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caffeinatedmunchkin · 12 hours ago

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An Iron Hand in a Velvet Glove

Emmrich Volkarin x Fem!Rook ✦ Rating: M (MDNI!) ✦ 13k words

"Their corpse proved quite stubborn." He presented her an opportunity, and she grasped at it in desperation. "I'm surprised, you're so very good at taming stubborn." Her playful attempt at schmoozing won a stiff snort, and nothing more. "Oh..." Breathed with a coy lilt, she feigned innocence that could have been believable, if she were anyone else. "Are you still cross with me?" Stealing another gulp, he sneered against it's bite. The strength of which smoked his voice to a heady resonant. "Back during your apprenticeship, when you disobeyed one of your superiors, or spoke back at them out of turn; in what manner did they see fit to punish you?" A preemptive attack from which she was slow to recover. "I... got a good tongue lashing." Her words were tight from a throat that fought against their release. "A common occurrence, I might add." "Just as I suspected." After a breath, he then angled a brow down into his drink. "The correction of your behavior falls into my lap after all."

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Crossposted to AO3!

I just want to take this opportunity to once again acknowledge and thank you for all the wonderful feedback I received on my first Emmrich piece. All of your praise, engagement, compliments, freak-outs - you name it - have been the single most gratifying, uplifting, validating and humbling experience I have EVER received in all my years of sharing what I’ve written. From the bottom of my little perfectionist heart, you are all in my cool book.

With that said, may I humbly offer this to all you incredibly sexy, gorgeous Emmrich babes to which I’m forever indebted. This one’s for you.

This is hands down the most stressed I’ve ever been to post something LOL

Writing this was a wild oscillation of; “I’m on to something here” and “this is straight trash”. So I either really popped off with this fic, OR, I lost my mind and it’s documented here for all to witness. Regardless, I REALLY hope you all enjoy! *blows kiss for all you lovelies* and to my one super sweet anon, this ones especially for you 😩 you kept the imposter syndrome caged so I could finish this.

Dusk settled over Treviso like a veil. The gradient of a setting sun against the encroach of twilight a dreamlike glow, it stretched across the skyline in a rosy, gossamer haze.

Despite the festering boils of blight, and roving Antaam units, the city was still almost serene. Crickets chirped and nightingales squawked. Music drifted from the odd window, cracked open to invite the warmth of the breeze. A strong city; one too proud to kneel. Too enamored with its culture to bend to the devastation.

Emmrich and Ariadne were dutifully at each others side, while Neve trailed behind to afford them privacy at what she thought was an adequate distance.

The three were on their way to report back to Teia and Viago; their beloved city, and her people, no longer unwitting victims of the Qamakmaster, or his modified poison. The younger Watcher insisted they traverse the more "scenic route" along the canal proper.

In this it's most desperate hour, much of it's familiarity withstood the test of its carnage; sprawls of ivy wove through panels of lattice work. Pockets of lamplight dotted the pathways, their warm flicker reflecting off the lazy churning of the waters they strode beside.

The younger mage coiled herself around his arm like a vine. Content to take in the sights alongside him in shared silence, their physical contact was non-negotiable. She didn't care much for discretion when it came to their burgeoning affair. There were high stakes and grave consequences greeting her at every turn, every decision consigned to her.

She possessed neither the patience nor energy to pander to self-control. Least of all during these scarce luxuries of calm; the lulls between urgency.

She needed Emmrich's closeness. His touch.

Though the elder mage was more reserved in his displays, he bore her attachment with pride.

Still not quite used to the notion that his affections were requited, he couldn't deny the swell of his heart with how candid she was with her own.

How could he protest, when such a pretty thing wanted to be seen cozied up to him? Hanging off his arm like he was some young, and virile stud?

No, Emmrich could deny her nothing. He was weak to her. And by the ingratiating little simpers she'd aim his way, he swore she could smell it.

At times it still caught him off guard, her wild attraction to him, her insistent fawning. The elven necromancer lunged at him like a little lioness in heat, regardless of when or where - or who might be unfortunate enough to happen upon them in the midst.

But it wasn't a habit he felt compelled to curve.

The others seemed largely unphased. Bellara thought their relationship held devastating romance, no doubt drawing on bits and pieces for inspiration to her new craft. Neve adored Ariadne, and Araidne her - the two kindred street rats. He surmised her blessing had more to do with seeing such a close friend so happy, than the bearing of her personal approval of him.

Lucanis was content to get in his subtle teases and knowing smirks whenever he was the first to breakfast in the early mornings. Slinking off with servings for two, looking more than a hint disheveled and stupefied. Taash pretended not to pay attention, though he sometimes caught them initiating a covert high-five when crossing paths with Ariadne.

That left Davrin and Harding as the outliers.

Nothing malicious, Harding would sometimes make remarks that at times seemed innocent, while others were more coy. They all made him squeamish, which he maintained his best to keep polite about.

Davrin's approach was more blunt, albeit good-natured. Chuckling at his own crude jokes; those to the effect of the poor young Watcher abandoned by her parents, and her subsequent daddy issues. And how 'good old Emmrich sidled up to scratch that itch.' All in good fun, they turned his complexion ashen, and rang in his ears all the same.

However none was a harsher spectator than himself.

He'd lay awake deep into the night, with her pert figure sprawled naked atop him. Her shorter limbs curled around his like another one of his jewels, while she slumbered.

His racing mind tormenting him, even in the safety of his post-coitus haze, by the disparity of their years. Or by the stomach-turning truth of their first meeting, one he kept close to the chest.

That this little body that writhed under him in worship to his prowess, that rode him to mutual release while screaming his praises, was the same one that fit in the palm of his hand those twenty odd years ago. An incongruity he could draw because he had done just that. Only once, but the memory was sharp. Punishing.

Every time he reminded himself of that fact, he felt even more ill than when Harding had, rather abruptly and in full company, asked if he was old enough to be Ariadne's father.

It would have made him a very young father to have sired a woman of her age, but that didn't exempt him from that candidacy, he'd have to concede.

Is what he said at first, and a touch too defensive.

Until he did the math, and the realization dawned that it was not only reasonable for a man of 27 to have a babe - the age that he was when he met her, a fresh infant - but that most 27 year old Neverran men did. Some even had several by then.

He hadn't smoked in quite some time, but after that self-confrontation his clammy fingers itched to feel the length of a cigarette dangle between them.

"A pity." He volunteered with a sigh, willing his tortured psyche to rest. The craving for that detestable vice he worked so hard to best now rearing once more. "to see such a place ravaged by the blight. Though I would be remiss not to commend the perseverance of it's romance, despite all it's had to endure. I can only imagine how magnificent the blooms here might have been before."

"I thought you might think so." She drew herself tighter into him, both arms winding around the one she leaned into. To his measured chuckle, she melted.

"Dear girl, do you mean to tell me my accompaniment was requested just so you could hear me wax poetic?" His smile soft and amused. "Do you find me so predictable?"

She gazed up at him from beneath the thick flutter of her lashes. "I had hoped the atmosphere might inspire some of that famed spontaneity from the trysts of your past you've seen fit to regale me."

His gait faltering, he peered down the bridge of his nose at her, gawping at the confession.

He was becoming more adept at swift recoveries from her flirtation. She was almost disappointed in how quick he rebounded from this attack.

"You little jezebel." His reprimand was steeped in such a deep sultriness it burned the tips of her ears, murmured low to keep his words between them. But not low enough. Neve shook her head with a wry grin.

"Why don't I catch back up with you two at The Diamond." Her gaze flicked over them with an impish gleam. "I think you know your way back from here."

Emmrich had forgotten himself, and Neve, swept up in the generous evocations from his little blonde temptress. A profuse apology - and a begged pardon - at the ready, Ariadne cut in on behalf of his mortification.

"Are you sure?" Her eagerness to having him all to herself betrayed by the smirk she fought and lost.

"If I know one thing well, it's to leave the party when I'm having the most fun." Neve waved her hand as she sauntered on ahead. Without looking back, she called to them from over her shoulder with a smile in her voice. "Behave yourselves."

The pair of Watchers paused in a testament of their resolve. Their combined focus trained to the ice mage, as she moved further along the cobblestone walk and rounded the corner of a building, disappearing from sight. Leaving them alone.

Ariadne was the first to strike; hard and fast. Winning a startled grunt from him to the sudden impact of her body colliding with his.

Her arms snaked around his neck, she pulled him down to bridge the gap in their heights. A necessity in capturing his lips, even as she perched on the tops of her toes. Latching her mouth to his, she kissed him deeply, and with hunger.

One might have suspected a long-awaited reunion between the two, if her fierceness was anything to go by. And the loud, exaggerated approval she moaned, as his fingers began their own storm of her figure.

A new fragrance decorated her pulse, one he knew she selected with him in mind. A suggestive mingling of praline and black peony, it pervaded his senses to disarmament. When he breathed, he could smell only her. When he swallowed, he could taste only her.

In one swift motion - careful not the break their frenzied necking - he hoisted her up in his arms, while her legs curled around his waist. Her ankles locked at the small of his back, the little necromancer wrapped herself around him as if she wanted to permeate his flesh. Unable to get close enough.

He walked her the few steps to the banister overlooking the canal below. Placing her atop the railing, his hands were freed to explore. His wide palms roamed her, their paths indicated by the soft jingle of his bracelets, as one settled against the small of her back, while the other trailed up to her neck.

Though he handled her as if she were as fragile as a pressed flower, the placement of his hands were overwhelming with how deliberate. He cradled her with possession.

Her thighs parted to allow his stance between them, tugging his lean torso closer to press up against. Lulling her head back to grant his tongue deeper access down her throat, one hand fisted in the cloth of his robes, while the other made a brazen cop of his length.

Palpating his shaft with intent, Emmrich rolled a grunt against her tongue, both exasperated and needy in equal measure.

"Ariadne- please." His lips numb from her fervor, the corner of them twitched in a smarmy grin at her impatience. "We've made enough of a spectacle as it is."

She gazed up at him like a wild thing; her eyes glossy and lips kiss-swollen, with a heaving chest to match. Looking over first one shoulder, and then the next, she found the streets were calm, and still. The only sound between them were the breaths they exchanged, and the gentle laps of the canal to its revetment.

"You're in luck. There's no one else here now. Only us." Leaning back in to mouth at the jut of his Adams apple, she then tilted back to nip him beneath the jaw. Smiling into his skin as it rumbled with a relenting chuckle.

Peppering a trail of light pecks up and over the cleft in his chin, she sought his mouth once more. "And I've-missed you-Emmrich." Her whispered declaration broken apart by lips that crashed ceaseless upon his.

"I'm-right here, my-darling. I haven't-gone away-" He managed to slip out sections at a time, in the breaks of her assault for breath.

He felt nimble fingers sweep across his shoulder blades, to knot in the draping along his upper back. Her free hand had found the close-cropped hairs at his nape, to comb her nails through the base of his scalp.

Stalling any reservations he might have held, he purred to her attention like a pacified panther. With his guard lowered, she pounced.

"I've missed you inside me." Her hips rocked against him in emphasis.

The little Watcher's words dropped his stomach to somewhere down around his knees. She abandoned his mouth altogether to nose at his pulse, humming in satisfaction at how it quickened beneath the press of her kiss.

The sharp cut of his jaw lured her next, nipping a path along the ridge of bone from chin to mandible. Relishing the deep groan she won for her efforts, and the musk of his aftershave; pine and cedar-wood heightened by the spice of Neroli. Even freshly groomed, stubble was quick to shadow his gaunt cheeks, and she adored the way it caught her lips, and snagged her flesh whenever he nuzzled into her.

"My dear, your enthusiasm flatters more than my words could ever hope to express; but we must exercise some restraint."

She giggled into the open-mouthed kiss that stretched her lips over his high cheekbone.

"Asking me to heel, are you?"

A challenge to his authority, he rose to the occasion with the grace of one who didn't have to force his hand. Submission had been freely given, in offering to receive his lead.

"Not asking, my pet." He increased the pressure of his palm slipped around her nape, scruffing her like an unruly kitten as he pried her off the side of his face to lock eyes. He tried not to dwell on how limp she went in his hold, or the salacious little mewl that squeaked past her lips. "Expecting."

She peered up at him as if in a daze. The hazelnut of her eyes nearly overtaken in full by her pupils, her ferality was softened by the thick lashes she fluttered up at him. His other hand rose to cup her jaw, dragging his thumb down over her bottom lip.

They parted for him in obedience, the pink of her tongue coming to flick over the tip of his digit in dizzying suggestion.

"One of these days, my love, I will be undone by you." He slid the gloved pad of his thumb over the muscle, through her teeth. Sealing her lips around him, she began to suckle whilst holding his eye-contact, his lids now just as heavy as her own.

The gentle pulling of her suction, and the swirl of her limber tongue, were sent straight down to the heavy twitching of his groin. His voice all the hoarser for it. "And it will come to the surprise of no one."

A smile spilled across her face. A retort no doubt at the ready, a distant, hostile shout in qunlat - that presented like an expletive - caused her words to die on her tongue.

They turned in unison to see three hulking Antaam charging their way, their painted faces screwed in rage.

Three warriors against the two necromancers, they untangled from one another's embrace. Offering his hand, Emmrich helped her down from the railing to her feet, as her much smaller one slid over it in acceptance of the gesture.

The roaring Qun's interference offered harsh sobriety, Emmrich's withdrawal from her body heat stung. Not at all dissimilar than if he had plunged himself in an ice bath.

Sharing a brief glance as the assailants advanced, the two Watchers split up to close in before they lost the chance.

The largest of the three, the surmised leader, honed in on Ariadne. Though there wasn't much assistance he could lend, his hands full with the other two.

He made sort work of the first; ensnaring him in vortex of the intolerable hisses and shrieks of damned souls. It pulled him to his knees while he held his ears to the tortured plight they now put upon him. With shut eyes and covered ears that wept crimson, Emmrich turned his attention to the second.

In a display far less flashy, he swept him up in a similar, vicious gust that sent him careening backwards into a far-off trellis, one he had been admiring mere moments ago. The collision saw it splinter into a cloud of wooden slats and mangled greenery. The warrior remained motionless, upended over the wreckage.

Having all but written off the first, he ignored his presence in favor of seeking out Ariadne. Availing himself to her aid had been his desire from the start.

Spinning on his heel he found her, standing above the leader who had begun the process of disintegration by way of concentrated necrosis. Sprawled at her feet, he clutched at his throat in a futile attempt to prevent his gasping breaths from continuing to siphon. The unassuming young Death Caller took a step back, prying her eyes away long enough to catch his.

The beginnings of a triumphant smile morphed into a flash of panic, as her gaze shifted from his face, to beyond his shoulder.

"Emmrich!"

Her warning had sufficed. Whipping his head around with plenty of time, and distance, between himself and the charging Qun, the chipped edge of his blade poised to embed itself in the senior Watchers chest. Stricken blind, it saw him swinging it with heightened aggression, and in a worrying lack of direction.

The situation corrected itself just as quick. One moment he had been staring down the jagged bite of battleaxe, and before he could react, she had taken his place. A violet ripple flickering in the Fade, she then materialized in front of him. Right in the buffer that separated him from hungry steel wielded by an angry, blinded Qun.

Insinuated between them as if to shield him with her smaller, delicate frame. Only by then the warrior had been much closer than before, shortening the distance with his lumbering flails.

Placing herself in much more danger than he himself had been.

An acidic eruption of necrosis sprang forth from her outstretched hands, and not a moment too soon. A plume of murk that enveloped him in unending smoke, the torrent bent to her whim and swirled at her command, as if it possessed sentience.

Curling around his being in gaseous rot, it dissolved his armor with the same ease it did his flesh. Rending him to the ground in a sloughed heap of bone glinting from beneath pulpy tissue.

She kept her eyes trained to the veritable sludge that up until recently resembled a fearsome biped, all the while his bore into the back of her head. Molten embers where placid pools used to be.

How could she be so cavalier in risking what was most precious to him?

The very thing that called the entirety of his pursuit of Lichdom into question; unable to conceive of the loss of her from the remainder of his days, much less having to bear her absence for all of eternity.

A gesture that could have endeared him, his innermost turmoil saw it twisted.

And as much as he didn't want to acknowledge it, it touched on the sensitivity of his age - the tenderest spot. All his frustrations and guilt as of late wove back to that resentful infestation of the self.

Did she think him feeble? Impotent?

It was a curious thing, he never considered himself old before her. Fresh into his fifties, he was just as fit and alert as ever. Even more so then some of the youngest men at the Necropolis.

Softness has gathered in areas where there hadn't been. Aches in his joints persisted for longer than before. The salt and pepper of his hair had since committed to it's silver luster, and his crows feet had decided to stay. Despite all physical signs of maturity, it hadn't stemmed the flow of admirers he'd attracted, both in and outside of his classroom.

Yet when Ariadne all but plopped herself into his lap, he felt geriatric.

A coy glint roused in the hazelnut of her eyes upon noting his bewilderment. Having misread his expression entirely.

"What would you do without me?"

The muscle of his jaw rippled as he clenched it. "An apt question indeed."

His terse grit startled her like a clap to the cheek, quirking her brows.

"What's wrong?"

"Your recklessness." He bit back, frustration narrowing his round eyes to accusatory slits. "Needless endangerment is not heroic, it is inane."

Emmrich had never snapped at her before. Once she thought on it, she realized she had never seen him lose his temper with anyone.

Grappling with a whirlwind of confusion, she latched on to one point of many that insulted her sensibilities. "Needless?" She parroted. "You were seconds from being cleaved in half! What would you have had me do, stand idle to your demise?"

He softened, but only some.

"Do you think, in such a scenario, that I'd prefer you, then, in my stead?"

Hip cocked, she folded her arms across her chest in defiance. "You were threatened, so I acted."

"Yes, you most certainly did." He conceded. "With breathtaking imprudence."

The scar striping her nose disappeared into the adorable, girlish crinkle at the bridge. "I'm no thing to be coddled."

"I'm not coddling, dearest." His anger ebbed into the tired patronizing of a professor lecturing a rebellious student. His inclusion of the pet name had her bristling. "Do you hold self preservation in such low regard?"

"I'll not apologize for wanting to protect you." Knowing full well her spite would only worsen things, she was too aggravated to ponder the decision. "You're very welcome, by the way."

"I'm quite able to fend for myself, my dear." For how dignified he maintained, his ruefulness was just as clear. Splintering his poise like veins through marble. "I've been doing so since well before you were even born."

That sent her eyes back into her skull. "Oh, Maker - anything to bring that up, I see."

"It bares repeating." He stiffened.

"Is that what this is about?" She scoffed, her tone raising to a chirp. "Is your ego so fragile that it's bruised just by coming to your defense?"

His hackles raised despite himself. For how soon he was to forget just how mouthy she was, her attitude was quicker to remind him. As did her penchant for needing the last word.

"This isn't about ego - I'd just simply ask that you abstain from rushing into danger headlong."

Enunciated with the air of someone unruffled, Emmrich had succeeded in snuffing out the spark of his anger before it spread, while hers only seemed to blaze in full swell.

"Are you quite finished berating me like I'm a child?"

"That," he plunged his voice into his chest, his admonition firm. "is contingent on whether or not you continue to behave like one."

Her pupils dialed to points that pierced him. Her pout pressed to thin line, she glared up at him with a suspiciously stilled tongue. He matched her, but with a significant discrepancy in vitriol.

"A necromancer so afeared of his very medium, it reduces him to petty insults."

A hideous thing to say. No sooner did the words escape her mouth, did the tension between them see fit to gag her, but it had come too little too late. Her venom singed him.

Holding her stare, he remained quiet, his uncertainty of how to proceed etched in the deepened lines of his face. All the while, remorse spilled through hers. Gradual and dreaded, like a wound as it bled through gauze.

A sigh then bruised his lungs. "So it would seem."

Her rationale pleaded with her to say something - anything - her owed apology notwithstanding. Her throat locked with a dry, acrid taste in her mouth to the mere thought.

The infestation of her foul mood first needed to be exterminated, before she'd be allowed to speak. Lest she do further damage.

"We've dallied for long enough." While chaste, his inflection had regained much as it's usual strength, and his expression matched his solemn posture. Though he couldn't hide the wistful glint from his eye. Not from her. "I believe it's time we were on our way."

The rest of their time together was condemned to contemplation, and unbearable silence.

By the time they reached The Cantori Diamond, Ariadne had simmered. More regretful of what she said in carelessness, than what had gotten her so hot in the first place.

She thought to try for reconciliation, but her pride - and shame - kept her preoccupied, as she relived their argument.

Her temper had flared, but she didn't mean to lash out so. Her confusion to his vulnerability certainly didn't excuse her indelicate handling of it.

Though Emmrich's state remained questionable.

His frustration with her had been much quicker to cool. A sudden spark of unchecked emotion before he smoothed himself back over, as if his careful disposition had never cracked in the first place. Yet he was still troubled. Still on edge.

Still dismayed by her accusation, and how rash her behavior.

The little elf stole sidelong glances at him on the occasion, brimming with the hope their banter had returned with every breath he took, or sighed.

But Emmrich opened his mouth to broach her not once. So neither did she.

Upon their return, they were greeted by Neve. Waiting for them outside on the balcony, poised with the anticipation of one who bore news.

Her keen observation noted the shift right away.

Mussed hair and disheveled armor, with more than enough guilt between them weighing their repentant expressions. Though she deduced it wasn't from unbridled passion at each other's hands; a suspicion that had everything to do with the space that split them down the middle, and kept them apart.

As they approached her, Emmrich maintained his separation. Holding hands - that never seemed able to resist the cheeky little blonde for any reasonable length of time - clasped behind his back. It raised her brow, but she refrained from commenting.

"Emmrich, Viago's waiting for you. A Crow took down an alleged associate of The Butcher's, and they're hoping you could lend your expertise in getting their dead to talk."

"Certainly." He obliged, at the ready to take his leave of the women, though not before lingering for a moment as he looked to Ariadne.

Expecting her to follow, the junior Watcher never refused an invitation to watch him work - least of all for the opportunity to observe corpse whispering. However she stood in place with no motion to join him, finding herself unable to meet his gaze. His chest caved in with a sigh.

"Until later then, darling?"

She merely hummed.

With the discomfort of that parting metastasized, she at last looked up in time to see his retreating form disappear inside. Shoulders sagging, she turned to Neve, whose manicured brow arched in suspicion.

The young mage looked spurned, as if she hadn't been the one to rebuff him. She cut in before the detective could begin her line of questioning.

"You've got the look of a bearer of bad news."

The taller mage tittered. "Only depending on how you look at it."

"Alright, let's hear it." She urged with a tired grimace.

"The Eluvian's acting out. Bell sent word she won't have it sorted before first light."

Ariadne expelled a lengthy breath. Hands on her hips, she shot her eyes upwards, seeking the strength of some unknown, higher-power. "Great."

Neve's simper threatened to become a full smile. "Aren't you going to ask me for the good news?"

"There's good news?"

"Teia's putting us up for the night." She revealed, implicit slyness alight in her hooded gaze. "I've heard tell that The Diamond's suites are something intimate."

The Watcher's heart fluttered at her friends insinuation, though reality was quick to temper that girlish rush of excitement. As if she'd been so fortunate to have forgotten about their spat so soon.

A turn events that would have been kismet, now it just seemed cruel.

"Oh..." Was all she gave. A weak, resigned mutter, it was a far cry from the reaction Neve presumed. "We could use some time away... that could be good for us."

"Alright you," she sighed, a warmth to her impending patronization. "Far be it from me to pry, but those were certainly not the faces I expected when you returned." Her shift from partner in crime, to sororal confidant complete, she gestured towards the balcony with one arm, while she encircled Ariadne with the other. "Want to talk about it?"

Ariadne stayed with Neve for a long while, probably too long. While she valued the slightly-less-than-impartial insight, she was stalling. Only leaving the comfort of her company after she was all but shooed away to go to Emmrich, and make amends.

Finding their room with relative ease, she had run into Viago on her way - without the professor- having deduced that he retired to their shared suite, and was awaiting her there.

Trying the door knob before knocking, she found it unlocked. A pit had sunken in her stomach at the confrontation that she wouldn't be able to avoid him for any longer, no matter how ardent her attempts.

The unlatched handle was an open invitation, one she now found herself hesitant to accept. Suffocated by the weight of indignity at once more receiving his severe disapproval, she only had herself to blame.

She let herself inside, creeping through the door with as muffled of footsteps as she could manage. Unsure why she even bothered to avoid attracting attention to herself, knowing her appearance was expected.

She found his regal figure stood before a large picture window adjacent from the doorway, bathed in the luminous glow of the moon as it spilled in through the panes. An arm bent at the small of his back, the other held a stout glass of deep burgundy liquid.

The room was every bit as romantic as Neve's implication. Rich sanguine textiles dressed sturdy, ebony wood furnishings, all carved with correlating floral motifs that were as intricate as they were subtle. A handful of lanterns had already been lit; just enough to keep him from the same shadows they whipped against the ceiling, and stretched across the walls. His back to her, she slipped the rest of the way inside.

Her concentration shattered into a wince, at how deafening the latch clicked into place behind her amidst his silence. Though to the announcement of her arrival, he didn't budge an inch.

She waited in the beat that followed, suspended in the moment like a withheld breath.

Unsure of where they now stood, she needed him to be the first to act. She needed him to lead. After an eternity made to stew, he then turned his head just as far as his shoulder, his silhouette heightened by candlelight.

"Darling." Was all she got by way of a greeting, or clue to his mood. His even tone addressed her like the whisper of fine silk shifting over steel.

Dignified and assertive as ever, it both lured her in, and hid away his inner machinations. Her eyes followed his hand as he brought the glass to his lips for a healthy sip.

"Were you able to learn anything?" She tested while remaining by the door, working her cadence into conversational neutrality. Steeling herself to the possibility of a long evening ahead; one cold and lonely.

"Unfortunately, nothing the Crows were not already aware of." He dismissed with a sigh, his attention coaxed back through the window to regard the smattering of stars that smeared the midnight sky, instead of her. "Their corpse proved quite stubborn."

He presented her an opportunity, and she grasped at it in desperation.

"I'm surprised, you're so very good at taming stubborn."

Her playful attempt at schmoozing won a stiff snort, and nothing more.

"Oh..." Breathed with a coy lilt, she feigned innocence that could have been believable, if she were anyone else. "Are you still cross with me?"

Stealing another gulp, he sneered against it's bite. The strength of which smoked his voice to a heady resonant.

"Back during your apprenticeship, when you disobeyed one of your superiors, or spoke back at them out of turn; in what manner did they see fit to punish you?"

Far from the course of conversation she anticipated, it had her reeling. A preemptive attack from which she was slow to recover.

"I... got a good tongue lashing." Her words were tight from a throat that fought against their release. "A common occurrence, I might add."

"Just as I suspected." After a breath, he then angled a brow down into his drink. "The correction of your behavior falls into my lap after all."

Every time she believed she had righted herself on even footing, he staggered her once more, each time quicker than the last.

He now had her pinned and wriggling from beneath his thumb. The obstreperous little necromancer who never knew when to quit.

Who acted out, and prodded boundaries - yearning to know where one ended, and the next began.

He was inundated all of a sudden with the memories of his colleagues, and from not long ago, bemoaning the unruly young apprentice. How stubborn, and non-compliant she portrayed. How impossible she was to reign in.

Emmrich now well understood what she needed. And his was just the firm hand for the undertaking.

She cocked her head at him with a wrinkled brow of her own. "Meaning...?"

To this, he turned to her. At last face to face, she fought the urge to squirm beneath the weight of his gaze. Shrinking away like a frisky cub who had nipped the ear of the panther one time too many.

"Tell me, my dear, do you recall during our first night together, you mused what discipline by my hand might have been like?"

The little elf blinked. Opening her mouth, only for it to fall shut, she then answered lamely. "Yes... I do."

Though his expression was serene, his tone lowered several octaves.

"That mouth of yours has landed you in quite the bind." Without breaking eye contact, he pushed away from the window and strode the short distance to the writing desk that sat between them. "One a miserly tongue lashing will not relieve you of."

Her lips quirked in the beginnings of a scoff, but before the sound could complete itself, Emmrich interjected. His brow lifted in infuriatingly dashing arrogance, his authoritative edge cut through her with a shiver as he made his first demand.

"Remove your clothing. All of it."

A smirk tugged at the corner of her mouth, but she crushed that threat upon recognizing his severity.

The young Watcher couldn't help but hang there with a dumb look on her face, only to be shaken from it by his gentle condescension. Ever patient, but grave in unambiguity. "Was there something of my instruction that necessitates reiteration?"

Speechless in reply, his expectant look goaded her to follow his orders.

However coltish her movements, and the beginnings of embarrassment heating her cheeks, she did as Emmrich said. Prying off her boots and shimmying out of the layers of leather and cotton that clung to her legs, all that was left was to shirk the bolero from her shoulders, and pull her collared blouse up and over her head.

A groan seethed from the pit of his chest at the sight of her body naked and flushed.

Teacup breasts that fit so nice in his hold, it was as if they budded to the exact specifications of his hands. The dusky peaks of her nipples hardened to their abrupt exposure. The temperature of the room mild, they stiffened to attention all the same. An achievement he prided himself on.

Her form so fresh and nubile, an ethereal daintiness afforded by her elven features made for an enticing complement to her other, fuller attributes. Decidedly all woman. A slim waist accentuated how wide her hips were by comparison, the observation incited reckless imagination.

Rousing fantasies from the most debauched of his recesses, the sort he'd otherwise be far too ashamed to acknowledge. The age that he was, and the gentleman's demeanor he paid strict adherence to.

His little Watcher wasn't shy. Even as early into their relationship as they were, he had seen her naked plenty. Yet this was uncharted territory; a new, untried side of Emmrich that both thrilled and intimidated her all at once.

Though she rushed to strip at his behest, her hands rose to cover what indecency she could think to shield. The first mistake of many he'd soon scold her for.

"Ah- drop them." His chin lifted, his one brow arched. "Now."

A whimper blossomed in her throat as she forced her hands to her sides. He flicked his gaze over her from head to toe, candid in his assessment of her presentation.

Her timid posture, her fidgeting. That untamed, seductive shimmer returned to her eye.

The appetitive press of her inner thighs against themselves. Done with her body stilled and expression reserved, in hopes he wouldn't catch her.

"Unlike my fellow colleagues, you'll find me to be far less tolerant of such poor deportment." He stood tall across from her, lengthening his gait to step out from behind the desk. "Might there be even the faintest desire to offer penitence, my girl? Are you willing to submit to me your due deference?"

The blush that began at her cheeks flooded throughout the entirety of her body. The skin of her arms and legs pebbled to his crooning, she felt the impulse to rub them from her limbs, but thought better of it.

Pinned in place by his gaze, every part of him seemed to hold her to some level of expectation. At that moment his eyes alone, bright with persuasion, forbade her from touching herself again without permission.

So she opted instead to nod, and he smiled.

"Come." His fingers thrummed the surface of the desk. "You're to lean across here. Hold yourself up by your elbows. Shoulders straight, and head forward."

His cool voice and composure made for an unfair advantage, one that snuffed her resistance like a candle's flame spluttering at the end of a spent wick.

She ambled to the ledge of the desk before bending herself over it, just as she was told. Her elbows met the the polished wood cold and rigid, while the height dug it's beveled edge just beneath her sternum.

Emmrich left her there, perched on the balls of her feet, as he circled her compromised position.

"Spare the rod, and spoil the child." He volunteered with a mournful sigh, as if a sympathetic father who wanted to spank their ill-behaved offspring about as much as the she wanted to receive the spanking.

Only Emmrich was eager to introduce her to such a lesson. As eager as she was to participate, if the full roseate flush that stained her was any indication. "While I feel compelled to disclaim that I do not condone any harm done to children, you are no child. And the principal rings true."

The air fought her distressed lungs. Her struggle only worsened, as he then set his gloves on the desk for her to see. While he remained behind her, she heard the discordant murmur of him reaching for the Fade, before a hush of fraught silence fell over them once more.

When his palm slid over the swell of her exposed bottom she gasped aloud; both at the sudden contact, and how his touch wasn't just warm - it was just shy of burning.

Startled more than uncomfortable, he had her eased into the increased heat before long. "W-what are you-?"

"Enhancing sensation." His explanation as blasé as if he were no more than reciting the dogma of autogenous liminality, he teased her flesh. "Heat promotes circulation, which in turn, will heighten your sensitivity."

His caress was a means to have her more suggestible to his discipline, though it demanded monumental restraint on his end to not insert his fingers inside her.

Her soft, needy sex mere inches from where his touch occupied. His attention on that area, and all his talk of punishment at last culminated in awareness to what the fog of her mind had prevented her from understanding.

"Are you... going to give me a spanking?" Escaping from her in jest, she couldn't help how her tone quavered beneath the weight of the words. A correct response, as he affirmed her suspicion.

"I am. Twenty times to be exact. Does that seem fair, my dear?"

"Only twenty?" Teased her simper apart, the goad of one who hadn't a clue what she was in for. Her underestimation of the kind professor woeful.

Emmrich gazed upon her petite frame bent in half before him with fondness, unperturbed by her attempted riling. Withdrawing his touch, satisfied with the rosy hue he had rubbed to the surface, his next command was as calm as it was cunning.

"You're going to reach out to the Fade for me. Once you have it, you'll want a firm hold."

He soon caught sight of a chartreuse glimmer curl and wisp itself around the joints of her wrists and fingers, as she flexed them against the wood. Slight and fluid manipulation, it then settled against her hands like a second skin, translucent in the moonlight.

She had professed many times how she was awed when watching him cast; an appreciation for their shared art that he found just as delightful in her demonstration.

Where he was precise and rhythmic, she was energetic, and inconstant. The unapologetic rawness, to his innate grace. "Very good. You're to hold that just as you are; you may release only when I permit you to do so."

His choice of phrasing went straight to her clit, as it pulsed in anticipation. The opulence of the room warped fuzzy and tilted to her bleary vision, her blood-pressure spiking to how stern his directive.

"Yes sir." She breathed, lifting higher on her toes, she gave a performative little sway of her hips.

It clenched his jaw until the joint creaked, though as far as she was concerned, he was otherwise unmoved by her bold provocation.

"With every strike, you will count out each one. Should you fail to maintain your cast, or lose count, we shall have to start again from the top." He cleared his throat upon concluding his recitation of her rules.

His voice had yet to pitch any higher than chest deep, and her heart threw itself at her ribs with every agonizing syllable. "Have I made myself perfectly clear?"

"Perfectly."

"Good."

His hands settling over her flesh had her breath catch, before it melted into the air in a sigh of relief. Emmrich smiled to himself, his ego fostered by how well she took to his touch. The slightest of his attention quelled her fire, rendering her meek and pliant.

His palms still hot, he stroked and massaged her in further preparation. Any time his finger-tips teased a suspicious descent between her thighs, her hips would rock in precious expectancy.

Finding the sense of security he lulled her to advantageous, his arm snapped forward, doling the first strike.

Nothing too severe, though it wasn't gentle - no where near as gentle as she assumed. A foolish assumption she amended on the spot. The slap of flesh echoing against her ear, she sucked in a stunned breath.

"One."

He had her full attention.

"That was very cute." Chuckled with playful condescension, her body betrayed her as it clenched in conditioned response to his voice. "A promising display of your cooperation, though we have yet to begun."

"W-what?"

"A necessary warm-up, dear girl." He collected his glass for one final sip of brandy, before discarding it back to the desk beside her. It thickened his voice to a confident drawl. "You'll know when I begin in earnest."

Thus began what felt like an hour long rehearsal of what was to come.

Emmrich paddled her with a firm hand, and varied positioning. He maintained a steady pressure, taking care between each one to soothe her stinging flesh by either a tickle, or purposeful effleurage strokes. Her grasp on the Fade came close to wavering, but never enough that he could see it's strength falter.

His insolent little mage harmonized their room with her yips, all the while he drip-fed careful praise to make certain her willfulness remained staunch.

"Such lovely little noises you make." His purr slunk between his lips to her twitching ears. It was all the preamble he spared before the transition from exercise to execution.

His first proper smack ripped the loudest gasp from her yet.

True to his word, she could sense the shift in his intentions by the weight and trajectory of his cupped palm alone. Her body sagged against the desk upon feeling him smooth over the faint pinch of toned flesh.

"O-one." She hushed, humility taking root.

"Good." He cooed. "Very good."

The next was a hair firmer, and her eyes widened as it sent her bobbing across the desk.

"Two." A more permanent blush swelled across her cheekbones, the dusty pink deepening to a vibrant rogue. Her fingers curled against the wood.

Emmrich ran a hand through his coif, fingers combing strands of hair that weren't mussed out of place to begin with. When he dropped his hand, it sailed upwards her rear for an underhanded strike.

Clapping her upside the gluteal crease, he swallowed thick beneath his collar at the way her peachy orbs jostled against the belt of his palm.

A strangled noise erupted from her, like a kitten whose tail he caught underfoot.

"Three-!"

"I must profess, darling, I expected you to put up much more of a fuss." He comforted the newest sting to prickle against her backside. "Surely I haven't silenced that smart mouth of yours already."

She was shocked by how well suited he was to playing the disciplinarian, and she was a fool to be.

Emmrich didn't have a cruel or haughty bone in his body, a fact that she would have attested to until that very moment. It wasn't born in the absence of kindness, so much as it came from his pedantic leaning.

He thrived on order, and protocol. Propriety. Steering her back in line came was as natural to him as regulating a classroom, or commanding the dead.

Now that she had been properly acquainted with this side of him, she couldn't help play the brat. Unable to resist the temptation of his masterful ploy.

"I think you're holding back because you're sweet on me." A lazy grin spread her cheeks, while she braced for the bruising she was all but begging for. "Those hands of yours should have me unable to sit for a week."

"Ah," he almost sounded pleased that her bite was returned, if only to excuse his dialed force. "There she is."

Four, five and six made her thighs begin to quiver. Smacking first up the back of her hindquarters, against their left side, and then the right. Thwack-thwack-thwack. A tingle roused beneath the burning skin, it reached the apex of her thighs, as she wept for him there.

Emmrich granted her a moment to catch her breath. Petting the sting, his praise un-spooled from the seat of his chest near vulpine in it's conceit. His croon cloying and velvet rich.

"You are doing very well, my little darling." Continuing to pet her, he eyed the glow emanating from her fists for any signs of weakness in her tether. "Though it comes as no surprise, I'm sure to you this has all felt little more than a tickle."

His next three blows were rapid fire, coming firmer than she was prepared for, and faster than she could count out in sync.

"Seven-e-eight-nine!" Each one echoed by her shrieks, jolting her higher on her toes while she scrambled further along the desk, as if to escape him.

Ariadne held tight to the Fade, willing her focus as it threatened to recede from her grasp with every hit. He leered down the prominent bridge of his nose at how she pressed her thighs together with a whimper, and shook his head.

"Ah-ah, there will be none of that." He inserted his foot between hers, nudging her legs apart. "Come now, widen your stance."

With much chagrin she allowed herself to be spread by him, as if she had much say in the matter. The senior Watcher was quick to correct her with the lashing that followed.

Proceeded by a rush of air, it was all the warning she was given before the punishment landed with a crack.

"AhH-! T-ten!"

The worst of it by far, and they were only half-way through.

Her flesh ached, the strength of which rivaled only by the emptiness her walls throbbed around. The wetness that webbed between her flushed lips maddened with discomfort, teasing her with a need for friction he kept her from chasing.

Eleven, twelve, and thirteen were slower than the last round, but made up for in their heft what they lacked in speed. The first of all of them to well tears along her lash line, each one threatened to reduce her to sniveling, as she fought to announce their respective number.

If at any point during the punishment a break was needed, it was then.

He spared her no such benevolence.

The length of his hand in full, the heel of his palm to the tips of his fingers, swept in hard to where the tops of her thighs met her glutes.

A sharp clap of flesh ripped its way through the stifling air. It shoved her across the desk, the glow from her hands flickering like a dying flame.

Fourteen. Fourteen! She hollered at herself, but her mouth was too preoccupied with gasping for breath to comply with that vocalization.

Fourteen dangled from the tip of her tongue, but her lips refused her will. She was so close to twenty. The tops of her thighs stinging, the reverberation of his whack throughout her body saw each and every inch of her pulled taut and humming.

"I'll issue one final warning." He intoned, encouraging her to keep count. "Use your words, darling."

"F-fourt… fourteen." Her voice was a strangled, weak thing. A flicker of her wildfire not yet extinguished, it goaded the low, mutter of "masal din'an." to seethe from her before she could even think to stifle it.

Aware that Emmrich most likely heard, a shred of hope blossomed in the shelter of assumption that he couldn't decipher the specific venom, obscured in the elvish.

Time ground to a halt. Everything seized in that moment, even her heart.

Then came the shuffling of feet as he positioned himself behind her, caging her against him as he planted one palm alongside her elbow, and then the other.

She braced herself as he swept in low, his mouth hovering beside her blushed ear. Her skin prickled in a wave down her body as that shelter cast her out into exposure, that faint gasp of hope shriveled and wilting.

In a startlingly fluent timbre, "ma nuvenin" was purred in response.

As you say.

The little elf shivered at the depth and severity of his enunciation. Eyes widening, heat flushed upwards from her neck in a vibrant bloom that stained the whole of her face. The arousal at hearing her language in his voice was almost enough to eclipse her dread that he knew exactly what vulgarity she had slung his way.

"Y-you-!"

Another whack doled to her tender flesh, though one that was sharp as it was stinging. Hollow. He didn't allow the meat of his palm to cup the swelling upon impact, nor did he soothe it with a lingering touch. He rebounded like snapped twine. It was a biting smack, one that had her suck at the air around her for strength.

"Fifteen!"

Before she could offer a weak excuse, he scolded her with tired disappointment. "Honestly, dear, you think me unacquainted with your tongue?"

He adored the sight of her flushed skin pebbling in the wake of this revelation. Though the exact verbiage a little muddled, he was able to parse the broad strokes. Recognizing her off-color assertions of his manhood in no uncertain terms.

"Quite the gamble, speaking to me in such a way. Perhaps I've been a touch too lenient?" He clicked his tongue, crooning with silken fluency. "Mala suledin nadas."

Now you must endure.

She craned her neck to steal a glance at him from over her shoulder.

Head held high and shoulders drawn back, not a hair of him was out of place. His leer shone with en-rapt attention - and a stray glint of gratification - one that had knotted her stomach when she caught it. He chided her all the same.

"Don't worry yourself with what's happening back here." His touch teased a path all the way up her spine to her nape, finding a hold in the ashen locks he wove his fingers through. His grip domineering, he squeezed the roots just enough, her scalp flaring in a sensual tingle as her gaped pout let slip a breathy moan.

He chuckled as he guided her head back to it's position by the reigns of her hair. "Keep your head straight and your eyes forward, dear girl. Your attention should be on your cast. Not on me."

Releasing her tresses, his splayed palm dragged back down the length of her body to flatten over her sacrum, pinning her still with even pressure. Switching to his non-dominant hand, he proved it no less proficient, as it whistled through the air before landing against her raw skin.

She didn't think a bare hand, one that fondled her so lovingly, could also raise welts on the very flesh it revered. The chafed skin of her backside served to oppose that mutual exclusivity.

"Sixteen!" Her voice cracked as she pushed it from her chest, wound tight against the blistering sting, and her tenuous grasp on the Fade.

Holding his hand in its place, the one that had just struck her returned, rewarding her with an affectionate graze to the irritation. "You're doing well, sweet girl. Very well indeed."

She opened her mouth to respond - with what, she herself wasn't even sure - before he came down on her once more, this time back against the top of her buttocks. Blossoming a dull, throbbing ache, it wrenched a pathetic sob, hitching her tally.

"S-sev..seven-seventeen." The light from her fists flickered like the flame of a torch whipped in the wind, warning abandonment. She curled her fingers in tighter, until her nails bite the flesh of her palms. Concentration battled her, as did her waning tenacity.

The heaviness of his hand seared across her rump in a ludic swipe. One that melted the beginnings of a harsh gasp into stretched moan.

"Eight-teen-,"

"That's a good girl, we're almost through." His approval at her endurance colored his baritone, soothing her with the tenderness of sincere praise. "You're doing so well for me, da'len." He hushed. "So obedient."

Little one.

She groaned at the familiar pet name, the elvish intonation deepening his voice to a silvery croon. Their power dynamic already tipped against her, this recent development plunged the scale to weigh heavily in his favor.

She could only imagine the humiliation if he let slip such a name to her around the others - he'd have her blushing as furiously as he did back when she was a school girl, buckling her knees in the same fell swoop.

If he only knew the hold he had on her back then.

"Oh, I haven't lost you, have I?" His attempted diversion successful, she hadn't noticed the rustling of his armor behind her, while he began to disrobe. Leisured, and only pieces at a time. The resolve of man well versed in the importance of pacing.

First the onyx outer layers, and gold plated adornments were placed on the desk beside her. Then a green blur in her peripheral, as his collared shirt joined the neat pile. Now bare from the waist up, it was a tactic to further her distraction. For even at the nineteenth, his next blow startled her. Her sore body jerking forward with a throaty groan.

"N-nineteen..."

Grasping the Fade now felt as though she were trying to pluck a sewing needle from the surface of melting ice with a gloved hand. It dimmed in pulsations like the twinkling of a lightning bug, before steadying itself back to his desired opacity. She expelled a breath she hadn't realized she was holding.

"There you are." He purred. "I was beginning to suspect your mind had wandered; we almost began again from the start."

The final blow plucked a yelp from her, frail as her spent lower half felt.

She was finished.

Ending on the same sweet spot of where her rear ended, and her thighs began, a numbness began to seep throughout the burning muscle in ecstasy. A kindness of her body, having turned the intensity of his pain to subdued pleasure. Admittedly not as delicious, but leagues more tolerable.

"Twenty."

"Yes, dear girl, I believe so." One palm swept an absent-minded path over the swell of her, now thoroughly raw and hot to the touch. "I wonder; was I successful in communicating the purpose of this lesson? Or does that darling petulance within you remain?"

"I... but you said-," her tongue stalled, as sluggish and unreliable in her mouth as it was when she was intoxicated. She huffed in frustration, and tried again. "I did as you said-,"

"An adequate performance, though not wholly satisfactory." He of course teased, but did so believably. "I question your interpretation of this exercise."

"I... I've been good." She croaked in embarrassment to how subdued he had her.

"Have you now?" He mused, his palm sweeping over her like his touch was a balm to the angry flesh. "Only one way to be certain."

He sank to his knees behind her, and swallowed hard at what he found.

He could see how swollen she had grown from his spanking. Burning bright pink, and drooling from between her quivering thighs.

"Oh just look at you." His warm breath misted against her as he rumbled in appreciation. Though he still kept firm to his stringency, his admiration was unmistakable. "I fear my punishment was enjoyed, and rather too much, you wicked little thing."

"I-I, I didn't... I-,"

"Shhh." Mouth snapped shut, her eyes misted despite herself, as he spread her apart in more thorough inspection. His fingers adroit and reverent, as if peeling apart the petals of a tulip in fresh bloom. Wet with early morning dew. "It's of no use to demur, my girl. I see well the mess I've made of you."

Any semblance of a reply she might have been able to articulate was strangled by the obscene moan that erupted up her throat.

Opting against prelude, Emmrich had darted between her shivering thighs to flatten his tongue against her slit. Opening her up to his eager mouth, the agile muscle flicked and slithered along her slick heat.

At his first taste of her piquant nectar, he groaned into her, feeling it's conduction along her aching sex as much as she heard it muffled from between her legs.

An imperceptible pressure bore down around the entirety of her body, squeezing a gasp from her burning lungs that choked it's way out. Ariadne felt his lips curl in a smug grin against her tender folds, before beginning to move them against her in the makings of a deep, impassioned kiss.

He worked her entrance to interrogation. Demanding her noises, and her trembles against his relentless mouth. Intent to find the obstinate little hellion he believed to still be lurking within.

"E-em... Emmrich-," her eyes watering, a mantra of his name poured listless for him. Hoping it served as just recompense.

He answered by creating a seal of his glistening lips around her cunt. Pulling hard, he grunted as she rocked back into his face, constricting in hollow pulsations against the tip of his tongue to encourage it's entry.

To surprise so great it collapsed her against the desk, he granted her request.

Palms snatched her thighs to hold her still, he probed the slick muscle in and out of her weeping center with lethal precision. His girth heavy between his thighs, it flicked against his trousers with impatience. His condition worsened with her every strained whimper, and disjointed stutter against his strong chin. That damnable scruff brushing her sensitive clit, the groomed whiskers of his mustache tickled her to similar unraveling.

Between the steady pressure of his shadowed jaw to rub her bud against, and his lips and tongue orchestrating a devoted composition, he had already dragged her before the crest of her release.

She had indeed done well for him, and to her efforts, a reward was owed.

Emmrich tipped his chin to allow his tongue access to her swollen pearl. Teasing it with feather light pressure in clockwise motion, he closed in tighter with every circle. Weaponizing the vibration of his hums in tandem with his ministrations, she came crashing down against his mouth with little more prodding.

The elf whined with such loud sincerity, he was certain the odd passersby as far as the very end of the walk outside their window, could have heard her without difficulty.

He lapped at her mussed petals, cleaning her up with paternal attentiveness as her full-body tremors relaxed to sporadic twitches. Next came his own maw, smeared and shining with her pearlescent remnants. Licking his lips while he rose to his feet, his sharp brow arched as he looked her over.

"Oh, aren't you a treasure." He murmured in reverential disbelief in catching sight of her persistent hold to the Fade, however weakened. "You may release, dearest, just as you may await me in bed."

Ariadne picked herself up from the desk, and lowered herself to her heels for the first time since the professors punishment.

The very professor who watched with open satisfaction as she limped across the floor, on thighs that still wobbled from his oral dissection.

Emmrich dropped his trousers where he stood, stepping out of them the moment she pulled herself onto the lavishly made bed. Electing to keep herself propped up for him on all fours, he hadn't expressed to her the position he wanted her in, she just knew. She could read it in way she felt his leer rake across her, dutiful in her presentation to him on her hands and knees.

He had never been so assertive with her before, least of all with such determination. His dexterous hands bruising in their strength. His height wielded to impose, like he had something to prove.

She hazarded a glance at him from over her shoulder.

A lean athleticism to his tapered physique, his regular, early morning cardio showed in the toned ripple that carved through the length of his abdominals.

Obliques tensed, his traps pulled taut his broad shoulders as he held himself erect before her admiration.

A dusting of silver hair between his pectorals, they mapped down his linea alba, coaxing her gaze down with it to arrive at the soft thatch beneath his naval. That handsome iron trail lead further, not that she required any additional incentive to seek what waited lower still.

His engorged length bobbed upwards in a slender curve towards his abdomen. A bead of precum at his tip, he quirked in gentle pulsations from between his thighs in wait.

He didn't permit her too much indulgence, beginning to make his way towards her with the sort of noble confidence only afforded to one who knew how he appealing we was to his lover. One who maintained exceptional care of himself, and knew his efforts were appreciated.

She wasn't left to her lonesome for long. Joining her at the edge of the bed, he grabbed her by the hip-bones to yank her up, and back to meet his groin. One foot planted on the floor, he drew his knee up on the the mattress. Dropping his pelvis to grant them the deeper angle they both knew they needed.

Grabbing himself roughly about his swollen base, his patience lasted only for as long as it took him to align himself with her soaked folds. Pushing through them with his tip, a whine dislodged from him with the guttural timbre of an animal claiming a compatible mate.

By the time Emmrich sank inside her, just to the point of where curve of his head blended with his shaft, he was completely gone. Head tipped back, a wet and strained noise of fervor sprang from the back of his throat.

Her tight velvet sheathed him one agonizing inch at a time. Even with her lubrication he still hurt her; unable to hold himself back once he felt that initial, hasty stretch of her walls. A growl seeped from his depths, knotted and yanking inward, as her muscle squeezed at him with her own greed.

He was able to will himself still for long enough to allow her time to adjust - a decent girth, he was longer than he was wide when swelled in full. A lot for her small frame to take, slotting himself to the hilt saw him bottom-out in the same motion. A gasp tugged itself from the tender depths of which his cockhead just battered.

The noises he made when he buried himself within her never failed to tighten her around him. Like a reflex, his groaned relief only worsened her need for her own.

This time had been different. He didn't experience relief. He didn't feel satiation from her plush heat kneading his heft. It only worsened his withdrawal. He wouldn't know contentedness until he split her open, and burrowed as far inside her as he could.

"You'll be the death of me, my girl. Gripping me like that," he sighed, relishing the way her core both fought his intrusion, and spasmed wider in frenetic accommodation. "Whimpering, as you are."

Long, spidery digits dug into the firm flesh of her hips for purchase. His chest felt tighter with every breath he relied on to steady himself, to keep from pistoning his hips too hard, too fast. Though her previous defiance tempted half his mind to handle her with such aggression.

Hoarse, full-body pants drooled from him like a sick hound as he began to work himself inside. Fluttering her delicate velvet as he stretched her down around his length, using her hips as both leverage for his slow, too-deep thrusts, and catharsis for what still swirled within him.

The lucidity he had been able to maintain all that time had dissolved just like that. The confines of her slobbering muscle pulsed around him with the suffocating tightness of a woman who sought revenge. Even with how thoroughly she had been broken in, her body reaped retaliation where it could.

It saw his initial thrusts ragged and uneven. The little elf had him sloppy.

"E-em-aHh-!" Ripped from her as he picked up his pace without warning. His taut musculature rigid as he leaned into his momentum, it didn't interfere with his perfect posture, even as he began to drill.

"You're infuriating. No one's ever gotten under my skin quite like you, little Death Caller." His divulgences near frenzied, he suddenly switched his hold on her to clip his hands around her upper arms.

Hoisting her up abruptly, he took from her the hold she had on the duvet. He was all that kept her from falling face first into the mattress. "You haunt my thoughts. I'm unable to rid myself of your smell - how insufferable you are, so arrogant and so effortless as you undo all that I am, all I have striven to become."

Any and all quips or pleas died against the back of her throat, strangled by the shrill yelps from the sheer pressure of his hips snapping against her. Pinching her with his grasp at the crease of her elbows. Locking her against him, while he rode her out with harsh bucks. A single strand of his hair broke free from the pomade that held it in place.

Her bottom still tender and throbbing, it didn't appeal to his mercy to lessen his attack. He was too enamored with how the swell of her fit with his groin, his slick length disappearing into her pretty pink folds with every snap.

Emmrich had always made love to her. Thorough, and meticulous and bursting with tender affection. This time wasn't like that. This was an assertion of his dominance. This was a reminder of her place.

This was a fuck. Pure, and plain as day.

His stamina was a thing to behold, but he had been stretched ever thin since their evening began. Bouncing her up and down his shaft made quick work of his strained resolve, the whispers of his climax pulled at him with neediness reminiscent of his young lover.

"Tell me, my pet." He huffed, his skin prickled at the tightening of his scrotum. Threatening the burst of his dam. "Where would you like me to-"

"In-side-me-!" The demand made breathless and choppy, his unrelenting force stilting each syllable.

He had only ever finished on her; the small of her back, the protrusion of her clavicle, one spur of the moment rendezvous that left him with the visual of him dripping down the quirk of her victorious pout. All at her behest, she had never asked this of him before, and he'd never dare suggest it.

Of course she'd ambush him at such a pregnable moment, when he felt more animal than man. Liable to unwise decisions in his haste to exorcise whatever had possessed him back at the canal.

He shut his eyes tight to her plea, as his stomach flipped over with blunt force. He knew better than to be so irresponsible, and yet-

"Ariadne." Grunted low in warning. "I'll not last much-longer-,"

He hadn't been with her long enough to gauge the risks, unfamiliar with both her cycle, and the strength of her fertility. He hadn't the time to weigh that potential cost, as her wanton mantra of please please please sent the necessary blood blow from his brain to the strain between his legs. As if he could erect harder than he already was.

"Please! Please inside me-please-,"

Her temptation was far greater than the meager shred of resolve he clung to. Her depths were so warm and snug, tugging him in deep and then deeper still. Fluttering around the heft of his cock in frantic coercion.

To feel him crowd against her womb. To leave her feeling full. Of him.

The pressure behind his eyes began to swell, prodding his paper-thin restraint. Pushing him to devolve to his most base biological motivators.

He might have been an older man, but he was still just a man, after all.

Without a hitch in his stride, he released one elbow at a time, snaking her around the abdomen with one wiry arm, he snatched her beneath the dainty cut of her jaw with his other hand.

Bending her head back, he curved over her like a viper. The extra height he had on her allowed him to look into her eyes, manhandling her like a rag doll as his thrusts increased momentum. Reaching new depths with his penetration, signaled by the crude joining of wet flesh. More loosened locks fell into his darkened eyes, further obscuring the man she knew.

Ariadne was mounted by beast who borrowed Emmrich's skin. His touch was known to her, his smell was right; but the force that pummeled her into submission she already surrendered long ago was a force she had yet to reckon with.

His rhythm faltered as she fluttered her lashes up at him, her feline gaze pleading, drunk on his speed and ferocity. Her throat purred beneath his palm with her strangled groans and whimpers, each one sent straight to the knot in his scrotum, uncomfortably tight and twitching.

The jut of his hips canting at a wicked pace, one that telegraphed his crescendo, every withdraw of his veined girth had her keening from the loss. Even from the fractions of a second it took before he thrust back in.

He was only vaguely aware of the depravity that sloshed out from over his neat lines. His crisp presentation crumbling, his mindful respectability now a memory. His view of her full hips unobstructed, her abused womanhood raw and stretched around the brunt of him was all he could subscribe to. The molten ache coiled in the seat of her pelvis cranked tighter and tighter with every nudge to her womb.

A shred of his pride remaining, it was enough. Enough to prevent him from spilling his less savory fantasies, as his tongue tangled a growled litany of English, elvish, and a language unfamiliar to her ear.

An indecipherable proclamation of just what her desire for unprotected copulation did to him, she caught it in fragments only.

Anvallenim, nadas, mamae, and his repeated use of da'len all struck at her with sinful awareness. Each word recognized twitched her ruined cunt around him. Filling in his gaps, enough to betray what he had so thinly veiled.

Somewhere through her mottled stupor she supposed that was by design. To impart his shameful urges without having to face the mortification of hearing himself voice them.

Her perfect gentleman, near unrecognizable with the sheer magnitude of his abandon.

His grunts of elvish and their implications proved to be what brought her to the edge, feeling her seize around him as she fluttered in her tell-tale crest. His tip continuing to jab the spongy patch inside of her his digits had finessed with ease. The way the tine of her right ear gave a little twitch, a call for assistance; all she needed now was a push.

"Come for me, da'len." His grandiloquent embellishment stripped, he commanded her stern and chest-deep. "Come for me."

That broke her.

And she had already been broken from the start.

A release heavy and throbbing, the coil in her stomach sprang loose, scorching her in undulation from the inside out. Fresh wetness dampened the corners of her squint, Emmrich continued to ride her through it. Massaging himself against the clenching ridges of muscle, that wrung him out with every contraction.

"This body of yours, your youth-," he huffed through grit teeth, feeling himself drift further away with every rut against her she had no choice but to take. Yielding to him like she never had before. "-leads my mind to wander to... dangerous places."

"I- l-like you- ...dangerous-," she managed to pant out in pieces. "Please Emmrich - claim me. I want you vulgar and selfish and messy and-,"

Flush against her prenatal chamber, he released.

Without the constraint of reason or dignity, he spent himself with a sharp grunt, his distinguished features screwed up in both elation and regret. His polish had tarnished and dulled, and all for her to witness.

Coating her depths with his seed, and the nagging horror that they could absolutely take root. Yet he could hardly keep his head level, let alone acknowledge such probability. Attempting too proved as successful as pinching a tendril of smoke between his fingertips. Dispersing into oblivion the moment he made contact.

The knots of semen worked their way through his girth, loosening the tension from his bowed shoulders and furrowed brow a little more with each spurt. To his flooding of her sex, she offered tender mewls of repose.

As the blinding ebbed to allow for his good sense's return, he shook like a wet hound. Stuck to her backside, Emmrich was ginger in his movements as he went to withdraw from her blessed center.

She whined in what presented like drunken protest, pawing weakly at him to keep him still, and sheathed to the root inside her. He shut his eyes as he felt the thick viscosity of his spend leak from where their sexes meshed, the sensation stirring lazy kicks of his half-hard cock against her tender walls.

Coiling his arms around her middle to lower her down into the mattress on her belly, he followed her; his softening member still nestled within her sticky heat, as he collapsed half on top of her. It almost could have been spooning, had he more cradled her than crushed her.

Not that she minded at all.

"Mm-mmrich?" Slurred by drowsiness and lousy with satisfaction, the lure of unconsciousness pulled her further and further away from him.

"Yes-," he swallowed his hoarseness, already beginning to rid the evidence of what he had transformed to during their union. "Yes, love?"

After a pause so long he thought her out cold, she then offered; "Your insults aren't petty." Her voice so small he almost didn't hear. A crooked grin curled his lips into her sweat-dampened hair. Her candied musk faint, but lingering.

"No?"

"They're first-rate." She sighed, as if given in grudging propitiation. "Peerless, as you are in all your fields of expertise."

I'm sorry.

Her stroked his thumb along her exposed scapula, seeking to tame her trembles. "An accomplished denigrator, and an old fool. You give me far too much credit, little love. Something I do not grant you near enough."

As am I.

Her breaths deepening, they shared the silence as she soon drifted away. With much care in his handling, he slid his arm beneath her and flipped them, drawing her to his chest where she belonged.

Sleep wouldn't call for him, not for some time. He was still too keyed up from what she had managed to rip from his depths. A mess she made, one she left for him to clean up.

He raked his knuckles up and down her spine, a motion that served to calm him, more than it was for her. When that no longer occupied him, his fingers crawled for her hair. Her bun had fallen out at some point during their tousle, but he couldn't recall when.

Emmrich stared up at the ceiling, his eye following how the sparse candlelight threw the shadow; flickering and twisting the source, it reminded him of how the Fade took to her. How she held it for him, even as he passed her through the maelstrom of release.

His yearning for a drag flared anew, it squirmed in his slender fingers. Aching for a cigarette, but one with the filter bitten clean off.

Tagging as per request: @goddessnyx216

#emmrook #brat tamer emmrich #brat tamer emmrich volkarin #emmrook smut #emmrich romance #emmrich volkarin #dragon age emmrich #emmrich the necromancer #emmrich dragon age #da4 emmrich #emmrich x rook #rook x emmrich #soft dom emmrich #soft dom emmrich volkarin #emmrich volkarin fanfiction #emmrich volkarin smut #emmrich volkarin fanfic

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panharmonium · 1 year ago

Note

Hi! I love your Naruto thoughts and meta posts with all my heart and I want to ask your thoughts on something that has been on my mind literally since I was 13: what do you think about the relationship between Sasuke and Sakura? I went from being a hardcore shipper when I was a teenager, to being against any romantic relationship in Naruto after finishing the anime when I was in my early twenties. Nowadays I'm very into platonic love and depictions of friendship and I think the anime's obsession with forcing the "romantic interest" curse upon the main female character robbed us of... so much. There are a few wonderful moments in the anime where Sasuke and Sakura acknowledge each other, but because she's always "the girl with the crush", her actions are so often interpret as irrational or selfish by the fandom.

Hi @riemmetric! It's great to talk to you again! Sorry it's taken me so long to answer this; RL has been making demands of me lately and it took me way longer to finish writing this up than I wanted it to (then again, I knew from the minute I read your original ask that my reply was going to get long, so I suppose I should have predicted a delay XD)

It's funny, my sister once asked me to choose between Sasuke or Sakura for an “unpopular opinion” meme, and I ended up doing Sasuke solely because I think the negative fandom opinions about Sakura are so unhinged and divorced from the actual text that I wouldn’t even know where to start. People are entitled to dislike whatever characters they want, obviously, but there are some fandom takes that are, for me, so obviously rooted in bad faith viewings/readings that there’s no urge in me to discuss them. That said, since you asked, I’m happy to go into my own thoughts on this a bit, with the disclaimer for other potential readers that I only write about fandom things for my own personal enjoyment, not as a contribution to The Discourse. If you don’t like Sakura, great! I have no interest in changing your mind. Please consider this a sincere invitation to scroll on by and go enjoy whatever parts of the fandom appeal to you.

In general terms: I love Sasuke and Sakura’s relationship as much as I love all of the relationships in Team 7. If we’re talking about them specifically as a romantic couple, then I probably fall somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, because I do like them together in a post-canon (to be clear: non-Boruto) setting, after time has passed and they’ve continued to develop individually and reconnect with each other, but I also wouldn’t exactly call myself an intense “shipper,” in the sense that I have no interest in pulling things out from the text and incorrectly citing them as evidence that Sasuke has hidden romantic feelings for her during the canon period. He cares about her in the canon period, just like he cares about Naruto and Kakashi. That’s not up for interpretation; it’s the text. But Sasuke during the canon time period does not demonstrate specifically romantic interest in anyone.

[A note before people who might ship Sasuke with Someone Else emerge to rail against this statement - please just scroll past and continue enjoying fandom in whatever way is most fun for you. It is cool to ship whatever fanon thing you want; I think that’s great! But earnestly citing any loving or emotional thing Sasuke does re: various characters in this story (yes, Sakura included) as indicative of specifically romantic love isn’t supported by the text. I know there are always going to be enormous subsets of any fandom who insist that it is, and I'm certainly not going to barge into anyone else's space to complain about that (because other people having fun together is harmless and none of my business), but I'm not obligated to indulge it on my own blog, either.]

Anyway, that said - the reason why I love Sakura and Sasuke’s relationship (from here on out I’ll use “relationship” in a general, non-romantic sense) is precisely because Sakura isn’t just “the girl with the crush.” Sakura has an arc when it comes to Sasuke, and its trajectory moves in the exact opposite direction of “irrational” or “selfish.” She specifically goes from “the girl with the crush” to “the girl who steels herself and tries to put her personal feelings for Sasuke aside for the greater good” to “the girl who knows she can’t put her feelings aside, but who also knows full well that Sasuke doesn’t reciprocate them, and who still wants to save him regardless, because he matters to her as a person and a friend.”

[I'm putting the rest of this under a cut to save everyone's dash, and also to emphasize once again that this is a personal post on my personal blog which I wrote in response to a question from a personal acquaintance, the full content of which no one is obligated to read. I am not sending this post to random strangers and forcing them to look at it. I'm not even putting it in the character tags. I'm typing it up on my own blog and putting it under a cut. If you already know that you don't like Sakura, but you still click the link/read the post and then feel an urge to comment and complain, I am going to copy-paste this disclaimer and remind you that I specifically recommended that you scroll past and go have fun with fandom in your own way. Thanks in advance for responsibly curating your own fandom experience!]

So, from the top:

1. the girl with the crush

Sakura is, obviously, completely obsessed with Sasuke at the beginning of Part 1. She’s also deeply clueless about him and his history (bizarre though it is, the story seems to indicate that she initially doesn’t know what happened with his family, the same way young!Obito is initially clueless about Kakashi’s father). But what I like about Sakura and Sasuke’s Part 1 relationship is how this changes over time.

The critical scene that kicks this off happens right at the beginning of the manga, when she and Sasuke are talking by that bench - she complains about Naruto and blames his behavior on him being all alone/having no family to scold him; and even says she’s jealous that he doesn’t have parents to nag him all the time. This obviously triggers an outburst from Sasuke, who tells her she has no idea what loneliness means and that she “makes him sick”/she’s “annoying” (importantly, the exact same thing Sakura said to Naruto in anger earlier that day), which in turn prompts Sakura to reassess herself and wonder whether she’s been making Naruto feel this terrible all the time, too:

From that point on, it’s a process of her putting little pieces together. She still has a MAJOR crush, and she still acts like a twelve year-old, but as we approach the end of Part I, Sakura actually has a more accurate grasp on Sasuke’s current state of mind than Naruto does. Naruto is initially excited to fight Sasuke on top of the hospital, because he feels like Sasuke’s finally acknowledging him, whereas Sakura is the one who immediately recognizes that something is wrong about this situation. She is also the one who, after this fight, is concerned that Sasuke is really unwell and might do something drastic like run off in pursuit of the power Orochimaru promised him, but when she communicates this to Naruto, he assures her that this would NEVER happen:

(Sakura isn't convinced, though, because she goes to monitor the exit out of the village anyway.)

I’m not criticizing Naruto for his response here. I ADORE hearing him say that Sasuke is too strong to need Orochimaru, with such perfect confidence - I love seeing how much respect and admiration he has for Sasuke underneath all their fighting, because that’s the whole reason he’s always baiting Sasuke and yelling at him and claiming “you're not so great!” He looks up to Sasuke; he wants to be like Sasuke; he thinks Sasuke is awesome! (It’s that Obito @ Kakashi behavior, you know?) But the fact remains that he is clueless about what’s actually going on with Sasuke in Part 1, and he remains clueless(ly optimistic) for a long time.

(Eg, when he catches up to Sasuke during the retrieval arc and Sasuke climbs out of that cursed seal coffin, Naruto waves at him and calls "Come on, let's go!" as if Sasuke has been successfully rescued and is now going to come running home. Even in Part II, when Naruto hears that Sasuke killed Orochimaru, he beams and immediately says, “So he must be on his way back to the Leaf Village!” And everyone else in the room is like, “....,” because they know better. Naruto doesn’t yet fully understand [or doesn't want to accept] the extent to which Sasuke has willingly chosen this path, and it’s not until after Jiraiya’s death/the Pain attack/the Five Kage Summit that Naruto really starts to understand Sasuke more clearly, which is something he himself admits.)

Sakura, in Part 1, has access to more information about Sasuke - she’s there for his first dissociative monologue during the bells test, she’s there for the curse mark’s placement, she’s there for his first violent transformation in the Forest of Death - she is, in fact, the unwitting catalyst for it (“Sakura…who did this to you?”), and her compassion is the reason Sasuke is later able to overcome the curse mark’s influence - so she has a more accurate/complete picture of “how he’s doing,” for lack of a better phrase, whereas Naruto, who doesn’t know about the curse mark in the first place, is still in the dark. This means that Sakura is able to accurately discern that Sasuke is struggling more than Naruto realizes, and specifically to predict that he’s going to run away.

(This dynamic is then interestingly flipped in the back half of Part II, since at any point after the Five Kage Summit, Sakura doesn’t have access to extremely relevant [if currently questionable and unproven] details that would in any other circumstance inform her behavior).

Of course, just because she has more info in Part 1 doesn’t mean she has some kind of miraculous insight into Sasuke’s every thought and feeling. There are parts of her attempt to convince Sasuke to stay in the village that are as clueless as any of Naruto’s assumptions, and they showcase the kind of magical thinking common to childhood - like when she says that if he stayed with her, she could give him happiness, she’d do anything for him, even help him get his revenge - this idea that she herself can do something to make him feel better, that she can love him powerfully enough to defeat his pain - obviously none of that is rooted in realism.

Is this part of her approach irrational and immature and inadvertently self-centered? Of course it is! But it’s no more irrational and immature and inadvertently self-centered than Naruto’s stated plan to drag Sasuke back to the village even if he has to “break every bone in [his] body!”

Hating on Sakura for her Part 1 attempt to convince Sasuke to stay in the village while simultaneously lauding Naruto for his feels like a bad faith misread of what is, to me, pretty clear narrative intention. The story doesn’t at any point intend for us to see her begging him to stay as a selfish or conniving attempt to get something she wants. She’s begging him to stay for the same underlying reason that Naruto is: she cares about him. She thinks he’s making a mistake that will only cause him more pain in the end (she’s right) and she wants to make it so he feels less pain right now (she can’t. But she doesn’t understand that/isn’t able to admit that, and she’s willing to try ANYTHING that might help).

It’s critical that this farewell scene is set in front of that same bench from their first important confrontation - she references that day and how angry he got at her, and this time she tells him that she understands his reaction. She’s learned things and she recognizes how insensitive she was being back then (“I know what happened to your clan, Sasuke”), even though she still can’t fully grasp all the complexities of the situation. She tells him that him blowing up at her back then helped her understand what loneliness actually meant (as opposed to her previous shallow understanding of it), and she challenges him about his choice right now: "So that's it, you're choosing the lonely path?" And when she tells him that she'll be very lonely if he leaves, we're immediately shown a panel of Sasuke thinking of both his friends, with the very clear implication that if he goes through with this, he will be lonely without them, too - that he's still struggling with the idea of leaving them, no matter how hard he tries to pretend:

Sakura at this point knows that Sasuke isn’t interested in her the way she is in him, but she still wants to give him happiness, however fantastical and immature her ideas sound to us (and, I’m sure, to him). “I’ll do anything, even help you get your revenge/we'll have fun every day, and...and you'll be happy! I'll make sure of it!” - of course, it’s completely childish. It’s irrational. It’s ridiculous to think that any of this would ever be effective, but no more ridiculous than Naruto’s belief that he can simply break every bone in Sasuke’s body and keep him in the Leaf by force.

Both Naruto and Sakura are children who have a deeply oversimplified understanding of Sasuke’s situation. They both still think they can fix him themselves. They both think they can save him themselves. They both think they can convince (or force) him to do what they want, what they think is in his best interests. Both of them don’t yet understand that he has to want to come back, if it’s ever going to mean anything. Their attempts to keep him in the village are immature and unrealistic, yes. What they aren’t, however, is selfish, because neither Sakura nor Naruto are doing any of this with the intention of advancing their own interests. They’re only thinking about Sasuke - how to keep Sasuke safe, how to make Sasuke happy - even when neither of them are taking an approach that will actually work.

Naruto and Sakura are children. They’re afraid of losing somebody they care about. Their attempts to prevent that from happening are desperate and messy and ultimately ineffective, but they are also genuinely felt and rooted in a true desire to rescue Sasuke from his pain, which - and this is the single most important thing that should impact our viewing of Part 1 - is something that Sasuke RECOGNIZES. He doesn’t spend that agonizingly long moment bowed over Naruto’s defeated body so we can pretend he doesn’t understand that Naruto was just trying to help him. He doesn’t take the time to murmur, “Sakura…thank you,” before laying her out carefully on a bench, just so we can discount it and pretend that he doesn’t recognize and appreciate her genuine intention to make things better for him, however clumsy that attempt might have been.

2. the greater good

If Stage 1 Sakura is "the girl with the crush," then Stage 2 Sakura is a progression to “the girl who decides to put her feelings for Sasuke aside in order to protect innocent people, including (but certainly not limited to) Naruto.” She’s driven to this decision by interactions with Shikamaru, who all too recently had to grow up fast himself (“We're not kids anymore...we can't allow a war to break out between the Hidden Leaf and the Hidden Cloud because of Sasuke") and Sai, who risks his new friendship with Sakura and Team 7 in order to speak some hard truths and deliver one of my favorite lines in the whole story: “I don’t know what promise Naruto made to you, but it’s really no different than what was done to me. It’s like a curse mark.”

(INCREDIBLE. How can anybody be complaining about a season where Sai gets to say something that goes THIS HARD and Sakura LISTENS and takes DRAMATIC ACTION that actually propels the story forward in a meaningful way - )

[Okay, yeah, brief personal opinion interlude - it is just bonkers wild to me that there are people who complain about Sakura in the Five Kage Summit arc. That entire season is the greatest character arc she ever has. Literally she has never been more interesting and dynamic than in Season 10; it’s the first time she ever gets to be as deep and fascinating as the boys; what is everybody so worked up about? Oh, “she lied to Naruto that one time” - Sasuke joined infant-kidnapping baby-murdering human experimentation machine Orochimaru when he was twelve years old in order to (dare I say it????) selfishly pursue his personal goals and yet, somehow, we are still able to root for him. He abandoned his friends/allies to imprisonment and death (Suigetsu and Jūgo) or outright stabbed them in the chest himself (Karin) in order to (SELFISHLY) get what he wanted, and yet, somehow, we are still able to love him, understand him, and be on his side. Naruto is canonically not upset with Sakura about her lie after receiving context for the situation and I think we can probably take our cues from him without feeling the need to bring her up on war crimes; please calm down]

[Sorry, I just really love most of Season 10 and think it’s one of the best examples of how good this story can be when every single character gets to do something that matters (as opposed to things being all Naruto, all the time) so I get a little bit worked up over people complaining about some of the best writing Sakura ever gets. I don’t understand what certain elements of fandom want from her. People complain about her being “useless” and not doing anything that contributes to the story, but then they complain just as much when she does finally get to act decisively and have just as complex/dynamic an inner world as the boys. She’s “weak” for being unreasonably in love with Sasuke, but when she tries to be “strong” and put her love for him aside and eliminate him in order to protect Naruto and the rest of the world, she’s evil, because she should have been more understanding of his situation (despite the fact that she doesn’t KNOW anything about his situation). But then when she can’t go through with killing him after all because she cares about him too much despite the things he’s done, she’s not "compassionate" or "kind" or "a good friend," she’s “weak” again. Nothing Sakura does in S10 is more wrongheaded or rash than any of the batshit, buckwild things Naruto and Sasuke have done in the past (and will continue to do in the future), but when Naruto and Sasuke have big feelings or take bold action, it makes them interesting characters, whereas Sakura can’t breathe in anyone’s direction without being minutely scrutinized for moral impurities.]

Anyway. Back to a more measured response.

Every single piece of development Sakura has with regard to Sasuke in this season satisfies me so much. Her initial shock and disbelief at hearing that Sasuke had joined the Akatsuki? Good, appropriate. The fact that she starts to acknowledge the reality of what Sasuke’s done sooner than Naruto does? Also extremely appropriate, very in-character for both of them. Her taking Sai’s words to heart and deciding that the promise she asked Naruto to make when they were children is causing him to suffer and she has to relieve him of that burden? Juicy! AND thematically significant (promises!!!! the burden that a promise places on a person, especially when it can't be kept - we've seen that before in this story and we'll see it again). Her anguished pivot from wanting to protect Sasuke to realizing that she has a responsibility to protect the countless innocents who will die because of the war he’s trying to start? HELLO THIS IS INCREDIBLE CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. Her knocking out the classmates who agreed to help her so they don’t have to share in her burden (and so the only person Naruto will hate when it’s over is her)? BRUH. Her being so committed and focused on her goal of saving innocents and protecting Naruto (not just from being harmed by Sasuke/the Akatsuki, but by the possibility that Naruto will someday have to hurt Sasuke himself) that she tries to take everything on by herself and walks into a confrontation that she absolutely cannot win?? INCREDIBLE. (Literally the first time I watched this, I said, “Finally!!! It’s Sakura’s turn to go off the rails!” I laughed with my sister about how Kakashi isn’t even mad, because Naruto and Sasuke have been pulling stunts like this for years and Sakura was way overdue for her own meltdown.) And then, after Kakashi intervenes in the fight - Sakura barreling back into the battle when she realizes he’s going to take on the burden of killing Sasuke himself in order to spare her and Naruto the horror - “I can’t let Kakashi-sensei bear this burden!” I love her for that.

And then, of course, in the end - her not being able to do hurt Sasuke after all. Despite committing herself to the act, despite forcing herself to put her feelings for him aside, despite resolving to stop him from starting a war and killing innocent people, she can’t harm him. She cares about him too much. This, too, is thematically significant - think about Itachi’s “you don’t have enough hatred” - she doesn’t have enough hatred to kill someone she cares about, even if it seems like he deserves it, even if would be the right thing to do to protect others. She can’t do it, and Sasuke almost kills her for her compassion.

I love the dynamic this sets up between her and Sasuke, for a few reasons:

1) Personally, I think Sasuke respects Sakura much more for trying to kill him than he would have if she’d just tried to talk him out of his behavior or beg him to come home (a la their original confrontation in Part 1). This is the first significant interaction he’s had with Sakura in years, and the fact that she does something SO contrary to his memory of her is an important demonstration of the fact that she’s not the same girl she used to be. Sasuke spends a lot of time after his defection declaring to his old team “I’ve changed; I’m not that person anymore,” but this is one of the moments where he’s forced to acknowledge that his teammates have changed, too. Time didn’t just stop for them when he left. While he was turning into someone new, so were they. They grew up without him, and his old memories of them can’t encompass the whole picture of who they are now.

(This is a little tangential, but in general, I love the spectrum of reactions that Naruto, Sakura, and Kakashi have in this sequence, and the way that all of them are ultimately messages Sasuke needs to hear. Sasuke - who we know textually regrets what he did here, who apologizes to Sakura for it later - for “everything,” in fact - needs Naruto’s aggressively optimistic open-arms policy, yes, needs that potential, that unconditional possibility of return. He also needs Sakura’s refusal to let him hurt her friends and start a war that will kill thousands of people, needs her surprisingly ruthless attempt to take him down; needs just as much her failure to do so, because it shows him that she still loves him too much to kill him even as she condemns him. And he needs Kakashi’s grim line in the sand, needs someone who very possibly won't hesitate like Sakura (despite the horrifying personal cost), someone who will try to reach him but also won't let him escape and become the next generation’s Orochimaru, who won't let him cause untold suffering to untold numbers of people just because a teacher loved him too much to stop him when he had the chance.

(And then even Kakashi chooses not to deliver a killing blow when he has the opportunity -)

(I know that in fandom people are more likely to be all, “oh, Naruto Good, everybody else Bad,” but I don’t think the narrative frames Sakura or Kakashi as “worse” than Naruto in any way. The story goes out of its way to make it clear how desperately they don’t want to hurt Sasuke and how much they care about him. And [this is just my interpretation, so obviously I won’t claim it as fact], I personally think that Sasuke - Sasuke, who, looking back, can see how lost he was then and how tortured he would have been if he’d gone through with many of his plans - would be grateful to Sakura and Kakashi for making an attempt to stop him when he couldn’t stop himself.)

2) On the other side of this, the fact that Sakura wasn’t able to deliver the killing blow means a lot. Sasuke was incapacitated under that bridge; he was completely at her mercy - but she stopped with the kunai an inch from his back. She couldn’t kill him, even though she knew that he was completely willing to kill her (because he'd attempted to Chidori-assassinate her from behind just a few minutes ago). That’s huge! Sasuke is too out of his head right now to process this or understand it, but later, it's going to matter. She stayed her hand. She spared his life. She loved him too much to hurt him, even when he’d given her every reason to take him down. She hesitated, and he almost killed her for it, but her inability to strike him ultimately gave him yet another chance to come home, another chance to get better, another chance to have a life outside of his pain. Despite everything, some part of her still hadn’t really given up on him, and that knowledge will matter later, when he’s finally able to acknowledge it.

The point of all this is to say that I really have no complaints about Sakura and Sasuke’s dynamic in their S10 confrontation. This season is the point where Sakura fully grows past her “girl with a crush” stage and into her “shinobi must make very harsh decisions” adulthood, but it never means that she doesn’t care about the person she’s trying to take down. Her ultimate inability to deliver the killing blow remains a dangling lifeline for her relationship with Sasuke, an open door that Sasuke is able to walk through at the end of the story (literally, in fact, when Sakura opens that portal for him and saves him from Kaguya’s desert prison, and figuratively, too, when Sasuke apologizes to her).

3. she only wants to save you

The last stage in their relationship is what Sakura settles into during the war arc. She started off Part 1 being just a girl with a crush, then tried to harden her heart and put her feelings for Sasuke aside in service of the greater good, but she was unable to actually follow through and kill him, and because of that, what she’s come to accept by the war arc is actually two things: that 1) Sasuke truly is willing to let her die if it furthers his goals, and 2) she wants to save him anyway.

She has no intention of pursuing Sasuke romantically. She knows full well that Sasuke isn’t interested in her. She even knows that Sasuke isn’t really on their side (there’s a great scene where Sai questions Sakura about Sasuke’s return, and she reassures him that everything is fine, and Sai sadly thinks to himself “even I can tell your smile is fake”). She’s well-aware that Sasuke didn’t try to help her when Madara stabbed her. She’s well-aware that he left her to die in the lava pit. She’s also well-aware that none of this is enough to make her stop loving him. He doesn’t have to care about her - she still cares about him. She still wants to help him. She still wants to save him.

This is not hidden, hard-to-parse character development. It’s explicitly articulated on the page:

Sakura’s not trying or wanting to make you hers! She only wants to save you.

I’m not sure if people look at this last confrontation and unquestioningly take Sasuke at his word (as if we haven’t just read 71 volumes/watched 700 episodes showing us how how painfully distorted his thinking is), or if they stop reading/watching before the end of the scene, or if they don’t understand that Sasuke saying something doesn’t make that statement an accurate representation of reality. The entire point of this scene is to show us how deeply mistaken Sasuke is about Sakura (and, by extension, the rest of Team 7). He’s locked into a false pattern of thinking. His single-minded focus on revenge and destruction has blinded him to the unconditional love his friends feel for him; he’s become so accustomed to using others and being used that he can’t understand or accept that someone would care about him without needing a reason, without needing him to love them back, without needing to receive something from him in exchange.

Sakura’s not trying or wanting to make you hers! She only wants to save you.

Sasuke matters to Sakura as more than a love interest. He always has. She does love him romantically, yes, but she doesn’t only love him romantically, and her desire to help him is not and has never been contingent on him returning her feelings, romantically or otherwise. Sasuke isn’t able to acknowledge that in this scene, but that doesn’t mean we’re supposed to just sit back and agree with his warped perspective. Kakashi is the one who’s explicitly positioned as the voice of the narrative here. We, as the audience, are supposed to recognize that Kakashi is the one telling us the truth.

[tangential thing 1: You don’t have to love Sakura's last plea to Sasuke here. It’s not my favorite, either - the best part, other than Kakashi’s speech at the end, is the moment after Kakashi collapses when Sakura’s expression changes from pained uncertainty to pure rage, when she grits her teeth together - when I first saw that, I almost leapt out of my seat like “Oh my god. She’s finally going to let him have it. It’s finally happening - ” I wanted that so badly, and I still think it would have been a more effective writing choice for Sakura’s last words to lean more into her anger at the suffering Sasuke is causing all of them (himself included!) and less into yet another of Kishimoto’s “let me have Sakura articulate what a shame it is that she can’t do as much as Naruto despite the fact that I literally just went through a major reveal sequence in the war to show that she’s caught up to the boys; I can’t make up my mind about whether I want her to progress or not” - it’s extremely frustrating (and it's something he does at the very end of the S10 Team 7 reunion, too, which is the ONLY moment of S10 that falls flat for me). But at the same time, even if there are ways this sequence could be more satisfying, it doesn’t change the fact that her plea to him is not remotely motivated by a desire to be with him romantically and not anything to condemn her for.]

[tangential thing 2: I do like how she remembers that moment when Sasuke says “Thank you.” That panel precedes her saying “If there’s even a tiny corner of your heart that thinks about me…” (which I’m sure is one of the things that people like to criticize about this scene, aka “oh she’s sooooo self-centered” etc), but that particular line of dialogue is preceded by that particular flashback panel for a reason: Sakura knows that Sasuke DOES think about her. He thinks about all of them. Sakura remembers that “thank you,” and it reminds her that despite everything Sasuke has done and said since, despite all evidence to the contrary, she knows in her bones that his expression of gratitude back then was genuine. He cared about her once. He cared about all of them. She’s trying to reach the part of him that still does, if it exists.]

[tangential thing 3: The fact that Kakashi says “she suffers from loving you,” and it triggers Sasuke to remember his own family - thinking about how much he suffered (and still suffers) from loving them - “Perhaps…those are the ties to a failed past” - the idea that it’s not worth it to have bonds if it means you suffer this much…that it’s too difficult, it’s too painful, and if Sakura and the rest of Team 7 were smarter they would just give it up (all Sasuke knows how to do now is sever potential bonds before they can hurt him; so why aren’t Sakura and the rest of his teammates doing that, why can’t they let it go, why are they making this so hard - ) << yeah, he clearly doesn't care about her/them at all.]

4. the shadow of my family

This has all been a really long way to answer the original question, but the short response to “What do you think about the relationship between Sasuke and Sakura?” is “I really care about it,” just like I really care about the relationship between Sasuke and Naruto, just like I really care about the relationship between Sasuke and Kakashi. And I don’t think the story ever asks me to choose between them.

I’m not sure whether it’s the impact of Boruto-era “canon” that gets in the way of other people approaching things this way (I don’t consider sequel material when I evaluate the original story), or if it’s Kishimoto’s frequent disinterest in/disrespect towards female characters, which yes, does sometimes make it harder, or if it's a shipping thing (bane of my existence), or some combination of factors, but for me, taking one member of Team 7 out of the equation hobbles the rest of the story. I can’t read/watch Naruto while hating one of the protagonists and loving the other three. It doesn’t work like that for me. The story wasn’t written that way, and there’s nothing in the text that would cause me to receive it that way.

That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with disliking one of the main foursome (or any character, for that matter) - obviously we're all going to have different preferences, and everyone is free to enjoy or reject whatever parts of a story they want, or to like or dislike whatever characters they want. I know that some people have more fun disregarding canon and doing their own thing, which is fine. My own personal zone of enjoyment comes from receiving the story as closely to how I think it was intended to be read as I can, and personally, when I look at this particular story, what I see is that all the members of Team 7 clearly demonstrate their love for Sasuke in ways that he himself later recognizes and acknowledges. All of them are driven by their desire to save him and their unwillingness to hurt him. All of them make repeated choices to chase after him when he runs away, to trust him when he hasn't exactly earned it, to give him another chance when he doesn't appear to deserve it. ALL of them, not just Naruto, do these things multiple times throughout the story, and Sasuke owes his life (and thus his eventual recovery) to ALL of them, many times over. Kakashi disobeys Hokage-elect Danzō and breaks the law to negotiate for Sasuke's life with a foreign head of state. Sakura and Kakashi both have opportunities to kill Sasuke in the Land of Iron, and they choose to spare him instead. Kakashi stops Sasuke from killing his only friends at two different points in the story, which would have been a mistake Sasuke couldn't have recovered from. Sasuke would have died in Kaguya's desert dimension if Sakura hadn't saved him (Sakura, who knew that Sasuke wasn't even truly on her side yet, who knew he'd abandoned her for dead multiple times already that day). Kaguya's bone bullet would have killed Sasuke too, if Kakashi, with his intention to die in Sasuke's place, hadn't leapt in front of it (Kakashi, who also knew that Sasuke wasn't fully on their side yet, who also knew that Sasuke had abandoned him for dead earlier that day). Sasuke and Naruto would have BOTH died in the Final Valley if Sakura and a severely injured Kakashi hadn't chased after them to heal their injuries.

Remove any one member of Team 7, and Sasuke never makes it home. Without the combined efforts of all three of his teammates, he doesn't survive. That’s the way it should be, thematically, for a story whose first and most foundational premise was the importance of teamwork, and since Sakura was just as essential to that framework as everyone else, I’m just as invested in her relationship with Sasuke as I am in his relationship with everyone else. You can’t remove one leg from a four-legged stool without damaging the integrity of the entire structure, and for me, discounting any single member of Team 7 irreparably damages the integrity of the entire story.

TL;DR: I love all of the Team 7 relationships, including Sakura and Sasuke's, because despite what some segments of fandom seem to believe, the text of the story never gives me any reason not to.

#naruto #meta #replies #anyway that's that! hopefully that is a helpful answer #thank you for the question! i honestly don't think i would have ever gotten around to writing about this if i hadn't been directly asked #i love talking about the stories i enjoy (obviously; we all do; that's why we're here)#but i'm usually ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ about responding to takes that blatantly misread the narrative to justify hating a particular character or ship #mostly because a) it's whatever. as long as people mind their own business and leave me to enjoy myself they can do what they want #and b) some opinions are so divorced from the actual text that they're not worth discussing #like. what's the point of responding to random internet posts saying that sakura was selfishly pursuing sasuke as a lover the entire time #when that is textually and provably not the case?#if you're that committed to experiencing things in direct contradiction to what the narrative is asking of us then just go ahead #is it mildly annoying to me? sure. but so are lots of things and it's better to just let stuff go #like - i initially planned to take this piece of meta all the way up through sakura and sasuke's last scene together #the one where he tells her 'maybe next time' and finally reclaims and redefines itachi's forehead tap (INCREDIBLE. THIS SCENE.)#but ultimately i changed my mind because everything i wrote for that last section was coming out too harsh #i generally prefer to talk about fandom stuff in a chill/friendly approachable way #but i kept thinking about the most obscenely & disrespectfully inaccurate read of that scene i'd ever seen #and i couldn't figure out how to talk about it in a non-scathing way #that scene and the one where naruto gives sasuke's headband back are the ONLY well-written things about the finale of naruto #they are SO perfectly constructed and i can't respond to people slandering either one without feeling an urge to kill #so i just deleted it. partially because again - this is fandom; it's not that serious; people can do what they want #but also because i know i get extra frustrated about people picking over the text and plucking out isolated bits and pieces #to contort into blatantly misinterpreted mutant shapes that 'confirm' whatever pre-existing judgments or ships they had #instead of experiencing the story as a cohesive whole & keeping in mind the greater context of what it's always been trying to communicate #people on this website say 'we all interpret things differently :)' as if it means no one can ever be wrong about what a text is saying #newsflash: not all interpretations of a text are valid. things can't in fact mean whatever you want them to mean.#the ***story*** persists and exists even if the author is dead to you #if you choose to ignore that then that's fine; it's just fandom; who cares. but i'm not going to pretend you're 'analyzing' anything.#(ok now i'm really done. you can see why i deleted this section XD)

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