#half-changeling!reader

[deepspacedukat]

The Only One - Part 7: Immoral Comfort

Welp...Part 7, here we are. This is the part I started way before I even wrote Part 1, because I was in a Mood™. I originally thought this was going to be a 3 part story, but it looks like it's gonna be something closer to 12. Tbh, I didn't expect anyone to be interested in this fic because it was such a niche, back-of-the-brain thought. So, thank you to everyone who's made it this far with me and taken the time to leave comments!

I know it's been forever since I updated this, but I hope there are at least a few people who are still interested. I had a very specific way that I wanted things to happen in this chapter and I was being a little too picky about the details, so my apologies for the delay! If you want to be added to or removed from my taglist, please let me know!

*Dominionese language pulled from @dominionese-resource and their Dominionese dictionary. If you want me to clarify where I got certain words or phrases, or how I tried (clumsily) to piece them together myself, please feel free to ask. I probably conjugated a few verbs incorrectly or structured things wrong in places, but I tried. Also, the signature mentioned was based off this post on their blog.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

Cross-posted to AO3 here.

~*~

Weyoun (ST:DS9) x Reader

[A/N: This has smut, so 18+ ONLY, MINORS DNI!!!]

Warnings: Interspecies sex, Vorta/Human sex, fingering, jealous Dukat, drunkenness, romantic Weyoun, telepathic/empathic connection, mild existential crisis, crying, sorta hurt/comfort? but mostly just stress/comfort, spoilers for S6E4 "Behind the Lines."

~*~

Nearly a month passed from that long, odd day when I met Keevan and his men. I hated having to conceal part of my motives from Weyoun, but I didn’t have much of a choice. There was no way in hell I’d sit idly by while the Changelings took over my home. Major Kira, Odo, and a few others had begun a small resistance cell aboard the station, and so that they wouldn’t jeopardize my mission or I theirs, Kira had ordered me not to attend meetings. I was to keep my ears open and report to her as usual. She was allowing me to help but only in minor ways. Yes, it was important to cause chaos for the Dominion while they were occupying the station, but a position of influence and confidence like I currently held was insanely important for the intelligence gathering task that Starfleet had given me. Hell, I didn’t even know who all the members were.

That was definitely for the best. With the intimacy of the connection that Weyoun and I shared, my lack of knowledge kept myself and the rest of the resistance members safe. I’d have to be content helping in my own little way. Thus far, Dukat trusted me almost as much as Weyoun did, and Damar was slowly coming around to the belief that I wasn’t his enemy. All I had to do now was keep it up and find a way to contact Starfleet Command. Discreetly.

Seated beside each other one evening, Weyoun and I worked on our respective reports. I wasn’t particularly curious about the file he was reading until he picked up a stylus and wrote something. It was an odd group of symbols and marks that I’d never seen before. Without much thought about how rude it probably was, I tilted my head and watched how fluidly his fingers drew the stylus across the data PADD.

“What is that?” I asked quietly, and Weyoun gave me a perplexed look.

“A report about troop movements...?”

“Oh, not the report, I mean this,” I said pointing to the symbols he’d drawn out beneath the final paragraph. A look of understanding washed over him, and he gave me a small smile.

“That is my signature,” he answered simply, and I felt my eyes widen. “Have you not seen Dominionese written out before?”

“I’ve barely heard Dominionese, much less seen it. Is that really your name?” I asked unable to keep the wonder from my voice. I examined the markings a bit more carefully, wondering what each meant in order to form a name as precious as his.

Weyoun set the data PADD aside, picked up an empty one, and wrote the symbols a little neater this time. I watched the way his stylus glided over the PADD’s surface in practiced, fluid movements. When he was finished, he tilted the screen toward me to show me his handiwork, and I couldn’t stop a smile from splitting my lips. The more I looked at the symbols, the harder it became to shake the feeling that I’d seen something like them before.

The pendant! I pulled it out from beneath the collar of my uniform and sure enough, the symbols were similar. The engravings were in Dominionese.

“Weyoun, the pendant you gave me...what does it say?”

“Would you like me to tell you, or would you like me to teach you to read it yourself?” He asked with a twinkle in his eyes, and I felt myself perk up at the implication.

“Would you? I-I mean, are you willing to teach me? I know you’re busy with the station and the war, so I understand if you don’t have the time–” He cut me off with a quick kiss and set the PADD aside as he took my hands in his.

“My dear, I would be honored to teach you the language of your people,” Weyoun murmured. “I’m sure you’ll take to it quite easily. You’ve always been a fast learner, at least from what I’ve seen.”

‘My people.’ Both of us knew they weren’t anything of the sort after what they’d done, but I still appreciated his sentiment. Besides, the hope that he held about a potential reconciliation between myself and the Changelings, while utterly futile, was also incredibly sweet. After all that he'd been through, the fact that he still had hope was just a testament to the strength that the Founders chose not to see in their Vorta followers.

Giving his hands a gentle squeeze, I looked up at the gorgeous purple-eyed being on my sofa. How in the stars did I get so lucky?

Purple blush spread quickly across his cheeks, and Weyoun let out a shy little laugh. Right, the feelings. It had become more natural over the duration of our relationship for us to share our emotions through the strange telepathic connection we'd been granted, but there were still moments where it caught one or both of us off guard.

"As much as I wish I could keep you all to myself tonight and demonstrate exactly how much I adore you, didn't you say you were meeting a friend tonight?" His question pulled me from my reverie, and I blinked in comprehension.

“Computer, what time is it?”

“The time is eighteen-thirty hours,” it responded, and I got to my feet. Shit, he was right, and I was going to be late at this rate.

“Meeting Damar again?” Weyoun asked as he stood, too, and grasped my waist lightly. When I nodded my head, he gave me a gentle smile. “I’m so glad you’re making more friends. I know you were already acquainted with some of the Bajoran officers, but knowing that Keevan and Damar along with some of their officers have become close to you...I’m overjoyed! To tell you the truth, I thought you might feel isolated here given the personnel changes. I-I thought...you might regret staying.”

Shrugging my shoulders, I wrapped my arms around the Vorta’s neck.

“Well, I still feel a little out of place at times, but there are a few people here who’ve been kind to me," I murmured placing a gentle kiss on the tip of his nose. "For the record, you make staying here worth it. As long as I have you, I won't regret leaving Starfleet."

I knew this was only temporary - that as soon as the Federation regained control of the station I'd be back to being a Starfleet officer - but I was going to make the most of this while I could. Sure, I still had my mission and a very important job to do, but I wasn't about to waste my opportunity to soak in Weyoun's presence while I could.

A beautiful, joyful smile stretched his lips, and he pressed his forehead lightly against mine.

"Good, because running this station and protecting Bajor for the Dominion...it would be mind-numbingly dull without you, my dear." That brought a smile to my own lips, but probably for different reasons than he would've anticipated. The Founders would likely have blown a gasket hearing that one of their Vorta toys was bored with the job they'd been created to perform. If that wasn't proof that the Vorta were capable of being so much more than the Changelings thought, I didn't know what was. "Don't be late, now. I'll be here when you get back."

I nodded my head quietly and gave him a tender, parting kiss before making my way toward Quark's.

The Bajoran station was humming with the partially-exhausted crowds that naturally accompanied the end of a shift. Used to the tired throng of people either going for a meal or heading back to their quarters, I used a few of the back corridors - less-traveled areas, of course - to make up some time.

Rather quickly, I found myself slipping into the doorway to the Ferengi's bar and zeroing in on the seat that was held for me out of habit by Dukat's right hand man. Without preamble, I plopped myself on the padded stool and gave a polite nod to the Cardassian in question.

"I was wondering when you'd get here. Usually you're early," Damar said as he brought his glass of kanar to his lips. He seemed in unusually high spirits tonight. Either something minor and gossip-worthy had happened, or I should be very concerned about the state of the war.

"There was a lot of foot traffic tonight. Apparently everyone decided this was the night to be in my way," I said with a dismissive giggle. Quark caught my eye and nodded in acknowledgement. "You look like the cat that got the cream, Glinn. What's got you in such a good mood?"

The Ferengi bartender set my drink in front of me with a wink - I knew for a fact that he flirted with all the patrons who wouldn't kill him in the hopes that he'd get a bigger tip - but before he could leave, Damar's hand landed on his forearm.

"Anything the Lieutenant drinks tonight is on me. This is a celebration," the Glinn said with a smug smirk. Looking at him in surprise, I lifted my glass of kanar in salute.

"Why, thank you, Glinn. If I may ask, what's the occasion?" He tapped his glass against mine, and after we both took a generous swallow - clearly not his first of such this evening - he turned to face me on his stool.

"My impending promotion!" He said puffing up his armor-covered chest.

Uh oh.

"Wait a minute," Quark cut in as he polished a glass, "you started a fight in my bar and they're making you a Gul? What kind of way is that to run an army?"

Weyoun had mentioned the fight only a couple of days before. Apparently, it had been between Cardassian officers and Jem'Hadar soldiers. Quark's concern was completely valid. How the hell did that track?

"Dukat wasn't happy about what happened," Damar started refilling his glass and topping mine off, even though I'd only taken a single sip. "I had to find a way to make it up to him."

"I hope it was something big," Quark chimed in.

"Must've been a hell of a blowjob," I teased, and the tipsy Cardassian let out a raucous laugh.

"Nothing so personal. Let's just say it will change the course of history," he said before draining his glass once more. Quark's eyes met mine. This reeked of trouble.

"As a businessman," the Ferengi started, refilling the Glinn's glass himself, "I'm very interested in the course of history. This one's on me."

Damar accepted the drink with a nod and a raised glass.

"That's very kind of you, Quark, but I can't talk about it." Down the hatch went that drink, and I sipped slowly at mine as I formed a plan. Quark looked over at me, and sighed as he grabbed a third glass.

"Of course, I understand. Have another," he offered, refilling Damar's drink, topping up mine, and pouring one for himself. I'd never imbibed heavily before, but there was a first time for everything.

--

Making our way to Kira's quarters while intoxicated was more difficult that I'd anticipated. Not only did I have to keep myself upright, but I had to try and steady Quark as well. The dirty bastard's hand roamed several times, but a threat to remove them at the wrist seemed to sober him up just enough for him to process how bad of an idea it had been.

We were practically dragged into the Major's quarters when we got there, having seemingly stumbled our way into a meeting of her resistance group. So much for me not knowing who was involved. She'd clearly bet on the probability of me forgetting the night's events by the morning, otherwise she wouldn't have let me in at all.

After several rambling attempts at conversation, Quark got a little agitated, and Kira tried to drag him back on course.

"How can I relax when there are thousands of Jem'Hadar ships are sitting on the other side of the wormhole, waiting to come through?" He slurred, and Jake shook his head, trying to placate him.

"Don't worry about it. They're stuck there." He sounded so confident - so naïvely certain.

"Noooo, Jake. They're coming," I said, clutching at his arm as if I could make the young man understand. "If Damar was telling the truth, they'll be able to get through soon."

"What are you talking about?" Kira asked, and together we managed a somewhat intelligible, if slurred, explanation of what happened. Odo and Kira shared a look, and I was ordered to head back to my quarters.

How I got back, though, was a mystery to everyone, myself included. All I recalled the next morning was the vague impression of Weyoun helping me into clean clothes and letting me cuddle him until I fell asleep.

I really hoped that I'd dreamed saying how pretty he was so many times. He deserved to know he was handsome, but I didn't exactly want to sound like such a moron when conveying that to him.

Gentle lips against my cheek brought me back to consciousness in the morning, and I burrowed farther into my lover's embrace. My head ached and everything felt dry and scratchy and too loud.

No wonder I heard so many people warning about how strong kanar was. If this is how it felt the morning after, I was quite happy never to taste that syrupy shit again.

"Come, my love. It's time to get up," Weyoun crooned in a gentle, careful whisper. An involuntary groan escaped me, and he ran his fingers softly through my hair. "I'm sorry. I know it hurts. I have something that'll help, though."

"I don't think even your gorgeous cock can fix this," I rasped as I forced myself to sit up - an utterly monumental task in that state.

"As honored as I am that you view me as a potential cure to many ailments, I was talking about this," he said reaching for a hypospray sitting on the bedside table. "It'll take away the majority of your symptoms."

I tried to nod my head, but it just ended with me wincing and lying back down. A quiet hiss sounded against my upper arm, and a few moments later, the pain melted away as if Weyoun's fingers trailing over my scalp had behaved like a poultice, absorbing the Evil Hangover straight from the source.

Featherlight kisses landed on my closed eyelids, and I let out a quiet sigh of relief at the sensation.

"I take it you and Damar had fun last night?" He teased, and I groaned.

"For your own health, never ever try to match drinks with a Cardassian soldier." I cautioned, but before I could say more, the comm system chimed.

"Dukat to Weyoun. There is an urgent meeting in thirty minutes. Bring the Lieutenant with you. She'll want to be a part of this." He didn't wait for a response, simply stated the message and cut the line.

A long-suffering sigh escaped my lover's lips, and he fixed me with a stare. Those soft, warm purple eyes of his filled with a playful sort of calculating stare. He then picked up a glass of water and gave me a wink.

"Computer, deactivate Universal Translator in this room," he ordered, and my eyebrows shot upward. The acknowledging chirp from the computer stirred my curiosity. Holding the glass of water between us, he pointed at it and murmured a single word. "Na."

I blinked, and he, noticing my blankness, smiled and repeated the word before gesturing a hand at me. I repeated the word, still mildly confused, but it pleased him, and just like that something clicked.

Apparently, this was my first lesson in how to speak Dominionese. My pronunciation had been right on the money, but I didn't know if he meant the cup itself, or what was in the cup.

"Na?" Reaching forward, I tapped the glass as I asked, then I dipped a fingertip into the liquid, "or is this na?"

A look of comprehension flickered across his face, and he touched the liquid as I had, repeating the word confidently. He had me say it once or twice more, and offered me the glass with a cheerful little kiss on the forehead.

As we dressed for our meeting with Dukat, Weyoun tapped items of clothing and various objects around the room, giving me their names in his language and having me repeat them until my pronunciation was satisfactory. By the time that the translator came back online, I couldn't help but feel proud that I'd absorbed so much while recovering from a hangover.

--

The Changeling standing in the wardroom sent a bolt of anxiety rocketing through me. Why was a Founder here? Wasn't it enough for the Vorta to keep their people informed? Odo stood at her side, looking confused, a little suspicious, and...was he happy? I supposed that he must be. After all, he wasn't the one who'd been exiled from ever returning to their homeworld. The slightly guarded yet curious glances he threw her way said more than words ever could.

How long had she been on the station? How deeply into him had she sunk her claws?

I had my answer when I glanced at the table and noted that Major Kira was conspicuously absent. For the safety of the resistance and the Federation's future, I had to assume that Odo had been compromised.

"Founder, it is an honor," Weyoun said sinking into a low bow at my side. His hand still rested squarely in mine, but I didn't copy his actions. Lifting my chin in defiance, I merely looked at her as her hawk-like eyes watched us - or rather, me. She didn't seem to even notice Weyoun, choosing instead to stare at me.

"We meet again, child of Meris," she said, but I just lifted an eyebrow. What sort of response could I possibly give after she banished me? I'd chosen Weyoun over my people - a decision I could never regret - but I had no intention of discussing my logic with one so cruel that she could not comprehend that what she'd almost done was wrong in the extreme. "Have you nothing to say to your kin?"

Glancing around the room in faux contemplation, I shook my head blankly.

"I see no kin here. Besides, the last time we spoke, you made your opinion on my existence quite clear." I was proud of how calm and logical I sounded despite the anger boiling within me.

"Perhaps our opinions of you have changed," she said taking a few steps toward me. Looking away from her, I spotted Dukat and was, for once, grateful for his presence.

"What did you call us here for, Gul?" The smirk that met my inquiry sent a shiver down my spine. "I trust it wasn't just for this...reunion?"

"Come, Lieutenant. Have a seat by me. We have a breakthrough to discuss," he called, and I did as he suggested. Pulling Weyoun gently along, I ensured that the Founder wasn't given the chance to sit on either side of me. All the meeting gave me were specifics on the plan to remove the minefield. Nearly everything Dukat and Damar said were things I'd heard from the latter the night before, and I forced myself to act surprised.

I caught Damar looking at me a few times, doubtless trying determine how much he'd said the night before and how much I remembered. When I gave him an innocent smile and acted engrossed in Dukat's speech as if it was all new, he seemed to relax.

Very well. Let the drunkard believe that he'd averted a crisis. The more his people underestimated their opposition, the easier it would be to catch them off their guard.

"You will keep me informed," the Founder said rising to her feet as if she was a queen. Without waiting for an answer from Gul Dukat, she turned to Odo. "Come. I wish to speak with you alone."

I expected him to toss out an abrasive comment, but instead, he followed her like an obedient puppy.

What the hell was going on?

Before I could say a word to Weyoun, though, the Founder tossed a glance over her shoulder.

"Come, Weyoun. We require your service," she called not waiting for an answer as she swept out of the room. He gave me an apologetic kiss on the cheek before rushing after the pair of Changelings, and then I was left alone with the two Cardassians.

"Well, well, that wasn't exactly what I was expecting," Dukat murmured, and I let out a heavy sigh. I still had the edge of a headache from this morning's hangover. Closing my eyes, I leaned my head back against the headrest of my seat. "Oh dear. You do seem stressed."

It was all I could do to keep my eyelids from snapping open when one of his large hands rested on my thigh, squeezing the muscles there in what I guessed was supposed to be a soothing gesture. I hummed low in my throat - the sound's meaning was one that I let him interpret on his own.

"Did I wear you out last night?" Damar asked with a huff of laughter, and Dukat let out a scandalized gasp. I could imagine just how wide his eyes had grown as he looked between his officer and me.

"Don't tell me you were with another Cardassian!" He sounded sufficiently playful, but still just jealous enough to bring a smile to my lips. Good. I had him hook, line, and sinker.

"Only for a drink," I replied, and Damar took that as his cue to leave. The door hissed closed, leaving me truly alone with Dukat. Why shouldn't I use this as an opportunity to deepen his trust in me?

"No wonder you look so tired," Dukat murmured sounding much closer than before. His other hand touched my forehead and his lips met my cheek. "Poor girl. I can massage that headache away if you like...?"

Letting out a harsh, skeptical laugh, I finally opened my eyes and tilted my head to face him.

"And trust your hands not to wander? Forgive me, Gul, but I've heard stories of your dalliances during the Occupation–"

"Are you truly telling me that after all we've been through over the years, you wouldn't enjoy a little...dalliance of our own? Especially considering that your pretty little Vorta toy will likely be busy serving the Founder's wishes while she's aboard. We wouldn't want you to grow lonely, would we? I could keep you entertained," he challenged as he skimmed his fingertips down the side of my face. After seeing the Founder in the flesh and how unquestioningly obedient Weyoun was to her, suddenly Dukat didn't seem so bad.

Relativity, indeed. Tilting my head, I skimmed my lips ever-so-lightly over the palm of his hand and looked up at him - a nice touch, if I do say so myself.

"You wish," I breathed, and a devilish smirk stretched his lips. Oh, I was playing with fire.

"Would such a wish really be so surprising?" The Gul's voice was low and intimate - soft, as though he thought that was what I needed.

I did. I needed gentleness quite badly. Just not from him.

"Coming from you? Not in the slightest." I put as much condescension in my tone as I dared, hoping he'd take it as a clumsy attempt at Cardassian-style flirting. A raspy chuckle vibrated deep in his throat, prompting me to get to my feet.

"You're not leaving so soon, are you?"

"I should. After all, Weyoun–"

"–will be busy with the female Founder and Odo for quite some time. You are free to do as you wish," he argued, but I shook my head quietly.

"I have duties."

"You don't. I took the liberty of having Major Kira clear your schedule for the day." I froze, and obviously didn't hide my surprise well, because he continued in a more amused tone. "Initially, I believed that you'd want the time for a family reunion, but given your reaction to your long-lost relation, you could use the time for something more...enjoyable. Improving interstellar relations between Bajor and Cardassia, perhaps...?"

He stood and moved in front of me, tilting my chin up so that eyes met his.

"There's no need to be coy," he whispered. "Obviously, we both want this..."

"You want me?" I asked, attempting to sound as innocent as I could while my hand slid up to his neck ridge. He practically moaned out a 'yes,' and I grabbed the section of his ridge that Kira had taught me was a weak point for Cardassians. Dukat let out a pained hiss, but the delighted smirk on his face spoke more of arousal than discomfort. "Then work for it. I'm not one of your comfort women from the previous occupation. If you want me, then you need to earn the privilege. Understood?"

"Oh yes, Lieutenant." Though strained, he still managed to sound flirtatious. I released him and spun on my heel. Sparing him a single glance over my shoulder as I walked out, I noted the tent in his uniform trousers.

--

This was a mess. Everything was a mess. If the Federation didn't retake the station soon, the resistance might be in shambles. Damar was clearing the wormhole, Odo was wrapped around the Female Founder's little finger, and Dukat's actions today might have finally convinced Major Kira that I wasn't worth trusting...that I'd truly betrayed the Federation and Bajor. Besides that, I might have to close my eyes and do something I'd very much regret with Dukat.

Guilt wound through me every time that I acknowledged how much I'd encouraged his attraction. I knew I needed information for the Federation and the Resistance, and I needed the Gul to trust me, but was flirting with him even the right move considering everything at stake?

I had no idea how long I was stuck in my thoughts, but at some point that evening, I became vaguely aware that Weyoun had returned to our quarters. His voice washed gently over my ears, but I didn’t hear a word. My eyes remained lost in the stars just outside the window, and my arms had been crossed protectively around my middle for goodness only knew how long.

What could I do to stop the minefield being removed when I hadn't even found a way to communicate with Starfleet Command? I mean, what had I been doing all this time besides playing house with a Vorta?

A wave of concern flowed from Weyoun to myself through our odd link as he sensed my emotions, but I didn’t move a muscle. Even when his hands took up careful residence on my shoulders, I couldn’t bring myself to do more than blink.

“Something is wrong, isn’t it?” Weyoun’s smooth, concerned voice asked from behind me as I stared out into the oblivion of space. He could read people better than they could read themselves, and I was certainly no exception, not that I was making it particularly difficult for him at the moment. Even if we hadn't been empathically linked, it wouldn't have been hard to see how wilted I felt. “You’ve been quieter than usual since you returned from that late night with Damar, and now with Founder here... You’ve been preoccupied. I realize that you don’t want me to think of you as the offspring of a deity, but...I live to serve you in whatever ways you may require, my love. What can I do to help you?”

I felt too vulnerable and too closed off all at once, like a frayed wire being strangled by what little remained of its casing. Who else could I say anything to? Who else cared about what I said, even if this all turned out to be a ruse - a long game that he'd been playing so patiently - in the end?

Weyoun was the only one. I couldn’t trust anyone on this station, not anymore, not where it was important. Hell, I shouldn’t even fully trust him, but what other choice did I have?

For this...could I risk it just this once? He thought of Changelings as gods. He regarded the being who was my biological father as a god, and I myself as a demigod of sorts. Would this be taking advantage of the programming the Founders had included in his genetic makeup? Would he feel obligated to listen to me drivel on without regard for his own feelings despite my protests that I wanted only his honesty?

When I turned and my eyes met his, I felt something in me break. Weyoun looked so worried. Precious man. His almost neon purple eyes were moist as though he were on the verge of tears like I was - he truly was distressed over my current state. I knew my own eyelids were most likely puffy from the tears I’d shed - the emotions threatening to spill over again at any moment - and I knew that he’d have noticed that by now. He was much too clever for his own good.

A low whisper of my name brought me out of my thoughts enough to notice that the Vorta’s brow had furrowed just a little bit more than before.

“Please...it pains me to see you like this. I beg you, please let me help,” he said barely above a whisper, and whatever cracks had formed in my defenses extended far enough that I could no longer keep up my flimsy facade. My eyes burned, my vision blurred, and tears began rolling down my cheeks. A flicker of fear passed over Weyoun’s features and through our bond, and although I wanted to comfort him, all that escaped me was a quiet sob. There wasn’t much space left between us to begin with, but he still stepped forward as much as he could and lifted his hands, allowing them to hover on either side my face as if he was afraid to touch me. “H-How do I help you?”

In answer, I reached out and wrapped my arms around him. Pressing my face quietly against his shoulder, I felt his own limbs envelope me without hesitation - one around my middle and one around my upper back - holding me close to him. Weyoun was nearly trembling from how fiercely and protectively he was embracing me.

“I’m here,” he murmured against my temple in that soft, comforting voice. This time instead of it being filled with steady lies as it so often was in meetings, I could hear it wavering with emotion just as it had so long ago on that Dominion ship and when he found that I'd remained on the station despite its occupation. “You are not alone. You have me; you always will. I promise. No matter what happens with the Dominion, the Alpha Quadrant, the Gamma Quadrant...you will always have me. I know what it is to be alone, and I swear you never will be again.”

Safe in his arms, I found myself no longer caring whether this was just a ploy or not, because I so desperately wanted to believe that I wouldn’t be alone anymore. He'd been here, but I hadn't allowed him to see just how stressed I was trying to toe the line between the Dominion and Bajor. I wanted to believe he was telling the whole truth. Just this once.

Just this once.

So I nodded my head against his shoulder and simply let myself be comforted by his embrace, by his promise, and by this one act of kindness, dangerous though it might eventually prove to be.

“I’m sorry,” I managed to get out around my stuttered breaths. I was. He didn’t deserve to have someone sobbing all over him for no reason. He was the one who needed kindness, especially after the way I’d seen that Founder treating him. He wasn't some pet for them to order around. He deserved so much more kindness than he was being shown.

Yet he was the one showing it to me. Whether incited by genuine concern or by his programmed devotion to the Founders - and myself by extension - Weyoun had never been anything less than sweet and gentle and courteous to me.

But how could I allow a shred of doubt into my head? Just thinking back to the first time I'd felt the extent of his love for me, I remembered how different his emotions had been compared with those he'd felt for the beings who had cloned him.

Shame wove hot and heavy through the ravages of my sorrow.

“You of all people have no reason to apologize to me,” he said before pressing his lips against my forehead in a tender kiss. “What could you possibly have to be sorry about? You have never been unkind to me, you’ve never hurt me. You’ve only ever shown me love and compassion. You are the most remarkable person I’ve ever encountered.”

“You have better things to do than put up with someone crying all over you,” I muttered daring to tilt my head back enough to look up into Weyoun’s eyes. He looked almost startled at my statement.

“My dear, you act as though you are a burden to be borne. I assure you, nothing is further from the truth,” he murmured in a pained voice. One of his hands lifted and cupped my cheek. His thumb skimmed gently across my skin wiping away the last of my tears. Leaning into his touch, I let my eyelids flutter shut. I knew I shouldn’t be this open with him - he was the Female Founder’s puppet while she was aboard the station, after all - but I couldn’t help it. Who else could I possibly be vulnerable with? Considering the cruelty and violence of this war surrounding me on a daily basis, was it really so wrong to enjoy a simple moment of self-indulgent intimacy? I raised my hand to cover Weyoun’s and turned my head just far enough to kiss his wrist.

It wasn’t even close to an adequate thank you for all he’d done for me, but it was all I could manage. I knew he’d understand - he always understood me with a startling degree of accuracy, even when I couldn’t express myself correctly or fully.

“Why do you think so little of yourself?” He asked in barely more than a whisper as his eyes slid from our hands to meet my gaze. “You are lovely and kind to everyone, even those like me who don’t deserve it–”

“But you do deserve it. You always have, Weyoun, no matter how the Founders may have treated you,” I said quietly looking up into his eyes. He blinked owlishly at me, and I leaned in, kissing his cheek. “Can you still not see that after all this time, darling?”

“I suppose I...still have a bit of trouble separating myself from the way the Founders created us,” he admitted as a lavender blush colored his cheeks. “Forgive me–”

“Hush. There’s nothing to forgive,” I promise coaxing him into resting his forehead against mine. Lowering my voice to a whisper, I knew his excellent Vorta hearing would still register what I had to say. “We are, always have been, and always will be equals.”

“I believe you,” he murmured as his hands took up a timid grip on my waist. He took a slow, deep breath and as he exhaled, I rested my hands gently on his shoulders. Nothing had technically changed - the war was still raging, my father was still a missing murderer, and Dukat was still playing a tyrannical, slutty version of king of the castle with the station.

And yet...there in Weyoun’s arms, such a fundamental shift had occurred that it felt as though I suddenly could take on the universe. Perhaps it was a part of the Vorta coding which bound them to the Founders that made me feel reassured as I stood there, his own confidence in me bleeding over and restoring my own.

Or perhaps there was another explanation. The relationship that had been developing between us had shown no cracks until Dukat tried to worm his way between us. Even now, I was acutely aware that the Gul had plenty of reasons to try and manipulate me on that front. Why had I ever allowed myself to listen to a single word he said? Was I so afraid of losing Weyoun that I assumed it was just my luck that I would?

I had doubted myself and my judgment regarding him for so long that I suppose I didn’t feel like I deserved to be loved with the kind over unwavering affection Weyoun had shown me. Even as that thought crossed my mind, doubts filtered through from my subconscious that I shouldn’t have allowed myself to take this much liberty with his affection as it was - that I was weak for doing so.

But I needed him, and I loved him. Weyoun had assuaged my fears on that front so many times before, but was that justification enough for continuing?

“Such chaos thrust upon one person... Let me be your shielding."

The soft earnestness surrounding Weyoun's words had me crumbling in his arms. Almost without conscious thought, I tilted my head and caught his lips in a kiss that I hoped said all the words I couldn't muster. My lover didn't hesitate to return the gesture, kissing me with such tenderness that it took my breath away.

Slowly, naturally, our movements gained momentum, becoming hungrier and more desperate by the second. Just as he'd done after my encounter with Keevan, Weyoun easily took control. Something urgent and lurid passed between us, and in a blur of discarded clothing, we fell into our bed.

We'd experimented with each other over the time we'd been together, but we hadn't quite taken that final step. With his fingers pumping between my legs and mine caressing the base of his length and the folds of his slit, he whispered in my ear.

"I want to make love to you. Please, I'm ready. I'm aching for you, my love. I've dreamt of you so many times..."

I couldn't possibly deny him. Why would I even want to after all this time? I loved him, and I would never pressure him into doing more than he was comfortable with. I would, however, be lying if I said that I'd never imagined what our first time together would be like.

My imagination paled in comparison to the sweet sounds he made as he entered me for the first time. His name was a prayer on my lips, just as mine was on his. Our pleasure was reflected, doubled, then increased exponentially by the bond that formed between our minds. We merged so completely that I couldn't tell where Weyoun began and I ended.

The wet slap of skin-on-skin sounded less obscene and more...restorative. We both needed this. Our reasons might have been different, but our desires, our love, stemmed from the same source.

When he finally spilled within my trembling body, tears dampened both our faces. Weyoun's teeth had left bite marks down my neck, and I'd left a few scratches down his back.

Aside from murmured declarations of love between kisses, we didn't speak. What could we say? What could possibly need to be said so desperately that either of us would risk disturbing the peaceful, content atmosphere that had settled over us like a blanket?

Gentle touches, cuddles, and affectionate looks carried us delicately into dreamland that night.

--

The next morning as I blinked hazily into awareness, I thought the Vorta was still asleep. Trailing my fingers ever-so-softly through his mussed, silky, black hair, I couldn't help but smile. He was supposed to be unsettling to the Dominion's enemies and charming in equal measure, but all I could see was how gentle he was. I knew he had it within him to be manipulative, charming, and underhanded all in a matter of moments - that was how the Changelings had cloned him to be - and I'd witnessed it. But there was something satisfying about seeing the head of station's occupying force curled up like a kitten in my arms.

"That feels good." The words breezed from his lips, carried on his breath as easily and lightly as a feather. I couldn't stop the smile that tugged at my lips.

"I won't stop, then," I whispered, and he let out an appreciative hum.

"I meant it, you know. Every Weyoun since our very first iteration over a hundred years ago has seen your face in our dreams. Seeing you on the Defiant...I recognized you immediately."

My hand slowed atop his scalp. My lover's voice was low and nervous, as if he was afraid I'd mock him or accuse him of lying. Instead, I watched as he lifted his head from my chest and looked up at me with wide, gentle eyes.

"But...that was so long ago..." I was confused, definitely, but I wanted to hear him out. Across our bond, I could feel tension, as if Weyoun was taking a chance saying any of this.

"My very first memories are images of you from prior iterations' dreams. They all saw your face so frequently that they knew you were someone vitally important...that the Founders were allowing us visions of a blessing they planned to give us. The fourth Weyoun...he'd almost lost hope the day you met him," he murmured. "Only the important memories - the ones that stand out - are encoded for future iterations to retain. You...your face has survived every activation."

A lump rose in my throat. How was that possible? I'd heard of people having visions they thought were from their deities - hell, even Captain Sisko had visions from the Bajoran Prophets - but I knew for a fact that the Founders weren't gods. Even they couldn't predict the future like that. Otherwise, I had no doubt that they would've stopped my father from mating with a Human.

"In the dreams, you called out to me...said my name...promised you'd find me no matter what. I've never told anyone this before, but in my darkest hours...the moments where my faith in the Founders was at risk of falling apart, I clung to the image of your face hovering over me...and it strengthened me," Weyoun admitted in a whisper as he cupped my cheek, gliding his thumb over my skin. "I-I hope I didn't make you uncomfortable."

Unable to make my tongue work, I shook my head and kissed his lips. What the hell was I supposed to say to that? What could I say about that revelation?

I hadn't even begun to sort through the messy tangle of emotions in my chest when the comm chimed.

“Damar to Weyoun.” Of course, there was never a calm, quiet moment on this station, even with it under the Dominion's thumb. The Vorta sighed quietly, the warmth of his breath caressing my skin as softly as his lips had in the wake of our intimacy.

“What is it?” He asked quietly, sounding more reluctant than I’d ever heard him. He didn’t move away from me any more than I did from him. If anyone had been watching, they’d doubtlessly assume that our nude bodies were stuck together beneath the blanket by some immutable, unseen force.

“You’re needed in Security. Now.” The Cardassian sounded smug, a fact which never seemed to bode well in his company. "We've just arrested a saboteur. The Ferengi bartender's brother, Rom."

~*~*~

Dominionese:

Na = water

~*~

Taglist:

@akamitrani @android-boyfriends @attention-bajoranworkers @bigblissandlove1 @darkmattervibes @emilie786 @groovyqueer @horta-in-charge @live-logs-and-proper @slutty-slutty-vulcans @starrynightgardens @toebeans-mcgee @weyounthevorta

[grimm-writings]

I really like how you write. Can I have some Tall-man Chilchuck crumbs?🙏

don’t see, don’t think

…ft! chilchuck x gn! reader

…tags! fluff, reader is having a crisis, reader’s race and race change is left ambiguous (but implied to NOT be a half foot)

…wc! 571

…notes! JUST IN TIME BEFORE THE EPISODE ITSELF GRAGGGGHH!!!! apologies for the wait anon!!! enjoy your crumbs

Don’t see it, don’t think it, don’t see it, don’t think it, don’t see it—

“Why are you staring at the wall?”

The deeper voice is so unfamiliar that it leaves you nearly leaping into the air like a cat.  You know it to be Chilchuck, and yet you can’t bring yourself to turn away from said wall you were fixating your eyes on.

“...Just coming to terms with this new form is all,” you awkwardly excuse yourself.  More like you’re trying to come to terms with Chilchuck’s new form.

You were close with the lockpick, more than you were with anyone else in the party.  Never in your life did you really come to think of Chilchuck as attractive.  Maybe it’s the difference in race?

Those damn changelings, if it weren’t for this new perspective on the man you would have been fine.  You wouldn’t find yourself thinking about how he has a stubble, slightly darker than his reddish-brown hair.  You wouldn’t notice the fact he’s definitely taller than Laios was as a tall man.  You wouldn’t be melting at how his voice altered, and you absolutely wouldn’t be trying your best not to be a complete mess around him.

Chilchuck doesn’t seem to notice, though.  At least with this sudden change, his senses dulled.  So seems to be the case with how observant he is.  “Figures,” he sighs, folding his arms.  “It’s definitely a lot to get used to.”

As his sentence draws close to a murmur, Chilchuck’s voice lowers a bit more in pitch.  You had to stop yourself from facing the wall and banging your head against it.

Good God, why did this have to happen to you?!

“Mhm!” You agree with a hum.  If you don’t open your mouth, there isn’t a way for you to say something you’ll regret.

That doesn’t stop Chilchuck from going, “hey,” and you find that he’s adjusting your bodies around in a way that you can be eye level, face to face with one another.

Don’t see it, don’t think it, don’t see it, don’t think it, don’t see it— 

His eyes are still that familiar colour, a dark brown with a slight shine to them.  The lines underneath them crease as he sends you a fond smile.

“Don’t let this freak you out too much, yeah?”  Chilchuck reassures you, but you’re hardly listening as you note now at the short distance he has a dimple on his chin.  How cute.  “We’ll find some way to get rid of the, uh, ailment, ok?”

He laughs a little at his own choice of words, and you try to do so too.  It comes out awkward and forced, but Chilchuck just gives your shoulder a squeeze to show that it’s alright.

He walks ahead, leaving you at your wit’s end.  This truly is the death of you.

Izutsumi doggedly (quite literally) reaches your side, if only to give you a judgemental sidelong glance.

“Didn’t think you’d have a thing for rugged guys you’d usually find in a back alley.”

You turn around and wrap your hands around Izutsumi’s snout, keeping her mouth shut as she flails in anger.  This definitely needed to be fixed soon, and quickly too, lest you lose your senses entirely.

Trying not to look at Chilchuck definitely isn’t doing you any favours anymore either; his face is etched into your mind permanently (and will be for days after.)

[vnti-vnxiety-recs]

Serenade of the Damned (M)

★ PAIRING: Pied Piper! Haechan x Little Red! Reader

☆ WORD COUNT: 10k

★ GENRE(S): Dark fantasy AU, Dark Fairy Tale AU. Magic. Smut, enemies to ??

☆ SUMMARY: The Pied Pier was one of the most feared folk legends of your time. Little did you know he was real and was coming to take your life. You, who was known as the wolfhunter, realized that the hunter had become the hunted.

★ ☆ WARNINGS: mature themes. Minor character death, knifes, blood, violence, alcohol, unprotected sex, gangs, threats, killing, 18+, MDNI

☆★ NOTES: Hallo! This is something that is totally different from my usual writing style, so im a little nervous to debut this, but im so excited because this concept was so freaking cool. I've been sitting on this for a while, but I thought it would be best to post in oct to fit the Halloween spirit. See the request that inspired it here.

Glossary Changelings- a shapeshifting race of beings that are related to the fey Tiefling- a humanoid race with devilish ancestry. They are known for their large horns, extravagant appearance, and carefree attitude Halfling- A halfling isn't a half-breed in that sense. They are their own separate race. They're called halfling because they're about half the size of a human. Half-Elf- A race that has a mix of human and elf traits Half-Orc- A race that has a mix of human and orc traits Harengon- race of rabbit-like humanoids Half-Harengon- A race that has a mix of human and harengon traits

In a quaint, shadowy town, where cobblestones whispered secrets and fog clung to alleyways, the figure of the Pied Piper emerged like a ghost from the depths of folklore. Clad in a tattered cloak, his features were obscured by the dim light of the moon, but the shimmer in his brown eyes betrayed a glimmer of mischief. To the townsfolk, he was more legend than man; a cunning sorcerer with the rare gift of crafting melodies so mesmerizing that they can lure even the most elusive creatures from the depths of their dens.

But behind his charisma lay a tale steeped in darkness—a story of pain that turned sweet melodies into lethal harmonies. The legend goes that the Piper had once been a simple musician, beloved for his ability to summon the gentle creatures of the forest with a mere note. But after tragedy left him scarred, his music dulled into a haunting echo of vengeance. Now, he used it to lure unsuspecting victims to their brutal demise.

He made his way toward the shadows of the town, the air thick with the anticipation of a storm. His target tonight was none other than the famed wolf hunter, Little Red. Much like him, numerous tales whispered through the streets about this legendary wolf slayer. He didn’t care; all he knew was that someone wanted you dead and was willing to pay a pretty penny for it. With each step, he breathed in the electric air, a smirk playing on his lips, ready for the deadly dance that awaited. 

Once upon a time…

There was a girl raised with cruelty. Some say she was raised by wolves. She knew nothing but brutality and lies as she grew up. Her family was ruthless and cold.

At a young age, she didn’t grasp the true nature of their business, but she sensed it was far from safe. Whispers of peddling girls and dirty money surrounded her family’s name, wrapping around it like a dark shroud, leaving a bitter taste in the mouths of those who spoke of them.

That girl was you.

You would come to learn that your parents were merely puppets, with someone behind them pulling the strings of their misdeeds. Like a fool, you were a puppet's puppet. You ran their errands, cleaned up their messes, and shouldered their burdens, enduring their brutal beatings when something went wrong.

One day, everything changed. 

You came home to an empty house, silence swallowing you whole. They had abandoned you, cutting their strings and fleeing with their puppeteers' money, leaving you behind in a world that was already merciless enough.

It wasn’t long before your grandmother found you, just before the bruisers came looking for you and your parents. Your grandmother was harsh, but you always thought she loved you in her own way. The forest was your new playground, a wild expanse where you learned to fight, to survive, and to become something more than a victim. Her love was implicit in the hours she forced you to spend deep in the woods, stalking prey, learning to hunt, and discovering how to protect yourself. You braved the harshest weather and the most unforgiving conditions, and though she never spoke loving words, you told yourself that this was better than the life you had before. 

You grew stronger, sharper, and more cunning. Each scrape and bruise taught you resilience, and every moment of solitude in the forest became a lesson in self-reliance. In time, you transformed from a puppet to a predator in your own right.

But soon, new whispers would begin to follow you.

You grew older, you could stand on your own two feet and you didn't need anyone but yourself.

Working at the nearby tavern, you earned a meager living delivering food to families in the area. You tucked delicious meals into your picnic basket and pulled your red hood high over your head.

Your grandmother had insisted you wore a hood in the city—she always said, "Wolves never forget." It had been years since your parents had run off with their tainted money. The Wolf Gang, a notorious bandit group that terrorized the townsfolk and threatened the crown with their ruthless dealings. They had once pulled the strings of your parents, and now they were still searching for you and your family.

As the end of your shift neared, you gathered your cloak tightly around you, seeking warmth against the biting chill of the approaching evening. After finishing your last delivery, all you wanted was to sink into the comfort of your humble home.

You entered the crowded tavern, your red cloak immediately drawing attention. The tavern master, a burly man with a thick beard, called out from behind the bar, his jovial tone slicing through the lively atmosphere of clinking mugs and laughter. “Heading out, little Red?” he teased, a grin spreading across his face as patrons turned to see who had just come in.

“Don’t call me that,” you replied, making your way to the bar.

“Oh, come on, Red. You won’t even tell us your name. What else are we to call you?” a half-elf named Renjun chimed in, leaning against the bar with a playful smirk.

“Faye,” you offered back, your voice laced with indifference. “Or Edith. What about Celeste? Do any of those names suit me?”

The tavern master chuckled, shaking his head.

Another voice chimed in.  “Oh come on, Renjun, we all know she can’t give us her name 'cause the wolves are after her,” a drunken half-orc named Hendery piped up, slurring his words as laughter bubbled up around him.

“Our little Red? Yeah, maybe when the Great Oak grows wings,” your boss added, his laughter infectious. "I do hear whispers of The Wolf Gang creeping closer to town. Just be careful out there." His expression turned serious for a moment, eyes scanning the room to ensure no unwanted ears were listening.

“I can handle myself,” a knot of unease tightening in your stomach. You understood the truth that lurked too close to the surface, the gnarled roots of your past intertwining with your present. The jokes and jests may been harmless to them, but the threat was all too real for you—a shadow that loomed ever closer.

With a wave, you turned to leave, the laughter of the tavern fading behind you, each step taking you deeper into the night. The forest beckoned; it was a sanctuary you understood better than the city. This is where you resided with your grandmother; she had less influence over you now but she was still as cold as ice. 

As you approach your cottage your human eyes struggled to perceive much in the darkness, the moonlight offering only a faint glimmer of clarity about the situation before you. The window to your cottage lay shattered, and the door hung limply off its hinges. At first, an icy fear gripped you—had a pack of wild animals broken in? But as you stepped through the threshold and took in the scene, you realized you were only half right.

A wolf towers over your grandmother's body, her ragged breaths shuddering in her chest. Its long, gangly limbs covered in fur and its ferocious muzzle are coupled with an unsettlingly humanoid shape. It looks like a nightmarish wolf, standing unnaturally on bent back legs. It's a perverse mockery of both wolf and man. These wolves were changelings, creatures that often adopt grotesque forms. Changelings can transform into whatever they desire. In a bid to evoke fear throughout the town, their gang had chosen a form that is both terrifying and unnatural.

"Get away from her!" you cry out, drawing a long hunting knife from your cloak. It may not be the ideal throwing knife, but it’s all you have in this moment of desperation. With precision, you hurl it at the creature. The creature howled in pain, a guttural sound that echoed through the silence of the night. It staggered back, the blade lodged deep in its shoulder, before bolting through the back doorway and disappearing into the darkness beyond. You could feel your heart pounding in your chest as adrenaline surged through your veins.

You rush to your grandmother, a whirlwind of emotions crashing over you. A part of you still harbored resentment, but she was all you had left. Kneeling beside her still body, you fought to steady your breath.

“Don’t fret, child. All will be well soon,” she rasps.

“Save your breath; I’ll find help,” you insist, tearing off a strip from your ragged dress to staunch the flow of her blood.

“There’s no time. Just promise me this: you will seek revenge. He wont just forget he saw you here. You must slay him before he tells the pack.”

In her final moments, she doesn’t utter words of love or comfort, but instead urges you to finish the job. It feels as if the last remnants of your heart shrivel and die alongside her, leaving a hollow void.

You stand up, your resolve hardening as you retrieve your knives from the secret spot beneath the loose floorboard. With a determined breath, you slip out the back door, embracing the darkness of the night.

He was wounded. He didn't get far when you found him. You weren't a puppet anymore; you were a hunter, and that night you killed your first wolf.

Any hope for a normal life died that night. She had thrust this burden upon you, and you could almost hear her voice echoing through the darkness, pushing you into a path you never wanted to tread. You didn’t want to kill that wolf. You wanted to run, you knew they would chase you but you were tired of fighting.

When the weight of his lifeless body slipped from your grip and sank into the murky depths of the sea, a pang of regret twisted in your gut. Days later, the waves returned him to the shore, a grim reminder of your actions. You realized then that you couldn’t simply wash this away.

With each report of the recovery, the whispers in the village grew louder, the shadows seemed to close in on you, and you found yourself a target. You didn't want to have to go further into hiding and you definitely didn't want the bounty that was put on your head.

The red hood, once a cherished gift from your grandmother, had become a symbol of something far darker. It hung around your shoulders like a curse, a silent testament to the blood that stained your hands and followed your name like a whispered sin. 

Then why do it? You had no choice. It was her dying words.

In this world, dying words carry some of the strongest magic imbued within them. They possess the power to curse, bless, or even command. When someone hears the dying words of another, they are bound by an unbreakable pact—compelled to fulfill the deceased’s last wish or face dire consequences. So, not only did your grandmother use her final breath to send you on a path of violence, but she also wove a curse around your fate, ensuring that if you failed to see her wishes fulfilled, you would bear the weight of her wrath.

Three cheers for family.

Your life was never comfortable, but you had grown accustomed to it. Working at the tavern provided easy coin, and you were frequently rewarded with free meals that warmed your belly and warded off the chill. The camaraderie of the patrons offered a fleeting sense of belonging, a brief escape from the harshness of your reality. But now, you stay hidden deep in the woods, very rarely do you go into town.

With winter just around the corner, the familiar game you hunted had grown scarce as the animals retreated into their dens. You were forced to broaden your field. You became a shadow among shadows, relying on your nimble fingers and quick wits to steal and swindle whatever you could in the city to put food on the table.

Tonight you were on a small heist, targeting a goblin who operated a brothel in the seedy pleasure district. He was known for his shady dealings and had amassed enough enemies that you weren’t particularly concerned about the theft tracing back to you.

You slipped through the winding, dimly lit alleys when you heard it—a sound unlike anything you had ever heard. It wrapped around you like a warm embrace, soothing your frostbitten ears and igniting a spark of warmth in your chilled body. Mesmerized, you followed the music, feeling an overwhelming urge to shed your clothes and dance, to lose yourself in the heat of the melody.

Your mind was clouded as you pursued the sound, unsure of where you were headed until you rounded a corner and spotted a figure. There, perched atop a barrel in a dark alleyway near the port where the wolf’s body had washed ashore, sat a man.

“Come to me, bring me the one who spilled blood,” he whispered, his voice carried softly on the wind. At first, you almost missed it, caught up in the resonant tune still echoing in your head, but as you stepped closer, the music faded. Rooted in place, you could only stare at the man—or perhaps the creature—before you.

He seemed human enough, but you knew better than to assume. Some beings intentionally concealed their otherworldly traits, opting to project an image of weakness—patiently waiting for the moment they had the upper hand to unveil their true selves.

“Who are you?” You asked, your back ramrod straight, unable to relax even a single muscle.

“Most call me the Pied Piper; some call me Haechan. But those who do rarely live long enough to share the name.” 

The chill of his words seeped deep into your bones at the realization that the Pied Piper was after you. You had always thought of him as a mere childish legend—tales spun to keep children in line, cautionary fables whispered at bedtime. Yet here he was, very much real, standing before you and setting off every warning bell in your body. 

He hops down from his seated position, setting his flute down on the barrel where he once sat. As he steps into the moonlight, he looks breathtakingly beautiful. He appears no older than you, soft brown hair tousling in the breeze, and delicate features that he likely uses to make his enemies underestimate him. But you’re no fool; you see right through him, right to the wolf in sheep’s clothing. 

He smiles at you, a disingenuous smile that doesn’t reach his eyes, as he closes the distance between you. Leaning down until your faces are inches apart, he distracts you, ensuring that all you can see is his face—the last sight you might have before your demise. You catch a glimpse of his deft hand reaching into his cloak, expecting something deadly. But instead, you’re taken aback when he places a gentle kiss against your lips.

Kiss of death.

Your grunt is muffled against his lips as a sharp pain lances through your side. He had stabbed you, just as you thought he would.

In one fluid motion, he withdraws his knife from your flesh just as he pulls his lips away from yours. The sudden pain breaks whatever trance he has on you. You jolt into action; he clearly didn’t expect you to be a skilled fighter. Maybe he thought you’d simply lie down and bleed out. But whatever he anticipated, it certainly wasn’t the swift kick to his chest that sends him reeling backwards. 

Seizing the moment, you sprint away, adrenaline coursing through your veins, fueling your escape as you leave him momentarily off balance.

You clutch your wound and don’t look back, sprinting through the dimly lit streets until you find yourself standing before the only place you know that might offer some help. The tavern looms before you, its wooden sign creaking in the breeze, the faint flicker of lantern light spilling from the windows.

You slip through the back entrance. The tavern has closed for the night, but you knew that the staff often linger for a drink or two. The sounds of laughter and clinking mugs filter through the air, guiding you like a beacon. Stumbling toward the main room, you knock over a few pails and brooms in your haste, the noises echoing in the silence of the empty halls.

“Red?” your boss calls from the dimly lit main room.

The last thing you see before darkness overtakes you is the sight of everyone jumping to their feet, concern etched on their faces as they rush to your side.

When you regain consciousness, you find yourself sprawled across a large wooden table in the center of the tavern, the surface sticky from spilled mead. Your cloak has been pulled aside, revealing the bandages wrapped around your wounds. A soft glow of magic hovers just above the injuries as Mark, the town’s cleric, administers a healing touch.

“Leave it to you to abandon your work and come crawling back half-dead,” Ten, a tiefling who worked alongside you, grumbles with a sigh.

“You’re just mad you had to pick up her shifts,” Lia, the only other human in the tavern, replies with a playful smirk.

“Will you all quiet down?” your boss interjects, his voice firm. “These doors turn away no friend.” He meets your gaze with a comforting smile, and you wonder if this is what a father’s love feels like.

As Mark’s magic dims, he gently removes his hands from your body. “You’re healed, but you might still feel some minor discomfort in this area,” he says, clasping his hands together. He must have been summoned in the dead of night to tend to you. You want to express your gratitude, but all that escapes your lips is a low groan as you try to sit up.

“Easy, you’re still sore,” Doyoung, a half-harengon with rabbit ears standing alert in worry, cautions you. You’ve always appreciated Doyoung; his expressive ears always reveal his emotions, making him a refreshing constant in a town shrouded in secrecy. He’s likely the closest friend you have.

Lia brings you over a glass. "Drink this, I mixed in a potion that should have you feeling a little better"

Gratefully, you take the cup and down it in one go. The warmth of the potion flows through you, easing the aches as you exhale a sigh of relief.

“Sorry for the intrusion; I didn’t mean to bring any trouble. I should be going now,” you say, attempting to pull yourself to your feet.

“No trouble at all, my dear,” your boss replies, his tone warm. “I’m not sure what kind of mess you’ve gotten yourself into, but if you ever need sanctuary, these doors are always open.”

“A little heads-up would’ve been nice if you were just going to disappear,” Ten chimes in.

“He just misses you—ignore him,” Lia laughs, her voice lightening the mood.

You look at them, a genuine smile creeping onto your face. Maybe you weren’t so alone after all.

The Pied Piper was real, and you were on his hit list. Rumors and legends shrouded his name, leaving you unsure of what parts were true and what wasn't. The one thing you were certain of was that his music did possess the power to enchant. You needed to discover his weaknesses—was it the pipe that held the magic? Or perhaps it wasn’t the pipe at all; maybe the true magic lay in the breath he blew into the instrument. 

You had to find him; you couldn’t just wait for him to show up again and gain the upper hand. Once he had his sights set on you, there was no stopping him from finishing the job. He didn’t chase you that night; he didn’t have to. With just a simple call from his flute, he could lure you out whenever he wanted. He was the cat and you were the mouse. You figured he liked to play with his food.

You had to find him and get some answers. Rumors spread as easily as the plague through the cobblestone streets of this city, and it wasn’t long before his name surfaced again. Tracking his movements was difficult; you had to sift through rumors to find the truth. It was like chasing a ghost but soon you had a lead.

His dark cloak enveloped him like a cloud of smog, and his steps were light as you followed his figure into the woods. You weren’t nervous. This was your hunting ground. You stalked him like a silent panther tracking its prey. 

As you ventured further into the woods, you came upon a rundown cottage with a thick thatched roof. You hid behind a tree as he entered the dwelling. After a few moments, a soft, warm candlelight flickered to life inside, casting shadows as you observed his movements. Carefully, you circled around the house, determining that the best way in was through the back. 

You waited until he moved to the front of the cottage before making your move. Slipping a knife through the crack in the back door, you lifted the rusty latch used to secure it. You entered quietly and shut the door behind you, holding your breath as you listened for his footsteps. The house was eerily quiet. 

Slinking along the wall, you made your way through the dimly lit house. The back door had led you into a small, cluttered kitchen. The air thick with the smells of old spices and something sweet that had long since gone stale. Haphazardly stacked dishes piled in the sink, their surfaces dotted with remnants of food that had dried and congealed.

Peeking around the corner into the front room, you took in the scene: a large desk was strewn with crumpled papers and half-filled bottles of ink. In the corner sat an old chest, its surface marred with scratches and mysterious stains, hinting at secrets long kept. A simple chair and a cushioned bench offered a rare spot of comfort in the otherwise bare space.

The room felt almost empty, save for the creaking floorboards that echoed with your every step, but the atmosphere was charged with an unsettling tension. A single door across the room caught your eye, and you assumed it led to the bedroom.

Just as you were about to move toward that room, you felt a knife pressed against your throat.

“I should thank you for making my job a lot easier, you know,” he says.

You freeze in your tracks, the cool blade pressing against your skin. You try to catch a glimpse of him from the corner of your eye. Raising your hands, you attempt to project confidence despite your precarious situation. “I always thought you were just a legend, but here you are. Tell me, who do I have to thank for sending a mere mice charmer to try to kill me?” You smirk, hoping to buy yourself some time and distract him just long enough to disarm him.

“A mice charmer? What are you, then, to have fallen into my trap?” he retorts.

Seizing the moment, you grip the arm that holds the knife and pull it down toward your chest, away from your throat. With a swift twist, you slip out of his hold. Maintaining your grip on his wrist, you twist it harder. The knife clatters loudly to the ground as you kick it away. Grabbing his shoulder, you pull him forward and drive your knee into his stomach. He doubles over in pain, and you quickly pin him down with a knee to his back.

You slip out your own blade and press it to the soft skin of his cheek. “Don’t move. Lay flat on the ground, and if you move even a muscle, I will hurt you.” You sense he isn’t quite the fighter he appears to be; he likely lets his magic do the heavy lifting for him.

He flattens his body against the rotten wood of the cottage and nods reluctantly. You slowly rise, keeping your knife steady, and make your way to the cloth you noticed earlier lying on the ground. You rip off a substantial piece and return to him, using it as a makeshift rope to bind his hands. 

With a swift motion, you pull him up and sit him in the chair in the corner of the room, making sure he can’t easily escape. 

“A mice charmer is nothing without his flute and enchantments, huh?” you sneer, looking him over with a mix of curiosity and derision.

“What do you want? Clearly, if you were going to kill me, you would have done it by now,” he retorts, glaring at you with a fierce intensity

You look at him under the flickering candlelight of the room. His cloak is missing, leaving him in little more than a simple white tunic and black breeches. A chain is tucked into the neckline of his shirt—probably a keepsake or a charm, something that hints at his connection to whatever magic he wields. You stride forward, seize the chain, and yank it, pulling him abruptly forward.

“Watch your tone, or did you forget I’m the one with the knife?” you warn, leaning in closer, your voice low and threatening.

His burning gaze doesn’t falter for a second, revealing the calm resolve of a man who isn’t new to the concept of death. His hands are probably as bloody as yours, if not more so. He’s been captured, but he’s not broken, and that only makes you angrier.

“Who sent you to kill me?” you demand, your patience thinning.

He chuckles darkly, the sound reverberating through the tension of the room. “With how you treat people in their own homes, I wouldn’t be surprised if you had more enemies than you could keep track of,” he replies, a cruel smile curling his lips. “But we both know who wants you dead.”

You push him back into his chair with force, and he grunts as his back collides with the wooden seat. “You better kill me, because if I get free, you’re dead,” he warns, his brows furrowing in a glare that could cut glass.

His confidence is infuriating, and you feel your grip tighten around the hilt of your knife. “You really think you can scare me with threats?” you say, your voice low and steady. "You're in no position to make demands."

He leans forward slightly, the chains around his neck jingling softly. “You may hold the knife, but you’re still desperate for answers,” he counters, a glint of malice in his eyes. 

You ignore his outburst, your thoughts racing as you assess your next move. You had suspected the wolves sent him, but confirming it wouldn’t hurt; you needed to know what you were truly up against. Weighing your options, you realize that killing him could lead to the same disastrous situation you found yourself in before. On the other hand, leaving him tied up while you made your escape was hardly a safe bet. How many times could you flirt with death before it inevitably caught up with you?

"You overestimate your importance," you say, stepping back from him. "I used to think you were some mythical creature that dragged children from their sleep with haunting melodies when they misbehaved. But you’re just a dim-witted knave with a flute." He bares his teeth and struggles against his restraints, but you remain unfazed. "You don’t frighten me, and slaying you would be a bore."

“If you leave me here, you will regret it,” he growls as you turn to leave.

“If I leave you here, you will owe me for sparing your life—don’t forget that,” you reply coolly before stepping out of the cottage.

Each night that has followed that encounter has been nothing but fitful bouts of sleep. You toss and turn, haunted by the shadows of uncertainty, constantly looking over your shoulder, and darting your gaze at every creak that disturbs the silence. Had he seen you? Would he come for you? You knew he would call your bluff if he could see you now, taunting you with the knowledge that you were not nearly as unfazed as you would have liked to pretend. 

You just needed a few more days to gather some coin and collect your belongings before making your escape. This was long overdue. There was nothing left in this town for you, and you had no desire to fight for a place that felt more like a trap than a home. The memories that lingered here were a weight upon your heart, but the thought of remaining any longer made your skin crawl with discomfort. 

If the wolves wanted this shithole, then they could have it, you had no intention of being among them when they claimed it.

It was your last night in this wretched town, and the anticipation of freedom coursed through your veins. You had already saddled the horse you had bartered for, packing all your belongings tightly—everything you could carry and nothing more. Now, all that remained was to wait for the first light of dawn to break over the horizon. 

Traveling under the cover of night felt far too risky; the shadows held too many unknowns, and you were no skilled rider. You knew you needed the gentle light of day to navigate the forest safely on horseback. The thought of losing your way or stumbling into danger sent a shiver down your spine. 

You were deep in sleep when a noise startled your horse outside. Exhausted from a long day of packing, you stirred slightly but let sleep pull you back under. 

You barely registered the creaking floorboards as someone entered your room. Your body was too tense and sluggish from the day’s work to react quickly. As you fumbled for your knife, a figure lunged at you, pressing a hand against your mouth and silencing you. 

A cold blade pressed against your throat, paralyzing you with fear. You lay stiff in bed, heart pounding, knowing no one would hear you scream in the darkness of the forest.

“I warned you, didn’t I? There’s a bounty on that pretty little head of yours that I have to collect,” he coos, his voice chillingly close as his body pins you to the mattress.

The knife presses deeper into your skin, a sharp reminder of your predicament. You mumble against his palm, and he lifts it slightly, allowing you to speak. “If it’s money you want, I can get it for you.”

“I don’t think you know just how much you’re worth,” he replies, chuckling as he grips your cheeks, squeezing them.

“The king of wolves is worth more,” you say, summoning as much confidence as you can.

His smile vanishes. “What a sweet talker you are. If you think I’m foolish enough to believe you could get the bounty from the king of wolves, you’re insane.”

“I can kill the king of wolves.”

“You’re a liar and a thief. Now give it back.”

The charm from his necklace—the very piece you had swiped the last time you were with him—was the key to his power. You had suspected that taking it would render him powerless, and now, faced with the reality of his desperation, you confirmed that he truly needed it to imbue magic into his flute. Without it, he was helpless. You only took it to buy yourself time; if he could lure you out with just a note again, you knew you would be doomed  from the start.

“Only if you agree to let me up. You won’t find it if you don’t let me get it for you.”

“You insolent little—”

“Ah ah,” you warn him with a smile, feeling the power shift in your favor. He steps back to the center of the room but keeps his knife pointed in your direction.

“Find it, now,” he growls.

“I can slay the king of wolves; grant me but a moment. This bounty is surely tenfold that of mine. The queen herself placed it upon his head; she would give us whatever we desire for his life,” you counter, your words dripping with allure.

“Charm, then we can discuss further,” he reminds you, his eyes narrowing.

You huff and roll your eyes, rising from the bed. The silk nightgown clings to your body, its delicate fabric highlighting your curves while the hem flutters just above your knees. The thin straps slide off your shoulders, exuding both elegance and vulnerability.

You notice a blush rising in his cheeks, a mix of embarrassment and something else. His gaze lingers on you longer than it should before he looks away, but not before you catch the flicker of desire in his eyes.

You slyly retrieve your hidden knife while he isn’t looking. Your heart races and as you pull out the charm from your brassiere, holding it up like bait. He takes a step closer, intrigue evident on his face, but you raise your weapon, warning him to stop.

“Stay where you are,” you command, brandishing the knife. The blade glints in the light, and the tension between you grows thick, hanging in the air like a charged storm.

“You shall not claim my life, for I possess a greater offer in exchange for it,” you declare, your tone resolute and laced with the bravado of a champion, your heart racing.

He lets out an exasperated sigh. “How do you figure you will kill the king of wolves?” 

“I’ve evaded you three times now, and you’re the ever-so-feared Pied Piper. Give me some credit,” you reply lightly, hoping to shift the mood.

He responds with a sly smile. “Impressive, I’ll grant you that, but it’s still not enough.”

“You're going to help me enchant him, and then I’ll take him down. Simple as that,” you say. Under different circumstances, you’d have dressed it up with more flair, but fatigue still linger.

“And why would I help you?” he asks, skepticism etched on his face.

“Because I know more about you than you think. My bounty won’t even cover half of what you need, but a wolf’s bounty…” you whistle, letting the weight of the impressive figure hang in the air, “that will cover everything and more.”

His expression hardens, and a flicker of unease crosses your mind. You wonder if you’ve made a grave mistake by bringing up his debt. 

“Careful where you tread,” he warns, his voice low and edged with threat. 

“You help me take down the king, and we both get what we want. Think about it.” 

He studies you for a long moment, weighing the risks against the potential reward, and you can almost see the gears turning in his mind. The tension thickens, but you know you’ve struck a chord.

“Two days. That’s all you get,” he says, his voice icy and firm. “I’ll be back tomorrow to go over the details. If you try to run, I’ll find you and kill you before you can even plead for your pathetic life.”

“Deal,” you reply, tossing him the charm. You assume he needs his flute to use it, and since you don’t see it on him, you figure it’s safe to hand it over.

With that, he vanishes like a wisp of smoke, a true phantom of the night.

The silence that follows fills the air like a heavy shroud, and you take a moment to steady your racing heart. The confrontation has left you on edge. You run your fingers through your hair, exhaling deeply. Two days. You have that long to devise a plan, gather what you need, and prepare for the next inevitable encounter. 

As the darkness settles around you, the weight of your situation becomes clearer. To kill the king of wolves, you’ll need more than just a tongue-in-cheek plan. You’ll need finesse, strategy, and perhaps a little bit of luck. 

And maybe, just maybe, a deeper understanding of the man you're working with.

This time, when he arrives, you're clad in your red hood and more prepared than before—but so is he. As he enters your cottage, you notice the flute strapped to his back and charm hanging around his neck.

“Neutral territory,” he states. “You’ll find I’m quite formidable with my magic,” he warns.

“Only a fool would think otherwise,” you reply with a smile.

You invite him to sit in your front room and make tea for both of you. He watches you take the first sip before drinking from his own cup.

“You know you're ruining my reputation, right?” he calls out, a teasing edge to his voice. “You're supposed to be dead and the wolves are impatient.”

“Don’t worry, I have a plan for that too,” you respond, your tone steady.

You pull off your red hood and hold it out to him. “With this, you'll claim my bounty, and that should be enough to keep your skin in the game.”

“You really want to kill the King of Wolves?” he asks, raising an arched brow over his cup of tea.

You let out a long sigh. “I could run, but wolves never forget. They will just track me down again. No more running.”

You lay out your plan in detail, and though he appears skeptical, he ultimately agrees to go along with it. A hush falls over the room as you both sit in the weight of your scheme, each of you reflecting on your respective roles in this dangerous game.

“Permission to ask a question?” you ask with a small smile.

He glares at you, annoyance clear in his eyes. “Somehow, whenever you start running your mouth, it pisses me off.”

“Is it true, the reason for your debt?” you ask anyway, intrigued.

He grips his teacup harder, his knuckles whitening. Not many people knew much about the Pied Piper; the legend loomed large, but even fewer knew the man behind the title—Haechan, with his soft features and heavy burdens.

“Yes, I went into debt to save my sick mother. As you can see It was all for nothing, given the fact that I'm here and she's not. I take on these jobs to earn money. Any other invasive questions, Red? How about I ask one—why are the wolves after you, and how do you get a silly name like Little Red Riding Hood?”

“My name isn’t Red; it’s Y/N,” you reply, bold in your assertion. You’ve never shared your real name with anyone before, but you figured it was time to even the playing field.

“And the wolves?” he presses further, curiosity sparking in his eyes.

“My parents stole away with some of their money. They want revenge,” you say with a shrug. “They got it when they killed my grandma."

As the gravity of your shared burdens swirls in the air between you, you realize that beneath the legends and whispers, Haechan was just a man, and you were more than a mere tale woven into the fabric of the woods. The truth hung heavy, intertwining your fates tighter with each revelation.

“And then you killed one of theirs,” he finishes for you, piecing it all together. “So it looks like we both have had our fair share of tragedy. Now look at us.” He shakes his head, a mixture of disbelief and resignation in his tone.

You had never thought of it that way—how similar your paths had been. Maybe out of everyone, he would understand you the best. Looking at him was like gazing into a mirror that reflected not just your struggles but also the shadows of loss and revenge.

Haechan was handsome, his lips plump and cheeks soft, giving him an almost innocent appearance. Yet, his eyes—oh, those eyes were hard and cold; they spoke of the dark secrets he carried, secrets that were all too familiar to you.

“Tell me more about your mom,” you say, breaking the silence that hung heavy in the air.

Haechan's expression shifts; a warmth creeps into his features as he recounts memories of his mother. He speaks of her laughter, of the stories she told, of how she would comfort him during storms and the way her love enveloped him like a soft blanket. Each word is laced with nostalgia, and you can’t help but feel a pang of jealousy at the warmth these memories hold. He was loved.

“She sounds like someone who could light up the darkest paths.”

He meets your gaze, and for a fleeting moment, the facade of the Pied Piper slips away. In that instant, all that remains is Haechan, the boy behind the legend.

“Tell me about your grandma,” Haechan says, curiosity in his eyes.

You take a deep breath and recount your upbringing. Your words are cold and empty as you speak of her harshness, how she cursed you and left you no choice but to kill the wolf that started all of this. 

“She never cared about me,” you finish, feeling the weight of your memories.

Haechan’s brow furrows. “Sounds like she was trying to protect you. If that wolf had escaped, you would have been in danger either way.”

You consider his words, the soft glow of candlelight flickering around you. Maybe he’s right, but it doesn’t change how cruel she was. “It’s too late to redeem her,” you say. “Her protection crushed any chance I had at love or hope.”

He shakes his head. “You’re not defined by her actions.” 

“But am I not defined by her cruelty? To learn is to experience. How can I know love if I’ve never truly felt it? I might just perish tomorrow,” you say, a bitter laugh escaping.

“It doesn’t have to be that way,” he replies gently, his gaze steady. “I still owe you for sparing my life back at my cottage. I can show you what love looks like.”

You narrow your eyes, skepticism creeping in. “And how would you do that if we don’t feel love for each other?”

He leans closer, a spark of mischief in his eyes. “We can pretend, just for this one night. I can show you how I would love you.”

A rush of emotions swirls within you—fear, curiosity, and a flicker of hope. “What do you mean?”

Haechan's voice is soft yet earnest. “Let’s create a moment together, something to hold onto, just in case tomorrow doesn’t come.” 

You hesitate, heart pounding, caught between the pain of your past and the promise of something new.

“Come,” he calls to you, as he stands. His hand outstretched, inviting yet unsettling. You’ve never felt this exposed with anyone before.

You know you’re being reckless, but what does it matter? Life could slip away from you at any moment—what have you to lose? You grasp his hand, and he leads you into your bedroom. 

He closes the door behind you, sealing off the world, and presses you against it, his arms creating a cage around you. 

“At any moment,” he says, his voice low and steady, “if you wish to stop, you have but to hit me.”

You manage a smile, trying to ease the tension coiling in your stomach. “That sounds quite tempting.”

His hands brush up against your cheek, his fingers lingering just a moment longer than necessary. “Once you feel my hands on you, you won’t want to let go.”

Your cheeks flush at his promise, and your heart races. His touch is gentle, as if you were a delicate doll, something precious that he couldn't bear to break. 

He leans in and captures your lips in a soft kiss, a sensation even more tender than you had imagined. His fingers glide over your face before trailing down to your neck, drawing you closer and pressing your body against his. The warmth of him enveloping you is just like the music that filled the air the night you first met by the docks. A sound escapes you—a breathless gasp—one you had never made before.

You can feel Haechan's smile against your lips before he begins to shed the layers of your clothing. Naked and vulnerable, you stand before him, yet your mind races too fast to truly register your defenselessness. His lips find your neck, leaving a trail of heated kisses and gentle nips, igniting a shiver of sensation. You moan softly, your body writhing under his tender yet possessive hold. You were completely at his mercy.

"Like music to my ears, my love," was a low murmur against your skin. His gaze clouded. His eyes swam with emotion you didn't recognize. A heady, intoxicating blend of longing and something else, something wilder. It was as if the taste of you, the sweetness of your mouth, had intoxicated him, leaving him drunk on desire alone. He trailed kisses down your neck, his lips leaving a trail of damp heat against your collarbone and shoulder blades. His hands roam over your body, mapping out every curve before they find their way to your breasts, soft mounds yielding under his touch. With a gentle yet firm grip, he kneads them, pinching and tugging softly, drawing out more moans that escape from your lips.

The old, wooden door groaned under your weight as you leaned against it, your breath catching in your throat. His lips, soft yet insistent, found their way to your nipple, a feather-light touch that sent shivers down your spine. You felt yourself drowning in his touch, in the way he made you feel utterly adored.

His gaze, dark and intense, met yours, the kohl lining his eyes like a smudge of night against the tan canvas of his skin. His tongue flicked playfully, a teasing caress that sent a jolt of pleasure through you. Each movement was deliberate; each touch a whispered promise.

He shifted his attention to your other breast, his deft hands working in perfect harmony with his mouth. You couldn't help but arch your back, your body instinctively seeking more of the exquisite torture. The rough wood of the door dug into your skin, a stark contrast to the velvety softness of his lips and the warmth of his hands.

His touch was an orchestra of sensation, a dance of pleasure that stirred something deep within you. It was a raw, primal connection, a language spoken without words, understood in the depths of your soul. The world narrowed, fading into a blur of color and sound, leaving only the intoxicating presence of him, his touch, his gaze, and the overwhelming sensation of pleasure that threatened to consume you entirely.

“I want you to feel everything,” he whispers, his breath hot against your ear, making you shudder with anticipation. 

He falls to his knees, a look of hunger in his dark eyes. With a swift movement, he lifts one of your legs over his shoulder and presses his mouth against your most intimate parts. A jolt of heat surges through your body as you try to squirm away from his eager touch, but his grip tightens, keeping you firmly in place. Your mind races with desire as you yelp out, your hands instinctively reaching for his thick, dark brown locks, tangling in your grasp. The intensity of the moment overwhelms you as you give in to his fervent passion.

“Hae—Haechan!” you gasp, his name feeling foreign yet perfectly right against your tongue. Each syllable feels like a spell, causing a desperate moan to escape from him as he feverishly licks at you. His grip on your hips is tight and bruising, but you welcome the pain as it fuels your desire for him. You grind your hips against his tongue, unable to control yourself as he dominates you with his mouth. He pants against your heat, driven by pure impulse as he closes his eyes and savors every delicious taste of you.

His lips and tongue move with wild abandon as he sucks on you, filling the small cottage with shameful groans and wet smacking sounds. Your legs start to tremble, but he shows no signs of stopping. You cry out and your head falls back, hitting the door behind you as you convulse in his grasp. A powerful sensation washes over you, causing a tightness in your gut before it finally releases. Haechan eagerly licks you up, cleaning away the evidence that you left all over yourself and on his face.

Your breaths slow down and meld together, as if in perfect harmony. The gentle rise and fall of your chests echoes in the quiet room. "I lost myself for a moment," he says softly, with a hint of apology laced in his words. It's almost as if he didn't intend to take you on this journey to the 12th gate of heaven, but couldn't resist the pull either.

He sets your leg down gently, and  he helps you right yourself.  He guides you to the edge of the mattress, and as he lays you down, there’s a palpable shift in the air. You watch as he stands before you, the heavy cloak slipping away to reveal more of him, piece by piece. The sight of him in his white tunic and dark breeches sends your heart racing, and when he sheds those as well, leaving only his undergarments and the silver charm necklace you once stole from him, your breath catches in your throat. 

You instinctively look away, your cheeks flushing.  Your body betrays you, reacting in ways you never anticipated, aching for connection. There’s a pull within you, a desire to close the distance and feel the warmth of his skin against yours. 

This man who had once threatened your life now stands before you, igniting a raw, undeniable longing that makes your heart race. You grapple with the gravity of the moment, torn between fear and desire.

He used to be your prey, but as he leans down and crawls onto the mattress, you start to see him in a different light. He presses his lips against yours once more, humming a tune that sends shivers down your spine. Your body melts into relaxation, and your senses are heightened even more than before.

“It's not the flute, is it?” You struggle to speak between kisses.

"I don't think I want to reveal any more secrets to you tonight." he responds with a playful smirk.

You surrender to the sensation as it consumes you. He was right - you had never experienced anything like his touch before. Your eyes follow him as he removes his undergarments, and you become slick at the sight.

“This might hurt; just relax and focus on the melody,” he says with a soft caress of your face.

You nod, realizing now that you trust him more than you initially thought. He coats himself in you and you moan at the lewdness of the act. He was coated in your arousal and soon he was slipping inside of you. He hums a beautiful note, one imbued with magic, easing any discomfort.

“It's beautiful,” you say, captivated by the sound.

His eyes shine at the compliment, and he kisses you.  It was strange to think that this love was all an act, because if this is what pretend love felt like, you could only imagine the intensity of real love. 

His hips sway to a rhythm that you can't quite hear, but you feel it pulsating through your body. His movements are fluid, like the  waves in an ocean. The chain around his neck, swinging in time with his thrusts. Your legs instinctively wrap around his waist, clinging to him as if he were the only life raft in the midst of a raging storm. With every thrust, he fills you up with his love, overwhelming you with intense pleasure and making you feel alive. In that moment, it's as if you couldn't survive without him, and he knows it. He pours his love into you, determined to fill every empty space so that you never have to feel alone again.

His movements quicken, the rhythm growing more urgent as passion overtakes you both.  Haechan's eyes lock onto yours, dark and intense. 

"You're a symphony," he murmurs, voice rough with emotion. His fingers trace delicate patterns across your skin, leaving trails of tingling warmth in their wake. You arch into his touch, craving more. 

Moonlight streams through the window, bathing your entwined bodies in an ethereal glow. The air is thick with the scent of arousal and magic. 

You run your hands along the planes of Haechan back and you cling to him as your overtaken by that feeling again. The release makes your limbs weak and mind numb.

Your muscles clench and release around him in a tidal wave of pleasure, pulling him deeper into you with each thrust. He finally withdraws, his body trembling as he releases on your stomach, The air is thick with tension and the scent of sex, but as Haechan's magic fades, all that remains is the sound of your rapid breaths.

As he settles beside you, the silence encases you both, thick with unspoken words and emotions. Your mind races, trying to make sense of how the events had unfolded so drastically. 

You glance sideways at him, marveling at the stark contrast of your feelings—a sudden urge to survive, to revel in this newfound complexity. It was almost surreal: one moment you were in peril, and now, here you were, yearning for the warmth of his presence. 

Determination courses through your veins; you refuse to succumb to the fate that looms ahead. If this is what Haechan's love felt like—the intoxicating blend of danger and allure—then you would indeed fight tooth and nail for every moment you could grasp. 

Working alongside Haechan had become a bit awkward, but you pushed the tension aside as you both raced through the labyrinthine alleyways of the town. The urgency of the mission overshadowed any lingering emotions between you. You had received a promising lead on the elusive King of Wolves; a halfling informant had mentioned spotting him stumbling out of a tavern, drunk and vulnerable. 

The king was never without his entourage, a handful of ruffian wolves who surrounded him like shadows. Despite them believing you to be dead, you understood that you still needed to be cautious. The element of surprise was in your favor, but luring him out would require a careful strategy.

Everything was going according to plan so far. If the informant was correct, then Ten had successfully slipped something extra into the king's drink.

As you maneuvered through the narrow streets, your mind raced with possibilities. You would have to bait the king, drawing him away from his pack. That's where Haechan came in. Haechan kept pace with you, his presence a steady reminder that you weren't alone.

Haechan maintained a watchful eye on the pack from over your shoulder as you both tracked the wolves ahead. The night was quiet and chilly, with a biting wind that whipped through the alleyways, assaulting your exposed skin. You cursed yourself for having given away your hood.

You waited patiently, your heart racing as you scanned the scene for the right opportunity. Though Haechan remained silent, the melody of his flute echoed in your mind—a lullaby only the chosen victim could hear. He knew that timing was crucial; if anyone interrupted or stopped the target, the trance could easily be shattered. Every second felt like an eternity as you both prepared to strike when the moment was just right.

The pack was a grotesque sight, with elongated frames, snarling muzzles, and bent, crooked limbs. Their figures resembled a tall, slender man who had forced his way into the mouth of a wolf, wearing the creature’s body like a horrid costume. They looked sickly and unnatural, and it came as no surprise that they struck fear into the hearts of the townsfolk. 

While trolls, goblins, dwarves, and other creatures managed to coexist with humans, these beings were unlike any you had encountered before. They had made a conscious choice to adopt such a horrifying appearance. They were changelings—shapeshifters capable of assuming any form they desired. They had chosen to embrace the guise of ghouls and monsters that haunted the night.

As the pack slinked past an alleyway, the King stumbled in, his steps unsteady from drink and poison. He leaned against a cobblestone wall to steady himself, his gang too intoxicated and merry to notice him faltering behind as they continued forward. 

Without a moment’s hesitation, Haechan lifted his flute to his lips and began to play a silent composition. Almost instantly, the King's body straightened, moving as if pulled by invisible strings, like a toy soldier suddenly animated. He began to march further  into the alleyway, drawn by the haunting melody, oblivious to the world around him.

You wait a few seconds, holding your breath as the pack continues down the road, their grotesque figures just out of sight. Haechan remains vigilant, his eyes locked on the pack, ready to act if they turn. You know that time is of the essence; you can’t afford to let them discover the King’s absence.

With a swift movement, you push yourself off the wall and follow the King into the alleyway. Haechan’s silent melody fills the air like a ghostly whisper, and you can feel the tension building as the King’s contorted form glides deeper into the darkness. Your knives are unsheathed, gleaming under the faint light, ready to strike. 

A few feet behind him, he suddenly halts. You hold your breath as you witness his body crumple, a howl of confusion escaping his lips. For a moment, it seems he’s still lost in the depths of the enchantment—but then he stumbles, regaining control. 

Realization dawns on you: Haechan must have shifted his focus to the pack once they noticed their missing king. Haechan's magic is now redirected, enchanting the pack that seeks out their leader—perhaps to coax them away from the alley and give you precious moments to act.

You watch as the King sways unsteadily, his eyes flickering with awareness. He glances around, scanning the alleyway for any sign of his gang, oblivious to the danger lurking just behind him. You know you can’t wait any longer; it’s time to make your move. 

He's drunk. He's an easy target. Take him out. The mantra echoes in your mind as you silently slip out of the shadows, your heart pounding in your chest.

With lightning speed, you dart forward, knives glinting in the low light as you approach the swaying figure of the King. He doesn’t see you coming; his bleary eyes are still scanning the alley, lost in confusion and intoxication. 

In one fluid motion, you bring your blades up, the metal shining with intent. Before he can react, before he can summon the last remnants of his senses, you strike with precision. The cut is clean; a swift arc of steel, and his head rolls away from his body, the wolfish features contorted in a final grimace of surprise.

You expect his body to crumple into a lifeless heap, but it doesn't. The headless form sways for a moment, arms reaching up as if searching for its lost head.

“Shit!”

You manage to slip away while he’s still floundering in his confusion. You sprint, heart racing, hoping that Haechan can hold off the other cronies for as long as possible. You may have lost him for now, but you know he has your scent and will find you soon. Your feet carry you through back alleyways and down dark streets until you're bursting into the crowded tavern. You’re met with laughter and cheers that erupt around you as you stumble inside.

“Aye, look, it’s Red!” the patrons call out in greeting. You have no time for pleasantries. Ten gives you a startled look from behind the counter, aware that something has gone awry. You send him a quick, urgent glance and head toward the back of the house. Ten excuses himself and pulls a bewildered Doyoung along with him.

“Well? What happened?” Ten whispers, barely able to contain his surprise.

“I killed him. Well, I thought I did. I cut off his head, but he’s not dead,” you reply, arms crossed and brow furrowed in confusion. “We don’t have much time. I need your help.”

“No way! I already poisoned him on your behalf,” Ten exclaims, raising his hands in exasperation.

“You poisoned the King of Wolves!” Doyoung gasps, his rabbit ears flattening against his head in fright.

“Keep it down!” you hiss, casting a wary glance around. You regretted not filling Doyoung in on your plan earlier, but you didn’t want him caught up in this mess

“What’s going on back here? Red, is that you?” Lia calls as she approaches the small circle where you all huddle.

“Look, guys, I don’t have time to explain, and I’m sorry to drag you into this mess but If word gets out that the King of Wolves was poisoned at this tavern, you will all be on his hit list. So you might want to help me!”

“Who poisons the King of Wolves!?” Lia gasps in shock.

Doyoung points an accusatory finger at Ten, who shoots him a glare in response.

“Guys, focus! There’s a headless wolf after me, and if I don’t leave soon, they’ll come after you too,” you remind them. “Any ideas on how to take him down?”

“Aren’t the wolves changelings?” Lia asks.

“That’s what I’ve heard,” Doyoung confirms. “I read once that if you light them on fire, they burn to ash.”

“I heard that if you show them their reflection, they cower,” Ten adds.

“Well, he doesn’t have a head right now, so that’s out of the question.” You say.

You hear distant howling. That cant be good and your thoughts flicker back to Haechan—where is he? Did he manage to shake off the wolves? The cold grip of worry squeezes your chest as the distant howling amplifies

“I have to go now. Don’t worry; just keep your heads down. If anyone asks, the King of Wolves never stepped through those doors.”

“Where are you going?” Lia asks, concern etched on her face.

“I need to finish this.” You grab a candle lantern from the wall and head out through the back door.

You sprint toward the docks, adrenaline coursing through your veins as you push your body to its limits. Haechan had agreed to meet you there if anything went wrong. The gravel underfoot shifts with each hurried step, but the sound of your heartbeat drowns out the crunching noise. You can feel the rush of impending danger creeping up behind you, reminding you that time is not on your side.

The alleyways give way to a wider street, and you navigate around groups of townsfolk enjoying their evening, blissfully unaware of the chaos unfolding just moments away. Their laughter and loud conversations contrast sharply with the urgency of your mission. You dodge around a cluster of patrons who block the path, their jovial cheers fading into the background as you push through the throng. The crowd thins as you approach the water, and soon you find yourself alone. The air is thick with salty brine, and the sounds of waves lapping against the shore become the only company you have left.

But before you can take a breath of relief, a razor-sharp slash rakes across your back. Pain erupts, and you stumble forward, the lantern slipping from your grasp and extinguishing itself in the dirt with a soft hiss. Darkness envelops you momentarily, panic bubbling up as you realize who had struck you.

“lɹᴉƃ uɐɯnɥ ʎllᴉs,” an ancient voice rumbles behind you, low and mocking. He had no mouth yet you could hear him.

Struggling to gather your bearings, you force yourself to turn and face him—the King of Wolves. The sight of him sends a jolt of dread through you. His haunting figure looms over you. You can feel the fresh blood seeping through your clothes, and your back aches with a pain that warns you of the severity of the wounds. Even with magic, you know it will take days to fully recover from cuts this deep.

You force yourself to stand tall, despite the agony radiating through you. The howling you heard earlier echoes in your mind, a haunting reminder that you’re not alone. Panic flares anew as you realize that his cronies could emerge at any moment. You hope Haechan can fend them off a little longer. you have to think fast.

"ʞɐǝʍ ǝɹ'no⅄ ˙puᴉɥǝq ɯoɹɟ ƃuᴉɥɔɐoɹddɐ 'ǝɔᴉpɹɐʍoɔ ɥɔns oʇ ʇɹosǝɹ no⅄" he snarls, the effects of the poison and booze long gone.

"I'm not afraid to use underhanded tactics on scum like you." You shot back, circling around him, both of you sizing each other up.

He lunged, and you barely dodged his claws. Your body was tired, aching all over, but you were determined to stay on your feet. You threw a knife, but your aim was off, and he sidestepped with ease. It was frustrating; your eyelids felt heavy, and you could hardly focus.

Then, you heard a melody—a familiar tune that made your heart race. Suddenly, energy surged through you, making you feel lighter and stronger. You didn’t need to look around to know who it was. Revived, you fought back, pushing the king back for once. He swung at your ankles, but you rolled away just in time. You were on slightly equal footing, but you needed to gain the upper hand before he wore you down again.

Footsteps approached, and hope flickered inside you.

"Red!" Lia shouted. She was with Ten and Doyoung, and relief washed over you.

"Stay back! It’s too dangerous!" you warned, trying to keep the king's attention on you.

"Don’t be a hero!" Ten yelled, annoyance clear in his voice. "You can’t win without us!"

You exchanged blows with the king, your heart racing as you saw Doyoung preparing an arrow. You held the king off while Lia lit the arrow's tip. In one fluid motion, Doyoung let it fly, and the king of wolves erupted into flames. You all stepped back, eyes wide, as you watched him burn to ash.

Just then, Haechan appeared around the corner, flute in hand, playing that energizing melody that made you feel like you could take on the world. It was the last thing you heard before the music faded and everything began to blur around the edges.

It had been a week since that fateful night. The echoes of that ancient voice still haunt you, but you pushed the memories aside as you stood before the queen, the severed head of the wolf king resting ominously on a velvet cloth. Her eyes gleamed with a mix of approval and intrigue as she took in the sight.

“You have done well,” she proclaimed, her voice a soft yet commanding presence in the throne room. “In ridding us of this beast, you’ve secured not just our safety, but your own place in history.” With a graceful wave of her hand, she summoned her guards, who strode forward bearing an opulent chest. 

As they opened it, a dazzling array of rubies, emeralds, and sapphires spilled forth, glimmering like stars in the dim light. Gold coins cascaded down in a shimmering waterfall, their clinking a symphony of wealth

The sheer abundance of treasure left you momentarily speechless, and you could hardly believe the magnitude of your reward. You accepted gratefully but your mind lingered on Haechan. He had chosen not to attend the queen’s audience, cloistering himself away as he still relied on the myth of his existence as a shadow. He preferred to operate in secrecy, a specter amongst the whispers of the realm.

You stroll into the tavern, the warmth and chatter wrapping around you like a cozy blanket. You’ve brought some gifts and treasures, a little token of thanks for the friends who stood by you in that crazy battle. It just felt right.

"Drink up, fellas! Drinks are on Red tonight!" your former boss shouts, raising his mug high and getting everyone's attention.

You wince at the name. "Would you stop calling me that already?" you groan, rolling your eyes.

Lia smirks, leaning against the bar. "What do you want us to call you, then?"

"Just call me Y/N," you reply, finally giving them the name you’ve always wanted them to use.

"Y/N, huh? It suits you," Ten says, pouring a mug of mead for a troll at the bar, who looks way too eager to drink it.

"Was that a compliment?" you tease, raising an eyebrow.

"Don’t push it," he shoots back, giving you a mock glare, but you can see the hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

Laughter echoes through the tavern as everyone raises their mugs in salute. The atmosphere feels electric, and in that moment, you know you’ve found your people.

As twilight deepened, you made your way to a familiar cottage, navigating through the dense woods that wrapped around the kingdom like a protective shroud. 

Rubies and a dazzling array of gems spilled forth as you toppled over the chest, the treasures scattering against the old, rickety floorboards of Haechan’s hideout. The glint of gold caught the flickering light of the lantern, creating a mesmerizing kaleidoscope of colors that danced across the dim space.

Haechan leaned back against the wall, a sly smile tugging at his lips. “So your word truly holds value, huh?” he teased, walking up to the trove. His fingers sifting through the precious stones as he reveled in his unexpected fortune. “Now, what’s your next move? I can’t imagine the pack isn’t hunting for the one who took down their king.”

You shrugged, a casual air masking the weight of your adventure. “They’re pretty useless without their leader. The royal guard has rounded up most of them, and for any stragglers, they’re probably getting out of town as fast as they can.”

He raised an eyebrow, a hint of hope creeping into his tone. “Are you planning to stay, then?”

“Never did I claim that,” you replied, glancing around the haphazard room. “There’s nothing for me here. I can’t spend all this gold in the slums anyway; I’ve got to see the world.” You stretched with a bored yawn, letting the wild possibilities of adventure wash over you. “But it would be a trifle dull to travel alone,” you hinted, letting a coy smile dance on your lips.

“If only you had a companion,” he shot back with a grin, earnestness hidden beneath the teasing.

“I know, it’s quite sad, really.” You turned toward the exit, pretending to be disinterested. “Well, I’ll be on my way.”

“Y/N.” The sound of your name, spoken for the first time, stopped you in your tracks, resonating in the air and binding you to the moment.

You looked over your shoulder, curiosity piqued and a smile still lingering. “Yes?”

Haechan shifted, his gaze steady and sincere. “You don’t have to go alone, you know.”

For a heartbeat, you considered the weight of that offer. Freedom beckoned ahead, yet the idea of shared adventure was equally tempting. You felt a connection forming, a spark of possibility that ignited your imagination. The world awaited, filled with danger and excitement, and perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad if Haechan journeyed alongside you.

“What do you say then?” you replied, a playful challenge in your tone. “Are you ready to step out of the shadows and into the light with me?”

Note: I might expand this world more for other members in the future so if you guys have any cool ideas that would work in this setting, lmk and i may incorporate them into a work in the future (far future cause i need to finish my other wips lol)

[leth-writes]

Cryptid AU!

Cryptid batfam x reader

Bruce Wayne

I know people traditionally peg Bruce as a vampire, but I see him more as a mothman type. I mean, think about it! The cape as wings, the attraction to a giant light in the sky, the quiet disposition… I think it fits perfectly

As a friend or partner, Moth! Bruce is more possessive. He likes wrapping you within his big, fluffy wings, and he can be easily distracted with shiny baubles. Be careful! When it’s cold, he’s gonna spend days cuddling.

Dick Grayson

I actually could see Dick being a satyr, which I know sounds unconventional, but I think it fits really well. I particularly chose a satyr because of their boisterous personalities and penchant for dancing, which I see fitting Dick quite well. They’re also known for having many successful relationships, which I see fitting Dick quite well.

In a relationship, whether platonic or romantic, I can imagine Dick being loud and cheerful, successfully getting close to you and disarming any anxiety you may have through his kind and excitable personality.

Jason Todd

Phoenix, for the obvious connections of rebirth and coming back from the dead. I especially think this fits because Jason is often associated with themes of being reborn through the fires of trauma, and I associate him quite heavily with fire due to his loud, brash personality. Yet, there’s a softness present, a thread that connects his new and old selves. For this reason, I associate him with the beautiful phoenix.

In any relationship, Jason is both protective and sensitive. He’s able to effectively navigate emotional situations and definitely teaches you to defend yourself, just in case.

Tim Drake

Changeling. I see this associated with Tim a lot, and I honestly really agree. He;s got an otherworldly energy about him, and is often seen as less emotional and more calculating than the other batfamily members, who tend to be quite emotional. I also see a lot about him creating a place for himself in the family, rather than being picked up by Bruce like the others. Not in a malicious way, but like a changeling; they find their way into a family through no fault of their own, but by methods that may appear harsh to others.

In a relationship, you have to spend a lot of time reassuring Tim of your feelings toward him, whether platonic or romantic. Tim is a really anxious person, mainly due to feelings of inferiority and a massive case of imposter syndrome. You’ll need to constantly remind him you see him as the ‘real’ Tim!

Damian Al-Ghul

I had never actually heard of this before, but when googling I found out about Aqrabuamelu, who are half-scorpion men known for guarding sacred places. They’re generally known as quite protective, while being potentially dangerous to those who cross what they’ve sworn to protect.

Damian really fits this; he’s quite protective and very formal, which I usually associate with guardian characters, and while he tries to relate and be kind to his family, he has no trouble defending those he’s sworn himself to protect, including the citizens of Gotham

Cassandra Cain

I actually see Cassandra as a Selkie, primarily for her quiet and contemplative nature. She grew up alienated from her humanity, which I think is nicely represented by the mythology of selkies being forced to return to the sea for years on end before taking their human form again.

In any relationship, once it’s deep enough, I see Cass giving you her pelt to keep a hold of (not necessarily a sign of marriage in this iteration). I think this would be her best way of communicating her care to you, even when she struggles to communicate through words.

[mxltifxnd0m]

cereal-lized ✫ winchesters

summary: a morning after a rough hunt

pairings: dean winchester x gn! reader, sam winchester x gn! reader, platonic! dean winchester x reader, implied sam winchester x reader

requested: yes/no: by anon! thank you for requesting this, i hope this is what you envisioned :)

words: 745

warnings: no use of 'y/n', smidge of angst, fluff, none really

a/n: thank you again to the anon that requested this! also i couldn't resist having sam and the reader together since they're besties with dean 🤭. also sorry for the bad pun for the title, i couldn't resist lol

𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘮𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘵

You managed to pull yourself out of bed this morning, detangling yourself from the arms that were wrapped around you. You trudged through the halls of the bunker to get to the kitchen, where you found Dean in his 'dead man' robe, sitting at the table. He was practically slumped over his bowl of cereal, his head in his hand as he chewed slowly, staring at the wall blankly.

The hunt for the three of you was a rough one, not only on your bodies but also on your minds. You never liked going on hunts when they involved kids, and you guys had to deal with changelings. It took you guys a lot longer than it should have to try to find where the mother changeling had the kids, and by the time you guys found and killed the thing, it had fed on over half of the kids it took.

It hit the three of you hard as the drive back to the bunker was dead silent. No music, no conversation. Just the rumblings of the Impala and the low noises of breathing coming from you, Dean, and Sam.

Your sock-clad feet led you to the shelves that held the tableware, and you grabbed a bowl, then looked in the silverware drawer to grab a spoon before sitting across from Dean and pouring cereal and milk into it.

Usually, whoever got up first in the bunker would make breakfast for the three of you, but it was always either you or Dean since Sam would go on his morning runs and come back after you had just finished cooking breakfast. But this morning was different for obvious reasons. Sam didn't go on his morning run, and Dean made cereal instead of the typical eggs, bacon, and toast he would make for the three of you.

Dean made eye contact with you as he chewed his food lazily and nodded at you in acknowledgment.

"Morning." You rasped out before diving into your breakfast. You usually had an appetite in the mornings but you were not feeling it this morning. Regardless, you still need to eat something and cereal was your safest bet.

The two of you ate in comfortable silence, content with just being in each other's presence as your spoons clinked against the porcelain of the bowls the two of you ate out of. You and Dean found solace in each other's company, whether it be in silence or the random conversations the two of you would have when avoiding research for a hunt. Sam would complain when the two of you would procrastinate and tell you two to shut up (even though you saw the slight smile on his face when you and Dean would get into petty arguments).

You had a good rapport with the eldest Winchester, being able to match his stubbornness and sarcastic responses with your quick wit and level-headedness when it came to tense hunts you guys would be working. You eventually broke through his tough exterior and became each other's best friends. He was able to confide in you in ways that he couldn't with his brother.

A couple of minutes had passed before Sam made his way into the kitchen, still in the sweatpants and black t-shirt he wore to bed, and went over to the fridge to grab a water bottle.

"Morning." Sam greeted the two of you as he closed the refrigerator door.

Dean mumbled something that sounded like 'morning,' but you couldn't tell because his mouth was full. You heard Sam bustling about the kitchen behind you before sitting down beside you with a bowl and spoon and planting a kiss on your head as he did.

You smiled at him before going back and eating your cereal slowly. At this point, the cereal was kinda soggy, but you didn't mind.

Dean grunted something, sleep still riddling his features as he shoved his bowl towards Sam, a couple of spoonfuls left in his bowl.

Sam's eyebrows pinched in confusion as he looked at his brother.

"Have the rest. I'm done." Dean said before getting up, his robe swishing behind him as he padded out of the kitchen and down the hall.

You and Sam stared at the doorway that Dean left through, puzzled. You shrugged it off before going back to your now very soggy cereal. Meanwhile, Sam scoffed and shook his head before grabbing the cereal and pouring it into his bowl.

[skellymom]

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[morverenmaybewrites]

A Crown of Bone

Pairing: Changeling! Reader x Fae Lord! Zhongli Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence Additional Tags: Fae!AU, Implied Reincarnated Lovers!AU AO3 link Notes: Thank you to @sgri-sgri for beta-ing this!

Summary:

Imagine being a changeling child and living your life in quiet yearning.

You had been found in the dead of winter, or so your mother tells you, a half-fey child abandoned in a snowbank.

Imagine a lifetime of secrets: your first memories are of a spring that does not belong to the mortal realm. You dream of golden eyes gleaming at you from the darkness as your mother picked you up and carried you away.

Imagine keeping these things to yourself, tucked away against the curve of your ribs, right next to your slow-beating heart. Secrets that are half-yearning and half-memory: someone had left you there in that snowbank, and there are days that you think that they did not do so willingly.

And you hope that one day, they will find you again.

Story:

Imagine being a changeling child and living your life in quiet yearning.

It is a life of hollow hunger and a longing for something you cannot quite name.

You had been found in the dead of winter, or so your mother tells you, a half-fey child abandoned in a snowbank. She has told you this story many times before. Sometimes in fond reminiscence, more often in hushed whispers, her eyes fearful and haunted as she recalled your unnatural stillness, the way the snowflakes that landed on your skin did not melt.

You don’t answer whenever she tells these stories; she is already frightened enough. You do not tell her that while you had been found during winter, your first memories were of spring.

Except it is not the spring of Snezhnaya, where you had been raised. It is not the cold sun, finally rising after months of not showing its face. Nor is it the first tentative buds of snowdrops, pushing their way up from the melting snow.

The spring you remember is brilliant, bursting with vivid color. You remember walking underneath trees whose leaves were the color of fire; you remember the taste of wine against your tongue.

And sometimes, in those odd moments between dreaming and waking, you would remember seeing the gold of someone’s eyes and the curve of black, gleaming bone.

You do not mention this to your mother, who is already half-afraid of you. Nor to your father, who gazes at you with a resigned sort of acceptance.

Instead, you keep it to yourself, tucked away against the curve of your ribs, right next to your slow-beating heart. A secret that is half-yearning and half-memory: someone had left you there in that snowbank, and there are days that you think that they did not do so willingly. 　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　

Imagine arriving in Liyue during winter, a season of cold and gnawing hunger. The trees that dot the landscape are now bare, their branches the color of bleached bone. Whatever flowers that once bloomed in its fields are now gone, their colorless stems now covered by frost.

It is also a time when ice forms in the harbor, icicles as thick as spears, cresting with each wave. No ship dares to land on the Liyue Harbor during winter. During winter, food, paper, and cloth grow scarce. The shrines you pass by on the road show only a few, meager offerings: a single piece of fruit, the skin shriveled and mottled with mold. A carved wooden statue of a carriage, half-burnt, for fire does not survive long in this cold. You wonder what the Good Folk make of such meager offerings, whether they are as quick to anger as your Tsaritsa.

Something gleams at the bottom of the bowl, wet and dark. You come closer to inspect it and feel a shiver of disgust when you realize what it is.

Teeth, still bloody and steaming in the cold air. You step away, stomach twisting, and you think: the Tsaritsa would approve.

Perhaps Liyue and Snezhnaya have more in common than you thought.

You reach your destination, some remote village on the outskirts of Liyue, and feel a sudden shock of fear at what you find there. The woman who greets you stumbling at the gates is already half a stranger. The Aunt Baiji you knew had been both vivid and beautiful, with dark hair that gleamed like oil even in the dim sunlight of Sneznahya’s endless winter.

She had been strong, too. As a child, you remember how her voice shook the walls of your small household, as she shouted down both of your parents. You remember looking down at your burned hands, still steaming from holding iron cutlery, and wondering if you are worthy of such rage.

She had handed you a pair of chopsticks before she left, carved from bamboo and coated in dark lacquer.

“They’ll see sense soon, little Dragonfly,” she had said. “In the meantime, use these instead.”

You had carried the chopsticks with you on the long journey to Liyue, wrapped in wool like a shroud. You find that they give you courage for what you are planning to do.

They give you the courage to lie now, and it tastes like iron against your teeth.

“It’s good to see you, Auntie.”

But it isn’t. The woman who throws her trembling arms around you looks nothing like the one who had defended you all her life. To hold her is like holding a skeleton, you can feel the individual knobs in her spine, the skin hanging loose over her flesh.

You feel it then, like the flitting of a bird against your chest: fury, bright and pure. And with it, the determination to see this through.

“You came,” she whispers, and her voice is as insubstantial as a ghost. “Oh, my love, when I got your letter, I didn’t believe…You know I would never ask you to do this. You don’t have to do this.”

Yet, in her eyes, you can see her raw, desperate grief and the way she swallows down her tears as if they are poison in her throat.

“Yes.” You say it as gently as you can, and even then, she flinches. “I do. Show it to me.”

She sucks in her breath as if struck, and you hasten to add, “It’s not him, Auntie. You know this.”

She gives you a shaky smile, one that makes the wrinkles on her face as deep as mountain crags. “I know, Dragonfly, I know. But it–”

Her smile shakes, then cracks like porcelain, and with it comes her tears. First a trickle, then a flood. And you watch as the woman who had never shed a tear in your memory cries as if she will never stop.

“I’m sorry, Dragonfly, it just looks so much like him…I can’t…He’s still lying there.”

Her head is bowed, her thin shoulders shaking, as if the weight of her grief is enough to split her in two. Watching her, you feel a knot forming in your throat, and you wonder if grief can be contagious.

You take her hand in both of yours, guiding her. She has grown so thin that you can feel the bones of her wrists pushing up against her skin, the way the current of rivers curve over stones.

“Let me show you, Auntie,” you say. “There is nothing underneath.”

She lets you lead her, childlike, through the doors of her own house and it is as bare as you have ever seen it. Gone are the oil paintings from Mondstadt, the tiny figurines carved from noctilus jade bartered from night market stalls at the Harbor, the bolts of embroidered cloth you had sent over from Snezhnaya. Apart from the small cot lying in the corner of the room, the small room is almost obscene in its nakedness.

You say nothing, but an image unfurls over your mind: that of your aunt selling her belongings, piecemeals, making offering after offering to appease the ones who have taken her son.

You remember the teeth on the shrine, still steaming from the heat of someone’s mouth, and you shiver.

“He’s in my room.” She pauses to inhale, as if she has to force the next words out. “I can’t bear to leave him. Or look at him. I’ve been sleeping here instead.”

The crib is made out of woven horsetail; you can see the pink cotton of their seeds curling around its base like flowers. A mobile of figurines carved out of sandalwood hung above it, circling slowly, providing toys for a child that neither saw nor cared about them.

Behind you, you can feel Aunt Baiji shaking.

“We don’t have to do this,” she whispers through bloodless lips. “Perhaps we are wrong. There is still time to call the funeral parlor. Burn offerings for him in the afterlife.”

Her hand is cold and shaking as she puts it on your shoulder; it is like being touched by a corpse. And for just a moment, you feel a shimmer of dread, the world splitting as if into fractals.

Aunt Baiji’s son’s had been declared dead for nearly a month, the time it took you to prepare and travel to Liyue. It had been long enough that the hell gates that welcome the souls to the afterlife are about to close.

During this time, the proper offerings should have been burned to accompany him to the afterlife: joss money to line his pockets for bribes, delicate wooden carvings of servants to serve him, a pagoda carefully painted on rice paper so that he may have a place to stay in the afterlife.

And perhaps, most importantly, food. So he did not spend his afterlife with an endless hunger gnawing at his belly.

And just for a moment, you are scared to look into that crib. Nausea pulses in your gut like an open wound as you take one step, and another, then another. Your fingers curl around the woven horsetails, and your eyes seek the mobiles gently swaying in the wind.

And you look down.

You had been there to witness every moment of Aunt Baiji’s pregnancy, written in careful hand in her many, many letters to you. You had been the first person she told about when she felt the flutter of quickening in her belly, when she first felt her son kick inside her.

I have not seen him yet, but he already owns half my heart. She had written once, the letter feeling soft and sun-warmed against your shaking hands.

I have decided to name him Sevastyan. After his father. I cannot wait until the two of you meet each other. You will love him like a brother.

Brother.

In Snezhnaya, where nearly everyone knows your story, you had nothing to keep you warm. There is only your mother’s wintery stares and your father’s endless silence. But now, in a remote village on the outskirts of Liyue, the word beats against your throat like a swallowed star.

But when you look down, the child inside the crib does not look like a brother.

After he was born, Aunt Baiji sent you letter after letter, describing the dark mess of curls on his head and the fat of his cheeks that resembled fried dumplings. She described the shape of his mouth that resembled his grandmother’s and the curve of his nose that was like his father’s.

He is perfect, my Sevastyan, she had written. He is beautiful.

And he is. But the child in the crib has all the cold beauty of a carved statue, perfectly still and silent. No dreams chased behind his closed eyes and his chest did not flutter with each breath.

He does not look dead like the doctor had said. Instead, he looks like he had never been alive.

This is how you know, all those months ago. You have read enough stories and listened to enough legends about your kind not to know. The child in the crib is not Sevas, as your Aunt Baiji had feared.

Your hand hovers over his face, and on your fingers you can see the numerous cuts and bruises from your long hours of labor.

You’re shaking.

Perhaps from the cold, perhaps from fear.

As your hands close over the child’s face, you can feel it, magic pulsing against your fingers like the threads in a loom. All it takes is a slight tug and the weaving collapses. Aunt Baiji lets out a wail as the child’s face warps and twists, then it finally collapses into a pile of twigs and dried leaves.

“Oh, oh Archons. My son is alive. But they–they’ve…”

Her lips tremble, unable to form the next words.

“The Fae have taken him,” you say. “And I mean to get him back.”

And then your legs are collapsing from underneath you, shaking so hard that you are afraid that they will never stop.

And then your heart is pounding against the cage of your ribs like a frantic, dying bird.

You can feel your bones creaking, pinned under the enormity of what you must do. It is a surprise that the weight of it doesn’t crush you.

For the Fae have taken your aunt’s son, and you mean to get him back. 　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　

Imagine wintertime in Liyue and all of its quiet menace. It is a time when the trees shed their golden foliage, leaving their branches bare and skeletal. No birdsong echoes through the woods during the winter, and no crystalflies light the way with their glowing wings.

It is only the light of the moon that guides you as you deliberately stray away from the beaten path. It is something children learn, even in Snezhnaya, never to do.

Do not go too deep into the forest. Do not stray off the path. Do not catch the attention of those who dwell in the dark.

You have caught glimpses of them as a child: the glint of the moonlight reflecting off their eyes as they peer at you through the foliage, the curl of fingers with too many joints as they grasp onto your windowsill.

You had always wanted to stumble after them, wanted to follow them down into the dark.

Take me with you, you had wanted to say. Tell me why you left me here.

But they never did.

This time, however, this time you mean to give them no choice.

You stand there, at the heart of the forest, shivering violently, for the robes you are wearing are not made for the cold. Instead, the robes you are wearing are reminiscent of spring. For the first warm day in Snezhnaya, when the sun’s rays finally split the frozen river in two, signaling the end of the cold months.

The silk is the blue color of rushing water, bursting free from underneath the ice. You had used silver thread to embroider the slow dance of the last of the snowflakes, doomed to melt before they ever touched the ground.

Your fingers still ache with the effort of embroidering them into the fabric. And yet, you consider the effort well worth it. The Good Folk are a hungry lot, and they were known to covet things they don’t have: love, music, and things of great beauty. They are often known to take the most well-cared-for children, the best dancers, the singers whose voices could wring tears from a stone.

If you are going to draw their attention, you need to bring your best creations.

Hours pass or perhaps only minutes–past a certain point, it doesn’t matter. Your fingers feel frozen, your face raw and frostbitten from the wind.

And finally, you see them.

Your breath stutters in your throat as they slowly form into existence, like the hazy figures in a dream. First came the light of their bonfire, only a faint glow in the beginning, then brighter and higher until you can feel its warmth spreading across your fingertips.

Then their music, the sound of lyre and war drums. It is something ancient and wild and speaks to the very core of you. You can feel your muscles tensing as if your body wishes to join in the laughter and the revelry. Or perhaps it longs to run free in the forest, and sink your teeth into the throat of some small, living creature, to feel the wild beat of its heart as it dies in your hands.

And then, you can see them. The Fae.

They are known to have as many forms: as many as there are types of fish in the ocean or birds in the sky. The ones who came to you this time are unfamiliar: the curves of a naked woman combined with flowers you have seen in the field. Their hair flows into petals, and their skin is as smooth and unblemished as the inside of a tulip.

There are three of them, dancing around the bonfire, their feet so light that they barely touch the earth. And yet, in the shadows, you can see the twisted forms of creatures, their clawed hands plucking the strings on a lyre, their palms beating a frantic beat on the drums. You can feel your pulse leap to the sound of it.

But you do not move to join them, even as your fingernails dig into the meat of your palm, even as you down on your lip so hard that you taste blood.

It is they who must approach you.

And finally, finally, one of them breaks free from the circle to approach you. You can hear the other two, giggling and making jokes, their laughter resembling the chittering of insects.

The one who approaches you has the pale blue skin of a mint flower. Leaves sprout from the top of her head, flowing down to her shoulders like hair. But the eyes that behold you are the eyes of a reptile: cold and calculating and nothing human in them at all.

Her hand is cold as she grasps the sleeve of your robes.

“This is beautiful,” she declares, and her breath sends a gust of cold wind against your cheeks. “Almost like a river before it is frozen over. Please, may I wear it?”

“You may wear it.” You speak through gritted teeth so that she can’t see you chatter. “For a price.”

The smile that unfurls across her face is slow and fluid, the slow trickle of water before the flood.

The hand that was once on your sleeve slides down your skin, until they are resting on your near-frozen fingertips. She looks at you, eyes half-lidded, and you see that her eyelashes are rimmed with frost.

In her presence, you find that the wind does not howl so loud and that you can no longer feel the cold. In fact, you begin to feel warm, as if there is a fire burning at the center of you.

“Name it.” Her voice comes as if from very far away. “I will pay a great number of things to wear a robe of such beauty.”

A price?

Your thoughts are muddled, like the hazy silhouette of people in a snowstorm. Your skin is burning.

You remember feeling the same way, in the snowbank where your mother found you, so many years ago. The same heat at the center of you. The same exhaustion.

And you remember a hand reaching out to you, a flash of gold through the trees.

The memory sears through your thoughts like a bolt of lightning splitting open the sky. You know this creature, and you know her story. Of the travelers she leaves on snowy mountaintops, naked, except for the frost that grows on their skin like moss. You step back from her, your voice almost cracking from the cold.

“My Aunt’s son. Your kind have taken him.”

The smile she gives you is nothing human, and when she reaches for you again, this time, you know enough to avoid her.

“Ah, the child. We left another in his place so she doesn’t miss him.”

“Wood and dried leaves make for a poor son,” you snap. “Give him back and you may wear the robe for the night.”

She grins at you, and you can see bits of gristle stuck between her teeth. Behind her, the fire roars, and her two companions dance faster. The creatures playing the instruments stamp their feet and lift their voices, their howls feral and inhuman. You can feel the pull of their magic as if your skin means to rip free from your body and, still streaking blood, join their dance across the snow.

“Of course. But first, you must join us around the fire.”

And this, you know from the countless stories. Of young men and women, joining the Fae on moonless nights, dancing to the beat of their wild, dark songs until daybreak.

And if the Fae end up liking you, they may grant you a favor. A good harvest. A fated marriage.

A son.

This time, when the snow-woman reaches for your hand, you do not flinch as frost forms where your skin meets hers. Your shoes barely skim the earth as she leads you to the fire, where the music thrums in your ears as frantic as a pulse. You grit your teeth even as the fire burns high enough to blot out the stars.

You remind yourself that you must be brave.

But perhaps, you have not read enough stories.

Or perhaps the snow-woman wishes only to trick you.

Because before you start to dance with them, you make the mistake of glancing at one of the musicians’ faces. 　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　

You wake under sunlight and with the taste of blood in your mouth.

You do not have the boy.

What happened?

You try to sit up, only to gasp and curl around yourself like a newborn. Your entire face is pulsing with pain. When you touch it, your hands come away stained with blood.

And then, you remember.

Not the musician’s face, but what you had done after you had seen it. You had raked your fingers across your face and dug deep furrows into your cheeks. You had taken your thumbs to your eyes and pushed until they popped like overripe fruit.

You had taken out your eyes.

Yet, you can still see.

Carefully, with the gentleness of one afraid of what they might find, you explore your face. No scars meet your questing fingers, and your eyes are still intact in their sockets.

And yet, you remember: lying in the snow, blinded and sobbing, hot blood trickling from your eyes like tears. You remember, too, listening to the three beautiful creatures arguing about who got to wear the robes first. Their voices growing higher and angrier until they resembled the chittering of insects.

You remember they had come at you with teeth and claws, grabbing at whatever bit of fabric they could reach. Pulling at the silver thread so that they unraveled from their patterns, curved claws slashing away at the sleeves, cutting the soft skin underneath.

You remember screaming for them to stop.

What had happened?

By all rights, you should be dead. Blinded, and dead.

The robes you had worked so hard to make are shredded. You flush, realizing that you are almost naked, but the skin that peeks through is whole and unblemished.

“How–”

Your voice is cracked and hoarse. You can taste blood on your lips.

How are you alive?

You scour your memory for the answer but you do not know the answer. You only remember one other thing. Your hand is shaking as you raise it to your eyes so that it blocks your view of the forest.

Your skin is cold. You can feel the calluses formed from your many hours of sewing over the years.

But it is not the hand that rested over your eyes last night.

It is not the hand that healed you.

Someone had saved you last night. Someone who could heal the many cuts the Fae have left on your skin, someone who could restore your sight and your face, after you had taken your fingers to them.

And yet, you cannot remember who.

You remember only one other thing, seen only in the fleeting edges of your restored vision: a great curve of bone, rising over you, gleaming as dark as obsidian. 　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　

Imagine Liyue in wintertime, when the rivers grow black and treacherous. No man or animal dares cross them, lest they come out blue and frozen on the other side. Underneath the wild torrents, you can see the twisting images of the creatures you’ve come to seek.

The image of a child, face bloated and black with rot, rises briefly to the surface. You remember, three years past, about a fisherman’s son who had drowned in this river. His playmates had claimed that they had seen him playing with a nobleman’s horse near the water. A scream rises in your throat like vomit when you realize that his eyes are boiling with maggots.

You stumble, water lapping at your ankles, making the hem of your robes heavy. You remember your own eyes, the sensation of them popping underneath your thumbs.

Perhaps you couldn’t do this.

Aunt Baiji will not blame you if you come back empty-handed. You know the truth of this with a heaviness in your bones. Perhaps this would have been easier if you knew that she would rage, that she would point an accusing finger at you and demand her child back.

But she wouldn’t. In fact, in her letters, she had begged you not to try. She would live if she lost her son, she wrote.

But she could not lose you both.

For her, you think as you step back into the river. For her.

And, perhaps selfishly, for something else. For the person who had placed their hand over your eyes and healed you.

For answers.

This time, you do not have to wait as long. The Fae do not come with the beating of drums or the sweet lilt of plucked lyres. Instead, they arrive in silence, rising from the churning waves, their forms still streaming water. Water-creatures that look like herons flap their wings, droplets of water flinging from them like feathers.

A trio of mallards circle the river, their bodies rising from the river, their feathers gleaming with barely-formed frost.

The boy who had drowned in the river grins at you from the banks. You can smell the stink of him: rot and the congealed blood of gutted fish, left to soak the deck of a fisherman’s boat.

And finally, it arrives. Faceless, its body formed from the river’s black torrents, it floats through the air as if cutting through water. This creature is old, old enough that no one alive remembers its name. All that is left are the stories: of the creature who lived in the rivers near Qingce Village, and who drowned any mortal who dared approach.

Its flippers glow like the wings of crystalflies as it approaches, beholding you with one gleaming eye.

“Your clothes are beautiful.” Its voice echoes through your head. You can feel it thumping against the walls of your skull.

You are struck with the sudden realization that this thing, just with its voice, can shatter you apart. Make its voice loud enough that your bones splinter into a thousand tiny pieces, like rocks of a cliffside crumbled away by the ceaseless waves.

You struggle to form an answer. Your thoughts are muddled as if your head is underwater.

As a child, you had spent hours upon hours in tea shops, sipping fragrant osmanthus tea and listening to the storytellers on the stage, their voices heavy with emotion and tragedy. Liyue is an old land, rife with legends, and you collected them like a magpie collected treasure for its nest.

You wear one of their stories now.

This time, your robes are the color of the skies over Liyue. And in its fabric, you have embroidered thousands of crystalflies, their wings glowing with the color of starlight.

It is one of Liyue’s most famous legends and one of its most tragic.

“Take them off and leave them here, so that they can decorate my riverbed,” the Oceanid demands.

The glow of its single eye is endless, and you find it nearly impossible to look away.

But still, you manage to shake your head.

“You can have my robes. But only if you are willing to trade.”

You can feel its disappointment and roiling anger like a sudden weight on your chest. You feel a sudden, fleeting panic that your cribs might crack in two, but it is all swept away by Oceanid’s rage. For thousands of years, it has been worshiped, fishermen and kings alike leaving offerings at its banks.

And yet you, stinking of your mortality, come to its waters and demand a trade?

Your skull thumps with the weight of its emotions, and for a second, you are sure that you will collapse. Your skin will split open, your bones will splinter, and blood will explode out of your screaming lips as thousands of gallons of pressure bear down upon you. You imagine your organs floating to the surface of the river, to be feasted upon by the mallards and the smiling child sitting on the banks.

But then, a word rises through your thoughts like an oncoming wave: Rhodeia.

And you are sure that you have found the creature’s name.

“Rhodeia.” Your word comes as if from underwater. “I have a story.”

You shake your sleeves so that the pale threads glint in the dim moonlight. You direct its attention to the crystalflies you have sewn into the fabric, so detailed it seems as if they are taking flight. On your back, the crystaflies form a bridge, cutting straight through the heavens, so that two lovers can walk across the sky.

You had embroidered their entwined figures just below your neck, at the curve of your spine. The star-crossed lovers of Liyue, cursed only to meet once a year for a single day.

And then you can breathe again, falling to your hands and knees on the soft, sucking mud of Rhodeia’s riverbanks. It floats in the air in silence, heedless of your strangled coughs. Somehow, you are sure that it is staring at the embroidery on your back. At the two entwined figures.

“Fine,” it says. “Name your price.”

Your lungs burn as you struggle for words. “I have a cousin who has been taken away by your people. Give him back to me, and my robes may decorate your riverbed until the end of time.”

“Done.”

Its tone is clipped and precise. Impatient. It holds out a limb to you, like the way a human would hold out a hand. It could have been a wing of a flightless bird or the fins of a leaping trout. Or it could have been nothing at all, as shapeless as water.

You grit your teeth. The Oceanid had agreed too easily.

“Show him to me, so I know that you’re not lying. Show him to me, so I know that I am not trading my work for bones.”

It beholds you, silent. And then, the churning waters of the river change, turning smooth as glass. In them, you can see him. Sevastyan.

And you think to yourself: he really is beautiful. This is not the carved statue that lay still in its crib. This is an actual boy, whose fat little fists wave in the air as he screws his face up to cry. He is still swaddled in the blankets you had sent for him, and you feel a painful twist in your chest as you remember your aunt writing that he adored the one decorated with sea turtles.

When he opens his eyes, you realize with a start that they are the same color as your Aunt Baiji’s. Black like the wings of beetles that crawled on your hand like a child.

These are the eyes of someone who had loved and defended you your whole life. Strange as you are, half-human as you are.

Your breath catches in your throat as Aunt Baiji’s words rise in your memory, as relentless as an oncoming tide: I have not seen him yet, but he already owns half my heart.

I cannot wait until the two of you meet each other.

The image dissolves into foam and the river begins to flow once more. You let out a startled cry, reaching out a shaking hand towards the current.

“Do we have a deal?”

In your head, you can feel the Oceanid’s biting impatience. You stand on shaking feet, the mud still thick on your open palms, between your toes.

And you let Rhodeia lead you into the river. 　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　

You wake to the feeling of silt and mud curving underneath your spine. Your clothes are sodden, making your movements slow and your limbs heavy. The fabric is heavy, swollen beyond repair, the rich dye bleeding off of it like molten silver.

The dress is ruined.

And you do not have Sevastyan back.

You place a shaking hand over your eyes and curse softly.

“Fuck.”

Disappointment churns your gut like acid, and you are gripped with the sudden urge to vomit. There is a reason why people had spent centuries leaving offerings at the Oceanid’s banks: unlike the Fae in the woods, it is known to keep its bargains.

Then what happened?

The child. At the banks.

You remember his shadow, darting underneath the waters as the Oceanid guided you. A hand, webbed and pale and bloated with rot, reaching out to grab and pull you under. The rich fabric of your clothes had immediately become heavy and sodden, making you unable to swim.

Unable to move.

Perhaps the creature in the river had been a child once, but he is certainly more–or less–than that now. He had darted through your flailing limbs as nimbly as a fish. You remember seeing its twisting shape.

And you remember–

Its teeth.

Not sharp. Flat, like that of a horse. Ripping out a chunk of your arm. Then your leg. The muscles in your neck. Over and over until your vision ran red. And when you had broken the surface of the river to scream, you remember–

It had been so cold that you felt frost form in your lungs. Your scream frozen like hoarfrost inside your throat.

And the child had pulled you under again.

Like the first time, you should have died. Drowned and bitten to pieces, your bloodied entrails floating to the surface of the river for the mallards to feast on.

Then what had happened?

You are cold, yes. Your limbs feel stiff and frozen from your time in the river. But you are not dead. You pull up the skirts of your robes to examine your legs.

You remember, with a shudder, the child-thing’s flat teeth tearing into the soft flesh of your thighs, ripping apart at the fat and strands of muscle. Crunching through bone. The water going oily from your exposed marrow.

You touch your thigh, shaking. The skin there is smooth and unblemished.

And that is when you notice the river. You scramble back onto the banks with a small scream, slipping on the mud and your sodden clothes.

The river is no longer a river.

What was once a raging current is now nothing but dark earth. It is less like it had been filled in like there had never been a river at all. You can even see the small buds of something new and green beginning to push up from the soil.

“How…”

A curve of bone. Gleaming black as obsidian.

Whoever–or whatever–had done this, it had been done as an act of rage. Perhaps for the child. Or perhaps of the Oceanid. Perhaps both.

You’re shaking, feeling your arms about to give way underneath you. Hot tears flow down your face, from eyes that should not have even been there in the first place.

“I’m sorry,” you cry, the words forming gusts of clouds into the cold air. “I’m sorry.”

Your shoulders shake, and you gasp clouds of frost in the cold winter air. “I have to get him back. I have to keep trying.”

Someone’s hand. Warm over your burning, bleeding eyes. You cannot remember the last time you had been touched so tenderly.

You try to stand but slip down onto the earth. You have to grit your teeth and try again, and even then you’re afraid you’d fall.

“If you—” Your teeth are chattering with enough force that you can barely get the words out. “If whatever you are…if you keep trying to save me. From the Fae. The Good Folk. From these monsters, why did you leave me in the first place?”

A child swaddled in a blanket decorated with sea turtles. His eyes are the color of the wings of beetles.

“I have to get him back,” you say and you hope that whoever saved you is listening. “I’m not you. I’m not going to leave him to some…some stranger to be his family. I have to get him back.”

And as you make your way up the river that is no longer a river, a memory rises in your mind again. Not from the forest, and not from the river.

But from the snowbank, all those years ago.

That of golden eyes, peering at you from the snowbank as your mother picked you up and carried you away.

Imagine Liyue in wintertime, when the land is at its most treacherous and barren. During summer, the trees are laden with fruit, so heavy that their branches bow from the weight. The skin would still glisten with morning dew as one plucks them, their juices bursting against a hungry traveler’s teeth.

But in winter the trees are empty, their branches bare and skeletal. No game wanders in the woods, and all of the animals are warm and asleep in their burrows until spring. Liyue in wintertime is a time of silence, and if one is not careful, it is also a time of death.

By the time you reach your destination, you are weak with hunger, nearly maddened by thirst. It is a live thing that twists and claws at the hollow place in your belly; it pulses like heat against your parched throat.

You find that you can barely stand as you gaze at the entrance.

Imagine a place in Liyue, one you have only heard of once or twice, in those strange, dreamlike hours before dawn. When all of the lanterns have been snuffed out, when all the tea has been drunk and all that remains is their scent, hanging heavy in the air like a ghost. When all the storytellers have closed their paper fans and set aside their gavels, ready to turn in for the night.

Perhaps, one of them–always, always someone ancient, so old that their skin slides over their bones like a river over stones–will have one more story in them.

About a cave, somewhere deep in the mountains. And a tree, large enough that its trunk towered over mountains and its leaves can cast entire towns in its shadow. Here, they say, lies the oldest and most powerful of the Fae.

Here, no human should ever disturb the earth with the sound of their footsteps.

Here, there are stories: of mortals transformed, their screaming faces turned into the bark of trees, their fingers dissolving into blades of grass, their tears becoming the spray of water from a rushing creek.

Here you stand, shivering and afraid.

The robes you have brought with you no longer fit you right, but it does not matter. It does not matter that there is a new hollowness to your cheeks or you can feel a fever burning behind your eyes.

Because you know that the Fae will come, to this most sacred of all places.

Because this robe is the most beautiful of your creations, and perhaps your last. It is the rich dark color of a patch of earth that used to be a river. The color of a tree bark in summer, when it decorates the forest with leaves the color of fire. The color of a farmer’s field, freshly tilled and awaiting to be sown with new seed.

In Liyue, it is the color of life.

Once upon a time, this color could only be worn by those of royal blood.

Once upon a time, wearing something like this would have gotten you executed.

Perhaps it still might.

You had used gold thread to embroider images of crystalflies, glowing with the color of Geo. You had embroidered the ginkgo trees in full bloom during summer. You had embroidered the tiny jade slimes you would see at the Harbor, carved with a chisel the size of your fingernail. You had embroidered delicate golden corals from across the sea in Inazuma. You had embroidered every little thing you think Sevastyan will miss if he is not returned to the human world.

And on your back, its scales glinting with gold, is the great Dragon of Liyue. The one who had shaped the mountains with his hands. The one who had driven the sea back so that his people could thrive on land. Across your shoulders, in the darkest thread you could find, sits his crown: a great rack of antlers, as black as obsidian.

You do not know how long you will last in this cold. A feathering of snow settles across your shoulders. Against your cool skin, they do not melt. This time, you do not have the luxury of waiting.

Instead, you unsheathe a knife from your belt. Even in the gloom, you can see its wicked edge. The curve of its blade. The scent of cold iron.

You swallow down your fear, beating against your throat like a heart.

The first cut burns like the cold, blood welling up from your palm as you slice into the meat of it. Your skin smokes, your fat bubbles, the oil of it running down your wrist.

You have not touched iron since you were a child. Since your Aunt had stood up for you, all those years ago. You think of the chopsticks she had given you, carved from bamboo and coated in lacquer. Just one of the many ways in which she loved you when you feared no one else did.

You let your blood drip down onto the snow, gleaming like rubies, the color so vivid that it makes your head spin.

Quickly, quickly. You do not know how long you will last. Hunger and thirst have taken much of your strength, while fear and exhaustion have taken the rest.

You call out to them, out to the shifting shadows you can see at the center of the cave.

“I am…” You can smell your burning skin. “I am one of you. Who you have left to die so many years ago. You have taken something precious from me. You have taken my brother. By heart, if not by blood.”

You sway, standing on shaking legs. The knife drops from your hand.

You bleed.

You burn.

You continue.

“Return him and you may have…”

Eyes, golden and glinting, stare at you from the darkness. You grit your teeth. You can feel yourself falter. Twice now, you have done this. Twice now, you have failed. And here, inside a cave forbidden to mortals, you know that you might fail. For you will never make anything more beautiful than the robes you are wearing now. If you fail this time, you might never have a chance.

Your voice cracks like porcelain, your words die in your throat.

You try again.

“Return him and you may have…”

The robes, the robes. Tell them they can have the robes. Tell them they can have anything.

Perhaps it is hunger that gnaws at you endlessly like a starving beast, or perhaps it is the sight of your blood, running down your wrist and staining your robes. Perhaps it is grief, or all three; you cannot tell.

But before you can finish your speech, your great and final offering to the Fae, your vision goes black and you collapse, unfeeling, onto the snow. 　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　

This time, you gain consciousness slowly, like someone waking from a pleasant dream. For the first time since you started your journey, you do not feel the cold. Quite the opposite, it feels as if you have been basking underneath a summer sun: your skin feels as warm as honey, your muscles loose and relaxed, as if your body no longer remembers all of its suffering.

Someone is stroking your hair. A hand is resting over your eyes.

You shift and whoever is stroking your hair stops. Somehow you feel a keen sense of loss at that, so sharp that tears prick your eyes. It is something like craving, something like hunger. You find that you do not wish for them to stop.

You cannot remember the last time you had been touched so tenderly.

“You’re awake.”

You can feel his voice echoing inside of your head, like you did with the Oceanid. Except this time, it is a call returned from a great chasm, the feeling of the earth shifting underneath one’s feet, the roar of a river now rendered silent.

Whoever is speaking to you isn’t human.

You rest your trembling fingertips on the hand resting across your eyes. There are legends, the way there often are, of Fae who are so beautiful or terrible that to gaze upon them would cause madness. Your mind would spiral into insanity as it tried to make sense of something inhuman and unknowable.

You are too afraid to look. So instead, you speak to them blindly and pray that you do not offend.

“Who are you?”

When he speaks, you can hear a note of amusement in their rich voice, and you wonder if this is another trick devised by the Fae. “Do you not know?”

“I don’t–”

You fall silent as you explore the hand resting over your eyes with trembling fingertips. And though there is only the slightest bit of pressure, the gesture feels sharp with memory. You remember blood streaming down your ruined eyes like tears and a gasp flutters against your throat like a caged bird.

“Were you…” Your voice cracks before you can continue your sentence, snapping under the weight of both terror and wonder. “Were you the one who healed my eyes? After I tore them out with my thumbs?”

“Yes.”

You realize with a start that the hand over your eyes did not feel like flesh. It is too smooth, too hard. Like a skilled sculptor had carved a perfect likeness of a human hand, entirely out of jade. You think of what you had seen, glittering at the edges of your restored vision: a great curve of bone, rising over you, gleaming as dark as obsidian.

You think of the image you had embroidered onto your robes, the crown of antlers unfurling across your shoulders.

And you swallow down your rising fear.

“And the river?” you whisper. “Were you the one who pulled me from it?”

“Yes.”

“And…” You think of the river that is no longer a river. The small buds of something green and new pushing themselves up from the earth. “You are the one who…you are the one who destroyed it.”

You feel a sudden stillness in whoever is holding you, the coiled tension of an animal just before the strike. When he speaks, you can feel a new anger in his voice, and a shiver runs through you. You can hear the creak of dried branches, the flutter of a bird’s wings.

Birds?

You think of the silence you had found in the woods. The absolute lack of birdsong. Most of them travel to warmer places for winter. And yet, for a second, you can hear their panicked chirping.

“Rhodiea was unable to control one of her subjects and ended up breaking her contract with you. She knew the consequences.”

In your head, his voice is magnified a thousandfold, and it is the Oceanid all over again. His anger is palpable, the slow grind of stone against stone, the feeling of the earth shifting underneath your feet, the sound of entire mountains crumbling overnight. You clap your hands over your ears, hoping to block out the way his voice echoes in your skull.

All of a sudden, it stops, and you are left gasping for air. You can feel blood welling up from between your clenched fingers, there is a new, endless ringing in your ears.

“Forgive me. I forget that you are now half-mortal.”

A Fae who asks for forgiveness?

You cannot remember if there are stories of that.

Will it anger him for you to accept his apology? Will he think that you consider him beneath you to do so? Will it anger him even more for you to remain silent? You tremble, and you remember: Sevastyan’s life hinges on your answer.

It is the Fae-Lord who decides for you, those strange hands lying on top of your bloodied fingers. You recall the forest. And the way he had held you, blinded and dying, before he restored your sight.

The ringing stops.

“Than–” You stop yourself, biting your lip so hard that you feel it split underneath your teeth.

You had nearly thanked him. A mistake that would have cost you a lifetime of servitude.

“If you wish to thank me, I give you my word that I will not use it to bind you to me. That is not what I wish to do.”

His word. You do not know if what he said is binding or if he is simply luring you into a trap. With a start, you realize that you can no longer rely on old legends or stories to guide your decisions. You are treading through the path of your own tale, and there are no old roads to follow.

Briefly, you wonder if the heroes of all the stories you’ve loved have ever felt so afraid. If they’ve ever felt at such a loss what to do.

You think of the Oceanid and her lost river. The consequences of a broken contract. You decide to take a chance.

“Then…then, thank you, Great Lord. For healing me. For saving me. I owe you my sight, my hearing...”

You think of sinking underneath the churning waters of the Oceanid’s river. Of both the current and the child dragging you under. You think of your scream freezing in your throat, of frost forming in your water-logged lungs.

You had drowned in that river, you are sure. And yet somehow, you are still here.

“...and my life,” you finish quietly.

He does not answer. The silence stretches out between you, and this time, you are sure that you can hear the faint snatches of birdsong, the carefree chittering of insects, and the sound of the wind blowing through the leaves in the trees.

The land you had passed through to get here had been covered with frost. The cave you entered had been as solemn as a tomb. You suck in a shaky breath, and you could have sworn you can smell the scent of flowers in full bloom.

“Lord?” you call softly.

“Yes?”

“May I see your face? Will it not…” You pause. Your throat feels dry with fear.

You think of your eyes popping underneath your thumbs like overripe fruit. You think of the musician, whose face you do not remember. And you think about how that might be a mercy.

“Will it not drive me mad?”

He does not answer for several long seconds, and then, you hear a slight exhalation of air. It could have been a sigh, it could have been his quiet laughter, or it could have been nothing at all.

“Mad? No. It will not.”

You remember the glimpse of him you had seen: the curve of bone, rising over you. The golden eyes glinting from the darkness. The shadow of a figure from across a snowbank, all those years ago. The knowledge suddenly comes to you with an almost painful clarity, it twists like a knife between your ribs: you had seen his face before.

He makes no move to remove his hand, still resting over your eyes. And you realize that he is waiting for you. Gently, you push his hand away so that you may rise to your knees in front of him.

What hits you first is the cave. Gone is the swallowing dark and creeping hoarfrost. Golden leaves blanket the ground you are kneeling on, and trees, gnarled and ancient, rise over your head. Birds of every color sit on their thick branches, snatches of their song filling the air. The fat buds of flowers sprout from the ground, in full bloom and so heavy that their stems almost bow to touch the earth.

The cave is now in the full flush of summer.

Or perhaps, it is something else. For the birds that stare at you from atop their branches are not ones you have ever seen. Their feathers are too bright, their colors too vivid. From inside a knot in a tree trunk, an owl with a human face blinks at you.

Even the flowers glow with their own strange light, summoning crystaflies as if from thin air. A few of them alight on you, touching their embroidered counterparts in the sleeves of your robes.

Perhaps, it is not summer that has visited this place, then. But something else. Something wild and ancient and free. Perhaps this is what the cave had been thousands and thousands of years ago before the first humans had even existed.

And yet, when you glance outside the mouth of the cave, you can still see the lands in the grip of winter. The trees, their branches bare of leaves, like skeletal hands reaching out towards the sky. Even inside, you can hear the howling of the wind, see the way the snow falls in sheets like rain.

You wonder what power the Fae Lord beholds, to be able to bring life wherever his feet touch the earth.

Finally, you turn to your savior. The Fae Lord that you owed your sight, your hearing, and your life.

Your first thought is that perhaps it is worth it to go mad, to feel your thoughts spiral away from you like a bird taking flight, just to be able to behold this man for a few fleeting seconds. Gleaming hair, the color of the bark of the oldest trees, long enough that it spreads across the forest floor where he sits. His face is smooth, unblemished, inhuman in its perfect symmetry, as if someone who has only ever heard of humans from legends had to carve one from jade. But it is his eyes that disturb you: it is the same shade of gold that you had seen glinting from the trees, the same eyes that had beheld you as you sliced your palm to offer your blood.

They are strange and reptilian, and they gaze at you with such fervor that you find it hard to look away. And on his head, like a crown, sat a gleaming rack of antlers, as black as obsidian. With a choked gasp, you realize that they match the embroidered ones on your robe perfectly.

And suddenly, your forehead is touching the earth before him, your vision spinning from the speed at which you had thrown yourself into a deep bow.

“Lord,” You force the words out like you are choking on them. “Please, forgive me. I did not mean to offend.”

In any other Fae, this show of subservience would have spelled your doom. The Good Folk are capricious and cruel, quick to try and humble humans with tricks and glamour. But the being before you is the great great Dragon Lord. The one whose legends tell of how he shaped the land with his hands, who had driven back the sea so that his people could thrive on land, whose spears had created mountain ranges. It would have been child’s play for him to destroy the river of an Oceanid.

It would have cost him nothing to save your life.

You feel him placing his hand on the back of your head, as if in reassurance, and you shiver at the contact. You think of legends of ancient kings, whose royal blood meant that they must not touch the skin of ones who are of lower status than them, lest they debase themselves at the contact.

You think about how, in ancient times, this gesture might have gotten you executed. You bite back a whimper of fear, trying not to cower like a frightened dog.

You feel his hand touching the back of your head, as if in reassurance.

“Forgiveness,” he repeats. “For what?”

For your insolence. For being in his presence. For a thousand other things you cannot hope to name.

Even with your wealth of knowledge in stories and legends, even with your endless hunger for contact with the Fae your entire life, even if you have started this journey with the knowledge that you may not survive, you find yourself at a loss for words. You grit your teeth, unable to come up with a satisfactory answer.

“I don’t know,” you whisper, still bowed so low that your lips nearly touch the earth.

“If you do not know, then perhaps you have done nothing that requires my forgiveness. Rise. I wish to see your face when you speak.”

You rise, still terrified. You realize that there is dirt stuck to your forehead and your cheeks, and you scrub away at them, feeling your face burn in shame. In the face of the Fae Lord’s beauty, every flaw you had seems magnified.

“Tell me, then,” the Fae Lord begins. “Why did you call me?”

“Call you…?”

You lift your hand to continue scrubbing at your face, and then you remember: your blood gleaming in the snow, the knife slicing through your flesh. The cut has now been healed, all that is left is a scar, stretched across your palm. And you wonder if you had the Fae Lord to thank for that once again.

He notices you staring at your scar and says, almost reproachfully, “The knife was made of iron. You would have died if you had cut yourself any deeper with it.”

“I did cut myself deeply with it.” You remember the stink of your own burning skin, the sound of your bubbling fat.

You remember, as a child, trying to feed yourself with iron cutlery. The burns you had suffered after. The way the skin around your fingers had gone tight and resisted movement. It had taken weeks before you could hold something again.

“I should have died,” you found yourself saying. “Why didn’t I die?”

The Fae Lord’s shrug is easy, almost careless, as he looks away from you. But you catch a glimmer of blood on his lip, gleaming like a precious stone. An image flashes before your eyes, a memory hazy with pain and exhaustion: that of the Fae Lord with his lips on your bleeding palm, sucking the poison out as one would a snakebite. You feel a sudden flush of heat at the thought of his mouth against your skin. You find yourself tracing the scar with your fingers as if to recall the feel of his kiss on it.

“You saved me again.” You bow your head. “Thank you.”

“It was a foolish business with the knife. I would have come even without your offering of blood.”

“Foolish, perhaps,” you say quietly. “Or desperate.”

He closes his eyes. “Desperate, then. Why?”

You think of your Aunt Baijin, who had greeted you at the gates of her village, already half a stranger. You think of her belongings, sold piece by piece, so she can buy offerings for the Fae. You think of her many, many letters, begging you not to try and get him back.

You think of chopsticks wrapped in wool, carved just for you so that you will not burn your hands when you eat.

You think of a boy, swaddled in blankets decorated with sea turtles, with dark curls and eyes the color of beetles. You think about how Aunt Baiji had hoped that the two of you would grow to be as close as siblings.

“For love,” you answer. “And the promise of it.”

When the Fae Lord opens his eyes to look straight at you, they do not look quite so reptilian. Instead, you see something human in them: sorrow, perhaps, or the memory of it. Once upon a time, maybe he had lost someone, too. He stares at you with something like grief.

“For love,” He speaks slowly, carefully. You can feel the weight of his power in each word. “For love, then, you may ask of me a single boon.”

Somehow, you do not think that he is thinking of Sevastyan.

“A boon?” you repeat, your pulse pounding.

This is, after all, what you have been searching for this entire time. You sigh the long, bone-deep sigh of a traveler who sees home. Here, at last, is the possible end to your journey. But before you can speak, another memory resurfaces: that of the river, of your breath turning to ice inside your throat. You think of frost forming inside your water-logged lungs.

You had drowned in that river, you are sure. And yet you are still here. When your lungs have turned black and rotted from the water, you remember that he had pressed his lips to yours and given you his breath.

“Why?” The word comes out harsh and labored. You speak as though your throat is filled with broken glass. “Why go through so much trouble for me? Why save me, over and over again?”

He looks at you, but he does not answer. But your anger has turned your words into a raging flood, you find it impossible to stop.

“Why did the Fae take my brother?”

“Why did you…” Your breath is sharp. The question is like a knife pulled clean from the curve of your ribs, it leaves you bleeding on the way out. “Lord, why did you leave me?”

You can feel something hot on your face. You do not remember crying. But the Fae Lord’s face is devoid of expression. He is so still that he could have been carved from stone. You wanted to scream, you wanted to reach out and shake him.

“Please,” you whisper softly. “Please, answer me.”

“Is that your boon?” His voice is sharp and clipped. “Answers?”

You can feel your breath stutter. The way he spoke, as if in warning. If he gives you this, his tone said, you cannot have Sevastyan. If he gives you this, he cannot give you anything else. You look at him, and you can feel something split into pieces inside you. Here, at the edge of the thing you have longed for your entire life, you find that you must turn away.

“I have spent years searching for answers,” you say through gritted teeth. “For my brother, I can wait a while longer. This is not my boon.”

The Fae Lord speaks almost gently, as if he knows what it must have cost you to choke out those words. “Then what do you wish to ask of me?”

“My Aunt’s son,” you say quickly. “My brother, by heart if not by blood. Your people have taken him, and I wish to have him back.”

After a few seconds of silence, you add, “Please.”

He speaks, still in that same gentle tone, “Even a boon from the Fae will require an exchange.”

“An exchange…?”

Horror churns like acid in your belly as you glance down at your ruined robes. The silk is damp with tears and melted snow, the sleeves are stained dark with your blood. The greatest and most beautiful of all your creations, ruined. You have nothing left to offer. And yet, you have come so far.

The Fae Lord is still waiting for your answer.

You think of the words that had beat against your thoughts like a drum when you had sliced open your palm with an iron knife.

Tell them they can have anything.

You think of the Fae Lord: his hand over your eyes as he restored your ruined sight, his lips over your bleeding palm, sucking iron out like poison from a snakebite. You think about how he had kissed and given you his breath when you were drowning.

You think of the snowbank, and golden eyes glinting at you from the darkness.

“Lord. If you let me take my brother home. Then you may have…”

You pause. You can feel your bones creaking, pinned under the enormity of what you must do. It is a surprise that the weight of it doesn’t crush you.

For the Fae have taken your Aunt’s son, and this is what it means to get him back.

“You may have me,” you say resolutely. “I will give you my life and my name. And I swear on both of these things to live for you and serve you and stay with you for the rest of my days.”

Finally, the Fae Lord’s calm veneer cracks, like ice splitting over a frozen lake. He exhales, and for a second, you feel as if the sun in that small cave glows just a little bit brighter. You think you can feel the earth moving underneath your feet.

This. This is what he wants. Not the clothes that you have rendered with painful detail, now stained and useless. Not your skill, or your sanity, or your blood.

You.

“I accept.”

The words roll over you like thunder, and you sway in your place. The air is thick with his magic, and crystalflies manifest out of thin air, bursting into golden life around him. It is done, you think, raising a shaking hand over your eyes. Your life is no longer your own.

“What do you require of me?” you ask.

“Only your name, as you have promised.”

You look at him. Even sitting, he towers over you. The crystalflies that he has brought to life flutter about him as if drawn to his presence. A few rest on the horns on his head, and they look like they belong there. You are reminded that he is not human, that this is a creature who has seen hundreds of lifetimes. Perhaps, in that knowledge, lies your answer.

“I think,” you whisper quietly. “You already know it.”

The corners of his lips twitch as if he is pleased.

“I do,” he confirms.

Your skin jolts at this newfound knowledge. You feel as if you have been struck by lightning. In every story you have heard, every legend you have read on ancient, yellowed scrolls, you have always been warned of one thing: never to give your name to the Fae. To give your name may mean a lifetime of servitude, it may mean never leaving their realm again. It may mean your death.

But this no longer resembles a tale you have heard in a teahouse or something you have read in a book. You are treading through your own story, and there are no old roads to guide you.

“Then it is yours,” you say. “As am I. To use as you see fit. For…for the rest of my days.”

As a child, you remember walking down the darkened roads of Snezhnaya, hoping to catch fleeting glimpses of the Fae. Hoping that they would remember you and take you home. To think that all of your choices will lead you here.

“Thank you,” the Fae Lord says, and he sounds like he means it.

Again, this Lord breaks all conventions. You lick your lips and feel the split in them left by your teeth.

“If I am–” You have to pause, frozen perhaps, by your fear. Or perhaps it is something else. Frozen by the knowledge of hundreds of legends telling you not to do. But you have already given everything to him in exchange for Sevastyan. You find that you have nothing left to lose.

He waits, as still as the mountainsides. You find that his patience gives you the strength to continue.

“If I am to serve you, to be your companion, then may I at least know your name?”

His gaze is gold of the summer sun, peeking through the leaves of trees, it is the color of honeycomb, the skin of sunsettias as they burst between your teeth. It feels like you have known it all your life. And when he speaks next, you find that there is truth in his words.

“You already know it.”

“I do,” you realize.

Even the oldest, most ancient of storytellers had dared not mention his name in their stories. To speak the name of a Fae draws their attention to you, and they dare not do so, for fear that they will not wake the next morning, their flesh split open by a thousand glittering gems.

And yet, you are sure of it: you know this Fae Lord’s name.

“Then speak it,” he says.

This time, it is a command. You can feel the pull of it, tugging at the space behind your ribs. And you wonder if this is what it means to give your name to one of the Fae. Your lips move as if they are on strings.

“Morax.”

You feel it again, the sensation of power rolling over you like gathering storm clouds. Except this time, it is yours. Morax closes his eyes and you think you can hear his breath start to shake, his shoulders shudder at the way you say his name.

You wonder: if giving him your name meant a lifetime at his side, then what would it mean for you to know his?

“It is done,” he declares with an air of finality. “You may bring the child back to its mother.”

Sevastyan winks into existence, with a suddenness that makes you jump. First, there is nothing, and then there is a child, lying on a bed of golden leaves. He is still wrapped in a blanket decorated with sea turtles, and when he opens his eyes to look at you, you can see the shape of your aunt’s eyes in them. You find yourself scrambling on your hands and knees to reach him.

You do not know how to hold a child, how to keep him safe against the cold that you know is waiting for the two of you outside the cave. His skin feels warm, and when you lift him in your arms, he still smells of milk and sandalwood. The blanket that he is covered in feels too thin. After all, you had sewn it for him to wear in fall, not winter. It will not protect him against the cold.

And so you do the only thing you can think of: you strip yourself of your robes, the most beautiful of your creations, stained with your blood and your tears, and you wrap it around him. Underneath, you are only wearing a thin shift, meant to protect the rich silk from your sweat.

You stand on shaking legs, cradling the child to your chest. Morax stands with you, and in his presence, you feel small. His eyes are fixed on Sevastyan, at the clothes you had wrapped around him.

“And you?” he asks.

You blink, “What about me?”

“The journey is long. And you will be cold.”

You shake your head. Despite his words, you find yourself unafraid. After all, you had already gone so far and survived so much. You are confident that you can survive this, as well. But before you can answer, he does the same thing you did only seconds prior: he removes his cloak. Unlike your frantic movements, he does it slowly, languidly and there is an intimacy in it that makes your throat run dry. You find that you can’t look away. You see the expanse of his chest, the glitter of scales on his skin. You can see his hands and his arms, and you realize that you had guessed correctly earlier: they do not appear as if they are made from flesh. Instead, like his antlers, they look as if they have been carved from obsidian. Glimmers of gold run through his skin like the glint of veins in an ore.

You think that this is not the first time you have seen him like this.

When he finishes, he wraps his cloak around you. It is the color of the leaves underneath your feet, as light as air. As if someone had grasped threads of sunlight and used them to weave the cloth. You think of the forest, of lying almost naked in the snow, your clothes shredded from thousands of cuts. You think of the river, of the water-logged fabric, dragging you down to the riverbed. After you have faced only suffering and humiliation for your work, Morax chooses to clothe you in finery.

Gratitude keeps you silent, you do not know how to voice the enormity of what you feel. Perhaps he reads it on your face, on the tears that burn at the corners of your eyes, for he places a cool finger on your lips. You remember the cut there, and you wonder if he will kiss this one new as well.

“Wear my cloak. Go with my protection and return the child to its mother. Then return to me to fulfill your end of our contract.”

You nod and turn to leave. But something holds you back. You glance back at him, the question burning in your throat.

“Was I…always meant to come back here? This place?”

Was I always meant to come back to you?

But you had already asked for your boon, for the child shifting sleepily in your arms, and as you expected, he does not answer. You find that you do not mind. You will get your own answers, in time.

After all, you had promised him a lifetime.

“I will come back,” you say resolutely.

“Yes,” he says. “You will.”

“Not for contract,” you say. “For you, Morax.”

He looks surprised, staring at you with reptilian eyes that for just the briefest of seconds, look almost human. And then, he smiles. Something tugs like quicksilver at the edges of your memory.

This is not the first time you have seen him smile.

“Good.”

It is all he says.

It is enough.

Hugging your brother to your chest, you walk out of the cave.

[kotoku]

imagine during the changeling arc, half-monster reader gets turned into a tall man and after a while they start to realize… they miss their old body

BYE

Name: It’s so damn cold… I wanna change back already.

Laios: What ?? I thought you always wanted to be a tall-man—

Name: NOT ANYMORE

half-monster!reader clawing at their skin because this body feels weird and they want to change back RIGHT NOW.

half-monster!reader in a corner just looking off into space because they feel so out of their own skin that nothing feels real.

half-monster!reader who when they finally change back, they cradle their body as they cry tears of joy because DAMN that as weird.

the party watching on stunned because they thought that the reader wanted nothing more than to be fully human.

you take that any wishes of being human back.

P.S !! yall pls send more asks or whatever, ANYTHING, am so bored… i promise i’m working on req but it’s fun to do these lil’ things. (college is also starting to take up some of my time—)

[yuesgirlfriend]

of birds and honey

part 1

(simon "ghost" riley x reader) medieval AU

summary: the year is 1312, and your fathers knight follows you to the wood.

The great hills surrounding the castle are a patchwork of green and yellows, as they always are during the summer months. Gray skies up ahead do nothing to dampen the mood of the castle; everyone is bustling about, preparing for the feast marking the new battalions arrival, as if their presence signifies something happier than impending war. 

She can see them, now, where she is perched atop the highest wall-practiced, without fear- in a way her old governesses would have certainly called unbecoming of a lady. But did not the bible speak of the virtues of a young lady- justice, fortitude, among them?

(It takes great fortitude to learn the secrets she has learned, to climb over steep walls like they were bales of hay, to listen to words she would have heard anyway, had she been born a man. Listening from the eaves and skulking about is an act of justice, not a sin.) 

The men, traversing down the trail, look like ants, she thinks- where she sits high above them, balancing on the stone, they look like children's toys. Tiny wooden figures, a small boy's idea of heroes, lined up on the yellow-green patchwork quilt. 

When they finally ride over the moat and into the stronghold, they look like any other collection knights she has seen- some cloaked, some helmetless, all shining in the half clouded, setting sun. 

That night is boisterous and rowdy, like any other feast. The courtyard is crowded with people- servants, villagers, everyone coming together to eat and drink and be merry. The tables are laden with the finest of foods. The smell of roast goose and heron, wine, and vomit hangs in the night air with the shouts and bawdy songs. The new knights drink and eat and throw things, singing their songs with everyone else.  The castle hums with life, every voice and every soul another cell in one great organism. 

(The whole time, she sits quietly as a lady should, but listens as a lady shouldn’t. No one notices, and why would they notice the Lord’s waif of a girl, silently eating at his right hand? The servants, the townspeople, even her father speak of her when they think she isn’t listening- she is, to them, as unnaturally quiet as a changeling and as likely to smile as a mourner. Such a shame, my lord, that  her birth took your wife, god rest her soul. And for the child to not even be a boy…)

The stories that feast are rambling and, wine drunk, but the message is clear- they are hired soldiers with no Christian names, under orders from the king to protect the stronghold that is her home.

But one stands out. The only one still wearing his painted  helmet, and as such doesn’t eat or drink with his companions. Instead, he sits on her fathers left side, speaking in low and gruff tones only when spoken to. 

She picks at her food as her ears pick up words like more men and allies and a thousand dead, all spoken in an accent she thinks more suited to a farmer than a soldier.

As the feast begins to die down, dancers lying about drunk, he walks with her Lord father, presumably to show him a weak point in the castle walls.

She follows along, unseen, silent footsteps trailing behind them in the shadows. The knight with the painted helmet is tall and broad when he waves a hand at a wall that, upon closer inspection, does seem weaker than the rest. A chink in the castle’s armor, he says. 

The fire dies out, people lay around in drunken heaps, and rats are scurrying for food in corners of the room by the time she retires for the night. Her maid is nowhere to be found- based on the way the Scotsman and her were wrapped around eachother earlier, it is likely best not to go looking for her- so she wanders alone to her quarters, a candle in one hand and a half eaten honey cake in the other. 

The halls are dimly lit labrynths, and every footstep she takes makes a wet scuff along the perpetually damp straw covering the chilled stone floors. She does not believe in sneaking about when not needed, and enjoys a reprieve from constant surveillance as she licks honey carelessly from her fingers, focusing more on the sweetness of the honey cake than her surroundings.

And just as she turns the corner to the starcase, a hand shoots out from a shadow  and grabs her arm. 

Her gasp is muffled by a large hand, gloved. His other hand plucks the candle from her grasp, rests it on the narrow windowsill behind him. She scrapes and thrashes at the silver of his forearm, scrambling to reach for the knife at his side before he speaks. 

“Pray, be silent, Lady- I know you are able.”

In response, she bites down on the gloved hand, hard. The man hisses but doesn’t let go, only roughly spins her to face him; and this is when she realizes it is the helmeted knight, eyes and armor shiny in the candlelight. 

She shoves at his arms, and he concedes, letting her retreat three steps up the stairs before he takes her by the hand again. 

“Release me, sir, or you will not enjoy the consequences,” She hisses. Something furious inside her is growing like a wildfire. 

“I meant no offense, but only to warn you, fair lady,” he says, seemingly contrite, but with mirth in his voice. Is he smiling, behind that hideous helmet? 

“Warn me?” She rips her hand from his. “Of what? Churlish knights, skulking behind corners?” She turns to go. 

“You are one to scold on skulking behind corners, Lady. ” Her feet freeze where they are on the steps. 

 “Yes.” His voice is rough. “You are not as invisible as you may think- not to those trained to see, Lady.  You should exercise more caution, when listenin’ from rafters and castle walls like a little bird.” He tilts his head, eyes trained on her, like a cat looking at a tree it’d like to climb. Or a bird it’d like to claw.

“I have been told you have a lovely mind. It would be a waste to see it dashed on a tower’s stony base.” 

For the first time in ages, she forces her eyes to meet anothers. His are dark, redless, with what looks like coal smudged on his eyelids and undereyes. His eyes never falter from her stare, as would be proper. His pale lashes don’t so much as flutter. 

She turns and continues walking upstairs- but before she rounds the corner, she looks behind and down to where he stands, at the base of the stairs, licking remnants of honey off his glove. 

[chilfucked]

Changelings

Tall-man!Chilchuck Tims/Half Foot!Reader

Description:

After nearly getting yourself killed, you and Chilchuck end up arguing away from the others. When he feels like you're not listening, he decides to make you listen.

Word Count: 2,316

Read it here!

[cafecourage]

That lack of requests is criminal. Don't mind me while I churn out a couple more. (this is actually helping with my brain-deadness so I'm gonna alternate between studying and dropping stuff in your inbox lol)

Hyrule with an s/o who is also good at magic (but can't heal worth a damn) and is able to give themselves fairy wings while maintaining full height. Like they can just become a hylian-sized fairy.

And maybe he finds out because he fell off a cliff and they saved him?

- Glitter ✨

Is is gonna be similar to another ask I got. But first some random Hc’s that I don’t think go together with the story I wrote but still is fun to think about.

- Hylians could gain the abilities to have magic through other means. Hyrule, himself, being an example of that. While I am all up for half fae Hyrule, but Changeling Hyrule, and Battle Mage Hyrule is also up there. Either way how ever you look at it, Reader and Hyrule are 100% covering each other’s backs.

- If Reader is bad with healing, I am going to assume they can do more specialized magic like defense up, shielding, etc. Not actually healing but it’s still something. I imagine that Reader and Hyrule are like a sword and shield combo, though who is who is ether or as you can shield the both of you and he can heal.

- Imagine if Hyrule was the one that taught you the fairy spell? You are just more adventurous with messing with it to change your height so it can stay the same. You guys just teach each other since you’re the only two that know how to even do magic in the first place. These are just some idea’s though. If Reader was half-fae they would probably already be able to do it and can teach him too.

When your mother, Great Fairy Mija, offered your help to the Champion on his latest adventure. You didn’t expect much to come from it, nor for Link to say yes in the first place but that was beside the point. Honestly it didn’t phase you to much that there was more Link’s in the group. If anything you had heard it before from other Great Fairies that a bunch of heroes have gotten together before. And you can assume it wont be the last time this was going to happen.

What you didn’t expect was how fast they clicked and adopted each other. Though living in a Fairy Fountain you were kinda used to quick adoptions, so it wasn’t a big deal just surprising.

You were a lot slower to integrate into the group as you weren’t a hero for courage so less predictable compared to all the Link’s. Which was fine as you knew the champion, now known as Wild, had the same issue with trusting people too.

So having eight more insane semi impulsive guys to befriend wasn’t too difficult. Especially when you did openly used magic to help them in battle though you made sure to get consent before hand. You heard the stories you heard what happened to some of them it is only fair. The Hero of Twilight and Legends you were especially careful around. Rather be safe than yelled at.

You quickly noticed that the traveler who was given the title of Hero of Hyrule, was similar to Wild. It felt easier to befriend him than anyone else. Which was fun. You, him and Wild typically tended to stay together as giving your home Era’s wandering was commonplace. Hyrule did tell you about his magic when healing was needed, “You’re half fae though.” The Vet pointed out as Hyrule took over bandaging the Captain. “Wouldn’t that be natural?”

The answer was actually longer than it needed to be but that wasn’t a story for now, “well. Yes, but no.” It was also convoluted to explain and honestly with the fight everyone just went through, again it was a story for another day. “The short of the answer is that I don’t have the ability to do it safely to others… or myself.” That only earned them a quizzical look but before the conversation could be continued it was side tracked. Which was good for you.

You would of explained once everyone was better and relatively settled as it was a weird and long explanation of Magic not really being something Hylians could do in the first place with out items. Of course there were acceptions, Princesses, Gifts from the Goddess, etc. You at least wanted to tell Hyrule what you knew as he seemed to get his magical abilities in an unnatural manner. There wasn’t a doubt in your mind that it was on purpose for him to find these things but, the guy literally held on to the triforce for years before secretly giving back to the princesses to hide it away.

Monsters are still after him for his blood after all.

The horror you felt when you heard him whisper that can be still felt to this day. “Why?” You asked.

“Because, thats where it was.” He whispers softly as you two walked through the path around the canyon heading into hebra mountain. The idea was to find Zelda who was near the stables waiting. Honestly there was a voice in the back of your mind that was telling you to go see your Aunt who was by Rito Village but that was probably a week trek out on foot.

“Still that magic isn’t really information that would typically be spread.” You commented offhandedly as thats not how blood magic worked. You think. It’s not like you tried. Forbidden magic is forbidden for a reason. “But Monsters are Monsters I guess.” You shrugged looking to the side into the snow. The path to hebra wasn’t the safest as it was the hardest reason.

“Well it just did…” You looked back at Hyrule there is slight movement in the snow. Unfortunately you couldn't get out the words "Lizalfos!" Before everything was in disarray.

It was quick to lose yourself in battle, but you tried to keep your calm as you fight back. Making sure that those who need it get their buff. Typically stronger people get defensive buffs, those who work better with speed gets a tad boost for that. You look to your left where Hyrule was.

Only to see him get pushed back loosing his footing. That alone made you dash forward as you feared the worse. The worse being what happened.

Hyrule fell into the Tanagar Canyon.

Just to spite that monster you sent a lighting spell his way before diving off the Canyon after the Hero. You reached out to grab him as you focused on your own magic again. Transforming your form slightly to a more natural state for you. Wing's sprouting behind you as you slowly pull him in your arms. You didn't know if you were strong enough to fly the both of you up. However you aimed for a better landing as you turn up and a slow descent.

It wasn't a soft landing but nether of you were hurt. "Are you ok?" you asked setting Hyrule down as you had to hold him a bit strangely.

"Yeah... Just surprised." He said calming his heart, he looks up at you "thank you." His gaze shifts up to the Canyon wall. "How do you think we can get up?"

"Uhhh..... Magic?" You suggest as you look at him. "You have that fae spell right?"

Hyrule made a face like he really didnt want the other to know about it "yeah... I guess."

"I can carry you in that form! Don't worry."

"That's... some how worse."

[book--brackets]

The 13 Clocks by James Thurber (1950)

The hands of all thirteen clocks stand still in the gloomy castle on a lonely hill where a wicked Duke lives with his niece, the beautiful Princess Saralinda. The Duke fancies he has frozen time, for he is afraid that one day a Prince may come and win away the hand of the Princess—the only warm hand in the castle. To thwart that fate, he sets impossible tasks for Saralinda’s suitors. But when the bold Prince Zorn of Zorna arrives, disguised as a wandering minstrel, and helped by the enigmatic Golux, the cold Duke may at last have met his match.

The Edge Chronicles by John Stewart and Chris Riddell (1998-2019)

Fourteen-year-old Quint Verginix is the only remaining son of famous sky-pirate Wind Jackal. He and his father have journeyed to the city of Sanctaphrax – a great floating rock, bound to the ground below by a chain, its inhabitants living with their heads literally in the clouds.

But the city hides a dangerous secret: deep inside the great rock, something horrible lurks. With his father away, Quint may be the only one who can save Sanctaphrax from the dreaded curse of the gloamglozer . . .

The Wandering Inn by Pirateaba (2018-present)

“No killing Goblins.”

So reads the sign outside of The Wandering Inn, a small building run by a young woman named Erin Solstice. She serves pasta with sausage, blue fruit juice, and dead acid flies on request. And she comes from another world. Ours.

It’s a bad day when Erin finds herself transported to a fantastical world and nearly gets eaten by a Dragon. She doesn’t belong in a place where monster attacks are a fact of life, and where Humans are one species among many. But she must adapt to her new life. Or die.

In a dangerous world where magic is real and people can level up and gain classes, Erin Solstice must battle somewhat evil Goblins, deadly Rock Crabs, and hungry [Necromancers]. She is no warrior, no mage. Erin Solstice runs an inn.

She’s an [Innkeeper].

The Moorchild by Eloise Jarvis McGraw (1996)

Half moorfolk and half human, and unable to shape-shift or disappear at will, Moql threatens the safety of the Band. So the Folk banish her and send her to live among humans as a changeling. Named Saaski by the couple for whose real baby she was swapped, she grows up taunted and feared by the villagers for being different, and is comfortable only on the moor, playing strange music on her bagpipes.

As Saaski grows up, memories from her forgotten past with the Folks slowly emerge. But so do emotions from her human side, and she begins to realizethe terrible wrong the Folk have done to the humans she calls Da and Mumma. She is determined to restore their child to them, even if it means a dangerous return to the world that has already rejected her once.

Peter Pan in Scarlet by Geraldine McCaughrean (2006)

In August 2004 the Special Trustees of Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital, who hold the copyright in Peter Pan, launched a worldwide search for a writer to create a sequel to J. M. Barrie's timeless masterpiece. Renowned and multi award-winning English author Geraldine McCaughrean won the honor to write this official sequel, Peter Pan in Scarlet. Illustrated by Scott M. Fischer and set in the 1930s, Peter Pan in Scarlet takes readers flying back to Neverland in an adventure filled with tension, danger, and swashbuckling derring-do

The Many Deaths of Laila Starr by Ram V. (2022)

Humanity is on the verge of discovering immortality. As a result, the avatar of Death is cast down to Earth to live a mortal life in Mumbai as twenty-something Laila Starr. Struggling with her newfound mortality, Laila has found a way to be placed in the time and place where the creator of immortality will be born. Will Laila take her chance to stop mankind from permanently altering the cycle of life, or will death really become a thing of the past?

Wishing Chair by Enid Blyton (1937-2000)

Once Mollie and Peter have discovered the Wishing-Chair, their lives are full of adventure. It takes them to all sorts of magical places, from the giant's castle where they rescue Chinky the Pixie, to the amazing party at Magician Greatheart's castle.

Die by Kieron Gillan (2018-2020)

DIE is a pitch-black fantasy where a group of forty-something adults have to deal with the returning unearthly horror they barely survived as teenage role-players.

Poison by Chris Wooding (2003)

Poison has always been a willful, contrary girl, prone to being argumentative and stubborn. So when she discovers that her younger sister has been abducted by the phaeries, she decides to seek out the Phaerie Lord to get her back.

But finding the Phaerie Lord is just the start of it. By leaving home, Poison steps into a murderous world of intrigue and danger, where the Lords of the Realm, a sinister pantheon of demigods, are conspiring to overthrow the Hierophant- the most powerful lord of all. For the Hierophant is writing again, and his pen will decide all their fates... including Poison's.

With only her wits and her friends to aid her, Poison must survive the lethal attentions of the Phaerie Lord, rescue her sister, and thwart a plot that could mean the end of her people. What awaits her is beyond anything she can imagine.

Deeplight by Francis Hardinge (2019)

The gods are dead. Decades ago, they turned on one another and tore each other apart. Nobody knows why. But are they really gone forever?

When 15-year-old Hark finds the still-beating heart of a terrifying deity, he risks everything to keep it out of the hands of smugglers, military scientists, and a secret fanatical cult so that he can use it to save the life of his best friend, Jelt. But with the heart, Jelt gradually and eerily transforms. How long should Hark stay loyal to his friend when he’s becoming a monster—and what is Hark willing to sacrifice to save him?

[kasagia]

Bring me a dream pt. 1

Pairing: Aleksander Morozova/general Kirigan x fem! sun summoner! reader Summary: Everyone has their soulmate—someone they are meant for. This was due to Sankta Maradaia, who decided to connect two souls destined for each other during their sleep to show them their other half, Sankta also sent them a tattoo of their loved one name, so that souls thirsting for each other can finally be united. Aleksander never had even one, short dream about his soulmate. Just a tattoo that has taunted him for ages. The Darkling believes this is his punishment for creating the fold, another privilege of being condemned. To never know his soulmate. But one day, a dream about a sun summoner comes to him. Someone equal to him. Someone meant for him. And he promises himself to find you at all costs. Not just because of your powers. Nonsense from me: This is an request from @morrigan-crowmwell I hope you like it! 💙🖤 P.S. I know it took me soooo looong again and I'm so sorry. I'm trying to fight my writer's block. 😅 I used a quote from Taylor Swift's Blank Space. Inspired by the song Mr. Sandman - SYML Wairning(s): mentions of blood, abuse, fighting, violence Word count: 6,7k Taglist: @aoi-targaryen @morrigan-crowmwell ~•♤♤♤•~ Aleksander Morozova's Masterlist ~•♤♤♤•~

I've been waiting a long time to meet you in my dreams…

"My soulmate is great! I've seen her fight with a REAL sword! Can you imagine that, guys?! My father still teaches me on that wooden. Ugh! I envy her so much."

"Mine swims faster than either of you! Of course, he's not as good as me, but I've seen him shoot a bow. What I'd give to join him on a hunt!"

"And you, sahdow-boy? You sit more quietly than usual, don't be shy! Show off what she or he is like."

Aleksander tensed up, feeling the other boys' eyes on him. The young shadow summoner felt a blush of shame appear on his face. He hated such conversations. He already couldn't fit in with a group of other kids, and he was constantly reminded that he was different. Weirdo. Proteus.

"I… I haven't dreamed of her yet. But I know her name!" he tried to reply in a tone of voice that mimicked their enthusiasm. He couldn't show them that he was weak. That the fact that he had never seen his soulmate before hurt him. That he was a changeling again.

"My father also started dreaming about my mother late. Maybe she just wasn't born yet?" his only friend put a hand on his shoulder, trying to comfort him. He thanked the saints for Ivan. He was a light in his darkness for now. And heartrender wasn't talking about his shadows at all...

"Did you hear, guys?! Shadow-boy will be dating a baby!"

Aleksander was furious. He felt anger rise up in him as the other children laughed at his soulmate. Without knowing when, he summoned his shadows and plunged the clearing into darkness, stopping the laughter of the other children.

"Hey, take it easy, shadow-weirdo! We're just kidding!"

"The freak, as usual, can't control himself."

Voices came out of the darkness, and the footsteps of children receding were all Aleksander could hear before he was alone with his shadows again.

Even Ivan's hand disappeared from his shoulder as shadows blanketed the area.

He was utterly alone. And he hated it.

You looked at yourself in the mirror, smiling.

18 birthday. Your big day.

You adjusted the necklace your grandmother had given you around your neck, proudly displaying the amulet with your birthstone. Your mother's earrings hang proudly from your ears. Nostalgia is starting to get to you. You so wish she were here.

"I've lived in this world for so long that, for ages, I've felt that time moves infuriatingly slowly. But ever since you came into the world, I've felt it slip through my fingers. You've grown up so fast... you look like your mother." the woman sighs as she stands behind you in the mirror and looks at you tenderly, fixing your braid.

"I wish a madraya was here." you say sad. Grandma puts a hand on your shoulder and turns you around to look her in the eye.

"She is here, my sun. In our hearts and memories. As long as you can picture her before your eyes, she will always be with you. Watching you from heaven." you both stand in silence, remembering your recently deceased mother.

"I have something for you." the woman speaks as she pulls a beautiful gold bracelet engraved with your family symbol from her sleeve.

"Oh, grandma, you didn't have to… it's beautiful."

"And practical. Materialnik made it specially for me. Thanks to this, no one will see THAT on your wrist."

"Why should I hide it?" you ask, confused, when she helps you fasten the bracelet on your wrist where was your soulmate's name on it.

"I want you to be careful."

"Careful of what?"

"Powerful men." she replies seriously, stroking your cheek tenderly. "There is nothing worse in the world than the greed of men. Than their excessive ambition. We are the sun summoners, honey. You are my blood, my pride, and my only solace in this world. The love of men is fatal. You don't need it, and trust me, you don't want it. Promise me for your dead mother and my daughter..." your grandmother grabbed your wrist, turning it so you both could see that the black ink, that showed up this morning, disappeared. Aleksander Morozova. "Do not seek him. Avoid him. Treat him like the plague. Do not repeat the fate of your poor mother. I couldn't stand losing you because of another man's lust for power."

"I promise you, babushka. I will not share my mother's fate." you promise with tears in your eyes. Your mother trusted the wrong person... you were not going to repeat her fate.

"And you will always wear a bracelet and necklace from me?"

"Yes. I promise." you solemnly promise, while looking into her eyes. You two were one of a kind. Summoners of the sun. Long-lived. Powerful. You have to stick together if you want to survive in this cruel for Grishas world. "Can I go now and enjoy the summer solstice festival?"

"Yes. Have fun, sunshine. And return home no more than two hours after dark!" she screams after you as you run to get some freedom... to forget who you are for a while.

"That boy keeps staring at you!" your friend shouts through the crowd of people having fun and nods her head at the boy by the fire.

You glanced at the side she indicated. She is right. A handsome brunette with dark eyes looks straight at you. He looks away when he sees you noticing him and pretends to be talking to the boy next to him. You roll your eyes at your friend's behaviour and continue drinking your beer.

"And what do you think I'm supposed to do about it?"

"Go and have fun!" she says, offended that you don't know. "I've known you since you came here. You haven't had a single boyfriend, you're shooing all the suitors away. You're 18. Go and flirt with him, or I'll take care of this handsome one."

You are laughing at her words. You look at the boy again, and you can't deny that you feel a strange pull… a bond that wants you to come to him. But you don't listen to it.

"So take him. I'm going home," you say as night falls completely. The flame of the torch and bonfire is the only source of light.

"Really? Will you waste an opportunity like this?" you just laugh with a shrug at her words and make your way to the path through the woods leading to your house, pushing your way through the crowd of people.

You leave the clearing where the festival is taking place and enter the forest. You sigh with relief to be alone, away from people's voices. You walk confidently into the darkness without being afraid of it as you watch the stars above you.

You are walking down a familiar path when suddenly you hear the crunch of leaves and branches behind you. You turn slowly with your hand close to the hidden dagger at your hip.

You see in front of you the same boy who was staring at you by the fire. You watch him warily, waiting for his move.

He takes one slow step towards you, his dark eyes never leaving yours. Without knowing why, you stare spellbound into his eyes again, unable to utter a word. It's only when he crosses halfway between you that common sense returns to you and you raise a dagger in his direction.

"Don't worry. I won't hurt you." he says, stopping and staring at the blade glistening in the moonlight. "Of course, only if you don't hurt me either."

"Why are you following me?" you ask without lowering your weapon, still holding it as a warning between you two.

He frowns, looking from the dagger to you. "I have no bad intentions. I saw you going this way and this forest… is not the safest place."

"I know. Nowhere is safe." you reply coldly, eyeing him carefully. "Which doesn't answer my question. Why did you follow me in here?"

"I wanted to make sure you made it through safely." you snort, amused, not for a moment believing the stranger's concern for you. He stays where he is, not moving for a moment, undaunted by your reaction. If anything, curiosity only grows in his eyes. "You haven't experienced much kindness from others, have you?"

"I'm not going to answer a stranger's question like that. You do not know anything about me."

"I can see you're too distrustful, and if the lack of trembling in your dagger hand tells me something, it is that you've threatened someone more than once."

"That's right… shouldn't you run as far away from me as possible, then?" you ask, raising an eyebrow at him as you watch his impassive reaction…but you certainly didn't expect him to raise the corners of his… pretty mouth in response.

"I'd rather walk you out and make sure you're okay... or anyone who dares stand in your way." you bite your lip, holding back a smile so you don't react to his teasing.

"I doubt you'd be able to do anything."

"I'm tougher than you think." he says, answering your challenge with a mischievous smirk. The sparkles in his dark eyes shine in the moonlight… and you involuntarily agree with your friend. He was handsome… and dangerous.

"I don't need a man to play my prince on a white horse. I can be my own knight."

"Well, if you want my opinion…" you cut him off before he could finish.

"No, thank you. I have my own." he laughs at your words, shaking his head in amusement as he licks his lips.

He stares at you intensely, and you know that if you were anyone else, you would have pounced on him by the campfire. But you were a sun summoner. You couldn't trust someone like that. Even if you wanted to...

"Very well then... but, I'd feel better walking you through the woods at least. May I?" he asks, extending his hand towards you. "Or are you too afraid that you will enjoy my company?"

You snort, placing your hand in the crook of his arm. You could have let him. Clearly, he has had no ill intentions so far. You glare at him defiantly as you see a spark of amusement in his eyes and a wild smile on his lips.

"What?" you ask dryly.

"Nothing. I just thought you couldn't look prettier… you seem to glow even more when you prove people wrong."

"I'm too smart to be seduced by you." you warn him, looking at him carefully as he tucks a strand of your hair behind your ear. You feel your cheeks blush slightly.

"Maybe that's why I'm so drawn to you?" he asks, whispering, staring into your eyes.

You're drowning in the moment. His smell, the depth of his dark eyes… and without knowing why, the feeling is… actually the opposite of what you felt when others tried to flirt with you.

"Careful... you've stared into my eyes for too long to say you don't care." he says, sparks of malice appearing in his eyes. You snort and are about to respond to his taunt when his expression suddenly cools and he pulls you into his chest.

You're about to yell at him and attack him when suddenly an arrow flies right over where you used to stand. You recognise its distinctive arrowhead. "Drüskelle." you whisper.

You don't waste time. You back away from him and grab your daggers. You can't show the world what power you wield, so you limit yourself to melee combat. You're also not sure if your companion is Grisha.

You kill the first of them, and next to you, you hear the sounds of your companion's fight. He's doing fine. You deal with most of the Drüskelle pretty quickly when suddenly one of them comes up behind you. Before you can engage, your companion pulls you back to his chest. You see nothing. He makes sure of it when you hear Drüskelle's desperate cry from behind you, who wanted to kill you as well as the others who managed to stay alive. Suddenly it's quiet again... but it's darker around you than before.

You gently pull away from him as he releases his strong grip on your hair. You look around, seeing Drüskelle's bodies as if they were… cut.

"I… how?" you ask, dumbfounded, not believing what you see. You turn your gaze back to him. "Are you a Grisha? Heartrender maybe?"

"It's... a little more complicated." he says, looking down at your hands and bloody daggers.

"I'm guessing you're not a Grisha, then?"

"It's a little more complicated." you say, repeating his words. He looks up and stares into your eyes again. Without knowing why, you both giggle. "I... thank you. I wouldn't handle them all alone."

"No problem." He says, still staring at you. Without knowing why, you lean towards him.

You swallow, smelling his scent again, involuntarily remembering the warmth and safety his arms gave you. You shouldn't feel that way about a stranger. And yet...

"I… I should probably go now."

"Me too." he whispers back, but you're both too hypnotised to move. Not thinking much about the bodies around you or the blood on your clothes.

For some strange reason, the eyes of the other and this closeness seem much more interesting to you both than the world around you.

He leans towards you too. A short distance separates you as you both stare at each other in silent anticipation and excitement. However, that moment is effectively cut short as you hear another movement around you.

You both draw your daggers and aim at where you heard the movement. There is a woman behind you. Her dark eyes are remarkably similar to those of your companion. You are surprised to see how his irises have already been etched into your memory.

"You find yourself a friend?" the woman asks him mockingly, staring at the two of you.

"I'm going, mother." he says, obviously waiting for her to leave. But she stands there, watching you curiously. He sighs in annoyance and turns to you. "See you soon." he whispers, placing his dagger in your hand.

You shiver at the skin of his hand on yours as unimaginable power rushes through you. But that's not what keeps you staring at him speechless… and you think you both know it as he gives you a wistful, longing look before turning away.

You can only stay there and stare at the receding silhouettes of the two of them. Then you are all alone again. You turn around and continue on your way home. With a small smile, you tighten your hand around the black dagger.

You were coming home to your grandmother. It was winter, and it was getting harder and harder to drive through the snow from town to your house. But someone had to do the shopping.

As you walked, you heard the sounds of a struggle. Interested, you veered off the path to the house and walked slowly through the snow, trying not to alert anyone to your presence.

You froze as you saw a group of teenagers fighting the same boy who gave you the dagger and helped kill Drüskelle.

The rational part of you told you to get out of there and not deal with this stranger. And you almost did, but then you saw one of the girls stab him in the back and shove him into the ice hole.

You threw the wicker basket with your groceries in the snow and ran towards them. You used your light and stunned them all into unconsciousness. Not enough to kill them, but enough to make their heads hurt for days and some of them lose their eyesight.

With your light, you melted the ice in the river and pulled the mysterious boy out of it by his shoulders.

You held him close as he coughed, spitting water into the snow. You only let him go when he's back to normal.

"Do you attract trouble, or do you just like getting into it?" you ask him with a laugh, trying to lighten the atmosphere. You take off his soaked coat and cover him with one of yours.

"Both, I'm guessing." he says, still shivering. You don't know if it's from the cold or from the attack.

"Get up. We need to keep you warm." you speak and help him stand on two legs.

If he notices the bodies of his unconscious tormentors, he decides not to say anything or ask how you did it. You pick up the basket you dropped earlier and guide both of you to your house.

Surprisingly, he doesn't protest when you enter the house, and luckily for you, your grandmother hasn't come back yet.

"Stay here for a while. I'll go get some dry clothes for you." I speak as I disappear into the other room for a moment.

"How did you overpower them?" you hear his question. You swallow and try to think of an answer as you walk back to the main room.

"It's... complicated." you reply, handing him the clothes. "You can go there and change. I'll put some water on for tea."

He nods and takes the clothes from you. He wants to say something, but instead he sighs and goes to the next room.

You place the kettle over the hearth and wait for the water to boil for tea for the two of you.

"Do you often save people from trouble?" he asks jokingly as he joins you. You smile when you see that he's feeling a little better. He still has a red nose, though. And you're pretty sure if you took his hand, he'd be icy.

"Selected only. Feel honoured." you snort, amused. His laugh makes you shiver. A strange warmth begins to spread from your chest.

"I am." he replies, looking deep into your eyes. He leans closer to you, examining you intently, searching for any reaction from me that would indicate that you are uncomfortable with him.

He finds nothing.

So he leans in a little more. Your noses brush against each other as he waits, giving you the option to either kiss him or pull away from him.

You feel your heart beating fast... you know that if he was a heartrender he would have leaned forward and kissed you a long time ago. You also know you should back off, he was a stranger, a man, you shouldn't trust him.

But after the look he gives you and a glance at his enticing pink lips, you lean forward and press your lips uncertainly to his.

His cold lips warmed up.

You close your eyes as he wraps his arms around you and pulls you closer with one hand on your waist and the other in your hair. You sigh, feeling how wonderful it feels, how proper it is to kiss him even though you don't even know his name. What's undeniable, however, is how great you feel around him.

But you feel something else… like an unimaginable amount of power flows into you with his touch. How your light calls for release. And for a moment, you feel like you're going to lose control if you keep kissing him.

Fortunately, before you stupidly reveal your powers, you pull away from each other, startled by the sound of a whistling kettle.

You both laugh, resting your foreheads against each other. You eventually pull away from him, take the kettle off the hearth, and shift your gaze to it. He's warmer from your kiss than from the fire.

You shift your gaze towards him. And experimentally, you take his hands in yours. You feel the surge of power buzzing through your veins again. Your gaze returns from his warming hands in yours to his irises, and you get lost in his dark eyes again.

"You... are the amplifier." you whisper as you look at him. "That's why they wanted to kill you... they wanted your bones."

He swallows, moves his gaze from your eyes to your joined hands. He doesn't take them out of your warm embrace as he nods, trembling without looking at your face.

"What are you going to do about it?" he asks, realizing full well that you must be Grisha to sense his ability.

The very idea that you, the only person who has shown him any kindness (not knowing him at all) will suddenly want to hurt him after what happened between you two a moment ago makes him sick.

But Aleksander has been through it more than once. Last an hour ago. Despite everything, he still holds a strong grip on your hands, trembling unconsciously.

Your response is to pull him close to you in a tender embrace.

"You're safe." you say simply, and from the way he holds his breath before burying his head in your neck after a few seconds of complete shock, you know that you must be the first person in a very long time to show him such affection.

And you're realizing that you don't need to know his name to know that it's good to hold him in your arms.

And Aleksander feels warm for the first time in a long time. He feels like he's holding the sun. But the most striking thought for him is that he is no longer alone...

"Is that all, General?" Ivan's question pulled Aleksander out of his thoughts. He stopped stroking the tattoo with his soulmate's name hidden under his kefta and glanced at the heartrender.

"Yes, you can go." he sighs, shifting in his chair and rubbing his eyes with his hand.

Ivan looks like he wants to say something but changes his mind at the last moment and leaves the war room, closing the door softly behind him.

Aleksander sighed, staring at the map in front of him. The king was going to bring down Ravka. Only his Grishas were able to hold Ravka's borders. He shuddered, thinking of all the good soldiers the Fjerdans, Drüskelle and others had taken from him. He felt powerless. And if he knew anything in his centuries-old life, it was that he hated that feeling.

He ran a hand through his hair, glancing at his watch on the wall. It was long after midnight. He sighed as he got up from his chair and walked towards his bedroom. He won't help his army if he's barely conscious. He took off his kefta and pushed the books to one side of the bed. He lay down in the free space and fell asleep as soon as his head rested on the pillow.

Something was different… otherwise, Aleksander could sense it the moment his dream began.

There was a strange feeling in his bones; his heart was beating much faster, excited, as if it couldn't wait for what was about to happen.

He was alone again in the deep black shadows. He took a step, and suddenly the shadows parted. He looked up and gasped as he saw a figure in a black-golden kefta in the distance.

He'd had that dream many times before… especially when he was a little boy. That he was irretrievably lost in the darkness.

He had never met anyone in the depths of his shadows before. He took another hesitant step towards the mysterious figure, not taking his eyes off it, afraid that it would disappear at any moment.

But it's not.

A figure in a gold-black kefta stood with its back to him.

Aleksander is afraid. He's afraid that it's just another trick of his mind, that as soon as he utters the name that has haunted him both asleep and awake for hundreds of years, you'll disappear, leaving him utterly alone in the darkness of his shadows again.

But Aleksander had been patient enough for a long time... maybe he could finally give in to what he most wanted, what he missed most, what he craved for like a foolish boy.

He came over to you. Hesitantly and slowly. As if he could spook you at any moment. He raised his hand, but instead of touching your arm, he met air as you took a step away from him and slowly turned to face him.

He held his breath in anticipation, waiting for you to pull down your gold-black hood to reveal your face to him. He watched in fascination as golden threads of light slowly began to flow from your hands.

He had been accustomed to the darkness for centuries. But he couldn't take his eyes off you as your threads of light slowly grew stronger. He watched in utter awe as your light changed from gold to pure white after dispelling the shadows around you two.

His eyes widened as your hood fell back to reveal your familiar, beautiful face. He sighed, letting out a long-held, shaky breath.

And when you took his hand, which he still held out to you, and ran your thumb over his palm? He completely lost himself in your irises, feeling your light grow stronger through its amplifying powers, enclosing the two of you in a silver and gold orb.

But before he gets a chance to reach out to you and caress your cheek tenderly, to feel again that warmth he always felt from you and which turned out to be your light, you suddenly disappear. And with you, your warm light.

His cold shadows enveloped him again…

He wakes up and finds himself in his bed, in his chambers. But for the first time in a long time, instead of being disappointed that he didn't dream of his soul mate this time, he's relieved. And happiness. Excitement. And something he's clung to so desperately all these centuries, much to his mother's taunt... he feels hope.

He doesn't know what has changed. Why suddenly did the saints decide to reveal your face to him after you had met so many centuries ago? For a moment, the bitter thought crosses his mind that he could have had you by his side much sooner. That together you could carry the weight of eternity... but he shakes his head.

He had a chance to implement all his plans now... and to meet his soulmate, whom he had missed for so many centuries. All he had to do was track you down.

And he's not going to lose.

"I'll find you... moya solnishko." he whispers to himself, fondly stroking the tattoo on his wrist. "And when I do, I'll make sure you'll never hide from me again." he promises, placing his lips on the tattoo on his wrist.

He would do anything to finally have someone to call his own…

"I was hoping to find you here." Aleksander turns around in surprise when he sees you standing behind him.

"How did you know?" he asks, putting the book back on the shelf. You see the title out of the corner of your eye.

The Lives of Saints

"I know many things." you say, leaning against the shelf. "But honestly? I didn't take you for someone who prays to saints. Or maybe your ego and ambition are so big that you want to become one of them?" you say teasingly, smirking at him. He rolls his eyes and takes your hand, leading you out of the library. You let him lead the two of you into the woods.

"You must have wanted something if you took your precious time to find me." he starts when you both walk a familiar path. This is where your strange "friendship" began, if you could call those stolen moments, kisses, and nights between you two like that… how poetic that it will end here as well.

"I am leaving." you speak briefly without looking at him.

You feel him tense up. It was probably not the answer he ever expected. Out of the corner of your eye, you see him swallow.

He clears his throat, trying to look composed. However, his dark eyes, as always, reveal his true feelings to you. You wonder if you're the only one who can read him like that. "Why?" he whispers.

"Apparently my warning was… not strong enough. One of the people who tried to kill you complained to my grandmother. I have to leave."

"I can talk to her…"

"No!" you cut him off quickly, letting go of his hand and standing in front of him. The last thing you need is his intercession with your grandmother. "I know you mean well, but it's the final decision."

"I see." he says coldly, looking away from you. "Is there anything else you wanted?"

"Yes." you say, pulling his dagger out of your sleeve, handing it to him. "I wanted to give it back to you."

"It's a gift. I'm not in the habit of taking back what I've given someone." he snorts, offended, at which you giggle, amused. He turns his gaze back to you, raising an eyebrow.

"I knew you'd say something like that. That's why…" you pull out a second, identical dagger to the one he gave you. The only difference is that the dagger's handle is decorated with a sun… an eclipsed sun. "I did it." you say, handing it to him.

He takes the dagger from you and examines the engraving. "Why it?" he asks curiously. "Why the eclipsed sun?" his gaze is burning, inquisitive. You know there's no turning back now. You take a step back, his dark irises following your every move.

You shrug. "Guess, shadow summoner."

He stares at you in shock. A thought… a ridiculous and beautiful thought crosses his mind. He knows there's no point in chasing after you. You'll run away from him anyway. But he can't help but scream after your receding silhouette. "What's your name?!"

You're smiling. But you don't turn around to look at him one last time, to steal one last look at his dark, piercing eyes, to get one more moment... Instead, you scream over your shoulder: "Call me sunshine!"

You disappear from his sight. Deep down, you know you'll meet again… But you weren't going to share your mother's fate… even for such mesmerising, dark eyes as his.

After hundreds of years, you've become accustomed to dreamless sleep.

It was your conscious choice. A promise to grandma, mother, and you. You didn't pray to the saints to bring you a dream about your soulmate. You didn't want him... even though his name on your wrist, hidden by your grandmother's bracelet, had tormented you for hundreds of years.

That's why, when your first dream started, you knew it was something bad. You knew your grandmother's necklace had somehow fallen off your neck. And so, you were dreaming. You dreamed about him... and he probably dreamed about you.

You galloped on a horse. It was early morning. The clearing where you galloped was shrouded in mist. The cool wind hit your skin, and your cloak billowed behind you as you tried to lose the black rider following you.

People usually run to their soulmates. They wanted to meet them at all costs. Not you. But the saints have never been merciful to you… maybe because you never prayed to any of them.

Or have they stopped letting you prolong the inevitable.

That's why the black rider soon caught up with you. He rode by your side for a moment, then shot forward. You knew he was trying to block your way, so you sped up and managed to catch up with him for a moment. You rode side by side for a while, but you didn't dare look and atface.

But your wishes no longer mattered.

He sped up ahead of you and stepped sideways, causing your horse to stop and stand on two legs. You held on tight to keep from falling. It wasn't until your horse had calmed down and stood on all four hooves that you loosened your grip on the reins.

"Moya solnishka..." his whisper made you shiver. You lifted your head and looked into those familiar, damned dark eyes that were the cause of all your troubles.

You sat still as he rode his horse closer to yours so he could touch your cheek with his hand. His thumb caressed your skin gently. "I've been waiting a long time for you."

You shivered, hypnotised, as you watched him lean closer to you. A familiar warmth spread through your body as you felt him amplify your powers. But his lips were too close for you to notice anything else than him; his touch and dark eyes, which were looking only at you...

You wake up suddenly. Your hand goes to your neck. Panicked, you discover that your grandmother's necklace is not there… you must have lost it in a fold.

"Fuck." you whisper, running your hand through your hair. The only defence against dreaming about your soul mate is gone. And now he knew who you really were... just as your fears were confirmed.

He was your soulmate. General Kirigan, Darkling, Black Heretic, the boy who was your first kiss hundreds of years ago…

The monster who created the fold…

And as it turned out… Aleksander Morozova.

You look around the room, realizing you're in a tent. And the red keftats of bustling healers confirm your worst fears.

During your journey through the fold, the ship was attacked by volcra. And you, obviously not wanting to die or let other people die, decided to use your power. You've done it hundreds of times before. Only much more discreetly… and you've never fainted from using so much of your power.

Your grandmother must be cursing you from the grave. She warned you a thousand times not to go near Ravka or the fold… and even after her death, you didn't listen to her. Now you have to sneak out of here somehow before word about the sun summoner spreads around the world. Hundreds of years of hiding will be wasted just because you weren't careful enough…

He was excited. He couldn't stand still.

His soulmate, his sun summoner, the solution to all his problems, his little sunshine was here.

He had been waiting for this moment for centuries. He had imagined it thousands of times. However, he never thought that his soulmate would be brought to him by his heartrender after they captured her after rescuing a ship full of people from the fold.

He dismisses everyone from the tent. Only he and she remain.

"It's been a long time, solnishko." he speaks softly. He is prepared for her silence and gives her a moment to process the situation. But he hoped to see a little more enthusiasm from her...

So he takes the time to look at her. On noting all the changes he might notice in her… her cool, indifferent look in those eyes that captivated him so much is one of the worst changes.

He clears his throat. You are still silent. You still ignore him. And Aleksander can't stand it.

"I had an interesting dream recently…" he begins, but you don't pick up on it. You don't really take your eyes off the floor… he's starting to get annoyed.

"You won't look at me?" he asks, waiting for your reaction. However, he finds nothing. Just a blank stare at the symbol he has chosen over the course of several hundred years. Eclipsed sun.

"You won't even comment on that? What a pity. I've always liked your sharp tongue." he says, taking a step towards you. You watched him carefully. He's a little triumphant to see that he's managed to catch your eye. Saints… he missed those damn eyes. "The cat stole your tongue? Or did they finally cut your tongue out for your insolence?"

"I thought you liked my sharp tongue." you snort sarcastically, avoiding his gaze as you realize he won't come any closer.

"She can talk!" he says, clapping his hands. "I was afraid something had happened to you, sunshine." you flinch at his words.

"Don't call me like that." you growl angrily, turning your stern gaze on him.

"You told me to call you that yourself. Don't you remember?"

"And now I take away your right to do so, Black Heretic. Or maybe you prefer a Starless Saint? I think I remember that you wanted to become one; what a pity people didn't even try to remember your name." you taunt him, and for a moment you see that he is offended, even hurt by your words, but his eyes quickly become blank, unmoved by your words.

As if he had heard them hundreds of times before and gotten used to them…

"I don't remember you being so… hostile to me before. What has changed?" he asks instead, watching you carefully and looking for answers in your eyes. But after all these years, you too know how to hide your emotions behind a stony mask of cold indifference.

"Maybe you didn't know me at all?" the question hangs between you for a while. You see for a moment that he hesitates with his answer, but his indecision is quickly replaced by a mocking, derisive smirk.

"When I heard about the mysterious Grisha, who can summon light and was stupid enough to throw herself into battle against hundreds of volcra, I immediately thought of you. And guess what…"

"At least one of the two of us should be concerned about Grishas' welfare. Why am I not surprised it's me and only me?" you see him clench his fists in rage when you insinuate that he's selfish, that he doesn't care about his people.

"Or maybe you don't know me at all?"

"I know men like you."

"There are no men like me. There are no others like us. And there will never be. I thought you had enough time to accept and understand it." he says bitterly, staring at you, disappointed. "Anyway, I have to go through the formalities. Your sleeve, please."

You stand still, too stubborn and angry to cooperate with him. He snorts, expecting your reaction, and takes two steps over the distance between you. You lift your head slightly, giving him a defiant look. He just gives you that irritating, confident smirk and grabs your hand gently, rolling up your sleeve himself. His dark eyes never leave yours. Even when his ring pierces the skin of your forearm.

You're so intent on each other that there might as well not have been that beam of light between you that shot the moment he made a small cut on your arm. It's just you and him. And from the unreadable smirk on his face, you might as well expect anything.

If you used to do it easily, now you can't read his eyes anymore. A skill he had to acquire over time. Hiding true emotions.

You both have changed. Each in its own way. He was no longer the nameless boy you met. And you weren't the mystery girl he used to know. He became the darkness he so often summoned... and you became the light you were meant to carry. If you once had anything in common, now you are completely strangers. Time heals wounds... or deepens them, but it always and undeniably changes people.

But neither of you could deny the connection between you. Even after all this time and even after what happened. It was a bound that was pulling you both towards each other…

"You and I are going to change the world, Y/N." you shivered hearing your real name for the first time come out of his mouth as lightly as if he had always called you that. Like he's always known you by that name deep in his heart.

Even if you didn't agree with him, you have to admit that he was right...

It's gonna be forver or it's gonna go down in flames...

[indigo-constellation]

Your changeling!Daniil is amazing. Your Clara Burakh is amazing. Your totally-normal-scientist (who totally didn't do anything like Jack the Ripper and Victor Frankenstein in the capital! only ethically sourced bodies here!) Artemiy is amazing.

Clara as Haruspex is breaking my heart especially! The way you wrote her being friends with the kids - how Artemiy was once with Stakh, Grief and Lara - and how she has a foreboding feeling she won't belong with them once it is all over, because her role is to protect them, not be one of them! Rat man still found a way to be mean my girl 😭 Also she and Grace are so sweet. Wanted to say that Grace's name (Ласка) in Russian has double meaning: 1) weasel (animal); 2) tenderness. Do with that as you will~

Also Daniil (both of them) is so good as a changeling. I loved that quiet moment he had with Clara on the stage, where they say how odd it is to play like that. Love the eyes of the "twins" being what sets them apart, too! Raven feels like he wants to be a bad guy, but can't quite bring himself. Regretful plague that is also a dead man who is alive but only because the sickness is. Snake being so gentle and kind and seemingly having some sort of planning he doesn't fully share even with the reader. Also Daniil speaking Hebrew! I gasped when I realised. It's also a fun contrast to him only speaking in Latin in the game, especially if we still to see him as Jewish. Makes me really want to see how you'd write bachelor!Daniil! Want to take a look inside his head! I know what I shall read next.

Artemiy having a worst imposter syndrome out of all of them because of coming back home where he was supposed to take on his father's role and finding the man who was a founder of a project that could be called Artemiy's life work is comedy gold. Also his little sister literally living the life he refused! 10/10 no notes. Artemiy and his unfun coming-home-to-steppe party! 🥳 Roots, Rain and Reflection is secretly a comedy.

Thank you for writing this amazing role reversal, don't think I will be able to get it out of my head.

tumblr is so annoying bc I had a whole response and then it got deleted roijepigjetiuheoigj let me try to write what I can remember and hopefully do it better

I literally screamed when I read this ask btw thank you so much

the healers in this fic are so incredibly dear to me and I love them so much, I love getting to focus on them, yes Artemy's organs and cadavers as ethically sourced and fresh as he can get them :D

Haruclara truly deserves so much, she doesn't fit into the Termites despite being a kid herself, half because of the way she was raised and half because of the nature of the story and the separation of Healers and Bound. While also having messy connections with the other two Healers. I really wish I could have more Grara but this is primarily p1 focused so the Bound's role is limited (the amount of Yulia/Rubin/Lara/Aspity I had to cut- istg I was so excited to have an Aspity and Artemy interaction on day 6 but it would've been too long) I will keep what you said in mind though! thank you ^^

Changeniil has been so write, he keeps so much of himself hidden, so getting to reveal those small bits of him like in that theatre bit are great. The hands and the eyes being the main things to distinguish the twins Dankovsky is fun because those are two things Pathologic focuses on a lot, though I will say that there might be more later on. The Raven is a miserable wet beast, the idea behind the twins has been that different bits of Daniil are split up, so and what's fun about that is that it's Plagueniil that has the idealism. He's a fucked up guy held together only by spite and disease but he cares so much it hurts him. The Snake is also a creature, truly, he knows his plan, Raven knows his plan (and doesn't like it at all), and I know how it will fail, the narrators being unreliable is such a fun part of patho. I always write Daniil as Jewish (because he is to me lol) but specifically Daniil I think fits with Hebrew because it is a revived language and as a guy who is trying to defeat death I think it would suit him (also revived language and revived Daniil was an intentional choice) I will say though, idk how well my old writing holds up bc my writing got a lot better while writing roleswap so go at your own risk lol

Finally, Bachtemy, a dearly beloved fool <3 he used to have a much bigger conflict with Daniil about Daniil not being who Artemy expected him to be and that being a lot more angsty but then I started writing that scene and it turned out gay so nice. There's a lot about Artemy I'm planning to go into in chapter 7 so look out for that. Artemy is also 100% the character I get to make the funniest, truly the comedian of the cast, I am putting him in the blender as I write this.

thank you again for this!! sorry with inflicting you with the thinking about it curse lol, it's happened to a few people as I've seen and idk how to fix that (I am also infected I cannot stop thinking abt this au) but this long ask really made me so happy to see and I'm so glad you're enjoying it!!

[crowfootwrites]

Y'know, despite my attraction to Cardassians, I didn't really get the Damar thing until much later. Now, I get it, and he deserves so much love. 😭

Kinktober Masterlist

Taglist (let me know if you'd like to be tagged for the remainder of Kinktober): @horta-in-charge

Day 17: Biting - Legate Damar x Fem!Reader

Warnings: NSFW, MDNI; biting/marking/breaking skin; rough sex with an angry lizard man | Words: ~405 | Song: Ainsi Bas La Vida Funk - DR MØB, ZODIVK

Damar knew how to be tender. You knew he was quite soft on the inside, beneath his heavy Cardassian armor. It was one of the things you loved most about him.

Tonight, though, he was anything but. He’d come in hot under the collar, furious at something Weyoun had said to that female changeling. He paced around the room when he first arrived, spiraling in his rage. And he’d been drinking, his lips stained red with kanar. It had taken several minutes and lots of hushed flattery before he’d calmed down enough to converse with you.

Which was how you’d come to find yourself in your current situation, legs thrown over Damar’s shoulders as he fucked his frustrations out. His fingers dug into your thighs as he plunged over and over again into your soaked cunt, the slapping of skin resounding in his sparse quarters. His lips roamed the length of your calves, alternating spun-sugar kisses and teasing bites. Your skin was almost always littered with hickeys and bites in various stages of healing, Damar often returning to his baser urges during your coupling. Seeing the bruises in the mirror the next day never failed to turn you on all over again, and just the thought of it made you shudder. Your wanton moans mingled with his growls in a way that had you clenching around his length. 

By now, you knew Damar’s tells well - you knew he was close, but he seemed to be having trouble getting over the edge. 

“Use me, Corat,” you begged, writhing below him as he buried his face in your neck, folding you in half. “Come for me, love.”

A low moan rumbled through Damar’s chest - you felt it vibrate against your ribcage. His teeth scraped against the sensitive skin of your neck, sending a shiver racing up your spine. Your responding whine turned into a harsh wail as Damar’s teeth sank into your flesh, the pain and pleasure mixing to send you tumbling headlong into climax alongside your Cardassian lover. 

You knew he hadn’t been going easy, and as he rolled off you to catch his breath, you felt a trickle of blood roll down your neck and shoulder. You knew as soon as he realized, Damar would rush for the dermal regenerator, but as you gazed over at your weary but sated Cardassian, with the weight of all of Cardassia on his shoulders, it all felt worth it.

[campbyler]

i have so many things i want to say about everything but i do remember the moment where mike (playfully) accused will of lying and it makes so much more sense now i thought he was just being smug as hell like “oh ofc you would’ve kissed me two months ago i am just that spectacular” but no. i’m sorry for doubting you michael you DEFINITELY had grounds for that claim. out of focus eye to eye kidnapped my firstborn and left a changeling in its place. lives were ruined in the best possible way.

exactlyyyyy you get it! the way you worded this ask actually made me want to make a little note about why we wrote the reference in, because it was very intentional and there were a couple different reasons for it which i think are both very important !! (but obviously could not mention here before out of focus dropped)

1. obviously it was a Reference, in that we thought this is a big enough piece of lore that it would be weird for it to never ever come up even once, but the whole idea of the companion fic was that it kind of has an ambiguous ending and even mike was not super duper 100000% sure of will’s intentions (due to the #inebriation). so it was unlikely at this point in their dynamic that they were going to have a real fleshed out conversation about it because it would definitely need both of them to be vulnerable in a way they were Not ready to be at the time (will admitting to wanting to kiss mike/mike admitting to having wanted to be kissed? noooo way). mike is kind of testing the waters here (and being annoying on purpose) but from his pov will either still does not remember or does remember but does not want to talk about it, so it doesn’t really go anywhere anyway. but alsoooooo

2. another remnant of the post ch05 era specifically was a lot of people commenting things along the lines of “omg mike is being so flirty” “where did that confidence come from” etc etc which is so true bc poor will got absolutely blindsided by it and it was so fun to write but!! the idea also is that half it was that confidence boost you get after realizing that someone is also into you/attracted to You and i think mike would’ve taken that and ran with it for sureee (esp bc will initiated the ch04 kiss And the ch05 morning kiss mostly) and the other half was mike having information that the readers and will both did not have! a majorrrrrrrr driving force of acswy is the fact that neither of them are ever working with All of the information, hence the unreliable narration, hence the drama and history and them both being so annoying and unserious, etc etc etc. i think that’s important to keep in mind, especially now that we’re in the ch09 era where their dynamic has shifted pretty drastically since their rivals era in the beginning, or even chapters 04/05. 😗😗😗

i’m actually very glad no one Really picked up on this being a Thing when ch07 dropped bc it was supposed to be super subtle (obviously a couple people said 🤨 am i missing something? and we said No 😌) but the reactions we’re getting now have been incredibly fulfilling and have been just what we were hoping to get, which tells us we are writing this story right! sorry for ruining your life and the changeling baby but thank you sooo much for the lovely ask <33