#it was the first time they saw something so cruel and grotesque

[blackenedsnow]

art the clown x a super suicidal reader?

riddles in red

WARNING: Graphic descriptions of self-harm, suicidal ideation, depictions of violence, gore, dark themes, unhealthy relationships, toxic affection.

PAIRING: Art the Clown x Suicidal! Reader

NOTE: Thanks for the request! I’m absolutely loving the creative freedom with this on! Stay safe, and remember this is purely fiction; if you're struggling, reach out for help. Enjoy!

SUMMARY: You're trapped in an endless cycle of self-harm and suicidal ideation, you find yourself inexplicably entangled with Art the Clown, whose existence brings a strange sense of comfort.

Your body is a canvas of fading bruises, healing wounds, and fresh cuts. Scars etched in your skin, carved by your own hands, tell the stories you can't say aloud. The pain brings clarity, a moment of reprieve from the chaos inside your mind – a moment where the world silences itself, and the only thing you hear is the rush of blood in your ears, the only thing you feel is the sting beneath the blade.

But lately, there's been another presence. Not the darkness in your head, but something – someone – that terrifies you more than your own destructive thoughts.

Art.

You don’t know when you first saw him. It was somewhere between one breakdown and another, between one failed attempt at escape from this world and the cruel joke that is still being here. He appeared, looming like a nightmarish figure from the deepest recesses of your subconscious. But he didn’t kill you. That was the weird part.

No, he just... watched. Smiled that grotesque, too-wide smile that stretches across his painted face, tilting his head in a way that says everything his silence doesn't. The first time you expected him to pull out one of his twisted tricks – a honk of a horn before plunging something sharp into your chest, ripping you apart for his own sadistic pleasure. But instead, he reached out with a gloved hand, fingers brushing against the bloodied cuts on your wrists, and you froze.

Art’s fascination wasn’t with violence in this moment. It was with you.

His cold, dark eyes, pits of inky nothingness, tracked every motion of the blade. You don’t know what disturbed you more: the fact that you let him stay or the fact that you weren’t scared of him. Not in the same way you should be. There was no fear of death, not anymore. There was only this strange, eerie comfort in his presence – in knowing that someone, even someone like him, saw you.

You once asked yourself: What’s worse than dying?

Now you know.

It’s living when you don’t want to. It’s dragging your feet through each day, heavy with the weight of a mind that’s been your worst enemy for as long as you can remember. It’s the numbness, the cold spreading through your bones like frost creeping across glass. And it's having someone – no, something – that embodies the very concept of death standing beside you, silent as a shadow, watching as you destroy yourself piece by piece.

But Art... God, he’s a riddle. A silent enigma wrapped in his black-and-white attire, his clownish garb juxtaposed against the violence he's capable of. You don’t know why he hasn’t killed you yet. He’s killed so many others, but not you.

Maybe it’s because he sees in you the kind of death that can’t be brought about by knives or guns or chainsaws. Maybe he sees someone already broken, already decaying from the inside out. Or maybe it’s because in some twisted, sick way, he loves you.

Love. What a joke. It’s never been something you understood. But when Art looks at you with those dead, hollow eyes, there’s something there. Not love in the way a human would feel it. No. This is something darker, more grotesque. It’s obsession, possession, fixation – a need to keep you close, to watch as you unravel further.

Art’s affection comes in small gestures. He’ll tilt his head as you press the blade against your skin, and he’s smiling behind that thick layer of face paint. Once, he handed you a knife, a gift of sorts, as if to say, “Here. This one’s sharper.”

You took it.

He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t need to. His movements, his actions, speak volumes. The way his eyes linger on the red ribbons of blood trailing down your arm, the way he crouches beside you, close enough that you can feel the cold radiating off him, but he never touches. Not unless you let him. Not unless you want him to.

And you do. Sometimes, you let his gloved hands trace over the scars you’ve made, let his fingers curl around your wrist, a gentle but firm hold that tells you he’s in control – that he could break you if he wanted to.

But he never does.

He watches, a patient, twisted guardian of your own destruction. Sometimes, you imagine what it would feel like if he did decide to end it – to snap your neck with those disturbingly strong hands, to cut you open, spilling your insides onto the floor in a horrific display of artistry. But he never does.

Instead, he’s there, in the background of your life, a constant, silent presence. Watching. Always watching. And you don’t know why, but that’s enough. It’s enough that someone, even someone as monstrous as Art, cares enough to stay.

You don’t feel like a person anymore. You’re more a collection of bad habits, of scars and open wounds, of thoughts too heavy for any one person to carry. You don’t have friends. You don’t have family. You have Art. And maybe that’s enough.

The night he showed you his love was the night you came closest to dying. You were shaking, the blade poised above your wrist, fresh blood already pooling beneath you. Art was there, sitting on the floor beside you, mimicking your posture in that eerie, almost playful way of his.

You could feel his eyes on you, feel his anticipation. This was it. You were finally going to do it. You were finally going to end it.

But then, in a flash of movement faster than you could comprehend, he was on you. His hands wrapped around yours, taking the blade from your fingers with a gentleness you didn’t think he was capable of. His eyes bore into yours, his expression unreadable, and for a moment, you thought he was going to kill you himself.

But he didn’t.

Instead, he pressed his forehead to yours, a strange, tender gesture. You could feel his cold breath against your skin, and for the first time in a long time, you didn’t feel alone.

Art the Clown, this inhuman, grotesque creature, had stopped you from killing yourself.

You don’t know why. You don’t know if you’ll ever know. But in that moment, you realized something.

You’re his.

He’s not keeping you alive because he wants to kill you himself. No. He’s keeping you alive because, in some twisted way, he needs you. Maybe he sees you as a project, something to mold and shape into his own image. Or maybe, just maybe, he cares.

It’s sick. It’s twisted. But in this cold, cruel world, You’ll take what you can get.

[aikrus]

Dabi x pyromaniac reader??? (Such a bad combo ik but it sounds interesting

The Brightest Flames Burn The Fastest

don't overthink this- yes this is smut my bad did i go overboard with the fire references? Maybe- actually i certainly did but like c'mon can you blame me? (i did in fact use a single word 38 times, any guesses?)

The city was restless tonight, lights flickering in the distance like fireflies caught in the wind. You perched on a rooftop, the cool breeze doing little to quell the warmth simmering just beneath your skin. You’d been chasing that feeling for as long as you could remember—the warmth, the burn, the heat that set everything alight. It wasn’t just want, though. No, this was something deeper, a quiet need, an unspoken itch that was insistent and cruel.

You could feel the quiet hum of a fire somewhere in the city, just out of sight, the smoke curling lazily into the sky. It didn’t take long for you to find its source, though, not with the way it tugged at your senses.

And then you saw him.

He was leaning against the ledge of a nearby building, arms crossed, half-hidden in shadow. His eyes, though, they were on you—cool and piercing in a way that felt like he could see right through to the parts of you that you didn’t share with anyone else. The flames at his feet flickered, casting a soft blue glow that danced in rhythm with his calm, controlled breathing.

He didn’t speak, not at first. He just watched, like he was waiting for you to make the first move, to show your hand. But you weren’t the type to flinch under pressure. So you kept your stance, meeting his gaze with the same intensity he gave.

“You’re bold, hanging around after a show like that,” he said finally, his voice low and crackling, carrying a casual confidence.

You smirked, not bothering to play coy. “I could say the same. But then again, you don’t exactly blend in with a crowd.”

Dabi. You recognized him now—his face, his flames, the grotesque staples keeping his skin from melting straight off. He’d been making waves for a while now, but that wasn’t why you were interested. It was something else, something that made the air between you heavy. You weren’t sure if it was the fire or the tension, but you liked it. It felt unspeakable.

“Not here for the small talk,” he said, his gaze still sharp, searching. “What’s your angle?”

You shrugged, your fingers brushing the edge of the rooftop as if you could still feel the heat of the fire below. “No angle. Just here for the light show.”

He raised an eyebrow, clearly unimpressed with the vague answer. But he didn’t press, and that intrigued you. Most people would’ve pushed for more, for answers, but Dabi just stood there, like he already knew what you were about and didn’t care to ask.

“Looks like you’ve been at this a while,” he said, his tone casual, but his words cutting through the air between you like a blade.

It wasn’t a question. He already knew.

You leaned forward, the edge of your coat brushing against the stone as you smirked. “Something like that. You’ve got the control, though. That’s rare.”

“Control,” he echoed, almost amused by the word. “You call it controlled?”

There was something unspoken in his voice, something darker. You watched as the blue flames at his feet flared for a brief moment, like a heartbeat, before settling back down. The heat between you felt like it was building, even though no one had moved. For a brief moment you felt your heart stutter at the thought of him scorching you to ash, it was as fleeting as it was intoxicating.

He turned his gaze back to you, a challenge in his eyes now. “You’re drawn to the fire, but you don’t understand it. Not like I do. That makes you nothing more than stupid.”

There was no malice in his words, but they struck a chord. He wasn’t wrong. The flames had always been there, calling to you, but you’d never thought to tame them. You hadn't the need to. You liked the unpredictability, the danger. But Dabi... he was different. He made it look effortless.

And maybe that’s why you didn’t back down. Instead, you stepped closer, matching his intensity with your own.

“I don’t need control, direction, whatever you feel like calling it,” you said softly, your voice steady. “I just need the feeling.”

For a moment, neither of you spoke. The air between you was thick with the unspoken understanding, a connection forged not by words but by something more primal, something that flickered in the space between chaos and order.

Dabi’s lips curled into a faint smile—dark, almost sinister, but there was something else there too. Approval, maybe. Recognition.

“Careful,” he murmured, his voice just loud enough for you to hear. “Get too close to the heat, and you might just burn.”

You didn’t flinch. You welcomed the pain.

His smile lingered, shadowed in the dim light cast by the distant city, but you saw it—a flicker of something more than mockery. Amusement, perhaps? Or curiosity. You weren’t sure, and maybe that was part of the allure. The way Dabi seemed to walk the line between calm and chaos, like he was always one spark away from losing control.

But you weren’t afraid of him. Not in the way most people probably were. The heat that radiated from him, the danger in his voice—it wasn’t a threat. It was a challenge.

“I’ve never minded getting a little burned,” you said, your voice low, daring. “It’s the only way to know the limits.”

Dabi’s eyes flickered with something darker, and for a moment, his flames flared at his fingertips before dying back down. He stepped closer, closing the distance between you two, the heat from his body mixing with the night air. He was taller than you expected, and the scent of ash clung to him, sharp and intoxicating.

"Limits, huh?" he murmured, his voice a rasp of embers. “That’s the difference between you and me.”

He leaned in, his face just inches from yours, eyes boring into you with a quiet intensity. You could feel the heat rolling off him in waves now, almost suffocating, but it didn’t scare you. It thrilled you.

“I don’t care about limits,” he continued, his voice a dark, dangerous whisper. “I don’t need them.”

The weight of his words pressed against you, but you held your ground, refusing to step back. The air between you sizzled with unspoken tension, and you could feel your pulse quickening, the flames deep inside you stirring to life, begging to be set free.

“Maybe that’s why you’re always running from them,” you said, meeting his gaze. “Because you can’t stand the idea of something holding you back.”

For a second, you thought you might have crossed a line. His eyes narrowed, the blue fire around him flaring for a heartbeat longer than before. But instead of lashing out, Dabi’s lips curled into another smile, darker and sharper this time.

“Maybe you’re right,” he said, his voice rough, but almost amused. “Or maybe I’m just waiting for someone who can handle the burn.”

You tilted your head, not breaking the connection between you. “And here you are, looking for answers in the smoke.”

Dabi’s smile widened just enough for you to catch the glint of something wicked in his eyes, and then, without another word, he turned away, stepping back into the shadow.

“You talk big,” he called over his shoulder, his voice carrying across the rooftop like smoke in the wind. “Let’s see if you can back it up.”

And just like that, he was gone, his figure dissolving into the night like a wisp of flame. But the heat of his presence lingered, stoking the fire that had always lived beneath your skin, now burning hotter than ever before.

.

The last three days had been hell.

No matter where you went, the fire inside you refused to settle. It ached, it throbbed, and it gnawed at you from the inside out. What had once been a steady burn, something you could manage, had turned into an all-consuming need. You couldn’t stop thinking about him—Dabi, the man who had walked into your life like a flame that wouldn’t be doused.

You’d tried to ignore it, to brush off the feeling that had clung to your skin after he left. But it wasn’t that easy. You had always been drawn to the heat, but this was something else. Something raw. Being near him had ignited something within you, something more than the fire you were used to. Now, it felt like you were going through withdrawals.

And the worst part? The city was silent. No distant flames, no familiar warmth to latch onto. Just the cold, cruel nights with nothing but the phantom heat of his presence to keep you company. You hated it. You hated how much you craved it.

Tonight was no different. You sat on the edge of your bed, eyes fixated on the dark city outside your window. The hum of distant cars and the occasional shout from the street below did nothing to distract you from the emptiness gnawing at your insides. You could still feel the ghost of his heat, that flickering intensity that had wrapped around you like a second skin.

You sadly lit and relit your lighter, wincing each time you put it out but craving the feeling of bringing it back over and over again.

But then—there it was. A flicker. Faint, almost imperceptible at first, but you knew that flame. It tugged at you, just like before, like a spark waiting to catch and roar to life.

Your heart raced as you shot up from your seat, already reaching for your jacket. You didn’t need to think twice. You had to find him. Whatever this feeling was, whatever this pull between the two of you, you weren’t going to ignore it anymore.

The streets blurred as you moved through them, driven by an instinct that you couldn’t quite place. You didn’t know where he was, not exactly, but you could feel him—like a beacon of heat on the horizon, calling you in. The air around you grew warmer the closer you got, the telltale sign that you were on the right path. The sensation was maddening, building inside you like a slow burn that you couldn’t contain.

And then, you saw it. A faint glow in the distance, tucked away in the alleyways where no one else would think to look. It was subtle, almost hidden, but there was no mistaking it—the familiar blue flames dancing in the dark, casting eerie shadows against the walls.

Your pulse quickened as you approached, the heat intensifying with every step. You didn’t hesitate this time. The fire inside you roared to life, a rush of adrenaline surging through your veins as you finally reached the edge of the alleyway.

He was there.

Leaning against the wall, his hands shoved casually into his pockets, Dabi didn’t even look up as you approached. But you could feel it—the flicker of his awareness, the way his flame pulsed in recognition of your presence.

You stopped just a few feet away, the air between you crackling with the unspoken tension that had haunted you for days.

“You’re late,” he said, his voice low, almost mocking. His eyes lifted to meet yours, that same piercing gaze cutting through the dark.

“I wasn’t planning on coming,” you shot back, though the lie was obvious even to you.

Dabi’s lips twitched, amusement flickering in his eyes. “Could’ve fooled me.”

You opened your mouth to retort, but the words caught in your throat. The heat between you had built to a fever pitch now, and you could feel it—more intense than before, more demanding. It wasn’t just the fire. It was him. The way he stood there, completely at ease, as if he knew exactly what he did to you.

It was unbearable.

Before you could stop yourself, you closed the distance between you, your body moving on its own. Your hand reached out, your fingertips brushing the edge of his coat, and the heat that radiated from him was immediate, almost overwhelming. You didn’t care. You needed it. Needed him.

Dabi’s eyes flickered with something darker now, and before you knew it, his hand was on your wrist, pulling you closer, his grip firm but not harsh. The heat of his skin seared into you, sending a shiver down your spine.

“You sure you can handle this?” he murmured, his breath ghosting across your cheek as he leaned in, his voice thick with that same dangerous edge that had hooked you from the start.

You didn’t answer. You didn’t need to. The need in your eyes said everything. And Dabi must have seen it too, because in the next moment, his lips crashed against yours, rough and demanding.

The fire inside you roared to life, engulfing you in a wave of heat so intense that it nearly knocked the breath from your lungs. His hands were everywhere, hot and insistent, as if he couldn’t get enough of you either. You could feel the flames licking at your skin, not literally, but in the way his touch sent sparks shooting through your veins.

Your back hit the wall before you even realized you were moving, and Dabi pressed closer, his body a furnace of heat against yours. The intensity of it was overwhelming, but you didn’t care. You needed more. You needed all of it.

His lips trailed down your neck, scorching every inch of skin he touched, and you let out a soft gasp, your hands tangling in his jacket, pulling him closer, urging him on. You could feel his smirk against your skin, feel the way his hands tightened on your hips, holding you in place.

“You’re burning up,” he rasped, his voice low and rough, his breath hot against your ear. “Bet you like that, don’t you?”

You didn’t answer—not with words, at least. Instead, you pulled him back to you, your lips crashing together in a kiss that was all heat and hunger, the flames between you building to a fever pitch. It was reckless, chaotic, everything you had ever craved.

And Dabi? He was more than happy to oblige.

Dabi’s body pressed harder against yours, the heat between you both unbearable and irresistible. His lips, searing and hungry, moved against yours like they were starving for the connection. Every touch, every kiss was fire and fury, and it made you tremble in ways you never thought possible. You could feel his flames curling just beneath the surface of his skin, as if they were barely being held back, waiting for the moment to consume everything in their path.

You weren’t much better. Your own need burned hot and raw, a desperate ache that made you push against him, demanding more, needing more. His hands gripped your waist, holding you firmly in place, his touch both possessive and teasing, like he knew exactly what you wanted but wasn’t ready to give it all just yet. The sensation of his fingers digging into your skin sent shockwaves of heat through your body, igniting you from the inside out.

“Is this what you came for?” Dabi’s voice was low and rough, like gravel being dragged across the flames, his breath hot against your lips as he pulled back just enough to speak. His eyes were dark, hooded with desire, but there was something else too—a flicker of control, the way his gaze burned through you, seeing everything. “You wanted the burn?”

You didn’t answer with words. Your hands slid up his chest, fingers grazing the scarred, stapled skin, and you felt him tense beneath your touch. You pulled him closer, lips brushing his jaw as you whispered, “Maybe I wanted to see how hot it can really get.”

His smirk returned, wicked and sharp. “Careful what you wish for.”

And then his lips were on yours again, more insistent, more demanding, and you felt yourself slipping, surrendering to the heat. He tasted like smoke and danger, and you couldn’t get enough. His tongue slid past your lips, exploring, claiming, and you welcomed it with a low moan, your fingers tightening in the fabric of his jacket.

He didn’t hesitate, his hands wandering lower, gripping the curve of your hips before sliding down to your thighs, lifting you effortlessly against the wall. Your legs wrapped around him instinctively, pulling him closer, anchoring yourself to the heat of his body. The friction between you both was almost unbearable, the heat building to a point where it felt like you might combust if you didn’t get more of him, all of him.

Dabi’s lips left yours, trailing down your neck, sharp teeth grazing your skin before his mouth settled on the sensitive spot where your neck met your shoulder. He bit down, not enough to hurt, but enough to leave a mark, and the sensation sent a shockwave of pleasure through your body, your head falling back against the wall with a gasp.

“You like that,” he muttered against your skin, his breath hot and teasing. “I can feel it.”

You could only nod, your fingers tangling in his hair, tugging him closer as your body ached for more of him, more of his touch, more of the fire he so expertly wielded.

He didn’t waste any more time. His hands slid up, pushing aside the fabric of your shirt, his fingers grazing the heated skin underneath. You felt the cool night air mix with the warmth of his touch, sending shivers down your spine as he pulled your shirt up over your head in one swift movement, exposing your bare skin to the night.

For a moment, he just looked at you, his eyes dark and dangerous, his lips curling into that same wicked smirk you’d come to crave. The next he started a fire on his pointer and let if hover directly under your throat. “You’re beautiful when you burn,” he murmured, his voice low and rough as his hand roamed your body, exploring, teasing, igniting every nerve.

You were about to respond, to say something equally sharp and teasing, but then his mouth was on you again, his lips trailing down your chest, leaving a burning path in their wake. You could feel the heat building, rising between the two of you, and you didn’t care if it consumed you. All that mattered was the fire, the way it surged inside you, wild and untamed.

Dabi’s hands slid lower, fingers brushing the waistband of your pants, and your breath hitched in anticipation. You could feel the want between you both building to a breaking point, the heat unbearable, the need undeniable. His lips hovered near your ear, his voice a rough whisper. “You sure you’re ready for this? Once we start, there’s no going back- not for me.”

Your answer was immediate, instinctual. You pulled him closer, your lips brushing his as you whispered, “I don’t want to go back.”

His smirk widened, and before you knew it, his hand slipped beneath the fabric, his touch sending a shockwave of pleasure through your body that left you breathless. You clung to him, your legs tightening around his waist as he moved against you, his body pressing closer, the heat between you both overwhelming.

And then, in one swift movement, he had you pinned fully against the wall, his body pressed tightly against yours, and everything else melted away—nothing but the fire, the heat, the overwhelming sensation of being consumed by him, by the flames you both carried within.

It was chaos, it was wild, it was exactly what you’d been chasing all your life.

Your breaths mingled, ragged and heavy, as the tension grew unbearable. His hands explored your body with a confidence that made you shiver, each touch sending a fresh wave of heat coursing through you, fanning the flames that burned deeper than ever before. You were torn between pushing up where his fingers had begun to circle your clit, and pushing down where something you wanted much, much more laid just out of reach.

You pressed your hips against his, desperate for more of him, more of that consuming heat that seemed to promise everything and nothing all at once. His lips found yours again, and this time there was no hesitation or exploration—only the raw, intense need that had been building between you since the moment you met. His tongue teased yours, the kiss deep and intoxicating, leaving you dizzy with desire.

His hand slipped lower, pushing past the small resistance with an ease that made your breath hitch. He gripped you firmly, his fingers hot against your skin as he moved with a precision that made you arch against him, your body responding without thought, only instinct. His other hand gripped your waist, holding you in place as he pressed against you, the heat of his body nearly unbearable but everything you craved.

You moaned into his mouth, the sound swallowed by his lips as the pleasure intensified. His fingers moved with expert skill, drawing soft gasps from you, and you felt the tension building deep in your core. It was almost too much, the heat, the sensation, the way he seemed to know exactly how to push you to the edge.

Dabi’s breath was hot against your neck as he whispered, “I told you to be careful, didn’t I?”

You could barely respond, the words slipping through the haze of pleasure. You clung to him, your nails digging into his shoulders, desperate to keep the connection, to feel the fire raging between you both. You didn’t care if you burned; you needed this, needed him.

With a low growl, Dabi shifted, his body pressing even closer as he positioned himself between your legs with his one free hand. The anticipation was electric, every nerve in your body alight with need. He was relentless, the heat of his body scorching yours as he finally gave in to the inevitable, his movements rough but deliberate, as if he wanted to make sure you felt every inch of him.

And you did.

The sensation of him filling you inch by inch startlingly fast sent shockwaves through your body, a fire igniting deep inside that burned hotter than anything you’d ever known. You gasped, your head falling back against the wall as he moved, each thrust sending you spiraling further into the inferno that raged between you as your head cracked against the alley wall.

Dabi gripped your hips tightly, his pace unrelenting as he thrust into you, his breathing ragged and rough. He watched you through half-lidded eyes, a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips as he saw the effect he had on you. He reveled in your gasps, in the way your body responded to him, as if you were made for this—made for him.

And in that moment, you were.

Every thrust, every flicker of heat, every searing touch sent you closer and closer to the edge. Your mind was a haze of pleasure and heat, and the only thing that mattered was him—his body against yours, his fire consuming you completely. You were losing yourself in him, and you didn’t care.

As the intensity built, you could feel yourself teetering on the edge, the tension coiling tighter and tighter inside you, ready to snap. Dabi’s hand slid up your body, his fingers wrapping around your throat in a way that made your breath hitch. His touch was firm but careful, his grip sending a jolt of pleasure straight to your core. His other hand removed from its relentless teasing of your clit into your mouth, pressing three against your tongue and slightly pumping against your throat.

“You like this, don’t you?” His voice was a low growl, his lips brushing your ear as he spoke. “You love being my bitch.”

You nodded, unable to form words, too caught up in the heat, the pleasure, the feeling of him taking you apart piece by piece.

“Good,” he muttered, his grip tightening slightly. “Then burn for me.”

His pace quickened, and that was all it took. The tension that had been building inside you finally snapped, the pleasure crashing over you in waves so intense you thought you might drown in it. Your body convulsed, shaking as you came undone beneath him, your nails digging into his skin as you clung to him, riding the high of the fire that raged between you both.

Dabi didn’t stop. He kept moving, his own breath ragged as he chased his release, the heat of his body almost too much to bear. You felt him tense, his grip on your hips tightening as he finally gave in, his body shuddering against yours as he found his own release, the flames between you reaching their peak.

For a moment, everything was still, the only sound the ragged breathing of the two of you as you came down from the high. The fire that had raged between you both slowly began to cool, leaving only the lingering heat of your bodies pressed together.

Dabi leaned his forehead against yours, his breath warm against your lips as he whispered, “Told you you’d burn.”

He'd turned and left you in a daze, and that's when you realized your clothes were burning off of you.

[creepy-friday]

Hi!!! I saw your fem! Proxy post and I was wondering if you could write a NSFW scenario/oneshot with a fem! Proxy with Hoodie? It just really got me thinking and the way you write the characters really intrigues me!

If not it's completely ok!!! I don't know if your requests are open or if you write NSFW but if you don't then feel free to ignore this!

The only specific thing I ask is if Y/N was a bit in the sweeter and innocent side when it comes to her personality, since i think the contrast between her human and naive natures contrasts with Hoodie's perveted one is really interesting, that's the only thing really.

I love your writing and hcs and remember that you don't have to write this if you don't want to!!

💗💗💗

Hii!! Thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoyed it! 💞 💞💞

NSFW|Hoodie x Female Proxy|

Warnings: heavy NSFW,hair pulling,orgasm denial,violence,blood and abuse mentions

Two years.It took you two years of working under a faceless creature to finally give in the loneliness almost every creep of the mansion drowned into

It was noticed by Brian who waited patiently for you to say the word that would bring the nights he spent jerking himself off to you to reality

On the occasions you were free to wander around, Brian followed you a couple of times. At first it was just his job,to make sure you aren't plotting to escape and to report to Slenderman if you would be on the run

To be honest he wouldn't have rat you out even if you thought you could escape the forest,but he would've blackmail you into various "services" to keep quiet. He isn't the most innocent after years of having blood on his hands

Missions with you along with Masky and Hoodie were going two ways. It was either Maksy smashing someone's brain across the room while you're distracted or having you knock out someone while the white masked man bitches about it.

It was funny to him,really,altough the hood's expression captures sadness he's finding himself smirking to how much you try to leave a scene with the least amount of blood possible

It was a dirty thought,but he was getting hard of the amount of fear or disgust your face portrayed whenever his teammate did something grotesque

He noticed how you reacted to the cruel things he did as well

Sometimes he wonderes if you would have the same expression if he would put a pistol to your head while pounding into you,or if the sweet girl he thinks you are would enjoy it

Of course he never tried to make a move on you or to harass you like Masky did.He was simply waiting for an opportunity to fuck you,one like today

There were feelings he wasn't aware of,but he never gave them much thought because a relationship between the two of you would be candalous

The dynamic among the proxies would be destroyed,but he wouldn't mind to be honest,the word "shame" is out of his vocabulary after all the time spent here

Today was one of the days you had a breakdown and needed to be out for a while,deep in the forest to the usual spot

"You keep on coming here." he approached you with slow steps,leaning on a tree while pulling his hood upwards.There was clear tension between the two of you from the mission last night

"Oh,yeah.. " you simply responded while rubbing your hands together.

"It was a nice thing." he mentioned from last night,when you soothed Toby who was on the verge of exploding into another violent outburst to Masky's constant bullying towards him.

You gave him a nod while playing with the crushed leaves on the ground

"I know how it was at first,in these woods." Brian stated while taking a few more steps towards you."You don't have to hide there.Confess to me." he demanded."Why you do it?"

You looked at him with a puzzled expression,deep bags under your eyes from the lack of sleep due to the stress from all the worked days

"I don't know." and you told him the truth,but to be honest,at this point you were exhausted.You kept on thinking about your life..before you ended up here.

The loneliness combined with the way of how hot his body felt right next to you made you make the first move to finally give Brian the start he longed for.

You looked up to him and he leaned in.You kissed him and he followed by with a deeper passionate approach while his hands traveled from your waist to your ass and finally to your pants

As you tried to get some air as well as some distance you gently pushed him by the chest. "We shouldn't do this."

"Why not?"

"I...I don't.." it felt guilty to be out with your teammate like this.It felt like a betrayal of some sort for some reason.

"You don't what?" he smirked while closing the distance yet again "you're a virgin? That's alright,I won't bite." Brian whispered while giving wet kisses to the crook of your neck "or maybe you aren't into this kind of stuff?"

His right hand traveled to your clothed sex after giving your ass a rough squeeze.He continued to rub your cunt while his left hand went up your shirt,pulling it upwards with your bra

The way your legs opened up,giving room for his hand to toy with your covered heat and the way his tongue circled your nipple made you moan in response

After giving your puffy nipples a final squeeze he grabbed you by the back of your neck and throwed you face down on the log he was previously sitting on making you yelp in surprise

Hoodie moved his hand from your neck to your hair,grabbing a fistful of it while undoing his pants and pushing your legs apart for more room

"You're not saying anything,huh?Use your voice for a bit',I might do it more often" he whispered as he lowered his body onto you

"I..I don't know what to-" you were interrupted by the cold wind biting at your skin as he pulled your pants to your ankles in a rush

"That's okay.I'll fuck the words out of you." he whispered as he plunged two fingers into your wet hole

He kept on hurrying the pace as you were driven closer and closer to the edge then suddenly went slower

"Please don't stop" you begged for him,your mind long gone into a hazy cloud as he gently lifted your head by the hair

He entered in without much effort as you arched your back followed by his grunts

He continued to slowly trace circles on your clit,patiently waiting for you to ask for more

A few squirms and your body was rocking against his hand,the nonverbal response made the intention clear and he followed suit

The sound of flesh on flesh combined with the muffled moans were enough to make your face red,further hurting your cheek in the rough surface of the log he previously sat on

"Are you disgusted with yourself?" he smirked while continuing to pound into you "of being with someone like me?" getting closer to your face he jerked your head upwards and licked your cheek "maybe you're getting off of that"

Making the pace slower again he hissed "respond."

"N-No!I'm not!"

"Atta girl"

The whole situation driven you drunk with lust as you tightened around him

After a minute of heavy breathing you both regained yourselves from the high.As Brian caressed your hair a wet pop was heard before as he stood up straight to adjust his clothes back on. "You alright?"

"Y-yeah.." you breathed out while hurrying to pull your pants back on,still shaken from the whole experience.

"Want some help with that?" you immediately responded with a quiet "no"  while ignoring any sort of eye contact with him.

"Aight'" Brian smiled to himself as he sat down on the same log,still watching you take deep breaths in and out while leaning on the tree next to him.

The faint sound of a click was heard as he lightened up a cigarette. "Take a break." Brian whispered with a different tone now,the teasing and mischievous one being long gone at this point. "You'll need it for tomorrow."

You finally looked in his direction, eyes fixated on yours as a soft smile appeared on his face

"Maybe you'll get lonely again.I'll be there"

[aihoshiino]

chapter 137 thoughts!

so sorry in advance for how long this chapter review is but anyone who has spoken to me for more than 5 seconds on the topic of oshi no ko probably saw this coming the instant they read the chapter

Picking up immediately where we left off, this chapter feels sort of like a pause to inhale and reiterate Themes and Ideas to really drill them into the readers' head. Technically, none of this is new information (especially as pertains to Ai) so I could see it being repetitive for people who are keyed into Ai as a character but like… I am STILL seeing people in discussions of the manga just flat out not understanding Ai even when the text lays it out so I kind of I can't blame Aka for just clobbering us around the skull with it at this point: There was no horrible dark secret or ZOMG SECRETLY EVIL AI reveal waiting in the wings. It was always just that Ai was a normal girl doing her utmost to live and find normal happiness in a deeply abnormally cruel and lonely life.

With that in mind, I can't help but wonder if the film crew's reactions to this Ruby adlib aren't, to some degree, a reflection of that willful ignorance in the text for the purpose of refuting it — similar to the way Tsukuyomi was used to shut down the "Reincarnator Ai" theories popping up in the wake of new fandom blood back in chapter 118.

Like, these are all people who knew what they were signing up for, who are aware that this is a movie about depicting the "real" Hoshino Ai and yet their reaction is alarm and even dismay - the same instinctive rejection of Ai's vulnerability we see mirrored in Nino and even Aqua to an extent. Even while filming a movie that's all about her pain, they still value and instinctively prioritize the clean and perfect image of the invincible idol, Ai.

By contrast, Gotanda won back a lot of my goodwill this chapter with the monologue that took up most of its first pages. As I've alluded to in some previous chapter reviews, I was having a lot of mixed feelings about Gotanda's role in the movie and 15YL as a whole, but this chapter has reframed things in a way I am tentatively on board with. In this new light, 15YL is about crafting a narrative of Ai's life that may not be literally the events that occurred - it may even take huge liberties with them - but is all in service of conveying a much more important series of emotional truths about the cruelty she was subjected to.

This is mirrored by the visuals that accompany Gotanda's words, a series of disconnected images that do not themselves portray a coherent series of events but paint an emotional narrative of the loneliness, abuse and abandonment that created Hoshino Ai. This honestly might be one of my all-time favourite sequences in OnK so far just on the strength of its imagery alone. Those final two pages especially are just breathtaking: the grotesquely detailed and toothy maw of a B-Komachi fan sandwiched between two pure, sanitized images of Ai, the sea of huge, grasping hands reaching out of the void, on the verge of swallowing her.

I especially want to highlight that final panel of Ai's eerie, perfect smile. I genuinely can't overstate what phenomenal fucking expression work this is from Mengo and once again, I think this might have jumped into my top 5 favourite panels in the series already. It's so frightening — there's nothing technically wrong with it, but it looks wrong, it feels wrong. Even in the confines of a still image, I still somehow got the impression of it being a mask, unnaturally frozen and fixed in place. It honestly jumpscared me a little bit when I first saw it. My friend Silvie (@relares) also pointed out that the panel is framed in such a way that Ai appears to be trapped — backed into the corner of a closed box, pressed up against a wall to cover her vitals like a caged animal. It's really genuinely unsettling.

On that note; scooting back a bit, something I was really gratified to see as a girlie who constantly reaches for this idea in writing for Ai elsewhere: referring to Ai as an animal brings into text something that had, prior to this, only really been a happy accident of associative imagery, where her role as B-Komachi's bunny brought to mind a timid, easily frightened and physically weak little domesticated animal. This chapter makes it very clear this is not accidental but an extremely intentional choice to further emphasize both her vulnerability and dehumanisation. Being a helpless prey animal, rolling over and showing her belly, is less scary than being human

The Japanese text of the chapter the text takes this dehumanisation a step further: Rather than the wasei-eigo term アイドル (aidoru), when calling her an idol, Gotanda uses the word 偶像 (guzou) - an idol by its original definition. It goes beyond just reducing her to an animal - it's objectification in the very literal sense. Ai is an idol, a ceremonial object of worship, an inanimate vessel for the dirty desires of the people around her. That's the nature of the "idolhood" that was inflicted on Ai and it was killing her long before Ryosuke ever picked up a knife

This is especially interesting to see in the wake of Ichibanboshi no Spica, which essentially depicts the moment that Ai starts down this road, committing herself to being an idol who will love and support everyone, even people who hate and scorn her. This is framed by the novel as being something of a breakthrough for her and being liberating for it but I came out of it feeling deeply unsettled in a way I don't think the novel wanted me to be. I couldn't quite articulate why at the time but I think this chapter has given me the language to do so: Spica depicts the moment that Ai goes from アイドル to 偶像 without seeming to realise that's what it's doing and thus does so in a way that is not just uncritical but wholly celebratory.

In a lot of ways, this makes sense - Spica, broadly speaking, is about the "oshi" part of Oshi no Ko: the emotional fulfillment of not just receiving support but in the act of giving support yourself, in cheering someone on and seeing them succeed. Spica depicts these sorts of relationships in a straightforwardly and uncritically positive light, even in cases of parasocial relationships between fans and celebrities but this chapter, by contrast, paints a much more honestly ugly picture, of oppressive expectations, fear and dehumanisation inflicted by the supporters on their "oshi'.

At least in terms of OnK's narrative as a whole, I think the truth is somewhere in the middle: the bad certainty outweighed the good in the end, but it does not erase the ways that Ai was able to find genuine joy and fulfillment in what she did as an idol. But as far as this chapter goes, this is as unflinchingly honest about idol and stan culture as OnK has been, honestly, since the LoveNow arc and maybe even the prologue. It decries it as ugly, visualizing it as grasping hands, drooling teeth and a quivering, terrified prey animal on the verge of being consumed.

This is why (if you'll forgive me for briefly jumping ahead) the RBKN talk at the end ultimately fell so flat for me, among other reasons: it felt extremely out of place to the point of being a little tone-deaf to go from a whole half a chapter so brutally tearing into celeb culture to Ruby brightly talking about her own celebrity ambitions. I don't need Ruby's arc to end with her giving up on being an idol or anything, but it nevertheless feels completely insane to go from the first have of this chapter to the second with absolutely no in-text acknowledgement of how incongruous these two perspectives are.

Given that this is paired with her declaring that she isn't going to be like Ai, I can only take this to mean that Ruby is declaring her intent to never cross the line of アイドル to 偶像 like Ai did but I think that ultimately just kind of misses the point. The only way I can make any sense of it is if the narrative itself is drawing a distinction between アイドル and 偶像 and trying to pretend that the former is something that can be purely good and wholesome.

This frames Ai's situation as being somehow unique to her and while it's true that Ai was a person pushed to extremes by many contributing factors, none of the pressures placed on her by idol culture were unique or unusual. Hell, I've even said before that the premise of Oshi no Ko is more or less the result of the friction of idol culture's obsession with purity and the fantasy it promises of an eternally virginial child-wife and the reality of Hoshino Ai as a dirty, messy human with adult desires and sexual autonomy. When you get down to it, what happened to Ai is really the logical end point of celebrity culture as a whole: dehumanisation, commodification and reduction of people to ceremonial objects of worship. Why else would we call them "idols"?

oh my god. i'm not even halfway through the chapter. i. sorry i';m like this. anyway.

This chapter also does a lot to reframe what 15YL even is as a movie, both through Gotanda's monologue and his take on Ruby's performance as Ai — rather than pure authenticity, it is a blend of Ruby's compassion for and understanding of her mother and her anger and disgust at the people who exploited her, an indictment of the public and all the people who were complicit in her suffering. The end note of the chapter even points out that aiming for "the real thing" is no longer the point of the movie if it ever was and this frees it, to an extent, of the hypocrisy of purporting itself to be a movie about "the real Ai" while dramatising and rewriting aspects of her life and identity to better suit its narrative

As good as this recontextualization of 15YL is, I do think its portrayal in this chapter feels a bit inconsistent with what has been leading up to it. Prior to this, there had been a lot of focus on contrasting the movie's supposed dedication to the authenticity of the real Ai with the number of changes and dramatizations it made of her life and character. This new framing of it is certainly not bad and honestly preferable to what came before, but it does still kind of feel like an overt overcorrection, as if someone finally pointed out to Akasaka what I've been saying this whole time about how fucking ghoulish this movie feels.

anyway. oh my god. moving on at last: wow! mid filming script rewrites!! historically always a great sign for the health of a production! … obviously, actors giving a character a different energy in their performance that contrasts the script and requires adjustment is not UNHEARD of and has resulted in solid movies but that Gotanda makes this decision so lightly and without consulting like… any of his cowriters does speak to Akasaka's comparative level of ignorance as to how movie making works Vs the much more real and in depth experience in TV and music production other parts of the manga reflect.

I do really like that the discussion here ends on a note of asking Ichigo for his thoughts because like… yeah, actually, of course Ichigo should have opinions about this! Even putting aside the That Is Her Dad of it all, Ichigo is the only person involved here who knew Ai before she became and idol and can properly speak to her early experiences. That said, Ichigo being involved here brings something else back up: BRO…. WHERE THE HELL IS MIYAKO!!!!

it is getting so beyond absurd at this point that she is not involved in things. I know people are probably so sick of hearing me harp on about this but her absence is so, so baffling and there really is no good excuse for it. Even if they just said some shit like "Miyako is busting her ass managing our other talents while we make the movie" I'd take that. But that it goes SO uncommented on when she was so involved in getting all this together and just had a whole chapter dedicated to her talking about how strongly she feels about the twins as their mother… it's so baffling!

This goes QUADRUPLE for the total absence of Aqua this chapter, despite him being right there and getting a dedicated reaction panel in 136. The lack of focus on him lately was something I was willing to buy into as an intentional choice that would make sense when viewing the arc in hindsight but at this point, his lack of engagement with the things going on around him is just getting ridiculous, regardless of its intentionality. This is the guy who spent over a month emotionally self harming to the point where images of Ai's face would give him a panic attack and now that he's at, arguably, the lowest emotional point he's been at in his life, we have no reaction to basically seeing her walking and talking in the flesh again?

Hell, given that this is Ruby of all people and this is coming so close on the heels of the GRSR reveal, I'd expect an even stronger reaction from Aqua than anyone else but… nope! Nothing. We've barely had any meaningful AQRB interactions and it all adds up to making that past life reveal and the tease of Ruby's feelings in the wake of it feel totally flaccid as a plot development because nothing is coming of it. I know we will inevitably have to circle back around to it given that the HKAI scenes are on the horizon but there were surely ways to weave this more organically into the ongoing conflict that didn't result in me feeling like I'm sat at a kantenzushi place and waiting for something to come back around on the belt. Gah!!

Speaking of conflict, I want to at last move onto the RBKN talk that makes up the back half of this chapter. As I alluded to earlier, this talk fell incredibly flat for me, both as a character beat for these two characters and as a conclusion to this chapter in particular. I already talked about why Ruby's resolution here didn't click with me but more broadly, I simply don't like this as the resolution to the RBKN conflict which is seems to be presented as.

To touch on the things I do like about it… thematically, I enjoy this as a continuation of the ongoing idea of the New B-Komachi learning from and correcting the mistakes of the group that came before them. In practice, though… have they actually done that? This talk doesn't meaningfully address or even really acknowledge all the ways New B-Komachi is repeating old mistakes or the way the group quite literally does exist purely for Ruby's sake and that her taking that for granted left both Kana and Mem feeling used, as if they were just accessories to decorate Ruby's idol career that her CEO mommy bought for her. Instead, they just touch on the very surface level issue of their staged argument and then move on as if things are resolved. There's obviously still room in the future for us to circle back to it with Kana's graduation concert set but as things stand now, it's an unsatisfying note to end this thread on.

Ruby is robbed of the opportunity to do any real introspection and we as readers don't even see the moment she realizes what Kana is doing and why, or get any real insight into her feelings on this fight outside of vouyeristically goggling at her in the immediate aftermath of her pain. There was some really great potential here for Ruby's behaviour during her Black Hoshigan arc to finally catch up to her and make her face the consequences of her poor treatment of Kana and Memcho. She could've had a chance to confront her own inner ugliness and her potential for buying into the same bullshit perpetuated by the rest of the industry that hurt her mom so badly. Instead, we get an endpoint in lieu of any real work necessary to get there without any indication that she has learned anything meaningful from this arc or that her relationship with Kana has changed at all.

Kana, too, is done exceptionally dirty here. We get a lot of great Kana introspection in this arc, digging into both her feelings of insecurity towards Ruby specifically and the sense of empathy she developed through playing Nino, who she saw as being in a similar position to her. Kana's jealousy towards Ruby and her sense of being Ruby's extra, an accessory, is something that's been brewing in the background honestly since the First Concert Arc and I initially found it incredibly cathartic to see her finally expressing that to Ruby and getting those feelings off her chest. I was looking forward to seeing how she would work through this and resolve it, confronting her inner demons and coming to have a healthier relationship with Ruby as a result. But again… it just doesn't happen. Kana gets no closure over the hurt she expressed in this arc — instead, she's once again used as a stepping stone to prop Ruby up and make her shine.

And like… what are we supposed to take away from this? That Kana — and Nino by extension — were correct? That Ruby is just The Most Special by default (never mind her CEO mommy explicitly favouring her for work and opportunities) and that the only way Kana can deal with it is by quitting as an idol altogether? I'm going to be totally frank: as both a Kana enjoyer and a Ruby enjoyer, I think this sucks shit as a resolution for both of them! It's not only unfair to Kana but it's also just so boring as a way of characterizing Ruby. I think there's a space in OnK for really interesting discussions about like, natural talent VS hard work and how much of someone's success is one or the other but this conflict absolutely is not that.

In general, this chapter just felt… uneven, I guess. The first half of it, as you can probably gather by my completely unhinged ramblings, was one of my favourites we'd gotten out of OnK in a long time but with the back half falling so flat for me, it just ends up feeling kind of jarring and a bit less than the sum of its parts. It's definitely not a BAD chapter by any stretch and it very clearly gave me a lot to chew on and think about. It's just kind of a let down that a chapter and a shared character arc I was otherwise enjoying so much ended on such an incredibly nothing note.

[myfavouritelunatic]

The Blacksmith

I’m still simply overwhelmed and beyond grateful to all of you in regards to this story of mine! I love you guys! ❤️

I’m so excited for you all to read this next chapter, I’m so happy with how it came together! Enjoy!

Pairing: Halbrand/Sauron x Reader

Word Count: 3.1k (my longest chapter yet! Yay!)

Warnings: None

Links to Chapter One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen, and Sixteen!

Chapter Seventeen

You had never felt so conflicted in all your life, and it was a torment most cruel. Was your love for Sauron worth all of this anguish? You had longed for a husband, a partner, a lover to be by your side forever. The only beings you had shared affections or affairs with had always departed too soon. They had always been the wrong fit for you, especially in the eyes of your father.

  Your father...

You were still reeling from the sight Sauron had shown you. The death of the man who gave you life. Now both your parents were gone from this world. Suddenly your mind crossed to your brothers. You did not get the chance to bid farewell to them, in fact, you hadn't seen any of them since before that fateful night in the smithy. In your head you pictured their reaction to your father's demise. Similar to you, they had loathed him, but they would not wish him to suffer a fate so grotesque and vile. You saw their faces in your mind, grief stricken, confused, catatonic even. Wondering where you were, thinking maybe you were dead also. Then you imagined the funeral. Who would have attended? Your father’s companions had strayed in his final years, and you feared only his barkeep friend would be present, and his sons, your brothers. Lying in state, his cold body embalmed, he would remain for eternity now entombed next to your mother.

Your mother...

What power did her spirit possess? To be able to enter your dreams from the next life and fight against your love for your soul? Sauron could be deceiving you of course, letting you feel some hope, playing games with your mind. Though something in the way he spoke of her suggested this was not the case. His statement had felt genuine, almost impressed with your mother's ability to interfere with his plans. It was then that for the first time in your existence you did not fear death. For when it came, it would be a warm and familiar embrace with the scent of lairelossë filling the air that surrounded your soul.

With these thoughts of your parents, you had ceased your quickened pace away from the dark lord that now haunted you. However, you did not stop moving, the sound of twigs and leaves breaking underneath your feet as you went on. Night time fell quicker than anticipated, the passing of time catching up with you, and your exhaustion demanded you rest. Laying upon the earth, you stared up at the stars between the trees overhead. Thinking back to the last time you had done this, on the ship, right before your first confrontation with your love.

Your love...

You knew he was your destiny, there was no way around it. Your feelings for him were too strong, so much so that the thought of not being with him... you couldn't help but feel how excruciatingly you would suffer without him. Halbrand, Sauron, whichever name he chose did not change these facts. If your confliction had assured you of one thing it was this: that you loved him in spite of the darkness in your heart, not because of it. The image of his smile entered your consciousness, and you recognised the familiar sensation of butterflies stirring within. It was such a beautiful, warm, and loving smile. The longer your mind lingered on the image however, it began to distort. Shifting from the compassionate smirk, to the seductive one, to the malevolent grin of Sauron himself.

  You tried to open your eyes to rid yourself of it, but he wouldn't let you. Breathing heavily, you attempted in vain with your fingers to pry your eyelids apart. The evil smile then morphed back into the kind one you had first seen on Númenor, and he spoke to you. "My love... please come back to me... I cannot face this without you... you need me... we must face our darkness together... or we would give into it." Was this a vision or a memory? You could not say, and that aching in your skull returned once again, now amplified by your endless confusion.

Sauron released you then, having sensed your pain it seems, for the next thing you heard on the wind, was his voice sounding your name. He had found you. "I don't know why I ran. There is no escaping you." you admitted, turning to face him. "We are bound. Our love is unbreakable." He paused, and then let out a sigh before continuing, his eyes fixed sharply on you. "I love you. Do you understand what that means?" Sauron's tone was vehement, but also laced with a kind of disbelief at his own words. However, you only looked at him with contempt. He continued, "I have existed before there was sound to be heard by any ears. And in my ages of living upon this world... I have never, ever, been so affected by another being. My very nature called into question. I was on a path seeking redemption, and the only reason I am still considering that atonement, is because of you." He spoke your name calmly, his tone apologetic. "I did not want to deceive you. You are the last being on this earth that I would hurt willingly. And I am sorry for that more than I can say, I only pray you can forgive me."

Sauron's words were having quite the influence, and not of the manipulative kind. You considered the meaning to which he referred, the substantial weight of his love for you, and just how profound it truly was. This made you feel lighter than air, but also timely reminded you that you in fact have power over him. A being such as Sauron could have anyone he wanted, no matter the race or the gender. But he had chosen you. A smile would have broken out on your face if you hadn't caught yourself. The enragement you felt had not yet subsided.

  "Tell me more." you finally spoke, your icy tone not betraying your joy to him. "I sense you are struggling more than I. You have shared intentions of seeking redemption, yet you have seeded these nightmares in my mind where we rule with evil over Middle-earth. I'm not certain if you are warring with yourself or... someone else entirely."

Sauron began to wander slowly towards you, shortening the gap between where you both stood. Remaining in place, you were defiant of the fears you had, and felt them fading with each step he took. The confidence you held in your now realised power over him was exhilarating and was keeping you from fleeing once more. You had hoped you would never flee again.

"There was a time, long ago, when I served a master. He changed everything for me. Under him, my power was great. But it came at a cost. For I was never truly free. It wasn't until he was defeated that I felt the emancipation I had so desperately craved. I could breathe again. But with that breath, the guilt of my atrocities poured into me like a great wave. I knew if I wanted to craft my own vision for this world, make it real, I had to heal first. I had to atone. But it seems that... the terrible fiend Morgoth forged me to be... will always be here.

"The darkness in you... I saw it immediately. When you came to me that first night, asking for your fathers tools to be mended. It radiated from your very soul like a beacon. I recognised my own struggle within yourself." You thought about what he was saying, casting your mind back to your life before Halbrand. Before Sauron. Everything changed for you when your mother died. However, you had only ever considered it being the catalyst for your father's decent into barbarousness. Was it the beginning for you as well? Or had it been there all along brimming beneath the surface?

"How did you sense what I could not?" Sauron smiled. "If you would allow me, I can show you." You were pleased he was asking permission to enter your mind this time. "Okay." "Are you ready to see yourself? The way I see you?" "Just do it."

Sauron laughed, and his face was the last thing you saw before your vision faded. The first thing you felt was his hand in yours. Opening your eyes, you recognised immediately where you were. Home. The two of you were invisible spectres, watching the past play out before you. There you were, a child of barely three years, running amuck in your mother's kitchen. Your heart skipped a beat as you saw her standing there, watching you make your mischief. You couldn't help but try to move towards her but Sauron held you back. "I'm sorry, but she is not why we are here."

It was then your father walked in, scooping you up high, resting your tiny self on his shoulders. You smiled at the sound of your childlike giggle, suddenly remembering a time when your father had been your everything. "C'mon, little one, you ready to go?” "Yes, Daddy!" you mumbled innocently.

Watching as he took steps out the door, ducking so your young self would not be injured on the frame, it was then that Sauron entreated you to follow. The dark lord lead you behind you and your father, stalking them for a mile or two until the destination was reached. Down a narrow alley way, there was a large wooden door that appeared to be locked quite excessively. From the distance behind, you heard nine knocks upon it from your fathers hand. The door was then ajar slightly, enough for it to be opened fully to pass through. Once inside, and the door now closed behind, you were in a hallway bathed in amber light from the torches that lined its walls.

Not a word was spoken, not even by your child self, who must have understood something that you do not remember. In fact, none of this was familiar to you at all. But you trusted it was real because you were starting to trust Sauron. Eventually the corridor gave way to a tavern like room, filled with aging wooden tables and chairs. There were a few men scattered across the scene, none looking too pleased. Their expressions changed however when they saw you and your father. Having been placed down on the floor, you ran across to a man similar in age to your father, who wore a cap that skewed slightly to one side, atop greying thin hair that stopped at his jawline. "Waldreg!" you cried out happily as he picked you up and sat you on his knee.

Your father greeted him kindly with a handshake. "I wasn't expecting to see you here, old friend!" "I came for her!" he laughed, giving you a quick tickle, bringing that giggle out again. "Just here for a short stay I'm afraid. Heading back to Middle-earth tomorrow." "Did you find it?" asked your father, eager for the answer. "No. But I have an idea where to look." Your father sighed in frustration. "We shall be dead before it reveals itself to us!" "At least you're Númenórean! You'll be able to keep searching after I'm nothing but bones." "But I'll be in the dirt right behind you... blasted elves. I'm glad they don't come here no more. Flaunting their never ending existences over us. Thinking they're superior." "But Morgoth is superior to them, and that's why he has our allegiance." countered Waldreg. "I know. And if we want to assure the return of his beautiful servant, then we must find what we seek!" exclaimed your father, sounding more determined than you had ever heard. "You'll find it, Daddy. S'okay." reassured your child self, her innocent voice providing a stark contrast. But it was the next words from her mouth, that truly stunned you. "Hail Morgoff!" her inability to properly articulate the name of darkness incarnate caused the men to bellow with laughter. It was then you felt Sauron's eyes upon you, and you turned your head, showing him the disbelief on your face. "Come. There is more to see."

Sauron lead you out of the room, back the way you had come, the howling of the men tinged with malice as it echoed off the stone walls. Suddenly all of the flames in the hallway were extinguished. The light from the now open door ahead was blinding. Moving through it, you found yourself engulfed by the sun, and as your eyes adjusted, a new location was presented to you. Pelargir. Sauron lead you through the streets in silence as you took in your surroundings. Things began to look familiar to you now, as you were much older when last you were here.

When last you were here. It was when your mother died.

And as if on command by your thoughts, she appeared before you, holding the hand of your twelve year old self, whilst her free hand rubbed her heavily pregnant belly. "I've got to tell her something... warn her... somehow." "I told you, she is not why we are here. I know how painful it-" "Do you?" you spat at him, your grief coming back to you, returning just as the day she left was now replaying itself before your eyes. The dark lord seemed pained, remorseful, yet he held firm in his resolve. "You cannot change what has already come to pass, my love." "You better be getting to a point, my love." you mimicked him in frustration. "This is becoming cruel."

  Sauron said nothing further, only pointed with a small turn of his head in the direction of what he needed you to see. Your father rounded the corner then, walking side by side with your two older brothers and another man you now knew to be Waldreg. You couldn't hear the words they were speaking from this distance, so you took steps towards them, Sauron letting you lead this time. "In here." said Waldreg suddenly. "Alright boys, catch up with your mother now." ordered your father, then he called out to his wife, "I'll see you later!" and with a wave of his hand, disappeared into the building Waldreg had motioned to. It was an apothecary, a modest one, with only the basics for treating and curing ailments the locals might incur. Armenelos had many of these, and much bigger in size, that had allowed your mother to become a fairly good healer.

The two men gave a quick nod to the attendant before heading out the back into storage. As soon as the door was shut, Waldreg practically pounced on your father. "Let me see it, let me see it! It's not real if I don't see it!" "Alright, alright, give me a moment here!" retorted your father, as he began to rummage through his sack. "I can't believe I'm holding it." he spoke with reverence, a kind of awe washing over him. Slowly, he raised a bundle wrapped in brown cloth up and out of the bag. Setting it down on a bench next to where they stood, he carefully revealed to Waldreg what was contained within. It was a hilt, severed from its sword, rendering it of no value, though the way their eyes were hypnotised staring at it... it was if they had found the silmarils themselves.

  The hilt was rather peculiar, and you found yourself unable to remove your eyes from it. Its metal was aged, for there were hints of rust, and three long shards twisted around it at the top like grasping claws. On the end of it was what resembled a crown of thorns, which looked eerily familiar. What remained of the sword itself was onyx in colour, and you could make out what looked like a sigil engraved into it. Three jagged lines, looking almost like the top of a trident, and they were all different lengths. The two on the outside curved inward, one more sharply than the other. Then upon the middle line was a point, almost like an animals fang, that was in the dead centre of the mark. A certain feeling began to stir within you the longer you looked at it. It was power.

"We are really looking at something of Morgoth's own forging..." your father uttered, completely overcome. "It's finally ours... we found it!" "I found it." your father corrected. "That's not what matters... what matters now is, we will be ready when the time comes." "Yes, my old friend. We will. I just hope we live to see Sauron's return." Unexpectedly, one of your brothers crashed into the apothecary, hysterical. "Father! Come quick, come quick!" Quickly covering the hilt before your brothers eyes took notice, he responded, "What's the matter, boy?" "It’s mother! Something's wrong!" With that, the three males hurriedly exited the premises, and you stood there like a statue, a living epitaph of your mother's grave. Sauron took your hand again then, only this time he gave it a caring squeeze, stroking your skin with his thumb. Before any tears could fall, Pelargir disappeared into memory, and then events more recent came to the fore. You were with Waldreg again, and Waldreg alone. The two of you watched on as he wandered steadily over fallen stone and wood to reach what almost looked like an alter that was at the foot of a wall covered in overgrowth. It was then you noticed the hilt in his hand.

  Waldreg stood over the alter, and raised up the arm that held the hilt. He let that crown of thorns pierce his flesh, but he did not wince at the pain he surely felt. The blood that left him slid its way up his arm past his wrist, and into the metal itself. The hilt began to spark, and a sword of flame grew out from it, forging not a weapon, but a key that he then thrusted into the alter. A key Waldreg used to unlock devastation. For as he turned it in the stone, a chain reaction was unleashed, and the ground beneath you shook, breaking the dam nearby. You wandered over to the edge of the cliff face, and watched as an unfathomable amount of water cascaded down to the ground below. It rushed on and on until it was out of sight.

"This was Morgoth's plan. My plan." spoke Sauron. "But by the time it was enacted... I had hoped it for it not to be." "What plan do you speak of?" "To create a world of shadow." Your eyes went wide, and you felt a tremendous vibration that rose up from the earth below, threatening to break the stone beneath your feet. Looking out over the valley below, your eyes found the horizon, and sure enough, there it was. Orodruin, the mountain, had erupted. This was how it happened. Your father had played a part in the destruction of the Southlands.

Tagging: @starlady66 @denzit @chimeracuddles @restless-tides @hikarielizabethbloom @anemarie @coraleethroughthelookingglass @mordorgp

[microscotch]

“I don’t really know what to think anymore. Maxxx is a great guy but he’s so possessive that I just had to make a point, you know?”

“He kinda doesn’t really want to get the message, though...”

-“How about a little exxxtra spice 🔥🔥🔥??”

- “AND TRUST ME, I FRICKIN’ CRUSHED IT THIS MORNING, RIGHT IN FRONT OF MAXXX’S EYES! I’D BE SURPRISED IF SHE’S STILL ABLE TO WA-.”

- “Dude, I SO don’t want to hear about your d-game.” 

“I don’t trust either of them. One day Roz acts all morally superior just ‘cause I was close to crashing my UFO into this hoard of degenerates, and now he brags TO ME about stealing another guy’s girl. Or maybe going for April’s implant ass is his way of dealing with me turning down his hatefuck offer? Whatever complex this qualifies as.”

-”WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU DOING??”

-”Keeping my eyes on your fake ass, literally and figuratively.”

-”Excuse me??? First, there’s nothing fake about daily pilates with Misty Waters. Second, not into girls and third, DON’T STALK ME WHILE YOU’RE TAKING A DUMP.”

“Actually, I just wanted to piss her off.”

-“Drop that hairy piece of filth and be with me, April! We look so much hotter together, plus you can be the no name bimbo breaking my heart in all my music videos once my career really takes off!”

-”Oooo when you put it that way...”

“Maxxx really does know how to charm a girl. Who knows, maybe we truly are meant to be together after all. I mean, if he didn’t care about me, he’d just be looking for another girl as we speak.”

-“Damn April, I gotta give it to you, you really are outdoing everyone in this house!”

-”Embarrassingly low bar, let’s all be honest - I mean, Watcher, I just wasn’t sure about what I wanted. :( ”

-”Pfft, not hard when she’s living with both douchebags.”

-”Jealous much, desert queen Isabella?”

-”I just have class and don’t take every available opportunity because I’m cheap. All that talk about me having dated over 25 football players are just cruel lies!”

-”I haven’t heard anyone talk about it on here besides you-”

-“ALL. THAT. TALK.”

- Um, well, speaking of looking cheap, where’s Angie?”

“Look, the last day really SUCKED for me and I’m just trying to distract myself from the fact the guy of my dreams chose some bimbo who immediately cheated on him over me.”

“Angie is coming into the living room and all of the sudden starts tickling me. Just like the girls during my bartending days, you haven’t spoken a word to me before, neither when I pulled out a BuzzFeed article from 2017 featuring SimNation’s top 50 worst pick-up lines, or when I asked her for a mint to get the taste of vomit out of my mouth yesterday. Just now when you’re lonely and desperate - I suddenly exist!”

-”Get your claws away from me you freak!”

-”Did YOU OUT OF EVERYONE just call me a freak??? And who put that horrid music on, sounds like 8th graders during band rehearsal after discovering MySpace.”

-”You mean my mixtape I’m aggressively dancing to??”

-”WHAT? NO MAXXX, NEVER!!!! YOUR MUSIC CANNOT BE DESCRIBED IN WORDS!!”

-”Cabs are here!”

“I’m meeting up with this girl I ran into at the club yesterday. I just knew the moment I saw her she was something special... reminds me, should ask for her name again.”

“So everyone is having a good time, we’re dancing, it’s great. And suddenly, out of nowhere...she kisses me.”

-“Oh baby, I couldn’t be more turned on by you than right now, in your sweat stained maxis tracksuit.”

-”Let’s take this somewhere more private, shall we? ;)”

“Maxxx and I need to figure out where we’re at. If we really are ready for a relationship together.”

-“April, I love you, but honestly I think only I deserve you, so I’m ready for this relationship thing if that means I won’t be seeing you near these out of your league morons ever again. It’s unbearably insulting to my looks and charm seeing what the guys you decided are my actual competition look like.”

-“Your face looks just like the Sector 6 aliens I would sometimes see on vacation at Sector 8, so grotesquely deformed I always used to wonder how their organs were even remotely working... say, what do you do for a living?”

“Maybe it was the amount of bubbles clouding her judgment or something, but as much as I can’t stand the girl, this was honestly sad to watch.”

-”Performing human experimentation. But my wife and I are certainly not opposed to extending our selection of interesting subjects.”

-”I mean, yeah, it doesn’t have to be a two-men show but that’s one weird metaphor.”

-“It’s official, these clownshows are dating now. But they’re gonna break up so fucking fast, trust me.”

-“I hate them so much.”

“Angie is my only friend in this house, so obviously I had to let her know about everything I just saw. So pathetic.”

-“Maxxx, can I maybe talk to you for a sec?”

-”Angie, look, you’re a nice girl and will surely find someone, but Maxxx doesn’t want anything from you.”

-”NOT THE THIRD PERSON THING AGAIN, WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME??”

“It was going great, the girl and I relocated to the hot tub and then... suddenly I see everything flashing white! I just thought “Wow, must be the best woohoo I ever had.” ‘til I realize...”

“I almost died, would you think this chick even moved a muscle? She just sat there grinning, like she was enjoying it. So no idea if we’re dealing with an actual succubus or if she’s just got some crazy fetish.”

“And that’s not even the worst thing that happened.”

-“CRAP!”

-”Crap indeed.”

[awkwardsmileyy]

She is under the salt water, she sees the blurry fire that is on the thin surface, it comes from her beloved boat, did anyone survive? Probably not, her lungs struggle not to release the rest of the oxygen that still keeps her body alive. The fire path is obstructed by something, a piece of wood she thinks at first, but when her eyes, burning from the salt, finally focus she realizes, that wood was what she wished it to be while the dismembered and burned body of one of her companions goes towards the depth with her. their eyes were still open, they were looking at each other, they shared a meal yesterday, a bottle of rum at night hidden from the Captain on their watch shifts, now they are both lost, never to have their names remembered, next to a heart damned at the bottom of the sea.

Her lungs were begging for rest, and for the last time of her adventure she looked up at the sky. The light was no longer seen, the shadows of the fire almost like hallucinations appeared in the distance, The only records that there ever was a great Leviathan ship were the pieces of iron, wood and bodies that now reached the bottom of the endless sea. So this world that was so cruel, that took away so many things from her, will also take away her last view of the sky, the salty pirate thought. But she was never one to put her head down and let people dictate rules to her, so she closed her eyes and thought about a beautiful, starry night with her brothers singing some stupid sea shanty and let all the oxygen in her lungs be released.

The only person who dictates her death is herself.

The pirate wakes up, why does she wake up? Her throat is burning and her legs don't work, the water is so heavy around her, her entire chest spasms. There's no air, there's no air, there's no-

Is this the second? the third? no, definitely the second time she's been back…right?

The fifth time, she doesn't try. She doesn't move, she asks the sea why this torture, and then she begs.

The sea does not answer to her.

But something, something deeper than the sea, something that was there before she was there, before she was born, not something…but someone, answers. A laugh, so thick that makes your spine hurt and your nose bleed, that has the same feeling as being stabbed by a blunt knife with a good layer of rust. That what answers her. With just a few seconds of his laughter in her skull, the pirate's remaining sanity is gone, what did she do so bad? She killed, stole and lied, but does she really deserve the tortures of the sea devil himself as purgatory? she proclaimed to the god that did not have the courage to descend so deep into the sea, so close to Jones's domain.

"no, no, my little child, your body still has use…" the voice spoke calmly in the pirate's mind as if trying to calm her down, but the voice was reflected by all parts of her skull, it was as if Millions of horrified voices spoke at the same time, begging her to escape, for her to help them, and all the pirate managed to do was once again have a beautiful encounter with Lady Death"

"You mortals are so…how can I say this? sensitive to water." the voice says with a humorous tone and every time the voice touched the pirate's mind, she had horrendous and grotesque visions of all the people who had been in this same situation, all those voices, she will became one of them."You are mine now, and as I am a benevolent god, I will give you two years on the surface, you died, you understand that, yes? I am saving you." Something is happening, the pirate's heart is hurting so much, was she headed for darkness once again? No, this is different, she saw the disgusting green light coming out of her chest, with a scream of agony and the salt water entering her lungs again, Jones continues to speak.

"I will beneficially give these two years of life back to this corpse of yours, and after that you will travel under my flag for eternity." The pirate has already been stabbed several times, but none of these pains hurt as much as Jones' strange magic in her chest. "You will hear the call, just be careful, if you fall into the waters again, even before my call, you will be mine." The pain rises through her chest, through her throat and into her face, and the pirate feels the pain, the scorching pain, of something being dug into her cheeks and pulling, pulling, up to her ears. a grotesque, bloody smile carved into her skin by nothing, but thoughts of a monster who considers himself a god. "You are special I feel, I needed to mark you, so that my eyes up there can find you when the time comes." The cuts burned as the salt water entered the wound, every minute a faint horrifying green light flashed from within the wound and with it brought a horrible pain to her chest, a reminder of the curse.

"now, entertain me, let's see how far can you run, my beautiful, beautiful child."

The pirate takes a deep breath.

And then she starts coughing. Sea water pouring from her lips, then the sweet kiss of mercy, air flows into her lungs when she inhales. She takes even deeper breaths, digging her gloved hands into the dry sand? The pirate blinks against the blinding sunlight, her eyes sore from the salt water. She is on a beach, the water of a light wave comes close to her sand-covered boots, and with terror and despair, she gets away from that cursed water as quickly as possible. After this movement she stood still, a pirate afraid of the sea? Is this what she was now? Was she doomed to flee from something she loved so much forever?

She was a coward, to be a pirate you can be anything but a coward, she gets up and starts her new journey walking as far away from the sea as possible. The screams of despair still echoed in her mind, if to avoid becoming one of those voices she has to run, hide and disappear with her name, she will be the first cowardly pirate then.

[hemat0lasluts-a]

ambrose had been watching from the shadows, his presence cloaked in darkness as he witnessed the horrific scene unfold. the moment he saw leah being dragged out, her terrified cries echoing in the night, something snapped inside him. the man who had once been tender and loving now felt only a cold, seething rage.

he moved swiftly, a ghost in the night, slipping through the crowd without a single soul noticing. his heart pounded with a singular purpose: to save leah. as her father shoved her head into the water, the crowd’s cheers became a distant roar in ambrose’s ears. he knew he had to act now, and there would be no mercy.

with a speed that belied his strength, ambrose was upon leah’s father before the man even knew what was happening. he wrenched the man’s arms away from leah, pulling her free from the water and tossing her to safety with a gentleness that contrasted the fury in his heart. she gasped for air, choking and sputtering, but he couldn’t look at her just yet. his eyes were locked on her father.

ambrose’s grip on the man’s throat was unyielding as he dragged him away from the water and into the center of the yard, where the congregation stood frozen in shock. he wanted them all to see, to understand the horror they had been complicit in.

the father struggled, gasping for breath, his eyes wide with panic. but ambrose didn’t loosen his grip. instead, he leaned in close, his voice a low, venomous whisper, “you will never hurt her again.”

with a cruel twist, ambrose slammed the man to the ground, his body crumpling with a sickening thud. but he didn’t stop there. he needed to make sure the man felt every ounce of pain he had inflicted on leah and more. his movements were methodical, deliberate, as he went to work.

the first punch shattered the man’s nose, blood spurting in a gruesome arc. the next broke his jaw, rendering his screams into pitiful gurgles. ambrose didn’t relent, his fists coming down again and again, each blow more brutal than the last. the father’s face became a mangled mess of blood and bone, his body twitching in agony.

ambrose paused only for a moment, letting the man choke on his own blood, before delivering a final, crushing blow to his throat. the gurgling stopped, replaced by a grotesque silence as the man’s eyes rolled back, his life slipping away.

but ambrose wasn’t satisfied. he couldn’t be. not after what this man had tried to do. he wanted the man to suffer, to know the fear and helplessness leah had felt. ambrose’s hands, now slick with blood, reached down, grabbing the man by the hair and lifting his head so he could look into his eyes one last time.

“die knowing you failed,” ambrose hissed, his voice dripping with venom. and with that, he twisted the man’s neck with a sickening snap.

the father’s body fell limp, lifeless, but ambrose still didn’t release him. he let the body drop only after he was sure the man was gone, after he’d taken the time to ensure that leah’s tormentor would never rise again.

the crowd, once so eager to witness a miracle, now stood in horrified silence, their faces pale with shock and fear. ambrose didn’t spare them a glance. they were nothing to him, insignificant. all that mattered was leah.

he turned to her, his gaze softening as he knelt beside her trembling form. his hands, still stained with blood, gently cupped her face, lifting her eyes to meet his. “leah,” he whispered, his voice tender now, a stark contrast to the violence he had just unleashed. “it’s over. you’re safe.”

but even as he spoke the words, he knew that the trauma of what had just happened would haunt her. the man who had claimed to love her, to be her protector, was dead by ambrose’s hand. and while he had done it to save her, he knew there was a darkness in him now, one that could never be fully erased.

ambrose pulled leah into his arms, holding her close as the reality of what had just occurred washed over both of them. “i’m here,” he murmured into her hair, his voice filled with a quiet resolve. “i’ll never let anyone hurt you again.”

closed for my bad bitch @hemat0lasluts .

since ambrose had been gone, her father tightened his grip on her again. no longer did he have to contend with another man in his daughter's life. he brought her back into the fold with the intent to finally perform the act of her eternal salvation, with all of his congregation gathered together to witness the rebirth of their sacrificial lamb.

the chatter in the room has a tone of excitement to it, just under fifty people all buzzing with anticipation for what they thought was going to be a miracle that only they would witness. they had earned it through devout faith, had given the entirety of their lives to make sure that when the end came they would be here - with their leader and their angel. their ticket to a radiant and lavish afterlife.

her head was throbbing, a tight knot of nausea in her stomach as her father tightens his grip on her arm. " get up, come on, " he doesn't elaborate, his voice stern as he pulls her from her bed in the middle of the night. she tried to open her eyes but they were heavy and flickered open slowly in the dim lighting, and the picture of what was happening started to become clearer.

leah had no memory of how her night had ended, no memory past dinner .. where her father had toasted to her return and she'd begrudgingly sipped at the red wine he'd given her until everything faded away. then she was here, pulled to her feet and struggling to step as her father pulls her with an intensity that scared her. " stop ! dad, please, " she croaks, finding her footing and looking around as he led her out into the hall and then down the stairs and through the back door that led out into the property.

she was greeted with cheers, bile rising in her throat as her eyes widen and the realization sinks in. " don't. dad, don't do this, " she grabs onto her fathers shirt, tugs at the fabric and whimpers. " you'll kill me .. i'm not gonna come back, " she wonders if he can even hear her over the raucous applause and whistling and hollering from his so-called congregation.

" my friends ! " her dad hollers and the room goes quiet aside from leah, who had started to cry. " tonight, we witness glory. the culmination of all of our efforts. and here, now, in this moment, we will receive our reward. you will see the proof, " he's emphatic, unhinged, grabbing leah from behind by the elbows and turning her body towards the large bin of water that the crowd standing in the yard had parted to reveal. " no ! " the blonde screams, and in response there's only more cheering from the crowd.

" hush girl, and have faith in your father, " he nearly spat, shifting his grip to push her shoulders back towards the water. " have the faith in me now that you always should have, " his tone lowers then so that only she can hear him. " you're an ungrateful little bitch .. this will change that. " her eyes meet his and she opens her mouth to gasp for air before he shoves her head down under the water.

[meg-moira]

The Witch Who Spoke to the Wind

Sequel to Eindred and the Witch

In which Severin, the golden eyed witch, learns that his greatest enemy and truest love is fated to kill him.

-

-

Dealing in prophecies is a dubious work. Anyone who knows anything will tell you as much.

“Think of all of time as a grand tapestry,” his great-grandmother had said, elbow deep in scalding water. Her hands were tomato red, and Severin watched with wide golden eyes as she kneaded and stretched pale curds in the basin. “You might be so privileged to understand a single weave, but unless you go following all surrounding threads, and the threads around those threads, and so on - which, mind you, no human can do - you’ll never understand the picture.”

Severin, who was ten years old and had never seen a grand tapestry, looked at the cheese in the basin and asked if his great-grandmother could make the analogy about that instead.

“No,” she replied. “Time is a tapestry. Cheese is just cheese.”

And that was that.

By fifteen, Severin who was all arms, legs, and untamable black hair, decided he hated prophecies more than anything in the world. He occupied himself instead with long walks atop the white bluffs well beyond his family’s home. Outside, he could look at birds, and talk to the wind, and not think about the terrible prophecy which followed him like a shadow.

His second eldest sister had revealed it - accidentally, of course. Severin lived in a warm and bustling house with his great-grandmother, grandmother, mother, two aunts, and three sisters. All of whom were generously gifted in the art of foretelling (a messy business, each would say if asked), and every one of them had seen Severin’s same bleak thread.

He would die. Willingly stabbed through the heart by his greatest enemy and truest love.

Willingly. That was the worst part, he thought.

Severin, who had no talent in the way of prophecies, but plenty of talent in the realm of wind and sky, marched along the well-worn trail, static sparking around his fingertips as the brackish sea breeze nipped consolingly at his face and hair.

I will protect you if you ask me to, it blustered, and Severin was comforted.

He didn’t care who this foretold stranger was. When this enemy-lover appeared, Severin would ask the wind to pick them up and take them far, far away. Far enough that they could never harm him. The wind whistled in agreement. And so it was settled.

At seventeen, he was still all arms and legs, though his eldest sister had managed to tame his hair with a respectably sharp pair of shears. The wind, who had delighted in playing with his wild, tangled locks, did not thank her for it. Severin did thank her; in fact, he’d asked her to do it. He was of the opinion that his newly shorn hair made him look older - more sophisticated. And he left his family home with a new cloak draping his shoulders and a knotted wooden walking stick in hand, thinking himself very nearly a man. He was far from it, of course. But there was no telling him that.

He set out on a clear, cool morning to find his own way in the world, and was prepared to thoroughly deal with anyone who so much as dared to act ever so slightly in the manner of enemy or lover.

He discovered, soon enough, that this was not a practical attitude to take when venturing into the world. Severin spent his first months away from home making little in the way of friends and plenty in the way of thoroughly baffled enemies.

When you meet his gaze, you’ll know, the wind chided as it whisked in and out of his hood.

“His?” Severin said aloud, lifting a single dark brow. “Do you know something I don’t?”

The wind whistled noncommittally in answer.

The wind did know something, as it turned out. At twenty, Severin stood on the warm, sun-loved planks of a dock. As gulls cried overhead, he pressed his fingers to his lips. The young sailor had touched his lips to Severin’s in a swift, carefree kiss before departing on the sea. And though the feeling was pleasant enough, Severin knew that his enemy-lover was not on the great ship cleaving a path through the cerulean waves.

“When I meet his gaze, I’ll know,” Severin said, golden eyes sweeping the horizon. The seaward breeze blustered in such agreement that the gulls overhead cried out in alarm.

What will you do? The wind asked, delighting in whipping the gulls into a proper frenzy.

“Get rid of him, of course,” Severin replied.

What if you don’t want to?

Severin thought that was the stupidest question he’d ever heard. “He’s going to stab me through the heart. Why in the world wouldn’t I want to get rid of him?”

People are foolish, the wind answered, shrugging the nearby sails.

“Not me.” Severin leaned on his stick and looked out at the sea. “I won’t let anyone get away with stabbing my heart.”

When he was twenty-two, Severin knelt at the bedside of a withered, wilting woman. She was a stranger, but the town’s herb witch was away, and Severin happened to be passing through. Though his true strength would always remain with the wind and the sky, the youngest of Severin’s two aunts had a special way with plants, and she’d taught him a fair bit about the many healing properties of the region’s hardy, windblown flora.

He boiled water, adding the few herbs he carried to make a rejuvenating tea. He helped the woman drink, his hand supporting her head and fingers tangling in her sweat drenched hair. After, he pressed a cool cloth to her head, and in the half dark room, she murmured, sharing delirious fears that she would accidentally speak cruel dying words and lay a curse upon him.

Kindly stroking her forehead, Severin assured her that he was not afraid of curses. Even uttered by the dying, a true curse was rarer than the superstitious soldier’s and barbarians liked to believe. Besides, she wasn’t going to die. Severin, who’d seen just enough of the world to have a taste of wisdom, was certain he could save her.

She died within the day.

Whether her condition had been beyond help, or Severin lacked the skills to twist the herbs to his bidding, he would never know. The wind rustled reassurances through the sparsely-leaved trees, but Severin was beyond consolation. Clouds gathered on the horizon, and by nightfall, great branches of lightning crackled across the sky.

He spent the next year and a half in the wilds. Beneath the jubilant light of the sun, he collected plants, acquainting himself with the earth. And beneath the soft, watchful light of the moon, he whispered to the wind and dared to wonder at the shape of his enemy-lover’s face. He could never seem to summon the slightest picture in his mind. Though it really didn’t matter, he supposed. Their eyes would meet, and Severin would know. And then he’d use all of the power at his disposal to send his enemy-lover away.

During this time, Severin sometimes saw bands of barbaric warriors crossing the plains. He kept his distance, but he doubted any of them were interested in either recruiting or killing a scrawny young man in a worn woolen cloak. Few he encountered ever suspected he had any great abilities, and Severin certainly didn’t go out of his way to advertise the fact that he could command the wind and sky when he wished. The barbaric companies had their eyes on more obviously lucrative targets, anyway. A handful of city states which spread across the great peninsula were openly at war with the barbaric tribes from the north.

It was when Severin was returning from his self-imposed isolation that he had his first real encounter with war. He held his sturdy walking stick in hand and carried a bursting bag of herbs, poultices, and leather-bound journals over his shoulder. Severin was so surprised by the sudden, brutal clash of metal and the primal cries that erupted nearby that he halted where he stood. His curiosity both outweighed and outlasted his fear, and after a minute or two of tense consideration, he pressed cautiously onward in the direction of the noise.

By the time he arrived, the battle was done.

It had surely been an ugly, bloody affair, if the splayed out bodies of the city soldiers and barbaric warriors were anything to judge it by. Holding a hand over his mouth, Severin gingerly navigated the carnage and valiantly resisted the impulse to be sick right there in the field. He was nearly on the other side of it when movement caught his eye. Squinting, almost afraid to look, he glanced from the corners of his eyes, sure that it was some grotesque remnant of warfare which awaited him.

Instead, it was a man.

Just a man.

The movement Severin had spotted was the rise and fall of his chest.

Only after turning a careful look around the terrible and silent battlefield did Severin approach the fallen man.

The barbarian’s eyes were closed and his pale brows drew together, as if reflecting pain. His face would probably have been handsome in a rough, simple sort of way if it weren’t smeared in dirt and blood. His light hair, braided and pulled away from his face, was bloodied as well, and Severin frowned at the sorry state of him. After a second wary look around, he knelt with a sigh.

The barbarian’s leather vest was cut, and his thick, scarred arms had earned several new slices as well. Severin, who had more than enough herbs and poultices on hand, reluctantly tore his only spare shirt into bandages. Within the hour the stranger was fully bandaged and muttering in fever addled sleep.

“Don’t worry,” Severin murmured, knotting the last makeshift bandage. “I’ve learned enough from the plants and trees to save you from both fever and infection.”

Behind closed lids, the barbarian’s eyes flitted anxiously to and fro and he mumbled something that sounded like no. Nose wrinkling, Severin leaned in. He heard the sleeping barbarian say, his voice low and cracking, “The curses will take me.”

Severin frowned down at him, unimpressed. “No they won’t,” he snapped, and yanked the bandage tighter.

The barbarian silenced then, and Severin stared at him a moment longer, pursing his lips in consternation. It wasn’t that he minded using his supplies to heal a stranger. But a part of him worried that healing a warrior made Severin responsible for whatever slaughter he resumed when he rose.

Severin abhorred warfare. It was such a terrible waste. But he supposed there was no helping what he’d already done. The barbarian was already on his way to recovery, and Severin certainly wasn’t going to murder him in his sleep. He reached out, intending to test the temperature at the man’s temple, but no sooner had Severin’s fingers touched his overheated skin than the world bled around him. In its place: a vision.

Shock echoed through him, because he was not like the women in his family, able to see phantoms in time. He’d always simply played with the air. The vision dancing before his gaze, however, didn’t seem to care.

Like droplets of ink spreading in water, a prism of colors twisted, threading together into nearly tangible shapes. From the chaos, rose a blond child holding a knit sheep. He was ruddy cheeked and pouting up at his mother. Then ink and water swirled and the images collapsed and shifted. Hulking shadows loomed over the child. The mother wailed her grief. The formless ink shivered, morphing from one scene to the next, nearly too quickly to follow, and Severin was swallowed up in it, overrun and overwhelmed by violence, blood, and pain. Beneath his fingers, Severin felt the movement of shifting, slipping thread.

Just as abruptly as it had started, the vision ceased. Severin’s knees ached where they pressed against the dirt and the barbarian’s skin beneath his hand was no longer overheated. How long had he been within the vision’s grasp, he wondered?

As Severin shifted back, the barbarian groaned. Severin watched as the man’s eyelids fluttered - and at once, the air turned heavy, as if the wind had drawn and held an anticipatory breath.

Dread flooded Severin and he rushed to stand. The barbarian had not yet opened his eyes, and Severin knew with a terrible nameless certainty that he must not be here when this man awoke. Severin could still feel those elusive, unknowable threads beneath his fingers, and his hands shook as he rose. Awakened by his urgency, the wind roared, lending him speed as he fled the clearing.

By the time the barbarian cracked open a single, world weary eye, Severin was long gone, heart still safely beating in his chest.

Severin endeavored to forget about the barbarian. He convinced himself that the vision had been the hallucination of an overexerted body, and that the sensation of inexorably moving threads beneath his fingers was nothing more than a flight of fancy. Severin did not think about how the threads had felt - certain and unyielding - beneath his fragile, very mortal hands. If he did, he feared he might ask the wind to whisk him away from the world altogether, and that, surely, was no way to live.

In a deep, secret place, however, Severin suspected the reason he was granted such a vision was because the stranger’s thread was woven perilously close to his own. Because of this, he set upon an easterly road, endeavoring to put a healthy distance between himself and the pale barbarian.

After nearly a month of travel, he arrived in a small village which sat nestled in foothills, tucked beneath the shadows of great mountains which stood like sentinels above. Severin hadn’t intended to stay, but when it was discovered he had some skill with plants and medicine, the villagers eagerly led him to a hut some distance from the village. It was empty, they explained, and had been for some years. A healing woman had occupied it, some years back, before she’d passed on. The villagers had been saving it, hoping the space would be enough to entice a new healer to make their isolated village a home.

Severin had nowhere else to go, and he supposed a distant, mountain village was as good a place as any to avoid a blade to the heart.

Two years passed, and Severin settled into his little hut. He spent his mornings taking long walks around the surrounding lands, collecting herbs and specimens. Returning home, he’d throw open the windows to allow his friend the wind a brief but wild rampage through the hut. With the air freshened, Severin spread plants across his square dining table and sorted them into jars to be sealed, dried, or preserved in vinegar. His neighbors in the village visited frequently, just as often for his company as for his medicines, and Severin delighted in visiting the town on market days and making the streamers dance in the wind for the children. Evenings were spent in his rocking chair, with a book in his lap and his feet pressed near to the low fire in the hearth.

He was happy, and hardly thought of the barbarian he’d found bleeding in the dirt. That is, until fate caught up with him.

One day, when he was foraging for moss on the hillside behind his hut, Severin felt the whisper-soft touch of thread against his palm. He sat upright at once, and turning and craning his neck, he absently rubbed his palms against his robes.

A company marched into the village. From up on Severin’s hill, they appeared a swarm of ants overtaking the miniature thatched roof homes. The slipping, shivering feeling beneath Severin’s palm intensified, and he stood. His heart drummed a frantic beat against his ribs, and Severin felt with a terrible certainty that fate, like a hunting hound on the scent, had sniffed him out at last.

When Severin called out, begging the wind’s help, it rushed to him, howling atop the hill.

I am here. I am here.

Cradled in the gale, he begged the wind to take him and hide him away, so that the tapestry’s relentless threads might cease dragging him toward the one he never wished to meet.

So be it, the wind said. If that is truly what you wish, I will take you and hide you away forever.

In that moment, nearly caught as he was, Severin was willing to do anything to avoid meeting this man who would kill him - until the screams rose from the pastures in the valley beneath his hut. Severin’s heartbeat was in his throat, on his very tongue, as he held up a hand to stay the wind.

“Just a moment,” he murmured, and turned bright, pained eyes toward the village. The terrified screams of his neighbors pierced him as surely as any blade, and with a mournful twist of his fingers, he bade the wind disperse.

By the time he reached in the pastures, the shepherd, the blacksmith, and Helvia’s two sons lay dead. At the sight of his friend’s bodies, grief and rage stirred within Severin, and the wind, always nearby to him, trembled in sympathy. Gaze sweeping the warriors, he marked the five whose weapons were stained red. Severin was not violent by nature, but if he was to die this day, he resolved to remove from the earth at least these five men, who with bloodied blades, uncaringly spoke of feasting upon the village’s few precious sheep.

When the warriors turned and finally noticed Severin, he lifted his chin and prayed his voice did not betray his fear. “These are simple people. They have little in way of money or goods. It wasn’t for nothing that the shepherd, blacksmith, and teenagers died. They need these sheep. And I cannot allow you to take them.”

The men glanced at one another, eyes filling with a cruel sort of mirth. They laughed at him, and Severin steeled himself for what must come next. He was friends with the wind, but to call down the heavens was an entirely more serious matter. And he’d never done it. At least, not like this.

Severin turned his palms up and glared at the heavens, daring them to refuse him now when he needed them most.

For a long, terrible moment, nothing happened.

And then, the skies erupted.

He had never felt pure, visceral power in such a way, and as it whined and crackled, Severin, with splayed fingers, used all of his strength to tear the lightning from its home in the sky. It rained upon the warriors, screaming in wild, untamable fury. Severin watched the men cry out in agony, and he felt horror and satisfaction in equal measure.

When a single figure broke from the group, agile enough to evade the lightning and charge across the field, Severin could only look on in exhausted realization. It was the pale barbarian. The man from the battlefield. The child in the vision.

The barbarian charged like a beast, his thickly braided hair bouncing. His brows were drawn down in focus and his lips poised on the precipice of a snarl. It was with a hopeless sense of finality that Severin met the stranger’s gaze.

He met eyes of icy gray, the color of hazy, snow capped mountains in winter, and Severin knew, he knew with a certainty that was sunken into his bones and twisted in his marrow, that this barbarian was the shadow which had haunted him. And he knew, more than anything, the crude blade in the man’s scarred-knuckle hand was fate’s exclamation point at the end of Severin’s ephemeral existence.

Watching as the barbarian pivoted, drawing back his blade, Severin only wished he understood why the women in his family had persisted in calling this man Severin’s truest love. If this was love, the man had a spectacularly terrible way of showing it.

Time slowed to a crawl, and sunlight flashed, reflecting off the blade. As the jagged edge touched the fabric of Severin’s robe, the wind whispered at his ear. Let me show you a piece of the picture.

The wind around him froze, and so too did the world.

Look up, said the wind, a rustle within his ear.

Severin did.

The complexly woven image was shaped by currents in the air - all but invisible to any whose eyes are untrained to look for them. But Severin had a born understanding of the wind and sky, and when he looked up, he saw bits and pieces of an impossibly complex tapestry.

He saw scarred knuckles gently shaping wood. A small child that sat upon broad shoulders. Rocking chairs placed side by side before a glowing fire. Warm hands enveloping his own. Safety. Home.

It was...everything, and Severin’s heart ached with a strange and complex longing for a future that surely could never be.

It’s not impossible, the wind whispered. But the threads will have to tangle and untangle just perfectly so.

“How?” Severin asked, and wondered if he was a fool to feel so desperate a pull towards this life glimpsed in impressions and half images.

The warrior must weep and repent. And a curse must come to fruition.

“And if these things do not happen?”

Then your soul will fade from the earth.

Severin felt torn in two.

The blade has not yet struck your heart, the wind murmured, kind and conspiratorial. There is time still for me to secret you away. I could pull your thread from the tapestry altogether.

“But there would be no hope for that life,” Severin said with a last wistful glance at the scattered mosaic above.

No, none, the wind agreed.

“Okay,” Severin whispered, “okay.” And it felt terrifyingly like surrender.

The wind stirred, and a breeze like a kiss tousled his dark hair.

The blade struck.

It was an intense pressure and then swift, vibrantly blooming pain. Severin wavered on his feet, and looked up. For the second time, he met the warrior’s gaze. And Severin saw and understood that there was no malice in those wintry eyes. Not even frustration or anger. But, instead, an exhaustion deeper than Severin could conceive.

When Severin toppled backward, it was concerning to realize he could no longer feel the grass beneath his body. The man knelt down, and Severin blinked tiredly up at him.

It seemed as though the man were waiting for something. Severin’s slipping mind struggled to think of what - until he recalled the dying woman and her talk of curses. And hadn’t the barbarian said something about curses when he was fever addled and hurt? What had the wind said? Severin was struggling to remember. As his life trickled away in red rivulets which stained the grass and soil, he thought of the boy in the vision - lost and afraid. And he thought of the man he’d become, kneeling stonily over him.

And Severin knew exactly which words should be his last.

Swallowing, he mustered the strength to whisper, “-my hut…it’s just past…the next hill over. In it, I keep medicines and herbs. For the villagers. And travelers who pass.”

For the barbarian would have to stay if he were ever to show remorse. He couldn’t very well continue going about fighting and murdering his way across the peninsula. Which brought Severin to his final words. It took all of his remaining strength to lift his hand. When he reached out, the barbarian startled, as though he expected more lightning to spring forth from Severin’s fingers. But Severin merely tapped his chest and smiled. “May you live a life of safety and peace.”

It was a fitting curse, he thought, feeling particularly clever. And there, on the field, surrounded by sheep, Severin’s heart stuttered and stopped.

It was an abrupt, slipping sensation, like losing your footing on iced over earth. Raw existence rushed around Severin, and he was battered and blown about, like a banner torn loose in the storm. This continued for a dizzying moment, or perhaps a dizzying eternity - Severin really had no way of knowing which. But it stopped when a familiar presence surged around him, blowing and blustering until the wild chaos of existence was forced to let him be.

The wind could not protect him forever, Severin knew, and so he focused his energies until, like a wind sprite, he swirled about the hillside. Below him, he saw the barbarian, his great head bent. Severin, as incorporeal as a breeze, could not resist blustering over the barbarian’s shoulder and observing himself, limp and pitiful in death. Whipping around, he beheld the barbarian - because surely this sight would bring him at least to the verge of tears.

The barbarian frowned down at Severin’s body and rubbed a scarred hand over the patches of stubble on his chin. And then he rose with a great sigh and set off down the hillside, away from Severin and the village.

Severin, who was nothing more than wind and spirit, watched him and despaired. He could do nothing more than whip and howl through the hills as his murderer left him without a backward glance.

Months passed.

Severin did not follow after the barbarian. What good would it do? In this form, it wasn’t as though Severin could speak to him. And if he was doomed to fade and dissolve from existence, he would much rather do so here in the hills he loved than in some strange land trailing after an even stranger man. The wind kept him company, at least, and Severin spent his days whistling through the black, porous stones at the base of the mountains and blowing bits of dandelions across wild tufts of grass.

One day, long after Severin had begun to feel more spread out and thin than was entirely comfortable, the wind rushed to him, carrying with it the scent of dust and dirt and faraway lands.

The barbarian had returned.

Severin was an icy breeze that whipped around the edges of town, and he watched with cool distrust as the man trudged through the streets. His shoulders were slumped and his blond head was turned down. He looked utterly defeated, and any sympathy Severin might have felt was eclipsed by petty spite. He didn’t hold any of the pettiness against himself, though. He was dead, and therefore felt he’d earned at least a little pettiness.

When the barbarian crossed the field, stopping to stand before the place where Severin had fallen, Severin swirled around him, newly curious. The man didn’t look grief stricken, but his face was difficult to read. There were dark shadows beneath his eyes and lines of exhaustion around his mouth. Mostly, Severin thought he just looked tired.

When the man approached Severin’s home after having ignored the invitation for months, Severin had a second moment of pettiness and whipped the wind up on the other side of the door, sealing it closed as the barbarian tried to open it. Only when the man shoved it with his great, muscled shoulder did Severin retreat, allowing the door to swing open.

It was with a strange sort of melancholy that he watched the barbarian’s silver gaze sweep over the room. The man looked first at the damp, unkempt hearth before slowly making his way across the room. He glanced from Severin’s well-loved walking stick to the bookshelf built into the wall. He fumblingly ran the backs of his fingers along the spines of the books, as if he was unlearned in the ways of a gentle touch.

Severin was still very much put out about the whole being dead business, but as he watched the barbarian’s almost reverent inspection, he unthinkingly twisted the air in the room, drawing out the cold and pulling in a bit of sun warmed breeze.

By the second day, the man was sitting in Severin’s chair. Severin stewed, swatting at floating dust by the window as his killer rocked to and fro in Severin’s favorite seat. Later, the barbarian stood, stretching his strong arms overhead and twisted his back experimentally. Brows lifting in pleasant surprise, he gave the chair an appreciative pat.

By the third day, Severin had no more dust to swat about. The barbarian had rolled up his ragged sleeves and set about scrubbing every inch of Severin’s little hut. When the hulking man worked open the stiff windows, the wind rushed in, delighting in whipping about the space once more.

He’s done a better job of cleaning than you ever did, the wind sang, slipping once more outside.

He was dead and that meant the wind had to be nice, and Severin told it as much. It’s reply was a soft rustling of chimes that hung from the house’s eaves, and the sound was almost like laughter.

Days passed, and the man began reading Severin’s books. This was probably the most surprising development yet, in Severin’s opinion. It wasn’t that he hadn’t thought the large, scarred warrior capable of reading, just - well, he hadn’t thought the large, scarred warrior capable of reading particularly well. But the man seemed to be doing just fine, and sat in Severin’s rocking chair, putting a far greater strain on the sturdy wood than Severin ever had, as he thumbed carefully through the book’s smooth pages.

When little Mykela took ill, Severin knew it well before anyone else. He’d taken a spin through town and as he rode the wintry wind past where she played in the yard, he’d felt the rattle of air in her lungs. But at this point, Severin was little more than a memory on the breeze, and though his worry was agony, he could do absolutely nothing. He spent the rest of the day roaring about the mountain peaks, sending snow flurries spilling down the far side of the cliffs.

Two days later, Severin was idly observing the barbarian, watching the crease between his brows twitch as he slept, when a great pounding broke out against the door. The barbarian rose at once, and Severin watched him cast a brief glance at the walking stick before turning instead to the candle on a nearby shelf. With warm light cupped in his palm, the barbarian approached the door.

When Dormund, Mykela’s father, entered the hut, carrying a limp mound of blankets, Severin felt a spike of icy terror. As the barbarian poked and prodded the fire, Severin carefully stirred the wind to better feed the flames. Severin would have shouted instructions, had he lungs to shout, but the barbarian already had two jars in hand. He held them up, looking a little lost, before he hurried to the bookshelf and selected a thick book. Muttering under his breath, he flipped hurriedly through pages until he found what he was looking for. And then he was kneeling before the pot of water he’d set over the fire, and Severin watched as he scooped careful measurements of Severin’s dried herbs into the roiling water.

Mykela was saved, and as the barbarian sent the girl and her father off with a bag of herbs, it occurred to Severin that he wished to know the barbarian’s name. He wouldn’t learn it until two days later, when Old Cara arrived at the hut, seeking the barbarian’s help for her arthritic knee. After supplying her with the appropriate poultice, the barbarian helped her to the door, and looking up, she patted his shoulder and asked him his name.

Eindred, was his answer.

Eindred.

Severin wished he had lips to test the shape of the name.

Months passed, and was easier now to watch Eindred move about Severin’s hut. In fact, Severin had even begun to enjoy riding the soft breeze from the windows as it wafted around Eindred’s shoulders, curiously observing whatever small thing he happened to, at any given time, be doing with his hands. One day, Severin was surprised to find Eindred’s hands at work, deliberately whittling the curved back of a rocking chair. When the chair was done, Eindred set it carefully, almost reverently beside the first. At the sight, Severin had a bright, nearly overwhelming flash of recognition, and he thought of the image the wind had shown him - of the rocking chairs before a warm, crackling fire.

Severin was fading, he could feel it. To hope was to court a greater disappointment than Severin could rightly comprehend, and yet - he watched Eindred set out with Severin’s walking stick to join the festival, and saw when Mykela took his hand. The barbarian’s stony expression softened, then melted as the girl tugged him after her.

It was the strangest of sensations, because while Severin didn’t strictly have a heart these days, watching the great Eindred meekly follow little Mykela made something in Severin’s incorporeal being ache with unexpected warmth.

Whatsmore, Eindred had been reading Severin’s journals and he would sometimes stop and stare about the hut, as if trying to picture the ghost of Severin’s life there. Once, Eindred draped a thick blanket over the back of one of the rocking chairs and ran his rough hands over it as he frowned contemplatively into the fire.

Summer had come and gone and Severin feared that parts of his soul had already begun to slip into that other-place. And so, with a tender sort of weariness, he drifted on the sunbeams cutting through the clean window glass, and watched with only mild annoyance as Eindred carefully tore a blank page from one of Severin’s journals.

Lips pressing together in focus, Eindred wrote in with small, precise letters, what appeared to be a list.

Confused, Severin drifted closer.

May your every loved one die screaming in pain.

I hope you die with your eyes stabbed out and your heart in your hands.

You will never know happiness.

Your existence will be suffering.

It was a list of curses, Severin realized. Morbid curses, by the looks of it. The last two, however, caught his attention.

May your greatest enemy rise from the grave and never leave you alone.

And,

May you live a life of safety and peace.

And Severin understood.

When Eindred set out from the hut, looking drawn but resolved, Severin began at once to gather his energy. It had been nearly a year since his death, and he feared that there might not be enough of him left to make a return. The second to last curse would help things along, but Severin knew it would be a mistake to rely on it.

And so, as Eindred entered the village, Severin stretched upward and out, calling wind and storm clouds with reckless, hopeful abandon. For his entire life, Severin had lived, certain in the knowledge that love and happiness were not meant for one such as he. How could they be? When a blade was foretold to make a home in his heart?

But Eindred had changed. And the patchwork pieces of tapestry were there, a life Severin had never dared to dream of, right there - if he could only summon the strength to reach out and grasp it.

Below, Eindred bowed his head before the townsfolk, confessing his part in the tragedy which played out on their soil. Above, Severin swallowed the skies and became the storm.

Severin felt it, distantly below, when the people in the village forgave Eindred. And he felt when Eindred’s bittersweet tears tickled the earth. He felt Eindred return to the hut, and then after pacing restlessly about, return at last to the pastures where it had all begun.

And then came Eindred’s pained voice, calling out from the fields below. “Severin!”

Eindred had never said his name before, and Severin, who was the clouds and the wind and the rain and the sky, rumbled his joy at the sound of it.

“It was my hand which ended your life,” Eindred continued. His deep voice was shaking. “And with your dying breath you gifted what I thought was a nightmare. Did you know that it would turn out to be a dream? I think you did.”

Just wait, Severin wanted to tell him, because he’d seen a future better still. The only question that remained was whether he had strength enough to reach it.

Rugged face upturned, Eindred called to Severin and the sky, which were one and the same. “Though it’s a dream, I’ll never know peace. How can I? When I live in the home of the one I so coldly murdered? I would leave, but the villagers have my heart - as they had yours. In this state, I don’t think I’ll ever truly know true rest or true peace - despite the great power of your curse.”

You will, Severin said, and lightning streaked across the sky. I will.

“Even now,” Eindred said, through wind and rain, “I’m not sure if you are my greatest enemy or ally.”

There it was.

His greatest enemy.

Severin, with every ounce of power he possessed, claimed the title. For he was the greatest enemy the old Eindred, warrior and killer, had faced. With his parting curse, Severin had forced the old Eindred to do the one thing he’d feared most of all: to live and face all he’d done.

Severin felt a rushing, coursing energy thrumming within and without and he knew that he must catch it and hold it, though he wasn’t sure how.

The tapestry threads, the wind whispered. Severin had spread so thin, his old friend was nearly a part of him now.

Severin listened, and felt for that thread which had teased and tickled his palm. And when he was sure he felt it, he wrapped himself around it and pulled. The sky around him screamed as he dragged himself forward toward something - something -

White light was all around him, and then it wasn’t. The air was cool and damp, and the evening sang with the wind’s gleeful gusts and the soft patter of rain on grass. Severin lifted a hand, and looked it over in tentatively blooming relief. Pressing the hand over his heart which beat with a strong, steady rhythm, Severin breathed a relieved, ragged sigh.

Eindred stood in the field, turned away from him. Drawing in a breath, Severin delighted in the sound of his own voice. “May your greatest enemy rise from the grave, Eindred, and never leave you alone.” He smiled as he spoke, and very nearly pressed his fingers to his lips to feel the shape they took when saying Eindred’s name.

Eindred turned. “So you are my greatest enemy then?” He sounded wary.

“I don’t think it’s so simple as that. Do you?”

Eindred’s expression shifted and he shook his head. When he next spoke, it was soft and fumbling, as if he still hadn’t fully adjusted to a world which was kind. “I made a chair,” he blurted out. “A few actually,” he added, rubbing a hand over the back of his head.

Severin wanted to say, I know. I saw. But that would require more explanation than he cared to give at the moment, so instead, he replied, “Do I get the new rocking chair or my old one?”

“Any,” Eindred stammered, “Either. Both?” He looked at Severin, and the earnest weight of his gaze held the promise of all the chairs Severin could want and anything else Eindred could possibly make with his scarred hands.

The fondness that bubbled up within Severin was so abrupt and filled him so thoroughly that he wanted to laugh with it. “Lucky for you, I only need one chair. You can keep the old one if you like it. I trust your craftsmanship.”

Severin turned then, because it was cold and every part of him felt so entirely bright and buoyant that he thought he might die if he didn’t move. However, when he realized Eindred was not following, he stopped. “Well? Are you coming?”

Eindred looked up, as if he’d been startled. “Where?” he called.

Standing there, sodden in the field, Eindred looked after Severin, as if he was afraid to hope - as Severin once had been afraid to do. And it occurred to Severin that Eindred would need to hear it said aloud.

“Home, of course. Where else?”

“Home,” Eindred repeated, as if confirming it to himself.

And when Severin turned again towards home, Eindred followed.

By the time they reached the hut, both were shivering from the cold, and as they crossed the threshold into the warm space, Severin swayed on his feet. He’d almost forgotten the immense power he’d used, and now the harsh ringing in his ears was a stark reminder. Warm, rough hands steadied him and when Severin tilted his head up, he saw that Eindred wore an expression of poorly concealed terror.

“I’m not going to die all over again,” Severin assured him. “I just used a lot of magic.” As he said it, he swayed once more, this time falling forward.

Eindred caught Severin again, one arm wrapped around his back and his other hand braced against his chest. Beneath where Eindred’s palm pressed, Severin’s heart thrummed. And Severin watched, curious, as Eindred’s expression twisted. He no longer claimed the title of warrior, Severin knew, but it was nonetheless with a warrior’s gravity that Eindred met Severin’s gaze.

“These hands will never again harm you. I swear it.”

“I know,” Severin replied, and pressed a hand over the back of Eindred’s rough knuckles. “Help me to a chair?”

Eindred did, and helped to remove Severin’s thick outer robe before Severin sank gratefully in front of the fire. Eindred left him a moment, and Severin closed his eyes. 

He intended to just rest them for a second - maybe two, but when Severin next opened his eyes, the room was darker and he was draped and bundled in blankets, softer and thicker than any he recalled owning. The fire was still crackling, and the warm light made soothing shadows dance across the hut’s wooden floor. The other chair was occupied, Severin realized, and he watched as the hearth’s orange light played across Eindred’s sleeping features. Compared to Severin’s mountain of blankets, he had just one draped over his lap, though he didn’t seem cold. Nonetheless, Severin shifted a bit, and peeled a soft fleece blanket off his own pile to toss it onto him. The blanket fell short, and with a quick whispered word, the wind slipped under the door and flipped the offending blanket up onto Eindred’s chest.

“That’s better,” Severin said.

The wind played a little with the fire before tousling Severin’s hair and departing with a sibilant, save your strength foolish human. You’re still recovering, and slipped out the way it had come.

When Severin turned back to Eindred, he saw the large man was sitting up and his eyes were now open. Blinking, Eindred rubbed a hand over his face and then, stiffening in sudden shock, he whipped to look at Severin. Heaving a great sigh, he rocked back in the chair. “Still breathing,” he said.

“I don’t plan on stopping.”

Something almost like a smile twitched at Eindred’s lips and Severin was enchanted by it.

“You were dead and now you’re alive. Forgive me. I’m still trying to wrap my head around it.”

“You’re the one who believes in silly curses.”

Eindred’s brows rose. “Silly? Says the one who was brought back from the dead by one.”

Severin waved a dismissive hand. “The curse might have set the stage, but I was director, crew, and cast.”

And there was another smile, like a glimpse of sun between clouds. Severin was beginning to fear there might be no practical limit to the lengths he’d be willing to go to see another smile.

“I’ll take your word for it,” Eindred replied. “I get the feeling you know a great deal more about the world and magics than I.”

“Well Eindred,” Severin said, scooting his chair a little closer to both Eindred and the fire. “What do you know of grand tapestries?”

Eindred, looking more than a little lost, shook his head. “Nothing. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen one.”

“Well,” Severin said, and grinned. “What do you know of cheese?”

.

.

EDIT: A novel based on Eindred and the Witch and The Witch Who Spoke to the Wind is in progress! I will post news about it on my Tumblr and my Patreon as news becomes available :)

[lepurcinus]

I think the main problem I have with the "violence" in the wsd movie is that it doesn't try to express the "brutality" of nature, it just feels like it's there to give a shock factor, it doesn't feel like something "normal and natural" it just feels grotesque, like a slasher movie.

Because look, many of us as kids have probably seen some nature documentary where animals fight, get hurt, die, etc. However (or unless you are particularly sensitive) we didn't see it as something horrible, traumatizing OH GOD THOSE POOR ANIMALS, or something like that. We see it as something normal that happens (and it IS REAL), but what about wsd.

Easy, it's TOO EXAGGERATED. These rabbits don't get hurt like normal rabbits, they don't have the same resistance that a common animal with flesh and bones should have. (I'll go into this in depth later).

And for the sample, the death of Blackavar.

In fact, I have a LOT of problems with this one specifically.

For starters, Blackavar in the book never dies, he stays until the end. And ok, it can be given as something important in the plot BUT IT DOESN'T.

It just happens, he attacks Woundwort and Woundwort kills him in the most anticlimactic way possible, then we go to the fight with Bigwig, the dog, the end.

And YA, there is no value for his death, no one mourns for him. He didn't even get to do anything important like, I don't know, give Woundwort a fight and leave him tired enough for Bigwig to have it easier, BUT IT DOESN'T HAPPEN.

The only thing this death gives us is OH SURPRISE! A pile of strawberry juice spilled everywhere and Woundwort with blood in his mouth.

It was already clear to us, that the General is someone dangerous, and the fight with Bigwig was enough to know how brutal he can be, why the fuck do you add a death?

So, now let's go to the strong point. How blood spurting is not synonymous with realism.

Ok, we're all clear by now, rabbits are not exactly the definition of peace. They also fight, get hurt and can kill each other. But wsd rabbits are over exaggerated, they DO NOT bleed and they DO NOT BOIL LIKE ANIMALS.

For starters, a very curious fact about rabbits. Their claws are actually lousy at dealing with wounds, they are hard and curved in shape, because their main use is digging. They are not designed for tearing or gripping like a cat's claws or the like.

Although they can use their paws to attack, in this case it is more of a warning blow. If a rabbit really wants to hurt it will prefer to use its teeth (that's why when we see rabbits fighting they will try to lunge at each other, as they seek to bite the opponent).

For Woundwort and Bigwig to reach that level of scratching and start bleeding, they should have been hit several times before.

A good example of this is this video of two Hares boxing, as you can see, it took a considerable amount of hits and some time for one of them to start bleeding (and it's not even dripping liters of blood, they are considerably light wounds).

Now, about the rabbit fights, it's really rare to see them get to a point of slitting throats and the like (As a fun fact, when you search for "brutal rabbit fight" the first thing you'll get is Watership Down, not even real rabbits lmao).

Although I said that their teeth are more useful than their nails when it comes to hurting, they don't reach the same level of being able to slit throats in an instant, it also takes a CONSIDERABLE amount of bites before something serious happens. This takes away even more points from Blackavar's death, Woundwort has fucking saws instead of teeth THAT'S NOT HOW RABBITS WORK, DAMN.

And again, the wounds draw blood in spurts, liters and liters, and FUCK NO. I even had to use an example of hares because I couldn't even find a video case of rabbits fighting so severely to the point of bleeding, just a lot of hair pulling and lunging.

See my point? This is NOT a "demonstration of how cruel nature is" it's just a bunch of Gore put in a moronic way to give the impression that something is "adult".

Even though I'm all for showing that in nature things aren't pretty, there's a point to showing animals getting hurt and death. To showing a bunch of blud spilling out as if the animals were fucking water balloons that just popped.

And god, Disney, the company they usually blame for showing "cute animals" knew how to show a dead animal without blood that is not scary because of the blood, it is not scary at all, it is sad also shocking, it is sad because they knew how to take advantage of the context to get the message across.

Bambi was able to be "brutal" and serious without the need to show cute little deer being slaughtered with liters of blood.

And some add for finishing. Ok, we get it, nature CAN and IT'S brutal. But the main difference is the way media tries to show this, in animal documentaries and videos it is shown in a neutral way, we know the context behind everything. And we see it as it begins and ends.

And even with all those tears and injuries, they are not intended to look like a "splatter", in fact, even the wounded animals don't bleed that much. And again, for the animals to get to this point there must have been a lot of fighting and struggling, not just one scratch that caused a crater-sized wound with a reddish waterfall.

And that's it, i'm too angry right now to organize this well. But I hope you get my point.

[the-badger-mole]

I saw a few of your lovely zutara posts ♥️ after accidentally running into the grotesque pro Maik0 side of the fandom. (due to tumblr’s weird search results)

On one of the first posts I saw, I read that zutara shippers “don’t love zuko or katara you just vent through them”. I blacklisted #pro maik0 so fast. I could literally growl. 😤

Maik0s were the ones gleeful their ship happened because Zuko and M*i are the same ethnicity, and because it’s not politically progressive, by their own admissions. Katara would rock the boat. Katara might actually change something, which is bad! Zuko would wisely appease the traditionalists by marrying the daughter of a colonial overseer (who had no issue with Fire Nation expansionism, unlike Zuko eventually did). Love is secondary. <- That’s what I’ve learned from the pro Maik0 posts I’ve stumbled on over the years. Maik0 is good because it’s racially homogeneous and helps to maintain the status quo (that Zuko means to change), and M*i loves Zuko for some inexplicable reason (despite not even knowing him anymore or what he’s gone through, unlike Katara), so she should get what she wants. End of story. 😂

So, do they love Zuko? 🤖 cause it sounds like they don’t even care to understand his character development.

I truly don't understand people who ship Maiko. Of course, ship whatever you want with no judgement from me, but I don't get it. I don't even really see the potential in it. Mai is awful to Zuko through their entire relationship. Zuko slipped up one time after spending the day trying to connect with her and being rudely rebuffed, and it's like that justified her treatment of him in some people's minds.

Mai isn't a good character. I mean that morally and narratively. She's underwritten, and the parts of her that are developed point to her being a callous, inconsiderate, insipid defender of the status quo. There's nothing particularly revolutionary about her. In the Beach episode, she suddenly is presented as being a rebel, but...where? She had an attitude in her first episode because she didn't want to leave Caldera for her dad's new job (as an oppressive colonial leader). She didn't like Omashu because she was bored. Her parents weren't pressuring her to be more ladylike. They were trying to get her to buck up, just like any parents in that situation dealing with a kid who didn't want to move. Mai wasn't pulling against their oppression, she was just bored. But all of the sudden we're just supposed to take her word for it that they were actually cruel and trying to stamp out her individuality?

What individuality? Mai was so much not against the status quo, she was literally fighting alongside the monarchy to protect it. Her about face was about Zuko, not her coming to any sort of conclusion about the wrongness of what the Fire Nation was doing. She would have been fine if Zuko stuffed his feelings and just went along with his father. This is all before we even get to the mess that was Mai in the comics.

Mai is only second to Aang in being the worst. I really truly wish they had ended up together. That would have been at the very least interesting to watch fall apart.

[caveiratimida]

Rigor Samsa (1/5)

Fandom: Criminal Minds

Pairings: Platonic Reader x Everybody, BAU Team x Reader

Categories: Family/Gen

Summary: Sometimes the compartmentalisation walls begin to crumble and there is no other choice than to feel things. It’s even worse when you try to pretend it isn’t happening and try to hide it from those who care about you. But working with someone and meeting them for social things are completely different to opening up and admiting being scared.

Notes: I have been binging Criminal Minds during my current exam/deadline time and it is the only thing keeping me motivated right now. I love giving myself some comfort by trying to imagine these scenarios. This developed from my need to try and offer myself something good as I stare at empty google docs that need to be filled with legal jargon. I have it all planned out. This is my first time doing something like this let me know what you think!

Breathe in

“Sometimes the things we do to numb the pain, only creates more pain.” - David Peace

It was horribly dark, cold and too quiet wherever Y/N was. How did she get here? She didn’t know and she couldn’t remember anything in particular. Patting herself as a reassurance, she could at least tell that she was uninjured and dressed, but her phone was gone and her gun was not in its holster. That wasn’t right. She always had these, they were one of the first things she prepared in the mornings - where were they? Her breathing began to speed up due to the undetermined situation she found herself in.

Trying to calm herself, Y/N tried to find any landmark that she could use to try and figure out where she could be. She was an FBI agent dammit, she could do this. Even after her eyes adjusted to the darkness, nothing caught her attention. So she started to walk forward with her arms stretched out to try and shield her body from whatever could appear out of anywhere. Panic boiled in her throat, making her voice raspy:

”Hello? Anybody there?”

Only the echoes of her footsteps replied. Still, she waited in hopes for a sign of life.

“Anyone?!”

Nothing. She shivered and tried to cover herself some more with her clothes. Trying to maintain her composure was getting harder and harder. She might be a professional agent, but she didn’t have her team or any backup.

It could have been seconds, minutes or even an hour but she kept walking. Until finally, she saw a small light further up in the abyss. Desperate for some sort of comfort from the claustrophobic blackness around her, Y/N didn’t think twice and began to run towards it.

It was not, however, a good light or safe space. Her shoes squelched as she stepped into the room. The cold light blinded her and her nose was invaded with the vague smell of rust and bleach. Y/N thought it looked like a shut down cooling room but before she could analyse her new surroundings further she felt herself slip and lose her balance. The wet floor felt sticky and unnaturally slick. It was blood. Who’s? Her team’s.

“N-no…”

Not too far from her were 7 bodies all haphazardly piled together. Colour drained from her face as she recognised them all. The BAU team, her colleagues - no. Her friends. Hotch, Rossi and Morgan’s extremely stabbed corpses formed the base of the grotesque hill. Reid almost looked like he was sleeping were it not his missing left arm, Prentiss was missing her right leg and Garcia had her eyes gouged out. Thrown on top of them all was Jareau whose chest looked like it had been ripped open. All of them there acting as a cruel reminder that she couldn’t save them. She was useless.

Y/N’s body began to shiver uncontrollably. She screamed out in horror. This couldn’t be happening.

“No! No! NO! HELP ME! HEL-”

It was the sound of a crash that freed Y/N from her nightmare as she woke up with a start. She had tossed and turned so much that she knocked her bed lamp onto the floor. Her heart was still pounding in her chest as if nothing had changed and the horrendous images refused to leave her mind. Her stomach felt so tight that she struggled to keep the bile from rising up to her throat. She almost sprung out of the bed as she raced to the bathroom to make it to the toilet. There went dinner down the drain. The deafening pulsation of her heart in her ears made it hard for her to try and calm down as she continued heave although nothing else came out. Her pyjamas clung uncomfortably to her body due to all the sweat and caused her to shiver from the cold.

For a month this nightmare haunted her. More often twice or three times each week. This has been the 7th day in a row that she ended up on her bathroom floor clinging to the toilet for what seemed to be dear life. It was like some sort of twisted routine. She didn’t even need to check what time it was, she bet it was around 4 in the morning judging by the lack of sunlight in the bathroom. An attempt to go back to sleep was not going to happen, she had tried that before and it always ended up the same. No. She would take a shower whilst trying not to wake up her apartment neighbours and try to distance herself from the night terrors. First by cleaning up the shattered lamp in her bedroom and then by doing whatever else needed to be done in her flat in terms of housework. She was an agent, she had to get her act together. And she would. She had worked this job for 3 years already, now wasn’t going to be the time she messes up and loses her team.

“Only around 4 hours to go until work time. Come on Y/N you check them all for yourself at Quantico…”

[blossomingimagines]

Salvation

Lady Dimitrescu x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 2,134

Summary:

Notes: I hope you enjoy this. (For @yukinechan021)

The ground beneath your feet was crumbling. Giving way due to your manic pace as you flew through the underbrush. Your hands barely have enough time to raise up to protect yourself. The small twinges of pain that appeared because of the brambles and low-hanging branches barely making an impact on you. You had only one goal in mind. Only one purpose as you took another sharp turn around a bend. 

Run.

You could still hear the screams from your village. Hear the distorted voices in the distance calling out for help. Hear the horrid sound being interjected with the ravenous howls of hungry beasts. 

The smell of blood and decay reaching you before the first animal ever did. Your father taking hold of you and shoving you towards the wood. His gaze desperate as he said his last words to you. “Go, Y/N. Run like you’ve never run before. They’re here now. Mother Miranda isn’t going to protect us any longer.”

You had hesitated. You didn't want to leave your father but he hadn’t let you. His gentle nudges becoming incessant shoves towards the foliage. “You need to run, iepuraș. Don’t look back no matter what you hear. Just keep running.”

With his words, you had done just as he told you. Trying to not let the screaming or the howls stop you. Trying to not let the fear shining in his eyes stop you. You didn’t want to think about what it meant for your father when the beasts finally did reach him. 

Skidding to a stop, your chest heaves as you take in your surroundings. You knew that you had to begin moving soon. It was only a matter of time before the beasts caught your scent. You had only a small window of opportunity before you’d be captured too. 

The sight of rustic stone work causes you to blanche. Fear shooting through your body as the knowledge of where you were came rushing to you. Castle Dimitrescu; the one place you had always been warned to never venture near. The tales of bloodshed and twisted horrors doing little to persuade you to try. Its foreboding presence is always looming over your village for as long as you’ve been alive. You never thought you would ever see it up close.

The intricate stonework winding up towards grand towers in the sky. Its color is a rich black in the setting light of day. You could tell that the castle was old, even barring the tales you had heard about it, from the weathered quality to its structure. Even though it was no doubt still taken care of. Standing the test of time despite everything. 

A chilling feeling works its way up your spine. Causing the hairs on the back of your neck to stand on end. Your body stiffening as a cold cackle reverberates through the air. A sharp breath catching in your throat at the faint shifting of metal against the ground. 

“Well, well, well.” The gruff voice purrs. “What do we have here? I don’t believe my dear sister let you out of your cage. So you must be a village girl.”

Flinching away from the strong grip suddenly on your face, your head is unceremoniously jerked towards the speaker. To a man with dark glasses and a cruel smirk on his face. Amusement clearly dancing through the expression. A twisted sense of glee lighting up his face even more when he saw your fear. “It’s a pity the doggies didn’t get to you too.” He pauses before a broad smile pulls his lips up. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t have fun with you. Oh, Mother Miranda is going to love you.”

Your brow furrows. “Mother Miranda?”

At your words a bark-like laugh falls from his lips. “Yes, child, Mother Miranda. I do hope she’ll let me have you. You’d make the most interesting tool in my games. I’m certain we’d have a blast. Well,” His head tilts to the side. “I know I would.”

Trying to jerk your head away from his hold, you couldn’t stop the pleas from leaving your mouth. “I don’t have anything worth giving you. No money to my name or family that would be willing to pay it. I have nothing of value that you’d want to take.”

“Oh that’s not true child. You shouldn’t sell yourself so short.” His hand loosens ever-so-slightly but it does little to abate your nerves. Especially as his other hand shifts his hammer. 

“I don’t have anything. Please.”

He grins. “While I do love to hear a beautiful maiden such as yourself beg, I must decline. As you do have something very special you can give me.”

You could feel tears welling up in your eyes. Fear began to run through your body as the man grew closer. “What?”

His face once again twists into a dark sense of amusement. “Your life.”

You didn’t see his other hand move. Didn’t hear or feel anything except for the sharp crack of pain against your skull. Your world is immediately consumed by darkness.

Only the sound of his maniacal laughter following you. 

-----

The rough stone scraping along your back is what roused you next. Your eyes blearily blinking open as you’re unceremoniously left against the hard ground. The basic stone ceiling being all that kept your attention for the moment. You could tell already, without even having to move too much, that you were restrained. The heavy presence of metal feeling like a sentence. 

To what? You weren’t sure. 

“Why did you bring her here, Heisenberg? She’s of no use to me.”

The female voice that spoke was familiar to you. You couldn’t quite grasp from where but you knew that you had heard it before. Lifting your head off the ground, you’re finally met with the sight of your captors. 

A sight that quickly causes a chill to run down your spine. 

Your original captor, Heisenberg, was lounged against a couch. A calm nonchalance surrounding him as a gleeful smile took over his features. His cruel intent still being as palpable even from the distance you were now at. 

A hunched over figure standing just behind him. A crown of bones situated atop its head as heavy breathing reached your ears. The grotesque form causes your stomach to churn at the very sight. You had to turn your head away from it. 

The other was in the form of a doll. Your body flinched away ever-so-slightly as it drew nearer. Its lifeless staring at you with something akin to interest before it scampers away. The clear barking order for it to do so coming from the woman who had spoken. 

A woman that was standing in the middle of them all. Her black dress and veil obscuring the majority of her features from you. Though you could still feel the tangible power that radiated off of her body. The command she clearly held over the people in the room. 

Mother Miranda-- through and through. No one but her held that type of power. The pull that she had on people. 

It was a spell that was only broken by the arrival of the fifth person. 

A heavy, yet graceful, gait announcing their presence before they even appeared. The faint clicking of heels against the stone floor telling you where they were. That they were growing closer and closer towards you by the second. Your body is already tensing at what monstrosity you would be subjected to at their arrival. 

Nothing would have ever prepared you for what you saw. 

A woman stops just within your field of vision. Glowing golden eyes taking in the room with a vague sense of interest. Painted red lips pulled into a small smirk as she finally settled her gaze on you. Raven black locks standing out against her pallid skin. Her clear beauty stands out even through the darkness. But that wasn’t what caused your breath to catch. 

It wasn’t the way an exotic tinge of danger exuded from her.

It wasn’t because of the way she gracefully moved through the room. Her white dress shifted against her form with every minute movement. 

It wasn’t even because of the way the dress looked on her body. 

No. It all had to do with her height. She stood taller than any person you had ever seen; man or woman. Her imposing height did little to detract from natural elegance that seemed to lace itself within her movements. In fact it only seemed to enhance it. 

Mother Miranda’s voice interrupted your thoughts. Your gaze being torn from her form towards Miranda’s. “You’re late, Alcina. I expect better from you.”

The woman, Alicna, offers an almost apologetic smile towards Mother Miranda. Her colossal from resting easily against the backrest of the couch. Her ankles crossing in the manner that only seemed to come from habit. 

“I apologize, Mother Miranda. I got caught up with affairs at the castle.” She dips her head towards the black-cloaked woman. “It won’t happen again.”

Miranda sneers. “Make sure it doesn’t.” Pausing for a brief moment, Mother Miranda seemed to observe the room. Clear contemplation taking up most of her concentration-- until her gaze once again landed on you. “Now it’s time to figure out what we’re going to do with our little friend.”

Almost immediately Alcina and Heisenberg speak up. 

“I found her. It should be I that gets to keep her.” No. Anything but that. 

“I would have the most use of her. She does look quite appetizing.” I don’t think I want to know what that means. 

At Alcina’s words, Heisenberg scoffs. “I’ll have the most use of her, dear sister. You’ll just hide her away in the private rooms of your castle. In the dark. Playing games with her that would end like it started; boringly.” He turns towards Mother Miranda. “Let me have her. I know exactly what I wish to do.”

“And you’ll just toy with her for only a few moments before she’s crushed by one of your contraptions. There’s no finesse to what you do, dear brother.” Her golden gaze flickers towards you for a moment. An almost contemplative look flashing across her beautiful features. “I’ll make sure I have something spectacular planned for her.”

Mother Miranda speaks before they can argue any further. And by the tone of slight agitation in her voice you can tell that this was a common occurrence. Your body shifted away from her ire even as you were restrained, almost painfully, from moving any further. 

“Enough. Alcina you will get the girl.” At Heisenberg’s whine, she snaps at him. “There will not be any more complaints regarding this issue. You’re dismissed.”

The next time you blinked she was gone. 

Your head is already plopping down against the ground. Despite the harsh greeting it got in response. You couldn't believe that this was your life now. You had just been sold to a woman, while undeniably attractive, that would sooner rip out your spine then let you walk free. 

At least it wasn’t Heisenberg. 

The thought only brings you a modicum of comfort. 

The sudden looming shadow around doing quick work to wipe out what was left. Your eyes trailing up well muscled legs, across a white-clad torso, an elegant neck, to finally reach her amused gaze. Even if her amusement was tinged with a darker entity that you truly didn’t want to think about. 

“Well, darling, it looks like you’re all mine,” she purrs as she leans towards you. Her hand coming up to brush against your cheek. Whether it be a way for her to maintain control or for her to know what you felt like; you hadn’t the slightest idea. “Aren’t you going to say anything to me? I did just save you from my brother.”

You still weren’t sure if that was a good thing or not. 

Raising your gaze to meet hers, you clench your jaw. Trying to prepare a biting retort to her clear teasing. Hoping that you’d be able to get even with her in some small way. If you were going to die you were going to die your way. 

However, the moment you opened your mouth, another two words appeared. “You’re beautiful.”

The moment that words slipped from your lips, you could feel your face heat up. Your body automatically tensing at the knowledge of you had just said to her. Fortunately she seemed to be just as floored as you. Shock clearly showing itself across her elegant features before an almost feral smile takes its place. Her arms wrapping around to hoist you in the air. 

But, before she did, she whispered one last thing towards you.

“I’m going to have so much fun with you, pet.”

[zafirosreverie]

Them as vampiresses (KH’s characters)

​ KH’s tags: @mochiadria @academiagaymess @annie-mit-ie @natalia-helena-alianova-romanov @roseclear

Agatha Harkness:

Striga. A vampire/witch that can "drink" people's souls. 

When she was hunting one night, she felt the call of a delicious soul. Having been around for centuries, she knew all kinds of souls, but this one was different. It intrigued her. Usually, when she approached her victim, she could feel her hunger growing. But this time, she just felt some kind of peace, the kind of peace she had felt when she was still alive. 

When she finally got to your window, the feeling was almost overwhelming. It was like she found the cure to her problem. She had heard of this, that some souls were so pure, that they could light the darkness of the cursed souls like hers. Agatha always thought it was a myth because it was so strange to find a soul like that, especially in these times. 

All she had to do was to drink this soul, and she’d be alive again. 

But when she approached and saw the beautiful face you had, something happened. She felt something she had forgotten a long time ago. She felt guilty, but also as if her dead heart was calling yours and she knew she couldn’t drink this. She cursed you and destiny for this cruel prank. For she, a vampire condemned to drink innocent souls, she had finally found the one who could free her, only to turn out to be, precisely, her soul mate.

"Soulmates born at different times, whom death separated before their time"

Olivia Octavius:

Dearg Diliat. "Witches" or people who lost their way because of their hunger for power and knowledge. Their souls are now wandering and need human blood to live.

When she was alive, Liv was always hungry for knowledge. Anything that could enhance her intellect was something she coveted. Knowledge is power, after all, and Olivia Octavius ​​loved being powerful.

She knew that her tireless pursuit for knowledge would bring her trouble and enemies, but it never bothered her. It was normal for people to feel intimidated by her, right? She couldn't blame them. Too bad that all of her intelligence was blinded by greed, which led directly to a trap and then to her death.

Now, almost 200 years later, her soul, rotten, lost, and aimless, wandered at night, searching for the grotesque but sacred elixir she needed to continue to exist: blood.

At first, when she had returned from the dead, Liv had refused to practice such blasphemy. But when she realized that with her immortality she could continue to hunt for knowledge, she gave herself completely to it.

Her favorite victims were young ladies like you.

Sweet and innocent girls who, like her, pursued knowledge, but hadn’t fallen into obsession. She loved to stick her fangs into their tender necks, to absorb their blood and wisdom.

As she approached you from behind, she couldn't help but wonder what kind of mysteries your last moments of life would reveal to her.

Ursula Gernsback:

Dhampir. A child of a human and a vampire that hates their vampiric part. They hunt vampires.

Ursula always hated her non-human nature. She hated all about it! It made her do things she didn’t want to, like hunting innocent people or the grotesque act of drinking human blood. But what she hated the most was hurting the poor and few souls who dared to offer their hand to her and who had given her the best moments of her life.

She didn't like to think about you too much. Not for lack of love, but because of how painful it was. You had been the most special human she had ever met. You were kind, loving, and brave. You had loved her like no one else had, the time with you had made her forget the dark part of her being. She was able to be human with you.

And then the beast had come out.

Ursula tried, seriously she tried to control it, to give you time to run and get to safety. But you had been stubborn and you had stayed. You were sure that you would be able to calm her down. But you were wrong. She lost control and everything went black. By the time she woke up, you were cold, empty, dead in her arms. With two points on your neck, where she herself had drained your life.

That broke something in Ursula. From that moment on, she vowed to destroy every child of the night. Her name and her story soon became known to humans and vampires alike. Everyone knew that when she came across an undead, it was either die or kill.

How cruel was her fate, when she looked into the face of her next victim, and she met those beautiful eyes that were once warm.

"Y/N?" she whispered with a broken heart.

Carla Dunkler:

Groac’h, a vampire that seduces victims to her forest. Inspiration of the witches from many fairytales. The chroniclers moralize on this story to build fear for wild women, that is, females who freely live their sexuality, symbolized in the myth of Groac'h and her lonely hut in the forest, where all sins and blasphemies are allowed.

Carla was well aware of her reputation, she herself had been helping to carefully build it since she was a younger vampiress. It was helpful! Because the fear meant that people wouldn’t dare to come too close to her house and those stupid souls that wanted to act brave were a good source of food.

And it was also the way she had met you. 

You were such a lovely and young creature, but the vampiress could smell your fear and your delicious blood. She knew you weren’t alone tho, as you were being followed by that stupid man that was always making fun of her legend. Uhmmm, revenge, food, and fun. She got the big prize. 

Carla was quick and knew exactly how to seduce you. You were such a little creature, your innocence, and inexperience resulted funny to her and she smirked when she noticed you were still a virgin. By the time that stupid man found you in her arms, she had already taken your gift and claimed you as hers. But he didn’t know, and he had challenged her to a duel to the death to free you. Carla had just laughed and released you, enjoying the stupidity of the man that didn't seem to suspect about the speed with which the vampiress had released her prey.

Carla was calmed. She knew that after having loved you for those brief moments you would no longer find satisfaction in human kisses. Three days later, You appeared carrying the man’s body in your arms. You knelt in front of Groac'h and offered it to her as a gift in exchange for her forgiveness. Carla was pleased and you discovered that there are kisses that are simply unforgettable.

Eve Fletcher:

Mormo. A small being who slowly quenches her hunger, which causes her to create lasting relationships with her victims, perhaps for life. Her bite doesn’t leave a mark and is not painful.

Eve didn’t find this enjoyable at all. She hated hurting others and always cursed the monster who transformed her into this. The only thing she was grateful for was that, between all the races she could have turned into, it was a Mormo. This meant that her victims didn’t feel pain nor noticed the way she was draining them. 

Because she hated drinking innocent blood, Eve usually starved for as long as she could, and only went out hunting when absolutely necessary. She tried never to bite the same person twice, not wanting to take too much of them.

Then she met you.

There was something about you, something Eve wanted. She couldn't put a name to it, but the vampire knew she needed to be close to you. And that's why she broke her golden rule.

Eve started visiting you every month, then every week, and finally, she had found her way to your room every night. She drank little from you, feeling grateful that she left no mark or pain with her fangs, but feeling your blood in her mouth almost made her feel alive again.

You did not suspect anything about your nocturnal visitor, but you dreamed of someone, a black angel, who took care of you and kept you company, and perhaps, if you had opened your eyes in the middle of the night, you would have found that pair of beautiful eyes watching you.

Jennifer Barkley:

Succubus. A demon that assumes the form of an irresistible woman and visits men in dreams to feed.

Jennifer knew what she was, and she was completely proud of her demonic nature. It was enormous fun for her to seduce poor naive men, especially if they were of a sensitive nature or deprive themselves of carnal desires, and then watch them squirm beneath her, as life slowly slipped out of their hands.

Jen was not a submissive woman, as were any of her succubus sisters, but she had found that letting the victims think that made it much easier to seduce and drain them.

She loved knowing that once she marked them as hers, those poor men could never stop thinking about her. It seemed like a fair punishment, that they had to go through the same thing as her.

Jen wouldn't admit it to her sisters, but she had broken the succubus laws and fell in love with a mortal, Y/N. She knew that she couldn't stalk you, have you, or love you. And that only condemned her to want you even more.

So, like a tantrum to the universe for her broken heart, Jen had dedicated herself to seduce as many men as she could, her pain relieved tenuously by watching them wither from a broken heart. See them suffer for her as she suffered for you.

Delta Simmons:

Wili, a woman who suffered a love deception. She will try to vampirize her ex-partner, if not every man who crosses her path. Her life is prolonged throughout the natural course of spite that her hostess would have had to go through in life; the existence of it oscillates between several years and eternity.

Delta cursed Arnold for doing this to her. It was his fault that she transformed into this monster!! If he hadn’t cheated on her, if he hadn’t broken her heart without mercy, sadness wouldn’t have killed her, darkness wouldn’t have enveloped her, and she could be at peace, she could continue with her family, with her children, wrapped with the love she deserved.

But no, Arnold was selfish and had betrayed her. And not satisfied with that, when she had returned, a little different yes, but still herself Arnold had had the audacity to scream. Scream!! He had yelled horrible things in her face, he had called her monster, specter, and all kinds of offensive things. He had pushed her away, escaped, and hidden her children from her. And worst of all, he hadn't listened to her.

Delta had told him that there was an option for them, that she could transform him too! She wasn’t going to touch her children, because they were still small and deserved to live, but Arnold was hers, she had forgiven him, and she was offering him eternity with her. But the bloody ungrateful worm had rejected her. And not only that, that disgusting attempt of a man had been investigated and found a way to escape her.

He had broken her headstone and left orders not to repair it. He knew that with that, he was condemning her not to be able to leave the city where she was buried. And then he had taken her children and gone, stealing again everything she had loved.

But then...then you came along.

A young creature, full of life but in love with death. It was weird, but that led you to her. Strange as it may sound, you were cleaning and restoring abandoned tombstones, thinking that everyone deserved respect even after death. By then the previous managers had left and there was no one who knew of Arnold's order, so they easily gave you permission to restore that sad and abandoned tomb.

Delta had spent the entire day watching you from the shadows of the trees. The delicate way in which you treated her burial and the comical way in which you held an imaginary conversation with her, made her fall in love with you.

You didn’t know it, but when you left the cemetery that day, Delta accompanied you. Arnold had left her, but she would make sure you didn't. She would mark you as hers.

Milly Campbell:

Varcolaco, vampire of a suicidal soul. Her bite leaves no mark. 

Milly always knew that she would end up like this. From the first blow Shep gave her, she knew it was only a matter of time before he killed her or she give up. In the end, it turned out to be the latter.

Shep had taken it upon himself to ruin her life, and although she had tried to be a good wife and mother, to be strong for her children, in the end, she...she simply wasn't strong enough to continue to endure that. She thought of April as she took one of Shep's razors and ran it through her arms. Would her old friend remember her? Would she be waiting for her on the other side? Or would she be doomed for deliberately abandoning her children? It was this last thought that filled her mind as darkness enveloped her.

Milly, like everyone else, had no idea what lay beyond death. But still, waking up inside the coffin, still ten feet underground, was quite a surprise. The poor woman stayed there for three weeks until desperation got the better of her and she had to force her way to the surface. When she returned to the world of the living, she was confused, she didn’t know where she was or how long she had been dead, but somehow, she had knowledge of her new nature. She knew that there was nothing good about her and that this was punishment. She had given up on life and now she would have to live, forever.

It was horrible. Watching her children grow up without her and then watching them die broke her heart. Seeing that she was easily replaced with another woman infuriated her. Watching Shep and his new wife die didn't make her feel anything. Knowing that her children had found rest but that she would never see them again was too much for her.

Milly simply decided to leave the place and began hunting in remote areas. Yes, she raised rumors and suspicions, but no one believed in vampires these days and her bite didn’t left any marks, so it was fun to see how the existence of a serial killer came up.

It took many years for the vampiress to return to where she had been buried, but when she did she was in for a surprise. There was a girl reading under the tree near Milly's grave. She seemed not to mind the funereal atmosphere of the cemetery. An even bigger surprise was when Milly came over and heard that the girl was talking to her (well, to her grave, where the girl thought she was).

Milly felt her heart again for the first time in years. And she didn't like the feeling. It was worse when she recognized familiar features on the girl's face. She must be a descendant of Shep and his second wife.

Milly was furious. She wanted revenge against this...this little girl, that had done nothing to her, but whose blood was cursed in her opinion. If only she knew her-

"Y/N!" You looked up and smiled at your sister that was calling you. You got up and walked up to her, not suspecting the dark presence behind you.

Milly smirked. She knew your name now. She could mark you as hers and unleash her revenge. Oh, how glorious it will be, to take a descendant of Shep, and make her pay for the offenses towards her and her children.

[thiefofcrows]

   Hope is dangerous, Inej's voice kept repeating in his head. Clouds your judgement. The same words he'd spoken to her in Ravka, when she'd been seeking her parents names among the mural of the dead. He remembered it with crystal clarity, the way her dark brown eyes had glistened with pain, the way Kaz had ignored the sting in his heart. He'd tried to add a hint of something gentler after, an acknowledgement of that pain, one that he knew intimately. Pray, scream, do whatever you have to do to push this out of your mind and move on.

    Evidently, in the end, it hadn't changed anything. Kaz had reached, he'd tried — Inej's voice had been what had silenced Jordie's vicious words in his head, replaced the grotesque, blistered thing which had become his brother and pulled him out from the unforgiving depths of Fifth Harbor. His lungs had been burning, the pain unfathomable and relentless and Kaz had been certain that somehow, he was going to die, Jordie's ghost having returned to enact his vengeance at last. Vengeance for what? He found himself asking for the first time. He'd only been nine years old.

    He needed to survive, he'd needed to get his crew out of the situation he'd gotten them into. He'd needed to survive to tell Inej ... what? That she was lovely and far stronger, far more brave than he could ever be? That she was a bright, searing light in the dark, a sun summoner of another kind? That while he may not be deserving of her now, he was determined to try to be?

    It was the speech they'd all heard in Shu Han that had shifted Kaz's perspective slightly, despite the fact that he'd been resistant to Ohval Saran's words. What a safe way to live. What a small way, as well. You guard against pain, you guard against joy. And when Kaz sensed Inej's presence, saw her signature teal within the corner of his eye, the emotion that roared to life inside of him was certainly in part joy. They'd survived, Inej had protected her Saint, the fold was gone and so was the Darkling, the amount of gold they would receive from their success would be staggering.

   Inej glowed with her triumph and Kaz's breath caught in his throat when their eyes met. He turned towards her, took a step closer as she approached — and her smile set his heart ablaze. They were surrounded by other people, busy about their business and engrossed in one another, but it made the desperate, vulnerable thing inside him draw back, uncertain, afraid. He couldn't stifle the warmth and relief in his gaze and part of him didn't want to. As they finally reached one another, the large chasm between them growing steadily smaller ... Kaz struggled with what to do, what to say.

   ❝It seems the fate of your Saint would've been much more grim without you,❞ he managed at last. He'd been cruel to her when they'd last spoken of Saints ... he was trying to make up for it, even if only slightly. ❝Perhaps our fate is up to us after all — no matter who you are.❞

closed starter for @thiefofcrows

Where were you? I didn't know where you were... I didn't know if you... I don't need a weak link in my crew.

The words still lingered in her mind. The worried almost, crack of his rasp and the coldness that followed. It had settled in the mid of her stomach and coiled itself tight. A tension Inej was able to ignore until now. Until the Neshyenyer had placed it's final cut, slicing the shadows and driving them out.

Sankta Alina was safe. The Darkling was dead. Zoya and Nina stood by her side. That was all that mattered. They had won and despite the waryness in her bones and the safety of the blade against her back the coil in her stomach tightened as she walked alongside her comrades back to the palace grounds. Back to where they had left Wylan, Jesper... and Kaz.

Inej wasn't one to linger on words that were used to inflict pain. She'd had enough pain to last more then several life times. Her heart was set on making good on the promise she'd whispered to the Saints before departing on this journey.

Every abducted child, woman or man, all the people and indentures kept against their will would have a Wraith. She would retrace her steps, go and find her brother, then, together they would hunt down the slavers that took them from their family and their home.

When their small group finally reached the top of the hill and began their descent the acrobat caught sight of a familiar silouhette. Long, crisply tailored coat, straight stance, hand on his cane. Sharp lines and tailored edges. The coil inside her drew tighter as she watched him turn and stopped in his movement when their eyes met. It was gone before she could form thoughts about it. Inej turned away from him, stopping next to Sankta Ali... Alina to pass the Neshyenyer blade on to it's rightful owner. She felt almost naked without the swords weight against her back, but it had never belonged to her. It was fit for a Saint, not a Wraith.

After all words were spoken and all the promises exchanged, there was only one place left to go.

Inej made her way to her friends, past the rubble of a horrible battle, past fallen soldiers, past the survivors. She looked up to see Kaz looking at her glacier grey eyes warming to an almost cerulean, like sun hitting water and chasing away a storn. The coil inside her unraveled. She was home, with the people she called family, the boy she had so foolishly come to care for right there. Her lips called into a smile. They deserved a win.

[starshipsofstarlord]

God is With You, Even as You’re Sinning

Pairing | Sam Winchester x reader

Summary | it was your first time not killing a monster, and in its place, taking the life of one of your own. Guilt entraps you, and it is up to Sam to break you out of your pitiful hypnosis.

Warnings | mentions of death, blood, angst, guilt, some smut, oral sex (fem receiving), penetrative unprotected sex, fingering, swearing, mentions of murder

Requested ✖️

Quick link to my masterlist, if you’re interested in reading more of my crap 😬

Fuck God. This was all his fault, everything was to be fair. He had left the world to continue on its own accord, the apocalypse threatening to spill over the planet and destroy it and all beauty that was lingering through the existence of humans.

They killed each other, and the creator of all could care less. It was his smallest problem, he didn’t mind that the murderer was succumbed to guilt, or how many restless nights that he or she endured. God was cruel, even if he held up a facade of being your ally, and trying his hardest as he supposed, to be your friend.

Your hands shook as you remembered the entailment of your mistake. It was a slip up, a vast and surreal experience that people usually learned from. But what were you supposed to do, not kill a human again? Yeah you had gotten that, after all, the initial deed had not at all been intentional.

There was the victim’s blood dried upon the outer layer of your skin, casting you in the perfect image of murderous intent. However, you had no thirst to kill, instead, your hunting of monsters, alike to many others partaking in a similar lifestyle, executed the mythical beasts to protect the human population.

It pained you truly, to know that you had killed a person. You hadn’t even spared the familiar body a second glance, and out of panic, you fled the scene, leaving the body of the city cleaner in the gutter, laying in the remnants of his friends’ and family’s waste, burying him in their crude excrement.

The thought alone, and the sight that was engrained in the peripheral of your mind had you feeling sick. Slowly, you plodded down the steps of the bunker’s entrance, surely leaving footprints trademarked in all kinds of grotesque evidence.

Without much care for what lay heavily inside, you dropped your duffel from your shoulder, allowing it to fall on the ground with a disgruntled clatter. Nothing meant anything anymore, not if you were indeed a real killer. Whilst some monsters had weaselled their way into society, ending their pathetic attempts at normality was different than taking away the life of an innocent and mortal bystander.

Often, with the darker and crueler species, there were reasons as to why they pretended to be of human birth. Mostly, it was so that they could feed from the naive flock, or kill for their own amusement. Either way, none of their reasons were good.

But now, you thought of yourself as no different than them. A creature that needed to be put down for their crimes. Filing, you breathed in, only inhaling the various moulds of putridity that was weaved into your hair, and stuck to your skin like a face mask.

“Should I call you Cassie now?” At the joke, a laugh from the speaker was triggered. He was quite amused with the sight of you, and thus, you sneered at the tall man, hating him a little bit more than usual.

“Your pop culture references aren’t appreciated Winchester, it’s more Dean’s street.” Shoving past him, his high shoulder floundered back at the harsh and ignorant impact, an expression of offence covering his stupid face. Like a fawn, he tumbled after you, watching as you walked sullenly into the kitchen, yanking the door to the fridge open, and extracting one of his brother’s store bought beers.

“I’m going to guess the hunt went bad.” Sam speculated, shoving his hands into his jeans pockets, and staring expectedly down at where you popped the cap off the bottle recklessly with your teeth. He almost winced at the sight, but he wished to keep this arrogant demeanour up with you, it was a natural desire to piss you off, and he’d be pissed at himself if he let it slip out of simple pity.

“Guess correct. Well done, you’ve won a trip to Hawaii.” You waved your free hand mockingly in the air, as the other raised the liquor to your mouth, allowing you to wilfully gulp the bitter liquid down. At his presence that remained nursing over you, you cocked a brow, leaning forwards as you expectedly looked back at the moose. “Just leave me alone Sam, I’m not in the mood for putting up with your bullshit.”

He, however, seemed not to be phased by you wanting to be left alone, and instead, quickly snatched the poison out of your hand, leaving you throughly prepared to keep him right in the balls. “What the fuck?” You all but screamed at the not so jolly giant. In turn, he crossed his arms across his chest, placing the bottle down on the island.

“I could ask you the same y/n.” His tone was dominantly serious, causing you to cower back into your shroud of guilty conscience. “Tell me what happened on that hunt, of which i told you that you shouldn’t have went on alone, since you wouldn’t have been able to handle it solo.”

You felt demeaned by his words, they sparked an anger out from the firm pit of your stomach. But you knew deep down, he was getting through to you, which was something that you had not managed to even do by yourself. Air heavily passed through and out of your nostrils, as acidic tears pooled in your eyes; a crack was falling down your walls, and out of all people, it was Sam Winchester whom had caused it.

“You’re right, I shouldn’t have gone alone, but you know what, I thought of what a Winchester would do. And then I remembered, I am sure as hell not a Winchester and I don’t have a brother anymore! Not now, he didn’t even know who I was earlier, didn’t even recognise a single genetically identical hair on my head as he watched me parade through the town, the very one that I ran away from when he was a baby and I was seven, wanting to hunt a monster. Yet, i didn’t kill a damn monster Sam, I murdered my brother because you’ve been right all along, I’m not fit for this job. I am a mess, so congratulations, you finally have got me to admit the one thing that you keep reminding me of.”

“Y/n...” Sam wasn’t sure how to respond, he felt the waves of shock ripple through his body. Never so freely had you been vulnerable around him, and here you were now, with very visible tears cascading down your utterly torn face. He understood it was an accident, and the times that he and Dean had tried to kill each other under supernatural circumstances had him wondering what if.

Shaking your grime tethered head at the sound of his cracked voice, you stormed past him, and immediately raced towards the shower room, finding to your luck, which had been non existent during the rest of the day, the halls were barren of life. Walking through the door, you tore your ruined clothes off, chucking them upon the floor without much acknowledgement, before you went under the warm spray of the shower head, trying to calm yourself.

To rid your skin of its evidential accessories, you had to scrub your skin until it was immediately raw. Everything within you ached, as you flicked back to the memory of the clueless expression that had been worn by your blood brother. It was probably a good thing that he didn’t know who you were, or else, he’d have known that his own sister murdered him due to her incompetence to listen to others.

Now, you were not even sure what were your tears, and what droplets of water belonged to the shower itself. For over an hour, you basked int eh warmth that seemed unable to cure your cold blooded system, turning the spritz off, and covering your body in a fluffy towel, that you were sure belonged to someone else, but right now, you could care less about who owned what.

As you reached the door to your bedroom, you found it to be preached slightly open, and as you pushed it the rest of the way, you saw Sam sat on the corner of your bed. You held your arms around yourself, insecure on the fact that beneath the stolen towel, you were nothing more than you. A wolf in sheep’s skin.

“Can I help you?” You bitterly asked, your eyes still burning from your own faulted loss. Sam breathed in, his eyes trailing up to your face, that was naked from any gruesome cosmetics or make up. The bareness to your completion illustrated an aura of innocence, and evidence that you were the same as him - human.

“That’s my towel.” The male hunter laughed, in hopes of changing the previous and well wounded subjected to ensure that you felt better. But what was he kidding, nothing could fill the void that you had dug in your own heart, nothing was closer than the bond between siblings, even if you were considered as strangers.

“Take it back then.” Too exhausted from your gruelling day, you dropped the material, your confident action making his eyes go wide, as he tried to look away from your exposed skin to respect your boundaries. It was impossible though not to allow his hazel hues to slip up the trunks of your thighs, up to- no, that was wrong, very wrong.

You had just lost your brother, not to mention, by your own hand, and he was prone to checking out your freelancing body, taking in every curve and twisted scar that was prominent to his speculating eyes. His eyes dropped to the discarded towel, which he had purposely left on the heating rail for later use, and then, they switched back towards you.

He stood, walking behind you as you looked through comfort clothes within your dresser. A light touch of his hand brushed your hair away from your neck, as he breathed a sweet hoax of hot air upon your scare. Sam was relieved that you didn’t reject the contact, and instead, pressed his lips upon the flesh, finding succession whence you hummed deliriously to yourself.

This interaction had been inevitable for a long time, but now no longer were the suspected intentions for such an exchange to be to release well endorsed frustrations. No, he was going to clear your mind for some sensual moments, and make your pretty little head forget for a moment that you had pained yourself in the worst of ways.

Turning, you laced your hands through his chocolate locks, massaging his scalp as you pulled him closer so that your lips could endure a rougher clasp against his. There was no passion, behind each contribution there was a spur of hunger, he grasped your ass cheeks, pulling you up to be sat upon the top of your heavy dresser.

Obliging his command, you spread your legs so that he could stand between their partition, his hands now running up the windows of your thighs. For a while, the pair of you did nothing more than make out, and cup a feel here and there, but soon after, Sam dropped to his lanky knees, leaving kisses in the wake of his descent.

His thumb and forefinger spread your fluttering folds, watching as your slit squirmed for attention. Sam licked his lips at the sight, running his middle finger up the expanse, until he came to your yearning entrance. Slowly, after making sure you were wet enough, Sam slipped his digit inside, you wiggling your hips to adjust to the thrust of his one finger.

To add to the sensations that were overriding your body, he moved his mouth to closer proximity, smelling the divine aroma that pulsed out of you. It was far too addictive to not get a taste, and thus,he pulled his finger out, sucking off your juices contently.

But that small sample just wasn’t enough, which encouraged him to dive face first into your pussy - literally. His long tongue teased your folds, slurping at the lips, and then switching to your clit to heighten the stimulation. He kept up a rhythm, using it as a pattern to push you closer to that edge, and he was surely certain that you were enjoying his oral work as you ground your face against him, moaning at his succulent administrations.

“Sam.” Oh god, was it pleasant to hear his own name fall out your mouth in such an erotic manner. It was far different from the way that you usually used it to snide at him, though, the thought of your regular treatment of him aided only to spur his lustful actions on. He wanted you to cum, for your juices to run down his face in waterfalls, looking as though someone had tried to drown him.

His work would not be complete until you found it difficult to even pronounce his short name. Digging his tongue in the hood of your clit, tracing around the protective area, his fingers returned to their earlier placement, and he quickened their pace until he could hear a satisfying squelch in the air.

Rapid sounds of parted moans raked from your mouth, your chest sticking out as you breasts heaved with your heavy breathing. It was noticeable that you were close, not just from that, but you were squeezing the circulation out of his fingers. “Fuck.” Left you in the form of a squeal, as you pussy wept its juices.

Sam was quick to lap everything that left you up, once more, tasting those that clung to his fingers. He went back in for another taste, but you tightly grouped his hair, pulling him away from your sopping cunt. “Need you to fuck me Sam, now.”

In an instant, the hunter stood, working precariously on undoing the buckle of his belt, and pushing all material that covered his lower half to the bottom of his thighs. He read already hard, and oozing precum. You swept your finger across the tip of his dick, bringing it to your lips to taste his foreshadowing seed.

Sam huffed at the sight,picking his prick up in one hand, and jerking himself a couple of times. And then, he aligned himself with you, rubbing his cock around your wet crevice a couple of times, slapping his tip teasingly against your puffy clit.

“Want my cock baby?” He asked, smirking as he watched you nod your head repeatedly. With that being all the confirmation that he needed, he pushed into you,feeling even more turned on as he heard you mewl, and watched the ecstatic expression cross your face as his dick fit inside of you all the way.

He grasped your hips, pulling out once before pushing in again. He repeated the action, his own eyes rolling to the back of his head at how tight you were. This would make you forget the cruel method of god, his story was not as epic as he though, for his characters were screwing against his will, basking in a distraction rather than the regretful pain that seethed in your trodden heart.

Another thrust had your nails clasping onto Sam’s covered back, biting onto his shoulder through the plaid, as you held back the tears that were trying to creep out of your blissful eyes. A few grunts left Sam, as his pace increased, and with every thrust, which only served to fuel him further, the dresser smashed into the wall behind it, most likely leaving a decent dent within the historical architecture.

“Gonna cum.” You told him, dragging him in for another tongue filled kiss as your cunt pooled around him, coating his cock in the honey from your delicious pot. He soon followed after, and for a moment, he remained against you, allowing you to bask in the comfort of his strange presence.

And then he pulled out, watching as his distraction dripped from your entrance, trailing down your thigh in a white streak. An orgasm smile was pulled onto your face, but it was certain to not last long for when you returned to the reality that laid waiting for you to return.

Sam stepped closer again, moving his fingers towards your cunt, and pushed his seed back inside of you, watching as your puffy pussy lips swallows any part of him that it could get. He would distract you for as long as he could, and then, deal with the inevitable.