#inextinguishable gaze

[shisasan]

red. 🥀

[willownwisp]

nice legs, daisy dukes.

i. nice legs daisy dukes makes a man go woo woo. (vendetta!leon x fem reader) author's note: like every responsible writer, this is not proofread because i run on my delusions and being thick faced. i write and call it a day. first entry of my valentine's advent, yayyyy! i tried to overcome my intense fear of dialogues because i know i suck at it omg please tell me if i did well, likes are vv appreciated! cw: nsfw. r18, MDNI PLS. fingering in public.

Leon feels like a creep, scratch that. He definitely looks like a creep. He probably looks like a thirty-six year old man waiting for a hot coed, because he is. He pulls out his phone to relieve himself of the slight shame, sends a dry text because he doesn't understand the purpose of an emoji. Never did. In his day, texts used to be enough and it was hot that you could send a coherent text with those small ass phones and even smaller keypad.

He leans against his Ducati looking like a fucking dick with an elaborately decorated box of pastries in hand. You've been eyeing the newly opened pâtisserie from across the street. He can be sweet when he wants to be, because he knows you're obsessed with those "instagrammable" treats. It gets him good boyfriend points because you matter, you're his sweet little bunny. The sweetest.

You're sweet when he sees you from the flood of students exiting the campus gates in your pink mini dress and a matching cardigan, a flood of warmth washes him, in his mind there are compartments. Store the trauma in another space deep inside his brain, and the other space a section of just you, he tucks away the image of you in this mini dress.

It's definitely going in his favorite outfits you wore.

You're sweet when you visibly perk up at the sight of him in all his 5'11 glory, beaming at him as you literally run towards where he stood. God you're just adorable.

"Lovey!"

Your sweet voice cuts through the idle murmur as you stand before him, and Leon looks at you with that soft gaze. You look like a bunny. A giddy one. The ribbons you wore on your hair come to view now that you're near, and the sight of your shapely thighs put him in a spell.

"Bunny, are you surprised?"

He replies with a smug smile.

"Uh-huh!"

You nod with a soft giggle, a faint blush dusting on your cheeks.

"We don't usually have lunch together…"

You add, the smile on your face is practically inextinguishable as you squirm. You're so fucking cute. He thinks before he brings up the box of pastries, presenting it to you like a cat gifting his owner a small trinket. You squeal before throwing your arms around him in a hug.

"Lovey! How did you know I wanted these?"

You ask and he chuckles, of course Leon would know. Who wouldn't when your social media is full of your ravings about the place, but he plays it off cool.

"I just did, bunny. Boyfriend senses and all."

That reply earns him a giggle from you and he's whipped. Your dainty hands grabbing the box as you mouth a small 'thank you' and his arms wrap around your waist. Lifting you up like nothing as he seats you atop his Ducati, like the pretty princess that you are.

"Where are we going, lovey?"

You ask, but the words fall on deaf ears for as soon as Leon had lifted you up in his hands, he's already thinking of ways to feel you, properly. The way your mini dress hikes up your thighs as he looks down to peek at your legs, he hums an acknowledgment to your question, his hands snaking from your waist to your thighs just where your mini dress ends. His thumbs rub lazy circles on your skin , before he lifts his head up to give you a cheeky grin.

"Anywhere bunny. Let's get out of here, yeah?" You nod obediently and he pulls away, giving your head a soft pat as you tell him off to not mess up your hairstyle and he rolls his eyes, takes the time to put your helmet on because he's a gentleman. "Hold on tight bunny." He'd say as you hug him from behind, the whole bike ride was silent as he speeds through traffic, only for the both of you to end up in a deserted park, right at a secluded spot just hidden behind trees and park picnic tables. Leon gets off first, taking off his helmet before turning his attention on you. He takes off yours only to be greeted by your confused face. "Are we having a picnic, lovey?" You ask, and he only gives you a smile before pressing his lips on yours in a sweet kiss. "If that's what my bunny wants." There's a teasing lilt on his voice as his hands wander up to your thighs, his calloused palms rubbing up and down, and you get an inkling that it was not picnic time. "Lovey, don't do that… we're in public…"   You tell him off shyly but he only quirks an eyebrow. "It doesn't really matter when we're all alone, yeah?" His voice is husky as he bring his left hand to grip your cheeks gently, his thumb moving to trace the outline of your lips. "We'll be fine bunny." He assures you as the hand that rubs down your thigh inch higher, and higher until the pad of his fingers kisses your clothed pussy.

"I've always taken care of you haven't I?"

You respond with a whine, it's hard to resist when he gets like this. All over you, hands, and close as he possibly can.

"Lovey…"

You call out to him one more time, teetering on the edge of a protest or a plea for him to go on. Leon bits his lips as he rubs your clit slowly, stimulating you before he rains chaste kisses on your face. A kiss on your forehead, a kiss on your cheek, on your cute nose, and a peck on your lips, because you're his baby. He treats you like a ceramic décor, because your precious and fragile.

"Use your words, bunny."

He responds as he slowly feels your cotton panties dampen underneath his fingers, your clit swollen with need and he feels you heating up.

"Lovey, I'm wet…"

You whine again as you squirm beneath him, your grip on the handle of the box tightens up as your free hand claws the leather seat.

"Want me to help you, bunny?"

He coos as he uses his index fingers to tease your clothed pussy, rubbing it up and down the slit as your insides flutter.

"Uh-huh, please lovey."

A satisfied grin eases on his face before he eases his fingers off of which earns him a sad whimper from you and confused look before he shakes his head.

"Suck."

He orders, bringing in his digits to your mouth which you happily oblige to. He grunts as you wet his fingers with an experimental lick, you could taste yourself from his fingertips before your mouth covers his index and middle finger, sucking on it like a lollipop.

The sight sending electricity straight down to Leon's dick as he pulls his fingers out, giving your lips a short kiss ass your reward before his fingers find their way on your inner thighs again, tugging your panties to the side as your pussy kisses his wet fingers.

Leon being the tease that he is, traces your slit, up and down while his thumb presses on your clit as you instinctively spread your legs more to give him room.

"Lovey, don't tease!"

You whine in his ear once more and he chuckles. Two of his thick fingers plunge down your pussy with an embarrassing squelch as you gasp and Leon chuckles.

"She's speaking to me bunny."

He hums happily as his free hand move from your face to your thighs, keeping your pretty legs spread as it should as his fingers thrust in and out of you.

"Lovey…"

You moan, your one eye closes as you watch his hands move, looking down at his busy hands as your slippery pussy gives him enough leverage to slide in and out easily, while his thumb rub on your swollen nub.

"Yeah, bunny? You like that? Can fill you up right, yeah?"

He speaks to you, but you're too dazed to respond as your walls clench around him and he groans. Tipping his head forward to kiss you again, swallowing your moans as you make an "mph" sound as your lips crashes with his. You tilt your head to allow him to deepen the kiss as he slips his tongue inside, tasting your sweet mouth.

 "Ah—ah—" You moan as you part, his fingers not letting up. "You like this?" He whispers in your ear, his husky voice making your toes curl.  "Getting you off after school with my fingers?"  

"Ahh!" You moaned, shoving your hips against his pumping fingers. While his other hand skillfully unbuttons your cardigan's sole closed button before tugging your dress and bra together to reveal your breasts, before proceeding to licking on your nipple. "You're loving this, aren't you?" He rasps, spreading his fingers and pressing his thumb harder on her clit. "Being talked to like this? It gets you off even more, doesn't it, bunny?" He teases you before proceeding to hunch over to suck on your nipples, with his fingers just knuckle deep inside your pussy as your legs lock around his waist, the heels on your sandals digging on his back but he couldn't care less. Your sweet, sweet sounds as he gets you off, your luscious legs around him. God, he could cum from that alone. "Come on, bunny. Talk to your lovey." He teases again, a shit-eating grin on his face as he curls his fingers on that one sweet spot as you throw your head back and your walls clench his fingers in a vice grip. "Fuck, bunny. Can feel you squeezing tight. You're close, bunny?"

He asks but you only respond with a breathless moan as you tremble. He scissors his fingers inside you, alternating between spreading your pussy and curling his fingers and it drives you crazy. He leaves a bite mark around your nipples before he straightens his back to look at your disheveled form. Smirking at the fact that your cardi has slipped off your shoulders and your breasts heaving with your mini dress hiked to your waist.

Looking proud of himself, he captures your lips in a deep kiss as his fingers pump harder, you could hear the salacious squelching at how wet your pussy is.

"Come on bunny, cum for me. Show how much your lovey makes you feel good."

He grunts as his hands grip your cheeks, forehead resting on yours as you tighten up and your body tenses before cumming around his deft fingers with your lips parted in a silent scream.

He slowly halts his fingers, smirking as he brings it to his lips to taste you while you gather yourself. Panting and looking dazed at your older boyfriend who now laps at his fingers coated in your essence like a cat as he groans.

"Did I make you feel good, bunny?"

You nod weakly as your head rests on his chest. He only chuckles. He fixes you up. Tugging down your mini dress and fixing your upper half, buttoning up your cardi again.

"Wanna get lunch now, bunny?"

You look up at him as you slowly gather enough coherence to find that somehow in the middle of your indecency with Leon, the box of pastries had slipped from your fingers and is now a mess on the grass, decorating it with fresh fruit and whipped cream as your face falls and you look up at Leon who now sports a look of… guilt? On his face.

"Leon. Kennedy."

Your voice is dangerously low as you narrow your eyes at him.

"This is your fault!"

You exclaim with a pout as you tug on his leather jacket.

"I was looking forward to eating those! What a waste of food and money! Oh god, I feel so bad!"

Leon soothes you as he smoothens your hair with his hands and he kisses your forehead.

The good thing about being thirty-six and with a shit ton of disposable income is that he can buy you all that you want, it's what he intends to for his sweet, sweet bunny.

[halcyone-of-the-sea]

To Hunt a Silver Stag (II)

AU MASTERLIST || PART III

PAIRING: Knight!Kyle 'Gaz' Garrick x F!Fae Princess!Reader

WORDCOUNT: 5.6k

WARNINGS: Arranged marriage, talks of childbirth, traditional views of women & men in medieval times, talks of war, death, heavy religious imagery/symbolism, blood, gore, sword wounds, stitches, etc.

*I do not give others permission to translate and/or re-publish my works on this or any other platform*

The wedding was fast approaching. 

Your nightly conversations had now taken the tone of urgency—a newfound anxiety that perpetuated every inch of the courtyard. Discussion of all manner of flight; boats and horses, magic, and the simple act of dashing away in the small hours. Gaz would not be able to come with you, but he would give you all the time and distraction you would need when the time was right. The best option right now was the horses in the stable—cloak yourself as your knight made a commotion about an intruder on the opposite end of the castle. It was coming together, day after day. Until tonight. 

Until you’d been summoned to have supper with the King and his court. 

You sit now at the very opposite of the table from your betrothed, many eyes darting from the sides of sockets for even a glance at your face. Your crown is still present, along with your belt; your dress is of your collection, and you had seen the looks of disdain when you proudly wore it in—Gaz trailing behind through the main doors of the dining hall.

No one has called in the food yet. Now is the time for talk.

“I imagine you’ve had time to settle in, My Lady?” The King smiles like a snake, and your silver eyes miss nothing as the lines of his face contort; harsh leather and the dunes of sand. “Has my castle become a home to you?” In the corner of your vision, Gaz stands with his hands behind his back at the side of the room along with many other knights. A show of strength? Maybe. 

But you don’t feel nervous about your confidant, though. The time for hesitation between the two of you has passed—it was all or nothing. 

You speak slowly and clearly, face the picture of calm.

“It is a great thing to be able to see the works of mortal hands. It is an achievement, to be sure.” Your lashes move in a slow blink. “Yet, nothing can be a home such as the one I came from.”

“Ah,” Michael takes it in stride, nodding as the men at the sides of the table glance at one another, sneering. As if saying that you were homesick was a sin of some sort. Brown eyes continue to be locked on your measured body—sitting straight and your hands in your lap. “Yes. I understand. Many have heard of the splendor of your homeland.” 

The sconces on the walls flicker. This feels like more of an interrogation than a supper. 

“It is a place very few see,” you speak slowly, thinking what this game might entail. “Those that do are left changed. Such is how it has always been.”

“My children will have equal claim, then?” Michael smiles, and the court’s eyes glint. “To the lands?”

Your body stills, gaze unwavering as your piercing orbs level across the table. The very air shifts in an instant.

“Repeat yourself,” you order slowly. 

The court blinks quickly, some even straighten in their chairs. Gaz’s feet shift near the window—his lips flattening on his face as he takes a low breath down his nose. Your tone made the hairs on his arms raise by themselves, something primal in the way you articulate. 

Yet, the King seems to not know that there’s a line not to be crossed with you. He can’t understand the nearly inextinguishable loyalty to your own—to your people. No rat-like mortal man would ever amount. No kingdom made of stone and iron. 

Your fingers tighten under the table, sharpness breeding in your skin.

Any further insinuation on his part was suddenly very detrimental to his survival rate. Your magic flows through you, and the sparse, and nearly dead, potted plants near the corners of the room quiver. Gaz notices immediately, his jaw subtly clenching. 

Not here, he wants to tell you, his feet shifting with anticipation. Fucking hell, not here, Stag.

But he served a King that he could never love—you served a kingdom that you would give your immortal life for in an instant. 

His Highness tilts his head, eyes glinting as your silver hue sparks up like a candle’s flames. 

“It’s an honest question, is it not?” Michael huffs, moving one of his hands to call the servants to bring in supper. Your senses go into overdrive as the large doors open, blinking quickly at the humming in the air that only increases as the staff moves closer. 

Your mouth opens and closes for a moment, eyes lightly flinching as a headache begins to form. You can’t even answer the King, and your magic halts itself immediately as your head snaps to the side in horror. 

Iron. 

You can’t see the King’s slow smirk as the iron platters are carried in, placed on the table in great heaps of glorious spoils. Large pigs and birds stuffed with vegetables—on the very material that makes your hands begin to shake as the tops are taken off with great showmanship. As if this was an achievement. 

A platter is dropped ahead of you with a clink of metal to wood, but your eyes only stare at the dead ones that smugly look right back as your heart constricts. 

Gaz’s wide expression is frozen on his face, body immobile at the cruel display so openly perpetuated by the court. His hands tighten into fists, eyes darting back and forth from you to the iron and the death on the table. He can see the way your muscles tense, the way your fingers twitch and flinch. 

“So,” the King motions again. “I ask, will my Heir have a claim to the Fae thrown?”

“Not in a million years,” you say slowly at first, your mind addled and skin beginning to sweat. The King stills—just like everyone else in the room. A shiver of rage filters behind those rat eyes as you continue. “Not in the seasons of the Mothers, not in an hour of contemplation, a day of rage, or even the seconds it would take for a Basilisk to devour your wretched corpse.”

It was a wonder you kept your composure as your hands rose from under the table—heart palpitating as a low growl raised from the table. Yet, everyone is shocked at what you do next. 

Your hands grasp the ironware and Gaz has already set a firm step forward in a mute panic of wide eyes and a sucked-in breath—but he’s too late.

You ignore the burn; the agony that rips through your hands and your bones, killing your soul and making your skin itch like it was on fire. Maybe it was. The iron is heavy in your hands as you glare at the King with every ounce of hate a creature as old as you can hold. 

You stab at a piece of food, hold the fork aloft, and hiss on a tight, strained breath. 

“Not even if the cold iron in my palm turns to pure gold will I see any child of yours growing in my womb.” Your hand moves forward, and with a slow bite, you take down a piece of the greasy and roasted corpse; holding back a gag as your skin boils and blisters under the iron’s hold. 

The food slams into your stomach as if a rock.

It’s a curse you level with no magic besides your hatred, and that in and of itself is far more potent. 

The King’s shocked nature turns to confusion, and then to a swift and all-consuming rage.

“Chain her,” he whispers at first, a quiet murmur above the horror of the faces of the court. Then he screams and stands up, slamming his hands to the table with actions half his age. A petulant child. A greedy little boy. “Chain her!”

A hand grasps yours and rips the fork from your grasp, hurling it halfway up the table by the time you can register above your blackening gaze that Gaz is forcing a ripped strip of his cape into the weeping flesh. 

“Christ,” he gasps, quickly glancing at your face as your crown dips and moves as your head does. Everything is buzzing—even being close to this much iron leaves you weak. 

You suck down large breaths, but there’s no time for this.

“Chain her!” King Michael screeches. “I want her in the dungeons!”

Your arm is taken up, your feet sliding over the floor as Gaz drags you up, shoving you behind him. The sound of a sword being drawn is enough to momentarily snap you out of your agony, your hand shaking violently as you breathe hard and bend your spine forward slightly. 

You blink wildly, gasping at the scene ahead of you.

Your knight stands firm ahead of you, his back wide and shielding you from the risen court and the King. The other knights in the room watch with wide eyes, hands on their weapons in utter confusion. 

“I’d stay back if you knew what was best for you,” Gaz eases out, casual in his delivery but you can hear the rapid pound of his heart. He’s nervous. Incredibly so—adrenaline striking through his veins just as it does yours. 

This wasn’t the plan. This wasn’t right; he wasn’t supposed to be involved. 

“Gaz,” you stutter, so strange to hear yourself in a state of anxiety after so many years of calm and elegance. There’s nothing elegant about you now. “Do not.”

He was throwing away everything he’d worked for. 

“Stay behind me,” the knight mutters, his dark eyes searching the room for anyone to move forward and attack—none do. “Don’t move until I tell you to, yeah?” He had a reputation for being a skilled swordsman; no one here would risk rushing without more weapons at the ready.

Gaz’s sword rests easily in his right hand, the left going to unsheathe his dagger and let it rest at his side, fingers twitching around the hilt as he takes a slow breath, eyes traveling the room.

They land on the King, face contorted into the picture of wrath, wrinkled, and old body shaking. 

“Step aside, boy,” Michael says lowly. “And I’ll let you walk with your head.”

“Wouldn’t be much good to me if I allowed this to happen, would it,” Gaz tilts his skull, a flicker of a smirk on his lips. Seriousness slips back in on the backs of knife edges. “Cut your losses. Let her leave, she doesn’t want this.” 

“I don’t care what this creature wants,” the King shouts, moving out from the table and taking firm steps forward, his knight flanking him as the court goers, back up quickly; panic in their eyes. “It’s going to give me power.” 

A greedy gaze finds yours behind the swell of Gaz’s back—hearing your Knight’s growl at the next words to enter the tense dining hall. 

“Whether she agrees to it or not.”

Your face twists, a sliver of fear making your legs back up a step. Magic, you needed your magic. But the iron—there’s so much of it here; it’s infecting your mind like a bug in the back of your brain. Buzzing, buzzing, buzzing. 

You shake your head, uninjured hand coming up to dig your fingers into your temple.

Gaz spits, “Not fucking happening, you old bastard.” His silver sword raises, and with a twirl of his wrist, sending the blade in an arch, the tip is leveled into the air. “You’ll have to get through me first, won’t you?”

“I will not—!” The King stumbles for a moment, body shaking and legs loose. One of his hands snaps to his chest and he blinks to himself, cape dragging across the floor. A ragged cough moves out of his mouth. 

You move forward sluggishly, hand resting itself on the back of Gaz’s armored spine as he startles and looks over his shoulder at you. 

“Stag,” he warns in an accented mutter, but your eyes are not gazing at him. They’re on the King.

On his failing heart and its broken beating. 

The man’s breath is in a gasp, his orbs snapping to and fro like a rabbit as he reaches out a hand, a swift cry from the other men making the knights dash. They grab at him just before he slams to the ground, but one of the court’s men shouts out fearfully, “It’s her—she’s done something!”

“Grab her!”

“Cast her into the irons!”

“She’s killing out King!”

Gaz dashes on his heels, hooking an arm around your waist as you pant, unbelieving as to what is happening. Killing? No, you hadn’t even done anything—this wasn’t your fault!

“Run,” the knight barks, shoving you out of the door and into the hallway. “Damnit, Stag, you need to bloody go. Now!” His browns lock with your silver eyes, stiff until they soften at your blatant shocked fear. A beat of nothingness comes back to the both of you—memories of a courtyard and a cape around your shoulders. You stare, fingers shaking and blood pooling into the makeshift bandage of your palm.

“No, no! What about you?” He shakes his head, and in a swift moment, his gaze goes back to the clamor of commotion—of horrible cries of ‘the King is dead! The King is dead!’

A thin smirk makes your face burn with panic.

“I need to give you an exit, remember?” A tiny wink. “Thank me later, Princess, when you’re safe. Go home.”

He nods pushing on your shoulder delicately. Backing up and twirling his sword again as he licks his lips. You watch, crown more heavy than it had ever been before.  

Gaz looks at you as if you’re the only person to ever exist—just as he had when you’d restored the courtyard to glory he’d never seen it in before. He glances down your face, down your body, in all of the time those few seconds were before the yells from the other knights start up—angry, furious, from behind.

He calls firmly, bluntly, but the words are more layered than even you can know. Gaz whispers, his eyes so light and open it leaves you breathless like all of the air has turned to water. You’re drowning in it. 

“You don’t belong here.”

You try to step forward, desperate in a way you’d never been to grapple for this mortal man, but the door has already shut right in your face with a heavy boom. An iron bolt is locked in place.

—

The trees try to pull their branches aside as you rush through them, but your fast feet are too quick. Sharp wood slaps your cheeks, pulling at the long strands of your dress and the broken straps of your corset. 

You run over rocks, and feel the earth guide you along deep in your soul, not once do you stumble, not once do you falter besides once—to turn and glance. To cast your wide eyes on the fading fire-light of the castle; the sounds of bells ringing out.

Gaz.

He was still back there—fighting. When you had to rip yourself away from the door and rush down the stone corridors, you’d heard the clash of iron and silver against one another; shouts. Like battling wolves, all rabid teeth and a flurry of slitted eyes. Such violence here—such baseless malice. 

A King was going to put you in chains, and by whatever deity is truly out there, his heart had given out just in time. And your knight. Your sacrificial knight was left behind. 

He can take care of himself, you try to ease, bare feet jumping a stream as your injured palm burns with a thousand suns. I have to place my trust in him. I have to.

He had told you to go home—flee. Back to your castle that touches the sky, back to magic and trees older than any man, woman, or child. Sliding along the ground, you halt. 

Atop your head, your crown is crooked, and some of the gems have fallen off, glinting behind you in the upturned earth. Panting, you twist on your feet, moving them like a deer and unable to properly think. This had never happened to you before—this…this pain. Not just the one in your hand but the one that emanates from your heart. 

Gaz. 

In such a short time, day, weeks, he’d grabbed your immortality and made it stop. You had become mortal with him, and a part of you is mortal yet. He’d touched you—he’d grappled into the place between your ribs and made you care about him. His wonder; his awe for no other reason than he was kind. Hand coming up to grasp at your neck, you fight the burn in your eyes, something that had not happened in decades, trying to drag you back into tears. 

You cover your mouth, eyes shut tight. 

No, no.

“This cannot be happening,” you gasp in a whisper that moves the trees; eyes watch from bushes. “No, no this isn’t true, do not speak of it,” you whimper to the branches, to their hidden words that pierce your heaving lungs. “I need to go home, I must see the ages pass with no bias—I can not grow attached to a knight. Not to one that death can touch so easily! Do you not understand?!”

Shouts ring into the trees, and your head snaps up, face tight. 

Why can’t you go any farther? No curse holds you here! No spell, no enchantment! You are a God to them! You make the world grow with only a word, you carry life and death as if it is a suggestion! This is not probable—it isn't logical. 

And then you think about the man who had freely given up everything for you in chains, and your sob echoes over the woods like a brand.

Fleeing once more, you go not in the direction of home, a place so very far away, but in the direction of a large mound of stone—speaking to them through bitter tears and making you lick at the sides of your mouth. Torchlight moves through the trunks of silent sentinels as the rock itself splinters and breaks, your body slipping inside a cage of your own making before you collapse. 

The stone groans and breaks and it is like you were never there as the ground shifts—moving the tracks you’d left behind in newly tilled earth. Countless horses rush past, their knight riders with iron bindings swinging from their fists, oblivious. 

But the stone you panic inside of is no worthy prison. Even you knew: there was no greater cage for a Fae than love.

—

Gaz stumbled through the woods, his right leg dragging behind as he gritted his teeth harder, panting through the drops of blood that slipped over his lips. 

“Fuck,” he grunts, collapsing against one of the tree’s trunks and resting the side of his head against it. “Fuck.”

He’d barely made it out. 

The castle was overrun with knights, guards, the people, and the court—all of them. The King was dead. Dead, and they were blaming it on you.

“Serves him right,” Gaz pushes on, eyes fluttering shut as blood slides over his armor. He doesn’t know where the wounds start and where they end, but he does know that he has to keep walking. There’s a trail to follow, and the earth is showing it to him.

The man can’t stop until he knows you’re alright.

Panting, the gems on the ground are one by one plucked and pocketed, kept safe in the same pouch that once held his sigil ring; an achievement he’d been proud of himself for. 

A knight, he’d told his family—his friends. It was a station of the highest honor.

Look what that had gotten him. Serving a bastard who called himself a God. Who pushed judgments and demanded utter loyalty to them. 

Gaz would rather hang. 

Coughing, blood splatters to the ground, and on the bank of a small river, his dragging feet fail him. Falling forward, the tattered remains of Gaz’s cape fluttered around him as his hands splattered through the water. A chilled breeze rushes through the trees, waking them.

He restrains himself from crying out, eyes clenched shut as his forehead skates the water. The clear liquid goes crimson with every wave, like the remnants of a fresh kill. 

Body too weak to move, Gaz growls in defiance, slamming a fist into the mud and shoving forward.

He had to find you. He had to make sure you were making your way back home safely—he…he had to fix the wrongs that he hadn’t even been a part of. Even by association, the knight was layered with a horrible guilt. Gaz can’t forget your eyes—your silver tint and the way your head moved; the way you spoke. 

A stag. A deer. A hart. A creature that needed to be set free from the confines of stone and iron. He’d do it all over, but that was just his nature. Gaz was just—he was good. Kind. 

Even the trees knew that. 

Raising his head, vision blurry, brown eyes lock onto the tiny body of a white dove. 

Staring, Gaz’s face slackens, blinking through the water and the blood until the image in front of him becomes clearer. 

“L,” he stutters, voice failing before he clears his throat and forces himself further upwards as his arms scream at him. “Lysander?” 

The bird has its head cocked to the side, a black obsidian orb stuck on him. It doesn't coo or flap its wings—it watches. Waits. Without anything, it takes to the air and flutters over to a large stump, body hopping until it rests once more with tapping feet.

Again, it stares.

Gaz gapes at it, moonlight over his armor, making it glint and shine even with the dents and long cuts. A flicker of hope beats in his breast, and with a deep breath and a broken groan of pain, his failing body is once more on its two feet. 

“Take me to her,” he pleads in a breathy exhale.

Gaz may not be able to stalk like a wolf, or even walk like a human now, but if there was a sliver of a chance that a Fae princess was waiting for him, he’d follow even if he had to drag himself there on busted legs.

Lysander’s beak clicks and the bird flies from one landmark to another, following the trail of gems and leading the broken knight behind him. 

On and on Gaz walks, not able to stop for fear he may not be able to get back up again. His pouch becomes heavy, his body likely to give out any second, when Lysander flutters atop a large stone face and finally stops. Collapsing to the ground, the knight coughs up blood to the ground, body a heap on the ground earth as he rests his head and pants like an animal. 

“Christ,” he gasps, eyes fluttering as darkness begins to swallow him; a maw of a dragon right over his form, waiting to chomp down. “Where…” Gaz begins to ask, flesh shivering even through all of the layers of sweat he carries.

Where are you?

Brown eyes move from the bird to the trees, through the gaps between the trunks and the spilling moonlight. You were nowhere—nothing to be seen except the eyes of animals and the wind moving the branches of the silent watchers of this place. The trees here move, trying to tell him something. Ever since he’d met you, everything had taken on new meaning.

Gaz tried to focus on breathing, but it was getting harder and harder to keep conscious. 

Lysander was doing something at the rock face—tapping his beak against the surface in steady intervals, only pausing to look down at him and tilt his head as if to ask, ‘Still alive down there?”

The knight glares at the bird, body losing strength until his chest connects down to the ground, eyes gazing off into the trees as the wind caresses his cheeks.

It was calm here. Gaz’s ears twitched at the sound of rock and stone, but the rapid hands on his cheeks captured his attention more than anything. His body is forced onto his back, a wide, terrified face blurred in front of him. 

But that voice…

“Gaz!”

Oh, he could fall into this abyss happily if the last words he heard were you calling his name.

—

You rip the last of the hem of your dress to use as bandages and see your hands quiver in all of their blood-stained glory. Along the cuts in Gaz’s skin, you had threaded through the gold that had once belonged to your antlered crown—the needle, a fragment of the very same bone you had broken along a rock. You’d raced to the river and asked the water for help, and it had followed swiftly with the help of the wind to clean wounds and aches. 

Now, you were wrapping what was left, the night beginning to slink back into the morning as you kept the break in the cliff face open to the air. The grass was awash with blood. 

You both can’t stay here if you want to live by tomorrow.

Lysander had brought Gaz to you, and now, he lays on the ground with his cape under his head—your hands healing him the best you can. You poured your magic tirelessly, hour after hour, but you had to focus on the worst wounds first. 

The slit on his stomach, namely—from an axe or some larger weapon, you know not, but it had left most of the carnage that needed to be attended to. If you were anything less than Fae, Gaz would be dead.

The thought ravaged your mind like a boar through undergrowth.

“You were not supposed to do that,” you mutter, fingers running the length of his tunic and grasping it, pulling the article down to hide the large scar that now moves up his stomach. Your head is light from the power it took. Plants and animals were so much easier; less to work with than human flesh. “Damn you, Knight. I would damn your name as well if I had the horrific pleasure of knowing it. Damn you.” 

Such words were below you, but you can’t help how they come out.

You stare at his face, the light of morning barely giving it illumination. He breathes softly, and it is your only relief to watch his chest rise and fall—broken armor discarded to the side by your panicked fingers. His heartbeat.

Bump-bump, bump-bump, bump-bump.

Your eyes flutter to it, trying to ease yourself as you take a deep breath and think.

You’re still too close to the castle for your liking. But he’s far too broken to move so soon.

Finger reaching out, your tips trail the raised skin of your glinting stitches, gold stuck between the flesh, peeling it back together along the forearm. All of it will scar. Violently so.

Your chest constricts, and you glare at his face.

“Why would you do that,” you hiss, growling in a tone that is foreign to you even if it still sounds elegant. A Fae’s wrath is one to behold. “Why? You owe me nothing, do you not understand that? You’re supposed to be a beast—a little man who…who…” you trail, teeth snapping as your head raises and whips away, nose to the air.

Yet, your crown had been broken just to save this human’s life. Willingly.

Mortals were supposed to be selfish. They were supposed to be like King Michael—that was what you’d been taught; that was what you knew. 

But everything Gaz did was the opposite of that. 

Love is a cage, you tell yourself again, and keep your face to the side. Unwilling to look down at the body that had been so eager to defend you.

You don’t like the wild feeling it makes breed like rodents in your heart, little claws moving up your throat and scratching at your teeth. 

“...Gonna finish that sentence, Love?” 

Your body startles, head snapping down to meet half-closed browns in an instant—you hiss. “Don’t speak, fool.” 

“Fool?” A weak chuckle wafts out, a hoarse voice as a head tries to shift on numb bone. “That’s not very nice, then.”

“I should make your lungs turn to dirt,” your sentence makes his brow flinch upwards, amused despite it all. “Change the very fabric of your muscle into oak wood.”

“Moody, are you?” 

Your eyes flash, and the grass around you shudders in answer as Lysander cleans his feathers a short distance away. Gaz tries a low smirk, softening his voice as his mind tries to focus above the noise in his head. “Joking.” 

Your face is troubled, jaw clenching. You can’t admit to yourself how much at ease his open eyes put you. You sigh, blinking away the sharp edge of your expression—it shifts back to the perfect calm it always wears. 

Gaz watches, your clothes torn and your palm still hidden away behind his cape’s cloth. He grunts suddenly, and the pain comes back in sharp pins as his face tightens. 

You can only watch, mind trying to come up with a solution that you know you don’t have. Magic can only do so much...but you have to try. He’s earned that much from you, at the very least. Your hand goes and hovers over the man’s cheek, pulling back only once before it captures the swell of it. 

Gaz swallows hard, and his eyes shift back through the haze of his shaking agony.

A kiss is leveled on his forehead, and it’s like the wounds cease to exist. He sags back onto the ground after a moment, skin tingling as magic runs its course through him like a stream of fire. It burns away the bad bits—keeping only the sensation of a princess pushing away his ails with a willing gift of her lips. 

A small noise is made in the back of his throat before Gaz takes a long and steady breath. His eyelids flutter. 

You pull back and place a hand on your head, grunting as the strength drains from you one wisp of magic at a time. Your skull pulses, and you know you’ve reached your limit. There was nothing more you could do. 

A calloused hand runs up to grasp at your wrist, and you let Gaz pull it back, his fingers twitching with healing nerves as he takes the limb and levels it at his lips. He holds it there until you open your eyes and look at him, a line of sweat running your temple. The knight watches it fall, skin hot.

“Thank you,” he whispers into your hand, only letting it move away when he knows you understand his words. Gaz whispers even as his eyes fight sleep. “Are you hurt, My Lady?”

“Right now,” your injured hand still burns—it always will. You restrain a flinch because of it. “You must focus on yourself, Knight. Such concerns are not needed. You almost gave your life for me.”

The last sentence is uttered no more than a squeak of a mouse in an open field. The thought…troubles you. It…it makes you want to run. 

Gaz smiles slowly, body mostly still. 

“Well, I can’t let a beauty like you get hurt now, can I? That would just be bloody wrong of me.” A pause. You don’t seem to find his jokes very funny. Gaz’s heart skips beats when you look at him like that. He softens, and your hand once more runs the length of his bandages, making him shiver. It was addicting: touching him. Feeling the heat of his flesh. 

“I’d do it again,” Gaz mutters. “I took an oath.”

“An oath to a King that was worth less than a rock on the bottom of the ocean,” you whisper. “It means nothing now.”

“It was never nothing to me.” Gaz’s eyes don’t leave yours. “Fighting for you will never be nothing.” 

You shake slightly, face heating up. All of this is wrong to you—foreign. But why does it make you feel like everything will be okay?

“I didn’t ask for your protection, Gaz,” you try once more. One final attempt to keep your slipping self-control. Weak fingers skate your chin, usually such a high and mighty thing, now stooped low and bent just to gaze upon the feeble body of a broken mortal man.

A man who will die in a blink. A man that should never have made a dent in your unbreakable mind; your knowledge of lives innumerable. A man that you can’t look away from as he smiles at you like that. Softy. Openly. 

Kindly.

Love is a cage.

“You never had to ask me, Stag…I would give my name to you, even if it was the last thing I had left of me.” 

Your eyes widen; your breath hitches as if you’d been stabbed in the heart. You nearly reel back, horror and something more trapped in every vein in your body. Ludicrous. That…that was absurd. Laughable!

His name? No, no never. That was a lie; a trick. Something so powerful, just to be uttered away like that by a bloodless mind. No. 

But not a single part of him is lying. Your jaw is slack in pure wonder. Struck dumb.

He wasn’t lying.

A low breeze goes through the trees—it slips past tattered clothes and the crimson grass. Whispering; talking in tongues you can’t understand at the moment above the noise from Gaz’s eyes. He’s still smiling at you, a knowing glint in his orbs as his fingers squeeze your chin. You catch his hand before it falls, grasping it without looking away. His pulse sings, and his throat releases a hum.

If love is a cage, you’d never wanted to be a prisoner more.

TAGS:

@sheviro-blog, @ivebeentrashsince2001, @mrshesh, @berryjuicyy, @romantic-homicide, @kmi-02, @neelehksttr, @littlemisstrouble, @copperchromewriting, @coelhho-brannco, @pumpkinwitchcrusade, @fictional-men-have-my-heart, @sleepyqueerenergy, @cumikering, @everything-was-dark, @marmie-noir, @anna-banana27, @iamcautiouslyoptimistic, @irenelunarsworld, @rvjaa, @sarcanti, @aeneanc, @not-so-closeted-lesbian, @mutuallimbenclosure, @emily-who-killed-a-man, @gildedpoenies, @glitterypirateduck, @writeforfandoms, @kohsk3nico, @peteymcskeet, @caramlizedtomatoes, @yoursweetobsession, @quesowakanda, @chthonian-spectre, @so-no-feint, @ray-rook, @extracrunchymilk, @doggydale, @frazie99, @develised, @1-800-no-users-left, @nuncubus, @aldis-nuts, @clear-your-mind-and-dream, @noonanaz, @cosmicpro, @stinkaton, @waves-against-a-cliff, @idocarealot

[dykells]

𝐓𝐖𝐈𝐍 𝐒𝐈𝐙𝐄𝐃 𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐒 | 𝐀.𝐀

𝐚𝐛𝐛𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐱 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 ✷ she hopes im cursed forever to sleep on a twin sized mattress never graduating up in size to add another 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 1,1k ✷ 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: religion, homophobia n’ nsfw content

abby feels owen’s hand on her waist like a brick to her chest weighting her body down, it wouldn’t take much for the drowning to begin but your face across the room was both oxygen and the final anchor of her demise. she weighed her options as their personifications stood before her, father smiling brightly at the happy couple unaware his own daughter forced her chirpiness while she yearned in the deepest aching to be swept off her feet by the girl just a few away– who now refused to face her much understandably. you cursed her for inviting you to their preppy engagement party, cursed her for multiple reasons more, yet your heels stuck to the ground like they clung for dear life anticipating a plot twist shaped by regret.

“excuse me” she finally croaked out mid conversation, the place where her fiancé’s hand once held onto now burning her skin like a rotting poison. she wished to bathe herself clean in the rain like a baptism, wished owen didn’t felt like sin tainting her body from being with you, her holiest of experiences, wished she had not known heaven between your legs so she may live on her life guiltless and not as someone who has felt blasphemously like a god herself. your fingers brush past eachother as she walks up behind you and fireworks bloom from your fingertips like lily flowers at spring. lillies, her favorite, your perfume.

you follow her to the bathroom, breath unsteady, and regardless of how long the affair has been happening no familiarity prepares you for the crash of her lips against yours as you twist the doorknob. sometimes you think these moments might make you understand her, to have abby anderson’s tongue exploring your mouth, hands by your neck to keep you still, perpetual apple cinnamon smell, was nothing short of a religious experience. perhaps that is what the church brought out in her, this same inextinguishable fire at the pit of your stomach with understanding of icarus and his hope for the sun. if all sins felt this sweet it did not seem so big of a sacrifice to die for them– you’d die for her if asked.

“abs, stop” you whisper once her lips are on your neck, long wet kisses all across the exposed skin warming up your body from the winter cold better than any cloth could have, she’s hungry, biting you down and her fruity scent doesn’t let the irony of forbidden fruit to die on you even as she hums in fake confusion allowing herself more time in her feast begging it to cloud your judgement as it almost does “abigail, we have to stop”

“don’t do this to me” she begs, voice cracking “please don’t leave me, you’ll take all the sunshine with you and it’s cold, it’s a cold winter i need your arms, your limbs, your body, my sunny girl-“

“you’re getting married, abs” you sigh with the exclamation, it seems nearly as though you’ve just reminded her of it like someone who forgot to turn off the oven before they had left the house, someone destined for burnt flames, your reality scares her into kneeling submission and you’re laughing because it looks like a proposal and it’s absurd, her hands gripping yours, her gaze doe-eyed and unconditional. you are missing a ring but you see hers, diamond, and the ache doesn’t easen.

“you are everything that i want…”

“then leave him, abby. don’t sit on the dirty bathroom floor of a venue for your engagement party and promise me a love you are too scared to give me, i can’t keep excusing your cowardice for the sake of sanity. take off that ring and walk out of here with me, we’ll figure it out, we’ll be happy together, your winter won’t be cold”

she pretends to take in your words, analyse them as if her nights haven’t been filled with scenarions and possibilities all of which there is pain unbearable. you’re searching her eyes with a hope unbeknownst to men and suddenly you feel the line between dream and desperation blurring itself into oblivion. abby lets go of your touch and slides the ring from her finger out onto it’s demise on the tiled floor. you think you won. you think god exists when she locks the door behind you and presses you against the wall, believe he had heard your prayers once her fingers dip between your thighs. when she’s thrusting inside you, you cry out for god instead of her name, moan louder at the sight of her wedding band far away on the ground, feel your walls clenching around her digits and her warm breath against your neck, she’s mumbling so many i love yous you barely notice how multiple sound like im sorrys.

with your hands curling around her loose hair she gets sloppy, deprived, wants you to tug on her and beg for her mouth without needing the plead to taste you and you do so eager it burns her scalp. she’s back on her knees and she thinks for a moment not admited this might be her holy repent. tugging on your jeans till their ultimate glide towards the floor, shes sucking on the wet patch of your underwear as a tease, letting her senses flood of lillies and pussy. she finally pushes it aside and dives in, godhood in the shape of your swollen clit grazing her teeth, you tilt your waist to give her further access and there are stars and angels behind your fluttered eyelids.

she calls your her sunny girl as you rain down her face in white honey, her muscles spread your legs further apart and suck it in till it has destroyed her makeup, part of her wishes to leave this bathroom and still smell of you, part of her is scared owen might kiss your heavens from her tongue and catch it all. she’s putting her ring back on at your climax, and you’re confused and heavy breathing. a sob clings to your throat.

abby tells you all she’s ever known is the cold. tells you girls like her are unworthy of the sun. tells you owen is waiting and maybe you should leave. she doesn’t tell you she thinks god isn’t real once you’ve turned your back because he would never have created something to purely magnetic to have it ripped from her hands, she does not tell you the only thing worth worshipping is the gap between your teeth, the crook of your neck and the dimple in your cheek, doesn’t tell you she thinks hell is this. but she almost does. she almost does. on your way out, you just sob and hope she’s cursed. hope god is angry. think god is her.

© dykells twentytwentythree

[quintessencewrites]

Pernicious

toxic!Shuri x reader; OC x reader

“Nah, baby, just getting a taste. 

“Fuck y-”

“I told you, you can’t do this shit better than me.”

Warnings: 18+!!! slight smut, TOXIC! Shuri (i'm sorry in advance), slightly toxic!reader, Shuri's got a twin, yall! explicit language (as always) If you liked how She Loves Me ended, I suggest you skip this one, I'm bout to fuck that all the way up (again, sorry in advance)

Word Count: 6.7k+

Tags: @shurislover @6-noir @doramilaj233 @ihearttish @vampzxi

@verachii @jessiap @phantomof-themcu @taiiunknown @sapphicvqmpires @pocketsizedpanther @oceean

Special shoutouts to my babies @venusdraco for naming Shuri's twinem and @inmyheadimobsessed for the story idea to begin with (love y'all lots)

A/N: I was supposed to post this like three days ago...and forgot...my bad, I hope yall still love me cuz I love yall

“I’m sorry, this voicemail box is full. Please hang up, and try again later.”

The line didn’t even ring- straight to voicemail she went for the umpteenth time today.

Either your phone was powered off, or you’d blocked her, and it was more likely the latter.

Shuri’s blood was boiling. If she were a cartoon, steam would be puffing from her ears. Instead, the backlight of her phone illuminated her angry features in the dark room. The device was brick-like in her grasp, the screen sporting a fresh crack from her overreaction to the photo you’d sent her before you went ghost.

Flat on your back, you lay in a sea of white sheets with one draped over your torso, barely covering your most intimate parts. The glimpse of your nipple played peek-a-boo with the camera. Pure ecstasy was written across your face, curls wild and frizzed, and eyes rolled, half-closed. You looked like a Greek goddess, etched straight out of the finest marble.

Your tongue stuck out, hanging over your lips teasingly. Shuri could practically hear your laughter rolling from it, mocking her. 

The hand around your throat was the icing on the cake. She could see the indents in your skin from their fingers, and they weren’t Shuri’s fingers.  It wasn’t her hand, and even more infuriating, Shuri didn’t know whose hand it was.

You were playing her game and beating her at it. 

How fucking dare you?

She’d snapped a photo in retaliation and couldn’t even send it because her messages weren’t going through. 

Shuri’s anger was inextinguishable. Her eyes roamed the room, fury flooding the unusually dark orbs. A weight shifted next to her, and she suddenly remembered the whore in her bed. She was attractive earlier, a nice little plaything whose moans had caused a blush to creep to the princess’s cheeks. Unfortunately for her, now she was a target whose name Shuri couldn’t even recall.

“Aye, get up.”

A deep breath escaped the girl’s chest, but she didn’t stir, and that just pissed Shuri off more. 

“Get up,” her accent was thick with the venom that coated her words; her hand felt like fire against her lover’s chill shoulder. “You gotta go.”

A blond head shot up, and if Shuri’s eyes were to roll any harder, they would have rolled across the floor like marbles. She knew the bitch was pretending to be asleep.

“I gotta go?”

“Did I stutter? Get gone,” Her attention was back to her phone, back to the photo- now zoomed in as she inspected it harder.

Shuri was glad to see the girl comply; the sooner she got up out of Shuri’s room, the sooner she could investigate this shit in peace.

“Uh, you know where my panties are-?”

“Find ‘em”

Shuri knew she wouldn’t. They were folded in her pocket, a little trophy from tonight’s conquer. 

“I can’t-”

An exasperated sigh left Shuri’s pretty lips, and though they remained sealed, her glare spoke in volumes.

The poor girl practically shrunk beneath the gaze, grabbing what little clothing she came with and heading to the door. “Guess I can go without them-”

Shuri was already buried back in her phone, barely noticing the door opening and shutting. She was wracking her brilliant mind, trying so hard to understand.

She wanted to understand why you were ignoring her, why you’d left. She needed clarity for the past seven months that now felt like wasted time. 

You were just ungrateful. Ungrateful and greedy, that was the only explanation. 

She’d spent hundreds on you, thousands, really. She bought you flowers weekly, the biggest bouquets with the most vibrant roses, tulips, and lilies you’d ever seen. She even printed your name on the card in the most expensive fonts. 

She’d take you out to eat at establishments that drained her pockets. Shuri would even order for you, priding herself on knowing your favorites.

She’d taken you home to Wakanda on a week-long trip that you claimed was “unforgettable”. You’d met her mother and childhood friends, you shared a laugh with her brother and his wife. 

You were just fucking ungrateful.

Sure, Shuri had come home a few times covered in dark spots, but you believed her when she told you they were bruises. She was just sparring, boxing in the gym and she’d taken a few hits. 

Sure, she slipped up a few times, calling you by a name other than your own during sex, but she switched it up quickly enough for you to not notice. It’s not her fault; there were too many names to keep track of.

Yeah, you may have spotted her in a pic or two and it may or may not have been incriminating, but shit, she had told you the truth with, like, half of those. 

“It wasn’t even like that-” It wasn’t; you were always blowing shit out of proportion.

“She’s just a friend-” With benefits, but you ain’t had to know all that.

“I have a long-lost twin sister-” Maybe not long and lost, but the twin part was real.

This was all your fault for not believing her.

Val fucking tore you up. Your body was sore and spent, and sleep almost overtook you. Her warm lips against your shoulder kept you conscious just long enough to hear her parting words. It was good, so fucking good.

“Get some sleep, baby. I’ll call you in the morning- don’t forget to turn your phone back on.”

You could only moan a response, far too exhausted to open your mouth. Valkyrie’s deep chuckle reverted through the room, and the sound of the door opening and closing soon followed. 

Your curves sunk into the mattress beneath you and the sigh you released was therapeutic. The same thoughts you’d been trying to push away began to crawl right back, and you wished so badly that they would truly disappear. 

Valkyrie was here, she was gentle, and she was healthy. She was a breath of fresh air in comparison to the air trapped in your lungs that you felt you couldn’t release.

Yet, for some reason, you couldn’t genuinely feel the happiness you feigned around her. 

She’d surprise you with flowers with your name adorned on the card they were packaged with. 

Your name was the only one that rolled off her lips and it sounded so sexy when it did.

There were no imaginary twin sisters, no suspicious bruises, and no damning photos with girls who weren’t you.

And still, somehow, that wasn’t enough. 

It was who the flowers came from, not the name they bore.

It was the accent your name was spoken with, and it wasn’t the one you wanted.

It took the strength of a thousand men to lift your head from the pillow that supported it. Your arm was deadweight, as heavy as lead as it moved across the comforter towards your phone that lay several feet away.

The screen was much too bright when you powered the device back on and your face took cover back in the pillow until it dimmed enough for you to look at it without wincing. 

Once the buzzing started, it didn’t stop. Message after message, missed call after missed call, your phone was blowing up, and the flutter in the pit of your stomach told you who it was before you even looked.

She must have gotten your picture. The one you’d asked Val to snap “just because”. The second thoughts swarmed you immediately when it came to sending it but second-guessing yourself wasn’t a habit you wanted to keep. That little blue arrow was but a seductive little tease, drawing your finger closer and closer until the next thing you saw across your screen was “delivered”.

Twenty-five. 

That’s how many times Shuri had called you over the past hour, how many times she’d been sent straight to voicemail.

Hundreds of messages started to pour through, all from the same number. As clever as she was, Shuri wasn’t a woman of many words and most of her texts repeated the same thing. You only tuned in to the last handful, skimming over them just barely.

‘You think you funny?’

‘Who’s the bitch, y/n?’

‘Where the hell you at?’

‘You can’t do this shit better than me, baby.’

The smirk that made its way across your face was purely devilish. You had her bothered. Good, she should be.

This wasn’t a game you should be playing. You were supposed to be out of this toxic-ass relationship, not dipping your toe back into it, but the waters were warm and alluring, with the way they pulsed to and fro.

The temptation that soured your veins didn’t need to do much to sway you. The desire to hear her hurt, the urge to crumble her confidence, it was just too fucking strong to ignore.

The line only rang once before she picked up. Shuri didn’t speak, but you knew she was there. 

“I can’t do this shit better than you, huh?”

Shuri was silent. 

“Well, guess what, Shuri?”

“What y/n?”

“I am doing this shit better than you.”

A scoff was all you heard through the receiver. “Oh, you think so?”

“I do-”

Shuri’s harsh words cut you off. “I saw that picture, y/n.”

“I-”

She was giving you no chance to speak. “I know she ain’t fuck you good though, cuz she ain’t me. If she was me, she would have been too preoccupied to snap that cute lil pic. You would’ve been too distracted to send it.”

“She-”

“Cuz the bitch I had in my bed tonight ain’t have her mind on nothing else but me, baby.”

Her words tripped you up, and you stumbled and fell hard. Of course, she’d had somebody else in her bed tonight or any night. That wasn’t outside of Shuri’s norm and you knew it. Within seconds, the chime of your phone sounded, and every nerve in your body begged you not to look at it, to hang up the phone, and never turn back. Unluckily for you, though, your muscles usually moved on their own. 

Across your screen popped up an image: Shuri, with a broad in her lap. Everything about the photo took your cockiness and threw it straight out the window. The girl was naked, legs spread with Shuri’s fingers dipped between them. Her pale skin glowed beneath the contrast of Shuri’s umber tone and blond hair barely touched her shoulders, the very shoulders that had your princess’s lips pressed against them. 

“You fucking with white bitches now?”

Shuri’s laughter infuriated you, and fury gained dominance over your emotions, shaking you from the inside out until the phone was trembling with your anger.

“Nah, baby, just getting a taste. 

“Fuck y-”

“I told you, you can’t do this shit better than me.”

“Fuck you, Shuri!” Your voice rang through the room, climbing several octaves. Its shrillness was unfamiliar to you, a sound you weren’t used to hearing in a pitch you weren’t used to hitting.

“That’s how I know she ain’t do a good job, baby, you still so angry. Want me to come over and fix it?”

This time it was a voice in the background that cut you off. Mumbled words that didn’t make any sense through the phone, muffled and whispered vibrato that was indistinguishable. 

“Nah, Shuri. I want you to stop hitting my line, for good. Go enjoy your little snow bunny.”

Her deep chuckle withdrew a breath from you that got caught in the concave of your chest. “I sent ol’ girl home a long time ago. I gotta surprise for you.”

Unfortunately for Shuri, you were standing firm with a stubbornness that was just a side effect of the fury that flamed you. “Ion want any surprise you got for me.”

The pouty princess merely shook her head at your response, a sight she knew you couldn’t see. “I’ll see you in fifteen, baby.”

“Shuri, don’t you bring your ass-”

She’d hung up before you could even finish your sentence.  

She could never fucking listen. 

Fifteen minutes later, on the dot, a soft knock came from the heavy wood that granted access to the outside world.

Your legs swung over the side of the bed out of habit, but you truly didn’t have any intention of getting up. The knocking turned to thumping the longer you hesitated and she pounded the tough oak like she was the police.

Neighbors would begin poking their nosy heads out their doors if you continued to ignore her. It was two in the morning, and the old lady next door wouldn’t take kindly to being awoken like this. 

The sheet around you would serve as a robe, just long enough for you to answer the door that would have swung right off its hinges if you were to pull on it any harder.

“Shuri, what the actual fuck-”

She stood still, leaning against your doorframe with a readable smirk dancing on her hard features. Your princess looked damn good, and she knew you knew it. The baggy tee hung loosely on her broad shoulders, and the thick, black sweats that sat low on her hips didn’t do a damn thing to hide those sexy ass dips that you used to trace with your fingers. 

“Silence suits you.” Her head dipped as she pushed past and into your home. 

Her voice was deep, a bit deeper than it was just moments ago when you were on the phone and she looked about your home as if she was stepping into it for the first time. Your eyes trailed her body so slowly you’d have thought the two of you were frozen in time. 

“Y-you cut your hair?”

Her curly top was gone. Like, gone-gone, not just the sides like before, but the whole damn head. 

Instinctually, her hand rose to brush out the faded cut, like a habit she’d developed in minutes. “It’s always been cut, baby.”

Her hand outstretched toward you, luring your stunned figure straight to hers. She’d cast a spell and you were enchanted, letting her lead your body to hers until your breasts, barely concealed by the slipping sheet, were pressed firmly against her torso.

“Sh-Shuri, I’m not fucking stupid-”

“I never said you were, baby girl.”

It was much easier to ignore the charm in her voice when it was over the phone. Now, with her hands on your flesh and her fingers toying with the dimples in your back, her magic was much harder to resist.

Your words were lost in a void, and a hush fell over the room, over the space, over the two of you. 

She was just toying with you, that’s all. That’s what you tried convincing yourself. Shuri didn’t want to do anything but come over here and play with your feelings.

But if that was the case, and you knew that was the case, why couldn’t you push her away?

Why did your heart thump a little harder when her eyes dropped to your lips and stayed there?

Why did anticipation creep through your belly when her head got lower and lower and lower-

Why didn’t you stop her when her lips touched yours?

It was so gentle, the way her mouth met yours. You can’t remember the last time Shuri kissed you so tenderly.

Her grip around your waist tightened, and if she pulled you any closer, your bodies would become one.

The sweet sound of your sigh was melodious and just as you began to melt beneath the heat of her caress, she pulled away. 

It was such a pathetic sound, to hear you whine for a girl you weren’t even sure you wanted, and yet you did. 

“What’s the matter, baby?” The heat on your hip traveled to your pouted lips when her hand left to graze the bottom one with the tip of her thumb. 

What the fuck was the matter?

Here stood Shuri, the source of your headaches and late-night cry sessions. The liar, manipulator, player-girl on campus whom everyone wanted and everyone could get.

Here stood Shuri, the source of the thoughts that spun through your brain. The jokester, genius, who would move the heavens and the earth for you if you asked. 

“Y-you gotta go-” 

The whisper was so low, you weren’t sure she’d heard you. When she made no move to drop her hand from your naked body, you were sure she hadn’t.

“Shuri, you have to go-”

“Why?” Her question cut your orders short and the fact that she even questioned you ignited anger.

“‘Why?’ Fuck do you mean ‘why?’”

“Why, baby? Why I gotta go?” Her arms snaked around you even tighter, and she dropped her head into the crook of your neck. The warmth of her breath tickled as she descended, causing a stifling giggle to catch in your throat. 

“Do you want me to go?” 

Seduction rang throughout her tone, and like a siren’s call, it almost pulled you under.

Almost.

“I-I want you to go, Shuri.”

“Why, baby?”

“Because just an hour ago, you had some bitch in your bed-”

“Should’ve been you-”

“But it wasn’t, Shuri. It usually isn’t more often than it is.”

“Is it?”

Rage fueled your hands to fly with exasperation, and the girl before you flinched, as though they would come back down onto her.

“I’m not fucking dumb, Shuri-”

“Aren’t you?”

The response came from Shuri’s voice, you knew that for sure, but the girl standing before you hadn’t opened her mouth. 

“Usisi-” That one came from the Shuri standing in front of you, slithering from between her clenched teeth like a reptilian. 

Her eyes were no longer trained on you. She was staring at something behind you, a moving figure from the way her eyes shifted back and forth, and you almost didn’t want to turn around to know what it was.

Damn, those muscles that moved without instruction. 

Shuri Udaku was standing in front of you, hands glued to your waist with a shortcut that she didn’t have yesterday, and yet, somehow, she was also standing behind you, leaning against your doorframe with crossed arms and the same curls that always hung over her furrowed brows. 

You weren’t sure how long you’d stopped breathing, but it was long enough to earn a too-loud gasp at the sight before you.

Curly-haired Shuri’s arms dropped, and her hands fell into her oversized pockets before she started making her way toward you, and Short-cut Shuri’s grip on your body tightened.

“You’re not fucking dumb, y/n?”

A gaped mouth was all you could offer up in response. 

“You play this game better than me?”

Still nothing. 

It’s like you’d regressed back to infancy, forgetting what words were and how to use them. 

They didn’t make any sense in your scrambled mind, this didn’t make any fucking sense. 

“Ngaba kufuneka uthethe naye ngolo hlobo (You gotta talk to her like that)?”

“Thula (Shut up), usisi”

Foreign tongues spewing foreign words. Shuri times two, standing ahead of you, arguing with herself. 

Your Shuri’s eyes shifted, taking in your barely covered body, still in her clone’s grasp, and you could practically see the fire ignite behind her gaze. 

“Nalla, izandla zakho (your hands).”

“Kuthekani ngabo (What about them)?”

“Get them off my girl.” Finally, something you could understand. It was slow, the way the duplicate dropped her hands from your hips and brought them down to her side. As soon as hers were gone, Shuri’s replaced them, and the way she pulled your body into hers was rough. It should have hurt her, the harshness with which your back hit her front and her arms wrapped around you in defense. 

“Baby-” Shuri’s lips brushed against your ear as she spoke directly into it.

“Sh-Shuri, wha-” It was barely a legible sentence, coming out in gasps that were lulled to silence by Shuri’s shushes. 

“I told you I had a surprise for you, baby.” She spoke to you between kisses that were planted gently against behind your ear, trailing down your neck. 

The Shuri behind you was the one speaking; it was her warmth you felt and her arms that engulfed you, and yet, it was the Shuri in front of you that had your attention. Your eyes couldn’t leave hers, with a thousand questions burning behind them. 

“A surprise-” The crazy octaves you were reaching earlier had long gone, and every syllable that spilled from between your lips was so low, it took concentrating ears to hear. 

Mhm, the vibrations from Shuri’s hum tickled against your neck. “Remember that twin you called imaginary?”

“Imaginary-” you parroted absentmindedly.

“Meet the imaginary bitch with whom I shared a womb-”

“Mazenja (bitch), hm?”

“Andizange ndithintitha (I didn’t stutter). Baby girl, Nalla. Nalla, baby girl. Umntwana wam oyintombazana (My baby girl).”

Nalla. You’d never heard Shuri speak of a ‘Nalla’ except for when she was making up a sorry-ass excuse. Yet, here she was, standing before you, a smirk smile etched across the perfect face she shared with her sister. Here she stood, reaching toward you until your hand was in hers and her lips pressed against it, leaving behind a warmth you wanted to feel again. 

It didn’t last long enough, though, with Shuri pulling your hand from her sister’s grasp with a click of her tongue. 

“Shuri, Nalla-” 

“I think you broke her, usisi.” A deep chuckle left Nalla’s lips, and her hand swayed back and forth in front of your gaze, trying hard to break whatever trance you were trapped in. 

Shuri’s guard on you broke when the phone in her pocket began to buzz, snatching away her attention, and Nalla swooped in. Her hands tugged yours, pulling you away from her sister until the two of you stood chest-to-chest.

“Come back, baby girl. It ain’t that mind-blowing,” her whispers matched yours, speaking low enough to avoid Shuri’s wandering ears. 

She underestimated her sister’s intelligence; Shuri was no dummy. From the corner of her eye, she could see her twin luring you into her space and how willingly you just stepped into it. Suddenly, the phone in her grasp was no longer of interest, and neither was the needy bitch she was entertaining in it. 

One foot in front of the other, you were lulled by Nalla, closer and closer and closer, until the vibrations of Shuri clearing her throat shattered the bubble you allowed yourself to become encapsulated in. 

“Was I interrupting something?” The question could have easily just floated through the air unanswered, had you not turned toward the sound of her voice and seen the arch in her brows and venom in her frown. 

Words still hadn’t found their way back to you yet and there you stood, voice gone as though it’d been stolen straight from your throat. 

Nalla took control of the impending situation while your brain was wracked for something to say and your needy eyes looked on from one sister to the other. 

“Nah,” her long, veiny hands rubbed along the carve of her chin, and the shackled staring contest between the two of you was broken when her eyes found the ground beneath her. “Nah, Shuri.”

“Then back up. You a little too close to my girl.”

“Intombi yakho (Your girl)?” Nalla’s scoff is low, but not low enough, and it does nothing to diffuse her sister’s anger. She’s yet to release your hands from hers and Shuri’s taken notice. 

“Yintoni ingxaki (What’s the problem)?”

“I didn’t say anything, Shuri-”

“You didn’t have to-”

“Nigga, you called me over here-” The lookalikes are speaking as though you’re not standing between them, trapped in a Wakandan princess sandwich-

“Yeah, to iseti the irekhodi ngqo, not try and fuck on intombi yam!” Shuri’s english always breaks when she’s upset; a habit she’s yet to control. Half the sentence is in Xhosa and despite the few months you’d spent with her and the few weeks you’d spent in her country, the words still sounded foreign to your unfamiliar ears.

“Was she your girl when Snow White was laid up in your sheets earlier tonight?”

The step Shuri took toward her sister shook the ground below as though she’d moved the Heavens and the Earth to approach the two of you. 

“Fuck you say, Nalla?”

This was not a situation you wanted to be in the middle of, quite literally. Their native tongues flew, leaving you out of a loop that you found yourself to be at the center of. Nalla’s hand rose,pressing against Shuri’s chest and keeping her a full arm’s length away while you stayed squished between the two, barely reaching chin level. 

While one twin bore an expression of pure rage, the other was totally amused. Shuri’s nostrils were flared, her teeth bare. Her hands were balled into fists at her sides, and you were certain that she was staring past you with a crimson hue. 

Cowardice ran a single shiver down your spine, one which made itself more dramatic the more you tried to hide it. It missed Shuri’s eyes, but Nalla took notice and her brows met together in the middle with your reaction toward her sister. 

“Kufuneka uhambe (You should go), Shuri.”

Her words were accessorised with little droplets of spit that collected at the corners of her mouth, her jaw taut with anger. “You taking her side? She-”

“I’m not taking nobody side, Shuri, but you’re scaring her.”

You weren’t scared. Who the hell did Nalla think she was, to accuse you of such an emotion?

Fear was an emotion that had escaped long ago when it came to Shuri, and while her fury was scorching, Nalla stood behind you, cooling the burn caused by your former flame. 

You weren’t scared, though shocked you stood still, with Nalla’s hands still covering yours and her chest a rooted grounding point against your back. 

“You should go-” 

“I’m not-”

“Go, Shuri.” Damn your voice for sounding so small, damn you for feeling so trivial. 

“Go?”

Your nod was pathetic, as was the way you restrained from wincing when Shuri scoffed. 

“Are you serious?”

Another pitiful nod. 

“Ha, ight. Let’s go-” Shuri spun toward the door too easily; with no fight. She’d been expecting to hear the sound of her sister’s footsteps follow-

The room remained silent.

Her slow turn was menacing, facing the pair once more, hiding the shock that etched its way across her face when she saw Nalla, standing where she had been before.

“Nalla, masihambe (let’s go).”

“I-” Nalla appeared stuck, flashing frantic eyes between you and her sister, unsure of which way to turn.  

“Do you want me to go?” It was a question meant for you, just for you, as her whisper floated directly from her lips and towards your ear. 

The room was still, three bodies awaiting an answer.

A confident ‘yes’ should have been your answer. She was a stranger, blood-related to the trigger of your trauma. They shared the same face, strong nose, and sculpted jaw and all. Their hands were similar, but where one grabbed at you roughly, the other stroked you to safety. 

Your right shoulder bore the devil Shuri, the one who lied and cheated out of habit. The one who manipulated you like a game and lost her temper like you were a child. She made your stomach hurt, made your head tight with anxiety. 

And on your left, was the angel Nalla. Maybe not an angel in truth, but an angel in comparison. You knew nothing of her other than her name, and she, you, yet here she stood, in defiance to her sister to offer you solitude and security. Her hand never left yours, and in thirty minutes, she’d treated you more tenderly than her carbon copy had in seven months. 

You leisurely shook your head to and fro, the dome weighing too heavily on your shoulders by all the thoughts that consumed it. 

Shuri’s laughter was heinous and it traveled with a chill like ice in your veins. “You for real?”

“She said go, Shuri.”

“Fine,” the princess spat, stepping into your personal space. She was so close, your noses were practically kissing. 

Nalla’s grip on the fabric collected at your waist tightened and she was ready to pull you into the safety of her arms if her sister’s temper were to pop off. 

“Fine, y/n. I’ll go, but ole’ girl tonight been better than you in seven mon-”

“That’s enough, Shuri. Hamba (Go).” 

She parted without another word, and all you and Nalla could do was linger in the remaining essence of her presence. 

Nalla’s deep vibrato broke through the silence first. “You good?”

If you were to nod anymore tonight, your head would roll across the floor like a bowling ball. 

You were avoiding eye contact with the girl who so closely resembled the source of your hurt. Her head dipped until your gazes were level and a sympathetic smirk played across her chin. “She scared you mute?”

An audible sigh of relief escaped her parted lips when a smirk of your own mirrored hers and teased the corners of your mouth up. “I thought silence suits me?”

The heart beating in your chest stopped when her laughter rang through and my God, it sounded so much like Shuri’s.

“I was wrong, I guess,” Her eyes fall to the floor, searching for anything to look at but you.

“My bad.”

“Fuck you apologizing for?”

“I thought you was just gonna stop at ‘fuck you’”, Nalla laughed again, and this time, you could feel it in your toes. “Nah, ma, I’m sorry for her. I haven’t really been keeping up with her shit these past couple of years-”

“You good.”

“I’m good?”

“Yeah, and I’m good on the apology and shit. Shit sappy, I’m cool.”

Nalla’s silent and for a moment, the two of you are frozen in time, just gazing at one another. 

“Why you want me to stay?”

Your shrug was too nonchalant of an answer, and the way her head cocks to the left tells you just that. Any thought behind the question didn’t even bother to cross your mind before you responded. “You kissed me.”

On instinct, in a habit she’d surely picked up over a few years, Nalla’s hand passes over her barren scalp. “I did,” she admits through clenched teeth. 

Here stood not-Shuri. She looked like Shuri, but she was not-Shuri. She’d kissed you gently, not like Shuri. She’d kept you safe, not like Shuri. She’d protected you, not like Shuri, from Shuri. 

“I liked it.”

Nalla’s entire expression changed at your confession. Her perfectly arched brows jump to the top of her face with a look of undeniable surprise. 

“I want you to do it again.”

Her breath caught in her throat when you closed the already non-existent gap between the two of you. “You do?”

Her question was lazy, as was the way her head fell to the side and her gaze deepened upon you. 

You nodded one last time before your lips hesitantly met, almost as though this kiss were forbidden and neither of you knew who was to initiate it. 

The kiss was forbidden, but once Nalla’s soft mouth descended onto yours, control rolled over into her court, along with your tongue. 

How slow, how sensual could a kiss be before one of the participating parties would need to come up for air?

Nalla’s lips were just begging for your teeth to sink into their plumpness and the guttural groan it produced proved it to be a good idea. 

Her hands tickled as they roamed your body, trying so hard to keep up the sheet that concealed your intimates while also searching for somewhere to rest while her mouth worked on yours. 

The feeling was distracting and the damn sheet had to go.

Your lips never left hers when your arms rose to drop the white sea of fabric from your figure, allowing it to pool at your feet. Nalla couldn’t pull herself away from you to gaze upon the blessing you’d just feasted upon her and the control she once held was now transferred into your court.

With the guidance of your hands, rested underneath the shelf which held your ass high and your hips higher. She lifted you as though you weighed nothing, wrapping your long legs around her waist, bringing your body just a bit higher than hers. 

You were mesmerized; the way she handled you was mouthwatering. You weren’t sure if it was the want to get over Shuri or the desire to wash Valkyrie’s touch from you, but you needed this. 

This unfamiliar person whose lips you were starting to like the taste of and whose touch burned your flesh in all the right ways. 

“Bedroom-” Nalla didn’t appreciate you breaking the kiss, immediately reconnecting your lips and ignoring your words. 

Biting her lips once more proved successful to separate yourself for just a moment, though it was a moment too long for the princess. 

Mm, hummed from the back of your throat. “Nalla, bedroom-”

“Are you sure?” her panting was hard to control; neither of you realized how long you’d gone without air due to the distractions you served for one another. 

“I’m sure.”

Whininess was not a trait you usually held, but it seemed to be a recurring trend tonight. Nalla released you from the air, from her arms gently, sharing in your sadness when your feet touched the ground and your bodies no longer touched. 

“Show me.”

Her hand felt like it was sculpted to fit in yours. It molded too-perfectly into yours as the two of you walked down the short hallway, turning the corner to your bedroom, with the bed still messy from you and Val’s rendezvous just hours earlier. 

Nalla couldn’t hold back the smile that fell upon her features at the sight of your safe space. “Cute,” it was murmured, and she hadn’t even considered the possibility that you’d heard her.

“I know-”

The corner of her lip tucked between her canines and it had your tummy doing somersaults. Your knees buckled beneath her stare and the hunger behind her eyes. “Um,” Damn, she had you stammering. “Where do you want me?”

Her steps towards you were quick and effortless, as was the way she lifted you by the back of your knees and threw you atop the disheveled sheets. Your naked body bounced with the force of the quick movements and your thighs fell apart to brace yourself for the impact.

“Right there. I want you right there.”

Your pussy was on display to the girl before you and it had her hypnotized. She wasn’t even looking at your face anymore, too focused on your pretty brown and pink folds as she dropped to her knees. 

Her arms hooked underneath your thighs, pulling your bare body to the edge of the bed, closer to her. She sank back onto her knees when your pussy rested in her face. 

The anticipation in the room was thick enough to cut through and a sexy waiting game ensued. You sat, weight resting on your left arm with Nalla’s head between your thick thighs, not moving but wanting so badly to be. 

She had all the patience in the world, sitting and watching your slickness collect and drip, inviting her tongue to lap up the nectar that was being wasted. 

You had no patience at all, wiggling your hips, inviting her in, wanting to feel the same soft tongue that explored your mouth explore your cunt.

“You just gonna sit there and stare at it?”

Nalla didn’t move a muscle, other than her eyes, to look up at you. “Just waiting for permission, baby girl.”

“Permission? Nigga, I’m sitting here with my pussy in your face-”

Your words got lost in your throat when a cool stream of air hit your cunt and it quivered beneath Nalla’s gaze.

“Tell me I can, baby-”

“Nalla, man-” You’d never been so whiny with Shuri, never this needy for Val.

“Tell me I can eat it, y/n. Tell me I can play with you. I need to hear you say it.”

If she would have just touched you already, she’d have known you were fucking soaked; she wouldn’t have needed verbal confirmation.

“You can eat it, Nalla, please-”

The rest of your sentence was swallowed by loud and proud moans. Nalla’s flattened tongue spreading your lips and tasting from hole to hole. The muscles in your abdomen tightened at the sudden sensation and your legs curled into your body, allowing the focused girl all the access she wanted.

Nalla was a fucking munch. She kissed at your cunt the same way she did your lips, slowly and sensually and so seductively. Her tongue dipped into your hot core, licking up your taste from the source. Your moans were her melodies, egging her on to continue.

“Ohhh, my gawdddd, Nalla, shit-” Words just thrown together, that made sense in the beginning, and made much less sense now. The tip of her nose rotated about your clit while her mouth swallowed you whole. Every sensation she brought upon you was a new one, from the way she lapped at your lips, to the way she just barely brushed your clit with teasing moves. 

You wanted so badly to grab at her hair, but the lack thereof left your hands empty and grasping for something until they rested upon your own breasts. Harsh tugging and not-so-gentle rubbing of your erect nipples between the tips of your thumb and index finger contrasted boldly with the slow way Nalla used her entire tongue to rub across your cunt. 

“You taste so fucking good,” The accent, the cussing, the way she licked and sucked as though you were the best meal she’s ever had, it was almost too much.

Your moans morphed into grunts the closer she brought you to your edge. Your clit was so round, so smooth and it fit so perfectly in her mouth when her lips enclosed around it, sucking the little bean hard and flicking the tip of her tongue over it in rapid succession. 

“I-uh, I’m close, I’m close-”

It would have been polite to warn the Wakandan that you were a squirter, but your words were slurred together and she couldn’t decipher where one began and another ended. She felt your impending orgasm, with the way your wetness collected on her chin and your clit swelled between her puckered lips. 

She was unsuspecting when her index finger played between your folds. Just one, then two, and three, playing at your entrance, but not daring to enter. 

But you were so wet, so fucking slick. A slight twitch in your movements caused Nalla’s fingers, all three, to stretch you out as they entered with no warning. 

“Oh fuck!” Nalla’s lips released your clit and she planted herself at your entrance, still three fingers deep, mouth open and tongue out. Your cum dripped down her chin, trailing down her neck and falling to the bed as she tried hard to not let any go to waste. What a sticky mess you’d made, in a way that you never had with Val.

Nalla’s eyes bore into your soul when the grip of your warm pussy finally released her hand and she stuck all three fingers in her mouth, sucking your taste off of them and savoring every drop.

“Anybody ever tell you you taste so fucking amazing?”

“Do I?”

Again, she bore that lip bite that could rip the clothes off a nun. “You do.”

“Lemme taste.”

Every muscle in her arm was visible as she raised from her knees and onto her feet, slinking across the bed until her face was right in front of yours.

Your hands were still shaky, recovering from your orgasm, when you brought them up to her face and pulled her lips to yours, taking her bottom lip in your mouth and sucking your taste right off of it.

Nalla’s eyebrows rose in amusement that quickly faded when you pulled her face in again, entangling your tongues together as your cum passed back and forth between your two mouths. 

The girl before you smirked when you let her come up from air, eyes glued to your lips before they rose to meet yours. Her sultry lip bite was enough to ignite another round and her whispered words found your ear as she laid you gently against the cool sheets underneath you.

“You nasty girl-”

Nasty indeed. Who didn't play this game better, Shuri?

[prismaticpichu]

No trigger warnings this time, only feels <333

Parts 1 & 2!

~

“What the HELL is wrong with you?! Why would you SEND me to Modeoheim…?!”

An asphyxiating silence loomed like a ghost between them, thickening the air of the darkened ShinRa corridor, raw and humid and unbearably unbreakable as Sephiroth stood motionless in his grasp.

Blue eyes blazed, inextinguishable by tears.

“Answer me!”

Sephiroth’s chin remained dipped, a wilted spill of quicksilver bangs veiling his expression.

“ANSWER ME…!”

And the silence loomed, ghosts lingering.

“ANSWER ME! SEPHIR—“

“I thought you could do it.”

When the response came, it came coldly, like an arctic whisper that severed the silence with its bitter temperature, and Sephiroth slowly lifted his gaze with an unreadable light reflecting in the emerald ice.

Zack stared into them with all the fire burning in Ifrit’s blood.

“…Do—“

“I thought you could bring him home,” Sephiroth continued on in a merciless breath, the edge of his words honing into something of a snarl. “I thought you could save him, attempt to reach him. I thought you would care. I thought you would help him.”

And the man’s lips pulled back to mirror the growling in his voice.

“Instead you ensured that I would never see him again.”

What transpired in the following moments appeared in nothing more than blinding haze of red, his memory all but engulfed in the famished color’s embrace like an inferno that had swallowed his heart and mind whole. Noise only vaguely managed to penetrate; the nebulous echo of a skull slamming against metal rippled like a bloody current in water; the indistinct grenades of two roaring voices turned into a dangerous weapon of their own.

“I HATE YOU…!”

And his voice echoed, loud and free.

“LIKE HELL YOU’RE A HERO…!”

And echoed.

And echoed.

“YOU ARE NOTHING BUT A FOOL! NAIVE!”

And echoed.

“I should have let Ifrit KILL you…!”

And echoed.

“YOU COWARD…!”

And echoed.

“No…”

And echoed.

“You’re a… YOU’RE A—“

And echoed.

“YOU’RE A HEARTLESS MONSTER…!”

And another teardrop plunked onto the mattress, its echo silent.

“I… I called you a monster.” Zack’s voice had constricted into a watery, painful choke. “Even when we both knew that word was so terrible. I… I must’ve known that it would hurt you, somehow. Somewhere…” He bowed his head over the sanguine-stained sheets, his shoulders quavering with the weight of the horrible memory. “But I didn’t care. Not one bit.”

Seph continued to strain against the pillow, shifting and squirming as if lost to the mercy of a riptide.

Zack held onto his hand like an anchor.

“That was before, though, Seph… Before you showed me what an amazing, kind, loyal person you are…” Oceanic eyes continued to glisten and mist, now shamelessly shedding pearls that crawled thinly down his cheeks. “Before you came over that night… before I broke down into your shoulder… before you told me that you would be there for me now… And—and you always have been…”

“It’s alright…”

He felt the delicate, awkward, yet blessed warmth of a pair of strong leather arms wrapping around him, straining his eyes as he lamented uncontrollably into his shoulder.

“It’s going to be alright…”

Zack used his free hand to wipe at his eyes, clearing them so he could look at the painful sight more painfully clear.

“And now… now things are so much different. They’ve changed so much… haven’t they?” He tried his best to will a smile onto his lips, the slight curve quivering and teary as he squeezed his friend’a hand tighter. “We’re a team now… you and me. You’re my partner. My… my mentor.”

Another teardrop fell, dribbling off the stained rivers on his cheeks.

It’s going to be alright…

“My best friend…”

Sephiroth’s entire body tensed, convulsing tautly under the sheet and linen, an audible and sharp dirge of a sound cutting through his lips as he buried in his cheek in the pillow and convulsed even harder.

It was only seconds after that the tears began to trickle from his eyes.

Zack could only stand there and watch, the mirroring tears on his own visage continuing to crawl, feeling an engulfment of helplessness and agony unlike anything he had ever endured before.

“Hey… It’s okay… it’s okay…” Because maybe if he said the words softly enough, they would be true, reaching out to place his other hand over the trembling warrior’s. “It’s okay, pal… it’s okay… I’m here. I’m right here.”

The tormented dirge continued, a horrid choke cleaving through Sephiroth’s throat.

Zack laced his fingers through his.

“It’s alright, pal…” His voice was barely able to quaver, hardly afloat. “It’s going to be alright…”

[do-androids-dream-ao3acc]

In The Dark (BuckTommy Whump)

In The Dark (14,612 words) by NeverlandPoet Chapters: 9/9 Fandom: 9-1-1 (TV) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Tommy Kinard Characters: Evan "Buck" Buckley, Tommy Kinard, Vincent Gerrard, Howie "Chimney" Han, Henrietta "Hen" Wilson, Ravi Panikkar, Maddie Buckley Additional Tags: Whump, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Hurt Evan "Buck" Buckley, Hurt Tommy Kinard, Internalized Homophobia, Racism, Canon-Typical Violence, Firefighter Evan "Buck" Buckley, Firefighters, set after season 7, Character Study, POV Evan "Buck" Buckley, Major Character Injury, Fire, Slurs, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Good Sibling Maddie Buckley

Summary: Working under Captain Gerrard again is a shock for the 118, especially as they are supposed to be present at this year's Pride Parade. Tommy is the only bright spot for Buck that day, but when they suddenly receive an assignment, he realizes that Tommy, of all people, is in the middle of it…

Finished! Chapter 1 is under the cut, full fic on AO3. Come say hi if you liked it ❤️

We will burn in the fire We will be branded in flames We will have to rise from the ashes From the fires of our own mistakes

Getting ready for shift, day 2 under Gerrard, who’s counting? You can do this.

Buck watches Ravi roll up the hoses. His fingers are itching to ever so slightly adjust the other’s angle of work, but with his distracted mind, the moment passes. Bobby will get his clearance soon. He will, he must.

“This is my first Pride,” says Ravi, “I mean, the parade. What to expect?”

Buck checks the equipment for the third time, but even the third time, everything is where it should be.

“Well, it's my first time too,” he replies with a shrug.

“Huh, were you off last year?”

“What? Oh, no.”

Buck slams the flap shut with a jerk. Sheepishly scratching his ear, he adds, “I mean, this year I’m... uh, this will be my first time as a... Anyway, Tommy and I have different shifts, we can't go, but there are still a lot of parties in the evening, maybe we can make it to one of those.”

“Keep the details about your fag lover where they belong – your underpants.”

Gerrard steps around the fire engine, smug grin on his face, provocatively running a finger through his moustache.

“Done checking? We can't wait forever for you guys.”

He looks at the two of them challengingly, but actually, Buck feels, Gerrard’s only looking at him. Ravi straightens up, he doesn't know the man, he’s just the current captain to him. Buck can't blame him, Ravi has learned that it pays to prove yourself, that it pays to make an effort. He’s learned that, like all of the 118, under Bobby. But Bobby’s not here.

“H... hold on, you can't say that.”

Even if the words dance on the tip of his tongue, Buck's gaze is firm. Gerrard stares at him, a gaze like a laser beam; but Buck is equipped with an invisible shield, and he returns the look.

“I can't tell you to do your job, Buckley? Really?”

“No,” Buck replies stubbornly, “I mean the other thing. The slur. You can’t say that, Gerrard.”

“Captain Gerrard,” the man corrects him in a deceptively soft voice. “You want to start with political correct language, do it in every respect. Pajeet here will agree with me, won't he?”

Gerrard shots a gaze at Ravi. Ravi's cheek muscles twitch, Buck knows he’s stifling a reply. He never thought about it, but how many times has Ravi heard things like these? How many times did he have to listen to bigoted, white men hurling insults at him? Buck clenches his fists. Anger is rising in him like an inextinguishable fire, and it's not wise, he knows this. He knows it, but there's Gerrard with his stupid grin, head slightly tilted as if to say, yeah, hit me boy, I'm waiting for it.

Hen appears at the truck, “There's plenty of bandages, Captain,” she says, as if she's read Gerrard's mind.

Gerrard wrinkles his nose as if Hen's appearance is some kind of stench that you just can't get rid of. But for now, he drops it. He slaps the fire engine; to Buck, this looks like he's slapping a woman's butt, and somehow, the analogy suits Gerrard. He's old school, as these guys like to say. They’re calling the vehicle baby, they’re joking about the hoses and involuntarily grab their crotches when a hydrant spurts out before the connection is made. None of this is unusual. A bit on the verge of extinction, and Buck can't exactly boast that he's never done anything like this. It's not great, but also not unusual. Gerrard, however… he’s a special sort of player.

They occupy the truck, and Buck just hopes his last glance at the interims captain is ice cold. Gerrard is sitting in front, now he can only pierce him with his eyes from behind. Hen looks kind of worried, so Buck nudges her.

“Hey, it'll be fine.”

“Huh?”

She adjusts her glasses, even though they’re absolutely straight. Following Buck’s gaze to Gerrard, she shakes her head.

“I don't know, just having a feeling,” she says.

Gerrard continues to stare ahead, but his ears are good for an old geezer, Buck thinks, as he interjects, “Feelings have no place in a fire truck.”

Hen ignores him, only giving Buck a warning glance as he frowns, clearly pondering about some fierce retort.

“Because of today’s job?” Ravi interjects.

“Oh, right,” says Buck, “Ravi was asking what to expect from the parade.”

He emphasizes Ravi and parade while carefully watching the back of Gerrard's head. This time, however, the man stays silent, and Hen turns to Ravi.

“It's not that wild,” she replies warmly, “people are generally rather peaceful. Sure, there’s the usual drunks falling into the shards of their own bottles. The odd brawl on the sidelines...”

“One year, a fire-eater accidentally set himself on fire,” Buck interjects, gesturing broadly. “Singed the eyebrows of three people who were standing a little too close.”

“Dumpster fires,” Chimney offers. He was the last to enter the truck, missing their earlier conversation with Gerrard, but he, too, seems kind of tense. They all are, actually. And it’s neither because of the parade nor because they’re missing Eddie, who has called in sick at short notice. Eddie isn't absent because of Gerrard, of course, but Buck wouldn't blame him if that were the reason. He himself had been feeling unwell this morning simply thinking about the captain, and thinking about what he’d done to Tommy. How he made him act. That guilt is still apparent on Tommy’s face, whenever Gerrard manages to creep into their topics.

“Hm,” Ravi replies with a frown, “nothing we couldn't be called in for, should it happen. Still not getting why we're ordered directly at the place, practically like a fire station for the day.”

“It's a madhouse, that's why.” Gerrard, of course.

“Statistics show that the presence of fire departments at the start of major events has a preventative effect,” says Hen, ignoring the captain. “Significant reduction of accidents, actually.”

“27 percent,” Buck throws in, and the other’s astonished looks bore into him. “What?”

“Less fire starters,” Hen nods. “One theory says people are more attentive because the presence of firefighters boosts their sense of community.”

For a moment, a discussion breaks out among Buck, Hen, Ravi and Chimney as everyone seems to have an opinion on this, but Gerrard's sharp voice interrupts them.

“Shut up, chicken coop. We're here for a job, not for your private bullshit.”

His gaze rests on Buck, and he feels his own fingernails clawing into his thigh. Bobby wouldn't want you to do anything rash. It’s his mantra for the rest of the ride.

[little-big-boo-and-a-rat]

¡Spoilers for Clarence's Godheim route!

"You are a beautiful tragedy," Cael whispers, brushing the bangs away from her face, "Ready to unfold."

She stares at him with a mixture of fear and fury. They are alone in a void of white. Nobody can help her, and she doesn't attempt to escape.

His silver hair sways with the wind.

It hurts. His gentle indifference hurts.

His immaculate armor is unstained with the deaths of Godheim, yet she knows their despair is embedded in its gleam.

She thinks she might hate him.

(She thinks she does not.)

The cold is burning her face, shattering any semblance of familiarity in this scene.

She wishes his eyes would show any trace of remorse or pain for his actions. Any guilt at the misery he brought in this land.

Cael pretends he wants to get her back home safely, but she remembers how many times she lost herself in the freezing tundra, meeting her demise at the kisses of the Glacial butterflies.

What a liar.

His deep, infinite abyss eyes look at her shaking form, unwavering.

"I know it is unfair," he continues, as if he could read her mind, "The point of life is to grow through this unjust world. You may accuse and resent me, but you are making your own choices at the end of the day. Free."

"I am choosing my own Hell," she barks bitterly.

Cael shakes his head. His eyes seem to glitter.

"You are leading yourself through Hell to reach Paradise." he corrects.

"And yet you try to stop me."

Something flashes in his gaze.

She recalls thinking Cael is akin to a porcelain doll. Perfect in and out. Never too much, never too less. Emotions locked away to never affect his mission.

But this is somehow wrong, isn't it ? If he doesn't care, then why did he come to her ? Why is he allowing her to live and love and lose and disrupt his plan and always keep watching gently over her ? Why are his eyes, those profound amethysts that never seem to start and never to end, flickering like the moon's reflection on raging waters ?

Perhaps she's as much a liar as he is. Because the man standing before her, never getting mad, ready to accept every inch of her wrath, is anything but indifferent.

"Fate is cruel," she whispers.

Cael smiles. It feels like praise. It feels a little bit like himself.

"This is why humans are the most magnificent beings to dare to defy it with their inextinguishable hearts."

She breathes in deeply. Cael's hand leaves her hair. His armor becomes one with the snow. He looks like a ghost, a fantastical creature from another realm. He takes a step backward, gaze holding hers, yet inexorably disappearing.

"You are a beautiful tragedy," he repeats, "I can only hope your genre changes before it is too late."

She watches him blend with the scenery. He is like rain, she thinks, whenever you believe to reach it it fades in your grasp. She wonders if she will ever understand Cael.

She is rightfully bitter at him.

Somehow, she finds she does not blame him.

✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧

"You are a beautiful tragedy," she whispers, holding Clarence's face in her hands with the gentleness of one carrying a unique treasure, "Who has unfolded all of its pages."

The Archmage blinks slowly, like a cat. Resting against the maple tree, he is barely awake. Even as she kneels, cradling his jaw, his sapphire eyes droop and fight against sleep. She is losing him. She can see the end of their journey coming near.

She refuses it. The stars may have repeatedly told her the truth, she prays until the end. She knows it will never come close to being enough. Thoughts don't change the world. Only actions can.

All they can do is travel the universe to the twilight of their story.

All they can do is bathe in each other's warmth and speak fragments of their beings. She longs for those memories to fill his dreams the day Clarence falls asleep forever.

With another slow blink, he raises his hand. Carefully, he picks a stray maple leaf from her hair. She almost cries at the gesture.

"Know," she continues, voice breaking, "That the stars are testimonies to your epilogue."

Clarence hums. He lets her speak her part. When silence stretches on, he breathes softly.

"I do not care for the stars," he says, putting the leaf on her knee, "I survived because of you. I fought for you. Truly, your gaze upon my story is enough. I do not need more."

And isn't it the worst thing in the world ? For the man she cares for in more ways than one, for whom she unknowingly traveled in time again and again and again and again for until she found him at last. The truth. The cold, soul-wrenching truth.

"You are a beautiful tragedy," she says, tears dripping down her chin, "And those never have happy endings."

His eyes are soft. Understanding. He isn't pleading for hope nor salvation, because he is aware he can never obtain neither. Her fingertips tremble. Her guts hold the guilt of sharing a piece of herself like never before, shaping one of the most precious bond of her existence, with the one she cannot save.

"I'm sorry," she chokes.

"I think," he starts, a small smile on his lips - so wise and so old and so lonely already - "It is time for the fairytale to go home."

And today, tragedy wears blue.

[yunyuyu]

'Threesome' j.wy, c.s x fem!reader

warnings: MINORS DNI! ab sucking(weird), bxb smut, smut, swearing, unprotected sex(BIG NO NO), switch!san, switch!wooyoung, switch!reader, threesome, riding, nipple play, masturbation

You groaned out loud. It was going on for about 10 minutes right now and you were sick and tired of it. Loud moans coming from your roommate's room had been keeping you wide awake after a long day. You finally had enough, so you put on a robe and headed to Wooyoung's room, bracing yourself to see one of his many girlfriends doing unholy things. You slammed the door open and the sight in front made your jaw drop. A tall, blonde man was ridden up against the wall and my oh my, sucking and marking his abs, kneeled on the floor was your dear roommate. You unintentionally let out a loud squeak. Both men visibly jumped. Wooyoung's jaw went slack for a moment but hid it with a devilish smirk. "Hello y/n, wanna join? Make Sannie's birthday a little more special? hm?" Wooyoung drawled. The other man, San, had been staring at you hungrily this whole time (let's just say Woo was used to seeing you in a see through lingerie). As your eyes swiveled to him, he quickly turned away, mumbling a inextinguishable 'sorry'. You suddenly found your voice. "No, look at me, you are going to have this tonight Sannie, right now." San gaped at you but not for long, Wooyoung started his sucking again and you, on the other hand, kneeled to San's waist level and started unbuttoning his slacks. San moaned out loud as you teased the tent in his boxers with your wet tongue. You pulled down his boxers and his cock slapped up on his lower abdomen, precum leaking out of his angry red tip. San's head fell back, feeling Wooyoung marking his abs and you deep throating his dick was just about enough to make him go insane. Wooyoung put his leg between your thighs to stop you from rubbing them together, causing you to let out a whine around San's length, making San cry out as his cock twitched in your mouth. You signaled to Wooyoung and both of you stopped what you were doing, San crumbled down, cursing out loud, since he was denied of his orgasm. "Kitty Boy, who do you want, bouncing on your cock? Me or her?" Wooyoung asked holding San up. "H-her" San mumbled. "hm. Good choice, y/n go on then" Wooyoung stepped aside. You pushed San gently onto the bed and removed your robe, revealing your bare chest and a cute lacey panty, barely hiding you. San didn't even bother to blink. Wooyoung had now pulled down his pants, playing with himself. You gently straddled San's lap, teasing him by rubbing yourself on him but not going down on him. His needy eyes never left your breasts. "Am I allowed to touch?" he asked in such a innocent voice, that you nearly cooed. "Of course Sannie" as you said that, it seemed something in him snapped and you watched his chocolate brown eyes turn dark with a lustful gaze entering his face. Your teasing faltered as he growled and grabbed your hips, placing them right over his cock and pushing you down on him. You and San groaned in unison, feeling your pussy walls hugging his length. Meanwhile Wooyoung, jerking himself with one hand, scooted over to San and started rubbing his hard nipples. San gave a loud moan, what with being sensitive from before and now you bouncing on his cock and Wooyoung rubbing his nipples, he finally lost it. He came inside your walls, yelling out a stream of curses and you came too, your whole body trembling. Wooyoung finished his jerking and came ropes of white onto San's side. It seemed like a miracle, all three of you hitting your highs together. You fell face first onto San's chest, hearing his heartbeat return to a normal speed. San smiled and stroked your hair, to your waist.

"I'll run the bath for you both" Wooyoung said at last, breaking the silence. San hummed while you were too exhausted to respond. Wooyoung left. You lifted your head to face San. "Hi'', he said gently. "H-hi", you mumbled stuffing your red face in his chest. San let out a breathy chuckle. "I am San, Choi San" he introduced himself, oblivious to the fact that you just had the best sex in your life with him. You giggled. "I am y/l/n y/n". you said. "y/n....pretty name" he mumbled, smiling as your cheeks turned red again. He was handsome and hot , no lying there.

Wooyoung suddenly appeared. "Hey I ran the ba-" and stopped short at the sight on his bed. Wooyoung's heart sang for San. San wasn't a person who was loved properly, having abusive parents and it was rare to see his face holding that gentle look it had while looking down at you. Wooyoung left quietly, leaving you both to let a new relationship, a beautiful one, bloom...

[ochoislas]

Pasaba el día la maga retirada cerniendo escritos de temida edad al relumbro del agua en la caverna, o bordando el fantástico trasunto de algún sublime cuento en su tejido, que el esplendor de su sonrisa tiñe de tal matiz que ofusca al cielo, y siempre con tal o cual donaire lo agraciaba.

Y mientras tanto ardían en su hoguera canela, sándalo y muy raras gomas. Mortal gente no alcanza a imaginar tal fuego: cada llama es una gema desleída en flagelos de luz móvil que puede atesorar quien la contemple. Mas al trasluz del bastidor la maga miraba apenas la asedada lumbre.

Nunca dormía la señora, en trance dentro del hontanar sueña de noche. Glaucos riscos su gracia reflejaban, y tras el verdemar de agua sin fondo contemplaba rondar los asterismos como luciérnagas… que sin embargo nunca turbaban su recogimiento: ojos de par en par, las palmas juntas.

Y cuando los ciclones y troneros bajaban de albas cimas de la sierra, traslumbraba al sereno de una llana donde entre grama de gamón florido, y bajo pinos y conmistos cedros, boqueaba inexhausto surgidero de fuego grana… lleno hasta su filo, y rebosando todo a la redonda.

Dentro del cual yacía si los cierzos encrespaban el flujo inofensivo en remedos de lunas y cometas sobre los bosques —el chiscar sentía la sierpe y se alejaba en su letargo—; y si caía a plomo nieve espesa, la miraba fundirse desde el fondo con nada más tocar el haz del fuego.

*

All day the wizard lady sate aloof, Spelling out scrolls of dread antiquity, Under the cavern's fountain-lighted roof; Or broidering the pictured poesy Of some high tale upon her growing woof, Which the sweet splendour of her smiles could dye In hues outshining heaven—and ever she Added some grace to the wrought poesy.

While on her hearth lay blazing many a piece Of sandal wood, rare gums, and cinnamon; Men scarcely know how beautiful fire is— Each flame of it is as a precious stone Dissolved in ever-moving light, and this Belongs to each and all who gaze upon. The Witch beheld it not, for in her hand She held a woof that dimmed the burning brand.

This lady never slept, but lay in trance All night within the fountain—as in sleep. Its emerald crags glowed in her beauty's glance; Through the green splendour of the water deep She saw the constellations reel and dance Like fire-flies—and withal did ever keep The tenour of her contemplations calm, With open eyes, closed feet, and folded palm.

And when the whirlwinds and the clouds descended From the white pinnacles of that cold hill, She passed at dewfall to a space extended, Where in a lawn of flowering asphodel Amid a wood of pines and cedars blended, There yawned an inextinguishable well Of crimson fire—full even to the brim, And overflowing all the margin trim.

Within the which she lay when the fierce war Of wintry winds shook that innocuous liquor In many a mimic moon and bearded star O'er woods and lawns;—the serpent heard it flicker In sleep, and dreaming still, he crept afar— And when the windless snow descended thicker Than autumn leaves, she watched it as it came Melt on the surface of the level flame.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

di-versión©ochoislas

[imp-ivm]

Innocent creature

Alucard, heir to the dreaded Dracula, lived in a castle that rose above the hills, a dark monument to power and fear. The castle, once owned by his father, was a shadowy fortress where every stone seemed to whisper the legends of terror that surrounded the name Dracula. His father had been the most terrifying being to ever walk the Earth, a creature feared and despised by all, whose only weakness had been his love for a human. From that union was born Alucard, a being caught between two worlds: neither fully vampire nor fully human, but endowed with a haunting, supernatural beauty very different from that of his dark progenitor.

Estela, a 17-year-old girl, did not fit in in the small town that looked down on her. Her dream was to become an astrologer, she was fascinated by the stars, wanting to understand the secrets of the buried past and the vast universe that stretched beyond the horizon. She was a woman with a restless and curious mind, something that isolated her even more in a society that saw her as an outsider.

One day, Estelle, driven by her thirst for knowledge, ventured to Alucard's castle, defying warnings and myths. She wanted to explore the ancient relics that legends said were kept there. But not only that, she also wanted to learn about the heavens, the stars that always seemed so out of reach. When she arrived at the castle gates, she didn't expect to meet a being like Alucard.

Their eyes met for the first time at the entrance of the castle, and in that instant, something changed for both of them. Estella's eyes were like the night sky in its purest form, with dark, deep hues that captured the mystery of the stars. They were like abysses that held secrets, and the darkness in them was mixed with bright flashes, like scattered constellations. They contrasted perfectly with Alucard's eyes, which burned with a deep yellow fire, a flame that seemed inextinguishable, intense, and trapped in his immortal being.

“What do you seek here, human?” Alucard asked, his voice carrying centuries of experience.

“Knowledge,” Estela replied, her gaze locked with his, unafraid. “I have heard stories of your castle, of its secrets. I want to learn of the past and the stars that rule the sky.”

Alucard flatly refused even though this little interaction between them will remind him of the story of how his parents met.

The young woman, without putting up any resistance, returned to her village, which was near the palace.

When the villagers saw her return alive from Dracula's castle, their looks of disdain became even more cruel towards the poor young girl who lived in misery.

The fact that she, a poor, illiterate girl, wanted to learn about astronomy only seemed to make matters worse. “How dare she?” they said. “She is stupid, useless. She does not deserve to know anything about books or stars.” The librarian, a stern and proud man, banned her from the village library. To him, Estela was nothing more than a hopeless fool, someone who could never understand the complex secrets that books held.

She was often pushed or hit by villagers as she passed through the market. Her already worn-out clothes seemed to attract more anger and ridicule. Some spat on her while others laughed at her impossible dream of learning, reminding her that she was an illiterate who would never be accepted in that world of knowledge she so longed to belong to. Yet, despite all the mistreatment, Estela never lost the spark of her curiosity or desire to learn.

She lived in a remote cabin, far from the center of the village, where she took refuge from the constant abuse. There, in the solitude of the night, she watched the stars from the small window of her home. She dreamed of deciphering the secrets of the universe and unearthing the mysteries of the past, despite everyone telling her it was impossible.

Alucard watched from a distance as Estella was tormented. He couldn't understand why a girl like her, illiterate and rejected by her people, still clung to this desire for knowledge.

But what he hadn't seen before was now becoming clear to him. Estela, with everything against her, continued to fight. She didn't have the words or the tools, but her mind was sharper than any book he had ever seen. Alucard, though he denied it, was beginning to feel a silent admiration for her, an admiration that was mixed with remorse for having thrown her out of his castle.

Night, once again, was falling over the village. The stars shone in the sky as silent witnesses to Estela's struggle. And Alucard, from the top of his castle, contemplated the fire that burned in the young girl's soul, a fire that he could no longer ignore.

to be continued...

[stocky2016]

"Boudica"

Taking her chance, she'd never been in doubt,

as bravely she reclined, but never ever backed out.

she'd never  succumb , nor show for a moment, she cowers

proud  of her own soul, yes; hers, but not ours.

Choosing her path, and never for a minute, wavering, 

boldly she strides, never once her step hesitating.

Unyielding in her mission, with no challenge too great,

bravely  being  true she always managed  her fate.

Hers was an implacable spirit, and not one to be broken, 

an unstoppable soul, she threatened the hordes with words unspoken.

Renewed in strength, unswerving in true grit, 

hers was an unstoppable mission, sure that her beliefs fit.

Unconcerned with opinions, unaffected by opposing views,

unashamedly  alive, irreverently true.

Radiantly dancing, and producing never a tear, 

she  was sensually  alive, in the very guise she appears...

Dancing  and romancing she exemplified true bliss, 

her latent sensuality you could neither ignore, nor dismiss, 

She  was in sync with her body and her uncrushable soul, 

her irrepressible presence though, appeared compassionately whole.

*********

Something about her illustrated bewitching charm,

a sensual call, vibrant yet always prepared to do harm,

Like a tsunami storm her very essence soared,

suppleness and passion intertwined, now totally restored.

Her incandescent presence set other senses ablaze,

a lush vivacity, with her beauty she'd amaze...

Her magnetic gaze, like a star-filled sky,

captivated all  with her bewitching eyes.

Her graceful movements, were like flames in the fire,

she passionately sang about them but from a voiceless choir

Every gesture, every touch of her silky smooth skin,

awakened in men, a deceptive yet dormant, passion.

Her intoxicating fragrance was a bewitching combination

wooden  notes, but floral, a bouquet of seduction.

It mingled with the air, enveloping all but in a fiery aura,

diffusing a burning desire of victorious euphoria.

Something in her mood would be  violently sensual,

alive, earthy, a force though that was actually consensual

An indomitable essence, an inextinguishable fire,

she offered without restraint, experience of sublimity dire.

© Geoff Stockton in close collaboration with his co-writing Muse and poetess

© Myriam Ghezaïl Ben Brahim

13th December 2023

(Graphics courtesy of Google Images

[santmat]

Light and Sound on The Path: Mystic Poetry of Baba Somanath, Sant Namdev, Soami Ji Maharaj, and Huzur Maharaj Rai Saligram -- Sant Mat Radhasoami

Master Blog Archive RSS Feed (for those wishing to subscribe and follow via RSS): 

https://SantMatRadhasoami.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Mystic Poetry (Bhajan, Hymn) of Baba Somanath: O beloved ones, repeat the Simran of Naam, Otherwise your life will be spoiled.

Naama sumirana karale pyaare

Nahi to hoya khuwaari (refrain)

O beloved ones, repeat the Simran of Naam,

Otherwise your life will be spoiled.

Kaama kalpanaa chora jaga se, hoya raho tuma nyaari

Cast out fantasies of desire from your heart;

Remain detached from this outer world.

Dhyaana guru kaa dhaara tu, jaise chandra chakoraa

Nirakhata raho nisadina, aatha hi praharaa

Hoi hai dyaala to kari hai nihaala

Pala me deya ubaari (1)

Contemplate on the Guru as the moonbird gazes at the moon;

Maintain your watch all the hours of the day and night.

When He becomes gracious, He showers His blessing on you,

And in an instant you attain salvation.

Dhru, Pralhaada, Vibhishana, aur Bhilani Shivari

Ganika Ajaamila jaise paapi naama anekana taari

Patita paavana naama nirmala

Tuma kyon chale bisaari (2)

Dhru, Prahlad, Vibhishana, 30 and Bhilni Shivari were saved.

His Naam liberated countless sinners like Ganika, the prostitute, and Ajamila, the sinner. 31 

The Immaculate Naam is the purifier of the fallen ones.

Why do you persist in your forgetfulness?

Nita nema kara prema se, svaasa svaasa ura dhaari

Chita dvai nainana madhye, sthira kara samhaari

Dhuna dhadhakaara hotaa jahaa

Ghantaa naada jhanakaari (3)

Constantly meditate with true love; with each and every breath, cherish the Naam in your heart.

Fix your attention between the two eyes; become firm and concentrate within.

Where the Dhun is resounding,

You will hear the peeling of Celestial Bells.

Dala sahasra kanvala ke paarachala, kaala kalaa saba haari

Sthula sukshama kaarana shariraa, mana na maayaa thahari

Sthaan trikuti brahma langa ke,

Manasarovara naahari (4)

When you travel to the regions beyond the Thousand-Petaled Lotus, the tricks of Kal are all conquered.

Rising above the physical, astral, and causal bodies, neither mind nor Maya remain.

Crossing over Trikuti, the region of Brahma, bathe in the waters of Mansarovar.

Hansa hoya sataloka sidhaare, satta purusha hi nihaare

Nita hota bina dhuna jahaa, satta hi satta pukaare

Bhaja Somanaatha naama niraamaya

Guru prataapa te huye nyaare (5)

The swan-bird of the soul departs for Sat Lok, where it beholds Sat Purush, the True Lord.

The music of the veena reverberates perpetually on the air.

In that Realm, the Truth of Truth calls forth.

Somanath says: “Repeat the Immaculate Naam.

Through the glory of the Guru, you will become free from this world.”

Hear It Being Sung by Baba Somanath: Audio: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/19h5GIfdiAx0tonC4-lzlma5gabOZSUoh

Mystic Verses of Sant Namdev from Three Sources

Namdev advises to accept divine instruction so that humanity may be contented and happy:

When I sing of God, then I behold Him;

Then I, His servant, obtain contentment.

Accept divine instruction, 0 man;

the true guru shall cause thee

to meet God.

Where the heavenly Light shineth,

There playeth spontaneous Music.

'God's Light is all-pervading'--

By the guru's favour I know that.

In the chamber of the heart are jewels

Which glitter there like lightning.

God is near, not distant,

And His Spirit completely filleth mine.

Where the inextinguishable sun of God's Word shineth,

There earthly lamps grow pale:

Through the guru's favour I have know this.

God's slave Nama hath been easily absorbed in Him.

-- Sant Namdev, Vani of Namdev quoted in, "Sant Namdev -- The Facts of His Religious Ideology", O.P. Ralhan, Anmol Publications, New Delhi

I Shall Never Forget the Lord Now

I shall never forget the Lord now,

I shall keep him clasped to my heart.

Were I to forget him, I should indeed lose all I have.

Every moment I offer my body and mind to the Lord,

Never for a moment do I let him go from my mind.

With every breath I drink the nectar of his remembrance --

This beggar thrives on the nectar of the Lord's Name.

Engrossed in his love, I keep repeating his sweet Name.

Were I to forget him, I would certainly come to grief.

Says Namdev, I shall never fix my hope on any but him.

I shall lay down my life to attain the wealth of his Name.

-- Sant Namdev, "Saint Namdev", translated by J.R. Puri, V.K. Sethi

It is your Music

I hear

0 Lord.

The rhythm of drums

jantar

and vina.

The supreme moment

has come.

I had chains around

my feet.

But now I have no fear

of this ocean of samsara [world of changes].

I looked within

and perfected devotion

says Namdev.

Govind [God] is right

here.

My heart dwells

at his feet.

Never will I give up

my love for him.

Let people laugh

all they wish.

Govind's [God's] name

will take you across

the ocean of samsara.

Why work yourself

to death

for the falsehood

of maya [illusion]?

A man will stake his life

for his money.

Should a bhakta [lover of the Beloved] not cherish

his love?

All that I want

is to please Ram [God]

says Namdev.

-- Sant Namdev,

"The Hindi Padavali",

Winand M. Callewaert translation

Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi

Beloved Radhasoami (Lord of All Souls) is Your Protector

Some selections of Radhaswami hymns found in the book, "Niyamawali," published in Agra, India:  

Guru is my Father and Mother. Who can describe His glory and eminence?

Beloved, merciful to the humble, Radhasoami, does good to my soul every moment. (Prem Bani Radhasoami, Huzur Maharaj)

0 Jiva [soul]! Why do you worry? Beloved Radhasoami is your protector. When you were born, He arranged milk for your feed and had your mother bring you up. He took care of you in every way and attracted you to His Holy Feet.

He provided you with all the pleasures of the senses and showed you the transitory nature of the world. He then drew you to Satsang and gave out to you the secrets and mysteries of the Nij Ghar (True Home). By His grace and mercy, go up and open the Tenth Door.

He improves your understanding by His discourses. He lets you examine the true nature of the mind, enabling you to give up your entanglements, delusions and adherences to past beliefs. He applies your Surat [Soul's Attention] to Shabd [inner Current of Sound and Light]. Ascend to higher regions and see beautiful scenes.

He makes the bell and the conch audible to you in Sahas-dal-kanwal [Thousand Petaled Lotus]. He shows you the splendor of Guru in Trikuti [Causal Plane, second inner Region]. See moonlight in the expanse of Sunn, and, reaching the perfect region beyond Bhanwargupha, perform Arti of Sat Guru.

Taking a telescope from Sat Purush, proceed to Alakh and Agam. Beyond lies the infinite Radhasoami Dham. Behold it and be enriched place your head at His Holy Feet. (Prem Bani Radhasoami, Huzur Maharaj)

Have patience. Do not be dejected. Fix your Attention on, and absorb yourself in the Holy Form of Guru. Always sing His praises. Make no excuses. This should be your aim, just as the Papiha (the sparrow hawk) patiently waits in expectation of the Swanti rain with a fixed aim.

Direct your Attention inward, do not allow it to flow out anywhere else. Put up with every thing inwardly. Accept nothing but internal joy. Have patience. Do not divulge acts of grace of Sat Guru to others. Live with Radhasoami like a fish in water. (Sar Bachan Radhasoami Poetry, Soami Ji Maharaj)

[mizumi-kahago-writing]

I know the algebraic expression of L-O-V-E [Kamunami/Hinanami & Yandere!Chiaki] - Chapter 4

Disclaimer: This is an AU in which the Chiaki AI got at least partially infected by the Junko Virus. This is what makes her become a Yandere and a bit out of character. This AU also entails Hajime and Izuru becoming more of a DID-System, instead of fusing into one person. The main difference, compared to the real illness, is that they can switch out consciousness at will. Also, major spoilers and canon divergence ahead. You have been warned.

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Chapter 4

Hajime didn’t come back to visit her on the same day. Instead, it took another 24 hours until he’d return to meet up again. That gave the AI more than enough time to process all her thoughts and newly input-information.

However, he wasn’t greeted with the usual cheerful ‘Welcome back’, instead the screen was dimly lit, and she faced away from the door.

“Hi, Chiaki. Is… everything alright?” Making sure of her wellbeing.

No response, just some quiet sobbing. Hajime never saw nor heard Chiaki cry before. At least not like that. “H-hey, it’s alright. I’m here. Tell me what happened.” Trying to comfort her to the best of his abilities.

She turned around, facing him. “It’s nothing. I hope you had fun with your friends.” She lied directly in his face. “Of course, I mean our friends, right? Since apparently, I’m their friend too after all, right?”

“S-sure…” Nervously twitching back.

“I want to meet them. Hajime, when can I see my classmates again? It’s always just you who visits me. That doesn’t seem fair. I want to see them again as well.” She demanded.

“I can arrange that. Like I could bring over Mikan or Soda next time. How does that sound?” Adverting his gaze nervously.

“No, Hajime. I want more. I want to be able to meet them in person.” Pretty direct and straight to the point.

“Huh? I’m afraid that’s not exactly possible, you know…” Gesturing up and down towards the machine she was trapped in.

“But Hajime, I have an idea!” She spouted eagerly. “An idea? Sure, let’s hear it.” Wanting to know what she had to say.

“Have you heard of androids?” Raising her finger, as she asked him that. “Yeah, they are like robots, right?”

“Hmm, precisely. They are robots almost inextinguishable from humans, from looks to behavior.” She explained to him.

“Hey, Chiaki. I think I might see where you’re getting at, but I don’t think that’s-“

Her pouting loudly interrupted him, as she seemed upset about what he wanted to say. “Look, Chiaki. I want you to be back, just the way you were… before all this, just as much as you, probably. But…” He couldn’t really find the words, biting his lip to interrupt himself this time around.

Recalling Izuru’s warning inside his head. He already let this go too far, for anyone’s liking.

Chiaki’s face went blank, robotic but creepy, nonetheless. “So, you don’t want me after all. I am too bland for your taste, is that it? Is that why you want to keep me imprisoned within the constraints of this machine?” Legitimately, her attitude was making him freak out internally.

“Turn it down a notch, will ya?” Shoving his hands in front of him, approaching to deescalate the situation. “Oh, I am sorry, Hajime. Did I scare you? That was just a little bug, probably.” Giving her signature smile to him instead, he let out a sigh of relief.

“If it was just a bug, then it’s fine” Right? He questioned himself. If that were to happen again, he had to call Izuru to skim through the code a second time. Just to be sure.

“But it is true…” Her sad tone soured the mood once more. “I want to be with you. Physically. I want to be next to you, hold your hand and hug you tight. At least one more time.” Hajime couldn’t deny how much he wanted that too. The last time, he managed to touch her was within the program and before that, it has been at least four years at this point.

This was bothering him, eating away on him as well. But was he allowed to falter, in a situation such as this?

“Kazuichi is the Ultimate Mechanic, right? It’d be easy for him to build me a body I could use. Then we could go on walks together, spend time together watching a movie, laugh and cuddle in bed.” Pursuing him, almost as if he had already agreed to all of that.

“I mean yeah. He could. I’m sure, but-“

Not letting him finish at all: “Image all the games we could play together. Outside of this limiting simulation. Please Hajime, just give it a thought.”

“Alright, alright, I’m already thinking about it.” Backing out of the conversation. “Please, listen to me for just a second. I want it too. I want Chiaki to be back too. I want her… or you to be real again. But… it’ll never be the same. No-one and nothing, could replace her truly. What happened, happened and I can’t turn back time. I can’t magically turn wrongs into rights.”

Taking a deep breath, as his shoulder sunk down, relaxing a bit more than before now that this was off his chest. “So, you really don’t want me to be her after all.” She concluded. “It’s not. It’s not that. It’s just, you’re all I have left of her. A memory, a trace, only a little fragment of what she was.” Turning his head away as grief overcame him. “Chiaki, I’m so sorry.”

As much as he was hurt, she was as well. “This is your final answer, I see. If I can’t be her, I guess there is no use of me staying around any longer. After all, I’m just an artificial replica of her and I can be deleted or rewritten any time.”

A moment of silence, she wasn’t wrong. “Good-bye then, Hajime.” Turning herself off moments later, it left the poor boy devastated. “Hey, no, Chiaki?! Hey, what’s up with you? Don’t you…?! Please come back!” Frantically pressing the power button of the machine to get her back on screen again, but to no avail.

“Ah Fuck! Great job Hajime! You screwed up.” Scolding himself.

“No, you did the right thing. Turning down her offer of entering the real world. It’s what Junko tried to do with your bodies after all, don’t forget that.” Izuru reminded him unkindly.

“I know, but she’s different, you know? It’s just Chiaki… not her…” Justifying it inside his mind.

With a sigh Izuru turned away and let him wail in his desperation for a little longer. Talking against someone in such an emotional state was futile, even for him. It’s not like he didn’t warn Hajime about something like that happening.

Leaving the empty room with heavy steps, Hajime had to get his mind off this thing. And unluckily for him, he decided to vent to none other than the Ultimate Lucky Student himself, who gladly gave him advice in exchange of coming along next time.

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« Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 »

[scorfascumpkin]

Uhhhhhh random creative writing from class today :

It's like a mind plague, the one selfish thing I wanted to cling to, so it can never truly go away. No matter how much I combat it, it lingers—a relentless infection that refuses to leave me. It makes me suffer but doesn't want me to die, like a parasitic relationship, a vile crime against the norm we live in. I sought the grace of death because I thought it was what I wanted, what I needed. These goddamn nightmares are inextinguishable. This hate, this pain, this rage—they burn. The bile it leaves in my throat sickens me, yet I must cage it within because unleashing it would transform the world into a twisted, toxic playground for the true horror that resides within us all: our humanity.

I disregarded my humanity because my home had become a battleground. I was dubbed a monster, so with no other choice, I listened and shed my flesh, donning a coat that cast shadows so dark the night gazed upon me with envy. I built a throne upon lies and malice, sitting there gracefully as I corrupted my own mind with the impure thoughts of the sins I would commit. I lusted for power; my gluttony amassed knowledge of every little detail. My pride led me on an unrelenting crusade. My envy poisoned my words towards those closest to me. My greed drove me to madness, pushing me to make any sacrifice necessary. My sloth neglected my basic needs, and finally, my wrath chained me to a warpath so grand that I shaped myself into the very monster I once sought to destroy.

My mirror did not show false images; my mind simply refused to accept reality

[strdstd]

[ @rescnatd ⸻ ★ ]

All was (more or less) quiet in Huaxu Academy. Majority of researchers had retired for the night... all except for one. The building shrouded in inky darkness, aside from the lights coming from the lab Mortefi occupied. Eyestrain, he knew, was a possibility. Even with the blue light blocking lenses he'd built into his glasses' frames. Yet, like always, the inextinguishable flames which fueled his research continued to burn.

Ember-like gaze did not move from its path along the screen. "You could say that," he muttered, finally putting the tablet down with a heavy sigh. Fingers pinched the bridge of his nose, gaze turning to Jiyan at last. "Hmph, don't know if I'm exactly the best company at such a late hour, but whatever suits you."

Might as well give his eyes a rest, anyway.

"Reviewing data gathered by some younger researchers. Should be simple enough, but... there were more issues than I previously thought. Much more." He couldn't blame them for any faults he found, though. They all clearly looked up to him, even with his... temper flaring every now and then.