 

You tried taking your mind off of things, pretending as if this was normal. 

Most days you’d walk around, trying to familiarize yourself with the layout of the grounds. You’d walk the gardens a couple times each week, try to memorize the way back to different places, and stay in the library the other half of the time. 

A part of you was happy to at least be away from that miserable home, but it felt like swapping one prison for a slightly better one. Your maids were kind, of course, but you didn’t know anybody here. They treat you like a lady of noble ranking, as expected from being the wife of the Lord in the North, but you’d rather be given an apron and start working around instead of this mind-numbing boredom of just sitting around. 

You stare at your plate, chewing on a grape slowly. 

Looking up you see the sun filtering in through the large windows, illuminating the long table that sits like an empty grave. Clicking your tongue you pick up another grape, slumping in your seat as you look up. 

This is just the way things will be.

—

“Alina?”

You call out from your vanity, staring at your maid as she’s picking out different earrings for you to pick from for dinner. 

It’s a couple of days later, and still no word from Gojo. But that doesn’t mean that you haven’t stopped for a single second to not think about your supposed husband. 

You try not to care, pretend that you’re lucky that he’s not bothering you or going out of his way to remind you of this unfortunate situation, but above anything you just feel alone. 

The maid looks up, a curl falling from her tight bun as she smiles at you in the mirror. 

“Yes, my lady?” She stands up straighter, flattening out the wrinkles from her apron tied around her waist as she begins walking towards you with the jewelry. 

“Is this…is this normal?” You crane your neck around to look at the different pairs she’s holding up, nudging your head to the red ones that shine bright, and watch as she sets them down on your desk, resting her hand on your hip as she stares at you quizzically. 

“What do you mean?” She asks as you begin taking your earrings off, putting the new ones on yourself. In the beginning, she protested, saying that a woman of your caliber shouldn’t have to do such measly tasks. But the more you protested, she eventually gave up. 

“Do husbands and wives usually sleep separately?” you say, feeling your chest contract in embarrassment at the stupidness of your question. 

You watch as she swallows thickly, avoiding eye contact as she sets on fixing some parts of your hair. 

Staring patiently through the vanity mirror as you watch her work, Alina wets her lips, her eyes downcast as if not wanting to answer. 

“Was there somebody else he preferred to marry?” You decide to ask, twisting that knife that you knew was lodged in her side, one that was stopping her from talking, and watch as her eyes widen slightly in shock. 

“If you don’t answer I’m just going to keep asking more uncomfortable questions,” you warn and Alina snorts softly, shoving your shoulder a little bit as you crack a smile. 

She moves around, picking up a necklace, and begins clasping it behind your neck. 

“I…I don’t know. He’s always been pretty secretive and,” she looks at you briefly, “Selective. I don’t mean to speak ill of my lord but it would be stupid not to acknowledge his old ways. But we never heard of a specific girl.”

Alina places a gentle hand on your shoulder, a sad smile on her face. 

“You’re lucky my lady,” she says, her voice hushed, “Most wives don’t have the freedom to say their husbands don’t care what they do. Had you married that Zenin, you’d be pregnant by now.”

You shudder out a breath, nodding once more. 

“I’ll see you after dinner, my lady,” she says, moving out of the way as you stare quietly at the floor before leaving silently. 

—-

Tonight for dinner the cooks made you a wide array of different dishes, all from the Northern shore. There are different types of fish, each cooked in various ways. It looks delectable, a feast fit for a king. 

You feel awful, though, seeing that you can’t eat any of it. 

The last time you had fish your face swelled up and couldn’t breathe properly, so that family physician told you to steer away from it. But you’re here now, and it somehow slipped your mind to ever mention this little fact to them, so you’re awkwardly poking around some of the vegetables under the fish, looking for something to eat. 

You pile some potatoes and carrots on your plate, scraping off any bits of fish on them as you hold this wasn’t your last meal. 

The only sound that fills the room is your fork and knife sometimes hitting the porcelain plate, and you look up every now and then as you chew, looking at the paintings on the wall. 

You’re so focused on a portrait of an old man that you don’t even notice the figure standing at the entrance of the dining hall, not until you hear a muted curse. 

You look up instantly, your fork and knife dropping to the plate as you stare at the man in front of you, eyes wide at the sight of your husband. 

He stands there, blinking slowly as you stare back. 

You could swear time has never moved so slowly before. 

You can hear him mutter a quiet shit under his breath, not knowing if he should make this worse by turning around and leaving or if he should join you. 

He’s wearing a simple tunic, his face a little flushed, hairline beaded with sweat. Did he just come out of training? He must often do that, you decide, seeing how he must’ve felt comfortable enough walking in here without any clothing of import. 

His eyes seem to track your little movements; the way your chest rises and falls in a slow movement, the way your fingers have frozen in mid-air, lips slightly parting. Your eyes dart around the room, everybody seeming to have tensed up.

You open your mouth to say something, anything, but you’ve never been so moved to silence. It seemed as if years of learned vocabulary slipped your mind within an instant, and no matter how hard you tried, nothing was coming back.

Gojo looks behind his shoulder, at the large double doors he entered through, deep in thought. This would be the first time the two of you had seen each other in weeks, and his tirade of avoiding you has come to an end. It looks like an entire battle is being fought in his mind, and you don’t know what to do.

Suddenly, you watch as he shakes his head, deciding to give in and join you for dinner. 

The seconds go by like hours as he walks up to the seat at the other end of the table, staring at his seat for a brief second before he pushes it out and sits there. 

You don’t know what to do. 

Servants and maids quickly swarm the room, setting up his plate, cutlery, food, and drinks. It was all so hectic and rushed, but you were glad that it offered some sort of noise in the drowning silence.

A part of you wants to say something about the fish but you know this isn’t the right time. 

In the flurry of movements you allow yourself to discretely look at him a little better, seeing how the last time you saw him was so brief and hurried. 

The man radiates a different sort of aura you’ve never experienced before. While your father was one of the most powerful men in the West, Gojo was the strongest throughout the majority of the North and East. His frame took up the entire chair, his muscular shoulders and arms visible even through the loose fabric that was draped over him. You feel a little disappointed, knowing that if you were a different girl you’d probably be able to enjoy all of this. 

You try to make yourself seem indifferent, moving some of the vegetables in your plate around, but secretly just trying to shovel them down as fast as humanly possible to get out of this thick atmosphere. 

One of the men who was setting up some of the plates in front of Gojo takes notice of this, a smile overtaking his face as you briefly look up from your plate, startled to see the man walking closer to you.

“My lady, I’m so happy to see you enjoying our Northern delicacy!” He claps his hands together as you stare at him with wide eyes, your mouth still full of potatoes as you try chewing faster to get it all down before he gets closer to you. 

His eyes wrinkle around the edges, his graying mustache trimmed ever so carefully, and you can tell he’s trying to loosen up the tension, but you stare in abject horror as he stands at your foot of the table. 

“Would you like some more?” He motions to the fish that lay untouched in front of you, and you glance over to Gojo, hoping that maybe he is focused on his meal, only for your heart to sink at the fact that he is staring at you. 

“...y-yes,” you croak out, wiping some of the carrot remnants from the corners of your lips as you give him a wobbly smile, “It’s alright, I can serve myself,” you exclaim, trying to thwart him off as he quickly waves this aside, shaking his head as he grabs the tray, beginning to portion some hefty pieces of fish onto your plate.

You don’t have the heart to tell this jolly man that this amount of fish would kill you within an instant, or even that he was wasting this all on you, so you just sit there, giving him a tight-lipped smile as you try not to breathe it in too much. 

“Is that enough, my lady?” He asks, setting the tray down as you look at your plate now full of different sorts of sea creatures you swallow slowly, looking back up at him as you give a wobbly smile. 

“This is great,” you muster up and watch as an even larger smile takes over his face, and you feel awful for it, “Thank you so much,” you tell him, watching as he bows lowly, excusing himself as he, and the other servants, leave the room,

Leaving you and Gojo alone. 

You’re grateful that he’s already dug into his meal, not looking at a struggling you that’s moving the fish around with your fork as you try to find the last bits of vegetables you had saved up for yourself. 

The smell itself is enough to make your stomach turn, and you wince, reaching for your cup of wine to wash some of the nausea down.

“You have very good wine,” you say suddenly, against your will, and have an out-of-body experience as you realize what you just did. 

Gojo looks up from his plate, a little startled as he looks at you and the goblet in your hand, his white brows furrowed. 

He nods once, not saying anything, and you feel the strange need to continue, somehow enjoying the feeling of stabbing yourself in the foot.

“Our wine back home tasted like cow piss,” your eyes widened at your slip of crass language, “Er - not piss, um, urine…?” You wince even more, feeling as if a ghost with awful intentions had taken control over your body, “Not that I’ve had cow piss - urine!” You correct yourself, “But I imagine that if I had…that, um, it would taste like o-our wine back home...”

He’s staring at you, unblinking, and you smile awkwardly, raising the cup to him as a sort of cheers gesture. 

You count twenty seconds of silence in your head as you set the cup down, playing with your fork as you glance back up at him. Gojo looks as if he is regretting his decision to stay, his fingers tapping on his knife in a hurried sort of way. 

“I don’t really like wine,” you continue, feeling like the only thing that could stop you now was if somebody were to bludgeon you to death, “I like juice more. Oh, well, but I guess…wine is juice…?” you mutter to yourself, contradicting your own words mid-sentence, “Back home we had this mulberry juice and it tasted nice. Kind of like your wine,” he’s not even looking at you and so your words die, quieting down as you sink back into your seat, hoping it could eat you entirely. 

“Do you like wine?” You ask, tilting your head to the side, smiling faintly, awkwardly, “Or juice? Or… mulberries…?” 

He shakes his head, still not staring at you. 

“Did you have a good-”

“I prefer eating in silence.” Gojo finally said, raising his head slightly as he stared directly at you, watching as your mouth clamped shut. 

Your smile grows small, eyes falling to the table to hide the embarrassment in them. You give him a brief nod, mumbling a quiet apology under your breath as you begin moving some pieces of carrot around on your plate. 

You can hear the clinking of his utensils against his plate, wishing you could somehow fit an entire fish down your esophagus to escape this moment. 

You give it a couple of seconds, counting the groves in the wood of the table, and rise, stomach empty, heart churning as you finally excuse yourself. 

It only takes you minutes to find your room, quicker than last night, and allow yourself to sink against your bed, rubbing your skin raw of the rouge Alina had applied an hour earlier. 

—-

You don’t tell anybody of the awful encounter with the man that’s legally your husband, but you’re sure that those there to observe have already begun talking about it. You try to pretend nothing happened, but Alina could pick up on your closed-off demeanor that night, her hands gentler than usual when helping you take off your garments, her eyes filled with concern. 

“How was dinner, my lady?” She asked, staring at you as you waved off her worries, mustering up a lame excuse of a smile as you took off your silk shrug, avoiding any sort of eye contact as you slipped into your nightly garments. 

“It was good,” your words are void of emotion, “I had fish.” 

The following days are empty of any sight of your husband, but you’ve grown to find that normal. It doesn’t help that you can’t stop thinking about how idiotic you acted, your big mouth never knowing when to stop, tossing and turning in your bed at your excuse of an interaction. 

You continue with your old routine of walking around the estate, sometimes trying to track down Alina and your other maids, seeing if maybe they had some free time to spend with you. You know there’s a town nearby, the girls often talk about how they go there sometimes at night, but you’re too afraid of going out alone, not used to that sort of thing. 

Sometimes you sit out near the fields with a book, twisting the ring that’s searing into your finger, mindlessly taking in the words on the page. Other days you walk around the gardens, picking out some flowers for the vase in your room. On the days when you’re feeling really adventurous, you’d go near the east wing, where you’ve heard Gojo’s room is, and look at what sort of things lie there. But most times you chicken out, going back near your side just as quickly as you went.

You never see him at dinner again, knowing he wasn’t about to put himself through that torture again, so you go back to eating in silence, sometimes pretending that the chairs were full of people and that you were in one of those balls you longed to go to as a kid.

They seem to keep bringing fish out for you, and it’s in so many days deep that you’re in this sort of limbo where you can’t tell them you’re deathly allergic to it without feeling awful for all the work they’ve put in just to realize it’s gone to waste, so those nights, tonight, for example, you try finding as many vegetables as you can. 

The roasted asparagus and beets are lovely, but there was only so much of it. And you find yourself getting a little bit sick of it too, your stomach-churning as you try to chug as much water as you can to get rid of the dirt after-taste that the beets have.

You thank the cooks and the servants as you leave for the night, your stomach still relatively empty as you get to your room, telling Alina to leave early for the night as you get ready for bed by yourself, wanting to be with yourself just for a little bit. 

You lay on your bed, staring emptily at the ceiling, one hand on your stomach as if gurgling, still hungry for more. You try to sleep, trying to pretend like you were at your old home, those nights when this would be normal, but it’s no use. You’ve been too spoiled at the Gojo estate, and no matter how much you try to ignore the pang of hunger, it continues to bite you back. 

So you find yourself twisting off of the warm comfort of your bed, sitting in silence as you contemplate what you’re about to do, but give in, lighting a candle as you slide into some slippers, leaving your room as you try to find your way down to the kitchens. 

Thankfully, it’s well into the night when everybody is asleep, so this embarrassing walk of shame is only seen by the guards on duty. You walk down the testing staircase, careful to look around the corners for anybody there, but you’re alone. 

You make your way to the kitchens, not hard to find seeing that they’re near the dining hall, and you peep your head inside, a sigh of relief escaping your lips to find that it’s completely deserted. 

At your old home, your room was behind the kitchens. You grew up in a small room, nearly the size of a broom cupboard, but you made do with what you had. One benefit of this situation was that you were raised by the smell of different sorts of food, by people who specialized in the art of cooking. You knew how to make meals that nobody else in your family could even imagine, which you’re grateful for right now as you fumble around the kitchen, trying to find where they put different ingredients. 

You rummage through the cupboards, finding some eggs, bread, cheeses, and seasonings. You’re able to find the pots and pans a few feet away and start assembling everything for a little omelet.  

In your hurry of trying to be quiet and careful, you somehow manage to miss the large shadow figure that’s standing near the doorway, observing you. 

You crack the eggs into a bowl, beating them together with a fork you found, too tired to look for an actual whisk, turning around to throw the eggshells away when a cry of surprise escapes your lips. 

“Oh!” Your heart nearly falls right out of your ribcage, your hands flying to your chest as you find yourself staring at him, cheeks heating the way they seem to do whenever you’re looking at your husband. 

His blue eyes are tracking you, watching what you do, brows furrowed slightly as the two of you can’t do anything but stare at each other. 

“I…” You can’t find anything to say, looking at him and then behind your shoulder, to the things you have found, and swallow thickly, wetting your lips as you straighten your back up, suddenly aware of just how flimsy and bedroom-worthy your outfit is.

You can only stare at the ways his arms are crossed over his chest, biceps bulging, and lips pressed into a thin line. It seems like he wasn’t planning on seeing you here, yet another moment in which he’s probably going to regret somehow finding you in such a large estate.

“I’m making an omelet,” you finally say, your words falling like a whisper from your lips as you point to the eggshells now discarded in the trash, “I tried to be quiet…” you shake your head, eyes dropping from his heavy gaze for a second as you glance back up at him, lips upturned in an apologetic smile, “...sorry.” 

Gojo doesn’t say much, you’ve noticed that, but now you’re wondering if he has some sort of impediment that stops him from speaking to specific people. 

His chest rises briefly as he inhales, his white hair a little tussled as if he were sleeping. It doesn’t make sense why he’d be awoken, though. The kitchens are a far walk from the east wing…?

“I wasn’t asleep,” he finally says as if reading your mind, his voice deep as you feel it rattle your bones.

You nod once, not knowing what to do with the information. 

“Well…um,” you fidget with your fingers, “good, that’s good.” You nod once, as if that was all you were going to say, and look at the slight wrinkles in his clothes, crossing your arms over your chest, feeling naked with the way you’re not wearing any undergarments under your little nightly dress. 

“I’ll call for a cook,” Gojo murmurs, looking you up and down one final time as he turns to leave, seemingly done with this conversation. 

You sputter, shaking your head as you watch him turn to look at you through a confused stare. 

“No! Sorry…no, no need,” you say quickly, taking one step forward as if to stop him, “Please, it’s alright. I can cook myself,” you motion once more to your eggs and little station, noting the way he’s looking at you strangely, and so you feel the need to continue talking, perhaps one of your worst flaws.

Gojo looks at you finally, his fingers tapping on his arm. 

You notice that he’s not wearing his wedding ring, your chest filling with a strange feeling as you try to hide your ring-clad finger. “Do you not like their cooking?” He asks, and it takes a second for you to blink out of your stupor, a weird sensation in your throat as you shake your head slowly, trying to pull your eyes away from his hand. 

“I do,” you assure him, the words falling thickly from your lips, a lump in your chest, “I just feel bad waking them up right now,” you shrug as if you weren’t feeling any of these strange emotions, “And as I said, I can cook…so…” 

He nods, seemingly not believing you, not picking up on the storm that happening inside your head at the fact that he’s not wearing his wedding ring. You have to remind yourself that this isn’t an actual marriage, the ring was only for show. 

“Did you not eat dinner?” He continues, pressing, and your eyes widen slightly. 

You’ve always been terrible at lying, never able to do so. Even when your father's wife continued to drill you on who ate the candies from a party when you were younger, showing her your chocolate-stained fingers that you had hidden behind your back, not even a minute into the interrogation. 

“I did,” you say slowly, rubbing up and down your arms to warm them up from the chill breeze that seems to have picked up from the open windows, “The beets and asparagus were very nice,” you agree, not knowing what else to say without blowing this weird secret you’ve been holding onto. 

His brow raised slightly, lips pursing slightly. 

“And the fish?” 

You swallow once again, fidgeting with the fabric of your slip, your hands, your ring, and you don’t notice the way his eyes fall to the gold on your finger, darting back to your face when he notices you staring at him. 

“I…” you feel your face heating up beyond human measures, laughing awkwardly as you tug at your necklace chain, wishing that you hadn’t made that stupid decision to leave your comfortable bed, should’ve listened to your gut instead of your stomach, cursing your past self for being so rash, “I, um, I can’t…eat…fish.” 

Gojo’s stoic face, so sure and confident, seems to falter for a brief second.

His arms tighten over his chest. 

“...what?” He eventually asks after a couple of seconds of mind-bending silence, his head tipping in utter confusion as you sway from side to side on your feet, chewing your lips raw as you wish the ground could open up and never spit you back out. 

“The fish always looks great, don’t get me wrong,” you say quickly as if that’s going to do anything, “But I can’t eat fish. Otherwise I’ll swell right up and um, die…probably,” you wince at how bad you are at talking to people, your husband especially.

He lets out a little puff of air that sounds like a shocked scoff, eyes falling to the floor as he shakes his head, not understanding what you are saying. 

“But they’ve been cooking fish almost…four times a week?” 

You nod, smiling awkwardly, looking at the painting of a fish on the wall as you look back at him. 

“They have,” you affirm, leaning against a counter as he stays frozen in his spot at the door. 

“And you…you can’t have fish?” Gojo questions incredulously. 

“I’ll swell right up,” you repeat with a little smile that he doesn’t mirror, clearly not a man of humor, and you drop your hands to your side, “...kind of like a pufferfish.” You add quietly, looking at the ground as you say it. 

He coughs, his hand covering his mouth as you glance up at him, only to see him trying to hide the shocked laugh that had escaped him.

“Why didn’t you tell them?” He finally continues, and you hate the way all your hard work of just saying quiet isn’t working and is in fact, coming back to bite you in the ass. 

You shrug once more, shoving a grain of rice that was on the floor with the tip of your shoe.

“The first time it happened I figured I’d just tell them next time, but then that man kept on giving me more fish so I felt bad and I just never said anything.” 

Gojo stares at you, his eyes squinting together as if he were figuring out an enigma, a war strategy that even his best generals couldn’t get a grasp of. 

You look away, feeling like a fire was being lit under your skin. 

“Alright,” you say, clapping your hands together as your stomach grumbles once again, reminding you that it is still in desperate need of food, “I’ll be done soon. And I’ll clean up,” you promise, but you doubt he even cares as you begin to inch away from him. 

You watch as a strand of hair falls into his face, watch as he goes to move, never breaking his eye contact with you, until he looks behind you at the eggs and bread, and then to the window behind you, the moon as bright as ever.

He nods a final time, looking over you a final time before he exits. 

You make sure he’s far gone, letting out a heavy breath as you hold yourself up by the table, eyes wide at the fact that you had spoken more than two words to the man who seemed to despise your entire existence. 

You go back to your eggs, whisking them in silence as your mind reels. 

—

Gojo is there, for dinner, the following night. 

You enter the dining room to see him at the end of the table, already eating, and glances up briefly when he sees you walk in. 

Trying to hide the shock on your face you quickly look away, finding the way to your side of the table as you look around to see what they’ve given you tonight. A sigh of fleeting relief escapes your lips at the lack of fish, glad you’ll be going to sleep full of food tonight. 

You serve yourself, piling roasted meats and potatoes onto your plate as you fill your cup with water, not trusting wine after the last time you had it in his presence, and pretend that everything is normal as you pick up your knife and fork. 

His words rang in your mind from the last time, the fact that he ate in silence, so you forced yourself to clam up, knowing that it was probably from the best and save you from any more mortification. 

Your eyes fleet up now and then, grateful that he’s never looking up when you do, and give yourself some time to really take him in. Maybe in another universe where everything was normal, this could’ve just been another regular thing, and you try pretending that it is.

He’s probably only here because of a timing issue, you tell yourself, maybe this was the only time in the middle of training, state affairs, or other things that he was able to have dinner tonight. Yes, yes, that has to be it. 

You look back down at your plate, chewing as quietly as possible, missing the way he lifted his head to look up at you. 

—

Dinner with Gojo becomes a strange weekly occurrence.

The two of you eat in silence a couple of times a week, and every time it happens you’re so sure it’s going to be the last. 

On one of the nights you find yourself accompanied by the man you decide that the silence is more choking than whatever it is you find yourself saying. 

“Have you been notified about this…gathering in a couple of weeks?” 

This gathering was something you were told about that morning by Alina. One of the smaller families allied to the North, the Tokoshi’s, had invited you and your husband to join. 

“Yes,” Gojo says, and you’re a little surprised that he didn’t just give you a faint nod, “It shouldn’t be too big.” 

He cuts off a piece of his lamb, dipping it in some of the gravy as he glances up at you. 

You try to hide your excitement, not only from the fact that he’s spoken to you but also from the fact that this was an actual ball you would be able to go to. You knew that marrying him meant attending more of these sorts of events, but seeing how this was your first one, it was hard to not act a little giddy. 

“You have a lovely library,” you speak after carefully chewing through some of your food, your pointer finger resting on your fork as your legs crossed. 

Gojo glances up at you, those mesmerizing blue eyes finding yours from across the long table. 

“At my old home,” you pause briefly, wondering how he feels when you refer to his estate as your other home, “I wasn’t allowed to go into our library unless my tutors asked to have some of our sessions there. So I just wanted to say thank you for letting me - um, go there,” your words quiet down at the end, looking at the roasted pig in front of you momentarily as you wonder what you were even trying to get. 

He takes a sip of his wine. 

“The grounds are as much mine as they are yours,” he says, but his words sound rehearsed as if he were told to say this. 

“Even the east wing?” 

You regretted it the moment you asked it. 

Shit. 

Gojo opens his mouth and then shuts it. You chew on the inside of your cheek, waiting for him to speak, to say something, anything, but it reverts to that same silence that floods your senses and makes you aware of every other sound in the room.

Your burst of what you attempted at comedy seemed to keep coming back instantly in your face, a form of punishment for somebody who never knew how to make uncomfortable situations better.

Suddenly, all of your appetite is lost. Stupid, stupid, stupid, you can only chide yourself, the food in front of you, no matter how good it looked, felt like it would taste like ash on your tongue. You kept feeding this burning fire that was your marriage, expecting your hay-like words to act like water.

There’s a thick tension in the room, and you look around, blinking slowly as you fidget with your fingers. 

You try to go back to eating. 

You were wrong,

That initial silence was better. 

—-

That night you found yourself back in the kitchens. 

You’re wiping at your cheeks, hoping that the therapeutic motions of baking can help alleviate some of your many turmoils. 

When you were younger, you were used to silence. People normally avoided you, and those who didn’t weren’t ever your age. The cooks at your old estate were kind, but they were usually too busy to entertain a little girl. You would usually help the maids out with their washing and folding, rather doing something than nothing. You would listen in on their gossip and stories, always happy to be included. 

You assumed that it would be the same here. 

But the maids assured you that a lady of such high rank shouldn’t be meddling in such lowly tasks, and the cooks here were cooking for such a larger number of people that you knew you couldn’t bother them the way you used to. 

So you find yourself with a lot to say but nobody to say it to. The jokes and ideas that pop into your head fall flat because the old ladies who helped clean the bedsheets and used to laugh hearing them are no longer here. In those moments you’re with Alina or your other maids are sparse, and so you sometimes imagine that if you speak more when Gojo is around, he might warm up to you. 

You also had to remind yourself that your track record with men wasn’t the best either. Those fleeting crushes on some of the other boys who you’d see at balls always ended with them scurrying away from you as if you were the plague. The only other marriage offer you’d gotten was from a man who had struggled with finding a woman who could keep up with his awful ways. So the fact that Gojo Satoru, the most well-known man in the realm, didn’t want much to do with you wasn’t shocking. 

And Alina was right. A lot of wives aren’t as lucky to say their husbands don’t care, but you wondered how it would’ve been if he did. You exclaimed to her a couple of nights ago that you should’ve just married Naoya, but deep inside you knew that’s not what you wanted. A part of you knew ever since you agreed to this arrangement that you wouldn’t be getting an actual husband out of it. 

You sniffle, your eyes blurry. You don’t like crying in front of people, and so you allow yourself to do so in the pale moonlight of the kitchen, the only sound other than your ragged breathing being the repeated sound of flour falling softly in your mixing bowl. 

Baking was something that nobody ever could judge you about. You were good at it, and you knew you could do it with no error. Your cakes and pastries always turned out well, save for the minor problems you ran into as a kid, but you sometimes act like you’re baking for a group of people, about to take it out to see a sea of smiling faces who are happy to see you and your deserts.

“I thought you only cooked when they served fish for dinner.” 

A voice, one that’s seared into your memory, says from behind you. 

It takes everything in you not to jump from surprise, and it takes even more willpower not to turn around. 

You quickly wipe at your cheeks, breathing in to make sure your voice won’t come out in bits and pieces. You keep your back to your husband, continuing to sift your flour in the bowl, a continual motion like waves hitting against the dock.

“I’m baking,” you specify, cringing at the way you sound like you’re fighting a nasty cold. 

Gojo doesn’t say anything for a beat and does nothing to move. You’re glad he doesn’t, too scared that if he saw your puffy eyes or your tear-stained cheeks he’d begin to think that you have no backbone at all. It felt almost pathetic to have the world's strongest warrior see you recover from crying alone. 

He hums in the back of his throat at your words, and you wonder what he looks like right now. 

“I doubt these walls have seen a lady of such high rank before,” he comments, and you look up briefly from the mountain of white building up in the bowl, “They must whisper to themselves once you leave.” 

You let out a little puff of air, something resembling a soulless laugh. 

“Everyone whispers to themselves after I leave,” you say, reaching for a whisk, “I’ve heard more whispers than my own name.” 

He doesn’t say anything for a moment, and you hope he doesn’t notice the way you quickly try to wipe at the corners of your eyes.

“You come down here a lot,” it’s posed as a question, but Gojo says it like a statement. He must have eyes everywhere, reporting to him what you’re doing. You wouldn’t be shocked, but you just nod, chewing on the inside of your cheek as you begin to whisk your dry ingredients together. 

“I hope it’s okay,” you throw in a pinch of salt as you mix, “I like the kitchen.” 

He let out a little breath as if he was about to chuckle, but then he got confused. You decide to spare him the endless questions that must be going on in his head, wondering why somebody in your position would prefer the kitchens rather than anywhere else. 

“My bedroom used to be behind a kitchen. I’d have to go through the pantry just to reach it,” you turn briefly to grab your bowl with the wet ingredients, pouring it slowly into your flour and sugar mixture, mixing it in slowly and carefully. 

“My father’s wife wanted me out of sight. That estate had never used one of its actual bedrooms to sleep the daughter of a whore,” you can hear him inhale sharply, “I woke up to the sounds of people shouting for different ingredients, to pots and pans clanging against each other. I learned how to cook and bake when I was young, and I usually helped them cook the food my family would eat for dinner.” 

When your batter is all mixed through you go to find the pan you have buttered and dusted with sugar, pouring it in as you wipe off the side of the bowl that had some remnants of batter dripping from it.

“They never asked me to, but I liked it. I liked feeling useful,” you peek over to your side, seeing him leaning against the wall adjacent to you, silent as a mouse. 

You walk over to the other side of the kitchen with your pan, careful with the lid to the brick oven, heated with the fire you had lit an hour ago, and slide your cake pan into it, closing it shut as you stand up straight. 

Finally, you look over at him. 

His eyes rake over your face, lingering on the circles underneath your eyes, the redness that stained the whites of them. He’s clad in the simple tunic and breeches he had worn to dinner hours ago, his large shoulders leaning on the wall as his arms lay crossed over his chest. 

“I won’t go to the east wing,” you say in a whisper, your voice quiet but heavy as it falls from your lips as a promise, trying to muster up a smile but it comes out wobbly, “I was just trying to make you laugh.” 

His lips looked pinker than usual as if he had been chewing on them, something you often did when you were deep in thought. His white hair had been messily pushed back as if his fingers had been combing through them continuously. 

“These grounds are yours,” Gojo says, his words thick from his throat. His exhale and inhale mirror the way you breathe, your two chests rising as though living with the same lungs.

You shrug, a melancholy look on your face as you shake your head. 

“Maybe if I was your wife,” your words are said without any malice, “But I’m just another person who sleeps here.” 

Gojo tilts his head slightly as if your statement had somehow wrenched itself into his mind, weighing it down. Even in the limited light, you could see the way he looked at you, an unreadable expression on his face.

“I’m sorry about all of this. I know I took away your chance to marry somebody you actually wanted, but my father told me you were okay with the arrangement. I wouldn’t have agreed to it otherwise,” you twist your wedding ring around your finger mindlessly, a little habit you’ve grown over the weeks here, “I never wanted to be selfish, and I truthfully never wanted a husband. I just wanted a friend.”

—

Ever since that night, you eat your meals in your room. 

Alina protested, saying it’s not right to eat alone, but you told her not to think about it, saying how you liked the silence. 

You mustered up the courage to ask some of the coachmen to take you to the nearby town, starting by looking around at the little shops, keeping a hood over your head in case somebody saw a new stranger.

Sometimes you’d go inside the shops, finding little trinkets that you thought your maids might like, or ornaments that might help fill up the empty spots around your room. You’ve never been able to decorate before with how small your old room was, so you decided to take advantage of its space.

When you’re walking around you sometimes see Gojo, either in the training yard or walking around with one of his advisors. There have been moments when the two of you catch each other's stares from across the room, but you’re always the first to look away, making sure you’re going in a different direction than him. 

You knew that you’d have to talk to him eventually, especially with the gathering that was coming up at the Tokoshi manor, but each night you pretended it was another day away, instead of one day closer. 

Your maids came bustling in and out of your room more often than usual with preparations for the night that was closing in, shoving you into different dresses, not satisfied until they found the right one.

Alina noticed your shift in demeanor, never picking and prodding at it, but silently observing. You could tell she knew something was wrong, but you didn’t know how to put exactly what you were feeling in words. 

It didn’t help that the closer you got to the night of the event Gojo seemed to be everywhere you were. The gardens, the library, the field, the stables. He probably just had business to attend to, but it didn’t help that whenever he saw you it looked like he wanted to say something. It also didn’t help that you’d scurry away when you saw him open his mouth. 

The weeks turned into days, the days into a day, and that day into hours and you found yourself perched uncomfortably on a chair as three different women attended to your face, hair, and accessories. 

You watch them work silently, taking in all the jewelry and makeup that you’ve been looking forward to wearing. It’s nothing too drastic, but that 

girl who longed to wear pretty things inside of you is gleaming right now. 

“…Lord Gojo requested for her to wear another pair of earrings,” one of your maids says, looking at the earrings Alina had picked out for you. 

Your ears perk up at the mention of his name, watching Alina as she perks an eyebrow up. 

“When did he request that?” 

The older lady looks at you in the mirror and then at Alina. 

“A couple of nights ago,” she shows Alina another pair, a sapphire one that seems to gleam brightly, “he dropped them off when she was…away…” the maid trails off, noticing the fact that you were eavesdropping.

Your eyes dart away as if that would help, but she quickly changes the topic, and you huff in annoyance as Alina sends you a knowing look.  

“Your husband is a strange man,” Alina mutters in your ear as you giggle quietly, rolling your eyes as she playfully shoves your shoulder. 

You don’t say anything in retaliation, and sit back as you put in your new earrings, grateful that they still complimented the color of your dress, and try to pretend you are going down for dinner rather than a gathering with people you didn’t know. 

You’ve been learning this entire week how to properly hold a spoon and fork, and how to cut your food appropriately. You’ve been taking dancing lessons, discovered how to properly greet people, and even learned how to gracefully enter and exit a horse-drawn carriage. All things you should’ve probably learned earlier, but were never able to. 

Alina helps you out of the chair when they are all done, giving you a second to look into the mirror. The dress they had wrangled you into was beautiful, your hair done in the way you liked. You thanked them all, expressing your endless gratitude for their hard work. 

You take a deep breath as you exit the room and go out into the hall, leading yourself down the stairs and through multiple corridors, trying to calm down your palpitating heart. 

It takes a few minutes but you find yourself at the front of the manor, standing alone and looking around, trying to see if you were at the wrong place. But in the distance, you can see the coachmen and the carriage, the door shut, still waiting for you. 

You take a tentative step forward, nearing the entranceway that leads outside, but feel a soft touch hovering above your elbow. 

It’s strange how he usually finds you before you find him, but as somebody who’s trained to know and find things before others do, you suppose it makes sense. You glance to your side, already expecting to see those cerulean eyes as you look up. 

Gojo looks good, somehow better than usual. 

He’s clad in dark blue garments, intricate with Northern design, and your eyes look up and down his entire body. His usual muscular build seems to be outlined by the stretch of his overcoat, the way the fabric is sitting snugly over his chest. 

He seems to be doing the same, though. You can feel his gaze drop to your dress, to the way your lips are a little redder than usual, your hair done in a way that suits your face. His eyes linger on your ears, and there’s a small, barely noticeable tug to the corners of his lips. 

“Ready?” Gojo asks, the first time he’s spoken in a couple of weeks, and you hum. 

He takes his hand away from your elbow as he rests it on the small of your back, and you feel heat travel from his fingertips through the fabric, through your corset, your undergarments, and straight to your skin. 

They bring the carriage out a little closer, a coachman opening the door for you. You brace yourself, heaving your dress upwards as you go to grasp the rail on the side.

But Gojo moves swiftly, offering you his glove-clad hand as you look over at him in surprise, taking it after a moment of hesitation, and haul yourself inside. 

It’s far bigger than the one you usually take to town, and you settle for a corner on the left-hand side near the window. The walls of the carriage are lined with this sort of fabric that feels like it’s lighter than a cloud, colored the traditional blue of the Gojo family. You’d guess it could fit at least an entire family comfortably, so you’re not too worried about the underskirt of your dress taking up too much space.

You watch Gojo follow you in. He looks around, having to duck his head (and a lot of his back) as he sits in front of you, pushing the strands of hair that had fallen into his face.

The two of you sit in awkward silence, your gaze settled on the door that they shut after Gojo entered, and your eyes quickly fall to your hands resting in your lap, neatly folded.

The carriage starts a little bit later, the wheels humming to life as the coachmen yip at the horses to start. The sudden rocking movement that you’ve become familiar with sways you side to side, and suddenly you're totally aware of the fact that you’re alone in a limited space with the man you’ve been avoiding for the better half of two weeks. 

You can feel his stare boring into the side of your head, can hear the way his breathing is coming out strangely as if he wanted to talk, but kept stopping himself off before he could say a word. 

“Did you like the earrings?” Gojo finally asks, and you glance up, eyes narrowing for a second in confusion as realization suddenly comes rushing in. 

“Hm? O-oh, yes!” You quickly stutter out, your hands flying to your ears as if you forgot they were there, “Yes, thank you. They were beautiful. They kind of looked like the inside of a belly button,” you say.

Your husband blinks, brows furrowed slightly as you think about what you had just said, eyes wide in shock.  

“Er…well, gods, no, not bellybuttons,” your head falls to your hands as you shake your head profusely, “Sorry, they don’t look like belly buttons-” 

But you stop when you hear a small laugh from him, quiet as he looks away for a second, a tiny slightly visible grin on his face as he looks back at you. 

“Did you know that sometimes,” his eyes are a little upturned as if he fighting back an actual smile, “I make a bet with myself about what you’re going to say?” 

You smile slightly, your head cocking to the side. 

“Have you ever won?” 

Gojo chuckles, and your eyes suddenly fall to his hand, at the way he’s fidgeting with his ring, his wedding ring, the same way you seem to do whenever you’re thinking about everything and anything all at once. 

“Not once.” 

You grin, and though you still feel this heavy weight of unspoken things resting in the middle of you two, you decide not to acknowledge it at the moment. Things unsaid, unheard, weaved through the air, tying you and him together like a tapestry. 

You fidget with your skirt, looking out the window at the moving scenery. 

Gojo breathes deeply through his nose, his pointed finger tapping on his thigh. 

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you,” he finally says, and your eyes dart away from the trees and the sky to look over at him. 

His bottom lip is caught underneath his teeth, his blue eyes shining with a different hue. He takes up a lot of room with just his size alone, but it looks like he’s trying to make himself seem less intimidating, less of a warrior, and more of a…person.

You don’t say anything, opting to stay quiet to see what it is that he is trying to formulate into words. 

“That night,” Gojo twists his ring back and forth with his thumb, “I…” It’s weird to see somebody so sure of themself struggle to speak, and your brows crease in the middle, not knowing what it was he was trying to get at. 

“I wanted to tell you that you too had a right to a good husband. Somebody who didn't rush you into a marriage because of his own mistakes…somebody you wanted.”

Where is he going with this?

You suddenly feel your throat dry up, swallowing thickly as Gojo looks out the window momentarily before looking back at you. 

“My parents never told me who I’d be marrying,” Gojo explains, his voice hoarse, “I figured out the day of the wedding,” he twisted his wedding ring, looking at the way it shined, “And I wanted to hate you,” 

His words punch you square in the gut, but you can only bring yourself to keep on looking at him.

“I wanted to hate you so much because it would be easier to act like this wasn’t my fault if I could…but,” he sighs, his chest rising and falling, “I don’t think it’s possible to hate you.” 

Your lip trembles slgihtly, a sheen over your eyes. What is he doing?

“I’ve been raised in a way most people our age aren’t. My parents wanted me to be the strongest so was put into training since I was four, and I think this entire time I’ve been trying to approach you like a…military strategy. You were this map in my head that no matter how I approached it nothing made sense. But that night, in the kitchen, everything finally did.” 

Your eyes flitter downwards so that he couldn’t see the waver in them

“You didn’t deserve how you were treated in your old life, nor this new one,” his hand covers his chest, and you feel lightheaded, “And I promise to you I’ll do everything in my power to make this one better. If you don’t want me as a husband, than as a friend.

“I’d like to be your friend, if you’d allow me,” he whispers thickly, his voice heavy. He fidgets with his fingers, moving them together and back out again, and you notice how he does this a lot whenever you’re near.

Your heart is beating so quickly that you feel like it's going to stop, and your mind is working so hectically that you don’t know what to think. This is the same man who looked at you as if you had torn down the moon and stars when he saw you the first time, the man who never seemed to be that interested in what it is you had to say. The very same person who would’ve rather married a broomstick than you. 

…right? 

And yet he’s here, asking to be your friend. Something that nobody has ever asked before, something that people wouldn’t ever dare to murmur out loud to you. He had no beneficial gain from doing this, no ally that he would please if he offered to be your friend.

Your heart twists because why does he look like he cares about what you say? His eyes are creased slightly around the edges, his lips pressed together as if he were preparing for whatever outcome it was to what you said.

Nobody has ever told you those things, the things that made years of pain and hurt strummed into one beat that your heart never wanted to drum to. This man, your husband, Gojo, was supposed to be another cog in that old machine, one that hummed and spurred like it was about to eat you alive. 

But the more you look at him, the more you let your unspoken words speak in silence for you, you realise that he isn’t lying.

You open your mouth to speak but are cut off when the carriage comes to a sudden halt. 

The two of you look at each other and then to the door, watching as it opens up, greeted to the sight of a large manor with multiple people walking in hand in hand. You swallow your bile, not knowing what to say, deciding to flee instead of face him like you should’ve. 

—

The gathering itself was far more boring than you imagined it to be. 

You and Gojo had the mutual understanding to act more…well, like a couple, than you actually were. You didn’t comment on the way his arm circled around your waist a couple of minutes into making your rounds talking with people or the endearing way he referred to you as my wife. 

You’re glad that he doesn’t do anything to talk about what he had told you in the carriage whenever the two of you were alone, acting like nothing was wrong and everything was normal as he inquired about your day. 

You told him brief things, still trying to shove his words out of your mind, but it was no use. I’d like to be your friend, your mind kept repeating, and you were too scared of brining it up in case he had changed his mind in between those minutes of quiet.

People you had never seen before congratulated you on your new marriage, their brows raised in that excited way as they motioned to your stomach, hinting at a special little someone who might be joining your lives soon. 

“Soon!” You said with a curt laugh, glancing momentarily at Gojo only to see him already looking at you, a light blush dusting his cheeks.

He made sure not to stay with people who were strangers to you for too long, not wanting to bore you to death, and allowed you to take in more of the well-lit and vastly decorated manor. 

Though its size was incomparable to the Gojo estate, it was still massive. The Tokoshi family had been a family with the Gojo one for centuries, so there was no question that the riches they had amassed over the years by being trading partners with them had culminated in this. 

Gojo told you earlier in the carriage, before everything else, how the young Tokoshi couple were good people. They liked to throw parties a couple of times a year, inviting only a select few. He liked them far more than a lot of the other people he had been forced to grow up with over the years. 

You look at the dining hall, at the corridors with openings that allow you to look outside without the glare of glass. His arm never left your body, holding you close to him as he let you walk around, your mouth hanging open slightly as you craned your neck to look at everything. Candles were lit everywhere, the bouquets of different assortments of flowers decorating the stone flower holders carved into the walls. 

You mentioned to him in the privacy of the carriage, that you hadn’t ever been able to experience a party of this sort of caliber before. You could see how he wanted to ask more questions, but you could see the answers already formulating his head as to why.

“We probably look like one of those couples where the wife’s dying and the husband takes her out to see the stars one last time,” you whisper to him, still looking around in a stunned sort of way at the beauty of it all. 

Gojo’s head ducks down a bit, trying to hide the chuckle that had broken out and made its way onto his face. He coughs into his fist as if that was the issue, but you look over at him to see the humor in his eyes. 

“Did you lose your bet again?” You ask, glancing at him from the corner of your eyes as he looks like he’s fighting the grin that’s threatening to take over. 

“I’m always losing that bet,” he tells you.

Though he doesn’t do anything to bring up his conversation, you can see it in the way he looks at you, as if he’s still teetering on an edge, wanting to know what you were thinking in that frazzled mind of yours. 

You decide to push past it.

“Can I get in on it?” You ask, turning slightly so that you face him, very aware of the fact that his hand hasn’t moved from its spot on your waist.

You try not to think about it, reminding yourself that it’s just for show, but you can’t stop the feeling of heat that travels wherever it is he seems to touch you. His hand is larger than an average one, his fingers moving mindlessly up and down on your corseted stomach. 

“Do you need the extra coin?” His voice is carrying a strange tone…is he teasing you? 

But again, you try not to think about it, it’s all for show, (you also try not to think too much of the fact that you’re pretty separated from everybody else).

“No, I just need coin,” you explain, fixing one of the medallions on his chest that had been slightly slanted, “I have nearly nothing left.” 

Gojo moves barely away from you, his eyes searching yours as if to find the joke. 

“Have you run through my family gold already?” His voice is still toying, but now it’s filled with a little confusion. 

“No, of course not,” you snort, rolling your eyes as you tilt your chin up to look at him better, “I haven’t touched any of your gold. I just ran through mine.” 

His brows quirks upward, mouth parting slightly. 

“You’ve emptied the gold your family sent up?” 

It’s your turn to be confused. 

“What gold?” You ask, moving away from him, his hand falling to his side, and you suddenly miss his warmth. 

You remember your father talking about how the Gojo family had rejected your initial dowry, saying something along the lines of outlandish practices, but aside from that, you weren’t told about any other sort of money that was supposed to be sent with you. 

He pinches the bridges of his nose, sighing deeply. 

“The gold that they sent with you? It wasn’t supposed to be a lot but it was supposed to suffice for the journey here.” 

You blink owlishly at him. 

“What gold have you run through?” He specifies, plastering on a fake smile when he catches the eyes of somebody behind you, but then focuses his stare back to you. 

“Well…” you shrug, “My gold.” 

Gojo looks like he’s about to make a new bet, one that’s with every time you’ve almost given him an aneurysm trying to figure out your strange riddles and rhymes that are supposed to be actual words. 

“I used to make some gold at my old home,” you explain, keeping your voice low in case somebody was somewhere that you hadn’t seen, but realizing that Gojo was lost, you continued, “The stable boy gave me some of his salary if I took care of the horses and cleaned the stables. Sometimes he’d give me extra if I could haul in the large bags of hay.” 

He scoffs, shaking his head slightly. 

“Why?” That seems to be a question he’s been asking lately. 

You shrug again, feeling his hand circle back around your waist as some people come near you, 

“I needed new clothes and my shoes had holes in them. My father’s wife didn’t let him give me much, so I tried to fill in the gaps.”

You smile at one of the couples that are coming near you, going back into your other persona as you begin chatting with them. Gojo pulls you in tighter to his side, staying silent. You don’t notice the way he hasn’t stopped staring at you, nor the way his heart seems to have churned so painfully in his chest. 

—

The night progresses and you find yourself inside the dining hall, being shown to your seats by one of the maids, finding your name next to Gojo’s on a name card. 

The two of you sit down, watching the people the file in, the sound of laughter filling the room, the clinking of china against each other filling in the rest of the silence. You take it all in with a smile, looking every and at everyone.

“I hope I’m not embarrassing you,” you whisper as you lean closer to Gojo, an apologetic smile on your face as you sit further into your seat, “This is all just so new to me.” 

You don’t see the ways his eyes soften, his hand inching closer to yours as he shakes his head. 

“You’re not embarrassing me,” he murmurs back, leaning his head closer to yours, wanting his words only to be heard by you, “I’m glad you’re enjoying this.” The smile that makes its way onto your face could power the universe, and Gojo feels like the wind had been knocked from his lungs, far worse than in training when somebody's foot slams into his chest. 

“I am!” Your enthusiastic and hurried words are hushed, but he can still hear the way you’re trying to hide your joy. The small talk is horrific,” he laughs a little bit, “but still I love it.” 

He opens his mouth to speak but is cut off by the sound of a knife hitting glass. 

“Everyone! Give me your time, just for a moment!” Miyo Tokoshi, whom you spoke to briefly, stands up, his chair behind him.

All eyes in the room fall on him, people still smiling, their teeth glimmering in the light. 

“I cannot express my joy to be in a room with you all tonight,” he says, looking around the room, making sure he saw everyone for a split second. “And my wife and I couldn’t be more ecstatic to host the first gathering of the season!”

You look at the woman sitting next to him, Lana, who you had also met momentarily, is gleaming at him, her face full of genuine adoration. She, along with everybody else, claps, laughing joyfully. 

You wonder if this is what a real husband and wife should look like, and you look briefly over to Gojo, your mind reeling with the charade the two of you have been playing this entire night. 

“And we couldn’t be happier to welcome the first couple of the year,” he exclaims, pointing his glass over to you and Gojo, saying your name and then your husbands as he claps his hand softly against his wrist, “May every moment you spend together be better than the last. We wish the two of nothing but a lifetime of happiness and prosperity. 

Gojo raised his glass to him, his hand grasping yours as he lifted it to his lips, planting a kiss on the back of it. 

You feel like you’ve stopped breathing with the linger of his lips on your skin, the last time that happened on the night of your wedding, and watching him grasp it even tighter when he sets it back down, weaving his fingers through yours. 

Stop, you chide, raising your glass as well, a shaky smile on your face, it’s just an act.

He winks at the two of you, nodding once more as he focuses his stare somewhere down the table, obstructed by where you are sitting.

“And to the future couple! Naoya and Freya!” 

Gojo turned his head immediately to look at you, watching the color drain from your face, and before you knew it, the man, Naoya, was standing up, a hand over his chest in faux gratitude as he thanked the host. 

You could never mistake that hair, the feline look in his eyes as he scanned across the room, a slimy smile on his face. You watch as it grows even wider when he finally catches his prey when he finally sees you, and you feel nauseous, like you’re about to throw up all those little crackers they had given you earlier that evening. 

The hand holding yours squeezes, knowing he can’t say anything right now, and you swallow thickly, eyes darting over to his as you feel your head about to sway. 

Naoya’s here. The man you turned down for Gojo. 

The rest of Tokoshi’s speech is muted to you. It feels like your head is being held underwater, and you feel sweat dotting your forehead, your chest, and your palms. You can feel Gojo’s eyes on the side of your head and can tell he’s trying to tell you something silently. 

The clinking of glass brings you out of your haze, looking up mindlessly as you haphazardly clink yours against Gojo’s, rubbing a hand down your face as if that would help. 

You're grateful for the flurry of movements and noises, everybody talking to somebody, the people beginning to serve themselves the wide array of food places in front of them. 

Gojo squeezes your hand one more time, and you finally look over at him, trying to muster up a smile but with how queasy you feel and the way your head spinning, it probably looks like you’re about to be sick all over him. 

“I’ll be okay,” you say through clenched teeth. 

Gojo nods, his thumb rubbing up and down your hand in a soothing way. It’s just for show. 

“I’m sorry my palms are sweating,” you laugh mirthlessly, and he squeezes it again, you’re sure he’s only doing this because of the extra attention of the two of you ever since they realized you and Naoya were in the same room, “you don’t have to keep holding it.” 

“Do you want me to let go?” He asks, and you stop poking around at the turnips on your plate. 

No. 

“N-no,” you croak out, desperate for his touch that’s grounding you, “No, please.” 

Gojo nods, his thumb not stopping its comforting motion of moving up and down. 

“Don’t worry,” he mutters, leaning closer to you as you duck your head so that your ears are near his lips, “My hands get sweaty too.” 

You laugh quietly and it sounds like wind chimes. You look at Gojo and watch as his lips tug upwards into a soft smile, one you had never seen before, and one you thought you never would. 

—

You tried to hide away the rest of the party, but Gojo didn’t seem to mind. 

When it was time to leave you accepted the gracious hug of the hosting couple, promising them that you’d come back for a more private dinner, and let Gojo lead you out into the courtyard where all the carriages were held. 

You slept the entire ride home, not wanting to mess anything up by taking, and you’re happy that Gojo didn’t bother you. You felt groggy when you returned to the estate, grateful for Gojo’s steady hand as he helped you out of the carriage. The two of you looked like you wanted to say something, but couldn’t, so you bid each other good night and went your separate ways.

Separate except for one brief moment. 

You were walking away and up the stairs when you suddenly stopped, remembering what it was that you wanted to tell him. You call out his name, watching as he turns, white brows slightly furrowed. 

“I…” you start but realize you didn’t exactly have a plan for what you wanted to say. He gives you his patience, not looking annoyed or frustrated when you try to think of the right words to string together. 

“I…I would like to be your friend too,” you finally say, and watch as a smile forms on his face, his pink lips tugging upwards in a way that made his eyes shine, the way your earrings did in the candlelight. 

He rakes his hand through his snow-white locks, pushing them away from his face. 

“I’ll see you at breakfast then,” Gojo says, and you dip your head down in a small smile. 

You give him a small wave, disappearing as you round the corner.

And since then, you found him joining you not only for breakfast or the sparse dinners but for any meal he possibly could. 

Gojo talked more, about anything and everything, and you did the same. 

You realized that he was actually an open person the closer you got to him, seeing that he too was capable of laughing and making jokes, his teasing eyes growing more frequent the closer your chairs got to the dinner table until you eventually just sat side-by-side, growing tired of shouting at each other across its length. 

On the days he wasn’t busy with strategizing or talking to other lords, he’d walk around the estate with you, telling you stories from his childhood, the times he’d run amock around the halls. Other times the two of you would go into town, looking at the different stores together. 

You could tell he was trying, could see it in the way he glanced at you from time to time to make sure that you were doing well. 

He’d accompany you to the library if you asked him to, and you’d go down sometimes to the training yard just to see him. Gojo would never tell you how much he tried to show off when you were there and knew he never had to. You could see the way he tried to appear even stronger when fighting with one of the other men, the poor soldier coming out with bruises and cuts all over his body.

Over many weeks, you find yourself looking forward to spending time with him, and a part of your cracked self begins mending itself again. 

It felt like after years of searching for somebody, somebody found you. 

On one of the nights when his sparring had gone on for far longer than it usually does, you decided to head down to the training yard after your night bath, tugging on a large robe over yourself as you walked the familiar stone steps down to where you knew he was. 

You could hear them before you saw them, a cacophony of fists hitting skin, groans, shouts from one another. There was a little perch from where you could watch what was happening below, and you usually hid yourself in a corner so that they wouldn’t see you. 

You’d rest on a pillar, arms crossed over your shoulder as you looked at the men below. Gojo was always easy to find, the flurry of white hair a tall-tale sign of where he was. You had watched him before, but you never got tired of it. You found it almost inhuman the way his movements seemed to flow like water, the way his hits were precise and direct. 

Gojo truly was the best warrior the North had ever seen, and sometimes you forget that you’re married to a man who brought down entire armies with just his bare fists. 

You watch as he jests with one of his friends, his chest rising a little bit at an irregular pace, slightly out of breath, but happy to be there. He turns to one of the guys behind him to say something, but his eyes immediately track upwards to the figure trying to stay hidden, you and a wide smile break out on his face. 

He waves at you, and it gets the attention of the other men there. They all turn to see where you are, their boyish grins and calls making you roll your eyes at their antics, your face heating up slightly as you wave back at them. 

Gojo says something to the person next to him, and you hear the man shout at the other ones to wrap it up for the night. Some of them wave goodbye to you as they begin exiting, going back to their common rooms. 

You make a move to lean slightly over the railing, your arms crossed over the wood as you peer down at the ground where Gojo remained alone, finding him to already be looking up at you. 

“Care to come down?” He juts his chin at the staircase to your left, the one that leads down to the courtyard, and you nod, disappearing behind the stone pillars as you take the steps leading downwards. 

You’ve been here a couple of times, as per your own request. You wanted to see what they did during training, what the training yard actually looked like from the ground. You lift the ends of your dress up slightly as you near the bottom, rounding the corner to see Gojo standing in the middle. 

He’s waiting for you, his eyes tracking your movements as you come near to him. 

His nose twitches slightly, his eyes squinting as he lifts his head in the air, suddenly picking up the scent of something unusual. 

“What’s that smell?” Gojo asks as you come to him, his eyes looking over your body as if it were emitting from you. 

You scoff, appalled, and then suddenly remember that Alina had applied some lavender oil to you after your bath. 

“If it’s a good smell then me,” you cross your arms over your chest, nose wrinkling in disgust as you take in his smell of sweat and grime, “If bad then you.”

Gojo snorts, coming closer to you as he continues sniffing, exaggerating the sound. You step away from him slightly, the smell of sweat overpowering, and he takes notice of this. 

“What?” He inquires, annoyed that you are moving away from him, and he takes a step closer. 

“What do you mean what?” You tease, moving again as he tries to smell the air, “You smell like an army of unshowered men. I just took a bath.” 

Gojo seems offended at this, trying to move back closer to you but you side-step him, apparently serious about this. 

“You really won’t let me come near you?” He sounds like you’ve kicked him down, his cheeks stained pink from earlier, and you laugh slightly, shaking your head. 

“I really won’t,” you affirm, shoving the back of your wrist to him to show him that what he was smelling was in fact you, “See? Lavender oil.” 

Gojo just seems to be getting more annoyed the more you try to evade him, his blue eyes swirling with an idea as you look at him in worry. 

“No, the smell is coming from somewhere else.” He argues, changing his footing so that he stands right in front of you and you let out a shocked laugh, not expecting this as you take a step back. 

You don’t know where else he can smell the lavender oil. Alina dotted it to your wrists and your neck, but surely can’t differentiate the difference in location…right? 

“Come here,” he almost whines, “I’m not going to rub off my smell onto you.” 

You laugh again out loud, picking up the skirt of your dress as you try to outrun him slightly. 

“You will!” You insist, motioning to the sheen of sweat on his body, “You reek of sweat. I swear it’s just lavender oil!” 

He groans, his eyes rolling to the back of his head at this inconvenience. 

“You’re killing me right now,” Gojo dramatically grabs his chest, “You won’t let me smell this strange aroma and it’s killing me,” his face breaking into a little pout as you laugh even louder, shocked at how petulant he was being. Your laughing seemed to spur him on even more, running towards you as you ran backward, hoping you didn’t trip on the fabric of your dress. 

“You have a plethora of bottles of lavender oil in your own room,” you argue, “this isn’t something innovative that you’ve never smelled before.” 

Gojo shakes his head, and your heart flutters at the way his smile is so playful and teasing, the way some of his hair falls into his face in that messy way when he’s usually training and not caring about his appearance. 

“It’ll only take a second,” he reasons and you shake your head no, your eyes both shining with playful laughter. 

The courtyards lead out into the large fields of the Gojo estate, and you look behind yourself at the opening. It’s night, there’s nobody around. Nobody would judge you for running away from your sweaty husband. 

You look back at him, see the gleam in his eyes, and know that he’s not going to back down. 

He can see the thoughts forming in your head, can assume them before they’re even created, and so he’s straight on your heels as you sprint away from him, a large smile on your face as you squeal out loud. 

“Please!” You shout over your shoulder, running down the little hill as the moon lights the way for you, “I just took a bath! Leave me alone!” 

You can hear the grass rustling beneath your feet, your screams of laughter contagious as you try to outrun the fastest person ever, and try not to slow yourself down by looking over your shoulder to see where he is. 

But after a couple of seconds of running you realize that the only footsteps you hear are your own, and you pause momentarily to look behind you and are surprised to see that he’s not there. 

Did he not come after you? 

You look around the field, the large blades of grass looking like waves that move with the wind, and whip your head around every time you hear a twig snap. 

You're a little bit further away from the manor itself, and the only thing you can see besides its large stone walls are the torches lit outside. You can make out the guards who are standing outside, but no sign of Gojo. 

You try to catch your breath, confused as to where he could’ve gone when a force stronger than a horse running at full speed slams into your side. 

The scream you let out echoes around the field, and you brace yourself for the harsh impact of hitting the ground. With your eyes squeezed shut you wait for the flash of pain, but peek them open to see Gojo framing your head with one of his hands, his body shielding you from the impact as he lays on top of you. 

“How…?” You scream, your chest moving up and down with your fit of giggles, trying to push him off of you, “You’re a beast!” You cry out, moving your head to the side as he laughs along with you, his chest rumbling with the movement. 

You shove his face away with the palm of your hands, shoving your wrist into his nose as if that would satiate him. 

“I took a bath you behemoth!” You whine, thinking about the dirt and mud that must be staining your skin and dress right now, “Are you so void of any good fragrance in your life that you must hunt me down for it?” 

Gojo tsks, shaking his head as he swats your wrist aside. 

He’s also slightly out of breath, most likely because he ran across and entire field from another entranceway that you weren’t aware of to catch you off guard, and you’re suddenly very aware of just how close to two of you are together. 

His hand is still cradling your head, the other one holding your hips. Truthfully he doesn’t even smell bad, which is frustrating that it’s just another one of his many talents. 

He judges your jaw up with his nose, and you helplessly comply, your heart hammering wildly as he leans in closer to the skin of your neck, taking in a whiff as he looks back up to you, his eyes gleaming. 

Gojo’s hand on your hip moves up slightly to hold your waist, not hard, but to stop you from squirming around. 

“It smells different here,” he nudges your neck with his nose again, and your breathing hitches, “Smells sweeter.” 

You swallow thickly, blinking slowly as you crane your neck slightly upwards to give him more room. It’s like your body is moving on its own, and you’re not to sure how you know what to do, but you just do. 

“That’s not possible,” you try to argue, trying your best to keep your voice from wavering, “You just lack the nose for good oils.” 

Gojo laughs lowly, shaking his head at your antics as he braces his knees on either side of your thighs, caging you in. 

“I have a very keen sense of smell,” he boasts and you snort, looking away as he pinches your hip to which you yelp.

His hand moves away from your head and to your shoulder, to where your nightgown had slightly slipped off and runs a thumb down a patch of your skin where it was slightly raised, a faint scar on your collarbone. 

“Where’d you get this?” His voice is slightly hushed, and you look down from your chin to where he is talking about. 

 “Hm?” You look around, see that he’s pointing to the tiniest little scar, and chuckle slightly, “Oh, that?” Your eyes squint as you try to remember, “I tried to climb up a tree once when I was little and fell.” Gojo huffs out a little laugh, his eyes still focused on your skin as you chew on the inside of your cheek.

“It probably looks far worse compared to anything you have,” you say sarcastically, “The family physician kept saying I wasn’t going to make it through the night.” 

He scoffs, rolling his eyes at your antics as he raises himself, moving away from you as he sits back down on the grass. You miss his warmth, the way his heat radiated onto you like a furnace. 

“I don’t know how you keep surviving between your inability to consume fish and your near-death occurrences,” Gojo’s voice holds a teasing tone and you smile, moving up so that you’re facing him. 

You rest your weight back on your hands, kicking your legs out in front of you as your skirt flows around the grass. A while ago you would’ve felt improper sitting like this in front of anyone, but you don’t seem to care all that much when it’s Gojo. 

“I showed you my battle would,” you say, putting one leg on top of the other, “What’s your worst one?” You ask, tilting your head to the side in questioning. 

Gojo purses his lip, thinking. 

You imagine that he’d tell you or probably motion to where it was, but a second later you watch, shocked, as he tugs his tunic upwards, your face heating as he rises it slightly so that you can see a part of his stomach. 

You hate how utterly built he is. 

His skin is pulled taught over the smooth stomach of his abs, his chest huge with pure muscle, his arms, bulging through the sleeves. It’s something you thought you’d get used to, something you told yourself to stop ogling at, but never could.

But you shift your focus to a large scar that runs across his chest, from the bottom of his hip under his arm. It still looks relatively new, and the scar itself still pink. You could see the way it was jagged, not one smooth line, and gods, fuck, why do you want to touch it?

“Well,” you try to think of something witty to say, seeing the way he’s looking at you as if waiting for it, “Clearly not as bad as mine, but it comes in as a close second.” 

He throws his head back as he laughs, his muscles contracting as he does so. You feel flushed, not able to look away from the scar, knowing that you were merely compensating for not knowing what to say. 

“I know,” he says eventually with a shrug, looking down as he surveys the scar, “It’s not as bad as it could’ve been.” 

You pout slightly, thinking. 

“Does it hurt?” 

He looks up at you, at the way you can’t take your eyes away from it, and shakes his head. 

“Not anymore,” he sits up a little straighter, closer to you as you watch him move, “Sometimes I can feel it sting, but it’s barely noticeable.” 

You beg to differ. 

The two of you don’t say anything and a part of you has decided that silence is bad for you. Because before you can really think about what you’re doing, you push yourself upwards, leaning in closer to him as you try to get a better look at it. 

He doesn’t say anything, but if only you could see the way he could barely use his lungs to breath right now you’d make some sly remark about how the best warrior of the North was growing shy from just a look. 

But suddenly you’re not looking anymore as you shuffle in a little closer, your fingers reaching upwards to touch the skin. 

You can hear the wind move around you, the grass rustiling as your fingers run across the scar. His abs flex at the coldness of your hand, but he doesn’t tell you to stop. You’re studying it intently, wondering what sort of weapon could’ve caused this. 

Gojo’s size dwarfs over yours, but you don’t seem to mind. Your lips as slightly pursed as you take it in. 

“Did you fight a bear?” You finally ask, peeking up to look at him. 

You’re startled by the way the flush on his cheeks has grown even more red, or the way you can’t see the blues in his eyes anymore. Has he always looked like that?

Gojo shakes his head, taking in a shaky breath, looking at the top of your head as you go back to looking at the scar. 

“Nearly,” he tries to joke, but his voice is weak, laced with need, “But I doubt a bear would even want to be compared to the man who gave me the scar.” 

You look up, your brow quirked in curiosity. 

“Who?” You ask, shocked at how quiet your voice came out. 

Gojo smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. His tongue clicks against his teeth, his hand rising up to grab yours, pulling it away from his chest. He can’t bear to have you touching him like that anymore, not trusting himself to restrain the pure desire that bubbling inside his veins. 

“Naoya,” he says hushed, watching as your lips part and eyes widen. 

There’s a beat of silence, a moment when you think you can hear your heart beating in the same rhythm his is. 

Your hand curls into itself, shock taking over your features as your eyes drop to his scar and then back up to him. You find yourself wanting to say everything and anything, but can’t somehow find the words that you’re looking for. Gojo beats you to it, thankfully. 

“I’ve been having this recurring dream ever since I fought him of that same moment over and over again when he cut me open. But it’s changed, recently,” He sits up straighter, so close to you that your chests are almost touching, “And I keep seeing him marrying you, what would’ve happened if you had said yes.”

“And gods, fuck,” he ducks his head down, raking an agitated hand through his hair, making it even more messy, “I…” He chokes on his breath, looking back at you, and suddenly you see the glossiness in his eyes, the way that tears brim his waterline. 

And suddenly you see the Gojo Satoru, the Lord in the North, the most powerful man alive, cry. 

“I keep reprimanding Naoya in my head about how awful he is, about how I’d kill nearly every person alive if he ever touched you, b-but I was just as awful. I think about the first time I saw you, about the first weeks you were here. I think about how you must’ve felt, how alone you were. Every day…” he wipes messily at his cheeks, his lips wobbling, “Every day I wake up and think of you. I think about your face, your smile, your eyes, your lips, the way your nose scrunches, that line between your brows when you're confused, and every night I go to sleep hoping that this was all an awful dream and I haven’t ruined your life, but then I wake up, and it starts all over again.” 

“I know I’m a selfish man,” Gojo says with a wet chuckle, his cheeks wet with tears, “I know I shouldn’t, but I want you to myself, I want you forever. I want to be your friend, I want to be the person you sleep next to, the person you go to when you want to talk about your little stories. I want to hear your jokes and I want to see you laugh. I want to hold your hand, I want to put that ring on your finger every morning, and I want to propose to you each night.”

He shakes his head, swallowing his cries down, the moon lighting the tear tracks that start from his eyes and end at his chin. 

“But I know you don’t want that. You told me that you wanted a friend, but…” he shrugged, his smile sad, aching, longing, “I think along the way of being your friend I realized I wanted to be your husband too.” 

“I understand if you want to leave. I’ll tell my parents the truth, they’ll understand. I have a house ready for you near the sea, one away from your family, where you can start over.” 

The wind rustles the hills, and you look at the field, watch the way it moves in tandem with the life around it. 

You can feel the tears forming in your eyes, and know that even if you blink them away it’ll do nothing to actually hide them. There’s a burning feeling in your chest, one that you’ve never felt before, one that rings with Gojo’s words. 

You run your fingers through the grass, looking up at him with a certain fire in your eyes.

“What if I don’t want that?”

He blinks slowly. 

“I,” Gojo sniffs, nodding profusely, hoping you don’t see the way he crumbles, “I understand, I promise I do. The house is a couple days-” 

“No,” you cut him off firmly, wiping your palms furisuly across your cheeks, to rid them of the pesky tears, shaking your head, “What if I don’t want that?” You move up to him, reaching your hand down his tunic, your fingers moving against is chest as you dig out the gold chain that’s wrapped around his neck. 

The one that holds his ring, the one he told you about one night that keeps it safe whenever he’s training. 

“What if I want this?” Your voice is cracking, and you tug the chain tighter.

“What if I want all those things? What if I want you to love me?” The ring shines in the moonlight, mirroring her pair thats wrapped around your finger, “I want to be your friend,” you stress, your brows strewn together as tears overflow from your waterline, “And I want to know what things you like. I want to walk with you all around the earth and walk back home again. I want to sleep next to you. I want to make you laugh, and I want you to make me smile. I want you to be my husband so that I can be your wife,” you cry out, your chest heaving up and down as he wraps his arms around your back, pulling you into his lap as he tries to quickly wipe your tears away. 

“I want you too, Satoru,” you whisper, broken with your wet sniffles, a wet laugh escaping your lips when you see him crack at the way you said his name with so much care, your thumbs gliding across his cheeks. 

You slide closer into him, your legs splitting across his huge thighs as he hugs you tenderly to him, his head resting on your chest so that he can hear your heartbeat, make sure that this wasn’t just another dream.

“I don’t deserve you,” he murmurs against your bosom, looking up at you with glistening eyes. 

“Then fight for me,” you whisper, your hands on either side of his face, “Give me all those things. Give me more,” you smile when his arms wrap around your waist a little tighter, his hands holding you up, “And I’ll do the same.” 

He nods, holding your hand that was still holding onto his ring to his chest, one hand moving to your back, and in the mess of tears and broken laughs the two of you seem to move together, meeting each other in the middle as your lips find each other in the dark shadows of night. 

You gasp when his lips capture yours, and he moves towards the sound, wanting to hold it, keep it forever. 

Gojo moves slowly, knowing that this is your first time, and cups your jaw, helping you move along with him as you lips slot and lock against each other. It’s messy and with no order, your chin staining with sweat as you moan against him, feeling delirious without the touch of him. 

You know this isn’t the easiest position for him, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He groans against you, his eyes squeezing shut, trying to memorize your taste in case the world ended tomorrow and this was his last meal. 

“Is this-” You cut him off when you swoop in again, his laughter cut short by your needienss, the way you paw at his chest, your hands winding up to his hair as you tug harshly on the soft strands. 

He moans at this, at the way you grind mindlessly on his thigh, your need for each other bleeding out into the open. 

“I love you,” he murmurs against you, kissing down your chin and then back up to you, his tongue swiping against your lips, savroing your whine, “I love you so much,” he says to everybody, hoping even those on mountains oceans away could hear, “I love you, my wife,” and you giggle, eyes bright when you hear those words. 

“Say it again,” you ask, your nails drawing little shapes on his nape, and you see him break into a smile. 

“My wife,” he repeats with a peck to your cheek, “My beautiful wife,” he kisses the tip of your nose, smiling at the way it scrunhed up slightly, just the way he adored, “My wife,” he kisses your jaw, “My wife,” your giggling nonstop and he hopes to bottle up the sound and hear it on his deathbed.

His hands travel back down to your hips, adusjsting you slightly so that you wouldn’t feelt he embarrassing hardening of his dick just from kissing you, and moves his lips down to your neck, hearing the way there’s a hitch in your laughter. 

“Why’d you stop?” he nudges his nose at that spot pf your neck that still smells like lavender, his favroite scent in the world, “Hm?” Gojo hums against that spot, licking a wet stripe up it, sucking at the skin, feeling the way you arch into his chest. 

“Y-your reeking s-scent infiltrated my nose,” you murmur, biting on your lip as he pinches your waist. 

“Yeah?” Gojo continued to tease you, sliding the sleeve of your dress down, giving you more access to the skin of your collarbone, “Want me to stop?” 

“No!” You cry, totally against your better judgement, moaning when he sucks another mark into the skin, biting it, and then presses a soft kiss to it as an apology, “Please, please, don’t stop.” 

He chuckles darkly, shifting you around so that you are lying back down on the ground, his body framing yours as he continues tugging down your dress, going slow in case you ever wanted him to stop. 

His fingers are quick at untying the string that holds you bodice together, unravelingit all until it falls off and he’s greeted to the sight of your heaving chest, the way your naked breasts rise and fall. 

Gojo blinks for a moment, forgetting how to move. 

“W-what?” You ask, a little self-conscience as he continues to stare at your chest, “Do they look wonky?” You move your hands to cover up but a deep gutteral growl escapes his lips, pinning your hands back. 

“Beautiful,” he bites out, moving his head down, pressing a wet kiss in between the valley of your breasts, “You look like a fuckin’ statue,” he says, “You’re s-so beautiful.” Gojo repeats, and you can’t protest with the way he praises you, nor the way his lips hover over a nipple, finally leaning in fully as he sucks on it. 

“F-fuck!” You cry out at the sensation, your fingers lost in his hair as you keep him there, back arching off the ground, “That, that feels…good,” you can’t speak, not with the way his tongue slides across your nipple, pressing little kisses around you areola. 

His other hand goes to your other one, making sure she’s not feeling lonely, his thumb flicking over your sensitive nipples as you whine even louder. 

Gojo switches and you feel your breath shudder in an embarrassing whimper, your eeys squeezing shut when he bites at you, wanting to mark you up for those wretched gods to see and feel humanly jealous over. 

“So soft,” he murmurs against your skin, almost in awe, “feels like silk.” 

You would’ve had a witty joke about this, you know you did, but you can’t fathom to think about anything other than the way his lips feel on your tits, the way he seems like he’d die had he not been here sooner. 

But he then raises his head, and you whine in protest. Gojo almost break at the way you’re looking up at him, the way yor lips tremble from sheer desire. 

“Want more?” He presses, his hands, warmer than the fire that’s burning in your belly, trailing down, down to where your dress was slightly parting, “Here?” 

“Y-yes, fuck,” you moan, parting your legs to make room for him, not knowing what this feeling was but knowing that he was the only one who could soothe it, “Need it so bad Sa-satoru,” 

His eyes roll back, swallowing his primal groan at the way you plead for him, and nods, pressing a kiss against your stomach before his hitches the fabric upwards, sliding down your body so that his face is closer to that heat. 

You know you should feel more shame, but you feel like you’re going to die if your husband doesn’t do something soon. 

Gojo’s hand travels up your calf, trailing up your thigh, and suddenly stops. 

You go to beg, plead, for him, but cut yourself off when his lips find your inner thighs, pressign wet and messy kisses to them, getting dangerously close to where you felt like you were leaking. 

“You’re divine,” he whispers against your skin, hands wrapping around your thighs as he pulls them apart, “Fuckin’ divine.” 

His lips suddenly find there, you glistening cunt, and you mewl out for him. 

“Satoru,” your chest is heaving like you can’t find any air, “T-there, please, there,” and fuck the way you’re begging him is so sweet that he can’t find it in himself to tease you. 

His fingers seperate your wet lips, groaning when he sees just how much you’re dripping, and licks a tentative stripe upwards, your surprised gasp at how good it felt going straight to his cock.

Gojo carefully slides a finger through your tight walls, feeling the way you tighten around that, and lets his lips travel to your clit, pressing small kisses to it before he begins to suck. You clench around him, and your toes curl at the way he begins to pump it in and out, your essence soaking his skin. 

“So wet sweetheart,” he groans swapping his finger for his thumb at your clit, his tongue diving into your walls as he nearly cums from your saccharine taste alone, “S-shit, fuck, you taste like fucking heaven.” 

Your thighs tighten arund his head, but he craves the feeling, his tongue eating you out at such a fast pace that you begin to wonder if you need this more or him. 

“O-oh gods,” your grips his head tightly, can’t find the sympathy in yourself to feel bad, “‘Toru, oh, oh my, don’t stop! 

That coil in your stomach grows more taunt with each second. 

He alternates, adding in another thick finger, feeling the way you try to stretch for him. He glides in and out of you with ease, but he wonders what you’d look like on his thick cock, how you’d preen as he split you open with his girth. 

“Sweet,” he moans against you, his voice vibrating against your pulsing walls, “You’re so fuckin’ sweet.” 

You nod at something, whatever he just said, not fulling understanding anything around you as he continue to stimulate your clit, sucking on it, his teeth gliding across it with a little bite, and you moan out even louder. 

“I…” you can’t think, can’t breathe, “F-fcuk, ‘Toru, something, something’s happening,” you don’t know what this feeling is, this electric, all-consuming feeling that’s zapping through your body, making it numb yet aware of everything at the same time. 

“I know, I know,” Gojo praised you, one of his hands holding your stomach down, the added pressure making you whine, “You’re doing so good for me, you’re there, come on come for me,” his hand travels up your body, finding yours as he weaves your fingers together. 

“Shit, shit,” you mewl, “I’m coming, fuck, c-coming!” You cry out, your back arching off of the ground as your legs grow slack around his shoulders, your walls pulsing around him as that string tightens for the final time and then finally breaks. 

You can see white as your eyes rolls back into your head, squeezing his hand as tightly as you can, your yes dotting with tears. Your climax was all consuming, making you gush around his fingers and tongue, seeming to be never-ending, your body shaking in his hold. 

Gojo presses one final kiss to your cunt, licking off your release from his fingers, groaning at the taste, and lets you catch your breath. 

When you’re finally able to crack your eyes open, you peek them over to Gojo, seeing the way he tilts his head back, your cum still glistening on his chin and cheek, and whine out in embarrassment. 

“What?” He asks, eyes teasing when you go to hide your face in your hands. 

“I can’t,” your words are muffled, “I can’t believe I just…” 

Gojo kisses your forehead, wiping some of the tears from your eyes away as he kisses your brow bone. 

“How do you feel?” He asks, his eyes scanning over your body, glistening with sweat, and you take in a gulp of air. 

“Good,” you say finally with a soft smile, “Really good.” 

You look from his little grin, one that you peck at, your thumb rubbing up and down his jaw, and then look down, to the obvious bulge that’s hiding behind his training trousers. 

You’ve never seen a cock before but fuck he’s massive.

“What…” you trail off, sitting up slightly, and he helps balance you, “What about you?” you paw at his stomach, right before it leads down, and he lets out a shuddered whine. 

“As much as I-” he bites his tongue, feeling like he’s going to cum if you continue to look at him like that, “As much as I want to…not here,” he looks around at the field, shaking his head as a definite no, “Not here.” 

You go to protest, but he stops you, biting your fingers gently as you yelp, shoving his head away with little force as he chuckles. 

You let him wrap your dress around you again, tying some of the knots so that it doesn’t open up when you’re standing, and let the silence wash over the two of you calm your beating down heart down.

He plays with the ring around your finger, and you watch as the ring around his neck moves with his little breaths. 

“I want to sleep in your bed,” you say, and his blue eyes find yours. 

“You’re crazy if you don’t think I’m letting you sleep anywhere else,” he says in a shocked sort of way and you laugh, looking over to the side for a brief moment, and then look back at him. 

“Do you really love me?” 

Your words as whispered, but it feels like the wind picked them up and scattered them all around the field, around the river, the ancient stones, and right into Gojo’s heart. 

“I really love you,” he whispers back, kissing your eyelids, in between your brows, your forehead, the back of your hand, and murmurs the words, “my wife,” to nobody and to everybody at the same time. 

You smile, pulling him down by that necklace of his so that you can plant a soft kiss against his lips.  

[venmondiese]

LITTLE BOX FULL OF SURPRISES

masterlist ✧works in procress ✧ AO3

based on this request⭑.ᐟ

-ˋˏsummary: The maimed one-eyed prince marries the most beautiful woman on earth. She is dutiful, beautiful and perfect, but Aemond can't stand when someone, specially his uncle, look with desire at what it is his. ✧Pairing: Aemond Targaryen x Tully!Original Female Character ✧word count: 3.1k ✧Warnings: : MDNI 18+, p in v sex, dom/sub undertones, face slapping, spitting on the mouth, degradation kink, possesive Aemond, Aemond is WHIPPED by his wife.

Every time his grandsire and his mother spoke of a Lady of great beauty coming to King’s landing, he rolled his eye. 

Even when they present a small portrait, small to fit his palm, he does not seem impressed. Perhaps it is too small, perhaps it is too pretentious. Either the painter exaggerated your features or he couldn’t properly paint a small portrait. But he was curious, after all. Named the most beautiful woman on earth, blessed by the Gods. 

He doesn’t doubt that Lady Tully was beautiful. Perhaps she was truly a beautiful woman, with her long red hair, ‘like fire’ said the letter. But being called The Maiden on Earth seems exaggerated to him.

His grandsire had told them about the implications of his betrothal, about how important it was to have secured the Riverlands, since Grover Tully was an old lord, and will not understand reason. To have his most beloved granddaughter as a princess, was the only way to win his approval, and support. 

Aemond finally meets her on the little garden near the Weirwood tree. They had been serving little cakes, as some lords and ladies talked nearby, not even half of court was here, and he liked the quietness. That made him less self-conscious.

She was near the table, her hand hovering above all the treats she could get, smiling as she watches them with interest. She is expressive, he realises. He hasn’t seen her face, only her back and the day her hand moves and her head is tilted, curious about the southern gastronomy.

 “My lady” Aemond says softly. 

She turns so gracefully, and she is surprised to see him. Her hand still extended, and she quickly moves it to grab her skirts, and do a courtesy to him. She has a sweet smile, and she speaks. 

 “My prince” she says, a bit surprised. “I… I didn’t expect you.”

“I must admit I came a bit earlier than agreed…” he murmurs, looking behind him and then back to her.

The most beautiful maiden on earth fell short to her. She was… something else, in the best way possible. She had that curiosity, that life in her eyes, as she smiles at him, her lips are perfect, and he could see that her maids probably used those Myrish lip taints, for they were a very natural red colour, almost matching with her hair. Her dress was magnificent, wearing the colour of her house, red and blue decorating everything. Even her eyes, blue like the opaque blue rivers in the Riverlands, and her hair, red like flames, matched with her house colours. She wore fish details, her earrings and in her dress pattern. But she was wearing a collar with a seven pointed star in it, and he sighed at her beauty. She was breathtaking.

“Oh, well, so it seems…” she says as she smiles a bit sheepishly, looking at him. “It’s a fine castle, my prince. It does have its own beauty.” 

Aemond has never thought of the red Keep as something beautiful, at all. He always wanted to live in Dragonstone, but his wish was not granted.  But, if she says so, it must be true, and with good reason.

“You think so?” 

She grabs a lemon cake, and eats it carefully as she nods. “Yes! And you also have a Weirwood tree here. When we made our trip here, we passed through Raventree, and their Weirwood was a bit… depressing…” she says, smiling sweetly. “But here it’s very beautiful. More… alive”

As she talks, he watches her closely. Even when his mother, his sickly father and his siblings arrive, when his mother gives him a scolding look for arriving earlier, he sort of watches you in silence, his chest swelling with an air of mystery. 

“You are not what I expected” he admits, quietly between the two of them as their parents talked about the betrothal.

“No?” She asks smiling, licking her finger from the cream of the lemon cakes. “You’ll see I’m a little box full of surprises” 

That’s the beginning.

A ceremony on the Sept, as she stood next to him, reciting vows and the cloak with dragon sigils is on her shoulders, left behind the fish one. Aemond has never looked so smug and proud. The bedding ceremony was… traditional. Having a crowd was awkward for both, surely, but Aemond made it all more comfortable for her, covering her body with his, and not exposing her, at his own expense.

“Just focus on me” He murmurs closely to her face, as she looks at him with wide eyes. He was between her open legs, and he insisted for her to keep her chemise on, while he had no problem in nudity “Your septa and mother could have told you…”

“Not much” She whispers back.

“Not much” he repeats, moving a strand of hair out other face, tenderly watching her face for discomfort. “But I will be gentle, and… we’ll learn together. Yes?”

“Yes. Thank you…, husband” she says, and he feels a prideful pressure on his chest. He was her husband. The most beautiful woman’s husband. 

And she was always thankful for his patience and gentleness towards her, and she stuck to him to all times, even when she was in court, charming everyone around. Her arm was always interlocked with his, and referred to him as ‘her sweet husband’. 

Love came quieter than expected, as they laughed on their bed at nights, having picnics in the gardens or going to the Riverlands in Vhagar together, swimming on Riverrun’s rivers, and just… enjoying each other. It was more than love when they had their first son, a lovely and happy baby, mismatched eyes, with both purple and a deep blue. Aemond adored his son, his little Daerion, and he adored you more.

“Black looks well on you” Aemond comments. 

Daerion’s blabbing was a way to agree with Aemond’s statement as the maid finished putting on her headband, the same tone of her dress. Her orange hair is in braids, two simple ones with some gold details on them, and some dragon earrings that he gifted her. She was gorgeous, and all his. 

“Your wardrobe hasn’t changed” she states looking at him. “Went from velvet black to dark black” 

Aemond walks over to his wife, watching her being just so beautiful like that, sitting, waiting peacefully like a porcelain doll.

“Mhm... As if changing colours would make everything amicable…” Aemond murmurs, taking Daerion in his arms, and he allows him to play with his hair. “Does father know it’s useless? Rhaenyra wearing green won’t change anything, nor will my mother wearing black. HIs voice comes as a grunt as he bounces their baby. 

“It’s foolish when you put it that way” her voice is tender, sweet, and somewhat like velvet. He is still besotted by her, as maidens do with knights. He watches the shape of her breasts on that dress, how the cleavage is so delightful for his eyes and the roundness of her tits that make the fabric around stretch a bit. As if the tailor always got the measurement of her chest wrong on purpose, which he won’t complain about. 

Her bright red hair contrasts with how the black makes her skin look paler, and her eye colour deeper.

“They shouldn’t call you the Maiden herself anymore” Aemond murmurs softly, walking closer to her, still holding Daerion in his arms. “You are like the mother herself. Like the Goddess Syrax of Old Valyria. Beautiful, strong… so alluring…”

“You never seem to run out of compliments” her hands move to grab her rings, and the one he likes the most is the sapphire one, just to symbolise her marriage to him. 

“Never, more so if a goddess like you is my wife. All mine…”

“My prince, my lady.” It’s a Kings guard who interrupts. “Supper is ready, and Queen Alicent asks for you both to arrive earlier…”

“Hm” Aemond says, leaving Daerion in the wet nurse’s arms.

“Thank you, ser Willis” the knight smiles at his wife before walking to wait outside the door.

He rolls his eye as he leans to kiss his son’s forehead, caressing his chubby cheek and he smiles fondly at his sight. The little freckles he has that he inherited from his mother, something that Aemond loved. Yet remembering how unnecessary kind his wife is… annoys him.

Kindness and sweetness only helped to enhance her beauty and popularity, and he also loved that. She was beautiful, perfect in any way, tied to a One-Eyed maimed monster, like him. All he could offer to you, that it was worthy, was the luxuries of the royalty, all the kids you want and his unconditional love. He was at your mercy.

He has one eye, but he is not blind. Any man here on the keep, would pull their breeches down if his wife asked so. They would even cut their own throats for her mere delight, and Aemond would be one of them. 

“Goodbye, my sweet love” the sweet motherly tone makes little Daerion squeal happily, extending his little arms for his mother. She kisses both his hands, later to wave to him as they leave the room, arms interlocked.

Aemond always bites his tongue when his lady wife is kind to men. He hates it, yet he knows she does it for the kindness of her heart, and not any ulterior motives.

He was smitten for her, moving the chair for her to sit, and helping her, her dress not getting stuck anywhere or her headpiece, and only then, he sat on his own seat at peace.

“I heard they might have some goose” she murmurs to him, as the room fills. Her fingers caress his arm, and he hears her every word. “I’d eat it all if I could, you know” she teases.

“Mhm.” Aemond murmurs. Even if he is besotted, his facade is still the same; stoic, cold, distant. Yet to her, his gaze was always loving.

“I would only share it with you” she states proudly, leaning to give him a peck on the lips, before standing up once the King is brought to the room.

As he stands, he doesn’t miss how his uncle watches her. Aemond might not know the man personally, but he knew the look of desire in a man’s face. Much more when they looked at her 

The supper is mostly… tense, and awkward. But Lady Tully is charming to everyone and even toasts as well for Baela and Rhaena in their betrothal, congratulating them and speaking nothing but wonders about her own married life, making Aemond wear the slightest, yet most smug smirk on his face.

“Amazing” she says, with her mouth full as she eats the goose, and Aemond nods, a hand rubbing her back so she doesn’t choke for eating so quickly. “Here, my love” she says, extending the fork with a bit of the goose that she adores so much. 

Aemond eats shamelessly, enjoying the taste as he nods softly, approving, which makes her smile. His hand resting on the back of her chair, as he drank his wine quietly, watching his sister and nephew go to dance together. He is highly unaware of the prying eyes that watch them both.

Helaena and Jacaerys’ giggles and the movement of her dress is enough for lady Tully to watch curiously. Her husband was not one for dances, as he had not a good perception of objects with one eye. She never pressured him, and accepted the fact. 

She always would say how Daerion once he would be tall enough to walk, she’d dance with her son all the songs and dances, and Aemond approved that idea. 

“Lady Tully” It was Daemon Targaryen’s deep voice, and she looks at him a bit surprised, leaving her fork on the table as she covers her mouth, her hand unconsciously fetching wine, which Aemond hands her his. 

“Prince Daemon” her melodic voice is a bit confused, and more so when the uncle of her husband extends his hand. The green fabrics from his suit are deep, yet he still wore dragon details on it, and he looked smug about it.

She turns to watch Aemond, his jaw tensing as he looks at Daemon. And he has to physically stop himself from cutting his uncle’s throat when his wife walks with him to join Helaena and the bastard. Aegon and he share a look, both upset and annoyed, as their wives are so freely dancing with other men. 

Aemond watches her beautiful face, frowning as Daemon talks about something, whispering it closely so no one else hears it. His grip on the edge of his seat is strong; knuckles’ turning white as his jaw is tense, not looking pleased at all. And then, he hears her warm laugh, giggling at what he said, as her whole face brightened up.

Once they serve the pig in front of him and hear the little bastard giggles, it is enough to send him through a fit of rage. 

He literally drags his wife by the arm after everything went downhill, after saying that stupid toast, after the Velaryon’s boys attempt to defend themselves (very badly) and both her husband and her good brother humiliate them.

“Dancing with him” Aemond murmurs, walking to their shared chambers, not minding seeing the servants stop and look at them both. “Accepting it, and giggling to his jokes as he shamelessly flirts with you” 

“It was politeness...” her voice is weak when protesting.

“Did he mocked me for having only one eye?” He asks roughly. “Did he told you how beautiful your are and how full your breasts are?”

She opens her mouth a bit taken aback by his lewds remarks. “I am dutiful to what it’s expected of me. I wouldn't have allowed him to mock you”

“You should…”

“My family’s words are Family. Duty. Honour. And you know I care for that very deeply.” she says as she tries to keep up with his long steps “And I did just what was asked…”

“You are mine” he states, walking inside his chambers as his grip does nothing but become stronger. “My wife and you are… putting yourself in display for my uncle, laughing at his flirting. I know your family words are important for you, but this is… beyond that”

Perhaps it was her confused eyes or her angelic face, but he loosened up his grip yet he kept talking. 

“He wanted you! To have you below him and fuck you like a… wench or… or some kind of…”

“I know” 

Aemond turns drastically, eye twitching at his wife's words.

“You knew?”

“It was being cordial. It was duty. To amend broken ties…”

“I will break and burn and turn into ashes any ties from you to him” he says exasperated, insane with jealousy. His eye is wide, twitching in rage as he cannot believe this. She was his wife. 

Seeing Daemon’s hand grip on her hip, almost groping her, made him insane. Because he knew that Lady Tully, beautiful as the Maiden, a beloved goddess amongst the poor and rich, could do so much better than him. Yet, she still chooses him.

“Get naked” he says simply.

“What?”

“You heard me just right. Get. Naked.” He says again, not wanting a negative. 

Her whine is endearing, as she starts taking off little by little. Her gown, the diminutive buttons at the back, her collar, and her hellish headpiece.

“Let me” he grumbles as he helps her take off the headpiece, tossing it aside more carefully.

She is possibly the most beautiful when she is naked. Round breasts, even fuller thanks to lactating, and her body was tempting enough to anyone. 

“Undress me” he says instead. He took delight when she was the one serving him, in this way. He loved to see her desperation, her eagerness for him. His jerkin is out in no time, and she kneels to undo his breeches.

Because she had an angelic face, but it was only he who knew how obsessed she was with his cock. She could spend hours lying on the bed, sucking his cock as she rested her head on his abdomen as Aemond read. She wouldn’t even suck him off properly, his wife would only suck the tip, give kitten licks, and lazily press some kisses. During hours and hours. 

“I forbid you to speak to any one of them. Ever again” 

Confused eyes turned up to look at him, as the careful hands undid his breeches, almost a bit eagerly. “Forbid?”

“Hm. It’s what I said, is it not?” He says, narrowing his eye as if asking to be defied. 

“But it’s mad” she protests, frowning. “I promised Jace and Baela a tour in the gardens, and it would be impolite if I didn’t spoke-”

“Too bad” his voice cuts the conversation, and he is not leaving it up for conversation. 

“You are being irrational...”

“And you are being a fucking brat” he spats, grabbing her chin as he bites his lower lip. “I’ll show you how irrational I can get”

Her eyes watched him, almost too innocent for her own good. It made him hard; he could feel his cock stirring on his untied breeches. 

“Fucking slut, giving yourself to other men” his tone is harsh, but by the way her knees move, to accommodate the weight as he grips her chin, he knows that she is aroused. So is he.

Lady Tully was beautiful, and a box of surprises with everything, he realised with time. He had everyone trapped under her charms, and kept her secrets very private. And he loved it.

“Whore.”  His hand leaves her chin, only to move it to slap her across the face. 

She gasps, her face turned. It wasn’t harsh, yet the sting was burning on her skin, as she placed a hand on her cheek. To foreign eyes, he just slapped his wife. But he has done it before, to her request. Aemond knew that if his wife was enraged by that, he would have been beaten over and over, because she was kind, but didn’t stand for people dishonouring her. 

Aemond, more gently places his hand back on her chin, pulling it so she can look at him. “You will learn your place” Aemond says, as she looks up at him, with those meek eyes of hers. He loved her eyes. “Open your mouth”

 He leaned down, his mouth opening over hers, so near that she could feel his hot breath. His hand goes to wrap the bright red hair of hers, and his firm grip got her head secured. 

Perhaps Aemond would kiss those perfect lips, yet he pulled back and released a strand of saliva directly into her waiting mouth. Aemond’s fingers tightened the grip in her hair, as his other hand came up to wipe away the excess of spit. 

“There is my good girl” he murmurs, looking at her. “Mhm. I’m going to teach you a lesson” 

Aemond lifts his wife to her feet as if she weighs nothing, his grip on her hair almost dragging her to the bed, forcefully as he heard her little whines. He had a moment or two to decide which position suited best, for then to grab her hips and guide her to be on her hands and knees. He grabs the long red hair once again, angling her head to the side, because Aemond needed to see her face the same way he needed air.

She was soaking wet, and that is a satisfaction for her husband. Aemond accommodated behind her, watching her body as he positioned his cock at her entrance.

 “Such a sweet little cunt” he growls, his eye flashing with lust and desire as he thrusts into her from behind, in one swift motion. 

Her whimpers and pants are loud, as she grips on the sheets as her back is arched. She was desperate to be filled and fucked, not something unusual. The unusual thing was that… nothing happened.

“Aemond” She whines, moving her head to watch him from above her shoulder. She had that desperate, pitiful appearance that he loved.

“Yes, my love?” He asks almost nonchalantly, watching her ass, and how his cock is fully sank inside her 

She can barely think straight as his dick is deep inside her, throbbing in her walls as she just needs him to start fucking her. “Eh… move?”

“I don’t think so” he murmurs, his hand moving to caress her ass to his liking. “You’ll have to fuck yourself on my cock” His wife opens her mouth, confused as her eyebrows frown in hesitation. “Show me how much you need me” he says simply, he was fucking teasing her. “How much you need my cock”

Feeling the thick length of Aemond’s cock inside her, she accommodates on her hands, slowly moving away just to sink down onto his cock again. Her slick walls gripping him tightly as she impales herself on his thick cock. 

“Aemond… Fu-uck, you feel… oh, yes…” She whimpers, and her voice is filled with pleasure as her pussy starts getting pounded as she liked so much. If Lady Tully liked something in life, was probably getting fucked until her mind is mush.  

Her hips start moving on their own accord, as she grips on the sheets, trying to keep a stable posture to move her hips better, as her moans are obscenely loud, trying to get his cock deeper and deeper. Aemond leaves a groan, watching how she sinks down on his cock, and it is an image that would make any man cum in seconds. He truly was the luckiest man ever. 

He feels the fire in his stomach tighten, as her moans grew more and more delighted to the feeling of his cock pounding into her. At first, she had thought of it as promiscuous, and asked the maiden for forgiveness, but gods damn her if it wasn’t the best thing in life to get a good fuck from the love of her life.

“So responsive when getting a cock in your needy pussy” Aemond mutters, as one of his hands raises to spank her ass, the sharp slap only serves for the sounds coming out of her mouth to increase, and he spanks her again, and again, and again, to his own amusement and delight. 

“Please, Aemond…” 

“You just love misbehaving with me, because you know I will put you in your place” he says, moving forward to her body to grip his hair with his right hand, his left goes right next to her hand gripping the sheets to hold his weight. “Because you are a needy whore” he states, gripping her hair as she nods forcefully. 

“Yes” she says, in that whiny tone of hers. He knows her reactions yet every time they aroused him even more. “Yes, please”

The grip on her hair only serves to help him push her back against his cock, his hips now making the effort to start properly pounding into her cunt as she loved; hard, rough and at a deliciously good pace. Her body is practically numb as he starts to use her body for his own pleasure, just as she loved.

Who would have said that the most beautiful woman on earth loved being used by her husband? Definitely not him. She was the most perfect creature, in any way. Smart, funny, pretty, a good wife and mother. And yet she always craved his cock, like the filthiest whores of Flea Bottom. 

“Let those bastards hear you, hm?” He asks, as he leans to speak lowly near her ear. “How it’s your husband who pleases you. Perhaps my uncle will get the notion that you are mine. Only mine. Fucking mine. That fucking dodderer will die by my hand if he ever dares to lay his eyes on you” 

The mere thought infuriates him, making his hips slam into her harder and more feral. Rutting into her cunt in an animalistic pace as he has to clench his jaw in rage. His hand on her hair and the other on her waist, he groans at the feeling of her soaking cunt. 

The sobs he hears as his cock keeps on pounding into her sweet spot, makes him smug enough, and even more aroused. His sweet lady wife, so prone to cry when she had too much pleasure when she got overwhelmed with lust. 

“Please, please…” the round of pleas comes up with her tears, and Aemond moans, shamelessly, as he was so close. “I can’t t-take i-it… anymo-ore” 

“Oh, you will” he says through gritted teeth as he lets go of her hair, only for his other hand to go to her shoulder to help her get his dick deeper. “I will breed you. Cum so deep that my seed takes root, and everyone will know who you belong to.” 

Her nods between sobs, pleas and trembling legs help him pound in feral thrusts into her, feeling her cunt already milking him, inner walls attempting to squeeze his dick inside and never let it go.

“Cum for me, my love” he murmurs, still fucking her deep and nice how she likes it. “My beautiful wife” he murmurs, besotted by her as she cries, her tears rolling down her rosy cheeks with little freckles that he adored. 

The little spasms of her body, her wails and the way her cunt squeezes him, it’s enough to drive him to the edge, holding her body down into his cock as he moans loudly, rolling his eye back in pleasure as he cums hard. She whimpers, whining a bit as his seed just keeps on filling her, his balls tensing up as his grip will probably leave her delicate skin with red marks.

He is caring afterwards, as he cleans her with a towel, or when he places her in bed and covers her, lying by her side each time as she snuggles to him.

“You have to know–” she says softly, her fingers tracing circles on his chest. “You are hot when jealous”

Aemond huffs, grumbling about it a bit as he seems reluctant. It amuses her.

“You always find me hot, I could be… Killing a chicken and you would be leaking”

“Get on my place for a moment, please, just imagine how your muscles would flex” she says dead serious and he rolls his eye amused, as the corners of his lips gives him away.

The fixation on his hair would be a problem if he didn’t love her so much. Aemond allows his lady Tully to braid it as they talk in bed. 

“I didn’t really mean it” he says softly. 

“Hm?” She asks curious, her fingers working on a single small braid on his hair.

“You can talk to them” he says through gritted teeth. “Just-... not too much”

Her little laugh warms his heart. “Very well” she says amused. “For each sentence I say to them, I will suck you”

“I retract myself, talk to them very much, all you like” he says, and it has her giggling. “You know I love you…” he says; as it comes into his view her concentrated face, her tongue coming out of her pink lips as she was focused. He could see the freckles that he so adored, and her pretty eyes. How he loved her.

“You know I love you more…” she says fixing his braid to stick to his hair. Her mouth forms a pleased smile as she sits, as she inspects her work. “Yes. Seems pretty nice”

He could feel the hair strand tight, and he moved his hand to touch his head. “What in the Seven Hells you did to my hair, woman?” 

She looks very pleased as she giggles, her body accommodating against his chest as she shrugs innocently, as he keeps on playfully trying to decipher what his wife did to his hair. 

[ladyoftheblades]

HEIR APPARENT

jacaerys velaryon x aegonstwin!reader

synopsis: the realm worships firstborns, seconborn children however, especially girls, need to make their own way in the world

words: 11k (bear with me)

a/n: i realised this after i finished and was too bored to correct it, imagine rhanenyra didnt have time to propose marrige beyween reader and jacaerys due to driftmark. ALSO i havent watched the dinner scene in 2 years and i cannot find it on the sites so excuse any unorthodoxy. ENGLISH IS NOT MY FIRST LANGUAGE im also dyslexic :) !!!!! this was heavil inspired by the lovely @myladysapphire 's fic "seduction" which you should go read warnings: some gaslighting, dry humping, fingering, heavy petting, making out, intoxication

the birth of a child is a joyus occasion for any ordinary family, for the royal house targaryen ... not always.

it was a sunny summer day when the queen alicent went into labour, the sun shined its golden rays upon the keep making its redstone material even more beautifull. while the festivities of the tourney in the babes honor roared outside, the noise and cheers and laughter penetrated the keeps walls, filling the rooms with the joy of the celebration. all rooms but one.

alicent screamed and whrithed with the unimaginable pain of labour. viserys walked up the stairs with a newfound excitement, yet, as he reached the door of his wifes rooms he stopped. the weight of his pursuit of an heir, the one than killed his first wife hit him like an angry wave. cold sweat ran across his forhead. no, his beloved aemmas life was not in vain, rhaenyra would sit the throne, he rationalized. straightening his posture, he oppened the door.

every minute felt like eons for viserys. by the grace of the gods the babe arrived quickly. "a son, your grace" said the maester. music to viserys ears. a midwife handed him the swaddled babe. "welcome to the family aegon"said the king. enamoured by his son, it took a second before he heard his wife groaning again. "another babe !" exclaimed the maester. "another blessing" chimed in the midwife. and thus, a girl was born.

that was how the princess came into the world. a little surprise for her family. a little unwanted surprise.

as the princess grew up that was the word that defined her existance, unwanted. not abused,no, but she was not the first boy, not the heir, not even the spare. just another girl.

she came to understand her position very well, quiet and demure, refusing to cause any fuss around her existance for no one else did.

especially not her older sister rhaenyra. despite the little girls admiration for her, rhaenyra never spared her a second glance.she did not mistreat her younger sister by any means, just too busy being heir and having children of her own. she had no time for a child that was unwanted in the first place.

Her father on the other hand, downright ignored her. the excitement of having a son consumed him in those first years after their birth. there was no love left for her. soon, even that ran out and it was as if her and her brother never existed.

it did not matter though, she found solace in her other family. the queen alicent loved her daughter dearly, not absolved of ignoring her at times in favour of her brother, but it was ok, she did far more than any other. attached by the hip to aegon,they did everyting together, it was only natural, the realm viewed her as nothing but an extension of him anyway.

by the time her twelfth nameday came to be, it was widely accepted she would be married to her twin. though young she understood the implications of such a proposal. aegon, her fathers long awaited male heir, would be king and she his queen. the idea rooted in her mind. queen of the realm. the most influential woman of the seven kingdoms. it rooted and festered untill her rambition consumed her everymost descision. to her, it was only fair. all the attention she was denyed in her childhood would be atoned for. she would finaly get what she deserved.

the gods had other plans though. more like, otto hightower had other plans. rhaenyra proposed a betrothal between helaena, alicents secondborn and jacaerys her firstborn. to alicent it was an insult, one that had to be prevented by any means.

it was not difficult for otto to get the king to agree to marry helaena and aegon instead. to the king it made no difference, the affairs of his daughters whose name were not rhaenyra did not matter.

:readmore:

the news reached the princess on her way to driftmark for her aunt laenas funeral. ser otto hightower, upon the queens incistance, was tasked with breaking the news.

"that is not fair!" she shouted toward her grandsire, franticaly moving around, her erratic movements exaderated by those of the ship. "oh hush child, you know better than anyone nothing is promised in this life" he responded, calm, collected, slightly irritated.

"but i heard it, mother and lord larys, saying the marrige would sway the kind toward changing the succesion". Suddently otto rose from his seat. the princess was throwing a tantrum, a dangerous one. if word were to reach the king about their scheming to strip rhaenyra of her heritage, it could cost both his and his daughters heads. "now how did you hear such a thing?". the air had shifted, the calmnes in his voice replaced by more irritation and something new. fear, perhaps ?

"it... it matters not how i came upon the information it matters that i now know. so please explain to me why i ought to be cast aside in this way. i am a princess !"

"so is your sister. you love your sister, do you not?" "i do... but i was promided something and i plan to see it realised" diplomatic words for a child, otto thought.

"it does not matter though does it ? you understand rhaenyra is heir, yes ?" she nodded. "and your goal, as i understand, is to be queen, yes ?" he had now moved from where he was standing and was sitting next to her on the sette. she nodded again.

"you know of the favouritism your father shows rhaenyra, as he sees it she is his only child, therefore his only heir"

"but-but father wanted a son, he should be the heir" startled by ottos movements, her initial anger turned to silent disapointment, her little face pouting. "do not go around running your mouth saying such things" he responded hurriedly "you may be a princess but your neck is in as much danger as anyones" he turned to look into her eyes

"we understand the way things are, your father however is blinded by his grief. aegon is not heir, his wife will not be queen. you would not acquire the power you seek either way."

"i understand...".

Satisfied with himself for having stiffled his granddaughters tantrum, he turned away once again. "now you are free to take a husband of your choise, to seek love, is that not what all young maidens dream of ?" her pouting face remained. "love is nothing in the absence of power" otto chuckled, if only his daughter had shared that same mindset. the dragon was more hightower than he thought. "in what book did you read that now".

Before she could answer a knock sounded at the door. the queen entered, sir criston in toe. "we are to dock soon, return to your siblings at once little one" said alicent, somewhat taken aback by the sight of her dughter and father side by side. "yes your grace" said the little girl before quickly exiting.

alicent turned to her father. "i trust you were not corrupting her with any of your sheming" she stated, matter-of-factly. "trust me daughter, i did not need to... be more careful when speaking with the small council from now on, the walls have eyes in the red keep"

after docking the little princess was going through the motions of royal protocol as if possesed, certainly lacking the sort of queenly air shed carried herself with up untill that point. it no longer mattered. her dreams were shattered, all she ever wanted, all she ever hoped for, gone, in a single boat trip.

vaemond spoke yet none of his words reached her. she looked to her sister rhaenyra from across the procession. the vision of a queen, long silver hair braided in the fashions of the queen rhaenys. hugging her children close to her arms, arms meant to hold her.

no matter how much she attempted to push these feelings down, to pretend, her sisters indifference hurt, now more than ever. the longer she studied rhaenyra and the longer rhaenyra refused to spare her a single glance, she got more and more depressed. so much so she did not notice a pair of big brown eyes next to rhaenyra staring right at her.

after the procession was completed the guests started mingling, lords discussing deals, families exchanging condolances and such. as a princess of the realm she was excpected to offer her condolances to the family of the deceased, she walked forth to greet her cousins, baela and rhaena, the dragon twins. normally it would be a chance to excersise her queenly grace, now it was but another motion. "im sorry for your mother, my condolances." she spat out. "thank you, cousin" replied baela. rhaena was solemn, only looking at her shoes. her nephews standing next to her, she could not care less.

having fulfilled her duty she left without a word. no one would pay attention to the thorn of house targaryen anyway. and none did. except for those same brown eyes from earlier.

as she walked further and further away from the crowd she was greeted by the salty driftmark air. the rough cliffs and architecture were opposite of the red keeps. but it was a welcome change, the red keep was a place of lies and dissapointment.

eventually she reached a small nook amongs the salty castle walls. finally some respite. she sat on the ground and took a deep breath.silence. yet peace did not last long. soon footsteps sounded, coming toward her, untill they stopped.

she looked up. a young boy of dark eyes and darker hair. jacerys velaryon. the firstborn of her firstborn sister. his features struck her even more from up close. she knew the rumors. alicent spoke of them constantly when she thought she was not listening. she may have perpatuated some of them herself, on those bad days her sisters rejection particularly stung. she never thought of jacerys, never spoke to him, as far as she was concerned he was only an extension of her sister.

"what do you want ?" she spat courtly. "i dunno"replied jacaerys.

"its your aunts funeral you should be with your mother and siblings" "dont want to."

cautiously, he sat next to her. they stayed there a while, siletly staring at the wild waves ahead. it was...strangely comfortable. jacerys was born a few years after her and despite their both growing up in the red keep togerher, they rarely spoke. he knew nothing of his familys distaste for her, a stranger to the sins surrounding her name, ther girl doubted his mother spoke of her. to him she was practicaly a stranger.

after a while sitting in this comfortable silence, he dared speak up. "should we head back ?". "you should, i doubt anyone noted my absence"

"why ?" his voice rung with something unfamiliar to her, something akin to...concern. "you cannot note the absence of something you took no notice of in the first place" replied she solemnly. the emotion in her voice surprised even herself, something about this boy moved her. the princess did not like it. "i took notice, i mean, i followed you here" she felt his eyes on the side of her face yet did not dare return his gaze. "...thank you jacerys. why did you follow me ?"

"i thought you looked lonely" if shed turned her head sideways the princess would note him blushing. the comfortable silence returned.

prince jacerys knew not of this feeling bubbling in his chest. he had noticed his aunt during the funeral. he always took notice of her. walking around the keep, catching glimpses of her in the library after finishing her studies. his favourite part of training was gazing upon her form, framed by helaenas window, the yard had a perfect view. he always noticed her, always saw her, even when she looked elswere. his mother never bothered formally introducing them, rarely ever spoke of her. neither did his grandsire. he never went out of his way to greet her either, out of fear or nerves he did not know.

today was his window of opportunity. rhaenyra had sent him to comfort his cousins yet he could not take his mind off of his aunt. when she came and greeted baela, walking away right after, it was perfect. quickly, he dismissed himself and slipped away from everyone. the vision of her walking the tumoltous balconies of driftmark, silver hair blowing in the wind, she looked like a vision, calling him to her side. and now here he was.

neither of them knew how long they sat like that. they only knew of the feelings flowing between them. a strange sense of comfort. eventually though they had to return. she stood up first. "come on, we must head back, your mother is worried about you"

heading back they were greeted by no rhaenyra and no daemon. before jacerys could speak a word to the princess she vanished. he joined his cousins once again, they spoke to him yet he heard none of it, silently staring at the direction she dissapeared.

the princess awoke the next morning, having slept soundly that night, a certain strong face haunting her dreams. she arose from her bed and went to call for her handmaidens, yet stepping outside the room, no guard was present, confused and still foggy from sleep she put on a robe and began walking toward her good-sister helaenas room, not far from her own. stepping inside she found her sister blankly staring out of the window, not unusual for helaena. what was unusual was her complete unacnoledgment of her. cautiously she approached the window. "helaena, sister, what has happened ?" "he closed an eye.." her sister was always a bit odd, most brushed her strange words off, but the princess understood the importance of her strange visions

"helaena, please speak it to me plainly, who closed an eye ?" helaena tore her gaze from the scenery outside, vast uneasy brown eyes staring into her sisters

"aemond claimed vhagar late last night, lucerys took his eye in return"

years passed since that fateful night in driftmark. the night the house of the dragon official split in two. the two factions came to be known as the greens and the blacks.

she had grown, childhood long gone -if it ever existed-, now matured into a young woman. what never left was her feelings of betrayal. aegon and helaenas wedding took place not long after driftmark, and though she loved her sister deeply, jealousy ran deep. helaena was a fool who was handed an opportunity she could not comprehend. it took her some time to get over that day but she did, she had to.

despite ottos words on the boat, she knew better. after driftmark the greens scheming became more obvious. though she wasnt privy to all information, she knew their plans. stupid stupid otto hightower. he told her it did not matter, he told her all the things she wanted to hear, needed to hear. she hated herself for falling for his honeyed words. she was only a girl of two and ten but still. she ought to have known better. maybe, if she had put more pressure onto alicent she would have won. her resentment grew into a monster, wild and untameable, feeding on her want for the throne.

there was one other consequence of that day, she never got to see jacerys again. she never thought it would bother her before, but it did. that day, the words he spoke to her, his tone, the genuine concern laced in every sentance haunted her dreams. she dared not think about him while awake, fearful of what conclusions she may reach.

fate is funny in its ways. the uncertain parentage of rhaenyras children officialy came into question.

her sisters reckless behaviour came to bite her in the rear, the spoiled firstborn finally was to get a taste of consequences. not only that, the petitions for driftmark would require the entire family be present,including jacerys. not that she cared, no.

the view of dragons and ships approaching kings landing was perfect from the princesses window. syrax and caraxes landed near the dock, soon the family ship followed. the rest of the way they made by carrige. the lack of reception for the heir and her husband was the princesses own idea. a small revenge.

she dared not venture to the courtyard for she knew her nephews would be there. waiting instead to face them officially in the throne room.

not many are privy to the red keeps secret passageways, she was one of the lucky few. in order to avoid the courtyard she followed one such secret hall to cut through the godswood and immedietly into the throne room.

fate, as stated before, is very humorous.walking through the godswood she was greeted by her most favourite guest, rhaenyra. as her sister stood in the courtyard, for the first time in her life the princess saw her for what she was, a scared mother, a woman who knew she had a mess of her own making to clean up. there was no need for approval from such a pathetic creature.

"sister" greeted the young princess. rhaenyra turned to face her. "ah, dear sister, how are you fairing ?" dear, wow the gaul

"i am...well, it is nice of you to ask, even if for the first time." the sarcasm did not go unnoticed by rhaenyra. "times change sweet sister, attitudes are as moveable as the tides, especially within family" the tone those words were spoken in dripped with false sweetness, if it were another day she would have lapped it up, not today. today, she understood they came not from a genuine place but from a need of support.

"when family comes into question, the tides of opportunity roar, i see" surprised by her sisters words, rhaenyra stepped closer.

"i fear the circumstances of our reunion, of my arrival, are unfortunate, that does not mean we need be hostile to eachother" the younger scoffed

"the only times we reunite are under unfortunate circumatsnces. last we spoke i cannot remember, i actually cannot recall a time you struck up a conversation with me. only now, concerned with your sons succesion, when you require my help, we speak"

rhaenyra was surprised, more surprised than shed been in her life. she thought her relationship with her sister was what it had to be, what was required, the rift between their family was much vaster than shed realised.

"i am sorry for any pain i have caused you, please, let us discuss this in a manner befiting of family, i promise i am not what these people have told you" she reached for her sisters hand, immedietly the younger pulled away.

"these people are my family, more my family than you have ever been. do not worry sister i would not concern you with anything beneath what befits you. we need only talk if it concerns the crown.please, do not pretend to care for me as family again, ypur idifference hurts but false concern is a pain i cannot manage" rhaenyra opened her mouth to speak but could not find the words.

"goodbye, dear sister. i look forward to hearing your petition." and with those words she left, fighting the urge to turn back and look at the face of the one who hurt her the most every step of the way.

jacaerys stepped off the carrige and into the ground of the red keep with a goal, to see his aunt again. he had grown into a capable and gracious young man in their time apart. she haunted his thoughts and steps toward adulthood in a way he could not describe. it was not love, he atleast did not think so, more like a strange hunger to see her again.

it scared him to think about. why was this longing so deeply rooted in his chest ?

with lucerys by his side they stepped forward into the familiar courtyard. immediently he gazed upon that same window he knew he may catch a glipse of her in. yet no one was there. it was silly to think someone would. why was his mind like this ?

lucerys must have noticed his wandering glances, nudging his side. "what ?" replied jacaerys. "are you ill brother ?". he had never spoken a word to anyone, not about that day in driftmark, the events of that night far too heavy to bring up,certainly not of his confusing feelings for the princess.

"im fine lucerys, are you feeling well ? it is a difficult day we have ahead of us, for you most of all" "im fine."

he was not fine, but it was best not to press on. lucerys had to deal with his emotions on his own,as did he.

the throne room had not changed since last he visited. he and his family stood on one side while the other slowly filled with hightowers and green supporters.

suddently, there she was.

the princess targaryen. her blueish green gown only exagerated her beautyful fratures, long silver hair shining, adorned by intricate braids and golden jewlery. she looked like she hung the sun in the sky. his eyes were trained on her form, not moving an inch, commiting every detail to memory, afraid shed disapear again and take the light with her. and then, against all odds, she returned his gaze.

it was like seeing the deep blue waves of the ocean again after years in the desert. jacerys vlaryon, in all his glory. looking back at her. she dared not tear her eyes away from his familiar brown ones. they stood there, surrounded by people yet alone locked in time.

eventually, otto hightower announced the start of the pettitions, and jacerys had to tear his gaze away. it was not a bad thing though, it allowed the princess to study his features more closely. despite his dark brown locks and eyes there was something uniquely targaryen about the boy, fair skin and aqualine valyrian nose betraying his heritage. he looked like the carbon of his mother. it scared her, it scared her because his resemblance did not deter her emotions at all, if anything it made her heart soften toward her sister. no man should hold such power over her.

the petitions went on and on but she heard few words far and in between,eyes focused on her nephew. periodicaly he returned her gaze studying her with equal intensity, alternating between commiting her to memory and comforting his brother.

for the fist time in her life she allowed herself to think of him in detail. she imagined how he would look speaking to her, hearing his voice, changed by the years, matured, deep, rich, manly. she though of his and when she tired she thought of them together. strolling through the gardens, flying on their dragons, sitting together... waking up next to him, walking the altar toward him.

and for the fist time it hit her.

all these years and yet her father had not changed his mind about the succesion once. not once did his resolve to put rhaenyra on the throne falter. aegon would never be king, helaena never queen, so long as the current kings will persevered. but it did not have to signal the end of her queenly ambition. jacaerys was rhaenyras firstborn, her first son and therefore heir. as far as the princess knew, he was unmarried and yet to be betrothed to anyone.

the window of opportunity so violently closed by otto on their was to driftmark suddently was wide open again. she could marry jacaerys and finally be queen, finally get what she wanted. ofcourse it would mean she would have to support her sister. every end had its means. so be it.

making up with her sister would be difficult, yet something about their conversation earlier told her it might not be impossible. the answer to her ambitions was infront of her all these years, jacaerys was the key.

euphoria filled her limbs making her mind hazy. floating on a bed of feathers, gears already turning in her mind paving the path that would lead her to jacarys. but good things never last.

princess rhaenys was speaking her peace when suddently

"the princess rhaenyra has informed me of her intentions to wed her son jacaerys and lucerys, to my granddaughters baela and rhaena, a proposad to which i wholeheartedly agree."

what. what. jacaerys and ... baela. she looked upon the ceiling of the throne room as if seeking the heavens, vying for the attention of the seven, whty did fate punish her so ?. ofcourse, why would she get what she wanted ?

she looked toward baela, a look of confidence and satisfaction gracing her features, eyes trained on jacaerys. she dared not look at him, she wanted not to know how he felt of this arrangement.

did he know ? had he agreed to it beforehand ? she could have sworn those looks he gave her earlier meant something. but this was now more than just her feeling toward him. this was about her gtting what she wanted, getting her throne.

jacaerys and baela ? no, that would not do. she was no longer that wide eyed girl, easily dettered by words of her elders, easily manipulated into complying with others wishes. one betrothal was torn away from her, not again. she would wed jacaerys she decited then and there, using any means necessary.

jacaerys heard his grandmothers words the same as his aunt. he was somewhat aware of their plans to betroth him to baela, but hearing them, actually hearing them, spoken in the presance of the king, it was another thing entirely.

he briefly looked to baela. she seemed very content with the arrangemend. the same could not be said about him. his aunt had been the sole person to hold his affections thus far. as much affection as a stranger across the bay could, atleast.

why was he so dissapointed ? was he even dissapointed ? did he really think there was any merrit to his feelings for the princess ? they shared one conversation all those years ago. whereas he and baela had a solid relatioship, a friendship, one that could be built upon. hed thought about the betrothal in the past, he could find some semblances of feeling in his heart for his cousin.

yet everytime hed thought of baela, another crossed his mind.

no, that would not do. his aunt was beautifull, yes, maybe it was just that, her beauty that bewitched him, the air of mystery around her. it was pointless to assign any meaning to it, he descited. he was a prince of the realm. he would preform his duty to baela and to his mother as best he could. childish fancy would have to be put to sleep.

a targaryen event without atleast one murder is considered a dull afair. thankfully they had daemon to provide entertainment.

the king had once again shamelessly supported his firstborn. for a rotting corpse, he sure was determined. the death of vaemond velarion signaled the end of the pettitions. lucerys would inherit driftmark along with his cousin rhaena.

rhaenyra would inherit the throne and in turn jacarys along with baela. not if she had a say.

with the first lord to step foot outside of the throne room her plan was set into motion. the alegiance between the blacks and the velaryons was strong, but not unbreakable. her sister was an honorable woman, a good mother, but a less than conscious politician. logic and aliances would not sway her, love however would.

the princess knew rhaenyra would reside in her chambers untill the family dinner planned for that night. a little snooping, more like a little talk with her ladies maid, told her daemon would join his old friends in the gold cloaks for the afternoon. after their talk, the princess and her handmaiden were to each take their leave. "oh, alia, i requre your help with one more thing" the maid turned "anything for you m'lady"

"i need you to place a rumor.."

with no warning, no knock, the young princess stepped into her sisters chambers. to say rhaenyra was surprised was an understatement.

"sister, what- what brings you here ?" the younger stepped further into the room. "i understand our talk earlier was not to your liking" she began, looking to her sisters eyes graced by an unreadable excpression.

"well, you made your wishes clear, i thought you would not wish to see me unless it was necessary. it gladens me you here though, please, take a seat" ever so polite. the sisters sat across from eachother on the chambers table, for the first time together of their own volition.

"do not misunderstand me, i would not have come here unless it was of the utmost urgency. as it stands matters of the crown plague me" rhaenyra looked concerned, what matters could the crown possibly have than were not directly concerning her ?

rhaenyra remained quiet, waiting to for the younger to show her hand before she revealed hers. "i heard today the proposal you offered princess rhaenys, to be frank, it is foolish." rhaenyra was yet to understand the road her sister was going down on, she remained quiet.

"keeping aliances strong is of upmost importance if you wish to secure your claim, however quality cannot completely trump quantity..."

"what are you saying, sister ?" sister finally,without the dear, bold. yet the younger remained quiet, pouring herself a cup of the wine placed upon the table. she was bold but her plan bolder, it required taming of the nerves. the longer the silence stretched on the uneasier the elder became.

"what do you want ?' asked rhaenyra finally.

"i want what you want, what we all want" rhaenyra understood finally.

"you wish to sit the iron throne then ? is it the reason behind your questioning my alliances ?" she grew irritated of the youngers antics, tired of the years being used soely for her birthright, her confusion twisting now into anger.

"you would think so, but no" she took a big swig of her wine "i want a family, my family, united. you saw the lords today, you saw my grandsire. you may think fathers support is sufficient, but he will to be around for long. there will come a time, sooner than latter, when you will be without your biggest ally, and the house of the dragon will be torn apart once and for all"

rhaenyra shook her head "i am the rightfull heir, the lords of the realm know who they swore an oath to. i have no need of you false concern."

"attitides are as moveable as the tides, the lords will rally behind whomever they believe benefits them most, oaths be damned. our family will be in shambles, you must prevent that, we must prevent that" she moved now, a mix of wine and sudden confidence moving her legs from her initial seat to the one next to her sister.

"wed me to jacaerys" rhaenyras confusion returned. she poured herself a cup and downed it in one go. "and why would i do that ? your void threats ?" "i can support you and your efforts best. rhaenyra looked toward the fireplace, turning her body opposite of her sisters. "moonfyre is a formidable dragon, and my mother may yet be swayed if we work together"

"i tried once, to ally myself with the green counsil, they refused. besides , it will be an insult to the house velaryon, an insult to my daughter."

"i am not the green counsil, i am your sister." mirroring rhaenyras earlier movements in the godswood, she took her sisters hands into hers. only unlike earlier, her sister did not move. "i know you have cast me aside, since i first came into the world. yet as a girl i wished every night with every prayer for you to see me, finally see me." rhaenyras eyes as if possesed found her own. an understanding started to bloom.

"i have longed to be by both you and jacaerys from afar all these years, let us not be enemies, do justice by our targaryen name. if not for an aliance for all you feel toward me as you sister. i have thought of everything, you need only say yes."

rhanyra ture her gaze and hands away once again, pouring them both another cup of wine, hoping her eyes would not betray her inner conflict. the sisters took their respective cups, drinking in silence.

"i knew not of these.. feelings you describe and for that im sorry." rhaenyra dared speak up. "i cannot give you the yes you seek but if truly your plans are as solid as you describe them, i have no way of stopping you" not a victory but not a defeat. "thank you, dear sister"

rumors have a way of spreading in the red keep. a phenomenon unlike any other. you could take your carridge for a visit to the great sept a maiden and return a whore. what a sinnfull and dishonorable thing. but what a usefull one to those who know to utilise it.

the queen alicent was enjoying a quiet evening after the very eventfull petitions. helaena on her left, embroidering a spider on one of the childrens tunics, said children on the floor playing with their toys, and her, reading "seven histories of seven prayers" all was at peace.

alicent finished her book and made a moved to acqure another, the library was near, she could go and be back in less than a feather sweep. excusing herself from the company of her family, she moved to do just that. the halls of the keep were never to the queens liking, much prefering those of her home, alas she navigated them, low sound of chatter radiating off of each room. gossiping was a sin, one the queen refused to indulge in but the day had other plans.

passing through her eldest daughters chambers she caught wind of words that shocked her. cautiously she moved closer to the door, hoping her ears were playing tricks.

"i mean can you believe it ? what a sandal, our princess and rhaenyras son ? oh the insult" said one of her daughters ladysmaids "alia, i am yet to understand, how could our lady fraternise with that family, they have not seen them in years" replied another "im not saying now, maya, back then, at driftmark"

"i heard it was the reason for the princes fight, prince aemond attacked jacarys for dishonoring his sister, thats how he lost his eye" replied another.

"and what of todays betrothal ? the queen would never allow such dishonor befall her daughter" "thats the fun part maya, the queen knows none of it, as for the princess baela, she has recently received proposals from the north, house tully and house stark, however, princess rhaenyra forced her hand to prevent herself allying with the greens" replied the voice of alia.

"i believe none of it, how could you come upon such information ?"replied the unnamed voice again "the cook, told me he overheard an exchange between the young prince and his betrothed.."

the queen stepped back, her breathing laboured. they were way off mark for driftmark, that was certain. but what if there was truth behind their words ? it would not be unheard of. most rumors around the keep stemmed from some truth

still, the queen had faith in her daughter. aegon was a rake, sure, but he inherited all of the rebelion in the woumb, her daughter was as pure as freshly fallen snow. seeking lord larys council would be an option but the queen feared what he would ask for in return. no. she was no fool, she would seek for herself the truth.

the dinner was an idiotic idea. alas, the head that defies the king does not stay attatched to its body for long. the young princess sat at the head of the table along with aemond, already nursing her third cup of wine. it burned going down but not more than her mothers gaze did. she knew.

her mothers gaze threatened to melt her face off but it was not what hurt most. jacaerys and baela sat next to eachother, exchanging laughs and pleasantries. if the wine did not cause her to vomit, they would. just a little bit longer, a little more patience, she would get jacaerys and the throne and baela the door.

the night went on oddly calmly. until the speeches began.

king viserrys took the lead. "we have a cause of celebration it seems. jace and luke will be married to their cousins,baela and rhaena, further strengthening the bond between our houses"

if the princesses eyes rolled any further back into her head she would see her brain. she looked to jacaerys, his eyes on her, only to immedietly be torn away once she looked back.

the king continued with his heartfelt speech, somewhere among the words of uniting the house of the dragon, rhaenyra and her sister locked eyes, the understanding between them having bloomed into a garden. her fathers worlds were certainly the missing piece to convincing rhaenyra of the betrothal.

rhaenyra took her turn followed by alicent, heartfelt words betraying the affections the two still shared. jacaerys was next. despite him talking about aegon and aemond his eyes fell on her periodically, never too long though. as if looking at her too long would turn him to stone. his fear was evident, but was it brought about by alicents menacing stare, or .... his own emotions ?

it was better not to mangle matters of the heart with those of the crown, she had to remind herself, despite her chest thumping with every glance. helaena gave her speech, toasting the happy couple yet again. her words on marrige brought about a sense of uneasines to everyone. rhaena, bless her heart, made an attempt to mend the situation "it leaves you, cousin. have you any suitors ?".

rhaenyra tensed, alicent even more so but most of all jacaerys. his stiffness caused baelas concern, who nudged him lightly. her movement laboured no reaction from the prince, she turned instead to find the object of his gaze, none other than his aunt.

"n-no, not of yet im afraid..." she gave her best semblance of a calm reply. rhaenyra, feeling bad and still mindfull of their earlier conversations, took the liberty of replying "it is best not to worry about these things, you may yet find your affection in unlikely places"

alicent gave a blank stare, she moved her mouth to speak but was interrupted, by none other than daemon. "best not to wait though, my dear, a young lady may fall to her charms only for so long..." his words earned him hateful looks and one of firm diaproval from his wife. his eyes however, gleamed playfully, ever the provocatour. daemon knew.

she could not hold back her emotions if she wanted. opting to give a small, sad smile, for an answer would surely betray her tears. she looked to jacaerys. this time his eyes unapologeticaly on her, looking to her form with raw pitty. helaena took her hand and aemond gave her a small pat on the arm. alicents anger was on the brink of overflowing.

before the queens wrath could be unleashed upon demon, the king groaned in pain, immedietly he was escorted away by the guards. the family was left in shambles, once again. yet the evening was far from over. rhaenyra ordered for music to be played, more courses arriving at the table. the princess cared for none of it, the plan was working, yet daemons words stung all the same.

a hand appeared next to her, asking to dance. looking up to find the owner, she found none other than jacaerys velaryon. she stood up quickly, ignoring her mothers gaze, taking it into hers.

the unwanted child of house targaryen, she was unused to being shown attention, most of all the sole attention of her beloved. a familiar melody sounded in the backround, years of observing others on the dancefloor yet never joining left her entirely unprepared for the dance that was to come. jacaerys noticed her nerves.

"do you know the stepps ?" she shook her head no. the reaction brought a smile to his face, genuine and warm. "not to worry, it is not a difficult one, you only need a capable lead"

arriving finally to the dancefloor, the music picked up. jacaerys hands led her to stand infront of him. since he noticed her uneasined, his eyes had not left hers once.

he began the dance, jumping left and right, she soon joined his pace. it felt like ascending the skies on her dragon for the first time, each little jump leading her further and furhter away from the ground, away from the drama of her house and into the heavens.

his pace changed, stepping forth to take her hand into his. the toutch was electrifying, gentle yet firm, he brought their joined hands to eye level, gaze forever steady on her form, like the eternal rocks beneath the tumoltous sea, somewhat grounding her. they began to turn around eachother. slowly at first, he began to hasten his turns, having now to hold on tighter, keeping eachother in orbit.

jace took a step back moving their joint limbs above her head, intending to spin her around herself, his other hand gently on her waist, as to keep her steady. the wine was taking effect for before she could turn to face him again she stumbled, slightly falling forward, straight into his arms.

he did not let her fall however, the hand on her waist immedietly snaking around her fully, the one above her head going to hold the side of her face, preventing it from coliding with his. by the time she gained her balance, the position between them was highly innapropriate. the warmth of his hand on her cheeck made all skin receptors go haywire. his lips had slightly parted and she could feel his breath on her own, if she leaned a little forward she could even....

"THAT IS ENOUGH !" queen alicents booming voice sounded. their moment of tenderness so rudely interrupted, the princess pulled away from her nephew, he complied, taking a half-step back, his hand previously on her waist however moved to hold hers once again.

" do you take me for a fool ? sharing words of support and love to my family, while your son has corrupted my sweet daughter, laughing now in our faces, i will have it no longer !"

everyone was shocked, rhaenyra held onto her husband, who moved to stand up, aegon and aemond shared a look equal parts amusement and comradery, while rhaena and lucerys held hands. the only one to keep his composure was the queens father. ooto knew. baelas legs were bouncing up and down furiously. everyone was in dissaray.

"what are you implying your grace ?"sounded daemon full of rage and malice. "i am implying nothing i am up and stating it since your family is playing the fool. your son has corrupted my daughter tainted her virtue and has now come to flaunt his debauchery infront of everyone! " jacaerys remained quiet, his hand unmoving.

like fish to bait, the princess thought. she anticipated the queens reaction, what surprised her was how public it was. a new variable. no matter, she had come this far, no way in the seven hells would she quit now. her eyes searched for and found rhaenyras, her beautifull face painted one sentance, i hope you know what youre doing.

"daughter, please regain your composure." otto attempted to calm his queens nerves. one public outburst escaping the family was bad, two would be ruinous. rhaenyras eyes remained locked with her sisters, the two communicating simply from eye contact. the younger sent a pleading look. not wishing to anihilate the little pieces of reconciliation the dinner had acheived, the heir sprung into action.

"please, your grace, it has been an eventfull evening, let us not end the night in animosity. the hour is late, we ought to all retire and discuss this with the light of the new day." daemon went to express his rage his atempted outburst swiftly sqashed by rhaenyra holding his arm. lucerys and rhaena immedietly stood up, followed by helaena, exiting at once, not wishing to partake in the conflict.

alicent attempted to voice her dissagreement, rage and adrenaline pulsing in her veins, but could not, the hand of her sworn shield along with her fathers stern gaze bringing her to reality.

aemond stood, approaching the still-frozen couple. his imposing frame cornered that of jacaerys "carefull nephew, should i find any truth to these accusations, i will ensure you pay the price this time" and with that, he pulled his sister away. she turned to look to her beloved, for the final time time of the evening, their eyes locked, a silent promise to speak again.

the events of the night were all blurry in the young princes head. whithin less than a day he reunited with his aunt, was btrothed to baela, descited to put aside his feelings for his aunt, witnessed a beheading, had his feelings for his aunt reignited and was now accused of deflowering her.

after she was so rudely torn away from him, the prince was faced with the fury of his betrothed. baelas face twisted in a way he had only previously seen on daemon, it petrified him. "is it true ?" asked the girl. "what ? i dont-"

"it is a simple question jacaerys, are alicents words true ?" "ofcourse not ! i would never do such a thing" tension was rising with each exchange of words "what was this buisness today then ?" "the princess fell, what was i to do ? allow her to fall ?"

"she is the enemy jace, you cannot trust these people" the words coming out of baelas mouth filled him with rage never before experienced "the enemy ? are you being serious ? you know nothing about the princess-" "neither do you."

they were almost yelling, daemon started to advance toward them. afraid of his stepfather he attempted to deescelate the situation."i do apologise for any discomfort i have caused you, baela, but i will not stand to hear such nonsense."

baela scoffed "if you are unable to see past the intentions of those who only mean to use you, i hold in my heart not discomfort but pity for you, my prince. goodnight. " and with that, she exited. by this time deamon hat taken the place of his daughter "come, we have much to discuss" looking behind him one final time to see his mother and queen alicent speaking quietly, he followed his stepfather.

they walked the halls of the keep solemnly, daemons calm demeanor betrayed none of his emotions, it only irritated jacaerys more and more as time went on. each torturous step made his mind race, from the dance to the fight to the princess to her hands to his betrothed to daemon to his aunt again, her lips, her smile, her body against his... it all was far too overwhelming.

the salvation from his torture came with their arival at his chambers. "come" daemon instructed, oppening the door, he could only follow instructions with the reverance of a septon executing the gods will, afraid of arousing his uncles rage. "sit" he sat, his uncle soon occupying the chair next to him.

"so, did you do it ?"

if one more person asked him that question jace swore he would throw himself from the tallest window of the keep. "no, i would never" daemon chuckled. "tis alright boy, the flame of youth roars with unparalleled passion, in this family especially, i would not have blamed you if you had." jace swallowed, a weight lifted from his chest.

"alas what i believe matters not, only what the queen does and as it stands, she thinks you deflowered her most favourite daughter. how do you plan to answer these accusations ?"

"i.....i do not know. i would not go back on my promise to baela sir. i swear it" daemons hand reached his sons shoulder. "i know. worry not about baela. we must understand what possesed the greens to spread such a rumor, they are coming for your inheritance boy, the same as your mothers."

heavens give me strength, the young prince thought. "with all due respect, you know nothing of who spread such a rumor. the princess would never soil her reputation in such a way. "

"damn right she would not, the princess is far from cunning enough" jacaeys hands turned to fists "it is certainly the work of her grandsire" he had had enough. "you only see the events of today as an excuse to express your violence"

"such are the tactics of war. we can not be seen as weak at this time, jace. they mean to take yours and your mothers birthright, to start the war and tear our forces apart-"

"i see finally, you care not for me nor baela, only for supporting the efforts of a war yet to materialise, if it even is to materialise. you only seek glory for yourself- " "myself ?" daemon interrupted "all i do, i do in support of you and your mother"

"then allow us to counsil my mother before you jump straight to actions which might soil her name" daemon gave no answer. his wife was his weakness, jacaerys knew it very well. and though he was prone to brash violet actions, he did so in servitude of his family.

daemon stood up sudently, still not having said a word. the young prince knew he had not quelled his bloodlust but the seeds of doubt planted in his mind would keep him occupied long enough. and so daemon exited.

before jacaerys was allowed a moment of respite, not a few seconds after his fathers exit, the painting near his window opened from behind.

emerging from the shadows, none other than the princess. jacaerys was left speechless, the night kept becoming stranger and stranger. "what-the...what, h-how did you get here ?" he chocked out.

"i found a sort of map of the red keeps passageways when i was young. one of them leads from my chambers to these" replied the princess shyly. "have i disturbed you....i should leave, my apologies-"

"no !" exclaimed jacaerys. the day had taken a toll on him, daemon and baelas words giving him a lot to proces. one thing had not changed though, he still longed to see her.

turning around from her attempt to exit, the princesses face became illuminated by the candelight showcasing her hopefull expression. a beat of silence pased, neither one of them knowing how to approach the other. the princess stepped forward, fully entering the room.

he could now see her dress in detail, a pure white nightgown, flowing gently, encasing her form. she looked like an angel sent from the heavens.

"my mother is very protective of me, you must excuse her earlier actions, she only meant to do good. i-i came to apologise for what went down at dinner" by now she was standing but a step away from him. the prince remained frozen, afraid if he let his body move, he would no longer remain a gentleman.

his silence caused the princesses face to fall slightly a disapointed expression threatening to take over, the same one from earlier that night. he wished not to ever see her that way ever again "is that all you came here to do ?" he spoke up at last.

a small smile played at the side of her mouth "if i may excpress myself freely, my lord ?" the pang of excpectancy in his chest rattled his body "jace, and please do."

"jace" she began, the familiarity of the petname causing him to grow bolder. "i must say, though these rumours are heinous i- i was ashamed not of my soiled reputation, but for the fact they included you" the woman infront of him was a witch, jace descited, she was bewitching him with every word from her soft lips, and he was oh so willing to fall for her spell.

"truth be told i have not forgotten of the time we shared at driftmark, it may seem silly but since that day, i have longed to see you again."she continued "i know not of love ...or lust but these feelings lay in my chest for so long i fear they may drown me"

her eyes looked to his through her lashes, longing, excpecting. once again he was left without words. "jace ? you instructed me to speak freely, have i made you uncomfortable ?" her hand flew forward from her side, softly brushing his knuckles, sending chills to his body, threatening to take his hand into her own but hesitating.

"are, are you cross at me because of the rumors ?" the last bits of his composure were starting to crumble, egged on by both her words and feathelike toutches.

"i could never. i would never hold over you something you have no control over" he replied, unable to take her teasing toutches any longer, taking his hand away in favour of toutching her elbow bringing her closer, so much closer, her other hand flew to toutch his chest.

mirroring his actions at the diner, he placed his hand upon her cheek. "oh, im so glad" she said in a breathless whisper.

"you had no play in spreading the rumors, yes ?" her mouth oppened and closed, eyes and body growing uneasy "y-yes, how could i do something like that ? to you of all people" jace sucked in a hurried breath, cursing himself for almost ruining the moment.

he brought her closer, hand moving once again from elbow to back, possesive and supportive. his thumb began to caress her cheek, seeking retribution for his previous words. "ofcourse, ofcourse, you spilled your heart to me and i have gone and accused you."

"no, i understand." their faces were now only centimeters away, heavy breaths in tandem with eachother "there are many forces at play intending to keep us apart" jace continued. the words of daemon now but a whisper in his head, caution having flown from the window the moment she toutched him.

"do you give them any thought ?"

"i could not if i wanted to. you say you have longed for me since driftmark, my longing dates even further back. this force is pulling me toward you like the morning pulls the sun from its hiding and i fear if you were to be taken from me now, i would never see the light again"

and with that the water tipped over, his lips clashed against her. all the emotions pent up over the years releasing in a dance of mouths and tongue. her hands flew to his his hair, trying to express all of the things words could not.

slowly the princes pushed her leg between his, casuing him to step back, slowly tracing a path toward the bed. when he felt the foot of the bed on the back of his knees, he did not hesitate, hands snaking to her thigh, he lifted her slightly and fell back, ever so carefull to not hurt her or to break the kiss.

her nightgown did little to hide her form, now slowly falling off her shoulder, exposing her chest. his mouth left hers for the first time, only to trace a path down her neck. her hands pushing his face further into her, hungry for more.

his hands on her thighs moved further and further up, skirts riding up with them. her core now bare on his trousers, right where he needed her most, soft skin brushing up against hard fabric, sending pleasured pulses to both her bodies.

she started moving her hips shyly back and forth, head falling back, the mewls escaping her lips music to his ears. by now the arousal in his pants was evident, the friction from her movements doing little to aleviate his tension.

desperation was fogging his mind, movements going from passinate to hungry. sloppy open-mouthed kisses on her neck moving lower and lower, a silent prayer of devotion on her breast, all he could think hear and feel was her.

lost in eachother and the new sensations, they hearn naught og the comotion outside the rooms door.

without warning rhaenyra acompanied by the queen entered the room. the lovers were caught, once and for all, now bound together by duty. alicent began her scolding, rhaenyra agreeing with her and joining. jacaerys took no time in taking a protective stance, shielding the princesses face in his shoulder, raising her nightgown back on her shoulder, trying to maintain whatever semblance of was left to her name.

the princess awoke, in her own chambers sadly, the events of last night still ringing in her head. she could still feel the heat of jaces body on her face, waist and lower... she knew she ought to be ashamed, to order a carridge to the sept straight away and beg on her knees for forgiveness. yet she found no desire to do do.

satifaction filled her lungs with every breath. after alicent and rhaenyra had caught them, jace was dragged away by his mother, yet he accepted the consequences with a stiff lip and an air of pride. alicent still was clinging to her daughters innocence, refusing to accept the situation as anything but her poor daughter being manipulated.

when aemond heard of the news he attemptet to take some form of retribution, going as far as to propose a duel with jace in her honor. aegon had never looked so amused in his life, he only congradulated his twin saying "atleast you sampled the mount before you commited". her grandsire was, once again, the most composed figure of the evening, out of satisfaction of securing his blood on the throne, she thought. helaena had yet to learn of anything.

they had barely goten any sleep, counseling all night in search of an answer to the situation. only one was viable. after the green and black council debated, a clear course of action was set.

given the fact there was no chance of the princess being with child, they would release a statement announcing the betrothal of the crown prince jacaerys to the secondborn daughter of the king, reuniting the realm stated as the reason. the date of the wedding would be set in thee moons time, as not to arouse any suspicion. as for princess baela, negotiations for herbetrothal to lord cregan stark were already underway.

she walked to her vanity, lazily brushing her hair. the smile on the woman in the mirror looking back at her she had not seen in years. each movement of her wrist was excecuted with queenly grace. life had meaning once again.

she stayed there a while, pampering herself for she was a victor, when a certain tapestry on her wall came out of place.

in stepped none other than jacaerys velaryon. jace. her jace. her future husband.

"jace" she said, standing up. "you look... satisfied" began the prince, all shyness from the night before gone. "should i not be ?" teased she. jace remained silent, somewhat sullen, looking to her form, the morning light revealing to him just how transparent her nightgown was.

"i spoke with my mother last night, she revealed to me some new information" the princess tensed, afraid she was caught in her lies, afraid all of her effort was for naught. his composure as he advanced toward her did nothing to sooth her nerves. he began to circle her form, patiently awaiting an answer. "wh-what would that be, my prince ?"

he stopped behind her. was it the formality of the title that caused his pause ? or was it anger ? "she said, you wenr to her yesterday to plead your case for our betrothal. she said you almost begged, to be perscise"

he had not corrected her calling him her prince, leading her to the natural conclusion he was angry. "i-i apologise for not making you aware of such a fact last night. i hadnt the time to you see..." she craned her face back to look at him. begging with her eyes for some sort of reaction.

he looked down to her, something dark behind his brown eyes. "how do you explain such an action ?" he said, voice low and grainy.

there was little room of escape. she had to play her hand just right. "as i said, i hadnt the time to fully explain myself to you. it is true, i looked to rhaenyra to ask for your hand and.... the rumors were really not the reason but the excuse for my actions. i meant to... approach you, from before" he remained silent.

she made an attemt to turn around and face him, only to be prevented by his pressing himself to her back. "baela is of the oppinion wish to use me. both her and daemon said you mean to steal my mothers throne, to take from me what you want only to betray me. tell me it is not true." finally his true colors came to light. the darkness in his eyes was not born of malice but of desperation, of fear.

"please, you most not misunderstand my actions, i only meant to be with you, i have not lied, i woud never. my family knew nothing of it. i understand how this must come across but please, believe me, you must." her joice unashamedly betrayed her desperation to please him, he remained silent still only holding onto her tighter.

"what must i do to make you believe me ? i will beg on my knees if it please you just trust me..." his body relaxed just slightly, hands remaining on her stomach, clinging to her dress. he gave a long exhale.

"i believe you" it was her turn to sigh, runing her hands on his arms tracing lines over his toned forearms. "i believe, you are a cunning spider, who pounced on the opportunity to claim me for yourself." his hand ascended her stomach reaching the space just under her chest, playing with the ribbon tying adorning her gown. "i also believe your intelect to be so infatuating i cannot help but want you more..."

he pulled the end of the ribbon, her dres becoming looser. "tell the truth, did you stop to consider the possible consequences of your reckless actions once ?" his hand went higher, unbuttoning the top of her dress, torturously slow.

"i only thought of you, every step of the way." he continued his pursuit of unbuttoning her gown. "does this mean you accept my apology ?"

"yes my darling, you need beg no longer... besides, i would much prefer to see you on your knees for other purposes" with that, he spun her around, putting their lips together once again. only this time the kiss was less passionate and more possesive. they knew they were bound together forever.

her gown was barely hanging onto her body, jace shruged the sleeves off her shoulders, the gown pooling on her feet. he took a step back, breaking the kiss to look at her. look at her whole. he drank in the sight of her body like the sweetest of wines. "perfect" he muttered under his breath, but before the princess had a chance to reply, he took her into his arms, mouths clashing once again.

effortlessly he carried her to the bed, gently placing her head on the pillows, climbing on soon after. her hands reached to toutch his chest, tugging on his tunic, begging to have it removed. he complied, hastily unbuttoning it. the morning light illuminated his porcelain skin, showcasing his toned arms and chest.

his mouth descended upon her, continuing his previous actions. one leg on her side, the other nudged her legs apart, knee pressing onto her core. she moaned upon the contact earning a chuckle from jace. "you, are magnificent" he said innetween kisses. "my cunning girl"

the fabric on his knee got wetter by the second, dampness reaching the skin underneath. his hand traced a path from her side down to her navel, to her pelvis, finally to where she needed him most. he began his ministrations on her pearl, tracing slow circles, each one sending waves of ecstasy along her body, they reached her throat leading her to release a pleasured moan. "please keep quiet darling, i would hate to be interrupted yet again"

his fingers on her core went lower, seperating her slit, pressing onto her. "wh-what-" she whispered, trying desperately to hold back her moans "shhh, worry not my dear, i only mean to please"

"all i do, i do to please you, my love" with that his fingers penetrated her. sensing her incoming moan, jaces hand flew to her mouth, muffling her sounds, only for him to hear. his fingers began to move, setting a slow rythm, allowing her to get used to the foreign sensation.

it was as if he had studied her body for years, the reverance with which he treated her left a burning sensation in both her heart and core. he continued, slowly picking up his pace, settling into a new rythm, his thumb took to restarting the ministrations on her pearl. she felt a knot forming in her stomach, tesion on her chest becoming more and more and more...untill she felt she could go on no longer.

"j-jace..." she chocked out, "i know, i know darling..." he placed a tender kiss upon her forhead, "let go, its ok..." with that, the tension in her stomach exploded, pleasure enveloping her body, settling into her limbs. "thats my girl.."

how long she spent lost in the throws of ecstasy, she knew not, a fog of pleasure clouding her mind, leaving her to think only of jace. once she started to come out of it a bit, he slowly removed his fingers, earning him a whine at the loss of contact. he only chuckled.

she went to remove her lovers trousers but he prevented her movements, taking her hands and giving each of them a kiss instead.

"allow us to keep something to look forward to on the wedding night." he said, positioning himself next to her on the bed, placing her head to his chest, playing with her long silver hair. they stayed like that a while, simply enjoying the company of one another.

the princess spoke up, "what is on you your mind, my prince ?" he made an insulted face, placing a hand of his heart " do not call me that again, lest you want me to be cross with you." she chuckled, her happiness causing his heart to swell with pride, he was the reason behind her laugh "i am simply admiring my future wife"

she raised her torso to kiss him again, all soppy and sweet. "i do have one last question to ask." she fully raised her body, legs across his lap and head neeling on his shoulder. "please do, future husband"

"last i spoke with daemon, he was ready to go to war in the name of preventing our betrothal. yet this morning, he was all smiles and agreement, i know it was not the efforts of my mother alone. what did you do ?"

"i fear if i answer that, you may turn to cast me aside" she said, begining to leave little kisses and kitten licks onto his neck. he took her jaw into his hand, seperating it from his neck, moving her to look into his eyes "we are in this together now, fully, my love. i wish to know of my wifes nature for i know i will come to love it, i already have."

"well, if you insist... my ladys maid worked under the lord stark, her father is a steward, tasked with writting many of his lords official letters. she learned to writte in her fathers handwritting and well... a certain letter arrived, late last night, detailing the request of the lady baelas hand for his son cregan"

jacaerys gave a hearty laugh " and it really took affect ?"

"ofcourse it did. the lord of winterfell will not question the crowns words, they know better than to refuse an alliance with our house. by the time the source of the betrothal comes into question, we will be on our honeymoon and alia settled with her own lover in braavos"

she looked to his eyes attempting to find any disgust, anything that would show her she was unwanted by him aswell, yet jace only looked to her with love and admiration. "you truly are a marvel, my spider" he kissed her forhead one again, then her brow, her nose, finally her lips.

"i hate to be taken away from you, however...." he began, tearing his body from hers, seeking his discarded tunic. "we have a scheduled, promenade soon. your mother is taking all the steps necessary in making us look like a prim and proper couple" he began puting his tunic back on, the sight of his back muscles flexing giving the princess another rush of arousal.

she chuckled and changed her possition on the bed, stretching her body, intending to entice her lover back into joining her. he turned around to face her once last time, the heavenly sight of her bare body making him question just how important appearances actually were. "do not play games with me girl, i should hate to disapoint the queen again"

"i said nothing..."she teased. "you neednt say anything. one day you will be queen and you may torture our children in such a way, or any way you see fit" he added. she smiled so wide it illuminated every corner of the room. "whatever you say, my king" he looked back once again, on his attempt to exit.

"treasonous girl. goodbye, my queen"

[resplendent-ragamuffin]

I have encountered issues with JVP in the past in regards to not accommodating kashrut/shabbat observance (and wheelchairs), but previously hasn’t heard about the Mikvah thing. Do you have any sources I can refer to?

Oh boy. Oh boy oh boy oh boy. The noise I made when I saw this ask.

You are probably unaware but I have literally been working on a post on this topic since February. Bless you for asking me about it and giving me a reason to share it. Genuinely. I'm delighted.

Without further ado, now that I've finally finished:

On the JVP Mikveh BS

Some of you are no doubt aware of the Jewish Voice for Peace Mikveh Guide (on JVP’s website here, and here on the Wayback Machine in case that link breaks). You may have seen the post I reblogged about it, you may have seen the post about JVP in general on @is-the-thing-actually-Jewish, or you may have heard about it elsewhere. Or maybe you’ve somehow managed to avoid all knowledge of its existence. (God I wish that were me.) Even if you know about it, even if you’ve scanned through it, you probably haven’t taken the time to read it through properly.

I have.

God help me.

I was originally looking through it to help draft the @is-the-thing-actually-Jewish post back in February, but some terrible combination of horror, indignation, and probably masochism compelled me to do a close reading, so that I could write this analysis and share it with you, dear readers. For those of you who’ve never heard of a mikvah, for those of you who’ve immersed in one, for those of you who’ve studied it intensely—I give you this, the fruit of my suffering, so you too can understand why “Mikveh: A Purification Ritual for Personal and Collective Transformation,” written by Zohar Lev Cunningham and Rebekah Erev for Jewish Voice for Peace has got so many people up in arms.

Brace yourselves. It’s going to be a long journey.

First off, a disclaimer: When I say something is “required in Jewish law” or whatnot, I’m talking about in traditional practice / Torah-observant communities; what is often called “Orthodox.” There’s a wide range of Jewish practice, and what is required in frum (observant) Judaism may not be required in Reform Judaism, etc. Don’t at me.

Second note: I myself am Modern Orthodox, and come from that perspective. I’m also very much more on the rationalist side than the mysticism side of things. I did run this past people from other communities. Still, if I’ve missed or misrepresented something, it was my error and was not meant maliciously.

Third: I am not a rabbi. I am a nerd who likes explaining things and doing deep dives. Again, I may have made errors–please let me know if you spot any, and I’d be happy to discuss them.

Now then. Before we get into the text itself, let’s give some background.

WHAT IS THIS MIKVEH THING ANYWAY?

A mikveh (or mikvah, both they and I switch between spellings; plural mikva’ot) is a Jewish ritual bath, sometimes translated as an immersion pool. Some communities or organizations that run mikva’ot will have a single all-purpose all-purpose, some have separate human- and utensil-pools, and some have separate women’s and men’s pools. The majority of the water in a mikvah has to be “living waters,” i.e. naturally collected rather than from a tap or a bucket. Some natural bodies of water can also be used, such as the ocean and some rivers (ask your local rabbi). The construction is complicated and has extremely detailed requirements. Here’s an example of a modern mikvah:

(By Wikimedia Commons (ויקיגמדון) - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17373540)

Whoever is being dunked (the scientific term) has to be entirely immersed, and the water has to be in direct contact with all of them. That means no clothes, no makeup, no hair floating on the top of the water, no feet touching the floor, no clenched fists. You have to be completely clean as well, so no dirt is obstructing you from the water.

In essence, a person or thing is immersed in a mikvah to change their/its state from tameh (ritually “impure”) to tahor (ritually “pure”). I use quotes because “pure/impure” aren’t really good translations—they have value judgments that tameh/tahor don’t. There’s nothing wrong with being tameh, you aren’t lesser because you are tameh—it’s just a state one enters when one comes into contact with death and related concepts. (There are also different levels of both.) As a matter of fact, technically speaking even after going to a mikvah basically all people are tameh now—the tum’ah (“impurity,” sort of) that comes from contact with dead humans can only be removed by the Red Heifer offering (see Numbers 19), which we can’t do without the Temple. (Why I say “all” even if you’ve never been to a funeral is a much much longer tangent that I’ll spare you for now.) To quote one of my editors on this, mikvah is “about the natural oscillation between states of ritual purity and impurity. Men go to mikveh after having seminal emissions. Menstruating women go to mikveh on a monthly basis (emphasis added).” It’s just states of life.

In the days of the Temple, one had to be tahor to enter it (the Temple). Archaeologists have found a ton of ancient mikva’ot in Jerusalem that were presumably used by people visiting the Temple, which personally I think is extremely cool.

Nowadays, there are three main traditionally required uses for a mikvah. First, and most importantly, observant married women will go about once a month as part of their niddah (menstrual) cycle, part of practice known as Taharat HaMishpacha, or “Family ‘Purity,’” which at its root is a way to sanctify the relationship between spouses. Until she immerses, a wife and husband cannot resume relations. And not just sex—in some communities, they can’t sleep in the same bed or even have any physical contact at all.

The second use is for conversion—immersion is a central part of the conversion ceremony. One enters the water a gentile, and emerges a Jew.

The third usage is a bit different as it’s not for people. Tableware—plates, cups, etc.—made of certain materials have to be immersed before they can be used. This isn’t what the Guide is about, so I’m not going to go into that as much, but felt remiss if I didn’t mention it was a thing. If you want to know more, Chabad has an article on it here.

Aside from uses required by Jewish law, there is a strong tradition in some communities for men to go to the mikveh just before Yom Kippur, or sometimes every week before the Sabbath, to enter the holiday in as “pure” a state as possible these days. (The things they’re “purifying” from still made them tameh, it just matters less without the Temple.) There is also a strong custom to immerse before one’s wedding. Less traditional communities have also started using mikvah for other transitional moments, such as significant birthdays or remission from cancer. There has recently been an “open mikvah” movement, which “is committed to making mikveh accessible to Jews of all denominations, ages, genders, sexual orientations, and abilities (Rising Tide Network old website, “Why Open Mikvah”).”

To quote others:

No other religious establishment, structure or rite can affect the Jew in this way and, indeed, on such an essential level. —Rebbetzen Rivkah Slonim, Total Immersion, as quoted on Chabad.org

The mikveh is one of the most important parts of a Jewish community. —Kylie Ora Lobell, “What Is a Mikveh?” on Aish.com

How important? According to Rav Moshe Feinstein, one of the great American rabbis of the 20th century, one should build a mikveh before building a synagogue in a town that has neither, and even in a town where there is a mikveh but it’s an inconvenient distance away from the community (Igros Moshe: Choshen Mishpat Chelek 1 Siman 42).

A mikveh is more important than a synagogue.

I’d say that’s pretty important.

Tl;dr: A mikveh is the conduit through which a convert becomes a part of the Jewish people. It is traditionally used to sanctify the relationship between spouses. It was required for people to go to the Temple, back when we still had it. It is extremely central to Jewish practice.

So. What does JVP have to say about it?

THE JVP MIKVEH GUIDE

The document in question is titled “Mikveh: A Purification Ritual for Personal and Collective Transformation,” by Zohar Lev Cunningham and Rebekah Erev. I am largely going to quote directly from the text and then analyze and explain it.

Now let me be clear. I’m not trying to say the authors aren’t Jewish. I’m not saying they’re bad people, or that you should attack them. I am not intending any of this as an ad hominem attack. But given the contents of this document, I do think it is fair to call this appropriative, even if it is of their own culture—in the same way someone can have internalized racism, or twist feminism into being a TERF, I would argue that this is twisting Judaism into paganism. In fact, while I use “appropriation” throughout this document, an extremely useful term that’s been coined recently is “cultural expropriation”--essentially, appropriative actions done by rogue members of the community in question. One example of this would be the Kabbalah Centre in Los Angeles, which is the source of a lot of the Madonna-style “pop Kabbalah.” It was founded by an Orthodox Jewish couple, but it and its followers are widely criticized by most Jewish communities. In much the same way, the Guide is expropriation. 

We start off with a note from the authors.

Hello, Welcome to the Simple Mikveh Guide. This work comes out of many years of reclaiming and re-visioning mikveh. The intention of this guide is to acknowledge and give some context to what mikveh is, provide resources related to mainstream understanding of mikveh and also provide alternative mikveh ideas. Blessings for enjoyment of this wonderful, simple Jewish ritual! Zohar Lev Cunningham & Rebekah Erev

This is fairly normal, though “alternative mikveh ideas” is a bit odd to say. I also find “blessings for enjoyment” to be odd phrasing, somewhat reminiscent of the Wiccan “Blessed Be,” but it could be a typo.

The first main section is titled “Intro to Mikveh,” and begins as follows:

Mikveh is an ancient Jewish ritual practice of water immersion, traditionally used for cleansing, purification, and transformation. It's been conventionally used for conversion to Judaism, for brides, and for niddah, the practice of cleansing after menstruation.

This is relatively accurate, and credit where credit is due avoids making niddah out to be patriarchal BS. I do object slightly to “purify” as a translation without further explanation, as I went into above, and “cleansing” for similar reasons—it implies “dirtiness,’ which isn’t really what tum’ah is about. Also, though this is pretty minor, a bride going to the mikveh before her wedding is actually a part of the laws of niddah. I’d also note that they entirely leave out that it was important for going to the Temple in ancient times, though given this is published by JVP I’m not terribly surprised.

For Jews, water signifies the transformative moment from slavery in Egypt, through the parted Red Sea, and into freedom.

On the one hand, I suppose it’s not unreasonable to connect the Red Sea and mikveh, though I think I’d be more likely to hear it the other way around (i.e. “going through the sea was like the people immersing in a mikveh and being ‘cleansed,’ so to speak”). Though they were, rather importantly, not actually immersed in the water. However I don’t think I’d say water as a whole signifies the Splitting of the Sea. In fact, water imagery is more often used to signify the Torah, see for instance Bava Kamma 82a.

There is also a mystical connection to mikveh as a metaphor for the womb of the divine.

A mikveh being like a womb is also not uncommon. It’s found in the Reishis Chochmah (Shia’ar HaAhavah 11,58) and the writing of Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan (The Aryeh Kaplan Anthology, vol 2., p. 382; both as quoted in 50 Mikvahs That Shaped History, by Rabbi Ephraim Meth), see also “The Mikveh’s Significance in Traditional Conversion” by Rabbi Maurice Lamm on myjewishlearning. Filled with water, you float in it, you emerge a new being (at least for conversion); it’s not an absurd comparison to draw. I’m not sure I’ve found anything for the Womb of the Divine specifically, though. (Also, Divine should definitely be capitalized.)

Entering a mikveh is a transformative and healing experience and we have long wondered why it is not available to more people, including the significant trans and queer populations in Jewish communities.

So. I am NOT going to say there’s no problem with homophobia and/or transphobia in Jewish communities. It’s definitely a community issue, and many communities are grappling with it in various ways as we speak. And I’m certainly not going to say the authors didn’t have the experience of not having a mikveh available to them—I don’t know their lives, I’m not going to police their experiences.

However, while Orthodox mikvahs are often still restricted to married women (who by virtue of the community will generally be cis and married to men) and potentially adult men (given the resources and customs, as mentioned above), there are plenty of more liberal mikva’ot these days. Some even explicitly offer rituals for queer events! The list of reasons to go to the mikvah linked up above, for instance, includes:

(Mayyim Hayyim, “Immersion Ceremonies”)

Again, that’s not to say there aren’t issues of queerphobia in the Jewish community, but if you are queer and want to go to the mikvah, there are options out there. If you’re looking, I’ve included some links at the end.

When we make ritual, we are working with the divine forces of presence and intention. The magic of mikveh comes in making contact with water. Contact with water marks a threshold and functions as a portal to bring closer our ritual intention/the world to come.

This is…a weird way to put things. I would say this is the start of the red flags. “When we make ritual,” first of all, is, to quote @the-library-alcove (who helped edit this), “a turn of phrase that is not typically associated with any branch of Jewish practice; we have a lot--a LOT--of rituals, and while it's certainly not completely outside of the realm of Jewish vernacular, the tone here, especially in light of the later sections, starts veering towards the vernacular of neo-paganism.” One might say “make kiddush” (the blessing over wine on Shabbos and holidays) or “make motzi” (the blessing over bread), but not generally “make ritual.”

The next section is titled “Who Gets to Do Mikveh?” Their answer:

Everyone! Mikveh practice is available to all of us as a healing tool at any time.

The healing tool part isn’t the original purpose of mikveh, but there are some who have used it as a part of emotional recovery from something traumatic, by marking a new state of being free from whatever caused it, see for instance Mayyim Hayyim’s list linked above.

The “everyone” bit is a little more complicated. To explain why, we’re going to skip ahead a little. (Some of these quotes will also be analyzed in full later.)

We want to make mikveh practice available as a tool to all Jews and non-Jews who want to heal wounds caused by white supremacy and colonialism. [..] To us, a queer mikveh welcomes anyone, regardless of spiritual background or not. […] Queer mikveh is accessible physically and spiritually to any and all people who are curious about it. You don't have to be a practicing Jew to enter queer mikveh. You don't have to be Jewish. (pg. 2, emphasis added)

Now, I am told there are mikva’ot that allow non-Jews to immerse. I have yet to find them, so I don’t know what rituals they allow non-Jews to do. I also haven’t been able to find any resources on non-Jews being allowed to immerse. I have found quite a few that explicitly prohibit it. If there are any sources you know of, please send them to me! I’d love to see them! But so far everything I have come across has said that mikvah immersion is a closed practice that only Jews can participate in. (Technically, to quote the lovely @etz-ashashiot, any non-Jew can do mikvah…once. And they won’t be non-Jews when they emerge. There is also one very extreme edge-case, which is absolutely not mainstream knowledge or practice, and basically isn’t actually done. You can message me if you’re curious, but it’s really not relevant to this–and even in that case, it is preferable to use a natural mikvah rather than a man-made one.)

If there are any legitimate sources that allow non-Jews to do a mikvah ritual, I would assume said non-Jews would be required to be respectful about it. Unfortunately, this is how the paragraph we began with continues:

Who Gets to Do Mikveh? Everyone! Mikveh practice is available to all of us as a healing tool at any time. You don't need any credentials. Your own wisdom is all the power you need to be a Jewish ritual leader. (emphasis added)

This is where we really go off the rails. First of all, you need more than “wisdom” to lead a Jewish ritual. You need to actually know what you’re doing. You can’t just say “oh you know what I feel like the right thing to do for morning prayers is to pray to the sun, because God created the sun so the sun is worth worshiping, and this is a Jewish ritual I’m doing.” That’s just idolatry. Like straight up I stole that from a midrash (oral tradition) about how humanity went from speaking with God in the Garden of Eden to worshiping idols in the time of Noah (given here by Maimonides; note that it continues for a few paragraphs after the one this link sends you to).

Second of all, this is particularly bad given this guide is explicitly to Jews and non-Jews. As @daughter-of-stories put it when she was going over an earlier draft of this analysis, “they are saying that non-Jews can just declare themselves Jewish ritual leaders based on nothing but their own ‘wisdom.’”

I hope I don’t need to explain why that’s extremely bad and gross?

While we’re on the topic of non-Jews using a mikvah, let’s take a moment to address an accusation commonly mentioned alongside the mikvah guide: that JVP also encourages (or encouraged) self-conversion.

I have been unable to find a separate document where they explicitly said so, or an older version of this document that does. This leads me to believe that either a) the accusation came from a misreading of this document, or b) there was a previous document that contained it which has since been deleted but was not archived in the Wayback Machine. EITHER is possible.

Even in the case that there was no such document, however, I would point out that such a suggestion can be read–intentionally or not–as implicit in this document. This is a guide for mikvah use by both Jews and non-Jews, and includes an idea that non-Jews can perform Jewish rituals on their own without any guidance or even background knowledge, as quoted above. Why would a non-Jew, coming into Jewish practice with very little knowledge, go looking to perform a mikvah ritual?

I would wager that the most well-known purpose of immersing in a mikvah is for the purpose of conversion.

Nowhere in this guide is there any explicit statement that you can do a self-conversion, but it also doesn’t say anywhere that you can’t, or that doing so is an exception to “you don’t need any credentials” or “your own wisdom is all the power you need to be a Jewish ritual leader.” It may not be their intention, but the phrasing clearly leaves it as an option.

Even if this were from a source that one otherwise loved, this would be upsetting and disappointing. The amount of exposure this document is getting may be at least in part because it comes from JVP, but the distress and dismay would be there regardless. If there is further vitriol, it’s only because JVP is often considered a legitimate source by outsiders, if no one else–in other words, by the very people least likely to have the background to know that this document isn’t trustworthy. It’s like the difference between your cousin telling you “the Aztecs were abducted by aliens” versus a mainstream news program like Fox reporting it. Both are frustrating and wrong, but one has significantly more potential harm than the other, and therefore is more likely to get widespread criticism (even if you complain about your cousin online).

On the other hand, as one of my editors pointed out in a moment of dark humor, they do say you don’t have to be Jewish to lead a Jewish ritual, so perhaps that mitigates this issue slightly by taking away a motivation to convert in the first place.

Returning to our document:

We do mikvahs in lakes, rivers, bathtubs, showers, outside in the rain, from teacups, and in our imaginations.

At this point the rails are but a distant memory.

In case you’ve forgotten what I said about this at the beginning of this post (and honestly I wouldn’t blame you, we’re on pg. 9 in my draft of this), there are extremely strict rules about what qualifies as a mikvah. Maimonides’s Mishnah Torah, just about the most comprehensive codex of Jewish law, has eleven chapters on the topic of the mikvah (though that includes immersion in it as well as construction of it). I’m not going to make you read through it, but let’s go through the list in this sentence:

Lakes and rivers: you might be able to use a river or lake as a mikvah, but you need to check with your local rabbinical authority, because not all of them qualify. In general, the waters must gather together naturally, from an underground spring or rainwater. In the latter case, the waters must be stationary rather than flowing. A river that dries up in a drought can’t be used, for instance. (The ocean counts as a spring, for this purpose.)

Bathtubs and showers: No. A man-made mikveh must be built into the ground or as an essential part of a building, unlike most bathtubs, and contain of a minimum of 200 gallons of rainwater, gathered and siphoned in a very particular way so as not to let it legally become “groundwater.” Also, it needs to be something you can immerse in, which a shower is not.

Outside in the rain: No? How would you even do that?? What??

Teacups: Even if you were Thumblina or K’tonton (Jewish Tom Thumb), and could actually immerse your entire body in a teacup, it wouldn’t be a kosher mikvah as a mivkah can’t be portable.

In your imagination: Obviously not, what the heck are you even talking about

We will (unfortunately) be coming back to the teacup thing, but for now suffice it to say most of these are extremely Not A Thing.

Mikveh has been continually practiced since ancient Judaism. It is an offering of unbroken Jewish lineage that we have claimed/reclaimed as our own.

I find the use of “claimed/reclaimed” fascinating here, given this guide is explicitly for non-Jews—who, whether or not they are permitted to use a mikvah, certainly shouldn’t be claiming it as their own—as well as Jews. I find it particularly interesting given the lack of clarity of how much of JVP’s membership is actually Jewish and JVP’s history of encouraging non-Jewish members to post “as Jews.” Kind of telling on yourselves a bit, there.

(Once again, I’m not commenting on the authors themselves, but the organization they represent here and the audience they are speaking to/for.)

We want to make mikveh practice available as a tool to all Jews and non-Jews who want to heal wounds caused by white supremacy and colonialism. We want to make mikveh practice available for healing our bodies, spirits, and the earth.

Setting aside the “Jews and non-Jews” thing, since I talked about that earlier and this is already extremely long, I do want to highlight the end of the paragraph. While there are some modern uses of the mikvah to (sort of) heal the spirit, I haven’t heard of anyone using a mikvah to heal the body—as a general rule Jews don’t tend to do faith healing, though of course some sects are the exception. Healing the earth, however, is absolutely not a use of a mikvah. Mikvah rituals, as we’ve now mentioned several times, are about tahara of a person or an object, and require immersion. You can’t immerse the earth in a mikvah. The earth contains mikva’ot. Healing the earth with a mikvah is a very strange worship (IYKYK).

We acknowledge that not all beings have consistent access to water, including Palestinians.

This is a tragedy, no question. I don't mean to minimize that. However, it is also unrelated to the matter at hand. The Guide also doesn’t give any recommendations on how we can help improve water access, so this lip service is all you get.

A lack of water does not make mikveh practice inaccessible.

Yes, in fact, it does. Without a kosher mikvah of one variety or another one cannot do anything that requires a mikvah. That’s why building a kosher one is so important. I haven’t gone looking for it, but while I’m sure there’s lots (and lots and lots and lots) of Rabbinic responsa out there of what to do in drought situations, you definitely do need water in all but the most extreme cases. If you do not have water, AYLR (Ask Your Local Rabbi)--don’t do whatever this is.

The spirit of water can be present with us if we choose to call for water, so even when water is not physically available to us we can engage in mikveh practice.

This is just straight up avodah zarah (“strange worship,” i.e. idolatry) as far as I can tell. The “spirit of the water”? What? We’re not Babylonians worshiping Tiamat. What source is there for this? Is there a source??

Like all material resources, the ways water is or is not available to us is shaped by our geographic and social locations. The ways we relate to water, what we decide is clean, treyf (dirty), drinkable, bathable, how much we use, how much we save, varies depending on our experiences. We invite you to decide what is clean and holy for your own body and spiritual practice.

This is going to require some breaking down.

To start with, let’s define “treyf.” To quote myjewishlearning, “Treyf (sometimes spelled treif or treyfe) is a Yiddish word used for something that is not kosher [lit. "fit"]. The word treyf is derived from the Hebrew word treifah, which appears several times in the Bible and means 'flesh torn by beasts.' The Torah prohibits eating flesh torn by beasts, and so the word treifah came to stand in for all forbidden foods.”

You may note the lack of the word “dirty” in this definition, or any other value judgments. Myjewishlearning continues, “over time, the words kosher and treyf have been used colloquially beyond the world of food to describe anything that Jews deem fit or unfit.” While this does have something of a value judgment, it’s still not “dirty.” I can’t say why the authors chose to translate the word this way, but…I don’t like it.

Now, when it comes to what is kosher or treyf, food and drink are most certainly not based on “our experiences.” There are entire books on the rules of kashrut; it generally takes years of study to understand all the minutiae. Even as someone who was raised in a kosher household, when I worked as a mashgicha (kosher certification inspector) I needed special training. What is considered kadosh (“sacred” or “holy,”  though again that’s not a perfect translation) or tahor is also determined by very strict rules. We don’t just decide things based on “vibes.” That’s not how anything in Jewish practice works.

Water, in fact, is always kosher to drink unless it has bugs or something else treyf in it. And mikvehs aren’t even always what I’d consider “drinkable;” I always wash utensils I’ve brought to the mikvah before I use them.

We come to our next heading: What is Queer Mikveh?

What is Queer Mikveh? To us, a queer mikveh welcomes anyone, regardless of spiritual background or not.

As I’ve said above, I have yet to find a single source (seriously if you have one please send it to me) that says non-Jews can go to a mikvah. As one of my editors for this put it, “to spin appropriation of Jewish closed practices as ‘queer’ is not only icky but deeply disrespectful to actual queer Jews.”

Also, and this is not remotely the point, but “regardless of spiritual background or not” is almost incoherently poor writing.

As Jews in diaspora we want to share and use our ritual practices for healing the land and waters we are visitors on for the liberation of all beings.

I have tried to be semi-professional about this analysis, but. “Jews in the diaspora,” you say. Tell me, JVP, where are we in the diaspora from? Hm? Where are we in diaspora from? Which land do we come from? Which land are we indigenous to, JVP? Do tell.

Returning to the point, I would repeat that mikvah has nothing to do with “healing the land and waters.” It’s ritual purification of whatever is immersed in it. You want to heal the land and waters? Go to your local environmental group, and/or whoever maintains your local land and waters. Pick up trash. Start recycling. Weed invasive species. Call your government and tell them to support green energy. You want liberation for all beings? Fight bigotry—including antisemitism. Judaism believes in action—go act. Appropriating rituals from a closed religion doesn’t liberate anyone.

We have come up with this working definition and welcome feedback!

Oh good, maybe I won’t be yelled at for posting this (she said dubiously).

Queer mikveh is a ritual of Jews in diaspora. We believe the way we work for freedom for all beings is by using the gifts of our ancestors for the greatest good. We bring our rituals as gifts.

I have nothing in particular new to say about this, except that I find the idea of “bringing our rituals as gifts” for anyone to use deeply uncomfortable, given Judaism is a closed religion that strongly discourages non-Jews from joining us, and that has had literal millennia of people appropriating from us.

It acknowledges that our path is to live on lands that are not historically our peoples [sic] and we honor the Indigenous ancestors of the land we live on, doing mikveh as an anti-colonialist ritual for collective and personal liberation.

Again I would love so much for JVP to tell us which lands would historically be our people’s. What land do Jews come from, JVP? What land is it we do have a historical connection to? What land do our Indigenous ancestors come from??

And why does it have to be our path to live on lands other than that one?

Secondly, to quote the lovely @daughter-of-stories again when she was editing this, “Mikveh as anti-colonialism, aside from not being what Mikveh is, kinda implies that you can cleanse the land of the sins of colonialism. So (a) that’s just a weird bastardization of baptism since, mikveh isn’t about cleansing from sin, and (b) so does that mean the colonialism is erased? Now we don’t have to actually deal with how it affects actual indigenous people?”

I’m sure that (b) isn’t their intent, but I will say that once again they don’t give any material suggestions for how to actually liberate any collectives or persons from colonialism in this document, including any links to other pages on their own website*, which surely would have been easy enough. It comes across as very performative.

*I disagree strongly with most of their methods, but at least they are suggesting something.

Queer mikveh is a physical or spiritual space that uses the technologies of water and the Jewish practice of mikveh to mark transitions. Transition to be interpreted by individuals and individual ritual.

I have no idea what the “technologies of water” are. Also usage of a mikvah to mark transitions beyond ritual states is a fairly new innovation, as mentioned above.

Queer mikveh in it's [sic] essence honors the story of the water. The historical stories of the water we immerse in, the stories of our own bodies as water and the future story we vision [sic].

This just sounds like a pagan spinoff of baptism to me, if I’m being honest. Which would be non-Jewish in several ways.

Queer mikveh is accessible physically and spiritually to any and all people who are curious about it. You don't have to be a practicing Jew to enter queer mikveh. You don't have to be Jewish.

First off, once again whether or not non-Jews can use mikvah seems at best extremely iffy. Secondly, accessibility in mikva’ot is, as one of my editors put it, “a continual discussion.” We have records of discussions regarding access for those with physical disabilities going back at least to the 15th century (Shut Mahari Bruna, 106; as quoted in 50 Mikvahs That Shaped History by Rabbi Ephraim Meth), and in the modern era there are mikva’ot that have lifts or other accessibility aids. That said, many mikva’ot, especially older ones, are still not accessible–and many mikva’ot don’t have the money to retrofit or renovate. Mikvah.org’s directory listings (linked at the end of this) notes whether various mikva’ot are accessible, if you are looking for one in your area.  If you want to help make mikva’ot more accessible to the disabled, consider donating to an existing mikvah to help them pay for renovations or otherwise (respectfully) getting involved in the community. If you want to help make mikva’ot more accessible for non-Orthodox Jews, try donating to an open mikvah (see link to a map of Rising Tide members at the end of this essay) or other non-Orthodox mikvah.

Queer mikveh is an earth and water honoring ritual.

Not even a little. We do have (or had) rituals that honor the earth or water, at least to an extent–the Simchat Beit HaSho’evah (explanations here and here) was a celebration surrounding water; most of our holidays are harvest festivals to some extent or another; there are a large number of agricultural mitzvahs (though most can only be done in Israel, which I suppose wouldn’t work for JVP). (Note: mitzvahs are commandments and/or good deeds.) Even those, though, aren’t about the water or earth on their own, per se, but rather about honoring them as God’s gift to us. This description of mikvah sounds more Pagan or Wiccan–which is fine, but isn’t Jewish.

Queer mikveh exists whenever a queer person or queers gather to do mikveh. Every person is their own spiritual authority and has the power to create their own ritual for individual or collective healing.

Absolutely, anyone can create their own rituals for anything they want. But it probably won’t be a mikvah ritual, and it probably won’t be Jewish.

Do you know what it’s called when you make up your own ritual and claim that it’s actually a completely valid part of an established closed practice of which you aren’t part? (Remember—this document is aimed just as much at non-Jews as at Jews.)

It’s called appropriation.

With the next section, “Some Ideas for Mikveh Preparation,” we begin page three.

(Yes, we’re only on page three of seven. I’m so sorry.)

The most important part of mikveh preparation is setting an intention.

This isn’t entirely wrong, as you do have to have in mind the intention of fulfilling a mitzvah when you perform one.

Because mikveh is a ritual most used to mark transitions, you can frame your intention in that way.

To quote myself above, “usage of a mikvah to mark transitions beyond ritual states is a fairly new innovation.” I’d hardly say it is mostly used for marking transitions.

You can do journaling or talk with friends to connect with the Jewish month, Jewish holiday, Shabbat, the moon phase, and elements of the season that would support your intention.

If this were a guide for only Jews, or there was some sort of note saying this section was only for Jews, I would have less of a problem. But given neither is true, they are encouraging non-Jews to use the Jewish calendar for what is, from the rest of the descriptions in the Guide, a magical earth healing ritual.

This is 100% straight up appropriation.

The Jewish calendar is Jewish. Marking the new moon and creating a calendar was the first commandment given to us as a people, upon the exodus from Egypt. Nearly all our holidays are (aside from the harvest component, which is based on the Israeli agricultural seasons and required harvest offerings) based on specific parts of Jewish history. Passover celebrates the Exodus and our becoming a nation. Sukkot celebrates the Clouds of Glory that protected us in the desert. Shavuot celebrates being given the Torah.

According to some opinions, non-Jews literally aren’t allowed to keep Shabbat.

If you are a non-Jew and you are basing the collective earth healing ritual you have created under your own spiritual authority around Jewish holidays and calling it “mikvah,” you are appropriating Judaism.

Full stop.

This isn’t even taking into account the generally Pagan/witchy feel of the paragraph, with “moon phases” and “elements of the season.” Again, if you want to be a Pagan be a Pagan, but don’t call it Jewish.

Things only go further downhill with their next suggestion for preparation before you go to the mikvah.

Divination: A lot can be said about divination practices and Judaism.

There certainly is a lot to be said. First and foremost, there’s the fact that divination is forbidden in Judaism.

(Screenshot of Leviticus 19:26 from sefaria.org)

One method of divination they suggest is Tarot, which is a European method of cartomancy that seems to have begun somewhere in the 19th century, though the cards start showing up around the 15th. While early occultists tried to tie it to various older forms of mysticism, including Kabbalah, this was, to put it lightly, complete nonsense. (Disclaimer: this information comes from wikipedia; I’ve already spent so much time researching the mikvah stuff that I do not have the energy or interest to do a deep dive into the origin of Tarot. It isn’t Jewish, the rest is honestly just details.)

I have nothing against Tarot. I think it’s neat! The cards are often lovely! I have a couple of decks myself, and I use them for fun and card games. But divination via tarot is not Jewish. If I do any spreads, I make it very clear to anyone I’m doing it with that it is for fun and/or as a self-reflection tool, not as magic. Because that is extremely not allowed in Judaism.

The authors suggest a few decks to use, one of which is by one of the authors themselves. Another is “The Kabbalah Deck,” which—holy appropriation, Batman!

In case anyone is unaware, Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) is an extremely closed Jewish practice, even within Judaism. Traditionally it shouldn’t be studied by anyone who hasn’t already studied every other Jewish text (of which there are, I remind you, a lot), because it’s so easy to misinterpret. I mentioned this above briefly when explaining cultural expropriation. Pop Kabbalah (what Madonna does, what you see when they talk about “Ancient Kabbalistic Texts” on shows like Supernatural, the nonsense occultists and New-Agers like to say is “ancient Kabbalistic” whatever, it’s a wide span of appropriative BS) is gross, combining Kabbalah with Tarot is extremely gross. I’m not 100% sure, as the link in the pdf doesn’t work, but I believe they are referring to this deck by Edward Hoffman. For those of you who don’t want to click through, the Amazon description includes this:

(Screenshot from Amazon)

Returning to our text:

Another practice that's been used in Judaism for centuries is bibliomancy. You can use a book you find meaningful (or the Torah) and ask a question. Then, close your eyes, open the book to a page and place your finger down. Interpret the word or sentence you pointed at to help guide you to answer your question.

Bibliomancy with a chumash (Pentateuch) or tanach (Bible) in Jewish magic is kind of a thing, but the tradition of Jewish magic as a whole is very complicated and could be its own entirely different post. This one is already long enough. This usage of bibliomancy is clearly just appropriative new-age BS, though, especially given you can use “[any] book you find meaningful.”

Also, if you aren’t Jewish, please don’t use the Torah for ritual purposes unless you are doing it under very specific circumstances under the laws for B’nei Noach (“Children of Noah,” also called Righteous Gentiles; non-Jews who follow the 7 Noachide Laws).

Sit with your general intention or if you aren't sure, pose a question to the divination tool you are using. "What should be my intention for this mikveh?" "What needs transforming in my life?" "How can I transform my relationship with my body?"

As I hope I’ve made clear, there are very specific times when one uses a mikvah, even with more modern Open Mikvah rituals. You always know what your intention is well before going—to make yourself tahor, or mark a specific event. I’m not here to police how someone prepares mentally before they immerse—meditation is fine, even encouraged. But magic? Like this? That’s not a thing. And given the fact that divination specifically is not only discouraged but forbidden, this section in particular upset a lot of Jews who read it.

Those of us already upset by everything we’ve already covered were not comforted by how the Guide continues.

How to Prepare Physically For Mikveh: Some people like to think about entering the mikveh in the way their body was when they were born. By this we mean naked, without jewelry, with clean fingernails and brushed hair. This framing can be meaningful for many people.

We went into this at the beginning of this essay (about 6500 words ago), but this is in fact how Jewish law mandates one is required to immerse. This is certainly the case in most communities, whether you are immersing due to an obligation (as a married woman or a bride about to be married) or due to custom (as men in post-Temple practice) or due to non-traditional immersion (as someone coming out); wherever on the spectrum of observance one falls (as far as I could find). A mikvah isn’t a bath, it’s not about physical cleanliness—you must first thoroughly clean yourself, clip your nails, and brush your teeth. Nail polish and makeup are removed. There can’t be any barriers between you and the water. Most mikva’ot these days, particularly women’s mikva’ot, have preparation rooms so you can prep on site. When you immerse, you have to submerge completely—your hair can’t be floating above the water, your mouth can’t be pursed tightly, your hands can’t be clenched so the water can’t get to your palms. If you do it wrong, it doesn’t count and you have to do it again. It’s not a “framing,” it’s a ritual practice governed by ritual law.

We suggest you do mikveh in the way you feel comfortable for you and your experience.

This isn’t how this works. If you have a particularly extreme case, you can talk to a rabbi to see if there are any workarounds—for example, if excessive embarrassment would distract you from the ritual, you may be able to wear clothes that are loose enough that the water still makes contact with every millimeter of skin. But you need to consult with someone who knows the minutiae of the laws and requirements so you know if any exceptions or workarounds apply to you. That’s what a rabbi is for. That’s why they need to go to rabbinical school and get ordination. They have to study. That’s why you need to find a rabbi whose knowledge and personality you trust. For someone calling themselves a religious authority in Judaism to say “you can do whatever, no biggie” with such a critical ritual is…I’m not sure what the word I want is.

The idea is to feel vulnerable but also to claim your body as a powerful site of change that has the power to move us close to our now unrecognizable futures.

The idea is to bathe in the living waters and enter a state of taharah. Though that could be an idea you have in mind while you are doing it, I suppose. I could see at least one writer I know of saying something like this to specifically menstrual married (presumably cis) women performing Taharat HaMishpacha (family taharah, see above).

For some people, doing mikveh in drag will feel most vulnerable, with all your make-up and best attire.

Absolutely not a thing. As I said last paragraph, the goal isn’t to feel vulnerable or powerful or anything. It may feel vulnerable or powerful, but that is entirely besides the actual purpose of the ritual. What you get out of it on a personal emotional level has nothing to do with the religious goal of the religious practice.

And if you are wondering how one would submerge oneself in water in full drag, don’t worry, we’ll get there soon.

For some, wearing a cloth around your body until just before you dip is meaningful.

This is just how it’s usually done. Generally one is provided with a bathrobe, and one removes it before entering. You don’t just wander around the building naked. Or the beach, if you’re using the ocean.

If you were born intersex and your genitalia was changed without your consent, thinking about your body as perfect, however you were born, can be loving.

I’m not intersex, so I’m not going to comment on the specifics here. If you are and that’s meaningful to you, more power to you.

We enter a new section, at the top of page 4.

Where To Do Mikveh: There is much midrash around what constitutes a mikveh.

“Midrash” is not the word they want here. The midrash is the non-legal side of the oral tradition, often taking the form of allegory or parable. This is as opposed to the mishna, which is the halachic (legal) side of the oral tradition. They were both written down around the same time, but most midrashim (plural) are in their own books, rather than incorporated in the mishna.

There is, however, a great deal of rabbinic discussion, in the form of mishna, gemara, teshuvot (responsa), legal codices, and various other genres of Jewish writing. More properly this could have just said “there is much discussion around what constitutes a mikveh.”

Most mikvot currently exist in Orthodox synagogues[—]

This is perhaps a minor quibble, but I don’t know that I’d say they’re generally in synagogues. They are frequently associated with a local congregation, but are often in a separate building.

[—]but there is a growing movement to create more diverse and inclusive spaces for mikveh. Mayyim Hayyim is a wonderful resource with a physical body of water mikveh space. Immerse NYC is a newer organization training people of all genders to be mikveh guides. They also work to find gender inclusive spaces for people to do mikveh in NYC.

This is true! Mayyim Hayyim is a wonderful organization I’ve never heard anything bad about, and ImmerseNYC also seems like an excellent organization. Both also only allow Jews (in which group I am including in-process converts) to immerse.

The mikveh guides thing I didn’t explain above, so I’ll take a moment to do so here. Because the rules of immersion are so strict, and because it’s hard to tell if you are completely immersed when you are underwater, most mikva’ot have a guide helping you. Depending on the circumstance and the mikvah, and depending on the patron’s comfort, who and how they do their jobs can differ somewhat. For a woman immersing after niddah, it will usually be another woman who will hold up the towel or bathrobe for you while you get in the water, and will only look from behind it once you are immersed to make sure you are completely submerged. If you are converting, customs vary. Some communities require men to witness the immersion regardless of the convert’s gender, which is very much an ongoing discussion in those communities. Even in those cases, to my knowledge they will only look once the convert is in the water, and there will likely still be a female attendant if the convert is a woman. While there are negative experiences people have had, it is very much an intra-community issue. We’re working on it.

Mikveh can be done in a natural body of water.

Again, this is true, though not all bodies of water work, so AYLR (Ask Your Local Rabbi).

Some people are also making swimming pools holy places of mikveh.

We’ve already explained above why this is nonsense.

In the Mishneh (the book that makes commentary on the torah [sic]) there are arguments as to what constitutes a mikveh and how much water from a spring or well or rainwater must be present.

The main issue in this section is their definition of the Mishneh. As I explained above, the Mishna (same thing, transliteration is not an exact science) is the major compilation of the Oral Torah, the oral tradition that was written down by Rabbi Judah Ha-Nasi so it wouldn’t be lost in the face of exile and assimilation. It’s not so much a commentary on the (Written) Torah as an expansion of it to extrapolate the religious laws we follow. It’s certainly not “the book that makes commentary on the Torah.” We have literally hundreds of books of commentary. That’s probably underestimating. Jews have been around for a long time, and we have been analyzing and discussing the Torah for nearly as long. There are so many commentaries on the Torah.

The second issue is that while there are arguments in the Mishna and Gemara (the oral discussion on the Mishna that was written down even later), they do generally result in a final decision of some sort. Usually whichever side has the majority wins. Variations between communities are still very much a thing, and I can explain why in another post if people are interested, but there usually is a base agreement.

We are of the school that says you decide for yourself what works.

The phrasing they use here makes it sound as though that’s a legitimate opinion in the Mishnah. I cannot emphasize how much that is not the case. While I myself have not finished learning the entire Mishnah, I would be willing to wager a great deal that “whatever works for you” isn’t a stance on any legal matter there. That’s just not how it works. While some modern branches of Judaism may have that as a position, it is definitely not Mishnaic.

If you are concerned about Jewish law, the ocean is always a good choice. There are no conflicting arguments about the ocean as a mikveh. As the wise maggid Jhos Singer says in reference to the ocean, "It's [sic] becomes a mikveh when we call it a mikveh." Done.

(To clarify, I don’t know if that typo was carried over from the source of the original quote or not.)

This is true. However if you are concerned about Jewish law I would very much urge you to look to other sources than this one—be that your local rabbi or rebbetzen, the staff at your local mikvah, or a reliable website that actually goes into the proper requirements. If you want to use a mikveh according to Jewish law, please do not use this document as your guide.

We recognize immersion in water does not work for every body. Therefore, a guiding principle for where to do a mikveh is: do a mikveh in a place that is sacred to you. Your body is always holy and your body is made of mostly water. Later in this guide there is more information on mikveh with no immersion required.

I cannot emphasize how much I have never once heard this before. This, to me, reads like New Age nonsense. If you are unable to immerse in a mikvah, talk to your rabbi. Don’t do…whatever this is.

Our next section is a short one.

Who To Do it With: Do mikveh with people you feel comfortable with and supported by.

This is fine, though many mikva’ot (perhaps even most) will only allow one person to immerse at a time.

Do a solo mikveh and ask the earth body to be your witness.

With this, we return to the strange smattering of neo-Paganism. The “earth body” is not a thing. Yes, the Earth is called as a witness in the Bible at least once. It’s poetic. You also, unless you are converting, don’t actually need a witness anyway. A mikvah attendant or guide is there to help you—if you were somewhere without one, you could still immerse for niddah or various customary purposes.

Do mikveh with people who share some of your vision for collective healing.

As I’ve said before in this essay, collective healing is not the point of a mikvah. If you are Jewish and want to pray for healing, there are plenty of legitimate places for this–the Shemonah Esrei has a prayer for healing and a prayer where you can insert any personal prayers you want; there’s a communal prayer for healing after the Torah reading. You can give charity or recite a psalm or do a mitzvah with the person in mind. You can also just do a personal private prayer with any words you like, a la Hannah, or if you want pre-written words find an appropriate techinah (not the sesame stuff). If you want to work towards collective liberation, volunteer. Learn the laws of interpersonal mitzvot, like lashon hara (literally “evil speech,” mostly gossip or libel). Connect fighting oppression to loving your neighbor or the Passover seder. We have tons of places for this–mikvah isn’t one of them.

Next segment.

What To Bring to A Mikveh: 1. Intentions for the ritual for yourself and/or the collective.

See previous points on intention.

2. Items for the altar from your cultural background[…] (emphasis mine)

If I wasn’t appalled by the “immersing in makeup” or the “do divination first,” this would be the place that got me. This is wrong on so many levels.

One is not allowed to have an altar outside of The Temple in Jerusalem, the one we currently do not have. It’s an extremely big deal. One is not allowed to make sacrifices outside of the Temple. Period. This is emphasized again and again in the Torah and other texts. Even when we had a Temple, there were no altars in a mikvah.

And you certainly couldn’t offer anything in the Temple while naked, as one is required to be when immersing in the mikvah.

Even when we did bring offerings to altars (the Bronze Altar or the Gold Altar, both of which were in the Temple and which only qualified priests in a state of tahara could perform offerings on), the offerings were very specifically mandated, as per the Torah and those other texts. Even when non-Jews gave offerings (as did happen) they were required to comply. You couldn’t just bring any item from your cultural background. This is paganism, plain and simple.

Now, again, let me be clear: if you’re pagan, I have no problem with you. My problem is when one tries to take a sacred practice from a closed religion and try to co-opt it as one’s own. It’s a problem when someone who isn’t Native American decides to smudge their room with white sage, and it’s a problem when someone who isn’t Jewish tries to turn a mikvah into a pagan cleansing rite. And even if the person doing it is Jewish--I have an issue when it’s Messianics who were born Jewish, and I have an issue when it’s pagans who were born the same. Either way, whether you intend to or not, you are participating in appropriation or expropriation.

Which makes the line that follows this point so deeply ironic I can’t decide if I’m furious or heartbroken.

After suggesting that the reader (who may or may not be Jewish) bring items for an altar to a mikvah, the Guide asks:

[…] (please do not bring appropriated items from cultures that are not yours).

Which is simply just... beyond parody. To quote one of my editors, “This is quickly approaching the level of being a new definition for the Yiddish word 'Chutzpah,' which is traditionally defined as 'absurdist audacity' in line with 'Chutzpah is a man who brutally murders both of his parents and then pleads with the judge for leniency because he is now an orphan bereft of parental guidance.' If not for the involved nature of explaining the full context, I would submit this as a potential new illustrative example.”

The next suggestion of what to bring is

3. Warm clothes, towels, warm drinks

All these are reasonable enough, though most mikva’ot provide towels. Some also provide snacks, for while you are preparing. They may also not allow you to bring in outside food.

4. Your spirit of love, healing, and resistance

This, again, has nothing to do with mikvah. The only spirit of resistance in a mikvah is the fact that we continue to do it despite millennia of attempts to stop us. Additionally, to me at least “a spirit of love” feels very culturally-Christian.

Our next section is titled “How to Make Mikveh a Non-Zionist Ritual.”

Right off the bat, I have an issue with this concept. Putting aside for a moment whatever one may think of Zionism as a philosophy, my main problem here is that mikvah has nothing at all to do with Zionism. In Orthodoxy, at least, Jews who are against Zionism on religious grounds perform the mitzvah the same way passionately Zionist Jews do, with the same meanings and intentions behind it. It is performed the same way in Israel and out, and has been more or less the same for the last several thousand years. It is about ritual purification and sanctification of the mundane, no more and no less.

There is a word for saying anything and everything Jewish is actually about the modern Israel/Palestine conflict, simply because it’s Jewish.

That word is antisemitism.

How to Make Mikveh a Non-Zionist Ritual: Reject all colonial projects by learning about, naming & honoring, and materially supporting the communities indigenous to the land where you hold your mikveh. Name and thank the Indigenous people of the land you are going to do your mikveh on.

If you removed the “non-Zionist” description, this would be mostly unobjectionable. We should absolutely help indigenous communities. The framing of “reject all colonial projects” does seem to suggest that there is something colonial about the usual practice of going to the mikvah, though. I would argue that the mikvah is, in fact, anti-colonial if anything—it is the practice of a consistently oppressed minority ethno-religion which has kept it in practice despite the best efforts of multiple empires. Additionally, while Zionism means many different things to those who believe in it, at its root most Zionists (myself included) define it as “the belief that Jews have a right to self-determination in our indigenous homeland.” Our indigenous homeland being, of course, the land of Israel. (This is different from the State of Israel, which is the modern country on that land.) If you are a Jew in Israel, one of the indigenous peoples of the land your mikvah is on is your own. That’s not to say there aren’t others—but to claim Jews aren’t indigenous to the region is to be either misinformed or disingenuous.

Take the time to vision [sic] our world to come in which Palestine and all people are free.

I really, really dislike how they use the concept of The World To Come here. The Jewish idea of The World To Come (AKA the Messianic Age) is one where the Messiah has come, the Temple has been rebuilt, and the Davidic dynastic monarchy has been re-established in the land of Israel. Arguably that’s the most Zionist vision imaginable. This isn’t to say that all people, Palestinians included, won’t be free—true peace and harmony are also generally accepted features of the Messianic Age. But using the phrase in making something “non-Zionist” is, at the very least, in extremely poor taste. (As a side note, even religious non-Zionists believe in this–that’s actually why most of them are against the State of Israel, as they believe we can’t have sovereignty until the Messiah comes. They do generally believe we will eventually have sovereignty, just that now isn’t the time for it.)

Hold and explore this vision intimately as you prepare to immerse. What is one action you can take to bring this future world closer? Trust that your vision is collaborating with countless others doing this work.

Having a “vision” of a world where all are free isn’t doing any of the work to accomplish it. A “vision” can’t collaborate. At least not in Judaism. This sounds like one is trying to manifest the change through force of will, which is something directly out of the New Age faith movement, where it is known as “Creative Visualization.” Even when we do have a concept of bringing about something positive through an unrelated action–like saying psalms for someone who is sick–the idea is that you are doing a mitzvah on their behalf, to add to their merits counted in their favor. It’s not a form of magic or invocation of some mystical energy.

(Once again: I have nothing against pagans. But paganism is incompatible with Judaism. You can’t be both, any more than you can be Jewish and Christian.)

Use mikveh practice to ground into your contribution to the abundant work for liberation being done. We are many.

If you will once more pardon a brief switch to a casual tone:

Nothing says liberation like *checks notes* appropriating a minority cultural practice.

The next section of their document is titled “Ideas for Mikveh Ritual,” and this is where the Neo-Pagan and New Age influences of the authors truly shift from the background to the foreground.  

We start off deceptively reasonably.

Mikveh ritual is potentially very simple. Generally people consider a mikveh to be a full immersion in water, where you are floating in the water, not touching the bottom, with no part of the body above the surface (including the hair).

Technically, most people consider a mikveh to be a ritual bath (noun) in which one performs various Jewish ritual immersions. But if we set this aside as a typo, this is…fairly true. What they are describing is how one is supposed to perform the mitzvah of mikveh immersion. However, in much the same way I wouldn’t say “generally people consider baseball to be a game where you hit a ball with a bat and run around a diamond,” I wouldn’t say it’s a case of “generally people consider” so much as “this is what it is.”

This works for some people. It doesn't work for everyone and it doesn't work for all bodies. Because of this, mikveh ritual can be expanded outside of these traditional confines in exciting, creative ways.

Once again, if you are incapable of performing mikvah immersion in the proper manner, please go speak with a rabbi. Please do not follow this guide.

Before we continue, I would just like to assure you that. whatever “exciting, creative ways” you might be imagining the authors have come up with, this is so much worse.

Method One:

Sound Mikveh: One way that's felt very meaningful for many is a "sound mikveh." This can be a group of people toning, harmonizing, or chanting in a circle. One person at a time can be in the center of the circle and feel the vibrations of healing sound wash over their body. Another method of sound mikveh is to use a shofar or other instrument of your lineage to made [sic] sounds that reach a body of water and also wash over you.

This makes me so uncomfortable I barely have the words to describe it, and I know that I am not alone in this. This is not a mikvah. If someone wants to do some sort of sound-based healing ritual, by all means go ahead, but do not call it a mikvah. This is not Jewish. I don’t know what this is, aside from deeply offensive.

And leave that poor shofar out of this. That ram did not give his horn for this nonsense.

(I could go on about the actual sacred purpose of a shofar and all the rules and reasons behind it that expand upon this, but this is already over 9000 words.)

Method Two is, if anything, worse. This is the one, if you’ve seen social media posts about this topic, you have most likely seen people going nuts about.

Tea Cup Mikveh: Fill a special teacup. If you want, add flower essence, a small stone, or other special elements. Sing the teacup a sweet song, dance around it, cry in some tears, tell the cup a tender and hopeful story, hold the teacup above the body of your animal friend for extra blessing, balance it on your head to call in your highest self. Use the holy contents of this teacup to make contact with water.

This is absolutely 100% straight-up neo-pagan/New Age mysticism. Nothing about this is based on Jewish practice of any kind. Again, I’m at a loss for words of how to explain just how antithetical this is. If you want to be a witch, go ahead and be a witch. But do not call it Jewish. Leave Judaism out of this.

They end this suggestion with the cute comment,

Mikveh to go. We’ve always been people on the move.

Let me explain why this “fun” little comment fills me with rage. 

As you may recall, this document was published by Jewish Voice for Peace. Among their various other acts of promoting and justifying antisemitism, JVP has repeatedly engaged in historical revisionism regarding Jews and Jewish history. In this context, they have repeatedly ignored the numerous expulsions of Jews from various countries, and blaming sinister Zionist plots to explain any movement of expelled Jews to Israel (“In the early 1950s, starting two years after the Nakba, the Israeli government facilitated a mass immigration of Mizrahim,” from “Our Approach to Zionism” on the JVP website; see @is-the-thing-actually-jewish’s post on JVP and the posts linked from there).

So a document published by JVP framing Jewish movement as some form of free spirited 1970s-esque Bohemian lifestyle or the result of us being busy movers-and-shakers is a direct slap in the face to the persecution we’ve faced as a people and society.  No, we aren’t “on the move” because we’re hippies wandering where the wind takes us . We’re always on the move because we keep getting kicked out and/or hate-crimed until we leave.

But there is no Jew-hatred in Ba Sing Se.

Method three:

Fermentation Mikveh: Some food goes through natural changes by being immersed in water. If we eat that food, we can symbolically go through a change similar to the one the food went through.

Again, this has no basis anywhere in halacha. We do have concepts of “you are what you eat,” specifically with reference to what animals and birds are kosher, but there isn’t any food that makes you tahor if you eat it. In the Temple days there were, in fact, foods you couldn’t eat unless you were tahor.

Jews may like pickles, but that doesn’t mean we think they purify you.

Also, the change from fermentation is, if anything, the opposite of the change we would want. Leavening (rising in dough or batter, due to the fermentation of yeast) is compared in rabbinic writings to arrogance and ego, as opposed to the humility of matza, the “poor man’s bread” (see here, for example). Is the suggestion here to become more egotistical?

As we wrap up this section, I’d like to go back to their stated reason for using these “alternative” methods (“It doesn't work for everyone and it doesn't work for all bodies”), and ask: if these really were the only options for immersion, would these really fill that same spiritual need/niche? These obviously aren’t aimed at me, but from my perspective it seems almost condescending, almost worse. “You can’t do the real thing, so we’ll make up something to make you feel better.” If any of them had an actual basis in Jewish practice, that would be one thing, but this just feels…fake, to me. Even within more liberal / less traditional streams of Judaism, there is a connection to halacha: 

“We each (if we are knowledgeable about the tradition, if we confront it seriously and take its claims and its wisdom seriously) have the ability, the freedom, indeed the responsibility to come to a [potentially differing] personal understanding of what God wants us to do… [Halacha] is a record of how our people, in widely differing times, places and societal circumstances, experienced God's presence in their lives, and responded. Each aspect of halacha is a possible gateway to experience of the holy, the spiritual. Each aspect worked for some Jews, once upon a time, somewhere in our history. Each, therefore, has the potential to open up holiness for people in our time as well, and for me personally. However, each does not have equal claim on us, on me…Portions of the halacha whose main purpose seems to be to distance us from our surroundings no longer seem functional. Yet some parts of the halachic tradition seem perfect correctives to the imbalances of life in modernity…In those parts of tradition, we are sometimes blessed to experience a sense of God's closeness. In my personal life, I emphasize those areas. And other areas of halacha, I de-emphasize, or sometimes abandon. Reform Judaism affirms my right, our right, to make those kinds of choices.” – Rabbi Ramie Arian

“[Traditional Reconstructionist Jews] believe that moral and spiritual faculties are actualized best when the individual makes conscious choices…The individual’s choices, however, can and should not be made alone. Our ethical values and ritual propensities are shaped by the culture and community in which we live. Living a Jewish life, according to the Reconstructionist understanding, means belonging to the Jewish people as a whole and to a particular community of Jews, through which our views of life are shaped. Thus, while Reconstructionist communities are neither authoritarian nor coercive, they aspire to influence the individual’s ethical and ritual choices–through study of Jewish sources, through the sharing of values and experiences, and through the impact of the climate of communal opinion on the individual. …While we may share certain values and life situations, no two sets of circumstances are identical. We hope that the Reconstructionist process works to help people find the right answers for themselves, but we can only assist in helping individuals to ask the right questions so that their choices are made in an informed way within a Jewish context. To be true to ourselves we must understand the differences in perception between us and those who have gone before, while retaining a reverence for the traditions they fashioned. If we can juxtapose those things, we ensure that the past will have [in the phrase of Reconstructionism’s founder, Mordecai Kaplan,] a vote, but not a veto.” – Rabbi Jacob J. Straub (Note: the Reconstructionist movement was founded in the late 1920s, and has gone through a very large shift in the past decade or so. I use “Traditional” here to refer to the original version of the movement as opposed to those who have shifted. Both are still called Reconstructionist, so it’s a bit confusing. This is on the advice of one of my editors, who is themself Traditional Reconstructionist.)

You may note, neither of these talk about inventing things from whole cloth. To paraphrase one of my editors, “You don’t completely abandon [halacha], because if you did how would you have a cohesive community? Even in a ‘do what’s meaningful’ framework, you’re taking from the buffet, not bringing something to a potluck. Even if you don’t see halacha as binding, there are limits.”

(Again, disclaimer that the above knowledge of non-Orthodox movements comes from my editors, and any errors are mine.)

The next section is “Prayers for Mikveh.”

As a note, I’m going to censor the names of God when I quote actual blessings, as per traditional/Halachic practice. I’ll be putting brackets to indicate my alterations.

I’m not going to go much into detail here, because frankly my Hebrew isn’t good enough, and the six different people I asked for help gave me at least six different answers, but I will touch on it a bit.

First, the Guide gives a link to an article on Traditional Mikveh Blessings from Ritualwell (here is a link on the Wayback Machine, since the original requires you to make an account). Ritualwell is a Reconstructionist Jewish website, and accepts reviewed submissions. Here is their about page. The blessings on this page, as far as I know, are in fact exactly what it says on the tin. I’m not sure the first one, asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu al ha-t’vilah, is said for non-obligatory immersions (i.e. not for niddah or conversion), as it is literally a blessing on the commandment. The second blessing at that link is Shehecheyanu, which the Guide also suggests as a good prayer. This is the traditional form of the blessing, given at Ritualwell:

Baruch Atah Ado[-]nai Elo[k]eynu Melech Ha-Olam shehekheyanu v’kiyimanu v’higiyanu lazman hazeh.

Blessed are You, [LORD] our God, Monarch of the universe, Who has kept us alive and sustained us, and brought us to this season.

(As a quick note, you may notice this is not quite how they translate it on Ritualwell–I have no idea why they say “kept me alive,” as it’s definitely “us” in the Hebrew. There’s a long tradition, in fact, of praying for the community rather than ourselves as an individual, but that’s not the point of this post.)

The Guide, however, gives an alternate form:

B’rucha At y[-]a Elo[k]eynu Ruakh haolam shehekheyatnu v’kiyimatnu v’higiyatnu lazman hazeh. You are Blessed, Our God, Spirit of the World, who has kept us in life and sustained us, enabling us to reach this season.

Under the assumption that most of you don’t know Hebrew, I’m going to break this down further. The main difference between these two is grammatical gender–the traditional blessing uses masculine forms, which is common when referring to God. However, while there are often masculine descriptions of God, it is worth noting that Hashem is very specifically not a “man”--God is genderless and beyond our comprehension, and masculine is also used in Hebrew for neutral or unspecified gender. A whole discussion of gender and language is also beyond the scope of this post, but for now let’s leave it at: changing the gender for God in prayer is pretty common among less traditional Jews, and that’s fine. Some of the changes they make (or don’t make) here are interesting, though. The two letter name of God they switch to is–despite ending in a hey (the “h” letter)–not feminine grammatically feminine. I’m told, however, that some progressive circles consider it neutral because it “sounds feminine.” “Elo-keynu” is also grammatically masculine, but a) that’s used for neuter in Hebrew and b) it’s also technically plural, so maybe they didn’t feel the need to change it. Though if that’s the case I would also have thought that Ado-nai (the tetragrammaton) would be fine, as it’s also technically male in the same way. I’m also not sure why they didn’t just change ”Melech HaOlam” to “Malkah HaOlam,” which would be the feminine form of the original words, but perhaps they were avoiding language of monarchy. It’s apparently a not uncommon thing to change.

One of the responses I got said the vowels in the verbs were slightly off, but I can’t say much above that, for the reasons given at the beginning of this section.

Also, and this is comparatively minor, the capitalization in the transliteration is bizarre. They capitalize “At” (you) and “Elo[k]eynu” (our God), but not “y[-]a…” which is the actual name of God in the blessing and should definitely be capitalized if you are capitalizing.

The Guide next gives a second blessing that can be used:

B’rucha at shekhinah eloteinu ruach ha-olam asher kid-shanu bi-tevilah b’mayyim hayyim. Blessed are You, Shekhinah, Source of Life, Who blesses us by embracing us in living waters. -Adapted by Dori Midnight 

The main thing I want to note about this is that…that’s not an accurate translation. It completely skips the word “eloteinu.” “Ruach ha-olam” means “spirit/breath of the universe/world,” not “Source of Life,” which would be “M’kor Ha-Olam,” as mentioned above. “Kid-shanu,” as she transliterates it, means “has sanctified us,” or “has made us holy,” not “blesses us”--both the tense and the word are wrong. “Bi-tevilah” doesn’t mean “embracing us,” either, it means “with immersing.” In full, the translation should be:

“Blessed are You, Shekhinah, our God, Spirit of the World, Who has sanctified us with immersion in living waters.”

The Shekhinah is an aspect/name of God(dess), though not a Name to the same level as the ones that can’t be taken in vain. It refers to the hidden Presence of God(dess) in our world, and is the feminine aspect of God(dess), inasmuch as God(dess) has gendered aspects–remember, our God(dess) is One. It’s not an unreasonable Name to use if you are trying to make a prayer specifically feminine.

(Though do be careful if you see it used in a blessing in the wild, because Messianics use it to mean the holy ghost.)

“Eloteinu” is, grammatically, the feminine form of Elokeinu (according to the fluent speakers I asked, though again I got several responses).

It is, again, odd that they don’t capitalize transliterated names of God, though here there is more of an argument that it’s a stylistic choice, Hebrew not having capital letters.

The Guide then repeats the link for Ritualwell.

Finally, we come to the last section, “Resources and Our Sources:”

First, they credit the Kohenet Institute and two of its founders. I do not want to go on a deepdive into the Kohenet Institute also, as this is already long enough, but I suppose I should say a bit.

The Kohenet Institute was a “clergy ordination program, a sisterhood / siblinghood, and an organization working to change the face of Judaism. For 18 years, Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institutes founders, graduates and students reclaimed and innovated embodied, earth-based feminist Judaism, drawing from ways that women and other marginalized people led Jewish ritual across time and space” (Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute Homepage). It closed in 2023.

I have difficulty explaining my feelings about the Kohenet Institute. On the one hand, the people who founded it and were involved in it, I’m sure, were very invested in Judaism and very passionate in their belief. As with the authors of the Guide, I do not mean to attack them–I’m sure they’re lovely people.

On the other, I have trouble finding a basis for any of their practices, and most of what practices I do find trouble me–again, with the caveat that I am very much not into mysticism, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

Of the three founders, only one (Rabbi Jill Hammer) seems to have much in the way of scholarly background. Rabbi Hammer, who was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary (a perfectly respectable school), has at least one article where she quotes the New Testament and a Roman satirist making fun of a Jewish begger who interpret dreams for money as proof “that Jewish prophetesses existed in Roman times,” which to me at least seems like saying that the Roma have a tradition of seeresses based on racist caricatures of what they had to do to survive, if you’ll pardon the comparison. In the same article, she says that Sarah and Abigail, who are listed in the Talmud as prophetesses “are not actually prophetesses as I conceptualize them here,” (pg 106) but that “abolitionist Ernestine Rose, anarchist Emma Goldman, and feminist Betty Friedan stand in the prophetic tradition.” Given God says explicitly in the text, “Regarding all that Sarah tells you, listen to her voice” (Genesis 21:12), I have no idea where she gets this.

The second founder, Taya Mâ Shere, describes the Institute on her website as “spiritual leadership training for women & genderqueer folk embracing the Goddess in a Jewish context,” which to me is blatantly what I and some of my editors have taken to calling Jews For Lilith. Now, it is possible this is a typo. However assuming it is not, and it would be a weird typo to have, this rather clearly reads as “the Goddess” being something one is adding a Jewish context to–which is exactly what I mean when I say this guide is taking Paganism and sprinkling a little Judaism on it. If it had said “embracing Goddess in a Jewish context,” I’d have no problem (aside from weird phrasing)--but “the Goddess” is very much a “divine feminine neo-pagan” kind of thing. We don’t say “the God” in Judaism, or at least I’ve never heard anyone do so. We just say God (or Goddess), because there’s only the one. In fact, according to this article, she returned to Judaism from neo-Paganism, and “began to combine the Goddess-centered practices she had co-created in Philadelphia with what she was learning from teachers in the Jewish Renewal movement, applying her use of the term Goddess to Judaism’s deity.” The “Goddess-centered practices” and commune in Philadelphia are described earlier in the article as “influenced by Wiccan and Native American traditions, in ways that Shere now considers appropriative (“After Kohenet, Who Will Lead the Priestesses?” by Noah Phillips).” I’m not sure how it suddenly isn’t appropriative now, but taking the Pagan practices you were doing and now doing those exact same rituals “but Jewish” is, in fact, still Pagan.

Shere also sells “Divining Pleasure: An Oracle for SephErotic Liberation,” created by her and Bekah Starr, which is a “divination card deck and an Omer counter inviting you more deeply into your body, your pleasure and your devotion to collective liberation.”

I hate this.

I hate this so much.

For those who don’t know, the Omer is the period between the second day of Passover and the holiday of Shavuot, 50 days later. It’s named for the Omer offering that was given on Passover, and which started the count of seven weeks (and a day, the day being Shavuot). The Omer, or at least part of it, is also traditionally a period of mourning, much like the Three Weeks between the fasts of the 17th of Tammuz and the 9th of Av–we don’t have weddings, we don’t listen to live music, we don’t cut our hair. It commemorates (primarily) the deaths of 24,000 students of Rabbi Akiva in a plague (possibly a metaphor for persecution or the defeat of the Bar Kochba revolt). It is often used as a time for introspection and self-improvement, using seven of the Kabbalistic Sephirot as guides (each day of the week is given a Sephira, as is each week, so each day of the 49 is x of y, see here). It’s not, as Shere’s class “Sex and the Sephirot: A Pleasure Journey Through the Omer” puts it, a time to “engage…toward experiencing greater erotic presence, deepening our commitment to nourishing eros, and embracing ritual practices of…pleasure.”

The final of the founders, Shoshana Jedwab, seems to be primarily a musician. In her bio on her website, scholarship and teaching are almost afterthoughts. I can find nothing about her background or classes. She’s also, from what I’ve found, the creator of the “sound mikvah.”

So all in all, while I’m sure they’re lovely people, I find it difficult to believe that they are basing their Institute on actual practices, particularly given they apparently include worship of Ashera as an “authentic” Jewish practice, see the above Phillips article and this tumblr post.

The institute also lists classes they offered, which “were open to those across faith practices - no background in Judaism necessary.” If you scroll down the page, you will see one of these courses was titled “Sefer Yetzirah: Meditation, Magic, & the Cosmic Architecture.” Sefer Yetzirah, for those of you unaware, “is an ancient and foundational work of Jewish mysticism.”

You may recall my saying something some 5700 (yikes) words ago about Jewish mysticism (i.e. Kabbalah) being a closed practice.

You may see why I find the Kohenet Institute problematic.

I will grant, however, that I have not listened to their podcasts nor read their books, so it is possible they do have a basis for what they teach. From articles I’ve read, and what I’ve found on their websites, I am unconvinced.

Returning to our original document, the Guide next gives several links from Ritualwell, which I’ve already discussed above. After those, they give links to two actual mikvah organizations: Mayyim Hayyim and Immerse NYC. Both are reputable organizations, and are Open Mikvahs. Neither (at least based on their websites) seem to recommend any of the nonsense in this Guide. In fact, Mayyim Hayyim explicitly does not allow non-Jews to immerse (unless it’s to convert). ImmerseNYC has advice to create a ritual in an actually Jewish way. I would say the link to these two groups are, perhaps, the only worthwhile information in this Guide.

They then list a few “mikveh related projects,” two of which are by the writers. The first, Queer Mikveh Project, is by one of the authors, Rebekah Erev. The link they give is old and no longer works, but on Erev’s website there is information about the project. Much of the language is similar to that in this guide. The page also mentions a “mikvah” ritual done to protest the Dakota Access Pipeline, in which “the mikveh…[was] completely optional.” And, of course, there was an altar. The second project, the “Gay Bathhouse” by (I believe) the other author and Shelby Handler, is explicitly an art installation.

The final link is to this website (thanks to the tumblr anon who found it), which is the only source we’ve been able to find on Shekinah Ministries (aside from a LOT of Messianic BS from unrelated organizations of the same name). So good news–this isn’t a Messianic. Bad news, it also seems to have a shaky basis in actual Jewish practice at best. It is run by artist Reena Katz, aka Radiodress, whose MKV ritual is, like “Gay Bathhouse,” a performance project. As you can see from the pictures on Radiodress’s website (cw for non-sexual nudity and mention of bodily fluids), it is done in a clearly portable tub in a gallery. As part of the process, participants are invited to “add any material from their body,” including “spit, urine, ejaculate, menstrual blood,” “any medication, any hormones they might be taking,” and supplies Radiodress offers including something called “Malakh Shmundie,” “a healing tincture that translates to “angel pussy” made by performance artist Nomy Lamm” (quotes from “An Artist’s Ritual Bath for Trans and Queer Communities” by Caoimhe Morgan-Feir). The bath is also filled by hand, which is very much not in line with halacha. Which, if you’re doing performance art, is fine.

But this Guide is ostensibly for authentic Jewish religious practice.

And with that (aside from the acknowledgements, which I don’t feel the need to analyze), we are done. At last.

Thank you for reading this monster of a post. If you have made it this far, you and I are now Family. Grab a snack on your way out, you deserve it.

Further Reading and Resources:

https://www.mayyimhayyim.org/risingtide/members/

https://www.mikvah.org/directory

https://www.mayyimhayyim.org/

http://www.immersenyc.org/

https://aish.com/what-is-a-mikveh/

https://www.chabad.org/theJewishWoman/article_cdo/aid/1541/jewish/The-Mikvah.htm

https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/1230791/jewish/Immersion-of-Vessels-Tevilat-Keilim.htm

https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/why-immerse-in-the-mikveh/

Meth, Rabbi Ephraim. 50 Mikvahs That Shaped History. Feldheim Publishers, 2023.