#he manages to twist the whole exercise from a punishment to a reward. fuck…

[vagueiish]

i think it's kinda funny that my perception of a!astarion jumps between 'the most cartoonish of villains, would steal candy from a baby while cackling maniacally' and 'oh. huh. he almost certainly would make spawn!oli murder his entire home-village as punishment for wanting to go back even just long enough to say goodbye, wouldn't he?' they can definitely coexist, but it's a fun spectrum, lmao

...oh. but. the thing is, it wouldn't just be punishment. there'd be some kind of love (or something resembling it, i suppose) behind the order. because he'd have learned some of oli's history, would know that maybe he wasn't quite treated right. at least by his grandfather. and maybe initially he only intends to have oli cut that tie, quite literally, but ofc he insists on going with and he learns even more of oli's history and abuse he suffered at the hands of his grandad and others and the fact that the village knew of ways he was being abused but turned a blind eye.... well. these people have all had a hand in hurting astarion's most precious treasure. and while he wants to rip out their throats personally for their Crimes, he wouldn't want to deprive oli the chance to punish them all himself. at that point, he considers the opportunity a gift, i think.

and if he ends up having to compel oli to do all of this? he'd consider it less completely removing oli's autonomy and more giving him a little push. oli’s heart may no longer be beating, but it never stopped bleeding, after all, and he's still far too soft to even consider giving his neighbors exactly what they deserve. but they do deserve it. and if astarion needs to get oli out of his own way in this, then so be it. he'll be stronger for it. he’ll thank astarion later, surely

[emilia3546]

Playing Games - Nessian NSFW

Written for Nessian Month using the prompt: ‘Shall we play a game?’

When Nesta discovers just how much of a reaction she can get out of Cassian's wings, she starts a game of teasing him, but wasn't counting on being on the receiving end.

*****

Nesta leaned across the table, shooting Cassian a concerned glance at the way he stiffened,

"You alright?" He nodded, oddly quiet, but she looked back to the map spread across the table, he was fine, just being a baby, again. She shifted closer to him, marking an empty spot on the map,

"What about there?"

"They use that for training exercises, we'd never get away with taking that," Rhys drummed his fingers on the table, and Nesta sighed, "This was the issue I meant, there's no space that they won't kick up a fuss about,"

"Then they need to get their heads out their asses," she snapped, then quickly glanced around, heaving a sigh of relief that Nyx was not in the room, she didn't want to risk him picking up on her vulgar language, if he were human there'd be no chance, but she didn't know how fast High Fae developed.

"He's not here, Elain offered to look after him all day," Feyre reassured her, "There might be some space outside of Velaris, it'd be more accessible there,"

"True," Nesta pursed her lips, ignoring the annoyance laced with arousal floating down the bond, "But the whole point of this is to offer a challenge, the weather is a big part of that, if we're going to ditch trainees for two weeks to look after themselves, I don't want it to be easy, that's not the point, it's supposed to test their skills." Feyre sighed,

"Is there nowhere in Illyria that can be used, for two weeks at a time, at most three times a year? That spot they use for training, we could share it, this is training," Rhys shook his head, and Cassian mirrored him,

"Some of my people will see it as you laying a claim on 'their' training land," Nesta narrowed her eyes, Cassian's voice sounded different, she wasn't sure exactly what, maybe like he was tired, or, it was like when he was trying not to start a fight. There was no-one for him to fight here,

"Cass, it's okay, we'll figure something out, perhaps we can ask Helion to use part of his mountainous regions, then it's a completely new landscape," Nesta kept her eyes on Cassian, and moved to squeeze his shoulder, "Are you okay?" She whispered,

"Yes." There was no room for argument in that tone, but she wasn't sure she believed him, then something moved next to her, against her leg. She shifted, his wing, she'd been rubbing up against it the whole meeting, a slight touch, and this was the result? She definitely have to see how far she could push him. She would enjoy playing this game, even if Cassian didn't know they were playing.

She didn't stop him from tucking his wing in closer, stopping her from touching it, but she subtly dropped her hand and pretended to adjust her shirt, making sure her wrist brushed against the ridge of Cassian's wing as she did so.

"I'll get a letter to Helion," Feyre smiled as she left, and Rhys raised an eyebrow at Cassian,

"I'm fine," he insisted,

"Nesta's asked you twice, I don't believe you,"

"I said I'm fine," Nesta furrowed her brows, feigning innocence as she slipped into his lap,

"Cass, we're just worried," she ran a hand over his shoulder, 'accidentally' flicking the edge of his wing where it met his back,

"I'm fine, Nes, really, just tired, and fed up of trying to cater to these idiots,"

"You and me both," she muttered, leaning against him a bit, her hand dropping lower, "You want to take the afternoon off, we can go and do something, get all of this off our minds?" He made to speak, to refuse probably, but Rhys latched onto the idea,

"Good idea, I don't want to hear of you working this afternoon, either of you, go enjoy Velaris,"

He's worked up about something, see if you can distract him, Nesta.

I know, I'll get him sorted out,

Thank you.

Nesta squeezed Cassian's other shoulder, allowing her second hand to drop just too low when Rhys left, leaving the two of them alone, but before she could reach his wing, her wrist was caught in a tight grip. She sucked in a breath, and made to pull her hand away, but Cassian shoved her backwards, pinning both her wrists to the table,

"Cass! The door!" It was still open, and she looked up at him innocently, pretending to be confused,

"You think I don't know what game you're playing?"

"What game?"

"If you touch my wings in public when I can't turn around and fuck you like I want to, you'd better be prepared for what happens next," Nesta flushed at the sinful promise in his words, "You know exactly what you were doing then, if you're going to insist on denying me, since I can't get inside you in a room with our family, you'll be getting a taste of your own medicine."

"I don't know what you're talking about," she mumbled,

"Yes, you do,"

"I was just worried, you seemed worked up,"

"Yeah, because you were touching my wings!"

"Not deliberately,"

"I doubt that very much, Nes, besides, now I get to show you what it feels like," Nesta wriggled, trying to twist her wrists out of his grasp, but he held on, pinning her hips still with his own, the evidence of his arousal painfully obvious. She struggled again, only managing to move against him, and squealed in protest when he gripped her waist, throwing her over one shoulder,

"That's not fair!" She protested, but fell silent, reaching out to touch his wings again, laughing at his muttered curse. She did it again, and yelped when his hand came down on her ass, not hard, but enough to leave a bit of a sting,

"If you push it, I'll properly spank you,"

"Really?" She grinned,

"As a punishment, Nes," he sighed, "But I won't need to, you'll be begging me to let you come in no time,"

"Not likely," she muttered, touching his wings again,

"Shall we play a game then? I lasted that whole meeting,"

"It wasn't the whole meeting,"

"Yes, it was, you might not have been doing it deliberately to start off with, but you were touching my wings, over and over for at least half an hour. If you can last that long, I'll give you a reward,"

"What?"

"Last half an hour and find out," Nesta wriggled again, but Cassian was holding her steady as he walked towards their bedroom, his pace increasing each time she reached for his wings. She tried once more to escape when he had to let go with one hand to open the door, but still had no luck. She huffed and pulled herself up, doing everything in her power to make this difficult for him, earning a chuckle from Cassian as he strode across to the bed. Nesta didn't even have enough time to move when he let go before finding herself flipping over, her wrists pinned to the bed. She narrowed her eyes and glared,

"I didn't do anything," she tried, but Cassian saw straight through the lie, his knees bracketing her hips as he drew her hands up, pinning them both above her head with one hand.

"You know what it feels like when someone touches your wing?" Nesta shook her head, and Cassian leaned down to press his lips against her jaw, making her tip her head sideways, just for him to nip gently at the skin beneath her ear. Nesta bit her lip, trying to hold back her moan, but when he did it again, she couldn't help the little cry that fell from her lips, "See? Annoying in public," she flushed at the realization that she'd been doing that to him, deliberately or not, for half an hour, no wonder he was all riled up. She whined in protest when he lifted up away from her, but kept holding her wrists to keep her pinned down,

"Cass," she tried to wriggle her legs free to tug him closer, but he just laughed at her attempts,

"It's been, what, two minutes," he chuckled, and Nesta fell still,

"I'm fine, I don't know what you were complaining about," she said, trying desperately to keep her voice steady, smiling to herself at Cassian's raised eyebrow. She was still trying to figure out his next move when he pulled her up the bed, binding her wrists to the headboard before she could complain. She glared again, but lifted her hips in a silent demand,

"That was quick, sweetheart, you really are desperate if you give in that easily,"

"Maybe I just can't be bothered to brat, it does take effort, y'know,"

"Oh, I know, but so does begging for release, which you will be doing,"

"I doubt it," Nesta stared straight into Cassian's eyes, even as he started to slowly undress her, leaving her shirt open, her breasts exposed, but pulled her leggings off completely, and her panties with them. "It would take a really skilled male to get me to beg, and I don't see that happening," she trilled, but squealed when Cassian tugged her back down the bed, leaving her arms stretched out over her head. She flushed at the way his gaze swept up and down her body before settling at the apex of her thighs,

"Beautiful," he murmured, already tracing little circles across her stomach, up her sides, across her breasts, and she bit back the plea already forming in her throat. She wouldn't give him that satisfaction. Half an hour, then she'd get what she wanted. That couldn't be too hard, could it?

It was very hard, within a few minutes of Cassian touching her, she'd wanted to beg him to fuck her, but her resolve had really been tested when he'd slipped a finger inside her, then two, then three. She'd long given up trying to hold still, her hips moving of their own accord against his hand, and she did let out a few moan here and there, but that was allowed, that wasn't part of their game. She held on to the ropes around her wrists, desperate to hold on to him, but he was too far away. She squealed from the pleasure when he curled his fingers inside her and pressed down on her clit at the same time, her hips bucking wildly into his hand. He was grinning at her from where he sat between her legs, and she ignored the fact that they'd been falling wider and wider without any intervention from him. She also ignored the way her head was tipped back, her mouth open in a silent gasp, ignored it until he slipped his fingers out of her, holding her gaze as he licked them clean. She made to speak, to tease and claim that she was doing fine, that he was just a baby, but screamed his name when he replaced his fingers with his tongue.

Nesta gasped his name again when he pinned her hips still, crying with the effort of holding back her pleas for more, more, more. She threw her head back, her back arching off the bed as much as she could with her hips pinned and her hands bound, it was almost too much, this pleasure racing through her, coiling in her belly, but she pushed back her release, that would count as losing. Cassian pressed down on her clit with one hand, his tongue still deep inside her, and she broke in the most wonderful way, squealing with pleasure,

"Cass," she gasped, "More, more," she panted, "I need, please, more," she didn't realize until Cassian pulled back what she'd said,

"Twenty minutes, I'm impressed, but you still lose,"

"Okay, okay, just, please," Nesta panted, no longer caring what she had earlier, no matter what she said, he was very skilled, not that she'd admit it out loud, "Cassian, please, please,"

"Please what?"

"Can I come?"

"You can," Nesta panted as Cassian  slowly, far too slowly, stripped off, climbing onto the bed to hover over her, his lips trailing up her neck and across her face before meeting her own. He kissed languidly, slowly, as if they had all the time in the world, and Nesta melted beneath him, her breath coming in little gasps and pants when he released her mouth, then in a scream as he pushed into her. She cried out Cassian's name when he lifted her legs, wrapping them around his waist as he thrust deeper into her, kissing away her cries of pleasure each time. She collapsed when he brushed a hand up along her ribs, fully handing control over to her husband, her mate, the love of her life, and she held on for dear life when he started to move in earnest.

Cassian buried his face in Nesta's neck, softly kissing and sucking at the skin there, he was going to leave a mark, and damn her to hell, but she didn't stop him, she wanted the world to see that mark.

"Together," he murmured, and it was all Nesta could do to nod before all that tension in her belly exploded, sending her hurtling over the edge, with Cassian falling right with her, still moving until both of them were panting, completely spent. Nesta hardly registered him untying her wrists, nor the way he gently kissed them, making sure she was okay, which she was, but she did hold on to him as he carried her through to the bathroom, setting her down on his lap as he ran a bath,

"So that's what it feels like,huh?" She murmured, "I might have to do that more often," Cassian barked a laugh, and Nesta smiled, snuggling into his chest, her eyes drifting shut as he brushed a kiss against the top of her head.

[elle-stevens]

The Break Up Blog - Day Thirty Nine

This is getting harder and harder to do every day. 

Don’t get me wrong, keeping a blog about my feeling since breaking up with X has been helpful and even cathartic to an extent. But dredging up every moment in my memory and every feeling that comes with it is exhausting. 

I slept alright save for the hours when I kept waking up and stressing about class. Every Friday, the students now have to write a diary entry in the books that C designed. Simple in theory, right? Except the elementary students at our school seem to genuinely have zero English skills. Or they have the requisite skills, but get completely flustered when they actually have to use it, kinda like me and my ambiguous relationship with Mandarin. 

So I changed the topics for grades 3 and 4 and thought that simplifying their task would help by writing vocabulary on the board. It kinda worked with grade 3 and all the students in my class managed to write a few sentences each. 

But grade 4? 

For 40 minutes, I sincerely thought that I was in a zoo and all the wild animals had gotten loose. One of my autistic students had a very OCD day and wouldn’t stop shouting out ‘The bus isn’t here!’ in Korean, too many of my boys were queuing up in front of the classroom computer to use the online dictionary. And of course, SB had a dumb fight with with another student, E, and legit walked out of my class and slammed the door on top of it. 

I’d love to say that the latter pissed me off simply because SB was in the middle of it. But he’s actually been relatively well-behaved in class in the last two weeks, almost like he’s had a lobotomy. And honestly, by the time he pulled that crap on me, I was too exhausted and dumb-founded to take offence. Now that I’m thinking on it now, I definitely need to tell SH about what happened in class. I hate to bother her about it because she already has to deal with this nonsense as their homeroom teacher, but I’ve just had it with the total disregard for my authority in class. 

I was forced to sit in the grade 6 homeroom and wait for them even though I knew they wouldn’t make it for class while having their school event during the day. I don’t get why the homeroom teachers force the foreign teachers to hang about like chumps during school events in the unlikelihood that the event will finish early and we’ll be able to pick up the slack with the dregs of the class period? It’s starting to feel like I went back to university two years ago and got a teaching certificate for nothing. I’m just an over-glorified babysitter at this point in my life and it sucks. 

N came to find me while I kept the grade 6 classroom warm (or chilled in this case because the afternoon was hot af). She wanted to have her ‘official’ conversation with me about renewing my contract at the school. I did change things up a bit when N mentioned tried to persuade me to consider applying for a teaching position in the high school department of our school. I initially wanted to do that months ago, but ML was pretty adamant that I was unable to change the terms of my contract since my school only hires high school teachers in the second semester and my contract ends in February next year. Never mind the fact that I initially interviewed for a high school position at my school before coming to my city, but got recruited into the elementary department at the last second when one of the teachers broke his contract in the middle of the school year. But who really cares about minor details like that? 

I told N I’d keep an open mind about it if she could swing things for me to work teach high school instead. I stopped considering it before when I thought that ML would stay in the managerial position for another year. But C told me that ML’s going back to Korea next year, so working under a new manager might actually be better. H might get pissed off at me for switching departments though; she’d probably take it as a personal affront to her management style. It is in part because of that, but honestly, I’m just done in general with this school. It’s too much bullshit layered with bullshit at every turn. 

After my meeting with N, I went back to my office, only for H to talk to me about a punishment I gave my fifth graders two days when they wouldn’t shut up in class. Instead of disciplining the students in my own way, H suggested that I turn the classroom in a democracy and let the students decide on their own punishments and rewards in the near future. It’s a great idea in theory, but now that I think about it, it’s basically an FU to the teacher. As it turns out, I’m pretty much irrelevant in my own classroom. 

And people actually wonder why teachers want to leave this school...

I saw N and ML talking out of the corner of my eye while H talked to me. I guess N gave ML the ‘good news’ about me wanting to leave. I could care less at this point. H’s eyes looked strangely red-rimmed during our talk, like she was seconds away from crying. I wonder if she heard about my news already? Who knows and honestly, who cares at this point? 

I’m over it. 

Still, I sat with CI at lunch and we had a good talk about our different classroom woes. He’s become a really good work buddy, I’m glad that C picked him out from a sea of what was probably a lot of crap teachers. Even talking to N about some of my minor grievances helped too. I even found time during the day to perform surgery on a clay doll one of my third grade girls made that had its leg and sword hilt (I don’t know what kids are into these days, lol) ripped off by her classmate. I went home to get my glue gun because the departmental ones are suddenly missing and I sutured the old sport’s injuries. Then I left said doll in the third grade homeroom, I hope my little chica finds it there. 

All of this dumb shit that happened - It’s ok really when I think about it. Now I know that I’m done with being treated this way. Good luck to my school principal with finding teachers that are half as competent and caring as C, me and even CI, even though he’s staying another year. 

After all the fuckery at work and the number that X pulled on me, I’m done with people taking me for a James Blunt in my professional and personal capacities.

‘James Blunt’ in this case is British rhyming slang. Do yourself a favour and look it up, it’ll give you a good laugh. 

I may look like a ‘James Blunt’, I may even act like a ‘James Blunt’ when I’m taking the piss. But don’t get it twisted: I am not a fucking James Blunt by any stretch of the imagination.  You can’t fuck with me and expect me to treat you the same way ever again. 

It only needs to happen once. And after that, I’m done with you. I may smile at you and even help you with things from time to time. But I will never open myself up to you again. 

That’s what happened to X in the end and I can see how it will happen with some of my current colleagues as the months progress. I thought it was kind of C watching C and H’s friendship turn to shit in real time when H became our manager. But I get how it happened: when you get a little of anything good, it makes you selfish and you end up turning on the people around you. 

I did that when I dated X. She became the centre of my universe and I lost track of everything and everyone. I even had a huge fight with P and G because of X when I used too much bandwidth from the family router to video call X every day for a year. 

That was a really bad fight and the way my siblings looked at me while it happened still haunts me. It’s like they saw me, but an uglier version, and they didn’t like it one bit. 

I shudder when I think of that memory, especially when it was all for nothing with X. I nearly lost my relationship with my brother and sister over X. And what the fuck was even the point of it all? 

I don’t ever want to be that way again the next time I fall in love. I want to go into the whole affair with my eyes completely open. 

There were some positives at work. Besides having some good heart-to-hearts, my colleagues really liked the coconut tarts I baked for them. Even if they were just blowing smoke up my ass, it felt good to hear the compliments and know that I’m not sucking at this too. 

I’m feeling really tired today, so I hope I have enough energy to exercise in a little while. I ordered dinner from a chicken restaurant below my apartment complex, I’ll cook something tomorrow. Since R wants me to charge me an arm and a leg for a physiotherapy consultation, I made an appointment at a local clinic tomorrow instead so a doctor can look at my right arm that keeps twinging whenever I move it. I hope someone speaks English there, I’m tired of floundering about like a beached whale with zero Chinese speaking skills. 

My sinuses are still pestering me, but not as bad as before. I still have to check through my student diaries this weekend and mark and correct them. That’s a problem that can wait till tomorrow after I’ve had a good night’s sleep. D’s birthday gift finally arrived, I also have to figure out when I can drop it off at her apartment. 

I just want to rest this weekend and not think about anything. After Sunday, I’ll be done with my current workout programme; I might switch to something simpler like swimming after this. 

I’m just done. 

My body and brain need a proper rest. 

I might stop writing these blog entries after Sunday is over, I’ll see how I feel. Right now, I don’t want to think and just drift off deeper into myself.