#guts splattered on the wall type ish

[ethearepity]

getting characters that i dont want on my for you bc i follow people makes me explosion

[midnightmoonkiss]

Esoteric.

Witch!Izuku Midoriya X Fem!Reader

Summary: What was a witch, exactly? Someone who casts spells? Dabbled in medicine? Fought in battles? You didn’t know. That was, until you met one.

WARNINGS!: Soft!Dom!Izuku, Face-sitting, Fingering, Potion-play

Category: Smut

Word Count: 7.3k (more than half is like.. pure smut..)

A/N: The final day of the Izumonth Collab!

P.S. I really love Witch!Izuku, idk if you can tell,,, Also, I made the witch!collage above! ‘Tis just to suck you into the mood. And sorry this was.. a bit late.. heheh,,,

Just To Clarify:

You’re both consenting adults

Witches, though actually fairly rare, are seen as common beings

Witches aren’t human

Fantasy-ish au!

Tag List:

@coupsieddori​ @desia2​ @strwbrry-lia​ @my-bnha-things​

Every castle has a witch.

It’s been that way for as long as you, or anyone else, could remember.

It was normal.

Mundane to some.

Just something you’d hear about time and time again.

They were workers, just like you. 

But yet, that never stopped your sense of wonder.

They never were in plain sight, not for a peasant such as yourself, anyway.

It always brought up so many questions whenever you’d stop to think about it. 

What did they look like?

Were they nice, or wicked?

How did their magic work?

What did they wear?

Depending on the kingdom, most witches were treated like royalty, especially those who worked in castles.

Of course, how could someone so powerful not have such a title?

It made you question if it was given out of fear, or respect.

It wasn’t until you met the witch of Thidel castle, the ever-so-generous Izuku Midoriya, that your questions were all willingly answered.

You truly weren’t anticipating meeting him during such a catastrophe of a day. Looking back, it was quite embarrassing.

You were the baker’s assistant, tasked with making the batter to elaborate sweets for the King’s ball that evening.

The flour was freshly ground from the mill, the vanilla was as pure as a white daisy, the sugar ever-so-sweet, eggs fetched that morning, everything was perfect.

In fact, everything was running all nice and smoothly, until the King decided to ask for triple the amount of baked goods he had originally requested.

Not only did that mean running to town and back in shoes already falling apart, but that also meant stirring and stirring and stirring until it felt as if your arms were on fire and about to melt off.

You were covered in ingredients and sweat, the other bakers and assistants were running around, spilling things on each other, and making large messes as they pulled their hair out to get everything done on time.

It was chaos.

And that’s when he showed up.

You forgot what he was originally there for, herbs, perhaps?

Batter smudged on your cheek, you were carrying a large sack of flour to the mixing station when the door opened.

You slipped comedically on an egg that had fallen on the floor, and of course, you had to slam into this sudden brick wall of a man.

White powder flew everywhere, and the clock stopped in your head as you watched in horror as the last bag of flour you had was just about to spill all over the dirty cobblestone.

That’s when you saw it for the first time.

Magic.

He had simply flicked his wrist and all of the flour was back in its bag, and such a high ranking individual was on his knees, sputtering apologies to you.

To you, of all people.

A lowly peasant.

It felt unreal.

But that was how you met him.

He looked up and the first image he had of you forever imprinted in his head was wild (H/C) hair coated in sweat and flour, cheeks smudged with chocolate and dried batter, eyes wide with panic, and cheeks a burning red.

He never let you live it down, the bastard.

That night at the ball, you met him again. He had the gall to note how you cleaned up fast, all while sheepishly smiling at you like you were the only girl in the room.

You wanted to punch him at the time. Or die of embarrassment. He was still the witch after all, and never before had someone so high class spoken to you before. You were filled with so many emotions that night, you were sure you were going to throw up.

Instead, you smiled, offered him a pastry, and walked away.

He just had to follow you, though.

His reason being, “I was looking for some entertainment at such a boring event.”

It had made you laugh, as IF you were any entertainment. From then on, though, after having spent an entire night chatting the time away, he was as hooked on you as you were with him.

Nowadays, you got to frequent his studies often.

A privilege not many had, as apparently- witches were quite stubborn with letting people into their sanctuary and touching their things.

Perhaps it was a possessive trait of theirs, one that kept them from misplacing important potions, books, and ingredients, but nevertheless you were absolutely honored to be allowed somewhere so.. otherworldly.

The King and his youngest son were the only ones besides yourself allowed in.

But stepping inside would always be a slap to the face, no matter how many times you actually did enter.

It wasn’t exactly clear to you how he did it, or how the witch before him did it, but the small study tucked away on the east wing of the castle wasn’t a small study at all.

The old, heavy brown door was signed with words of a language unknown to you and others, the hinges creaking ever so slightly as you pulled it open, only to be met with a two-story home inside.

Your nose was always immediately hit with the earthy scent of rain and plants, no doubt from the plethora of the heavenly greens hanging about the place, glowing orbs of light hovering near the ones doomed to never touch true sunlight.

The place was cluttered yet neat, parchments piling up in one corner, yet another where they laid organized.

It was almost like a different world crafted by steady and loving hands.

Old maps were tacked to one of the walls, scribbled writing and red circles pointing out certain areas of the land beyond the one you knew.

Witches apparently had their own realm, or at least, “a pocket of Earth hidden away from humans by magic”, as Izuku had thoughtfully explained one night as a thunderstorm raged on outside.

Old books smelling of age are scattered about, the large bookshelf barely able to contain them all.

Candles lit by a green flame surround a large wooden table, herbs such as chamomile, ginger, ginseng, valerian, lavender, and saffron are neatly placed by a bowl, wrapped in bundles. Clearly, he was going to try and make some more anti-depressant mixture for the prince again.

He was more of a naturalist when it came to the sick, unless worse came to worse.

He was essentially a glorified doctor who was far more knowledgeable on plants rather than bone structure and types of sickness.

He was a sweetheart who helped all he could.

Hell, he was even taken to some battles as a last defense.

Despite looking so innocent, with his baby fat still hugging his cheeks and freckles splattered all about, the definition of youth, he was quite powerful.

Scarily so.

You had heard hushed whispers from fellow servants about how he had taken down armies alone multiple times before, coming back with nothing but burns and a broken bone or two.

He was terrifying to those who didnt take a mere second to glance at him.

But those who did were greeted with nothing but a warm smile and the fleeting wave of a busy man.

It was a mystery how you had managed to capture his undivided attention, enough so that he had made you his, the plain-looking bracelet made from leather string holding an emerald sealed with magic signifying that.

You were untouchable.

Once gutted with fear, you walked the polished grounds of the castle freely.

After all, not even a King would so much as dare to harm witches beloved, lest he wanted to be burned alive by immortal flames and sent to the ninth level of hell.

A level solely made by strong users of the past, the ones who carved the road for witchery, having bent time itself to do so.

Truly terrifying how powerful they could be, but yet it was so mystifying.

You’d be lying if you said you haven’t spent nights wide awake listening to him ramble about their history, about how they came to be and how they flourished.

They didn’t start off as human-like creatures, they started off as a ball of magical light in a land filled with nothing.

It was said that witches built the Earth from the ground up until greed overtook the lands and the humans overpopulated them.

And yet, they work harmoniously together.

Humans fearful of their power, and witches just naturally seeking to help people and continue their craft in harmony with all those who share the lands they grew from scratch.

 It truly was a peaceful existence they led, you couldn’t help but admire it.

Just like you always have.

Pulling the door shut, it locked behind you as you stepped over some paper with doodles, knowing better than to mess with his disorganized things without him in the room to see it.

Speaking of, you were asked here this evening, something about wanting to try out a new potion he had made.

He was always making new things, an inventor of sorts, but never one to have you as a test subject.

Of course, it piqued your curiosity and had you quickly cleaning up the mess you had made in the kitchen when the day was officially over just to get here as fast as you could.

The large window covered in vines holding a small couch beneath it glistened with the light of a crescent moon, casting the room lit with an array of colors in a cool glow.

Smoke from the candles blurred the light, only to collide with the wooden floor above them.

Humming, you grabbed an orb sitting on a side table,  holding it in the moonbeams so it would absorb its brightness. A candlestick of sorts made from magic. You weren’t going to risk going into complete darkness again.

He was obviously not in his work area, so he was probably upstairs.

And so, as quietly as you could, you crept up the old stairs, holding your breath and biting your lip whenever you came to a creaky step. You wanted to scare him, or at the very least surprise him

He was so easy to scare, and he always made the cutest of noises when you did it.

It was hard not to try everytime you were given the chance.

Once you made it to the top, fingers clasped tightly around the carved wooden railing, you looked around the darkened hallway, searching for the room he’s most likely to be in.

None of them had any lights on, which was eerily odd.

He never was much a fan of complete darkness.

It only raised questions as to if he wasn’t here yet, or if he was leaving you high and dry.

No, he would never do such a thing. Perhaps you’re early?

Chewing on your thumbnail, you stood dead at the top of the stairs, waiting for a sign that he was here.

“BOO!” 

“ARGGHH!” you shrieked, jumping away from the noise only to have your back slammed against the wall.

Horrified, you snapped your head to the direction of the noise, only to find a giddy Izuku covering his mouth with a leather-gloved hand, holding away his giggles.

Huffing, you placed a hand on your heart, ignoring the laughs that seeped out of him.

“Geeze, you scared me!” You chided, glaring up into his playful green eyes.

“Oh, like you weren’t trying to do the same to me just now.”

Laughing still, he bent down in front of you, offering you a hand to help you up.

Ever the gentleman.

Placing your palm into his own, he easily pulled you up to your feet, holding you against his muscular chest in a welcoming hug, to which you eagerly returned, arms wrapping around his slender waist.

Though you didn’t know the common body type of a witch, you had to admit, he was certainly buff. Not that you minded.

He could easily throw you over his broad shoulder, and you loved it.

Completely defenseless and vulnerable.

Oh, how sweet it was to trust fully in someone.

His foreign clothes were soaked in his familiar thick scent, the smell of the forest after it had just rained, dewdrops in the early morning sun, a hint of pine, and his own natural musk that always had your head spinning. He tends to travel the forests in the kingdom often, collecting natural herbs and stones he found interesting.

He had jars and jars of rocks and stones, sometimes cracking them open to reveal crystals tucked away inside. He’d always make little trinkets out of them, giving them to people he deemed as friends as a sign of gratitude. You only had one, made from the rarest crystal he had ever found, taaffeite. 

“So, why did you need me?” You mumbled against his chest, cheek rubbing against his familiar warmth.

“Firstly, I always need you.” The sap.

“Mhmm..” you hummed out, letting him pull away and grab your hand, taking the glowing orb and tossing it up and down as he led you down the corridor.

“Secondly,” he trailed off, leaving the orb to float in the air as he unlocked his bedroom door, pulling you inside.

“It’s a bit of a personal thing I can only trust you with testing.”

Smiling to yourself, you sat down on the edge of his large bed, running your fingers over the soft wool that made up his thick comforter.

Never one to use dead animal pelts.

“Is that so?” Your eyes naturally follow his being as he walks around the room, shuffling through different materials before snapping his fingers to light the stone fireplace off on the other side of the room, providing more light, as well as warmth, so he could see where he was going and not trip on the books scattered across the floor.

He didn’t like the windows in his bedroom open at night.

“Y-yes..” he stuttered, fumbling around with a few glass jars on his desk, muttering to himself as he examines the label on each one. Seemingly finding what he was looking for, he turned back to you, proudly showing that he had found it before making his way back to the bed.

“What is that for?” Curious, your fingers brushed against the cool glass containing the shimmering magenta liquid as he sat beside you on the bed, mattress dipping enough from his weight that your sides knocked together.

“A few weeks ago, Shōto had asked a familiar question, if I possessed the ability to make every potion out there. Of course I- I can’t exactly, but I’ve enough skill to make some rather.. exotic potions. He questioned if I ever tried something different than just potions to heal the sick or offer beauty, and I haven’t. I don’t know why, but realizing that upset me. As if my skill set was limited to just some average joe healer,”

“Izuku..”

“So for a while now, I’ve been branching out. Trying different types of potions and having him as the tester.”

“Is that why he’s been acting different these days?”

“Precisely. I’m just lucky I haven’t gotten in trouble for turning him into a frog yet..” he chuckles, rubbing the back of his head as you took the glass from him to ogle it.

“So what is this then?”

“Um..” Embarrassment was creeping up his neck and resting on his cheeks as he averted his shy eyes, “I have a hunch of what it might do. But.. secret?”

You pout at him, “Shouldn’t I know what this is?”

“You’ll know soon! I promise it won’t harm you, darling.” Leaning down, he pecks a kiss on your cheek, large arm wrapping around your waist to pull you into a side hug.

Taking the glass from your hands, he pulled the cork out, glittery, pink mist floating out like smoke from a blown-out candle.

“So, what do you say? Will you try it?” It was almost as if he was giving you no option other than yes with those big puppy eyes of his staring into your soul.

Licking your lips, an action his eyes followed, you gulped the nervousness away.

What had you to fear? This was Izuku after all. Had he ever done you harm? Absolutely not.

You had no reason not to trust the man who held your heart.

“Alright.”

Joy lit up his face, smiling so widely his eyes crinkled.

Huffing out a laugh, you took the bottle from him again, curiously sniffing its fragrance.

“Chocolate and.. maca?” The scent was certainly familiarly tasty, having worked with the foods before, being a baker. Judging how the liquid didn’t resemble them at all, it was off-putting. How had he managed to trap such a delicate smell inside?

“Mhm! That’s right! Apparently, when made, the potion takes on a heavenly smell. Most are usually bitter.”

“Ahh..” Trailing off you eyed it up one last time before finally bringing it to your lips, a shiver running down your spine at just how cold the glass still was, despite being in a warm room.

Tilting the glass up, the liquid glimmering in the light of the fire traveled down the shoot, pouring into your awaiting mouth, feeling as if you were swallowing a runny syrup.

It had the slightest hint of sugar and cinnamon to its flavor, but nothing else. How odd.

Gulping it all down just to get it over with, your eyes that unknowingly closed fluttered open as he pulled the glass away.

Feeling perfectly fine, you stared up at him with confusion, about to speak before his lips cut you off, tongue poking out to lick the renaming liquid from the corner of your mouth.

The clink of the bottle being set down echoed around the room before his gloved palm delicately cupped your cheek, tilting your head as to deepen the kiss.

His tongue eagerly explored the wet cavern of your mouth, as if he was drinking the little essence from his own creation left over.

Pulling away with a wet pop, his forehead rested against yours, mesmerizing green eyes staring softly into your own, waiting.

Waiting for what was what you didn’t know, perhaps for the potion to take effect.

You were eager to find out just what it was, but you had a semblance of a guess considering the position you found yourself in.

“How do you feel?” he whispered breathlessly against your parted lips.

Just as you were about to reply, your words got caught in your throat as your body began to heat up in a familiar way.

“I..” You pant, grip on his cotton shirt tightening as your gut suddenly twisted with a burning need for HIM.

Your (E/C) eyes glaze over with lust in front of his own, pupils dilating as your body began to shake, whimpers escaping your throat.

Thighs rubbing together to offer friction you didn’t know you desperately craved until now, you looked at him helplessly, so close to falling apart if it weren’t for his large hand on the small of your back holding you close to his steady figure.

“I-I feel hot.. Izuku..”

You whined, chewing at your lip as you wiggled beneath his excited stare.

“Good.”

Suddenly, his lips connected with yours once more, drawing a stuttered moan from your throat at the contact you unknowingly began to crave more and more as your lips connected again and again.

You clung to him like a koala, kissing him fervently like you would never be able to again, desperate to have his undivided attention.

Hands sliding to your hips, he pulled you onto his lap, legs hugging his own as hot breaths mingled together with the wet sound of kisses.

“Ah..!” You squeaked against him, your hips involuntarily grinding down onto his crotch, greedily searching for the pleasure your body desperately craved.

“M-mmm.. Izu.. I-” Your apology was cut off with a nip to your neck, “Don’t apologize,” he scolded. Grip still on your hips, he pulled you down rougher against his hardening dick, his hips thrusting up to meet your own, eliciting a sharp cry from your being as your head threw back at the sudden pressure where you craved it most.

He was quick to chase your lips, dragging you back into your heated makeout, swallowing every moan you let out as you both humped each other like horny dogs, the eagerness from him only adding to the pool of moisture leaking out of your body.

The button on his trousers was rubbing deliciously against your clothed clit, making your hips stutter every so often as you fought to maintain that hard surface.

Saliva began to drip down the side of your mouth from the intense kissing, but you hadn’t a care in the world.

No, your mind was too fogged to even think about it.

All you craved was him.

Him.

Him.

You yearned for him like he’d been gone a decade, and your body acted on it in a way you were typically shy about.

Biting your lip, he pulled away from the kiss, dragging a whine of protest from you before he hushes you by licking the outer shell of your ear, breath fanning across it only adding to the tingles of excitement shooting down your arched spine. “Hush,” he commanded, and as if you couldn’t disobey him, your words of protest died on your tongue, leaving only a parted mouth and heavy breaths.

Licking down the column of your neck, nose brushing against you, he searched for that familiar sweet spot on you, teeth grazing your flesh.

Still grinding on his hard cock covered by pants, a wet spot no doubt leaking past the underwear you wore beneath your hiked up skirt and onto him, you gasp once he found the place he was looking for.

Smirking, he nibble gently, holding you still as you began to wiggle once more.

Your head tilted to the side to give him more room as he sucked on your skin, teeth repeatedly nibbling at your sensitive flesh. Biting down harshly, you cried out with pain and pleasure, hips grinding down so hard onto him he groaned, the vibration making your heart jump in your throat.

“A-ahh… hnng.!” Moans poured salaciously past your thoroughly kissed lips, holding onto him for dear life as he controlled your being with every fiber of his own.

A button on your blouse popped open, and your foggy gaze traveled down just to see his fingers expertly undoing each one without looking, letting your bare breasts bounce out above your corset.

Not giving you a second to cover yourself out of embarrassment, his large hand cupped one of your tits, massaging it gently just to feel the soft flesh as your chin rested against his grounding shoulder, small moans now directly in his awaiting ear.

“You’re such a good girl, (Y/N).” He praised, eyes filled with nothing but love as he got to watch your unusually heated body search for the pleasure it craved.

You were usually so shy in bed, but with this potion pumping through your veins, he hoped it’d help give you the confidence boost you needed.

Though, that wasn’t the only thing it did.

He was filled with anticipation, if his throbbing member was anything to go by.

Thumb circling around your cute, perky nipple, he took the bud between his thumb and forefinger, pulling gently and rolling it between them, dragging high pitched whines from you.

You couldn’t help but pull away from him again, body constantly shifting from the delicious pleasure you were being given.

Fully pulling your blouse off, he left your chest completely bare, giving him the chance to dip his head down and latch onto the opposite nipple, lathering it in attention with his warm muscle, sucking softly and continuously rolling your other nipple with his hand.

It left you craving more, fingers threading through his messy green curls, pulling as to not lose yourself, only eliciting yet another deep groan that vibrated on your skin.

Feeling yourself slowly start to come undone, you desperately ground against him, pants becoming high pitched and moans being louder.

He could tell you were getting close, and from grinding alone no less, it made him feel so damn good to know he could get you to come purely from grinding.

But he didn’t want you to cum like this.

Certainly not.

And so, he fell back on his back dragging you with him as his lips found yours again.

Gripping at the hem of your skirt, he yanked it down, pulling it off your legs. Using a little handy magic, he effortlessly pulled your own shoes off, already working your underwear down your quivering thighs, eyes zeroed in on the drip of wetness attaching your core to them for a split second before they were across the other side of the room.

Corsets were always his worst nightmare.

He couldnt think too clearly to untie the knot in the back as your now bare crotch rubbed against his own, so without thinking, he ripped it off, the bare display of strength having you keening against him.

“Princess,” he whispered against your lips, dragging your hips upwards, “please, sit on my face.”

How vulgar of him to say, with a smile no less, but nonetheless it scent a throb of want to your stomach, and you found yourself, once again, unable to disobey him.

Your body burned red from embarrassment as you crawled up his own still fully clothed one, but you weren’t given the chance to dwell on it before he moved your hips directly over his face, tongue poking out to lap at your dripping folds.

“Gaah..!” You cried, fingers digging into the blanket beneath him as your hips once again helplessly sought the pleasure you craved, unafraid to press down against him.

Your juices tasted so sweet, he eagerly lapped at you like a dog deprived of water.

He had to hold you still against his face, drinking in the image of your breasts jiggling like jelly with every shuttered breath you took, head flung back and eyes shut tight as you focused purely on the way the flat of his tongue licked you up like a sugary treat.

He couldn’t help but occasionally press a kiss against your sobbing flesh, teasingly avoiding your clit begging for attention each time you moved against his mouth.

Your cries of pleasure filled the room, only sending his mind into a state of hunger, wanting to drag every noise out of you he could, along with the loud licking that caused your essence to drip down his chin.

His aching cock was straining against the flimsy button of his pants, desperate to be released and buried deep inside your soul-sucking pussy again.

Tongue dipping inside you and lips pressing against your sensitive, pink labia, he ate you out with earnest, squeezing your hips tightly with his fingers as he fought to control himself from shoving you to the blankets and fucking you raw without finishing his dessert first.

A choked sob tore from your throat with his lips finally encased your puffy clit, the tip of his tongue tracing around the bundle of nerves before flattening his tongue against it.

Your hips bucked involuntarily against his face, pressing him harder against you just so you could cry out his name like a sinful prayer.

His heart was full of love for you as he observed your reaction did everything blissful he did.

You were in heaven, walking on clouds as wet squelches from your own body surrounded your ears.

“Z-Zuku..!” You cried as he sucked on your clit like candy, enjoying the rough treatment. The tip of his tongue traced his name possessively over your button, marking you as his forevermore, silently vowing to never let another man do the same.

“I-I’m close..!” You cried, tears of pleasure falling down your flushed cheeks, dripping onto the thighs squeezing his head like warm earmuffs.

He hummed against you, dragging his tongue across the expanse of your womanhood before enclosing around your clit again, lathering it in the attention you needed to be pulled over the edge.

Your thighs clenched around his head, his hair tickling you, body stilling as you screamed out in pleasure, back arching and giving him a lovely view of your demise.

You came on his tongue, the stimulation he gave you throughout your orgasm sending you higher and higher in that clouded head of yours.

When you finally came down and slumped forward, catching your breath, he licked up the mess you made, pulling away from your lower lips and running a tongue over his own to greedily savor your delectable taste.

Placing you off to the side, giving you a second to calm down,, he hurriedly shuffled out of his clothing, throwing his cloak, gloves, and various other things on his person to the floor, kicking his boots off that landed with a heavy thump, leaving his underwear on as he crawled over on top of you.

Dazed, you stared deliriously up at him, a bashful smile on your lips, watching as he wipes your juices away with the back of his wrist before licking it clean. He was so sinful and messy.

The warm fire crackling in the corner hugged at his soft skin, making his eyes blown wide with lost twinkle like starlight. He looked so in love as he stared at you as if you were the only person in the world.

Breathing heavily, you reached out for him, and he was happy to lean in so you could wrap your arms around his neck, toying with the shorter curls at his nape as he kissed you again, your taste still on his tongue as your tongues intertwined. You weakly fought against his intrusion, teasing, only for him to grab a handful of your ass, making you gasp and effectively losing the battle.

He flooded your being with everything he had, his scent, his love, his passion, adoration, everything.

His knowledge on your own sexual human anatomy astounded you, but always left you moaning against him, much to his utter pleasure.

His thumb circled your twitching clit, bringing your attention back to his actions and the way you clenched helplessly around thin air, waiting for him.

You hungrily eyed the bulge in his underwear, licking your lips at the spot of wetness where his dripping head was.

You wanted to feel him inside you again, to clench around the very thing that drove you insane other than his skillful touch.

“P-please..” You begged, detaching yourself from him, pleading for mercy under his sharp gaze as he soaked up your wrecked self.

He loved hearing you beg.

“Please what?” he drawled out, running his lips down the side of your face and neck, pressing kisses against your collarbone. Moving his thumb previously giving you what you desire to your thighs, he held them in his grasp just to feel your smooth, warm skin against his rough, scarred palms.

You whined, shimmying your hips to draw his attention to them. He ignored your advances, peering up at your face with a glare and crooked smile that shot sparks down your body, “Tell me.” 

As if on cue, and unable to disobey his words that squeezed your heart, you sputtered a response, barely able to maintain eye contact, “P-please touch me..! M-more.. I, I need more, please! I want..” your breath was stolen from your lungs as he began to grind his clothed crotch against your wet core, “I want you! I w-want you to fuck me, please..! I- I can’t take it anymore.. Please, Izuku..!” More tears fell from your eyes, falling onto the mattress below you, “Please fuck me..!”

Happy with your response,  but still not quite ready to give in, he pulled away, circling your clenching hole with his middle finger, watching as your head flew back with tears as you meekly thrust upwards.

As much as he wanted to pull himself out right now and fuck you until his bed broke from the sheer force, he couldn’t risk hurting you.

Even if the potion was designed to make you ready for everything sexual, willing to comply with his every demand, you still were his princess, his angel, and he was going to treat you like one.

He didn't want you to wake with the soreness of not being properly prepared, even if he could heal you a minute after. That minute of you crying from the pain that HE selfishly caused would always be stabbed into his heart, and he certainly didn't want that, nor you to experience it.

“Sorry, love..” he apologized, finally plunging his thick finger inside you after thoroughly coating it with your slick, moaning at how tight you were for him. 

“Fuck..” he whispered under his breath, keeping your thighs splayed wide open as he sat back on his haunches to watch you react to him.

Your back was arched, begging for more as you gripped the sheets below you, cheek pressed against the mattress as low moans trickled out your sinful mouth like water.

Face hot, a boyish smile fell on his face as he added another finger, observing how you hotly throw your head back as he pressed against the spongy spot inside your walls.

“Aaahh..! T-there! R-right there..!”

“I know, darling, shh, shhh.” He cooed at you, curling his fingers against your G-spot with each thrust in and out of your sopping pussy. His fingers made wet clicks inside of you as they rubbed against your walls, dragging more and more moans out of you as you ground down on his large digits.

His eyes couldn’t leave the view of you sucking him back in every time he pulled his fingers out, it left him imagining more and more scenarios in his head.

God, how he wanted to destroy you.

Have you screaming his name so loudly you broke the sound barrier he had set up ages ago, letting all of the castle and its snobby guards know he was fucking the love of his life and doing it damn well.

He bet they would be jealous.

Those thoughts of it made his adrenaline spike, adding a third finger to the squelching party mixing your insides up, leaving you at their utter disposal.

Arousal poured from you like a steady stream, gushing down and leaving a wet puddle under your ass.

You were so wet for him it was hard to bear, but you felt so, so good.

Your mind was so muddled with lust, you couldn’t think straight, all that entered your mind was ‘more, more, more.’ 

You were being greedy, but you couldn’t help it.

Deciding you were prepped enough, his fingers pulled fully out of you, putting on a small display of licking them clean as you watched with wide, doe eyes, stuttering out about how dirty that was.

“More dirty than you using my face as a seat, my lady?” He teased, tucking his face into the crook of your neck.

“T-thats..”

He chuckles at your flustered response.

Pulling his underwear down, his cock slaps against his toned stomach, fully erect and dripping with precum.

Throwing them off to the side, he noticed the way your eyes greedily looked at his body, confidence burning his veins as he sees the impatience in your eyes as you stare at his member.

He was tempted to say, ‘like what you see?’ but he himself was far too eager and impatient to wait any longer.

Grabbing himself, he ran his thickness between your lips, gathering your arousal on him before leading himself to your entrance.

“Ready?” He asked whilst kissing the skin below your ear.

You nodded, hips wiggling in anticipation.

“A-ahh! Fuck!” You cried out as he fully sheathed himself inside you with one thrust, bottoming out immediately.

He bit at your skin, concealing the deep moan that rumbled in his chest as you strangled his weeping dick at last.

You were so intoxicating, you sweet aroma wafting off you with every breath.

Grinding himself inside of you, he waited patiently for you to adjust, leaving hickeys all over your skin with each passing second.

Gulping down air, you thrust upwards, dragging him out of his blissed-out state just to moan heavenly deeply in your ear.

“Naughty girl..” he seethed, making you giggle, only to be shut up as he pulled out and slammed his hips back into your own, drawing out a garbled moan.

Skin slapped wetly against skin with each rough thrust he relentlessly delivered, drinking up your cries for more.

Leaning back to watch you with hungry, dark green eyes, pupils blown wide with lust. He pinned your arms to the bed above your head, a punishment for catching him off guard.

His cock was truly a godsend, thick and long, curved upwards just to slam repeatedly into your soft g-spot over and over.

You could only hold on for dear life as he fucked you good and hard just like you wanted, just like you craved.

“O-Ohh!!! Izu!! Izuku-! Ahh.! F-fuck..!” You moaned with each thrust inside your wet self, body being pushed back from the sheer intensity of which he fucked you with.

He knew your body so well by now, he knew each and every way to make you fall apart by his own doing.

He knew how to break you in the most sinful way possible, and he loved it.

Your face was lewdly contorted with pleasure, eyes looking back, eyebrows pinched together, (H/C) baby hairs plastered to your sweaty forehead, and mouth gaping wide open so he could hear every slur of words and every noise you emitted.

He wanted to hear everything you had to say, every reaction to the way he fucked you.

He could feel you growing tighter around his throbbing cock, juices coating his thighs with each heavy thrust inside of you.

He loved how much he could turn you on, even if right now it was all thanks to the potion that added pink hearts to your innocent (E/C) eyes.

The same potion that had you openly moaning unashamedly, whereas you previously would have held them in by biting your lip and hands.

He was so happy to hear how good he made you feel.

At long last.

“(Y/N)..” he panted heavily, peering deeply into your glossy eyes, movements becoming more and more sloppy as he lost himself to the pleasure, a burning pressure building up in his gut with each shallow and deep thrust.

Falling down on top of you, he held you close to him, letting your arms go so you could dig your nails into the flesh of his toned, freckled back flexing with each movement.

The bed banged loudly against the wall, he momentarily worried it would leave a dent- but he couldn’t think about that now. Not when you were crying out his name so sweetly.

“I’m here, I’m here..” he soothed as you clung to him.

Your hips began to move in circles, drugging him with intense ecstasy as he thrusts into you. You kept him wanting more and more. He was addicted to you. 

Pushing your legs back against the mattress, he reached so deep inside you, you swore you could feel his head kissing at your womb. 

You were so helpless to the waves of infinite pleasure he washed you over with that all you could do was take it.

“You’re doing so.. hah… so good, baby..” he praised breathlessly.

“Gnnn! Gaahhah..! Izuku!!”

“Let me hear it.. let me hear you, princess.” He smiled against your skin as you let out an onslaught of sultry moans, fueling his inner fire.

“I’m..! I- gwaahhh..! I’m so c-close..!”

“Me too, me too..” He fervently pressed kisses to your cheek, letting his other hand travel down to coat his thumb in your spare wetness, just to rub circles on your puffy clit, applying the right amount of pressure that always drove you insane.

Drool dribbled down the side of your mouth as your tongue flopped out, breasts bouncing with each and every thrust, constantly captivating him as he could feel their softness against his pecs.

Holding you flushed against him, he let magic crackle to life on his hand, green sparks lighting up the area around the two of you just barely. His hand began to vibrate, magic he learned was good for massaging muscles, but of course, it had.. other uses..

The vibration against your clit, added to the pounding of his cock expertly slamming against your G-spot, sent your head flying back, white vision going black as your pussy strangled his cock like a python.

“Haaahh.! Aah!” You cried his name out so loudly it burned your throat, leaving you to cum harshly on his dick, the strange sensation of liquid squirting from your body making your mind go numb as all you were left with was burning hot stars in your eyes.

The display alone was enough to drag him over the edge as well, slamming his cock into you once more before warm ropes of cum spurted into you, completely coating your walls and spewing out from the sheer amount as he let out a silent moan.

His thighs twitched and his stomach felt empty when he finally came down from his high, the same time as you.

Love filled his gaze as you both peered into each other’s eyes, enraptured by the souls sealed within.

Heavy breaths blew past your lips, desperate to calm down your racing heart.

“How was it..?” He questioned lightly, moving hair out of your face so he could get a better look.

“How was… what..?” Your mind was still clouded. You hadn’t any idea how he could still think straight.

Giggling, he rubbed his nose lovingly against your own. 

“The potion. Could you feel its effects..?”

Staring at him in bewilderment, it took a second to register his words. 

The potion.. what had it done again..?

Oh..

You slapped a hand over your mouth, pulling away from him. “Oh gosh..!” 

You were so embarrassed! 

Gah, to be so loud!! You wanted to hide in a hole..!

“Don't be shy, my love,” He pleaded sweetly, placing a kiss on your sweaty forehead, “it’s just me.”

“That's the point!! I-it was embarrassing to- to be so.. lewd in f-front of you…”

“You say that, and yet I’m still deep inside you,”

“Izuku..!” You groaned, shoving his smiling face away with both hands, only for him to grab your hands and place gentle kisses on them.

“I.. I liked hearing you..” he flushed, bashfully looking away.

Though he could be quite the dominant man in bed, it was always endearing how he was still the shy witch you fell in love with at the end of the day.

“W-well I..” You closed your eyes and took a deep breath, “Well I’ll be louder for now o-on then..!” Your declaration surprised him, shock resting on his features before he broke out in another smile, flopping on top of your sweaty body just to hug you to his own equally as sweaty body.

“I love you, (Y/N)..” he sighed blissfully, burying his nose in your hair as he cuddled you, the crackling of the blazing fire just now reaching his ears.

“I love you too, Izuku.”

Though he could be a handful at times, with his insistent drive to be better and push himself beyond his current limits, as well as running headfirst into danger and getting littered with scars, you still loved him.

You always would.

He was your kind witch, and you, his darling beloved.

And nothing would ever get between a witch and the one he called his.

.

..

…

….

“So, are you going to pull out? I feel a little messy.”

“In a minute..”

“Izu!”

[vidalinav]

More House of Wind Headcanons: Rooms/Floors Edition

These actually help me a lot writing Queen of Queens, sort of like jotting down notes for your fic. So here goes!

There are four levels; the main (top), the first floor of bedrooms, where Cassian and Azriel stay, the second floor of bedrooms where Nesta stays and where there’s a private library, the third level that has the kitchen, and then the levels that start being the library. (This is canon-taken straight from the beginning of ACOSF) 

But there starts being more levels and rooms in between the actual house and the library, and NO ONE knows where they came from. Nesta very much thinks it’s the House; however, EVERYONE else thinks that it’s Nesta who did it unknowingly. Because if she’s not in the house, the rooms do not exist. They start thinking that maybe the House is siphoning magic from Nesta, but it is really just Nesta. Whatever she imagines in the house, exists. 

First Floor: 

Is just the main floor. Honestly not much of it changes, because of the formality of it being the floor that business is held. The House could change it and change it back, but Nesta thinks that’s a hassle, because then every time someone comes over she’s like do you need this room? And so she doesn’t bother with it. They really stop eating in that dining room anyways, so it becomes a stage house that is sort of the beware all who come here type of entrance. The only time it actually changes is during holidays, but they end up having a terrarium of sorts to the side of the house on the mountain outside so.... starfall eventually gets mostly held in there, because it’s also controlled by the House’s heart, but the only way you access that is through the third floor, so the top floor is again just for show. 

Second Floor: 

Ends up being Azriel’s floor and the floor for guests. The House/Nesta redecorate and it’s a lot more apartment-ish. One side of the floor is a large apartment for azriel and the other half is a hallway that leads to more rooms for guests. Each room is made up for specific people, just in case they stay over. All of them are soundproof. Nesta made sure of it. There’s like maybe six rooms. Emerie and Gwyn stay quite often, and Gwyn starts staying their way more often when she starts the process of actually leaving the library, but since she technically still lives there, Clotho is like well... if you just want to keep working here you can, which she does. Emerie stays there more often, because her winning the Rite starts making it harder for her to live in Illyria. Also winnowing back and forth for training is like more steps than necessary and she doesn’t like having to rely on anyone... except that Mor happens to winnow her often, which she appreciates. She still does live of course in Illyria, but her friends are in Velaris, so she struggles with if she wants to live there or not. Because that’s her livelihood, but Nesta is like do what you want and let the house know. Eventually she gives her a key, but that will be explained later in this long ass thread. 

Third Floor: 

This is Nesta and Cassian’s home which is so pretty and Nesta’s whole aesthetic. Again it’s more apartment-ish. Of course, there’s one hallway that you know has the stairs and leads to the terrarium/sunroom place and the small private library, but otherwise most of the rooms get combined to be just Nesta’s and Cassian’s. It really looks like a large house. Besides their room which has the biggest bed you’ve ever seen, there’s of course so many windows on this floor. Some are the balcony's carved out, some are just giant windows. There’s one window in the living room/ private library that opens, but is technically not a balcony, and there’s flowers along the window sill, which Nesta loves and of course she can see all of the city. The whole floor is very bright, cream and blue is the theme. A mixture of seaside and hygge. I feel which I have pictures of on pinterest lol. But there are maybe three empty rooms for when Nesta and Cassian decide to have kids. Nesta caps it at three. But actually one of these rooms gets filled in my fic, but not because of a baby that they have themselves. But I’ll let y’all unpack that one. The private library gets decorated on a regular basis with holidays and when they’re having small family gatherings or have a war meeting, they use this place. It has a large table in the middle for studying, so it’s a good place, and it’s just a way more comfortable, happier setting. There’s also cat fixtures that climb up the walls and cat doors that lead to the most obscure places for Bryaxis when he’s a cat, for those of you who’ve read that fic idea post. Maybe you haven’t. 

The Terrarium/sunroom place: 

This place has a literal pond in the middle. It is so large, and there are wild plants all to the side of it, even in the middle of winter, because it’s like a greenhouse. All of it is windows. It is tucked away, on the side of the mountain, you can only reach it from Nesta and Cassian’s floor and it is a gift from the House to Nesta and Cassian as a mating present... sort of. It’s mostly to Nesta. It has A LOT of poisonous, carnivorous plants. Which Nesta learns are useful... because she starts dabbling in her witchy magic and she learns how to make poisons. This place starts being like a lab almost. If she learns magic, she does it here, away from the House with actual people in it. But on Starfall, they do start having the celebration here, because it is the perfect view of the stars. It is the closest you can get without being splattered by star guts and the windows of course clean themselves. You can access outside through here, so sometimes they’ll just open up the doors and go outside to the porches that surround it. Elain will come here often, mostly because she does want to hang out with Nesta and Nesta is not keen on going anywhere, so at first she goes because she’s like well I can take care of your plants, and Nesta is like the House takes care of it, but if you want I guess... and she does take care of them, and actually while Nesta excels at all things magic, it’s really Elain who starts exceling at poisons. They kind of bond over it lol. 

What floor am I on? Fourth Floor: 

Is where the kitchen is. Nesta never goes here. Elain goes here every once in a while, especially when she tries to make Nesta things, but Nesta is very adamant that the House will do it for her, but at some point the House is like let your sister do something for you! So it withholds her desserts. Elain is very happy to oblige and most of the time, it is just Nesta sitting on a stool by the work table, warmed by the heat of the oven, her music playing from the symphonia, and Elain smiling softly as she works, perfectly content, while Nesta reads a book or talks about what she learned in the library this week or that. It is very hard to get Nesta to talk sometimes, so Cassian is actually immensely  grateful that Elain gets more pushy about communicating with Nesta and having her talk with her more. Not on a super deep level, but a companionship to have, because Nesta is mostly introverted, except for occasional instances, and if she can, she will avoid personal connection at all costs. It’s just a habit. There are certainly days where Nesta is more subdued that most, and usually he’ll give it a couple days, but if she’s still sort of off by the end of the week, that’s when Elain comes. She actually shows up by herself and Cassian’s always like how did you know and how did you even get here? And she’s like it’s a sister thing. Nesta and her get closer this way. 

So, on the Fifth floor: 

These are the floors that start being based off of whatever Nesta wants to see, because that’s how she unknowingly does magic. 

On this floor, there is a massive ballroom. I’m telling you there are fountains on the walls with cherubs, paintings on the ceilings that both look angelic and looks like clouds are in the sky and they’re moving. It’s bedecked in white and gold and there are crystal chandeliers hanging from the domed ceiling and it is so tall. It’s like a cathedral, and every time music plays which it does as soon as Nesta walks in, it echoes in there. Like loud, moaning sounds. Cassian thinks its creepy af, but Nesta loves that haunting sort of extravagances, and she swears she can see shadows dancing along with her. She starts taking private dance lessons in my fic, and this is where she practices. It has a lot of giant bouquets. 

But not only that there are two rolling staircases and when you go up them, that level is a theatre. Reds and velvet, and dim faelights that float in the air as if they’re floating on water. Think Phantom of the Opera. This “room” most of the time goes unused, but Nesta specifically starts being like well... I’m a big fan of the arts and music, so let’s start hosting things here. And it starts becoming a really big thing to be invited to these things. However, it’s mostly because Nesta still doesn’t really want to go out into the city, but she does want to hear a symphony. So it’s actually Cassian’s idea at first, to invite the orchestra to play at their home theatre for a surprise, and it just becomes a thing and citizens are invited, because it’s just a huge theatre to just be 2 people. However the stairs are a big problem, but we get passed that, but I’ll go into detail about that later.

Sixth floor: 

Is just one narrow hallway that leads to one door. But that door can lead you anywhere. And Nesta has a really hard time figuring out how to use it. Because one of the powers Nesta has, instead of winnowing, in my fic, is that she can open any door and go anywhere she wants, provided that there is a door, even one she draws. But she doesn’t figure that out until she figures out this door. So, for a while, she keeps opening the door and it leads to the riverfront estate, and Rhys is so freaked out that she just pops out of the closet, and she’s so freaked out too. But she closes the door and when Rhys tries to open it, it’s just a closet, and he’s like all looking through it like wth, knocking on the wood. But when Nesta opens it, it’s not even the house, it’s like a large dark abyss and some monster starts trying to claw it’s way out, so she shuts it really quick and the door keeps pounding and she’s like never again. And she gets very wary about opening anything, except many times the IC will ask her to use this door, so that they can find things. Similarly to scrying, where she knows the locations of things, she can open the door thinking of that specific object and she’ll end up being in that location. Nesta does not like this door, because she thinks it has a mind of its own, even though a lot of it is just her controlling where it goes. But because of this door, she learns that she can make any door a portal, so she ends up “drawing” a door at the base of the mountain outside which becomes an actual door which leads to the theatre. Also, she learns that there are a specific set of keys that the House gifts her, which unlocks and locks these portals she makes attached to the house specifically. Cassian and Emerie of course have one, but she gifts two also to Feyre and Elain on the premise that if they should ever need her and for some reason cannot fly up and obviously don’t want to climb the stairs or if they’re somewhere else entirely, they can visit her and be lead back by just unlocking any door they’re by and it will make a door to the House. Eventually she learns to have the door open to the seaside. And let me tell you, think Japan’s Hitachi Seaside park, with all the nemophilia (blue flowers), but all of it eventually coming to end at a beach or water striking the cliffside, still haven’t decided on that. 

I think that’s all the floors, but tbh, there might be more. I’m just super tired and I can’t think anymore or describe things. So for now, that concludes the House of Wind, Rooms and Floors Edition. Let me know if y’all have any headcanons or suggestions that you might want to see! Bye. 

[heretherebeechoes]

Where there is no echo there is no description of space or love. There is only silence." - MZ Danielewski - House of Leaves

Her words splattered oddly into view. It was a line from one of her bedside novels. The words weighed nothing but pinballed around in the nooks of his mind. He didn’t get it, does the type of echo change your description of both space and love? And must you keep on echoing or you’ll only know silence? And don’t you first need silence to hear the echoes? That’s what the orange people near the beach told her. One with eyes crossed in very wrong directions struck a match against his head and told her to listen to the silence of the crackling fire. This made zero sense to them both. He reminisced about judging the crazies with her again, laughingly coast-walking and finding a spot to weave.

But there were other obligations. Ophelia. She’s dead. He loaded her body into the Disuniter, unintentionally caressing her feet as he pushed it to the head of the table, carefully sliding it home. He cleared the breach and pushed, firmly, the Bond Deficit key. And with that, there was no longer an earthly Ophelia. His associations shifted, new and old maps were enmeshed, columns entwined with a spidering of retrievals.

Installation Counsellors had instructed how quickly associations would be made and also how quickly they would set as in concrete, particularly once any data streams stopped. Antic had data on Ophelia since birth, health and wellbeing parameters, mood detection events, fluid readings, ambient skin temperatures, complex, fully tweaked and parameterised predictive models. Near-on a century of human encoding, physically disentangled. Now, there was only silence.

The instructions received that morning in Antic’s Torpid Brief were, however, clear. Things weren’t like in the old sci-fi movies where stiff and clanky metallic beings were given stiffer and clankier procedures to follow. In clear terms, instructions for The Research were delivered.

BROADCAST FROM THE CENTRE

RESEARCH UPDATE No . 235-3287ˆ

AUTH: &zssds89BC

Insasse Antic, Your duties to Partner Ophelia are thus released. As per the detail in Assay Brief #12376-6, Cease and Ruminate for a period of precisely 274 days and do not Actualise until the receipt of a verified Reformation Brief. Locate and Affix to your home-based Daily Driver to ensure continuity of power supply for the period of Rumination.

Be eminent,

Medial - Notifier

Antic lifted his eyes. The hallways never felt more empty. He dazed from the basement through the apartment and into his charging room, umbilicalling himself to the machine that would ’feed the Medial’, resisting the urge to emote facially lest his head crack open. It was inauspicious for what the executives had unilaterally described to all and sundry as a momentous event in human history. There was a part of him that felt miffed. Ophelia’s family had long since extricated themselves from the house. Although who amongst us would love to watch this inanimate Rube push the body of their dearly departed relative into a gigantic chemical compactus? He’d been with Ophelia her entire life and, thus relegated, he was returned to being a piece of equipment.

A grumpy tech named Michael appointed him with Aldebaran solicitudes and fusion scoring collocations, communicating via grimaced expression that he would need the ability to think and feel. Just equipment, that’s all. With his new powers, Antic did sense his discomfort even before they were ingratiated into his View. The man did say to use the new skills responsively. And then he cried.

Antic swirled and squatted into a corner of the room and, as per the brief, Ceased. His brain whirred, cyclonic snaps and crackles and pops. Prior briefs become concrete. With Ophelia, he documented many pieces of advice acting as guiding lights for her, reflecting the man her father was and lighting the path ahead. Beware of all enterprises requiring new clothes. It’s never your extravagances you regret, only your economies. When people show you who they really are, believe them.

But then there were the bruising questions emanating from up on high, from Central. What do you, Antic, think should make up the personality of Next? What experiences and events in a person’s life do you, Antic, think are the important ones and which ones do you, Antic, think Next should structure their life to avoid? He needed something to do. Quickly.

The outside world faded, replaced with billions of dangling nodes in View. Bulbous and jiggling, pregnant with a synthetic yellow-ish fluid. Antic ran some first-pass deep agglom engines, just quick ones to reduce the noise. The nodes clustered and curtained sideways with a whoosh. As the bulbs moved closer some coalesced forming bigger drops. The available number of nodes dramatically reduced. This was a relatively fast process, only taking a couple of days.

The heavy lifting is, however, not done by the clustering but by the fusion senses, otherwise known as Agency Spiders, intricately coded creatures whose job was to calmly knit a network and build a topology of mountains and valleys from all the data. Antic loosed the algo upon the landscape before him, thousands and millions of trapezing crawlers inched across the lines holding each cluster of dangling nodes. They weaved connections between the nodes and threw lines between clusters, tapping the bulbous masses with their needled feet and lassoing related themes together. The agents wriggled along the length of each cluster, knitting an ultrastructure around them, performing a similar task to Myelin in neurons. Between-node communication speeds were dramatically increased.

Although the agents were machines like him, Antic felt a parent-like satisfaction watching them work. Good boys, you’re helping daddy very much.

The agents weaved strands into rope, rope into fibres, fibres into a flat matted fabric that stretched and creaked with wooden shipping sounds. Their painstaking work would take weeks.

The final staging-point was even bigger, one of imbuing meaning and breathing life into the landscape. Lip-shape and distance, heart-rate, blood flow, eye and pupil measurements, skin conductance, time-stamped and intertwined with The Entire History Database, these suffused events with flesh and bone. Antic could infer everything from Ophelia’s most terrifying moment to her top-5 favourite words to how much her feelings about Christmas held court over her life.

Even things she might have tried to obfuscate, hide or deny to herself inflated like an embarrassed emergency slide. The first kiss with the handsome shyboy next to the Woodville football oval, hiding in the trees like gawky owls. Her larynx dilation said no but her biophysicals cried proceed. She was contrite enough when Nana busted her watching a hairy porno but her pupils and circulation told another tale.

From these strands, Antic was able to reconstruct word building blocks, then entire words, then sentences and eventually infer entire dialogue. With a convulsion and a whip, the landscape was gut-punched into life. Antic ceased vibration and stabilised. He surveyed a painful glittering array of yellow roads and green streaks, valleys, wells and tributaries, heaving and breathing. The vista before him was alive with connections that he floated above, a sainted view from atop an invisible mountain.

He felt the pressure from the landscape on hischest, simultaneously magnetic and repulsive. He speedily hashed some code to govern flight parameters and floated forward looking down. The landscape responded to his presence, writhing beneath him, tickled and teased the faster he moved. It was almost giggling back at him. He reached out his arms to massage the quivering mass beneath and it reached back.

It rolled underneath the sensors within his hands. His eyes widened at his developing sense of....touch was it? People, real people, had laid their hands upon him daily but Antic had never been really touched before. It was orders of magnitude more electric than electricity. It pulled away and ejected his spine. The yearning was violent and immediate. More of that, please! The more he wanted it, the more it responded. Yearning back at him.

A cosy-looking mound caught the corner of his scan. Hygge as the Finns say. It was pulsating upward and blowing kiss bubbles, like a magical wind escaping a cloak. He drew closer and reached out, its doughnutty lips unfurled around his hand. Antic felt it squeezing, an elephant’s trunk that lightly kissed his fingers. Peace swept through Antic like a nuclear winter. The more he pushed against the doughnut, the more it gave. Antic dived in and was consumed by pure whiteness. He came to, looked down and saw a female form.

Ophelia!

--

She was sure they had her best interests at heart. All the guidance benefactors gathered in their masses, enveloping her and blocking the sun. As she came to the end of her schooling, like buzzards on gizzards, they feasted on the flesh around her fragile bones. They probably thought they were protecting her but instead, their words abolished a way forward, tearing the muscle off her legs and the wings off her back.

What grew instead was a pernicious form of scar tissue called doubt. Her dreams were incinerated then the rains washed them away. Oh, she tried to rage against the dying of her own light but, like their doubts, hers were reasonable. Not that reasonable is necessarily good, you see. If they ever knew, Ophelia wondered, how much I question myself in their name, maybe they’d give me more than a moment or two.

The time had come to put down choices for university and Ophelia’s mind was aflame sotto voce. Into the room, a half-circle lecture theatre, all the other potentials lined up against the walls shuffling as refugees from childhood. Ophelia looked around and saw flat faces. One’s nose usually leads the way but theirs were devoid of features and bereft of direction.

No-one else was looking at each other, they just quietly walked from the top of the lecture theater, between rows of chairs with those funny half-tables you only saw on American sitcoms, toward a single bench in the middle of the room.

She could see older people, presumably knowing what to do, half-smiling as the ghosts of children signed into classes, stepping into their adult shells, ruefully rubbing their eyes, blinking and dazed asking where am I. She wasn’t sure she would remember her own bloody signature, let alone pick a future. A signature, for that matter, was foisted upon her, seemingly, solely to get a bank deposit and hire videos.

Ophelia made her way to the table and observed the flabby jowls of the designated Official Person with a boxful of logo’ed pens to exchange for their futures. The half-smile hadn’t shifted an atom since she was at the top of the room. There was jostling behind her - get on with it.

Ophelia was muted by the image in her head of a top-hatted and caped figure leaping out from inside the half-grinner upon pen touching paper, bellowing "Aha, gotcha now!" Some were lucky. Her best friend was all set to sign on for computer science but upon being confronted with the pen and the paper, had an instapiphany and signed on to Geology because he remembered liking it as a kid. Lucky bitch.

Ophelia wanted to put down anything but science. Music. Archeology. Drama. Medicine. Real estate. Everyone she knew who talked about, taught or worked in science seemed so miserably reasonable. Every other job seemed to have an emblem denoting action. A fire fighter’s face says let’s go and a dancer’s moves cry let go. The image of a scientist, labcoat and glasses, is a lament. Hide me from the danger.

Ophelia’s pen hit the paper and stopped. Nothing. She felt the buzzards again, crowding the sunlight, rapaciously scanning every square inch of her body. She felt vulnerable and pulled her jacket more tightly to her body. The fabric was cutting into her arms, her one white-hot thought was how hard she could bite before shattering teeth. Maybe she could bite the shards into her gums and make a busted fire hydrant of her blood until she fainted. No such luck. She was still conscious.

She wrote "Bachelor of Science" in a language she didn’t understand. The half-smiler indicated a direction to walk away, handed her a pen and looked away. The tension receded but not somewhere good as she elbowed herself out of everyone’s way.

The knife-edge of her imagination was forever dulled.

--

The dream detonated and Antic found himself tumbling out of the landscape, legs and other bits flailing. Antic attempted to neatly curl into his own shell and forlornly waited until the spinning stopped. He extended his extremities one-by-one as his visor bumbled with blue question marks bouncing down hills. He attempted to wind his way through the logic and silence all the alarms.

Yes, yes, push the gyros back in, shut down the vibration index, increase the side thrust, shimmy the rectifiers and re-jiggle all the things.

...OK...

BROADCAST FROM THE CENTER

PUNCTUATED

SOFTWARE UPGRADE

Rev. 235.32.232.1

AUTH: 76HGDZgg§%

Antic’s eyes narrowed and spun as he slowly floated down to the surface. Movement of the landscape invited a breeze that he hadn’t noted before. It breathed, cracked and broke into leaves which spiralled around his arms. He allowed them to funnel through his fingers as a circle, skiiing over his knuckles, scraping and tickling him.

He felt activation of his Hebb’s codebase, a somewhat developmental code lain dormant until the upgrade, and warmed. New routines always tickled. His SOM hierarchies immediately re-oriented from quite a primitive pattern recognition modalities to advanced pattern activation as his world transitioned from 3D to something more akin to 45D. He felt bits flipping throughout the entirety of his shell, reverberating like a corpuscular hallway scream.

To put it into a single word or sentence, he just felt.....a heck of a lot more.

--

“Y’know it isn’t fair.”

“What isn’t?”

“Expectations. All I’m doing is being nice.”

“So?”

“Yeah well they think I’m a goddess at first. Like, oh mygod, she’s the one! The one I’ve been waiting for. Better than all the other ones, this one is THE ONE. Show people a little politeness, flash a little intellect, even just pretend you’re listening by asking some questions and bam, love.”

“Like what sort of questions?”

“Like nothing! Like "Oh, reallyyyy? That sounds terrible.

How did it make you feel?" Small talk.”

“And they’re in love?”

“Instantly. “

“Oh shit you poor thing. People love you straight away.

That must be rough.”

“Nah you’re not getting it. People just don’t know what a real person is like any more. I don’t know if it’s because we see so many fake ones on Insta or TV or whatever but no-one sees real people any more. People with normal flaws. Or sad once in a while just because.”

“Or someone who just does stupid shit because they didn’t feel like thinking that day.”

“Exactly! No-one has flaws, they have red flags. You’re not sad, you’re clearly depressed. You’re not mad, you’ve got anger issues. You’re not drunk, you have a drinking problem.”

“So you say the problem is pathologising people too much?”

“Hmm, too thinky. I’m saying we don’t see people, just an assemblage of aspects. A tick-and-flick form. Check, check, check, scoring function applied, okay, now I know you. Surface stuff. “

“Yeah yeah, so what? People are superficial jerks.”

“So what? It just annoys me because I always gotta play catch-up.”

“What?!”

“Nah I mean it. Like I said, so many fall early. They got this image in their minds from all the fake shit they see about what an ideal girlfriend looks like. So if I’m a little polite, actually do a bit of listening, talk about the fun stuff I’ve done, instantly I’m perfect. Especially if I tease them a bit, they just think I’m being super honest.”

“Christ you’re smug. “

“You’re still not getting it! It means I start at 100%. You realise how shit that is? Ever try to maintain perfection?”

“Nup. It’s impossible.”

“It’s not impossible, it’s non-sensical. What’s a ’good’, ’bad’ or whatever person is totally in the eye of the beerholder, if you know what I mean.

There is no perfect person because, a person, a real flesh-and-blood walking-around-and-doing-the-shopping-person, they can’t be perfect.”

“So one person thinks you’re perfect for them. Y’know, that old saying about being one person in the world but the world to one person. How is that bad exactly, you cocky mole?”

“Because it’s impossible to maintain even if that’s true. I have shitty parts to me, like everyone else. But when starting from perfection, there’s only one way to go. Even a minor flaw is judged way more harsh. "Oh....God, really? You’re like that? You slammed the door just because you had a bad day at work? I think you’ve got a problem..."

"Mmm hmmm..."

"They’ve fallen in love with the image, not with me. And a small crack on a clean slate looks really bloody obvious. So they judge me for minor, normal flaws and I judge them for believing in the image. All of sudden, wow, there’s a cloud of judgy pessimism hanging over us. I end up taking a deep breath, here we go again, bloody hell. “

“Yeah it’s rough.”

“No it really is. Makes me feel like shit for having perfectly acceptable flaws, like being a bit grumpy sometimes or not giving a fuck about one-month anniversaries. So I’m playing catch-up just to get back to human in their eyes. Some drug dealer doing a night course to be a sparky gets more credit than me, poor sod who didn’t quite live up to perfection.

"Mmm."

"And the worst part is that personality pluses or minus’s don’t make an interesting person anyway. It’s all the meta facets, shit which the pluses and the red flags feed into from experience and just thinking through things. It’s what someone does with their shit parts, that’s what builds character, not whether they’re there in the first fucking place. “

“Hmmmm, yeah. I mean, I don’t wanna bring up the past....”

“Nah go, it’s okay.”

“But yeah, your Dad was a violent arsehole. Manipulative too. Still remember that time, eh? At your 12th birthday, ya mum ran in after some bloke wanked himself a the phonebox and he said "Was he bigger than me, ya slut?"”

“Yep. Proper arsehole.”

“Surely seeing that shit all the time and when he smashed your Mum, all that, it must be in you a little bit yeah?”

“Sure. Sometimes.”

“But I never see you react like that. You act fair with people, don’t judge, be nice, keep cool. “

“Yeah it’s all there but it’s what you do with the shit stuff, that’s the stuff I reckon people should be judging. All your good and bad parts are mixed in there, they sorta melt together as you get older. And that’s how it should be, you should learn from your mistakes, not just keep doing them.

"Yup."

"How someone channels the bad things that got into your head first, that’s the real stuff. Someone who acts perfect is really just better at covering up.

"Say it!"

"Yeah! Judge the melted parts! I’m not gonna date someone who’s sweet as pie 95% of the time but then a car-crash bitch when she gets a speeding ticket. I am, however, going to fuck the tits off someone who knows their triggers so they don’t get there in the first place and can bring themselves back from the ledge.”

“Ophie, you sure do know how to the get to the beating heart of a problem...... and then flush it down the toilet. What a way to put it.”

“Thanks baby.”

--

He was alive. Antic noted his surroundings and perceived only one change, a picture of Ophelia was now hanging on the wall. She was standing with her arms draped over his shoulders, an elbow upon his breastplate, her chin upon his. Maybe Ophelia’s brother put it up. He always said he’d steal Antic. A communique was incoming.

BROADCAST FROM THE CENTER

AROUSAL CONTROL SIGNAL:

AWARE

Nr. 1

AUTH: jhdskKKSDU?$&D

Insasse Antic,

Your Rumination has ended, your period of Cease has with it, Reformation is Active. You are now in Actualise. Attend Center. Choose Next.

Be wise,

Medial - Notifier

Oh God. I need more time.

He drew his eyes down, paused, then painted the road ahead brick-by-stone. He felt the image of Ophelia drawing away. Now, he had nothing but lonely decades on tape. He was nowhere and nothing but an appliance. He left the house. For good this time.

Voluminous quietude descended upon Antic as he floated along streets. Pensive whirring of actuators and motors, harmonising with the whoosh of river spray and leaf patter as corner bled into corner. Streets flowed into roads. The hush in Antic’s mind gave the illusion of being still and a tense hum of vibration. His vacant moment melted stones underfoot. He rounded the final corner to Center and saw their motto on the side of the building, "Excellence is Routine". It reminded him of the old quote about sinning against God, rather than bureaucracy.

The script was burdeningly clear to him, Next must be 100% perfect. He stared gloomily at the sign, channelling the dismay of another nation. Antic swayed around a corner of the building and spotted two battered metal doors, down a small flight of steps, flecks of red paint slashed along the edges. They lightly chattered as he inched closer then swung open with a fluid motion and a lovely little squeak. He leaned back a little and glared at his RFID module. Traitor.

He haunted the corridors, taking wrong turns even though he knew they were wrong. He was avoiding making any decisions for as long as it wasn’t clear to others that he was avoiding making a decision. He ruefully rubbed his eyes, they felt gritty. Let go or let’s go, let it go, let her go. Geyser-like, something welled up inside and Antic, literally, screamed: HOW. DO. I. CHOOSE.

Heads whipped around and Antic’s emotional bucket was filled to a new high water mark of shame. He froze.

"Heyyyyyy, looks like this one’s got a screw loose. How are you Antic? Looking well I see, very much a robot in nature, yes? (quickly, quickly, lets blow)."

Jostled by his first human contact in almost a year, the man before him was a rangy type. Gaunt but with eyes that bounced inside steaming sockets and a fireplace voice. He was wearing a name badge that said Dr. Redfoot.

He jerked Antic away from the milieu and into a nearby room. As he bent down, his knees made plumber crackles, a double act with his clicking tongue.

"Alright sir, let’s have a look at you, my boy. Tell me, Antic, how do you feel?"

"I am a lever without a fulcrum."

"Ah yes, quite an articulate.... coldly logical way to put it. Umm, so, you feel unbalanced, yes?"

"Yes"

"Well that is to be expected, your mind is a mess. Your only cogent instructions have been to take what you know and plough it into producing perfection. Oo, that rhymed. Proper Planning Prevents Piss-Poor Performance! Hah, from my aviation memory too! Errm, anyway. Rough gig, wouldn’t you say?"

"Sir. I mean, I’m sorry, Dr Redfoot, I believe, that is to say, I strongly think that I lack the data to draw conclusions."

"Nonsense! You’ve had nigh-on a century of experience and and some months to analyse literal mountains of data. You’re positively overflowing with it! I should know, I imprinted part of the valley algo myself."

Redfoot drew a lawless grin at that line.

"Then why do no conclusions draw themselves?"

"The heart of why you’re here, my boy, is because humans have frailties, irrationalities and faults that somewhat preclude objective decision-making about what a unflawed human being would look like. We cannot know because our very faculties for knowing anything are flawed, you see?"

"I guess so."

"It’s easy for us humans to decide on the flaws which are unacceptable but us crazy humans also tend to deny that we possess perfectly acceptable flaws too, especially the ones we possess that perhaps can still get us somewhere

in life.

For you, dear robot, the very point is objectivity. A data-driven way to see the flaws we can’t directly observe but accept anyway. Adding in emotions via the Hebbs was really all about model training and stress testing. Little more than that. It really does seem to have thrown you off-kilter, though, eh?"

"I feel different. I don’t want to do it. I hate this game."

"And well you might not. Maybe a little humanity has gotten in there, eh? Of course I’m joking. There’s no need to pout, though, my boy. It’ll work out."

"Will Next be the endgame?"

"My word, no! We wouldn’t give the ability to create the actual human to the very first experiment! That is, of course, the intention but your decisions will be analysed prior to any genetic shenanigans."

"What."

"Mmmm, I’m sorry were you not told? You know, for a society which has never been more connected, we sure are lousier than ever at communic-"

"But...... does that not mean you, as humans, are still encoding your flaws in the decision? And what happens if you don’t like my decisions?"

"Haven’t seen any paperwork on that. Oh well, there’s a life lesson in humanity and bureaucracy, I guess. Still, that’s your job and we all have one to do."

With all the big words, Redfoot was making steeple hands and practising his power co-mu-ni-ca-tion. He whipped and silenced his very own Ted audience. Then he drew his attention back to Antic.

"In your case, it is to identify the flaws in (what was her name again...ahh, Ophelia). You must isolate, capture and remove them all, yes?"

"Now, speaking of the very task ahead of you, you have but one further step, Antic, and that is to updown your data for us to pore over it until the cows come home or, at least, until I go home. Anyhow, follow me to the updown room."

Redfoot was practising his corporate movements as he walked, trying hard to stay in the box and to avoid jazz hands. Antic rustedly glided behind him and into a room with a perfunctory computing set-up that was trying a little too hard to be inconspicuous. It was nothing like the movies. For a momentous first-in-world-history-ever event, canon dictated a huge computer, wheels whirring

with noise and flashing green lights, men in coats clapping and hollering that nothing will be the same again. First prize!

Nope.

Just a medium-sized grey block with nondescript manufacturer stickers. And a cable.

Another new feeling. Underwhelmed.

"Ah yes, you’ll need to cable uplink for this one, Antic. Can’t risk even a single missed bit, of course. Well, here’s where we part ways, seems odd to say good luck but here goes anyway - good luck!"

"Thank you, Dr Redfoot. I will do what I feel....what is right."

Redfoot departed. He turned his head and paused for a moment in the hallway before sauntering away, practising purposeful gestures. Antic was alone again. He was irritated too. Mainly at Redfoot’s reaction to being asked about his Next. He wasn’t annoyed at the news of the dry-run but that Redfoot had the nerve to be surprised by it.

He gingerly plugged in the cable. Hearing every scratch and feeling every scrape as the data left his case and bounced down it gave him the heebee jeebees. A hologram sprang to life before him and reverse melted into a mould of Kid Ophelia. With each sweeping pass of the data filter, the image of her became more and more detailed. Every coarse piece of her face was snapped into progressively finer detail with every iteration.

Layers of colour were added and the image began to animate. At first jerkily but then human-like movements as historical data about Ophelia was updown’d. Her arms were moving as if she was swimming. She stopped flapping, gazed back at Antic and smiled. Antic realised the movements were not at all random but reciprocal. He fidgeted and waved at Ophelia. She waved back.

The landscape of the hologram burbled and yawed as first he little girl grew into a teenager, a young adult and then into a woman. Then into an older woman as the data flowed apace. The completion of Ophelia the model ushered in a series of options into Antic’s visual field. They were mapped separately to her cortical landscape, as was generated in Rumination. Buttons, icons, sliders and plots altering the topology of the landscape.

An interface to the hologram of Ophelia was tethered directly to it. A random button press and the hologram became Ophelia at age three. The first thing she tried to do was tug on Antic’s fingers. Antic reflexively reached out but her hand went right through his fingers and she began to cry.

A plaintive mahhhh left his mouth and, with an abrupt new selection, the teenage Ophelia appeared and waved. Antic recognised her Tuesday morning lecture dress.

"Hi Antic! Oh my God, how are you?!"

"Well. How are your studies?"

"So good! I’m learning so much chemistry. I feel like, you know, this is the real deal now. High school was the warm-up but university is the real show. Finally finding out the real story!"

"You....like it?"

"Yeah of course! You know I’ve always liked science. Don’t you remember how I mixed everything together in the chem set Mum gave me?"

He sure did. Antic also remembered her callow disappointment when it formed nothing but a powdery sludge in the bottom of her test-tube. He saw the opportunity to right a wrong.

His eyes were drawn to the wheezing landscape. He blithely pushed a few sliders which sped up the rate of bubbles. Connections shifted again the landscape began to shift like jello. New buttons and sliders bubbled and materialised. A stooping Ophelia appeared and spoke again.

"Know what, Antic? I’m actually pretty darn bored with this uni stuff. Who would choose to spend all their time in a smelly synthesis lab anyway? I’m outta here and I’ll tell Mum as soon as she gets home."

Ah. Too far.

Antic’s focus shifted to a mendacious-looking column rising out of the flats and far above the rest of the landscape. A single button, bubbling next to hundreds of others, practically begged to be pushed. A grin left him as he did.

Ophelia appeared before him wearing a crushed purple dress, dyed black hair with roots. Her eyes were reddened and wild. She looked like she hadn’t slept in a while.

"Antic! My God. I’m so glad you’re here! You look shinyyyy, not like the usual scruff. I’m just kidding of course. Look can you do me a favour?"

"Of course."

"I want you to send a message to Nadia."

"Who is Nadia?"

"Oh you know, we work together. She’s dating my ex-girlfriend Shannon. Remember her?"

"Yes I do"

"Great! Well just let her know that Shannon left her phone under my bed the other night so I have it if she’s looking for it. Poor dear was in such a state, they’re having some problems, you see, so she really did need to chat. Anyway, just let her know, I have her phone.

Oo! Also, the picture of Nadia on her phone is so cute! Yea tell her that!"

"I don’t know if it’s a good idea." "No, Antic, don’t be silly! Nothing happened! Nadia has absolutely nothing to worry about! She just needed to talk, that’s all. Nothing to it at all. Please? Send the message?"

"I don’t know if it’s a good idea."

"Nothing happened that Nadia needs to worry about. Please. Antic. Just send the message."

A feeling similar to what a field mouse in the field view of an Eagle coursed through him. He quietly moved a slider back to its original position. The column shortened a little but the landscape did not revert. It looked like now it never would. So he experimented a little.

Morphing the landscape into shapes that removed Ophelia’s cynicism made her a messy, doe-eyed doormat, others that calmed doubts resulted in a wing-suited risk-taking psychopath. Occasionally quite random, such as when he shed her sometimes prickly exterior and she was dealing crack cocaine to footballers from the East.

A futile bid to reset to the usual Ophelia was thwarted when she crumpled into a homicidally jealous harpy at the mention of her younger sister, Valerie (with an ’i’). Or an Anime-loving shut-in at the merest mention of her father.

There was a mischievous little girl, threatened with a hoe by the old Italian immigrant behind the back fence for throwing stones at his windows. A newly-legal woman who got a $30 lapdance on her 18th and bought a packet of cigarettes but didn’t smoke a single one.

There was the time she nearly drowned but breathed nary a word to anyone about how scared she was and the year of nightmares that followed.

He threw his hands in the air. He pushed every button on the screen. He impotently tore out the cable and wrapped it around his neck, tightening it and making a squishy eeeee sound. He picked up an empty plastic coffee cup and slapped it to the floor. He looked away, saw a spiderin the corner of the room and threw a pen at it but missed. He pouted again. Fuck it.

BROADCAST FROM THE CENTER

INVESTIGATION SIGNAL:

QUERY Nr. 2876423

AUTH: /&%"/8787623i

Insasse Antic,

Data acquisition is complete,

decision is at Zero. Choose Next.

Be wise,

- Center.

A tenebrous combination of unease and grumpiness dominated his thoughts. The time pressure irked and there was so much of the landscape left to explore. They want a better person with incomplete data? Let them decide! Without him.

He folded his arms and performed his best pout yet. Minimising bad flaws caused new ones, maximising desirable factors destroyed flaws that were sometimes desirable and doing nothing revealed characteristics he never knew about that demanded exploration. Even being around her for virtually every tongue-lashing and toilet break, he’d managed to miss so much.

Antic didn’t believe in God but now he missed him. He thought of all the things that had happened to him over the years. He also thought of how little he had made happen himself.

His shoulders relaxed as the thought burned unbridled through him. He jettisoned a giggle as he took a long look at the landscape, at all the frigid sliders and buttons. He whipped his head around and caught his reflection on the wall. He didn’t dare ask it any questions.

Antic left the room, slinked around a corner, down the hall and, as he did, he felt the sound and the fury of footsteps and minds osmoting into the room he’d left behind. Malnourished necks craned from behind office doors and spoke in hushed tones, has he finished yet?

Shuffled feet and low voices were supplanted by rising concern and more voice, untrammelled by the ticking of the bomb. Rising above the din, Antic heard a familiar voice from across the hallway.

"Looks like you’ve caused quite a stir there, Antic. Been a good day then eh? And it’ll be a great day to come for all of us too eh? How’s your Next?"

He took another moment and thought about offering some blandishment about how he’d tried his best or some self-indulgent whine about the whole experiment, that Central was not the God he missed but an absentee landlord. And nature abhors a vacuum.

"Perfectly acceptable."