#it also ties in with the idea that link is continuously forgotten

[merriclo]

WOAH this is such a cool interpretation!!! i’ve seen a few people write about child timeline Zelda having a general gist of Sheik’s memories, but i’ve never seen it in this way and it’s crazy interesting to think abt. genuinely tysm for sharing this idea it’s sick

can i hear about your different perspective on sheik pretty pls 👀

Of course!

Okay so. Please bear with me because there's a lot of nebulous Sheikah magic involved but the gist of it is that Sheik and Zelda (at least in Ocarina of Time) are two completely seperate people.

Before I get into it, to anyone reading, this is not an attack on other people's interpretations of Sheik and OoT Zelda. Those other takes are completely 100% valid because, at the end of the day, they're fictional characters and can be headcanoned however the heck you want. All I ask is that you kindly respect my opinion, and if you don't like it, that's okay! You don't have to agree with it and are 10000% free to continue enjoying your own.

I am gonna put a cutoff so that if people think it might upset them they don't have to read it, but if you'll be fine, then please continue below!

The main driving force behind this is to examine how it would affect Zelda's mental state later in life, but basically:

Sheik and Zelda are two completely different people. The next few notes are taken directly from my google doc explaining my thought process. A lot of this is taken from the OoT Manga, and then expanded.

SO.

Sheik.

Yes.

He is NOT Zelda.

7 years ago, when Zelda and Impa escaped Ganondorf’s clutches for the first time, the young princess realized that the Evil King’s minions would never stop hunting her and her handmaid. So she asked Impa to hide her- in any way possible.

Impa was reluctant, but she knew it would be better for Zelda to go into hiding willingly than be forced to. So, using ancient Sheikah magic, she sealed the princess away in a special portion of the Sacred Realm, transferring her memories into the body of a young Sheikah boy.

But this is important to note- Sheik was an ENTIRELY different entity from the princess. He was a creation of Impa’s magic, destined to fade away when the time came for Zelda to awaken. Zelda’s memories remained in him so he could help the hero, but they were modified so that it was as if Sheik was a third-person bystander- Impa’s orphaned nephew and Zelda’s closest friend, inseparable from her and watching her at all times, always conveniently hidden away so that these modifications wouldn’t conflict with the Hero’s memories when he awakened from his slumber. 

Speaking of memories, Sheik DID remember Zelda being sealed away, but this memory was HIGHLY modified so that the sealing was all that remained with him. He didn’t remember Zelda’s memories being transferred to him, or the fact that Impa cried for two days afterwards. 

ANYWAY. Moving on…

After Ganon’s hostile takeover, Impa and her young nephew fled to Impa’s hometown of Kakariko village, where Impa trained him in espionage, assassination, and ancient Sheikah martial arts in secret. To the outside world, however, Sheik was simply the mysterious boy who helped with trading between the town and the nearby Lon Lon Ranch. But by the time he's 17, Impa's trained him become an official Sheikah Ninja.

He manages to get into Ganondorf's ranks and becomes a double agent; in reality, his goal is to give aid to the Hero of Time that the princess loved so much.

So when Link awakens, Sheik is there. 

When Link travels, Sheik accompanies him in the shadows.

By the time the Hero has completed the Water Temple, he and his Sheikah advisor have become best friends. Inseparable, bound by their quest to help the Princess, and eventually by other things too. (It helps that Malon is a mutual friend.)

But when all the temples have been freed…

When Link travels back to the Temple of Time…

When the time comes for the Princess to awaken…

Sheik ceases to exist.

Zelda remembers him, but much like her modified memories, she remembers the events of the past seven years as if she were a third-person bystander.

She remembers Sheik, but more like he was her brother than like she was him. More importantly, she MISSES Sheik. He saved her life, kept her safe for seven years, allowed her to make connections and friendships she wouldn’t have made otherwise.

So yeah, that's the gist of it. She also eventually names her son Sheik, because of the aforementioned reasons. I've just worried I couldn't ever post this for fear of getting attacked for it. But yeah, that's my take on Sheik. If y'all've got any questions about him or any other headcanons of mine, feel free to drop 'em off in my inbox!

[luimagines]

Oohhh! The recent anon asks about both music and swimming have given me so many ideas!

For swimming the idea that hylians are denser and weigh more for their body size is super interesting! (If I'm interpreting that correctly) It would be interesting if the others who aren't as familiar with humans are just kinda baffled by how little the reader weighs in comparison to their size. I could totally imagine reader just getting picked up randomly by members of the chain. (Mostly Wild and Twilight mostly I'd imagine but I also see Sky joining in from time to time. That man is a gremlin when he wants to be.) Just full on circle of life Lion King style. Reader is just very done with these antics.

Also wouldn't it be so sad that the boys never got to experience the joy that are musicals. :c Twi would probably be the most chill about music growing up around humans and all. I could imagine someone in the chain coming across reader playing an instrument one day (we're going with violin for now since that's what I personally play) and it's just this beautifully haunting piece. And the Link is just frozen there like, "There must some sort of powerful magic at play with this piece!" But as he stands there not making a sound, holding his breath nothing continues to happen. And with a final flourish reader finishes and finally notices the Link there. I think there would probably need to be quite a bit of explaining on both sides.

Also what if there was a human hero!reader? They we're the one to save Hyrule but were never technically the hero. The proper Link of that era just up and left. Reader doesn't have the hero's spirit and can't even wield the master sword. I think it would be super interesting if they were from a time that was a lot more judgemental of humans so even after saving the country (which most people won't even acknowledge) reader can't have any peace. I also think that would raise an interesting counterpoint to some of the chain's preconceived notions that they have zero say in their quests. They would probably bond with Wind at least a bit though on account of them both not having the hero's spirit!

Hope you don't mind my excessively long ramble. I would have split it into smaller chunks but then I would have forgotten some part of it.

Have a lovely rest of your week and drink some water! <3 \(⁠≧⁠▽⁠≦⁠)/

I'm perfectly fine with long rambles! I'm glad to see you're interesting in this dumb au idea XD

Thank you for your patience in regards to me answering this. <3

Now I can't get over the mental image of Link holding up Reader like a child. He'd probably find it hilarious while Reader is two seconds from stabbing him.

In fact, I think Twilight would be the one to embrace music in a casual sense since he wouldn't have had the Hylian cultural ties. He grew up with humans. Music isn't necessarily sacred. Have fun with it! Twilight probably knows how to play the spoons and will drag Reader into jamming with him for the hell of it.

And Reader being the hero on top of the that?! Oh that would mess with their heads a bit.

Wind would probably latch onto that as well. Like, "neither of us were chosen, but that didn't stop us. You're more like me than they are!" And the betrayal a line like that would cause!

Some Link's would take a while to stop being petty.

[mask131]

A continuation of my Medusa post here.

Since people have been asking for links and sources about Medusa, I'll provide a little bibliography of various sources you can compare and debate about. Note that the bibliography about Medusa is even wider and bigger than the little samples I provide below, but I think they form a good "basic set" or "starting kit". (And I might have forgotten things, since I originally wrote my post unplanned and wasn't ready for it to blow up so much. I am just a tiny little blog that didn't get as much as seven likes on my biggest things you know Xp)

First of all, a resource that is fully available for free on Google Books: here, or here. It is called "Dangerous Beauties: Medusa in Classical Art", a Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, published in the winter of 2017. Very beautiful and informative with lot of nice art. There's also more about the exposition tied to this publication here. There was another publication by the Metropolitan Museum that can be of some interest, Majorie Milne's "Perseus and Medusa on an Attic Vase".

When it comes to English-speaking books analysing and dissecting the Medusa myth, two works keep popping up everywhere. 2003's "The Medusa Reader", and Stephen Wilk's "Medusa: Solving the Mystery of the Gorgon". They do form references when it comes to the overview, analysis and evolution of the Gorgon figure. Other works of note include David Leeming's "Medusa in the Mirror of Time", and Thalia Feldman's "Gorgo and the Origins of Fear" (published within "Arion", I don't know if it had been published elsewhere). The Internet Archive has a free copy, right here, of Frederick Thomas Elworthy's "The Evil Eye: The Classical Account of an Ancient Superstition".

If you can read French, go read Jean-Pierre Vernant's works that tackled the Gorgon: "La mort dans les yeux: Figures de l'Autre en Grèce Ancienne", (Death in the eyes: Figures of the Other in Ancient Greece - explores the legends of the Gorgon and of Artemis) ; and his co-work with Pierre-Vidal Naquet "Mythe et tragédie en Grèce Ancienne" (Vernant did wrote in English a part of The Medusa Reader, the article "In the mirror of Medusa"). Jean Clair also wrote an interesting document: "Méduse. Contribution à une anthropologie des arts du visuel."

And finally, the cherry at the top, the Internet Archive even has a copy of the scholia (well, one of them), in which the old Pherecyde tales are described - the ones that make proof the idea of Medusa having been turned into a monster by Athena due to a crime of vanity and boasting is as old as the 5th century BC. It is right here. If you like to read Latin, go have fun.

(Shoutout to the people who asked for links and sources - which is absolutely normal and indeed much needed in this time of widespread misinformation and websites that can literaly invent Greek goddesses of torture out of nowhere

@60sec400 @fishlord-main @nouzillard @bigsnorp @gendermeh and probably others I forgot about

EDIT: adding @tanoraqui and @beanshery to the list)

[caffeine-n-andreneline]

SnV Qin Shi Huang || Ying Zheng x Fem!Reader

Warnings: First fic lol, historical inaccuracies, typical cannon violence, a kid with trauma and a wannabe therapist, Soulmate AU, slowburn(?), Warring States period-ish, JJK cross over kinda-ish, baby qin needs a hug.

痛いの？

Strange runes are what was carved in the young prince's skin. Words seemingly familiar, yet not. Words written in red blood, just by his wrist. Those were the words that the universe had him link to his other half he has yet to meet.

Oftentimes, if a sword is not by his hands, he found himself staring intently at the strange calligraphy, in hopes of deciphering what it could mean. But alas, the sun had already set, and he had deciphered nothing.

One thing he knew however, is that the words his soulmate muttered to him is a question. And when he's conversing with others–especially those he had never met before, though rarely, pays full attention to what's the first thing they had said to him.

He wonders, what will the woman or the man the cosmos had bound to him, look like? Could they be as tall as he? The colour of their eyes, what could it be?

All he could do for now is wait. Wait for fate to allow them to cross paths, the words in their wrist to dissipate, allowing them to see the shade of colour that his significant other has in their eyes.

In his eyes, ever since Ying could remember, the first thing he saw was the gloomy boring greys of the sky. Not the vibrant faint blue that Chun Yan...had told him.

He was startled by the doors of his chambers abruptly shut open. Bringing himself back to reality. He promised. In order to unify these warring states, he first needed to get stronger. 

No, he needed to become the strongest.

It has been a year since his mother's death. The thought ails him truly even now, but also at the same time she was his source of determination, to continue moving forward and fulfill his pipe dream of becoming more than king.

As of now, he is summoned to the great halls of the Palace, the bastard that hath sired and abandoned him awaiting on his golden throne.

It did not take long for him to arrive at the throne room. His obscured ones meeting the current king's eyes.

"I greet you well, king Ying Yiren of Qin." Ying Zheng clutched his right hand onto a fist in front his chest and put an open palm above it using his other hand. At the same time bowing his head. 

"You may rise." Said the king.

Zheng cautiously rose his head, staring back at the man–the idea alone of him calling the king his father for no reason at all makes his guts churn—

"I've called you here, my heir, to discuss matters regarding the festival."

"Yes, my king." Zheng responded.

"Tis also the day I will proclaim to the public that you are to be the crown prince."

Taken aback by the revelation, his mouth went agape, behind the piece of cloth he wears is eyes wide open. He never expected for him to do that quite early, considering how young still his only heir at that. Well, it wouldn't change the fact that he's also well known throughout the lands as the cursed prince of Qin. And now with himself actually having a chance up on the throne? It seems that Ying Yiren would love him dead.

"I expect to be on your best behaviour, Ying Zheng."

"Yes my...king." He once again did a salute, and quickly left when there was nothing left of importance for him to hear. It appeared that the king informed him on what was to happen once the day of the festival has arrived.

Ying had already forgotten the other details relayed to him since he found himself lost again inside his head earlier, but he needn't worry as he had a dependable attendant who could fill him in later.

All now left for him to do is master half of the forms of Chi You. It appears that he still has a long journey to go through, and he's already embarking on it.

Few days had passed by, and nothing of interest had happened. And such it greatly bore Ying, decided to take a walk by the gardens, where he could watch the water lilies float above the ponds, at least just to give rest to his perturbed mind.

He slipped the blindfold off his eyes, taking in the breathtaking view before him. It's serene, calming and shook off the anxiety in his body.

But still, it feels off.

The skies still remained the same despondent grey. He didn't know if he could believe Chun Yan's words.

He shook his head, he made his way here to not think of something and clear his mind, so he needed to do something else to distract himself.

Finding a servant feeding the Koi fishes not far from where he stood, Zheng approached the young man, and begged to do his tasks himself.

"A-are you sure young lord Ying Zheng? Truly I can't allow you to do my job. I could do this by myself. I suppose you could…distract yourself with a cup of tea by the gardens? I could fetch a maid or two, for you my lord."

"No need. I just felt like doing something else to get my mind off some thing, so please?"

The young prince pleaded, and after long seconds of debating whether or not to give the pouch of half a kilogram of fish feed to the said person, the servant finally relented with a sigh.

"I–i…alright. Here, and are you sure there's nothing else you need young lord?" As quickly as the servant gave in and passed the bag of sustenance, Ying Zheng ran and vanished into thin air, now more than ten or more meters away from where he originally stood.

"None. But thank you for these!" Shouted he, vanishing to the other pond of koi fishes to feed them.

Now with the cargo secured in his hands, he crouched just ahead a separate pond, throwing away a handful of feeds to the water. Soon enough the school of koi banded together to the part of the pool where the feeds landed. He threw a handful once again, then again, and again.

Ying Zheng did not notice a small child as tall as him observing and brush by him as all his attention was focused on tending the aquatic creatures.

"痛いの?"

[notaguidinglight]

Eras Tour Imagery - Fearless/evermore transition

The gold glitter of the Fearless set transforms into water droplets.

The water droplets give way to a scene of ice melting on leaf-covered ground. The leafs we see are red and orange in color.

We see more images of ice melting. Here, it's icicles on a ledge or a roof.

A forest is revealed, and it appears to be sunrise. Trees start to emerge from the stage.

The forest scene is set with the stage beginning to be enveloped by fog and an orange glow.

Interpretation:

This is possibly my favorite transition on the tour. Not only because evermore is my favorite album, but because I think the transition is very revealing.

The transition begins with the motif of ice melting on ground, which brings to mind early springtime. To me this feels wrong when you first remember evermore was released in December. So shouldn't the snow be falling? I think the melting, the thawing could have more to do with what evermore represents. A thawing out of certain feelings, or the idea of transitioning to something new. Evermore has both of those themes. Returning to an old lover, and becoming ready to step to the next phase of your life. Taylor has also used the theme of being frozen and frozen ground multiple times in her songs.

"My, my love had been frozen" (Dancing With Our Hands Tied)

"This has frozen my ground" (hoax)

"A red rose grew up out of ice frozen ground" (the lakes)

"He's got my past frozen been glass" (it's time to go)

"Did you ever hear about the girl who got frozen?" (right where you left me)

"Soldier down on that icy ground" (The Great War)

Is the real Taylor slowly unfreezing? Is her muse, her love thawing out with her?

The denotation of springtime also sets us up to go on a journey through time during the evermore set. As we will see in the next songs, the scene continually changes until we have reached winter.

The red leafs on the ground also spark thought of Red the album. Very autumnal vibes. At first glance it makes sense that autumn leafs are being revealed under the snow in spring. But another connection to the Red album, which Taylor keeps pointing us back to (e.g. the Wildest Dreams glitch video). Is the Red muse becoming unfrozen? Autumn leaves were also seen under the willow tree in the Willow music video and all over the Spotify Global Top Artist image.

In the forest, we see that it's sunrise. The dawn of a new day. We saw the addition of daylight in the new Lover house, and we see it here too. "But the monsters turned out to be just trees/When the sun came up, you were looking at me."

The trees the come out the stage are interesting. They look most similar to Mediterranean cypress trees because of the smaller diameter and the height of the trees. There are some on the screen in the very foreground as well. Mediterranean cypress have symbolism for mourning, cemeteries, and the underworld. They are also linked to Roman goddess Diana. "I'd meet you where the spirit meets the bones/In a faith-forgotten land."

Video image credits: Liu Andy/Youtube, Taylor Swift/Youtube, Spotify/Youtube

[capstoneyap]

Week 4 Oct 2nd 2024: POV Soul

Yapping about a game and a character I like: 

I honestly hadn’t planned on looking into games. At least not yet as I wanted to stick with research online and focusing more on my personal interest and ghosts and spirits, wondering if those would count under the topic of a Soul. But while I was going through the motions of research and questioning, I had taken a break to play some games. One of these games was on my tablet that I had honestly forgotten about called…

For a small description of what the game it, avoiding any major spoilers, you are a spirit that wakes up in a junkyard ride beside what the spirit assumes to be their corpse. The spirit is then tasked to not only aid the woman in peril but also understand their new ghostly abilities to manipulate objects by possessing them. Of course, there is more to the story but that isn’t important for what concepts that occur in this game that I would like to discuss. 

In Ghost Trick, the concept of identity is intricately linked to the soul, portrayed as a blue flame that begins formless and only takes shape based on the individual’s self-belief. This unique interpretation suggests that identity is not fixed but fluid, constantly shaped by internal perceptions. At the heart of this is the idea that the soul’s form reflects who the person believes they are or should be, opening up a dialogue on how much of our identity is determined by our own self-conception versus external forces. Just as the soul in the game can take any shape, we, too, mold our identities based on the narratives we create about ourselves.

Adding another layer is the notion of memory loss after death. When a person in Ghost Trick dies, they lose their memories for a significant period. During this time, the soul, free from the constraints of past experiences, can take on an entirely new form. This raises profound questions about the role of memory in defining who we are. If our memories are lost, are we the same person? Or does the lack of memory allow us to become someone completely different? This element reflects the game’s perspective that identity can be reset, altered, or even transformed when the continuity of experience is disrupted. It suggests that who we are isn’t just a product of what we’ve done but also of who we believe ourselves to be in the present moment.

(4:25-4:57) The idea of a "moldable soul" aligns with the philosophy that identity is something we actively shape rather than a pre-determined essence. The game implies that the soul is malleable, able to be reshaped as we alter our understanding of ourselves. This view reflects existentialist ideas, where identity and meaning are not inherent but are created through choices, actions, and self-definition. In this sense, the soul in Ghost Trick is constantly in the process of becoming, changing in response to both internal and external influences. Identity here is dynamic, always evolving, much like how we reshape our sense of self as we grow and change over time.

Perhaps the most intriguing aspect is the soul’s ability to control time. This power suggests a relationship between the soul and time that transcends the usual linear progression. In Ghost Trick, the soul can manipulate time, which can be seen as a metaphor for how our identity is not bound by the past or even the present. Just as the soul revisits key moments in time, we, too, revisit and reshape our understanding of who we are. This concept allows for an exploration of how identity is not fixed to any particular moment in time but is instead a fluid narrative that we can rework. The soul’s ability to move through time and alter outcomes reflects the human capacity to reflect on the past and reimagine the future, creating new versions of ourselves with each iteration.

Ultimately, Ghost Trick presents identity as something deeply tied to belief, memory, and time. The soul’s form depends on self-perception, its moldability reflects the ever-changing nature of the self, and its control over time speaks to the fluidity of identity across different moments in our lives. In this way, the game offers a profound meditation on the nature of who we are and who we might become.

Now with this discussion on Ghost Trick’s overview of a soul, I started thinking of another game called Cyberpunk 2077. While the game itself doesn’t exactly focus on the aspects of a soul like Ghost Trick, there is still a very interesting concept that the game plays with in regards to a character named Johnny Silverhand. 

The character of Johnny Silverhand in Cyberpunk raises significant questions about the intersection of technology and the human soul. Through the use of the Soulkiller, his mind—encompassing his memories, personality, and demeanor—is copied and stored digitally, creating an engram that can be inserted into another person’s mind. While this engram behaves like Johnny, retaining all his quirks and traits, it prompts a question: is this engram truly Johnny’s soul, or merely a convincing digital reconstruction?

At its core, the engram appears to be a perfect replication of Johnny’s consciousness. It can think, feel, and interact as Johnny would, leading some to argue that this is his "soul" in a digital form. If we consider a soul to be the essence of who a person is—their memories, personality, and internal life—the engram ticks all the boxes. However, it is not organic or self-sustained; it exists within a framework of code and hardware. This brings up the question of whether a soul can be replicated by technology, or if what we see in Johnny’s engram is merely a very sophisticated imitation, a facade mimicking the real person.

There’s also the possibility that technology, in this world, has the power to create another kind of soul: a "digital soul." This version of the soul could be a new form, shaped by the technology that houses it. Perhaps the engram doesn’t need to be considered a copy or a replica of Johnny’s original soul, but rather a continuation in a different form—a soul shaped by data rather than biological processes. This raises the intriguing idea that technology may not just replicate but create new kinds of existence, blurring the lines between what is real and what is artificial. If we accept this digital version of Johnny as more than a facade, it also raises questions about authenticity and continuity. Can the soul be divorced from the body? If Johnny's consciousness is stored in code, does that still make him Johnny, or is he something else entirely? This could be explored by considering whether the soul is defined by where it resides—organic or digital—or by the continuity of consciousness. Johnny’s engram may argue for the latter, suggesting that as long as the continuity of self is preserved, the soul remains intact, even if the medium that houses it changes. All and all, the soul is still an expansive construct. But to dive deeply into these completely different ways a Soul is applied or referenced in games is interesting. I won't lie, I had a lot of fun diving into these games. Especially since I was able to revisit a game I had honestly forgotten about. Guess you could say nostalgia is good for the soul ;)

[lady-riel]

“Sworn His Shadows Sang” Chapter 13 - Gwynriel fic

Chapter 13 summary: Scene from the previous chapter continues from Az’s POV.

Other notes: I’m kinda nervous about posting this chapter….hoping I didn’t pace things too quickly. 

Read on A03

Previous chapters linked here

Original summary: One evening Azriel asks Gwyn to eat dinner with him. Kisses, hurt/comfort, smut, bathtub fun, and more ensues. Also Gwyn has more ties to the Autumn Court than she realizes.

Warnings for mentions of past SA, flashbacks, NSFW smut.

~~~~~~~+++++++~~~~~~++++++++~~~~~~~+++++++~~~~~~~

Chapter 13

Azriel held Gwyn in silence a while longer, her head tucked into the crook of his neck, her breathing slow and steady.

He dropped a kiss on her forehead and said quietly, “Will you tell me what number that was?”

Gwyn hummed into his skin. “Nine.”

He dropped another kiss. “And now?”

She lifted a shoulder. “Three, maybe.”

An idea had been forming in his head, and he decided to throw caution to the wind. “Still interested in hearing things I want to do?”

Gwyn perked up at that. Looking at him through her eyelashes, she nodded slowly.

“I want to kiss every one of those scars.”

Gwyn froze. And then flinched away from him, pulling out of his arms. She scrambled away on the bed, clutching the towel that was still wrapped around her.

“Sweetheart.” Azriel’s hands were down and low, like they were the first night he asked her to dinner, an attempt at soothing, but his heart was pounding so hard he thought it might explode, fear slithering like ice through his veins. “I’m not going to hurt you, sweetheart.” He swallowed. “I’m not going to do anything you don’t want me to do.”

Gwyn was still as a statue, several inches from him. But she didn’t move any farther away.

Azriel swallowed again. He went on. “I didn’t tell you before what that meant to me, you kissing my scars. You’re the first one who ever has. Most people flinch away from them, or stare at them.”

He took a breath. “I was the bastard son of an Illyrian warlord. And because he and my stepmother and half brothers hated me, I spent the first eleven years of my life locked up in a pitch black cell in their dungeons. When I was eight my stepbrothers poured oil on my hands and lit them on fire to see how fast they healed.”

Gwyn’s lips parted, a soft intake of breath the only sound she made.

Azriel looked down at the offending appendages. “They're a sign of my otherness,” he whispered, “Of the stains that don’t ever wash out.”

Moving her hand abruptly, Gwyn reached out and entwined her fingers with Azriel’s, something blazing in her eyes.

He rubbed his thumb over her skin, continuing, “You kissing them felt like…like the stains were being washed away, even if the scars still remain.”

Gwyn’s fingers tightened in his. He gave her a smile that was sad and fierce at the same time, and said, “You’re the only one I want kissing my scars, sweetheart.”

She breathed out a long breath through her nose, pressing her lips together. Her voice cracked. “You’re the only one I want kissing mine, Azriel.”

And she flung herself into his arms, towel forgotten around her waist. She kissed him breathlessly, hands dragging through his hair and running over his tattooed muscles.

Relief flooded him the second she buried herself in his arms, and he kissed her back like his life depended on it. “Okay,” she said as she broke off, her forehead pressed against his, “You can do it.”

He brushed a hand down her bare back. “I can kiss your scars?”

Gwyn nodded warily.

“You’re sure?” She nodded again. “I’m not pushing you. You do not have to do this.”

She bit her lip, asking, “You liked that I did it, right?”

Liked it… My whole fucking world split apart.

Azriel dipped his head to kiss her left cheekbone, then her right. He said softly, “It meant the world to me.”

At the look in his eyes, Gwyn scooted back, out of his lap, and lay back on the bed. She slowly flipped the edges of the towel back, her gaze on the ceiling, jaw set. He could smell how nervous she was. Was awed at how much trust she just handed to him.

Easing onto his knees, so he was kneeling between her legs, he gently ran his fingers over the smooth skin of her ankles.

He picked her left leg up, slowly lifting it to his mouth and dropping a kiss on the instep.

“Look at me, sweetheart,” he implored her. Her gaze flickered from the ceiling to him and back a few times before she met his eyes.

“Yes?” he asked, hazel eyes not moving from hers.

A small smile blossomed on Gwyn’s face. “Yes,” she breathed.

He kissed her ankle again, running the back of his knuckles up her calf. “You’re beautiful,” he whispered. Her eyes closed.

He moved up a few inches, dropping another kiss. He repeated, “Look at me, sweetheart.” And when her eyes found his, he said, “You’re perfect.”

A tear trickled down the side of her face.

Azriel kissed his way up Gwyn’s slender, muscled leg, his right hand drawing soft circles up the other leg, careful not to grip her too tightly or lean his weight on her. He kissed his way up, up to her inner thighs, where the majority of the scars were, just below her entrance.

Kissed one raised line. Then another. So near, her cunt was leaking an intoxicating smell. He kissed a scar on her other leg and traced it with his tongue.

Gwyn’s scent turned sharp and sweet with arousal. But Azriel ignored it for now, kissing up and down her inner thighs, his ears occasionally brushing her slickening lips, loosing a fresh wave of her scent. He kissed every scar and line until he had them committed to memory, laving tenderness over her skin.

He kissed until her voice broke the silence, needy and hoarse, “Azriel.” Then again, “Azriel, please.”

He lifted his head, breath ghosting over her clit. “Please what, sweetheart?”

“Please…” She let out a breathy moan. “Please lick me, Azriel, please, please.”

He pressed one last gentle kiss to one of the scars on her thighs before teasing her, “Lick you where?”

Azriel grinned when she moaned again and he took a deep inhale as he leaned directly over her center. His nose brushed her clit, making her jump.

“There, Azriel, please,” Gwyn was nearly babbling now. “Please lick me. Please, please, please, Azriel—”

He happily took mercy on her, licking a firm stripe up her center from her entrance to her clit. He circled the pink bud, tonguing it back and forth quickly. No more teasing. Azriel gave Gwyn everything she begged for, licking her clit harder, sucking it, humming to send waves of vibrations through her until her legs were shaking. He bit her gently, scraping the edge of a tooth up the side of her pink nub—and she tumbled off the cliff, screaming his name, hands fisted in the dark sheets, thighs tight as a vise around his head.

He kept licking her through the aftershocks, determined to make her come again, when she tightened her legs and moaned, “Stop.”

At her word Azriel abruptly pulled back so no part of him was touching her skin, and sat up, eyes wide.

But Gwyn was smiling at him, breathing hard, her teal eyes half-lidded with afterglow. She reached a hand out towards him. “Come here,” she said.

He warily crawled up beside her naked body, taking care not to lean on her or brush her with his hard cock, aching inside his pants. “Did I do something that upset you?”

Gwyn shook her head and kissed him, tasting herself on his lips. Drawing back, she said, “No, it was perfect. I just didn’t want to…to come again.”

His eyebrows came together. “Why not?”

She gave him a tentative, faintly sultry smile, running her hand over his muscled arms. Azriel was still being careful not to touch her, and she drew her hand down his arm and tugged it around her waist. “You can touch me,” she said, “I want you to.”

Azriel gathered her to his bare chest. They were both on their sides, facing each other, and Gwyn slid a slim bare leg in between his clothed ones.

She looked up at him, blushing, and said, “Can I—can I—” She couldn’t get any more words out.

“Yes,” he said grinning down at her, “Whatever it is, the answer is yes.”

Her eyes grew bright, a mischievous light suddenly kindling in them, and she finished, “—hear you sing?”

Azriel groaned, his head falling back on the pillow. “I walked right into that one.”

Gwyn laughed, brushing her nose against his, “I do, of course, want to hear you sing, but that wasn’t actually what I was going to ask.”

Face close to hers, he whispered in a midnight voice, “Tell me what you were going to ask, sweetheart.”

Gwyn bit her lip, serious again. Azriel waited, running scarred fingers along her upper arm. She swallowed. “Can I—can I touch you?” Her eyes flicked down to his obviously straining erection. Azriel stilled, his eyes searching hers.

His throat was dry. “Are you sure this is what you want?”

Gwyn nodded. “I want to.” His eyes were still scrutinizing the teal depths of hers. “I really want to.”

A gleam of light sparked in his eyes, as if he’d found what he’d been looking for. “Okay, if that’s what you want.”

There was a pause when neither of them moved.

Azriel smirked at her. “You waiting for a written invitation?”

“Oh,” she fumbled, “I guess I was waiting—waiting for…” She trailed off, glancing down at his dark pants, then off to the side, embarrassed.

Azriel swiftly dropped a kiss on her brow, soothing her embarrassment. “I want you to do it,” he said softly. “I want every part of this to be your choice.”

All the taut lines in her went loose at that, and she surged up to kiss his lips, forcefully, their tongues dancing.

Pulling back, slightly breathless, she nodded and brought her hands to the laces of his pants, which were straining under the pressure of his hard cock, and slowly started untying them. Azriel didn’t move his arms from where they were encircling her.

Chewing nervously at her lip, she glanced up at him once the laces were undone, and he noticed her hands were shaking.

He kissed her forehead again and whispered slowly, “Gwyn, you do not have to do this.”

“I want to. I do. I’m just…nervous.”

He asked gently, “What are you nervous about?”

She chewed again at her bottom lip. “I’m worried I might freak out.”

His face was soft. “And if you do, that’s perfectly okay. You’re allowed to freak out. Sweetheart, you can freak out as much as you want, and I’m going to be here to catch you every single time.”

Her eyes glistened and she buried her head in his chest. Azriel pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

After a moment she pulled back. “I want to keep going, if that’s okay.”

“Anything you want to do is okay with me.”

Gwyn took a breath, looking down between them. She pushed aside the opening of his unlaced pants to reveal the black undershorts beneath, the outline of his cock clearly visible.

Her hand, still trembling slightly, reached inside and two fingers brushed along the edge of his erection through the cloth, making it pulsate and twitch. Gwyn’s breath hitched.

She reached her hand further inside his pants, palming his length tentatively. Azriel thought he had never been so hard in his life.

Except that she took a deep breath, as if readying herself, and with one hand pulled back the waistband of his undershorts while the other hand reached in and grasped his thick cock and pulled it out, and he, somehow, got even harder.

Gwyn carefully ran her fingers, now callused from training, along the smooth length, her thumb swiping over the tip, which made Azriel’s stomach muscles clench and his cock surge in her hand.

Gwyn looked up, smiling shyly, and murmured to him, “I like it.”

Azriel let out a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding. Gwyn began to move her hand up and down his shaft, gripping it lightly. His cock was so big that her hand couldn’t close around it. But even with an inexperienced technique, Gwyn’s ministrations had sparks of lightning running up his spine, and he clenched his fists at her back.

“Show me how you like it,” she whispered.

Azriel pulled his free hand from her back and wrapped it around her hand that was still gripping his cock, guiding her, teaching her to fist it tighter, rougher, especially around the head.

Letting her continue by herself, he let go and returned his hand to its place splayed across Gwyn’s back.

Each time she dragged his foreskin down, Azriel saw stars. He struggled to keep his eyes open, wanting to watch her. She looked…fascinated. Happy.

He saw a glint in her eyes when she flicked them up to meet his, and he realized she hadn’t asked him to stop licking her because anything was wrong but because she wanted to do something else.

So with his voice low and dark like a night storm, he rumbled, “Tell me how you want me to make you come again, baby girl.”

She gasped and moaned, as if the words had gone straight to her clit. A blush spread across her cheeks and chest, and the room became heavy with the scent of her arousal.

Gwyn looked down to where both her hands were squeezing his straining cock, then up to meet his eyes.

“Take everything off,” she said to him. Clearly, calmly. Almost confidently, to Azriel’s surprise.

This time he didn’t second guess, shoving down his pants and undershorts and tossing them off the bed. He lay back on his side facing Gwyn, but she lifted up on one elbow, looking at his wings, and asked, “Can you lie on your back?”

He nodded, shifting the mighty wings around so he could lie flat over them, a couple pillows under his head. Gwyn was still lying at his side, one hand tracing over his tattoos, over the grid of his abs, and then over the smooth skin of his cock, standing hard against his belly. She seemed to be teasing him with just her fingertips, barely any friction, when suddenly Gwyn sat up and tossed a leg over him so she was straddling his hips, her slit lined up with his cock.

Azriel recalled the wide-eyed expression on her face when he described this position earlier. Now there was something different in her face. A small smile at the corners of her lips. Something steady in her eyes.

“Like this,” Gwyn said, finally answering his question, as she moved her hips forward experimentally, grinding down on him, and gasped when the head of his cock caught on her clit.

Azriel grinned up at her. “Nice to see you putting my suggestions to such good use.”

She laughed and clenched around his cock as she swayed forward. He moaned at the sensation of her slick lips gripping his shaft, and she did it again, again, moving faster, back and forth.

“Yes, baby girl, just like that. That feels so fucking good. Yes, Mother above, yes, you’re so beautiful, that’s so good, baby girl.” Azriel hardly even knew what he was saying. Usually he was quite close-lipped during sex with his previous lovers. Involuntary dribbles of speech, he always thought, were unbecoming of a spymaster. But now words spilled from his lips like a fountain.

He looked up at Gwyn riding his cock while he caressed her legs, his thumbs stroking the scars that graced her inner thighs. Her hands were braced on his chest and her face was flushed as she sped up her hips, her cunt dripping wet all over his cock.

He was helping her now, his powerful arms gripping her hips, dragging her over his length again and again. “Azriel,” she moaned. “Azriel—Azriel—”

It was obvious how close she was by the way her thighs were shaking. He went faster, holding her hips tightly, pulling her down on each pass of her clit over his head. But there was a tinge of frustration in her voice as she chanted his name, and he could tell she was struggling to find another release.

Azriel sat up partway to meet her, first mouthing at her breasts, teasing her nipples with his teeth, and then lifted his head and kissed her hard, his tongue ghosting over her lips, sliding between them.

He pulled away an inch to rumble against her, “Can I put a finger on your clit?”

“Yes,” she gasped, without hesitation.

With one hand still on her writhing hips, he drew the other hand down her belly and slipped a finger down the cleft of her cunt, rubbing fast circles over her clit with the scarred skin of his finger.

Azriel had long thought this was the only silver lining of his scars. The whorls and ridges made for a much rougher surface, and every one of his past lovers had attested to the extraordinary feel of his textured fingers on their clits.

And Gwyn seemed to be no exception in this regard. Four seconds of those tight, quick circles and she came hard, shuddering, leaking all over his cock, which in turn sent him flying over the edge, thick spurts of white cum striping his belly.

Gwyn whined out orgasm after orgasm, Azriel’s finger rolling hard over her clit until she finally collapsed on his chest, shaking, breathing heavily, and he held her tightly against him.

Stroking a hand up the column of the back of her neck, his own breath slowing, Azriel whispered, “You okay, sweetheart?”

Gwyn made an unintelligible sound from where her head was buried in his neck. Azriel smirked. “Is that a yes?”

She blearily lifted her head a few inches, mumbling, “I think I died.” Then fell back onto his chest, curling closer.

Azriel’s smile turned smug.

[mybrainproblems]

nephil!cas?????? please elaborate!!

This is almost 2k words so most of it is under the cut. I did not include every single detail of canon in this but I'm very good at smashing things together and can probably talk my way around other details I've left out or forgotten. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to actually argue for this batshit idea. I left out everything with Anna bc this was getting too long and linking her in requires a lot more words. I hope all of this makes sense because I cannot edit it any more......

Part of my current (very slow) rewatch of spn is jotting down some notes to see how plausible this theory actually is. So far? I’m only at the beginning of s5 but I think it’s actually a relatively plausible theory/headcanon! I don’t think Cas is a nephil the way that Jack or other nephilim we’ve seen/heard about are. But the way they explain nephilim in canon is that yes, they are the product of an angel and a human reproducing. But what makes them so powerful is the fact that they are a human with a soul while also having angelic grace. A soul and grace are required.

Some of this may not age well as I continue my rewatch and actual canon might contradict me but as of right now, my argument for nephil!Cas (and a tiny fix-it at the end) goes something like this… (also, fuck canon)

So “nephil!Cas” is a little bit of a misnomer, but it's kinda the best I can do using the limited toolbox of spn canon. Also my working knowledge of Christianity is largely limited to whatever is in pop culture. Until I was 18 my knowledge of Christianity largely came from the His Dark Materials trilogy and having to attend my cousins’ Catholic church stuff. Anyway, my headcanon/theory is that somehow Cas ends up with the teeniest tiniest wisp of a proto-soul at his creation. Maybe it’s an accident, maybe Chuck was experimenting and forgot about the Chuckov’s gun he was creating (eyoo). We’ve been told multiple times that souls are tied to morality (also sleep, but we’re setting that aside) and if Cas has that tiny wisp of proto-soul, couldn’t that explain why he needs to get lobotomized constantly compared to other angels? Why he’s the infamous spanner in the works? Why his problem has always been that he has too much heart?

We're told that Cas is completely unique in his ability to exercise free will (the only being in the multiverse!) and is the only version of Cas who was able to fall in romantic love with Dean. Which is made out to be a VERY human emotion within canon. He’s an angel who is in love with humanity in a way that few others seem to be. (I have a way to link in Adam and Serafina but much like Anna... too long to include.) So like, there’s certainly attraction and tension and friendship between Cas and Dean in the first couple of seasons after his introduction but it's only after he becomes human that I think it really becomes less like charged sexual tension and more like romantic yearning on his part. (Love and light but I’m a “Dean knew he was in love with Cas in s8” truther) Which! The fact that he loses his grace and becomes human then catalyzes the change of this wisp of proto-soul into an actual fledgling soul.

You might think there’s a contradiction here because when Jack burns through his grace it ends up being fatal because it is so integral to his being. Why doesn’t this happen to Cas? First off, I think the biggest difference is that Jack is at his base level, a human with grace. Cas on the other hand is an angel with a very tiny wisp of soul. We’re going to get into some psedo-science here so buckle up for this being about as nonsensical as canon. There’s an offhand line that even though Lucifer stole Jack’s grace, it would be able to recharge over time but they don’t know how long it will take and he will die before this happens. Which! That kind of sounds like an immune response! Nephilim are not naturally occurring so to speak, so it makes sense that they need to have their grace and soul be in balance in order to survive.

Which, going back to s6 we know that souls contain an enormous amount of power. So if there’s a tiny bit of grace left that might be trying to recharge, then a soul would see that as a foreign body and much like the immune system raising body temp to kill an infection, or attacking healthy tissue due to a genetic disease (eg Crohn’s), the soul tries to attack something that is a part of the body but that it sees as foreign. Cas on the other hand, has his grace completely removed. There is nothing for his soul to attack. Plus, his body is fully his own at this point and no longer just a vessel. Jimmy died and his body was destroyed, but Cas is brought back with an identical body that is essentially his own. So:

human!Cas -> has a soul but no grace, no immune response

Jack with depleted grace -> has a soul and a small amount of remaining grace, immune response that kills him

Jack using his soul to “create” grace -> has a soul and grace, in balance

soulless!Jack -> no soul, possibly a wisp of grace, no immune response

revived!Jack -> no soul, gaining grace back, no immune response

unity!Jack -> new soul and recharged grace, in balance and at full power

But why does Cas’ power begin to wane in late seasons besides writers not knowing how to write around a powerful cosmic being retaining his cosmic powers? Let’s get weird and justify the writers’ laziness:

Cas’ vessel is fully his and is a part of him as a finger puppet extension of his trueform, it’s not really a vessel in the traditional sense anymore. His human form was molded with his angelic being and is also why Lucifer is able to share it. It's not just a strong vessel, it's one purpose-built for an angel.

Now that we’ve covered that… nephilim produced through the union of a human and an angel are basically human + grace, Cas’ trueform is a wavelength of celestial intent. Two possible explanations for why Cas’ grace has not attacked his proto-soul in the past few hundred million years are: a) a tiny little wisp of soul is negligible to the immune response of his grace or b) heaven is powered by souls and this relationship makes it so that an angel’s grace does not react to the presence of an incomplete/fledgling soul. Cas getting sick from having stolen grace also makes sense because he has a soul but it isn’t his grace, it’s a fully foreign entity. Kinda like an organ transplant: you have to keep taking immunosuppressants otherwise your body will reject that organ. But then once he has his own grace back, that fledgling soul still isn’t “big enough” to trip off the immune response of his own complete grace.

But Cas’ power begins to wane over the years. It happens as his soul has grown large enough to be recognizable as a foreign object in his angelic “body” and is now activating that immune response. However, while it has grown, it still isn’t large enough to be fully in balance with his grace. Since Cas’ general existence, massive trueform and sense of relative time are so different to that of humans, it stands to reason that unlike Jack dying relatively quickly from having his soul and grace be out of balance, Cas’ decline would take much longer. So by s15 he is oh-so-human and oh-so-angelic and his grace is fighting so hard against this soul that shouldn’t be there. But he loves. And it’s so human. The Empty can see that fledgling soul in him when he makes that deal and it’s glad because when this nephil dies or is taken, there won’t be any confusion. Cas will go to the Empty, Jack will go to heaven, the Empty can sleep and not think about it.

It really is that Dean stabs him when they first meet and it just takes years for him to bleed out. But wait, how do we bring Cas back from the Empty? I AM SO GLAD YOU ASKED.

Reminder: it is canon that beings that do not have grace and/or have a soul can go to and be kept by the Empty. Billie explicitly tells Dean that him and Sam are going to the Empty in s11 and they are both fully human.

But Cas triggering the deal doesn’t just drag him into the Empty, it also balances him. This is moment is the culmination of a journey that started hundreds of millions of years ago. This is him speaking his truth and accepting himself and stitching together that final bit of soul. This is death; it is also genesis.

Now, this balancing of Cas doesn’t cause the Empty to automatically spit him out, and because of the deal there’s no confusion in whether he goes to heaven vs the Empty. No, Cas is there in the Empty. And being a nephil and the infamous spanner in the works, he does keep waking up but doesn’t fight the Empty when it puts him under again. He is satisfied with the fact that he saved Dean and that makes this worth it.

But then Dean ends up in the Empty. Whether it’s by choice or because all of the reapers do still want the Winchesters to go to the Empty doesn’t matter. He also keeps waking up but unlike Cas, he fights going back to sleep, especially when he’s able to wake up long enough to realize he’s in the Empty and this is where Cas is. Eventually he pisses off the Empty enough that they sit down to have a chat. And I genuinely think that the Empty is so angry about being awake because it’s lonely. Would you want to be conscious when your only companions are the husks of angel and demon trueforms crying out from nightmares? Of course the Empty is pissed off about being awake. And so they talk, and Cas wakes up.

There are a couple of different options here; the bittersweet one is that the Empty puts them both to sleep and allows them to share the same consciousness. The dreams are still not pleasant but they’re together for an eternity and are able to do this because they both have souls and souls are a key part of sleeping.

The completely happy ending is that Cas wakes up and the Empty knows if it came down to it, the both of them could force their way out, but the Empty is petty and angry at this point. The Empty wants to sleep and forget the pain and suffering around them and is ready for a fight but what Dean offers completely throws them both for a loop. He offers to make a deal. The final deal.

He sees the loneliness and pain of the Empty and offers a standing invitation to Sunday brunch with their massive found family.

It’s an ending about seeing that you could fight your way out and choosing compassion. It’s about love and understanding, rebirth and genesis. It’s about Dean not raising Cas from perdition, but them walking through that door hand-in-hand and the Empty not far behind.

final note: i’m actually working on a fleshed out fix-it fic of this! i'll link it here as well once i'm done.

[imkittyjustkitty]

Kitty's Daily Pride — Day 8

prompt ; (gender) envy

pairings ; Ethan Green x Bestfriend!Reader

summary ; It's been more than a day since you've last heard from your best friend Ethan, or from anyone for that matter. Something's not right.

+ reader is gender neutral & no mentions of y/n

warnings ; none i think, reader's freaking out, its just kinda spooky but no violence or anything like that, although the death of many characters is implied/speculated

genre ; angst

word count ; 902

A/N ; are people noticing how obscurely my fics end up relating to the original prompt bc i am nsndfsjk, its okay though because im proud of this ! :D also im trying to include more queer aspects to the stories bc this is for pride after all, sometimes tho i just get an idea i like and run w it lmao !!

also i plan on writing a part 2/bonus little thing either today or tomorrow which i'll link here once i post it !!

do not steal, repost, or redistribute my work in any way.

The last time you’d heard from Ethan was one day, 2 hours, and 38 minutes ago. The longest you and Ethan had been apart or not messaged each other up until now was like 8 hours, at the very most a day. To say that you were worried would be an understatement.

It was just past 7 at night. The amount of times you'd tried to call Ethan's phone was astronomical, but every time you were met with an automated message, not even his voicemail message that you'd grown used to, which somehow made you even more worried.

It was 8:06 now. Not being able to reach Ethan (although you did still try every half an hour or so, just in case), you tried calling anyone else you could think of. The obvious choice was to call his girlfriend Lex, maybe the two of them finally got on their way to California and Ethan had just forgotten his phone, not a very likely occurrence but you were clinging to the theory like it was your lifeline. So you called her, quite a few times, maybe too many, but she never answered. If you weren't worried before, now you definitely were.

But it'll be okay, you hadn't even called his parents yet, so he was probably just with them. Maybe he was grounded and that's why he wasn't answering, right?

It was 8:41 now, and you called his parents, his dad first. You were gripping the phone so hard that your hands started to shake, the ringing of the phone echoing through your head as you quietly pleaded for Ethan's dad to pick up.

No answer. At this point the only thing keeping you sane, the only reason you hadn't completely lost it, was unlikely reasoning. You'd pulled out a scrap piece of paper with a list of names, and why they wouldn't have picked up, it gave you a feeling that was something like hope. So far your list read: Ethan - grounded, Lex - with hannah or maybe phone bill expired (?), Ethan's dad - at work ??

They were reasonable explanations, all things that on any other day you wouldn't so much as bat an eye at. All things that you wouldn't question were there not a pit of suspicion swirling through your stomach and anxiety aching your every bone. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.

But if something was wrong, you had zero fucking clue on how to handle it. So what did you do? You continued to call people in the hope of reaching Ethan. This provided the only string that kept you tied to reality, holding onto the hope that the next person you called would explain everything and all would be back to normal.

9:01. You called Ethan's mother, a woman who you'd always relied on to pick up calls straight away. No answer.

9:13. You called Frank fucking Pricely, a person you'd met maybe twice, once when applying for a job at Toy Zone, and for the second time (which really didn't count), but who you'd seen briefly when picking Lex up from her job. And of course the asshole didn't answer your call.

You were running out of what little hope you had left, when you remembered perhaps the one other person Lex (and by extension Ethan) associated with. Your old shop teacher, Mr Houston.

9:34. You rang his number, listening to the dial, waiting for the inevitable 'the person you are trying to reach is currently unavailable' message. Once, twice, your phone rang, until...

It stopped ringing, and you were staring right at a screen where the call timer started counting.

You froze. You didn't want to of course, your whole being was begging you to just scream out all your questions, but your throat was blocked and your hands shook so much that your phone dropped right out of your hands. falling, falling until it hit the ground.

You heard a crack but couldn't bring yourself to look down.

"Hey there."

Your eyes widened.

A laugh crackled through your now half-broken phone speaker, "Don't be afraid."

Okay fuck that now you were definitely afraid.

"Who," your voice wavered, revealing just how terrified you were, whoever this was, they sounded eerily familiar, "Who are you."

"Mmmm good question..."

A knock on your bedroom door. Your body flooded with terror.

The door flew open, crashing into the wall, right of it's hinges, revealing a shadowed figure.

The figure was the same height as Ethan, the figure's hair looked just like how you remembered Ethan's to be, the figure stood like Ethan would, with a carefree appearance, hands in it's pockets as it grins at you. And that's what breaks the illusion, that sickening grin. It's the kind that screams ill intent, the kind that makes your blood boil and stomach churn.

That is not Ethan Green.

And now you know, Ethan's not coming back, you can feel it, the truth floats through the air, palpable and headache-inducing. No matter how many people you call desperately, no how matter how many dial tones ring through your phone, no matter hard you wish for this to all be some sort of fever dream.

The feeling you were trying so hard to hide under layers of conspiracy and empty hope is now flung in front of your eyes unwaveringly, Ethan's gone, and he's not coming back.

reblogs are appreciated so much !!

[sillygoofyqueer]

I don't know how to start, honestly. It's so hard to explain without just explaining the plot. A man, Zachary Ezra Rawlins, comes across a book in a library that holds details of his life (specifically a memory that has haunted him since he was eleven). From there, he is dropped into a mystery where it is hard to decipher reality from fiction - or even if we should try to do such a thing.

Morgenstern has a way of writing that my mother didn't like, and truthfully neither did I - at first. Then, and this could be my Writer brain kicking in, I came up with a theory as to why. Basically, Morgenstern uses 'and' in place of commas quite a lot. It was irritating at first, something I couldn't quite get over, until I started reading in that sense rather than adding commas where I thought necessary. I myself have used this method of using 'and' in place of commas to explain the urgency of a situation, but I am by no means a particularly good writer, so I thought this was just a silly thing I did.

Stupid thing to presume. Reading it in the intended way, it became clear why Morgenstern wrote in this way (I think so, anyway, I truthfully have no fucking clue and I could be overanalysing it). See, commas are used as almost a place for a breather when reading aloud, or a pause in a sense - as I'm sure you've been doing whenever I've used commas in this. When commas aren't used and 'and' is used instead, it's almost like it isn't giving us a chance to breath, it's just a continuous thing and there's no time to process things.

I, once again, could be overanalysing, but this could be to put us in the perspective of Zachary, whose whole world is changing with the idea of fiction and reality overlapping, who is being thrown into a magical, fantastical underground library where rooms and secrets are endless, puzzles lurk around ever corner, and time doesn't make any sense. It throws you as the reader in just as Zachary is being thrown in, given barely any time to process anything. And this is to say nothing of the story itself.

It's chaotic and messy, to put it simply. Jumping between the overarching story containing Zachary and Mirabel and Dorian, and small stories from the very books they talk about within 'reality'. I put it in quotation marks because, as previously mentioned, reality and fiction overlap a lot. Time is a lover of Fate, mercilessly torn away from them by the stars and the Council of owls, and yet he is also a man, trying desperately to be with his lover despite the stars attempts to stop him, making harbours to the starless sea so that the stars cannot keep Fate away from him through the centuries of her reincarnations.

The romantic plot between Zachary and Dorian is fleeting, at first. A whispered story that lures Zachary deeper into the mystery of murder plots and ploys to take his book away from him, at first. Protection and saving from both sides, interest at the oddity and uniqueness of the other man. Then, it becomes something deeper. Bonding through stories and the mystery that has tied everything together, both within Sweet Sorrows and in 'reality'. After that, everything becomes hectic.

Dorian whispers that he doesn't want to lose Zachary moments before he is dragged down into the darkness of a crack in the floor by a villain - is she really a villain, or a misguided believer, who didn't want humans to ruin her only home as they do with anything? - during a chaotic scene where one second they are together and the next, Dorian is gone.

When Dorian stops falling, he lands in the starless sea. It is not water, but honey, another link back to the bees that carry the stories and make everything in the world. Zachary ventures into the depths of forgotten harbours to find Dorian, just as Dorian braces biting winter and infinite bloodshed of monsters wearing the face of those closest to him to get to Zachary.

I found myself having to force myself not to skip to the chapters with Zachary and Dorian when interludes of stories that don't seem to interlink and are yet are connected together by one string or another. You feel the determination and desperation the two men have to finding one another, one that is only emphasised by faux meetings.

When they finally do meet, Dorian cannot tell Zachary from the monsters wearing his face and plunges the blade Zachary gave to him into the chest of the man he had been journeying towards without any hesitation. We feel the confusion from both sides as Zachary slips from the world just as he gets the happy ending he thought he was going to have.

Zachary awakes upon a faux beach, looking around at confetti water and paper houses - the dolluniverse from one of the stories in Sweet Sorrows, one that he had wished to see but was unable to because it had been burned down by a man lost in time. The fact that Zachary gets to see it, though not from the perspective he expected to, feels fair, in a way. He is undeniably dead, sharing one last dance with Fate (a dance that is parallel to the beginning of this story, except he didn't know it was Fate at the time), before drowning in the honey of the starless sea. It feels poetic but so so unfair in a way that is easy to explain, because Zachary had to die so Fate could have her happy ending with Time.

Until Dorian places the heart of Fate in the body he had grieved over after the fateful incident. After all, is it really Fate's heart or a heart of Fate when Fate already has a heart in her newest incarnation? Finally, after countless chapters waiting for it, the men get to share a kiss filled with laughter. They get their happy ending, because Fate is not that cruel.

The other stories are a fickle thing, hard to explain without dropping the whole lore instantly. It is better to just read it.

Today, I read a book.

It was one that my mother had been pestering me to read for a while now, telling me that it wasn't like anything she had ever read before - not with adoration or embellishment, my mother isn't that kind of person. She stated it as fact. I didn't believe her, because that is quite the statement to make to your child who has read many-a books. But, I was at my grandma's and at a loss for what to do because my laptop simply wasn't calling to me, so I brought it out of my bag, where it had stayed over the past couple of weeks. I finished it only fifteen or so minutes ago, not having put the book down aside for eating. I understand what my mother meant, now. I don't think I'll be able to sleep until I blurt all of my thoughts about this book somewhere. So, here I am. Imploring you to read the book, and if not - just to listen to me talk about it. I truly do plead that you read this book, because I am highly certain that I am not fully here as I write this, stuck in a world between fantasy and reality as I contemplate everything and nothing. I do not think I will be able to sleep tonight. Not well, anyway. I completely skip out of a lot of things, but I need to talk about it or I might never sleep the same again (this is not me being dramatic, I swear). This book is just how my mother described it: hard to describe, and entirely something else. Do read this book. I'm telling you, you will not regret it. If you won't? Then allow me to tell you about Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern. (In the reblogs, because it's too big otherwise)

[whump-a-la-mode]

Rat Race | WhumpNano Part 14

Me? Projecting my neurodivergence onto Dr. Roberts? It’s more likely than you think. This time, things get even worse for her! Is anyone surprised? Probably not. Also, I’ll be including a link to the masterlist in each post, now, in case someone wants to read from the beginning.

Masterlist

Start Here

Taglist:

@tinyplan3ts

CW//Interrogation, panic, mention of amputation, paranoia

    “No.”

    “No?”

    “I’ve never heard of someone by that name, no.”

    “You’re certain?”

    Dr. Roberts narrowed her eyes. Exhaustion was beginning to weigh on her, making her eyelids feel to have the same weight as a block of lead. It reminded her of her brief stint of time underwater, yet, this time, the pressure was coming from inside her skull.

    She’d been awake for less than an hour, and yet, she wanted nothing more than to sleep.

    “Try to think.” Duple continued to push, repeating the name: “Black Baza. Did Noirceur have any friends, maybe? Any confidants-”

    “What part of no did you not understand?!” She was in no position to be lashing out, but she was certain that if she got any more tired she was going to throw an actual tantrum. “I don’t know the name!”

    “Maybe this will help.”

    She felt blood retreat from her face, making her go from red and furious to pale as a ghost. Those weren’t words she ever wanted to hear, especially not from an interrogator. It was true, what she said. She had no idea who the Black Baza was! Hell, she only recognized one of the words in his name! 

    Duple stood, prompting a pathetic little whimper from the doctor’s throat. She expected him to produce something terrible. Alligator clips to pinch and ignite her skin, canes to strike her with. Whatever it took to harm her until she gave up information that didn’t exist.

    Instead, he produced a tablet. He moved to the translucent barrier blocking the exit to Dr. Roberts’ cell, pressing the screen up against it. 

    On instinct, the doctor attempted to get up from the bed to see better. She’d lost her glasses so very long ago, she’d almost forgotten what it was like to be able to see things far away. Yet, immediately, she was yanked back by her shackles. Firecrest had tied them so that she couldn’t so much as stand by the edge of the bed.

    “No.” She gritted her teeth. “It doesn’t help, cause I can’t see it. Now, leave me alone!”

    “Oh.” Duple muttered, reaching towards a keypad on the wall. “Just a moment…”

    “No!”

    Here came that tantrum.

    It was ridiculous, and more than that, it was embarrassing. She was a grown adult woman with a doctorate, for Pete’s sake! She should have been able to keep her cool, regardless of the situation. 

    And, yet, here she was. Everything for the past weeks of her life had simply piled onto itself. She’d spent so long scared, scrambling, starving, not to mention the grief that threatened to make her break down sobbing at any moment. For whatever reason, this was the straw that broke the camel’s back. This was her breaking point.

    Warm tears beaded from her eyes, beginning to pour down her face, even as she threw her hands over her eyes in an attempt to hide it. 

    As she spoke, her teeth shattered, “I don’t know anything! I just want to go home! I just want her b-b-back. Leave me alone! Don’t look at me, don’t look at me!”

    Furiously and unthinkingly, she grabbed the pillow on the bed and flung it at the barrier to the cell. The barrier fizzled momentarily, but, ultimately, the pillow bounced off harmlessly.

    Duple retreated from the keypad, emotion unreadable. After a moment, he shook his head.

    “If you’re going to act like a child, then so be it. I’ll be back when you’re ready to behave.”

    With sharp steps, he moved to the end of the corridor and disappeared out the door.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━  

    “Anything?” Firecrest questioned, rising from a chair where she had been seated, just outside the door to the cell block. “Did she know anything?”

    “Only how to throw a tantrum.”

    “What the hell did you say to her?”

    “Nothing that would’ve upset anyone in their right mind. I asked if she’d heard of the Black Baza, she said no, then just started screaming at me like she was nuts.” Duple shook his head.

    “Then that’s a dead end, I suppose.”

    “Maybe not. She can have a break for now, but I’ll try again before long.” He grumbled. “I don’t know how you ever got anything out of her. Or how you managed to wrangle her in the first place. Trying to talk to her is like a minefield.”

    “Wouldn't you be, after going through all that?”

    “You’re sympathizing with the villain, now?” Duple gritted his teeth. Now even his confidant was being entirely unhelpful. With another shake of his head, he began to move down the hallway, before calling back:

    “Your restraints didn’t work, by the way. She’s gotten her splint off. You might want to do something about that.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━  

    Doctor Roberts had hoped for just a little peace. She had hoped that, perhaps, her tantrum would be enough to scare away her captors, if only for a little bit. Maybe just an hour. Two hours. Anything. Anything that would give her time to calm down, to stop looking so pathetic.

    Instead of an hour, she got a minute.

    When Firecrest returned, almost immediately after Duple’s parting, the doctor had only had time enough to pull her blanket over her head. Her sobs were still plenty audible from beneath it, of course, but at least her enemy wouldn’t be able to see her tomato-red face.

    “Doctor?” Firecrest’s voice was surprisingly gentle, but Dr. Roberts wasn’t about to fall for that again. She had been tricked into trusting her once. Not again. Never again. “I’m going to come into your room, now, okay?”

    No, it wasn’t okay. If she had been capable of speaking, she would have made that fact known. However, her sobs had effectively gagged her, leaving her silent.

    With a few taps on the keypad, the barrier to her cell fizzled out, and her foe entered. From beneath the blanket, Dr. Roberts could only use sound to judge Firecrest’s distance as she approached.

    However, that particular obstacle soon disappeared as the blanket was softly slid from over top her. Firecrest was close, too close. Her expression was gentle, sickeningly concerned and caring. A wretched mask. 

    “I’m not going to touch you.” She spoke as she handed over a clump of tissues. The doctor immediately shoved them to her eyes, even as trying to stop her tears with a few tissues was like trying to drain the ocean with a single bucket. 

    “I know you want to be alone, and I promise, you will get some time to rest very soon. Right now, though, you’ve hurt yourself. You took the splint off, and that’s going to slow down your recovery.

    We’re going to go see my friend Allele, and she’s going to put a cast on that leg, okay? That way, you’ll be up and walking as quickly as possible.”

    Throughout the whole speech, Doctor Roberts had begun to shake worse and worse. The last thing she wanted right now was to go back and see that doctor, to be poked and prodded. A cast would be even worse. A cast didn’t come off, not without specialized tools. It would leave her completely helpless, completely immobilized. 

    Exactly what the heroes wanted.

    “No.” She managed between her sobs.

    “Doctor, I’m afraid this is for your own wellbeing.” Momentarily, she disappeared from the cell, only to return pushing a hospital wheelchair. They’d already taken everything from her, and now, they were going to take away her very ability to move. “I promise you, this won’t hurt, not at all. You’re going to go see Allele, and she’s going to fix you up. Then I’ll bring you right back here.”

    Dr. Roberts just wanted to be left alone! Without her blanket to hide her face, she instead did so with her hands. Her sobs were so loud that she did not so much as hear as Firecrest approached, kneeling beside her bed.

    Something was placed onto her head. It took her a moment to realize that it was a pair of headphones. A pair of large, soft headphones. They played no music, but rather served to quiet the obtrusive sounds of the outside world. 

    “It won’t take long.” Firecrest spoke just loud enough to be heard beneath the headphones. With slow movements, she undid the leather shackles from Dr. Roberts’ wrists, freeing her from the bed. 

    “I’m going to help you into the wheelchair, okay? You’re okay…”

    With soft hands and gentle words, the hero eased the villain from the bed into the chair. She supposed she should’ve been expecting it when the shoulder straps clicked into place, but it did nothing to make her less anxious.

    “I don’t want to! I don’t want to go!”

    “It’s okay. Shh, shh…”

    If anything, the reassurances made her feel worse as she was pushed down the hallway. She couldn’t remember if she’d ever been more frightened than she was at that moment. Strapped to a chair by a hero, being pushed from a cell to a hellish doctor’s office where her capacity for movement would be taken away from her.

    Had it not been for the shoulder straps, she would have twisted around and bit Firecrest, then and there.

    But, so it appeared, the heroes had planned for that exact contingency. She was trapped, trapped listening to her speeding heartbeat as she was brought from the cold metal of the cell block all the way to the shiny white tiles of the medical wing.

    The chair only stopped outside a steel door with a little brass plaque nailed to it, reading:

    ‘Doctor Allele.’

    At that moment, a new fear leapt into Dr. Roberts’ mind. Firecrest claimed she would be getting a cast on her leg, but if they were going to kill her anyways, what would be the point of that?

    She felt her heart leapt to her throat, a realization striking her at the very moment that Firecrest opened the door to the office.

    They were going to take her leg.

[nyrandrea]

Setting the Stage - Part 2

Here’s the next part, as promised! Last chapter was setting things up, now we get to the good stuff.

Summary: Gregory had always dreamed of going to Freddy Fazbear’s Mega Pizza Plex and meeting his heroes. But he somehow ends up getting more than he bargained for, and dreams start to turn into nightmares.

Link to Part 1 here!

Also available to read on A03 here!

Enjoy!

“How much farther now?”

Gregory flinched when those red eyes bore down on him as if to dare him to ask that question one more time.

“Not much!” Came the cheery reply, despite her glare.

An uncomfortable silence settled between them as Vanny continued to lead Gregory down an ill-lit tunnel, save for the tinny footsteps that echoed as they walked along the metal walkway.

She had said that the staff used this underpass as a quicker way of getting around the mall and that they would be at the Fazer Tag arena in no time, but they had been walking for what seemed like hours now.

A faint but vile odour of damp and rot clogged Gregory’s nose as he scrunched it up in disgust; the air was thick and soupy with wet must that seemed to stick to his lungs with every breath.

He stole a quick glance up at Vanny before immediately looking back down again in fear that she might catch his eye. She had been so excitable and nice to him before, but there was a different air about her now. More... reserved.

Turning back had crossed his mind once or twice, but given how tight her grip was, it didn’t seem like an option anymore.

He was really starting to regret this.

“Here we are!”

Gregory snapped out of his thoughts as they came up to what looked like a large elevator shaft with rusted doors that slowly creaked open when Vanny pressed a button. The boy swallowed and looked up at the bunny when she gave his hand a little squeeze.

He couldn’t tell if she was really smiling at him behind that large crooked grin, but he forced a smile back regardless.

It took a few moments but when the elevator finally started moving upwards, Gregory’s heart fluttered a little as he looked through the glass down towards the arena. It was quiet and empty, which made him wonder just how much time had really passed.  

There was no sign of his mom either.

A sharp, high-pitched tone suddenly rang out as they made it to the VIP room. Gregory cringed and had to cover his ears but Vanny didn’t seem bothered at all as she silently took his hand again.

Pushing all his doubts to one side, Gregory beamed as he prepared himself to finally meet Glamrock Freddy. He had gone through a bunch of speeches in his head but they all sounded dumb as hell, so he opted for a more natural approach, not that that was going to be much better.

But there was still one thing he needed.

Just as he was about to ask Vanny to get his picture back, the doors slid open.  

Gregory’s look of joy twisted into one of horror as he wasn’t greeted by Glamrock Freddy, but by four knocked out boys tied up on a sofa; the biggest one mumbling in his sleep.

Rob.

Before he could even register what was going on, Gregory was shoved to the ground with his arms forced back as Vanny dragged him towards the back.

“V-Vanny?!” The little boy yelped as she started tying his wrists together. “What are you-?!”

“Shhhhh...” she gently hummed as something sharp and metal barely pricked his throat. “I promise I’ll make this quick, okay? No need for tears, now.”

He hadn’t even noticed he’d been crying before she gently wiped the tears away with a tut-tut. The tall rabbit then set aside her knife – much to Gregory’s relief – and pulled out a small box with a familiar crescent moon on the cover.

“Told ya I’d get ‘em with Moondrop’s Sleepy-Time Candy!” she said, a hint of that cheerful tone creeping back in. “Though I’m not sure why kids would want sweets that would put them to sleep...”  

“I-I thought the exact same thing...” Gregory weakly replied.  

“Weird, right?”

“Totally...weird.”

He wasn’t even sure why he was having a conversation with this psycho, but desperation made him think that he could maybe appeal to her better nature.  

There was a moment then, in which she appeared to be wistful as she tapped her finger against the box, almost as if she were carefully considering her next move. Gregory decided to jump at this chance.

“Please... p-please let me go.”

She stopped tapping and looked directly at him. He tried to look past those bulging crimson eyes and see her for what she actually was: a fellow human being. A person. With feelings. Like him.

With another tap, a white piece of candy dropped into the palm of her hand.

“Sorry, kiddo...”

His vision suddenly went dark as she grabbed onto his face and tried to force his mouth open. The little boy kicked, thrashed and even managed to bite her at one point. He couldn’t fight back the tears streaming down his face as she quickly managed to get the upper hand; by using hers to block the airways of his nose.

“Don’t fight it...!” She hissed. “It’ll be a lot less painful that way-!”

There was a sudden shriek as something pummeled her to the floor, and Gregory gasped for breath.  

His eyes widened when they locked with Rob’s, who was lying on his side, still slightly dazed. Next to him, Vanny groaned and clutched her head.

Gregory took this fleeting moment and just about managed to slide his skinny wrists out of the loosely tied ropes before diving to Rob’s side and tried to undo the knots on his ankles first. His whole body screamed at him to run but he couldn’t just leave without trying to free the others.

“Awww...” came a sickly-sweet voice that made their blood run cold. “Are you two best buds now?”

Both boys looked up to see Vanny standing over them, her body oddly crooked as she brandished her knife.

“It’s amazing what can bring us together, huh?”

“Run!”

Rob’s shout spurred on Gregory’s legs as they propelled him forward, barely managing to dodge Vanny’s knife as she swiped at him, though she did manage to nick him on the cheek. As she tripped over Rob’s body and into the couch, Gregory used this valuable time to dash into the elevator and rapidly push the button, ignoring his guilty conscience pleading for him to go back.

As the door’s finally started closing, he mouthed “I’ll come back for you.” Though one look into Rob’s terrified eyes had told him that the older boy had already accepted his fate.

Gregory yelped and fell back as Vanny made one more plunge for him, screaming and howling in anger and despair when her knife clashed with metal as the doors sealed shut.

Stunned into silence, he could only stare ahead as the elevator slowly descended, not even flinching when that sharp chime announced his destination. The doors opened to the eerily quiet Fazer Tag arena, meaning that he must have pressed the wrong button, but that didn’t matter now.  

Adrenaline was the only thing that managed to get his jellified legs to work as he managed to get himself up and out of the elevator before it was recalled.

Muffled footsteps invaded the stillness that hung around the arena like a cloak as Gregory quickly crept towards the neon archway that led to the reception desk. The little glimmer of hope that he held was dashed when he saw that it was empty.

Gregory’s heart sunk even further when he wandered out into the mall as he was greeted with nothing but a hush. The noise and laughter and music that had been blaring just hours before was painfully amiss, along with the brightness and warmth of the sun that beamed through the glass ceiling; now replaced with cold moonlight beams cutting through the dark.

“Mom...?” he couldn’t help but weakly croak out.

No answer.

“Mom!”  

Despite the fact that it was likely that Vanny had heard him and was probably already tracking him down, Gregory shouted and pleaded and even screamed for his mother as he ran around the mall, each call becoming more and more desperate.

Why wasn’t she here? She should be here, kneeling and embracing him with open arms. Had she just left and forgotten about him? She wouldn’t do that. She couldn’t!

Hysterical and in tears, he somehow managed to loop back to where he had been before Vanny had taken him away. All the show rooms had their curtains drawn as the animatronics had likely been retired for the night.  

Slowing to a stop in front of Glamrock Freddy’s room, Gregory sniffed and sat on the floor with his knees hugged up against his chest. He tried to take slow and deep breaths as he attempted to muddle through the fog in his brain for any kind of smart idea on how to survive through the rest of tonight.

“Gregory...”

A sharp pain jabbed up from under his ribs as he quickly got to his feet, spinning around to try and locate the source of Vanny’s voice as it echoed through the mall.

“Your friends are worried about you,” she said, tone disturbingly calm and soothing. “They’re here with me. Please come out...?”

Backing up against the drapes of Glamrock Freddy’s room, Gregory slipped behind them and into the darkness of the room, peeking through the slit for any sign of movement.

“Gregory,” she tried again. “I may have lost my temper earlier...but it was just a glitch...”  

He gasped slightly as her voice started to distort, how was she even...?

“It won’t happen again.”

As soft footsteps grew closer and the shadow of a pair of tall ears materialized near the statue of Roxanne, Gregory slowly stepped back and let the gloominess of the room envelop him as he tried to control his erratic breathing.

“It’s been such a difficult day for all of us.”

Gregory could just about make out a small twinkle as her knife glinted in the moonlight.

“Why don’t you come out, and we can play a game together?”

Barely registering the stinging pain as tears ran down his face and through the small gash on his right cheek, he kept backing up until he hit something hard and metal.

“It won’t happen again.”

The little boy tried to cry out when he was suddenly yanked up by the collar of his shirt and shoved into a small, dark space. He was dazed for a moment before beads of sweat started to trail down his forehead as he felt around the four enclosed walls of his prison. It had a cold and almost plastic feel to it, and there wasn’t much room for maneuvering.  

His throat felt like it was being squeezed as he choked and struggled to breathe.

“...It was just a glitch...”

She sounded so close now, the distortions in her voice seemed to reverberate through the cage he was in. He had to escape. Run away from this place. Look for a way to free Rob. Phone the police. Find his mom.  

He had to get out now.

With trembling legs, Gregory tried to kick the walls down. He didn’t know what way was up or down but all he could do was kick. Kick. Kick!

“Gregory.”

Flinching at the different voice – deep as thunder but gentle like a breeze – the boy slowly ceased his kicking and let out sharp, shallow breaths.  

W-was this...? It couldn’t be...

“Be still.”  

A beat of silence followed.

“I think she’s found us.”

Gregory held his breath when he heard the curtains swing open and a flick of the switch as the lights buzzed to life. He could hear Vanny moving about the room, pausing every so often to look behind the arcade or the sofa. There was even a brief moment where he swore she had found him when he heard heavy breathing dead ahead. He grimaced as a light tapping of metal upon metal suddenly rung out within the hollow space.

Vanny made a sound of frustration before storming out, but Gregory didn’t dare breathe before he was sure she was gone.

He was probably starting to become blue in the face before his prison suddenly opened up. Without a moment’s hesitation, he tumbled out and landed ungracefully on his face, but he didn’t really care at this point. He was just glad to be out of the void.

There was a soft “Oh!” behind him before a pair of large metal hands carefully lifted him up from under the arms and held him steady. Staring ahead at a large blue lightning bolt upon a light brown chest, Gregory’s wide eyes slowly trailed up to see Glamrock Freddy staring right back down at him.

“Are you okay?” The animatronic asked.

The boy tried to swallow but his throat had dried up.

“I apologize for acting so abruptly,” he continued, taking off his hat and sheepishly shuffled it between his hands. “I didn’t know any other way to get you to safety before she came. But I didn’t mean to be quite so rough.”

“It’s...okay...” Gregory managed to rasp out, still not quite believing he was talking to the Glamrock Freddy. He would have been ecstatic if not for the dire situation.

“Thanks for...um...s-saving my life.”

The bear seemed to brighten up a bit at that as he put his hat back on and held out a hand.

“Well, it’s very nice to meet you, Gregory! I do wish we could have met under more...pleasant circumstances but here we are. My name is-”

“Glamrock Freddy, I know,” he interrupted, before quickly adding, “I’m...a big fan.”

Timidly, the boy took the robot’s hand, almost yelping when it was shaken rather vigorously.  

“Always a pleasure to meet a fan!”

Vaguely reminded of when he met Vanny, Gregory berated himself for being so immediately trusting. But...this was Freddy. Surely the robots weren’t kidnapping kids too?

His eyes wandered up towards the chest compartment that he had been in just moments before. It was...quite an oddly specific function to have.

“How uh...how do you know my name?” Gregory asked, pulling his hand away a bit too quickly, though Freddy didn’t seem to mind.

“She was calling out for you.”

Alright. That was fair.

“Oh! And you also left this behind,” the robot said as he pulled out a piece of paper, smoothing out the creases before handing it over. “One of the stewards found it and brought it to me. It has your signature.”

Gregory took it and stared down at the colorful picture, snorting a little when he recognized it as his own. He should have known that those compliments from Vanny had been nothing but empty, honeyed words just to lure him into her trap. His own mother had warned him about such types of people.  

The boy almost smiled at how downright stupid he was.

“I really like the cape,” Freddy suddenly said, making him wince. “The colors are so vibrant!”

Gregory wanted to thank him for stating the obvious but couldn’t find it in him to do so. Hours ago he would have been on cloud nine hearing such praise from his hero. Now they just seemed so...hollow and meaningless.

He frowned at the picture for a few more moments before something sharp poked him on the cheek, causing him to hiss in pain and scoot back.

Freddy also recoiled and withdrew his hand, looking guilty at having hurt the boy.

“You’re bleeding...”  

Absently putting a hand to his cheek, he felt the wound that Vanny had inflicted on him earlier, and scowled when his fingers came back wet with fresh blood.

“Come with me.”

Gregory blinked in shock as the robot stood up to his full height and towered over him, realizing that he barely made it past his knee joint. He couldn’t help but feel just a tad bit intimidated.

Moving towards the back of the room, Freddy opened the metal door behind the stage curtains and made his way in. Suddenly feeling nervous at the prospect of being left alone, Gregory got up from the floor and hastily followed.

He was hit with that musty stench from the underground tunnels again, though here it wasn’t quite so strong. It was a basic room with a red carpet and brick and mortar walls with a few chairs and what seemed to be some kind of charging station – most likely for Freddy.

Gregory watched as the animatronic pulled out a red and white box from a cabinet and carried it over, opening it to reveal medical contents.  

“This will sting,” Freddy stated as he knelt down and held out an antiseptic wipe. “Can you be brave?”

“I’m not five,” Gregory mumbled back, trying not to wince when the gash started to sting.

“How old are you then? If you don’t mind my asking.”

The boy narrowed his eyes slightly, still wondering if he should even be here instead of running for the hills. Though clearly that hadn’t exactly worked out the first time.

“...Eleven,” he eventually answered.

“Hm,” the bear hummed, as if mulling over something. “You’re very mature for your age.”

“T-Thanks.”

He wasn’t really sure if he was so mature as he had just been running around screaming and crying for his mother like a lost fawn while a psychopath was on the loose just ten minutes ago, but he didn’t argue.

“There, and we’re done!” Freddy said as he smoothed a band-aid over Gregory’s wound. “How does that feel?”

“Better, thanks,” the boy replied as he lightly touched it. “And thanks again for saving my life back there. If you hadn’t, she...she would have...”

His chest tightened up a little. Freddy refused to meet his eyes as he put the box away.

“Do...do you know her?” Gregory asked. “Her name’s Vanny and-”

“No,” Freddy cut in. “I have scanned her, and she does not come up on my database. She is not staff.”

It was that sentence that starkly reminded Gregory that he was really talking to a walking, talking machine. And that took a little bit of the magic away for him...

“Yet she has access to all areas of the complex,” Freddy continued, tilting his head with an almost baffled look. “It has confused myself and the others; her skulking everywhere.”

“The others?”

“Chica, Roxanne and Montgomery.”

“Monty,” Gregory corrected.

“Hm?”

“You call him Monty in the show.”

“Ah. Yes.”

Gregory frowned a little.

“But alas, we cannot do anything about her.”

“What uh...what do you mean?” Gregory asked, suddenly feeling his blood run a bit cold.

“It goes against our programming,” Freddy bluntly replied. “We cannot harm adults.”

“You can’t...ah...” was all he could say. That just pretty much blew all of his plans out of the water.

“We tried to warn the other staff members but they wouldn’t listen, and they had the gall to complain about fixing our mainframes-”

Freddy’s ramblings just turned into white noise as Gregory stared ahead; all those cool montages of him riding in the animatronic’s chest while he kicked Vanny’s ass and rescued Rob and the others was slowly becoming less and less likely.

It was only when a metal pair of fingers snapped in front of him that brought him crashing back down to reality.

“But...!” Gregory stammered as he tried to come up with a more plausible plan. “But even if you can’t hurt her, can’t you just carry me to the front door or something?”

“Gregory-”

“Or just take me to a phone so I can call the police! You know she’s kidnapped other kids, right?”

Freddy held up his hands in an attempt to calm him down. “I did not. But-”

“Rob’s the reason I even managed to get away, we have to go help him...!”

“Gregory.”

A heavy weight on his shoulders and Freddy’s tone finally got him to shut his mouth.

“I wish I could do all those things for you, but the fact of the matter is...I can’t.”

The boy raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“Myself and the others are confined to our rooms at night.”

“I’m...I’m sorry, confined? By what? The curtains?”

“Security protocols.”

“But I saw you wander around earlier!”

“We are allowed to during the day, but at night our security protocols-”

“I don’t care about your security whatever!” Gregory blurted out as quietly as he could. “There is a psycho dressed as a freaking rabbit out there who is trying to kill me right now!”

He tried to push away the hands on his shoulders but was unable to as Freddy looked down upon with a sympathetic frown – one that was strikingly akin to his mom’s.

“And she’s taken these other kids hostage a-and now I have to rescue them or she’ll kill them and I just...I just want...”

His vision suddenly blurred, and he struggled to hold the tears back as he furiously wiped them away, angry at himself for getting so worked up.

Gregory’s breath hitched when he felt himself being gently pressed up against Freddy’s chest, with one hand on his head and the other on his back, steadying him. He had seen the other kids getting hugs from the animatronics before, and while he had been envious, he couldn’t help but imagine it feeling cold and a little uncomfortable.

But it was nothing like that; instead, it was warm and inviting, and it was enough to open the floodgates for Gregory as he clung onto the robot.

“I just...want...my mom...”

They stayed like that for a while, with Gregory quietly sobbing as Freddy tried to console him, rubbing small circles along his back in a soothing motion and gently patting his head as the boy eventually managed to get it all out of his system.

“Gregory,” Freddy started, making him look up as he wiped his nose. “While it may go against my programming...” the animatronic paused for a moment before smiling down at him. “I will do my best to override it.”

“Really? You mean you’ll help me?”

“Yes. I will assist you in evading that ‘psycho’, as you put it – and get you out. To the best of my ability.”

Gregory smiled back, before adding, “And the others too? I can’t leave without them.”

“The... others too,” the bear reluctantly agreed.

Wiping away the last of his tears, he nodded gratefully, perking up when Freddy opened up his chest apartment and offered his hand as a step.

Climbing up and settling in, what had felt like a claustrophobic prison now felt like a safe haven from the dangers that awaited him out there.

“Oh, before I forget,” Freddy mulled as he re-entered the show room, bending down to pick up Gregory’s drawing. “Would you like to do the honors?”

Grinning from ear to ear, he leaned out and took the drawing and a small pin from Freddy, the robot keeping him steady as he stuck the drawing up with the others. He could feel himself swell up with pride in a fleeting moment that made him forget about the horrors that awaited him.

“Now,” Freddy started as he closed his chest compartment and peeked through the curtains to check if the coast was clear. “We may need some help. How would you like to meet the others?”

xxx

A wash of light flooded across the polished checkered floors and shone up towards the golden statue of Freddy as a woman entered through the security barriers. Brushing back her golden hair and securing her cap on, she sighed as she pulled out a photograph of a young boy with messy brown hair and a huge toothy grin.

His mother had been hysterical when she entered the security office, claiming that it had been her fault for leaving him and thinking that he wouldn’t just wander off. They had looked through the camera feed but given how busy this place was during the day, it was a needle in a haystack situation.

But now that it was empty, her job would begin. She had six hours.

“Alright Gregory...” Vanessa said, putting the photo into her pocket. “Let’s see if we can find you.”

xxx

And that’s the end! I’ve decided to leave the ending a bit vague because of the whole Vanny/Vanessa debate. I’d love to write more at this point but I’ll probably wait until the game comes out (hopefully soon!) Hope you enjoyed and let me know if you did!

[bjy-on-ao3]

Fic Friday: Taking Your Time

(As usual, you can find the AO3 version of all my uploads [and some things I don’t post here to tumblr] via my Masterlist blog page.)

Time to add another DILF to my writing repertoire! There apparently isn’t a category for Persona 5 Strikers/Scramble, so I hope this categorization was right? I’d like to thank Petaldances for fueling my thirst for Zenkichi on Twitter and giving me the initial idea to write to this.

Also, there's a kind of intensifying/warming lube used in this fic that I couldn't for the life of me to properly tag. If anyone knows what lube for those purposes would be tagged, I can add it to the tags.

Summary Zenkichi convinces Reader into a little something new for the sake of some variety in their sex life, but goes just a little overboard.

Tags/Warnings

Consensual S*x, Established Relationship, Light Bondage, Orgasm Delay, Overstimulation, Shameless Smut, Teasing, Vagina Fingering, Vaginal S*x

Taking Your Time (F! Reader/Zenkichi Hasegawa)

It hadn’t been long since Zenkichi had suggested trying something new to add some variety into your sex life, something he had been keen to try. Hardly even half the day had passed since you had agreed, wary but driven by immeasurable curiosity. He had been insistent on not elaborating, something about it being more fun that way. He had thoroughly reassured you, though, that it would be a good time. You trusted his word, even if it made you bubble with nervous energy along with anticipation.

Not long after his suggestion, that evening found in a somewhat unfamiliar position. You couldn’t say it was an uncomfortable one, however. Cushioned by the bedsheets, you sprawled naked on your belly across his bed; lying facedown on Zenkichi’s sheets though wasn’t the unfamiliar part - that and the cool, soothing sensation of the soft fabric on your cheek was commonplace enough.

The handcuffs linking your hands uselessly above your head, though, those were out of the ordinary. Handcuffs of the genuine kind, not the fuzzy kind reserved for gag gifts of kinky intimate moments. The kind that chafed and left marks on your skin if you pulled at them too much or they were cinched too tight. In lieu of a proper blindfold - the cuffs had been an easier resource to procure apparently - one of Zenkichi’s ties was bound around your eyes to complement the cuffs, obscuring your sight. You were left with only touch and sound to discern what Zenkichi might be up to.

He had left the room shortly after cuffing and blindfolding you, promising he’d only be a few minutes. That left you waiting, wriggling here and there to make yourself more comfortable and further muss the bedsheets. A sense of vulnerability lingered in your mind, though one accompanied by curiosity and anticipation rather than fear. You knew you had nothing to fear from him, even if he had yet to explain exactly what he planned to do to you. The light bondage on it’s own was enough to be considered a little spicing up things, but it was only the beginning it seemed.

The minutes ticked on and felt far longer as you waited impatiently on the bed. Just when you were becoming concerned Zenkichi might have been distracted by something, or somehow forgotten about you, you heard the door creak open and shut again, signalling his return to the bedroom.

“Took you long enough,” you grumbled, though there was no true displeasure in your tone. The false show of irritation earned you a small chuckle from him.

“I was only gone a few minutes like I told you. I guess you’re just so excited it felt like longer,” he quipped in returned, and you could hear the grin on his face.

“Sure, that’s it,” you dismissed wryly, though you were smiling, too.

Zenkichi laughed again, and the comforting sound was close this time, followed by his weight making the bed dip beside you. “Don’t worry, I promise it’s worth the wait,” he assured you, tone light at first, but dropping into something more husky.

His weight beside you shifted, relocated to either side of your outstretched legs. Your squirming ceased, uncertain exactly how he was oriented. You knew he had to be close, judging by the heat of his skin near your outer thighs. The bed moved again, and you nearly jumped when the weight of his hands settled over your shoulders. He rubbed in soft, light motions along your skin, down your shoulders and back, making you shiver, goosebumps rising in the wake of his fingertips. They remained featherlight, teasing, trailing over the small of back, before each took a detour to split and map out the curves of your waist and hips, before drawing together again. They splayed across your ass, smoothing over it and cupping each cheek more firmly.

Zenkichi lingered there for a moment, before repeating the path over in reverse, then back down again once it was complete. You writhed beneath his hands, unsatisfied with the simple, light touches, though they felt nice. As pleasant as they were, it was maddening not to be able to return his touch, leaving you only with the sensation of his fingers and a steadily swelling well of heat gathering between your legs. A heat that stayed woefully untended to while he caressed your skin, neglected as if he had no idea what his touch did to you.

Yet it didn’t go ignored forever, and after what seemed like far too long, the light strokes ended, leaving Zenkichi’s hands spread over the backs of your thighs. He readjusted himself on the bed again, moving to part your legs. You shuddered from the cold, or maybe it wasn’t that it was cold, but rather your cunt was already so hot and damp the bedroom air felt cold in comparison. You shivered again when the sensation of a single long finger teased along your folds. It drew back and forth gingerly, sinking deeper between your lips as it went. It teasingly skimmed your entrance, joined by another digit that pushed into your opening far too shallowly to elicit any satisfactions. Both slid away as abruptly as they had come, and you whined as they moved toward your clit instead. Whatever game Zenkichi was playing, you weren’t sure you had the will to endure.

“Zen, please…” you were already willing to beg, set on edge just from all the light touching beforehand, more so than you would have thought possible.

He laughed once more, and his fingers brushed over your clit, making you buck your hips against the bed into his touch. “Aw, already? But we’re just getting started.” his voice oozed a cheeky mock disappointment.

You answered with a whimpered sound of protest, realizing by his tone wasn’t going to cave to your pleas so easily. The realization was equal parts exciting and dreadful.

He continued his game, teasing your cunt, running his fingers along far too lightly, stroking your clit or dipping his fingers into your slit, just enough to wind you up. Enough to make you squirm against his hand or reflexively pull against your cuffs. Occasionally, he toyed with you a little further, giving you just enough to make you gasp and moan before foregoing more contact. It left your core feeling molten and tense, but not in the tantalizing way that normally heralded an orgasm. Zenkichi was doing his best to work you up, but not giving you nearly enough to give you any release. Only the minimum to stoke the flames of your arousal and drown your mind in the fog of need.

You tried pleading again, though the plaintive whine of his named that crossed your lips was strangled when he rubbed the pads of his fingers harder against your clit. For an instant, when his fingers circled it a little more vigorously, you thought he might have given into your plea, but you quickly found you were mistaken. Your breath hitched and deepened as his fingers stroked you in just the right way to forge the burgeoning heat in your abdomen into a red-hot spring of tension. It surged in intensity, more and more with his touch, until you thought it might explode. But as you groaned his name between ragged breaths, his fingers stalled, the mounting sensation crashing down, the peak unmet.

The sinful touch on your clit vanished, and Zenkichi’s devilish fingers abandoned your cunt entirely. Your newest whimper of complaint was involuntary, a noise mourning the tense feeling that had built so high before being stolen away. Each second that passed without his touch, it ebbed further away from your grasp. It left you almost uncomfortably hot and aching, your pussy throbbing with unsatisfied desire, prominent and demanding.

“So close, but so far,” Zenkichi teased. Your hands flexed above your head, and right then you wished you could give him a dose of his own medicine. “Hm, I wonder if this’ll help?”

You worried your lip at the faux naivety in Zenkichi’s voice. The sound of some bottle lid snapping open drew your attention, and he was quiet for several beats of your pounding heart. His fingered returned to your core, and again you thought he was foregoing his torturous game, moved by your desperate state. It was a convincing act when two of his fingers slipped easily through your lips and inside you, at least, and you nearly swooned in relief. Curling his fingers and searching for a few seconds, he found what he was looking for. He rubbed more firmly, and your breath caught in your throat. But that attention, too, was short, and after too brief a time, he withdrew his fingers.

Confusion joined the indescribable horniness that plagued you. That had been enough to give you more hope, sure, but hardly enough to work you up like before. Your confusion lingered a little longer, until the sensation of heat in your insides intensified, morphing into a feeling so warm and intense it was almost too much to bear.

“Z-Zen, fuck, what,... what did you do?” you asked with a gasp. It wasn’t the first time Zenkichi had touched you like that, but your cunt had certainly never reacted so strongly in the past.

Another amused chuckle broke the air, and you had the fleeting thought among alarm wrought from new sensation that you might have been mad if you didn’t find the sound of his laughter so alluring. “Little something I picked up. Hm, guess you coil say it makes everything a bit more… intense.” he explained, sounding as if he was enjoying every second of your plight.

“If that’s what it’s for then, aah, fuck me already,” you demanded, squirming against the sheets, even without his touch to stir you up. You clamped your thighs together to alleviate some of the maddeningly hot feeling.

“Oh, but I’m not done yet.” There was that coy tone again, as if would be too much of a shame not to carry on with whatever he had planned.

You cursed quietly in answer, more so to distract yourself than in any anger. You buried your face in the sheet, blowing a frustrated breath into them and stifling a needy whine. Zenkichi thwarted your attempt to muffle yourself, though, smoothly rolling you onto your back. The heat and weight of his body settled over you again, this time between your legs, keeping you from squeezing them together. The bed sank around your head on either side, and you could only assume it was his hands flanking your cheeks. You could easily picture his naked frame stretched over top of you. That picture was made more tangible when he relaxed against you, resting flush against your skin.

He pressed several lazy kisses to your neck, his goatee scratching lightly against your skin. Between his hot breath ghosting across your throat, his solid form pressed into you, and the acute throbbing in your core fueled by whatever Zenkichi had applied to you, you were sure you would erupt into flames at any second.

Your body didn’t grant you even that reprieve from the heat, though. It only roared hotter, higher, when Zenkichi rutted against you, his cock firmly sliding against your soaked cunt. You whimpered and squirmed again uselessly, angling your hips toward him, hoping he might slip up and fill you up instead of teasing you by lingering oh-so-close. But he was careful, wise to what you were trying to do, and drew his hips back when you bucked yours toward him. Each of his thrusts, his erection slipping through your wet lips was a delicious agony, the thick head of his cock teasing your clit just enough to fuel your craving for more.

“Zenkichi…” you mewled pitifully, when one roll of his hips strokes you just so, more intensely than the rest.

“You know, you sound so sad I’d almost think you weren’t enjoying yourself,” he teased, his voice a low, playful purr in your ear, accompanied by more rasping of his facial hair against your neck.

You bit down on your lip, smothering another whimper. Part of you wanted to give him a piece of your mind, insist that everything was too slow and you needed more . But another part of you was so lost in the warm, hard parts of him pressing against you all over and the aching need between your thighs that coherent speech was nigh impossible. You settled on another plaintive moan of his name and stray curse, all that your foggy mind would allow you.

Zenkichi seemed to be quite enjoying putting you through such torture, however, and his breath grew hotter and heavier in your ear the more he thrust against your cunt. Large hands cupped your tits, roughly kneading them and catching your nipples between his fingertips to roll and tweak them. His head shifted from lingering at your ear to turning his face into your neck, mouthing amorously, the light scrape of his teeth joining the slick, warm touch of his lips and tongue. Every sound and sensation served only to further ignite your longing and moans. In turn, each sound you made served only to push Zenkichi into more of a frenzy.

When Zenkichi’s breathing reached a fever pitch, and his mouth abandoned your skin in favor of low, bestial groans and grunts, you realized how close he was, with no sign of stopping, despite still denying you the same release, letting you teeter on the edge instead. His cock twitched harder as he drew it back along your wet, welcoming lips again, and his breath shook when he exhaled. And then, rocking forward again, his cock slipped past your clit and further, and he came in thick, hot ropes of white that splattered across your skin, spattering your mound and your belly.

His breathing in your ear became exceptionally labored for a few moments, and for an instant you thought that was it and there had been some premature end to Zenkichi’s proposed fun. The thought was disheartening, and your lips curled in a pout. At least they did until his lips touched yours and gave you something else to be preoccupied with. The matter of your aching, over sensitive cunt remained at hand, but Zenkichi’s kiss, rough but slow and sensual, was enough to make it tolerable. His goatee chafed against your jaw again, but it was hardly noticeable, and you ignored it in favor of inviting him to push his tongue through your lips and twine it with yours.

For what seemed like a long while - you’d lost any hope of reliably keeping track of passing time in your state - you stayed drawn together, enraptured by the kiss, hardly aware of Zenkichi’s cum cooling on your skin. His hands explored new paths while you kissed, straying from your breasts to dance up and down along your sides, over the curves of your hips and thighs, even trailing up to gently ghost over the lines of your throat and back down. Between kissing and the constant touches, Zenkichi had given your ardour little time to fade away, the ache in your core as strong as ever, perhaps even more desperate than before.

He broke away from the kiss, moving down your body until he bent his head to your chest and his mouth took up the positions his hand had held. He teased each nip equally, slowly running his tongue in tightening circles before taking it into his mouth, sucking and flicking his tongue over the sensitive bud. You arched your back into the warmth of his mouth, feeling hot all over and disregarding the tacky sensation on your belly as your skin brushed his. Tense, needy, and half-mad, you wondered if the torment would ever end. It was a punishment both divine and hellish that made you want to explode or scream or cry. You weren’t really sure which.

Tears won out in the end, but you weren’t sure if they were from frustration or pleasure or something else entirely. All you knew was you felt the hot prick of them welling up beneath the blindfold, and you cried out Zenkichi’s name again, the word a half-sob. The wavering sound of your voice gave him pause, and his eyes swept up to catch sight of the trail of tears leaking out from the makeshift blindfold.

When he spoke, you could make out a concerned beneath the huskiness that had overtaken his voice. “Hey, are you alright? Maybe I got a little carried away,” he wondered aloud, adjusting himself again, until the entirety of his body returned to lie over you. “Let me make it up to you.”

The teasing came to an abrupt end, and you couldn’t but be thankful. While you couldn’t deny it was enjoyable, to an extent, your desire had been kindled into such an out-of-control blaze the lack of satisfaction was driving you crazy. So you welcomed when the tip of Zenkichi’s cock, hard again from the time spent kissing and touching and teasing you some more, brushed your entrance. All the tension and heat erupted from you in a gasp that melted into a pleased sigh when he pushed forward and his hardness filled you in a single swift stroke.

He paused only for a short time, allowing you to adjust to the new stretch and burn, though with how wet and aroused you were from all the buildup and whatever it was he had used on you earlier, you hardly needed the accommodation. “Fuck, fuck, go, move. Zenkichi, please,” you murmured hazily, thrashing your head back against the sheets. Even being filled so fully wasn’t enough anymore to satisfy you.

Zenkichi said nothing, answering you only with an acknowledging hum as he started to move, driving in and out in hard, slow thrusts.

Though slow, the rhythm of his thrusts was enough, each roll of his hips added to by the lingering effect of the mystery lube he had applied earlier in your foreplay. It seemed to affect him, too, if the return of his labored breathing was any hint. Or maybe the change was from how tightly your pussy hugged him each time he sank back into your heat, as if it never wanted to let him go again. Your breathing mimicked his, escalating quicker than expected, until it was a match, both of you nearly panting.

“You feel so good,” Zenkichi rumbled in your ear, and your cunt throbbed and clenched more desperately, as if answering him, and you moaned. “How’s it feel? Worth it?” he asked, muffling a groan into your cheek.

“Yes, fuck, it’s better than good,” you squeezed out between panting breaths and cries.

The fervor and tension from before mounted inside you again in unison, molten and overflowing. You snapped your hips upward to meet each new thrust, steadily growing in pace, until the sound of your skin slapping against his joined the erotic chorus of groans and gasps and cries. You wanted more, needed more, anything to reach the pinnacle hanging just beyond your grasp.

“Zenkichi, f-fuck, I’m gonna cum,” you warned him bawdily, driving your hips even more frantically against his, pulling reflexively against your restraints and hardly noticing the sting on your wrists.

“Me, too. Fuck,” he growled, and the cant of his hip grew harder, as if spurred on as much by your approaching orgasm as by his.

“Fuck, fuck, Zenkichi,” you chanted his name, the only thing left on your mind beyond your desire for release.

You could feel it, the molten coil drawn to its breaking point, so close, nearly there… until it burst, leaving awash with waves if bliss. Your mouth fell open in a dramatic ‘oh’, only to be covered by Zenkichi’s again, swallowing each obscene, frenzied sound. His tongue into your mouth, slickly overtaking your own tongue and smothering each erotic new noise. His hips stiffed against you again, signalling he had almost reached his peak, too, and your mouth deafened his own moans.

When Zenkichi finished for the second time, it was far more satisfying than the first. Instead of the stickiness of his cum spattering your skin, it filed you, hot and wet as he pumped you with more with each hard thrust. All the while, still in the throes of your orgasm, your cunt milked him greedily, sapping him for every last drop of cum until he had nothing left to give.

Finally sated, feeling warm and full, sweaty and sticky and tired, you fell still and quiet, save for your heaving chest. The last ripples of your climax ebbed away, the fluttering of your walls slowly dying down, too. Zenkichi let himself collapse over you, breathing just as heavily, buried inside you still. His cock twitched unbidden, and you gasped, the movement eliciting a last fleeting squeeze of your pussy, making him mirror your reaction. You lay like that for some time, recovering and enjoying the feel of his body pressed to you, even if having him there made everything so much more sweaty and hot. But it was well worth the inconvenience.

Eventually, once his breathing had leveled out, Zenkichi withdrew from you, rolling to the side and off you. You didn’t make a move to follow him, vaguely aware of the sensation of some of his cum seeping over your thighs. After a moment, he sat up, retrieving the key to the handcuffs and freeing you from them. When he pulled the cuffs from your wrists and took your blindfold away, you saw his face was flushed, his brows slick with sweat, and looking rather content. You wondered if you looked just as well fucked.

You dismissed the thought when he pulled you against him, gingerly rubbing at the marks the cuffs had left behind on your wrists to soothe them. He placed a few light kisses on your cheeks, over the lightly stained tear trails. He said something that you didn’t quite catch, and you sighed contentedly, melting into his embrace, happy to let him fuss over you. You would have to remember to thank him later for the torturous ‘spice’ he had invited into your sex life. But for now, some rest was in order for the both of you.

[imaginedhaven]

Reluctantly Rooming: Part Fourteen

Link to Masterpost

Good things are coming! I hope you enjoy this. I’m hoping to get the next part out on Monday, before we all hide away from the internet with ACOSF and don’t come back until we’re all done reading.

Today’s prompts:

Person A walking in on Person B changing

and

Rowan walking in on Aelin doing her nails and talking to Lysandra

~*~*~

Aelin called Lysandra and set her phone to speaker mode as she carefully painted her nails in a shade of dark red. “Come on, pick up,” she muttered as the phone rang.

Finally, her friend picked up. “Don’t you have someone cuter than me to bother?”

Aelin laughed despite herself. “There’s no one cuter than you, except maybe for me.”

“I’m flattered. Isn’t this the big day? What are you doing talking to me when you’ve got a smoking hot roommate to not-date?”

It was. In about eight hours, she would be heading to some hotel’s ballroom on Rowan’s arm and staying near him to make sure his ex, Remelle, got the hint and stopped bothering him. Every time she dwelled on it for too long, she felt a fluttering sensation in her chest, and so she was trying to distract herself as much as possible.

Now, though, she needed the help of her closest friend. “It is, and I’m calling you for advice.”

“Surely you’ve done all of this before. Drinks, dancing, maybe coming back and waking up in your date’s bed…”

“Lys!” she shouted, scandalized, before dropping her voice. “He’s here. What if he hears you?”

“Then you can thank me for getting you laid despite your best efforts. Now, what do you need my help for?”

Aelin sighed and glanced at the pile of clothing currently scattered over her bed. “I can’t figure out what I’m supposed to wear to this thing. I think I’ve gone through my whole closet twice.”

The sound of her friend’s laughter rang through the room. “Did he not tell you what kind of party this is? Or are you trying to decide because you want to look good for him?”

“Lysandra, you can’t just say things like that!” Aelin hissed, fearing her cheeks were turning as red as the polish on her nails. “I have you on speaker while I’m letting my nails dry.”

“You almost never bother with your nails. This must be really important.”

It was, though Aelin was certainly not going to admit it. “Are you going to help or not?”

“Of course I’ll help. I just can’t believe you think you seriously need my help to look good for a guy.”

“It’s not even that,” she protested. “This is a big deal, okay, these are his coworkers and even though this isn’t real whatever impression I make will impact him going forward at work.”

“Okay, yeah, I see your point. So you want to look like you’re a reasonably well put-together adult, but you also want to look hot.”

“I love that you know me well enough by now to know that that part isn’t a question.” Aelin smiled at her reflection in the mirror, only to jump out of her seat as her door opened without warning.

“Hey, I wanted to make sure you…” Rowan’s voice trailed off, and she blushed as she recalled that she’d stripped down to a bra and panties as she raided her closet.

“Hey, wait, what’s going on?” Lysandra’s voice sounded confused, even through the tinniness of the speaker.

Aelin did her best not to actually look at Rowan, but she couldn’t help chancing a quick glance at his face. He was looking back at her as well, confusion clear in pine-green eyes, and she bit her lip before picking up the phone again. “Yeah, Lys, I’m gonna have to call you back, okay?” She hung up without waiting for an answer and then reached for the robe she’d thrown over her bed.

Rowan spoke again as she tied the robe around her waist. “I just wanted to see if you needed anything from me before we have to get ready.”

“No, I don’t think so.”

Rowan’s eyes left her, finally seeing the utter wreck her bedroom had become. “What happened in here?”

“Picking an outfit happened here. I want to make sure I don’t embarrass you, is all.”

He nodded, glancing over the options she had cast aside on her bed before stepping into her closet. “Are you just looking for general advice, or do you actually want help?”

“You know what? Sure. I can’t promise I’ll pick it, but show me what you think would be best.” If nothing else, she’d get an idea of the formality of the event from him doing so.

He hummed an acknowledgment, and the sound of rustling fabric filled the air. Finally, he stepped back into her room with a hanger in his hand. “I like this one.”

She looked it over and slowly smiled. She’d forgotten about this option entirely. “I bought it years ago on a whim, but it was too old for me at the time. Maybe it’ll look better now.”

She already knew it would, and she couldn’t deny the small thrill she felt at the idea of wearing a dress that Rowan had specifically mentioned he liked. She wouldn’t say as much to him, but she knew her decision was made.

~*~*~

Several hours later, Aelin grinned at her reflection as she admired the dress Rowan had selected. It was black velvet, the neckline embroidered in gold and skimming her collarbones before flowing into long sleeves. What was more interesting, though, was the back.

It was cut almost dangerously low, low enough that she would be going without a bra for the evening, and the embroidery continued, forming the shape of a dragon along the edge of the fabric. From there, the fabric hugged her waist and hips before flaring out into a skirt that ended just above her knees.

As she had hoped, she had matured enough that she filled it out nicely now despite the richness of the fabric and the embroidery. She had paired it with a simple pair of black heels and no further accessories, allowing the dress to speak for itself, and she had simply pulled her hair into a half-up, half-down style with loose curls.

She was as ready as she could be, dressed to do battle with whoever dared question her presence at Rowan’s side. She just had to make sure he was ready as well.

She knocked once on his door before pushing it open, only to freeze in the entryway to his room.

Rowan was standing by his own closet, black dress pants open and slung low on his hips as he looked through a drawer and pulled out an undershirt. He tried to turn to her as he put it on, only to somehow get stuck in the fabric with a growl.

Aelin laughed, crossing the room before gently tugging the shirt over his head and smoothing his platinum locks with her fingers. “If I’d known dressing was going to be such a struggle for you, I’d have come by sooner,” she teased.

He scowled at her, but didn’t disagree as he turned to grab a dress shirt. “How long have you been waiting?”

“I haven’t been. I just finished getting ready myself.” Telling herself it was only because to save time, she deftly buttoned his shirt, stopping herself from reaching for his pants and hoping she wasn’t blushing as she stepped back.

If she was, he didn’t notice. “Good. That looks nice, by the way.”

“You’re not even looking.” It was true; he was leaning back into the closet, pulling out a tie and his jacket.

“I saw you when you walked in.” As always, his voice was matter-of-fact to the extent that she found it impossible to figure out if he meant anything by it. That was truly the most maddening part of having him for a roommate.

Aelin coaxed a smile onto her face regardless. “I see. You need anything else?”

“I need you to make sure you’ll be warm enough. We’ll take my car to get there, but it’ll still be a cold walk to the lobby.”

“I asked if you needed anything,” she laughed. “Not for you to fuss at me.”

He shook his head, green eyes bright with amusement. “I’m almost ready. If you head on down, I’ll be right behind you.”

Aelin nodded and left before she embarrassed herself any further, slipping down the stairs as quietly as her heels would allow.

Gods, what was she thinking? This was a terrible idea. He was a successful professional, and she was playing at being an adult and pretending she deserved to be seen with him. She would just go up the stairs and tell him she couldn’t do it after all. Maybe if she was lucky she would actually twist her ankle on the way up, and they would both have an excuse to skip the party.

Before she could move, though, she heard footsteps on the stairs and soon he was joining her in the living room. As he moved, she couldn’t help but stare; his dark suit fit snugly against his trim torso, highlighting his muscled shoulders. She was used to seeing Rowan wear a shirt and tie, but seeing him in a suit was something else altogether.

Gods, she really wasn’t going to make it through the evening at all.

“Are you ready?” he asked, and from his expression she had to wonder if he could read her nerves. He stepped closer, and she bit her lip and nodded mutely.

He smiled. “Good. Let’s go.”

He grabbed their coats, handing hers over to her before slipping on his own. Soon they were out the door, and despite having grown up in Terrasen Aelin couldn’t quite hold back the gasp at the sudden cold of stepping outside. He glanced at her as if to say I told you so before quietly opening the passenger door of his car for her.

She took a deep breath. Once she got into his car, there was no going back and she would have to see this night through to whatever end. Her nerves threatened to overtake her, but before she could back out a sudden calm settled over her and a single thought entered her mind.

I am Aelin Galathynius, and I will not be afraid.

Aelin slid into the car and closed the door, and soon they were on their way.

~*~*~

Tagging:

@ireallyshouldsleeprn @queen-of-glass @fangirlprincess09 @sassys-world @morganofthewildfire @superspiritfestival @perseusannabeth @sis-it-dont-add-up @jlinez @julemmaes @emilyoftheshadows @thegoddessofyou @mymultiversee @swankii-art-teacher @rowansfirebringer @livsdriverslicense @courtofjurdan @danibutterr @woollycat22 @rowaelinismyotp @sleeping-and-books @acciowests @stardelia @anidealiveson @autophobiaxx @rainbowcheetah512 @camilamartinezdunne

[zeta-in-de-walls]

Themes in the Dream SMP

Hey guys, I’m kind of into analysis. I tend to like examining character motivations and why they take certain actions rather than speculating on lore and theories. Heh but right now the fandom is flooded with egg speculation. I am very curious about the egg and where the story might lead though! So I thought I’d look at it in terms of themes the story might end up exploring. 

Themes are certain ideas/concept that keeping coming up in a work and get explored. Good themes can be traced from the very start of a work and carry on through to the end - they’re like threads that run through a work. Strong themes can help a story to feel more coherent and satisfying with the way they can tie a work together. Now the Dream SMP may be a bit of an improv roleplaying server but somehow a few themes can end up cropping up anyway.

What themes are there in the Dream SMP?

Here’s a few I identified, I guess they are topics that interest me? Also certain POVs may have different themes. I don’t watch Fundy myself but I’m pretty sure his viewpoint has some strong themes that are rather unique to his story. Certain arcs may have very strong themes as well which aren’t explored over the narrative as a whole.  

-Power/control. A very common theme in stories. What drives many characters is to seek out power, either to have control over their own lives, or over others. The leadership of L’manburg was hugely important in S1. And now many individuals are hungry for power especially the powerless who have been pushed around by others for so long.

-Corruption. Linked to the above. Often when seeking power, people can become corrupted by it and their ability to control others with it. Dream is an excellent example. Wilbur as well. Technoblade believed corruption was inevitable and that any concentrated power was bad. But is it inevitable? Or were the systems just a little flawed? Is a way to handle power sensibly?

-Words over violence. More of a S1 theme but I’d love to see it explored more. L’Manburg most notable was not wearing armour because they believed in fighting battles with their words, not violence. Technoblade challenged this, believing violence is the only way to be really understood.

-Attachment. This is a very strong theme, one really ties the whole story together well. It’s most explored in the Tommy vs Dream conflict but it’s also noted that every character get attached to things and that’s what so often drives conflict. Yet these attachment can also inspire and unite people. Dream sees attachments as a way to control others. Attachments are both a strength and a weakness.

-Complacency/Neutrality The server is marked by many wars but in every conflict there are those who stay on the sides. Those people may see this as a strength but those who stay neutral are most in danger of being forgotten. Likewise, staying neutral may be allowing disaster to happen. In Doomsday one striking thing was how many people stood on the sidelines. L’Manburg was not merely destroyed, but abandoned. And now with the egg, it’s been in the background for a long time and it’s been overlooked. Now people are finally paying attention but is it already too late?

-Seeking Peace. After all the conflict on the server, many character long for a lasting peace. Both Tubbo and Tommy just want to have a quiet life, with Tommy staying independent and working on his little project while Tubbo builds Snowchester as a safe haven with nukes to discourage any who wish to challenge his peace. Dream also had his vision for a peaceful server by way of him attaining absolute control over everyone, crushing any sort of defiance. And now the egg, it means to take over the world and in doing so will try to unite everyone under its control. The people will lose their free will but it may mean an end to conflict too.

-Choosing People over sides. An interesting yet messy theme which became prominent with S2. When two people are in conflict is it possible to help both? Or are you inevitably choosing a side? Or is this just another impossible view of utopia where everyone is united under the same side, (like Dream envisioned) and there is no need for any conflict?

-Revenge/Forgiveness. When someone hurts you, can you reconcile or should you seek retribution? Once you suffer a betrayal is that relationship broken or can it be fixed? Does you own pain justify hurting others? What is too far? What is justice? Probably not the most consistent theme but I really like the few times when this topic does get explored.

-----

So, those are a few concepts that stick out to me about the Dream SMP. There’s probably more (like I was kinda thinking on one about history repeating itself/destiny or something about becoming what you hate maybe) also yeah, themes are probably not necessarily consciously thought of by the writers but that doesn’t mean they don’t end up trying to fulfil the themes and ideas that their story has started exploring.

SO that said, i think it’d be very cool if the egg arc really starts to challenge some of these themes. What’s interesting was how Bad, I believe, chose the egg because it had Skeppy and he wantd to be with his best friend. I wonder if perhaps therefore the egg will continue to use people’s desires to control them. 

It creates an interesting parallel with Dream, trying to get people attached so he could control them. I wonder if Dream has any connection to the egg. It was discovered a long time ago now, during the Pogtopia arc I believe(?) and maybe that reflects Dream’s descent into villainy when he began to stop caring for his friends. and the eggs been so much more present this season as Dream’s also become increasingly detached. Maybe it means nothing. Either way it’s interesting how love and attachment may be used against the characters again in this fight against the egg. And whether love and trust in others might be a way to defeat it? 

I also found something poetic about how they placed vines within L’Manburg’s crater and its one of the places its growing very vigorously. It was once a place with so many memories and with so much meaning and in its place we have the egg. 

As I alluded to above, if the egg were to consume everything, there would be no more sides, no more conflict, everyone would be united in one ‘big, happy, family’ and there would be peace. Yet it’s like a warped vision of their beloved SMP. It’s peace, yes, but not the kind of peace anyone wants. The egg is terrifying. 

And its spreading and it’s going to affect everyone. (And if they can’t be infected they will be killed.) So the time for neutrality must end! The people couldn’t band together to save L’Manburg because they’d lost faith in it, but it’s not too late to save the SMP if everyone were to band together and fight for the server they all love. Many of them did it once to imprison Dream. To do this, they might have to put old grudges aside, but it can be done. 

As to why it affects people differently, I think we’ll be given an explanation. I’d be intrigued if it was to do with attachment or maybe something about power and corruption. (Metawise I’m pretty sure Tommy was unaffected because it woud seriously muddle his character to have a supernatural force messing with his head when his story had been a somewhat realistic depiction of manipulation and you do not want those two to mix and harm the impact of the exile arc.) But yeah, not sure what the reason is right now, but I figure they have one in mind already.

I’m liking this Egg arc. It seems like its been really well-planned and set up so I’m looking forward to seeing it all realised as I bet they have some great plans ahead and they potential for it to fit in with the existing themes would be amazing and again help the SMP as a whole to feel really satisfying and cohesive. If it wants to be wildly different of course, that can be great too, but everything seems very cool. Do love how it involves a huge cast of characters too - it’s very ambitious!

[theladyscarlettt]

Forgotten Figures (pt. 5)

This part is longer than the other parts, I apologize to all my fellow ADD/ADHD readers. However, the length was needed for the plot and character arcs (specifically a certain elf.) I really hope you all like it and keep a look out for the Easter Egg I left for you. ~The Lady Scarlettt

Link to Forgotten Figures (pt. 4)

---

*Warning: a suggestive scene, mild language

---

She paced the chamber floor, the words of Thranduil plaguing her thoughts. She looked at the chair in which he occupied the evening before, rage consuming her. She sucked in her breath to hold back a cry, walked over to the chair and slung it across the room. The chair slammed into her night stand, causing the daggers to fall to the ground. She knelt down to pick one up, her eyes beginning to sting. She turned the smooth blade in her clammy hands, and thought of what she would say to him. 

She could tell him about his father’s visit, but it would spark a very, unwanted conflict. She even tossed around the idea of fleeing the kingdom, but that was a foolish, cowardly and selfish notion. While her love for the prince was enough, she could not deny the unsettling burden that came with the idea of leaving. Mirkwood was her home. She was raised here, Tauriel was here, and as much as her present circumstances caused her great peril, her loyalty was to the crown, for she has known nothing else.

She simply was a creature with a title that held no knowledge of the true cruelty, sorrow and inequity the world held. As she sat dazed by the colors of the white gemmed speckled daggers, she understood the days of fantasizing and dreaming were no more. Her childhood, through the night, had abandoned her and left her with nothing but hope, the most dangerous of all emotions.

Her decision came to her, and so did a knock at the door.

She jumped slightly, gripping the dagger in her hand. She wiped her eyes and frantically stood trying to find somewhere to conceal the white gem handled daggers. 

“One moment!” she called, finding the wooden box they were gifted in. She placed the dagger inside, hesitated, then locked it.

She approached the door trying to calm her breathing, as she slowly opened the door, she saw a worried Tauriel. She let out a sigh of relief.

“Y/N,” she smiled warmly, “Are you alright? I heard you were not feeling well, is there anything I can do?” 

Y/N forced a congested cough, “I will be alright tomorrow, thank you for your concern.” 

Tauriel looked past her into the disheveled room, than back to Y/N, “Are you sure, you’re alright?” not waiting for an answer she walked past her into the room.

“I- ugh.” Y/N groaned, closing the door. 

Tauriel inspected the room and began to pick up clothing, books and bottles. 

“Tauriel,” Y/N groaned, “I’m alright really, you do not have to clean for me.” 

Tauriel, ignoring her picked up the wooden box on the bed. “I’ve never seen this before, it’s beautiful.” She turned to Y/N. “What’s in it?” She asked, turning it in her hands.

“Nothing, just some old letters from... my parents.” Y/N lied.

Tauriel smiled sadly and laid the box down, “Is that what it is? I can’t believe its been so long ago.”

Y/N paused, in all the chaos she had forgotten it was the anniversary of her parents passing. She slumped and sat on the other end of the bed.

“I’m sorry, I did not mean to barge in, I just needed to know you were alright. Two guards were found unconscious last night outside the West Wing.” Tauriel said, trying to change the topic. 

Y/N perked up, “The West Wing? Why that’s where the royal vault is. Who would do such a thing?”

“I am uncertain, but the King is investigating everyone on their whereabouts last night.” She said.

“Was something stolen?” Y/N questioned.

“I’m not sure but someone from one of the units said a few of the White Gems of Lasgalen were missing. I’m sure it was merely a superstition for we all know the lengths the King will go to for those pieces of rock.” She laughed.

Y/N suddenly felt ill at the coincidence of timing, she looked to the box by Tauriel.

Tauriel turned to face Y/N, “Y/N! Why you look faint.” She moved closer to her friend, “Are you sure I can not fetch you some water or-”

“Tauriel,” Y/N whispered, “I need to ask a favor of you.”

“Yes, anything.” She said with concerned eyes.

“I want you to take that box, go to the woods and bury it, but do not tell me where.” She whispered.

Tauriel looked from Y/N to the box with suspicion, “Are those not your last ties to your family?”

“I know I must move on,” Y/N said desperately ���but I do not know I have the strength to do so. Please, rid me of its sight, that’s all I ask of you.” 

Tauriel looked to her friend, then to the box. While there were no words spoken, there were none needed, for some reason or another, she understood.

“Y/N you are like a sister to me, and I trust you more than life its self.” She grabbed the box, “I only hope you trust me the same.”

Y/N looked to Tauriel, tears in her eyes, “I do. I promise to you-”

“Do not make promises you can not keep.” Tauriel said and stood, “I will do as you have said, all I ask is, in time, for your truth. Until then, I will wait for you.” She left, closing the door softly behind her.

---

Y/N lay asleep in her bed, when the window opened from outside. The prince stuck his head in and was alarmed by the disarray of the room. When he spotted her amongst the mess, he stepped in, quietly closing the window behind him.

“Y/N,” he whispered, creeping over to her bed. 

She turned in her sleep, a soft moan escaping her lips.

He smiled sweetly at her resting face. It never ceased to amaze him how she always seemed so graceful, even in her slumber. He sat softly on the bed, and placed a hand on her arm. “Y/N,” he whispered again.

Her eyes shot open but before he could react, she grabbed his wrist twisting it behind his back and latched her arm around his neck, pulling his body to her.

“It’s me- It’s agh,” he gagged, “It’s me!”

Her eyes widened in embarrassment, “Legolas! Forgive me, I thought- I thought you were someone else.” She released him and her eyes frantically searched the room.

“Hey, Hey.” He hushed, grabbing her shoulder, “Are you alright? I should be the one frightened, not you.” he laughed.

She looked to him, her breathing slowing. “I’m sorry” she said placing a hand over her chest.

“It’s alright, you’re alright,” he sang, pulling her into him, “Are you alright?”

“I do not know,” she said her eyes checking the room again.

He pulled back, with a worried expression, “Has something happened? Tauriel told me you were ill.”

She almost scoffed but caught herself, “I’m alright, truly. I just ate something sour I suppose. Tauriel? Did you prompt her?”

“Why no,” Legolas chuckled, “Father and I were coming back through the forest from the river, when I spotted Tauriel alone in the woods. She looked tired, so I offered her my horse, that’s when she told me she was out looking for Athelas, for your fever.” He placed a hand on her check, “Seems they worked.” he smiled.

“So, she did do it” Y/N mumbled, feeling guilty for questioning her friend’s loyalty.

“Do what?” he questioned.

“You never miss a beat do you?” she teased.

“Never.” he grinned, leaning back against the headboard, realizing she was hiding something.

Thranduil’s words echoed in the back of her mind as she stared at Legolas. The dreadful hope she so clung to, quarreled with the reality she now faced. She could no longer look him in the eyes. 

Legolas felt something was severely wrong but he was not sure what. He looked around her room at the piled clothing, opened books and overturned furniture. He sighed, “I wish you would tell me what is the matter. I feel as if I am to do with it.” he reached out to test her and she jerked away. “So, it is.”

“I can not do this anymore, Legolas.” she blurted out.

He blinked, “What do you mean?” he asked, even though he knew what she implied.

She stood, biting her finger, as she did when she was nervous or in deep thought, “This. Us. I can not continue to see you.” her voice cracked.

He sat up on the edge of the bed, “and why not?”

“You said it yourself, we can no longer sneak around for the rest of our lives. We were never meant to be together and deep down you know it, practically everything is against it.” With every word she spoke, her heart began to break

“What has prompted such speech from you?” Legolas questioned, with a bitter tone. “Was it not two evenings ago you said-”

“I know what I said, damn you.” She spat. “But I also know that we are fools to think we have the privilege to enjoy such pleasures. We do not have that freedom. You are the prince, you are the heir to the throne-”

“To hell with the throne,” He stood, the light in his eyes now gone, “To hell with the titles! You know, I care nothing for it or the riches it holds. It is not and has never been the life I wanted, I was merely born into it by chance.”

“Then why don’t you just walk away, if you fucking hate it so much.” she yelled, shocked by her new found anger.

He looked at her, like she were a fool, “because I can’t.”

“and why not?” she asked, trying to maintain the act but there was little to no confidence in her attempts.

“My father, would never allow his only son to leave, you have no idea who he truly is or what he is capable of.” His eyes fell.

“Legolas,” she breathed. She looked to the ceiling to keep the tears from streaming down her face. She could not do go through with it. “Legolas, I’m sorry, I did not mean any of what I said. I didn’t know what to do. I was just frightened because your father, he-”

“Will not accept us, I know.” he said flatly, not meeting her eyes. 

“No, no, Legolas, he came-” She tried to reach for the words to fix the situation.

“If he does not, I will leave.” he said.

Her eyes widened, “What? No. Legolas you can not leave. Not over this, not over me, that’s so foolish of you.”

He turned to face her, “Then let me be a fool.” He approached her, “I rather live my life with meaning, then live it meaningless. For you, I would do it.”

“Legolas, one does not simply walk away from such duties,” she rejected him by backing away. This was the worse possible scenario she hoped would not happen. The heir, abandoning the realm. The chaos that could unfold at the news of an open throne with no one acting as it’s rightful successor. Wars would unfold. Wars because of her.

She felt her back press against a wall. She looked into his ocean eyes, the moon light was perfectly illuminating his silver, starlight hair. She felt many things in that moment, many things one could not help to feel after someone professed their love in such a way. “Legolas,” she pleaded, “Please, do not make this mistake, on my behalf. I forbid it.”

He looked down at her, and shook his head, “I’m willing to accept the costs of my errors, if they are so much as that.”

She could not tell if it were guilt or lust that made her give in to him but she did.

He knew she withheld something more from him, something important. He could not help, but wonder if his father had threatened her. However, he knew in her present state of manic, she would not speak, unless, she felt she could trust his actions. While her mind was far more intelligent than his, the desires of the flesh, unfortunately would have their way, in her vulnerable state. He felt shameful as his mind tossed around the one thing that would obtain him this information.

“Forgive me,” he said, his breath hot and dripping with shame.

So, he seduced her.

She felt his lips press against her’s as his hands ran down to find the curve of her back. His lips were soft, and his taste was sweet. She found herself, unconsciously, kissing him back harder each time. He smiled through her kisses, and eagerly tugged at her lip with his teeth. She moved her hands up to his tunic’s collar, pulling him towards her. To balance himself, he placed his hand up against the wall, and with the other, slipped his hand down to her thigh, pulling it up. She leaned against the wall as he kissed her passionately, his tongue familiarizing itself with its surroundings.

All of the fear and anger that had seemed so prominent before, slowly seemed more foreign to her with each passing second. She had never felt so timid, yet so daring in her life.

She reached up, gathering his hair between her fingers and pulled his head to the side to reveal his strong, veined neck. She placed light kisses alongside his jaw line and then began to mark it. She barely heard the moan, escape his lips as he leaned against her. Before she could finish, he impatiently patted her thigh, to which she jumped lightly and he picked her up, shoving her back against wall, to begin leaving a trail of kisses along her collar bone. Her eyes fluttered as she dug her nails into his back. 

He suddenly set her down, to which she looked to him disappointed, but he had a smug look on his red face. He quickly bent down, grabbing her behind the knees and slung her over his shoulder. She could not hold back the laughter that radiated throughout the chamber. He spun her around once, for good measure before flipping her onto the bed. She began to laugh that sweet laugh he loved but he placed a finger over her slightly swollen lips. 

“Shh,” he hushed, “Secret Scandal, remember?’ 

She rolled her eyes and playfully slapped him. 

He then grew serious, guilt stopping him, “Are you sure? We can always wait a while longer.”

She smiled up at him, her fingers tracing the gorgeous, ethereal features of his face. “Promise me,” she looked down, “No matter what happens, you will not forsake me.”

He looked at her, not knowing it then, but the lie in which he would tell, would haunt him for the rest of his life, “I would never do anything to harm you. You have my word.”

She looked up to him, stroking his face lovingly, feeling safe within his presence, “Then, yes, I’m sure.” Her breath danced with his as he kissed her, this time, somehow, even more sweetly.

---

“You see Gimli,” she said, “It’s funny how people lie when they are afraid.”

Link to Forgotten Figures (pt. 6)