#in honor of the beta releasing i felt like doing more of these

[uraberika]

Inazuma Eleven + text posts [19/?]

[hpowellsmith]

Honor Bound is in copyedit!

I’m delighted to let you know that I’ve sent the full draft of Honor Bound to my editor Abby!

Play Chapters 1-3 of Honor Bound here, and read all about the game here.

More about the testing and revision process, and wordcounts after beta testing, below:

Beta testing started in mid-August and since then I’ve added around 50,000 words to the game. Some of this was expanding things throughout the game, and most of it was expanding the epilogue sequence to include LOTS more detail about where the PC is living at the end, their career choices, who they’re living with if anyone, letters from friends and loved ones if they’re living in different places, and rundowns of what major characters are up to if the PC’s living in the same town/location as them but not living in the same house.

That whole section ended up incredibly branchy and complicated, but I’m really proud of it - I think it caps off the game nicely. Yesterday I played through several of the ending scenes and felt really good about them, which is a nice feeling to have.

Honor Bound is now going to copyedit, and it’s looking like the release should be somewhere in early December, depending how long the copyediting takes. Copyediting is certainly a big job, because right now the game stats are:

Total wordcount: 592898 words Average playthrough: 98553 words

So each playthrough sees about 16% of what’s there, which means a ton of variety from playthrough to playthrough… and there’s a huge amount there to see even on one playthrough.

I’m incredibly grateful to all the testers from start to finish and everyone who has cheerled, supported, and given feedback that’s helped get this game into shape. I massively appreciate everyone here who subscribed which gave me a real helping hand, and who gave feedback on early versions of the drafts.

I’ve learned a huge amount from making this project, and have stretched out of my comfort zone in a variety of ways. It’s interesting seeing what writing-process-mistakes I didn’t do because of learning from Royal Affairs, and where I committed whole new coding crimes. (Next project, I am going to go easier on the nested *gosubs so it’s easier to troubleshoot and read. I am sure I will do something else that makes the code horrid to read.)

It’s the largest and most ambitious of my CoG games, and I’m proud of how the plot’s paced and pulls together. I’m incredibly fond of the characters - even if I put them through horrible things. It was so different writing characters who were older and more mature in various ways than the teenagers in Creme and Royal Affairs (and the young adults in Noblesse Oblige, who are all going through… a lot), but still with plenty of flaws, foibles, and hangups. I was delighted when characters surprised me, as well as when I could feel “oh, this is classic [character]” and their dialogue came naturally. There are some personality nuances that I’m not sure anyone will end up noticing, but felt lovely to put in because I had such a strong sense of who the characters were.

I’m also really pleased with how much I’ve personalised the PC’s dialogue and internal voice. When the PC speaks in the text (and often in the dialogue options), their tone and vibe is almost always informed by how their personality has been expressed by the player, which works with the choices the player’s making to make the PC feel their own. I really wanted to make the PC feel like an adult who’s gone through Some Major Stuff and is in a position of figuring out their principles and purpose because of it: there are a ton of different ways in which they can respond to what’s happened to them and to what happens throughout the game.

I’ve really loved exploring a new part of the Creme de la Creme setting and show such a different culture to Westerlin. I hope you all enjoy Honor Bound once it’s out!

(and… please wishlist on Steam if you haven’t already - it really helps!)

[omnitheist27]

FULL EPISODE: Kevin 11 ⌚️ Ben 10 ⌚️ Cartoon Network

@the-ravenclaw-werewolf

Here are a few questions I would like to ask you about The 40′s reaction to this Ben 10 episode. (Take your time with this one)

How do you think The 40 would react to:

- Ben’s initial attempt to play the Pre-release version of the new Sumo Slammers video game by saying that he’s a “beta tester”, only for the security guard to be unconvinced.

- Ben obviously ignores his grandfather’s warning of using the Omnitrix to sneak into the room to play the video game only to lack the foresight that he’ll be caught if the security guard hears the noises coming from the room (which is what happened).

- Ben being unremorseful of the fact that he got him, his grandpa, and his cousin kicked out of the hotel by saying it’s “no big deal” despite losing possibly over $350 (under ¥50,000 according to the 2023 converter), since it was a 4-star hotel in New York; all because he wanted to play a video game that hasn’t been out yet. 

- Adding onto the above question; the fact that Ben tries to justify his misuse of the Omnitrix by stating that [he] used the watch for good over 100 times and why can’t he just use it for his own benefit for once, only for Grandpa Max to criticize that mindset; “it’s not about how many times you use it, it’s how you use it.” To my interpretation, Max was warning Ben of the dangers of developing a slippery slope regarding power misuse from the Omnitrix (e.g. like a person trying to limit themselves on the use of something addictive only to continually abuse it to the point there’s no more restraint).

- Ben being grounded by Grandpa Max from being allowed to enjoy any Super Slammer stuff for two weeks, with Ben calling out the unfairness of it only for Grandpa Max to retort that it’s also unfair that they got booted out of a 4-star hotel that he already paid for (especially with the implicitly of why they got booted out in the first place), with Ben giving a lame retort that Max should just take it out of his allowance (even he doesn’t get an allowance)

- Ben escalates the argument to the point where he lashes out by telling Grandpa Max that he can’t tell him what to do all the time since it’s his summer time to enjoy life and that he isn’t his father to both Grandpa Max and Gwen’s shock. Especially the reactions of the members of The 40 who suffer from parental abuse to where if they speak out of turn even just a little it’ll warrant big trouble (i.e. Nagisa, Zuko, Killua, etc.) and those who are estranged from their parents/grandparents and/or lack them (i.e. Edward, Senku, Legoshi, Tohru, etc.). (Also, given the majority of the characters being Japanese or the fantasy equivalent, “honor thy parent” is a huge deal along with having the utmost quiet respect for authority figures regardless of their true feelings in East Asian cultures)

- The obvious emotional hurt that Grandpa Max felt from Ben saying that he isn’t his dad (as seen where he’s stammering afterward that if he was his dad) and Ben being completely unrepentant of it because he only cared for his own feelings.

- Seeing Ben throwing a temper tantrum and having the gall to believe that he’s being unfairly punished by his grandfather for simply wanting to play a video game while conveniently forgetting that 1) he ignored the security guard’s warning that he isn’t allowed to play and Grandpa Max’s warning to not sneak in to play the videogame and misuse the Omnitrix for an illegal activity, 2) got him, his grandfather, and cousin kick out of the 4-star hotel that Max had already paid for (and it’s definitely a lot given it’s for a one night stay at a 4-star hotel in New York), and 3) finally straight-up tells his grandfather that he isn’t his dad in a fit of rage despite Grandpa Max being his paternal grandfather and his current legal guardian during the summer trip. 

- Seeing Ben then blowing off to the arcade while telling Gwen that he “doesn’t speak dweeb” when she tries to stop him, while Ben and Gwen do have their typical squabbles, that moment should be considered mean-spirited after the argument.

- After witnessing Ben’s horrible behavior during and after the argument and then him taking off to the point that some members of The 40 would lose their patience and seriously considering harming a 10-year-old.

- Ben meeting Kevin Levin for the first time and The 40 getting a bad vibe of him, especially when the latter displays his powers by forcing an arcade machine to spill out tokens.

- Seeing Ben getting his ass knocked down by one of the gangsters when the latter tries to defend Kevin, despite his lashing out at Grandpa Max not long before.

- Learning of Kevin’s description of his powers to absorb energy (from anything) and dish it back out when he has to...or wants to.

- Seeing Kevin living on his own in an abandoned subway station hearing Kevin’s blasé attitude explaining to Ben that his parents were long gone as they weren’t too thrilled to have a freak for a son, and his adding that that means he doesn’t have to answer to anybody. And Ben’s reply that it sounds good to him. 

- Thinking that while Kevin being a bit smarter than he lets on and easy-going behavior in regards to his parental abandonment despite being 11-years-old can be chalk up to a form of psychological defense mechanism, The 40 would still think that there might be more to the backstory what Kevin revealed to Ben, either willing, unwilling, or a combination of both as his sociopathic tendencies are seen later in the episode.

- Seeing Ben and Kevin bond over not wanting to listen to authority figures and the obvious toxicity of enabling each other’s worse aspects. Leading to...

- Seeing Ben and Kevin sneaking into a warehouse at night and trying to steal the new Sumo Slammers video game only to have to run when security comes knocking

- Seeing Kevin getting suspiciously focused on the Omitrix after hearing Ben’s mention of it “sending out a special energy” upon activation, and him immediately proposing a partnership of doing crime together with Ben happily accepting.

- Watching the scene goes to Grandpa Max and Gwen seeing how much Ben is going to be in for it with Max being very pissed at Ben’s worst stunt yet and Gwen telling herself that she should be enjoying Ben’s upcoming misfortune with their Grandpa but can’t bring herself to.

- Seeing Kevin and Ben’s first stint as partners-in-crime by causing a train collision to steal money, only for Ben to point out that 100 innocent people will die with Kevin nonchalantly replying, “No pain, no gain”.

- Seeing Kevin making it clear that he won’t reconsider his plan and Ben coming to an epiphany of his own selfishness and trying to stop Kevin one way or another.

- Seeing Kevin getting the drop on Heatblast and absorbing the Omnitrix’s energy and turning into a half-Pyronite hybrid and him declaring his motive of making anyone who called him a freak pay.

- Seeing Kevin absorbing Four-Arms DNA and becoming a 3/4 Tetramand hybrid, with him and Ben fighting evenly for a while.

- Four-Arms nearly timing out and unleashing a brutal beatdown on Tetramand Kevin which causes the latter to start “crying uncle” despite enjoying the brawl between them beforehand.

- Seeing Tetramand Kevin gets surprisingly remorseful from the power high and when Ben tries to help him, Kevin reveals that he was faking his remorse and calling out Ben for naivete while trying to pry the Omnitrix off only for the watch to send a feedback loop to defend itself.

- Seeing Ben genuinely apologizes to Grandpa Max for everything that happened in the episode and the latter solemnly accepting it as they’re family and nothing will ever change that. Though Grandpa Max does tell Ben that his trust is something he has to earn back, which Ben quietly accepts as again, he did go too far with him stating that Grandpa Max isn’t his dad and did commit a crime with Kevin by trying to steal the new Sumo Slammers video game.

- Seeing Kevin plotting his revenge story and showcasing that he did absorb the 10 alien DNA from the Omnitrix.

- On a side note, the absurdity of the Sumo Slammers videogame being so important to the point that a security guard has the Tennyson Family banned from the hotel due to Ben sneaking in to play it without a pass and warranted a SWAT team in response to Kevin and Ben breaking into a warehouse to steal a few pre-release copies.

[gxbtx]

Peter Cat Recording Co. at The Echo Lounge

Dallas, Tx, September 22nd

   This past weekend I was honored to be able to experience the Peter Cat Recording Co in the flesh, with their performance of songs from their newest album, Beta. This album was released a hefty 5 years after their last studio album, Bismillah. After the new-found success during COVID-19, the Dahli based band went on to perform for their new-found fanbase on the Good Luck Beta Tour 24. They are in the process of traveling to perform a total of 77 shows across three continents, selling out a majority of these venues to varied crowds. 

Peter Cat Recording Co. performing at The Echo Lounge in Dallas for a crowd of about 200 people 

I can best describe Peter Cat Recording Co. (PCRC) as an Indian psychedelic jazz band, taking elements of sounds transcontinental to create a movie like experience with their studio albums. Having about a decade of tenure as a band, they come to offer an evolved sense of introspection, utilizing so many different instruments to create soundtracks to the life of struggle and other complex sentiments alike. Such as seen in A Portrait of a Time: 2010-2016, they metaphorically paint pictures of a time period in their lives in which they conceptualize their feelings in regards to aspects of the human experience by making fun of their own turmoil.

PCRC displays typical traits of a band, such as guitars, bass, drums, and keyboards, but then adds flairs of color with less common instruments such as the clarinet, accordion, saxophone, and even a banana shaker! 

The show started on the song “Flowers R Blooming”, starting off the show on the foundational lessons they center their themes around; through lyrics of “For Changing Is Living/And Living is Love”, they share a valuable insight into a perspective of living far more fulfilling and redeeming in this game we call life. This song broke tears out of me, fostering an emotional connection to the band that seems rare for me to encounter. This song gave me an outlet of emotions to express that recognition in who I am is the best thing I can do to spread love to myself and others. 

 In maturing comes sacrifice, and ultimately growth in our ability to cope and humor our sensitivities in our emotions; PCRC audiolizes (I just created a new word!) these lessons such as in the leading single “People Never Change” where they renounce the power of others to impact our moods and confidence. He reverses this happier tune with a melancholy song “Heera” from their previous studio album reflecting a low point in the singer’s life, standing at a crossroads of whether it’s too late to “live a lovely life”. The hollow guitar riff being repeated with the dissonant tones of keyboard make it out to have a ghoulish feeling from this time period. As expanded upon within his band, growing up is demonstrated in coming to terms with your emotions and wearing them on full display, becoming sensible in the process, which is what Lifafa demonstrates when he lets loose and dances along to his pain in the guitar riff.

The combination of lights tastefully adds to the psychedelic feelings filling up the room, keeping the audience invested in the growth of the artistic messages

I appreciate the diversified sounds this band created, as the lead singer Lifafa has described the instrumentation to be specially tailored to the idea of what the song’s goal is.  The creative process of starting with the idea of the song, leads the band to switch around instruments to what feels right. While members progressively came and went towards the inception of the band, the 5 members we see have become comfortable together for 6 years. The versatility reeks of the experience this band has come to acquire, providing quite an alluring experience to the dedicated audience. The Echo Lounge in Dallas venue notably accommodated PCRC elegantly, having a sophisticated theater-like quality that felt appropriate to the presentation of family established in the heartfelt odes.

Guitar player Kartik Pillai went up to play “Foolmuse,” the third leading single for Beta

On my ever-prolonged journey of learning what it takes to be a man and to be the best me I can be, this band shares valuable perspectives that come from a long pipeline of experience and wisdom cross-culturally.  In Beta, their new project released earlier last month, they further their documented maturation in life coming to share feelings associated with love and connection, as well as overcoming anxious thoughts that keep us from seeing the absolute beautiful world we see around us. Although the music can sometimes seem long and heavy, I believe PCRC displays an excellent feat of music in connecting time into thoughtful reflections of their humanity - and in a way that connects us to our own. 

To read my RadioUTD finalized version, go to https://radioutd.com/blog/2024/10/peter-cat-recording-co-at-the-echo-lounge-in-dallas/

[suzubelle-chan]

Breaking Chains Chapter 5

Thank you so much for the wait! This chapter has been a long time coming! If you're still reading after this time, I really thank you and hope you enjoy it! As always, bless @lpham2525 for beta reading this fic!

Content warnings-murder (mentioned in passing, long past), hate crime (discussed)-this one is more detailed and darker that other ones I'm going to have asterisks (*) marking when it gets discussed so readers not wanting to read about it can skip over it. Please practice self-care and take care of yourselves!

In Which Sariphi Sariphi Learns so much

Sekhmet’s ears pricked at the silence, waking her up from her sleep. You would think silence would be a boon considering how loud her mistress snored. Yet after decades of hearing the waves, it was only natural to hear it at night. So much so that silence now was honestly disrupting. The Holy Beast pitied her mistress’s husband when she was away.

She rose from the cushion at her lady’s bedside table and paused at the sight of the woman. Leona lay in bed, an arm raised, her eyes on her wrist. With one pounce, the kitten was at her ladyship’s side, nuzzling against the woman’s cheek. “Pardon me, my ladyship, but perhaps you should listen to your own orders.”

The woman made a grunt, a bare acknowledgement.

Sekhmet looked at the wrist, at the small mark that caused the woman distress. At first glance, it was the human symbol for a heart with a tree growing inside of it. Yet as one looked at it, they would notice the tree split to a perfect v shape, the straight branches springing from it. And no leaves sprung from the top, due to the heart’s curves in the way. She knew that the v shape with its prongs came first, the leaves, trunk, and heart later.

“My Lady, I doubt Her Highness would hold it against you.”

Leona let out a snort. “I know Sariphi is a really sweet girl, but there are some things that even the Family can’t forgive.”

“Well, it’s not like you are the one who sacrificed her. This is a part of your life that happened rather long ago, even before you met Lord Reinhart.”

Leona rolled on her side, away from her familiar. “The moment she finds out, she might hate me or be scared of me. I’m not sure which one would be worse.”

The kitten jumped onto her lady’s hip. “Given you haven’t rolled her up and shipped her to the Temple should speak of your loyalties to them. You’re always telling patients that the best thing for a regret is to acknowledge it and do your best to not let it grow, but to grow yourself. If you are worried about her reaction, perhaps it’s best to hide it for now. Once you feel closer to her, perhaps you two can share your pasts. I know you’re curious about her too.”

Hands picked up the Holy Beast, now against the woman’s chest. Sekhmet felt a small kiss on her head. “Sekhmet, you always know what to say.”

“I have been at your side for almost a century, my lady. It is my sworn duty, honor, and privilege to help you in this life in any way I can.” 

Leona smiled. “Ah Sekhmet, you are so wise yet so young.”

The kitten let out a small huff, releasing herself from the grasp. “I thought we’ve made it clear that I am ten years older than you. I know I’m young for a Holy Beast, and this form doesn’t help, but after all these decades it should be clear!” She stomped a small paw to emphasize her disdain. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Leona said, scratching behind the kitten’s ear. 

The kitten leaned into the touch, letting out a small purr, but then stopped and backed away. “My lady!”

“Sorry, sorry, even if I get a good five or six centuries with you, I’ll still probably see you as a cute kitten to spoil and rely on.”

“I would think you can expect that long. Lord Reinhart is still relatively young for a Beast.”

“That’d be nice. I’ve got grandcubs to spoil! Maybe a few great-grandcubs if I get lucky.” Leona yawned. “Thanks again Sekhmet. I can’t imagine life with…out you.”

Sekhmet watched as the woman’s eyes closed. She closed her own eyes. “Oh Mighty One who Guides Us All, thank you for letting me be at this woman’s side and be her companion. Please allow her wishes to be granted, that she reunite with the son she lost so long ago and bring her family back together. And please keep granting me this joy to help her.”

A snort of a snore broke the Holy Beast out of her thoughts. She looked to see her ladyship content in sleep. Sekhmet smiled, licking the woman’s nose. She nestled by the woman’s side and slept, lulled by the sound. 

After a time of sleep, neither were sure if it had been minutes or hours, several small knocks woke the two of them up. 

“You heard that too?”

“Yes.”

The knocks continued.

“Ah the life of a doctor,” Leona sighed. She stretched and groaned getting out of the bed. She grabbed the ribbon on the bedside and wrapped her hair inside of it, then took it out and wrapped the ribbon around her right wrist. She opened up the door to find Sariphi, trembling.

Now she was alert, maternal and doctor’s instincts kicking in. “Sariphi, what’s wrong?”

The maiden clutched at her skirt. “You see…”

A large growl filled the room, Sariphi’s face flushing bright red at it.

Leona smiled with a sigh. “Alright, time for breakfast.”

“So when you woke up this morning, you found yourself trembling and really hungry, is that right?” Leona asked, now dressed in a long sleeved shirt, pants and slippers, pouring a white mixture into a skillet before her.

Sariphi nodded, cheeks stuffed like a chipmunk’s. After some chewing and swallowing, Sariphi said, “Yes, Leona.”

The woman gave a one-shoulder shrug. “Well, it is your first day of schooling in a while. Makes sense your nerves are acting up. Stress–helpful sometimes, but in most cases not.”

“But I’m not that nervous. If anything I’m excited for today,” Sariphi admitted.

“Really?” Leona asked, adjusting a spatula underneath the circle of batter. With a quick flip, the circle turned over, revealing a golden brown color.

“I mean, I am a bit nervous about messing up in lessons. But that is what learning is about? Figuring out what I know and understand, and if I don’t know something, I figure out why and keep going. It’s been a while since I’ve had a teacher to guide and show me things. I really want to learn a lot from Will and Juno so I can be the best queen I can be.” She held up her hand. “I’m not nervous in my mind, so why is my body acting this way?”

Leona smiled, flipping over the circle and then sliding it onto Sariphi’s plate. She sat down and took Sariphi by the hand. “Sometimes the body feels stress more than the mind does. I mean you were rather ill recently and couldn’t eat much. Now that your mind is in a more relaxed state, your body has started making demands to make up for the lack of food it got in that time.”

Sariphi blinked, taking a look at her captive hand and then at one of her legs. “I don’t think I’ve lost much weight over this, if that’s what you mean.”

With another shrug, Leona continued, “Still you didn’t eat much for a while; your body wants to get itself right and make sure you’re eating again.” She patted the hand. “For now, we’ll listen to your body–especially your stomach–and give you plenty of snacks. If it lasts longer than a week, then I’ll give you a lookover to make sure there’s not something else.”

“Okay.”

“Though you could do something a bit more physical to perhaps help with the nerves. You know how folks pace when they get nervous; it’s the same thing. I think Juno may have something planned today that might help you walk out your nerves.”

“Like a dance lesson?”

“I don’t think so, but Juno wanted her lesson to be more of a surprise so I’m keeping my mouth shut on that.” Leona shut her lips and twisted her hand like she had a key and tossed it away.

“Can’t you give me a little hint?” Sariphi asked.

With her mouth closed, Leona went on talking in mumbles. Then she unlocked her lips. “There was your hint. Hope it made sense.”

Sariphi giggled, shaking her head. 

“Wait, just remembered,” Leona stated. She then reached into her pocket and placed a small box in front of the girl. “You’re gonna need this.”

Sariphi stared down at the box, slowly reaching over and opening the top. She saw a glint and something silver before shutting the box and sliding it over to the woman. “I’m sorry but I can’t accept this.”

The woman, stern now, slid it back. “Sariphi.”

“I don’t want to hurt anyone with this.” The young woman gave the box another push. 

This time, Leona put her hand on top of Sariphi’s. “You won’t. We’ve done some tests back home and it is a bit painful, some Beasts get migraines afterwards, but they’re fine the next day.”

Sariphi’s face blanched, almost matching the color of her hair. “You...you did that?”

“Sometimes folks find our village, and some of them are Beasts. We’d like to be kind to everyone that needs help, but now and then, we’ve had some Beasts take one look at the humans and just attack out of fear, prejudice, or a combination of the two. It’d be foolish for the human residents to not have something to defend ourselves, just in case. Plus you were kidnapped recently right? You could have pulled a reverse cat and mouse on the guy, making him stop every few toots while you got away. Or maybe just annoyed him enough for him to throw you back to His Majesty.” 

Sariphi stared down at the box. “I don’t think that would have worked.”

Leona patted the hand in front of her. “You only need it to use it in emergencies, when you don’t have anyone else around and there’s a Beast aiming to hurt you,” Leona offered. “Just in case. Plus think of it as a symbol of what you want.”

“Of what I want?”

“Yeah, you and his Royal Furriness want to make a world where humans and Beasts at least get along. Then we won’t need things like this anymore.”

“That is true…” Sariphi sighed. She opened up the box again, this time pulling out a small, silver finger-length whistle with a small chain. She stared at it as if it was taunting her. Then she slipped it into the small pocket of her skirt, and patted it, feeling the hard metal against her thigh. 

“It’s just for emergencies,” Leona offered. “And if we’re lucky,” she stopped to knock on the counter and raise herself up. “You won’t ever use it.” She then started on another dessert.

“I hope so.” Sariphi pressed a hand to her thigh, feeling the whistle right there. 

Leona smiled, heading back to the stove to start on another sweet. “Back home, we’ve got a few fighters and martial artists. Just say the word and they’ll teach you whatever you need to give a good smack. If it’s a Beast, best to aim for the ears or nose. If a human, try for the side. And with human men, just give them a good kick where the sun don't shine.”

Sariphi blushed and giggled a bit. “Do you know how to fight?”

“I know how to throw a punch and not break my fingers.” Leona shrugged. “I probably can teach you too.” As she spoke, she struck poses, akin to those Sariphi would see in action plays and stories from the East, the frying pan now a weapon. “Though I’m not much of a hi-ya, ho-ya woman.” 

“I’m certainly not much of a fighter either…Where did the pancake go?” Sariphi asked, her head tilted. 

Leona looked down at her empty skillet. “Looks like I got a bit too zealous there.” She looked up at the ceiling. “Huh, don’t see it.”

Craning her neck up, Sariphi also joined in the search. “Where did it go?”

“Excuse us,” the king said.

The two humans turned towards the voice. Leona wheezed with laughter and Sariphi gasped, hand covering her mouth as she trembled again, holding back her giggles.

For the King of Beasts had pastry dangling off his muzzle. He took it off his face, holding it in his claws. “What is this thing?”

“Hotcake,” Sariphi replied.

“Flapjack, ” Leona replied. 

The king looked between the two women. “Well, which is it?”

Leona waved her hand. “It’s the same food, just has a different name depending on where you grew up.” She strode over to the king and started to reach up for the pastry on her tiptoes. She didn’t even reach his neck though. “If you don’t want to eat it, I will.”

The king quickly chomped at the sweet. “Humans sure do like their soft foods, don’t they?” 

Sariphi stepped over. “Do you like it?”

“It’s not an unpleasant taste.”

Leona walked over to the skillet, this time adding some oil to the pan and swishing it around. “You might be more of a waffle man; my husband is the same. He prefers the crunch. How about you pull up a chair and I’ll make some breakfast for you? I’ve got coffee ready.”

The king nodded. “As you are offering, very well.”

“Better make some meat for you too. Let me go slip into your fancy icebox room for a sec.” And with that Leona slipped away into the other room.

“Icebox?” the king asked, looking at his bride. 

Sariphi sat down, back to her plate. “It’s a metal box that humans use to keep things like milk and fruit cold to keep them fresh longer. There’s a section where ice goes that makes it cold and another for other foods, hence the name. I know Beasts typically use magic to keep their storage rooms cold to preserve meat and eggs.”

The king took a seat next to his bride-to-be, placing a paw on her shoulder. “Are you alright? You left the room quite early this morning.”

Sariphi placed a hand on his paw, giving him a squeeze. “I’ve got some nerves about going into my first lessons, but it’s a good stress.” She leaned in. “I’ve got a lot to learn to be a good queen for you.”

“I find you to be an excellent queen.”

She blushed. “Thank you, but I still need to learn how to do paperwork and other duties.”

“That is fair.” He nodded, giving a small smile. 

Leona peeked in from the cold room. Truth be told, she found some meat slices she could work with right as she walked in. Yet when she turned around and saw the two talking, she stayed in the room, watching their moment together.

She exhaled, her breath a plume due to the cold. “I know I keep bending your ears, Family, but I can’t help but keep asking. Please let me have this. Let me be in their lives. Let me be there for them. Let me know what sacrifice you want me to put at your temples, what folks need healing. I’ll do it in a heartbeat. Just let my family stay together, now and forever, amen.”

She took a breath and smiled as she stepped back in the room, a large platter of meat in her hands. She twirled and sang, “Who wants bacon?”

After breakfast, Sariphi and Leona parted with the king. They arrived at the library where Lanteveldt, Cy and Clops waited at the entrance. 

“Ah there you are.” Lante stretched. “You’re usually here as soon as you wake up. I was wondering if you were sick again.”

“Are you okay Sariphi?” Clops asked. 

“Okay?” Cy asked too. 

“Sariphi just had some first-day jitters going on so she came to see me. Just a few snacks in the next few days,” Leona said with the wave of her hand. 

“Sounds good to me,” Lante stated with a smirk.

The group entered the library to find a desk with piles of paper on it. A pen and ink set was waiting to be used. Will was underneath the desk, patting around the ground, his golden tail wagging.

“Pardon us, Mister Will?”

The dog shuffled out, and with a few grunts, he used the desk to help him stand up. A pair of spectacles sat on top of his head. “Ah, morning, Your Highness.” He stepped towards the group, gripping Sariphi by the shoulders. “I have a very important request for you. One that will greatly show your capabilities as queen.”

Sariphi blinked and nodded solemnly. 

“Good. Thank you.” The dog returned the nod, then tilted his head back as he whined, “God help me find my glasses! I can’t find them anywhere.” 

Sariphi stood on the tips of her toes and reached for the glasses on his head, her fingers just reaching the metal. “Do you mean these sir?”

Will looked up and sighed and grabbed them from his head. “Thank you so much, my lady.”

Leona wheezed out of laughter, shaking her head. “I don’t know why I take you anywhere without your wife.”

“Me neither.” he replied, inspecting his lenses. “Next time we’re part of a set.” He set the glasses on his muzzle, then twisted at the side, the little clasps squeezing on his nose. He tilted his head, but the glasses remained firm. “There we go.”

Sariphi watched, fascinated. “So that’s how they work.”

“Have you ever seen a beast with glasses, Sariphi?”

“Just once and I was there for royal business so I didn’t have the chance to ask.” 

“Ah yes the Maasya geezer,” Lante replied.

“Rude,” Cy said, a little digit pointed at the hyena.

“Indeed,” Clops stated.  

Sariphi looked over to her two smaller beast friends. “Are glasses common among Beasts?”

“They are not,” Clops replied.

“Nope,” Cy affirmed.

Will nodded. “True they have become common among older beasts now. Yet it’s far more common to have a younger clan member escort the older beast and read any signs for them.” He walked over to the desk and offered the pen to Sariphi. “Now show me what you know.”

Sariphi took the pen. “What I know?”

“In order to properly educate you, I need to know where you are now. I want you to be challenged while learning, but I don’t want to hand you things you can’t understand.” He pulled out the chair. “Just write down as many words or sentences as you can come up with. You can write ‘The dog ran in the rain. The cat ran in the rain. The dog ran in the street.’ However you can get a word out. It will also help me see your handwriting in Ozmargin. Shall we begin?”

“Of course!” Sariphi plopped down in the chair. Will smiled as he pushed her in. “Thank you sir!”

Will halted, then crossed his arms while his brow furrowed.

“What’s wrong?” Sariphi asked. 

“Pardon me, Your Highness, but the idea of a future queen calling me a ‘sir’ is a bit odd. When you say that, I can’t help but imagine ruffling your hair like a child.”

“I see, is there anything you’d like for me to call you?”

Will stroked his chin, murmuring to himself. “I can finally be a Don! No wait, that wouldn’t work. Maybe Maestro…no, no, not quite.” He snapped his fingers together. Or at least tried to but no sound came out. He licked his pads and tried again, this time producing a ‘snap.’ With a wide grin he said, “Call me Professor. I’ve always liked the sound of that.” 

“Okay Professor Will.” Sariphi nodded and started to work. 

Clops bounced over to the desk. “Can we help?”

“Help?” Cy offered his small digits. 

Will waved a paw. “Actually this time I’d like to see Sariphi’s efforts on her own, just to see where she is.”

The two blops stopped, sagging just a bit. “Okay sir.”

“ ‘Kay.”

Sariphi stared down, writing furiously on the paper.

Will chuckled. “Now, now, take all the time you need, Your Highness. These are your lessons after all, so they revolve around you.”

Leona watched but then pulled out a book and began to read it nearby. Lante watched for a bit with a yawn, Will joining his side. He leaned down towards the hyena. “You know, young man, there are other human women in the world besides Sariphi’s sister. In fact, if you’re interested in meeting someone, there are really lovely ladies back home.”

The teen let out a huff and waved his paw. “It’s not that. This knight’s job is all I want in life. Don’t need any romance in it.”

“Are you sure? Don’t let these two fool you.” He pointed a finger, waving it between the two humans. “Human women can be taller than this. There’s a few girls back home that are even taller than me. And let me tell you, son, once you have a taller woman's love, it’s hard to go back down.”

That sent Leona wheezing and Sariphi giggling.

Red-faced, the knight turned away from the teacher. “No thanks.”

The golden dog nodded, patting the young man on the shoulder. “Alright, do let us know if you change your mind.”. 

Clops ground his teeth before growling, “Mr. Will, this is Sariphi’s lesson!”

“Respect!” Cy agreed, little digits waving. 

“Just having a little fun,” Will said with a motion. 

“Pardon me sir, I’m done,” Sariphi called out, hand in the air.

“Alright let me see.” Will walked over and picked up the papers. He sat down in a chair, one leg crossed on top of the other, and started to murmur to himself.

Sariphi watched, eyes wide, leaning in. Her heart hammered in her ears. She did tell Leona the truth about the lessons. She didn’t mind if she made some mistakes, but some voice in her mind was running around screaming, just loud enough to be heard over her beating heart, “I haven’t learned a thing! I’m such an idiot! What kind of queen am I going to be?!?”  

After a few moments, Will leaned back and looked at the queen-to-be. “So this is what you’ve learned so far…”

“Yes,” Sariphi admitted, her hands clutching her skirt. She could feel them sweating. She shut her eyes, bracing herself. 

“Quite extraordinary really.”

Sariphi could just hear him over her heart pounding in her ears. “Really?”

Will smiled warmly. “I mean it. After all, you haven’t been here a year, yet you write on a level at least of a child that has been in school for a few years. Good sentence structure, nice variety of words. The handwriting could stand to be a bit bigger, but I’d say you’re off to a good start.”

With that, Sariphi’s heart finally slowed down and she sighed, “Thank you sir.” The little voice wasn’t shouting now. Instead, it was preoccupied with mumbling, “ Well, we still have a lot to learn. It doesn’t mean much.” She knew it was right, but at least she could celebrate this win. 

“I know that look,” Will stated, adjusting his seat. He tilted his head, so the light caught on his glasses “You’re thinking, I’ve still got a long ways to go to learn, right?”

Sariphi and her grumbling inner voice flinched. “Well yes. I mean, I am to be a queen.”

“True, but given most of your predecessors were raised from the cradle to be queens, and also not to mention the amount of years they spent growing up as a beast,  the track you are on is vastly different from theirs. Focus on your own progress. In fact, since you’re able to make sentences like this, it may mean you can do more than what you think you can.” Will smiled warmly. “So please believe me when I say you’re doing just fine now.”

Sariphi let out a breath. “Thank you sir.”

The dog beamed. “Well now that’s settled. I’ll go look around to find some books to start on some summaries, reports, get you used to writing in the language. As I said, your handwriting is a bit small. Feel free to take up a bit more space. We’ll work on that now.

As he walked away, Will let out a grunt as he clutched at his eye, stopping in his tracks. 

“Professor?” Sariphi asked, standing up suddenly.

“It’s fine.” The dog waved his free paw. “I’ve got an eye condition that flares up now and then.” He looked at the human already dashing towards him. “Thanks Leona.”

“You’re welcome.”

As he bent backward, he mumbled, switching over to another language, “Ay dios mio! Did you have to make it hurt this much?” 

“Lo siento,” Leona responded in kind. She pulled out a bottle, unscrewing the top to reveal a dropper of brown liquid. “But the last thing we need is for those old geezers to recognize you. I mean, it might send them into heart attacks if they realize you’ve been alive all this time.” This caused Leona to pause and tap her chin.

Will laughed. “I know it’s tempting, but the king needs them. At least to do some paperwork.” He squatted, so now he looked up at her, his face closer to her chest. 

Leona tilted her head, concentrating and adjusting the dropper so it was right above her friend’s right eye, which was now a lighter shade of brown, edging towards a shade of green. “Fine. Really wish he’d get rid of his grandpa’s hand-me-downs. What’s with you Beasts and not retiring once you hit like 500?”

“Stubbornness I guess. I’ve been told that’s a trait of our species, especially from my wife.”

Leona squeezed, liquid hitting his right eye, and for a second his iris grew a bit darker before turning back to the brown color of his left. He rose, blinking frantically before turning to his friend. “So how do I look?”

Leona said with a smile, “With your eyes, you loon.”

He gave a dramatic gasp and raised his voice, back to the common tongue, turning everyone’s attention towards him. “Excuse me ma’am, that’s only something a wife can say and I am happily married!” He let out an indignant huff, heading towards the nearest shelf while the human woman wheezed, leaning against a nearby chair.

Cy and Clops bounced over to Sariphi’s desk. Clops ground his teeth before asking, “Sariphi, are you sure you want to learn from him? He seems a bit odd.”

“Odd,” Cy confirmed with his brother.

“Now, now, Mister…I mean Professor Will just has a lighter side. It’s rather nice.” She slid one of her sheets of paper over to them. “Do you think what he said is true?”

Cy’s purple pupil skimmed while Clops declared, “Wow it’s true! We didn’t realize you knew so much!”

“Wow! Sari great!” Cy agreed, his little digits clapping. 

“It’s only thanks to you two I’ve been able to get this far. Do you think you two can help Professor find some books for me?”

“Yes’m.”

“Yes!”

Sariphi watched her two friends with a smile. 

Will returned with a small stack. “This should be a good start. I do have to admit, I’m quite surprised at how many historical facts you wrote down.”

Sariphi smiled. “I really like history, the stories of the people of the past, learning about their lives, how they saw the world and lived through it. I’ve been trying to find more about the queens of Ozmargo and other Beast nations, to find out about how they helped their husbands and countries. I do hope you’ll teach more about them. ”

Will blinked and let out a small groan, head tilted back. “Alright, new rule. I’m only going to new places if I can take my wife and my daughter with me.” 

“Why is Maya a factor now?” Leona asked, now draped across a chair. 

He turned towards his human friend, paws out to frame Sariphi “Because you cannot just show me an adorable, sweet girl like this when I cannot ruffle adorable, sweet girl’s hair! There are forms of torture and then there’s this!” He added a small groan.

Sariphi giggled, face turning pink as she rubbed the back of her head, “You’re flattering me sir. I do hope I can meet your expectations.”

The dog raised his paws in the air. “Gods above, where is a woman like you for my sons?! Come on, what does a man have to do?”

“Apparently be a king and hail from a long-line of human-eaters,” Leona commented. 

“Some folks get all the luck,” Will grumbled.

Just then, Amit entered the room with a tray full of snacks. “Pardon me, I hope I’m not interrupting.”

A small gurgle rang out, causing everyone to look at Sariphi, who was now pink-faced. 

“I think you have perfect timing.” Leona chuckled, patting the girl’s shoulder.

As everyone settled around the table, Sariphi commented, “I haven’t seen Miss Juno today.”

Amit stiffened, setting a plate down with a clunk. 

“Juno got commandeered by the kitchens. Since we blew their minds about humans eating beast foods, they’ve been asking her non-stop about how to prepare it. I’m sure we’ll see her soon,” Leona replied.

Suddenly, ears pricked at the sound of something sailing through the air. Lanteveldt turned around, paw out. In a second, he caught a book. 

Just then Juno showed up, one hand with a tray of coffee and tea, the other holding her head. “I hope I haven’t kept you waiting too long.”

Leona blinked and said in a louder voice, “I’m sure my dear son will get married to an absolutely wonderful lady soon.” She blinked, glanced at Sariphi, then looked up at the sky, pleading. 

Juno let out a small chuckle as she distributed cups. “I think it’ll be a while before that one comes true.”

“Damn,” Leona grumbled as she shoveled some sugar into her coffee.

“Did you just throw a book at me?” the hyena asked, pointing at Juno with the offending literature. 

“No. I threw it at Sariphi,” the Caiman said flatly. 

“Eh?!” the two blobs cried out. 

“Why, ma’am?” Amit asked, panicked.

Juno waved her free hand. “Please don’t worry. I was just testing Sir Lanteveldt.” She pointed a finger at Sariphi. “You’ve got to make sure servants are doing their jobs properly at any time.” She set a cup down in front of the maiden. 

As Juno poured the tea, Sariphi said, “I think there’s a better, calmer way of doing such a thing.”

Lanteveldt scowled as the reptile, smiling serenely, offered him a cup. He took it, scowling at it, “I’m watching you lady. You’re one of those secret crazies.”

“I think most folks would call any of us crazy.” Will shrugged. “After all, neither human nor Beast would think we’d even sit at a table together, let alone share a meal and drink with one another. I’d say we’re all in good company.”

“Hear, hear, to a ‘crazy new world’.” Leona lifted her mug in toast.

The three older adults laughed and raised their cups. Lanteveldt shrugged, raised his glass and started to take his drink, letting out a small laugh. Cy and Clops shook a bit, Cy’s pupil bouncing around the older three. Yet when Juno placed a cup in front of the two, Clops lifted the glass to his brother. “Hear!” 

“Hear, hear!” Clops said a bit louder before he drank some tea. 

Sariphi let out a small giggle as she raised her cup. “Hear, hear!” she declared as well. The sight eased the blobs next to her, and their shaking stopped. 

Amit, however, only stared at her lap; she didn’t have a cup yet. 

When Juno reached the princess, Amit shook like a leaf battered by the wind. The older woman sighed, looking at the maiden straight on. “I deeply apologize to Your Highness for not bringing this up earlier. I am related to Lady Hera, but it’s a distant relation. I don’t recall ever meeting her. So I cannot say where she is now.”

Tension slipped from Amit, shoulders slumping. “I thought so.”

“Who’s Lady Hera?” Sariphi asked. 

“Well…she was my nanny. She raised me ever since I hatched. She was the one that taught me how to bake. One day, she left the court, her husband, basically everyone and everything. No one has seen her since.”

“I think I’ve heard about this lady. Is this the same Hera that got killed by her husband?” Lanteveldt asked.

The younger members of the group gasped. Will growled a bit and Leona clenched her cup, both eyes on Juno who stood still and passive, as if he just commented on the weather. 

“She wasn’t!” Amit declared, standing up, hands slamming on the table, sending plates and cups to jump slightly. “She…she wasn’t…” she panted, chest heaving as she almost fell into her chair. 

Sariphi, eyes right on Amit’s, placed her hands on top of her friend’s, giving her a firm squeeze.

“Ah sorry,” Lanteveldt said with a small nod, ears bent down. 

“Well, it was no secret that her relationship with her husband was falling apart,” Juno commented. “He often took mistresses and she would bully them until they left society for good. She also would defy him at many turns, especially publicly. I suppose when such an obstinate woman disappears, it’s only natural to think that her husband may have taken care of her once and for all.” She placed a gentle hand on the princess’s shoulder. “I apologize if my presence has caused you distress.”

“No no, I guess I was being hopeful. When she disappeared, she left my eldest brother and me a letter. She said she’d fallen in love with a man she met so she would be leaving her old life to be with him. And she wished us well and that she’d hope that we meet again someday. I guess, even after all these years, I really would like to see her again. ”

“I’m sure she would like that very much as well.” Juno smiled warmly, squeezing the young woman’s shoulder. 

Another growl sounded from Sariphi’s stomach; Sariphi squeaked out a, “Pardon me!”

Juno smiled. “Well, I’m glad we’ve gotten that out of the way. Personally, I find it's best to ask questions rather than to speculate and rumor yourself until your mind’s all tangled up. Only the truth can snap you free like snipping a knot out.  Let us eat for now. Enjoy some good food. Then we can start lessons again.”

After eating, Sariphi wiped her face with her napkin. “Pardon me, Miss Juno, what will I be learning today?”

“Miss?”

“Ah sorry. Is there anything you’d like for me to call you?”

“It’s not a matter of preference but more of a matter of ranking and situation.” Juno nodded.

“Really?” Sariphi asked. 

Juno’s gaze hardened, hands clasped in front of her on the table. “Your Highness, by all accounts, you are the highest ranking person here. In impersonal settings such as this, you can refer to us however you please.” She pointed a claw at the princess. “For example, you can refer to Her Highness here by her first name alone.”

Sariphi squirmed a bit, glancing at her stunned friend. “She’s a princess…”

“And you’ll be a queen,” the older woman retorted. “True, in formal situations, it is only natural to call her by her title, but here and now it’s fine.”

The two maidens looked at one another, faces flushed. Sariphi faced her friend, hands tight on her skirt. “Would it be alright if I called you by just your name?” 

“Oh yes! I would be honored!” Amit answered, clapping her hands. 

“Then Amit…” Sariphi stated, face growing dark red. 

Amit’s eyes watered, face bright pink. “Lady Sariphi.”

“You know you can call me by my name when we’re like this. Is that right, Miss Juno?”

“In these situations of course,” Juno stated, head resting on her hands. 

“Then Sar…Sari….” However Amit’s face turned so red you thought someone had lit a fire inside her mouth, the steam billowing out of her head. She hid her eyes in her hands. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I can’t!”

Sariphi patted her friend on the knee. “It’s okay, I don’t mind waiting.”

“Thank you Sar…Sari…” But once again the heat of embarrassment overtook her.

As the ladies all smiled, Lante leaned close to Will, swallowing his food before asking, “What’s this all about?”

Will shrugged. “It’s a lady’s thing.”

After swallowing his food, Clops commented, “Ladies sure are confusing.”

“Yep,” Cy said, offering a cookie to his brother’s mouth. 

Once they started stacking finished plates, Juno rose. “Alright we shall begin the lesson.” She proceeded to walk out of the room. Leona and Will followed, but the younger members of the cast remained at the table, watching the older folks leave. 

“Is the next lesson going to be outside the library?” Sariphi asked.

Pausing mid step, Leona commented, “It was part of the hint I gave you. Was that not clear?”

“Well your mouth was shut when you said it,” Sariphi pointed out, rising from her seat. Her companions soon followed, although Lante did take a moment to finish off the last of his plate and add it to a stack of dishes on a tray to be picked up later.

“Sariphi, when you get as old as I am, you learn many languages: grumbles, groan, sarcasm, sass–especially when your kids hit their teenage years. It just takes time,” Leona said, smiling. 

The Caiman woman paused from where she stood in the door frame. “Of course, that’s a lesson that can wait for another time. Now come on, don’t dawdle. There’s plenty to learn.”

Sariphi quickly stepped forward so she was by the woman’s side, the rest of the group following along. “Pardon me, Miss Juno, or is there something else I should call you?”

Juno pondered, raising her head a bit, hand on her chin. “Well since you gave my friend a degree and made him a professor, I wouldn’t mind being a lady.”

“Then Lady Juno, where are we going for the lesson?

The Caiman woman stopped at a section of hallway, pointing down a branching corridor. “Tell me, what is down this hallway?”

Clops perked up. “Oh that’s…”

“I asked Lady Sariphi, little ones. This is her lesson after all.”

Sariphi rested her head on her hand. “Ah…I believe it leads to the maids’ quarters.”

Juno tapped her chin. “Accurate, yet hesitant–eighty-three points.”

“Huh?” the two blobs asked.

“Don’t worry, there’ll be plenty of time to improve it,” Juno continued, hand in the air. “I’m sure you’ll be busy with running the kingdom, dealing with policies and trade to keep it going. Yet, you are also queen of this castle, the lady of the house. And as the lady, it is up to you to know everything there is to know about this place, from top of the roof to the bottom of any cellar. This way, you can tend to the needs of guests and know what the staff needs to keep it going. It is home to many people that help you in your daily life so you must keep it running seamlessly.”

Sariphi hummed, “So it’s the same in the human realm. Yet Anubis is the one that orders around the servants for things like meals and events.”

“Historically, if the queen couldn’t do the task, the Anubis of the reign would take over for her,” Juno replied. “I believe during the gap between the previous king and our king now, the council took over. Yet once the king was on the throne, his Anubis took over the duties. Soon enough it’ll be your duty to do so. You must know your domain like the back of your hand. Of course it will also be your duty to arrange events for the domain.” She paused, twisting back to her student. “Tell me, do you have any musical talents?”

“Me?” Sariphi asked, pointing to herself.

“Yes, you. You are the student and queen-to-be here,” Juno said. “Often at many events, ladies of the household provide entertainment either by performing or inviting others, such as musicians and poets, to entertain. Do you play any musical instruments or do you prefer singing?”

“I can sing, but not very well,” Sariphi stated. 

Leona smirked, stepping in front of the maiden. “Let me be the judge of that. Come on, let us hear a tune.”

“Okay…” Sariphi took a deep breath…In an oddly breathless and high-pitched tone, she sung, “Sleep now my dear child—” 

With just a few notes, everyone began to yawn at the sound. 

Will raised a paw. “That’s enough.”

Juno covered her mouth as she fought off a yawn. “Indeed, might be best to keep your singing to a nursery rather than a ballroom.” 

Leona smacked the dog’s paw. “Come on, I’ve heard worse. Could use some warmups, maybe try a lower pitch...” She patted the girl on the shoulder. “Well, if you’re not comfortable with singing, you can always play something. Know any instruments?”

Sariphi’s eyes darkened, looking down at the floor, a small frown on her face. Her mind took over her vision. She remembered her face almost touching the glass in the window as she looked at something round and shiny behind the glass, sitting on a white cushion. She remembered a young Maria, face beaming as Sariphi found the object sitting in an opened box in her lap. “Happy Birthday, sis!” Maria said. Then, she remembered Maria, years older now, going, “Come on Sariphi play us a song! You’ll never learn if you don’t play it!” 

“Sariphi?” Leona called out.

Sariphi found herself in the present once more, her friends looking at her, concerned. She shook herself, trying to dispel the past’s threads on her. “I’m sorry. I don’t know any instruments, but I have had a few dancing lessons. Maybe we can start there.” 

Juno stared, then nodded. “Ah yes. A good idea for a lesson. However, we’ll focus on the castle today. First we’ll have a broad view in order to get your bearings. Can’t have you getting lost in your own home. Then we’ll focus on the individual spaces, its inhabitants, and functions.”

A clamor directed everyone’s attention to the windows.

Lanteveldt poked his head out to see. “Looks like the Captain and his men are back.”

“Apt timing.” Juno smiled. “Let’s get some fresh air and tour the soldier’s training grounds and quarters first. Given the activity of the area, it often needs a lot of attention and care. Plus I have been curious about this Captain Jormungand I’ve heard so much about.”

The group made their way to the open grounds where several soldiers were dismounting from their horses. Jormungand was leading his soldiers towards the stable when he noticed the group heading towards him.

“Ah Lady Sariphi.” The knight bowed. “I heard that you became ill while I was away. I’m glad to see you well again.” 

“Thank you sir. It’s always good to see you and your men return safely.” Sariphi gave a small bow in return.

“Indeed.” He nodded towards Leona. “And I suppose we have this lady to thank for your recovery.”

Leona blinked and twisted around. “A lady where?” After a few twists, she stopped, smiling. “Oh you mean me! Thank you sir.” She stuck out her hand. “Leona Carrin, doctor. Nice to meet you, Captain Jormungand.”

He took the hand into his own mitten-like one. “An honor to meet you, ma’am. Thank you for healing our queen.”

“Happy to help wherever I can. If you or your men need some medicine or tending to, I’ll lend a hand anytime,” she said when the handshake broke.

Several soldiers flinched at her words, some openly staring at her. 

“Do you have experience in tending to Beasts, ma’am?” The captain asked. 

Leona waved at his words. “No need to ma’am me, but I’ve tended to all kinds of folks—skin, fur, scales, feathers. I’m always ready to aid those who need it.”

The captain nodded with a small smile. “Well, should the need arise, I’ll let you know.”

“Good.” She proffered a hand out to her companions. “Here are my friends, Will and Juno. They’ll be staying here as Sariphi’s teachers.”

Juno curtsied rather low. “It is a great honor to meet you, Captain Jormungand.”

Several of the reptilian soldiers stopped fully, looking at the woman with wide eyes. Some murmured between each other yet one glare from the captain silenced them. 

“It’s a pleasure to meet you two.” The captain bowed his head. 

“Jor!” 

Everyone turned to see Anubis, waving from one of the pillars outlining the courtyard. You could almost see the veins popping out of his head. 

“Pardon me, it looks like the Chancellor is in need of me.” With that he turned away from the group. A small green charm attached to his sword peeked out before being hidden by his coat. Leona and Will shared a glance and a smirk. 

Juno stared openly at it before coughing into her hand and regaining her composure. “Well, now that we’ve done our greetings, let’s keep going with our tour. A peek at the soldiers’ quarters and armory and then we’ll go from there.”

Just as the group left the grounds, they passed by a small room that caught Sariphi’s attention. Several round metal pipes were sticking out of the wall with a chain attached to them. She ventured away to peer at them. Leona noticed and followed.

“What do you think these are?” Sariphi asked, twisting her head. 

“Looks like a kind of shower head,” Leona commented. 

“Shower head?” Sariphi asked, trying out the words.

“You know about piping in water for baths, right? It’s the same system, but instead the water comes out from this spout here so a person can wash themselves standing up. Given how many men there are here, it would be convenient to have a place like this to have lots of men get washed at once. Plus, folks like reptiles and amphibians are more sensitive to temperature changes both from the outside and in. Probably a good way to cool down after training.”

“Really?” Sariphi glanced at the chain, tracing it with her fingers. “So I guess this is how you get the water out.”

Leona edged her charge away a bit. “Probably want to take a step back before trying anything.”

“Thank you.” Sariphi tugged on the chain, yet nothing occurred. She gave it another hard tug, but still nothing. 

Leona pulled up her sleeves. “Alright let me try.” She spat in her hands and tugged at the chains. Water burst out, drenching the two women below. She looked over at the maiden. “Sorry, Sariphi, looks like we needed two steps back.”

“It’s fine, at least now we know this works,” Sariphi commented, a smile on her face.

Their friends appeared at the doorway, Lante snickering with Will trying to hide his own laughter. Amit dashed towards the two women with Cy and Clops floating beside her. Juno sighed. “I suppose it’s as good a time as any to meet the seamstress in the castle.”

“My, my, while the circumstances are lamentable, I’m happy to see you again, Your Highness,” an older brown mouse woman commented as she hung up Sariphi’s dress next to Leona’s pants, shirt, and corset on a dressing screen. She was only a bit taller than the two humans, thanks to her ears, and she was dressed in a light pink cap and dress. “I’m sure your friends will be here in just a moment with your clothes.” She then scurried off to the side and pulled out some blankets, wrapping both humans. “Hope these keep you warm.” 

“Thank you ma’am,” Sariphi said, now standing behind the screen in a small top and a pair of shorts that went down her thighs. Leona sat on a stool in her own small clothes. 

“Please call me Marie, Your Highness.” The mouse smiled. She then touched the corset drying on the side. “Pardon me, Miss Leona, but what is this thing?”

“It’s a corset, a kind of undergarment. I mainly wear mine to keep my back straight and my boobs from going all over the place.” She patted at her ample chest. “But ladies also can wear them to help give them an hourglass kind of body shape; it’s all the rage back in Yoana.” 

“I see.” Marie picked up the fabric, tugging at the strings. “Would you like for me to make you something like this, Your Highness?” she asked the queen-consort-to-be. “It might take me some time.”

“For me?” Sariphi asked, pointing to herself. 

“I’m not sure. Mine’s more for purpose rather than fashion,” Leona commented, head in hand. “I’m not sure it would look good with the long flowy fashions that I see a lot of Beast ladies wearing outside the castle. Human fashion now likes that style too, so the corsets made now are longer.”

“Indeed?” Marie asked. 

“Yeah.” Sariphi nodded. “It’s the style nowadays. I’m not sure I really should wear one since I’m so…small,” she added with a small blush, arms wrapped around her slim frame.

“Eh, you’re fine.” Leona waved a hand. “I mean, whether or not you want to wear a corset is more up to you now, since you don’t have much in the way of human-style clothes.” Leona stood up, clasping the skirt of Sariphi’s drying dress. “I mean, this is the dress you were brought in here right?”

“Yes.”

“If human fashion likes longer garments why is Her Highness’s usual dress short?” Marie asked.

“I say fashion but it’s more high society that favors such things. Other places and regions can have their own idea of style.” Leona’s face darkened a bit as she continued with a bitter tone, “Plus, sacrifices are supposed to be modest women, humbling themselves for the sake of their race, so the Temple sends them dressed up like this.”

“It’s still a nice dress,” Sariphi commented. “It’s similar to the style I used to wear back at home, so it’s fine.”

“If you say so,” Leona said. “Why do you wear this one so much? As you were getting better, I helped you change into clothes and you have a lot more than this.”

“Those feel a bit too fancy for me to wear when I’m just studying in the library,” Sariphi admitted.

“I did think so. I just figured the king was spoiling you with nice gowns like rich men in love do. Even though he doesn’t seem to mind wearing his grandpa’s coat,” Leona said. 

“That is lamentable,” Marie sighed. “His Majesty and Sire Chancellor have only requested a few dresses for the few occasions we had guests while your position was still…precarious,” she said with a circle of her paw. “And of course, the moment my stupid cousin breaks his leg and thus everyone in the family has to rush over and make sure he’s alright is the moment the council decides you are queen-consort-to-be and thus need a new wardrobe befitting your position. And even though I’m the royal seamstress and have been waiting ages for the chance to provide a proper wardrobe for you!” She threw her paws in the air. “Yet, they can’t wait and thus the Head Maid,” she spat the last words out like a poison, “took some of the old queen’s and consorts’ clothing to make something for you.” She then sighed, flopping in her chair. “I’m truly sorry, Your Highness. I’d love to make you some more casual clothes if I can.”

“You really don’t mind dressing up a human queen? Seems like the rest of the castle is a bit on the fence about having a human around, let alone having one rule over them,” Leona commented, head resting on her hand. 

“I mean, I was certainly surprised about him selecting a sacrifice to be his bride. Yet, in the few times I’ve met her and everything I’ve heard from castle rumors, she’s been nothing but kind and compassionate to every Beast she’s met. Well those that aren’t trying to attack her at least.”

Leona sat up straighter. “Wait, is she talking about those thief guys that came in?”

“No…she’s talking about a princess who visited who really wanted to be the queen. At first, she just switched out the wine I was drinking for something too strong for me. Then she cornered me while we were alone, telling me to leave the position. When I refused, she attacked me. Fortunately Amit stopped her and then the King arrived and demanded she leave.”

“Oh Family,” Leona commented. “Is that when you got Lante?”

“No, he became my knight much later.”

“I never thought I’d see a hyena anywhere near the capital, let alone walking around the castle walls,” Maria commented, turning towards the older human. “The Hyena clan once fought against the king’s ancestors and were almost wiped out for it. I’m honestly surprised there are still Hyenas left.”

“I’ve heard about that.” Leona tilted her head. “Wasn’t that like 1,500 years ago?”

“Yes,” Sariphi sighed with a nod. “On his first mission with me, some of the soldiers we were with at the time distrusted and even confronted Lante, leaving their posts so they could bully him. Seems like Beasts have a hard time forgiving what happened and those now have to face so much because of it. I’m not sure I can make everyone forgive one another. I don’t even think I got through to those soldiers at the time.”

Marie smiled at the maiden. “Yet it’s seeing a kind of person that looks at all Beasts as equals that gives me hope for the future. The various mouse clans, my Brown Field included, can testify that many clans have attempted to take over our lands and we have fought them off. White Elephant, Elemental, pretty much every feline clan. Honestly, it’d be easier to name the clans that we haven’t fought with. And even when we were able to get back our lands, we continued to attack them out of revenge. And while there’s been no active conflict in my lifetime, I grew up so suspicious of other clans; I was afraid of anyone I didn’t grow up with. 

“Yet the more I interacted with other folks, the more I learned about them. I didn’t think of them as potential aggressors or enemies, but rather friends or clients. I can’t say they’ve all been kind, but I do think we can at least learn to get along with one another and try to bury the hatchet. His Majesty’s reign has ushered in a peace most Beasts have never known, and I do hope you can help him with that somehow. I’m certainly looking forward to the day I see you in the wedding dress I’ll make!” The mouse clapped. 

“Yeah, all hail Queen Sariphi, Bringer of Peace!” Leona called out. 

Sariphi beamed. “Thank you! I’ll do everything I can to make peace for all.”

A knock on the door turned their attention. Maria opened it to see Juno and Amit carrying clothes for their respective friends.

“Thank you so much,” Sariphi said, taking the clothes from Amit.

“The two of us will head to kitchens to help make lunch for everyone,” Juno said as she passed clothes to Leona. “Any requests?”

Leona tilted her head. “Not really.” She pulled her corset off the dressing wall, giving it a few flaps before putting it around her waist. As she adjusted the hooks, she looked over her shoulder and said, “Sariphi, got anything you want to eat?”

With a light pink dress covering her head, Sariphi paused. The group watched as she stayed like that, one arm up in the air, the other on her chest, tightening around the fabric. Leona pulled on a black shirt and then headed over to the maiden, pulling down her shirt and revealing her face. Sariphi wore a frown and furrowed brow, eyes down like the ground held some secret from her. 

“Sariphi?” Leona asked, snapping her fingers in front of the girl.

Sariphi blinked. “Ah sorry. Lost my train of thought, must be hungrier than I thought. No, I don’t really have a preference. I’m looking forward to anything you make; it’ll be delicious,” she said, a wide smile on her face.

Juno nodded. “Alright, chef’s choice. We’ll head down and see what ingredients the chefs have prepared and go from there. Mind helping me Amit?”

Amit watched her friend, concerned written on all her features, yet she gave the woman a nod and followed her out, still looking at her friend until the door shut behind them. 

“Pardon me, Your Highness.” Marie stepped forward. “Do you need some refreshment?”

Sariphi gathered her hair from the dress’s collar and pushed it free with her hand. “No, but thank you.”

Leona now pulled up her black pants. “You sure, queenie? You seemed a bit off.”

“I think I just need to sit down for a second.”

Marie quickly grabbed the stool from behind the curtain and offered it to the girl. Sariphi quickly took the seat. 

Another knock sounded from the door, followed by a male voice.“Is it safe for me to come in now?”

Marie giggled, “Yes dear,” and went to open the door, letting in a figure in red pants who was carrying a pile of white clothes in their brown paws that was tall enough to block the rest of the person. She took some clothes to reveal a brown mouse with a small red hat on top of his head. 

“Ladies, my husband Jacq, royal tailor.” She nodded, pointing to the new mouse. 

“An honor and pleasure, my ladies,” Jacq said, bowing with the clothes still in his paws. He then set the clothes on a nearby table. “Phew, I’m always glad when the soldiers come home safely. Though I wish they would stagger when giving me their uniforms to tailor when they return. Though I am glad its Captain Jormungand’s men, he always makes sure they’ve been cleaned beforehand.”

Sariphi rose from the stool to eye the clothes. “So you’re in charge of the soldiers’ outfits?”

“Yes.” Jacq held up a pair of pants, inspecting them. “My wife is in charge of the ladies’ outfits. Well, supposed to be.”

“Your Highness, if you could get that old fool of a head maid to let me do my job and take care of the maids’ outfits, I’ll honor you for the rest of my life as the best queen in history and sainthood,” Marie stated, a paw in the air. 

“Why won’t she?” Sariphi asked, ankles crossed. 

“Most of the maids are the Head Maid’s granddaughters, grandnieces, or the daughters of good friends,” Marie said. “And she’s very protective of her girls, which is fine when she tells off soldiers harassing them. But she says and I quote,” Marie cleared her throat and hunched over a bit. She slipped digits underneath her hat, making them poke out like horns. She then spoke in an older voice, “ ‘I know what’s best for my girls. I can take care of all their needs just fine.’ ” The mouse then rose and flung her arms out, as if shaking off something, clicking her tongue. 

Jacq snickered as he held up a pair of pants, “You do the best impressions, love.”

“Thank you, thank you,” Marie said, with a small bow. 

Leona watched the couple, clapping at the woman’s performance. However, Sariphi’s attention was on the tailor inspecting the clothes, making a few marks with chalk on parts here and there.

“Are those tail holes in the pants there?” Sariphi pointed to the wide pants that Jacq held up. 

“Ah yes, you probably won’t see most of them since quite a few beasts have shorter tails or wear longer shirts to cover them up.” Jacq nodded as he folded up the pants. 

“Wait Captain Jormungand has the most Reptiles out of all the captains serving the king…” Sariphi’s eyes began to sparkle; she leaned towards the man, hands gripping the seat. “Does that mean Reptiles have tails?”

Jacq fumbled with the pants in paw, nearly dropping them. “What made you think otherwise, milady?”

Sariphi shrugged. “Well I haven’t seen a Reptile tail since I arrived. I mean I did see war paintings and tapestries depicting them with tails, but since I didn’t see any here.  After a while, I thought the artists just added them in.”

Leona stepped towards the girl, arm around her small shoulders. “Remind me you’ve been here for about eight months or so right?” Leona asked.

“I think so…it’s hard to keep track since the calendar here is a bit different.”

Leona held her chin in thought. “Huh, you might just break my record.”

“Your record?”

“The shortest amount of time it takes for a human to see a Reptilian tail. Mine is a year and a month, so you’ve got some time.” Leona patted Sariphi’s shoulder.

“Really?”

“Yeah, I had been living back at home for a while and there were some reptiles and I kept thinking, ‘Where are the tails?’ I’ve seen them in tapestries, books, and murals. Was that some kind of artist interpretation? Do these Beast folk not have tails? They look so much like animals though?’ And sneaking down to the local hot spring to watch my neighbor's bathe to answer my queries was tempting but as a married woman, I had vowed to not watch any man but my husband naked.”

“Really?” Sariphi’s eyes went even wider. 

“It’s not in traditional vows, but he got lonely and jealous easily at the beginning so I didn’t want to upset him. Then one day, my neighbor Bai, a snake fellow, had this really bad rash–note you’ve got to teach Beasts what poison ivy looks like–on his leg and it went all the way up so of course I had to have him take off his pants, and seeing his tail was the furthest thing from my mind. Yet, there it was, one bonafide thin tail right in front of me. I screamed my head off in delight, which in turn caused Bai to scream in confusion. In fear that we were being attacked by something, villagers, including my husband and Bai’s wife, came forward to find us poking at the tail–it had a rash on it too. Fortunately, it was clear what was going on so only I got chased by Bai’s wife with her wok.”

“Wok?” Marie asked. 

“It’s a kind of frying pan, with a big middle so you can really fry a lot of things together,” Leona offered. “Well that mystery was solved. Reptiles had tails. For two weeks I cuddle-consoled my husband to show I didn’t want anyone else but him and for two months Xu–that’s Bai’s wife–kept her wok at hand whenever I was around until I earned her forgiveness. So let this be a lesson to you, yes, Reptilian folks do have tails; they just hide them cleverly. And don’t go looking at anyone else’s tail other than your husband’s, it makes them jealous.” 

“I see…” Sariphi stated.

Leona held a finger up. “By the way, the record for ‘Longest without Seeing A Reptile’s Tail’ is held by Mwindo.”

“Your town’s blacksmith? Why would it take him so long?” Sariphi asked.

Leona explained, “Well before he was a blacksmith, he was a mercenary. Actually fought off some rebel Reptilians years ago. But they kept their tails covered in combat. He only saw a tail once he met Juno, but that’s a story for another day. One where she’s far out of earshot and grabbing range.” 

Sariphi held her tilted head. “But why would Reptiles hide their tails in the first place?”

* “Well, Ozmargo did defeat the Reptiles two centuries ago,” Leona commented, rubbing the back of her neck. “And even before that, there’s been disdain between Mammals and Reptiles. So when it came time for Reptiles to enter Ozmargian society, they were naturally taunted for what made them different–scales, different tails. And some even took it a step further…” Leona took in a deep breath, “by chopping off Reptiles tails.” 

“Really? Why?” Sariphi cried out. 

“You see,” Jacq interjected, "there are some reptile clans that grow back tails after they’ve been chopped. I’ve even heard that they can even grow back limbs. When Ozamargo bested the Reptilians clans, the king took several of the higher-born and high-ranking soldiers and chopped off their tails–as proof he had bested them.”

“That was the previous king right?” Sariphi nodded.

“Yes.” Marie nodded glumly. “After that spectacle, many other clans began to chop off Reptilian tails as a means to demean them. Walking around with a stump of a tail is embarrassing as it is. So thus the clans came up with a means to cover their tails, protecting themselves from such attacks. After all, it’s hard to aim at what you can’t see. Attackers didn’t want Reptiles killed, just demoralized and reminded of the social order. And it may have even led to some younger folks thinking Reptilians had no tails at all, like yourself.”

“That’s…” Sariphi clutched at her heart, eyes watering. 

“Please don’t worry, Your Highness,” Marie stated, offering a handkerchief. “At the start of his reign, decades ago, His Majesty made such crimes punishable by way of banishment. It did earn him several enemies, yet I’ve spoken to several Reptiles in my time and they feel much safer now. Yet there are those folks, rebels to the crown, who will attack a Reptile if they think they can get away with it.” 

* Sariphi pressed the fabric to her eyes, wiping off a few tears. Leona moved over and hugged the young girl, smiling at her. “I know it’s tough, but you don’t have to solve all the world’s conflicts at once. Let’s start with stopping folks from actively killing each other and we’ll go from there.” 

“That’s what His Majesty’s been working on since the start of his reign,” Marie admitted.

Jacq stated with a finger up,“It’s true.” 

Sariphi took a deep breath and allowed herself a smile. “Alright.” She then turned towards Marie. “Would it be alright if I stop by sometime for measurements and to get me some casual clothes? I’d like to wear what my fellow country folk wear daily.”

Marie clapped her hands. “Of course, it would be my pleasure.”

When the ladies stepped out of the room, Lanteveldt, Will, Cy and Clops stood up from their seats. 

“Ooh, that’s a nice color on you, Your Highness,” Will said with a nod.

“Thank you,” Sariphi said with a small nod, smiling.

“You look so pretty, Sariphi!” Clops exclaimed.

“Pretty!” Cy agreed. 

“About time,” the hyena nearly groaned. “Let’s go eat.”

“Young man, you better get used to it. Ladies will take their time to get ready for any event,” Will commented. 

“I’ll try to not take too much time,” Sariphi assured, waving her hands in front of her. 

“‘A queen is never late, everyone else is simply early,’ I believe a human queen once said that,” Will said..

Leona nodded. “Yeah, so don’t worry about taking your time to get yourself all dressed up and ready. I’m looking forward to seeing you in your new wardrobe.”

“A new wardrobe?” Will inquired. 

“Marie offered to make her some more casual clothing for daily use,” Leona added.. 

“I see…” Will stopped the girl with a paw. “I’m sorry but please no more crinolines and petticoats. Humans finally got rid of those and I can’t live through that era again if you decide to wear them again!”

“Crinolines?” Cy asked.

“Petticoats?” Clops followed up. 

“Yes,” Will started, hands out wide around his waist. “For some reason humans decided that big poofy skirts were the fashion of the day for so many years. First it was achieved with layer upon layer of petticoats. Then they had these almost cage-like things around their waists called crinolines to cover their legs to achieve the same kind of designs. And Lord, those took forever to take off. Like seriously, how do human men have the patience for all of that?” He then turned to the hyena. “And despite what the heat of passion may tell you, young man, don’t try anything with a lady love while she’s got those things on. Learn from my mistakes. Getting slapped by that much fabric is not fun.”

Lante snickered a bit, “Noted, old man. But why would Sariphi wearing such things cause such a fuss?”

Will tilted his head. “Because whatever the Queen wears becomes what high society and in turn what society considers fashion. You can see it all the time in Yoana when royalty or highly-notable nobles decide to wear something different, everyone else is sure to follow. Historically, it also happened in Ozmargo too. But since the King doesn’t care for finer clothes and there’s no queen, there hasn’t been any new trends since her Late Majesty.”

“Why would your wife wear human clothes?” Clops asked. 

“You see, we’ve swapped clothes and fashion from time to time. We actually have a variety of human cultures and thus different kinds of clothing. The crinolines and petticoats are mainly from Western Yoana where Sariphi and Leona are from. I don’t mind wearing human male clothes. I find them quite alluring, but I pity the womenfolk.”

“Hey it wasn’t that bad,” Leona commented. “And the pockets on those kinds of dresses were amazing. I could fit Cy and Clops in one and have plenty of room in that one and have a free one. The day that crinolines went out the door, so did pockets for women.” She placed a hand on the maiden’s shoulder. “Sariphi gotta make sure Marie gives you a good pocket in your outfits. Not the tiny ones your hand barely fits in that you get nowadays.”

“That would be nice,” Sariphi noted, head tilted yet eyes on Leona, watching her in a fascinated way.

“You still have large pockets, Leona,” Will pointed out.

“Because I raised an understanding, compassionate daughter who also is a mage in her own right with a needle and thread. Your wife would probably be a lot less happy if she didn’t have those pockets for journals and pens my Le makes for her.”

“True,” the dog conceded. 

Just as they turned the corner, a man called out, “Ah, Your Highness.”

This caused Sariphi to halt. The group looked up to see Judge Set coming out of another hall. “I’m so glad to hear you are doing better after being unwell for so long.”

“Ah yes. Thank you.” Sariphi nodded to the man. 

“And I suppose this woman is to thank for your new health?” the tall fox asked, looking at Leona. 

“Yep, Leona Carrin, at Her Majesty’s service.” Leona offered a small bow. 

“I see. I am Judge Set. It is an honor to meet you ma’am. I apologize but I must be going.” The fox gave them a nod and left the group. 

“How long has he been here?” Will asked. 

“No clue, since the king’s been reigning I guess.” Lan looked down at the blobs. “You two know?”

“We don’t know much about him,” Clops admitted. 

“None,” Cy agreed. 

“He’s a bit spooky,” Leona commented. 

“Ah, yes.” Sariphi looked away from the fox. 

“What’s wrong, Sariphi?” Leona asked, hand now on the maiden’s shoulder. 

“Let’s just say when we first met, it was…awkward. It wasn’t the best circumstances.” She turned her head even more, hugging herself tightly. 

With her kidnapping and then her illness, she all but pushed her encounter with the judge on that almost catastrophic day out of her mind. Yet when he looked at her, with those cold and unfeeling eyes like stones, she couldn't help but think of her “parents”. They had those same eyes for her, even until their last goodbye. She’d take Anubis’s glare, full of life and venom at her, over Set’s cold eyes anyday, anytime. 

“I see.” Leona narrowed her eyes a bit. “Well, if he gives you any trouble, you can always tell me. I’ve got a few potions on hand in case you want to see him green or something. Or just tell His Majesty; the judge works for him after all. And he’ll work for you someday soon. Be sure he knocks off the whole suspicious thing while you’re in charge.”

“I’ll try,” Sariphi said with a nod. “The latter I mean. I don’t want anyone to turn green on my account.”

Leona sighed, “Ah you are so nice. It would only last a few days tops, honest. Cross my heart.” She made a small cross on her chest, but then saw Sariphi give her a stern look. She raised her hands up in defeat, “Fine, fine, no green. But do let me know if you change your mind.”

“Not likely, but thank you.” 

As her companions traveled onward, Leona stayed behind a bit. Around the corner, she just caught the man going around the other side of the hall. She let out one sharp whistle, catching him. When he looked at her, she pointed two fingers to her eyes, then back to him, then back to her. She then slowly slid away, eyes still on the judge until she disappeared behind the wall. 

The judge stared at the empty space for a bit and then smirked. “Another human in the castle…now this is an interesting development.” 

As the day continued on, the sun began to paint the miasma clouds a deep shade of purple. The teachers and students took a break by one of the outer walls of the castle, where one could see the capital life going on. 

Will let out a small woof as he sighed on one of the benches, massaging his paw of a foot. “I have to say, we really need to stop with these long trips. Lord, my legs can’t take much more.”

Juno huffed, arms crossed, “That’s because you spend too much time huddled over books. Honestly I think you’ve walked more in these last few weeks than in the decades I’ve known you.”

He shrugged. “I exercise my brain more.”

The two adults looked at Sariphi in between the two of them. She was kneeling, looking out at the people below: children chasing each other, mothers and fathers with children in slings or on shoulders, couples walking together, holding paws, hands, wings or some combination of the three. A few hoofed Beasts walked with tails entwined. 

“Pardon me, Lady Sariphi, are you overwhelmed by the tour?” Juno asked. “Perhaps we should have done it more in chunks.”

“No no and please call me Sariphi. It’s a good time to do so right?” Sariphi said, hand up.

“Of course, if that’s what you wish.” Juno clapped. 

Will pointed to himself. “Could I call you ‘Sariphi’ sometimes too?”

“Sure.” Sariphi smiled. Then her eyes looked off to the horizon. “Do you two think I can be a good queen?”

“Of course, you’ve got intent to learn and help others; that’s a fine start,” Will commented. 

“Yet, there’s still so much I have to learn.” Sariphi sighed.

“Yes I did hear you just learned about Reptilian tails,” Juno commented with a smile. “I guess going somewhere and not seeing what you’re expecting does raise some questions.” 

Sariphi tilted her head. “Were you born before Ozmargo defeated Murga or after, ma’am?” 

“I was born before, yet I was just out of diapers at the time of the war. If I’d had to guess, I’d say I’m close to my early or mid thirties as a human.”

“I’m closer to my forties in human sense,” Will admitted. “Though I’m getting closer to four hundred than I like to admit.” 

“So how old is Leona?” Sariphi asked. 

“42,” Juno said with confidence.

“43,” Will declared proudly. 

The two beasts turned to stare at each other.

“You don’t know her age?” Juno's gasped.

“I think I know her age quite well; I’ve known her longer,” the dog said, arms crossed. 

“We can ask and see who’s right,” Sariphi suggested.

“Okay, but I will let Leona know you made her older than she actually is,” Juno commented, waving a finger at the dog.

“Yeah, yeah.”

Sariphi giggled and sighed, relaxing against the back of the chair. She then tensed, hands gripping each other in her lap. 

Will leaned in towards the girl,“You know, Sariphi, we’d be happy to give you lessons after you marry His Majesty. Just because you become a queen doesn’t mean we’ll pack our bags and head back to our village."

“Really?” 

“It’s a bit unconventional, but given the fact that you are ascending the throne in less than a year, it’d only be natural to ask for assistance in such a case,” Juno noted. 

Sariphi nodded. “His Majesty says he doesn’t mind waiting for me to take over the queen’s duties until I’m ready. Yet I want to be ready as soon as I can be. Since he’s been doing this with Anubis’s help for so long, I want to help him too.” 

Will sat for a moment pondering. “My wife taught me that even if you reach a goal you’ve strived for, you shouldn’t try to stop improving and learning. Even if you do become queen, it would be good for you to keep learning and growing whatever talents you have. I mean, look at Her Highness Princess Gloria. She’s mastered pretty much what you expect from a ruler, yet still attends classes from universities and competes in competitions for all kinds of fields.”

Sariphi rested herself on her crossed arms, eyes closed. “Yeah, she is magnificent. Like a finely polished diamond held up to moonlight.” She pictured the woman she’d seen in newspapers, always so poised and elegant. The image of her standing with a fencing sword, holding up a large trophy, stuck out the most. She then opened her eyes, “She’s had so many years to learn…I don’t know how I’d compare.” 

WIll hummed, scratching his chin. “I suppose it can be frustrating when pretty much all your predecessors were either royalty, nobility or the very wealthy merchants who basically inhabit the same circles. I’d have to research it more, but it would be hard to find a queen throughout Ozmargo’s protectorates or other Beast nations with a background like yours. The only one that comes to mind is Queen Varyl, the first queen, but we didn’t have the concept of nations in this land yet.”

Sariphi looked down at the Beasts below. She felt a touch on her right side, seeing Will smile at her. “Although I must say, you wouldn’t be an oddity among the human queens though. I mean even your late Queen Winnifred, Gloria’s grandmother, was born a commoner and look how she turned out.”

With that mention, Sariphi gasped, face pink, hands flailing. “Me? Be like Queen Winni? No way! There’s no way I can compare to her!”

“Ah let the historians compare the two of you in like five, six hundred years,” Juno commented. 

“But Queen Winni was so amazing! She would stand with people at protests. She made speeches and raised so much money for so much good for the people. Even after she gave the throne to her son, she still cared for so many…” Sariphi began. Now she pictured Queen Winnifred, her features a bit rounder than you would see on her granddaughter. An old matron, wrinkles around her face from all her years of smiling. The newspapers always depicted her enjoying her retirement with helping out others, ladling out soup after disasters. Her death a few years ago was met with nationwide mourning, no newspaper needed to declare it. Everyone wanted to show their love for their beloved former monarch so that Crossa would know that Her Majesty deserved an afterlife full of true bliss.

“And once you’re queen, you can do those things,” Will commented. “Plus Her Majesty started out as an eccentric princess since she married the second prince, giving the nobles headaches about what they called nonsense about ‘unions’ and ‘workers’ rights’ . She only became queen when her brother-in-law died without an heir. Plus she got the throne when she was about forty or so? You’ll get a bit more time to change things than she did.”

“But what if it’s not enough time?” Sariphi said, looking once more down at the Beasts below. “There’s still so much conflict in this land. Can I really help it in the years I have? I’m a human, so I know I’ll be dead perhaps long before His Majesty sees the peace we want.”

Behind her, the two Beasts looked at each other with a knowing glance. Then Will adjusted himself to look the future queen in the eye. “I’m sure you’ll have plenty of time to change this nation,” Will said. “And we’ll do everything we can to help you and support you however we can. Like say, I can help you examine the reigns of commoner queens to see how they adapted and what their reigns were like. Oh, I’ll definitely see if there’s any that hailed from foreign nations, to see how they handled any culture or society differences.”

Juno leaned herself closer, offering her own words. “I can also be at your side to help you plan events such as speech presentations or balls. I can personally attest that when everyone is having a good time, no one thinks of conflict or wars. We’re here for every step of the way of your reign. Just trust in yourself and your heart and I’m sure your dreams will come true.” 

Sariphi smiled, “Thank you so much! I'm ready to learn! ”

Juno chuckled, “Don’t thank us quite yet, Your Highness.We haven’t given you our homework yet.” 

“There’ll be homework!?” the maiden gasped, hands on face. Her eyes were actually shining. 

Will clutched at his chest. “Oh Lord, stop being so cute! This is too much! Why couldn’t I have a son that was a king? I could have had a daughter-in-law like this!” He glanced at the future queen. “Any chance your sister is like you?”

Juno smacked her friend on the shoulder. “Will!”

“I’ve got three sons to marry off; you can’t blame a guy.” Will rubbed his shoulder. “You could go a bit easy on me.” 

Juno let out what sounded like a gurgle of anger. She looked back to the queen-to-be, yet the look on Sariphi’s face stopped her words. 

Her usual bright blue eyes dimmed and looked slightly to the left. A small frown on her face. She didn’t look like she was about to cry in either Beast’s eyes, but there was a sorrow now to her. 

“Uh Sariphi? I’m sorry,” Will offered. 

As if a spell broke, Sariphi shook her head, blinking, her eyes back to their usual shine. “Ah sorry, I was lost in thought at the moment. But to answer your question, Professor, no, my sister doesn’t care much for studying.” She started waving her hands. “Not that she’s dumb or ignorant or anything like that. She’s just more…lively. She’s always one for a party or other social event. Always happy to have a conversation. She was, I mean, is, the more social of the two of us.”

“She sounds lovely,” Juno commented.

“Yes…yes she is,” Sariphi said, looking away.

Will wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Sounds like a lovely woman…think she’d be interested in an older dog of a man? She can have her pick with my sons.”

Sariphi clutched her chin in thought. “Hmm…I honestly don’t know.”

Juno thunked her friend in the head. “Let’s save matchmaking for another time shall we? Dinner should be ready soon. And with your new appetite, it can’t be a moment too soon.”

“Yeah.” Sariphi rubbed the back of her head. 

“Yeah, dinner first, then we’ll give out the homework,” Will agreed. 

Leonhart walked into his room, taking in the sight of his bride on the floor, papers scattered around her. A small dish of crackers were piled at one side as she ate one, scanning over a book. She wrote something on her paper. Then she paused, made some scratches on paper and continued on with her writing.

“Would you like to have a desk in here?” the king asked, brow raised. 

Sariphi jumped a bit, looking around the room. When she caught sight of the king, she beamed. “Leonhart, welcome back! Sorry, I just wanted to get a head start on my homework, so it won’t be necessary.”

“I’m sure there’s a spare desk and chair that can be procured somewhere in the castle.” He walked over, glancing around at the papers. “What are you doing?”

“Right now, Professor Will’s homework. He wants me to translate these Human tales he brought into Ozmargin.”

“He’s a professor?” the king asked, sitting on the bed above her. He noted a few books at her side. He picked up one that had two humans–a man and woman, judging by their dress–in the middle of a dance on the cover. 

“I don’t think so, but he said it was awkward for me to call him ‘Sir’ since I’m going to be a queen, so he asked me to call him ‘Professor’. I’m calling Lady Juno ‘Lady’ for the same reason,” Sariphi replied, not looking up from her work. 

He made a small grunt. “Do as you wish.” He flipped through some pages filled with squiggles–human language he assumed–going from one side of the page to another, rather than running from the top of the page to the bottom, like he was used to seeing with Beast language. 

Occasionally, he’d find pictures, some with text surrounding it; other times, the picture took up almost the entire page. He stopped at an image of a girl in rags, scrubbing the floor while two women in dresses covered in ribbons and lace pointed, laughing at her. “What are these tales?”

“Oh they are fairy tales.” Sariphi now looked up at the king.

“Fairy…tales? What is a fairy?”

“It’s a magical creature.They are often human-looking but with a pair of butterfly-like wings on their backs. Some are small enough to fit in a person’s hand; some are people-sized.”

“Butterflies?”

“Ah one moment.” She pulled up a piece of paper and doodled something with two rounded wings and then some stick-like objects out of the line in the middle. “It’s a kind of insect. Here’s what they look like.”

“So the tales are about fairies?”

“Well they are tales for children. Sometimes there are magical creatures like fairies or witches that appear to either help or curse the hero or heroine.”

The king furrowed his brow. “A witch is…?”

Sariphi shrugged. “It’s usually an older, ugly woman with no husband and kids, who’s thought to have made a bargain with Beasts. That in exchange for teaching them magic in some way, they’d capture young women for Beasts to feed on.”

“Humans really believe in such things?” The king almost laughed. 

Sariphi set down her pen, holding her chin in concentration. “There was a time several centuries ago when conflicts across the continent were in the Beasts’ favor. Combined with several natural disasters that happened at the time, people were frantic to find some reason for what felt like the gods turning their back on them. They came to believe that women, particularly older, unmarried ones, may have made deals with Beasts for magic and were betraying humans. However, time and reason won out; eventually such things were dismissed as superstition. So now witches are just things that appear in stories.” She did pause looking the king in the eye, “Though I wish there was some way I can do magic, so I can help you.”

Leonhart leaned in closer to his love. “Really, what would you do?”

Sariphi admitted, “I’d probably do more arcane magic; that’s the kind you used to make my rings, right?”

The king nodded. “Yes. It’s a rare kind of magic that even my clan struggles to master. It has many uses though such as transferring magic into objects to enchant them or to make new ones.”

Sariphi held up her left hand, the ring on it shining. “And it’s absolutely wonderful. I wish I could make things like this for you.”

“What would you make?” Leonhart asked with a tilt of his head. 

Sariphi barely blinked as she counted on her fingers. “A pen that would write down what you say so you could respond to requests and correspond faster, but not have to deal with the wrist pain of all that writing. Some kind of blanket that stays warm for Nights of Revelations to keep us warm and to soothe the aches you have when transforming. A matching ring for you…”

“A ring for me? Why?”

Sariphi blushed a bit. “Well, where I grew up, married couples exchange rings as part of their vows of fidelity and continue to wear them as a sign of being married. I think it’d be nice for us to have matching rings like that.” She then looked up at the king. “Would you like a ring like mine?”

“I’m not one for jewelry…” He averted his gaze. “Though to wear a ring like yours does sound tempting.” He then glanced at the book, looking for a distraction. “So these are the stories you read as a little girl.” He pointed to the picture. “What’s this story about?”

Sariphi looked at the page. “That’s a story about a girl bullied by her step-mother and step-sisters because she’s prettier than them. They are jealous and worried she’ll catch a better man than them. So, she’s forced to do all the housework while they enjoy a leisurely life.”

“Seems like a cruel thing to do…Did your family do such a thing to you?”

“No, no. I mean, yes I did do chores, but it wasn’t like I had to do everything in the house. Although I admit, I did more of the physical ones like scrubbing the floors,” Sariphi admitted. “Don’t worry too much though, I’m fine. And this story ends happily too. When a good fairy sees the bullied girl’s kind heart, the fairy helps her meet the crown prince and the two fall in love. They get married and live happily ever after.” 

The king nodded. “Huh, I ponder what your parents would say at your position now then…” he mused. But then he noticed Sariphi…shaking? She’d taken up the pen again, making a long, shaking, downward line in ink. He placed a paw on her shoulder. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought them up. I know they are a bane to you.”

At his touch, she leaned into his large paw, nuzzling at the fur. She rested her hand on top of his. “Ah, thank you. I don’t want to think about my ‘parents’ right now, please.” After a moment she did add, “I will say, they wouldn’t be pleased to hear where I am now.” 

Leonhart glanced around, hoping for some distraction on another piece of paper. One held a column of numbers with tiny Ozmargin by them. “What’s this list?”

Sariphi brightened. “Oh that’s Lady’s Juno homework. She asked me to come up with ten different things that I think would improve the castle.” She then blinked and waved her hands. “You don’t have to do them. That’s still a first draft, to get started. I’m sure I’ll come up with some better ideas.”

He scanned the list: 1. Ensuring good bedding for servants. 2. New controls for the soldiers’ showers–he could agree with that one; they hadn’t changed since he had them installed for the reptilian soldiers near the start of his reign. At number three, his brow furrowed.

“Put up art around the castle? What is that about? Seems like a waste,” he commented.

Sariphi paused, clutching the pen in her hand tighter. “Really?”

The king took back his paw so he could cross his arms. “Indeed, when I was a child, my father would commission one piece after another, lining the walls. I doubt he even saw every artwork, just kept requesting and paying. He treated money from the treasury like river water, flowing and never ending.” The king let out a huff. 

“What were they pictures of?” Sariphi asked, standing up on slightly wobbly legs before plopping herself next to the king. “I’ve only seen the portraits of the former kings and queens down that one hall.” 

“Mainly my ancestors in triumph. Several battle scenes where humans were massacred. A few of them were of his late wife; those were kept closer to his chambers,” Leonhart admitted. “Even after his death, artists came to the palace with their pieces and demanded payment for their works. I never understood his obsession with all the arts.”

“So what happened to the paintings?”

“Most I gave away to folks that were interested. Some are in a part of the treasury.”

“Sorry.” Sariphi lowered her head. “I thought that maybe it would be good for visitors so they wouldn’t get lost in the castle. And it would be nice for all the castle staff that immigrated here to be able to see parts of their home.”

“What?” The king looked at her, ears wiggling in distress. 

Sariphi took a deep breath. “Well, back in Yoana, there are many folks who travel for business, religion, and other reasons. So they often carry pictures of their homeland to remind them of where they come from or to ease homesickness when on the road. Since there are quite a few different Beasts from different parts of Ozmargo, I bet they miss their original homes too. Even Amit or the Reptile soldiers may miss their homelands from time to time.”

Leonhart looked at the list and then back to her. “Do you miss your old home?”

Sariphi gripped her skirt. She took in one, two, three deep breaths. “Sometimes, I miss parts of it. And some of the people I left behind.” She then stood up, able now to wrap her arms around the king’s neck. “But I’m far happier here than I was there.”

“Really?” he asked sincerely.

“Well you’re here for one thing. Being with you makes me happy and wherever you are is home to me now,” Sariphi admitted, smiling and bright-eyed. 

The room suddenly filled with the sounds of thumping. Sariphi peeked up to see his tail wagging behind him, hitting the bed with fervor, his face a bit pink. 

Sariphi smiled and hugged the king tighter, placing a small kiss on his brow. He returned the embrace and kissed her cheek, then nuzzled her face, still holding the list. He then released her, focusing now on the paper. “You’ve made a good point with the art. Though it has been a while since the palace commissioned a piece, I’m not sure which artists are still practicing from my father’s reign.”

“That was a first draft,” Sariphi commented. “I just wrote down some things that would be nice to have around the castle...They probably are silly.”

Leonhart set the paper down and brought her into a hug. “Well, let me see your final draft when it’s ready; we can see what we can do together.”

“Thank you, Leonhart.”

“You are my queen. I have faith in your decisions and will fulfill any desire you may have, for yourself or the kingdom.” 

Sariphi’s face deepened to pink. A small rumble broke through the moment, Sariphi’s face now an absolute red. 

“Oh Family this is embarrassing,” Sariphi murmured, face in hand and sitting on the bed. “I really hope this appetite goes away soon.”

“What is this family? Leona mentioned them when we first encountered each other,” Leonhart said, picking up the plate of crackers.

Sariphi then took one. “It’s the family of gods that humans worship.” She took a bite of the cracker before her. 

“How come you never mentioned them?”

After swallowing, Sariphi admitted, “I’ve never been religious. There’s a general worship of them on holy days and people will pray to the god that watches over their positions, like blacksmiths to Fuma, the god of forges or farmers to the goddess of farming, Grewth. Yet, nowadays, most folks are more indifferent to the gods. It’s been like that since the end of the last war. When humans had to give up their own to survive, it seemed like the Family didn’t care enough to help humans out of the situation. 

“Plus the Temple of Brezah, one of the gods, is the one in charge of the sacrifice system. Growing up, my family often went to that temple. They were always close to several priests so I guess that’s how they found out about our town having to give up a girl. It’s supposed to be random, so that way one part of Yoana doesn’t have to give up more girls consecutively than others, but I guess that’s not true. Hard to have faith if a god just lets their followers do whatever they want without punishment.” 

The king hummed, “Understandable. I myself don’t have much faith in my God either.”

“I’ve wondered a bit about your God.” Sariphi pondered. “I guess he doesn’t have a name?”

“When he’s the only one, does he need a name?”

“Ah good point.” Sariphi giggled. She looked up at her love. 

They spent a few moments in that warm glow of comfort. 

“By the way, have you ever seen Captain Jormungand’s tail?” Sariphi asked.

“What?” the king asked, bewildered.

“Well I just learned about how Reptiles cover their tails so I got curious. Have you ever seen his tail?”

The king thought for a moment. “I can’t say that I have…”

Sariphi sighed a bit, “I’m glad I’m not the only one.” Her hand wandered to her pocket, feeling the whistle in there all over again. Earlier, after dinner, Leona got it back from the seamstress, and gave it back to Sariphi. The future queen  patted the fabric and reached for her plate of crackers. Like Leona said, it would only be for emergencies. Perhaps she’d never use it and it would just be a relic of this time. She then knocked on the wood of the king’s bedframe with her knuckle, hopeful the whistle would be just that. 

Thus ended Sariphi’s first day of lessons. Fortunately her appetite went back to normal after two days.

“Damn I liked those extra snacks though,” Lante grumbled in the middle of Sariphi’s lesson, handstanding on a stack of books.

“Could it still be possible to make some more?” Sariphi pondered.

“I don’t mind. Just make sure you keep up training or else those extra snacks aren’t going to show,” Juno said, swatting at him and causing him to lose his balance and fall. He just managed to land on his feet. “Seems like the snacks are making you slow already.”

“Yeesh lady, Sariphi’s your student, not me,” the young man grumbled from the ground. 

As the hyena got up, the two blobs watched from their desk. With Sariphi now learning Ozmargin from Will, they were taking a break from their usual translating duties and reading one of the Human books Will brought.

“It’s hard to say who’s the oddest of the bunch,” Clops commented.

“Yep,” said Cy.

[tobias-hankel]

Heeeeeyy Daddy~ Love of my life. Sweetie pie. Cutie patootie with a knife— wait put that down. Maze!

Ahem, anyways— I want some Alpha Hotch protecting his Omega pls UwU idk how or what or if it’s spicy or just him being overly protective (maybe another Alpha is making eyes at HIS mate? 👀). Just gimmie the feels pls!

And not the knife!

I'm taking Hotchreid drabble requests in honor of the Hotchreid Zine release.

For more information about our Hotchreid Zine, make sure to check out Tumblr - all proceeds go to SharedHope, a charity to combat sex trafficking.

--

Cw Omegaverse, unwanted scenting, unwanted sexual advances

Spencer being an omega wasn’t a secret, but it also wasn’t something the team talked about. With a mix of suppressants and being scented by his mate, Hotch, people often thought he was a beta or a low-ranking alpha, but every now and then an officer or fellow agent would find out Spencer was an omega – the only omega in the FBI at that – and decide to harass him because of it.

Spencer insisted he could handle himself though. He didn’t want to be coddled, even if sometimes he needed it.

Like now.

The team was currently on a case. Everything was going well until one of the officers looked Spencer up and found a news article about Spencer being an omega in the FBI. Now he wouldn’t leave Spencer alone.

Spencer did his best to ignore his snide remarks and sexual advances but when the rest of the team had to leave to different assignments for the case, he found himself wishing he had his alpha to protect him.

“Hey little omega, all alone?” The officer said as he walked into the conference room Spencer was in, shutting the door behind him. Spencer didn’t answer the man and just kept staring at the board he was looking at. “Why don’t you come with me, huh?” The man got closer, placing a hand on Spencer’s hip.

Spencer backed away sharply. “I’m working, please leave me alone.”

“It can wait, baby,” the officer said as he took a step closer while smirking. It only took a second for Spencer to register what the officer was doing as his senses started to cloud with the scent of alpha. It was illegal to purposely scent someone else without their consent. While it did sometimes happen on accident, it was clear by the look on the alpha’s face that he was trying to overpower Spencer.

“I—I already have an alpha. You n-need to leave,” Spencer said, taking slow breaths and trying to think around the overwhelming scent. No matter how strong an omega was, there was only so much they could do when it came to an alpha scenting them. The scent spoke to their most basic needs of an omega – to find an alpha and breed.

“Shhh,” the officer placed his hand back on Spencer’s hip. “Come on, omega. So sweet for me,” the officer grabbed Spencer’s chin and leaned only inches away from Spencer’s face so that his scent would be even stronger. “Just let go and come with me.”

Spencer could feel his eyes water as his mind started to blur. All he could think of was alpha, alpha, alpha – but not this alpha. He didn’t want this man; he wanted his alpha. “…Aaron… Alpha…” Spencer started to mumble. He had no idea that Hotch was walking through the doors of the police station at that same moment. Once Hotch got inside, he felt something wrong with his omega and raced towards him.

Spencer didn’t even hear the door slam open as Hotch ran in, smelled what the alpha was doing, saw his crying omega, and punched the officer in the face without a single word. The punch made the officer pull his scent back and Spencer gasped as he could finally breathe again.

“Alpha!” Spencer cried, reaching out for Hotch. Spencer never called Hotch alpha in public, so he knew he was shaken up. He quickly wrapped him in his arms and scented him gently – not enough that he couldn’t think, just enough to calm the omega down.

Emily and Morgan came into the room next, quickly figuring out what happened and feeling a flame light under them with the knowledge of someone messing with Spencer.

“Arrest him for omega abuse,” Hotch said to Emily and Morgan before he guided Spencer to the sofa that was in the corner of the room.

Once they sat down, Spencer said, “I was so scared I wouldn’t be able to stop him… I only want you, Alpha…”

“I know, sweetheart. You are safe now,” Hotch said before pressing a kiss onto Spencer’s head.

[captainaikus]

Ohhh okay that’s a relief. No worries I’m not going anywhere!!! 😊😊 Just don’t forget to take breaks between all the hectic and busy stuff too okay?? I’m sure you’ll do great on your test 😤😤. AND YES YOURE TAKING BREAKS THATS AWESOME YOU ABSOLUTELY DESERVE THEM!!!! Ooooo which psychological horror movies if I may ask? Oh? 👀 Yandere Nagi you say?? 👀👀👀

I’ve been working on that surprise for you!!! I wanna edit it a bunch and make sure it’s as perfect as I can get it to be. Because half the time I either post my works at 4 am in the morning after speed writing after inspiration hit me or I look over it once and get tired halfway through the second time and just hit post adhjgfjjhhgfgghh 💀💀.

Thank youuuuu!!!! I was debating on which to pick of the thousand screenshots from my camera roll 😭😭. Very hard decision he looks gorgeous in literally every angle and lighting and scene like SIR??? I also changed the theme of my blog in honor of the first episode of the second season finally being released!! Tell me what you think 🥰. Surprisingly I haven’t made a single post abt the first episode yet because I’ve just been on a rebloging spree since it first came out. LET ME TELL YOU RN BELLE THE ROLLERCOASTER OF EMOTIONS I WENT THROUGH YESTERDAY AND LAST WEEK IT FELT LIKE MY BRAIN WAS ETERNALLY VIBRATING WITH EXCITEMENT ADHJHFGJHVCKK. Anyways ✨. I’m gonna be making sooooo many TR posts soon just you wait as soon as my energy goes down a bit enough for me to type abt it my entire page is gonna be full of TR ashkjfgkkfffjkgf you’ve been warned 😭😭💀. Remember to take breaks and drink water and eat snacks love!!! *sends many virtual*

- ✨ anon

*sigh of relief* my test was alright T.T Its news to everyone that I'm taking a break — and its also giving off the impression that i am a workaholic which isn't wrong... So i watched psycho and vertigo by alfred hitchcock... yes. i am THAT old (the shower scene in psycho is so iconic not to mention everyone was on a bates motel high) And yes. Yandere Nagi — based on another movie I watched (this one is pretty old too) but. the more i think about it... the more hotter the story is getting in my head. This might be a mini series tho — cause the storyline is damn complicated and i wanna take my time with it, write it well and then post it on my ao3. Ooohh I know that feeling !! Half the time I'm looking like a maniac typing away at 3 in the morning cause that's when my inspo kicks in and then i land up with less sleep. smh— You have me on the edge of my seat *wipes of sweat* but please take your time and don't rush !! And honestly? same with me too. I write things, don't feel like beta reading it. *reads it later* How do people even like this? o.o AND. I. ADORE. YOUR BLOG THEME!! Ahh !! Sunflowers!! And i lowkey think that everyone is starting to like kazutora but at the same time with the kind of character development he has? 100% deserves the thirst and I think i just got struck with an idea for him... *notes down*

Look at me creating work for myself — *sending hugs back*

[topgun-il]

Exclusive Interview: Xdinary Heroes Explore New Sounds With The Xperiment Project And Talk All About LIVE And FALL

Xdinary Heroes made a mark in the industry right from their debut with their unique sound and unforgettable aura. Every release since then has been even more special as Xdinary Heroes keep exploring their sound and pushing the bar further than we thought imaginable. They released their first full-length album earlier this year, and it instantly made it into our list of favorite releases of the year. But it didn’t stop there for Xdinary Heroes, because they topped themselves with the release of four of their best songs in preparation for the eventual release of LIVE and FALL. Before the big release, we had the honor to interview Xdinary Heroes about the Xperiment Project, what LIVE and FALL means to them, and much more!

Welcome to The Honey Pop! We’ve been following you since your debut so it is very exciting for us to be talking to you today! You’ve been teasing the release of LIVE and FALL for months with the Open Beta singles, and it has been such a different roll out compared to all your previous releases. Why did you decide to take this approach to tease this mini-album in particular?

Gun-il: Hi, thank you for having us. At the beginning of this year, we wanted to experiment with many interesting things that were in our head. We thought that having shows and releasing singles every month would be the perfect way to try out the things that were in our head and also to be able to challenge ourselves to level up. So we decided to make that happen with the “Xperiment Project.” Through the new experiences that made us level up, we were able to put together the new album LIVE and FALL.

These four songs have been some of our favorites in your discography. The most recent single, ‘iNSTEAD!,’ was your first ever collaboration, and with none other than YB’s Yoon Do Hyun! How did this collaboration come together? What did you learn from the experience and what has been the best about it for you?

Gaon: For the first time as Xdinary Heroes, we wrote growling parts. While thinking about how to make this sound perfectly, we watched the video of Yoon Do Hyun singing the PPORORO as metal version. Right after then, we all thought, “This part is definitely Yoon Do Hyun’s!!” Then we asked him about the collaboration, he accepted it so readily, and I was so excited. While working with Yoon Do Hyun, I learned about what is a real rocker and what’s a great song. It was great and I was very happy to work with him as he was very gentle and took care of us like a friend, even though we’re very fresh juniors compared to Yoon Do Hyun.

Jooyeon: While making the track and looking for someone to can work together for ‘iNSTEAD!,’ Yoon Do Hyun was the one that popped into my mind. Thankfully, we could get in touch with him and then this track was able to come out to the world. Every single moment that we had together was an honor and I was able to learn about our attitude toward music and a lot of rock spirit. I love you again, Yoon Do Hyun!!

Talking about ‘iNSTEAD!,’ we’ve always noticed elements of hard-rock, metal, and post-hardcore in your music throughout your previous releases, in songs like ‘Hair Cut’ and ‘Bicycle.’ What about now felt like the right time to fully dip into that kind of music, with the instrumentals and, of course, the styling?

Gaon: Actually, I’ve been craving for metal and hardcore for a long time. I think that’s why our music is getting heavier and more rock based. Also, since we’ve been working on our music with a comfortable mind as we’ve had some time to spare, I think we’ve been able to make hard music that I’ve really wanted to do so far. Overall, we decided that this is the time to show new aspects of XH and made this track and styling.

O.de: We wanted to show a lot of different aspects and a variety of our music through Xperiment Project during this year. So I thought that it was an even more appropriate time to make this powerful/energetic track.

All the releases, ‘Boy Comics,’ ‘LOVE and FEAR,’ ‘Save me,’ and ‘iNSTEAD!,’ have had their unique color and styling. If you had to live sticking to only one of these aesthetics, which one would it be?

O.de: For me, ‘LOVE and FEAR‘ is the one. It’s really fun to perform this track on stage, and I think it fits my performance very well.

Jungsu: I’d like to talk about the music as XH and music of Jungsu. First, as Xdinary Heroes, I guess we have to stick to our concept as ‘Boy Comics,’ as it’s a song that melted the power of XH and also the humorous points. As Jungsu, definitely ‘Save me‘ is my style. It’s a very refreshing track which goes well with my voice and color.

With the roll out of the Xperiment Project, it’s also been so exciting to piece the instrumental teasers together to form one full song, and we can’t wait to listen to the entire thing. What made this song so special that it led you to tease it in such a genius way?

Gun-il: We’ve always wanted to release an instrumental track, and we thought of an idea where we release a solo track of each instruments every month so the fans could have some fun stacking up the solo tracks each month. We also named those tracks like demos to make them seem like leaked tracks, haha.

Earlier this year, you released one of our favorite releases of the entire year with your first full-length album, Troubleshooting, and it is obviously a huge milestone. What would you say you have learned from the experience of making that album, and how has it influenced the making of LIVE and FALL?

Jungsu: We learned a lot about putting our story into the music while working on Troubleshooting. Before that, we tried to spit out more with the concept and the melody. But through Troubleshooting, we tried to tell people what we really wanted to say. It helped us grow up a lot, and it became literally a milestone to keep writing our own stories in the songs.

Jun Han: After the previous album, we could tell our story, and the melody was a bit more well-organized and unique. How lucky we are, though.

You’ve also been touring a lot between last year and this year! We can imagine bringing these songs live all over the world has been life-changing. How has touring influenced your recording and songwriting? Is there a song in your discography that has gained a whole other meaning for you with this tour?

Jungsu: Through the tour, I came to study the songs that we can enjoy on the stage and enjoy together with the audience, rather than only for listening. Since then, we made the track ‘Money On My Mind,’ which is very perfect for the performances and also made some chanting moves with the audience during the ‘Night of Fireworks’ stage.

Jooyeon: I’m inspired to make a song which is good to enjoy together with the audience during the performance. At this point, ‘Money On My Mind’ is very fun to perform.

We know you’re constantly exploring, innovating, and trying new things, but what’s a type of sound you’ve been dying to try out but haven’t exactly had the chance to do yet?

Gaon: At some point, I realized that the boundaries of the genre of XH’s music are not very clear. I think that we’re doing very special music, which is hard to categorize with any specific genre ,and we’re making the genre of Xdinary Heroes so far. As I’ve said before, we want to change any sound as our own style and genre that only we can do.

O.de: I think it might be a very personal answer but someday, I’d like to do a DJ performance on stage!

Ever since your debut, we’ve seen you grow into an amazing band and incredible song-writers. What’s the song that you feel the most proud of in your discography, the one that feels the most special to you?

Jun Han: ‘Little Things’ became a special track for me, and it’s very hard to pick only one proud track…I have to keep working harder on it, haha.

Jooyeon: ‘Strawberry Cake‘ and ‘PLUTO’ are the ones. We could make us known to many people through ‘Strawberry Cake,’ and I can feel more of the emotion and scale of ‘PLUTO’ as the venue grows and more audience members come.

Obviously the release of LIVE and FALL is like no other before, but how do you think this mini-album will shape and influence your future releases?

Gun-il: I haven’t really thought about that yet. We will just keep on trying the things that we want to, just like how we’ve always done before.

Jun Han: I think it’s full of experimental songs. I think the genre and style to take as Xdinary Heroes will be decided depending on the reactions of this EP.

Finally, if you were to make a playlist to encapsulate LIVE and FALL’s energy, which of your previous songs and which songs by other artists would you add to it? What would you call that playlist if it couldn’t be LIVE and FALL?

Gun-il: If I were to add our previous songs it would be ‘Ghost’ and ‘Crack in the mirror.’ Also, if I were to add different artists’ songs, it would be ‘Sing for Absolution,’ ‘Space Dementia,’ and ‘Falling Away With You’ by MUSE. A new name for the playlist would be Last Hour.

Jungsu: Since it’s an album that talks about both sides of our lives, I want to add songs that we can listen to when we were happiest and least happy in our life. I want to add ‘Happy Death Day’ and ‘Paranoid’ as the previous songs of XH, and ‘Always Remember Us This Way’ by Lady Gaga and ‘Baby’ by Justin Bieber as the other artists.

Gaon: I think the previous songs that go best with this album are ‘Paranoid‘ and ‘Walking to the Moon,’ as the moods are very fitting to this album. And I want to name it Fly to Fall.

O.de: I’d like to add ‘until the end of time’ because it’s my personal favorite, and I think it’s very fitting to this album. How about naming of the playlist as BE Repeated?

Jun Han: ‘Paranoid’ and ‘until the end of time’ will be the ones. The name of playlist will be Part of under.

Jooyeon: I think ‘Paranoid’ is very fitting to this album’s mood. Also, ‘Clouds’ by Before You Exit. The name of playlist goes well with Last chance.

[crater-lake]

25

4/17/23

I wrote a really good song. It is called Open Spring. It is five minutes. I started it last Monday and I have completed it. I just shared it with Seojin and her friend, who I’ve seen on Grindr. They were impressed with me. I shared it with Charlie as well, who brought me to a poetry reading tonight in NYC. They were really moved by it and that means a lot to me, because they are a really intelligent and thoughtful individual. They are also extremely emotional, which I appreciate. Right now, I feel elated, and therefore good. This morning I was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, a prestigious honors society and I also went to the gym. I met Anne Wallen which was cool. I went to NYC and met a cool poet I guess who was a translator and liked that I was a polyglot. Charlie was showing me off. I felt important and real! I spoke French and German to a gay man. I walked on the high line with my eyes glued to Grindr. So what. 

I’m so tired. Yesterday I drank myself to sleep because I felt alone and pathetic and I do not feel like that right now! But, it still concerns me because I felt awful and I didn’t know what to do to make it better. I felt bad, bad, bad. I was talking to Amay on Grindr and I told him I know about the DL frat dude and his OnlyFans and how I saw him and Simon at the Yard together (future me, does this have context?) and he was like, “who are you?” and I said that “anonymity suits me tonight.” And yes, and whatever. I was a black hole of self. There was not one thing glorious about my suffering. I could not write or compose and even if I did, that would not have ameliorated the feeling. It is hard to be a person. Sometimes I live in a bad house (I am embodied.) I haven’t written a poem in a bit which is its own sort of forewarning. In my drunken state, I ordered AirPod pros. So what? I am about to literally graduate college. (In a way, I was never supposed to get here - when did I start living?)

Dear Murod, I still think of you most every day but more like you are the sun inside of my eyes and I close them and the whole landscape of my spirit erupts under your fire. More like if there is a sun inside of my eyes it is because I put the summer away like porn on my computer the colliding bodies inhibiting the inert electric wirings of my consciousness Like here is enough light to burn darkness into flesh and bone Like, Murod, you are the best collection of neurons I have ever grown. The amount of times I have slept in your smile. The soft pink feeling right at the center of my chest is what a prayer feels like answered. I have lived through enough epilogues. Or my ear, on top of your chest, I heard the ocean of your breathing and drowning seemed like a destination rather than a consequence. Like I look into mirrors and eyes blink awake to capture this looking. If the passage of time had a body it would be a good one, but maybe very sad, like a too big tree which has seen too many years of Earth. Dear Murod, I convinced myself I can speak to the seasons, you are the baby in the barn, summer is meaner than winter, whatever is behind the moon you are likely hiding from me, you are not dead either, and whatever eclipsed horrible worse feeling crouching behind this paragraph is beating like an about-to-be-dead thing. You do not know the depths of my perfect suffering. I am hiking a trail snuffing out your shadow. I am trying to taste the worlds you have endured with the memory of your tongue. Bright summer mornings where you woke up and the sky aglow a soft shade of blue like it would flake its magic into the next world I actually witnessed the fate of being a person and know more than I could ever release to you, my one true love, destiny is a poem I will never write and I am staring at it and only when I am not in that place can I really communicate to you with my most genuine sense of self that I am here.

[fluffyprettykitty]

Discipline

Pairing: Brunnhilde + Jane Foster x female reader (no other specifications)

Word Count: 920 words

Outline: What happens when Jane and Brunnhilde return to their chambers only to find you with your fingers buried deep inside you?

Warnings: sub/dom dynamics, power play, face sitting, finger fucking, overstimulation, pet names, objectification, scissoring, not beta read, if I missed anything lmk, my brain is a little mush lately!

Author’s Note: I felt like some smut for these wonderful ladies in honor of thor's release today, lemme know what you think and if you'd like more!

P.S: dividers by @firefly-graphics //​ banners by @maysdigitalarts​

Main Masterlist ・❥・Valkyrie Masterlist ・❥・Jane Foster Masterlist

NSFW CONTENT UNDER THE CUT. MINORS DNI.

"Do you think she can handle it?" The black-haired woman asks the other one, worry evident in her voice.

"She's so eager to please she will make sure she will." The blonde hair winks at her and presses your legs down towards the mattress. In response, you huff and squirm trying to move your legs away but Brunnhilde only slaps them apart.

"Don’t disrespect your king.” She warns you and scoffs. 

“Be a good girl for us, come on. You are the one who wanted this anyway," Jane reminds you, her fingers brushing against your thighs softly. All you can do is whine again spreading your legs apart of your own volition, and sitting prettily waiting for whatever was next. 

"Please…" you mewl squirming your legs trying to close them but Jane held them tightly. Her big muscles shone brightly against the night light. 

"Is too much. " You shout and your whole body shakes to the rhythm of your fifth orgasm. Was an hour ago when they had pinned you down for disobeying them. But it wasn't your fault they were away so much on business and whatnots. What were you supposed to do when your pussy ached so? You needed some release and they walked inside the chambers battle clad in just the right moment to torture you and thus the punishment began. 

Jane and Brunnhilde were co-ruling Asgard together and they had been together for some time. Yet one fateful night, one night that truly felt like any else, you didn't expect them to show interest in you, just another humble maid. One beckoning stare from Jane and another from Brunnhilde and there you were their new shiny toy. That was six months ago now you were on their bed, naked as the day of light and crying from too much pleasure. 

"If you wanted to cum so bad what else is there for us to do than to make sure you won't stop cumming, huh?" 

“We only want to please you, sweet one, what else can we do? Look at how eager your poor pussy is. I don’t think she is even close to enough yet.” 

“Think after this we bound to teach her some manners or bet yet tie up her legs and never let her cum again without us. What do you think, baby?”

“That’s the best thing I’ve heard all day.” Jane beams at her wife and looks at you with a darkened stare. You moan again, your clit now oversensitive as you watched Brunnhilde proceeding to remove her armor. Without further ado, she lands her pussy on yours and begins wildly riding you. 

"You're nothing but my sex pet, pretty one, did you really think you're even allowed to make your own decisions? No, you thought wrong. Time for you to do whatever I tell you to do." 

Jane lets go of your legs and as if they have an unspoken agreement she removes her clothes as well and proceeds to sit on your face, her body facing Brunnhilde's. The sound of them loudly making out moaning at your touches while you were struggling to lick Jane made you even hornier. Tonight you'd truly learn just how much you could take. A glance at the golden mirror next to the bed held the most perfect picture for you. You are perfectly planted by your two lovers holding on to one another. Breasts brushed over each other as they used and worked your body to their pleasure. You were nothing but their pet and you were very glad to be so. 

"Harder!" Jane yells at Valkyrie and all she does is drill your body to the mattress riding you with incredible ferocity. Is clear who was calling the shots but this was only evident inside the confidence of these royal champers. Outside, they were both vicious strick co-rulers. Brunnhilde extends an arm to Jane's pussy rubbing her feverishly, a favor Brunnhilde returns immediately. While the blonde woman was riding your face the way she needed you to not giving you a lot of space to breathe. They loved using you, working your body as if it was nothing but a toy and nothing more than a golden coveted object. It was everything you ever wanted and more. You spend your days and nights close to their chambers or on the rare ocassion bound to their tents when they went on a trip. 

They had a pact that they would always cum together which you found endearing. You found out about this deal early on, and it surprisingly warmed your heart. Jane is the one to cum first as per usual which only makes Brunnhilde break out into a thunderous moan screaming and crying out her name. They loved repeating each other names like that, moaning and screaming as if to establish dominance over one another. 

Satisfied in their pleasure they both use your body for as long as they need to. 

“Time for a snack.” The black-haired woman says happily and points to you which makes the blonde woman nod positively in response. 

They crush their lips against each other, hungrily kissing until they both kneel in front of your pussy and together start assaulting you with their tongues making you cum once again. You should have known you would have been the snack yet sometimes your brain got really hazy cause of them. 

If all punishments ended up like this maybe you'd be naughty more often.

for future updates please follow @fluffyprettykittylibrary and turn on notifications! my inbox and my requests are open :D

[mugensword]

pride | naoya x f!reader (9.3k words)

Pairing - Naoya Zenin x f!reader.

Pride: belief that you are better or more important than other people.

You catch Naoya red-handed fucking a man in his appartments. You decide to make a deal with him in ordrer to buy your silence: he has to make you cum.

SMUT, oral sex (f & m receiving), fingering, pussy slapping, deepthroat, spit kink, spanking, slight choking, unsafe sex (pull out technique), gay sex in the beggining, internalized homophobia. | TW: coercion.

A/N: Thanks for your interest in this, and hopefully you'll like it!I listened to "Pire que la mort" by Ajar while writing this, which can be roughly translated to "I wish you worse than death" haha. I'd really like some feedback on this piece, as I had to change the plot multiple times, some parts might feel disjointed... I'm sorry about that. Also, sorry for the english; I could only beta-read myself mainly on the plot issues but grammar and syntax mistakes may be seen here and there...

--

The man under him moaned loudly, as Naoya thrusted balls deep inside him at a breath-taking rhythm. He didn’t know the man’s name as he fucked him, grabbing forcefully his asscheeks to bring them closer to his pelvis, grunting at the feeling of his cock being squeezed inside the other man’s ass. It felt delightful and very different from being buried inside a pussy — it was slightly tighter. But hearing men submit to the power of his large cock was as good as seeing women beg for it. He grabbed a fist full of the brown-haired-unknown man under him, to bring his ear closer to his face.

“How does it feel to be fucked by the future head of the Zenin clan, huh? Does my cock feel good inside your tight ass?” He asked, only to hear the whimpers of the man, babbling “yes” and “so good”, just as expected.

Naoya released the hair, violently hustling the man on the mattress, before grasping his waist as he picked up his pace. He watched his cock disappear into the man’s ass, drenched with lube, and he groaned at the sight. He felt so powerful, it was perhaps better than the sex in itself — he could fuck whoever he wanted, whenever he liked, because he was Naoya Zenin. The man curved his back again, feeling Naoya’s cock dive deeper than before into his ass, stimulating more and more his sweet spot. His hand went to his cock, achingly erected, tip drooling with precum.

“I’m so close, please, master Naoya—,” whimpered the man, stroking his dick at a great speed, while his eyes were wetting the pillow.

“I can’t hear you, stupid brat, who’s fucking you?” He asked between gritted teeth, never stopping his rough deep thrusts.

Naoya felt he was ascending heaven, hearing a man beg for his cock.

“You master Zenin!” Answered the man, crying with pleasure. Naoya groaned loudly, hearing his desired title used to refer to him.

Naoya increased the speed of his thrusts again, violently slapping one of the asscheeks of the man underneath him. That man was his toy for tonight, he could do whatever pleased him with his body. He didn’t know his name nor who he was in any way, he was just fucking a servant working at a wedding. He felt so bored by the ceremony, he needed to entertain himself the fastest way possible. As the man had been observing him like a pervert all the evening, Naoya figured he’d be delighted to be fucked by him.

“I can’t belive I’m fucking a commoner like you,” breathed Naoya. “Do you think you deserve my cum?”

“I don’t know, ah!— please, I’ll be honored to have my ass filled with your cum, master Naoya!” Squirmed the man, while the muscles in his ass pulsated around Naoya’s cock, gripping him like a vice.

“You’re right, you don’t deserve my cum,” breathed Naoya with slight disgust in his voice. Yet, he felt his balls start to tighten as he was close to his end, pleasure filling his body from the friction on his sex.

“Well well well, how unexpected of you, Naoya.”

Naoya froze instantly, hearing your feminine voice coming from the door yet his heart was still racing from the sex. You were there, standing in the doorway with your arms crossed on your chest, a mischievous smile on your lips.

“Fuck! Fuck!” He shouted, pushing away the man from his cock, watching you with terror and anger. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

You were delighted by the view of the oh so prideful Zenin fucking a random man. It was really unexpected of him, who had built for years his reputation as a womanizer, perfectly able to quote ‘breed every woman he wanted’ unquote. He wanted that place at the top of the Zenin hierarchy, like nothing else mattered more than being in this state of power in the little world of japanese jujutsu sorcerers. Who you thought was a bigot, already despising women and treating them as wombs to breed, was also paradoxically balls deep into a man, on the verge of an orgasm you just robbed him.

The crook of the Zenin clan, oily cock flushed and erected from fucking another man, never looked so pitiful. His jaw was tense as he looked at you, brows frowned with rage.

“Master…?” Whispered the unnamed man, witnessing your interaction, completely clueless.

“Get the fuck out of my sight, peasant! Don’t you dare say a word about this, or I will cut your throat.”

The man looked frightened at the words of Naoya as he rose from the mattress to grab his garments on the floor. Naoya was almost dressed (because why would he bother being naked when he just needed his cock to fuck a man) apart from his unzipped pants, which he closed to hide from your sight his now softening dick. He ran his hand through his hair, trying to recollect himself from this horrifying situation. The unnamed man dashed to the door, after he put back his slacks in a hurry and you stepped aside to enable him to run out of the room whispering a mocking “bye bye”.

You were a close friend of the bride, who married one of the members of the Zenin clan, of course you were invited to the wedding. Naoya knew you since you were teenagers and never particularly liked you. Mainly because you were a woman, moreover you were a woman who talked too much to his taste. You constantly had the word to piss him, to which he barked back to defend himself.

It bothered him that you had an immeasurable advantage on him as you saw him fuck a man, and Naoya, for once in his life, was anxious. His family would disinherit him and his life will lose all purpose if you ever opened your mouth about what you just witnessed. He couldn’t allow to become a commoner — he was a powerful sorcerer, from a high-born family. He could not accept that, not with his ambitions.

“I said, what the fuck are you doing here?” Repeated Naoya, replacing his fear with anger.

“Just passing by, I heard some moans, then your name, and boom: found you in a delicate position. Are you angry?”

You smiled devilishly at him. He spat on the ground, trying to gain back control on him not to strangle you on the spot. But it was going to be a drag, and either way he’d be suspected for the murder. “I’m just surprised,” he lied.

“So, Naoya, you like men too?” You purred, closing the door behind you to walk closer to him. “Love who you love, I hope you find happiness in it. I root for your coming out.”

He fisted his hands hard. You were making fun of him and you loved every second of it. He could never despise someone more than you at this moment.

“I don’t like men,” he declared between gritted teeth.

You laughed at the blatant lie. “Oh, then I must have a deficient sight because I’m almost sure that I saw you fuck a man from behind almost one minute ago. It was borderline pornographic.”

“It’s not like that. I fuck men, but I don’t like them. There’s a difference. I enjoy fucking women more.”

The poor Naoya Zenin, usurper of the Zenin clan, was unaware of his sexual preferences and had the audacity of being homophobic. You sighed, sadly amused at his intolerance for almost anything. At first it was women, then homosexuals, how much was he hurt or twisted to have so much hate over things he couldn’t control? You didn’t want to understand why he fucked boys, even if he was in denial. You thought his obsession for power and his toxic pride had gotten overly high in his little misogynistic brain that he couldn’t lower himself to fuck a woman anymore, or perhaps all the high-born woman he’d slept with avoided him so there were only men left. You almost felt pity for him.

“Yeah, right. But what would your family think of all this? Would they let you become the head of the family if they knew you fucked—”

“I could fuck a woman in front of my whole family to prove myself worthy of becoming the head of the clan. You’ve got nothing against me,” he told you, convincing himself at the same time.

You clicked your tongue, attention grasped by his statement. “Nothing, really?” You teased, sitting onto the bed, at a reasonable distance from him. You saw him clench his hands, overwhelmed by your menacing presence, troubling his little personal space and making him in danger for his perfectly planned life. He gulped.

“Yes,” he reluctantly answered.

“Alright, I believe you. You are definitely the concupiscent type even in front of your family. However I doubt you can make a woman come.”

You were fully aware of challenging him. You needed to shatter his pride.

“Do you really think that?”

You nodded. “Yes. I even think all the women you fucked never came back because you only thought of them as cocksleeves and only cared about your little cock being sucked dry.”

Although Naoya was hotheaded, he used the little lucidity he had left not to choke you to death. Instead, he thought this might be your way to make him react. He sighed dramatically, rising to his feet. You felt his regain of confidence as he spoke:

“Then that’s a shame I could never prove to you how wrong you are,” he eyed you from the corner of an eye, gauging your reaction.

For some reason, this made you snap a little. You raised an eyebrow, showing your sudden interest in what he (apparently) couldn't prove to you. You felt your pussy flutter at the current situation of Naoya trying to talk you into showing you his sensual skills, as he was aware of not being in the position to make any wrong move, but still trying to counterbalance that.

“Yeah, a shame really,” you echoed his words.

A long pause was made. The air grew thicker in what felt like the longest minute of your life.

Naoya cleared his throat, finally breaking the torturing silence. “What if we made a deal?”

You turned your head immediately to meet his eyes, an intense flame glowing in yours, awaiting for his words.

“I’m all ears.”

A slight of a vicious smile was on his lips.

“You never speak a word of what you saw earlier if I can make you cum.”

You realized you were holding your breath until the end of his sentence. Of course, having the power to blackmail him was an attractive option. But you didn’t have the patience nor ideas of how to use it— it could even mean that you cared about Naoya and his life, which you really didn’t. Your ways had barely met since you graduated. It could be an easy way to get this story out of the way, and perhaps as a bonus: have an orgasm. The decision was made in your head but you wanted to tease him.

“Do you really think it’s that easy?”

“Well, I received compliments, so yes,” he simply answered, approaching you. He kneeled in front of you, hands resting on the bed at your sides. “So, do we have a deal?” Naoya licked his lips, making sure he met your gaze at the moment he did it.

You felt his hands getting closer to your thighs, barely touching the fabric of your skirt. You also had a perfect angle on his chest still glistening with sweat from his previous activity, as he wore a satin robe over his pants. The most unfortunate thing about Naoya was his gorgeous appearance. Training had made him thick with defined muscles, and his face was simply beautiful. You reluctantly liked when his almond-shaped eyes, with the generous lashes over it, met yours. The golden piercings on his ears added to his bleached hair, made him look like a punk brat, which matched your taste.

“C’mon, don’t be shy. This can be arranged by mutual agreement,” he continued, this time dangerously caressing your thighs, running his hands up and down on your smooth skin.

You were not known to be a coward. And you wanted to see what type of lover was Naoya, after all you already had a glimpse of his abilities.

But you still had an ounce of dignity.

You slapped his hands away, making him step back. “Alright. I have one condition though.”

“Yeah?”

His mind was already wandering on how he could fuck you the best —will it be on all fours with your beautiful ass squeezed between his palms? Or with your legs on his shoulders while his cock will dive impossibly deep inside your juicy cunt? You had him wrapped around your finger the second you agreed.

“You’re taking a shower first.”

He granted that for obvious reasons. “Seems fair,” he simply answered.

Standing up, he moved towards the bathroom, removing unceremoniously his satin robe on the way. You followed him, also removing your top on the way, unclasping your bra and dropping it on the floor carelessly. Naoya reached the bathroom before you and started to turn on the hot water in the ridiculously big shower.

Two hot hands grasped your breasts before you could even realize it. You felt his body heat radiating into your back, and all you could do was look at yourself in the (again, ridiculously big and luminous) mirror, while he played with your tits. Your eyes met, dark and lascivious, before you felt his tongue run on the side of your neck to your ear. His close breath sent shivers to your spine. Naoya pinched your nipples, rolling the little buds between his fingers, eager to extract a reaction from you. He brought you closer to him, your back glued to his torso, feeling all of him —his heat, his skin, his arousal. He left your nipples to fully squeeze your breasts, feeling the weight and the softness of them in his hands.

“I knew you had nice tits,” he commented in a breath, trying to meet your eyes in the mirror.

“Of course I have.”

You didn’t need any remark about your body from Naoya.

One hand left your breast to travel down, hovering over your side, to rest on your hip. Naoya started to knead the flesh there, barely slipping his hand over your skirt. One of your hands rose to grasp the back of his head, encouraging him to continue without having to voice it out. You slightly moved your hips, trying to feel more his erection pressed against your back and he had to hold back a groan at the feeling of your ass teasing his hardening cock. He thought you wouldn’t play fair with this deal, but he was wrong.

It was all he needed to lift up your skirt to reveal your ass, revealing your panties to his hungry eyes.

“How lewd of you,” he commented again, twisting your lace panties between his fingers.

“The water is running,” you cut him.

He squeezed more of your breast as a small protest but let go of you shortly after. Naoya was quick to get undressed and get under the shower. You looked at him getting all wet through the transparent wall of the shower, admiring water running down his broad body.

“Could you wash yourself now? I won’t let you touch more of me while you still reak of sex with that boy earlier.”

You rested your body on the sink, arms crossed on your chest, checking if he was indeed cleaning up as you ordered. You didn’t expect Naoya to be such a view while doing something as trivial as that. The water flowing down his body emphasized his muscular form, his wet skin glowing while his hands were spreading soap bubbles on his torso. Not to mention his damp hair falling on his forehead, giving him a unique look—

“Like what you see?”

You’ve been staring a bit too much. You met his gaze, as intense as yours.

“I don’t want to flatter your already overinflated ego.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

His eyes eventually wandered on your form as well, now washing his stomach. You couldn’t resist but to follow the slow path of his hands to his lower parts. His cock was still hard, and you saw it twitch once you laid your eyes on it. It was hard to admit that he had a very nice cock —long, thick, rosy, with a pretty vein on its side. His hands hovered over his sex, as he washed it slowly, explicitly puting on a show for you. He let out a breathless groan, heavily turned on by your almost naked form and the way you were looking at him slowly touching himself.

“So, how many orgasms do you want tonight, doll?”

His hoarse voice echoed in the bathroom, transmitting his liquid desire. Naoya was surprisingly invested in this deal. The pet-name he assigned to you made your blood buzz in every vein of your body, sensing the reluctant desire for him building up slowly.

“How much stamina do you have?”

You approached him, while he painstakingly released his cock to quickly bend and wash his legs. Straightening himself up, Naoya caught your sustained gaze again.

“Lots,” he answered with a cocky grin.

“Alright, we’ll see that.”

Of course you wouldn’t make it easy for him.

“Don’t you wanna join me under the shower and get your first orgasm?”

His confidence was sickening. “No thanks.”

Leaving him to your refusal, you went back to the room only to drop yourself on the bed and remove your last piece of clothing. You were left in your panties, in the middle of Naoya’s large bed, waiting for him. It was really an odd situation being here, expecting someone you had some kind of wrath against, but happened to desire strongly for the sake of the situation. Because you knew it would be a one-time thing, it felt unique, and even more exciting. A hot feeling tied your stomach and dropped between your thighs, as if your body was anticipating what was about to happen next.

Naoya cut the water once he was done washing himself, still imagining the lewdest things he could do to you while you were gone. He was also thinking of a way of turning the situation to his advantage to eventually become the one in charge— it kind of bothered him not to be able to do whatever he wanted to you. He decided to simply fuck you dumb, as a personnal revenge. He wore a wolfish smile as when he finally joined you, only wearing a towel on the hips. He looked at your gorgeous (almost) naked form on his bed, marking every detail of your body in his mind. He quickly noticed your pink cheeks, and your heavy breathing. Your lust betrayed you.

He licked his lips. “I never thought I'd ever see you like that in my bed. It’s kinda hot. Mind if I get an eyeful?”

He sat at your feet, on the bed.

He spoke with a calm yet low voice. “Show yourself to me, doll. Don’t be shy and open your legs.”

You complied, intending on putting on a show for him too. “Good,” he smiled again, seeing how you were such an obedient girl. He moved forward your body to settle between your open legs. It felt like you were offering yourself to him. He held back a groan, finally letting his sight wander freely on your underwear. It was damp. Your pussy was slightly trembling under his heavy gaze. You never thought seeing Naoya devouring you with his eyes would be such a turn on.

“So, how do you want me to make you cum? On my tongue, fingers, or cock?” He bit gently the inside of your thigh making you shiver, before looking back at you, voice dropping an octave and an indescribable expression on his face. “Or maybe you’d like all three?”

You almost whimpered at how the room felt once he said that. Oh god you needed all of that. You wondered who was the one in charge here. You had to gulp to make your mind clear and keep a poker face.

“Show me your talents with your tongue.”

As an answer Naoya bit inside your other thigh, a bit stronger this time. He started pressing wet kisses, trailing his tongue on your sensitive skin closer to your core. You sit up straight, resting on your elbows to have a better view of the man’s gestures. He breathed your essence, dangerously close to your obscenely wet panties, pussy already clenching around nothing. He took his time to make you wait a little, now giving the exact same treatment to your other thigh, knowing exactly how to tease you. He dragged slowly his wet and torturing tongue on your skin, eying your every reaction. You shifted your hips in impatience.

“Mh? Is something the matter?” Naoya asked, faking innocence.

“Nothing,” you lied between gritted teeth.

It became more than a sex arrangement— it was battle of egos.

He sucked a beautiful purple hickey inside your thigh. You started squirming under him, which made it more difficult for him to press kisses and licking your skin. He wrapped a strong arm under one of your thighs to ground you to his bed. “Stop moving,” he ordered with a firm tone. You immediately obeyed which made him smile again. “Good,” he whispered, finally putting his wet lips on your clothed cunt. He slowly kissed the fabric, letting his senses be overwhelmed by your dampness, your smell and your taste.

“Look how wet you are. Is it all for me? I bet you were turned on, seeing me fuck a guy.” He groaned, almost speaking to your pussy.

You moaned as an answer, feeling his tongue rolling agonizingly slowly onto your pulsing cunt. He gently sucked your clit through your panties, before kissing it again, making you move your hips to let him know how you liked it. You needed far more. He was playing with your nerves, enjoying teasing you with his tongue.

“C’mon Naoya. You can do better than that,” you provoked him in a moan.

“Impatient little thing, aren’t you? Can’t really blame you for that.”

He licked a long stripe on your covered slit, before reaching again for your puffy clit, rolling it deliciously between his lips. He used his free hand to finally move your panties to the side. The air on your bare pussy made you shiver added to the intense gaze Naoya laid on your sex.

“Such a pretty pussy,” he commented. This time, you weren’t bothered by the compliment aimed at you. Your mind was fuzzy, blood pumping hard in your system— so much that your pussy clenched under his sight.

“Isn’t it funny how you try to be composed when your cunt is painfully waiting for me to take care of it?” He smiled devilishly. You groaned, annoyed that he was right.

“Alright, I’ll take good care of your sweet pussy. Makin’ it even more wet and ready to take me.”

He voraciously tasted your pussy, not bothered by the lascivious noises his mouth was making, drinking your essence. It felt so much better like that, with him exploring your cunt with his hot tongue and lips, sucking eagerly your clit. His mouth felt divine. You couldn’t hold back your moans at this point, your hand reaching for his damp hair to hold onto him. He lapped at your pussy, alternating between paces and pressure to see what felt best for you. He used one of his long fingers to explore the entrance of your sex without giving you the pleasure to fully sink it inside you. He enjoyed the feeling of your drenched pussy on his hand, mentally bracing himself for how wet you were going to be for him once he made you reach your high. He felt himself twitch between his legs, aroused by your sinful moans and your taste. Naoya increased the speed of his tongue on your clit— your back arched off the bed and you squeezed his hair tighter.

“Gonna cum on my tongue?” He asked, looking back at you.

His mouth leaving your pussy was a betrayal when you were so close to your orgasm. “Less talking more sucking.”

He complied. You were at his mercy now. His lips sucked your clit, building up the familiar pressure in your lower belly.

“Just like that, ohh—fuck,” you moaned. His grip on your hip became stronger. He licked between your legs with even more vigor, circling and playing with your clit on his hot tongue, flattening his muscle on the sensitive bud. His wanton noises were delicious to hear. He used his finger to massage your lower lips, never stopping the motion of his tongue.

“C’mon, doll. Cum on my tongue,” he spoke onto your sex.

His tone was a little less patient than before—he also wanted to get his turn. Naoya never expected to be turned on by eating you out as he rarely ate out his lovers, but the more you whimpered for him, the more he wanted to see you beg and cry for his cock. He continued to lick your throbbing cunt the way you liked, tongue quickly lapping at your juices and your engorged clit.

“Let it all go, I know you want to.”

“Oh my—fuck, yes!” You cried out in pleasure, before letting out the highest moan as you felt your body go limp. With a final stroke of his tongue on your clit, you indeed, let it all go, indulging in the pleasure Naoya was giving you. Your body was still convulsing slightly, as he was giving the most gentle kitten licks to your sex to let you catch your breath after you were taken over by your orgasm. It really did hit you like a truck.

“Fuuuck. That felt so good.”

You released his hair as he stepped back from you sex, giving the hickey on your inner thigh a little peck.

The sight before you was breathtaking. Naoya on his knees, gazing at your quivering and wet sex through his messy damp hair falling on his eyes. He was licking your remaining juices around his lips, and he had to use the back of his hand to remove what was left on his chin. Soon, his hands unknotted the towel around his hips, freeing his hard cock to your sight again. One of his hand went to his sex, squeezing it gently, drop of precum falling onto the bedsheets. His eyes were dark, watching your body, panties just put to the side with a wet patch under your ass from your orgasm. He couldn’t wait to fuck you. Or have you choke on his cock. His eyes went on your agape mouth as you tried to catch your breath. He pumped his dick a few times, imagining your tight lips around him. Oh you’d look so pretty like that, crying on his cock, stretching your mouth to take all of him.

“Don’t you think I deserve a little reward for making you cum like that, hm?”

Your eyes were glued on his cock. Your body moved on its own, getting on your knees, moving towards his sex. “I’m not sure you deserve to cum at all, though,” you said, replacing his hand on his cock with yours to pump it slowly. He grunted at the foreign contact of your small hands on his dick, mesmerized at the sight of you on your knees in front of him.

“Why not? The deal was to make you cum. I just did that—had you all dripping over me, moaning like a bitch in heat.”

He put a lock of your hair behind your ear, using the excuse of the self-interested gesture to put his hand under your chin to make you look at him.

“Don’t you wanna give it a reward kiss?” He offered, hips jerking towards you suggestively.

Dammit, with his gorgeous face, and his hard cock ready just for you to suck it. It was tempting not to end the night at only one orgasm when you knew he had much more potential. You squeezed his cock in your hand, making him gasp a little.

“Fine. Guess I can do that for you.”

But not like that. Not like he wanted.

You lost no time to flip him—pushing him at your previous place, on his back, with the right place for you to settle between his slightly opened legs. Naoya groaned out of frustration to be handled like you desired but he quickly stood on his elbows to take a full view of you, dark eyes awaiting for your next move. You caressed his thighs, hands moving closer to his groin as you watched his cock painfully resting on his stomach. You brought your face to his sex, cheek hovering over his thigh, as you licked a long stripe from base to the tip of his dick. He kept his composure until you sucked at one of his balls which made him tense and hold back a moan. Your lips were soon wrapped around his tip, sucking his cockhead like a candy with a wandering tongue moving around it. You knew he liked it at the moan he shamelessly let out, quickly followed by a strong hand gripping your hair.

“Don’t play with fire, kitten. Come on, suck it like you mean it,” he ordered.

For now, you obeyed, opening your mouth and dropping your face on his long cock to take him fully. It hurt, yet somehow felt good to feel him pulse on your tongue. You bobbed your head slowly to set the pace you wanted, as saliva overwhelmed your mouth to welcome the delicious intrusion. One of your hands held and massaged his balls gently—Naoya didn’t warn as his hips pushed his dick further inside your mouth, making you gag around him with an obscene sound.

“Faster.”

You bobbed your head as he told, faster, but his grasp on your scalp was torturing as he tried to guide your movements. You paused to breathe by licking just the tip, rolling your tongue on the sensitive skin and tasting his salty precum.

“Hey, who told you to slow down? I want you gaging around my cock,” his voice was urgent and firm.

His remark made you tick. You let go of his cock to meet his eyes, slightly angry.

“I don’t see how you’re in the position to boss me around. You seem to quickly forget who has your cock between her teeth.”

He got annoyed at your menace. “Insolent little bitch,” he murmured. He hated his lack of control on the matter.

“Don’t cum in my mouth or I’ll spit back your cum into your eyes.”

He gritted his teeth in protest but it didn’t matter anymore because you had the power over him. With a slight chuckle, you wrapped your lips again on his beautiful cock, giving it the treatment it deserved. You used the hand on his balls to finally grasp what couldn’t fit inside your mouth before relaxing your jaw around him. Your tongue danced on its own along his shaft like it was memorizing the map of his sex. You heard the Zenin moan loudly at that sudden shift of method to pleasure him. He sounded animalistic, it was so hot. Oh to break his mind by giving him head. You hummed at the idea around his cock and the delicious vibration made him groan.

“Fuck, you’re good at this,” you heard him say and guessed the grin on his lips. “Look at me, doll.”

You surrendered to his order, still knowing you had the power to chop off his dick with your teeth. You could give him at least what he wanted once—that being the sight of you sucking him off. Because it’ll be the first and the last time.

“Shit, what a view.”

Pride radiated from his face, especially from the condescending smile you loathed. He put a thumb on your lower lip, saying:

“Too bad I can’t cum inside that beautiful mouth of yours, I would have loved to see you swallow every drop of my seed.”

You didn’t want to see nor hear more of that. You already told yourself you were going to shatter his pride; it was harder than you thought. The man couldn’t simply shut up and enjoy what you were doing to him, of course not.

After rolling your eyes at his stupid wish that you would defenetly not grant him, you focused more on how you could make him feel good—you had your own things to prove. This battle of egos against Naoya was stimulating. You’ve never had sex with such restraint despite desiring so much the person, you played hard to get and would not allow him to get comfortable. He needed to get out of his comfort zone, just for once, and give him something to think of the next time he’ll have sex with a random.

Your face was now covered with spit and tears: just what you needed to create the perfect picture to drive his imagination. You gaged audibly around him to take him far deeper than before, cock hitting the back of your throat. You sucked him with more vigor, tongue rolling on his cock deliciously while your hand still played with his balls to which he moaned of pleasure. Your jaw and neck hurt, but you had to continue, to make him surrender. He started to pant really hard and a stream of insults quickly left his mouth, hand still gripping furiously your hair as his life depended on it—you could see the reluctance in his knitted brows.

“I’m close,” said Naoya with a low groan. “Fuck—”

Pride filled you.

Then, he convulsed with a delicious moan, gripping the back of your head to take you away from his cock. He was quick to fist his wet shaft at a tremendous pace to chase his pending orgasm. Seeing you sitting back on your heels between his legs eyeing his moving hand, like you hadn’t his cock deep in your mouth seconds ago made him smile smugly. It was when he saw you pinch your lips drenched with saliva as you intensely watched his cock that he felt his balls tighten—you only had eyes for him. All his body suddenly shuddered, and he let out loud curses while finishing on himself, quick spurts of cum falling on his stomach. Naoya slowed down the movement on his shaft until the aftershocks of his orgasm dissipated completely. It felt utterly satisfying, yet…

You had never seen this look in anyone’s eyes before. It was lust, for sure, in its more primal form. Nevertheless there was more than that. Anger? Frustration? Thirst for revenge? Probably all of it. His intentions to wreck you were obvious, so much that his intense gaze made your heart pound loudly in your chest. You felt yourself being inexplicably aroused.

Technically, the deal was already over. He made you cum.

Seconds passed.

Like a hunter and his prey (but both sides thinking they are the hunter), you waited for the other to make the fatal move. You gulped, intensely looking at the gorgeous man in front of you that was eyeing you like he could eat you alive.

He needed you to surrender fully to him too, to make concessions as well, even though his desire for you was overwhelming his senses.

“So?” He tried to ask casually.

The air grew thicker. His avid eyes wandered on your body to stop to carefully watch your breasts, then your glistening cunt. His heavy gaze gave you goosebumps, especially when you saw him lick his lips. You gave in your lust.

“Fuck me,” you whispered.

He feigned ignorance, “What did you say?”

You repeated louder, articulating properly, what your request was. “I asked you to fuck me.” You let him win this round.

“That I can do,” he answered with mischief.

“Show me.”

You didn’t need to tell it twice this time. Naoya straightened himself to face you with a carnivorous smile—his lips attacked your neck, kissing and biting the soft skin under your jaw. Soon, his hands were on your hips to bring you closer to him by grounding you on his strong thigh, and you both let out a whimper when you felt the contact of your dripping sex on him. It was getting hard for him not to ravish you because of the sighs of pleasure escaping your mouth while you started rocking your hips on his thigh, searching for stimulation on your clit. “Oh, fucking hell it feels good,” you commented between pants, “I need more.” You hated that you sounded so desperate. He felt his cock twitch, asking for its second plate.

Naoya used his hands on your hips to flip you to his previous place, settling between your legs and caging you between strong arms. You felt his dick rest on your stomach, wet and heavy, at how close he was to you. His lips were still devouring your neck but quickly trailed down on your collarbone until he finally took one of your nipples in his mouth. He groaned at the feeling of your hard bud under his tongue, also content to hear you moan under the flick of his hot mouth. He shifted to give the other mount the same attention it deserved. You had to grip the back of his neck to ground you while you moved your hips towards him, impatiently giving him the unvoiced order to keep going.

“So eager… Patience, I’m getting there,” he cooed, quickly glancing at you—he enjoyed seeing your pout of frustration. “I need to loosen you up.”

He opened your legs with his knee to make room for him, now settling on his heels to take a good look at you underneath him. Your small teary eyes were enough to get him hard again.

“Get these off,” he spoke urgently, taking off your panties in a quick movement.

Naoya let a hand wander on your wet sex, spreading your flickering folds between two digits. Those same digits were soon slowly entering your slit. You gasped at the intrusion. He lost no time to pump his fingers in and out of your pussy to create room for his cock. “God, you’re squeezing me already,” he said, entranced at the way your pussy was gushing around his fingers. He added a third one, which made you arch your back and moan.

“By the way: you’re not allowed to cum. The next time you do it, it’s on my cock.” He also wanted to create his own rules to the deal.

His thumb rolled on your clit as he gave you this order and you almost closed your legs at the pleasant surprise. “Hurry up then,” you scowled. He cockily laughed and started to piston his fingers fast into your pussy, not forgetting to flick lazily your clit. His coordination was breathtaking. He quickly found a spot that made you moan louder, and took the opportunity to curl his fingers right on that spongy area.

“Fuck, I bet you could squirt if I wanted to,” he said mostly to himself, amazed at the reactions you were giving him.

He fisted his cock a few times, impatient. He stopped curling his fingers, afraid it could make you cum easily, and got back to thrust vigorously with three fingers, opening you up for him. You were so wet but it didn’t bother him to spit on your pussy, two times: one for your slit, for him to fuck you on his fingers, and the second to dampen your clit so he could fasten the movements of his thumb on your swollen bud. You hummed at the effects of his coordination, feeling dizzy with pleasure as he was so swiftly building up your orgasm.

“Shit, I’m close again. Stop now and fuck me,” you ordered betwen ragged pants.

“My god, you’re so rude and bossy. Does the word “please” hurt your mouth so much?” He grumbled.

After withdrawing his fingers from your pussy, he spitted on it one last time. Not resisting another urge, he slapped gently your outrageously drenched pussy with his fingers. “Impolite bitch.”

A hand went to the base of his hard dick, while his hungry eyes were to your dripping pussy, clenching under his intense gaze and awaiting for the next move. He guided the sensitive head of his hard cock between your wet folds, up and down, reaching your clit and hovering agonizingly over your slit. “God, you’re so fucking wet and ready to take me.” His other hand went to grab firmly your thigh, raising your leg to his shoulder—he sensed this angle to fuck you will be amazing. His pride forbided him to fuck into you senseless, but rather to slowly make you lose your mind, to put you properly into submission.

“Look at me when I take you,” he ordered with an adamant voice.

After a quick glance on his engorged cock grazing over your sex making your mouth water, you obeyed, gazing at him. And then, he finally sunk into your pussy, inch by inch, not breaking for a second the eye-contact. Your mouth took the shape of an “o” at how much he was stretching you deliciously, cunt fluttering around him as his cock slowly made its way into you. “Fuck,” is all you could manage to say as he tried to bottom out, leaving you squirming under him.

The Zenin hissed. “Fuck, you’re still fucking tight.”

He finally reached your deepest spot—his cock was almost kissing your cervix at this angle. You whined out.

“So deep…,” you heard yourself whimper.

“Yeah but look at you, taking me so well, like the needy thing you are.”

It was like your pussy had its own conscience as you felt it quiver at his compliment, quickly followed by a groan coming from the man buried deep inside you. You used the grip you had on his neck to bring his face closer to your mouth. Your lips brushed his ear, whispering your next request, “Fuck. Me. Now.”

Your hot breath made him shiver, a wave of lust making his head fuzzy, especially when he felt your legs circle his hips, pushing him impossibly deeper into your cunt. You felt heavenly around his dick. He wanted to ruin you. He took your hand off of his neck, gripping your wrist to lock it above your head, so that he could pull his face away from you, taking in the entire sight of you under him.

He experimentally thrusted. Slowly. Your tits gently waved with the steady rocking of his hips. The delicious stretch and rhythm of his cock inside you made you moan, as your cunt adjusted to his size. Your eyes met his again, dark with lust.

“You have no idea of how you look right now,” he panted.

He was a sight too. He held your leg higher on his shoulder deepening the angle he was fucking you in. This angle was almost perfect. You rocked your hips back and forth, gently, reminding him that you were fucking him too.

“Faster.”

He picked up the pace, delighted to feel your pussy getting wetter around him. “Jeez, your pussy feels good,” he said with a cocky smile.

Naoya was not looking at your bouncing tits anymore. He was entranced at the sight of his glistening cock, drenched with your essence, proving he was fucking you good (because you wouldn’t admit it with words). He groaned at the sigh and released the wrist above your head to grip your hip, pushing you to the mattress. He had more balance to thrust with more vigor into your weeping cunt. Your head fell back into the pillow as you welcomed the new sensation of his cock pistoning inside of you.

You wanted to say something—a compliment. That he feelt good, that he fucked you just right. But you put your hand on your mouth, softening your noises to the pleasure he was giving you.

Naoya halted, pulling out his cock from your slit. “What do you think you’re doing?”

You gasped at the sudden emptiness.

“Nothing?” You lied.

He brought his face closer to yours and articulated carefully the next sentences, “Listen, babydoll. I’m fucking you to prove that I can make women cum, so that you forget the little accident from earlier. But it won’t work if I can’t hear you. Understood?”

You nodded, speechless.

“That’s better. Now, I’m gonna keep fucking you until you cum on my cock. A pussy always feels better on my cock after an orgasm.”

You let go of the hand on your mouth, letting it rest on the sheets around you. Before taking his cock in hand to align it again with your slit, he slapped your pussy for a second time. The impact made you whine.

He took your other leg to put it on his shoulder. You were folded to his wishes. Then, in one quick thrust, his cock found its way again inside your hot and wet walls. “Ah!” you both uttered at the familiar frixion between your sexes. He opened his legs slightly, towering over you so his torso was closer to yours, so he could angle his dick better inside of you. In this almost mating press position, he started thrusting inside of your pussy at a rapid pace. It felt divine. His soft groans of effort and pleasure were more audible with his face closer to yours. He fucked into you with abandon, looking at you like a predator, loving the obscene squelching sounds of your wet pussy around his cock.

One of his hands went to press your lower belly to try to feel the movement of his shaft inside you. You moaned loudly at the delicate pressure applied to this specific area. “Oh, do you like feeling me like that, deep inside your sweet cunny?”

“Yes! Fuck, you’re so deep!”

He couldn’t control himself as he laughed almost hysterically, and he slapped your side. You grunted at the impact. It was getting out of your grasp; Naoya was fucking you, not letting you do anyting. You were trapped.

“Hold on, I wanna switch positions,” you said, only reaping a dissatisfied look from the man above you. He stopped his furious pace.

“What do you want to do?”

“I’m going to ride you.”

He grimaced. He was reluctant to giving you the privilege of fucking him yet he wasn’t in a situation to argue. “Fine. But I’ll finish with you on your knees,” he said before bottoming out from you to lay back comfortably on the bed. He watched you with hungry eyes as you straddled him, carefully taking his cock and letting its head gently brush your entrance and your clit. He groaned, slowly bucking his hips to inform you of his urge to be quickly buried again in your pussy. You sat on him in a swift movement, welcoming the fullness of him inside you again with a long moan.

It felt divine again, his cock brushing the perfect places in that angle as you rolled your hips experimentally. “Damn, I should’ve done this earlier,” you commented, a devilish grin on your face.

Soon, Naoya’s hands were glued to your hips in an attempt to help you fuck yourself on his cock. He moaned, as you continued rolling your hips to the sides, in no particular hurry to start impaling you properly on his shaft. You were fascinated at the man’s heavy eyes glued to your body, conveying his frustration as his lips were pinched together not to critique your way of doing. Your hands landed on his torso, finally moving towards him to raise your hips so you could finally move up and down on his cock.

“Fuck, finally…” You heard him say in a soft groan.

The friction on your sexes were amazing as you quickened the pace. The curve of his dick was perfect in this angle, and you knew your pussy was dripping on him, down to his heavy balls. As you were busy steading a faster rhythm, you brought a hand around his neck, gently squeezing it. He frowned at that, surprised you initiated such a thing. The smack on your bottom quickly followed.

“Oh, you’re choking me now? Kinky,” he said, firmly grabbing the wrist of the hand around his neck. You didn’t put much force in your grasp, not really wanting to make him angry. “Are you sure you wanna play this game?” Your hand tightened around him, making him wear a devilish smile. He smiled because he rarely found lovers who had the guts to do things like that to him; but he liked it depending on the situation. The situation right now was justified enough to make him like it. He slapped your other buttcheeck with more force.

“Touch me.” Your order was clear.

With you choking him deliciously, he complied, bringing his hand to the apex of your thighs and played with your clit. You moaned and tightened around him, making him grunt in response. Blood was pumping hard in his veins, incredibly aroused by the positions both of you were. His fingers worked intensely on your clit, making you gasp several times and slow down the movement of your hips. You felt your orgasm rise, tingling everywhere in your body, while his cock was reaching the best places.

“Fuck, don’t slow! don’t slow-oh god!” You almost came to a halt, but continued to rock your hips as much as you could.

“You’re gonna cum doll?” He didn’t stop at all his quick work on your soaked clit, marveling at the view of you getting closer to your sweet release.

“Yes, don’t stop!”

“As I promised, you’re gonna cum pretty on my cock,” he said, grinding his hips back inside you, as you completely focused on the pleasure he was giving you. You hand to steady yourself back on his torso, completely leaving his neck from your grip. “Yeah just like that, cum on my cock. You’ll have to remember who made you cum so hard.” He was now fucking you from underneath you, taking the lead of the position. The sensation of his cock swiftly pumping inside you and his skilled digits on your little bud was intoxicating. You were going to snap soon at the intensity of all these simulations.

“C-Cumming,” was all you could manage to announce as your orgasm completely overtook you.

You twitched from head to toe, releasing the most delicious moan as every inch of your body felt an indescribable pleasure. “Yes! Yeah, release everything, doll, come on!” You barely heard what Naoya said to you as he continued to buck his hips into you. He couldn’t stop himself from moving his digits on your clit, making your head dizzy out of overstimulation. As you were drained by the intense climax he just gave you, he watched you slowly go limp on him, breathing unevenly and taking your sweaty body between his arms. He caged you for a few seconds before taking the opportunity to take you like he had promised: on your knees. You couldn’t proceed with a coherent word.

“I’m almost done, you do a little effort for me,” he pushed your head on the pillow, and grasped your hips in a tight grip to level them to his groin.

“I deserve that, don’t I?” He whispered, resuming his quick pace as he entered you again. He thrusted in you fast, sensing his pending orgasm. Your pussy felt heavenly better now, with the outshocks of your previous climax—he felt it quiver gently, and wetting deliciously his cock. He pistoned his cock hard and fast, balls tightening and slapping on your ass. He was feeling more than ever his incoming orgasm, panting hard above you.

“Fuck I’m close. Where do you want it? Tell me quickly.”

Finally recovering from your orgasm, you threw your head, releasing your face from the pillow to articulate:

“On me, cum on me.”

He slapped your rear once again. “Alright doll, I’ll gladly paint your ass with my cum.”

He watched one last time his shaft entering you, a white ring of your cum around it, and drenched with the rest of your essence. That’s when he heard you moan a low “fuck” from his quick thrusts that he pulled his cock out to immediately bring his fist around it. “Look at me.” You turned your head to gaze at him over your shoulder, fucking his hand without holding back. He grunted at the sight of your agape mouth, watching him reach his bliss, ass presented to him like a canvas to paint with his release. He tightened his grip a little also taking advantage of your cum on his sex to quicken his pace. With a final loud moan, he felt all his body tense. Spurts of hot and sticky cum fell onto your ass, never ending as he didn’t stop the motion of his hand to draw his orgasm out until the last drop. Low pants accompanied these long seconds, as both of you tried to catch your breaths again.

Naoya sighed, ultimately coming back to reality, eyeing his cum slowly drifting on the curves of your ass. With the red tip of his softening cock, he spreaded it even more on your skin.

“Nice view. Never thought I'd ever see this,” he said, trying to print the memory in his mind. You turned back on your heels, not really caring about his seed on your ass.

“Don’t get too comfortable with me,” you said. “Fuck, I really needed that.”

“So, I think I fulfilled my part of the deal. Twice, even. Make sure you don’t say a word.” He stood out of the bed, grabbing his robe on the floor to put it back on his sweaty shoulders. He also threw your clothes next to you.

“I’ll remain silent,” you swore, putting your shirt back.

“Perfect. Just so you know: I’ll kill you if you ever speak up,” he paused, looking at you from head to toe. “Also, I was half joking about wanting to make you squirt.”

You choked on air. “What the fuck?!”

[yamigooops]

Hey I know you beta’d for Gnarlypunkassbitch for Our Enigma. I noticed she’s deleted her ao3 account and her Twitter, do you know what happened or if she’s ok?

Omg yes! Ok so she DMed me before deleting and let me know that she’s had some ongoing issues with both her physical and mental health. I’ve known about them for a little while, as that is the reason she hasn’t updated the story since like February I think?

Essentially she had been feeling a tremendous amount of pressure over not having the time, energy, or inspiration to write and/or update the story. Despite readers’ support and reassurance for her to take her time and prioritize her wellbeing, as writers online we can often get caught up in the trap of thinking that just because we have a story that might be successful, which I would absolutely consider OE successful with tens of thousands of reads, we have to update on a constant schedule or our readers are going to get mad.

I know when she first started it she updated regularly, but from what I know it was supposed to end a while ago but she kept extending it bc readers wanted more. She eventually had to prioritize her well-being over the story, since she lost inspiration. And while this happened a few weeks ago, she still felt the pressure from AO3 and Twitter, so she decided that a full cleanse would be best for her.

However, we are still in contact, so she hasn’t completely vanished. I’ve emailed her in response to the DMs she sent me before leaving Twitter, and expressed my support for her to take care of herself first. She did say in the DMs that she may come back and repost the story in the future after she’s worked on herself, but that’s completely up to her. I do still have the beta read documents, and she still has the originals, so the story still exists, just not publicly right now. I was also talking with her about releasing a podfic of the story, though I hadn’t planned to even start recording it until October.

As of right now, she hasn’t responded. I emailed her on April 6th when she left, so it hasn’t been super long since then. But I expressed that she didn’t have to respond or anything if she needed a full cleanse from everything. Though I did express that I was sending her good vibes and thoughts, as well as my willingness to act as a channel for her to communicate with all the fans of OE in order to update you all on her state, as well as share your support and love for her.

I just feel so incredibly privileged to have been a part of this story, even if the work I did never got shared publicly. Because I got to become friends with a generous, kind-hearted, marvelously talented woman, while also sharpening my editing skills at the same time. Like I literally kept a cry count throughout this fuckin fic and the first read through I cried 15 times, and by the end of the beta it was up to 27. If a writer is able to make you cry even when you know what’s coming next? That’s true mastery in my opinion. So like wow. I just…. I’ll never shut up about this fic y’all. Never ever. I wish I could share the beta docs so y’all could still read it, but that would be a breach of her trust since she took it down publicly and hasn’t responded to my message yet. So I unfortunately won’t be doing that.

I’m also honored that people have come to me to ask after her. Like wowza. I’ve had numerous people do so, and I just can’t get over it. The love that has already been shown just in the past 6 days is astonishing. She impacted so many in such a profound way, and I am more than happy to act as a bridge to you all now. Though I will say that if you’d like to send her love and/or we’ll wishes that I won’t be contacting her again until she responds to me. Because we all need to respect her journey to healing, and if that means never hearing from her again, I hope you’re all willing to accept that and still wish her well.

So really all we can do now is sit together in our love for her and the story, send her positive energy in her road toward healing, and cross our fingers that she will one day bring this masterpiece back to life. But the decision is completely up to her, and I hope you’ll all support her just as much as I do. Keep an eye out for her possible return, maybe check like once every month or two. I will also make an announcement if she does return, so let’s do what we can right now to get her those good, healing vibes 🥰🥲

Below are my true feelings regarding the (hopefully temporary) loss of this absolutely incredible writer and friend:

Also. I haven’t gotten to freak out about OE with anyone but Gnarly since none of my friends read it so like….. y’all should tell me your favorite part and I will share mine bc like wowowoowowowow whatta fuckin masterpiece 😤🥲

[hpowellsmith]

Happy birthday, Royal Affairs!

It's been a year since Royal Affairs came out and I've been over the moon about how it's been received. It's meant that I've been able to write full-time, make Honor Bound as rich and detailed at high speed, and do a lot of physical and mental health recovery after various periods of burnout. I'm really grateful for everyone's support, here and elsewhere, and it really makes a huge difference.

I had so much fun returning to the characters after a while away for the epilogue - if you enjoyed the game at release and haven't replayed for the epilogue, I very much recommend giving it a go!

After beta testing, I wrote up a retrospective about what came up and how I organised my work. I thought I'd share it for some insight into my process, for players and authors. Here it is:

In Crème de la Crème I ended up adding large branches to the plot during beta, but I was fortunate not to have to do it this time around. Mostly it was building on what was there or bringing certain things to the forefront, or adding a few different ways of navigating situations.

As feedback came in, I was lucky enough to have so much that it became unwieldy to act on it in one go, so I made a priority list.

Highest priority was game breaking bugs or large continuity problems like Dominique's final game scene switching to Beaumont's.

High priority was smaller continuity bugs like the game confusing who you were romancing or whether you had or hadn't done a particular action earlier.

Medium priority was things like small scene additions or multi romance responses, or tweaking first impressions of characters, and so on.

Low priority was nice-to-haves like allowing a character to be romanced only late on.

Alongside this, I fixed typos and made small adjustments - easy wins that added polished. There were also some major sweeps that I did: a stat test clarity sweep, a stat change sweep, a reduction of tests in casual conversations, and repetitive words or phrases.

Stat test clarity:

I picked 3-4 stat tests at random from each chapter, copied their text into a separate document, and highlighted words that reflected the stats. For example: for Authoritative I had things like "I order them to..." "I tell them what to do", "I stay aloof to maintain my authority..." and so on. I edited testing choices to include these keywords, and also edited the stat guide to include them.

Checking all this had the side effect of helping me spot unnecessary tests or points where the stat being tested just didn't match the situation at hand.

Stat changes:

There are a lot of points where stats can change, and not all of them made sense at the start of beta. I did variations of this sweep several times, including the Action Skills, NPC stats, and adding a lot more chances to boost your Powers of Persuasion. Again doing this check helped me spot unnecessary or unintuitive tests and changes.

Tests in casual conversations:

This was again something that I iterated several times. Some of the commentary about Crème de la Crème said that the stat tests felt punishing or too difficult, and an early playtest from my wife flagged that some of the tests in Royal Affairs felt unfair. Why should a character's relationship reduce when you're trying to be affectionate, if the circumstances aren't in a state where that makes sense?

So I stripped out a lot of this, generally replacing a success/failure with flavour text (such as a Subtle MC perhaps being, well, more subtle about holding hands with someone). In some cases, where a character needs to be drawn out of themselves to talk more emotionally (Beaumont or Hyacinthe, on occasion), or they see the conversation as a contest or challenge in some way (mostly Javi or Trevelyan), I left them in. But I liked that they were a rarity rather than default.

Repetitive words or phrases

As I was writing, sometimes I noticed that I was overusing phrases, so if I got that feeling I would make a note for the sweep. In the end there wasn't as much as that as I thought, but there were a lot of qualifier-type words that reduce the impact of a sentence - "a little" was one, or "really", usually in dialogue - or filler words like "down" in sentences like "you sit down beside them".

I also looked for phrases like "you know" or "you suspect" to spot places where I could express whatever it was that the MC knows more elegantly (this is something a former colleague told me once and I've never forgotten it!)

More involved edits

With some major things that I did change, I'd put them on my to-do list before beta but they were either unwieldy and I wanted to start testing sooner rather than later, or I wanted to check whether other people agreed. It was great to have more opinions and mostly they confirmed what I'd thought. With others, I studied the feedback to gauge whether the effort of making the changes would be worth the payoff. In most cases, I decided to go for it.

In general, this stage involved adding things, including:

more worldbuilding details to give more context to the plot

more teacher interactions throughout; added scenes as well as offhand references to other classes; more about Clemence and Vere and expanded outcomes to their storyline

romanceable characters responding to players romancing other people: in the moment, checking in about where your relationship was at, and a set of final breakup conversations if it was left until the very last minute (this was a very big undertaking and would have been better to do earlier - a lesson I've taken to Honor Bound)

lengthening the main suffrage debate

adding slow-paced romance dynamics for two characters (I was really keen to do this but was disciplined about making it low priority - it was a lovely idea and I knew I'd enjoy doing it, but it was very much a nice-to-have compared to other things. I was delighted to be able to do it!)

more communal scenes with classmates to give more of a sense of living in each other's pockets

adding an option to confide in Asher about a particular plot point and for them to assist with it if wanted (I was so happy about adding this: it's one of my favourite Asher moments, even if few people see it!)

tweaking some of the friendship/romance conversations to add more emotional chat (mostly this applied to Javi and Hyacinthe; there was a bit added to Asher and Dominique at Verdancy)

more pet time

more narrative and conversational responsiveness about whether an imperilled character was romanced

more Javi asexuality chat

more detailed outfit descriptions throughout with more choices about what to wear

generally expanding some scenes to give more breathing room to important moments

In the end I added 45000 words to the game during beta testing, thanks to feedback from editor review, continuity testing, and copyediting. Testing took place during late December 2022 and January 2023, and I massively appreciate everyone who contributed to make this big game as polished as it is!

-

[pretty-boys-book-club]

It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x Reader, mentions of past Aaron Hotchner x Haley Brooks

Warnings: MAJOR ANGST, character death, angst with happy ending, mentions of child abuse, child neglect, Aaron Hotchner Needs a Hug, Aaron Hotchner Whump, Teen Hotch, alcoholic mother - I think this is pretty much it, but feel free to let me know if there's any more!

Word Count: 12K (this thing is loooong)

Prompt: Person A is too busy working, even going as far as spending Christmas Eve alone at their office. They end up falling asleep and get visited by a series of ghosts who give them a chance to re-evaluate their actions and right the wrongs of their past. (A Christmas Carol)

Author’s note: The person who sent me this request wished to stay anonymous, so I’m posting this as a text instead of an answer. I’m sorry if this a little too sad, but I thought Hotch deserved some type of background and got a bit carried away. The timeline is a bit wobbly and this hasn’t been beta read, but I’ve spent over a week obsessing over this text and something tells me it is ready to be released into the world. Also, per the request,I’m doing this one as a Fem!Reader.

This is part of my 12 Days of Christmas (100 Followers Celebration, which turned into a 250 followers celebration and now a 300 followers celebration!). Requests are now closed and will reopen at 2022.

Haley Hotchner was dead: to begin with. There was no doubt whatever about that. The arrangements – which sort of coffin, cremation or burial, where would they have the service – seemed to relate to someone else, some stranger. The register of her burial was signed by the coroner, the forensic pathologist and someone else at the FBI. Aaron Hotchner signed it too.

He’d known nearly immediately, of course. How could it be otherwise? Aaron knew as soon as he walked into their house, his gut telling him the worst possible outcome had come true. As odd as it sounds, part of Aaron was grateful for the pain. Of course, he was absolutely miserable but, in his own way ,he was glad that his ex-wife died first so she didn’t have to feel what he did. As much as it hurt, it was an honor to him to be able to share the best years of their lives together and that she chose him to share them with. And if he thought too hard about what it was like for him in the first couple of years, he was glad that she was spared of that.

On the surface, the man looked and behaved just as usual. Rather, Aaron felt content to find a new sense of resilience. One latches on to any concept that offers hope or comfort. As a trained FBI profiler, Aaron knew that a theory shared by many psychiatric studies of bereavement is that the mind shuts down, so the body will have time to adjust to the new situation.

During her burial and the days that followed, Aaron felt as if he was moving through the rooms like a shadow, and their shared house seemed large and cold and alien. He’d never spent such a long time at the house without Haley. After a couple of weeks, the soft grief, the tears, began to hit. The metaphors – waves, inundation, floods – seemed accurate to him. Grief swallowed him. Whoever he was before her death, was replaced by a melancholic, taciturn, and cautious man. An iron ring was cast around his heart, followed by a heaviness in the chest. It was almost as if his innards had been scooped out – no stomach, heart, or emotions.

Reid once told him that after a year and a half 70 per cent of widows reported significant improvement in their feelings, which offered more hope to Hotch than statements such as “everyone’s grief is different”.

After about a year, Aaron stopped obsessively going over the most horrible week of his life. He once had promised Haley that he’d make sure she and Jack never suffered pain because of his job. And she had suffered great pain, in the end. But after so long of wallowing and going over every moment of that nightmare, in some vain expectation of correcting his mistakes, he had to move on.

Since that fateful night, everything had become about Jack. He had to make their life as normal as possible and see Jack through the hell of their reality with the assurance that he was loved and that both of them would be okay.

After two or three years, he stopped thinking about Haley’s death. Jack was getting better every day, and as he did, Aaron found himself worrying less about his son. He was almost starting to believe that he would be okay. He had a lot of work ahead, but he’d manage.

So, there was no doubt that Haley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come out of this story.

After Haley’s death though, whatever he might have once been, Aaron Hotchner was a different man. He needed to work, not only to survive, but so that he had an identity that he could wear like armor. This new version of himself was working at least 70 hours a week, so much on his plate that early every minute of his day had to be spent in a productive way. He still felt as if he’d lost a limb. But his wound had healed and he’d learned to manage without it.

The old Aaron only had to exist in the precious moments before his head hit the pillow at night or when he was spending time with Jack. It was safer there. At some point, he became hard and sharp as steel, self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold inside him froze his features, brows permanently furrowed, wrinkles adoring his forehead. He carried his own low temperature always about with him, external heat and cold had little influence on Aaron Hotchner. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him.

Once upon a time—of all the good days in the year, on Christmas Eve— Aaron Hotchner sat busy in his office. The weather was cold and bleak, and he could hear the people in the bullpen going around their day. Reid was stating all the possible facts about Christmas to Morgan, Prentiss was discussing what type of wine to bring to a party with Rossi, JJ had already left to be with her family, Penelope was merrily distributing gingerbread cookies to all of the office and youyou, well, youyou werewere far too busy actually working.

You see, you you arrived at the team just after Hotch returned from his leave, proving yourselfWith a background on forensic analysis, you’d quickly proved to be a useful asset to the team. Not only that, but your work ethic was impressive, probably the only other person in the team who worked as hard as Hotch did.

There was something different about you. Something that made Hotch feel as if he could relax around you, and he felt, slowly, all the walls he’d put up starting to crumble. Spending so many hours together, it was only natural that the two of you grew closer together.

To be completely honest, Aaron’s not even sure when it started. If he had to guess, it might have been during one of the late nights you shared at the office, enjoying the silence. Or it might have been when you started to compliment him on the tiniest of things - Hotch knew you were a profiler, but he didn’t expect anyone on the team to notice whenever he got a haircut or when he tried a different coffee brand than usual. Or maybe it was because you never gave him a look of pity. Maybe sadness, maybe care, never pity. Maybe, just maybe, his feelings started when you knocked on the door to his office with a bag of takeout, starting a secret routine of sharing dinner, chatting about anything and everything at once. Maybe that’s when the familiar feeling sank in. Or maybe it was any of the other small moments in between.

Of course, having felt this way before, he knew exactly what was happening. Sure, you were attractive, it was hard not to notice the way you swayed your hips or how your curves complimented you, but it was more than that. It wasn't a crush or some type of infatuation. It was too similar to what he’d felt all those years ago with Haley. So he couldn’t possibly allow it. Not if it meant to be plagued with the possibility of you getting hurt too. On top of that, the fact that he was your boss just further complicated things. No, he decided, those feelings won’t do. Best to avoid it all together.

So he started to push you away. Trying his best to ignore what his heart craved so badly. Sitting back and watching as you dated despicable man after despicable man. Even if he wanted to give his heart to you, after years of white-knuckling it, his fingers didn’t know how. Anyway, back to our story.

The clock had barely hit four in the afternoon, but it was quite dark already — it had not been light all day. Snow was pouring down so dense that all the other buildings outside of Quantico were mere phantoms. Aaron had come to despise the winter weather. Haley loved the season and the holidays served him as a painful reminder of memories he didn’t want to revisit.

Hotch was divorced from all the antics of lights and decorations, as soon as the leaves announced the beginning of autumn, his moments of abstraction were frequent, and in them it seemed as if his spirit were wandering the paths of another world. He’d only come back to his senses with the beginning of the next year, when the first flowers blossomed with hope of spring.

During the month of December, the BAU had surprisingly little to do. A few cases here and there, but nothing that required more than a couple of days. So, from where he was sitting in his office, he saw that most of the team had already left. You were still typing away at your desk, the only one left at the bullpen. He saw from the corner of his eye how you held your coat closer to your body, the temperature at Quantico making you slightly tremble. Not matter how many times Hotch had told maintenance to come down and fix the thermostat at their floor, his requests had been ignored.

He was so distracted observing you, a luxury he rarely did ever let himself indulge in. He should have been more insistent, you shouldn’t waste your time working that much lest you become like him. He hated how he could see the transformation taking place in you. How your soft eyes now carried a look of disappointment each time you looked at him. He was so absorbed in his task of admiring you that he was caught by surprise by someone entering his office.

“Merry Christmas, Hotch!” cried a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Penelope Garcia, who was head to toe dressed in red and green, not hiding her enthusiasm for the season.

“Merry Christmas, Garcia.” he said, not looking up from his report. He watched as Penelope left him one of her cookies on his desk as she walked away, one of the last of the team to leave the office.

“Sir, I’ve closed off the bat cave for the day. Some of us will be going to Rossi’s to have a Christmas dinner, you know. Do you maybe want to join us?”

“There’s no need. It’s fine, thank you for worrying about me, Garcia.” he said shortly, and turned away, his attention back to his report.

“Okay, well, never hurts to ask. The invitation still stands, in case you change your mind. Good night then, sir.”

“Good night, Garcia.” he said as he heard her leave his office.

He looked back at the report in his hands. What was he doing? He knew it the team probably suspected he wasn’t as busy as he was pretending to be. But, for some strange reason, the idea of spending Christmas working was more appealing than the idea of spending it with Jack and Jessica. The idea of seeing his sister-in-law, which meant he’d have to face Roy too, would meant facing a painful and familiar feeling and he didn’t wish to spoil the night for anyone else.

“Please, don’t tell me you’re planning on actually working tonight.”

Hotch raised his eyes from his paper as the subject of his affections walked into his office. You were standing at the doorframe, arms crossed, holding the tiniest of packages, wrapped in some sort of shiny paper. Your face sported a concerned but amused look.

“It’s just another day, crimes don’t stop just because it’s a holiday.” he replied.

You observed him, not believing a word he said: “It’s just one night, Aaron, the office will be here tomorrow morning. But I bet Jack would love to have you with him tonight.” He whimpered at the use of his given name, hating how you could read him so effortlessly.

“He’s with Jessica and his grandfather, he’ll be fine. I get New Year’s with him. If I’m working, no one else has to.”

“Aaron, c’mon, you should go spend Christmas Eve with your family just like the rest of us.”

“I have to finish this report.” he turned back to face the papers on his desk. “Besides, I’ve worked during Christmas for the last few years, I really don’t mind.”

“Still, you really shouldn’t spend tonight by yourself. I can give you a ride to Rossi’s if you want. I heard he’s making thirteen different dishes, something about an Italian tradition. You should come.” He could see the expectation on your face. A look he had come to agree that was only reserved to him. After a moment of silence, you continued, suddenly remembering the package you were holding. “I got you a gift, by the way. I hope you like it.”

He wondered what you’d bought him, but decided against opening the gift, putting it inside one of the drawers instead. Anything to avoid letting you know how happy the little gesture made him. “Thank you. For the gift and the invitation. But I’m fine being here. You should go, I’m sure they are waiting for you.” Hotch gave you a small smile, unsure of what to tell you. He couldn’t admit he was at the office to avoid his feelings.

“Okay, never hurts to ask. The invitation still stands, in case you change your mind. Have a good night then, I…” You started, having trouble finding the right words. “Merry Christmas, Aaron.”

“Merry Christmas.” he uttered the words with a stone cold face, almost as if he’d rehearsed them before. Not hiding his guilt, though, he continued: “I’m sorry for turning down the offer, but I really need to finish this.” You seemed to understand his motives, looking down at your feet. He could see your eyes get a bit teary.

“Don’t worry about it.” You spoke softly, offering a gentle smile. He hated how you always did that, always showed sympathy for him. He didn’t deserve it.

And like that, you were gone, your steps echoing in the empty office as you took the elevator. He was now completely alone. Hotch sat there, unsure of what to think. He tried really hard not to feel bad for letting you go.

He really did.

HALEY’S GHOST

Without him noticing, the clock turned to yet a later hour. And so, Hotch decided to pour himself glass of scotch, the taste rich on his tongue, the familiar burn in his chest warming him up as he swallowed a generous gulp. It was much too late for him to drive home, not to mention the snowy road would be a menace to his safety, so he decided to sleep in his office. It was not the first, second, third or, hell, even fourth time he’d done so. Much too familiar with the action, he found himself laying in the sofa inside his office, putting one of the pillows below his head, sleep almost taking over him instantly.

It was then that Aaron noticed a couple of the computers outside his office turning on, the screens illuminating the empty bullpen. This might have lasted half a minute, or a minute, but it seemed an hour. The computers turned off as they turned on, together and all at once. His office door flew open with a booming sound, and then he heard the noise much louder, on the floors below; then coming up the corridor; then coming straight towards his door.

“Who’s there?” He asked, cold gun smoothly drawn from its holster, pointed, and fired up, as if expecting someone to reply. His color changed though, when, without a pause, someone came on through the glass door, and passed into the room before his very eyes.

The same face: the very same. Haley Hotchner stood in front of him.

“I must be delusional…”

“No, you’re not delusional, Aaron.”

“Who are you? Is this some sort of prank? It’s not funny, you know.”

“Ask me who I was.”

“Who were you then?” said Hotch, raising his voice. “You can’t be… I shouldn’t have had so many drinks.”

“In life, I was your ex-wife, Haley.”

“But you’re…”

“I’m dead? That much, Aaron, is, unfortunately true.”

“Can we—can we sit down?” asked Hotch, looking doubtfully at the ghost.

“We can.”

“Do it, then.” Hotch took a moment to observe her more closely. This Haley, staring back at him, looked a bit older. She had more lines on her face, her hair was long enough to tie it up, back to her usual blonde. But, Hotch noticed that, oddly, there was more life in her eyes then than during the last few weeks of her life.

“You don’t believe in me,” observed the Ghost.

“No, I don’t,” said Hotch. He scrubbed a hand over his face and shook his head. He had become insane. Or maybe he was just dreaming. That had to be it. It was the only explanation that made sense. He had to be fast asleep on his office couch, and he would wake up in the morning to see that this whole thing was just some dream. He would wake up, alone on Christmas morning, and go back to work to forget this awful dream.

“After everything you have seen, you still think ghosts are impossible?” Haley’s ghost crossed her arms over her chest and tilted her head, a stance that Hotch was very familiar with. The distant memory made the tension leave his body for a bit.

“Okay, let’s say I believe you are actually here for a second and not some vision I’m having…” Curiosity got the better of him.  He sighed, dropping his head in his hands. “Why are you here?”

“I’m here to warn you, Aaron, that you have yet a chance of living a long and fulfilling life, if you change the course you’re going. A true chance at love and happiness. You just need… a nudge in the right direction.” she quietly said, stroking Aaron’s face gently like she had done so many times during the years they were married.

“Oh, Haley, it’s really you. I’m so sorry.” Tears sprung to his eyes as he recalled their final moments together. He hugged her, burying his face in her shoulder. “I… I am-” The way he had cradled her, quite like he was doing right now “ I…”

“I know, Aaron. And I forgave you for it all, so you could find happiness again.” She held his face in her hands. “But you’re not happy, are you, Aaron? Look at you.”

“No, I am not! How can you expect me to be happy now you’re gone?” he demanded, in a faltering voice.

“You can be, I am sure. And you might not even see it, but you’re so close. You’ve got so much time to live, so much love left to experience, so many more wonderful years ahead of you. Time is the most precious thing in this world and to have shared my life for so long with you is something I am incredibly grateful for. Please tell Jack stories, so he knows how much I love him and how proud of him I will always be.” She smiled at him. Hotch can’t help but feel the hollowness of sadness combined with choking from grief. The price of love.

“You will be haunted,” she resumed, “by Three Spirits. Look at what they show you. Listen to them, please!”

“Is that what you call a nudge in the right direction, Haley?”

“It is.”

“I—I think I’d rather not,” said Hotch.

“Unfortunately, it’s not up you. Expect the first when the clock strikes one.” said Haley’s ghost, her hand touching his cheek one last time. “I loved you so much, but it’s time for you to let me go.”

Tears ran down Aaron’s face. “I’m not sure I know how.”

“You’ll figure it out.” Haley’s ghost smiled, wiping his tears gently with her thumb.

Then she left. Just as she appeared, dissolving into thin air. Aaron blew out a breath he’d been holding in his lungs without realizing it. And being, from the emotion he had undergone, or the fatigues of the day, or his glimpse into the afterlife, or the dull ache he still felt after seeing Haley one more time, Aaron went back to lying on the couch, not even taking off his shoes, and fell asleep upon the instant.

THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS

When Hotch awoke, it was so dark, that from his office he could scarcely distinguish the rest of the bullpen. He was trying to pierce the darkness with his eyes when he glanced upon the watch in his left hand. It was a quarter past midnight.

The idea being an alarming one, he scrambled out of his office, and groped his way to the door. He rubbed the sleep off his face with the sleeve of his shirt, he could see very little then. Hotch went back to his makeshift bed, and thought, and thought, and thought it over and over and over, and could make nothing of it. The more he thought, the more perplexed he was; and the more he endeavored not to think, the more he thought.

Haley’s ghost had bothered him. Every time he resolved within himself, after much inquiry, that it was all a dream, his mind went back again to its first position, and presented the same evidence to be worked all through, “Was it a dream or not?”

He stayed like that until the clock had hit one in the morning, when he remembered, on a sudden, that Haley’s ghost had warned him of a visit. Light flashed up in the room, and the door to his office opened.

The door to his office was opened, I tell you, by a hand. And Hotch, clutching his gun at its holster, found himself face to face with an unearthly visitor: “Tom?”

“Hello, Hotch.”

“Why are you here?” he inquired, even though he already knew the answer to that question. The old man looked just as he did on the last time they saw each other, with the small change being that he was able to breathe - or whatever it was ghosts did - without needing an oxygen tank.

“I am the ghost of Christmas Past.” his voice was singularly low, as if instead of being so close beside him, it were at a distance.

“Of course, you are. So, Shaunessy, where are you taking me?”

“As it usually goes, we shall start at the beginning.” Before Hotch had time to react, the spirit of the older policeman was holding his hand, they passed through the wall, stood upon the FBI building, facing the road below and then leapt out into the night. After a while, the entire city had vanished below them. Not a vestige of it was to be seen. The darkness and the mist had vanished with it, for it was a clear, cold, winter day, with snow upon the ground.

They landed on an empty field in rural Virginia.  There was a sharp intake of breath from Aaron as he recognized the location. The sky was tinted a purplish gray just as he remembered, the snow falling down the quickest and heaviest it had in a long while.

“It can’t be.” Hotch said. “My old boarding school.”

“Do you remember it?” inquired Shaunessy’s ghost.

“Remember it!” cried Hotch with fervor; “I could walk around here while blindfold.”

They walked along the road, Hotch recognized every post and every tree, until an imposing building appeared in the distance. There was an empty familiarity in the way the school campus was silent during the winter break. Looking forward to the holidays, most of the boys put on their own clothes and packed their bags, shuffling past the school gates to the arms of their waiting parents, vacating the school for the two weeks that separated Christmas from the beginning of the year. Aaron watched all this activity without any obvious sadness or bitterness.

“The school is not quite deserted,” said the Shaunessy’s ghost. “A solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left here still.”

Hotch looked to the front of the building, scanning it. Something caught his trained eyes: fresh footsteps in the snow, leading away from the building. And amidst all of it - a young Aaron Hotchner stumbling blindly through the storm, snow over his ankles, head pounding and tears shining in his eyes. The older Hotch remembered exactly how his fingers ached in the winter wind as he clenched and unclenched them, trying to keep the feeling in their tips.

“Do you know why we’re here?” inquired the ghost.

“It’s the year when my father got sick.”

“Were you two ever close?” the ghost prompted.

“My father… He hurt me and not once did he show a single ounce of remorse. Never. My mother… She knew… But she didn’t do anything. Then she had Sean, and we were happy for a while. But when I became a teen, I became more and more difficult because I started to realize that things shouldn’t be like that. That it wasn’t normal for love to hurt the way it did. I rebelled — that's how I coped.” He answered. The image of his poor excuse of a father beating up his mother on the kitchen floor, while his brother cried in his room, played in his mind. Flashes of being beaten, thrown down the stairs, slapped. “So my father decided that I was the problem. I was the screw-up son with an attitude problem. The beatings got more frequent, and the more he tried to correct me the more I lashed out. And mother was… She got me away as soon as she could, I think my mother thought boarding school would give me stability. I just felt as if I must have done something wrong to be sent away. She didn’t stop him, though. Nobody stopped him. He only stopped when he died.”

“Are we here because that’s when he died, then?”

“No, not yet, at least. You see, he’d been having all those symptoms for years but he didn’t do anything because of his pride. No, this, right here, it was the Christmas I spent at school.”

“A happy memory, then?”

“Yes.”

In fact, he remembered being glad to spend the holidays far away from home. Of course, he’d struggled when he first got to the school. The first night away, he sobbed in the small, unfamiliar bed. Aaron had just turned sixteen when his mother sent him away. He thought his mother, at least, loved him, so for her to leave as if Aaron held no importance to her at all. It had hurt. But as she said goodbye he felt a strange sense of relief. The school was the ideal setting for him to hit the “reset” button.

There were paddocks with sheep in them on the actual school grounds. There were woods next to the school pool. The school chapel was quaint, with roses growing up the exterior. It was different from what he was used to, but he quickly settled into the routine. It’s funny how you can adapt when you don’t have much of a choice. The school fostered organization; its surroundings provided a sense of peace; and its people offered engagement and a sense of belonging. Every day at home was unpredictable and ghastly. Rules that were enforced one day, don’t apply on the next day. Promises were neither kept nor remembered. At school, though, things seemed to always remain the same. Aaron finally felt like he had a place to call home. He found a new way to cope: by taking on lots of responsibility and putting up a competent front for others.

As Hotch, the older one, that is, reminisced about his childhood, his teenage self was huffing and puffing about, mumbling something to himself, a letter in his hands. Both men walked closer to where the teen was, trying to get a better view of what was going on.

“You don’t seem that happy.” Shaunessy’s ghost teased.

“Well, I mean, of course, I felt lonely and left behind. But when wasn't I lonely? At least I was in peace. Besides, I had nowhere else to go, so the matter was decided.”

“Doesn’t look very peaceful to me.”

It was sad, perhaps, but that was the way it had always been for Hotch by then. Before he could explain anything else, though, the silence of the scene was shortly interrupted by another boy running up to meet them. He was shorter than Aaron, his round face adorned by a pair of similarly rounded glasses and blonde hair. His cheeks were red, partly because of the weather, partly from running.

“Hotchner, where are you going?” exclaimed the younger boy, trying to catch up with him. The older Aaron took a few steps to get closer to unfolding scene, only to confirm he wasn’t seeing things.

“It’s Richard Wilkins!” The older Hotchner exclaimed, a smile on his face like never before. “He was one of my closest friends as a boy.”

“What the hell does it look like I'm doing?” The young Aaron retorted, stopping just for a moment to wipe the dark hair out of his face before continuing to walk.

“It looks like you’re sulking, or something, I don’t know. But you’re not wearing enough layers to go out in this weather. You’ll catch a cold, or pneumonia, or hypothermia. Or worse, you’ll get both of us expelled!” The boy reasoned, earning a scoff from the young Hotch.

“Why do you care anyway, Wilkins?” Aaron asked, like a moody child, without turning, still holding the letter in his hand. He surely carried the weight of the world on his shoulders at that moment. Snow flew in the courtyard and the wind blew it back.

“Didn't you hear? There's going to be a blizzard!”

Hotch did hear, the professors had been grumbling about it all week about it, complaining they might not make it home before the storm hit the town, afraid they might get stuck in the roads during the worst of it. He didn’t care. The cold made him feel alive.

“Listen, you can’t stay out here like that. You’ll freeze to death” Wilkins spoke softly.

“You don’t understand! No one does!” Suddenly young Aaron crumpled up the letter in his hand and threw it into a ball. Wilkins bent down to take it. He glanced down at it, scanning the text quickly.

“Wow, you must be sad about your dad…” Wilkins is giving Hotch a sad look, but he doesn’t say anything more about it.

“What? No! I feel nothing for that man. It’s just… I can’t believe he gets to ruin my Christmas even from afar.” the older teen practically growled. Aaron was tempted to tell Richie how he had wished for his father’s death. He had prayed about it more than a couple times and even wrote a letter to Santa when he was younger.

“I know the feeling, my parents are dead and they seem to have that power too.” Wilkins agreed. And Hotch immediately felt like shit, because at least he had a mother to go home to. Even if she was not the best, at least she was alive. “I’m sorry to hear that.“

“It’s alright. There’s no way you could possibly know. By the way, I came here because I was supposed to tell you that Father Jones and a couple of other kids are decorating the school, we’re having a Christmas party at the dining hall tonight.”

“I didn’t realize there was anyone else here for break.” Aaron looked down at his feet and rubbed his hand through his hair.

“There’s a few of us. You want to come?”

“Fine. But I’m not celebrating anything tonight.”

“Your loss. I heard there’s going to be an actual dinner tonight. Not the usual grub we are served, actual real food. Heard they even went to the city to buy some stuff. If you don’t want it, you’re out of luck. More for me, then.”

“Okay, okay, you’ve convinced me. Maybe I’ll try to enjoy it for a while.”

And with that, the boys walked back into the school, together, talking about their plans for the evening. Hotch felt his heart swell once again in hearing the laughter emitting from his child self and his friend while they joked with each other.

He saw how they entered the school, quickly being called by one of the older kids to help set up the lights. The boys spent the whole afternoon decorating, eating and enjoying each other’s company.

"You had a few Christmases with this guy?” Shaunessy asked, with the authority of someone who had seen every Christmas.

“Not really. For a while, we were best friends. But then my father died and my mother asked me to come back home.”

“You loved each other deeply.”

“I suppose we did. It’s stupid but… That little Christmas dinner, it meant everything to me.”

The scene faded was replaced by another wintry day. Now, instead of the old school building, they were in a nice residential street. The lawns were decorated with lights and reindeer and Santa Clauses. All of them, except one.

"Where are we now?"

“Another Christmas when you're a bit older. Another time and another place but one that had a huge impact on making you who you are now."

The boy that walked around the corner on this day was a few years older, barely turned into a man. He still had the same dark hair as before, but this time, tears ran unchecked down his face.

"No, I don't want to see this." said the real Aaron to the ghost.

“I’m sorry, Hotch, I know how you feel about this whole thing but you need to see it.”

He knew immediately what Christmas this was. It was the year when Aaron came home from college. After being isolated from the outside world for most of his life, he now had exams to study, a loving girlfriend and a future to look up to. Finally, he was normal. He clawed his way to have the life he deserved.

Coming back hadn’t been easy, but Haley had convinced him it was the right thing to do. He knew the old man couldn’t hurt him now. But dealing with his mother was hard. His mother, having come from a broken and somewhat dysfunctional home, was culpable in different ways. She had embraced the view that his father was trying his best to help them and how Hotch was always ruining everything for them. So now, when the old horrible man was already lying six feet under, his mother was already halfway to becoming a functioning alcoholic, minus the 'functioning' part.

As he thought about having to see his family, he started to lose sleep. It was his mind’s way of telling him that this was a bad idea. His body would always tell him when something wasn’t right. He’d ‘feel it’ in his bones. Maybe that’s why he was so good at his job. But he had to go home. Not for his mother, but for Sean.

Thinking of his brother, Aaron made it home for the annual roller-coaster ride of the holidays. But Sean had missed out on having a brother for a while there, and now Aaron had come home after five years to find his little brother wasn't the person he left behind. His brother had witnessed as their father health declined and how their mother’s drinking spiraled out of control. He’d never known his father’s wrath, but Sean had known up close how mentally and physically their mother had become. How mean she’d been to the people who loved her the most. How angry. When he got inside the house from the airport, it was silent, cold and tomb-like. He couldn't wait to leave.

On that Christmas Day, events had unfolded as they often did — just another day of the year when they had to tip toe around on egg shells and do everything in our power not to address the elephant in the room: mother’s drinking. The menu for the day apparently was booze for breakfast, lunch, dinner and scotch all the way to bed.

Sean fled to his room as their mother took her third or fourth drink. Aaron knew the feeling of unease all too well. He’d spent the year at university with a written eulogy in his back pocket, waiting for the moment he’d get the call about his mother being dead and hoping that it wouldn’t happen.

So now, as the past and present Aaron Hotchner stood in the street, Hotch, the older one, was already bracing himself for impact. He knew exactly what scene would unfold.

As the younger version of himself stood there, crying, he could see little nine-year-old Sean Hotchner walk up to him, his pajamas a bit too short, a side effect of not having enough money to spend on such things, his hair a mess as per usual. The two brothers sat by each others side in the sidewalk. Like any good children in a broken home, every year they hoped that Christmas would be different, and every year it was the same, except a little worse.

“Is mom going to be okay?” Sean’s small voice asked. Of all the questions Aaron avoided, that one was the hardest.

“I don’t think so, buddy.” He thought back to his mother passed away on her bedroom, the plans for a family dinner long forgotten. Better than to be at found tomorrow morning at a ditch somewhere, on some strangers' house or in the police station.

“Is- Is Santa real?”

“What? No, of course not.” Aaron didn’t even try to hide the sound (something between a laugh and a scoff) that escaped him. “Why are you even asking me this?”

“I… I asked Santa for a nice Christmas dinner this year.” As his brother confessed, he saw the tears on Sean’s face that he was trying to hide.

“Sean… Listen, this is not gonna happen, but it’s not your fault.” Aaron answered. “This is her problem. It is not your job to fix it. It is your job to get on with your life.”

“You say that but you’re the reason our family is like this in the first place. Mom always says you’ve always been a liar. If…” Sean said between sobs. “If you hadn’t been so ungrateful, dad wouldn’t have sent you to boarding school and he’d still be alive and mom wouldn’t be sick!”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Aaron hissed. Was his brother angry at him? He was dumbstruck. It simply hadn't occurred to him that Sean would place the blame for all of the family’s problems on him. How could it be that his younger brother’s view of their family was utterly different from his? It was pretty ironic, given the givens. But it made sense, as far as Sean was concerned, if one person could just leave, who was going to disappear next?

“Yes, I do! Why did you leave me? You promised you’d take me with you. Remember?” Sean looked at his older brother, the same look he used to give him when they were younger and fighting. “You didn’t just leave our parents behind. You left me too!”

Aaron cringed - he knew he only had himself to blame for that. It was his fault anyway. Of course it was. But what was he supposed to do? He had no idea how to take care of a child, no financial stability, no place for Sean to sleep. He was just a broke college student.

“I’m sorry, Hotch, I know how you feel about this whole thing.” Shanuessy’s ghost reminded the real Hotch this was just a replay of something he’d already lived through. “It’s not your fault. Sean was just a kid, who was in desperate need of a parental figure. Remind you of anyone?"

“Jack.”

“That’s right.

Overcome with great sadness for the fellow, Tom Shaunessy’s ghost sadly placed a comforting hand on Hotch’s shoulder while he teared up. He stared at the man in pity. “Poor guy. No wonder you’re like that.” Shaunessy’s ghost murmured inaudibly before a final flash from the watch enveloped them and sent Hotch back to the empty office of the BAU…

THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS

Hotch gasped and woke up with a start, madly twisting his head from left to right in trying to see his surroundings. It was his office, just as he’d left it moments ago.

It hurt to remember those events. They had been locked away in his mind for years. He made a pact with himself, there and then, to never let anything like that happen with Jack. Knowing his son was probably sleep by now, he made a mental note of never again leaving him alone during the holidays. Then, his mind rushes to the other person he can think might needed his company during the holidays.

“Sean…”

Hotch quickly grabs hims phone, staring at the light up screen. His tired eyes have no trouble typing the number, something he’s had to do a handful of times during the years.

He waited nervously for Sean to accept his call. He hadn’t seen his brother in almost five months, much less talked to him. The only contact they’d had were a couple of short messages, nothing really relevant. The phone ringed for a couple of minutes, no answer. Realizing the time must mean that his brother was fast asleep, or, more likely, in some random bar drinking the night away, Hotch decided the phone call would have to take place the next morning.

It was an hour later by this point and Aaron didn't need any convincing to know that there would indeed be another visitor at two. Expecting to see the next Spirit, he was surprised when there was no one there.

His mind wandered back to his colleagues. Did they resent him for being so closed off lately? He thought about you and the forgiveness that had come so easily when he turned down the invitation for the party, even though he knew you must have been hurt.

Then there was the look, the one you had reserved just for him, the one you had shared so many nights together at the office. Was it an expression of affection? Maybe it was more than affection. Anyway, that look frightened him. Because if it meant what he thought it did, there were so many things that could go wrong.

At ten past two, Hotch finally realized that there was light slipping into his office through the space beneath the door. He thought that it might have been there for some time, actually.

He stood up and opened the door, finding the bullpen as empty as it was before. But, upon further inspection, he could see that the source of this ghostly light might be in the conference room, from where it seemed to shine. This idea taking full possession of his mind, he got up softly and shuffled to the door.

The moment Hotch’s hand was on the lock, a familiar voice called him by his name, and told him to open the door. He obeyed.

“This can’t be right…” he mumbled, as he turned on the lights in the room. “Jason? What are you doing here?” He blinked a few times to try to focus harder, but that did nothing to clear the situation up. If anything, he was more confused than before.

“I am the spirit of Christmas present." answered the figure of his former colleague, masquerading as a spirit on one of the strangest nights Hotch’s had in recent memory.

“Wait a second, you’re not dead, are you?” He worried.

“Well, if you bothered to call me once in awhile, you’d know the answer to that.” The spirit of Jason Gideon smiled. “But no, I am not dead. I’m only here for Christmas day.”

Hotch crosses his arms, knitting his brows. “So you’re supposed to show me the present, I take it?”

“Exactly. You’re finally catching up, good.”

“Does that mean we’re staying here?”

“No.” Gideon’s laugh reminding Hotch how he’d missed his former colleague. Even if they weren’t too close, he was nice to have around. “We are going somewhere. It’s not far, though. Ready?”

Hotch nodded and allowed Gideon to guide them into the night. Unsurprisingly, they remained in D.C., going straight to David Rossi’s house. The house was, of course, beautifully decorated. Strands of tinsel and garland wrapped around the columns in the entrance, string lights by the windows, casting a warm glow to the whole house.

"Shall we have a look inside? Something smells good." Hotch sniffed the air, the smell made his mouth water and his stomach rumble. The smell was even better once they were inside.

The table, decorated with branches of holly and ivy, indicated the meal had already been served. Knowing David, there here had been a nice starter and plenty of main courses. By then, though, the table was filled with various deserts, so much that Hotch knew for a fact that most of the team had to sit down for a while, too full to move. He started to seriously consider that Rossi should quit the BAU and open up his own restaurant, so delicious the food looked. He was quick at counting, enough that he quickly saw there was a place set for him as there always had been, every year. A place he had yet to fill since Haley’s death.

The living room was filled with laughter, a roaring fire in the fireplace and music playing - he thought for a moment that it sounded like Andrea Bocelli’s voice - in the background.

On the corner, a very large, way bigger than necessary, Christmas tree stood, piles upon piles of gifts at its feet. From across the room, David Rossi, raised his glass with warm eyes casting upon everyone.

"This calls for the yearly toast, you all! For a lovely Christmas this year!"

Emily joined in. “Dave’s right!" She agreed cheerfully. "Plus it's never a proper Christmas without a toast to somebody!"

"Exactly!" Derek agreed.

"That's right!" said JJ.

"Oh that's a great idea, let's do it." Garcia tipped her head. "Now who are we going to toast for tonight's Christmas?" The team looked at each other in wondering for suggestions until Reid piped up excitedly.

"Oh! I know who we should toast!" The six pairs of eyes focused upon the doctor in eagerness. But then nothing prepared Aaron for what next came from the boy's mouth: "Let's give a toast for Hotch!”

Why was a sense of guilt beginning to work its way into his body? He had no reason to feel guilty. Right?

“I agree, he’s done so much for all of us.” you said, walking back from the kitchen. Hotch took a moment to take you all in. The way the red dress you had changed into hugged you in all the right ways. His eyes never left your face, his attention was purely yours.

“Christmas is a time for joy isn't it? Everyone deserves a little cheer for Christmas! Specially Hotch.” you shrugged, giving a practiced fake smile. What was going on with you? He knew you loved Christmas.

Everyone gave out whoops and cheers of agreement and seconds later, all the hands enclosed around their glasses of prosecco. Derek gave Rossi a nod and the latter raised his glass, beginning the toast. "A toast, to our unit chief Aaron Hotchner. May the spirit of Christmas be with him!"

"To Hotch!”

After the impromptu toast, Aaron could see most of the team had begun drifting towards the makeshift dance floor. Derek and Penelope swaying close together, Spencer and Emily having fun doing silly dances with JJ in-between. Since it was Christmas, there was a lot singing as well. All of them except for Dave, who walked to the kitchen, no doubt starting to clean up a bit. And you.

“Hey guys?” You piped up softly, as you slipped away from the rest of the party. “I’ll be right back.”

He could see how you swiped the bottle of champagne off the table and stalked away. Hotch couldn't stop his own feet, feeling compelled to be near you even though he was supposed to be merely an observer in this scene.

You quietly walked out of the house, sitting down in the steps leading out to the patio, even if they were mostly covered in snow. You finished the champagne in your flute, then started drinking straight from the bottle.

You’d left the door open a crack so that, theoretically, anyone could come in if they wanted to, and Hotch wished he was actually there to tell you to come back inside, lest you catch a cold.

After looking back to make sure no one had followed you, you did something he never would expect. At first, some tears started rolling down your face, as you desperately tried to blink them away. But after failing at holding back a sob, you openly burst into tears. Hotch was taken by surprise. Why were you sad?

“Hey kiddo, what are you doing out here?” Aaron’s head snapped in the direction of the voice, and he saw Rossi walking up to you out of the corner of his eye. “It’s freezing out here.” He said, putting a blanket over your shoulders.

“I’m just getting some air.” You answered, giving him a friendly nod, not willing to move despite the company. You tried to wipe your tears away, plastering a small smile on your face.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“It’s nothing.” You said, shaking your head. "I'm really not good company right now…”

“It’s because of Hotch, isn’t it?”

Hotch felt so horrible, so ungrateful. Maybe that’s why all this was happening: the world was trying to punish him for being this way. And he couldn’t help but feel like he deserved it.

“Take me home.” He told the Spirit, feeling awful. “We’re done here.”

“We’re not.” Gideon shook his head. “You need to see this.”

“No, I don’t.” Hotch whispered, on the edge of having a breakdown as he didn’t want this. This wasn’t supposed to happen. He really shouldn’t be listening to a private conversation between you and Rossi, but Hotch couldn’t help but wanting to hear more.

You sighed, knowing the look in David’s eyes all too well. The pity. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Do what?”

“Pretend to care,” you murmured.

“Please, we all do care about you. Some more than you’d imagine. Just tell me what it’s going on.”

“Sorry, I’m just having a really bad time wrapping my mind around how he’s been acting lately.” You paused, before letting out a heavy sigh and beginning. “I know I have no reason to feel hurt, but I just can’t shake the feeling that I must have done something wrong, to push him away.”

“C’mon, you must know why he’s been acting like that. You’re a profiler, after all.”

“I mean, I know the holidays can be stressful, so I figured that was it. But surely not enough for him to be gutted all day and chose to spend it alone at the office. What do you think is upsetting him?”

“Are you serious?” Rossi sputtered, before seeing the look you gave him. “Well, it’s been like that every December…” Rossi started. “Ever since Haley’s death. You know he doesn’t really like to talk much about it.”

“Oh, God, I’m an idiot.” You sobbed, feeling like the most selfish fool on the planet. “I’ve been making this up to be about me when Hotch is out there dealing with his grief over his ex-wife.”

“When were you going to tell him?” Rossi asked, obviously trying not to smirk.

"I'm... I'm sorry?"

“I might not have been successful with my marriages, but I know love when I see it. So, when were you going to tell Hotch how you felt about him?”

“I wasn’t planning on telling him. He’s dealing with so much, the last thing he needs is a coworker with a stupid unrequited crush on him.”

“I wouldn’t say it’s unrequited.” Of course, David Rossi would know all about Hotch’s feelings before even himself did. “Let me guess: something about him being you boss, something about you being afraid to ruin things, yada yada.” Rossi said, raising his eyebrows at you.

“Guilty as charged.” You held up your hands in surrender. “But I can’t, Rossi. I’m too much of a coward to tell him how I feel. Honestly, I think it would be best if I could put my feelings aside… Why can’t I stop?”

Hotch practically collapsed as you said this. His knees gave in and he had to make an effort to keep standing. He couldn’t help but let his mouth fall open. He wasn’t sure what knocked the wind out of him more - your confession of love or the deep anguish in your voice. It was so obvious to him now.

“The heart wants what it wants, kiddo.” Rossi stated. As simple as that.

“The funny thing is I know Hotch would handle it gracefully. He’d reject me with kindness. He has such a good heart and he can be so thoughtful. I don’t know why he tries to hide it.” You said, sounding wistful and sad. “I don’t know what to do, Dave.”

“Did you not hear anything I said? You should tell him how you feel, that’s what you should do.” David stood up, brushing the snow off his pants. “You take all the time you need, okay? I’ll get everything to make up the couch. You shouldn’t drive in such state.”

“I’m fine, Dave.”

“Nonsense.” Rossi spoke as gently as possible.

You gave a faint smile, wrapping the blanket tightly around you. “Thank you, Dave. For the blanket and for caring enough to listen…”

“You're welcome" Rossi smiled. “Alright I gotta circulate, catch you later.”

As you stood there catching your breath, Hotch looked to Gideon, who smiled, the same face he used to have whenever the team reached a conclusion long after him.

“What is this, pity? You feel sorry for me, so you’re showing me what I want to hear?”

“No. Of course not. I have no control over what you’re seeing. Everything is true.”

“Why did you show me this, then?” Hotch’s voice trembled.

“Because you deserve to know the truth. Maybe knowing she returns your affection will help you act on your feelings.”

“She never told me she felt like that.” Hotch tried to defend himself, as Gideon’s spirit began to walk away. He caught up quickly, shoving his hands into his pockets. “I had no idea, I swear.”

“Why are you so scared of being happy?” Gideon asked him. Hotch’s breath quickened and he looked away, not sure if he had an actual answer.

“Because I… I don’t deserve to be.” Maybe, it was because, deep inside, he was convinced that admitting how he was in love with you would be a crime. An act so selfish, preventing you from meeting whatever better man you might have found if he hadn’t stepped in. Forget that - it would be the most narcissistic thing he had ever done. Because if he had you, he’d never let you go.

“Oh, Hotch, you always were so harsh on yourself. You deny so much of yourself, hoping it will cure things faster. But it doesn’t work, does it? No. The only way that we can find happiness and peace is if we throw ourselves out into the open. Do it. Throw yourself. Do not attempt to feel nothing so as not to feel anything.”

The shorter man looked up at the him, trying to read the expression and thoughts of the man before him. Hotch felt like the answers to a thousand questions had been answered yet more had appeared in their place. Was he really wasting the opportunity of being happy with you just because he was afraid?

“I’m afraid our time is up. I hope for your sake you’ve truly paid attention. The next ghost won’t be so kind. If you listen to any of us tonight, listen to him.”

Suddenly, everything went black and Hotch was back at Quantico, sitting in his couch. Gideon had left him with a warning. What was the last ghost going to show him?

He remembered the gift you’d given him. What was it? He supposed he might as well open it and see. He opened the box, only to find a pair of tickets for an live orchestral presentation of The Beatles White Album. He flipped them over, then back again. Of course you’ve bought them. The perfect gift. There was two tickets, though. Had you intended for the two of you to go together? He quickly saw that the box also had a note, written in your calligraphy.

Dear Hotch,

John Lennon wrote that we need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. I hope this holiday season you find the strength and healing we all need in our line of work. Without you, this team would not be called a family. You complete our lives. Thanks for your support, guidance, and care.

Merry Christmas xx

THE LAST OF THE THREE SPIRITS

Before he had time to react, the clock struck three in the morning.

Hotch looked about for the ghost, but he didn’t see it. He then decided to lift his eyes, and there it were the ghost, draped and hooded, coming, like a mist along the ground, towards him.

Approaching the figure, his gait began to falter as he saw that a deep black garment concealed its head, its face, its form, and left nothing of it visible save one outstretched hand. No. No no no. This couldn’t be the third spirit. He felt a chill course through his spine.

“Are you the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come?”

The ghost didn’t reply, but it simply nodded.

“You are here to show me my future, I presume.” The upper portion of the garment was contracted for an instant in its folds, as if the spirit had inclined its head. That was the only answer he received.

The Phantom moved away as it had come towards him. Scrooge followed in the shadow of its dress, which bore him up, he thought, and carried him along.

The ghost walked up to the mural at the entrance of the BAU, right next to the elevators, where the wall of honor where there was pictures of all the fallen agents. He saw Anderson and an intern he didn’t recognize, probably from another floor. Anderson was putting a new photo in the wall, but Hotch couldn’t see it from where he was standing.

“No,” said Anderson, taking a deep breath. “I don’t know much about it, either way. I only know he’s dead.”

“When did he die?” inquired the intern.

“Last night, I believe.” He replied as he wiped beneath his eye with his knuckles.

“Why, what was the matter with him?” asked Gina Sharp, stopping by the two of them. “I thought he’d never die.”

“God knows,” said Anderson.

“What about the Behavioral Analysis Unit?” asked the intern.

“I haven’t heard yet, but they will find someone to replace him.” said Anderson again. “Maybe Rossi will take over, perhaps. Or maybe Prentiss. No one has notified me. That’s all I know.”

“It’ll likely be a very cheap funeral,” said Gina. “I heard he didn’t leave any family behind.”

“Just his son, Jack, and a brother, I think.” answered Anderson.

The group quickly dispersed, going back to their jobs. Hotch knew them, and looked towards the ghost for an explanation.

The ghost glided on into the bullpen. Its finger pointed to Hotch’s office. Hotch walked up to his door, listening again, thinking that the explanation might lie here.

He looked around to find Emily sitting in his chair, and though the clock pointed to his usual time of day for being there, he saw no likeness of himself among the multitudes that poured in through the office. It didn’t surprise him, he supposed one day he’d eventually retire, opting for going back to practicing law or only sticking to teaching negotiation techniques at the Academy.  Emily looked tired, purpling bags forming under her eyes and at least a handful of grey hairs on her head.

She quickly stood up, walking past Aaron and the ghost and going up to David’s office. “We’ve got a new case, a child abduction. So far, only one victim, but seeing as we are short two pair of hands now I really need you to go. Are you okay with that?” Emily started and David looked up, and she returned his gaze with a gentle calmness.

“Sure. It’s what he’d have wanted.” Rossi replied, hiding a few stray tears. “One last rodeo, then. Next week will be my last with the team.”

Emily turned to face the rest of the team: “Conference room in five.” she called to the bullpen, a hush falling over the office as everyone paused to listen.

And like that, all of the familiar faces were moving slowly, Prentiss, Morgan and JJ found their way to the conference room.

Garcia was wearing all black, a sight never seen before at the office, not masking the pain in her eyes. Reid followed soon behind her, hunching as he walked, as if folding in on himself. Hotch noticed there was no sign of you. He looked over to the ghost, who stood still. He supposed he still needed to hear whatever was about to happen.

In the conference room, two chairs remained empty. “I just can’t believe it.” said JJ.

“I know, to think if I had stopped by his office, if I had insisted that he should join us for the party, and now…” Garcia said, breaking off in another round of sobs, and Hotch could feel his heart tearing to pieces. What happened to his team?

“You don’t have to tell me, baby girl.” Derek said, sounding sympathetic. “None of us saw it coming until it was too late to stop it.”

“So, have all of you given some thought to what we discussed? Sabbaticals, transfers, reassignments. All of you have options if you chose to no longer be part of the unit.”

A chorus of yes was heard around the room.

Rossi stood up: “I have told you all, I’m choosing to go back into retirement. After… after all that happened, I’m not ready to go back into the field.”

“Of course.” JJ said. “I’ll be taking a sabbatical to be with my family, I think it’s something important for me.”

As she said, this, you appeared at the room. Hotch had never seen you like this, wearing an old t-shirt from the FBI Academy and sweatpants. “I’m sorry for being so late.”

“It’s okay, we all understand.” Emily said.

As the photos of the next case were being shown, Hotch turned to the ghost. “I don’t understand. What has happened?” he demanded. “Why are you showing me this? Who is the person they’re talking about? Am I in danger of sharing his fate? Of losing everything? Is that it?”

Nothing. Instead, the spirit turned back toward the doorway, Hotch falling into step behind it, and followed it through to the unknown. The scene around them changed and  Hotch found himself standing in an open field.

The spirit was as silent as ever. Hotch followed it as they reached an iron gate. He paused to look round before entering. A graveyard. The ground was covered in snow, but he could see it was overrun by grass and weeds, the growth of vegetation’s death, not life.

His mind quickly jumped to conclusions. Oh, no. He looked at the ghost for an explanation. The spirit was standing among the graves, and pointed down to one in particular. Hotch felt the blood in his veins turn into ice.

Aaron sank to his knees, one hand coming up to brush away the layer of snow that had blown up against it. “Aaron Joseph Hotchner. Father, brother, and friend. 1970-2018. Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity.”

“No…” he moaned. “No… it can’t be. It’s not supposed to be like this, it can’t be like this!” Choking back a second sob, he rested his head against the marble.

“Who are you?!” he demanded, anger and panic and anguish bubbling up in his chest and threatening to drown him. “Only cowards hide their faces, so remove your helmet and show me your face!”

The ghost watched him silently. Taking off its hood, Aaron Hotchner felt all the air leave out his lungs as he looked at his very own face.

“No, it can’t be. How can you be me?!”

“I’m not you.” the ghost said in a voice that sounded too much like his. “I’m the Ghost of Christmases Yet to Come. I’m here to show you the future consequences of your actions.” The face before Hotch was a blank mask as he delivered his prophecy. No emotion, no inflection, the effect reminding him too much of the day where George Foyet appeared in his apartment.

“Wait!” he yelled, “ Wait! This is not how my life it’s supposed to end! Let me put things right!” but the fog was growing thicker, obscuring the spirit from view. He was running, lungs burning in the cold air as he rushed through the cemetery.

He faltered, falling into his knees, sobs overtaking him. He collapsed, as his surroundings changed once again. Instantly, he was back at the office.

THE END OF IT

Yes! He was back at his makeshift bed, in his empty office and he was the happiest he’d ever been. Not knowing what hour it was, he walked into the bullpen and was now standing there: perfectly winded.

"I don't know what day of the month it is," said Hotch. "I don't know how long I have been among the Spirits. I don't know"

Running to the window, he opened it, and put out his head. The sun shined bright outside, the air was clear and cold, he could fill the blood pumping through his veins. Best and happiest of all, the time before him was his own, to make amends in!

He walked into the corridor, bumping with Anderson, who carried a pile of files. “What’s today?” Hotch asked.

"Eh?" returned Anderson, very confused. If there was one person he could always count on to know the day, it was Agent Anderson.

"What's today?" repeated Hotch, with such a happy mood he could not remember the last time he had felt this happy.

“Well, it’s Christmas Day."

"Christmas Day! Thank you, Anderson. You can have the full holiday off, spend however you want.” Hotch smiled.

"Are you serious?"

“Yes! Go, go, I’ll take care of things around here.” he ushered the younger man out the door. "I haven't missed it. The Spirits have done it all in one night. They can do anything they like. Of course, they can. Of course, they can." said Hotch to himself. Turning back and rushing back to his office, he slammed the door behind him. He threw himself into his couch and starred at the clock. It was just past 8 in the morning. He felt too wired to try and sleep, even though he was sure he hadn’t slept at all that night.

“My brother.” he exclaimed, frantically looking for his phone. The device light up, and he saw there were a couple of missed calls.

After talking to his brother, which was “fine, thank you very much, are you sure you’re okay, Aaron?” and making sure Jack was having a great time with his grandfather and aunt - even asking if he could stay there another day, he stood at his desk, not sure what else to do.

Apologies didn’t seem fitting to be said over the phone. You needed to know how much you meant to him, in person.

Rossi wasn’t sure what surprised him most: that it was Hotch knocking at his door just as brunch began, or that he had a bouquet of flowers in his hands.

Now that he was face to face with the older agent, he wasn’t sure what to do, looking slightly abashed.

“Good morning, Dave. Does the invite still stand? I thought about it, and I…” he took a deep breath. “I’d really like to celebrate with you guys for a while, if that’s okay.”

“I see no reason why not. You’re part of the team, after all.” Rossi said, pulling Aaron into a backslapping hug. “Just keep it quiet, okay? Things got a bit carried away in the alcohol department last night.”

“Sure, you won’t even hear my presence.”

“Don’t overdo it, Aaron.” Rossi said, beckoning him into the house.

You suddenly appeared, hair a complete mess and mascara blurred. You looked perfect in Hotch’s opinion. He eyed you in your red dress, smiling to himself as if were part of an inside joke.

“Hotch? Is everything alright? Have we got a case?” you asked, stifling a yawn. He couldn’t help but giggle. Aaron Hotchner actually giggled.

He drew the bouquet from behind his back, holding them up as one did in a romantic comedy. “Hi,” he exhaled, giving you a boyish smile. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas,” you returned automatically, then looked up at him in confusion. “Is that for… me?”

“Yes, I didn’t know what kind of flower you wanted, so I just got a bunch of them.” He looked up at you with wonder in his eyes, and you felt like the air had been knocked out of you.

You laughed and thanked him, but something still plagued you. “Hotch?”

“Yes?”

“Why are you here?” His eyes softened a bit, and he looked at you once more. Then, something new flickered across his face. Determination. He met your eyes.

“I’m sorry if this makes you uncomfortable but I have to be completely honest with you. I can’t keep denying what I’m feeling.”

“And what is that?” you asked, not wanting to get your hopes up.

“That I’m in love with you.” he said.

“You love me?” You asked.

“I do. And I know it’s wrong, I’m your boss, we work together. But I can’t help how I feel. And I know I have the worst possible timing in the world but-“ You shut him up with your lips. Hotch was caught by surprise but you felt him relax as you brought your hands up to his neck.

He pulled away to catch his breath, looking deep into your eyes. “You’re beautiful in the morning, you know that?”

“You’re a tease, Aaron Hotchner.” you laughed. “And I’m in love with you too.”

“So, what do you say about going to that concert with me?”

“I’d like that. I’ve…wanted that from you for a while. Took you long enough.”

“I know. But you mean so much to me, I’m hoping to make up for it.”

“You better.” you smiled again, that same little smile that was reserved for him, and he felt a pleased flush of warmth this time, spreading from his middle outward to his extremities, “but what brought all this on?”

Aaron huffed and pressed his forehead to yours. “Let’s just say I had some… interesting visitors last night.”

The two pressed together in a kiss, full of promises and potential. In the background, the BAU team cheered, for once in his life, Aaron Hotchner had a real shot at long-lasting happiness.

THE END

[ladyartemesia]

The Praetor

◐ PART VI of THE ALPHA ◐

◐ Series Masterlist ◐

◐ Part I ◐ Part II ◐ Part III ◐ Part IV ◐ Part V ◐

Pairing: Alpha Werewolf Jimin x Omega Reader

Rating: Hard Mature 18+ (for this installment)

Warnings: sexual content including grinding and marking, some light (and totally consensual) manhandling, ABO sexual dynamics including discussion of scenting, marking, mating, and claiming. Violence and discussion of violence relating to ritual combat, possessive behavior, injuries and discussion of injuries

Special Note: Yoonji and Yunli are NOT the same person. Yoonji is Yoongi and Yunli’s cousin. She is sometimes affectionately called “Ji-ah.”

Word Count: 5500 (wow)

Author’s Note: Life has been really hard. I won’t beat around the bush. It was hard to do anything... but your kind words and support really kept me going. Truly you guys straight up manifested this chapter with your incredible support. As always, my angels @ppersonna​ @xjoonchildx​ @untaemedqueen​ and @underthejoon​ were the best betas and the best friends anyone could ask for. My thanks to ALL of you for helping me bring this story to life!

“Alpha.” 

Namjoon’s voice echoed through the clearing with profound resonance. 

There would be no more fighting. 

There would be no more doubt.

It was a complete surrender, the kind only a true Alpha could compel. 

A frantic whimper suddenly split the air, drawing every eye to you-

 But you saw only him. 

“Untie me,” you pleaded, struggling impatiently against the restraints. 

One of the elders moved to release you, but before she could, Jin produced a knife and cut you free with the kind of terrifying precision expected of a man who was every bit as deadly as he was beautiful. 

Then you were running - and this time, no one could stop you. 

Your body crashed into his and fiery joy shot through you as he pulled you into his arms. 

His scent wrapped around your senses like a warm blanket, covering the fear and pain of the past days in unimaginable relief. 

 “Jimin.”

“I’m here. I have you,” he whispered. 

Your entire frame seemed to shake as you sobbed against his chest. It was as if you could not draw close enough - could not hold tight enough - to be satisfied. Part of you was still terrified that you would wake up and discover that all of this had been a dream...

Then you heard it.

Another set of knees hitting the ground. 

“Alpha.”

Then another-

“Alpha.“

And another 

“Alpha.”

Till the air was filled with hundreds of voices, all speaking the same word.

“Alpha.”

Namjoon remembered very little of what happened after his surrender...

Just pain. 

His limbs seemed oddly disconnected from the rest of his body. There was blood everywhere (and he was reasonably sure it was his). 

He knew he should feel defeated, broken - ashamed even.

Instead he felt strangely...

Light. 

As if a great weight had lifted from his shoulders. 

The last thing he saw before losing consciousness entirely was Yunli’s tear-stained gaze - still fixed on him - even as the others turned to face their new Alpha. 

He breathed out her name in a quiet, desperate plea as the darkness overtook him. 

Jimin was only in your arms a few moments before healers and half the elder’s council came rushing forward on all sides. 

You snarled instinctively at the first elder who tried to collect him, but a healer eventually got close enough to reason with you after pointing out that the wound on his shoulder could possibly become infected if left untreated for much longer.

An Alpha’s injuries always took the highest priority, but Jimin directed them all toward Namjoon, brushing away anyone who attempted to tend to him. 

By that point Jin and your mother had found their way to your side and were gently trying to pull you back - even as more elders reached for your mate. 

Everyone was speaking at once - words about preparations and plans and ceremonies - but none of it registered over the waves of frantic adrenaline still pounding through your system. 

You didn’t know what they wanted or why they were so close-

just that they were trying to take him away again. 

No. 

Suddenly a senior elder placed his hand on Jimin’s forearm and your wolf snapped entirely. 

Omegas were known for their speed and as a Luna, yours was unparalleled.

Two council members and a healer went flying into the dirt within the space of a single second as your body instinctively assumed a defensive stance. The remaining elders stumbled back in alarm and your mother fainted dead away forcing Jin to catch her rather inelegantly. 

Your canines began to lengthen as you pressed your back to the Alpha, letting primal rage guide your movements. 

They had tied you up. 

Forced you to watch as he was attacked again and again and again-

An omega would defend their mate to the death and you had spent days knowing he was in danger...

Feeling powerless, feeling paralyzed- 

Your wolf had simply had enough. 

“Luna please-“ the chief elder began cautiously, but you cut him off with warning growl and lunged - fully prepared to end the next person who attempted to separate you from-

Strong arms closed around you, pulling you back to the comforting warmth that enveloped you moments ago.

Jimin. 

“Luna,” he whispered against your skin and you shivered, letting your eyes flutter shut. 

Then you felt it. 

The gentle pressure of the Alpha - your mate - nosing softly at your neck. 

It was a gesture of soothing affection. 

Of gratitude. 

Slowly he turned you in his arms till you were facing him once again. The fire in your blood began to fade as you simply took him in, struck by the sensual beauty of his face and the possessive heat in his gaze. 

“So fierce,” he hummed, tilting his head so you could bury yourself in his scent once more. His hands brushed soothing circles over your back, leaving delicious sparks of pleasure in their wake. 

“I’m safe,” he promised as you nuzzled into him needily. “You can rest now...” 

The pleasant pull of his command wove heavily through your senses. You felt your feet leave the ground as he lifted you fully into his arms...

Then you slipped into a blissful sleep. 

The healers worked for hours on Namjoon. 

Some betas were blessed with minor healing abilities - a valuable gift stemming from a type of energy transference. He could feel the heat of their hands as they poured themselves - literally - into mending his battered body.  

His ribs were set and wrapped tightly and the swelling and bruising were already beginning to fade due to the assortment of vile tasting herbal concoctions they insisted on ramming down his throat. 

Accelerated healing and potent herbal intervention truly went a long way, but it would take time and rest to restore him fully.

Despite his lingering soreness, Namjoon was finally lucid enough to think for the first time since the fight and there was certainly a wealth of things to think about…

Yet his mind kept going back to that moment-

To her. 

“Kim Namjoon.”

Every hair on his body raised to attention. 

“Alpha-” 

He struggled to pull himself upright, but Jimin placed a hand on his arm to still him. 

“Please,” he spoke softly, “let me sit. I’ve caused you enough trouble for one day.”

A painful chuckle stuttered out of Namjoon and he shook his head. 

“Shouldn’t I be the one saying that? We both know this is entirely my fault.”

Jimin’s eyes dropped in reluctant amusement.. 

“You think rather highly of yourself,” he said with a barely perceptible grin, echoing his words in the chief elder’s chambers a day - a lifetime - ago. “I believe I had something to do with it as well.”

Namjoon laughed and winced immediately. He rubbed gingerly over the binding on his ribs before voicing the question that had plagued him from the moment he awoke. 

“How quickly?” 

The Alpha tilted his head in confusion. “I’m not sure I understand.”

“How quickly,” Namjoon grunted, pulling himself to an upright position, “could you have killed me?”

There was a strange sort of acceptance in his eyes, a profound and untainted respect that Jimin was wholly unused to receiving from a man like him. 

It was equal parts humbling and overwhelming. 

“The first hit... a little to the left - at full force -  would have fractured your sternum and penetrated your heart.  You’d have been dead in a matter of minutes.”

Namjoon was silent for a long time. 

“Why did you spare me? ...I challenged you, threatened you, intended to lay claim to your mate which-” he rubbed idly at the back of his neck, “I’m beginning to understand is enough to enrage any man… So why am I still here?”

“Because,” Jimin sighed, “apparently I think very highly of you too, Kim Namjoon.”

“Well… I’m flattered, but I - I still don’t understand… I’ve done nothing but underestimate you. Most wolves would have made an example of me.”

“Oh I intend to make an example of you,” Jimin smiled and Namjoon felt his blood run cold for the briefest instant, “but not in the way you’re thinking.” 

The Alpha’s eyes took on a strangely solemn light. “I have no intention of ruling through fear and violence.”

After a moment, his gaze met Namjoon’s again. 

“You were right… Without your challenge, the pack would never have trusted my leadership. You were the obvious choice to be Alpha and without defeating you decisively, they would always look to you as an alternative.”

Namjoon eyed his collection of injuries sardonically. 

“Something tells me you won’t have that issue now.”

“And I have you to thank for that.”

“So … you spared my life in gratitude?”

“I spared your life because it was well worth sparing. You have always led your clan with honor and dignity. You don’t strike me as someone who enjoys killing, yet you were willing to do so for the good of our people. Such a man is a far better example alive than he is dead.”

Namjoon could not help but be impressed by the younger alpha’s insight and perception. 

Our goddess has chosen well. 

“I am grateful for your mercy, Alpha... Though I’m sure there are some who believe I should have chosen death over the disgrace of defeat.”

Jimin’s jaw clenched. . 

“Defeat is not a disgrace. I have learned some of my greatest lessons from it. Defeat is often a vital stop on the path to victory.”

The elder alpha grinned. 

“I wouldn’t know. This is the first time I’ve lost.”

Jimin laughed and Namjoon’s impish smile suddenly became oddly serious. 

“I want you to know…  You have my loyalty - without question - and not simply because you spared me. It is clear that you were meant to lead.”

A subtle hint of awe crept into his tone as he continued. 

“Honestly… I’ve only ever heard stories of primal alphas. I never thought I’d meet one,” he snorted, “or be foolish enough to fight him.“

Jimin drew back in confusion. 

“I’m not familiar- ...I’ve never heard of a primal alpha.”

“Really?... Well ...I suppose that makes sense. I forgot how often you skipped camp.” He sighed and shifted into a more comfortable position before answering. 

“A primal alpha is goddess-blessed. They cannot be compelled. Their command is powerful enough to compel members of other packs and even non-wolves. It is a rare gift.”

Jimin’s face easily betrayed his shock. 

“I-...That’s-” he shook his head. “Why do you believe I have such a gift?”

“I suppose the first hint should have been your coloring. Silver wolves are never born to mundane destinies... But the real proof is in your eyes.” Namjoon leaned back against the headboard, quietly reliving the moment he discovered the depth of Jimin’s ability. “When you commanded me to yield, your eyes flashed gold. It’s the true sign of a primal alpha... of a king.”

King. 

The word fell heavily between them. 

A human king was a politician, a figurehead whose power became more symbolic as the ages passed. 

But to the wolf nations, a king - an Alpha - was the heart of their pack. A warrior who bore the burden of leadership alongside his Luna. 

The power of a wolf king was quite real. 

The Alpha shifted uncomfortably 

“I never thought I would be a king.”

“And I never thought I wouldn’t be.” His eyes dropped to his hands. “I’m not quite sure what I am anymore.”

“Perhaps I can help with that.”

Namjoon’s gaze met his with cautious curiosity. 

“Oh?”

“You said yourself I skipped Alpha camp every year. I may have been destined to lead, but I won’t pretend that I’m completely prepared for it.”

All at once Namjoon realized why Jimin was there. 

The transfer of power was a long and intricate process that should remain essentially uninterrupted until its completion. 

There could only be one reason the Alpha had come to his bedside. 

He was here to appoint his Praetor. 

A Praetor wielded nearly as much authority as the Alpha. In terms of pack hierarchy, only the Alpha outranked him (or her). The commitment required was immense. Their role encompassed everything from ‘chief advisor’ to ‘the last line of defense.’

Praetor were expected to cut all obligations to their own clan and serve only the Alpha. They were an extension of his authority and vision. It was a lifetime appointment which could be extremely dangerous (depending on the number of territorial disputes one’s pack might be involved in). 

If anything were to happen to the Alpha, a Praetor would assume the responsibility of protecting the Luna and ruling by her side (without any romantic obligations as Praetor often had their own mates) until their death. 

“What about Taehyung?”

Jimin shrugged. 

“What about him? I assure you, he has no interest in this at all.” A small smile tugged at the corner of his lips. “Besides, he serves me well as a best friend... A Praetor must be willing to disagree with me from time to time without worrying too much about my feelings. They must be in tune with the needs of the pack. Kim Taehyung is a good man… but he isn’t the right one. Not for this.”

The elder alpha considered his next words carefully. 

“What you’re asking is no small request.”

“True,” Jimin nodded, “but how about this…” he grinned mischievously, “I promise to put in a good word for you with Min Yoongi when he finds out what you’ve done to his little sister.”

“I haven’t done anything to his little sister.”

“Yet.”

Namjoon cleared his throat guiltily. 

“You realize this means we’ll have to talk every single day.”

“It’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make for the good of the pack.”

Namjoon laughed and Jimin smiled back, more sure than ever that he was making the right choice. 

After a moment the Alpha held out his hand in an age old ceremonial gesture and finally voiced the question he had come to ask. 

“Kim Namjoon, will you forsake your place in the clan of your blood to serve your Alpha and your pack as Praetor. Will you protect my blood as your own and fight by my side till the paths of our lives be complete?

Namjoon’s gaze locked with his as their palms met, letting the force of his resolve color each word. 

“I swear it shall be so.” 

It was well past noon when you stumbled from your bedroom to find Jin spread luxuriously over your kitchen island, popping berries into his mouth like a debauched satyr. 

“I feel very odd…” you yawned, “almost like I-”

“Attacked half the elders council in a fit of horny rage?”

Your jaw dropped. 

“I did no such thing!” A few choice memories began to flood back and your staunch defensive tirade stuttered in shock. “Wait...Did I-”

“You did.”

“I wouldn’t call it horny rage,” you muttered, massaging your temples as you struggled to process your own actions. 

“I don’t know, the whole thing looked very horny to me.”

“Everything looks horny to you.”

Jin grinned but didn’t bother denying it. 

“What do you remember?”

“I remember…” you pulled a water bottle from the fridge and took a long drink before answering,”...Jimin’s victory... People kept trying to take him away and then-”

Heat streaked across the back of your neck as you recalled the press of his lips on your skin.

“Oh...”

You shivered deliciously.  

Jin sighed. “Yes, you were quite the spectacle. Who knows how many throats you would have ripped out if the Alpha had not intervened.”

“Oh goddess,” you moaned, burying your face in your hands. “He probably thinks I’m a lunatic.”

Jin rolled his eyes. 

“I wonder if there is a celestial punishment for smacking the Luna upside the head.”

“Punishable by death - for sure,” you pouted, “and why would you even want to do that?”

“Because you’re an idiot. The man risked his life for you in ritual combat and then carried you home in his arms all the way from the sacred circle like a fairy tale princess.”

“He... he did?”

Your cousin nodded and tossed another berry in his mouth. 

“The whole scene was so disgustingly romantic. I would have swooned if I wasn’t left to haul your mother back. Honestly I think I threw out my back.”  

“And - and the pack?”

“They were free to swoon since they weren’t carrying your mother and most of them did. The man has become a bit of a legend already. Namjoon is one of the strongest alphas in the mountain kingdoms and Park Jimin dispatched him like it was nothing.” He paused to dab berry juice off his absurdly full lips. “I’d be surprised if every pack for a hundred miles hasn’t heard about it by now.”

“How is Namjoon?”

“Alive. He will make a full recovery.”

You sighed in relief. Truly, you had no desire to mate with the Kim alpha, but (despite the grumbling of your bloodthirsty wolf) you never wanted him dead. 

Not to mention the loss of Namjoon would have cast a heavy shade over Jimin’s leadership. He was wise to spare him. 

“Where is he? I want to see him.”

“Namjoon is with the healers-”

“Kim Seokjin,” you bopped him with your now empty water bottle. “I am obviously not talking about Namjoon. Where is my mate?!”

“Calm down, cousin. You’re getting that throat-rippy gleam in your eye again and I’m far too beautiful to go out like that.” 

He reached for another berry. 

“I need to see him.”

You were already marching toward the door when Jin yanked you back. It was always a surprise to see how fast he could move when he wanted to. 

“My dear sweet Luna, you have one murderous rampage and forget all about our tedious traditions. The elders will be drowning him in the preparations and expectations of leadership for at least another ten hours.”

None of Jin’s sensible reminders mattered the least bit to your wolf. She was already suggesting all sorts of reasons you should just march into the council chambers and take him. 

Park Jimin was yours. 

You’ve waited long enough. 

Your hand tightened on the doorknob. 

“He left something for you.”

Kim Seokjin really was a wickedly clever man. He knew exactly which cards to play and exactly when to play them. 

Your heart stuttered wildly in your chest as Jin nodded toward a small box on the table. 

“He sent Taehyung to drop it off not long after the elders dragged him away from your bedside.” 

If you had even an ounce of dignity left, you might have been embarrassed by how quickly you scrambled over to the gift, but you were well past caring about such things when it came to him. 

Your cousin shook his head as you eagerly tore into the wrapping, impatient to discover what he could have possibly-

You gasped. 

There, laying nestled in an ornate wooden box with a lavish blue satin interior, was the most beautiful pair of gloves you had ever seen…

Your fingers reached out to brush the soft white leather, custom stitched with intricately embroidered vines that wound around a beautiful silver wolf. 

“They’re exquisite.”

Jim’s brow furrowed in confusion. 

“They’re not just exquisite, they’re one of a kind.” His fingers traced over the emblem on the box. “This is the mark of the Bangtan Leatherworkers Guild. Every one of their pieces is unique.” 

Your head tilted curiously as Jin began to lift back the satin lining.

“What are you doing?”

“You can only buy their merchandise directly from the shop in Seoul. There’s no way he could have gotten these today.”

“R...Really?”

Jin nodded. 

“I’m about to find out for sure. Each piece produced by the guild comes with a certification. It includes the date of manufacture and the date of sale.”

After a moment he withdrew a small card embossed with gold writing. 

“Well... what does it say?” you pressed impatiently. 

An odd little smile drifted across Jin’s lips as he considered the information in his hands. 

“These gloves were sold to Park Jimin three years ago... a few days before your 17th birthday.” 

Min Yunli slept for most of the day after Taehyung brought her home. 

The Alpha ordered his second to secure her and see to her safety not long after lifting the Luna into his arms. 

In the end, Tae had to compel her again.

She fought to stay near Namjoon, but he needed medical attention and there was no real reason to allow her any access to the fallen alpha. 

She had no claim on him. 

She was nothing to him. 

Nothing at all. 

When she finally opened her eyes the sun was already dipping low on the horizon and the world around her was dim. 

Aching emptiness sat heavily in her chest. The Change was another six days away which meant the connection between her consciousness and her wolf was not fully solidified…  but she could still feel acidic pain of rejection festering in both halves of her heart. 

Tears fell silently down her cheek as she considered her actions and what the consequences might be. 

Namjoon probably hated her now. She had ruined everything for him. 

An angry growl rumbled up from her stomach. 

Yunli snorted humorously and shrugged off her dirty clothes, throwing on an oversized t-shirt before trudging out to the refrigerator. 

Of all the problems she was facing, hunger was the easiest to fix. 

“Do you normally walk around without pants?” 

She just barely bit back a scream. 

There - sitting on her couch (and looking significantly better than he had the last time she’d seen him) - was Kim Namjoon. 

“How did you get in here?!” Yunli squeaked. 

Namjoon held up a key. 

“Yoongi gave it to me years ago.”

Though I doubt he intended for me to use it like this. 

Her fists clenched and unclenched reflexively at her side. 

“Have you… come to yell at me?” she whispered.

Namjoon didn’t respond right away, he was too distracted by the shapely curve of her legs and the soft glow of her skin under the warmth of the living room lamps. 

Yunli, however, took his silence as confirmation of her worst fears. 

“I’m so sorry...” she trembled, her beautiful eyes glistening poetically with unshed tears. “I don’t - I don’t know what came over me - I know I cost you the fight and I-”

Namjoon felt a chuckle bubble up in chest and winced. 

“Yunli...your screams, however affecting, could not undo the will of the goddess.” He shook his head, “Park Jimin was born to be the Alpha.”  His fingers rubbed idly at his chest. “I’ve never come across anything like his power.”

Her eyes traced over the damage to his body with obvious remorse. 

“Are you ok?” she asked finally. 

He had four cracked ribs, several critical lacerations, a concussion, two sprained elbows, countless contusions, and a split lip. 

“Ah, it’s nothing,” he shrugged, barely suppressing a groan. 

Yunli grinned, helplessly endeared as always. She opened her mouth to ask again why he was here, but he cut her off with a surprisingly curt question. 

“Has Taehyung seen you like this?”

Yunli blinked. Twice. 

“T-Taehyung? Like Kim Taehyung - your cousin?”

“Second cousin,” he growled, “I was told he brought you home.”

“Well. Yes. He did… I’m really grateful to him actually. I don’t know what would have happened if he hadn’t caught me and calmed me down.”

A loud ringing was building in Namjoon’s ears. 

“Do you have an understanding with him?” he snarled. 

Yunli’s jaw dropped. 

“An understanding? With Yoonji’s Taehyung?!” She snorted. “I don’t have a death wish.”

“What’s Yoonji got to do with this? Isn’t she in Europe?”

“Never mind that. Why would you think Tae and I-”

“Tae?!”

Yunli’s eyes narrowed. 

“What’s going on in that busted up skull of yours, Kim Namjoon?”

Namjoon was off the couch and pressing her against the wall faster than she would have thought possible in his condition. 

“What’s going on is that for the past year you’ve been a real problem for me, Min Yunli.”

Yunli gasped as the muscled lines of his body weighed firmly into her own. Deep curls of pleasure flared up at every contact point. 

Yes. Oh goddess, yes. 

The force of his desire burned hot in the air between them. She had waited years for him to see her like this - to touch her like this...

“I wasn’t supposed to feel anything when you looked at me with your heart in those pretty brown eyes,” he murmured, brushing the tips of his fingers up over her arms till he was cupping her chin. 

Yunli’s wolf keened in delight as she melted helplessly into his embrace. 

It felt good. It felt so so good. 

“I was convinced you were a challenge - a divine temptation put in my path to test my resolve-” his jaw clenched, “or simply an endless source of torment because you wanted me so badly and I could never have you.”

The sound of ripping fabric split the air as Namjoon clawed through the neckline of her t-shirt, baring her pert little breasts to him like an obscene feast. 

“I was supposed to want the Luna,” he growled, squeezing the soft mounds roughly in his palms till she was whining and writhing against him, “-not Min Yoongi’s sweet little sister.”

Her gaze was so open - so trusting. Adoration shone through every inch of her regard and it was intoxicating. 

She was intoxicating. 

His hand slid down to grip her thighs, lifting her body till she was forced to wrap her legs around him for balance. 

“Namjoon,” she whimpered as the sensitive folds of her core ground into his growing hardness. 

“You just kept pushing and pushing-” he hissed, punctuating each word with delicious thrusts till the maddening pressure in her center was nearly unbearable. “Then last night you offered me a taste and it nearly destroyed me.”

His mouth finally descended on hers again and she opened to him eagerly, wrapping her arms around his neck with wanton desperation. A tortured groan slipped past his lips as he dragged her away from the wall and onto the sofa where she first discovered him. 

“Is this what you wanted, Min Yunli?” he rasped between the fervent mating of their mouths. “To make me desperate? To take me apart until I’m half-mad with wanting you?”

“Yes,” she sobbed as he sucked mark after mark into her flesh, painting her body with the evidence of his passion.

She slipped her hands greedily under his shirt, aching to feel more of his skin against her own. Needy whines and moans fell from her mouth like a siren’s call, beckoning Namjoon to lose himself in the lush warmth of her body. 

“If Kim Taehyung puts his greasy hands on you again, I’ll kill him.”

Yunli mewled in primal gratification at his bold words. She had waited far too long to hear them. 

“All those months I suffered because my wolf recognized what I was too ignorant to see.” 

The last shreds of her shirt flew across the room and Namjoon pinned her wrists above her head like a pagan offering, allowing his free hand to explore her curves with impassioned reverence. 

“You are mine, Yunli,” he swore. 

And she was. 

She always had been. 

Following Jimin’s victory, the pack exploded into a chaotic storm of gossip and ceremonial preparations. The story of his unlikely path to power had already spread beyond the borders of the mountain kingdoms. 

“-messages are coming in from the high packs of Delhi and Beijing requesting to meet with him-“

The rise of new pack leaders typically brought with it a buzz of excitement, but the Luna and her newly victorious Alpha were anything but typical. 

“-he’s a silver wolf. I always knew he was meant for more than just heading up the Park clan-“

The last Alpha king (the current Luna’s great-grandfather) died peacefully in his sleep nearly thirty years ago and the elder’s council ruled in the interim while they waited for a new Alpha to rise. This was the first (and likely the only) coronation most people would see in their lifetime. 

“ - my friend from Seoul is begging me to invite her. Outsiders aren’t allowed to attend unless they’re the guest of a pack member- “

Preparations to transfer power were every bit as tedious and time consuming as the rest of pack law. 

“-the council just announced that he’s chosen a Praetor. I’m sure it will be Taehyung-“

Aside from sneaking out to secure his Praetor (who was not Taehyung), the new Alpha had been holed up with the council, the heads of the ten major clans, and an army of envoys from other packs for nearly twelve hours. 

“ -grandfather worked with him all day. He claims that the future king has already impressed the council-”

Park Jimin’s name echoed through the mountain kingdoms. People could speak of nothing else. 

But there was one member of the pack who had not yet heard the news...

Yoongi took a deep breath as he waited for the woman on the other end of the line to accept his call. He was mentally and physically exhausted, but he had promised to tell her what happened as soon as he could.

Silence lingered eerily in the first few moments after she picked up. 

“I really debated answering this,” Min Yoonji whispered at last. “I don’t know if I can bear to hear you say that Park Jimin is dead.”

She sighed heavily as she ambled down the stairs of her tiny apartment in Paris. 

There were too many happy memories connected with him. He was Tae’s best friend... His loss would tear her former lover apart. 

And she could not be there for him when it did. 

She could never be there for him...

Several thousand miles away her cousin smiled. 

“Park Jimin is not dead, Ji-ah.”

Yoonji missed the last step and crashed down inelegantly on her tail bone. 

“WHAT?!” Her fingers scrambled to hold the phone secure in her precarious position. “You mean to tell me that Kim Namjoon lost - to PARK JIMIN?!”

“You sure picked a wild time to move to Europe,” Yoongi chuckled. 

“I didn’t really move here per se... I just relocated temporarily but indefinitely.”

“Yes, I’m well aware. Your mother is still howling about what a disgrace it was to go through the Change away from your friends and family. So thank you for that.”

Yoonji sighed. 

“What’s done is done... I know you don’t understand, but I promise to explain someday.” Her eyes drifted shut as she forced the pain in her heart aside. “... I can’t believe I missed all this. You have to tell me how he did it.”

“I will later, but I need to head back to the council chambers. We had a brief recess and I figured I’d call since it’s still early over there. However… I do have one last shocking revelation for you before I go.”

Yoonji rolled her eyes at her cousin’s dramatics. 

“I’m not sure anything could shock me after finding out that Park Jimin is our new Alpha.”

“Jimin just made Namjoon his Praetor.”

Apparently I was wrong. 

“WHAT!? So wait - that means Jinwook is now head of the Kim Clan?”

Yoongi’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion. 

“Jinwook? No, how could - ah never mind. You were already in Europe when he left.”

“Jinwook left?!”

“Yeah, he was finishing up a consultation in Bangkok when he met his mate in one of the packs up there. It's an older pack with almost no alphas so they asked him to stay. He’s lived in Thailand since August.” Yoongi yawned. “Believe it or not Kim Taehyung was just sworn in as the Kim Clan alpha.”

Dead silence met his declaration. For a moment he wondered if the call had been disconnected but then-

“...What... did you just say?” 

Yoonji’s voice had taken on a strange hollow quality that had her cousin frowning into the receiver. 

“I said Taehyung was just sworn in as a Clan alpha.”

“That... no that can’t be right... You’re saying Kim Taehyung - my Taehyung-”

“What do you mean your Taehyung?!”

“- is a Clan alpha?”

“Yoonji. I can’t believe I’m repeating this a third time. Yes. Tae is the new head of the Kim Clan. I watched him take the oath twenty minutes ago and I have to say-”

A heart wrenching sob cut him off abruptly. 

“Oh goddess what have I done,” she gasped. 

Yoongi’s eyes widened in fear and alarm. 

“Ji-ah? What’s wrong?... Ji-ah?... Ji-ah?!”

But the line was dead. 

Don’t Miss Chapter VII: The Luna… Coming Soon!

If you would like to be added to the taglist, please comment on this post. If you have already asked then you will be automatically tagged in all future updates.

Guys I cannot emphasize enough how much your support has meant to me these last few weeks. 

Your comments and your love kept me going. I truly value it so much and it fuels my creativity. Please let me know what you thought? It is incredibly rewarding and motivating to hear from you!

I really struggled with this update. It was much longer and took a lot out of me... I hope you love the final product as much as I do…

Bonus: The gloves Jimin sent his Luna...

[hopeless-ro-simptic]

Familiar Cerulean Eyes- pt 20

Click here for my Masterlist. Part 21

Warnings: NSFW, terrible smut, lots of fluff as well, cliffhangers. The usual. 

Word Count: 4.9 K

I’m sorry for how long this took. 

TAGLIST:  @superblyspeedydragon @jparra4587 @flyingowls @emrysaf @imuziawi @sheedaabee @peculiarinsomniac @littlelovebug98 @plutoneu @giftofwonder @kitty-kat-ash @fukyouthink @anarchys-bnha-mess @threbony @orenjineki @toobsessedsstuff @bamf-barnes @x-a-delama-x @inanabsentia @reallyshey @godsblesstheboi @drownedbytears @emilymikado @fluidfandoms  @mikasackrmann @bohica160 @andrastesbeard  @percabethismyotp14 @celestiallustre @moon-spirit-yue @hecatve @bakugoshrimp @vanillanjin @toshiuwuu @rxinbowrena @kamisamaundercover @callmepopcorn @xxdumb-bitchxx @medicinalkiwis @kat-unzel @headfirst-halo @capricorn-nightmare @annie-daetris @skumtrash @totorotoni @kst-chernish @itsmysticalmystery @the-occasional-artist1125 @beautifulparisiangirl @stanzastic @helena-way07 @aurorahoneybuns @cth-l @nightlygiggless @filledasaf @hailstorm888 @ozzy-bozzy @girrawr13 @hawkssnugget @dabilittleslut @over-grown-emo-kid @sasageyowrites @littledustyflame @h0wab0utw3d0ntd0that @thefirewasfriendly @babayaga67 @kiegosbby @foxes-and-arrows @confessorkahleesi @nosequeponeraun @warcrimesforsumcoochie @zea-is-amazing​

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 To say that the beta’s of the pack were excited was an understatement. Both Toga and Twice had taken it upon themselves to separate you and Dabi immediately, much to Dabi’s complaint. There was even hint of happiness radiating off of Kurogiri, no matter how faint his scent was.

After whisking you away to her room, Toga had immediately set into riffling through her closet, chattering away at top speed as she did so.

“I had picked this up awhile ago, I was saving it for something special and I think this works.” You eye’d her suspiciously as she pulled out a short white dress, simple in design but still gorgeous in your eyes. It was something you would have picked out yourself.

“And you just so happen to have picked out a white dress for me?” Her smile only widened at the accusation clear in your question. You couldn’t help but wonder just how long the Beta’s had been discussing this idea.

“Oh and one more thing!” She pulled out a shoe box and you could only groan, fear of what was inside making you pull away from her a protest on your tongue.

“I promise they aren’t that bad! You only have to wear them long enough to walk down the aisle.” You only narrowed your eyes at her before sighing and peering into the box. God those were high, but it wasn’t like this was your first time walking in heels. Rei had made sure you had learned how to manage in fancy clothing, insisting that one day it would come in handy. You knew that she had meant it in a different way, so that you could be comfortable at the many balls and gala’s that heroes attended. That you would have attended had you of stayed at Shoto’s side.

Still… she was right. It was useful information regardless.

You didn’t put up too much of a fuss as Toga flitted around you, insisting on helping you put on the dress and heels before she sat you down in her bathroom on an old rickety chair and started to pull out makeup products and hair products. You were surprised to find that she had a whole slew of makeup stowed away just for you, like she had been hoarding it just for this moment. You couldn’t help but feel your heart stutter at the sight, noticing the blush on her cheeks grow at your warming scent.

You let her expertly handle your makeup, surprised at just how adept the teenager was, to which she only stated she watched a lot of videos in her free time. And after everything was completed on the face, she went to tackle your hair, grooming it to perfection just the way you liked, until finally she stepped back and let you take in what was facing you in the mirror.

It was very rare that you truly felt pretty, especially within the last few years. Shoto had never outright told you if he found you attractive or not, and even though Touya told you several times when you were kids, you sometimes didn’t believe him.

Looking into that mirror, all dolled up, with the tought that Touya, your Touya was alive and waiting for you just in the other room…

You never felt prettier.

“I never thought I’d get to do this…” Toga was rubbing her eyes, like she was trying to keep herself together. It dawned on you just how important this was to the beta. Sure, you were the one getting married, but for the head beta in a pack, which without a doubt you knew was her even without anyone coming out and saying it, setting up a wedding or a bonding party was one of their highest honors.  

You turned and reached towards the beta, pulling her against you and wrapping her in a tight hug, nuzzling her scent gland and letting out a contented purr.

It was something that Shoto had mentioned that some of the UA kids did with the Beta’s in their class. He had been so shocked when he came home from school one day, explaining that he had accidentally walked in on one of the stand-offish alpha’s of the class, scenting the class’s most outgoing beta. You had been confused asking if this was out of the normal, only for him to look at you with equal confusion before clarifying that no, it was a normal show of acceptance, a show of friendship, something that packmates did quite regularly. It was only shocking because this particular alpha was known to be extremely rude and insisted he hated all of their classmates, including the bubbly beta and when Shoto had announced his presence the alpha immediately blew up on both him and the beta, figuratively and apparently literally.

At the time you had thought it was weird, the thought of being that close with someone other than your alpha. Of being comfortable enough with someone else to actually want their scent on you, in seeking comfort from that person and providing comfort back.

But holding the Beta in your arms, inhaling her scent and pushing out yours, feeling the exact moment that she stopped being a statue and melted into your arms, returning your purr with one of her own, one that sounded like she was holding back tears, you completely understood.

“Thank you so much.” You whispered into her ear, feeling the beta let out a pup like whine to which your omega only purred back to.

The two of you only separated once a loud pounding on the door shattered the moment, Twice’s head sticking through the door with his hand covering his eyes as he spoke.

“Are you guys ready yet? We’ve been waiting forever- Oh my gosh are we having a cuddle sesh? Can I join?.”

You didn’t get a word in before the tall beta was in the room wrapping the two of you up in a bone crushing hug as he hummed in delight. You couldn’t help but laugh, enjoying the bubbling scent of the beta’s surrounding you.

All at once Twice pulled away, looking you up and down letting out a low whistle as he rested his arm on top of Toga’s head, leaning against her.  You noticed the annoyed look she sent him and had to stifle your laugh, his face possibly more serious than you had ever seen it.

“Are you ready? Cause we’ve got alcohol to get to and a wedding to drink.”

--

“In the armmms of an angellll .” Twice’s voice rang out loudly through the bar as he wrapped an arm around Shigaraki’s shoulder’s serenading the leader who just rolled his eyes and accepted the Beta’s attention with his ever-present frown, drink in hand.

“fly away…“ Dabi’s low singing voice in your ear had you curling further against him on the couch, laughing slightly as you nuzzled into his scent gland inhaling deeply.

The actual ‘wedding’ had gone by in a blur, Twice insisting that he was ordained and was able to legally pronounce the two of you married, which you highly doubted but it wouldn’t matter. You doubted the two of you could get the paperwork notarized without getting arrested anyways. Still the Beta’s had insisted that everything was done according to the book, even going as far as having Toga be your maid of honor, Shigaraki begrudgingly being Dabi’s best man, and most hilariously, Spinner being both the flower girl and the ring bearer. Kurogiri had even escorted you down the aisle before taking his spot next to Shigaraki.

And Twice had in fact convinced Dabi to at least put on his nicest pants, a black button up that had the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and a loosely done black tie. As close to a suit as you were going to get.

Though no one could stay serious for the vows. You hummed happily at the memory of Dabi’s mischievous eyes glittering as he vowed to always provide his services while you were in heat. To which you responded with a vow to give him the attention he needed when he was being clingy. His pout in response as well as the scoffs of laughter from the other alpha’s had you preening.

Now two hours later, everyone was sprawled out around the bar. Toga laying down face up on the counter swirling her drink as she drunkenly sang out with Twice, who currently had Shigaraki in a lose choke hold as he sat with his back to the counter, ignoring the beta and lost to a conversation he was having with Spinner about the mechanics of a newly released video game and how they were ‘mind blowing’. Even Kurogiri was leaning against the counter, staring down at his drink in his hand with what seemed like a smile.

After about five whole minutes of dancing, which was way more than you ever thought you would get out of him, Dabi had sprawled down ontop of the couch, and drug you down ontop of him, wrapping you up in his cacoon of warmth, as he hummed along to the songs that were coming from someone’s phone, each one taking a more depressing turn than the last but still hyping everyone up.  

And that is where you all had sat for the last hour or so, drinking, laughing, chatting and singing. Having the best time that most of you had had in a long time, the mixed contented scents of everyone making a delicious concoction that kept the mood going.

You could feel the deep rumbling of Dabi’s purr underneath you, starting to lull you to sleep, responding only to your own softer lighter purr of contentment as he took a drink of his whiskey before setting his glass back down on the floor beside the couch, his fingers cold from the ice as he slipped them into your hair, playing with the strands as he spoke.

“You smell like the Betas.” It wasn’t an accusation, more of a question resting in his voice as he watched you with peaked interest in his eyes.

You knew he had to have been stewing on the question for a minute now, curiosity burning at him, and you let that curiosity burn as you hummed softly in response.

“And they smell like you.”

“Mhm.” Was your response, nudging your nose against his neck again, feeling Toga’s stare from across the room even with your eyes closed, could hear her shift up into a sitting position.

“What? Are you cheating on me with the betas now? And on our wedding day?” His question was met with a snort, amusement lighting up his face as you lifted your head to peer at him.

“You mean to tell me I can’t scent the beta’s of my own pack?”

You felt it more than heard it. The way that everyone went quiet, their attention shifting to the two of you, even if they weren’t actually looking. The only one out and out staring was Toga, a look of reigned in hope crossing her face. Anxiety creeping softly into the scents of everyone in the room.

You mentally rolled your eyes, somehow knowing everyone’s thoughts. You knew no one had out and out said it yet. They didn’t act like a pack, not most of the time, and several of them would probably argue against the mere idea, but you knew deep down that’s what they were. Even if they didn’t scent each other and have a big pack nest. Even if they kept secrets from each other and fought.

Even if they were all a bunch of villains.

“Pack?” Dabi repeated the word softly, his eyes only focused on you, too many emotions to count running through those eyes as his thumb stroked your cheek, his fingers tangled in your hair.

You just simply nodded, laying your head back against his chest and closing your eyes, releasing more of your contented scent as you snuggled against him.

And everyone seemed to have relaxed with that simple answer. Moved on from that conversation and continued with their celebrations. Everyone other than Toga who was still staring at you with awe, only becoming distracted when Twice maneuvered his way over to her and pulled her off her perch on the counter and spinning her into a clumsy dance, laughing as she started to belt out to lyrics with him.  

You just melted against Dabi’s chest, purring away as he played with your hair, feeling nothing other than pure bliss as you were surrounded once again with the happy scents of your pack.

--

You were giggling like a lunatic as you beat your fists against Dabi’s butt as he walked. After awhile Dabi had suddenly gotten the idea that the party was over and it was time to take his new wife to bed. Something he had very loudly announced. At first, he had tried to pick you up bridal style, but after about five steps into the hall he had decided that was no longer fun and instead threw you over his shoulder, one hand sliding around your thigh and the other wrapping across your butt to hold you in place as he marched his way back to your shared room.

It wasn’t until the two of you were finally into your room with the door closed behind you that he finally set you down on your own two feet, his hands not leaving your hips as your laughter all but drying up at the hungry look in his eyes as they raked along your body. You couldn’t help but shudder, your mind wandering back to when you had first woken up in his apartment weeks ago, the look that he had given you so similar to the one he was giving you now. You didn’t recognize the look at the time, but you did now.

Like he was seeing you for the first time after years apart.

“Da-“

“Touya.” His right hand moved up to cup your cheek as he continued to look at you, blue flames burning in his eyes as he drank you in.

“I mean I can’t promise I’ll be quiet..” Your little joke had his lips quirking up at the edges, shaking his head incredulously at your ability to be shy one minute and bold the next.

“I told them … everything, while you were getting ready. Well other than Toga, but Twice has probably filled her in by now.” Your heart stuttered at his words, a smile blooming on your face as you looked up at him. Your fingers playing with his hair on the back of his head. He trusted them. The two of you finally had a family that you could trust.

You didn’t answer, instead lifting up on your tip toes and pressing your lips against his, his fingers at your cheek moving back into your hair, pressing you closer against him and deepening the kiss. He let you up for air for the briefest of moments, you barely letting out a giggle only for the sound to immediately be consumed by his mouth again as you felt him slowly walk the two of you backwards until the end of the bed hit the backs of your knees. At feeling you stop his hands dropped down to lift you up, wrapping your thighs around his waist as he crawled onto the bed, softly placing you down, not letting his lips leave yours, his tongue pressing against them for entrance which you willingly granted, running your own against the cool metal ball that had you clenching your thighs around him.

The low rumbling growl that escaped his throat had your omega purring back in response, wiggling slightly as his left hand roamed down your body, finding the edge of the white dress, and hiking it up, up, up, his right hand fisted into your hair as he broke your kiss, moving his lips down to your neck causing you to arch your back into his touch and rubbing his face against your scent gland. It was only after he had fully covered your scent with his own, his fingers finding your ass and digging in only to earn a chirp of protest that had him grinning wildly, that he finally pulled away from you, sitting back between your legs on his knees looking down at you, ignoring further chirps of protest from your lips as his hands moved up to loosen his tie completely. Your eyes hyper focused on the movement, your heart stuttering.

You stayed still, watching in awed silence as he pulled his tie from around his neck, leaning over you with his signature smirk as he gathered your hands above your head, sliding the silky tie around them and pulling it tight, earning a soft whimper from you that he hushed with his lips against yours for the briefest of seconds. He cupped your chin between his thumb and his finger, using his other hand as an anchor to keep him steady above you as his molten eyes latched onto yours, making sure your complete attention was on him before he spoke.

“I need you to be a good girl and be quiet and listen. I know that’s hard for you.”

You had a retort ready on your tongue, your face pulling into a frown and your eyes turning into daggers that only made him chuckle, leaning down to drag his tongue up your throat making your words die before they even had life. His lips stopped just above your own, his breath fanning across your face, the smell of cinnamon whiskey and smoke enveloping you completely which you couldn’t help but take a big inhale of, your eyes latched onto his lips, watching the way they twitched into a smile as he spoke.

“I love you, (y/n)” Your eyes snapped up to meet his, feeling your body warm up at the words, sounding foreign coming from his lips but like home at the same time. You wanted to repeat them back to him, but he continued speaking without giving you a chance, pausing only to litter small kisses and nips across your face as he did so, slowly moving down.

“I know I don’t say it enough, and that I am a complete asshole most of the time… and that you deserve so much more than what I can give you.” He paused at that one, his voice catching as he buried his nose against your scent gland again, taking in a deep inhale of your combined scents before he continued, his mouth moving down your chest as he does. You wanted to speak, to reassure him and tell him that he was everything you wanted, but you also wanted to hear what he had to say, so you stayed quiet, only purring softly to him as he spoke.

“And I’m sorry that I can’t promise you things that an alpha should be able to promise on their wedding day.” You started to cut him off this time, but he only placed a harsh bite at the flesh peaking out of the top of your bra, his fingers pulling the top of your dress down as he did so, a short gasp leaving your lips as he sucked on the spot, your hands twitching where he had them tied up. His other hand slipped back under the bottom hem of your dress, kneading the back of your thigh roughly, pressing his body further against yours caging you in as he let out another low growl.  This one a warning, a threat. A promise. If you weren’t going to be quiet on your own, then he would make you.

“I can’t promise you that we will never spend a night apart again. I can’t promise you that there will always be food on the table and a roof over our heads. I can’t promise you that we will ever be able to have kids or that I would even be a good father to begin with.” He kissed down your chest as he spoke moving towards your stomach, pressing his lips to the bunched up white fabric of your dress until he reached skin again, his lips igniting a fire in your blood, making you squirm under his touch. He paused right under your belly button, his eyes catching your own once again as he peppered light chaste kisses in that area, an apology in his eyes that made you wonder if he felt the same burn behind his eyes that you did at that thought.

“I can’t… I can’t promise that you will ever be safe.” You could feel the warmth growing in his hands as he talked, could smell the tinge of burning anger inside his scent only for it to dissipate as he pressed his nose against your hip bone, inhaling deeply. His hand that was kneading your thigh guided you to bend your knee so he could just turn his head and press his lips against it, nipping at the skin as he did so causing soft whines to leave your lips. His hand moving around to grip the outer side of your thigh, holding you in place, his other hand lightly fingering the scrap of fabric that was the waistband of your underwear.

You didn’t know why he was saying all of this. It was all things that you already knew, that the both of you had already talked about. Things that he already tried to use to get you to run, to get far away from him. To push you away. But it didn’t work. It didn’t work then and it wouldn’t work now. So why?

He didn’t give you time to verbalize your question, blue flames licking across your skin with only a feeling of mild heat, the fabric of your underwear burning away, the flames controlled with precision so not to burn anything else. You couldn’t help but hold your breath, your body tensing at what was to come as he let out a quiet hum of appreciation at the scent of your arousal, at the slick that was building between your legs. You watched with anticipation as his lips ghosted across your core, a wave of hot air spreading across you making you bit back a groan as his lips latched onto the inside of your opposite thigh instead, sucking harshly, teasing eyes watching your back shift off the bed temporarily.

There was an audible pop as he released the skin of your thigh from his lips, his canines glinting as he smirked up at you before he dipped his face down, blowing cool air right into your center causing you to close your eyes with a low whine, begging for him to stop teasing.

“But,” His raspy voice rang out, forcing you to open your eyes again, watching him as he licked his lips slowly, the metal piercing in his tongue shinning as a taunt, his fingers digging into your hips in bruising grips, as if preparing for you to buck him off.

“I promise that I will make life hell for anyone who tries to keep us apart.” All of the air was ripped out of your lungs leaving you gasping as he slid his tongue up your clit, circling it once before pulling it into his mouth with a sharp suck, his teeth lightly grazing across it before he released you only for his tongue to drop down to the gathering slick, coating himself in it before returning back to the already swollen nub with a groan of satisfaction.

“I promise that I will do everything I can to make sure you are taken care of, even if I’m not there.” His lips brushed against you as he spoke, his thumbs rubbing circles into your thighs, and his tongue returning its attention to your clit as soon as he finished his sentence, taking his time with you, dragging his piercing back and forth across the sensitive area like he had all the time in the world. The only thing keeping you against the bed was his grip on your hips, and the tie keeping your wrists bound to the headboard above your head.

“I promise that I will kill” his growl vibrated against you as he nipped your clit, causing you to buck against him with a loud whimper, a moan escaping your lips as he slammed your hips back down to the mattress, using his forearm across your hip bone to press you further into the bed as his other hand shifted to stroke his thumb against your entrance, spreading your slick around his rough skin. “anyone, that tries to hurt you.”

You probably shouldn’t be as aroused by the idea of that as you currently were, but you didn’t let your brain linger on that, couldn’t, as he slipped a finger inside of you, curling it to rub against your spongey insides, his tongue soothing the ache that he had created skillfully. You strained against the tie around your wrists, his name, his given name, leaving your tongue as you attempted to grind up against him, only for him to insistently hold you still to continue his ministrations, making sure you were dripping from his spit and your slick before sliding a second finger in, pushing pressure on your sensitive spot from the inside as he rubbed along your walls.

Your mix of moans and whimpers only edged him on, and every time you closed your eyes or tried to look away, he would reward you with a sharp tug of your clit with his teeth causing you to refocus on him with quivering lips.  The fire in his eyes feeling like it was spreading throughout your own body, radiating through you and making your skin hypersensitive.

“I love you, (y/n).”

You could feel a familiar building in your core, a coil that was winding tighter and tighter at his every touch.  One that had you gasping for air, trying to remind yourself to breath as you pushed your hips against his arm desperate for more, more, more. He gave just enough pressure on your clit to make you see stars the second that he removed it, his tongue languidly rolling across it, flicking his piercing like a pro and soothing any pain that you felt before he again pulled your nub between his lips, sucking harder and harder until you felt like he was sucking your soul out, only to release again and start the process all over. His fingers staying in perfect time with his mouth, long enough to reach all the right places, thick enough to stretch your walls in a way that had you panting and writhing underneath him. He was building you up and up and up with no regard to how far the fall would be.

“I love you, and I am completely, irrevocably yours.”

You vaguely realized what he was saying… the wording of it. The fact that the alpha between your thighs wasn’t claiming you in that moment, that he was doing the opposite. Submitting.

That realization tipped you over the edge.

For one brief airless moment, you were at the top of the rollercoaster, the view in front of you terrifying in its beauty, the knotting feeling in your stomach sudden as you realized you had no option but to hope you would survive the next few seconds. Then you were falling. Plummeting towards the earth at a speed that had you screaming out, not in fear but in ecstasy.

His name was a prayer on your lips as he guided you through your climax, helping you come down down down until you were a panting mess, pulling at the bonds holding you in place and arching away from his touch with a different kind of whine. Only then did he stop, placing soft kisses to your hips, your thighs, your stomach, messaging away any remaining tension in your body as he coo’d to you, telling you over and over again that he loved you.

Minutes later you bonds were off, and you were on your knees in front of him on the bed, purring away as his hands fisted into your hair as you returned the attention he so happily gave you. Enjoying your mate to the fullest.

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Your eyes fluttered open and you glanced over to Dabi’s phone, haphazardly tossed onto the side table in your shared room. You reached over glancing at the time which was both way to late and way too early at the same time, a groan on your lips as you pushed yourself up and out of bed, smiling when Dabi reached out for you with a soft groan of his own trying to get you back into bed, into his arms. You shifted your dress that had surprisingly stayed on the entire night, Dabi insisting you keep it on and that he loved you in white, before moving into the bathroom, taking care of business and finding a clean pair of underwear sliding them on. Your mind was on the fact that you really needed to clean up y’alls room, the bathroom especially, when the all too familiar sound of a wall being knocked in with some kind of explosionn rang throughout the air, panic shooting through your scent as shouting ensued, Dabi sitting up with a start eyes finding yours one word on his tongue.

“Run”

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