#furious at her god that made her birth a child already long dead

[mintyspacecadet]

Mary and Her Little Lamb

In my medieval painter era

[damienthemortician]

Hi Night!! I was wondering... If you could tell me about the bones? (Vaughn) Some? Like how come he was born a bunch of bones? Does that mean he invented bones? :O I am very intrigued :O

I was laid there, in the fresh soil of this earth, gazing at the night sky. Newborn stars emerged from nebulae in a chaotic pattern, stringing together the lace of the cosmos. I never questioned who I was, where I was, or what I came from, I was cradled by dirt, dead from the moment I was born. A light turned to look at me, more complex than any star I watched, it had a face of swirling patterns and a gaze that of a new parent, lovingly looking at their child, I was loved, and the light put their hands to my face, and told me my purpose. A god was born that day.

^ The poem I wrote about Vaughn's "birth", which yeah he was basically poofed into existence as a bunch of bones, giant ones at that as his bassinet was the face of a hill, consider it a godly stillbirth as he was only allowed life again by divine intervention and a higher power giving him life and his purpose as a god of war.

Medical grade yapping under the cut

A lot of Vaughn's iconography is that of a parental figure or the absence and memory of one, he is formally called the Warfather and sees the vampires he made as his children, which vampires in his world are created via a person A dying without a proper burial, B dying with a lot of hatred from those around them, warranted or unwarranted, or C dying by their own hand or the hand of a lover's to become a vampire.

Vaughn essentially represents those who are led down dark paths due to not being nurtured as a child and having to find family in others not of their blood, as well as soldiers who have no other home than the battlefield due to how much war changes a person, and the ones who do die in battle Vaughn takes care of their souls as the family is left to grieve.

As for his relationship with other gods, Vaughn had a bit of a thing for the Sun (eh the goddess representative) when humanity was still forming and Vaughn's nature had yet to truly manifest, he enjoyed arguing with her and watching primitive life wage small wars. But the straw that broke their already weak relationship came during the dark ages of humanity. A nun that had long turned away from her god was ousted in front of her village, she had been deflowering the would be husbands of other women and breaking up many loving marriages, she was tried and hung, the village folk not even bothering with a burial as they cast her body to the woods for the animals to have at. Vaughn took interest in her corpse, letting her have one more chance to wreak havoc, a creature of the night that sucks the essence from the living as payment for the disrespect they received in life. The Sun was furious with him, breaking off their relationship* and damning any vampires to burn to ash in her light, and that is how it has been for centuries, with some revisions and exceptions as time has passed and the surviving vampires have aged.

*Yeah no they still get together from time to time, I mean the Sun absolutely hates Vaughn but he's also a freak so it works out

Vaughn also has a divine daughter, in that he cursed the bloodline of a Sun worshiping family to eventually produce an incarnation of himself, or a "vision" as it's come to be called. Sariel was the daughter of a renowned and skilled vampire hunter, but the dark and grim called to her, the stories of demonic creatures that tempted the good from the dark, only intrigued her. She was a fighter growing up, sparring with children her age and always reigning victorious, eventually she managed to overpower her own father in a fight, and then offered to hunt with him, but she had other ideas, a soft voice in the dark would speak to her on evening walks, cold hands with no pulse would become laced with hers, and Sariel would find love with a vampire woman. Sariel's father would wake to find her missing, and a visit to a Sun worshiping kingdom would have him met with the tragedy of a priestess killed in cold blood, no clues but the signs of struggle, and deep punctures in the priestess' neck. Sariel would begin her adventures, now Valkyrie, newly initiated as a vampire with her lover, and the divine child of Vaughn.

As for the other three apocalypse gods, I'khira is the god of famine, The Starved God, and for the time being he and Vaughn have a small thing between them too, but there's not much detail to what they have. Erebus is the god(ess) of death, Lady Silence, and she doesn't ever take sides in what is essentially a divine high school drama, she's less a harbinger of death and more the act itself of death, leaving the souls and judgement of those souls to their respective gods. Ysenia is the god of pestilence, The Mooncalf God, and its birth could be a story of its own as its technically a child of the Sun in that it was a defect sprout when plants were still forming, but it and Vaughn almost see each other as siblings, as illness and health often battle much like opposing armies, but Ysenia does its own thing and isn't interested in love or companionship, since not much to love in a mass of infectious creatures, diseased plant matter and cancerous human tissue yknow?

Erebus (first two), Ysenia (left) and Valkyrie (right) I have yet to draw I'khira because I don't know how best to portray him

[holdmytesseract]

Glorious Purpose - Part Five

Loki Laufeyson x fem!Reader

Summary: You dare one last attempt to convince Odin to let Loki go. Will you be successful or not?

Warnings: pregnancy, some angst, Odin being still quite an arse

Word Count: 1,4k

a/n: The last Part is here... For now. Maybe I've got another idea brewing in my mind for them... But we'll see! ;) Nevertheless, I hope you guys enjoy this Part! :D

Tagging: @speedy-object-dream @megzdoodle @chantsdemarins @johnmurphys-sass @lokisgoodgirl

Links to the other Parts:

Glorious Purpose - Part One

Glorious Purpose - Part Two

Glorious Purpose - Part Three

Glorious Purpose - Part Four

"Allfather, please..." I was almost on my knees by now, begging the mighty man, sitting on his golden throne in front of me. "Please listen to what I have to say." I saw how Odin took a deep breath. He was visibly annoyed by my sheer presence. Well… I somehow couldn't blame him. I spent the lot of my time in the throne room, begging him to spare Loki from his fate. Unfortunately, it didn't help mine or Loki's situation that Odin found out about my little trip to Loki's cell a week ago. He had been furious. So furious, that I was surprised that I was still alive... It didn't keep me from fighting for Loki, though.

"Speak." I bowed my head. "Thank you, Allfather." I may have been desperate and controlled by my feelings - and probably also my hormones, but that didn't mean I lost all my good manners. "It wasn't Loki's fault. He never intended to hurt these people or to destroy the-" Odin sighed, interrupting me. "I heard that before. This argument has long since lost its meaning." I hated that he didn't even let me speak. I was the wife of his son; the mother of his grandchild and he seemingly didn't care at all. "He was manipulated a-and brainwashed by this mad titan! Thanos forced him to attack New York! Thanos forced him to claim Midgard as his throne!" Odin looked at me scrutinizing, his gaze boring into mine. I couldn't tell by the look on his face, what was going through his mind. "My son got manipulated and brainwashed you say?" This was the first moment, I thought that maybe, maybe Odin's mind could be actually changed. I nodded quickly. "Yes, Allfather." I heard, how the mighty God above me took a deep breath, before he leaned slightly forward in his throne. "And do you have any proof of that, my child?" I swallowed hard. And there went my confidence again. "No..." I whispered. "I haven't." "So, you await from me to just believe you?" Once again, I nodded, was already on the verge of crying. "I beg you, Allfather." What should I do more? I was already on my knees. I couldn’t sink any deeper. "I understand your intentions; know, that I always did. You want to fight for my son - how it should be..." Odin paused, looked me once again dead in the eye. "But I won't change my mind. This might be very tragic and I am sorry that my son isn't able to witness your pregnancy and the birth of his child, but he brought this upon himself. Manipulated or not... He made his choice - and so did I." That was the moment, the world caved in on me once again. I had been so full of hope; thought that maybe this would assuage the Allfather - but oh, Norns… I had never been so wrong before. I felt how my eyes spilled over with tears; the hot liquid running down my cheeks. "So... This is your last word? Loki won't be released? He is going to miss the rest of my pregnancy and the birth of his child?" The Allfather's expression was still stoically. He kept a straight face, but I could literally hear the gears turning in his head. "You may visit him as often as you like, but nothing more. This is my last word. You may leave now." I nodded, "T-Thank you, Allfather." and curtsied, before I left the throne room again on wobbly legs. I didn't know what to think about this. Yes, Odin allowed me at least to see and visit Loki whenever I desired, but nevertheless... It wasn't fair. Our daughter shouldn't visit her father in the dungeons...

I went back to mine and Loki's chambers to gather my coat, which I threw over my shoulders, before I made my way down to the dungeons. I needed to talk to Loki. The way to the dungeons was long, but in the end, I reached my destination. Two guards were positioned in front of the entrance. "Princess Y/N... What brings you here?" Asked the taller one. "I want to visit my husband. Odin allowed it." The two men looked at each other sceptical. "It's the truth, I promise. But I understand that you don't trust me. If I am lying and you are facing Odin's wrath because you let me pass, then I promise I am going to take the blame." The guards exchanged another look, before the taller one sighed. "Alright. We let you pass." They stepped aside, letting me through. "Thank you." I went down the staircase of the coldest and darkest place in the palace. Freezing, I pulled my coat closer against my body to provide myself some warmth. And it wasn't just my body, who didn't like the cold... I felt how the baby moved around inside me, seemingly trying to protest. "I know, my love. I am sorry." I whispered, running a hand over my clothed baby bump. "Does it make you feel better, when I tell you, that you are about to hear your father speak?" The movements inside my belly ceased once again. "I take that as a yes..."

I was lucky that I remembered the way to Loki's cell and could go to him on my own. I passed by another guard on my way, to whom I explained my presence as well. When I reached Loki's cell, I noticed that he was standing, hands folded behind his back. He seemed to be deeply in thoughts. "Loki..." I tried to get his attention and saw, how his back tensed, before he turned around to face me. "Y/N..." I smiled at him, softly nodding. "I talked with your father." Loki's eyebrows lifted, eyes glimmering with hope. "What did he say?" As fast as my smile came, as fast was it gone again. I swallowed, before I shook merely my head. Loki avoided his gaze and squeezed his eyes shut tightly. "I am so sorry." I whispered softly. My eyes didn't leave Loki, causing me to notice how he clenched his hands into fists. That was the moment I knew I needed to get inside the cell. Luckily was the patrolling guard just passing us by. He was sceptical at first, but I assured him that it was okay and that Odin agreed to this - what wasn't a lie.

"Lokes..." I reached for his hand, intertwining it with mine. "Why did I even believe for one second that Odin could change his mind?" He shook his head. "How foolish of me..." "No, Loki." I shook my head as well and gave his hand a squeeze. "I believed in it as well. I never stopped believing." Loki looked at me again with troubled oceanic blue eyes. "And what now? Am I damned to wait every night for Thor to smuggle you back inside her? Am I damned to hear from a guard that my daughter is born? Will this be how it goes?" Loki sounded more than desperate. "I couldn't change the Allfather's mind, but... He allowed me to visit you whenever I desire." The expression on Loki's face softened. "Really?" He gasped. I nodded quickly and let go of his hand to wrap both my arms around his neck. "Yes. I know it's not much, but... It is at least something." Tears started to build up in the eyes of my husband. "I can see you, Y/N... That's all that counts. I don't care if I am locked inside her, as long as I can see you and make sure you are safe and sound." His words made me cry as well, of course. "But especially..." Loki leaned his forehead against mine and brought his hands up to cup the bump which was our daughter. "I can watch our sweet girl grow." He choked out, smiling. "And who knows... Perhaps Odin lets me witness her birth as well - but we'll see about that. For now, I just want to be with you." I smiled through the tears; couldn't contain my happiness about the mere fact, that I was able to just be with him any longer. I buried my hands in his raven locks and pulled him down for an earth-shattering kiss.

Life wasn't fair, yes - but love was, and maybe Loki and my love would find a way.

[bitsandbobsofwriting]

Twin!AU Part 2:

Gwaine is ecstatic to find that he’s technically dating Royalty (Arthur still isn’t best pleased), and Merlin begins to recover his true heritage.

Part 1   Part 3

Gwaine stares at the two of them open-mouthed from where he sits on the edge of the bed.

Re-telling the story had re-ignited Merlin and Arthur’s anger, but they do a good job of keeping it in as Gwaine tries to process that his partner and The Prince of Camelot are... twins. Gods this sounds like something out of one of Leon’s ridiculous fiction books: long lost royal twins and insane Kings and emotional reunions with long-dead, ghostly relatives. But to be fair, Gwaine has found that in all of his travels, Camelot has definitely been the weirdest place he’s ever been. Or perhaps it’s just the people.

He finally shuts his mouth, nodding slowly as he takes a deep breath and stands. He wipes his sweaty hands down his trousers briefly before stepping forward and pulling Merlin into a hug, making pointed eye-contact with Arthur over his shoulder. The only thing that Gwaine and Arthur had ever agreed on was that Merlin’s safety was of the upmost importance; this whole ordeal had just strengthened that agreement:

“That’s... you guys have had one hell of a day, huh? You said Gaius, and your mo- Hunith, and that bloody Dragon knew?”

Merlin tenses in his arms before pulling away, and Arthur’s expression turns stormy once more as he nods. Gwaine frowns, keeping one hand on Merlin’s shoulder as the servant (Prince?) responds bitterly:

“Hmm. We haven’t spoken to Kilgharrah or Hunith yet, but they’ll be getting a bloody mouthful from me, when we get time.”

Gwaine nods sympathetically, muttering his reply more to himself than the others:

“...Bastards.”

Arthur nods, but takes a deep breath as he puts his own hand on Merlin’s other shoulder:

“Agreed, but we’ve been gone too long; Leon’s been dealing with the council for at least half an hour and we need to go explain things sooner rather than later. News of my- The King’s arrest will spread like wildfire once it gets out.”

Merlin sighs, sagging slightly where he stands, and Gwaine steps even closer to him, moving his arm to be over his shoulder in a side-hug:

“Hey, I’m sure Arthur and Leon can deal with this if you’d rather hide out in here for a little peace. We could always set Morgana loose on the council, she’s bound to whip them into shape.”

(Yes, this fic is ignoring the timeline both in terms of the knights AND Morgana. She knows about Merlin’s magic, and Merlin, Arthur, and Gwaine (and Lance) know about hers.)

Merlin lets out a quiet huff of laughter, leaning into Gwaine’s side slightly as he looks up:

“No, I can’t. Arthur’s right, we need to sort this out sooner rather than later. I’d be perfectly content to not tell anyone about who I really am-”

Gwaine raises an eyebrow and Arthur narrows his eyes, ready to protest, but is interrupted by Merlin’s loud continuation before he can say anything:

“-but I know neither of you will let me get away with that so... here we are.”

Arthur nods decisively and Gwaine hides a grin, clearly thinking about how he’s technically courting a Prince. Arthur rolls his eyes at Gwaine’s expression, a small part of him cursing himself for letting the drunkard stay in Camelot, but the rest of him is grateful, knowing that Merlin needed more than Arthur on his side, especially now he had lost, or partially lost, Gaius, Kilgharrah, and Hunith.

The blonde Prince lets out a deep sigh, looking towards the door despondently as he decides that they really can’t leave Leon to fend for himself any longer. The three of them make their way from the room wordlessly, but Arthur halts the group again at the end of the corridor, turning to Gwaine with a thoughtful frown:

“Go find Elyan, Percival, Lancelot, Morgana, and Gwen. Gaius is a member of the council so he should already be there but double check he isn’t in his chambers, and Leon may have fetched Morgana himself, but I don’t know.”

Gwaine turns to look at Merlin and speaks quietly:

“What should I tell them?”

Merlin’s frown deepens and he glances at Arthur, but he just shrugs slightly, giving the choice to Merlin:

“They’ll all find out in the meeting anyway, so it might be best to pre-warn them so they aren’t blind-sided. Tell them the truth, I was born with magic, and am Arthur’s long lost twin brother, confirmed by Igraine’s ghost and then Gaius.”

He looks bewildered as he says it, almost as though he doesn’t fully believe it quite yet; Arthur nods in agreement and continues his instructions to Gwaine:

“Have everyone meet us there as soon as possible, I want to get this sorted now and I’m going to need as many people on my side as I can get.”

Gwaine nods seriously, pressing a brief kiss against Merlin’s forehead before rushing off in the other direction, hurriedly knocking on the knights’ doors down the corridor as Merlin and Arthur turn the corner.

They make quick work of the journey back through the castle, stopping just outside the doors to the Throne Room with sweaty palms and shivering lungs. The two of them listen to the annoyed sounding murmurs coming from inside for a few moments and the guards try not to give them odd looks as Arthur glances to Merlin—stood at his side instead of behind him—with a fond, though nervous smile. He puts his hand on the other man’s shoulder:

“We’re about to cause one hell of an argument, you ready?”

Merlin takes a deep, calming breath, smiling briefly as he hears Leon pleading with the council to be patient for just a little longer, looking to Arthur with anxious eyes and pale cheeks:

“Yeah. Come on, I think Leon might hurl himself from the window if we make him wait much longer.”

Arthur chuckles quietly, and the guards quickly divert their gazes when he looks back to the doors, taking one last fortifying lungful before walking forward and pushing them open with a bang, Merlin at his side.

The room goes suddenly quiet and Leon visibly relaxes when they walk in, bowing briefly before stepping aside and allowing Arthur to take his place in front of the thrones. There is no table in the Throne Room, so the council stand gathered in the middle, staring up at Arthur incredulously as he runs a hand down the arm of The King’s throne absent-mindedly. He was grateful to see Gaius present, despite not being in any sort of mood to talk to the man; he holds a smirk in when he sees several of the councilmen raise eyebrows at Merlin, still stood at his side when he technically shouldn’t even be in the room. There was even further incredulity as Sir Leon moves to stand guard behind him, as opposed to The Prince.

One of the Lords nearer the front of the small crowd finally breaks the tense silence:

“My Lord, what is the meaning of this? We were told it was an emergency, that we were meeting in the Throne Room as opposed to the council room, and were then made to wait for almost a candle-mark. The King has yet to arrive, what is going on?

Arthur turns to look at them with a raised eyebrow, back straight and face impassive:

“Patience, Lord Angar, The King will not be joining us, though we are waiting for a few more-”

The doors open before he finishes and every head turns to see the remaining knights, Gwen, and Lady Morgana enter, led by a serious looking Gwaine. All of them give Merlin a small smile and a bewildered nod, bar Morgana, who looks nothing short of furious as she moves to stand protectively at his side, glaring at any councilman who dares to look their way. The knights spread out, standing to attention with hands on their swords around the edge of the room, whilst Gwen moves to stand against the wall behind Morgana, Merlin, and Leon. Only Gwaine, Leon, and Lancelot are in full armour, but all the knights are armed and angry looking.

The councilmen, looking more confused and annoyed, look back to a still impassive Arthur. He fixes a short glare on each and every one of them before turning to face them properly and speaking confidently, his tone inviting no argument:

“The King has been arrested and confined to his chambers for the murder of the late Queen, and gross crimes against the Kingdom.-”

The room immediately explodes into angry and incredulous yelling, and Merlin flinches away from the sudden noise. Morgana squeezes his wrist comfortingly, knowing that it was only going to get worse when the rest of the truth is revealed, and Leon steps out from behind him, moving to be at his side with his sword halfway out of it’s sheath.

The other knights and Gwen all tense in place and Gwaine has to resist the urge to run to Merlin, knowing that the council’s disdain for both him personally and his courtship with Merlin would just make things worse. Arthur rolls his eyes at the cacophony of noise and slams the metal part of his gauntlet against the arm of the throne with a bang:

“ENOUGH! You’ll find, gentlemen, that remaining calm and quiet will make this conversation much easier.-”

He glowers at everyone until the hall is drowning in another tense silence before taking a deep breath, forcing himself to keep his hands from fidgeting as he continues:

“-It has come to my attention, through the Witch Morgause-”

A few murmurs of dissent go around the room, but they quickly cease when even the ever-calm Sir Leon begins to glare at people:

“-and further confirmation by The Court Physician, that King Uther used sorcery, against The late Queen’s wishes, in order to conceive a child. He was warned of the dangers, and went ahead with his plan anyway, which resulted in not only the birth of twins, one of whom was magical, but the death of the Queen.-”

At the mention of Gaius, the elderly Physician gets a few confused glances, and even more glares; no one likes being kept out of the loop, especially when everyone there is a Lord except Gaius. At the mention of twins, everyone’s attention is abruptly back on Arthur, and the knights have to resist the urge to look at Merlin, in fear of giving anything away too early.

Before he can continue, Arthur is interrupted by Lord Angar again:

“My Lord, I very much doubt the validity of anything you have just said, but either way, is this really the sort of meeting to be had with servants, a Lady, and your peasant knights present? I know you’re oddly fond of them but-”

Arthur, Leon, and Morgana have to resist the urge to punch the Lord in the face at his words. Gwen, Percival, Lancelot, and Elyan manage to keep their faces neutral, though Gwaine glowers openly. The knight does however hold in his smirk when he notices the fury on Arthur’s face. The Prince takes a threatening step forward but doesn’t lower himself from the dais as he speaks, his tone cold:

“Lady Morgana, Guinevere, and Merlin have proven to be better advisors to me than you ever have Lord Angar; Sirs Percival, Elyan, Lancelot, and Gwaine are amongst the best knights this Kingdom has ever seen, and you will show every one of them the respect they deserve, or you will excuse yourself from this room, and this council. Am I understood?”

The red of Angar’s face gets more severe as he splutters:

“My Lord you can not be-”

“Am I understood?!-”

Arthur’s voice cuts through everyone in the room, despite it’s low volume, and where Leon hides his proud smirk, Morgana doesn’t hold back at all, especially when Angar takes a deep breath and nods his purple head in embarrassment. The rest of the council seems to finally have grasped the seriousness and severity of the situation and play close attention to Arthur as he continues, no one daring to interrupt again:

“-This information changes everything we know about sorcery; my father started a genocide against an innocent group of people because he was too much of a coward to admit his mistakes and refused to take the rightful blame for killing his wife. I will not stand for this, and things will change very soon. If you are not outraged at the unjustness of his actions, at the death and suffering he has caused our people, the people we are meant to serve and protect, then you are more than welcome to leave. Meetings to organise and begin the process of legalising magic will start early tomorrow, and I will be accepting no excuses, this is non-negotiable. As for the matter of my twin brother...-”

Arthur glances back to Merlin, and at his slight nod, Arthur shoots him a small smile and holds his hand out to him. Merlin walks slowly forward to the sound of the council gasping and muttering to themselves, Leon stays barely a hair’s breadth behind him with his sword fully drawn:

“-may I present Prince Myrddin Pendragon.-”

Lord Angar, among others, looks seconds away from bursting once more, so Arthur hurries to continue, though still manages to keep his voice forceful and confident:

“-This information was unconfirmed for both of us until around a candle-mark ago; I have never believed in fate before now, though I think we can all be grateful that The Prince managed to return to Camelot all on his own.-”

He settles his hand on Merlin’s shoulder, but doesn’t pull him forward too much, understanding that his serv- his brother, probably wants to be as far away from the centre of attention as he can get.

“-I want him presented to The Kingdom and crowned before the month is out, this matter is also non-negotiable. Any questions?”

Lord Angar looks desperate to start yelling, but he also seems to have finally accepted that his influence over this room, and now the council in general, was tenuous at best. One of the newer councilmen, a young Lord who Arthur has a slowly growing respect for, steps forward slightly, bowing his head before meeting Arthur’s gaze and quietly asking:

“And The King, My Lord? Should we plan for your coronation as well?”

It was clear that the question was unexpected and Arthur frowns at the realisation that he had... arrested The King. Uther may have deserved it, but Arthur couldn’t bring himself to order his execution, and knowing Merlin he’d argue against it endlessly anyway.

Morgana senses Arthur’s hesitation after a second or two, thankfully before the council becomes restless and annoyed:

“You could always take over as Regent whilst we sort all of this out; that way we can revisit the issue of actually crowning you King later. Though we can’t confine Uther to his chambers forever, we’ll have to deal with him at some point.”

Arthur hums and nods, giving her a thankful smile before looking back to the young Lord:

“Lady Morgana’s suggestion is sound. I’ll take over as Regent,-”

He nods at Geoffrey of Monmouth, who takes a note down in the giant leather tome he perpetually has under his arm. If Arthur thinks about it for too long, he might come to the conclusion that the older man looks proud:

“-and we can revisit the issue when the dust has settled.-”

He rubs his eyes tiredly, as though the last day or so of drama had finally landed with it’s full weight upon his shoulders:

“-I think it goes without saying that, for now, none of this is to leave the room. I trust only Sir Leon with assigning who is to guard The King,-”

He glances to Leon, who nods seriously at his words:

“-keep it discreet Leon. I want to keep as much of this under wraps for as long as possible to avoid public panic; this is going to be a lot of hard work gentlemen, but I mean to see it through with or without your support, the choice is yours. The first meeting will take place in the normal council room tomorrow, two candle-marks after dawn. You’re all dismissed.”

The councilmen—including Gaius, after he sends a forlorn look Merlin’s way—slowly trickle out of the room, some looking angry, most looking resigned, but a few looking rather content, happy even (Arthur and Morgana take mental notes of who is who). The door shuts quietly behind the last man, leaving only Arthur, Merlin, Morgana, Gwen, and the knights left, all of whom understanding that the dismissal did not include them. Arthur lets out a deep sigh when the room quietens, looking back up to Merlin with a tired smile and even more tired eyes:

“Ready brother?”

He quirks an amused, but hugely pleased eyebrow as he says it and Merlin grins, rolling his eyes fondly:

“Not even close, but that’s never stopped me before.”

Arthur chuckles as the others all move closer, an odd mix of exasperated, because Merlin turning out to be Arthur’s long lost magical twin is exactly the sort of insanely dramatic thing that’s likely to happen in Camelot, and hesitant, because... how do they even deal with that? Other than with a great deal of confusion?

Gwen is the first to reach him, pulling Merlin into a tight hug that is very well received:

“I’m sorry Merlin, I can’t imagine how difficult this must be, and I’m so terribly sorry for all the horrible things I’ve said about magic.-”

She pulls back but doesn’t let go of his shoulders, staring up at him with tears in her eyes and a desperate look on her face:

“-You know that we all love, and trust you, don’t you??”

Merlin rolls his eyes fondly and pulls her back into a hug with a wide smile on his face:

“Of course I know that, I love you too Gwen. And don’t worry about it, you believed what you were taught, it’s not your fault.”

She looks like she wants to argue again when she pulls back, but Merlin just pats her cheek softly and gives her a warning glare. She huffs but dutifully steps back, allowing Gwaine to take her place as the rest of the knights pat his shoulders and run soft hands through his hair as way of apology and comfort. 

Merlin smiles at them, but sobers quickly when a particularly horrible thought re-occurs to him. Gwaine squeezes his shoulder in question and Arthur furrows his brows:

“Merls?”

Merlin just sighs and leans into Gwaine’s side slightly:

“I need to talk to my... Hunith. And Kilgharrah, but I really don’t have the energy for him right now.”

Arthur nods in understanding, thinking for a moment before looking up to the huddle of knights (most of whom look marginally confused at the mention of whoever the hell Kilgharrah is):

“Percival, Lancelot, you know where Ealdor is?-”

The two of them nod, remembering the route from visiting with Merlin a few months ago:

“-Leave at dawn, take an extra horse and bring Hunith back with you. With all that’s going on, me and Merlin can’t afford to be gone for even a day and it’s a four days’ journey there and back.”

They nod, but Lancelot quickly responds with a quiet:

“We can leave now if you like, it’s not like the journey will take much prep. What should we tell her?”

He looks to Merlin, who frowns slightly as he replies, his words slow:

“Don’t tell her anything, Arthur and I need to have that conversation with her. She’ll panic when you turn up without me so feel free to tell her that we’re all alive and uninjured and not in any danger but... just don’t tell her the real reason.”

Their smiles are understanding, and just a little pitying, but they turn and march off the moment Arthur nods at them in approval, determined to do everything they can to make things go smoothly and easily.

It’s Elyan that breaks the now slightly uncomfortable silence a few moments later:

“So... do we still call you Merlin? Or is it Prince Myrddin, My Lord?”

Merlin grimaces the moment Elyan mentions what would soon be his official title, and the others grin at his reaction, chuckling as he runs a hand through his hair:

“No one’s called me Myrddin since I was about five, and I think it would be a little odd if that changed now, so Merlin is just fine.”

The others nod in agreement, though Arthur sighs as he responds, faux annoyance in his tone:

“Paperwork’s going to be bloody confusing.”

~

It takes Merlin all of three hours to figure out that Arthur had subtly assigned him a constant guard. The guard consists of Sirs Leon and Gwaine, so he isn’t... complaining, per se, but it's annoying, to escape company for a quick piss to find his partner and friend casually hovering right outside the door.

But to be fair, Merlin only notices when his brain registers that Gwaine isn’t there, and how odd that is. Whilst Merlin is interrogating Leon, Arthur is cornering Gwaine in a seldom used corridor, though the rambunctious knight beats Arthur to the punch:

“I think we’ve been here before, Princess.”

Arthur raises an amused eyebrow at Gwaine’s teasing grin, before sagging slightly in place and sighing. Gwaine sobers immediately, putting a hand on the blonde’s shoulder and trying to meet his gaze:

“Arthur?”

Arthur sighs again, looking up to him with tired eyes:

“This goes without saying, but Merlin.... he is everything to me. As far as I’m concerned he and Morgana are my only family, though I suppose I believed that before all of... this; but that’s besides the point. I know you won’t ever mean to hurt him, and I do trust you, as... difficult as that is to admit, but I need to you understand, Gwaine,-”

Gwaine nods in understanding and agreement:

“I do understand, Arthur. He’s everything to me as well.”

Arthur shakes his head and steps back, bringing himself to his full height:

“No, you don’t. He is my brother, and he was taken from me. He has suffered, more than I think either of us will ever know, and that stops, this Kingdom is now being built for him. But I would burn it all down if it would make him happy. Everything is for him, for Morgana, for my family. Do you understand?”

Gwaine nods, only once, before holding his hand out. Neither his hand nor his voice shakes as he responds:

“I’ll pour the oil, you light the match.”

Arthur pauses for a moment, as if trying to gauge his own trust in the other man, before clasping Gwaine’s hand strongly. 

The seriousness of the moment ends when Gwaine lifts his other hand to tug sharply at Arthur’s hair before ducking under his arm and skipping down the corridor towards where they’d left Merlin and Leon. Arthur just huffs and follows him, definitely not sulking.

Merlin turns to them both with a scowl when they enter, immediately taking note of the residual gravity in the tightness of Gwaine’s shoulders:

“And what have you two been doing all of sudden?”

Leon bites his lip to stop himself from snorting in amusement, but fails miserably the moment Gwaine shrugs and opens his mouth:

“I don’t know, some sort of mutual arson pact I think.”

Arthur rolls his eyes first at Gwaine subtly, then at Merlin, far more obviously:

“Honestly Merlin, we’ve spent practically every second with you all day, you can’t go a few minutes without us?”

Merlin huffs noisily and turns around to grab Leon’s wrist, dragging him from the room and not looking over his shoulder as he snarks:

“Leon’s always been my favourite knight anyway.”

Gwaine and Arthur just look outraged, both speaking at the same time:

“Hang on, what about me?!”

They fix each other with narrow-eyed glares before shoving each other childishly, fighting over who could shoulder their way through the door first.

~

The next conversation, a few days later, is... a lot harder.

With Kilgharrah’s odd ability to seemingly know about everything that happens in Camelot, Merlin couldn’t get away with putting off speaking to him for long, especially with how The Warlock could feel the way he was angrily clomping about in his cave.

The short journey down through the dungeons, made by Arthur, Merlin, and Gwaine, was made mostly in silence. The oppressive feeling of Kilgharrah’s mishmash of emotions bouncing around in Merlin’s head made focusing on any other strain of thought impossible, and Gwaine and Arthur were too busy stewing in their own anger and worry to want to disturb him.

They pause momentarily outside the large iron gates leading to Kilgharrah’s lair, none of them looking to each other as they take deep breaths in an attempt to gather some bravery. Arthur and Gwaine have never said anything, but Kilgharrah terrifies the shit out of both of them; Merlin normally takes these trips alone—Arthur and Gwaine’s fear wasn’t difficult to pick up on and he never wanted to make them uncomfortable—allowing the other two their blissfully ignorant beauty sleep as he sneaks away to argue with a Dragon. But that’s obviously not in the cards today; no way either of them would let him face this alone.

Kilgharrah is waiting for them when they push open the gate and stalk out onto the ledge, and he raises himself to his full height, sparing barely a glance in Arthur’s direction and sparing Gwaine even less as he stares at Merlin with aloof, golden eyes:

“You have discovered who you are, Young Warlock, at long-”

Merlin interrupts him with a scowl and a held up hand:

“You had no right,-”

His voice is echoingly deadly, and the two knights find themselves being reminded of Merlin’s seemingly endless power. Merlin being angry at Gaius was... was like a child being heartbroken at a parent’s betrayal, which it was in some ways. But Merlin being angry at Kilgharrah... that was much more; like a God being angry at a creature of His own design. Merlin stands before The Great Beast, centuries old, full of unimaginable knowledge, and he stands tall, and proud, and angry.

“-no right, to keep this from me. You claim that no one can know their destiny, and then proceed to prattle on about mine in riddles. In my search for answers, you gave me more questions. In my search for comfort, you gave me fear. In my begging for help, you gave me nothing but pain. I’m done, you’re just as bad as Uther.”

Kilgharrah bristles, flaring his arched nostrils as his furious reaction ripples across his hardened scales:

“How dare you compare me to-”

Merlin interrupts him with a yell, his voice growling in it’s reverberation, a hidden power more ancient than the mountains themselves echoing in his words:

“You separated my brother from me and you had no right! You whine about how Uther took your kin from you, but you took my kin from me! You suffered so you made it your greatest goal to make everyone else suffer just as much. You are cruel, and cowardly, and I am done. You will not manipulate me anymore, you will not lie to me, or mislead me. You tried to get me to kill the boy, but I didn’t, and I forgave you. You tried to get me to kill Morgana, but I didn’t, and I forgave you. You keep trying to get me to free you, but I won’t. You will rot in here until you can tell me the truth, a truth I deem worthy, on why you kept my heritage from me.”

He doesn’t wait for a response, turning on his heel and marching out of the gate without another word, Gwaine following closely behind. Arthur stays, just for a few moments, though with Merlin’s sudden display of power over the beast before him he finds himself significantly less frightened:

“He’s right, you know. Every one of my brother’s successes has come to pass because he ignored you. You have haunted him every step of the way, causing nothing but grief; you should be grateful, Merlin has offered you a chance of redemption that I would not have.”

Arthur doesn’t wait for a response either, jogging up the steps to catch up with the other two just exiting the dungeons.

Merlin doesn’t ask what was said, though Gwaine does raise an eyebrow in The Prince Regent’s direction; Arthur gives him a short nod, acknowledging Gwaine’s need to know, need to keep a tight hold on everything so he could keep Merlin safe and happy. Or as happy as he can keep him in this situation. Gwaine relaxes when he understands Arthur’s promise to tell him later, trusting the blonde to have Merlin’s best interests at heart.

The slight relaxation doesn’t last long however; Merlin heads up through the castle towards the large doors leading into the courtyard. The other two follow him, knowing that the younger man likely needs some fresh air to recover from the pressing darkness and power and heaviness of Kilgharrah’s presence, but they quickly tense when he suddenly halts on the steps just outside the doors.

When they peer over his shoulder, they are abruptly reminded of the amount of time that had passed since Percival and Lancelot had left. And apparently returned.

Hunith dismounts her horse quickly, her mouth stretching into a relieved smile as she runs towards him. Merlin doesn’t move, just stares at her with blank eyes, and Gwaine’s eyes shift nervously between the two of them. Hunith’s relief is quickly dropped when she notices Merlin’s non-reaction, and she slows just before she ascends the steps, looking up at Merlin with her brow creased in worry:

“Son?”

Merlin’s expression hardens; his hands clench and his eyes and tone turn icy as he responds:

“I’m not your son.”

~

END of part 2!!!

Sorry to be a teeeaaasssee :))))) (Not really)

I’ve recently got a BUNCH more hours at work (which is like... good for me personally but not so great for my social life or hobbies lol) so things might take a little longer to come out from now, but I promise this blog is still ultra active and going!! I’ll just only have time to write in the evenings nowadays.

I’m not sure when part 3 will be, but it’s in the works and won’t be too long!! Two weeks at absolute MOST I imagine :D

[icerosecrystal]

The Eldest Al-Ghul Wayne - Prologue

Marinette Al-Ghul Wayne was a mistake. Those were the words that her grandfather had ingrained in her head from a young age. At the age of 25, Bruce Wayne, her father, was seduced by Talia Al-Ghul. During the time she was pregnant, Talia and Ra’s made many plans about how her heir would take over the League of Assassins. When the time came for Talia to give birth, the baby arrived not a male, but rather a female. Ra’s was furious with the development, storming off after informing Talia to name the mistake whatever she saw fit. 

After that, Ra’s found no use in Marinette. Deeming her unworthy of her blood, and so, she was tossed aside. Her mother took pity on her, teaching her in secret about how to wield many different weapons. The training was harsher than most would have endured, but her mother wished for her to survive as an assassin. Talia wished for her daughter to prove her worth, so she taught Marinette the secret of the Miraculous. These were ancient jewelry that belonged to the Order of Guardians, a group that was originally in relation with the League of Assassin, but later went their separate ways. 

By the age of four, Marinette had exceeded the expectation of her mother and had managed to complete training generally used for assassins at the age of nine. But it was at that age that Ra’s took an interest in her once again, not as his heir, but rather to see what she was capable of. And so, she was sent on many missions. Most of them, she completed easily. But there were a few exceptions in which she got greatly injured or died on a mission. And each time, Ra’s would begrudgingly throw her in the Lazarus Pit after an endless amount of begging from Talia. 

One day, when Marinette was five almost six years old, her mother came back from a mission. When Marinette went to greet her mother, she found something floating in a test tube full of green goop. Her being the curious five-year-old that she was asked, “Mother, what is that thing floating in the tube?”

Talia looked over to her before answering, “Why Marinette, that is your little brother.”

Marinette upon hearing this grew worried, would her mother leave her for dead once her supposed brother was born? Marinette silently left disregarding the slightly disappointed look Talia sent her way. If she was to be replaced, she might as well do all she can to make it count.

Marinette trained harder than she ever had before. She realized that becoming the only one in the league fluent in the guardian’s tongue would solidify her worth. If she was the only one capable of reading, writing, and speaking this language, Ra’s would have to think twice before getting rid of her. And so for months on end, she studied the books, the language, everything about the order. And by the time a month was left for her brother to be born, she knew every little detail about the order. 

Marinette was now aware that the Lazarus Pits were created from Plagg letting out a huge amount of destructive energy from his being, creating the Lazarus Pits. It was meant to save one of Plagg’s chosen that he had grown attached to. Not willing to let the human, his chosen go, he purposely released the destructive energy. Plagg had tried to keep it a secret, but his chosen saw it as a miracle that needed to be shared.

Plagg’s chosen then informed Ra’s. That was how Ra’s became aware of the Pits and misused them. As Marinette continued reading more about the order, she continuously grew disgusted with both the order and the league. They had misused the god-like creatures known as kwamis and their gifts so much and so often. These Kwamis were unable to disobey their master's command, they were slaves in all but name. ‘What a sad fate for a god.’ Marinette wasn’t able to look at anything the same way anymore. Now each time she was thrown in the Lazarus pit she felt guilty to be using it for her gain. Each time she saw Ra’s misuse a gift of the kwamis, she felt an undeniably large amount of anger towards him. 

It was a normal day like any other when her mother found her sulking about what the league did. When Marinette asked her mother why the league would do such a thing she replied in a very harsh tone, “You will not question the authority of me nor your grandfather. If we did not use the pits you would already be dead. Would you want to be dead, Marinette?”

Marinette angrily yelled, “I would rather be dead than misuse something so precious!” It was then that she felt a sharp sting in her cheek. Her hand flew up to cradle her cheek while looking at her mother in disbelief.

Talia didn’t acknowledge anything rather gritting out, “You will NEVER speak like that to me EVER again! Do you understand me, Marinette?!”

Marinette nodded numbly, before rushing off. The slap didn’t hurt at all, but Marinette felt betrayed. Throughout her life, her mother was always there for her. Even if she sometimes didn’t show it, Marinette knew that her mother cared about her. But now, she wasn’t so sure.

As she continued running she stumbled across the room in which her baby brother was in. She quietly crept inside the room making sure no one was inside. When she confirmed that there was no one there she walked towards the tube. Inside the tube, Marinette saw her baby brother, he seemed to have tan skin much like their mother, a stark contrast to Marinette’s paler skin that she inherited from their father. Her baby brother also had black hair like their father, similar to her own but lighter. Her own hair was such a dark black that it looked blue when any source of light was shining on it. She couldn’t see his eyes as they were closed but she wondered what color they would be. 

As she gazed upon him, Marinette made a decision. No matter what would happen, she would always be there for her baby brother. She would give him the love and support she had always wished she received as a child. He deserved that much. As Marinette stepped closer to the tube, she put her hand against the cool glass leaning her forehead against it as well. She then closed her eyes and softly whispered both to herself and her baby brother the words that she had wanted to say for a long time. “You will never be alone, little one. I will be there for you, every step of the way to offer you all the support and love you will ever need. I will always protect you… akhi.”

Taglist: @jinx-jade, @legodetectivemalsblog, @moonlightstar64, @our-preciousss

Let me know if you want to be tagged!

[starshipsofstarlord]

Right Hand Woman | Part Two

Summary; your father is dead, just as you and Loki had planned. All that stands in the way of your reign over both the Cold Shores and Asgard, is your partner’s one eyed adopted parent.

Warnings; mentions of death, deception, brief smut (oral sex, fem receiving), attempts of murder

QUICK LINK TO MY MASTERLIST, IN CASE YOU’RE INTERESTED IN READING MORE OF MY CRAP 😬

Frigga frowned, suspecting something the moment that she caught Loki sneaking into her and Odin’s chambers. It was not wise to trust the boy so easily, whilst she felt tremendous love towards her found son, he was the god of mischief.

And so she watched him from the corner, cloaked by her own witted spell, and studied how he rummaged through the room. “Damn you father!” He whisper shouted to himself, and that was whence his witch of a mother made her presence known.

A soft yet malleable frown cast over Loki’s sly features, as he gulped inherently. “What is it that burdens you my boy?” If only she knew the full extension of the answer to that, but he would not curse her with the details.

“Odin.” That was how he labelled him as; the king. Not his father. “The man that you are wedded to has hidden the book of counsel once again from me. If I wish to be a husband, then I must read and study its contents, for it is not everyday that anyone from the nine realms marries a god.”

With relief indulging her airway, Frigga sighed. At least he was searching for something worthwhile, rather than an item or clue that could get him in attentive trouble.

“Loki.” His name surpassed the barrier of her bewitched lips, earning her child’s attention. “I shall find it for you, but be aware that there is no rush to become one with y/n so soon. It is certain that she is still experiencing the shock and mourning of her father.”

An inclination to smirk at the mention of the dead man arose in Loki’s chest, however he kept his face mute of amusement, and instead, looked up at his favourite parent. She knew, as he noticed his inclination to spill all, that he was holding a secret close to his chest. But he had never been one to be entirely truthful, and so instead of berating him about it, she left him alone.

“I suppose.” He didn’t. It was a white lie in his eyes, but a vast one in the eyes of his family, with the sorrow pent up in y/n. She was far from sad, rather, he was the only one that could see how truly joyous she was concerning the fall of her father.

The small spilt tears were a lie, all to deceive the Odinson tree. Thor was certainly the most gullible of all when witnessing it, he would order the guards to abandon their duties to go and fetch her something to dry her eyes on, and if they were not fast enough, he would do the job himself.

It was truly a sight to behold though as Odin would nurture her with caring phrases, and lay a comforting hand upon her slunk shoulder, praising her for having some sense.

Loki’s family knew that it had been difficult, protecting herself whilst in the meanwhile wearing her father’s blood upon her hands. It showed her loyalty to the youngest of Odin’s sons, and that was what they wanted in a dame.

“That poor girl.” Frigga reminisced all that she had heard regarding the death of the opposing king, that had once been an ally. “Killing her own father, it must have come with some difficulty.”

The man was assured that there had been none, y/n had wanted to do such amends in a great long time. However, she had to wait for the perfect moment, so that Odin could be blessed of the sight of her above her father’s carcass.

“Perhaps, but it has shown me how perfect she is for marriage material. We aren’t even combined into one yet, and she has already proven her loyalty, presenting that she has the same image for Asgard and the Cold Shores in her peripheral.”

His mother, whom was married into the line of the throne, sighed. She felt great pity for y/n, for she felt torn; but ultimately, chose herself over her father’s selfish wishes. And through his actions, y/f/n had broken the contract and his own blessing of allowing Loki to take her hand.

The same image. If there was one thing that Frigga had nervous thoughts about, it was Loki, and his problematic situation in wanting the throne. But to the dismay of the trickster god, it was promised to his brother Thor; the real heir of Odinson royalty. And though Frigga adored Loki as though he were her own son, because essentially he was, her trust in him regarding his hunger to rule Asgard was thin, like a silver platter.

Y/n sat, pondering her decisions. She liked Odin, despite him being like all kings, even if he had turned over a new leaf in the latest centuries. He had adorned the rivers of Valhalla with bloodshed, passing through the nine realms with his weapon unsheathed, pooling blood so that in return he could take the gold that the men and women harboured so slyly.

Her father had done the same thing, but he had been much more humble regarding his lifestyle. A grand and glorious display of buildings had not been considered necessary in y/f/n’s rich eyes. Instead, he opted to remain vigilant, living in hoisted tents, so that he had the freedom to move him and his people about as he pleased.

But he had wanted to depart from his only child, in order to gain another ally, but in doing so, he had lost that trust with Asgard. And now she was the heir of his ruins, but she had left with the man that had reckoned pain upon his people for his treachery.

The only thing that was left in their plan, was to kill Odin. It was rather simple thinking of it, however proceeding to do so would be a far different story. And first, so that their power was in conjunction, her and Loki needed to marry. She found no problem in doing so, especially since it was one of her greatest desires to do so already.

She was laid beneath the sheets of the guest room that was supplied to her, adorned in nothing but her underwear. One feature of her icy homelands that she was used to was the cold. Here, it felt so warm, she felt enclosed by the heat; trapped even.

As a child, she often wore a red nose, hardly feeling the end of it, as snow would balance upon it, and fall around every inch outside of her tent. But in Asgard, a place that she had visited many a time, she was sweltering. A part of her feared that it was a flaw granted by karma, for killing her father.

There was some truth to her lies; he had wanted her to wed another that was not Loki, but she didn’t tell him of whom, knowing that he would grown furious and insecure, and surely take everything that he was feeling out on her competing suitor.

However, she had deceived his father as well, made Odin believe that he was trying to pass y/n onto another kingdom. Instead, y/f/n had been talking of with his lower level colleagues, that he was considering Thor as a replacement for the sorcerer prince.

That was an idea that she was not fond of. Whilst she got along well enough with Thor, she loved Loki, it was simple as that. And she was against anyone, even if it be family, trying to rip apart the contract of her childhood dream; to wed the sneaky, yet charming prince.

Y/n was ripped from her thoughts as knuckles rapped on the display of double doors, that lead into the room that she was currently occupying. “You may enter.” She informed whomever was wishing to see her on the other side, the door groaning open as a sleek and fetching man entered.

Loki made sure to close the barricade behind him, walking closer to his future wife with purpose in each step that he instructed. “Beloved y/n...”

“Did you find it?” She asked, referring to the last piece to fill in their mystical puzzle. Her brow quirked, watching as her to be husband exasperatedly sighed, combing a talented hand through his long black locks.

“No, but my mother has taken upon herself to aid us in doing so.” His green and keen eyes looked down upon her, gently hoisting her to be on her feet by a carefully tugging on her arm.

“This needs to be sped up my love, otherwise they will catch onto our intentions before we can complete them.” Y/n tried to pace, however, Loki kept a grip on her, refraining her from doing so. And so she was kept right before him, in a face to face manner, frozen like the ropes of water by her original home and his birth place.

“Relax for a moment, there needn’t be a rush.” Loki cooed at her, brushing through her hair with an underlying content. “To distract you, I am here, and I will do anything to remove your mind from all that troubles you.”

He lightly pushed down one of her shoulders, making her fall elegantly back on the bed, her bare breasts bouncing as she fell. Loki licked his lips at the sight, raking his cold fingertips up her thighs, parting them to his will. “Did you know that it was me that had intention to pester you at this time, or were you prepared to allow any nimble soldier see you so- so open for their unworthy pupils to devour?”

“I knew it was you Loki.” She rolled her y/e/c eyes, resting on her forearms on the fresh fabric, that rubs tenderly against her skin. “Otherwise, I’d have not answered, making them search the grounds for me until they persisted you with having an inability to find me.”

“Little minx.” Loki smirked, rubbing softly on the insides of your thighs. He crept closer, collapsing between y/n’s spread legs, rutting his covered cock over the promise that came with marriage. “I cannot wait for us to bind together in an established union, that will be recognised by all, and we will never be mistake for a pair of lovesick fools ever again.”

“And when we reign, all will know that we are not to be reckoned with.” Y/n reached up, guiding his hands lower. “But until then, I want you to ruin me, until I am screaming loud enough for all the habitants in nearby rooms to hear.” Her eyes were glazed, Loki licked his lips as he swept down, casting his mouth passionately upon hers.

His raven tendrils swayed around them like a curtain, enclosing their faces in an intimate proximity. Whilst his mouth explored her own, content sighs renegading from his lover’s busy mouth, his hands slipped down, finding penance at her waist.

They traced the outline of her underwear, teasingly moving underneath the sides, making y/n flutter with anticipation. Her cheeks grew warm as she looked down at her partner in treachery, letting out a startled gasp whence he ripped the seams, discarding of the useless material.

He ran his slippery, cursing lips up her leg, tracing them sensually around the budding lips of her pussy. Y/n nestled her head into the comfort below, watching with Loki with dazed eyes, that were heavily plagued by the dreariness of her lids.

“By the gods!” In an instant, he had suctioned his mouth around her entirety, suckling with his cat like pupils boring up at his lover in ecstasy. He always got what he wanted, and he would marry this princess, and then, their journey throughout royalty would continue.

The occasion had finally arrived. Odin stood at the centre of the platform, between the two lovers. With gratitude to his mother Frigga, Loki sent her a pleased nod, before once more tuning his attention back onto his lovely fiancé.

All of Asgard watched dearly from below, holding onto their kings every word as he spoke the age old coronation into a pairing’s vows. His speech was slow, and it made y/n slightly antsy.

She wanted to marry Loki, and despite going through the prior orchestration of doing so, she wanted nothing more than for the process to speed itself up. But she remained silent, and apparently patient to all that stared with fawning smiles.

It wasn’t everyday that the royals were wed, and the citizens of the plain were in for a treat. It was something that was viewed sparingly, for their children that would be procreated in the distant future would hear tales of such a collision of two people, not actually baring witness to the ongoing.

Odin cleared his ancient throat, folding the scroll back into its exterior, and declared the emission and final act. “Y/n, of the cold shores, do you take my son, Loki, to be your partner for as long as you live?”

“I do, King Odin.” Her childhood dreams were being brought to light, after all this time. They had waited a thousand years for this exact moment, and every second that she had thought and not acted on it had been essentially worth it.

Loki stood across from her, their hands intertwined in the space between their bodies. There was a glimmer sparkling in his devious eyes, and y/n gulped at the sight of it. As happy as she felt, there was a brewing in the pit of her stomach, for she knew the god far too well.

“Loki, of Asgard, do you take the woman before you, y/n, to be your wife for your eternity?” The green eyed prince smiled across at her, giving her shaking fingers a comforting squeeze.

“I do, father.”

“Then, you may kiss your partner to seal the vow.” Y/n had an exhausting smile pinching her cheeks, and as Loki swiftly removed his hands from her own, she moved closer.

But that look had returned, and before she could stop him, he had slipped a blade out from his sleeve, and directed its spear tip towards Odin. This was not the time or the place for the violence, but the deed was done; they were exposed.

[tanoraqui]

[previous]

so there’s fog, you know, soft and empty fog, except that sometimes there are people in it. There are songs, soft and sweet, except the song about the woman named Janet isn’t allowed at all - the song- the song his...the song for which He beats him, when he sings, beats him and beats him until he can’t taste anything but blood, and he swallows it and sings louder for spite - and feels terrible immediately, for disrespecting Him so terribly. 

Acacia comes for him, dresses him and scares off his attendants, and he remember...Wei Wuxian remembers a little...

“Your daughter’s dead,” he says abruptly, as they pretend to have every right to walk the corridors. “Your lost Rhodia - but she had a son.”

“What?” says Acacia, hungry.

“He’s a bit of a brat,” Wei Wuxian says, in the contemplative way of someone still partly asleep. “But only because he’s loved and well-cared for, and knows it. Also because he’s a brat. He sent me here.”

Acacia pulls him along a little faster

But they don’t make it. Blind Michael’s more clever, more cruel lieutenants interrupt them, and Blind Michael himself, and Wei Wuxian is dressed for a Ride and a wedding, and Blind Michael becomes a god in his eyes, through his eyes - and they Ride

oh, how they Ride.

With a thousand eyes and none his own, Wei Wuxian sees it: through the cold-capped mountains they Ride, horse-hides steaming in the clouds. Through the sea-wide lakes they Ride, over and under. Through the stony hills they Ride, and all the beasts scatter in their wake. Through the golden streets they Ride, and human and faerie alike cower.

until the Hunt reaches a lightly flooded crossroads, and with a thousand eyes and none, Wei Wuxian watches a woman form from the water. She’s dressed like a pirate and stands like a queen; her skin is darkly scaled and her teeth are as sharp as a shark’s. 

“With the holy water in her hand,” she shouts with a captain’s voice, “she cast the compass round. At twelve o'clock the fairy court, came riding o'er the mound.” And, “Michael, this is ending.”

[NB: our lyrics for this evening are “Tam Lin” by Steeleye Span, my favorite version of the song/poem]

Hands pull Wei Wuxian down from his horse in the confusion, drag him forward and pin him in a vicious headlock just above water just deep enough to drown. He struggles to return to his lord and he goes limp and hopes the familiar arms will flip him over, into the water facefirst

He can’t quite see who’s holding him; the Huntfold gaze he’s part of is still focused on Blind Michael and his half-sister

“Get out of my way, daughter of Titania,” he sneers, and probably several other things. “You have no right to be here, tonight.”

“Oh, am I the one being a selfish, manipulative egomaniac?” Amphitrite calls back. “But fine.” She stamps her foot as a child in temper, a woman drawing a line in the sand, and the air reeks of ocean and fresh kills, deep currents ripple in the flooded intersection. She points toward the held figure near her feet. “That’s my descendent you’ve got there, by birth if not by blood, and I want him back. He was under my protection when you took him, and he owes me a debt.”

several other Riders have been pulled down, too, now struggling and limp in the hands of unseen strangers

“You have no right!” Blind Michael snarls again (only a child in temper)

“Friends and family and companions of blood always have a right.” Amphitrite warns one last time, “You can still walk away, Michael. I don’t really want you to - I’m not Annie. But I’ll let you.”

“Who would come for him?” Blind Michael demands.

“Lan Wangji, heir to the Duchy of Cloud Recesses,” a voice says from above him, as cool as though it was rude of Blind Michael to ask. “My claim precedes yours.”

“Wen Qing.” “Wen Ning.” They speak almost at the same time, Wen Qing somehow sounding exasperated through her steely determination, and Wen Ning only, rarely, confident in his. “He’s our idiot.” “He’s our friend.”

“Luo Qingyang, formerly of the Court of Golden Sun,” says the one holding down his legs, and for the first time, Wei Wuxian scrambles completely organically to remember. Wait, that’s not- Mianmian? “Wei Wuxian saved my life, and those of many I love, and I don’t see why that debt should go unpaid.”

“Jiang Yanli,” declares the one with a firm arm around his neck, “Princess-consort of the Kingdom of Golden Sun and heir to the Duchy of Lotus Lakes. I’m bringing my didi home.” 

She speaks with such furious intent that he almost expects to see Madam Yu when he looks up, a thousand eyes fading to just his own. But it’s his shijie who smiles down at him, and tightens her headlock (Madam Yu would approve)

Blind Michael raises his hand and change hurts (change always hurts) but Wei Wuxian was made for it. He is sleek and long and made of nothing but muscle - and fang and poison, and desperation to escape the grip that suddenly slips on his neck. He is nothing but neck. He slides and twists and swipes his tail, and the grip tightens around his middle with a startled gasp. He twists and rears and lunges and bites, sinks venom into blood and the grip goes slack - 

- and the best Daoine Sidhe blood-healer in a generation, in several generations, slaps Jiang Yanli’s back and grimaces, and Jiang Yanli grits her teeth and tightens her hold and above and before them, Amphitrite chants, “They've shaped him in her arms, into an roaring snake. She's held him fast and feared him not, to be her lovely mate.”

Another change. Wei Wuxian is a beast of dark fur and gnashing teeth, slashing claws and sharp as a sword and twice as savage. He is the wildness of the Hunt itself. He swipes at his captor - he cannot be contained, he will not be contained - and strikes her across the cheek; he writhes and snarls and - 

- a pale hand shoves a sachet into his face; a glimpse of ice-blue eyes and a strong hand shoves his head down into it, his nose, and orders, “Calm.” He inhales to snarl and strike again and breathes in pure, alchemically enhanced catnip and...it’s kind of like being hit with a truck, if the truck was dreamy serenity but also raw LSD. He wants to escape the arms now locking more firmly around his neck, but he also wants to nuzzle up into Lan Zhan’s hand now scratching his head, and also never take his head out of this really amazing-smelling bag...

“They've shaped him in her arms, to a wood black beast so wild. She's held him fast and feared him not, the father of her child!“

A third. Wei Wuxian is heat, is pain, is light, screaming, ecstasy, agony, destruction, life, fire. (“They've shaped him in her arms again, fire burning bold!”) He isn’t sure he even wants to go back to Blind Michael, but he can’t stop burning. (“She's held him fast and feared him not, till he was iron cold!”) Jiang Yanli cries out and Wen Ning grabs her arms to keep them steady, gasping in pain himself, and Luo Qingyang drags all three of them down into the water, which does very little but -  

“ - They've shaped him in her arms at last, into a naked man,” Amphitrite calls at the last. “She's wrapped him in the green mantle, and knew that she had him won.” And at last it is true: Wei Wuxian sags, exhausted and bruised and not a little blood, his own and his sister’s and his friends’.

He licks his lips absentmindedly, and realizes he’s naked when Lan Wangji looks away with a stiff expression. Luo Qingyang rolls her eyes and pulls a spare robe out of somewhere and throws it over him, and it catches Jiang Yanli as well, because she does wait to hold him closer and cry-laugh against his shoulder. “A-Xian! Are you okay? We were so worried! You’re not to do that again, do you hear me?”

“Ah, shijie,” Wei Wuxian gives a laughs right back, only a little fake. “I’m always okay! And you - ” He’s about to say something about how magnificent she was, but a dash of his memory catches up and he actually does pull away from her a little just enough to look in her face with horror. “Wait, Princess-consort - no! Shijie, you didn’t marry the peacock?!”

(while around them other families reunite, and a few weep - not all held tight enough. while Blind Michael shouts and whines his protest and Amphitrite invites him to fight or fuck off)

Jiang Yanli smiles tearfully. “I wanted to wait for you, we all did, but...” Her shrug encompasses everything from true love to royal politics. But her smile both widens and softens as her hand runs over her stomach. “I’m even pregnant already.”

Wei Wuxian almost smiles, before he sits up with a horrified start. “No - Janet’s first baby didn’t - Wen Qing! Wen Qing, is the baby okay?!”

His panic is infectious; Jiang Yanli’s eyes widen and Wen Qing drops to her knees and presses her hands to Jiang Yanli’s side, swipes a drop of blood from her cheek and tastes it, and all stop until she says, “The baby’s fine. You should rest, though. Both of you. All of us.”

Blind Michael and his Hunt turn away in shame, ride away in defeat...all but one. Acacia lingers, golden.

Two figures wade carefully through Amphitrite’s flooded crossroads to greet her, one head black and the other dark, dark red. 

“Grandmother,” says Nie Huaisang, part curiosity and part awe. 

Acadia reaches out without a thought. Her hand stops in the air above Amphitrite’s lapping waves (which wouldn’t last for much longer, not on land, but for now still fought back the touch of Blind Michael’s realm). 

She smiles sadly as her hand drops. “You do look like her. I don’t suppose you’d like to come home with me?”

Nie Huaisang bites his lip with the longing of a faerie meeting (one of) his Firstborn for the first time. But he says decisively, “No thank you. It seems kind of terrible.” He hesitates. “Would you...like to come home with me?”

Acacia doesn’t laugh, though her smile twists like she might have, once. “Would you pull me through into my sisters waters yourself, child? Would you hold me tight and fear me not, and set me free?”

“If Huaisang cannot, I’d be happy to, Lady,” says Nie Mingjue, every maiden’s picture of a strapping young knight and duke. “My brother’s family is mine, by definition, and Lady Rhodia is much-loved by all of Butcher’s Hill, whether or not she still dances with us.”

“I’m glad,” she tells him, after a pause the length of a flower petal’s breadth, and turns her gaze back to Nie Huaisang. “But, no. Live well, grandson. If you ever take your bloody hero’s Choice - ” her gaze flicks over his shoulder to Wei Wuxian, and back - “I hope you choose your mother. You have her wits as well as her face.” 

And she turns and rides away without another word.

And for a brief while, it’s over.

TBC

[zuffer-weird-girl]

Would you be willing to write a scenario about Kai's s/o going in to labor and the delivery? Maybe just Kaito?

Lets give plague doctor more heart attacks :D

Honestly? You deserved at minimun a pat on your back, because carrying a child is not easy... and aparently carrying a Chisaki inside you was equal to hell.

Deadly cramps, torturous nauseas and dear lord even comenting the word 'peas' left you wanting to pull all of your stomach out.... all of this for exactly seven months and a half already.

The baby was surely a fighter. His kicks were dead ass strong and ever time it was a bad one, you would wince in pain while supporting yourself on somewhere.

This baby was going to knock you out at some point...

Ever time Kai notice that this was happening he would place his entire gloved and scold his unborn child.

'Not even in here and are already causing trouble brat? Be good to your mother or we might have trouble.'

It was always in that same no emotions present tone of voice of his but you could see the genuine adoration in those usual cold golden eyes.

Although today you were feeling quite... normal.

No deadly kicks, neither the urge to puke ans surprisingly your feets weren't sore!

What a great day!

You got up from your chair to grab something to eat as you carresed slightly your belly on the way.

Although when you were already half the hall you started to feel dizzy and had to support yourself omwith one hand on the wall.

"Woah not looking great there miss. You good?" You heard Mimic's voice but when you looked down you just saw a black blur.

"Y-Yeah..." you took a shaky step "I guess."

"You guess?" Mimic spoke in sarcasm while Chrono coincidentally entered. Irinaka pointed to you for Kurono to see as he also made a slightly concerned face.

Before the man could ask what was going on, you felt as if a hammer had hit you in the gut while you howled in pain, no longer holding back the discomfort or the recent, unbearable pain.

Chrono and Mimic were immediately on your side when you almost fell to the ground. In your mind passes a thought that scared you to no ends and just to confirm you lowered your hand lower to push it back to see that your terrors were true.

Blood and other fluid... your water bag broke... The baby was coming earlier.

You let out a bloody scream at seing this and another joilt of pain came into you.

"ShIT ShE'S DyInG?!"

"Of course fucking not Irinaka! Shut up!" Chrono went to lend you a shoulder but you stopped him.

"K-Kurono... P-Please... K-Kai.. H-Here." You said between breaths, trying to stal calm since you knew this was going to stress the fuck out of everyone... especially Chisaki.

Hari didn't even objected and ran looking for Chisaki as Irinaka came back into his human form to at least see if it helps.

"Breath chick, you're a fucking fighter to carry that little shit."

"MIMIC!" you shouted and the man apologized at seing the anger in your eyes.

~

Chisaki was currently looking at the medicals exams of his unborn son along with the first ultrasound picture. The boy was going to be here soon and after a very long time he felt anxious.

He flinched at the way the door of his office hitted the wall as Chrono shouted his name.

"What the hell Chrono? Lost your manners?" He said darkly while placing the documents inside of his drawer.

"(Y/N)." He said while pointing at your direction "She's bleeding."

In one blink of Kurono's eyes Chisaki was already running through the house while placing his mask up.

Shit. What had happened?! Were you okay?!

"Angel." He called, ignoring his horror at seing the state you were in, and kneeled on the floor.

"Baby... coming." You breath out while jolting in pain again.

Damn those contractions

He cringed at your whines but ignored his own discomfort and scooped you up in his arms in bridal style as he shouted for a precept to clean ths mess as long for Chrono to get the fuck in the car.

Mimic swore he saw the walls trembling.

~

"Count to ten angel." He said monoustly but the way his hands tremble slightly and the hint of desperation in his eyes told everthing.

You screamed as the car suddenly roughly spun aside, the last drop of patience on your husband completely gone.

"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT CHRONO?!"

"IM SORRY BUT A GUY ALMOST HITTED THE FUCKING CAR AND COULD HAVE KILLED US YOU KNOW?!" Poor Hari was consumed by both you and Overhaul's desperation.

"Oh my god both oF YOU SHUT UP!" You shouted causing both of them to be completly silent all the ride to the hospital.

He was going to talk to you about that later, but maybe it was a understatement since you were giving birth at this point.

~

Kurono had to hold back Chisaki when a bunch of nurses just pulled you out of Kai's arms and a doctor told him to wait outside.

His wife was giving birth to his soon son and he was supposed to wait OUTSIDE YOU FILFH UNPROFESSIONAL BASTARD?!

When a nurse came to Chrono, asking for him to get out of the room since only it was allowed the father, he arched one eyebrow at her and pointed with his palm at a very furious Chisaki, silently saying 'Im the one keeping the beast calm, you sure about that?'.

The nurse just gave him a apologetic look before, with the nerves on their skin of talking to a dangerous man of the yakusa, calling Overhaul.

The way Chisaki looked at them could be described as murderous and if he had a laser vision quirk the poor nurse would be already dead on the spot.

"I-I'm sorry! But you can enter now." She bowed apologetically while indicating the door for Chisaki.

He didn't even acknowledge her as he entered the room abruptly, ignoring many looks of the doctors and just making a bee line at you.

Despite your eyebags and squirming in pain figurine, you still manage to look angelic... just incredible.

"Angel, it's almost over." He said monoustly, a mix of pain and relief at seing the way you opened your eyes.

"Kai..." you whispered while crying... your hand desperately hilding the bed sheets as you cried out...

"Dad hold her hand!" A male nurse suggested and you almost laughed if it wasn't for the torturous pain you were in.

Someone was trying to give others to Chisaki? Your Chisaki Kai? Great joke.

Chisaki narrowed his eyes at the man befofe cringing at seing you crying again... you were in so much pain but yet refused to just grab his hand because you knew him.

He suddenly left to a quick bathroom and picked a hand sanitizer and a handkerchief.... the scene was almost comic to the doctors and nurses. A soon to be father wipping his wife's hand before holding it onto his gloved one.

"You don't change do you?" You whispered while smilling at him, pure appreciation and love on your eyes as you looked into those beautiful golden ones that you had fallen with.

"Why should I?" He said monotonously but you could see the hints of a smile behind that black face mask of his.

His hand suddenly cracked at your strenght as you turned your head away from him to muffle your screams.

...ouch.

The doctors were surprised because they LISTENED to his hand cracking and he was just... there. He suddenly glared at them with pire hate as his words spilled from his kouth like venom.

"Bunch of incompetents, my wife is having a kid and you just stand there without doing nothing? Move and help her before I lose my pacience bunch of filfh." They flinched before returning to their activities whiel Kai scoffed 'sicks' under his breath.

Your screams had stopped and your grip on his hand released, putting the pieces together he looked up and saw a tiny creature on the arms of one nurse.

"You did it." He amused out loud while you only let out a sleep deprived 'yay' before closing your eyes as you tried to catch your breath.

He picked the handkerchief and wiped your forehead gently before looking down at you.

"You're sweaty..."

"No shit sherlock I just gave birth." You said between breaths and giggles receiving a pinch on your arm along with a scoff of his.

"W-Why isn't he crying?" You suddenly breath out.

Shit. Is true. He haven't heard his son cries. He looked uo already with anger before he saw the doctor bringing a white blanket and handing rubbing the face of your new born to you.

"See mommy? Your baby is fine." He felt butterflies forming inside his stomach at seing the little boy face in contact with yours... you smilling tiredly but still manage to open your eyes to look at your son.

"Kaito... is so nice to meet you.." you teared up at seing your baby for the first time... he had his father looks.

He punched his chest to prevent any hints of despicable tears fron falling from his eyes but it was really damn difficult... Luckily he managed to stay with his stoic face at least.

The moment though he saw you closing your eyes he internally panicked.

"Angel." He grabbed your face and shook slightly, checking your pulse with his other hand and sighing in relief at feeling your heartbeat on his fingers.

"She is just tired, will come back as soon as she recuperates... would you like to hold your son mister?"

He eyed the doctor in suspicion before choosing to only look at his son, eyes secretly telling how much he was willing to do for this little one already.

"Place him on the crib for now. I want my wife to see the scene, she wouldn't leave me alone after knowing that I holded my son without her seing it." He spoke crudely amd coldly at the doctor bit they didn't seemed to mind at first.

The doctor nodded in understatement before placing the kid carefilly down on the crib, right besides Kai as he sitted on the edge of the bed... holding your hand in his gloved ones.

He took a glance at his sleeping son and decided to just carres the tip of his thumb on the chubby cheek.

He swore the kid just smiled at the contact... a simple contact... but it was rather a nice feeling.

"I made this brat..." he mused out loud for himself before smirking down at his son and bringing your freahly washed head to rest on him instead of the pillows of the hospital.

"Welcome to this world... Chisaki Kaito."

[bobasheebaby]

Royal Ruby- Cordonian Ruby chapter 5

Pairing: Olivia x Bastien; Ruby Rys

Word count: 2,113

Warnings: angst, no triggers that I can think of, mention of dead parents, grab the tissue box folks this one is rough

Summary: Ruby’s is thrown by a loop after reading a letter from her parents.

A/N: Olivia stopped dying and cutting her hair when Ruby was five.

A/N2: You might recognize a bulk of the letter from TRH but I have added a lot to make it so much worse. 

A/N3: A major thanks @sirbeepsalot for all your graping, prereading, editing, and telling me when to let go. I love you boo!

Series warnings: character death, blood, surgical procedures done by non medical personnel, may go NSFW in the future. May contain gun violence, knife violence, threats, not sure how dark this will go. By requesting to be tagged you acknowledge you are at least 18 years of age.

Let me know if you want to be added or removed from the taglist.

Disclaimer: I own Ruby, Galen, and Lovett, I’m borrowing Bastien and Olivia from PB.

Ruby’s hands shook as she slid the letter opener under the flap of the sealed envelope. She’d always questioned her name, with golden blonde locks, and sapphire blue eyes she had always found her name to be more fitting of someone with crimson locks, like her Mama. Her Papa always told her he’d promised to give her the name moments before she was born.

She knew her mother died shortly after or before her birth, her Papa wasn’t clear on exactly when, he always grew quiet when asked. She heard her mother was strong and brave, and had a wonderful singing voice, but not much else.

She carefully pulled the crisp white paper from the yellowed envelope. She had been puzzled when her Papa handed it to her, all he or her Mama would say was it was time to learn the truth, her truth.

She ran her fingers over the elegantly scripted words.

Our dearest child,

We’ve been looking forward to your arrival. We’ve been counting the hours until the day you are born. We can’t wait to hold you and see your face for the very first time.

Most importantly, we’re going to be a family. Always there for each other. Ready to understand and believe. We will always be there for you if you ever find yourself in need of a guiding hand or a loving hug.

Life is full of surprises. Ups and downs. Sometimes things don’t go as planned, but we’ll love and support you no matter what.

Ruling Cordonia will seem like a big job, but your mother and I have every faith in your ability. Know that you come from a long line of people who once walked a similar path. Though things may seem daunting, we know that you shall preserve just as those before you have.

Ruby paused. Cordonia. The name felt familiar, like she should know where or when she heard it. Her mind falling blank. She pursed her lips as she continued to read. She could work on placing how she knew the country later.

You have so much strength and courage and you aren’t even here yet, but I know this because all I have to do is look at your mother to know you will take after her. You will be strong and courageous just as she’s always been and have the kind and loving heart we both contain. You will be the best of both of us.

Please remember times aren’t always easy, but you can do anything with the right people by your side. We have both learned that from each other and the love of our friends.

In spite of the hardships you may face, know that Cordonia will appreciate all the creativity and heart you bring to each challenge. Because we know you will be ready to take on anything. There are lots of twists and turns in life, and you need to keep your head on a swivel and your mama on speed dial.

We know that we can teach the lessons you’ll need to weather any storm.

We’re already so proud of the wonderful things we know you’ll do, of the person we know you’ll be. And we couldn’t be more proud to call you ours or love you more.

Love,

With all our hearts

Mom & Dad

Ruby watched as fresh tears dropped on the page, mingling with those dried tears of her parents. Her parents. She always knew her Mama and Papa weren’t blood, but they, along with her siblings were all she ever had.

She stared down at her father’s elegant script, watching as the fresh tears blur the once-crisp black letters. She felt as though she understood who they were even in a few lines.

Her eyes retraced the words, falling on two that made her heart race; Ruling Cordonia.

Cordonia. She couldn’t get the word out of her head. She knew she heard or saw it somewhere before. Maybe at school. She laid the letter on the bed and picked up her phone quickly typing Cordonia into the search bar.

I know this place. She could feel it in her bones that she had a connection to this place she was apparently set to rule before today.

She clicked the top link and slowly scrolled down the page as she scanned the words. She let out a gasp and her heart clenched when she reached the picture of the last king.

Her lip trembled and tears welled in her eyes. She did know this country, she read about it when she was ten, she could remember the strange connection she had felt as she had read about the royal family before.

She had found it odd that she shed tears for a family she never knew. She scrolled down further stopping at a picture of the king and his queen on their wedding day, beneath was the only family portrait. The queen wore a peach and gold gown and she was visibly pregnant. King Liam and Queen Carolyn one week before the accident, heir unborn and unnamed.

Tears silently streaked down her cheeks. These were her parents. God, I look so much like both of them.

Something isn’t right. She survived, yet the page clearly stated that none of the royal family had survived. Why do they think I’m dead?

She glanced at her letter, the one her parents had given her. They had told her this would reveal her truth, they knew. She wanted to be furious that they had lied to her all her life, but there had to be a reason. Her mama always told her that the reason may not always be clear but it’s always there.

She picked up her letter standing, she needed answers and she wouldn’t get them from some website. She needed to speak to her parents.

- - -

“Mama, Papa, can we talk … ” Ruby held up the unfolded letter, “about this?”

Olivia nodded, shooing away Ruby’s younger brothers with a look. “Come sit, and tell us what questions you have.” She patted the seat next to her.

Ruby slowly walked towards the only mother she ever knew, a great ache in her chest. Her stomach twisted in knots, all she’d ever known was about to change, didn't it already? Since learning who her parents were she had felt like a hundred-pound weight had been placed upon her head.

Was she really ready to have the only life she ever knew crash down around her like a simple house of cards? Was she ready for her life to change completely?

She swallowed as she sat beside Olivia on the couch laying the letter on her lap. Her sapphire eyes glanced down at the letter, though she nearly had it memorized. “Umm … ” suddenly her mouth went dry. She looked up, her eyes locking on the familiar steely grey of her Papa. “Is �� is this real?” She stumbled over the words, she began to question if she was fit for the title she was born to. I’m not cut out to be a princess, I can’t even speak to the parents who raised me. Wait, my parents died … am I already queen? “Am — am I really a — a princess?”

“Ruby’s a princess?!” Lovett gasped, his head peeking from behind the door.

Olivia’s eyes narrowed as she gave her youngest child a warning glare. “Lovett, you and Galen go and wait in your rooms, we will explain everything later.”

“Fine,” Lovett replied, shoulders slumping as he stomped off, he never got to have any fun.

Olivia turned back to her daughter, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. “You are a queen.”

A million questions ran through her head in a millisecond. What really happened to her parents? Why wasn’t she raised in a palace? Why did everyone think she was dead? Only one question slipped past her lips. “How?”

Bastien and Olivia locked eyes, a silent conversation shared between them before Olivia told her how she’d been best friends with Ruby’s father, watched him fall in love with her mother and both of them fight any obstacle in their way, together. Ruby sat silent, occasionally nodding as she processed every word.

She listened as they recounted that a king and queen of a neighboring nation wanted to force her parents into marrying her off to one of their children before she was even born. How her parents refused, stating their child would marry for love, not alliance. They tried to come to some sort of agreement without a betrothal contract, but the king persisted. He was foolish with his own country’s funds and wanted Cordonia’s, no matter the cost.

Her breath caught in her throat as her Papa explained that he was her father’s head guard, that they had been on their way to the hospital when they were run off the road. Tears silently slipped down her cheeks as he told her that her father died trying to protect both her and her mother upon impact. He spared her the details but told her that her mother only lived long enough to tell him to name her baby Ruby and to protect her.

Fresh tears rolled down her cheeks as she truly felt the painful loss of her parents for the first time in all her life. She lost out on knowing her parents because a king couldn’t stand being told no. The part she read about him being a dictator finally made sense. He killed them, took them away from me.

She wiped her cheeks and took a deep breath. She needed to hear more, exactly what had happened to her family.

After she urged him to continue he told her how he had cut her from her mother. He told her how every thought had been: be alive. He told her the relief he felt as she took her first breath. She sniffled as she was told she was wrapped in her father’s jacket, which they later found her letter in.

She looked up, surprised to see the man who was always calm in any situation was silently crying himself as he spoke. “I’m sorry Papa, I didn’t mean to —”

“You deserve to know Ruby,” Olivia said. “Let me take over.” She took a deep breath. “Papa walked to where I lived, he was a guard, I was a duchess. Where I grew up, we had more snow than sun.”

“That’s why you always loved the snow.”

Olivia nodded with a soft smile that quickly drifted away. “There was a storm that night, and it was a wonder you and Papa didn’t freeze to death. Papa arrived covered in blood, clutching you to his chest in the middle of the night. He nearly scared my majordomo half to death.

When I saw Papa holding you to his chest I instantly knew. He asked me for help getting you out of the country, we both knew you would be safer elsewhere. I quickly decided it would be safer for you if I went with you both. We’ve used more aliases than I could possibly recount, we moved a lot when you were little. We always posed as husband and wife with a beautiful daughter.” She looked down at her hands. “At some point, I’m not sure when the lines blurred, we got closer, and by your fifth birthday I was pregnant with Galen.”

“So that’s why we always changed names when we moved.”

“Yes,” Olivia patted her hand, “to keep you safe, to keep us all safe.”

“What does it all mean?”

“Well, you are the rightful queen, there might be some pushback but with the head guard and a duchess backing your claim, it would be harder for them to contest.” Olivia pushed back a wave of golden hair. “Besides you look so much like both your mother and father, no one could deny that you are theirs, a Rys.”

“Oh.” Ruby looked down at her hands. When she woke in the morning she never expected her life to change so drastically.

“Of course, you don’t have to claim your title. Papa and I would completely understand if you wanted to continue being a Johnson.”

“No.” Ruby shook her head, the answer coming automatically surprising even herself. Once the word was out she knew she couldn’t answer any other way. “You said I’m a Rys, I’ve always been a Rys — no matter what name I used. Cordonia is my home and I have to take it back.”

Olivia smiled again at Ruby, proud at the Nevrakis strength she was exuding. “Let’s get ready to go home.”

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[bramble-rose]

ABOUT REN SOHMA

(spoilers ahead)

Okay…. So take a deep breath.

I think Ren and Akira were really in love with each other and I think Ren is suffering from a form of postnatal depression.

In the manga it is often hinted that Ren had seduced Akira and would be a slut who was not worthy of him and had exploited his situation ...

After reading the story again, I do not think that was the case.

Akira was very ill and his diagnosis was that he was going to die very young. As the head of the family, he stood above everybody - which separated him from the other family members. Added to this was his illness, which further isolated him. The family had been urgently looking for a wife for him to bring an heir onto the scene, but no one was good enough. And I think this is where it started.

Ren was one of the many housekeepers of the Soma clan and was responsible for Akira. She cared for him, was always near him and noticed his emotional state, his loneliness. At least that is how it is told. She fell in love with him over time, but remained silent for a long time until she finally confessed her feelings to him.

It is also said that Akira had chosen her, among all the other women ... But Ren, as a simple maid, did not meet the level of esteem intended for Akira's future wife. There was much contradiction. Ren was insulted and not considered good enough. She was told to be a dirty witch, who was far below Akira and got his affection with tricks. It is implied that she simply seduced him. Ren is beautiful, you have to leave that to her.

However, both professed their love for each other, Akira also said that Ren alone recognized his loneliness and he married her in spite of all.

From this marriage, none other than Akito emerged - the reborn God of the Junnishi.

However, it were the already born Junnichi who knew about the pregnancy before Ren and Akira, because in a vision Akito appeared before them and announced that another banquet would be forthcoming. Ren was raided by the Junnichi one morning out of the blue .… And voila! All at once Ren's presence was no longer a thorn in the side of anyone. God would be born! Everyone was very happy - and everything was just about the kid. About Akito. About God.

And here is another important point.

Ren is disregarded as a person. Nobody cared about her anymore. Akira was also incredibly happy about the pregnancy. Through the vision everyone knew that Akito would become a girl and out of fear and jealousy that everyone would only love this girl, Ren threatened to abort Akito if she wasn‘t raised as a man ...

At this point you should think, why thought Ren that way? Even to the fact that only the baby mattered anymore and that she was just a vessel to everybody ... would it have been different if Akito had been a boy? Yes, I think so.

It is said that Ren was ashamed that the God she was going to give birth to was female. I think that's not the case. I think it's actually a messed-up jealousy for 'Daddy's Little Girl'. Ren was afraid that this child would drive a wedge between Akira and her, as Akito would be the God of the Junnishi. She would be all over the place. Ren saw Akito as another woman not as her daughter. She was a Rival (which is a trope that is often used in manga and anime… and it is really strange)

Well, Akira, of course, agreed to Ren's threat but was still happy about the birth.

Ren did not even want to hold the child.

This fight and all this points are important to understand why Ren has lost her mind. At first she was not good enough, she was insulted over and over again, even her family's home offended. Then she became pregnant and suddently everyone only loved the child, everyone was waiting for God. For the special Entity ... She was just their birth machine and the man she loved thought only of the divine child.

So as a toddler Akito had a hard time suffering under Ren. She physically and verbally abused Akito and raised her as a boy. Ren constantly blamed her, no matter what, that she would be useless and that Akira and Ren would not need her, Akira and Ren as a couple would be the only special onces because their connection had produced a special child.

From this time on it's always about who Akira loves more. His daughter or his wife?

A strange question since there are so many different varieties of love, but Ren's psyche and self-perception were already disturbed at the time. Otherwise she would have noticed that there is no reason for jealousy.

When Akira finally died, the secret is revealed ... Akira loved Akito. Of course, she was his daughter. But he said he wished that Ren could have loved her, too. He was sad that the two didn‘t got along and especially noted that Ren should have been happy about the birth of her child.

While he is dying he told Akito that she was special. She was God, she didn‘t need him or Ren. She was the God of the Junnichi and would be able to move on because everyone else has been waiting for her. She was born to be loved. After that he only talked about Ren, who was not called, even though her husband was dying.

He said that Ren and he had experienced true love and that their love was so special that they have begotten Akito, the God. That this would prove how special their love was.

So yes, Akira loved Ren deeply. Of course he did, she was his wife. Even though her outbursts made him unhappy, he always wanted the best for her. His last word was even 'Ren', as far as I can remember.

So what can you read from it? Akito was present during her father's monologue and as a small child she might thought that her father did not love her as much as she believed ... Akito's eyes are drawn throughout the scene without light effects. Actually a stylistic choice to describe the absence of emotions: Her father died ... she is traumatized.

When Ren stormed in she claimed Akito would not be needed anymore now that Akira was dead, Akitos supposed divinity would not be real and that the invisible bond between Akito and the Junnishi wasn‘t real (btw, it actually exists, Ren was wrong).

Ren felt helpless and was angry and sad that her husband died before she could said goodbye and blamed Akito.

Later that day Akito got a secret box from one of the housekeeper (she has no name). Supposedly it was a last gift from Akira to Akito to show how great their love for each other was. In the box was supposedly Akira's soul ....

Everything that happend to this point has made Akito extremly insecure and years later she stil believed that her father's soul is in that box.

Years later Ren learned about that box and wanted it for herself since everything that belonged to Akira belonged to her. She didn‘t know what was in it but that didn‘t matter. Ren even used Rin to get that box… and that ended badly.

But what does all this say about Ren?

I think through all the things that happened before and during and after the pregnancy Ren suffered from some kind of postnatal depression and never got over it. And after Akira died things got worse.

Akito is not directly one of the Junnichi, but she is obsessed with the spirit of God. And like almost all other parents in Fruits Basket, Akito's mother has been influenced by the curse.

Most parents in the story are violent, neglect their children, mock them, terrorize and abuse them and have no direct connection with them. Especially the mothers are greatly affected. So is Ren.

Ren thinks of Akito as the one who took Akira away from her. Emotional and physical. The loss has driven her crazy and the bond and the curse are something she can not grasp and understand, and so she loathes it. Because with the curse her and Akiras love started to fall apart. She does everything to torment Akito, insulting her, unsettling her and tries everything to destroy her identity. Both as God as well as a woman.

She even goes so far as to sleep with the man Akito loves the most.

( I can not help thinking, that Shiguri, as the mastermind he is, didn‘t just do that because he was so keen on her, he even said he just got into Ren because he thought Akito would look like Ren if she was raised as a woman ... So Shigure took advantage of Ren to imagen he has sex with Akito? That's weird … but that's Shigure, you never know what he's really thinking. And then there is the whole Kureno thing going on... But when Ren found out about this she was furious. Akito again took her place.)

All this does not make Ren's deeds better or excuses them, but it sheds another light on Ren, who is being vilified by everyone. And it absolutely explains why Akito is the way she is. The abused abuses ... but Akito is a different topic.

In the end, however, both were victims of a third person involved, beginning from the marriage of Ren and Akira, to his death and the question of who loved whom, and who would be the right heir as head of the familiy. This person was respinsible for and kept fireing on the hatred between mother and daughter. She had her fingers in the whole game: The housemaid without a name.

She insulted Ren for years.

She questioned everything Ren did.

She kept her away when Akira died.

She spur the hate/war between Akito and Ren… using the box/Akiras Souls and both their feelings.

She claimed Ren was insane.

She blindly obeys to the old family rules without thinking.

And… she, as one of those who raised Akito, let her do whatever she wanted and never taught her morals or boundaries.

She let both run amok and called it disgrace in secret….

And after Akito had seen her mistakes and wanted to change, the maid refused to change, claiming she was too old...

[rightnowyoucanttell]

Lone Star //: G.D

(This imagine is inspired by the song Lone Star by the Front Bottoms, it has got to be my favorite song ever. I dunno this idea came to for some crazy reason. I am not saying this is my opinion or trying to enforce my opinion, I don’t ever post my opinions on social media due to backlash,  on the topic, i’m just simply writing an imagine. )

Y/N and Grayson have been dating for almost two years, when a night of tangled limbs winds you up pregnant, it overwhelms you. Leading a confused and scared Y/N to get an abortion behind Graysons back. Fed up with a nauseous wave of guilt, Y/N tells Grayson. 

Warnings: angst, unwanted pregnancy, mentions of smut,  abortion 

 The morning after you looked at your figure in the mirror. The doctor at the clinic said within the next three days your pregnancy symptoms would vanish or dial down to unnoticeable, you looked forward to that. After telling Grayson, there would likely be no reminders left besides the sonogram, you prepped yourself for him to leave, but deep down you would never be ready. 

  Your hand trailed your neck, where he had kissed longly and tenderly that night of tangled limbs. You traced down your arm where he had caressed you and wrapped his own strong arms around you as the night came to an end. The love mark had faded from present, to nearly gone, a slight purple glare stayed behind, he had done quite the number on you. 

You had told Grayson about your pregnancy, how you were two months pregnant with his child who’s gender wouldn’t have been revealed months later, littand he was a genuinely excited after a while. The pure shock subsided and then he found his will to become a father again, that he clung to so tightly. He wanted to be as good as the man who raised him, he felt he owed him that much. Even if he was only twenty years old, despite that, he would do anything in his power to keep his child/children safe.   

 You on the other hand.. well. 

  You had just watched your bank account run dry, spending four-hundred and thirty seven dollars in an attempt to put things back to the way they used to be. Deep down, you felt wrong, you knew you would regret it, but, in some ways _you would have spent so much more. _That didn’t make it any easier.  You pulled out your phone, sitting in your empty, cold from guilt, Los Angeles apartment and texted your boyfriend, wanting to do the damage and collect your potential losses. You loved Grayson, but, you couldn’t do it. No matter how much you, him or anyone else deep down wanted you to be able mother a child, you werent ready. And that guilt would cling onto you for the rest of your life. 

You: Hey Gray, can you come over? We need to talk about things.. thanks, Y/N 

Grayson: Of course, i’m glad were good now, at least that’s what i’ve collected. Want me to bring lunch? 

Your heart chimed with the chimes of the cell phone alert. He still loved you, you still loved him. Which made this whole situation even harder. You decided to tell him to bring lunch, giving you a potential opportunity to ease your way in. 

 You: Sounds great. How about that Vegan Burger place, it’s on the way i figured i’d save you some gas. 

Grayson: Haha, thanks, I appreciate it. The usual, times two? 😉

You froze when you thought about what he meant. He was so excited to be a dad, to do unto his own children what his father did, guide them on the right path, be there, listen, play. After all, anyone can be a father, but it took a special someone to be a dad. And Gray, he embodied that exactly, you felt guiltier than before. 

You sighed and responded. 

You: haha, yeah sure. Oh, but regular fries, no beer battered fries for me 😉😉 

Grayson: Haha yeah. Love you, see you in twelve, approx. 

You shut your phone off, he wouldn't say anything about no response. From the beginning you told him he walked on eggshells around you. After today, he would never ‘walk around you’ again. He would leave. 

  As Grayson drove, food in car, he thought about how he would tell his mom, Ethan who still didn’t know after the weeks of his knowledge, Cameron. ‘Hey, meet my pregnant girlfriend, future wife,’ Grayson chuckled to himself knowing that sounded ludacris, even in his head. 

  He pulled into the parking garage and headed through the lobby and into the elevator to the top floor where your apartment was. He knocked gently, back to the eggshells thing. 

   “Hey, c’mon in.” you invited grayson inside as the door scrapped across the carpet floor of the apartment. The two floor loft apartment had two bedrooms and one full bath with an amazing kitchen and view, you loved it. The two of you sat at the island counter and pawed through the brown paper bags stained with grease. 

   “I got you two black bean burgers and a large fry, I figured you’d only drink water, so no drinks. Caffeine pull back is in order...” he drifted off as he already saw you pawing through an order of fries shoveling them into your mouth, trying to play along with the pregnancy for as long as possible. You giggled earning a grin, laugh and graysons fingertips on his right hand running up and down your spine as he picked at him own food with his opposite hand. 

Moments of bliss, happiness and baby talk passed, but you knew, it was time to tell him. Time to ruin the happiness and come back to the reality. 

   “That past few months have been rough, we can agree. Several times wished were both dead..” Grayson looked over to you mid bite into his vegetable spinach wrap in a confusion that swept over his facial expression,”I’ve never cried like that before. Nothing seems right, my hair cut how my clothes fit...”

 “Y/N....” he set his wrap down on the paper wrapping and turned to face you on the bar stool. 

“Grayson, I got an abortion.” you spit the truth out faster than you would have like to in hindsight. 

   “Excuse me?” he asked in shoretrievinging his hand from where he was rubbing your tentious shoulders.  

  “I’m sure you heard me, Gray.. I-”

“So, what? Now, what? Where do I go? Why? Why the fuck” a glass went flying off the island pushed by his back hand. 

  “Grayson- stop yelling-” Y/N tried to plead with him as the glass crashed to the floor into hundreds of pieces. 

“You have no right to tell me what to do, this, this is over. I wanted that baby. You could have  left after the birth, god... you ruined any chance of us fixing things. And what? You just played along this.. eating food, food I bought with my money? Using me, again, ain’t that right?” he was furious steaming quite literally. Y/N could feel the heat in his words and his positive now turn cold and negative energy. 

“I’m sorry...” Y/N began to sobb, heavy wet tears that pooled in her eyelids and streamed mascara down her face, her breathing heavy ahiccupinging in her throat 

“Oh don’t fucking tell me your sorry, when your not, Your just sorry you got caught in a situation in which you can’t lie further. Take a bow, you really had me going, the curtains closed.” 

  “Grayson-” you chased after him as he walked away,”Please,... I don’t deserve it, but stay, let’s discuss this as the adults were not. I was scared okay?”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better? And, oh your ‘sorry’? Well, sorry-sorry doesn’t get me my baby back now does it Y/N. You deserve to be alone, gather your thoughts, and i’ll gather your things and drop them off. Maybe, down the road we can try this again. But for now, the only thing i’m giving you, is the award for the best liar, it goes to you...” he huffed glancing over his shoulder angrily looking at you and around the apartment before slamming the door behind him, knocking your first ultrasound photo off the cork board behind the door. 

   The baby whose life you took, because you were scared. Your apartment so small felt so big, replaying the moment the man you loved left your life because you were selfish. 

{AHH first post, this sucks, but eh it’s okay I guess.

Find my instagram @ brokenvibes_2020, I make video edits, mostly the dolan twins but other fandoms too. } 

[corinthbayrpg]

NAME. Sofia Morales AGE & BIRTH DATE. 48 & November 3rd, 1972 GENDER & PRONOUNS. Female & She / Her SPECIES. Fury of Tisiphone OCCUPATION. Diving & Surfing Instructor FACE CLAIM. Lindsey Morgan

BIOGRAPHY

( tw: death ) Sofia Morales was born on a stormy November night, as the second child of Maria Morales  who was a relatively well-known painter. Her mother had been born and raised in Toluca in Mexico, but after getting an art degree that her parents frowned upon, she started traveling the world to find inspiration for the landscape scenery paintings she did. Eventually, her mother decided to settle down in the small village of Étretat in France, where she had met the first love of her life, a man who worked with finances, and loved to go sailing in his free time. Sofia’s father had already been a single dad before meeting her mother, raising his son on his own after their mother left them for another man. As neither of them really believed in the concept of marriage, they never wed, but it didn’t slim their love in the slightest. Sofia hardly got to know her father though, as he died in a sailing accident when she was merely two years old. While she always noticed his absence, she had hardly any memories or recollections of the person he was, and therefore never properly had to grieve his death like her half-brother and mother did. 

Until Sofia was eight, her mother raised the two of them on their own. Which was actually quite the chaotic experience. Her mother was a chaotic person in general, not the kind of mother who prepared lunches or always remembered the appointments for her children – instead she often forgot about time and space when she was working on a new painting. She never forgot about her children out of malice, and they were aware of that, but at times it wasn’t easy for the two. They spent a lot of their free time at the small beach in Étretat, where Sofia immersed herself in books, but mostly enjoyed the ocean. Maybe it was a leftover of her dad’s DNA in her that she enjoyed the waves so much. She could swim better than she could walk at a young age, and her brother taught her how to surf quite early on in life. She also took a sailing course, despite her mother’s hesitations about it. As long as she was surrounded by water, Sofia was happy. 

Shortly after Sofia turned twelve, her mother then introduced a new person into their lives. She had met a woman named Valerie Dupont at one of her art expositions and instantly fell in love. While the women mostly tried to keep their relationship a secret from the public eye, it was two weeks after Sofia’s birthday that her mother introduced Valerie to her children. From one day to the next, she suddenly had two mothers. While her brother and her were hesitant at first, they quickly fell in love with this woman just like their mother had. She was kind, warm, welcoming – she remembered to make lunches, used Sundays to bake cakes, and was exactly the kind of person the three of them needed in their lives to give them some structure. She also already had a daughter that she brought into the family, making them a true patchwork match. Soon enough, all four of them would go to the beach, leaving Sofia’s mother behind to do her paintings, and suddenly Sofia had a woman and a young girl cheering her on when she was chasing waves with her surfboard, and taught her younger sister how to sail a small boat.

What none of them knew was that her step-mother was a witch, and so was her daughter. To this day, Sofia isn’t quite sure how they managed to hide it from them for an extended period of time, but back then, she had no clue something like the supernatural world existed. Any hints, any slip ups from the two, had gone unnoticed. She didn’t believe in Gods, or any other creatures aside of humans, or really just anything that was remotely out of the ordinary. No, Sofia liked nature, and lived in a very human reality. She loved to go camping, to go hiking, to be out on the water – anything that was taking place outside made her happy. She wouldn’t sleep with her windows closed, not even in the coldest winters, just because she felt like she was suffocating without any fresh air coming in through her windows. 

In general though, her life was blissfully peaceful. Sofia couldn’t say she had much to complain about. After leaving school, she worked two years as a surfing instructor in Éterat, simply because she didn’t want to leave her family. Sofia had never been someone to make too many friends, her family being the most important part of her life, and therefore that was the part she didn’t want to be too far away from. But she always dreamt of studying, and her mother and step-mother eventually managed to talk her into making her dream come true. That was how she left the small town in France to study biology at a university in Zurich, with a minor in marine biology, making her dreams of one day working in and with nature a reality. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree she was incredibly proud of, and went on to do her master’s degree in Iceland, where she mainly did research on whales’ behavior and also sustainable biology. Afterwards, she started working in the research field, spending a lot of her time on boats or by the ocean in different countries all over the world. During that time, she hardly saw her family, something that left a gaping hole in her heart.

And that was the reason why for Sofia’s twenty-eighth birthday, her only wish was for their family to go on a camping trip together. It was during that weekend that everything changed for her. The weekend started out perfectly fine, it included a hike to a smaller mountain nearby, they took silly family photos, even took a small swim in a tiny lake near where they built their tents. In the evening, they made a bonfire, and eventually crawled into their tents to sleep.

Sofia woke up in the middle of the night, and at first, she wasn’t even sure what woke her up. Then she noticed that the sleeping bag next to hers was empty. She had shared her tent with her step-sister, and decided to go check if everything was alright – more on instinct than out of real worry. But Sofia stepped right into the scene that looked like it came straight out of a nightmare. At first, she only noticed the unmoving body of her own mother on the ground, covered in blood, and only afterwards she lay eyes on a silhouette that was bent over her sister, who was also unmoving and incredibly pale in the dusty moonlight. Sofia was moving before she had really decided on what to do, tearing the vampire’s body away from her sister’s form, screaming in the process. It was an uneven fight, of course, and by the time her brother appeared from his tent, Sofia was unable to walk, one of her legs feeling as if it no longer belonged to her body. She was covered in blood, her own and those of her family members. Her brother ended up being thrown against a tree, a cracking noise making her think that he, too, was no longer breathing. It was then that Sofia first found out that her step-mother was a witch, as she started to use the earth around them as means of protecting them from the vampire. Roots grew around them, encaging them to make it impossible for the vampire to get to them. But in the process, she forgot to protect herself, and was pulled into the woods. Her screams could be heard everywhere in the valley, and when the magic in the roots fell away and they fell to the ground in ashes, Sofia thought this was the end.

Sofia dragged herself to her sister, bending over her, only to find her unmoving and unbreathing. It was then that she cried out for help, furious and full of a need for revenge as Sofia believed that within a matter of minutes, she had lost her entire family. And that was when Tisiphone appeared to her, offering her the opportunity to become something more than what she was, to be able to pursue revenge for what had happened to her family. Blinded by her pain, she did not hesitate before accepting her new role. Sofia was a quick learner, both when it came to her new abilities and everything else there was to know about the supernatural world. It was two years after she had first met Tisiphone that she located the vampire that had killed her mother and younger sister, and paid him back for the crimes he committed with a wooden stake to his heart. She also beheaded him afterwards, just to make sure he was dead and unable to stay alive.

After the incident in the forest, it turned out that her step-mother and brother were still alive. They were severely injured, but recovered from the physical injuries – the emotional ones are some all three of them still carry with them every single day, and have only bound the little family even tighter together. Sofia still vividly remembers that night, dreams of it all the time, and as a reminder she got a tattoo on her thigh where the vampire had left his biggest mark, a reminder of the two people she had lost. The murder of them is what kept her moving through the past years, and still keeps her going these days, trying to fulfill her duty as a fury and make sure no other families will be ripped apart like hers. While she wanted nothing more than to stay with the remaining parts of her family, as a fury she felt restless. She bought a small RV and started using it as a means of moving from one day to the next. Most of the time she’d sleep in woods or by the ocean, where she felt most at home.

Sofia came to Corinth Bay at the call of Tisiphone once more, to join the other furies in trying to help with the veil being torn. Unsure about how long she will stay, she found herself a room in an apartment, and a job as a diving and surfing instructor down by the beach. But her focus hasn’t been on her true passion for a long time, instead she is trying her hardest to use the abilities she has been blessed with, and protect those around Corinth Bay who can’t protect themselves.

PERSONALITY

+ adventurous, responsible, loyal - impatient, opinionated, impulsive

PLAYED BY LISA. GMT+1. She/Her.

[latibule-found]

THE MAPPILA REBELLION(1921)

Some call it as a fight for freedom others call it as a genocide. I have tried to be as factual as I can and I have left it to the readers to interpret it.

The Mappila rebellion started as a resistance against the British Colonial rule, feudal system and in favour of the Khilafat Movement in the Malabar. The Khilafat Movement also known as the Indian Muslim Movement was a pan-islamist political protest campaign led by Shaukat Ali, Maulana Mohammed Ali Jauhar, Hakim Ajmal Khan and Abdul Kalam Azad to restore the Caliph of the ottoman caliphate (Leader of the Sunni Muslims). A large number of leaders started to spread awareness and develop participation on the behalf of the Caliphate. The movement was supported by Gandhi and other Indian Nationalist Leaders as they were both fighting a common enemy the British. Some historians say that the khilafat movement aimed at establishing a Islamic State in the Malabar thus they were both fighting a common enemy but had different goals.

Background of the rebellion

The Malabar agricultural system was historically based on a hierarchy of privileges, rights based on birth(jenmis). The jenmis consisting mainly of Namboothris (Brahmins) and Nair chieftains were the highest in hierarchy. The Jenmis could provide a grant of kanan (piece of land) to a kannakkaran in return for a fixed share of the crops produced. A Jenmi would have a large number of Kanakkarans under him. The verumpattakaran (kannakarans) generally thiyya and mapilla classes cultivated the land and were also part proprietors. They were given a simple lease for one year. They were entitled to one third or half of the produce. The Jenmis could not evict the tenants under him unless they were unable to pay the prescribed rent.

Mysorean Invasion of Malabar (1766-1792)

Haider Ali invaded the Malabar region and took over the region. During this invasion the jenmis were driven out and they fled neighbouring states. The tenants and Nair army men who could not escape were forcibly converted to Islam. Having driven the Jenmis out a new system of land revenue was introduced with the government share on the basis of the actual produce from the land. The rule of Haider Ali and Tipu Sultan created a sense of security among the Muslims.

Within 5 years the British took over Malabar and defeated Tipu sultan. This allowed the jenmis to return to their homes and regain their lands with the help of the British government and its courts. The British introduced several western juridical concepts such as private property rights. These were unknown to the people in the Malabar. This gave the jenmis the right to evict the tenants as they please, as conditions worsened the rents rose to as high as 75% to 80% of the net produce. This caused great resentment amongst the Muslims, the sense of security they felt during the rule of Haider Ali and Tipu Sultan was no more. They once again felt helpless at the hands of the jenmis, as the resentment grew it resulted in a long series of violent outbreaks beginning in 1836. This almost always included the murder of the Hindus.

Timeline of events

28 April 1920- The Malabar Rebellion was introduced into the district of Malabar by a resolution by the Malabar district council at Manjeri.

30 March 1921- There was a meeting held by Musaliyar of Vayakkad and a second meeting at the Pannur Mosque, there was some friction in between the Mappilas and the Nairs and Tiyyas who resented the Khilafat movement. The Mappilas attacked the place of worship of the Hindu Adhigari of the village.

August 20 1921- This day can be considered as a turning point, the Hindu Muslim tensions had reached its peak( the police, the Hindus and the British government were seen as accomplices by the Muslim population of the Malabar, any act of the police could have threatened the status quo between the Hindu and Muslims). The police attempted to arrest Vadakevtil Muhammed alleging that he had stolen the pistol of a Hindu. 2000 Mappilas gathered and foiled this attempt of the police. At night 16 miles from Manjeri in Nilambur. A police constable and Mr Rowley, Lieutenant Johnston and 9 others were killed.

21 August 1921- The police arrested a number of Khilafat volunteers and seized the records at the Mambaran Mosque in Tirurangad. This led to rumours that the police had desecrated the mosque. A large number of Mappilas attacked the police station. The police opened fire and this triggered furious reactions among the Mappilas

The Mappila Rebellion Begins

22 August 1921- the public officers were targeted and killed.

24 August 1921-Variyam Kunnath Kunhahammed Haji made inflammatory speeches at Manjeri. The situation in the Malabar was extremely sensitive and this might have been enough to light the flames of passion in the already frustrated Mappilas. This speech is one of the most significant moments leading to the rebellion.

25 August 1921- A retired police officer is murdered and his head was paraded on a spear and was left on the common ground till 30th August.

The rebels attacked police stations, government treasuries and entered courts and registry offices destroying all records. They took over the seats of the judges and declared “Swaraj”.

Reactions and accounts of the rebellion.

B. R. Ambedkar:

“The blood-curdling atrocities committed by the Mappilas in Malabar against the Hindus were indescribable. All over Southern India, a wave of horrified feeling had spread among the Hindus of every shade of opinion, which was intensified when certain Khilafat leaders were so misguided as to pass resolutions of congratulations to the Mappilas on the brave fight they were conducting for the sake of religion". Any person could have said that this was too heavy a price for Hindu-Muslim unity. But Mr. Gandhi was so much obsessed by the necessity of establishing Hindu-Muslim unity that he was prepared to make light of the doings of the Mappilas and the Khilafats who were congratulating them. He spoke of the Mappilas as the "brave God-fearing Mappilas who were fighting for what they consider as religion and in a manner which they consider as religious ".

(Many historians have blamed Gandhi for justifying the violence. The man who stood for non- violence seemed to be supporting violence for Hindu Muslim unity which was clearly a myth in the Malabar. Gandhi could have taken steps to stop this calamity but was a mute spectator)

Annie Beasant 

“Mr. Gandhi…can he not feel a little sympathy for thousands of women left with only rags, driven from home, for little children born of the flying mothers on roads in refugee camps? The misery is beyond description. Girl wives, pretty and sweet, with eyes half blind with weeping, distraught with terror; women who have seen their husbands hacked to pieces before their eye, in the way “Mappilas consider as religious”; old women tottering, whose faces become written with anguish and who cry at a gentle touch…men who have lost all, hopeless, crushed, desperate…Can you conceive of a more ghastly and inhuman crime than the murders of babies and pregnant women?…

A pregnant woman carrying 7 months was cut through the abdomen by a rebel and she was seen lying dead on the way with the dead child projecting out of the womb…

Another: a baby of six months was snatched away from the breast of his own mother and cut into two pieces… Are these rebels human beings or monsters?

A respectable Nair Lady at Melatur was stripped naked by the rebels in the presence of her husband and brothers, who were made to stand close by with their hands tied behind. When they shut their eyes in abhorrence, they were compelled at the point of sword to open their eyes and witness the rape committed by the brute in their presence.”

The Rani of Nilambur in a petition to Lady Reading:

“Many wells and tanks filled up with the mutilated, but often only half dead bodies of our nearest and dearest ones who refused to abandon the faith of our fathers

Pregnant women cut to pieces and left on the roadsides and in the jungles, with the unborn babe protruding from the mangled corpse.

Innocent and helpless children torn from our arms and done to death before our eyes and of our husbands and fathers tortured, flayed and burnt alive.

Places of worship desecrated and destroyed and of the images of the deity shamefully insulted by putting the entrails of slaughtered cows where flower garlands used to lie or else smashed to pieces.

Wholesale looting of hard-earned wealth of generations reducing many who were formerly rich and prosperous to publicly beg for a piece or two in the streets of Calicut, to buy salt or chilly or betel-leaf - rice being mercifully provided by the various relief agencies.”

A genocide or paroxysm of ferocity and frustration trapped in the Mappilas or a fight for freedom by the downtrodden. Its for you to decide.

[robot-unicorn-attack]

☽ WIDOWMAKER, 26

"God may forgive you, but I never can." (attributed to Queen Elizabeth I)

Real Name: Eleni Landry

Agency: ʟᴀᴢᴇʀ

FC: Binx Walton

Unicorn Name: Voidmaker

Place of Birth: Ser'hld IX, a mining asteroid under Lava World's jurisdiction, before the gravitational pull from the black hole tore it apart.

Appearance: Tall, severe, with her curls cut short. Elbows like bolts. Legs jittery, like she's half-ready to start running. Burning eyes. Two piercings in her right ear and one through her left eyebrow. Never laughs. Sometimes smiles.

Wardrobe: Black leather jacket, black turtleneck shirt, loose black trousers, oxfords and boots. The occasional black button-up. No heels. No makeup unless she has to. When she goes onto interviews, she tells them to put as much stage makeup onto her face as they would for a man's. She wears gray durasteel piercings, made from the scraps of the first pieces she ever stole for Voidmaker. There's always a watch on her wrist; it doesn't work. It's stopped at 1318 Standard hours, fifteen years ago.

Places most likely to be found: The edges of meeting rooms, the corners of bars and restaurants. The engineering department of her agency, tinkering with Void. 

People mostly likely to be with: Flame, who's nice enough and talks enough for two. Her agents--probation officers, more like. Other Lava Worlders, some of whom come up to her with fervent hands and eager words.

Strongest character trait: Her resentment

Public Image: They first tried to brand her a rebel, but she refused to give up that part of herself and her past to the greedy masses. It made her furious in a way that few things did, the thought of selling her anger and her history. They then tried to brand her as the femme fatale, but she refused to don their dresses and their sickly-slick lipstick. They felt wrong on her skin. The agency gave up then. She became the mysterious one, quiet and severe and short-spoken, and strangely enough, the people liked that. The agency built on that, and soon a new biography was built for her: the child of a secret agent, high up in the Estrellan Federation's political echelons, cool and suave and likely trained to kill. 

Racing Strengths: She knows her Void like the back of her hand and can handle her with a mastery unseen even by the Snow Queen herself. The pair of them are quick and agile and nimble.

Racing Weaknesses: In the early days, her agent would scream at her after her races--you need to give a shit about the race, Landry! we kept you from Estrellan jail because we thought you had it in you to give a damn, we can't keep you here if you keep racing like that--so she learned to try. Or to see least act like she was trying, because the fact remains that Eleni doesn't give a shit about winning the races. It's just bread and circuses to her, keeping people too happy and entertained to recognize their crumbling cosmos.

Personality: Quiet, taciturn, but eloquent and measured when she finally speaks. Uncomfortable in the spotlight, for all that she commands it well. Holds grudges like it's a competition; falls quickly into righteous fury. She doesn't have a lot of friends, but she will go through hell for the ones she does.

Biography: She remembers the day when the world ended. She was just old enough to understand that earthquake drills were not just a game they played at school. The alarm sounded inside their little house, louder and more insistent than it ever has, and her father pulled her out the door and started running. It's happening, he said, and she grew horribly afraid, because she had never seen him cry before. It's happening, Ellie, you need to run, they have shuttles for the children, you need to get out--

They were separated by the crowd. She followed his directions and ran. The last thing she heard was him shouting her name, before an official in uniform pushed her into a rescue shuttle and the doors close behind her, and they took off.

They were the last ship to make it off the moon.

Her mother was an overseer in the mines. She would have been among the first to die, as the gravitational pull of the void pulled apart the fissures in the moon's surface made by mining shafts and yanked all of the people there into deep space, scattering them into the airless black. The same would have happened to the people on the surface not long afterwards. The gravity swell that had destroyed Ser'hld IX made the shuttle groan and rattle. Eleni had just gotten a watch for her eleventh birthday, and the spacetime distortion from the black hole's swell broke it. 

1318, on the second. That was when her world ended. 

The children rescued from the destroyed moon were declared wards of Estrella. Eleni attended boarding school in the central Lava province until she couldn't stand it anymore. The Federation had the capacity to travel faster than light, to build floating cities and terraform entire planets, to build horses of light and arenas of fire and ice for the pleasure of their rich benefactors. They had already conquered space and gravity and time--so why did they leave her moon to die? They could please the powerful all they wanted and put up a show of mourning for the dead--but that didn't change the fact that they left her family to die, her city, her people, the people who mined the metal and ore used to build Estrella's gleaming wonders.

The Federation left Ser'hld to die. The moon should have been evacuated three decades ago, before she was even born, but the mines were too lucrative. 

She snuck onto a cargo ship when she was 14 and flew back to the backwater provinces where she knew she belonged, where the ground rumbled beneath her feet with every fluctuation from the black hole. She found other mining refugees there, who like her no longer had homes because of Estrella's neglect. They stole and bartered for a living; she learned how to hack security systems and plan raids on government facilities for oxygen dispersers and power cells and other necessities the Federation hoarded for itself. They talked about other things, bigger things--like separating the planet from the Federation and making Estrella pay. She learned she was damn good at fixing systems which were broken and even better at breaking systems when they needed to be broken.

She was 15 when she snuck into a facility and saw engineers developing robotic horses for some--racing game. They needed the metal to fix air purifiers in the area; mining smog corroded the filters like nothing else. That night, she and a couple others went back to scavenge sheet metal from the discarded prototypes, and she saw that there was one horse still running its program, LED eyes blinking in the dark, its body dark as a void.

Eleni took it with her when they left, and it trotted silently behind her like it had been trained.

It made her something of a legend in her new home, a girl with sunken eyes and a horse as dark as night, who stole from the powerful and would help you for a small price. Her horse--Void, she called it, dark as space--came with her team on raids, stepping silently behind her and carrying their loot. She had to steal from more and more well-guarded facilities to keep Void working, and one day, when she was 21, she got caught by a guard with LAZER on his uniform.

He gave her a choice--prison in central Estrella, or to race with Void for them.

She came back to her home--the backwater province where she stole and bartered for all of her growing years--a full year after she vanished, and she raced the course with her heart pounding, and she won. And she heard the roaring of the miners and shippers and cargo guides crash over her like a wave, because one of their own had won against a top-rated Ice Worlder. One of their own had won. The girl with sunken eyes and a night-black horse was back.

She doesn't want to race for Estrella. Lazer can go to hell, for all she cares. But every revolution needs its symbol, and Eleni might have just become her own.

Relationships:

Snow

Sky

Ice

Supernova

Sunbeam

Flower

Flame

Nyx

Playlist:

"Revolution" by The Score

"Vesuvius" by Sufjan Stevens

"The Angry River" by S. I. Itswa

"Running Up That Hill" by Meg Myers (Kate Bush cover)

"Conquest of Spaces" by Woodkid

Pinterest: N/A

Headcanons: N/A

Agency Bio: https://robot-unicorn-attack.tumblr.com/database-widowmaker

[mathiaskillmaster]

Rebirth of the Dragon (After GOT / Daenerys Targaryen) Part 6

Westeros, Winterfell Although summer had fallen, temperatures in the independent kingdom of north had remained rather low, although the snow had disappeared to give way to the green heaths and coniferous forests rocked by the wind. In Winterfell, capital of the northern kingdom, life had resumed and gradually recovered from the terrible battle that had taken place against the Night King and his army of the dead, now a threat from the past. In the courtyard of the castle, servants and other occupants were engaged in their daily tasks, while patrol guards proceeded to their usual rounds. Standing in front of the big fireplace in her personal office, the young queen in the north, Sansa Stark, dressed in her big black dress and her warmly fur-covered shoulders, was pacing, circling, her hands behind her back, and seemed to be waiting, looking moribund. On her desk, among the many documents, was a letter whose seal, that of the hand of the king, had been broken. Sansa had read the letter sent recently by Tyrion Lannister, and what she had read there had more than disconcerted her. Daenerys Targaryen is .... alive? Just thinking about it made her shudder again. Just the idea that she can return to Winterfell on the back of her dragon to seek revenge. Despite having archers, Sansa did not know if all of Winterfell's garrison, no matter how large, would be sufficient in the face of the devastating anger of an adult dragon who had proven himself capable of destroying an entire fleet of war ships and ravaged half of King's Landing. Sansa did not know what her brother Bran was going to do about it, but knowing that her kingdom no longer depended on the king's orders, she decided to do something for her. She would not take the risk of seeing Winterfell and the north be burned to the ground if she could stop it before it happen. Returning to her desk, Sansa took her pen, dipped it in ink and began writing a missive. She had heard from her sister Arya about the existence of this sect of dreadful assassins at Braavos. ********* Essos, approaching Asshai The end of the journey was approaching for the ironborn ship which had been flying on the sea for almost a month now from Volantis. Already, the first signs of Asshai's approach were noticeable. The waters, usually of a natural blue, had gradually faded to become dark, gray and opaque. Glancing over the rail, Yara shivered. She, who had participated in many expeditions at sea, showed for the first time a little doubtful. Sometimes she could see weird fishes, phosphorescent, appearing and disappearing like ghosts under the surface. She dared not imagine what kinds of creatures could haunt these waters. A thicker mist had risen, snaking over the surface of the water like snakes of smoke. In order to avoid any risk, Yara had reduced the wing, the ship now slipping more slowly in these sinister waters of the end of the world. On the deck, the ironborn sailors had lost their proud and harsh airs, and could not prevent the doubt from expressing themselves on their faces, although the unsullied and the soldiers of the Fiery hand remain strangely calm despite the macabre atmosphere. Among the most superstitious sailors, some came to dread that the ship would reach the end of the world and fall into the great void. Others were convinced that these black, silent waters would eventually lead them into the other world. An ironborn, scared to death, swore on his head that he had heard a disembodied woman's voice whispering his name from the depths of the mist, and even felt an icy breath on his neck. The poor fellow, yet a strong fellow, was found hidden in the bottom of the hold, curled up and shaking like a scared little girl. Daenerys had been forced to stay in her cabin for a good part of the day. For several days now, she had felt more and more tired, despite the nights of rest she was able to take, and also felt, more and more regularly, some sharp pains in her stomach. She could hardly eat, but had to force herself anyway not to lose her strength. Navigating in these haunted waters did not help her much, she too, sometimes having the impression of hearing whispers calling her and hearing something like nails scratching behind the window of her cabin, whose window was now completely fogged. Two nights before, Daenerys had woken up in the middle of the night, screaming in terror so loudly that she had woken up the entire crew, and had been found by Yara and Grey Worm, trembling, tears in her eyes and sweat in her bed. Daenerys had explained to them that she had been awakened by a strange noise in her cabin, and as she opened her eyes, she had seen Jon Snow, standing at the foot of the bed, staring at her with a furious gaze. He had jumped on her, taking a dagger at his belt, blocking her on the bed by grabbing her to the throat and trying to stab her in the stomach, vociferating with a degenerate voice. _ "You should be dead! DEAD, YOU HEAR ME?!" _ "NOOOO JON, STOP! LEAVE ME!!" His voice was his own, but monstrous, and blood began to flow from his eyes, as Dany described, still in shock. She had screamed, struggled with all her strength, but after opening her eyes, Jon had disappeared without leaving any traces. Kinvara explained to Daenerys that the waters surrounding Asshai were filled with the most ancient and obscure magic, and that these forces haunting it take pleasure in tormenting sailors and adventurers daring to venture there, guessing and giving life to their the deepest fear into more than realistic illusions. As a result, Daenerys slept only during the day, and at night remained awake and in the company of a soldier from the Fiery Hand appointed by the priestess to watch over her. Although they are not talkative, she felt reassured to not be alone in her cabin. Face digged by fatigue, Daenerys was lying in bed in her white silk night dress. Kinvara was with her, the priestess sitting beside her on the bed, and examining her to make sure everything was all right. For Kinvara, there was no sign of illness or poisoning of any kind by food or water. Kinvara thought for a moment, turning her attention to Daenerys' aching belly. And if .... a hypothesis crossed her mind and she wanted to check. Delicately placing the palm of her hand on Daenerys's belly, Kinvara seemed to be examining more. Daenerys watched her, quite concerned. After long minutes, Kinvara changed her attitude, her shining irises showing a truth that had just appeared to her, and which seemed to satisfy her. _"Lady Kinvara, what's going on?" Daenerys asked her emphatically. _ "Daenerys stomrborn ...... you are pregnant." the priestess of R'hllor then revealed to her in all honesty. This news fell on the young woman like a flash, making her heart leap in her chest. _ "What ... how .... you .... are you sure and certain?" Daenerys really insisted on this, looking at her belly in turn and feeling it delicately. The priestess was formal and nodded. The young Targaryen was pregnant. Daenerys was more than confused. _ "But ... it's impossible ..." she said with conviction "... I could no longer have children, at least not be able to give birth, because of this witch ..... "and suddenly she froze, remembering to have shared her bed with a particular man, the one who before her, was brought back from the dead by the magic of R'hllor: Jon Snow, the man who had killed her. "... Jon ..." she sighed painfully, a tear pouring down one of her cheeks. "... But .... he killed me .... how can I still be pregnant?" The young fallen queen could not understand anything, but Kinvara made it her duty to explain her, taking her hands in hers. _ "This is the great power that our master has ..." explains the priestess "... his purifying fire not only brought you back, Daenerys stormborn, but also saved the life of this young soul who grows up inside your belly, for such is his will. Rejoice, your grace, that the Lord of light has given you such a miracle. A child born from the union of ice and fire." Ice and fire ..... Did she mention Jon and Daenerys through this symbolic definition? Was it true? After all, Jon had been brought back by the red god too. Jon, through this resurrection, had he been granted by the god the power to free Daenerys from her curse by unite to her? But in that case, why did Jon killed her? Was it also the plan of the red god? Once again, everything was very confusing. She wanted to rejoice, of course, she who for years had thought herself condemned to remain last and see her dynasty disappear with her. But on the other hand, the idea of ​​carrying this child, Jon's, plunged her into a terrible melancholy, and made her relive for a few moments that awful illusion of Jon leaning over her and trying to kill her. How could she look this child in the eyes without thinking of Jon and what he had done to her? No, she dismissed this idea from her mind. It was out of the question for her to judge her future child for the crime committed by his father towards her. She would no longer act like that, she had sworn. ******** Elsewhere on the ship, Shen-zoan had isolated himself in the small corner of the hold that had chosen him to settle during the journey. Although he was offered a more comfortable place to sleep, a simple hanging hammock suited him perfectly. As he had said, after sleeping at the bottom of a well and in a wet cave in the middle of winter, this hammock was for him like the room of a palace. The Yi Ti traveler did not sleep, however. Sitting on the floor of the ship, he was leaning over a wooden box that served as a temporary table, on which he had placed a large sheet of parchment and lit with only a single candle placed beside him. Yara, after reassuring her sailors, had come down to the hold to check that everything was going well and made her way to Shen. Looking over his shoulder without saying a word, she could see the strange letters he had been writing in black ink for a while, like symbols she had never seen before. Shen looked over his shoulder and smiled at him. _"What is it?" she asked, rather intrigued. _ "Oh, that .... it's a poem from my country, in my native language .... I like to write .... it helps me to never forget where I come from." was his answer, shrouded in a touch of nostalgia in his voice. Yara sat next to him, reading the symbols one by one even though she did not understand any of them. The fine line of the pen and the perfectly asymmetrical forms of the letters were almost like art. How was he managed to write with this precision despite the slight pitching of the ship? Shen did not stop surprising. Just yesterday, during the meal, Yara and the others could see him eating with small wooden sticks, which caused the hilarity of some sailors a little morons. Despite such mockery, however, Shen remained very calm, not offended, and simply continued his meal. Daenerys did not really appreciated the mockery about the newcomer and asked Yara to seriously reprimand the men, which she did. In this new free world that would become Essos by her will, Daenerys would also advocate freedom and tolerance of cultures. As he continued to write with that delicacy and astounding precision, Yara stared at Shen's fighting stick for a moment. _ "Your way of fighting ..... how do you do it? Who taught you?" she asked. She then perceived, in Shen's expression, that she had touched a new chord of his past, but yet made him smile. Placing his pen, he decided to tell Yara some of his past. _"All my knowledge, I owe it to my master, Dzian-owan. When he was a child, Master Dzian was puny, shy, constantly persecuted by other children. He was the son of a former soldier, a very hard man, who kept on telling him that the weak had no place in this world. But Dzian refused to brandish a weapon, the idea was repugnant to him, so he decided to create his own way of fighting. At the age of 15, following the death of his father and now alone, Dzian exiled himself to the lands of the north, beyond the plains of Jogos Nhai, where he lived as an hermit. During all these years, Master Dzian developed his new art of combat, the art of fighting without giving death, spending days and nights, training in all weathers. In the wind, the rain, the snow of winter and the overwhelming heat of summer...He added to his art of combat the meditation, and he managed to do so, after spending ten days and ten nights meditating under an old willow, to the perfect union of the mastery of his art, unifying combat and concentration in one and same body, one and same soul. Then one day, while he was looking for wild grasses, he found me in a wicker basket on the edge of a river. I was still a baby, abandoned by my parents and delivered to the wilderness. Having pity, he gathered me and raised me as his own son. When I was old enough to understand, he taught me his art, imposing on me the same conditions, the same trials and the same suffering that he himself had to endure in order to form himself to face this world. He always told me: The characteristic of the warrior is humility. He must think as much about others as about himself. There are strong and weak people in this world, Shen, and it is the duty of the weakest to become stronger, to prove to them this: if you can, they can too. I swore to my master to perpetrate his art wherever I go, and to become an example to the poor. Shortly after, my venerable master died without suffering, in his sleep, carried away by his old age. After having buried him with dignity at the foot of the ancient willow, where he had spent most of his life, I began my journey around the world ..... " Yara had remained silent, having listened to everything in this story. She noticed Shen's wet eye as he recounted, reliving through his words what were the best memories of his life. Abandoned from birth, raised by a stranger who trained him to become a good person. Yara was rather touched by this story and patted the man's shoulder. _"Your master seemed to be a very good man, Shen-zoan, and a great warrior too. I would have love to know him." Yara said frankly. _ "He would appreciate you, I think." Shen replied, "he has always admired women with a strong character, just like you." Yara felt rather flattered by the compliment and both together shared a small laugh. However, Yara's face darkened, looking pensive, and Shen noticed it. _ "Something is disturbing you." _ "It's about Queen Daenerys ..." Yara said without keeping a secret for her new friend "... according to Lady Kinvara, she would be pregnant." _"Well, I do not see how that would be bad news." Shen answered without really knowing why she was showing that worried look. _ "I know ..." she said "... that's not the problem. I'm just worried about her and the baby. When those who killed her will learn that she's alive, I don't think that the life of a mere baby to be born will stop them in their attempt to eliminate her again.They will not take the risk of seeing her return to Westeros with her dragon and a new army to get revenge." Shen-zoan fully understood what Yara meant and reassured her by patting her on the back of her hand. _"We will do what it takes to protect her, because that is the oath we have spoken." _ "PORT OF ASSHAI RIGHT BEFORE!!" suddenly shouted the voice of a ironborn sailor from the deck of the ship. Alerted, Yara, followed by Shen, went back up. Daenerys, also warned by voice, came out of her cabin with Lady Kinvara, covering her shoulders with a purple silk shawl. Grey Worm has advanced to the bow to see the facts. In the misty sky, Drogon's roaring figure appeared, sliding between the clouds like a giant ghost. In front of the ship reducing her sail a little more, the opaque mists of a dark gray dissipated more and more, revealing to the eyes of all in the permanent twilight of these accursed waters and in the light of the full moon, the forms recognizable of fuzzy towers and other strange buildings, all built of black stone. Daenerys swallowed, but remained upright, her head high, while in front of her, came from the fog the legendary and mysterious city from the deep of the world, Asshai, emerging little by little from the mist like the monster coming from a horror tale. Faced with this vision seeming straight out of a nightmare, the sailors remained speechless, eyes round, and some even began to pray the drowned god to protect them. _ "Welcome to Asshai, Daenerys stormborn." proclaimed Lady Kinvara to the young dragon queen. Finally. She was there, supported by her allies and her son, ready to face the new trials of the red god.

[mercyofdiscord]

Think of Me part 1

.... Warning- a bit NSFW, angst

Y/N loved her husband, really, she did. But sometimes another man slipped into her head.

Ivar. Ivar, her best friend. Ivar, her husband. Ivar, the love of her life. Now just put an 'ex' in front of all of those and you'll have the situation.

Before the whole war with Lagertha, Ivar and Y/N were deeply in love, hardly capable of killing their eyes away from each other. But after avenging Ragnar and Bjorn making a side comment on you being unable to fall pregnant, Ivar refused to speak to you.

He never slept in the same bed.

Never kissed you good night.

Never asked how you were now, since your mother had died recently.

No, not ever. Not until you left.

You left with Bjorn and Halfdan, sailing to the Mediterranean. To most, that was an end to the once obsessive marriage. An end to the late nights of weeping to the gods to solve this problem. An end to hiding away your pregnancy belly...

You later married Bjorn.

He loved you. Sure, he may have not been quite as passionate as Ivar was when you two first got married. But a little love is better then none.

You have birth to a daughter, shortly after arriving in Sicily. She had dark blue eyes and dark hair, of course. It was a mock from the gods, as if they were calling you out for choosing the elder son.

Bjorn was furious when he realized you were pregnant while you were all traveling to the Mediterranean Sea. But still, he supported you.

The girl, who you named Idunna, could not walk. Her legs didn't kick while she came to life. As she got older, you developed braces for her- like Ivar's old ones.

She was just as intelligent as him, though her kindness came form you.

Now, you were on the battlefield. Standing behind your new husband, Bjorn, and his younger brother, Ubbe.

Ivar, with his freezing eyes glared at you, watching your every move. As if he wanted to snatch you away. It was a predator-prey relationship

"And what have you to say, Y/N? Hmmm? "

Bjorn's shoulders tightened under your soft hands as you replied, "I don't like war, Ivar, you know that. "

He nodded softly, but grounded his jaw down, "and?"

"And... I'd rather not have it., " Lagertha looked at you, pleading, "but if it comes to that... I'll be willing to kill you. And Hvitserk... And you, King Harald. "

Everyone agreed, but none worded any kind of acknowledgment. After the argument became worse, and Ivar proceeded to throw water in Ubbe's face, all hope of peace was lost.

Ivar and Lagertha's people moved back, yet you didn't. He was staring again. Gazing so deeply into you that you felt like all the secrets were being ripped out.

"Why did you leave me?" His voice cracked. But you knew Ivar better than anyone else, maybe he was lying. "I know you love me, " He looked back up from the grass with a tempest in his eyes, "I think- at least- that you did"

You sighed, Bjorn calling put from across the field, "I'm not sorry, Ivar. You hurt me, and you have to see that we're not children anymore. You can't just expect me to come running back like a lost puppy"

You wanted to, though. He may had ignored you, but he was mourning too. His brother was dead, killed by Ivar himself.

Both parents of his had been killed, though your mother had just been executed by a foreign king.

"Goodbye, Ivar. " You turned to leave, it the memories came crashing on.

"Y/n" He uttered something else under his breath. Yet your feet kept moving. Tears threatened to overflow as Bjorn wrapped a strong arm around your waist, pulling you on for a hug before rushing to prepare troops.

You and Ivar really loved one another, your first kill was for him. He defended you for years against childhood bullies.

He was your first kiss. You briefly remember his soft lips, the sweetness behind them and his gentle grown when your hand found his hair to tug at.

Your tent was filled with little giggles, Idunna. She was only a baby, and Bjorn only allowed her to come because of your fears. He called you irrational, but you swore to stay off the battle field.

A healer with red hair watched over her, Torvi offered weeks ago, but you kindly offered. Bjorn still looked at her with some lust.

Was this love?

Being second to everyone? Sure, you were Ivar's first for a lot of things. First kiss, first time having sex, first marriage, first kid. Well, he didn't know about the last part.

"Here you are, ma'am" Offering a smile, you readily accepted Idunna from the healer.

"Little Idunna, light of my life." You paced, keeping her giggling, but she would become hungry soon.

It was funny, really how this one child had traveled farther than most people in Kattegat.

"Maybe you know what love is"

To Bjorn you were his second. Second wife, second to father his children, second person who he loved the most.

When you and ivar made love, it was with lust and longing. Those lingering touches lingered just a little bit longer than normal.

Those caresses moved to other parts of the body.

Those impure thoughts and wet dreams became real. The pleasure of feeling him so deep left you limping the day after.

"Wife!" Here he comes, Bjorn.

Bjorn was selfish and stubborn, he left Torvi without her consent, an illegal act to the gods.

You often wondered why, but paid no heed to dig deeper in questions.

He too, was a satisfying lover. He preformed for far longer than what you wanted to. He was barely ready while you were already half asleep.

"Wife!" His blonde hair swing with his overbearing body as he came in the tent. "You must go"

You frowned "Where? Back to Kattegat? "

He nodded.

"But what if you loose this battle I'll be alone in Kattegat when Ivar comes riding in! " You were exasperated.

"Just go, " His hands softly brushed away Idunna's soft-as-dawn hair. "It's for the best"

What you didn't know was he was going to loose this war. Ivar would come for you, and he would be well pleased with his prize.

Before leaving the camp with a few warriors you took a dye and bleached your daughter's hair as light as possible.

Idunna the Boneless would live as Bjorn's child- not Ivar's.