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theladyismyshepard · 4 years ago

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Can I ask for a scenario where the daughters are given a maid(en) who was naughty and their punishment is to be the daughters’ toy for the day? What would each girl do? Or if it’s easier what would they do all together?

I really don’t know what this became...

How The Daughters Punish Their Toys

Bela (NSFW)

One day during dinner, you went to serve Bela her plate, holding your breath past the stench as you lowered to place the “food” before her

She was sitting with her back straight and as you came closer, she breathed in deeply, enjoying the aroma from the plate

Her chest heaved and you couldn’t help but to be absorbed completely at the sight, and you couldn’t look away until you realized you had knocked over her cup, sending its contents everywhere

You knew you were off to the dungeons when Bela stood wordlessly, beckoning you to follow

So why was she smirking as she led you to — wait her bedroom?

The worst part of being locked in the castle was the mind games that every Dimitrescu seemed interested in playing, but you couldn’t focus on the absurdity before you were pulled inside and your back slammed back against the door

“You think I didn’t see you?”

You ducked your head, blushing furiously at being caught staring, but instead of reprimanding you, the sudden silence was only broken by shuffling, and when you glanced up, you couldn’t look away

“Is this what had you making such a filthy mess?”

Her wicked smirk coupled with her now exposed breasts had your breath caught in your throat, so all you could do was nod vehemently as she perched herself on the edge of the bed.

“Inattentive, were you... Well, I’m going to leave you distracted all day. Kneel before me.”

And really, who were you to say no? You didn’t hesitate to drop to your knees before her spread legs, gazing into her eyes in a futile attempt to read what she had planned

“Well?” she had asked impatiently, brow arched. “I’m not going to get myself off.”

You could’ve found own your way down, thank you very much, but you supposed it wasn’t your place to argue when she grabbed you by the back of your neck and pulled you straight between her thighs

The warmth was all too inviting as you placed open mouthed kisses on where she needed you most, and the only reaction you received was the flexing of her thighs beneath your fingers

The way her bare chest heaved with each breath had warmth flooding your gut as well as sending a pulse to your own core that had you rubbing your own thighs together to alleviate some pressure

“If you come, too, I’ll kill you,” moaned Bela, her eyes closed as she enjoyed herself, her fingers now tangled in your hair

Suddenly you didn’t feel very aroused as you worked her just right with your tongue alone until she was coming with a moan down your chin, and you licked your lips as you leaned back until you were sitting

“I hope you know that you are far from done.” said Bela, her eyes completely predatory. “I have all night, and if you come once, I will kill you before you can finish.”

It would be a helluva way to go

Cassandra

You were caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, that’s all it was — a fellow maid had snapped and decided that it was better to die trying to flee rather than be forced to live a worthless life

She didn’t even give you time to register what was happening before the maid was bolting out of the main door, spilling light all over the floor in her wake... and that was how Cassandra had come across you, stammering and heart racing as you rushed to explain

Cassandra’s eyes were narrowed as she repeatedly glanced between you and the open door, and there was something alight in them that you couldn’t read, but she was quickly snatching you by the arm and dragging you down, down, down into the cellar

It only amplified your fright when the mangled carcasses scattered around served as a threat, to let you know exactly what was in store for you, but she didn’t allow you too much time to dwell and stare at the corpses as she pulled you deeper

Until you came to an abrupt stop before a dangling pair of stained shackles in the middle of a cage, and your feet paused out of pure self-preservation, preventing you from going any closer — not that that stopped Cassandra from yanking you inside, tearing your uniform from your body, and binding your wrists until only the tips of your toes grazed the floor

“You were just going to run away from me?” drawled Cassandra, her voice a mere whisper

“No! Never!” You exclaimed, begging for her to believe you, and you couldn’t discern the way she cocked her head to the side thoughtful... Cassandra liked to manipulate where she could

“I believe you,” nodded Cassandra, her eyes never leaving your body as she withdrew her sickle. “But I need to get a message across.”

Somehow you knew it wasn’t the proper time to speak, and it was a good thing you didn’t even waste your breath attempting because she was quick to punctuate her sentence with carving the tip along your collarbone, prompting a yelp from you

It was a shallow cut, just enough to slightly trickle, but Cassandra’s reaction to it had all of your nerves frayed — she leaned forward until her nose was pressed directly to your skin as she inhaled deeply, unabashed at the scarlet smear when she pulled back

“Today you are mine and mine alone, and that is the only thing keeping you alive... for the moment.”

Your body jerked out of natural reaction when you felt another, harsher sting between your ribs, just below your breast, and the sharp sting was eased by a flat tongue

“You taste divine and I don’t think I’ll ever get enough, even if I drained you dry...”

You felt your breath hitch in your chest at the sight of Cassandra bringing the tip of the sickle to her mouth so she could flick her tongue out to lick it clean, and she must have heard because her eyes snapped to yours once more

“How selfish of me... would you like a taste?”

You grit your teeth as her thumb swiped across the deeper cut hard, nearly digging into the wound, before bringing it up and forcing her finger into your mouth, dragging the pad of her thumb along your tastebuds

“Do you see how irresistible you are?” cooed Cassandra, bringing her hands upward until she was cupping your cheeks. “I could stay and slowly eat you all day... and in fact, I think I will.”

Daniela

You must say that Daniela was probably your favorite amongst the Dimitrescus, just because she was the most affectionate with you

Whether it be with a mere pat on the top of your head after you had served her, or with the wide, toothy smiles she would send your way when you crossed paths in the hallways — it almost made you feel special to have her attention so

Though sometimes her attention is a nuisance, like when her sharp eyes caught yours lingering on the Lady of all people, and you knew something was amiss in the smoldering blaze now in her gaze as Daniela frowned

It was smoothed away into a tight-lipped smile that was nowhere near reaching her eyes and she gracefully turned on her heel without so much as a word to you, and you felt as though you brought the hammer down on the final nail on your coffin

You slept with one eye open that night

And when it was time to attend to your duties of serving “tea” the next afternoon, it sent a chill down your spine when every one of the Dimitrescus had their eyes set on you — Daniela and the Lady were the only ones wearing a knowing smirk, and of what, you didn’t know

“My darling daughter had something very interesting to say about your wandering eyes.” said Lady Dimitrescu, and you were instantly sweating, and that had everyone chuckling

“I don’t even understand why you cared so much, Dani.” drawled Cassandra, rolling her eyes, and ignoring the wild glare Daniela bored into her with, but then the redhead quickly snapped her gaze to you and then her smirk reappeared

“You can be quite the dog, can’t you?” Daniela asked rhetorically, and something about the sentence prompting a full round of smirking from the family this time.

“Is that so, darling?” asked the Lady, feigning thoughtfulness, thoroughly playing her part. “Would you like to keep her as a pet?”

Daniela’s eyes were wild as she nodded her head vigorously, and your eyes zeroed in on Lady Dimitrescu as she began to shift to reach for somethi- A fucking collar?!

“That’s wonderful, mother!” exclaimed Daniela, clapping happily before reaching behind herself for something in her own seat. “It will go perfect with my leash.”

Before you could even widen your eyes, Daniela had already devolved into a swarm that was on you, and you could only slam your eyes shut in a flinch and then fingers were grazing the skin of your neck as she adjusted around your throat — your cheeks really flared when she connected the leash to it and tugged hard, causing you to double over

“You heard my mother, pet, you are mine.” spat Daniela, her eye twitching as she recounted your eyes on her mother. “And if I have to show you how much of a dog you can be, this will only be the first step.”

The grip and pull of the leash tightened until you took the hint to get down on your knees, and you knew that was what she was fishing for when she cackled loudly, throwing her head back before her glittery eyes turned back down to you

“Who’s a good girl?”

I... am?

#bela dimitrescu #cassandra dimitrescu #daniela dimitrescu #resident evil village #resident evil 8 #lady dimitrescu's daughters #lady alcina dimitrescu #lady dimitrescu’s daughters x reader

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love-and-monsters · 4 years ago

Text

In the Woods

M forest creature X F human, 5,671 words.

The world has ended and strange creatures now roam the Earth. You survived the end, but can you manage to make your way in this strange new land?

The trees above my head groaned and snapped. I froze, pressing my stomach to the ground. Something skittered through the branches, tiny claws scratching against the bark. It was probably a squirrel. It was almost definitely a squirrel. Regardless, I pressed myself close to the ground until it was gone.

When the forest was still and silent again, I pushed myself to my feet. My muscles were stiff and achy. I’d broken my back building my garden yesterday, and, regardless, I had to tromp through the woods in search of something to eat.

Despite my aches and pains, the hunger gnawing at my stomach, I was still one of the lucky ones. I was alive.

The Surge had happened nearly three months ago. Within two weeks, every major city had been leveled. The ground itself seemed to reach up, like the Earth was trying to slough off its outer skin. Plants had grown lighting quick, vines and roots overwhelming steel and stone within moments. Aftershocks had wracked the globe for another month, but when it was over, there was precious little of humanity left.

And then they had come. Strange creatures. Some of them looked human. Some of them did not. I avoided them. They were unnatural beings, things that grew plants from their bodies and were impervious to attack. I’d been with another group, for a while. The creatures shrugged off bullets and plants jumped to their command. I had been the only survivor.

I had no interest in fighting them anymore. The Earth was gone. I hadn’t seen another human in weeks. For all I knew, I was the only one left. I hoped not, but even if I wasn’t, I didn’t have much hope of ever finding another one.

I’d been lucky to find even a small patch of land to carve out a home in. I’d managed to scrounge up a tent and some blankets, located a few wild plants to start a garden, and even found some prepared food, though not a lot.

Hunting was my main way of sourcing food. I set several snares every night. Guns were difficult to find, bullets were worse, and even if you managed to locate both of them, they almost certainly didn’t go together. Knives didn’t run out of bullets and, providing the snares weren’t badly damaged, I could reuse them.

A rabbit already dangled from my belt. I was getting better at butchering them, and I was glad for its thick fur. Winter was on its way, and I could use all the warming items I could get.

Most of the traps were empty. I reset them one by one and headed to the snare closest to my camp. It was rare that there was anything in that one- maybe the animals knew I was there and didn’t trust the area.

Something crunched as I approached. I froze. The crunching continued. It didn’t seem to be getting closer or further away. There was a wet tearing noise and a sickening snap and my stomach rolled over. That wasn’t something moving through the undergrowth. That was the sound of something eating.

I crept slowly forward, shuffling my feet so I wouldn’t step on any twigs. I slipped behind a tree, breathing deeply. When I was sure I had myself under control, I peeped in the direction of the sound.

There was something hunched over the snare. The wet, snapping noises came from the corpse of a groundhog, which had been pulled open, its red, dripping flesh spread across the ground. The hunched figure was humanoid, roughly. Its limbs were long and spindly, with its fingers coming to dark brown points. Twisting, gnarled branches sprouted from its head, though they were small, probably so they wouldn’t impede its movement. It had long, deep green hair that fell loose down its back. It seemed to be wearing a long coat that flowed around it when it moved. The creature ripped chunks off the dead animal and bit down on them, messily tearing into them.

I gagged. I couldn’t help it. The creature’s messy smacking was disgusting. One of its pointed ears twitched and it spun around.

It was nearly seven feet tall, standing on thin, bony legs. It balanced on its toes, feet elongated like a four-legged animal. Red was smeared all down its front. Its face was human-esque, but its mouth had only sharp teeth and its eyes were flat green, no pupil or sclera. Its chest was the oddest part- it shouldn’t have been able to live. I could see its ribcage, but it seemed to be made out of gnarled wood. There was no skin stretched over its chest. Instead, there seemed to be a small bush in its ribcage, with tiny flowers sprouting out between the bones. It still lifted and fell with breathing, even though it didn’t seem to have any lungs.

Cold terror made me freeze. My knees were trembling. I brandished my knife, but I had no illusions. If this thing wanted to kill me, I would be dead. It could breathe without lungs. How would I even start to kill it?

We stared at each other. The creature cocked its head to one side. A long, slender tongue flicked out of its mouth, trailed around its lips. It seemed to be assessing me as much as I was assessing it.

We stood there for several long moments. I was almost afraid to breathe. Curiosity seemed to be the only thing keeping me alive.

Something snapped a few feet to my left. The creature’s head swiveled, ears twitching. It snarled, baring its red-stained teeth, then plunged off into the undergrowth. There was a crashing, snapping noise that got fainter as it moved away.

I let out a slow breath. Relief made me dizzy. It was gone. I had lived.

Mechanically, I cleared the trap, dragging the dead body away from it. I wasn’t eating it. Scavengers could have it. After some consideration, I reset it. If the creature came back, then I would consider moving it, but I wasn’t shifting it on a one-off. Maybe the creature was just passing through.

I headed back to my tent and butchered the rabbit. It was tasty, juicy. I tended my garden, making sure that everything was properly arranged before I headed to bed.

I didn’t sleep well that night. There was something howling in the woods, a constant screaming that sounded like a cross between a wildcat and a human.

Over the next few days, I became more and more convinced that seeing the creature hadn’t been a one-off. I didn’t see it hunched over, crunching on any more raw animals, but I saw signs of it. Traps that had clearly been tampered with, that had scraps of fur and blood on them, but hadn’t been reset. Trails of disturbed dirt around my camp. Claw marks on the trees, roughly around the creature’s height.

I didn’t like the fact that one of those things had set up camp near me and was stealing my food, but I wasn’t sure there was anything I could do. I hadn’t seen it again, and I was fairly sure I couldn’t drive it off. The only thing I could do was hope I kept avoiding it.

The howling at night hadn’t stopped. It seemed to be getting closer. The sound seeped into my dreams.

It was a chilly morning when I stepped outside to find a dead deer sprawling in the middle of my camp.

I froze. The doe had been killed by something with claws and teeth, its throat torn open and stomach slashed in ragged edges. But it hadn’t been savaged or eaten like it should have been. And it hadn’t been killed here. My camp wasn’t disturbed and I hadn’t heard the sounds of a struggle in the night. Something had killed the deer, dragged it to my camp, and left it for me.

There was a tingling sensation on the back of my neck, like something was watching me. I looked around. Nothing.

Was the deer a threat? ‘If you stay here, this will happen to you.’ I couldn’t move. I’d set up a life here. Moving would mean abandoning most of my belongings and starting over. With winter bearing down on me, it would be a death sentence.

I dragged the deer a short distance away. If this thing wanted to drive me out, it was going to have to do it the hard way. I wouldn’t be taking its threats.

My traps were undisturbed for the first time in a while. There was a chubby groundhog in one of them, which was nice. I attached it to my waist and returned to camp.

It seemed undisturbed. That was reassuring. I tried to fortify the camp a little more, setting up a makeshift fence. I was pretty sure it wasn’t going to stop anything, but it made me feel a little safer.

There was a pile of small animals in my camp when I woke up the next morning. They’d all had their necks neatly snapped and were arranged together neatly. Something intelligent had placed them there.

I buried them outside of camp. The tingling feeling of being watched was worse than ever.

The noises at night were getting closer. I could barely sleep. They were close by, just outside of camp. I kept thinking of that thing I’d seen in the woods, the human frame with those green eyes and strange, open chest.

Animals kept appearing in my camp. They varied in size and killing style- some of them had their necks snapped, some were messily eviscerated, some had simple, clean killing cuts. I dragged them out of camp each time. The amount of corpses was starting to disturb me. They were going to attract scavengers to my camp.

Several days after the corpses had started appearing, I emerged from my tent to see the creature hunched in the clearing. It was crouching over the dead body of a stag. There were no visible wounds on it. It could have been sleeping, except for the unnatural angle of its neck.

The creature froze, staring up at me. Its blank, green eyes betrayed no emotion. My heart thundered in my chest. I didn’t even have my knife on me- it was still in the tent. I’d gotten careless. If this thing killed me, it was totally my own fault.

The creature looked back down at the stag, then, slowly, deliberately, it pushed the carcass toward me. It looked up at me, back down at the stag, then up at me again. Its lips parted over its many sharp teeth.

“Good?” Its voice wasn’t what I was expecting. I thought, if such a thing could speak, it would have a rasping, unnatural quality to it. There was a strange tone to it, an echo that made it sound like two people were speaking at once. The dominant voice, though, was a baritone and surprisingly soothing.

“You can talk?” I said. The creature blinked at me. It took a moment to parse my words, then it rose to its full height. At nearly seven feet tall, it towered over me.

“Is this acceptable?” One of its hands spread, gesturing down to the carcass at its feet. I gaped at it, uncertain what it meant. It waited, still as a statue.

I licked my lips. There was an odd sense in the air, like I was partaking in some kind of ceremony I didn’t understand. But the creature was clearly offering the stag to me, and it felt improper to reject the gift. I took a deep, steadying breath.

“Yes. It’s… acceptable.” There was a faint quaver in my voice. “Thank you.”

The creature bent into a deep bow. Without another word, it turned and walked back into the forest.

I stared after it until it had completely vanished from view, then sank to the ground. My hands were shaking as I examined the carcass. I tried to review everything that I knew. The creature was the one that had been bringing me dead animals. Accepting the gift had some kind of significance, I was sure, but I didn’t know what it was. Stories of fairy deals and people being spirited away marched through my head. I shook them off. Whatever the creature wanted, it didn’t seem to want to drag me off anywhere.

I spent the rest of the day in my camp, carefully butchering the carcass. Maybe it was a bad idea to accept the gift, but I had to admit that it was a lot of meat. Properly dried, it could last a while, maybe over the whole winter.

It was silent that night. I finally managed to get a peaceful night’s sleep.

The creature was still gone when I emerged in the morning. And yet, the tingling feeling of being watched was worse than ever. Every nearby rustle or snap of a twig made me jump. Sometimes, I thought I saw something shifting between the trees, but it vanished whenever I tried to get a look at it. I couldn’t bring myself to leave camp again.

There was no avoiding going out the next day, though. The traps needed to be checked, and I needed to forage. It only took me a few minutes to realize I was being followed.

I couldn’t see what was following me, but I could hear it padding through the undergrowth behind me. I was pretty sure I knew what it was. The creature seemed to be content to follow me from a distance, so I tried to be content just ignoring it. I managed to catch one or two glimpses of it as it slunk through the foliage, but it was pretty good at staying out of sight.

It was as I was checking the trap furthest from my camp that I heard it. The heavy, crushing footfalls of a behemoth.

Behemoth was the general, catch-all term for the oversized monsters that roamed the lands now. They were enormous, unstoppable, and virtually unkillable. I’d seen one get hit with a missile and keep moving. When I’d been with other humans, a behemoth in the area prompted a mass exodus. You didn’t engage. You just ran.

I turned, slowly, and saw it moving through the trees. It looked like some horrifying combination between a bear and a moose. Larger than either, it had a great, sloping body patched in moss. Enormous antlers sprouted from its head, with points like spears, and its muzzle was large and full of jutting teeth.

Its head was low enough that I could see its enormous eyes rolling around to focus on me.

A growl vibrated from its chest, loud enough to set my bones trembling. I scrambled back, but fear was making my limbs numb and clumsy. There wasn’t a point in running, not really. It could catch me easily. And this one was enormous and heavy, ready to bulk up for winter. There was no way it was going to pass up such an easy meal.

I couldn’t turn to run. I couldn’t take my eyes off the enormous, saliva covered teeth as the behemoth opened its mouth. It could snap me in two with a single bite. A solid certainty formed itself in the pit of my stomach. I was going to die here.

There was an echoing, enraged shriek from behind me. I whirled around just in time to see a pale, slender form bolt out of the undergrowth and lungs at the behemoth.

The creature, the one that had been following me, had sprung to an impressive height and attached itself to the behemoth’s face. The behemoth staggered backward, swinging its great head back and forth. Its scream was great and keening, loud enough to make me clap my hands over my ears. The creature seemed undeterred. It raised a clawed hand and plunged it down, gouging a create cavern in the behemoth’s eyes.

Blood sprayed down from the behemoth’s face. I gaped. It was bleeding. I’d never seen one injured. I didn’t know they had blood. But the creature was tearing into it as easily as it would tear into any other animal.

With another grating scream, the behemoth turned away. Apparently, I was no longer worth the effort. The creature dropped from its face and screeched after it, claws digging furrows into the ground.

The thundering footsteps of the retreating behemoth sounded for several minutes in the otherwise silent forest. The creature stared after it, stiff and focused as a hunting cat. When the behemoth’s footsteps had finally faded into silence, it whipped its head back toward me.

Blood trailed down its front. It was dark, almost oily, and an odd sort of rust color. I froze. Had it chased off the behemoth because it wanted to eat me itself? But then why hadn’t it just killed me before?

The creature approached me so its face was only an inch from mine. Its solid green eyes bored into mine. Then it reached out and took my shoulders in its hands, fingertips trailing along my skin.

“Safe,” it said in a tone that could almost be described as soothing. “Unhurt?”

I gaped at it. The creature tilted its head further to one side. “Unhurt?” it repeated. It was asking me, I realized.

“Yes,” I said. “I’m… I’m okay.” I hesitated for a moment. “Thank you.”

Its strange chest rose as it took in another breath. Then it leaned forward, nestling its face into my neck. Its arms came around me in something like a hug. It made a long, quiet noise of satisfaction before pulling back.

It- he- had saved me. I swallowed and slowly climbed to my feet. He watched me, unmoving. After a moment of hesitation, I unhooked a rabbit from my belt and handed it to him. It seemed right.

He took it from me with surprising delicacy. His head lowered and his jaws snapped shut around a chunk of flesh, tearing it from the bone. I grimaced at the wet snapping and tearing.

He followed me as I continued on to the rest of my traps. This time, he didn’t even bother to hide himself. He walked just behind me or at my side, munching on chunks of rabbit. I kept glancing back at him. He blinked back at me.

I’d sort of expected him to break away when we made it back to camp, but he strolled into the clearing like he belonged there. I watched him as he padded around the edges of the camp, sniffing at things. I couldn’t very well drive him off- if he could injure a behemoth, there was no way I was going to beat him in a fight. And his presence was certainly less unsettling than it had been a few days ago. But I didn’t know what he was doing here. What did he want?

When I headed inside my tent for the night, he made to follow me. I froze in the entrance, staring back at him. Fighting him was still out of the question, but I did not want him in my tent with me. There was a long, tense pause, then the creature backed away and slunk to roughly the center of the camp. He curled up into a tight ball, apparently trying to sleep.

I retreated into the tent and wrapped blankets around me. There was something strangely forlorn about him curling up in the middle of camp, alone. He looked… small. Harmless. The unsettling feeling twisted in my stomach until I fell asleep.

He was still in camp when I woke up, ripping chunks off a fat squirrel. He made a soft humming noise as I walked toward him.

“You’re still here, huh,” I said. Talking to him felt weird. I knew he could talk back, but it still felt odd to try and have a conversation with him. He looked back at me steadily. He looked neither confused, nor comprehending. “I don’t know what you want.”

If he could understand me, he didn’t seem to want to answer. He just ripped another chunk off the squirrel and chewed it, still looking at me.

When he was done eating, he stalked around the camp, examining the border. Often, he would reach up and run his claws down the length of a tree, leaving long scores in the bark. I watched him as he completed a circuit, then started fussing at the small barrier I’d created. He seemed to be trying to build it up.

And so it went for several days. The creature stayed in the camp with me, building up a small barrier around the edge of the camp. Whenever I went out to check traps, he would follow me. Occasionally, he would hunt, dragging carcasses back to camp. He always allowed me to take some of whatever he brought. Eventually, I found myself offering a section of my hunts to him. It only seemed fair. A tense sort of partnership had formed between us. As odd as it was, I had gotten used to him. I was enjoying having some company. When I woke in the morning and he wasn’t present, I found a stab of loneliness sinking in between my ribs.

He meandered back into camp near midday, hands cupped around something. I glanced up at him. “Hey,” I said. “What have you got there?”

He opened his hands. There were clumps of bright red berries in his hands. He held them out to me, head tilted, waiting.

“Uh.” I didn’t recognize the berries and, with no leaves or branches to help identify them, I wasn’t going to eat them. “Sorry. I don’t think I can eat those. You can have them.” He blinked at me and extended his hands again. “Uh, no. I can’t have those.” I reached out and carefully curled his fingers over them. His hands were surprisingly warm. I was rather expecting them to be cold and corpse-like. Something twisted in my chest, a wave of loneliness that I couldn’t quite choke back. I was so unused to having someone with me. I’d managed to bury the feelings of loneliness, but they were starting to come bubbling back up.

He stared at me for a moment, then walked toward the edge of the camp, munching on the berries. I went back to the tending the fire. It was starting to frost overnight and the fire was becoming more and more necessary. If I wasn’t huddled close to it, I was walking around to keep my body temperature up. Despite not wearing much more than a cloak and pants, the creature seemed unbothered. He slouched next to the fire, staring into it. I could see the fire reflected in his eyes, a burning emerald flame.

As soon as the sun started to lower, the cold really set in. The sun and the fire were the only bits of warmth in the bitingly cold air and without one of them, the chill came on swiftly and remorselessly. There was no going back to the tent. I huddled next to the fire, shivering. The flame kept guttering in the wind. Leaving the fire to grab extra bits of wood was painful, my fingers stiffening in the cold and my skin almost burning in the wind. I huddled in on myself, wrapping fur over my body. It was still early winter and I was already half-mad from the cold. How was I going to survive the really bad months?

Something nudged my leg. I looked over. The creature was crouched next to me, half his face illuminated by the firelight. The sharp planes of his face made harsh shadows dance over his features.

“Need something?” I said. The creature pressed close to me. He was warm against me, driving the shivers out of me.

Slowly, like he was trying to give me a chance to stop him, he wrapped his cloak around my shoulders. He pressed me in close to his side. Warmth radiated over me, like there was a miniature sun beaming out from his chest.

I leaned into him. If I closed my eyes, I could pretend that there was a human there with me. His hand pressed gently to my back, and where his fingers lay, warmth radiated through my skin. I wrapped my arms around his waist and pulled him closer. My shivering abated somewhat.

Once I was feeling better, I looked up at him. He was blinking down at me, his green eyes difficult to read, but still utterly focused on me.

“Why are you doing this?” Speaking was a little difficult. Breathing in seemed to freeze my lungs. But being close to his warmth helped, and the curiosity was eating at me. He looked down at me. I wasn’t really expecting an answer, but his mouth opened and his voice issued softly forth.

“Protect you.” His voice was whispery, still with that strange double-tone.

“Protect me,” I repeated. He lowered his head until his chin was resting on top of my head. I could smell him, I realized. It was sort of pine-like, with a smell under that, like sawdust.

“Pack protects pack,” he said. His chest shifted as he drew in a deep breath. “We are pack now.”

“We’re… a pack?” I tried to make sense of his words.

He drew back a little bit so he could look down into my face. “You accepted my offering,” he said. “We have exchanged prey. We are bound now- a pack.”

Things fell together in my mind rather quickly. The marking of trees, the prey dragged into the camp, the way he had lunged to my rescue- he was trying to impress me. He was courting me. And in giving him the rabbit, I had accepted.

I leaned into his chest. It shifted, and his arms came tighter around me. For the first time in a long time, I had a companion. An image of him leaping out to protect me filtered into my mind. A small smile tugged at me mouth.

“Okay. We’re a pack,” I said. And just like that, it was no longer me against the world. It was the two of us.

Underneath me, somewhere in that strange, hollow chest, a rumbling purr started.

I spent most nights with him after that. He was incredibly warm and when I wrapped a blanket around the both of us, it was impossible to be cold.

The first snows came and I carefully kept the camp free of as much snow as I could manage. He focused more on creating a stronger barrier around the camp, fussing with brambles and branches. There was much less prey in the traps now, and I’d taken to ice fishing with little luck. He was much more skilled at catching animals than I was now, and every few days he would bring back some small morsel to the camp. I was always fed first, and he would only eat after I was done. I found myself wondering exactly why I’d been so afraid of him in the first place- after watching him catch snowflakes on his tongue and chatter insistently whenever I didn’t finish a meal, it was hard to see anything frightening in him.

Whenever I decided to check my traps, he came with me. It was reassuring, to have him there. If he could drive off a behemoth, I was fairly certain there wasn’t much that could bother him.

It was when we were checking the traps on the edge of our territory (I assumed it was the edge- he marked the trees there and didn’t like going beyond that boundary), that he stiffened. His pointed ears twitched. A low growl started in his chest and he bared his teeth.

I went still too, straining to listen. There was a faint rustling, like something was moving through the undergrowth. That wasn’t unusual, though, not enough to make him react like that. I drew closer to him and he shifted, like he was trying to cover me with his body.

“What is it?” I whispered. He pulled his lips back from his teeth, the growl coming deeper and stronger.

Something snapped nearby, the sound echoing through the stillness like a gunshot. Our heads whipped toward the noise in unison. He gave a resounding, challenging cry.

Slowly, something emerged from the bushes. It was like him, I realized. The same species, or whatever. They both had long hair, open, wooden chests that had flowers twining out of them. The newer creature didn’t have the small, branch-like antlers, though, and something about its posture or its shape made me think it was female. Regardless, she stood taller than him and her claws seemed longer.

He made a snarling noise that I interpreted as a warning. The other creature’s head turned as she looked between me and him. An expression like confusion crossed her face and she made a questioning noise.

He snarled out another warning, a thin strand of saliva dribbling from his bared teeth. The other creature considered him for a moment, then crouched down, teeth bared. The hairs on the back of my neck lifted. I recognized a hunting crouch when I saw one.

She lunged. He knocked me aside and took the brunt of her attack, rolling backward into the snow. I expected shrieking and snarling, but they were oddly silent as they rolled in the snow. All their energy was focused on defeating the other.

He was trapped beneath her, teeth snapping everywhere he could reach. She was struggling to keep a hold on him, but it was clear she was in a better position. Her claws dug into his side and her teeth snapped dangerously close to his throat.

I needed to do something. But what could I do? These things were practically indestructible, at least to humans. But I needed to help him. Her teeth snapped close to his throat again and he made a strangled whining sound.

Fuck it. I grabbed a stick from the ground and lunged. If she killed him, she was going to kill me anyway. Might as well die trying to protect him.

I jammed the splintered end of the stick down into her face. It just barely missed her eyes, scoring a long, bleeding line down her cheekbone. She shrieked, startled, and turned to see her attacker.

It was the opening he needed. He drove into her, knocking her off him and into the ground beneath them. Before she could focus back on him, he swung down, claws plunging them deep into her shoulder. Blood sprayed into the white snow. With a final, agonized shriek, the other creature squirmed away and bolted back into the forest. He didn’t bother to pursue her. He just stood and watched as she vanished into the trees.

As soon as she was gone, he turned toward me. “Okay?” he asked, looking me up and down. “Safe?”

“Yeah, I’m all right. You?” He appeared uninjured, for the most part. There were a few small scratches and he was moving like he was in some pain, but he didn’t seem badly hurt.

“Bleeding,” he said, pointing a claw at me. I looked down. There was a long cut running down the length of my right forearm. It must have happened when she rounded on me. I hadn’t even been able to feel it. Now that I was aware of it, I could feel the stinging pain.

“Ow,” I said, probing at it lightly. It wasn’t particularly deep, but it wasn’t shallow, either. He moved closer to me and crouched, taking my arm delicately in his hands. His long, sinuous tongue slid out of his mouth and ran once along the cut. The pain grew dull, more of an unpleasant tingling than anything, and the blood dripped sluggishly.

“Home,” he said, tugging on my arm. He stayed close to me as we headed back to camp. We leaned on each other. I appreciated the comfort.

When we returned to camp, I dragged out my medical kit. He helped dress the wound, giving it a few more licks. I was a little leery about allowing him to clean it like that, but he seemed to know what he was doing. I figured it couldn’t hurt that much. Once it was fully wrapped, I lay down next to the fire. He lay down with me, arm draped over my body.

“Who was that, the one that attacked us?” I asked. Warm breath huffed against the back of my neck.

“Wanted a pack. Tracked my scent,” he said. “Was not happy that I already had a pack.”

“She recognized that we were… uh. A pack?” I said. There was an odd, fluttery sensation in my stomach.

“I claimed you,” he said. “My scent surrounds you. As your scent is around me.” He nuzzled closer to me. “We fought her off. She will not return. She knows she is beaten.”

“You did most of the work,” I said. He laughed.

“Would not have won without you.” He pressed his head into the back of my neck. “My mate.”

I looked up at him. “Mate?”

He nodded slowly. His eyelids were starting to droop. “The first two members of a pack are mates,” he said. “We will grow our pack over time. But not now.” He leaned into me, eyes closing. “Now we will wait.”

I reached up and stroked my fingers through his hair. He made a soft purring noise and leaned into me more. The world was different now, I thought. It was a place with new creatures, new ways to live, and you needed to be new in order to survive in it.

It was new, but perhaps it was good. With a yawn, I settled in against my mate for a nap.

#exophilia #forest monster #forest screature #forest deity #monster boyfriend #monster lover #monster mate #OCxOC #MxF

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swan--writes · 4 years ago

Text

Beetlejuice’s Big Halloween Party

I thought about writing a Dewey Halloween, but let’s be real, there ain’t room for the both of these boys in this here holiday.

And listen, it is 2:30 AM and I just finished writing this. I wrote it all in one go. I’m not editing it. Please reblog though! Happy Halloween and Blessed Samhain!

Warnings: elements of horror, blood mention, eyeball mention

Words: 3,070

You screamed.

“Beetlejuice!”

Your demon laughed at you from the rafters of your barn. Ever since you had moved out to your farmhouse, Beetlejuice had been hanging around. Sometimes literally. Normally you found you didn’t mind the demon’s antics – he kept things lively when there wasn’t much going on out where you lived. Sometimes he donned an old sheet and floated around the house. Sometimes he went out into your backyard and howled at the tree line. And sometimes he dropped live bats from the rafters of the barn, directly onto your unsuspecting head.

Frantically, you waved away the little menace. All you could see were glimpses of a wrinkled snout and long teeth. It seemed to be flapping its wings as fast as you were flapping your hands, and by the time it managed to fly off, Beetlejuice was hanging upside-down in midair and cackling.

“Wow, what a jumpy breather,” he said, wiping a thick black tear from his eye. You thought you heard it sizzle as it fell to the worn wooden floor.

“Knock it off, Beej.”

“Yeah, sure I will.”

“Seriously!” You shook your head, fighting off a shiver. “There’s gonna be screaming hordes of children here in, like, an hour. I cannot still be cleaning up your messes when they get here. So, lose the bats and the bugs and the…whatever else you’ve got.” You narrowed your eyes at his tattered suit jacket.

“Relax, babes, I got it all under control.”

Without thinking, you took a step back as he righted himself in the air. “I don’t like the way you said that.”

“Hey, take the help or don’t. I’ll be here all night.” With that, he zoomed up to the rafters, dropping beetle carcasses in his wake. You shrieked and leaped back. “Beetlejuice!” you complained, only to hear his laughter.

It had been less than a year since you moved into your creepy old farmhouse. You still weren’t entirely sure if the creepy old dead guy had come with the property, or if he had followed you there. But when you found his name traced over and over again in the dust of every reflective surface in the house on the first night, you had almost left.

In the end, it was one of the movers who had summoned him. You had had two burly men helping you move your things inside. One of them had remarked on the odd name, Betelgeuse. The other had just happened to be an amateur astronomer. Before any of you knew what was happening, lightening was striking, thunder was rolling, wind was blowing, and the two big, strong movers were scrambling back to their truck. Thoughtfully, they did hurl the last of your furniture from the vehicle as they peeled out of your shaded, and winding driveway. Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse…

“Okay, Beetlejuice, fine! Yes! I do need help.” You grumbled the last to yourself, trying and failing once more to move a heavy wooden table. It had been half an hour since the bat incident, and almost all of it had been spent on this table.

“Well, I don’t know…”

“Beetlejuice.”

“I’m getting kinda tired, y’know…”

“Beetlejuice!”

“A’right, a’right, fine! Taskmaster, jeez.” The demon floated down from the rafters, snapped his fingers, and the table you had been struggling with walked itself over to where you had been trying to move it – against the wall, centered under a window.

The barn was a decent size. Average by northeastern standards, but tall as hell. Or, the Netherworld, you supposed. The structure of the thing was entirely wood, worn down and lightened with time. The posts were a richer color than the floor, which was covered in scratches and the occasional hay straw. There were windows all around, installed sometime within the last half-century, and the sun shone in brilliantly when it was up.

Now it was dark, even at 5:00 PM. As you watched, the decorations you had strewn haphazardly across the space leapt to attention. Miniature pumpkin lights snaked their way around the rafters and posts, along with actual snakes. A layer of fog coated the floor so thickly you could no longer see your own feet. What looked to be a hundred flaming tealights sprung up from every table – some with black flames, others green. The overhead iron-wrapped pendant lights dimmed and aged noticeably, some flakes of rust falling to the floor and becoming lost in the low gloom.

The jack-o’-lanterns you and Beetlejuice had carved the day before lit up abruptly. Paper bats and bloody eyeballs on strings dropped down to hang from the rafters. A soft, eerie music began floating through the room, and when you looked up you saw a greenish gray skeleton manning the DJ setup on a slightly raised section of the floor. It gave you and Beetlejuice a thumbs-up, its other decayed hand on a headphone positioned just a few degrees south of where its ear might have been.

“Thank you, I think--whoa!” Before you could finish thanking your demon, you heard a loud BANG. All the window shutters slammed shut.

“No problem, babes, but what are you gonna do for me?” Beetlejuice waggled his eyebrows at you.

You rolled your eyes. “Politely ask you to open the shutters back up, please? It’s a full moon, we should be able to see it.”

Beetlejuice bent backwards unnaturally far and groaned. “Fine.” A flick of his wrist and the shutters swung open meekly. A few thick, black tentacles with a faint green sheen slithered in at the corners of each window, not breaking the glass but rather bending it open around themselves. The demon dusted off his hands and fixed his tie. “Happy?”

“Very.”

“How’d you get roped into doing this, anyway? I thought you hated kids.”

“I don’t hate them, I just don’t like them. One of the community theater guys asked me to.” You started for the barn door. Beetlejuice followed you, the tips of his shoes dragging the fog.

“Why?” He wrinkled his nose.

“Because the new, mysterious stage manager has a big, scary house in the middle of nowhere that no-one’s ever seen, that’s why.”

“Huh. Is he gonna be here too?” You didn’t have to look at Beetlejuice to know he was grinning.

Before you could warn him not to do anything dangerous, you opened the barn door to find your first chaperone. You weren’t sure if it was a state rule that a gathering of kids under a certain age needed adult chaperones, but knowing Beetlejuice, you were happy to have the help. This one was a theater mom. You barely knew her, but she said she would bring cupcakes, so you had shrugged and given her your address.

“Stephanie, hi,” you said, only mildly startled to see her so early.

“H--oh. Uh, hi,” she replied, now openly staring at Beetlejuice.

“Hi.” Still grinning.

“Um, who is this?” she asked, barely containing her horror.

“I’m–”

“Oh, this is, uh–”

“I’m her, uh–”

“Lawrence!” you said rigidly. “Lawrence…Beetleman.” You pulled at the demon’s arm and he dropped to his feet, stumbling to your side. You knew you should have rehearsed this.

Beetlejuice held out his left hand stiffly. “Nice to meet ya.” You elbowed him as surreptitiously as you could, and he dropped the hand, holding out his right instead.

Stephanie cautiously met his hand, then dropped it immediately. “Oh, I uh…you too, Mr. Beetleman?” Beetlejuice flinched and gagged noticeably.

There was a long silence.

“So…” you tried.

“Right! Yes, I, um…well, I came to help you decorate, but it seems like you have it all taken care of?” Stephanie glanced around you, coming away looking somehow even more horrified.

“Oh yeah, we got it covered, Stevie.” You tried to elbow Beetlejuice again, but he dodged. Moving forward, he took Stephanie’s arm at the elbow and led her into the barn. “Here, lemme show you where to put those cupcakes.” He nodded to the box she was carrying.

“Oh, okay. It’s Stephanie, by the way,” she said nervously.

“Sure.”

“Beetleman,” you cautioned haltingly, frowning at him.

“Don’t worry about it, babes. Don’t you gotta go put on your costume?”

You opened your mouth to argue, but Stephanie spoke first. “It’s fine, I’ll just, um…”

“Yeah, she’ll just um. Go on,” Beetlejuice cajoled. Tightlipped and wide-eyed, you turned and stalked out of the barn, leaving the door open behind you just in case.

Surprising yourself, you managed to get into your costume in under thirty seconds. The makeup, on the other hand, was more of a challenge. There was something about the creaky sounds of wood settling and the draft through the second floor of your house that was making it more difficult than usual to keep your hands steady. But then, you had never been much of an artist.

So, you headed back to the barn in your broken shoes and your torn clothes, perfecting your shamble as you went. The door was still open. Stephanie had her back to you and seemed to be sizing up the tentacles on the far window, but Beetlejuice caught your movement as you tentatively stuck your head into the barn. You motioned for him to come towards you. He followed your lead.

Once you were both just outside the barn door, you turned fully to face him. “Hey,” you whispered.

“What’s up, babes?”

“I’m having a little trouble with my prosthetics. Could you do anything to make me look a little more…” You searched for the right word. “…horrifying?” Seeing Beetlejuice’s eyes light up, you held out a hand. “Without killing and/or maiming me.” You paused. “Or making the children cry.”

The demon gave you a look. “What, on Halloween? Huge cliché, what do you take me for?” You raised your eyebrows, but said nothing. He snapped his fingers and within an instant, you could feel your face and sections of your clothing stiffen with what you hoped was fake blood. “There: instant zombification.”

“Great, lemme just go check–”

“Sweetheart, trust me, you could strike terror into the hearts of any ghoul.”

“Do ghouls have hearts?”

“Whatever you do, never ask a ghoul that.”

You gave him a small smile. “Thanks, Mr. Beetleman.” Almost compulsively, Beetlejuice gagged again. You laughed and led him back into the barn. Stephanie turned to greet you, then turned away again. Your demon gave you a sidelong, self-satisfied look. You shook your head at him, but couldn’t force the smile off of your face.

The kids started showing up minutes later. Stephanie’s wife brought their two sons, then the community theater director came with his daughter, and on and on. Before 6:00, the barn was full. Nearly half of the children had entered the costume contest, which you had begrudgingly appointed Beetlejuice head judge of.

It wasn’t so much that you had invited Beetlejuice as it was that you knew you wouldn’t be able to keep him from staying. Short of banishing him, he would not be left out of your Halloween activities, and the last thing you wanted to do was banish the demon. He could be awfully cranky when he felt ignored, worse when he felt betrayed. Best to keep a close eye on him and leave it there. Shockingly, though, he seemed to be on his best behavior.

That wasn’t saying much, but you appreciated the effort.

He kept the live animals to a minimum, only ate one of the eyeballs hanging from the ceiling, and judged the costume contest as fairly as he could. Fortunately, there was a clear winner: a young zombie whose costume rivalled your own. The judge committee gave him a small skeleton trophy and a candy medal, took some photos with him, and you privately wondered if he had his own ghost-zombie at home to help him with his makeup. Then you shrugged it off and watched – half-mortified, half-impressed – as Beetlejuice summoned a few dead cheerleaders to sing a surprisingly smooth rendition of Time Warp. You were fairly certain a few of his bones came loose during the dance, but you let it slide. The kids were duly impressed, the parents were a suitable distance that they hardly noticed.

It wasn’t until 11:00 PM that all of the adults in the room realized that Beetlejuice had removed the clock that had previously hung on the wall opposite the barn’s door. It took the better part of a half hour to corral the kids to their parents’ respective vehicles, and most of them insisted on hugging you. Warily as ever, you eyed the ones who tried to hug ‘Mr. Beetleman,’ but he somehow managed to turn all of their affections into a high five. Despite yourself, you found yourself smiling.

Once everyone was gone, you turned from the door to assess the barn. It was a disaster. The jack-o’-lanterns had remained lit, as had the candles, but those were the only decorations at thirteen-and-under year old level that had remained undisturbed. The bottles you had placed on the tables, with their faded potion ingredient labels, were toppled over. There were drink puddles and food stains on the floor and half the fog had dissipated. Some of the eyes and bats had come down, others were tangled with the lights on the posts. Somehow, even the pendant lights were flickering slightly.

Beetlejuice did not need sleep. Maybe he could get tired, maybe he couldn’t. You certainly could, and by the time the party was over, you had maxed out your entire energy reserve. So, when your demon told you he’d clean up the next day, you agreed and gave no thought to the fact that it would take him all of two seconds to clean up that night.

Once you had seen off the last of the kids and all of the parents, you trudged back up to your big, scary house. All the light in the barn went out behind you, but you paid it no mind.

Somewhere between the barn and the house, Beetlejuice disappeared. Again, you ignored it. It wasn’t uncommon for Beetlejuice to vanish without telling you, and on Halloween night you imagined there were a hundred more fun things for him to be off doing than watching you get ready for bed. Especially when you caught sight of yourself in your entryway mirror. It was the first time that night that you had seen yourself fully zombified beyond a brief glance at your dim reflection in a darkened, tentacled window.

Your face alone had several large patches of what looked like gaping wounds, and you could see more peeking out from your formerly white collar. You had been going for Proper Academic Zombie, and you looked like you would need a degree in showering to get all this gunk off of yourself. At least you could reuse the costume, maybe disrupt a seminar or two.

Shaking your head, you flicked the light switch beside the front door to turn off the overhead light. Instead of just that light going out, however, the table lamp under the mirror went out as well. So did the hall light over the stairs to your left, the kitchen down the short hallway in front of you, and the living room light beyond that. You tried flicking the switch again. Nothing.

Suddenly, a slam. Several slams all at once. All the shutters you could see swung closed forcefully. From the sound of it, all the shutters on the house closed.

You cleared your throat hesitantly. “Okay, very funny. Beej, that’s you, right?”

Silence.

“Beej?” Though you couldn’t yet hear your heart, you could feel it struggling against the walls of your chest. There was a slight ringing in your ears – the ever-present remnants of your teenaged years. Outside of that: nothing. You took a step, and the creaking of the wood seemed to echo through the whole house. For a brief, crazy moment, you thought about going out to your car. But it seemed the porch light was out too, and being inside a dark house was better than being outside on a dark night.

So, you took another step. Then another. You cursed your shortsightedness in leaving your phone in your room. You reached the stairs. You climbed them, you turned the corner. The wood settle beneath your feet with a deafening creak each step of the way.

There must be a short circuit. There had to be, somewhere. There was no reason for you to have simply lost power. When you reached your room, you saw that your alarm clock was still lit and showing the time, and it was plugged into the same wall outlet as your dark lamp. The box was in your basement.

No way were you going into the basement.

You reached out for your phone. It was dead. You looked over to one of your windows. Of all the windows you’d passed, this seemed to be the only one whose shutters hadn’t closed. Slowly – more slowly than you had moved all night, you crossed the room to look outside. You could see the full moon in all her red-orange beauty. Then, you let out the breath you had been holding. The moon wasn’t going anywhere, even if all the other light was gone.

You should have known better.

A shadow dashed across the moon then, but not at the surface. Through the air. Close to your window. Very, very close.

There was a muffled thud somewhere behind you. You jumped and whirled around to look. When you noticed the light from the moon fading, you slowly turned your head back and saw the shutters swinging closed. Before you could reach out to even open the window, they were completely shut.

Another noise, closer this time.

You couldn’t move. Your heart was racing. You couldn’t speak, you couldn’t breathe. You thought about jumping for your bed, some childish thought of pulling the covers over your head before the whatever-it-was could reach you running through your head, but even in your fear you knew it was foolish. It was too late – too close. Your stomach dropped, your hands shook, your legs felt like splintering wood.

Yet another noise. You heard the hinges of your bedroom door waver. It was pitch dark in the room. All at once, a ragged breathing rushed at you across the squeaking floor.

You screamed.

“Beetlejuice!”

Seriously, please reblog.

Tags List: @skiddyyo @a-okay-rj @geeky-marie @darkblueeyedperson @hannah-de-lioncourt @ironmansuucks @missihart23 @ballerinafairyprincess @thewolfisapartofmysoul

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angelic-kisses13 · 4 years ago

Text

Claiming- Part I

Authors Note: Here is Part I I hope you enjoy!

Warning: Violence, gore, swearing, Vampire Charles Brandon, mentions the word Rape (Not described)

“Master, the treaty has been fractured. Two bound of blood plotted against the all-knowing, thus leading to a betrayal of the Children of the Night. Inevitable despair of two warring Kingdoms will befall both heads of houses. “

“How do we halt this coming demise, Mother Seeress?”

“The Treaty dictates an eye for an eye.”

Another war was close to brewing and Charles was close to just sending his men out and taking care of the neanderthals across the river. The memory of his best Generals head rolling across his throne room was forever ingrained. The trail of blood forever staining the stone. He remembered the rage and remorse that colored his person as he noticed the missing fangs. He had been dishonored by the beheading but the knowledge that someone had dared desecrate his culture and lineage would forever strike fear in his people. He would never forget the scent of the vile human carcass that dared trespass on his land. Since he was king, however, he couldn’t do as he wished, without causing massive disruption to his kingdom and the other neighboring ones.

Charles forced his tightly wound body back against the carriage wall, he was on his way to the disgrace of a kingdom now, the King claimed to have a peace offering for him. A sacrifice for the vampires so that they would hopefully look past their transgressions.

Charles was surprised at himself for the amount of rage he held for the whole notion, he was never one for sacrifices but he had to uphold the ancient traditions. It would make matters worse and as much as a war sounded fun and a great time killer, he wasn’t willing to put his people through that. He had seen enough bloodshed to last millennia.

He was dragged out of his thoughts by the carriage stopping and his footmen opening the door for him. He sighed but pulled his robes around his body carefully, arranging them neatly. He climbed down the carriage steps, dusk had fallen and he relaxed under the twilight.

A scuffle to his left drew his attention and he watched as a young woman was dragged across the courtyard, insults flying from her lips faster than he could process. A smirk fell across his lips as she turned and spat at the guard who had the gall to slap her ass in a warning. She was a plump thing, where there should have been harsh angles on her body, were instead rounded curves that screamed for him to run his fingers over. He had always had a soft spot for women who had more meat on their bones. The fact is that he had more to hold onto, more to drink from and more space to paint his mark across, making their skin his canvas.

“I REFUSE TO BE USED THIS WAY! I AM NOT SOME COMMON CRIMINAL YOU CAN DO WITH AS YOU WISH!” Her words made his eyebrows raise in surprise, now this was going to be interesting. The guards all laughed in delight,

“You’re the only criminal that no-one has claimed. The King, for whatever reason, paid your bail, therefore, you are owned by the King and he can do with you as he wishes.” Just as he was about to follow after the young woman, a stable boy came running up, he bowed before Charles, his little body shaking at the sight of him.

“Y-your Majesty, the K-King awaits yo-your arrival.” Charles hummed as he put the young woman out of mind and followed the boy into the palace. The boy left him standing in front of the throne room doors, where two guards stood on watch. He watched out of the corner of his eye, as one of the guards turned his head and glared at him with disdain.

A smirk fell on his features as he swiftly pinned the guard to the wall and bared his fangs, a glint entering his eyes as he sealed the man’s fate. He drank for a few moments before pulling away and dropping the man to the ground. He smoothed his cloaks out before entering the Throne Room. He was instantly assaulted by the familiar stench, his eyes narrowing on the three occupants of the room. He sniffed a couple of times, trying to ascertain the culprit. His senses zeroed in on the Prince. Satisfied he was the vile carcass, he then spots the trophies around the young man’s neck.

“His Majesty” stood at the top of the stairs in front of his throne overlooking his kingdom from the stain glass windows, the prince lounging behind him, drink in one hand, the fangs of his General lay nestled against his greasy portly neck. His scrawny half-Witt of an advisor stood off to the King’s left. They were whispering, but Charles could hear every word.

“King Charles’ sacrifice refuses to come out, the stupid girl is going to put us all in jeopardy with her tantrums.”

The King sighed as he reached out and patted the Advisors shoulder,

“Try and convince her one last time, King Charles will be here any second and I don’t want him to have more reasons to go to war.” The advisor bowed before turning around and halting in his tracks, Charles watched in quiet delight as the Advisors knees buckled beneath him.

Charles grinned, the blood on his fangs glowing in the candle-light as he licked at the drop of blood on the tip of his left fang. He preened as the blood from the advisor’s face drained, an audible swallow was heard before the man kneeled.

“Your Majesty. It is a humble delight to see you.” King Indulf stiffened before turning to face Charles, a strained smile painting his features.

“Advisor.” That was the only word needed before the poor man was up on his feet and hurrying, in a dignified manner, back towards the Throne Room’s doors. It was silent as they appraised the other, looking for any tell-tale signs of weaknesses. One could only hope for a quick signal to end the other.

“Charles, how kind of you to travel and accept our gift of dinner and women. I’m sure the one we have picked out for you will be enough to appease.” His tone was bordering cordial and impertinent. Charles’s jaw tightened, just as he was about to voice his displeasure about the ordeal, the doors were opened and in walked a delicate flower, brown hair done up in the traditional braids and pinned into an intricate bun on the top of her head, her skin was painted flawlessly and her white dress left nothing to the imagination, her skin showing through the sheer fabric.

She bowed at their feet, before coming and kneeling on the second step, her hands resting on her thighs, back straight, head tilted to the right, baring her neck showcasing her pulse and vein beautifully. She was stunning, but she was meek and unfit to be the sacrifice.

“She is a fine specimen but she is unfit for the role, far too weak, Indulf.” The King spluttered, his face an ugly puce color as he refrained from shouting.

“We were just supposed to give you a woman to sate your declaration of war, Charles. As you can see, we have lived up to our deal.” Charles snorted, unable to contain his mirth for a moment longer.

“You stupid excuse of a King. The terms of the sacrifice were agreed upon when the contract was drawn up. Every detail drafted down for future generations. It outlines everything specifically, clearly, you have read it to be able to coach her on how to sit and dress. Did you honestly think I wouldn’t notice? This “sacrifice” is dying. Do you believe that this painted whore would hold the same status as my best General?” His voice became a roar by the end of his rant, his eyes a burning crimson.

“King Charles, she was the only eligible candidate we had, surely you can overlook the one rule.”

“Surely, you have noticed your ill-mannered son displaying the fangs of my fallen comrade. The contract is void, prepare for war Indulf, you have insulted me and my people one too many times this evening.” He hissed and turned on his heel, preparing to depart when the throne room doors were thrown open and a woman came in kicking and screaming. Her eyes flashing as her mouth opened in a snarl. She was tossed at King Indulf’s feet.

Charles had just enough time to move out of the way before she was up and throwing herself towards the Prince. Her screeches and wails filling the hall,

“I WILL NOT BOW DOWN TO YOU! I AM NOT YOUR CONSORT! I AM WORTH MORE THAN THAT!” The Prince quickly grabbed the little spitfires’ wrists before throwing her down and backhanding her face. She sprawled across the stone floor, a hand reaching up and brushing over her busted lip, coming away red with blood.

“THAT IS ENOUGH YOU INSOLENT BITCH!” Charles’s eyes flashed when the scent of her blood hit his senses. She was delectable, fiery, and willing to fight to the end.

Her chest heaved as she watched them, her tongue darting out to swipe the blood up. She grinned at the three men, her teeth painted in her blood. Charles had to suppress the growl that threatened to escape his mouth. He wanted to grab her by her meaty hips and pin her against the floor, his tongue diving into her mouth to lick every last drop of her blood from her teeth and tongue. Charles took a step forward only to be hit by the vile stench of the Prince. She was covered head to toe and it brought the memory of his dead General to mind.

The enraged King frothed at the mouth, “I paid your bail, you ungrateful heathen, that means I own you, I can do with you what I want when I want. You are to be my son’s consort, a high honor if I do say so. One someone like you shouldn’t get, but your parents were good people and I promised I would look after you.” A manic cackle fell from the woman’s lush lips as she rolled from her side and onto her knees.

“My parents were traitors that you honored to make yourself look good, they don’t deserve to have me as their daughter. I will never be your sons, I would rather be his sacrifice,” she angrily threw her arm out, finger pointed towards Charles, “than live in this palace and be raped by your precious prince another day.”

“You think you are worthy enough to be a King’s sacrifice?” Indulf’s body was vibrating with barely contained rage.

“I’m worthy enough for your son to be sullied over.” A laugh escaped Charles as he kneeled down in front of the woman.

“My little lamb,” He smoothed his thumb over her bruised cheek before pulling his hand back, her warmth seared his skin, she was perfect. A raging inferno waiting to be tamed. He looked up at the King, a challenging glint to his eye.

“Sacrifice accepted.” The occupants of the throne room gasped in shock as Charles bent down and swiftly picked up the dirtied and bloodied rag of a woman, before disappearing, a cool breeze rustling through the room in his abrupt departure.

Taglist: @agniavateira @cavillanche @cavillunraveled @dancingwendigo @dreamwritesimagines @ficsandcatsandficsandcats @hlkwrites @hnryycvll @honeychicanawrites @iloveyouyen @johnmotherfuckingshelby @ladyreapermc @laketaj24 @littlefreya @ly--canthrope @mary-ann84 @mrsaugustwalker @ohvalleyofplentyyy @omgkatinka @sciapod @star-spangled-man-with-a-plan @supersweetstache @thethirstyarchive @the-winter-witcher @thegreattodd @tumblnewby @viking-raider @white-wolf-of-rivia @witcherwrites

#henry cavill #reader insert #Vampire Henry Cavill

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terracottaalchemist · 4 years ago

Text

Merry Christmas @hexalianrebel-blackfeathers !!

I'm a little rusty with my writing but I hope you like it! Happy Squealing Santa

Special thanks to @ticklygiggles for organizing everything❤️

🎁🎄🎁🎄🎁🎄🎁🎄🎁🎄🎁🎄🎁🎄🎁🎄🎁🎄

The Grand Highblood was a name that churned every sane troll's stomach. Ruthless, unpredictable, purple blood twisted inside him, cold, fueling a strength only rivaled by the Royal seadwellers. Signless could deal with the cruelty of the Empress, handle the attacks from his voilet oppressors, but not this. Nothing could have prepared him for this.

Signless tugged once again at the sharp, iron cuffs on his hands, thick and noisy in the silent cell. He had always known that one day his luck would run out, that he would finally be captured, but there was gratitude in his heart that the subjugglers left his friends and followers alone. So long as he kept quiet, he would be executed with the knowledge of where Dolarosa, Deciple, and Psiioniic were going safely tucked in his soul.

His feet were bound in frigid chains, sharp on the bones of his ankles. A small light shone overhead, enough to glint off the rusted bars, but not the concrete floor. He could see every exhale curl through the air in white smoke. So cold.

At the very least, Signless could hear every time the guard came within 20 meters of his cell from the sheer weight of his leather footsteps. His stomach gurgled for more of the grub paste he'd been given yesterday, but his tongue prickled preemptively with the phantom taste of bitter acid and bile. The guard stepped into view behind the row of bars, but there was no grub paste. Just keys as they jangled around the lock on the door, which opened with a piercing whine. The guard grunted, motioning with his hand to come closer, clutching a familiar black cloth.

Two guards, ahead and behind him, led Signless through the halls on two chain leashes. The blindfold was tied tightly to his face, forcing his focus to the tiles under his bare soles, the rough material of the unwashed trousers he was given, and the chains. As they climbed an oak staircase, the temperate rose to a more comfortable chill. Signless sighed, but chokes on a sudden, harsh tug backwards. They stopped. A hard knock rang against wood close to his head, but he couldn't move away if he tried. The door opened with a dull click and Signless was lead inside.

Living all his life as a renegade, Signless considered his senses to be rather sharp. But he was preoccupied with the chains on his wrists being pulled over his head so harshly that his heels barely brushed the floor. Far too preoccupied to hear the even more massive boots against the floor until they were far too close.

"That's enough, motherfucker."

That voice. Everyone knew that voice. Signless shifted his weight back, but the chain holding him up was taut and heavy. He hung there, swaying, like an oink beast carcass.

The blindfold was yanked down to his neck, colours and lights striking his mutated eyes. Signless blinked into focus, and took in the sheer sight that was The Grand Highblood. Doubling Signless' height, his wild hair framed his shoulders and wavy horns, adding even more height. Blood-curling, white paint stuck to his face, applied with careful detail to resemble the teeth of a deep-sea horror. With a sway in his step, The Grand Highblood began circling around his prized prisoner.

"You're real fuckin' short, aren't you?"

Signless turned to look at him, but kept his mouth shut. There is only one reason to keep a troll like himself alive, after all, even if it's only for the time being. He would not crack. He couldn't. A sharp slap cut across his cheek, the mark flushing an offensive red. Signless hadn't even see him move.

"Let's make one thing motherfucking clear," Grand Highblood spat. "When I ask you a question, you best give me an answer. Understand?"

Signless licked his lips, his jaw pulsing from the single, half-hazard strike. "Yes."

"Good." He pulled the blindfold back up with a single claw, this time allowing more light to seep through. There was a snap of fingers, a grunt of acknowledgment, and the rough scraping of wood on stone as some sort of furniture was dragged closer, just out of Signless' kicking range.

"Now then, let's not waste any more motherfucking god damn time." The three seconds of silence stretch between them, tensing like a rubber band until it snaps around the Grand Highblood's words. "Where are your apostles?"

Signless gripped back his displays of relief. His friends had not been found, nor will they be without his help. He was the only one on Alternia that knew where they were, and he swore to keep it that way, regardless of the cost.

"Maybe you didn't hear me." He circled again, but much slower, coming to a stop directly behind Signless. "Shit, I'm feeling downright merciful today, so I'll repeat myself one more motherfucking time. Where are your fucking apostles, mutant?"

Signless forced down a shiver, tugging gently at his wrists one more time. Not a chance.

"I was hoping you'd say that. Now I get to have me some motherfucking entertainment!"

Sharp, unkept nails skittered up his defenceless sides, forcing a surprised giggle from the preacher's lips. What on Alternia?

"Honk! Look how sensitive you are! Your skin is even weaker than that of a Rustie, already turning red. What a motherfucking miracle! It must be my hatching day all up in this bitch!"

Signless squirmed, feeling 1000 times more exposed than he did before. Every memory of being tickled absolutely senseless flashed through his eyes, each filled with more tears than the last. Psi had been his most common assaulter. On the bright side, no bodily harm would come to him this way. He just had to bear it until he finds a way to escape, and said escape won't be hindered by serious inquiries. A slight grin tugged at his lips as he clenched his jaw. A little tickling never killed anyone.

Without warning, two pairs of knuckles slotted themselves between his grub scars and dug furiously. Lightning shot through his nerves straight to his spine, his sense of touch heightened by the loss of vision. A guffaw tore out of Signless' throat before he could clamp his mouth shut, as he kicked off the floor to escape the sensations. It tickled so bad, so so bad. But he wouldn't dare laugh.

"Oho, a fighter! You can try that shit for now, but once you're all burnt out, you'll break easy. You're helpless."

Signless bit his lip harder, calves and shoulders quickly protesting all his movement. The knuckles dropped to his bottom ribs, continuing their ministrations. Finally, laughter broke free like water to a dam, harsh and powerful with the pressure. Shame burned his cheeks. Signless spun sideways to throw off the attacker's hands, but Grand Highblood quickly dragged him back into place. The millisecond of relief only allowed him to regret thinking this form of torture would be easy.

"Ha! You think you can escape, bitch? You're weak. I don't even know your worst spots yet."

"Hahahahahaha, oh fuhuhuck!" Nuckles turned to claws as they traveled up and down his sides, spidering quickly. Down to his hips, up, down, up, down, and up further to his lower ribs, still buzzing and flushed. Suddenly, each trip down was a promise to explore higher and higher, until both hands slid way too high to attack his armpits.

"AHAHA! No, nohoho fuck ohofff!" Signless squealed, thrashing as best he could but failing to lower his arms at all. He curled one knee up as high as he could, but it only threw him off balance as pain stabbed at his shoulders. He was truly, utterly, trapped.

The Grand Highblood chuckled darkly behind him. "Is it too much already? How motherfucking pathetic."

His fingers skittered across his torso and sides for what felt like hours and hours, until Signless' laughs became gasps and chokes, eyes falling in and out of focus. Whenever he got even slightly used to the sensation, Grand Highblood would just switch spots.

"HAHA....ahaAA.. p.. ehehaha .pleheheease!"

"You know how to make it stop, motherfucker. Where did they run off to?"

The temptation was there, as much as it pained him. The tickling was too much, he was going crazy. "I-ahaha! C-c-ahan't!"

A rough growl cut through the air, and the tickling stopped. The hands held his ribs roughly, but he finally caught his breathe in progressively deeper inhales. The relief was short lived, however, as two more footspets got closer. Probably more guards, but he still couldn't see for himself.

Seconds later, the tickling resumed threefold. Thirty fingers danced across his skin, in his armpits, ribs, and the rest were fluttering across his belly and squeezing his hips. He heard a girl chuckling at him, and a small "oh" from a young man.

Kids, 8 sweeps at most. With renewed energy, Signless' bucked hard, shaking his head side to side as he began kicking at whoever was in front of him. The first missed, but the second came into contact with a clothes torso. Instead of launching his assaulter back, his ankle was yanked forwards and caught between their body and arm. Stupid highblood strength!

Sharp nails teased his arch skillfully and he shrieked.

"Ooh, boss! Looks like I found a good one!" She said with more giggling.

"Good work, bitch. Keep it up," The Grandhighblood repied.

With one foot in the air, Signless' struggling turned into pathetic twitches and jolts. He scrunched his toes as hard as he could, but the girl simply pried them back and continued. When she reached under his toes, tears started forming in his eyes.

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA- AAAAA NOHOHOHO!! nOT THEEEHEHERE!"

"Not where? Here? Are your toes reeeally bad? Is that a really /ticklish/ spot for you?" She teased.

Heat dripped down his neck in embarrassment, even his back began flushing.

"Oh, do you not like that word? Tickle? But you're so ticklish! Tickle tickle tickle, I bet it feels sooo baaaddd~"

"Aha, hahaha! Dohhohoon't!" He pleaded.

"Don't what?"

"Mock meehehe!"

He could feel the venom dripping from her voice. "Mock you? If you wish!"

"Enough, child." The Grand Highblood interrupted. "He needs to focus."

She didn't respond but she dropped his leg. His hypersensitive toes barely brushed the floor before she yanked his other from underneath him, raking her nails over his entire sole hard and fast.

At the same time, the quiet boy shifted his hands down to squeeze at Signless' defenceless thigh.

"NOOOOOHOHOHOA! HAHAHAHA!"

Grand highblood continued to switch from spiders to digs and jabs at his armpits, while the other two scratched and squeezed his shaking legs and feet. After only a few minutes, white flickers of light bloomed under Signless' eyelids, head spinning as it forced his every breath out in raw, desperate laughter. His lungs began to burn.

"no- hahahhaha, nnhaha..noho more..no mohohoore!"

"You can make this all go away, motherfucker. Just tell is where they are and we'll stop."

"haha....n..no.."

"We won't stop until you're fucking dead. But it's gonna be a looking time till this gets you. Weeks, maybe even months"

Signless shuddered, body limp from exhaustion as all three of them tickled both his sensitive sides without care for his pleading.

"Or, you could spare yourself all the trouble now...and we'll make sure your end is swift and painless. You're finished anyways, and we'll find your followers with or without your help. So why suffer?"

His eyes rolled around in his skull, head pointing with blood lacking oxygen. His laugher fell quiet ages ago, but as it became silent his senses began to fail.

"Where are those motherfuckers hiding?"

Body numb and buzzing all at once, Signless forced one last breath through his aching throat, before the sweep lull of unconsciousness took him.

"..if that's what it takes, I will be their sufferer."

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sternbagel · 4 years ago

Text

Inspired by the wonderful OC lore that @charlotte-balfours-garden wrote and posted, I decided to finish this piece that’s been sitting in my drafts for months about my own RDR OC, visual references here!

Note: This takes place in canon, Chapter 3, and while everyone calls her Alberta Taylor at this point, it’s not her real name, just something she’s been going by for years because of something in her past. Professionally, she’s a bounty hunter, but has dabbled in other things.

Read This First

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Well, at least the one thing today that hasn’t been surprising is Arthur finding Al has dragged a chair over to his tent to read, one leg propped up on the chest at the end of his cot. Sometimes she’ll set up there to get ample shade from the sun, and according to her, the chest is the perfect foot rest height.

“Afternoon, Arthur,” she greets lazily as she turns the page.

“Miss Taylor. Comfortable?”

“Sure.” She cuts her eyes up at him from under the brim of her hat, seemingly just to give him a greeting glance and smile, but when she spots the shiny new accessory pinned to his vest, her head raises higher. “You steal that off a dead lawman or somethin’?”

And it begins, Arthur thinks with a snort. “No, Dutch—” he waves an arm in the direction he came from, though Dutch has long ago left that area—“got us ingratiated with the local sheriff, so now we’re honorary deputies.”

“Was Sheriff Gray drunk?”

That’s surprising. They only met the sheriff yesterday, and he’s not sure the full story of their encounter has been relayed to the rest of camp, just the orders not to cause any trouble. “How’d you know his name?”

As soon as the words leave his mouth, he realizes that most likely, it was Hosea. Those two are close.

She answers with a cavalier shrug before he can say anything. “I’ve been here before. Once. Didn’t stay long.”

Arthur takes the bait she leaves out. “Why not?”

“Well, it’s Lemoyne. I don’t spend very long here if I can help it. But first time I got to Rhodes lookin’ for bounty posters, Sheriff Gray was puking in the bushes. Somehow he managed to get out that they do all the bounty hunting themselves. No reason to go back.”

“Well, that’s pretty much how I found him when I went lookin’ for Dutch and Bill.”

“Figures,” she laughs, shaking her head. “Not that I really care, but where is Bill? Didn’t see him come back with y’all. Still with the Sheriff, ingratiating himself?” She looks thoughtful for a moment. “I didn’t get that impression off him, but I wasn—”

Arthur holds up a hand and shakes his own head with a smirk. “No, no, the Grays around here don’t seem… his type. Matter of fact, I should probably warn Bill to just play it cool—“

“What, drunk, dumb, and ignorant ain’t Bill’s type? What about that guy we saw him chattin’ up at that saloon in Armadillo?”

“That ain’t what I mean,” he snorts.

“I know.” Al flashes a playful smirk. “I’m just messin’.”

“Well, anyway, no, he’s off hidin’ some wagon full o’ moonshine we stole off some bootleggers under the Sheriff’s orders. Hosea’ll know what to do with it.”

“Moonshine?” This seems to pique her interest, again to Arthur’s surprise. “You know who you stole it off of?”

“Yes…” Arthur’s eyebrows knit together. He slowly lumbers over to his table, laying down the deputy badge and watching her carefully. Al’s expression is calm, but it’s a thin enough veneer that he sees the curiosity building by the second. “What’s it to you?”

“Curious.”

“Yeah.”

The book in her lap finally closes. “I used to run with some moonshiners not too long ago.”

“Alberta Taylor. Well, I never took you for a bootlegger.”

She throws an arm over the back of her chair and lets her head fall back, exposing more of her neck. It’s then that Arthur notices she’s not wearing her usual green neckerchief. Or her green jacket. She must be really burning up to be in just her workshirt and jeans. “Not every professional bounty hunter is a staunch upholder of the law, Arthur Morgan,” she says matter-of-factly with a lift of her brow.

“I never said that. Didn’t mean it neither. I mean, look who you fell in with, I know better. I just ain’t seen you drink much moonshine.”

“Sure. Always been more of a beer and tequila woman.”

He plops down on his cot and lights a cigarette. “Then what you doin’ runnin’ with moonshiners?”

“Tell me who you stole the liquor off of first, cowboy.”

Arthur concedes. Al is stubborn. “The Braithwaites. And those fellers that run around here with those yellow bandanas. Sadie and I ran into ‘em a few days ago. Uh—”

“Lemoyne Raiders?” She sneers. “I’d hoped someone had snuffed ‘em out by now. Hijo de putas.”

He takes a long drag of the cigarette before answering. “Yeah, that’s them. You’ve had some run-ins with ‘em, huh?”

“Like I said, just the once. Three of them stopped me on my way into Rhodes. Brought ‘em into town, dead, which is when I met Sheriff Gray. They didn’t have any bounties on ‘em, so all I got outta one of his deputies was five dollars. I know they weren’t even worth that much, but he coulda paid me more,” she grumbles. Her light Cuban accent comes out more the lower her voice goes.

“Sounds about right. Least ya got paid somethin’.”

“I guess.” She picks at the spine of her book for a moment. “Wasn’t long after that I met a… moonshiner legend, so to say, through a mutual friend. Though friend seems to be pushing it.”

He gets the sense she’s not fully sour on the “friend,” so his shoulders shake in amusement.

“He was a lot like Uncle, actually.”

“Lord.” Arthur snickers, smoke billowing out of his mouth.

“Yeah. Not as lazy. Probably younger, but who knows.”

“I reckon Uncle ain’t as old as he wants folks to think. Besides just bein’ too lazy, it’s probably why he don’t trim his beard.”

Al laughs, rougher than usual until she coughs and clears it up. “Damn humidity.”

“Tell me about it,” Arthur agrees, leaning forward and propping one elbow up on his knee. “So, this… moonshiner legend.”

“Ever heard the name Maggie Fike?”

The name isn’t familiar, but it isn’t unfamiliar either. “Don’t think so,” he settles on.

“Well, she’s been mostly out this way rather than out where y’all been running around. Revenue Agents caught up to her a couple years back, tried burning her alive. Didn’t work, but gave her a nasty scar and bad eye. Almost puts Marston to shame. Almost,” she adds with a grin as he walks between Arthur and Strauss’ tents.

“Take a look in the mirror, Miss Taylor,” he grumbles back. Then he chucks a cigarette butt at a chuckling Arthur. “You too, Morgan.”

John disappears around the side of the tent as Arthur brushes off the butt. “Cranky cause he ain’t had his midday nap.”

“Pick better material.”

Al chuckles and presses the palm of her hand on her hat, affixing it more securely to her head. “Anyway…”

“Anyway…” Arthur sighs lightly. “You said she survived?”

“Yeah, went into hiding for a while. Somehow got a hold of my ‘friend’, who then asked me for help gettin’ her business back on its feet. Easy work at first. Finding a good location for the shack, gettin’ her some supplies, that stuff.” She waves a hand around. “Most folks don’t pay much mind to a bounty hunter buyin’ supplies in bulk like I was or destroying illegal stills. Sometimes I brought in the other moonshiners to the local town to collect on a bounty. Made for a better cover for what I was really doing.”

“Takin’ out the competition.” Arthur chuckles.

“Exactly. Then came—”

“What the hell are you two talkin’ about anyway?”

Al puts her hand back on her hat before tipping her head back, almost touching the back of the chair, and looks at John, upside down. Arthur leans forward more to get his own look and the rangy outlaw, who’s circled back around to the other side of his wagon.

“And what the hell is that?” John asks. He’s looking directly at the badge on Arthur’s table, disgust etched into his features. As if it’s some rotting, maggot infested carcass Arthur’s using for decoration.

Arthur sighs and briefly explains again.

“So this is just another excuse for you to play dress-up, eh? Guess I need to tell Hosea you’re itchin’ to go scammin’ with him again.”

“You do that, it’ll be your pecker in the stew pot next meal.”

Al’s crossed her arms over her chest and is watching them with barely contained amusement. “Playing dress-up? I don’t think I’ve seen that side of you yet, Arthur.”

“And you won’t,” he growls. “Only reason Hosea takes me on those jobs is because he knows I hate it. Just once I’d like him to take Marston instead.”

“You sure about that?” Al studies John as if she’s a talent agent in the big city. “Doesn’t he like to avoid mayhem on those jobs?”

John snorts indignantly. “Yeah, well, I’d like to see you try and follow Hosea’s lead. I swear even he don’t know what he’s doin’ half the time.”

“But it works.” Her eyebrows raise pointedly.

“But it works,” John concedes.

“Well, next time you go, let me know. I’d love to watch y’all work.”

“Whatever,” John grumbles as he waves her off and saunters away. Apparently he’s given up on butting into their conversation.

“I ain’t pullin’ that type of job with Hosea again. What we had set up in Blackwater, sure, but not...” Arthur wags a finger in the air, then unfurls the rest of his fingers and waves his hand once before letting it fall back in his lap. “Not that. The girls and Trelawny are much better’n me anyway. Safer that way.”

Al shrugs. “I won’t argue that.”

“So, back to what you was sayin’?” Arthur’s not willing to let the moonshiner story drop. It’s not often she lets down her walls and tells stories of her past that don’t directly involve some bounty she’s nabbed. He knows what happened to her family, but that had been a moment he wasn’t meant to see, and neither of them have ever brought it up again.

“So after we get a shack set up, she gets word of where this old buddy of hers is, go rescue him so he can make our moonshine. Not long after that, her nephew’s gettin’ moved from Sisika, so I go rescue him.”

Arthur pulls the cigarette from his lips and folds his arms across his chest, leaning back against the wagon. “Just you against a bunch of lawmen?”

“Don’t sound so surprised, Morgan,” she drawls, lolling her head to the side.

“Suppose I shouldn’t be,” he chuckles.

“No, actually, I had a couple friends with me, cashed in on some favors. I’m not stupid or reckless enough to take on an armed prison transport.”

Arthur just shrugs. “Woulda believed you either way.”

“You’re too trusting,” she remarks. There’s a teasing lilt to her voice, but her eyes sparkle with something else.

“Perhaps you’re right.”

“Well, we bring them back to the shack, get the business up and running. Enact some revenge on a rival of hers in the meantime, I get to kill the agent who tried to burn her. Spent about a year with them. I didn’t do a lot of the actual running of moonshine, one of those friends who helped me break out Maggie’s nephew, Lem, did most of that. I focused on taking out the competition, clearing out Revenue Agent roadblocks when we were sure we couldn’t sneak past them. The real dirty work. But I didn’t mind, kept me moving, out of the government’s crosshairs enough that I could keep killin’ those damn agents.”

Arthur cocks his head curiously. But she isn’t done talking, so he lets her continue, holding onto his question for now.

“Couple months before I ran into y’all, I told them I’d have to leave. I’d spent so much time in this area, couldn’t… Needed to get out and go back out west. See some old friends, see some open country. They reckoned they’d be fine without me, but threw them the name of another friend I knew’d be able to help them, pick up my slack.”

“So… you think they’re still runnin’ that shine?”

“No reason not to. Never heard anything about her being captured. Got a letter from them while I was in Blackwater, actually. They’re doin’ well.” She gives a fond, reminiscent smile. “That friend is working with Maggie now, too. Dunno how she stands him, but…”

“Good. Since we’re over this way, you plannin’ on seein’ ‘em?”

“They’re north, Roanoke Ridge territory. Might, if I feel safe leavin’ you fools by yourself for more than a week.”

Arthur chuckles and shakes his head. “I reckon we can survive without ya for that long.”

“With all the trouble you been causing lately? I don’t think so, Mr. Morgan.” Al fans herself with her book, smirking at Arthur pointedly.

“I actually got another question for ya,” he diverts.

“Shoot.”

“I been thinkin’ about this since you got here, but now, knowin’ how much you seem to hate the Revenue Agents, how come you’re a bounty hunter, takin’ payouts from the government, but runnin’ with a bunch’a outlaws? After a year of runnin’ shine, that is.”

A simple shrug is her reply, and the pause is so long Arthur isn’t sure she’ll actually give him an explanation, until, “You have your code, I have mine.”

“Huh,” he grunts. They watch each other casually for a long moment, then he asks, “You gonna explain?”

He can see her weigh her options, and eventually she relents. “You know…” Her expression immediately tells him what she means: her past, what happened to her.

“Yeah,” he offers quietly.

“Well, nobody’s born a seasoned gunslinger. When I first started bounty hunting, I had to take the easier targets. Most big pay days, or the jobs that are good start for those of us that’re green, they’re people who rob banks with a pen, rich people doing rich people crimes. They’re soft, easy, and all it really takes to catch them is knowing the land better and being tougher than city folk. Which ain’t hard at all. So, until I could stand on my own, those were the only kinds I took. Then I started goin’ after the bastards I really wanted to. People like the Johnson Brothers.”

She nearly spits the name. Arthur feels the sting in her soul.

“I never take those soft bounties anymore,” she continues after a deep breath, seeming more like herself again with every word. “Unless I need a break. But it’s been a while since I have.”

“Been a while since you took a bounty at all.”

She must notice the question in his voice. Not judgement, but question. “No. You’ve been kicking up too much fuss. Wouldn’t be smart for me to be seen around town here more than once or twice.”

Arthur rolls his eyes. While it is mostly true, it’s about all he’s going to get out of her, but he knows the real reason why. Even if she won’t admit it to herself. “Got me there, Al.”

“Not hard to do, Arthur.”

#also we're going with the bill is gay theory. but like. half the gang is gay so she's not making fun of that.#she hates bill. so she's making fun of HIM directly.#hope that comes across lol.#also i hope it's okay to tag you in this!!! I can fix it if not #rdr #alma tejada #my fics #i guess that's gonna be a tag. i mostly just share this shit with friends and post my much bigger projects elsewhere

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noladyme · 4 years ago

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The Frog Princess. Chapter 12

She had no wish to be bound down to anyone, but Y/N none the less found herself being dragged across the continent; to marry King Foltest of Temeria. Instead of pomp and spectacle; she was accompanied by the witcher, Geralt of Rivia. Their travels would bring both monsters, lust, love; and heartache. All sound tracked by an endearing buffoon of a bard, named Jaskier.

TW: Violence, language, sexual themes. Rated M.

We began moving north again, taking care to avoid roads; but yet staying close enough to them; so that Geralt could hear any potential threat. I was finding it difficult to lead Bayrd forward properly; and at one point; I even had to let Jaskier sit in front of me; so I could hold on to him. I was tired and constantly needed breaks.

On one of these breaks, I fell asleep against a tree. I didn’t wake up until I realized I was sitting in front of Geralt on Roach. He had lifted me into the saddle, and was now holding on to me; so I wouldn’t fall off while we rode. I rubbed my eyes. “Careful. My fiancée might get jealous”, I said, and gestured towards Jaskier, who was riding Bayrd alongside us. Geralt didn’t say anything. “It was a joke; Geralt”, I said. He groaned. “You can’t get angry over a stupid joke…”. “Save your breath, little frog, I’m not angry”, he muttered behind me. “Then what’s wrong?”, I asked. “Nothing”, he grunted.

I looked towards Jaskier. He looked worried. “What’s going on?”, I asked. None of them would answer. “Geralt?”, I demanded. “You’ve been out for three days…”, the bard said. “Jaskier!”, Geralt growled. “What? You were going to pretend she slept for a few minutes?”.

I began feeling dizzy. “Put me down”, I said quietly. Geralt grunted, and didn’t slow down. “Put me down, I said! I’m not feeling well…”. Geralt halted; and helped me of the horse. I stumbled to the ground; and he quickly put his arm around my waist, to lead me to a tree I could sit against. My knee was throbbing with pain.

“I need water”, I said; realizing I was very thirsty and hungry. Geralt handed me a waterskin, and helped me uncork it. I drank the entire content. “Food?”. Jaskier handed me an apple. “Just promise you won’t throw it at me”, he chuckled; before meeting Geralts angry eyes.

Chewing on the apple; I looked at the witcher. “Three days?”, I asked. He grunted; and crouched down in front of me. “Since that tree outside Mayena”. My heart dropped. “Are we almost in Vizima?”, I asked. He tried to smile. “We’re at least a week away, little frog”. I exhaled in relief. I would have at least a week before I had to say goodbye.

Taking a large bite of the apple; my cheek hurt, and I put my fingers to it. “Is it…?”, I began. “Still bruised, from where Filivandrel hit you”, Geralt snarled. “But that was days ago!”, I yelped. He nodded. I tried for my neck. The cut from the nilfgaardians knife was healed; but the skin was sore. I wondered about my knee; but didn’t want to remove my pants in front of Jaskier.

“What’s happening to me?”, I asked. “I don’t know”, Geralt answered. “But we need to find out. You’re not well”. “And you don’t look so good either”, Jaskier added. I threw the apple carcass at him. “Hey!”, he yelped, and jumped out of the way.

Geralt stood back up. “We’re going to Maribor”, he said. “There’s a sorceress there…”. “A sorceress?”, Jaskier and I said at the same time. “She’s a friend”, Geralt grumbled. “She can tell us more”.

Jaskier walked over to Geralt. “Geralt; in the history of bad ideas, this is probably your worst one yet!”. The witcher grabbed a hold on the bard’s collar; and bared his teeth at him. “She is dying!”, he growled. My face went white. “What?”, I whispered.

Geralt let go of Jaskier; and went to crouch in front of me again. “You’re sick”, he said. “You’ve been unconscious for three days. Every wound on your body from the past few weeks have reappeared. You need help”. I shook my head in disbelief. “I’m fine”, I said; and tried to stand – falling instantly into his arms from the sharp pain in my knee. “You’re not fine”, Geralt snarled. “You are dying. And I won’t let that happen”.

He picked me up; and deposited me on Roach’s back again. “We’re going to Maribor”, he said; and saddled up.

—

It was another half days ride to the city of Maribor; and I spent most of it in front of Geralt, who held on to me with one arm, while leading Roach with his other hand. I tried to stay awake; but was in and out of it for most of the journey. My knee hurt, and I had begun bleeding from the cut on my neck. “Stay awake, little frog”, Geralt kept repeating behind my back. “Stay with me”.

We arrived at the gates to the city at dusk; where we were halted by four guards in temerian colors. It had begun raining; and I was shivering – both from cold, and from trying to remain conscious. “Who goes there?”, one of the guards called. “A witcher”, Geralt answered. “I am transporting this bard to King Foltests wedding”. “And the woman?”, the guard asked. “She’s my… fiancée”, Jaskier answered – almost choking on the word.

“He’s lying!”, another guard said. “You heard reports; there will be no wedding. The Lady Y/N was killed in transport to Vizima”. Geralt growled behind me; trying to keep his temper. “You heard wrong”, he said. “There was an attack; but the lady survived. She is being transported by one of my colleagues”. “Who?”, the guard demanded. “Vesemir”, Geralt answered. “Lies again. That old fuck was killed at the sacking of Kaer Morhen; everyone knows that!”.

Geralt tensed up in anger behind me “He was not”, he growled. “The witcher is telling the truth”, Jaskier said, trying for stern. “I saw the lady myself three days ago. In Brugge”. The guard seemed to ponder his words. “She pretty; the new queen?”, he asked. Jaskier twisted his face. “She’s all right”, he said. The guard smirked. “And the tits?”.

“We need to see Triss Merigold!”, Geralt snarled. “The bard’s fiancée is ill, and needs healing”. “The court sorceress arrived this morning; but she’s busy with preparations for the wedding”, the guard barked. “I thought you said the wedding was called off”, the first guard said. “She’s a sorceress; she must have known it was false news”, the second answered.

“Just let us in!”, Geralt yelled.

“Let them in”, a woman’s voice called from the top of the wall. “I know him”. The guards looked up at her. “But mistress Merigold…”, one of them tried. “Do as you’re told!”, she said indifferently.

The gates where opened; and we rode inside.

We were met on the street just inside the walls; by a young woman with auburn hair and a kind face. “Geralt”, she said. “Welcome back to Maribor. I’m told you’ve been here before”. “Not now, Triss”, Geralt said. “I need your help”.

He got of Roach and helped me down; instantly having to pick me up in his arms and carry me; as I had no strength in my legs. “Who is this?”, Triss asked. “My… fiancée”, Jaskier answered; once again having trouble with the expression. “Zaba”. Geralt wouldn’t meet the woman’s eyes.

“Hmm…”, Triss answered, and walked up to Geralt and me. I looked at her weakly. When our gaze met; Triss’ eyes widened. “I see…”, she said, and frowned. “Follow me”.

—

We went down several smaller streets; and every step Geralt took was a jolt through my body – causing me pain. I whimpered. “Almost there”, Triss said softly. “Stay with me”, Geralt muttered.

It seemed Triss had taken us to a back entrance to the city keep. She opened a small door, and led us up several flights of stairs; until we we’re in what seemed to be an attic room. It was clean; decorated meagerly but sufficiently, with a few mirrors and wall hangings depicting trees. Against one wall stood a bookcase with leather-bound volumes, and multiple flasks and crystals. Over a large table hung herbs drying; and on the table laid scrolls and maps. It smelled like Thrudes cabin.

“Put her down there”, Triss said; and Geralt carried me to a small bed – probably Triss own sleeping place. I cried out in pain and exhaustion when he placed me on the mattress. He quickly stroked my cheek, before moving back to give Triss room to see me. The sorceress sat on the edge of the bed; and put her hand on my cheek. “Zaba?”, she smiled softly; before lifting my frog pendant to examine it. “A little on the nose, isn’t it witcher?”. Geralt grumbled. “Can you help her?”, he asked. Triss sighed. “Well, I suppose I have to, seeing as she’s my new queen”. I opened my mouth to speak. “Sshhh…”, she smiled at me. “Don’t speak, your highness. You need all the energy you can spare to breathe right now”.

She was right. It was taking everything I had, just to keep my lungs working, and I had to force every breath.

“What happened?”, Triss demanded. Geralt went to stand by my head on the other side of the bed. “She… did something”, he said. “There was a half elven girl. She was dead…”. Triss’ face seemed to drain of blood. “And now she’s not…”, she sighed. Geralt nodded.

Triss walked over to her table, moving around some papers on it. “So it’s true”, she said. “If Foltest knew… he would have never agreed to this union. He’s having trouble enough accepting me – I am forced upon him by the Brotherhood”. She came back to me; carrying a small crystal in her hand. “I’m going to have to look”, she said. “In your head. I can’t promise it won’t be painful… but in your case there’s a chance it will be no more than a small irritation behind your eyes”. I nodded; and she smiled warmly at me.

Placing the crystal on my chest; she then put her hands on either side of my head. “Close your eyes, your highness”, she whispered. My eyes fell shut.

… warm. I’m in bed, and Tootie is telling me a story about a boy named Mouse, and a girl named Toot. I’m eating honeyed toast; and giggling, because Tootie is tickling my feet… … it’s so big! It’s screeching; and diving for one of the lambs in the field. And now there’s so much blood… … Eist is yelling at me because I climbed the tree in the courtyard; and I’m crying because I fell down. And now he’s hugging me and apologizing… … music, and laughter. I am carving my name into the table with my new knife… … my hand hurts, and Crach and Craites nose is bleeding. Serves him well for calling me a stupid girl… … Eyrick is taking too long to finish, and his breath smells like herring… … “bloody kiss my ass! There isn’t a chance in Hel I’m getting on that ship!”… who is that whitehaired man?… … “So you will do it?”. Eist is talking to the stranger. “I will. On my terms”… amber eyes… … screaming, and a sword slashing into mist. He’s yelling at me. “I should have let her have you!”… …”The foulmouthed princess of the Skellige isles!”… … he’s naked in front of me. I want to touch him. I want him to touch me. Now his lips are on mine, soft. His thrusts, making me quiver… … a knife, sharp against my neck… I killed him… … deeper than I thought was possible, and his lips on my breast… again… please don’t stop… hold me… I’m coming!… … “have not even begun to scratch the surface”… … “Not my foe”… ... “But I have you until then?”... “And we’ll be written on each other’s lives after”... … “Her heart is beating!”… mandrake root… “You brought her back”… she was dead… … I’m dying… Geralt!…

“Geralt!”, I screamed. I was back.

Triss was looking at me with pained eyes. “I’m sorry you had to witness that”, she said. “Saoirsheen. It shouldn’t have happened”. She smiled at me. “But you saved her. She will live”. She removed the crystal from my chest; and Geralt sat next to me, holding my hand.

“Geralt, I need to speak with you”, the sorceress said. I held on to his hand. “I’m not leaving”, he said. “I’ll be just over there”.

I could hear them talking; but could not make out all the words. I was still heaving for breath. “… but her? Geralt, are you mad?”. “… happened, Triss. I didn’t plan it. She’s not…”. “… idiotic… not some whore you can…”. “I care about her!”, I heard Geralt growl. “She’s more than anything…”. He sighed. Triss shook her head, and walked back to me.

“Y/N”. It was strange hearing my real name from her lips. “I saw inside your head. I know”. I opened my lips. “It doesn’t matter to me. But it will matter to someone very important to both of our futures”. Foltest, I thought. “So it will stay between us”.

She went to the bookcase and pulled out one of the volumes. “Right now, we need to focus on what’s wrong with you”, she said. “I had heard from Eamon that there was more to you than just a title and a dowry. I didn’t know whether it was true, until I saw what you did for Saoirsheen”. She began gathering ingredients – herbs and roots – in a bowl. “You gave your life for her; quite literally. Everything you need to heal yourself, and keep yourself alive; you gave to her, when you wished her back. And you used some very powerful words, that you didn’t know how to control”.

She began unlacing my jerkin to undress me. “Uhmm…”, I heard Jaskier from the corner. “Should I really be here for this?”. Triss sighed. “Go to the kitchen, bard. You look famished”, she said. “And leave the kitchen-maid alone. I am treating her for… something”. Jaskier winced; and scuttled off.

“Help me”, Triss said to Geralt, and together they removed my clothes, until I was laying naked in front of them. Geralt focused on my face; and I could tell there wasn’t a lewd thought in his head. Only worry. “I need to give you back the life you lost”; the sorceress said. “Saoirsheen…”, I gasped. “It won’t hurt her”, she answered. “You could have been a sorceress; if Eist hadn’t hidden you from Aretuza. Had you gone there; you would have learnt to halt your aging. That means draining from the source that place has. A source of life”. Grabbing the bowl of crushed ingredients; she used a brush to paint symbols on my chest and my limbs. “I cannot tap into that from here; but I can attempt to recreate a weaker version of it. One that will give you what you need to survive”.

“Attempt?”, Geralt muttered. “I can’t make promises, witcher”, Triss said earnestly. “But I will do my best. You should probably leave”. Geralt shook his head. “I’m not going anywhere”. She looked at him, and nodded. “In that case; you need to stand back”, she said. “No matter what happens; you cannot touch her. She will be a… the best word I can think of is sponge – for any life that comes into contact with her skin”. She sighed. “Speaking of which…”, she said; and went to a covered glass bowl in the corner. “We need a life-source”.

She put her hand into the bowl; and fished out a large frog. “I’d rather have used a mouse or a dove; but this is all I have handy”, she said. “Croaky here will give you its life-force. It does mean he will die; but he’ll have sacrificed his life for the future queen of Temeria”. I frowned. “You don’t have to feel sorry for him. He’s the most stubborn and annoying one I have”, she smiled. “Then it’s a good fit”, Geralt mumbled. I sent him the angriest eyes I had the energy to muster.

Triss lifted the struggling frog to her lips, and kissed it. It instantly froze.

“M-may I see it?”, I whispered. The sorceress narrowed her eyes at me, and then looked to Geralt. He nodded. She walked over to me with the frog; and held it next to my head, so I could see it. “Thank you for your sacrifice”, I breathed. Triss looked at me in wonder. “You are very different than I thought you would be…”. She placed the now motionless frog on my chest; and gestured for the witcher to step back.

Lifting her hands in the air, she spoke a series of words in a language I didn’t understand. Suddenly it felt like all air left my lungs. My limbs grew stiff; and I cramped up; my back arching from the bed. All life was gone from me. There was an eternity of darkness. Then my chest began to burn. The air returned to my lungs; and I felt a pain; like a glowing red iron rod being punched into my heart; and streaming boiling hot fluid throughout my body; through every vein; waking every nerve. And I screamed. I screamed louder than I ever had. When the air left my lungs, I drew in a new breath; and I screamed again.

“Triss!”, I heard Geralt shout. “Don’t touch her! She’s draining life!”, the sorceress yelled back.

I kept screaming. There was such pain. I felt every inch of my body – skin, organs, bones – and then it stopped.

—

“… but when will she wake?”. “Her body died and has been resurrected. She needs rest to find herself in it”. “Triss…”. “She’s strong. She could have been even stronger, had she had training”. “She’s not a sorceress”. “No, she’s not. But she has something inside her… She is so strong willed. I saw it”. “And that will bring her back”. “I’m quite sure it will… Geralt… you two…”. “I know. She knows as well. But I will not leave her until she asks me to. I can’t”.

My mouth was dry. “Water…”. Someone held a cup to my lips; and I drank the content. It wasn’t water – it was chamomile and honey tea. I opened my eyes. Triss was smiling at me. “Good morning, your highness”. I blinked. “How long?”, I asked. “Only this last night”, the sorceress said.

I looked down my body to find I had been cleaned of the strange symbols; and was wearing my pants and my shirt. The rest of my clothes were draped over a chair. Geralt was standing at the foot of the bed; his brows furrowed. “How do you feel?”. I had to consider the question. “Good, I think”, I said. “Pain?”, he asked. “No”, I answered. “No pain. No… nothing. Just hungry”. He seemed to sigh in relief.

Triss went to put away some books and pieces of cloth, it seemed she had used to clean me off. “Witcher; go get her something to eat. Fruits and meats. She needs energy”. “I feel perfectly fine”, I said. “I’m sure you do”, she smiled. “But you haven’t had a proper meal in days; and magical lifesource or not; you are human, and need sustenance”. I smiled at her.

I like you, I thought. “I like you too”, she said, and smiled. I chuckled in wonder. “Don’t worry”, she said. “I can’t read your mind anymore. But after all I’ve seen, I know you enough to read your expression”. “Well; if you are the court sorceress for Foltest; we should probably try to get along”, I laughed. She grinned at me; before looking at Geralt. “Run along. The lady is hungry”.

Geralt looked embarrassed for a second; before nodding, and walking out the door; closing it behind him.

I sat up in the bed; feeling none of the pain I had the night before. Triss came to sit on the edge of it, next to me. “You will be a good queen”. I couldn’t help but frown. She smiled. “You guide kings, heal elves. And make witchers feel”, she said. “If you didn’t also have a natural inkling of sorcery; I would still call you magical – and a good addition to the court”. I sighed. “And spells?”, I asked. “Chaos and destruction”. She frowned. “It’s there”, she said. “You need to be careful with those things; you don’t have the training to use it”. She seemed to ponder her words, before finally making a decision. “Y/N”, she said. “Just like you gave your life to that woman; you can also drain the life from someone else. It will make you more powerful; but like with the frog…”. “It could kill them”, I muttered. She nodded.

I looked down. “Succubus…”, I chuckled. “What?”, she asked. “It’s… something Geralt… never mind”. Her smile turned sad; and she took my hand. “The witcher”, she said. “He cares for you deeply, but… As a queen, once Foltest has had what is his; you can take any lover you want. I will even help you hide him in your closet for you…”, she laughed. “But Geralt…”. “Won’t be able to stay. Won’t age. Will live long after I’m dead; and have lovers after me”, I said. She looked at me questioningly. “But you don’t care”, she said.

I sighed. “I care. But what he is to me – what I think I am to him – that won’t become… less”. I looked into her warm eyes. “We aren’t each other’s, but we are one”. She nodded, and squeezed my hand; before standing up.

“I am off to Vizima. I will use a portal, so I will be there when you arrive”. She looked at me with nothing but tenderness. “I won’t tell the king I saw you. He’ll wonder why I didn’t just bring you back myself. It will give you some time”.

The door opened, and Geralt came back into the room with a plate of food, and a bottle of what looked like wine. Triss smiled at him meaningfully. “Take care of her Geralt”. He grunted and nodded. “Your highness; I will be glad to call you a friend, if you’ll have me”. I smiled. “I will”.

She walked out the door, leaving us behind.

Geralt sat down on the edge of the bed, next to me. He handed me the plate. “Are you really all right?”, he asked. “I have frog energy now”, I jested. He laughed softly. “You always did, little frog”, he said. “Now eat”.

—

Insisting that I needed to rest more; and that he needed to have a real drink for the first time in days; Jaskier convinced us that we should take some rooms in a tavern. It wasn’t a hard sell for me, as I desperately needed to be alone with Geralt.

Once in our room; I wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed with my lover; and have him to myself. I slid my hands behind his neck; and pulled him down to kiss me. He stopped me. “No”, he said quietly. A chill ran over my body; of pure embarrassment. “I’m…”, I said. “Of course. You don’t… wouldn’t want to now”. He frowned. “No, Y/N. No…”, he said. “Nothing is different. I still want you more than anything”. I frowned. “Then, I don’t understand. What’s wrong?”, I asked.

He went to look out the window, his back turned to me. He was quiet for a long time; and it felt like all air left the room. “Geralt?”, I whispered.

“You were in so much pain”, he said, still not turning around. “You screamed for hours”. I looked down; suddenly reminded of the anguish streaming through my body the night before. “I didn’t know it was that long”, I whispered. “It was”, he grumbled. “You were screaming, and you reached for help. You called my name so many times I lost count”. He turned around, and his expression was so pained; I couldn’t help but want to hold him – soothe him, somehow. “Before you; I never felt that… agony when someone was hurting in front of me”, he said, his amber eyes sincere. “But you… They say witchers have no emotions; but it felt like torture to see you like that. And then you screamed my name”. He walked over to me; still not looking into my eyes. “And I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t even touch you”. He clenched his jaw. “I have never been so… afraid. Helpless”.

I swallowed hard. “I’m sorry”, I whispered. “I wish I hadn’t…”. “What?”, he asked. “Called my name?”. “I didn’t know I did that”, I said. “I’m not sorry”, he said quietly. “I know it’s because you…”. He sighed.

We could never say that word. It would ruin everything.

“You haven’t touched me since we left the keep”, I said. “Is that why?”. He grunted. “It was so painful”, I said. “I have never felt anything like that, and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. I want to forget it”. He met my eyes. “May I… touch you? Now?”, he asked. I nodded.

He put his hand on my cheek – carefully; as if I would break if he wasn’t gentle enough. I exhaled, and closed my eyes. His other hand found the back of my head, and he put his forehead to mine. “All that pain”, he breathed. “Help me forget”, I whispered. “Help us forget”. He smiled. “As you wish, little frog”.

I wrapped my arms around his neck; and he lifted me up to straddle his waist, as he carried me to the bed. His hand behind my head; he gently laid me down. “This is better”, he smiled. “What is?”, I asked. “To see you like this. Warm and smiling… And wanting”. Putting his lips to mine; we melded together.

He began unlacing my jerkin; and when it was off, he lifted himself off me, stood up; and quickly discarded his own, followed by his shirt. I smiled at him. “What?”, he said. “I’m beginning to forget already”, I smirked. He took my hands and pulled me into a seated position. “Then it is your turn to help me forget”, he said. He took a hold of the hem of my shirt, and pulled it over my head; leaving my torso bare.

He exhaled satisfied. “I want to see all of you”. I stood up in front of him; pulled off my boots; and then unlaced the sides of my pants. Geralt hooked his fingers into the waist of them; and then pulled them down my legs; crouching in front of me in the process. Once he had gently lifted each of my feet out of the pants; he looked up at me, and sunk his face into the apex of my thighs; then took a deep breath. The sensation of his warm breath on my folds made me moan; but the moan soon turned into a squeal, when Geralt – with a firm grasp on my buttocks – lifted me into the air; face still buried in my core. I laughed; and put my hands on the witchers shoulders to keep my balance as he held me up there.

“Mmhmm, that scent”; Geralt said into my warmth. “And the taste”. His tongue slid between my labia; and flickered over my clit. I shivered in pleasure. “Geralt; I’ll fall”, I breathed. He lowered me slowly; inhaling my scent all the way. “I’ll never let you fall”, he groaned; and lowered me gently onto the bed.

He stood over me; taking in every inch of my body. “Take of your breeches, witcher”, I demanded. “I have a whole new lifeforce to spend up; and I intend to take advantage of it, with you inside me”. He smirked. “I know”, he said. “But I will decide which part of me will be inside you; and in which order”.

My breath hitched; and he grabbed me behind my legs; pulling me towards him, and sinking to his knees. “First…”, he said, “… my fingers”. He slid two digits between my folds, and into me. I gasped. “Then my tongue…”. His tongue slid over my nub; and my body jolted. “And finally – if you are a very good little frog…”. He crawled over me; without removing his hand from between my legs. “… I’ll let you have my cock”. As he said the word; he crooked his fingers; and pushed hard and deep into me – making me see the sun, moon and the stars all at once.

I had all three things inside me that night. Multiple times.

—

Thanks for reading.

Let me know if you want to be added to the tag list.

- no lady

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emy-loves-you · 4 years ago

Text

Sanders Sides AU-gust Day 5: Post-Apocalypse

Remus gets injured while running away from a hoard. Janus tends to his wounds, and they make a new friend

Janus POV, Dukeceit, parental Moxiety and slight parental Anxceit

Day 4 | Masterlist | Day 6

“What on earth were you thinking!?!”

Remus smiled, completely ignoring the large gash in his arm. “They were after me! And I had to get back to the love of my life!” He waggled his eyebrows, and Janus barely resisted the urge to smack him.

“Why didn’t you go around the barbed wire fence? You knew where the entrance was!”

“Because it was quicker to go over the fence, duh. And so much more fun. I felt like I was in an action-horror movie!” He pumped his arms into the air, completely ignoring his injury.

Janus sighed, moving to grab the first-aid kit. “And why didn’t you wear your jacket? You know how difficult it is for zombies to bite through that thing. And you probably wouldn’t need stitches right now if you had worn it.”

Remus pouted. “Because you were sleeping with it! And if I’d woken you up you would’ve convinced me to stay.”

“Yeah, because there definitely weren’t over 300 zombies in the area!”

“You know I would do it again in a heartbeat!” Remus’ smile was completely gone (was it ever truly there in the first place?) and Janus sighed as he directed Remus to sit on the nearest tree stump. They stood in silence for several minutes as Janus tended to Remus’ injury. For the first half of the procedure, there were no sounds beyond Remus’ quiet hissing when Janus tugged too harshly on a stitch.

After most of the wound was closed, Janus spoke up. “You know he’s probably dead.” He kept his eyes trained on the stitches. He didn’t need to look up to know what expressions lied on Remus’ face. They’ve had this conversation dozens of times, after all.

Remus sighed. “I know. But if there’s even the smallest chance that Ro’s alive, I’m gonna find him.” Janus offered no sympathy. He knew that would only fuel the fire. “I can’t lose him, Jan. Not again.”

Janus remained silent as he tended to Remus’ wound. As he finished stitching and moved on the bandaging, Janus let his mind wander. It’s been almost 3 years since the outbreak started. Janus and Remus were just friends at the time. Remus and Roman (Remus’ twin brother) had gotten into an argument right before Roman moved across the country. After the outbreak started, Remus had made it his goal to find Roman. A difficult goal, especially since the zombies had multiplied overnight, making it impossible to travel on road or through cities. But Remus never gave up. So here they were, over 2,000 miles away from home, searching for any signs of life while barely surviving themselves.

Once Janus had Remus completely patched up, they packed up to leave. The scent of Remus’ blood would eventually attract zombies. It would be best to travel as far as possible before setting up camp for the night.

They walked for around 6 hours, talking about whatever topic came to mind. Well, it was more of Remus bringing up a random topic and Janus bringing up different counterarguments. They eventually made camp down by a stream in the middle of the woods. The sun was close to setting as Janus collected wood to start a fire. Remus moved deeper into the forest, likely searching for deer or rabbits. Janus quickly set up the fire, dragging a fallen tree nearby to use as a bench. Just as Janus was starting to wonder what was taking Remus so long, he heard a rustle from behind him. “Finally decide to show up, Remus? Did some sort of poisonous or toxic creature distract you?” He turned around to see someone that was decidedly not Remus.

Crouching in the thick foliage was a child, no older than 6. He had long brown hair and oversized black hoodie. His hair had multiple braids running through it, but it had obviously been several days since they were put in, judging from the multiple twigs and knots that Janus could see. Large brown eyes fearfully stared into Janus’ soul.

Janus slowly moved to sit on the log behind him. It would be better if the child believed he wouldn’t run up and grab him. “Hello, little one.” Janus’ voice was much softer now, and he noticed how the child appeared nervous but didn’t flinch. “My name is Janus. What’s yours?” The child didn’t answer, instead looking over at the decently-sized fire. “Would you like to join me? My partner should be here soon, and he’ll have food for us to cook and eat.” The child glanced between Janus and the fire, seemingly weighing his options. “If it makes you more comfortable, I promise I won’t get off of this log unless absolutely necessary. You needn’t be afraid. Neither my partner nor I would ever harm a child.”

The child weighed his options for a few more moments before stepping forwards. He slowly approached the fire, not taking his eyes off of Janus. Once he was in grabbing range and Janus hadn’t reached out for him, the child’s entire body seemed to relax. Janus watched as the child winced and pulled a stick out of his hair. “Would you like some assistance with that?” The child looked up at Janus, his shoulders tense again. “I could clean and rebraid your hair, if you want me to.” The child stared at him for a few moments before slowly approaching. After a few more minutes of coaxing, the child was soon sitting in Janus’ lap, watching the fire as Janus fixed his hair.

For once, Janus was grateful that the virus killed off kids rather than infecting them. He could bash in the face of a 30-year-old zombie any day (he usually did so daily). But if he had seen this child running after him, bloody and rotting? Janus didn’t know what he would do.

The child winced as Janus pulled out a stubborn stick. “My apologies.” Janus murmured softly. “I’m afraid it’s been many years since I last dealt with long hair.” The child seemed to relax at Janus’ tone, so Janus kept talking. “I’m surprised that you managed to find this campsite, much less approach us. You must be very brave, child.” The child muttered something under his breath. “What did you say?”

“m not brave, ‘m just Virgil.”

Janus smiled softly as he worked on braiding Virgil’s hair. “Well, Virgil. I feel like you’re not seeing what I’m seeing. I see a strong child who faced his fears and did what he had to do to survive. What do you see?”

Virgil started shaking, and it took Janus a moment to realize that he was crying. “They said I couldn’t do anythin’ ‘cause ‘m small.” Janus started to rub the child’s back as he shook more. “I thought I could do it on my own but I can’t! I miss Uncle Lo and his facts. I miss Uncle Ro and his songs. I miss my Papa!”

The child was sobbing by this point. Janus turned Virgil around so he could bury his face in Janus’ chest. Janus rubbed small circles into Virgil’s back as he cried. “There there.” He whispered. “It’s alright. We’ll find your Papa.” Janus did not like to make such claims. He never did so with Remus with his quest to find Roman, so why should he do so with Virgil?

Maybe it was because of the way Virgil relaxed after he’d said it. Maybe it was because Virgil was just a child, and will hopefully forget the promise. Maybe it was because Janus didn’t want this kid to grow up an orphan. But it didn’t matter, because he’d already said it.

Once the kid stopped crying, turned back around so that he continued facing the fire. Janus smiled as Virgil leaned back so that he was laying against Janus’ chest. They stayed like that for several minutes before they heard more rustling from the other side of the fire. Virgil seemed to see the person’s face before Janus did. Instead of burying himself into Janus, like he’d expected, Virgil instead jumped out of Janus’ lap. He quickly ran around the fire, shouting in relief. “Ro! Ro! R- oh.”

Janus kept his eyes on Remus, who was staring at the child with a carefully blank expression. Before he could potentially frighten the child, Janus spoke up. “Virgil, I would like you to meet Remus, my boyfriend. Remus, this is Virgil. I was hoping we could watch over him until he is reunited with his father.”

Remus’ face went through a myriad of emotions before sticking with happy. For once, Janus was grateful for Remus’ obsession with theatre. It made him an amazing actor, after all. “Of course! There’s always room for one more!” He reached down to poke Virgil’s belly, and Janus was surprised to hear the child giggle. Remus stood back up and offered Janus the deer carcass he’d hunted earlier. “Sorry it took so long. I spotted two giant spiders mating in the woods. The female bit off the male’s head!”

Virgil mumbled something as he made his way back to Janus. “What was that, Virgil?”

“...spiders are cool.”

Remus’ smile became less forced. “I’ll take you to see them tomorrow.”

They sat in relative silence as Janus worked to prepare the deer meat. Remus had already drained it, thankfully, so Janus mainly needed to skin it. Janus watched out of the corner of his eye as Virgil attempted to scoot closer to him. “Would you like something, Virgil?”

Virgil seemed surprised that Janus had called him out. “Nothing!”

Janus internally sighed. It would take a while for Virgil to fully come out of his metaphorical shell. “Do you know how to skin a deer, Virgil?” The child shook his head. “Would you like to learn how?”

Virgil suddenly found his shoes extremely interesting. “I’m not allowed to touch knives.”

“I didn’t ask that.” Virgil’s head shot up. “I asked if you wanted to learn how to skin a deer.” Virgil nodded frantically, and Janus barely stopped himself from smirking. “Alright, come closer and I’ll show you how.”

Virgil sat in Janus’ lap as he carefully removed the deer’s skin. After a few minutes of explanation and demonstration, he handed Virgil the knife. He kept his hands on Virgil’s the entire time, and there were luckily no injuries from the experience. They lost a little bit of meat from where Virgil cut too deep, but it wasn’t too bad for his first time with a knife. While Janus cooked the meat, Remus told Virgil whatever stories popped into his mind. Janus was glad that Remus kept the stories PG, and was surprised that Virgil preferred some of Remus’ darker tales.

After a few more hours of eating and storytelling, Virgil let out a yawn. Janus smiled. “Are you tired?” Virgil nodded, his eyes already starting to close. “Then we’ll wake you in the morning. Sleep tight, Virgil.”

Once the two of them were sure that Virgil was asleep, Remus started whispering. “Okay, what the fuck is going on!?”

Janus sighed, making sure to keep his voice down. “From what I’ve gathered, Virgil and his father travel with your brother and a third adult that goes by ‘Lo.’ A few days ago, one of them told Virgil that he couldn’t help them because he’s too young. Wanting to prove them wrong, he ran away and found our fire.”

Remus was in deep concentration. “So Roman IS alive.”

Janus nodded. “Possibly. If he is, than he is most likely nearby, searching for Virgil.”

Remus nodded before looking over at Virgil. “I don’t know why they wouldn’t let him help.”

Janus sighed. “He is rather young, Remus.”

Remus waved him off. “I know, I know. And before all of this shit happened, I would’ve agreed. He’s way too young to handle knives or fire. But we’re not living anymore. We’re surviving. And this kid needs to learn how to survive in case he’s on his own again.”

“And I perfectly agree.” They sat there for another hour as the fire started to dwindle. Remus offered to take first shift, so Janus kissed him goodnight before laying down next to Virgil. And if Janus’ heart melted a bit when Virgil grabbed the front of Janus’ shirt in his sleep?

Well, no one had to know about that, did they?

#sanders sides #AU_gust_2020 #Alternate universe post-apocalypse #dukeceit #Janus Sanders #remus sanders #virgil sanders #skinning animals #stitches #talk of spiders

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pianomanblaine · 4 years ago

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Unmasked

What in heaven’s name had possessed her to take off his mask? Honestly, she had always believed that he wore the mask to hide his identity from her. Never had the thought crossed her mind that maybe he wore it to hide something else entirely.

Written for @timebird84's Spooky Phantober 2020 Day 21 prompt: Fear

AO3 FFN

Her father had always told her that her curiosity would get her into trouble one day. As it turned out, he was right. What in heaven’s name had possessed her to take off his mask? Honestly, she had always believed that he wore the mask to hide his identity from her. Never had the thought crossed her mind that maybe he wore it to hide something else entirely.

Her first reaction when she had revealed his face was to scream. Not because she was scared of what she saw – although admittedly, it really wasn’t a pleasant sight, it might even be called grotesque – but because it was so unexpected. He had called himself her Angel of Music, and she had imagined he had a face that befit that title, so when she realized that was far from the truth, she had been shocked, certainly, but not afraid.

What did frighten her more than anything was his reaction. The moment his mask was removed he was on his feet, screaming at her like a madman. In all the time she had known him, he had never been this violent towards her. True, he had been a stern teacher and never hesitated to chide her if she wasn’t performing the way he expected her to, but he had always treated her with respect, never speaking harshly. How could that Angel be the same person as the one who was now chasing her around the room, calling her names and threatening her?

She had never known fear like this before. Her heart was hammering in her chest, her blood pulsing rapidly in her veins as she tried to escape from him, but it was no use. There was nowhere to go, and with his tall, lithe frame he was faster than she was, stumbling over her dressing gown in her hurry to get away.

She tried to make her way to the boat – although she had no idea what she would even do when she got there – but as she ran past him, he grabbed her by the arm with one hand.

‘Is this what you wanted to see?’ he roared at her, pulling away his other hand, which had until then been covering the distorted side of his face. Before she even had the time to respond, he threw her face first to the ground. For a while she just stayed there, motionless, her eyes closed, too scared to move a muscle.

The seconds ticked by and nothing happened. The only sounds she could hear were the blood rushing in her ears, the Angel’s heavy breathing somewhere behind her and the steady dripping of water in the underground lake. Eventually, she found the courage to cast a glance at the man behind her. If he was going to hit her, she would at least see it coming.

She expected him to be standing, towering over her, but instead he had fallen to his knees. When he noticed her watching him, he started slowly crawling towards her, dragging himself forward with one hand, the other back on his face, covering the mangled flesh there. He was talking now, but she couldn’t focus on what he was saying, fear still ringing in her ears. She only picked up a couple of phrases – ‘loathsome gargoyle’, ‘burns in hell’, ‘monster’ – his voice a dangerous growl booming through the room. She instinctively moved away from him, begging him with her eyes not to come any closer, and when he saw this, he froze, as if he was only now realizing that he was frightening her.

The rage that had previously been burning in his golden eyes suddenly disappeared, making room for a look of utter despair. He made a sound that almost sounded like a whimper, whispering her name like a plea before looking away from her.

It was then that she finally understood. She had betrayed him. This was the man who had breathed new life into her voice, who had finally made her feel alive again after her dear papa’s passing, and she had repaid him by forcefully revealing the one thing he so desperately wanted to keep secret. She knew now that he was not an Angel, nor a Phantom, but a man of flesh and blood, who hid away from the world because he had no doubt encountered reactions like hers countless times before.

She sat up on her knees and reached for the mask, which had landed on the ground along with her when he had thrown her down. The least she could do was hand it back to him, and she truly intended to do just that, but instead she gave in to the impulse to touch his shoulder. Although her touch was gentle, he flinched and jerked back immediately, and she couldn’t help but wonder when this man had last been treated with any kindness.

‘Angel, please –‘

‘Don’t call me that,’ he growled. ‘Use my name if you must. It’s Erik.’

Erik. It seemed like such an ordinary name for such a unique man, but she kept the thought to herself.

‘Very well, Erik,’ she replied in barely more than a whisper, as if afraid that she would anger him again if she spoke any louder. She thought she saw a shiver run through him as she spoke his name, but it must have been her imagination.

‘Erik, I am so sorry.’

He finally looked at her then, although she could only see one eye as he was still covering the deformed side of his face with his hand.

‘As well you should be. You should not have removed the mask. I’m sure you’ll have nightmares about this horrible sight for months to come.’ Some of the anger had returned to his one visible eye, although she couldn’t make out if it was still directed at her, or at himself.

‘That’s not what I meant, although I’m terribly sorry for that too.’

His eyebrow rose in confusion.

‘I’m sorry for the way I reacted,’ she continued. ‘I should not have screamed like that. What I saw was not what I was expecting, but I could have handled my surprise better and I apologize.’

‘I don’t blame you. After all, who wouldn’t run away screaming from such a repulsive carcass as myself?’ he snarled, pulling his hand away to once again expose his deformity. It was clear that he was purposefully trying to scare her now. However, this time she was prepared for what she saw and it didn’t frighten her.

When she didn’t run and didn’t look away, trying to keep a neutral expression, the jeering look on his face gave way to one of bewilderment.

‘Oh Christine’, he whispered, and the sparkle of hope that shimmered through in his voice was devastating, as if he couldn’t believe anyone could ever look at him without fear. She did hand him the mask back then, hoping he would in time understand that he didn’t need to hide from her anymore.

As soon as the mask was on again, he seemed to transform into another person. His commanding presence and graceful movement returned, and as he stood up, he was once again the Angel of Music who had lured her through her dressing room mirror with his intoxicating voice.

‘Come, we must return,’ he said, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her to her feet, although his grip was not as hard and unforgiving as it had been before, ‘those two fools who run my theatre will be missing you.’

#phantom of the opera #potofanfic #phanfic #phanfiction #timebird84 #spooky phantober 2020 #eline writes #my fic #e/c

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constantfluxx · 5 years ago

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FAREWELL WANDERLUST BY THE AMAZING DEVIL FOR THE TUNE CRUISE * SCREAMS *

HI I AM THE ONE WHO REQUESTED FAREWELL WANDERLUST AND FORGOT TO SPECIFY WHICH SHIP. OF COURSE. GERASKIER OR JASKIER POV WHATEVER REALLY, OK? THANKS. ILU.

🎶The Evening Earworm Tune Cruise: The SS 200🎶

Port of Call: Geraskier! 🐺👨‍🎤Itinerary: Farewell Wanderlust by The Amazing DevilCaptain: @kiomaya 🧜‍♀️

Farewell Wanderlust, you’ve been oh oh so kindYou brought me through this darkness but you left me here behindAnd so long to the person you begged me to be

He took in a deep, steadying breath. His fingers trembled around the neck of his lute. Eyes closed, he mentally coached himself, willing his nerves to settle at least long enough for his voice to sing true. It’s just another performance. How many times have you done this before? It’s no big deal.

Except he knew he was lying to himself.

This was hardly “just another performance.” Far from it. It took him forever to finally write a song sharing Geralt’s “defeat” of the dragon with the world. Even longer to perform it. And, when he finally did, it was… not his best work. One could hardly expect him to sing such a tale with such passion and intrigue when its epilogue was laced with a pain he couldn’t bring himself to bare. It was technically perfect, as his work of late usually was, but the emotion was missing. He was missing.

This song… This performance… This is where it had run off to. Where it’d been hiding ever since his return from that mountainside. It took him longer than he’d like to admit to finally recognize it as the problem - or perhaps he’d known all along, but refused to acknowledge it because it would reopen too many wounds, resurface too much hurt. Finally, the lacerations across his heart had begun to scar just enough for him to look, to examine, to embrace.

All that had happened… It was an indisputable part of him now, no matter how much pain it caused him, and would continue to cause him. He couldn’t move forward while leaving a part of him in the past - it was all or nothing, and he understood that now.

He doubted the unsuspecting townsfolk filling their bellies at the local tavern particularly cared to hear about his heartbreak. Songs of joy and adventure and triumph tended to draw far more coin than songs of misery and suffering and defeat. But this wasn’t for coin, not primarily anyhow. For this one song, this one performance, it wasn’t about the job.

It was bout reclaiming himself. About owning his life. About declaring his agony so irrefutably that he would have no choice but to recognize it as his own and finally, finally, start to address it head-on.

And wasn’t that a kind of personal victory, in its own, awful way?

He opened his eyes. He gazed out upon his feasting audience, upon their grumbling banter and stomping feet and clanking flagons. And he saw hair of white, and swords of silver, and eyes of yellow.

Delicate, flitting fingertips plucked away the beginning notes, deceptively light and whimsical. His voice followed in sweet accompaniment, painting the first syllable in a long, arcing embrace before twirling into its prancing opening measure.

“You look like I need a drink he winked as he slipped from my grasp to the barAnd you are?”

As he rounded out the opening lyrics, the catchy, playful tune drew those listening ears into a light nodding alongside his rhythm. Just as he’d once been distracted by Geralt’s splendor, so too were they taken by his light sing-song, and even as something more sinister began to sneak between his words they sooner suspected the start of some grand tale than the foreboding of tragedy.

Sooner just evidence of the Witcher’s social neglect than a pattern of distancing dissent.

“Every time that you fumble, I’m the laugh from the backWhen you think about him, my wings start to flapWhen you make a mistake, my feet lift from the floorAnd when you lie there awake every night love, I soar”

The notes were turning darker. The words weren’t turning towards a new tomorrow. Rather than circle back, they basked in their darkness, reveled in the furrowed brows and wary glances. His pace built, the ebb and flow of his song’s tide swirling into a tumultuous churning from shore to shore. Too late to swim to safety, the listening hearts searched for the sun - surely it was just around the corner, just after the next typhoon?

Surely, he’d come to his senses and warm up to the company?

“I’m the heartbreak that aches far too much to be shownAll those letters unsent and that garden ungrownI’m the captain of courage you’ve eternally lackedI’m the Jesus of wishing to Christ he’ll come back”

The wave crashed down upon them. Hope of survival glimmered in its wake, breaking free of the surface for a vital breath of precious air. A single ray of sunlight touched their faces… but it proved only to be the eye of a surmounting storm, one which raged more furiously than anything before it. It dragged them back down into his suffering, and like troublesome dogs their faces were forced to behold his wretched distress. But rather than recoil away from the filth, they stared, held in place by the voice that wrapped around their necks like nooses. They witnessed the unfolding of his wounded heart, the casting aside of the love that had poisoned it, and the thrashing of his despair in this pit he’d been left in.

How could someone so beautiful be capable of something so cruel?

“Come devil come, she sang, call out my nameLet’s take this outside cos we’re one and the sameOur god has abandoned us, left us, insteadTake up arms, take my hand, let us waltz for the dead”

The notes of his lute had slowed once more, heavy and trudging. Where once had been whimsy now there rang spite: a lesson learned, and with it the reckless abandon of love’s unburdened prisoner. Only here, at the very depths of his sorrow, could all his emotion at last gather into a crude ladder he could use to pull himself out. Because Love had cast him down, he stood up. Because Love had said he couldn’t, he did. Because Love demanded he stay, broken and defeated, he threw Love away, put himself back together, and reached for something new.

He didn’t know what kind of life could possibly come after Geralt, but he knew, at least, that he’d rather search and know than never even look.

“Farewell Wanderlust, you’ve been oh oh so kindYou brought me through this darkness but you left me here behindAnd so long to the person you begged me to beHe’s down. He’s dead.Now take a long look at what you’ve done to me?”

It was hardly a happy resolution. It was ugly and gritty and tormented, but then what else could have ever come from this war? Nonetheless, as he led his audience into this final arch of their journey, his song blossomed into a kind of vindictive triumph, one that dared the world to try, just try and drag him back into the darkness. It would not, it must not, they collectively swore.

Perhaps, one day, Geralt would come back. It’d be splendid if he did - truly. For then, he could see the rotting carcass of the man Jaskier had to shed in order to forge himself anew. Then, maybe, he’d realize the sins he’d committed, recognize the way he’d sheared Jaskier’s heart to shreds and cast them off the mountainside.

But whether or not he ever did would no longer be a thing Jaskier concerned himself with.

“He’s down, He’s deadHe’s gone, He’s lostHe’s flown, He’s fledNow take a good long look at what you've all done to me”

As Jaskier declared his final words to the crowd, his fingers flew along the strings of his lute, releasing its last, swelling vibrato through the small tavern. The sound grew and grew, until at last it burst into an abrupt silence that swept in and suffocated what few lingering embers might still yet burn for the captivating Witcher.

For a suspenseful moment, not a soul dared disturb it, and even when the daily rumblings of the tavern began to creep back into place no one offered applause - such a thing just didn’t seem right after such an emotional experience as the one which had just unfolded all around them. Not even Jaskier himself offered any levity to the situation, trading his usual bow and playful quip for a simple nod of his head, more for himself than his audience. A small, silent affirmation of his deed, a thanks he afforded himself for finally releasing his pain to the winds of change.

He turned from them and retreated back to his sparse belongings, joining the rest in the tavern in a strange normalcy that pretended like nothing had ever happened. Not but a single soul challenged it, stepping towards him so quietly he hadn’t noticed them until a tiny, trembling finger touched the sleeve of his doublet. Startled, he turned to regard his visitor, a now-distant corner of his mind wondering if he’d find a calloused hand gloved in black.

Of course not. The touch had been too small, too flighty, too careful.

She stared up at him with a round, teary-eyed face, mouth hanging slightly ajar as she still searched for something to say. Studying him, seeing her own shaken state reflected in him, her brow furrowed, and in her eyes he saw an approaching understanding. At last, she murmured, taken with frightful awe, “That... was miserable... ?”

His eyes flickered down, catching the glint of a small trio of coins sequestered in her upturned palm. He knew well what her drifting, questioning inflection reached for, but he only smiled and shook his head, folding her fingers closed around her coin.

“Sometimes, my dear,” he whispered, voice still shuddering from lingering passion, “life is miserable.”

He paused. Chuckled. Hoisted his lute upon his shoulder by the strap of its case.

“And that’s okay.”

#The Witcher #Geraskier #Geralt #Jaskier #The Amazing Devil #fanfiction #writing prompts #fluxx fics #The Tune Cruise #The SS 200 #kiomaya #lmaoooooo #love you too boo ;*

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bone-wolves · 4 years ago

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Wolvember: 11/8 - Scary Story

can I be honest? I’m not sure how scary this story is, but I hope you like it!

“Tell us a story, Ruta!” The young pup said, pawing at her leg where she’d settled. The evening was coming and Ruta, Aala and Theora had gathered the pups into the Nursery to prepare them for sleep.

“A story, huh?” Ruta smirked, crossing her paws and eyeing the pups around her. Most of the time Aala didn’t let her tell stories - saying they were too crass or too outrageous and filled the pup’s heads with ridiculous ideas. But Aala wasn’t there, having gone out to get some snacks for the pups, and Theora - well, Theora was busy rearranging and fluffing the pups’s nests, humming a tune to herself and seemingly not paying attention to them.

“Well,” Ruta said, leaning her head towards the pup while the others crowded up alongside. “I might be persuaded...depends on what kind of story you want to hear.”

“A SCARY ONE!” One of the pups yipped, a dark-furred young one with traces of white on her neck and feet and a bright cream patch on her back. “A Super Scary One!”

The other pups wiggled with excitement, not even one disagreeing.

“Well!” Ruta chuckled, just a little mischievously, “Well, I just might have a story that is spooky and scary enough for you....”

She lowered her head again, eyeing each of the pups in turn.

“It happened a long time ago, before you were born, before I joined the Rowan’s Shade pack...”

The pups waited with bated breath, some sitting, some flopping to lay down, but almost all with tails twitching in excitement.

“I had left my birth pack months earlier, and was traveling to find a place of my own. But I had made a bad choice,” Ruta shook her head at the memory, “And left my pack just as the seasons where changing, and now winter was coming. The air had turned cold and the wind was biting. Snow began to cover everything, and I got so turned around I didn’t know where I was going!”

The pups whimpered at that - winter had reached the Rowan’s Shade pack, and the pups were becoming more and more aware of the dangers the cold weather and blanketing snow caused.

“The hunting was bad, and I spent my days hungry and exhausted and alone, trudging through snow drifts up to my shoulders and only catching the smallest of prey when luck struck,” Ruta went on, “Sometimes - sometimes! - I’d get lucky enough to find a mostly-eaten carcass frozen in the snow. I’d have to dig until my paws were ragged to get to it but it often was the most food I could find for days!”

“The nights grew long, the darkness surrounding me everywhere I went, and even when the sun shone it was cold and gave little warmth. As I traveled I could hear voices on the wind, distant howls that I couldn’t quite understand - they weren’t my old pack,” Ruta nodded, “But no matter how I tried to find them, I couldn’t! I’d run in the direction they’d come from hoping that I’d come upon some other wolves, but there’d be none.

“Sometimes,” She whispered, and the pups leaned forward, ears perked, “Sometimes I’d find wolf tracks in the fresh snow, light as if they weighed almost nothing at all, and so-so many of them. I’d follow them as they twisted and turned among trees, and out onto the near-barren taiga, until they’d just...disappear.”

The pups gasped.

“Disappear? How?” The smallest pup asked, eyes wide and tail tucked close to her side.

“Why, they’d just be gone!” Ruta laughed, “Gone, just stopped suddenly in the middle of a trail, like the wolf had lifted off into the air!”

The pups yipped with wonder, one even whimpered.

“But that was only the precursor to what was about to happen,” Ruta continued.

“Pweecuwsow?” The youngest pup asked, forehead scrunched in confusion.

“Just the beginning,” Ruta clarified with a snort, “Because, in the dead of winter, when I thought I’d only survive by the skin of my teeth and the few unlucky mice I’d catch every few days, something happened.”

She eyed the rapt pups, raising her head above them, “The day started like this -

- I’d spotted the ragged trail of an obviously injured animal. There was no blood, but the tracks were ragged and wobbly, and it took a great deal of sniffing and eyeing them to figure out it was a deer. A small one, by the size of the hoof prints, but in the dead of winter even a small one was worth it’s own celebration! So I stalked the deer, following the tracks quickly, but carefully, so that it wouldn’t notice me as I got close. The wind favored me as I caught up to it - the scrawny doe didn’t even notice me creeping up on her as she tore at the bark of a lone scraggly pine. She had a bad leg - broken at some point, and healed all wrong so that it dragged behind her as she walked. She hadn’t been able to keep up with her herd, no doubt, and they’d left her to her fate - and to my fortune!”

“The doe, preoccupied with the bark in her mouth, never saw me coming. I dashed through the snow with all the remaining energy left in my limbs and launched onto her weak hindquarter. She cried out in fear, trying to pull away, but I’d caught her tight with my claws and paws and my teeth dug deep into her haunch, and dragged her down to the ground.”

The pups gasped, some of their tails wagging with the excitement at just the mere thought of the hunt.

“I, hm, dispatched her quickly,” Ruta said, licking her lips and grinning down at the pups, “But I knew I couldn’t stay to eat. Her cry would’ve alerted any other predator in the area, and if I wanted to keep her to myself I’d have to move her to a safer place. So I dragged the doe to a thicket a ways off, and exhausted from the strain I lay down next to her to rest a little before eating.

“By then the night had grown deep and dark, and though the moon had risen it was only a waxing crescent, shedding barely any light. I perked my ears, watching the edges of the thicket, expecting a predator of any kind to appear at any moment!” Ruta said sharply, and pups gasped again. “All was quiet, very, very quiet. I finally thought it’d be safe to begin eating, and turned my attention to the doe. Just as I ripped into her skin and felt the first, warm juices run into my parched throat - something out of the corner of my eye moved.”

“Oh!’

“What was it?”

“Was it a MONSTER?”

“Ha!” Ruta barked a laugh, “I still don’t know the answer to that, pup, but I can tell you this, whatever it was - when I looked at it, it looked like a wolf. A scrawny, none too intimidating looking wolf. All pale, as pale as fresh fallen snow, even paler than Alnitak! Their nose was pinkish pale bordering on blue, and their eyes were so white it was almost hard to tell where their pale fur ended and their eyes began. They stood at the edge of the thicket, eyeing me with head and tail held low, and made no sound.”

“They snuck up on you?”

“They did,” Ruta admitted with a nod, “I’m not sure how - the thicket ground was covered in dead leaves and branches that hadn’t quite been covered by snow. When I crossed I made quite a racket - but they’d somehow appeared without making a single sound.”

“Spooky.” A pup said, a sentiment shared by the others with quite whimpers and nods.

“I was ready to guard my kill - I was starving and the doe was more food than I’d seen in weeks! But-“ Ruta paused, eyes widening, “But, something about the strange wolf moved me. I don’t know what it was - their scrawniness, the way they obviously held themselves to not look like a threat, they way they didn’t eye the doe but instead looked at me, directly, as if waiting for the move I’d make. Like they were trying to tell me that I was the one making decisions here, and they wouldn’t put up a fight....”

“Well, I knew what it was like, wandering the cold, empty taiga by yourself, scrabbling for food and hoping the next day would be better. And even though I wanted - I really wanted - to growl at the wolf, snarl at them and chase them away from my kill, I fought those urges down, and instead I offered for them to join me.”

“They accepted with a wag of their tail, and in the softest voice I’d heard, soft as a gentle breeze, as the beating of a moth’s wing, as the twinkle of stars,” Ruta wasn’t known for waxing poetic in descriptions, but - but she didn’t know how else to explain, “They thanked me and settled at a respectful distance from me to begin eating, taking the less desirable portions and leaving me the best. I noticed that, don’t think I didn’t! I was going to gobble down all the best parts for myself - the lungs, the kidneys, the liver, all of it. But this stranger, they seemed worse off than myself now that I could see them better, and they seemed to accommodating, so respectful and kind, that I thought it would be wrong to leave them with the absolute worst of the meal.”

“So, with a heavy heart - because you know this is my favorite part of the prey - I pulled out the liver and set it next to them.” Ruta said, her voice filled with the heavy tone of self-sacrifice at the memory of it. “It was such a nice, juicy, large liver, too...”

“And what-what did them do?” A pup barked eagerly.

“Well, they looked as surprised as you all do!” Ruta chuckled, “They looked at me and at the liver and back at me as if to ask if I’m sure, so I nudged it closer to them and turned back to my meal. We ate in silence, and no other predators or scavengers bothered us, which was odd, you know. There had been crows following me when I dragged the doe to the thicket, but even they were silent, if they were even around.”

“At one point, after we’d had our fill, the pale wolf turned to me and said, “Friend, the wind grows outside this thicket, cold and fierce, but here we are safe from the chill. Maybe we can spend this night together, here where it is safe?” I didn’t even think it strange at that point, having eaten well and feeling comfortable and pleasantly tired for the first time in a long, long while, so I agreed.” Ruta nodded, “And so we slept, agreeing to take turns on watch, but somehow I managed to sleep the whole long, dark night through to the morning, waking only when the sun’s rays broke through the thicket’s branches.”

“And when I woke,” Ruta said, lowering her head to meet the pups eye’s again, “The pale wolf was gone!”

“GONE?”

“Gone!“ Ruta nodded, then admitted, “But not far. Their tracks led out of the thicket, into a large clearing where the sun shone brightly on the snow covered grown. All around them were wolf prints, dashing this way and that, pitting the snow as if they had run round and round and round for hours. I was going to ask them what had happened, why they hadn’t woken me during the night, but before I could they turned to me and my voice caught in my throat at the sight of them.”

Ruta shuddered suddenly at the memory of that day, the chill of the wind and the warmth of the sun and the sudden vision of the wolf before them.

“Their eyes, they were the bluest blue you’d ever seen - bluer than any eyes you’ve seen, and they SHONE in the sunlight like jewels!” Ruta said, working herself up with her own retelling and pushing herself up into a half-sit. “Their fur glistened like the purest fallen snow, so white the glare hurt to see, and they were no longer scrawny or ragged but firm and strong and sleek. They looked at me with a great smile on their face, and while I stood there in shock at what I saw, they suddenly raised their head high and howled into the sky.”

“The howl, pups,” Ruta’s eyes were wide, her tail twitching on the ground, “The howl seemed to go on, and on, and on, reaching all the edges of the world, and it echoed around me as if were were in a cavern and not an open, near empty stretch of taiga. I backed away, shocked and unsure of what I was seeing and hearing, and then, I realized something...”

The pups crouched before her, ears pricked, eyes widened, some hiding behind others but peeking out from behind shoulders and backs.

“I realized...That the howls coming from around me weren’t echos,” Ruta said quietly, head lowered and inching closer to the pups with each word. “I looked, and all around me, surrounding me, were rows upon rows of wolf-shapes. Some were dark, like the shadow of a wolf, and some were pale, like a wolf bathed in brightest sunlight, but all stood as if they were four legged, and solid and real, and all had their muzzles raised in chorus of howls to join the pale wolf before me-”

“Ghost wolves!” A pup yelped, jumping up and running to hide behind another pup.

“Ghost wolves,” Ruta agree with a wide grin that showed off her teeth. All the pups yelped then, though some did so in excitement instead of fear. “And the pale wolf looked at me, and their eyes danced like blue flame, and they said to me, “You are still on your path to find your true pack, but I promise you this - whether that day comes soon or is still far off, you will never walk the lands alone until you find your place in this world.”

“And wh-what happened then?” A shaking pup asked.

“What happened is exactly what the pale wolf said,” Ruta said matter-of-factly, settling back to lay down, “Wherever I went, pale and dark shadows followed, until I found my way to Rowan’s Shade pack.”

“Although,” She said in a musing tone, “Sometimes, it feels like they are still around. Sometimes, it seems like I can still see them...like...”

She focused her eyes on the entrance of the den then, widening them and painting a look of surprise on her face, “THERE!”

The pups yelped in unison, jumping up and whirling around to face the entrance of the den with fur bristling and tails standing rigid.

“What have you been telling them this time, Ruta?” Aala said around a mouthful of rats from where she stood at the den entrance, eyeing Ruta disdainfully as the other pupsitter rolled over onto her back, laughing.

“Oh, nothing much,” She said, tongue lolling out of her mouth. Her eyes met the gaze of the pale shape seated at the far end of the den, nearly invisible unless you knew just how to look to see them. “Just a story.”

#wolvden #cryptid wovlden #wolvember #ruta tag

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