#it's almost a faint sepia brown

[krawdad]

Ooh it makes a nice sketching color if I fill the ink cartridge with water then add like half a drop of black ink and a drop of the red ink

[vaultdamned]

back, sender gives receiver a back hug.

lost the meme, but there's many to choose from!

     VINCENT’S UNSURE WHEN EXACTLY the sky turned black; commonplace amongst the weather he & eliana endured as they trekked. dozens of miles behind them. the soles of their shoes caked in dirt, dust, grime, & mud, much like their skin. showering was a dire need — a thought that came to vincent so casually in a matter of seconds from the aftermath of feeling filthy; he’d almost forgotten such luxuries required different set-ups, how it wasn’t as simple anymore. blue eyes peer to the black, endless ceiling above. rainfall would have to suffice — but while standing in the rain brought zero consequences to his health, eliana’s begged to differ. an old wives tale — prolonged exposure to the rain making one sick, but it wasn’t the rain itself; shuffling around in drenched clothes as the cold air whips against your skin weakens the immune system. 

     he’s managed a few footsteps lead ahead of her, finally turns, stops, & whistles calling for her attention. ❝ hey — gonna rain. need to find shelter. ❞ swivels back around, marching forward with an adjusted grip on the straps of his backpack. something peaks above the trees, bobbing its head up slowly with each mark forward, until a tall building reveals itself – some kind of factory. vincent points ahead, setting their camp for the night; not the inside, but somewhere near the groundskeepers shack. every factory had one.

❝ head towards there. we’ll settle in. stick to the trees for cover. ❞ they hadn’t come across a volatile group, & they were due, still he’d will the night for silence.

    hard to pinpoint why the structure strikes a jolt of nostalgia through his nerves. they all looked the same after the bombs dropped, but as they drew near, bodies low to the ground & weapons expertly hidden, yet ready, a partial sign welcomes them; the name has long been blown off, but the dirtied red circle with a falling atom bomb is all he needs to know. he stops, planting his feet into the ground as his breathing slows at the memory, eyes fixed to the sign, to the decrepit building; factory machines whirring over labored voices, shouts of mechanical issues & quick solutions. a too tight suit, briefcase full of nothing but scribbled notes on paper, firm handshakes, fiery hair seeming to strike a match in whichever room she surveyed. her smile, smug as it was genuine if they day suited her. white blouses & black skirts. black hair. rosemary … lifeless at the table. cigarette in hand. she closed her eyes & never woke up, mr. riffy. a son shouldn’t blame himself — 

   the sudden grip around his waist brings a sharp intake of breath. warmth flushes against his torso; chemical clouds of plasma coat his nostrils faintly, sight glazing down to hands, rough & small, flecks of tiny scraps making their temporary home ontop eliana’s fingers as she clasps him to his chest. blue eyes widen & muscles clench. the memory fades, much like the ending of a song as it relinquishes sepia noise to the quiet of the wasteland — dead branches creaking against the impending wind, the pestering buzz of bloatflies floating around, & eliana’s muffled breathing hot against the back of his jacket. limbs remain fixed to his sides, stare blank into the ground as he imagines how she looks from behind. are her eyes open? closed? what was she thinking right now? had he done something to prompt this? or did she need a moment of comfort in an otherwise stagnant ray of time? 

   vincent turns his head, a slight strain on his eyes as they stretch out of their limited view, catching a ball of muddied brown hair. his heartbeat slows in the wake of silence, his faint breathing joining her’s, mouth running dry as the back of his head begins to fall towards her, submitting against the restraint within his neck, allowing scents of earth & soap to follow, the top of her hair brushing against the stubble of his cheek, but as he searches for solace in this sudden embrace, a wet droplet smacks his forehead. he flinches, pulls his head away, & grabs eliana’s hands, breaking her gasp. 

❝ c’mon, gotta beat it before we got drenched. ❞

[leiawritesstories]

Keeping It Safe

Based off this prompt from @writtenonreceipts prompt list that was also sent to @rowaelinprompts

Word count: ~4k

Warnings: Ummmm......this was written by Frederick, the resident angst monster, sooooo....yeah.

I'm going to run away and hide now

enjoy (?)

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

The picture hung in a frame the exact shade of the dog tags hanging on a nail just to the left--dull gleaming iron gray with a faint attempt at a sheen when the light was just so, smoothly polished from loving care and the years of little and larger fingers that passed over it every time someone walked through the hallway. The glass, smooth as water and clearer than crystal, not a single fingerprint or hint of contact blurring its pristine surface, laid gently over the sepia-toned photograph in the frame, lovingly preserving the two brilliant smiles captured in time. 

An old war photograph, a young soldier headed across the wide ocean without knowing whether he would come back, a young woman who loved him fiercely clinging as tightly as she could in the few moments they had left together, a camera’s brilliant flash catching the last desperate bright burning smile the couple ever shared. The decades since had not so much as touched the measure of impossible joy trapped in that photograph, despite the ocean of emptiness that the sight of that photograph brought. 

Twenty-seven years now since Rhoe Galathynius kissed Evalin Ashryver goodbye and boarded the silver and brown bus that whisked him away, first to an army camp and then across an ocean, his only bridge of connection to the woman he loved the few letters he had time to dash off and slip into the post before the mail carrier left. 

Twenty-seven years now since the attack that abruptly ended his final letter. 

Rhoe Galathynius died without ever knowing that Evalin had been pregnant when he left. She found out days before the attack, guarded the secret closely in her heart and wrote it down in her journal and in her letter, black ink licking across ivory pages, so much life and love and laughter contained in a few simple words. 

To the right of the photograph--that letter, encased in its own frame, the clear glass revealing all of Evalin’s hopes and fears, all the emotions of a war wife. She’d barely been married three months before Rhoe got the draft notice, barely three months overflowing with joy and passion to hide that ever- lurking knowledge that he could be called away at any moment. Three months of proudly displaying the matching gold bands on their left hands before Rhoe slipped the band from his finger, knelt down before her, and pressed the ring into her hand. 

“Keep it safe for me, my Fireheart.” 

~

Evalin still wore that ring on a simple chain around her neck. Growing up, Aelin remembered asking why Mama had a ring on her necklace, and she remembered the way her mother’s voice caught when she whispered that it was Dad’s ring. 

That soft hitch in Evalin’s voice was the only outward sign of grief she’d ever shown her daughter, even as Aelin grew into a woman and fully understood her father’s death. Even still, Evalin never cried in front of her daughter, not even when Aelin turned eighteen and looked into the box of carefully preserved letters and mementos, almost able to hear her father’s voice for the first time. 

“‘Keep it safe for me, my Fireheart,’” Evalin whispered that night as she held Aelin close to her, closing her eyes against the sudden swell of memories. “Keep it safe for me.” 

Though her eyes had shone with unshed tears, Evalin still hadn’t cried on the day of Aelin’s wedding when she slipped into her daughter’s changing room and removed the chain from around her neck, settling herself into a chair at Aelin’s side. Aelin grasped her mother’s hand, willing herself to keep from crying and ruining her makeup as Evalin pressed the golden band into her daughter’s free hand. 

“Your father told me to keep it safe, Fireheart, and now I’m telling you the same.” Evalin unclasped the chain, sliding the ring free. “He would want you to have it.” 

“Mama,” Aelin whispered, the word something she hadn’t called her mother for years,  turning Rhoe’s wedding band over in her hands. 

“We’re so proud of you, Fireheart.” Evalin kissed her daughter’s forehead. “So proud.” 

And when Aelin placed her father’s ring onto Rowan’s finger, claiming him as her husband, the bright burning joy of that moment could almost drown out the pins and insignias and medals and marks of honor adorning the fine navy fabric of his jacket. The sheer overwhelming happiness filling her heart and mind and soul and body could almost blot out the rigid stance of her new husband’s posture, years of military training having drilled that posture into his bones. 

Just like her mother, she fell in love with a military man knowing he could at any time be called away to duty. 

And he had been. 

When they were dating, Rowan had knocked on Aelin’s door at the crack of dawn one foggy November morning, his standard-issue duffel bag at his feet and a storm of emotions seething in his face. 

“I’ve been called up, Fireheart.” 

She hadn’t said anything, just pulled him by the collar into her apartment and clung to him like her buoy in a writhing ocean, burying her face into his broad chest and inhaling the familiar, comforting scent of pine and mountain breezes that so calmed her heart. He’d wrapped her into his arms, tucking his face against her hair, whispering promise after promise into the messy blonde strands. 

“Come home to me,” she breathed, fisting her hands in his jacket. “Come home.” 

“Always,” he swore. 

That time, he had. 

~

Aelin remembered the strangled cry of relief and love and worry she’d released when Rowan texted her from New York, saying simply that he was back and when his flight would be landing at their local airport. She still remembered the way she gasped with all the emotions she couldn’t yet let loose when he walked through the doors, his pine-green eyes immediately latching onto her, the way her legs took on a mind of their own and brought her sprinting to him, the way he dropped his duffel and caught her and held her as close as physically possible. 

So many tears shed that day, and all of them were of pure joy. 

Eight months after they were married, Aelin came home from work to find Rowan sitting on the sofa twisting the wedding band around and around his tattooed finger, an opened envelope on the coffee table next to him, the military insignia stamped onto the paper blaring out the damning message. 

Duty. 

“I don’t want to leave you,” he whispered softly, voice broken into a thousand thousand shards as she held him, his head tucked into the crook of her neck, his broad, honed body draped over hers, her fingers carding through his short-cropped hair. 

“I know,” she breathed. “I know.” 

Both of them were crying that evening, that night, curling into each other’s bodies in a tangle of limbs and skin and unspoken promises, the faint tang of steel and sweat in the air seeming like every kind of foreboding omen. Aelin’s eyes glittered with an ocean of tears when she awoke with the dawn light, stealing one precious moment of looking at her husband relaxed in his sleep, one last moment to cherish in her heart until he came home to her. 

For he would come home. She would hear nothing else. 

She stood strong and tall by his side at the airbase, hand laced with his until the call for boarding came and he had to leave. 

“I love you,” she whispered. “Come home to me.” 

“I promise.” Rowan kissed her wedding band. “I love you, Fireheart.” Softly, tenderly, he slipped the wedding band from his finger, cupping her hand with his and placing the ring into her hands. 

Aelin swallowed her sob as she wrapped her fingers around the warm gold band, the warmth of her husband’s hand lingering in the precious metal. 

“Keep it safe for me, my Fireheart.” 

She broke at that, wrapping her arms around him and holding so tight his breath went short, her tears dripping into his jacket. Her kiss was desperate, longing, filled with a million things she couldn’t find the words to say. 

“You’re coming back to me,” she gasped fiercely as she let him go, their linked hands the only point of contact. “You are.” 

“I promise.” 

And then Rowan’s hand fell from hers as he walked away, keeping his eyes locked on hers until the distance became too great. 

~

Nine weeks later, she fainted in her office. 

Elide Lochan, her dear friend since childhood and her coworker at the publishing firm, heard her collapse and came running into her office, reviving her and whisking her off to urgent care, where the nurse hooked her up to an IV drip, took a few samples, and came back bearing the news that nearly made Aelin faint again. 

She was pregnant. 

She asked the doctor for an extra set of ultrasound photos at her first scan appointment, tucking the little black-and-white images of the fourteen-week baby inside of her into the next letter she sent to Rowan. 

His voice in their next phone call was broken for a far different reason than it had been when he left for this deployment. 

“Are you serious?” 

“Yes.” She sniffled, wishing and wishing she could be sharing this news face to face. “I’m pregnant, Rowan.” 

“Gods,” he breathed, a muffled sob echoing faintly from his end of the call. “Gods, we’re having a baby.” 

“Come home to us,” Aelin whispered when the call ended. 

His promise that time was even more fervent than ever. 

~

Six months of sharing ultrasounds and photos of her growing bump and brief phone calls whenever he was allowed time to call home passed so quickly, and before either of them knew it, Rowan was once again on the phone, this time with very good news. 

He’d be home in ten days, his tour of duty over. 

The baby kicked as Aelin gasped, tears springing to her eyes for a hundred different reasons. She rubbed her free hand atop her bump, soothing the baby. “That’s right, my little love, Dad’s going to be here so soon. You’d better wait until he gets here, I need to have his hand to shatter.” 

Rowan’s soft, raspy chuckle was a sound that Aelin wished she could bottle up and keep forever. 

Because a week after that call, his CO was the one on the other end of the line. 

She didn’t remember collapsing on the kitchen floor after hanging up the phone, torrents of shock and grief and confusion and terror washing over her. She didn’t remember reaching shakily for the phone again when a searing blaze of pain speared through her lower body, didn’t remember calling her mother or the ambulance that arrived moments later or the tension and terror of that long blurry hazy night first in the ambulance and then in the hospital. 

She remembered how Alanna wailed when she came into the world, the tiny baby girl’s lungs screaming out her arrival as if she, too, somehow knew what triggered her mother’s labor. 

We must inform you that Captain Rowan Whitethorn is missing in action. 

Aelin cradled her baby girl in a dazed state of shock, murmuring softly to her daughter and letting herself be grounded in the simple act of learning to nurse. Alanna calmed so quickly once she was fed, her little green eyes blinking sleepily up at her mother. 

She looked so much like Rowan. 

Lana grew so quickly, the tiny bundle of blankets she’d been at the hospital soon giving way to soft baby clothes and blankets and a beautiful crocheted hawk that Evalin had made for the baby. Every night that Lana’s cries drew Aelin out of slumber to feed and soothe her daughter made her wish for Rowan, made her wish that her beloved husband were there to see their daughter’s firsts. 

But for all her efforts and searches and trips to the base to meet with the commander--nothing. 

Silence. 

~

Lana took her first bites of food, said her first words, grew her first teeth, took her first wobbling steps, had her first birthday without Rowan there to see any of it. Aelin took pictures of it all, writing down the things she couldn’t capture on a camera, building a book of Lana’s first months and years for Rowan. If and when he ever returned. 

Every time the small girl woke herself up crying, Aelin wished Rowan were there. 

Sometimes, she just held her daughter and cried with her, whispering that it was okay, that Mama was okay, that it was all okay, until Lana calmed down and slept in her mother’s arms, her breathing steady against Aelin’s skin. 

Sometimes, she sat in the rocking chair and rocked and told her daughter stories of her father, building a picture of the strong, kind, loyal, steadfast man who loved her even when she was just a set of pictures of her growing self inside Aelin’s womb. Sometimes, she told Lana all about the way they met, that night in the crowded, dimly lit bar when Aelin in her “slight tipsiness” stumbled into Rowan hunched atop his stool at the end of the bar, nursing a beer and wearing a frightening scowl. Gods, how she wished he was there to laugh his dry, deep laugh and whisper to their precious little daughter that Mama was totally lying, that she was more than a little tipsy, that he’d been captivated by her since the moment he met her in that dingy dive bar. 

Sometimes, she danced slowly around Lana’s sage-green and dove-grey room, holding her daughter against her shoulder and hiding her silent tears as her daughter grew from a little baby she could cradle in her arms to a toddler whose sleepy head slumped against her mother’s shoulder. 

Always, she lingered for as long as possible, overcome by the yearning for Rowan that she thought she’d been able to control. 

Always, her hand went to the ring hanging from a cord around her neck, fingers tracing over the smooth golden band as if she could still feel his warmth emanating from it. 

Keep it safe for me, my Fireheart. 

Gods damn it all to hell, he’d promised to come back. 

~

Another photo hung next to the print of Rhoe and Evalin in Evalin’s house, one of Rowan and Aelin’s wedding portraits. In the image, Rowan beamed down at Aelin and she up at him, her head canted up to meet his gaze, the early evening sun washing over the scene and gilding the young couple in a bath of soft, golden light. In the image, their hands were linked, the golden band gleaming on Rowan’s finger like it gleamed on Rhoe’s hand in his and Evalin’s photograph. Aelin’s throat tightened every time she ran her finger along the smooth silver frame of that portrait, tracing the edge of her and Rowan’s all-too-brief happiness before the choking reality that he was still MIA crashed back down over her. 

Lana loved seeing the pictures, her big green eyes widening when Aelin held her up to see. Indeed, one of her first words had been “Dada,” spoken not long after her first birthday when Aelin was over at her mother’s house. 

Hearing those syllables in her daughter’s sweet little voice ripped the scab clean off the wound in Aelin’s fragile heart. 

~

Only a handful of weeks away from her second birthday, Lana had taken to running all around the house and yard and nearly stopping Aelin’s heart when she turned around and her daughter had run off to another room. Mother and daughter were upstairs folding the laundry--well, Aelin was folding, Lana was playing with a couple of washcloths and talking away in toddler babble. 

Four knocks thudded against the front door. 

Lana dropped her washcloths. “Door!” she exclaimed, running out of the bedroom and down the hallway. 

Aelin caught her before she could try and scoot down the stairs. “Uh-uh, lovey, Mama has to help you go downstairs, remember?” 

“I big!” Lana pouted, wriggling a little in Aelin’s hold as they descended the stairs. “Down Mama! Dow’!” 

“All right,” Aelin laughed, releasing her daughter. 

Lana ran to the door and reached up for the lock, straining, her little arms still just unable to reach it. She pouted and clung to her mother’s leg. “Wanna open.” 

“Of course,” Aelin smiled. “Here, help Mama open the door, lovey.” 

One small hand and one larger hand turned the doorknob, swinging the front door open to find--

“Fireheart.” 

Aelin’s legs wavered and she grabbed the doorframe to keep herself upright, the whirling maelstrom of emotions she’d shoved and locked away when she grew despairing of ever hearing news of Rowan bursting free from its prison and crashing over her. 

For there was her husband standing in the doorway, his hair overgrown, his body haggard, his clothes not properly fitting, a fine pale scar slashing across his forehead and through his left eyebrow, his worn old duffel bag in his hand and all the oceans’ worth of tears spilling over in his eyes. 

“Rowan,” Aelin choked out, somehow finding the strength to stand and reach out and touch his solid, stable frame and pull him into the house, sobbing, two years of pent-up strain at last relieved. 

“Aelin,” Rowan breathed, dropping the bag in his hand and carefully pulling her into his arms, staring in shock and wonder at her and at Lana, who was in her mother’s arms. 

It was their daughter who broke the silence. 

“Dada?”

Rowan heaved a strangled sob, nodding, reaching out so tenderly, so hesitantly, to touch his daughter’s soft cheek. “Hi, my little one.” 

“Dada,” Lana repeated, reaching out to him. 

Aelin nodded, her sob a half-laugh, and carefully shifted Lana into Rowan’s arms. 

The little girl stared into her father’s face, patting her small hand on his cheek, along the tattoos flicking up the side of his neck and onto his cheekbone. “Dada daw-in’s.” 

“Yeah,” he whispered, “Dada’s got drawings, Lana.”

He looked over to Aelin, unabashedly crying, holding Lana so gently, like he was afraid she might vanish if he so much as moved in the wrong direction. 

“We love you,” she murmured, taking one hesitant step closer to him, almost like she, too, was half-worried she would blink and wake up and realize that it had all been a dream. 

Rowan closed the gap, pulling his wife into his embrace, his whole family--his whole life--united at last in his arms. His shoulders quaked with the force of his sobs as he buried his face into Aelin’s hair, hiding his tears from his daughter. When he could speak again, he heaved a deep, shuddering breath and touched the cord around her neck, tracing the way it disappeared into the neckline of her shirt. 

She tugged it free, revealing his wedding band--Rhoe’s wedding band--hanging from the cord, glinting in the electric light. 

“I…I kept this for you while you were…away,” Aelin whispered, sliding the ring off of the cord. 

Rowan’s throat bobbed. “It’s been two years.” 

“I know.” An entire ocean--an entire world of grief and sadness and terror and fear and loneliness packed into those two simple words. “I know, Rowan.” Reaching down to his tattooed hand, she quietly, gently lifted his hand up, tracing her thumb over the scarred skin of his knuckles, the rough calluses on his palm, the intricate inked characters of his tattoo, some newer than others. “I love you, Rowan Whitethorn Galathynius.” 

“I love you, Aelin Whitethorn Galathynius,” he croaked, eyes and heart overflowing as his wife slipped his wedding band back onto his finger and softly kissed the gold, her lips caressing his skin. 

Still perched in her father’s embrace, Lana clapped her little hands, babbling a stream of toddler talk of which they could only make out Mama Dada yay! “Tiss!” she squealed. “Tiss, tiss!” 

Rowan blinked. “What?” 

Lana wriggled and squirmed, so he set her down and followed her as she tugged him out to the hallway. Down to where another of Rowan and Aelin’s wedding portraits hung. 

In this one, they were kissing. 

“Tiss Mama!” she declared, beaming. 

Aelin’s soft laughter echoed through the hallway. “Is that what Dada and Mama need to do, lovey?” 

“Ya!” Lana nodded enthusiastically. “Mama Dada tiss!” 

“Can’t say no to her, can we?” Rowan murmured, sliding his arms around his wife. 

“Of course not.” Aelin ran her fingertips along his face, tracing over the new scar, her touch delicate, uncertain, yet so so familiar. 

He slipped one hand into her hair, gingerly tilting her head up. “To whatever end, my Fireheart,” he breathed. 

And he kissed her slowly, tenderly, reveling in the astonishing reality of holding his wife in his arms again after two long years apart

~

A new photo hung next to the carefully preserved photograph of Rhoe and Evalin, this one framed in polished chestnut, the wood not yet bearing the grooves of many years of hands running along its surface, the glass protecting Rowan and Aelin and Lana’s beaming faces. It was their first family portrait since Rowan returned home, the first glimpse of the three of them reunited and beyond content to bask in each other’s embrace. Rowan’s soft, fond smile brought joy to his whole pose, his bright green eyes melting as he looked to Aelin, who had Lana in her arms, the little girl beaming at her parents. 

There was so much happiness contained in that photo, so many months and years of quietly stifled grieving giving way to unfiltered elation. So many promises whispered in the darkest hours of the night when Rowan jolted out of troubled dreams and Aelin just held him, promising that he would never leave her again, that he would never have to leave her again. So many promises to remain at each other’s sides through it all, complete with Aelin’s fiery promise to damn the whole world to hell if it ever tried to take Rowan from her again.

If only she could have truly made that promise. 

~

Alanna Whitethorn Galathynius turned away to wipe her eyes with a tissue she’d tucked into her sleeve, not needing her first appearance to reveal the bottomless chasm of grief that cleaved her in two, and exhaled deeply, squaring her shoulders as she turned back around. Her dress, dark charcoal grey material soft against her skin, matched the thick blanket of clouds obscuring the sun, matched the patchy drip of cold raindrops that spattered on the grass, the dirt, the gravel paths, the stones, matched the thick choking sobs clotted in her throat, matched the solemn emptiness that pervaded the cemetery and the mausoleum.  

Shaking, she reached out and touched the stone in front of her, her fingertips gliding over the smooth surface, tracing unsteadily over the letters engraved into the marble. 

Whitethorn

To Whatever End

The rain beat steadily down now, fat wet drops pouring over Lana’s umbrella, the wind pushing raindrops past that small protection and into her dress, her skin, her hair, mingling with her tears as she closed the umbrella and tipped her face up to the sky and traced the letters on the mausoleum stone over and over and over again. 

“I’m keeping it safe for you,” she whispered, her other hand twisting the simple golden band dangling from a fine golden chain around her neck. Rhoe’s ring. Rowan’s ring. 

Both of them gone now, the wedding band the only thing they left behind.

“I'm keeping it safe. I promise.”

~~~

TAGS:

@charlizeed

@cretaceous-therapod

@clea-nightingale

@autumnbabylon

@nerdperson524

@fireheartwhitethorn4ever

@morganofthewildfire

@rowanaelinn

@wesupremeginger

@stardelia

@shanias-world

@mybloodrunsblue

@swankii-art-teacher

@wordsafterhours

@cookiemonsterwholovesbooks

@violet-mermaid7

@holdthefrickup

@goddess-aelin

@rowaelinismyotp

@dealfea

@irondork

@elentiyawhitethorn

@live-the-fangirl-life

@darling-im-the-queen-of-hell

@chronicchthonic14

@lovely-dove-zee

@sweet-but-stormy

@hanging-from-a-cliff

@jorjy-jo

@rowaelinrambling

@thegreyj

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@backtobl4ck

@throneofus7

@elizarikaallen

@llyncooljones

@booknerdproblems

@julemmaes

@earthtolinds

[abyss-if]

𝐖𝐄𝐋𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐄 𝐓𝐎 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐀𝐁𝐘𝐒𝐒.

What was supposed to be a simple job has spiraled into something far greater than you. After receiving a strange, gut-wrenching message from your brother, you embark on a journey through space on an old ship, alongside wanted criminals. Somehow, in an attempt to save your brother, you become entangled in a heist bigger than the galaxy has ever seen. 

But not everything is as it seems, and it looks like you may have accidentally started a revolution.

Customizable MC (play as a female, male, non-binary, trans or cis, choose your appearance, craft your personality and hone your skills)

Save your brother (or at least try to save him)

Fall in love with one of the four unique RO’s, two of them with customizable gender

Rob the rich

Overthrow a government or two

Attend a Alice in Wonderland themed party

Found family trope, because who doesn’t love that?

Adopt an alien pet – a space dog, bird or a rat

And remember, arson is okay

Juniper “June” Kinnear - (gender cust.) - The Puppetmaster. Your brother’s best friend, almost a member of your little family now. A coworker, master at infiltration with love of fixing old electronics. Well connected and ambitious. || Dark skin, tight curls falling into sparkling brown eyes. A slight dip in the chin, dimples visible only when they smile. 

Jinho Lee - (M) - The Henchman - A bit abrasive, with a permanent frown on his face, he doesn’t really want to be there. It seems like sarcasm is the only language he knows. Pushing people away - it has became a habit of his. An influential member of Enigma. || Warm ivory skin, almost black hair falling into his dark brown eyes, with his nose and ears pierced.

Manon Sayari - (F) - The Art Forger - The most infamous art forger in the galaxy. She was born with a paint brush in one hand, and a gun in the other. A mystery no one can solve - the times of having friends and trusting them are long gone for her. || Tanned brown skin, a dark mullet that reaches her shoulder blades, with the underside and roots dyed red. Faint freckles kissing her cheeks.

Idris Crowe - (gender cust.) - The Pilot - A local Florida man. People may say they have a questionable taste, but they think it’s just too refined for others. The pilot of your ship, running through the galaxy from their demons. If there is an explosion, it was definitely them. || Sepia-toned skin, wavy brown hair, a defined jawline, and hazel eyes with a sly glint. Nails always painted with nail polish.

DEMO || FORUM || SPOTIFY || CONTENT WARNINGS

[seething-fire]

How I think the Sanders Sides would look if they were real

Warnings: mentions of weapons, but only as tattoos 

Logan: 

Tall boi, like 6’2 (187 cm)

He’s pretty pale, like could get a sunburn anytime, anywhere, kind of pale

His hair is naturally curly and blond, but he colors it brown because he got tired of all the blond jokes 

I don’t really know how to describe the length, but all of it covers his ears, but doesn’t quite hit his jaw

He has acne scars on his cheeks and along his jawline 

When he has more than two days off, he lets his beard grow (but not because he’s ashamed of his scars, he just likes having a beard) 

Some freckles around his nose 

DIMPLES

Stocky

He doesn’t lift weights, but he’s just a solid guy, ya know? 

Has been asked if he’s a football (American football) player because of his build 

Light blue eyes

Only wears square glasses 

Immediately puts on some kind of woven bracelet when he gets home 

When he’s not at work or school, he wears those gray sweatpants you know what I’m talking about 

Only has about a million shirts with science and space puns on them 

Has a pair of fluffy slippers that he loves 

Patton:

He’s just a bit shorter than Logan and Virgil, so he’s 5’9 (175 cm) 

His skin is gorgeous, a rich tawny shade

Dark wavy hair that almost reaches his shoulders

He’s kind of lanky; he’s thin and has long legs 

Brown eyes (He likes to describe them as a “cocoa” shade because of his love for chocolate lol) 

Has faint smile lines because he smiles so much 

Has a slit in one of his eyebrows (not on purpose; gardening accident)

Likes to wear glasses in fun shapes or circles 

When he’s at home by himself, he’s sporting the cat hoodie and boxers we all know this man doesn't wear pants if not necessary 

He also loves socks with cute designs, so whenever he’s with his friends, he shows them off

Loves rings, especially ones that have hearts, or some other kind of shape/pattern 

Paints his nails a new color every week 

Tiny pride flag tattooed on his thigh

Enjoys experimenting with makeup, so he wears eyeshadow and lipstick sometimes

Roman: 

He’s 5’7 (170 cm) 

His skin is a warm sepia

His hair is pretty short, but long enough to make a quiff (yes, that’s how he wears his hair)

Currently it’s the natural color, but before he cut it, it was blue 

As far as his body goes, he’s muscular 

He could be considered ripped

Wears smaller shirts than he needs to so he can show off his muscles (think Steve Rogers)

Deep brown eyes

He has a small scar on his right cheek (He’s learning to love it)

*Loves* tattoos, so he has a few small ones 

There’s a sword behind his ear

A crown on his shoulder 

A rose on the inside of his right wrist 

And a Disney quote along his left forearm 

He thinks of himself as a art museum and those are his tiny pieces of art

He lounges around the house in a muscle tank and athletic shorts 

Paints his nails with Patton 

Virgil: 

Another tall boi; he’s 6’1 (185 cm) 

He has dark brown skin 

Bright purple fade, and you cannot change my mind (he loved the purple hair on Thomas)

The top is a bit long and very curly (He has 4C curls)

Hazel eyes 

He’s chubby and has a cute belly 

He’s got a little bit of extra fat on the sides of his lower rib cage, so when he’s home alone, he goes shirtless so he can see it all 

He really adores the way piercings look, so he has a couple 

A bar in one of his ears

An eyebrow piercing 

And a lip ring 

He also likes tattoos He and Roman may or may not get theirs done together 

But Virgil is covered in them 

He’s got some music related ones (you know one of them has to do with MCR) 

A few small skulls here and there, spider webs on the skin in between his fingers 

Things that symbolize mental health struggles 

Jack Skellington ;) 

And just a few random ones (a very small goldfish on his ankle) 

He just wears boxers when he’s by himself so he can see all the art all over his body 

But when there are other people around, he wears band t shirts and pajama bottoms 

Janus: 

Short king; 5’6 (167 cm) 

His skin can be described as terra cotta, almost 

Long, dark hair

He puts in a bun when he wears his hat

Has a similar build to Logan, but he’s shorter, so it looks different on him 

His shoulders are broad, and his legs are on the shorter side 

Has been described as “solid”

His eyes are a stunning deep deep brown 

Also has dimples 

May or may not have acrylics 

He likes to get snakes painted on them 

Permanent dark circles under his eyes 

Tongue piercing 

We know he can ROCK a skirt, so he wears them a lot

But when he’s by himself, he wears a fluffy white robe, no matter the weather 

Because of the aesthetic, obviously 

He also saves his money for designer jewelry, so over the years, he’s slowly acquired a nice collection of expensive stuff that he wears all the time 

Remus:

Somehow much taller than Roman; 6’0 (182 cm)

Like his brother, he has the same beautiful skin tone

He has a curly mullet (his hair is naturally straight, but he got a perm) 

It’s shaved on the sides 

Has two slits in both eyebrows 

And dark brown eyes like his twin  

He’s the thinnest out of everyone

Has a couple face tattoos and piercings 

Septum piercing, snake bites, eyebrow piercing 

A tiny garbage can tattoo on his temple 

“pull the lever” across his jawline (yes, it’s an Emperor’s New Groove reference)

He also thought it sounded metal as hell

A dagger on his neck 

And a small “x” under his eye 

Always wearing eyeliner and black nail polish 

Wears punk clothes 

Even in his down time 

Chains, patches, safety pins, diy clothes, all of it 

HUGE platform boots 

Still hasn’t taken his hospital bracelet off since the last time he was there 

[golden-songbird]

bully

prologue

—

Once upon a time, there was a boy named Roman.

To everyone, he seemed like the perfect kid. He always raised his hand during class, even though he was wrong quite often. He got lead parts in the school plays and musicals, and he never rubbed it in the other kids’ faces. He was a pretty boy, slender and delicate, and of average height. His skin was a warm sepia tan, and his hair was a wavy, dark brown puff that often sat fashionably underneath his prized possession: a newsboy cap that he received after playing Jack Kelly in his school’s production of Newsies JR.

Though Roman quite enjoyed being alone with his thoughts, scribbling ideas and snippets of poetry and stories in one of his many journals, he mostly preferred to spend his time in the company of others. He was quite lucky to have a group of friends who he could trust. His brother, Remus, and his best friends: Logan, Janus, and Virgil.

Roman knew that no matter what happened, his friends would always have his back.

That was why he wasn’t afraid of his freshman year of high school. He shared four classes with Remus, three with Virgil, and one with Janus and Logan. As Roman beamed down at his schedule on the first day, looking around the swarming hallways, filled to the brim with panicked fellow freshmen, he felt a strange sort of calm; almost as if he was in the eye of a storm.

But then, the realization hit the group that this would be their first time not having all the same classes. Virgil shuffled from one to the other, and Logan adjusted his glasses as he took another look at his schedule.

“We ought to try making friends of our own,” Logan mumbled, “It is high school, after all.”

“What does age have to do with anything?” Remus protested, “Just because we’re older doesn’t mean I want to replace you!”

“No one said anything about replacing,” Virgil said quickly, “Logan’s right. I’m not excited about it either, but the best way to avoid becoming the standard, typical, loser freshmen is to make friends with people besides your middle school friend group. Expanding your horizons, or whatever. That’s what my therapist said, anyway.”

“Your therapist is an idiot,” Remus huffed.

“Maybe it’ll be fun,” Roman said, “New people aren’t so bad. Trying to talk to people, making friends? That’s how we found each other.”

“Whatever, dashing,” Remus scoffed, but the smile that formed on his face betrayed him. “I’ll try it. Once. I’ll probably hate it, though.”

“We can all try,” Logan said, “And report our findings during lunch. A solid experiment. We can determine the approximate amount of idiocy that Virgil’s therapist has.”

The first bell rang as the group exploded with laughter, and kids started rushing even faster to get to their classes.

“Well, we don’t want to be late,” Virgil sighed, looking at his watch anxiously, “Let’s go, then.”

Roman watched as his friends went left, seeing as they all had the same first class. He felt a faint pang of loneliness as he realized that nobody in his friend group was going to be in theatre class with him. But he shook his head, trying to stand up tall and be brave. That was what Disney princes did after all, and Roman knew everything there was to know about Disney princes.

As he stood in front of the door to the theatre classroom, decorated with rainbow streamers and quotes from popular plays, Roman took a deep breath. He would channel his inner Florian, Charming, Phillip, Eric, Adam, Aladdin, Li Shang, Naveen, Eugene, and Kristoff if it was the last thing he did. Before he could hesitate anymore, Roman pushed the door open mightily, knowing that if he didn’t do it in one fell motion, then he might chicken out at the last second. But as Roman walked inside the classroom, he was so glad that he didn’t.

There were even more posters in the classroom than there were on the door for plays, musicals, movies, books, even poems! Roman started to bounce on his toes as he read all the quotes, feeling alive with inspiration. As he looked further, Roman saw that instead of traditional rows of desks, the desks were in little groups, similar to how it was done in elementary school. The thought made Roman smile as nostalgia fluttered in his heart. Best of all, the classroom had a huge mural, and it was a big painting of all the Disney princesses up to Tiana standing next to their princes.

Roman felt like he was going to explode with joy.

“It’s Prince Florian!” he exclaimed before he could help himself, starting to feel his arms swing back and forth, back and forth as he swayed on his feet. “And Prince Charming, and Prince Phillip, even Eugene is here! People usually forget about him!”

“I see someone’s a fan of the mural.”

Roman turned around, and was met by a very tall man standing a few feet away from him. He was holding a large thermos of coffee, and was wearing a pair of sunglasses that completely blocked his eyes from Roman’s view. His smile was wry, but it didn’t seem sarcastic or malicious.

“It’s nice to meet you, I’m Mr. Diaz. The theatre teacher here at Sugar Hill High,” the man said, “I’m assuming you’re a freshman?”

“Is it that obvious?” Roman asked with a chuckle.

“I mean, if you had class in this room before, you probably would have gotten used to the mural by now,” Mr. Diaz pointed out.

“You’d be surprised,” Roman said, looking back at the beautiful picture, “I love Disney. I actually know everything about the Disney princes!”

“Everything, huh?” Mr. Diaz asked, before pointing to the man standing beside Snow White, “What’s his name?”

Was this kindergarten?

“Prince Florian,” Roman supplied easily, “Duh.”

“And how old is he?” Mr. Diaz asked.

“18,” Roman once again responded, quick as a flash, “A lot of people think he’s 31, but that’s actually just a rumor. He was confirmed to be 18 a while ago.”

“Wow, impressive,” Mr. Diaz hummed, “Who’s the best Disney prince?”

“Prince Eric. Hands down,” Roman said, feeling his entire body buzz with excitement. “He’s never mean, he has an open mind, and even though he’s a bit stupid for not recognizing Ariel, he has an excuse. He was literally on death’s door on the beach. Plus, he totally saves Ariel’s life! Bam! The boat went right through Ursula!”

“Interesting answer,” Mr. Diaz nodded, “Now…who’s the worst Disney prince?”

“John Smith,” Roman said, wrinkling his nose. “He’s not even a real prince! Plus, his story was completely fabricated. He lied about meeting Pocahontas in one of his stupid journals, and historians found it and thought it was the truth! And then they made a dumb movie about it!”

Mr. Diaz offered a palm for Roman to high five, and Roman grinned brightly, immediately doing so.

“I’ve never met someone who’s so passionate about Disney princes,” Mr. Diaz said, “I think I’m gonna like you, kid. What’s your name?”

“Roman!” Roman supplied, glowing at the praise, “Roman Mendoza.”

“Oh, Mendoza! I remember you!” Mr. Diaz said, “You were Jack Kelly in Eastern Middle School, right?”

“That’s me,” Roman said, “You came to see Newsies?”

“I try to see all the middle school shows, so I can get an idea of who my future superstars will be,” Mr. Diaz explained, “And I think I may have found my first one! Find somewhere to sit, okay, honey? We’re gonna get started with introductions here soon.”

Roman nodded and took a seat right as he was told, staring again at the mural. He couldn’t take his eyes off it. Ever since he saw Snow White when he was four, Disney princes had been Roman’s obsession. It felt like even more than an obsession sometimes. Roman would stay up late, losing sleep to reenact sword-fights, and he would quote the princes in school assignments, and everyday life. Every year for Halloween, he was a Disney prince, and he spent hours making the costumes look just right. A perfectly accurate representation of the movie.

Sure, it was a lot. But it made Roman happy.

“Alright, guys, settle down!” Mr. Diaz called out as the late bell rang. “Settle down. It’s the first day of school, and we’re all tired, we’re not used to waking up early, blah, blah, blah. I get it. Today’s gonna be a chill day. We’re just going to fill out and color this worksheet, and get to know our tablemates better, okay?”

Roman nodded along with the rest of the class, and while Mr. Diaz started passing around the worksheets, he looked to see who he was sitting beside. Not very many kids liked to sit in the front like Roman did, so most of them were in the groups closer to the back of the class. In fact, there was only one other person sitting in Roman’s group.

A shorter boy with pale skin, stick-straight blond hair, and glasses. He had a slightly rounder build, and he had stickers all over his arms and face. Roman thought they looked so cool.

“Hi!” the boy said, “I’m Patton! Are you a freshman too?”

“Yeah,” Roman said, “I don’t think I’ve seen you before. Did you go to Eastern Middle School?”

“No, I went to Braxton Middle,” Patton replied, “Why are you taking theatre? Do you want to be in the crew or something?”

“Actually, I want to be a performer when I grow up!” Roman declared, “I’ve loved acting for…my whole life, actually. I didn’t actually start acting until I was around eleven, but I’ve always loved watching musicals and singing along! I’ve just always known that I was going to be onstage, and-”

“That’s cool!” Patton said, “I want to be an actor too. I’m actually a really good actor.”

“Me too!” Roman said proudly, “At least, I think I am. I hope I am. People have told me I am! And they wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t true, right?”

“Mhm, sure!” Patton chirped, “You seem smart. Can you help me with this worksheet?”

It was a worksheet on Shakespeare. Easy peasy. Roman loved reading Shakespeare plays and trying to figure out what all the fancy words meant, and one day during seventh grade, he went down a huge rabbit hole researching and learning about the guy. He wasn’t Roman’s favorite playwright, but Roman certainly knew enough about him to fill out a basic worksheet.

It felt really good, to be smart and desired for his talents.

“Yeah, okay!” Roman responded, holding out his worksheet next to Patton’s, starting to scribble his answers down so Patton could copy them. “Shakespeare is totally awesome. His tragedies are a little overhyped, I think comedy is where he really shines! I think “Midsummer Night’s Dream” is his best work, along with “Much Ado About Nothing”. That one’s totally hilarious! It’s about this guy, and he totally hates the idea of love, and so does this girl named-”

“When did he die?” Patton interjected.

“Uh…” Roman wracked his brain trying to remember, “Let me think…”

“Whatever, I’ll Google it,” Patton said, “Could you go get us some crayons so we can color this?”

“Okay,” Roman said, “What colors do you want?”

“Anything’s fine,” Patton replied, and Roman nodded and was off.

Suddenly, it came to him in a flash, and triumphantly, he shouted:

“1616! That’s when Shakespeare died, August 23, I think, 1616!”

“Uh, yeah,” Patton chuckled, “I already searched it up.”

Roman’s smile faded slightly. He had been proud of remembering that. But he supposed that Google was for research. There wasn’t much point in memorizing dates if he could just look it up whenever he needed it.

“I got red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, brown, black, white, pink, and gray,” Roman listed, setting the colored pencils on the desk. “I figured we can share so there’s enough for everyone.”

“How sweet!” Patton cooed, “That sounds perfect to me.”

Roman continued to chatter about whatever came to mind, occasionally being interrupted by Patton asking more questions about the worksheet. Roman was more than happy to supply answers. Patton seemed like a neat person, someone that Roman found himself looking up to. The guy was effortlessly cool. He was kind, and he called Roman nice things, like “adorable” and “sweet”.

Maybe making friends in high school wouldn’t be so hard.

By the time the bell rang, Roman and Patton had long finished their worksheets and were now just talking and getting to know each other.

Roman learned that Patton was an only child who had a cat named Beatrice and a dog named Bailey, that he loved to cook and bake, and that he put stickers all over himself all the time.

“I can turn in your worksheet for you,” Roman offered.

“Thanks!” Patton said, handing Roman his sheet, “I’ll see you later, okay? Wait- do you want my number? So we can just text whenever?”

Roman’s heart soared.

“Sure!” he said, holding out his phone immediately so Patton could type in his number, swaying back and forth on his feet with a huge grin on his face.

Patton handed it back after Roman turned in the papers, and Roman saw Patton’s last name in the contact information. Parsons. Patton Parsons. A fun and rather unique name, just like Patton himself! Roman was ecstatic, he felt like there was electricity in the air. First period, and he already made a new friend all by himself.

This was going to be a great year.

[redbeansoups]

Curiosity

Kaminari Denki x Reader

Includes: fluff, angst, hurt w/o comfort, implied cheating, mentions of alcohol

In which you and Kaminari Denki grow too comfortable in your routines, and weary eyes begin to wander.

Or, Kaminari Denki falls out of love.

***

“I want to marry you.”

His voice is firm, clear, confident. “One day, when we’re older.” Your hands are in his, clasped between the grip of his fingers, enveloped in a warm, lasting pressure. “We’ll get a house together, and a dog, and then we’ll get married.” He pulls you closer–and he’s warm, infectiously so, smiling down at you in a silent plea.

You feel his certainty in every possible way. 

So you smile.

“Of course, Denki,” you whisper, heart fluttering.

He chuckles, kissing your forehead. You feel the vibrations of his chest against your own, strong and deep and grounding. “Then it’s a promise,” he says. 

You want to hold him to his words. But the memory, prevalent as it is, always seems to present itself in faded reddish-browns, like a story scrawled in sepia-tinted fonts. The longer you dwell on it, replay it in your head, the faster it disintegrates and turns to dust. 

Before you know it, it slips away between your fingertips. His promise trickles down and out of your reach, until, finally, you can no longer call it your own.

***

You’d always known him to be yours. Everyone had; the inseparable highschool duo, ever-paired together. Your friends never invited one of you without dragging along the other. He’d met you as a first-year, and had immediately pestered the homeroom teacher to let him sit by your side. The poor woman had had no choice but to comply, relenting only after months of the boy’s pleads. 

He’d loved you, right from the start. Kaminari Denki showered you in affection, in handwritten notes and personalized gifts. Wide-eyed and charismatic, he’d done everything just right.

It was the half-hidden glances he shot you when he thought no-one was looking, the grin he reserved just for you, the way he’d pull you close to him every day without fail; it was the way he lit up at the sight of you and radiated with excitement at your very mention. Kaminari was earnest, and infectiously so.

How could you resist?

Dating Kaminari turned out to be an adventure. He’d drag you left and right on his antics—dared you to push your own limits as he did his. He’d take you on midnight drives, morning treks, call you over at the crack of dawn for nothing more than a hug. 

You were the careful, calculating counterpart to his thrill-seeking habits, to impulse and grandeur. 

He loved excitement, experiences, exploration.

You loved him.

A part of you knew, though, that you’d never quite be able to keep up.

***

“What will you do after highschool?”

It was a question you’d begun to hear increasingly frequently. An emotionally-charged inconvenience, the words tasted like uncertainty and distress, the budding woes of a soon-to-end highschool career.

“Go to university,” was always your answer, ever-practical. Every time without fail, you’d grimace at the words. 

His own response, though, was easier. Lighter.

“Beats me,” he’d chuckle, eyes crinkling as his lips turned upward in a smile. He’d sling an arm over your shoulder, pulling you close to his chest. “We’ll figure it out together, won’t we?” he’d say, grinning smugly down at you.

Heart beating, you’d roll your eyes and push him away. “Yeah, yeah.” 

Together.

Fearfully, you clung to the word.

***

The two of you throw your caps together at graduation. The navy-blue headwear drifts in the gentle spring air before landing gently at your feet, rustling the grass beneath you. Around you, people are crying. You’re tearing up yourself, but Kaminari is quite the opposite, a bundle of pure joy and glee. 

“We did it,” he whispers.

You nod.

You cling to his side throughout the festivities, greeting all your friends with your hand interlaced with his own. Kirishima and Sero, eager as ever, have already begun begging to join Kaminari as his groomsmen. 

Kaminari takes it all in stride, cackling all the while. “Bakugou’s the ring boy, then.”

“Like hell I am!” he snarls. In an instant, the two boys have begun an impromptu wrestling match.

You laugh; beside you, Ashido and Jirou do the same.

The antics are familiar, easy. They feel like any other day–yet a sense of finality hangs over you all. The air weighs heavy with the bittersweet realization.

“This is really it, huh?” Ashido mutters, sniffling.

Kirishima sighs. “Yeah.” His eyes are round, shining. “God, can you imagine? We’re gonna be adults.”

“We’ll have jobs,” Sero says, brows furrowed. “We’ll live on our own and pay taxes or whatever.”

Ashido sticks her tongue out. “Yuck.” Another chorus of laughter rings out, and most of the group continues on with the conversation. 

Jirou, though, remains quiet. Lips pursed, she turns to you, gaze demanding attention. 

“You’ll be moving in together, won’t you?” she asks.

You nod. 

“Big commitment,” she remarks. “You sure he’s ready for it?”

You know Jirou, trust her, immensely. But she’s always been Kaminari’s friend–a constant in his life, but never quite your own. They’d been friends long before you’d met him, and they’d stayed that way through the years.

You expect that will never change.

You chuckle. “Well, he’s the one pushing for it. You know him–can’t exactly change his mind when it’s made up.”

“Guess not.” She smiles up at you, lips turned sweetly up at the corners. But there’s something more in her eyes; something distant, wistful. In an instant, though, it’s gone–replaced instead by a look you assume is sincerity. “I’m happy for you two,” she tells you.

The smile widens.

Somewhat uneasy, you smile back.

***

Your shared apartment is cluttered from the very start, an explosion of personal trinkets and accumulated belongings. You opt for separate rooms, a decision you’d made with work and study in mind. You liked peace and quiet, and two rooms seemed a better choice–

Though, as both of you quickly learned, that didn’t stop you from sleeping in his arms every night.

Your studies proceed as expected; smooth and easy, you breeze by your courses without any trouble. Kaminari finds himself part-time work nearby, a little cafe a block or two away. Things are comfortable–you fall into a routine, stable and calm.

Calm, though, has never quite fit him.

Kaminari has always sought the thrill. 

***

Things grow busier over time. Schoolwork has you keeling over, bending backward at every moment, rushing to get your work done. The two of you, slowly but surely, grow apart; your routine no longer involves nightly cuddles, but weekly ones; your interactions gradually shrink down into practically nothing.

He tries, of course; he’ll pop his head into your room, ask you to come out, to go for a bike ride, to hang out with him and watch a movie–but crunchtime is brutal, and things never quite work out as you’d like.

You wish things could be easier.

But life, as you learn, slows down for no-one.

***

After a long day, you want nothing more than to see your boyfriend. You want his arms, his embrace, his words–attention, plain and simple.

But Kaminari, as of late, has seemed unkeen to deliver.

You think to go and see him, but there’s a sign up on his door. Busy, it reads, letters written in a bold red. 

You disregard them, and walk on in.

“I’m going to bed,” you tell him.

He hardly looks at you as you enter, hardly acknowledges your movements; his focus lies elsewhere, drowned in the blue light of the monitor. There’s a smile there, creeping on his lips, a child-like wonder sparkling in his eyes as his avatar jumps and swerves before him, each movement meticulously trained, controller clutched firmly in hand.

You’ve become familiar with the sight.

“Hell yeah,” he cries suddenly, fist clenched with excitement. “You saw that, didn’t you, Kyo?”

You sigh.

“Denki,” you call again, louder this time. The sound reverbs in your chest, pouring out of your throat; pained, like a wallow.

He continues. You stand there, back against the doorway, arms across your chest. 

Finally, he stops. The pause menu appears on-screen, and he swivels around, chair spinning delicately on its wheels–

But he’s frowning, eyebrows furrowed as he tugs his headphones down. They hang over his neck and radiate a faint glow on each side. “Yeah?”

“I was saying,” you mumble, “I’m going to–”

“I heard you the first time,” he says blankly. 

“It’s late, Denki. Don’t you want to sleep?”

“Not now.” Another dull reply.

You sigh, run a hand through your hair. “I miss you,” you admit.

“Me too–but not now, okay?” His lips turn upward–but the smile he gives you is forced. “I’m not sleepy. Maybe tomorrow.” Then, without another word, he swivels back around, slides his headphones into place, and resumes the game.

You shut the door and tuck yourself into an empty bed, trying to ignore his cheers, his voice–

And the voice, inevitably, at the other end of the line.

***

He goes out more now; bar-hopping, he tells you, with highschool friends. Kirishima and Sero and Bakugou and Ashido, you presume. Privately, you wonder why he never offers to bring you along like he used to. 

You’re busy, though. You suppose it doesn’t matter–

Until, one night, he doesn’t come home.

It takes ten frantic tries to reach anyone at all; Ashido and Sero both seem not to notice your calls at all. Even Bakugou, the reliable one of the bunch, doesn’t seem to have his phone on him.

It’s Kirishima that finally picks up, his greeting slurred and dopey. “Whazzup!” 

You sigh. “Ei, is Denki with you?”

“Huh?” Almost instantly, his voice has cleared up. “Isn’t he with you?”

“He’s not.”

“He said he was going home–wait, I’ll text the group and ask…” There’s some fumbling on the other end of the line, followed by some rustling. “Shoot, we left the bar ages ago too–”

You pinch the bridge of your nose. “Just.. let me know if anyone gets back to you.”

“Yeah, for sure.” His voice is breathy, uncertain. “He usually gets home fine–I really don’t know, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay, Eijirou. Thank you.” 

You hang up. Another hour passes–but not knowing what else to do, you shut your eyes and drift off to sleep.

***

You awake to a buzz from your phone. The screen illuminates the ceiling over you; the only remaining source of light.

Denki’s with me, the text reads.

It’s Jirou.

The text fills you with a weird sensation–a foreign taste, somewhere between relief and apprehension. A bitter flavor treads on your tongue.

Thank goodness, you type back. Is he okay?

Plastered, but he’s fine. Should I call him a cab? There’s a pause before her next text. I can take him tonight, if you want. My couch is free.

You ponder the thought. A part of you wants him home, wants him where you can see him. You aren’t even sure why he’d be at Jirou’s in the first place, and the thought fills you with unease. You want to drag him home, question him–

One glance at the clock, though, convinces you otherwise.

Could you watch over him tonight? I’ll come and get him tomorrow.

Another pause. Then, a reply.

Okay :)

You exhale and, tossing the covers over yourself, fall back into restless sleep.

***

You leave to retrieve him the next day. Jirou’s flat is a long journey over, and trek leaves you feeling unsettled. Still, your worry drags you out of bed and across town, coat wrapped firmly around you.

The walk, smack in the middle of winter, is far too cold for your liking. 

Jirou meets you by the front door, and welcomes you in before you can even move to knock. “Long time no see,” she says, smiling, pulling you into a hug. She looks better than ever–her face is shining. There’s a happiness in her eyes that is unfamiliar, even to you.

“You look good,” you tell her.

“So do you,” she says–a bluff, certainly. In your disheveled, crestfallen state, you’re sure you look anything but. “He’s still asleep, he’s in the living room… Oh, here.” The girl reaches over to her dining table and hands you a steaming cup of tea. “You must be freezing.”

You smile. “Thanks, Kyouka.”

Just then, an all-too-familiar groan resonates through the room. Kaminari emerges from the couch, bedhead on prominent display, shoulders slouched and slunken. His shirt is crinkled in odd places.

The alcohol, clearly, has gotten to him.

You grimace.

***

You ride the train back home, not willing to brave the cold. Kaminari, still much too hungover to think, seems to appreciate the decision.

The train is crowded when it arrives. The day occurs to you then–Saturday, right at the peak of rush hour. You hustle your boyfriend into the cart and hurriedly rush him into the last remaining seat. 

The train chugs to a start, and you clutch onto the handlebars above you. You watch as Kaminari leans his head back, a soft groan escaping his lips.

The sight annoys you. 

You lean your torso forward to bring yourself closer to him. “Why were you at Kyouka’s in the first place?” you ask, voice just above a whisper.

Kaminari tilts his head to meet your gaze. His eyes are sunken, tired. “Just wanted to see her,” he mumbles. “Haven’t seen her in ages.”

You sigh. 

“You worried me, Denki.”

“I was fine–”

“No,” you snap, cutting him off. “You didn’t even tell me you were going out,” you half-hiss, not wanting to draw attention to yourself. The anger, though, is building, tingling in your chest and fingertips, right on the edge of your tongue. “I sat at home waiting for you to come home, not knowing where you were or who the hell you were with. I had to ask Kirishima where you were–and, apparently, you told him you went home.” You can feel the heat welling in your eyes, threatening to spill. “Is that home to you, Denki? Her couch?”

He doesn’t meet your gaze. “Sorry.”

You exhale and lean back, resting your weight back on your heels. The rest of the ride back is silent. 

***

The next few days are tight, tense. There’s an anger you can’t quite quell, a thirst for something you can’t quite quench. You’re torn between wanting an explanation, an apology, a remorseful embrace assuring you things will be different–

But he goes out the next weekend, and the next, and eventually on the weekdays you once spent in each others’ arms. He fails, over and over, to come home, and all you can do now is try your best to ignore the click of the front door at dawn.

Spite. That’s the feeling now. You’re spiteful, vengeful, you want more out of him and less at the same time–but you don’t protest. You keep your lips tightly sealed, and move on with your life. You spend meals apart, nights separate, days distant and alone.

You fall into another routine–a colder, lonelier one. Sometimes, behind his back, you catch glimpses of his belongings; the worn winter jackets, the strewn contents of an overnight bag, the notifications from the girl you have always known–

You wonder if, in her presence, he finds the same thrill he once did in you.

***

A/N: went through a really rough spot. my feelings culminated in this monstrosity–it’s been a while, but i hope the writing was okay :)

also, i love jirou. very, very, very much. i didn’t mean to throw her under the bus here. i like to think the reader’s insecurities got to them, and that the cheating didnt actually happen, but that’s always open to interpretation.

[nahimjustfeelingit-writes]

Imagine:

Massage Therapist Erik

warnings: Anal, AU Erik, Nasty talk. 

I am here to worship your mind and your body.

To me in this moment no one exists but you.

I am here to appreciate every stretch mark,

Love handle,

Blemish, 

And scar. 

You are more than your pain. 

You are the embodiment of life and love.

Let me help you find you again.

As a massage therapist you must be careful to make your clients feel as comfortable as possible from the moment they step into the office. A clinical style office with bare white walls and empty shelves will make a person seeking relief feel more like they walked into a doctor’s office than into the hands of a competent, caring therapist. Paint the walls a warm color. Start with pale neutrals or warm, dark colors such as shades of brown or a rustic red or orange. Set the ambience with candles of different scents on shelves. Candle light always sets the mood and sparks relaxation. Invest in massage tables with thick foam cushioning and thermal capabilities. A whirlpool jacuzzi tub is a beautiful, visually pleasing, and fulfilled look that will have your clients envisioning they are in the comfort of their home. Soothing massage oils and creams will leave your clients skin extra soft and incredibly smooth while giving them a rich healthy glow at the same time. Your clients can also add the oils to their jacuzzi bath for a long and relaxing soak that will leave them practically glowing.

Erik Stevens, licensed Massage Therapist and Instructor for six years just opened his very own center titled Infinite Pleasure Day & Nite Spa with a full staff of young black Massage Therapists and Estheticians fresh out of the school he’s an instructor for. Erik offered them full-time and part-time positions and pay starting at $25 HR with the chance to earn more. The center closes at 10 PM but depending on the clientele, the center can stay open as long as it needs to. The uniforms for the ladies are black tunic wrap tops with black pants and the guys wear black polo shirts with black pants. On the back of the uniform shirts in gold is Erik’s business logo. It's the Hand of Midas with the silhouette of a woman’s curves superior to it. Even though Erik has his own spa, he takes personal house calls from some of his favorite lady clients. Erik will have a consultation with his clients to discuss and collaborate on how the mood should be set for the therapy session. Some prefer total silence because it heightens their senses, others like it if he talks with a soft spoken voice, sometimes they like it when he plays R&B music, and almost always they want the lights out with candles lit to set the mood. 

As much as he loved being a Massage Therapist, the physical demands can cause you to burn out. Self-care is indubitably important and being as physically fit as possible. The most important piece of equipment a massage therapist has is their own body. Erik stresses the importance of proper nutrition and diet, getting good enough sleep, and taking time out. It’s all about rejuvenation. Poor body mechanics can cause injuries to your hands, arms, shoulders, and back. Generating pressure from the core of the body and relieving neck strain by not looking at his strokes----keeping the head and neck in a neutral, extended position, and resting his chin against his neck to relieve the extensors is how Erik prevents work-related injury. Erik prefers to close his eyes when working because it reminds him that he does not need to watch the work being done so often---it allows him to better focus on what he is feeling with his hands. Erik’s strong, smooth hands have been compared to that of an angel or silk dragging across your skin. His smooth baritone allows you to let go and heal. Imagine how intense it is to have Erik as your Massage Therapist and not be turned on?

When I touch my client’s body, I touch their whole being---their intellect, their spirit, their emotions…

It’s a Thursday evening at Infinite Pleasure Day & Nite Spa and so far throughout the scorching hot day, at least twenty clients have been tended to. Kobi, the new hire receptionist, grabs the keys to the spa entrance, locking the commercial glass double doors. She twirls the key ring around her left pointer finger while walking back to the front desk. Kobi removes her black blazer, stretching out her arms to relieve tension in her back before pulling the bottom of her white blouse down since it had ridden up from her stretching. Kobi leans her head side to side, cracking her cervical vertebrae and then she rolls her shoulders before grumbling in pain. Her cleavage heaved when she released a deep breath before grabbing her black, mini Tory Burch bag from beneath the desk. Kobi then grabs her phone and charger, placing it within her bag. Shuffling from behind the desk, Kobi shuts off the front lobby lights, turning the corner towards the back of the spa. 

Kobi punches out with her personal PIN number on a wall-mounted time clock. Finally, Kobi lets her heat-damaged, curly nut-brown hair down, using her fingers to separate the half wavy, half curly strands. The faintly lit hallway made Kobi’s skin more sepia as she walked towards the back entrance of the spa. Kobi notices one of the massage room doors is still open, sighing with a roll of her eyes before approaching the door to close it. Upon arriving at the door, Kobi fought back a rising panic when she noticed the room was still occupied. When the person turned around, she breathed a sigh of relief and smiled. 

“Erik, I thought you had left,” Kobi says with a faint smile and a hand to her chest.

“Spilled some of this massage oil, I forgot to recap it,” Erik chuckles at her terror stricken face while using a black cotton rag to absorb the oil spill from one of the shelves used to store items. Once he was finished, Erik tossed the rag in a linen basket before blowing out the candles. 

“Will you be in tomorrow?” Kobi asked as she watched Erik cover each candle. Kobi’s eyes cascaded down Erik’s back like she was following a stream of water. Even through his black polo, Erik’s sculpted body is clearly seen and wickedly tempting to caress.

“Hey, Kobi, can you push that button to turn off the music?” Erik asks. Kobi pushes a black button beneath the automatic lightswitch to the room, pausing the instrumental to Brian McKnight’s Anytime. While he wiped down the massage table, Kobi examined the way his muscles flexed and bunched beneath the russet skin of his bicep. Eyes traveling up the length of his bulky arm, Kobi allowed her coffee-brown eyes to outline the shape of his thick lips, and chiseled jawline. His tapered locs were covering his onyx eyes before he straightened his back, extending his neck to remove them from his line of vision. Erik could feel Kobi staring and when his onyx eyes connected with hers, Kobi immediately looked away before bringing her hand up to massage a kink from her neck.

“Still in pain I see. So, that must mean you didn’t take my advice?” Erik raises an accusatory brow at Kobi, “You know how important it is to take care of your posture, Kobi...c’mere,” Erik motioned with a curl of his finger for Kobi to come to him, “Sit right here, it should be dry now.” 

Kobi takes a seat on the edge of the massage table, resting her bag, black blazer, and car keys next to her right thigh. Kobi clears her throat nervously before straightening her back, a whimper slipping past her oval-shaped lips. Erik shakes his head before standing behind Kobe, bringing his skillful and veined hands up to her slender shoulders, leaving a little space between them to make it more comfortable. Erik formed a loose ‘C’ shape with his hands while keeping his thumbs straight. Erik feels for the smooth contour of the muscles just above her collar bones with his fingertips. 

“I didn’t even realize how long your hair is, Kobi,” Erik spoke with a hushed tone.

“Oh,” Kobe shakes her head so the strands can fall forward, “Yeah, I do wear it up a lot.”

“Well, maybe you should wear it down more often,” Erik begins, drawing Kobi’s muscles up with gentle, consistent pressure. He constantly presses the tips of his fingers and thumbs into her trapezius muscles from both sides, starting at the inside of her shoulders closer to her neck. Everytime Erik would roll her muscles up towards her collarbones without releasing his grip, Kobe would groan. The muscles in his arms worked to squeeze and lift and as quickly as he started, Kobi became more comfortable and relaxed. 

“This damaged hair? Please,” Kobe lets out a panting breath before closing her eyes, “I need to chop it all off and start over again.”

“Shit, I think it’s pretty,” Erik raises and lowers his forearms with slow, smooth motions while focusing on the side of Kobi’s pretty brown face, “The two different curl patterns...I like this wild look on you.”

“Stop with the lies, Erik,” Kobi rolled her eyes before hissing, “Damn...that felt good.”

“Yeah?” Erik went slower to make it feel even better, “Wait until I get to your neck, you’ll be moaning then.”

Kobi’s eyes shot open and her eyelids rapidly blinked, “Then I guess it’s a good thing that I’m wearing pants instead of a skirt---shit, that was inappropriate,” Kobi slaps her forehead. Erik could do that to you---make you say the first thing on your mind no matter how vulgar and X-rated it is.

“It was honest,” Erik clarifies with a deep voice so close to Kobi’s ear that it made the tiny hairs on her earlobe raise, “It happens all the time believe it or not.”

“...What happens all the time?” Kobi says with rapid attention.

“My lady clients getting wet,” from her shoulders, Erik starts to massage Kobi’s neck with light, long strokes, finding her tension spots and applying focused pressure, “A lot of my clients get nervous and scared because they think they’ll get wet or aroused...who cares...if you’re stopping yourself from getting turned on you have too much control over your body...I always tell them to let go, it’s okay, we replace the sheets between every client,” Kobi and Erik share a laugh, “But honestly it’s just about enjoying yourself and letting your mind run free during the experience...I got you,” Erik kneaded his thumbs into Kobi’s tense muscles in a circular motion before gliding his fingers into her hairline.

“Can I be your new client?” Kobi says with a honeyed voice. Erik bites his lip before bringing his fingers around to massage Kobi’s throat.

“Why? So I can make you wet?” 

Kobi wanted to say, “But you already make me wet, daddy.” Instead, she says, “So you can help relieve this pain, Mr. Stevens…” Kobi blushes.

“You know I got you, Kobi...I do house calls too.”

Kobi nibbled on her bottom lip. She realizes that her panties are soaked. If only she could let go and unfasten her pants, kick them off, and pull the crotch of her panties to the side. If his fingers feel this good on her skin his tongue would feel even better licking her clit. Her imprudent thoughts in this precise moment are barbaric and Kobi wanted nothing more than for Erik’s heavenly hands to slip inside of her blouse to twirl her nipples. Kobi’s thigh jerked and her fingers gripped the edge of the massage table so harsh that it rubbed painfully against the palm of her hand. 

“Better?” Erik’s voice knocked Kobi out of her fantasy. She flexed her back and rubbed her neck before turning to Erik with her appreciative eyes sparkling, “Thank you so much, Erik. I don’t know how else to thank you.”

“Come in with your hair down tomorrow...like this,” Erik uses his thick fingers to part Kobi’s hair and stroke it to the left side of her face for a more untamed look, “You look freshly fucked.”

Alarmed by his words, Kobi’s coffee-brown eyes blinked at Erik slowly. No man has ever talked to her so boldly like that. Kobi licks her lips then bites her bottom one. Kobi was definitely playing with fire since Erik is her boss and she does have a boyfriend waiting for her at home. It would surely be inappropriate if Kobi were to lay back on the massage table, take off her black pants and drenched panties, and spread her thighs so wide so  her wet little pussy can open up for Erik to see. She could almost feel the warmth of Erik’s breath drawing closer and closer as his head lowered between her trembling thighs. Kobi wondered if he stroked pussy with his tongue first or if he wrapped his thick lips around the inner folds to suck. Either way, Kobi’s clit jumped, her walls quivered, and her nipples stiffened to pebbles. 

“Is your boyfriend picking you up? Erik gives Kobi a teasing smile with a tilt of his head. His onyx eyes damn near tunneled through hers the more he stared. 

“No..I drove the car today, “ Kobi inhaled sharply, “It’s getting late, I should probably head out.”

“Yeah, he’s probably worried,” Erik creates space between them both and it felt much colder, “Go ahead...get some rest baby girl, you know it’s gonna be yet another busy ass day tomorrow.”

“You’re right, let me get my ass home,” Kobi laughs nervously before standing from the table. She adjusts her pants, “Thanks again, Erik. For real...I appreciate it.” 

“Don’t trip, you know I got you whenever you need me.”

Silence hung between them both and from the way Erik was watching her Kobi was worried about what she would do...what she shouldn’t do. Gathering her things, Kobi gives Erik a final polite smile before turning to leave, sauntering out of the massage room as quickly as she can leaving Erik and his fattened dick behind.

______________

XMilanaRoseX: It’s demon time, how should I fuck this phat pussy tonight?

Milana Russell--- Nevada born and raised before she moved to California. Milana graduated from the University of Southern California with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and is now pursuing a master’s in criminology. Milana has a heart-shaped face, high cheekbones, full lips, shoulder length locs with honey blonde tips, 5’10 and full-figured. Her golden eyes are captivating and her mellifluous voice makes you bend at her will. Milana has her webcam set up in her newly furnished bedroom for some late night play time. There are an assortment of toys on her bed and she’s already oiled down to make her curves stand out more for her horny viewers. Milana is wearing pastel multicolored fluffy cat ears with a holographic heart choker and  dramatic grunge makeup with pink glitter and glitter gloss on her lips. Milana kneeled on her heart-shaped bed in white velvet while cupping her large breasts and pointing them towards the camera. Milana jiggles both D cup breasts before releasing them and making them sway in the camera.

“I know Tuesday was titty day but you can never have enough titties,” Milana massaged her oily breasts sensually, “I bet you would love to have a pair like this...these pretty ass titties...you wanna dick my pussy down while sucking on these big ass cocoa titties? Huh? Suck on these chocolate hershey kiss nipples? Hm? I bet your girlfriend don’t know how much you wanna lick and suck on my nipples...not to mention this sweet juicy black pussy,” Milana sucks on her fingers before dragging them down to rub her clit. Her attentive eyes focused on the screen of her Macbook, reading the comments and giggling at some of the responses. 

SoulSnatcherrr: Damn babi they are so beautiful.

TyanaBiLove: Can I have you please? 

Nuttinyou_: I’ll hold them up for you mama don’t worry. Then I’ll slobber all over them bitches.

TribbQueen94: You wanna meet up? I just wanna rub my pussy against yours all fucking night baby. Then I wanna eat your pussy over and over until you cum on my face. 😛

LaflameDaddy: Made it home just in time to see my favorite girl in action...as always those titties are looking scrumptious...I’m tryna see that chocolate pussy...can’t forget that tight ass either...turn around and show big daddy where his dick belong at girl...stop playing with me.

“Oh yeah, Laflame?” Milana says to one of her fans, “you wanna suck my pussy and fuck my ass? You always wanna fuck my ass, daddy,” Milana turns around, showing her orbit of an ass off that filled up the entire camera. Milana takes one of her hands to spread her cheeks to reveal the amethyst jeweled butt plug snugly fitting into her asshole.

LaflameDaddy: I’ll stretch that tight ass until your eyes roll back little girl...I see you got them toys out…Always ready to fuck that tight pussy like a good girl...I need your pussy in my mouth...wish I could show you this big dick right now standing straight up. 

Milana read the comment from LaflameDaddy while biting on her bottom lip, “That’s exactly what I plan to do, daddy…” Milana and whoever LaflameDaddy is have been flirting and sexting back and forth for about three months now. His avatar is a picture of his muscular torso oiled down, his thick brown pipe in his hand, and the devil emoji enlarged over his face. Out of all the nasty, freaky comments Milana receives, LaflameDaddy stood out the most. Milana was sure her other fans envied his gifted tongue that impressed Milana. She really wanted to know how he looked. Milana didn’t do meet-ups with any of her fans for many reasons but LaflameDaddy was worth the risk. 

“So, I don’t know which one of you sent me a new toy to play with but I’m excited to use it tonight,” Milana reaches behind her with a big smile on her face, grabbing the little pink love egg to show it off proudly, “isn’t it adorable?!! I heard about these things and I’ve always wanted to try it out,” Milana plays with the little antenna with her finger, “this shit is powerful. I turned it on to test it and the vibration is so damn strong...and it’s controlled with Bluetooth technology so I already know whoever got this for me has something planned,” Milana positions herself towards the edge of her heart-shaped bed with her legs elevated and spread wide open. Milana grabs her bottle of oil, tilting it over so that the heated oil can glaze her phat pussy lips. 

LaflameDaddy: your soul is about to be knocked out. 

AlluringAlyssa: I have one! We should FaceTime and cum together!

blackhornyyyvirgin: I can’t wait to see you squirt 😊

Shaq_88: ummmmm 😋

Milana rubs her outer lips, leaning back on her elbow while rolling her hips seductively in the camera. The tips started racking in and LaflameDaddy was tipping in a lump sum amount. In a short amount of time being a cam girl, Milana’s tip goals were hit faster and faster. They tip her because they WANT to see her shows. Milana always does things right, and her viewers anticipate it all day. Her computer chimed each time Milana would show off her yummy pussy. 

LaflameDaddy: $30

LaflameDaddy: $40

LaflameDaddy:$50 

LaflameDaddy: Stop teasing and put that vibrator in…and that butt plug is adorable but I know that asshole is begging for some dick...ummm I see that pussy leaking mama...I wanna lick up every drop of your pussy juice and bury my tongue in your ass 👅

“You’re a nasty nigga, Laflame,” Milana laughs lightly, “You live in Oakland?”

I-love-eating-pussylipss: I’m in Oakland. What's good baby?! 

Nastyasfuckkk: $25 👀

PussiiFairy: Laflame can you tip me too? 🥺 Check out my OnlyFans big dick daddy…

LaflameDaddy: 😈 didn’t I tell you to put that vibrator in daddy’s pussy? Stop playing with me. 

“Okay, daddy, shit,” Milana laughs again before bringing the pink bullet vibrator to her snug entrance, rubbing it up and down her labia before pushing it inside. The pink antenna dangled from her pussy. Milana brings her knees to her chest and with her phone in hand, Milana starts playing some music. The viewers were even more provoked by Milana’s little show when Twista ft. Trey Songz- Girl Tonite started playing. Milana hisses, here golden eyes love-struck as she focused on the camera. Full lips wide with surprise, Milana started panting. There is no way she could hold her moan. A single vein popped out of Milana’s neck and her gluteal muscles clenched. The different vibration patterns were jumbled on purpose so she wouldn’t expect it. 

“FUCK!!!!!” Milana’s fists clenched and her hips left the bed, “Umph, mmmmmmm, uhhhhh, Unh!!!!!” Milana closed her thighs, “Oh my God—“ Milana was creating a puddle of liquid beneath her cheeks, “Goddamn, who is controlling this?!!!”

The vibrations stopped. Milana sat up in her bed, wiping the sweat from her chest. She brings her left hand down between her legs, tugging on the antenna and pulling it out. There, creating a honey trail is her sticky arousal. Her expressive eyes alone showed how shocked she was. That tiny, almighty toy made her squirt and cream in less than a minute. Milana’s golden eyes focused on her camera, wondering just who was the culprit that sent her this heavenly toy. It came with a hand-written card. Milana still remembers those compelling words as if it was recited to her. 

Surrender yourself so I can cater to you.

Submit to my flow.

Aren’t you tired of being in control?

Don’t you deserve a moment to see what it feels like to be catered to.

To have all the attention on you. 

Don’t make me wait...come get on this table. 

Milana was confused by the last bit of the note until she noticed a free pass for an all-in-one spa experience. Infinite Pleasure Day & Nite Spa. Milana heard so much about it. Her best friend, Kobi is a receptionist there. She always talked about how amazing the black-owned business is. Milana had been meaning to get around to it but the pricing was extreme and she already has so many other things to take care of. Car payment, rent, student loans, utilities, cat food, and not to mention anything she needed for herself. Seeing that free pass reminded Milana of how much she needed to relieve stress, reduce muscle tension, and increase her joint mobility and flexibility. A playful smile spread across Miana’s lips as she typed a message on her live chat. 

XMilanaRoseX: Thanks daddy Laflame 🥰 are you gonna come clean me up with your tongue when I’m done cumming on this amazing gift?

LaflameDaddy: girl I would eat all of that. Why don’t you put that toy in your mouth and tell daddy how good you taste so I can bust a nut. You’re welcome cutie. 

Milana sucked on her toy, “It tastes so sweet.” 

DigHerOut_: I wanna eat the hell out of her!!!!

EroticSoulBeauty: fuck that’s so damn juicy 🤤

LaflameDaddy: Yummy...phat creamy pussy...ima indulge in that deliciousness all fucking day when I get you...make your Lil ass cum all over my thick dick. 

Milana lifts one leg up before impatiently bringing the vibrator back to her pussy like it never left. As soon as her vaginal walls clenched the toy the deep, rumbling vibrations damn near galloped through her body. Milana bites on her knee to focus but there was no way in hell she was going to fight off her next nut. Laflame was not playing with her. Milana locked eyes with the camera as if he was staring right back at her. She didn’t need to rub her clit because the intense vibrations had her entire pussy trembling and begging for a release. 

LaflameDaddy: That's a good girl...I wanna suck that phat cum filled pussy baby...let me lick all that for you girl...shit…

LaflameDaddy: DAMN!! 

Milana was leaking all over the place. When she tried to take the vibrator out Laflame turned it up higher causing her fingers to tremor. Her body fell backward against her bed and her hips started rocking back and forth. The vibrations would start off faintly and increase pulsate to a supreme level that has Milana’s abdominal muscles tied up in knots and her heart skipping a beat. 

“Shit daddy you got my pussy cumming so hard…” Milana grabs her nine inch, girthy crystal dildo, sucking on it sloppily while twirling it in her mouth. The vibrations continuously fluctuates and at this point Milana didn’t even anticipate her orgasm——it just happened within the blink of an eye. Dildo slipping from her mouth, Milana yanks the vibrator from her pussy and replaces it with the crystal dildo. Her pussy was jammed-full with the circumference of the dildo. Milana rests the vibrator against her clit at the same time she fucks herself. From the tip and down to the base Milana saturated that dildo, covering its transparency with her cream. 

LaflameDaddy: got me throbbing hard Milana. Can I have some of that pussy? That thick wet pussy needs some dick mmmm 😋 

LaflameDaddy: ima hit that pussy hard...oh you really creaming now...that’s a pussy I’m not pulling out of. 

“This big ass dick...I know how much you like to watch me fuck myself...you wanna stretch me out just like this dick don’t you? both of my holes?” Milana knows exactly what to say to drive Laflame crazy. He tips her money again. 

LaflameDaddy: It would be my please to stretch that asshole open for you...get it used to being filled up to the brim 😩 ima have your ass addicted fucking with me. 

Milana started seeing black spots. Her loud, ear piercing moans were on replay. Milana’s clit was stiff and hypersensitive from the vibrator. It dropped from her shaky fingers and for the third time that evening Milana climaxed. The grip from her pussy around the dildo caused her to squirt yet again. It was the wide tip stroking her G spot that created the water works. Milana blinked tears from her eyes. Words couldn’t describe how hard she just orgasmed. Usually, Milana can last at least an hour in a session, however, her body was so weakened that she couldn’t even sit up in her bed. Every time she tried to touch her clit Milana would yank her hand away because of the heightened sensitivity. Her walls would lock up like a boa constrictor would his prey. 

LaflameDaddy : Milana, you still tryna meet up? I need to take care of that body, baby...I just need one night to change your life, girl...you know you want daddy to make you cum so what’s good?”

XMilanaRoseX: tonight? 🥺

Brownskinmami: Can I join y’all? 😢

DarkskinZaddy: ayo Laflame we can share her bruh! 

LaflameDaddy: Yeah tonight, I’m not playing no games. 

Did this even need a thought process? Laflame sent Milana a $180 dollar tip tonight and that’s not even the highest he’s tipped her. He sent her a gift, spending more money on her when he could simply be a freeloader and watch her cum without emptying his pockets. Laflame made her pussy wetter than any big dick man that had the opportunity to sample her cookies. At this point, she didn’t even care if he wasn’t the best looking guy, his body and his fat dick was enough to convince her that he could do whatever he wanted to her. 

XMilanaRoseX: tonight it is then. My place 😊

LaflameDaddy: Bet. I’ll bring my stuff to set up 😏 ima send you a DM. 

“Hello?” 

Milana spoke into her cell, voice barely audible. Laflame kept his word and sent Milana a DM for her address and cell number. This was probably going to be the only time Milana ever met up with one of her webcam fans. She hoped that he was about that action. 

“Milana,” His smooth baritone voice rocked her like an unsteady boat.

“You said your name is Erik,” Milana nibbled on the rim of her wine glass.

“Yeah, that’s me...I’m on my way to you but I gotta ask you something first if that’s okay.” 

“Sure,” Milana was a little wine drunk, “Ask away.”

“Aight, so, I’m a professional Massage Therapist. I know I sent you a free pass to my spa but I really want to give you the experience at home.” 

A male masseuse. This man was the total package. He’s a freak, he’s an entrepreneur, and he’s got gifted hands. Milana felt spoiled and she wasn’t about to turn down a goddamn massage especially when she needs one tremendously. 

“After all that squirting you were doing you need me to take care of you.” 

“So...are you coming to fuck me or massage me?” Milana cracks a smile.

“I’m coming to fuck you and massage you…”

“Mmm...so what’s your question?” 

“I like to give my clients the full experience, you know? Make them feel appreciated, give them a taste of passion...what do you like? Music playing? Me whispering in your ear? Candles lit to set the mood? What?”

“I’d like all of that actually,” Milana twirled her glass of wine with a blush on her face, “I need that so bad tonight.” 

“Well I got what you need, I’m here to relax you. Are you allergic to strawberries? Coconut?”

“I don’t have any allergies.” 

“Good, cuz I got something special in mind for you, Miss Milana.” 

“A man who’s not only gonna dick me down and slut me out but also worships my body...I want and need this, Erik,” Milana says with a soft, smooth, and pleasant sound of her voice in Erik’s ear. 

“I'm one of those men that likes to take care of a woman... not only dress her in sexy clothes... take her out when the opportunity arises... but pamper her stressed out body with no expectations... treat her to a sensual massage not only to relieve the worries of the world but also to help her heal from the relentless pounding of my always horny and hard dick. Daddy has to take care of his play things.”

“Damn...you have so much passion for what you do.” 

“...Nothing I love more than giving a woman a great massage followed by a deep, strong dick down.” 

“Ohhh yes,” Erik was stimulating Milana’s mind with his sultry tongue, “When I say I need a massage....this is exactly what I mean...what I gotta do to get this treatment on the regular?” 

“Open your door first.” 

Three knocks at her apartment door has Milana jumping up from her spot on the couch, fixing her black silk robe. She tucked a few of her locs behind her ear before sauntering towards her apartment door. With one golden eye, Milana glimpsed through the wide angle lens of the peephole to find a man dressed in athletic attire and carrying a bag on his shoulder and a portable massage table under his left arm. Opening her door, Milana comes face to face with LaflameDaddy himself. He’s wearing a pair of black and gold Nike running shoes, light grey Champion sweats, and a black muscle tee. His tapered locs are pulled back into a ponytail with the sides faded. Erik’s eyebrows knitted together and his onyx eyes surveyed her like she was standing naked before him. 

_________________

Everything on Milana was heavy-set; her breasts, her hips, her pudgy belly, her thighs. Her skin reminded Erik of the rich amber color of honey. Those striking golden eyes and lashes that framed her eyes like black lace are spellbinding. Erik would have never guessed that Milana was a tall, thick woman. His affixed eyes slowly descended her body and when they came to rest on her feet he had to bite back his gravelly groan. Pretty pussy, pretty asshole, and pretty toes. Erik wanted all of them in his mouth. Milana’s French tip acrylic nail lifted Erik’s jaw off of the floor. He chuckles with a bite of his lip. Erik stared at the doe-eyed beauty attentively as he walked into her apartment. Erik notices a few totes piled near her apartment door, a new suede sofa set, a mahogany wood coffee table, abstract black woman wall art, and an open balcony with sheer autumn-colored curtains billowing from the wind of the eventide sky. 

On Milana’s upper left thigh is a large tattoo of a lion with a mandala flower design. She looked like she was fresh from the shower——smelled like it too. Erik sits his bag on her couch and leans his portable massage table against a nearby wall before moving Milana’s mahogany coffee table out of the way to create more room. Erik grabs his massage table and starts setting it up within the space he created. His sexual appetite for Milana became excessive when she took a seat on her couch with her robe loosely wrapped around her body to expose her big tits for him. When her tits spilled out Erik could only smile at her eagerness. 

“Do you offer naked massages?” Milana asks with her beautiful voice like music to his ears. 

“I already planned on doing that. Question is, can you handle it?” 

“I can handle whatever you give me, daddy...I handled that gift you sent me.” 

Erik checked to make sure the massage table was sturdy and secure before strolling over to Milana, taking a seat beside her on the couch. Erik pulls out his phone and unlocks it to show Milana his mobile STD testing results. Negative across the board. Milana did the exact same thing, grabbing her phone and showing Erik her results. Also negative. It was something so mature and sexy about the entire exchange and it made Erik crave her more. Without evening thinking about it Erik’s hand reached out to caress Milana’s exposed left thigh while his hungry eyes drifted to her heavy tits spilling out of her robe. 

“So...then I shouldn’t be worried about how you can handle the way I nurture and admire your body and slut that pussy and ass out on repeat?” 

“No need to worry baby,” Milana’s hands fondled Erik’s biceps, “ Exactly what I need right now, the sooner I get undressed, the sooner we can do it.” 

Erik couldn’t wait to satisfy this freak. Closing the space between them, Erik presses his thick lips against Milana’s. She tasted damn good. He couldn’t combat his tongue and now it was slithering between her full lips and into her wet mouth. He could taste the fruity, tart flavor of the red wine she was drinking. Since it was so silent, the sound of their wet lips smacking with each kiss and their soft moans were amplified. Erik’s lips left Milana’s sticky ones gently but his hand didn't stop stroking her scalp. He doesn’t even remember it being there. The scalp is full of nerve endings and even with the slightest brush of the hair can send tingles through your body. Milana’s eyes closed and her head fell forward slightly. Erik ran his fingernails slightly over her scalp, paying close attention to the space behind her right ear and just above her neck. Milana moaned in his ear when he tugged on her locs in between massaging her scalp. 

“Damn, baby, that shit is amazing,” Milana whispered. 

“This is lightwork, baby,” Erik spoke with a low tone, “Let me relax you...tell me about your day.” 

“It was dull until tonight,” Milana’s lips parted, “mmm, yes.” 

Erik’s hands left her hair and Milana’s breath halted when she could no longer feel his touch. She looked up at him through her lashes with pleading eyes for him to continue. 

“It’s time for me to give you a good, hard, powerful massage that'll really have your ass moaning and weak to these knuckles and fingers.” 

Erik rose from the couch and went to open his bag. He pulls out five different massage oils, a fluffy white towel, a thin white sheet, and three hand-poured massage candles. 

“Aight miss Milana, I want you to take off your robe and go lay on that table for me face down,” Erik dug into the left pocket of his sweatpants and his hand came up with a lighter. Milana unfastens her robe and as she walked to the table she allowed the robe to fall from her body. Erik couldn’t fight the urge to steal a peek when Milana climbed onto the table with her round derrière sitting up. Milana folded her arms and rested her chin there with her head propped up and eyes closed. 

“Which oil would you like for me to use? I have coconut pineapple...it reminds me of having a cool drink in my hand while relaxing on an exotic beach.” 

“That sounds perfect...what are the others?”

“I have Strawberry dreams...it’s pretty sweet. I also have vanilla sandalwood, tropical mango, and island passion berry.”

“That’s a hard one,” Milana giggles, “Uhm...which do you prefer?”

“Well, if it was me and I’m giving my girl a massage I would go for the vanilla sandalwood. That creamy, rich vanilla with that alluring scent of sandalwood...it’s like spending all day in the spa without leaving your home.”

“Then let’s do that,” Milana stroked her locs from her back to give Erik more access. 

“Good choice,” Erik sits the massage oil on Milana’s table followed by the three massage candles. Once that was set up, Erik set fire to the candles before turning off the lamp lights in her living room. The candle gives far less illumination than the meanest of electrical light bulbs, yet it is all Erik’s eyes can take. By the flickering yellow the room is dark, the shapes of the furniture discernible but the colours so muted that they are almost grey. The blend of jojoba and soybean oils with warm notes of amber, cedar leaf,  and lemongrass, was gentle and soothing. 

“Any music preferences?” Erik questioned, his eyes focused on the smooth skin of Milana’s back while he covered her ass with the thin sheet.

“Something sensual would be nice.” 

“I can do that,” Erik says with a smirk before finding his favorite R&B playlist. Discovering the perfect song, Erik let’s it play, before resting his phone on the table. There is a sort of poetry behind real R&B music. Usher’s Nice & Slow was one of Erik’s favorites. He was anticipating showing Milana his skills. Removing his muscle tee, Erik grabs the vanilla and sandalwood oil. The bottles were warmed up before he came. Erik applies a little to his hands before doing the same to Milana’s back. His large, veiny hands rubbed in the massage oil with gliding movements in long, even strokes. He could practically see her worries melt away when his hands started working. 

“Like that?” Erik inquired. 

“Hell yeah,” Milana’s eyes focused on Erik, “you have soft hands for a man.” 

“My guess is you ain’t used to that,” Erik tilted his head down at Milana, “where do you have the most tension?”

“My upper back and my lower back.” 

“Okay...take slow, deep breaths for me...it’ll help you relax.”

“Like this,” Milana demonstrates her breathing for Erik.

“Exactly,” Erik used the whole of his hand and started at the bottom of Milana’s back, moving upward while applying pressure, and then he lightly brings his hands down the outside of her back delicately. His fingertips stroked the sides of her breasts each time he brought his hands down. Milana’s teeth tugged on her bottom lip. This is definitely foreplay. 

“You’ll have me leaving a wet spot massaging me like that.” 

“And I’ll be right here to lick it up when I’m done,” Erik reminds her while maintaining contact without applying pressure as he brings his hands back down. He didn’t forget Milana’s shoulders and neck area. This went on for 3-5 minutes while he gradually increased from light to medium pressure to warm up her back muscles. 

“Mm,” Milana’s brows furrowed.

“Got a lot of tension in your back, girl,” Erik started with a petrissage technique using shorter, circular strokes with more pressure. He rolled and pressed his hands into Milana’s back to enhance deeper circulation. Erik has her moaning with every motion of his strong hands. Erik’s dick tented the front of his sweats. Looking down, he could see his thick rod twisted to the side. Rolling his eyes with a shake of his head, Erik ignored the pulse from his crotch and continued massaging Milana. 

“You are great with your hands, daddy...lawdddd,” Milana hissed.

“It’s nothing like making you feel good with my hands,” Erik whispered.

“Just your hands?” Milana raises a single brow satisfyingly. 

“I promise I'd fuck u just as good if not better...let ur pussy wet my dick up…”

“Talk nasty to me,” Milana gasps when Erik’s fingertips tickle the small of her back. The slightest touch there evoked Milana’s pleasure. Erik lowered his head and started licking and kissing that area. Milana’s head shot up and her hips arched from the table. Erik’s forceful hand pushed her back down. Milana looked over her shoulder at him, her golden eyes unblinking. Erik slowly lowered the thin sheet to the floor, revealing her plump backside. Grabbing the oil, Erik covered Milana’s ass while rubbing it in with his free hand. 

“I can’t wait to stroke this ass...can you take it?”

“Never did it before, I’ve been training with my plugs.” 

Erik spreads Milana’s cheeks and with his thumbs he starts rubbing between her cheeks. That phat pussy from the back caught Erik’s attention and now his thumbs were rubbing up and down her outer lips. Milana’s thighs spread open further for Erik to have more access. With her permission, Erik takes his thumb and pointer finger, spreading Milana’s pussy lips. Her pink glistened like the juiciest piece of fruit. Erik’s tongue is getting hard. He wanted to drop his fat dick all in that pussy. Squeezing his dick through his sweatpants wasn’t a good idea because any type of contact had him ready to bust a nut. 

Walking around the table, Erik stands in front of Milana, his hips leaning over her head. Erik started to perform muscle-lifting strokes to Milana’s back in a twisting motion, “When you finally let me fuck that ass ima have you falling in love with anal for ever. Have you wishing  you would have been given this ass up,” Erik pushed gently down toward Milana’s lower back, massaging the muscles on either side of her spine. 

“With a dick this huge I’m sure you will.” 

Erik lowered his head when he felt Milana tugging on his sweatpants. He didn’t stop her, why would he when that monster needed to be freed. Erik’s hands extended down to Milana’s ass and he started kneading the flesh. Milana brings Erik’s sweats down to rest on his upper thighs and she comes face to face with his dick since he wasn’t wearing any underwear. Grinning, Milana grabs Erik’s dick in her hand and starts jerking it. 

“Fuck, here,” Erik straightens his back, reaching for the massage oil. He squirts some oil on his dick and Milana’s hand. Recapping the oil and sitting it down,, Erik brings his hands to rest on Milana’s shoulders, kneading them gently while she rubbed the oil in on his dick. With both hands now, Milana jerked Erik’s dick like she was grinding pepper. Before her golden eyes like magic Erik’s dick thickened even more in her hand. The oil brought out the beautiful definition of Erik’s veiny shaft and wide tip. Milana’s eyes glossed over and she exhaled deeply when Erik’s thumbs smoothed out the tension from her shoulders. 

“Give me your throat baby... It’s not too much to ask for right?” 

“Definitely not,” the flexible tip of Milana’s tongue stroked the head of Erik’s oily dick while she jerked him with both of her hands in a twisting motion. Erik grew impatient and palmed the back of her head, applying pressure and forcing her to swallow him like he wanted. He didn’t care if there was oil on his dick, all he wanted to see was all ten inches of his dick vanish down her throat. Milana’s noisy sucking blended with the R&B music in the background. With her oily hand, Milana massaged Erik’s nut sack while eating his dick up with her drooling mouth. 

“I see you know how to handle this fat dick with your mouth,” Erik closed his eyes and extended his head, “take care of daddy’s dick baby and I’ll take real good care of you.” 

Milana purposely gags on Erik’s dick while innocently looking him in the eyes. When her lips slipped from around his dick she started jerking him with a smile on her face, “can you please explode on my face daddy?” 

“You’re my sexy dick pleaser?” Erik smoothed Milana’s dreads from her eyes.

“I’m your sexy dick pleaser, daddy...make me choke on your big black dick until I cry...I want you to cum on my face.”

“All over this pretty face? Hm?” 

“Yes, please,” Milana sucked on the tip of Erik’s dick with a tight suction that had Erik’s nut sack so tight it almost retracted into his body. 

“Deeper...open that mouth...stop playing,” Erik pushes forward into her mouth with his toned hips, “oh? You wanna keep playing with me, Milana? I’m gonna put it all in ya throat watch and see,” Erik gripped Milana’s head and started fucking the shit out of her throat like it was a pussy. Yes, he did come here to relieve some tension in her body but he always wanted to slut her out with his fat ass dick. Milana has been teasing him for a few months now. He’s already insatiable when it comes down to pussy. So greedy that he was willing to blow Kobi’s back out in that massage room. Boyfriend or not he was gonna stretch Kobi pussy the fuck out. Now, he finally has Milana’s freaky ass to himself. 

Erik puts it all the way down Milana’s throat and watches her get too messy with it and gag because Erik was training her throat. He held his dick there to remind her of how daddy’s dick is supposed to be sucked. Her tears cleansed her cheeks and just when her nose began to run Erik’s dick drew back from her throat. She stared at Erik’s dick with her eyes crossed like she was bewitched. 

“I love fucking a pretty face...stay focused baby and make daddy nut...fuck, Milana,” She was driving Erik crazy with the jerk and suck combo, “just like that baby...damn...nasty girl, suck that dick,” Erik licks his lips, “Open that pretty little mouth of yours for your daddy,” Erik takes hold of his dick and slaps it on Milana’s tongue, “Fuck I’m about to bust all over your face, hell yeah that’s a good girl, begging for more? So fucking hungry,” Erik painted Milana’s face with his cum and she tilted her head back far enough to catch some in her mouth as well. 

________________

A real-life fantasy is what Milana was experiencing.

She giggled at first, but once she got past the tickle response her laughter was replaced with moans. Milana is on her back now, the front of her body completely exposed for Erik to caress. With his soft, masculine hands Erik rubbed-down Milana’s breasts with the warm oil while his thumbs circled her nipples. At this point, Milana is leaking on the massage table. She didn’t think her nipples could actually get this hard. In between his rubbing, Erik would give her nipples a nice suck to change the pressure. Now, Erik is kissing her neck and moving his hands to her torso. With his hands on her hips, Erik lifted Milana’s back from the table in an arch position. 

“I wanna put my face in your ass and pussy so bad...fine ass.” With his fingertips, Erik stroked Milana’s torso with his onyx eyes ablaze and his dick ready to bust yet again. Milana gives Erik a sultry smile before grabbing his dick in her hand again to remind her of how big he is. Erik’s hands slid against each other in opposite directions across her stomach, repeating it over and over until Milana’s hips thrust from the table. 

“Patience, baby girl...I gotta work my way down,” Erik walks to the foot of the table to stand between her legs. Erik grabs one of her legs, bringing it up so that her foot could rest on his shoulder. Erik used gentle and light pressure near her bones and sensitive areas. As his circular motion increased, the intensity of the massage increased. Milana was up on her elbows from the bed to watch him knead all the kinks out of her legs. She didn’t know how much she needed this until now. 

“You got some pretty feet,” Erik gives Milana’s foot a soft kiss. Grabbing her by the ankle, Erik rests Milana’s toes painted coral pink against his lips. Up and down, Erik rubbed Milana’s toes against his lips. His eyes were enough to show Milana that he was surrendering to her but this time her toes are in his mouth. She never experienced a man sucking on her toes and wouldn’t have imagined how sexy it is to feel and watch at the same time. 

“Mmm, that feels so good, baby,” Milana gasps when Erik’s tongue licked the side of her foot, “You’re such a freak, Erik.” 

With a smirk on his face, Erik uses his teeth now to nibble on her ankle while his hands massage her foot. Using his thumbs, Erik applied pressure to the ball of Milana’s foot and she almost sat up on the table. 

“Yesssss, fuck,” Milana brings her other foot to Erik’s oily chest, “Do this one now...fuck, I like that,” Erik sucks on Milana’s toes, “Unh, fuck, that shit is so damn good baby.” 

With her foot, Milana makes Erik’s dick bounce before dragging her toes down to his balls. Erik’s hips jerked back and he playfully bites down on the side of Milana’s foot causing her to giggle. After massaging her other leg, Erik seized both of her legs, pushing her knees towards her chest. There, covered in oil and sitting phat and pretty between her thighs is Milana’s sweet pussy. Seeing it up close and personal almost made him weep. Rubbing down the back of her thighs, Erik really wanted to eat that hot meaty pussy right now. He would eat that pussy till his tongue fell off. Then there’s her tight asshole. He wanted nothing more than to beat it down from the inside. Same thing for her creamy pussy. Hitting both g spots with reckless abandon and endless precision. Play with that pussy and make her focus on him while he beats that ass into submission...and she better not look away...

“...Perfect ass for anal pleasure.  Do you agree?” 

“Mhm,” Milana moves her hips in a circular motion, “Don’t you wanna eat me up? Have a taste baby? It's good for you,” Milana uses both of her hands to spread her pussy lips. 

“What a beautiful view baby,” Erik’s head disappears between Milana’s thighs and the first thing she does is grab for his hair, yanking it from its ponytail, “I want that pussy cumming in my mouth too since you wanna pull on my hair like that.”

Erik tongued every drop of that delicious sight before his eyes. So much pussy juice. He was absolutely overwhelmed with how much she produced the more he licked. Now, Erik’s mouth is watering and his spit is mixed in with Milana’s wetness. Stunning, absolutely delicious it looks so tasty, how good would it be to taste the juice of this gorgeous pussy. That was Erik’s first thought when he first saw Milana’s pussy on webcam. Pussy is the prettiest thing, he would think while he fisted his fat dick into another explosive orgasm. He was sucking Milana’s pussy into submission. He was sucking not just on her clit but on her inner folds and outer lips as well. Got to get the whole pussy in his mouth to really make her cum. At this point, Milana was Erik’s favorite thing to eat with the way she creamed in his mouth. With the way his lips are slurping up and down her pussy, Milana lost whatever control she had and surrendered herself to him for the rest of the night. 

“Eat that pussy,” Milana’s eyes grew wide when Erik’s tongue started stroking her ass, “oh my fucking goodness.” 

Was Milana really ready? He talked about fucking her in the ass so many times before so she already knows that he will take it by force. He must have read her thoughts because now Erik is fingering Milana’s booty at the same time his mouth found its way back to her pussy. 

“Daddy?” Milana questioned while his finger twirled in her booty, “Are you gonna fuck my ass first or my pussy? Unhhhhhh, fuck,” Milana’s thighs locked around his head.

“You got that phat pussy running away from me?” Erik held Milana in place with one strong arm, “When that hole give up and you finally take it you’ll be hitting my phone for this big dick to fill your ass up anytime...fuck, it’s so damn tight...can’t wait to get in this ass,” Erik stopped talking and continued slurping on Milana’s pussy. Her cries were ignored the more he worked his thick lips over her pussy. She could feel herself getting ready to cum again and it was so strong that Milana’s lower half was lifting from the massage table. Her sweet moans of defeat came soon after she started cumming in Erik’s mouth. She had no other choice but to lay there and take it. His mouth didn’t leave her pussy, he sucked his way through her nut until he felt as if she had enough. 

“That sweet pussy cumming?” 

“YES!!!! Fuck yes it’s cumming for you.”

Erik’s lips were back on it. 

“Yes!!!! Yes, make me cum, make me cum, Unhhhhh fuck,” Milana was frozen but her stiff body didn’t stop Erik from licking up every single drop. When he lifted his face from between her legs, he was glazed from the oil and her juices. 

“I think it’s time for me to massage that pussy with this dick don’t you think? Get up and go to the couch now,” Erik didn’t wait for Milana to answer his question. His fat dick was in his hand and he jerked it with a desperation to finally dig deep in Milana’s guts. Milana sat down on the couch causing Erik to kiss his teeth and slap her right thigh. 

“Turn over,” It was a request that needed to be fulfilled with how deep his voice was. Milana was on her belly again, Erik’s hands landing on her ass with two rounds of rough slaps that stung her flesh, “Daddy’s got your back baby, lift this ass up.” 

Milana carefully positioned herself with her thighs nice and wide and her face resting against the suede cushion of her sofa. 

Mhmmmm,” Erik tapped his dick on Milana’s pussy before grabbing a handful of her ass, pushing himself inside. Even with the amount of lubrication Erik’s dick still expanded Milana’s pussy past limits she wasn’t used to. Sure, she’s taken long dicks before but long and fat? That’s a different story. 

“Is this dick up in your guts?” 

Milana rapidly nods her head the more Erik pushed. Milana had her doubts that Erik was going to fit but he proved her wrong. Erik’s entire shaft fit perfectly inside of Milana’s pussy like a puzzle piece. His hands stroked her oily skin from her twin globes all the way down her arched back and back up to her hips. Gliding in and out of her pussy, Erik can feel Milana reaching back to grab his wrists. 

“If you think I’m about to fuck you with half of this dick because you can’t take it you got me fucked up,” Erik slaps Milana’s hand away a few times before she decided to loop her arm around his, “Nah take this punishment from daddy.” 

“Fuck me just like that,” Milana moaned.

“Fuck you just like that? Oh, now you want this dick?”

“Yes. I need that big fucking dick.”

“This big dick right here?” Erik’s hips smacking against Milana’s ass was vivid in her ears, “All up in this puss with my dick…keep that fucking arch Milana I’m taking this pussy.” 

Erik started off with that rough sex, straight giving it to Milana. As much as she cried she was taking that long dick. It felt so good that the feeling of his dick applying pressure to her stomach was worth it. He was pounding Milana out like he had pinned up tension towards her. It was as if he wanted to leave her pussy shaking. He was punishing her for sure, Milana couldn’t even look back over her shoulder at him. He was making her take responsibility for her actions——teasing him on webcam. 

“I’m pounding this tight little pussy...pussy getting dealt with right?” 

“Unh,” She couldn’t only moan.

“Talk to me, oooh this pussy wet wet…beating this wet shit up baby…come on, open your fucking mouth...tell daddy how much you love this dick.” 

“I love this big dick,” Milana exhales when Erik slows down to stroke her at a moderate pace. Slowing down made Milana feel just how much dick she was taking. Erik would pull out all the way to the tip of his dick then push all the way in down to the base. Milana could feel the urge to squirt and she really didn’t want to do it on her new couch but it was too late. As soon as Erik’s wide tip hit the bottom of her pussy, Milana was squirting on her couch. 

“Got my dick extra messy with this pussy...I needed to fuck you so bad shit ain’t even funny,” Erik slaps her ass, “Make it rain baby, yessss,” Milana was squirting again, and Erik increased the speed of his hips, “pussy so fucking good girl.” 

“Umph!!! Unh!!!!!” Milana was whimpering into the couch, “Erik, please, I’m about to cum!!!!” 

“Fuckkkk!!!” Erik’s jaw clenched from Milana’s grip, “Nasty Bitch taking all this dick you better cum like a good little slut, Milana.” 

Milana did exactly as she was told and made even more of a mess beneath her. Erik starts slapping her ass cheeks around with his dick still buried inside of her. 

“You ready for me to get in that ass?” 

“Uh-huh,” Milana’s eyes rolled shut when Erik’s dick left her quivering pussy. He didn’t bother to tell her to clean off his dick with her tongue because he wanted to use as much lubrication as possible to fuck her in the ass.

“Let’s take this shit to your bed, it’ll be better,” Erik picks Milana up from the couch and carries her towards the direction that she pointed to. The infamous room of Milana Rose. That signature heart shaped bed. Erik lays Milana on the bed while he is on top of her. They both share an intense kissing session with a whole lot of tongue and spit. 

“Come on, girl, bring your legs up,” Erik whispered. 

Milana’s knees are against her chest for Erik to do whatever he wants. Standing from the bed, Erik positioned Milana on the edge so he could have the perfect angle. That asshole is...Erik couldn’t even form words. Dick still wet and Milana’s ass nice and oiled up, Erik bends his knees slightly before planting one hand on the bed while the other grabbed his dick, bringing it to her ass and then with a slow, easy stroke, Erik started pushing and Milana was so nervous that her asshole clenched up.

“You gotta relax if you want me to get in that ass, Milana. It’s okay baby...you’ll love it...I know you will...you’re a nasty slut…” Erik tried again, pushing enough to get the tip of his dick in, “mmmmm, you just might make me cum and I ain’t even have this ass the way I wanted to yet.”

“Daddy it hurts,” Milana pushed at Erik’s abs.

“Hold on I got a little bit more for you...it’s almost in there I promise,” despite her cries, Erik finally conquered the tightest hole he ever fucked. 

“Ima pull out a little bit,” Erik withdrew his hips, “Fuckkkkkkk,” Erik pushed back in, “I should be balls deep but you acting like you can’t take this dick.” 

“It’s too big in my ass,” Milana’s mouth grew wide with shock, “Oh my God it’s in my ass…”

“Milana, stop clenching up,” Erik spoke through clenched teeth, “If you relax I can open this ass up how I want…”

Erik pushes and pushes with his hips. So tight it felt like Milana was trying to squeeze his dick like a tube, “I’m already in there, baby, just take this dick,” Erik’s hands are resting on either side of Milana’s head. She was loosening up for him and her cries of pain turned into soft sighs. Her phat pussy sitting right above her ass needed to be filled too so Erik takes three fingers to finger fuck her. 

“Oooh, shit,” Milana eyes rolled back, her body shaking with only half of Erik’s dick in her, “That big dick looks so good in my ass…”

“Grab my dick and push it in this ass.”

Milana sat up on her left elbow with her other hand reaching between her thighs to grab Erik’s dick. When her hand wrapped around his shaft she couldn’t believe how much of him was left. Adjusting her hips Milana forced Erik’s dick in.

“Take your time to ease it in, I’ll wait,” Erik’s fingers twisted and twirled in Milana’s pussy, “There you go baby, there you go,” Erik moves her hands out of the way, “Hold your cheeks open…” moving his hips, Erik started digging Milana’s ass out. 

“I’m laying this pipe all in your ass-“

“Yesssssss,” Milana really thought she would be able to handle the way he was fucking her but her hands on his thighs pushing him proved to Erik that she wasn’t ready. He didn’t give a fuck, Milana knew what it was from the beginning. 

“Next time, I’m tying your fucking hands down, you can’t take it but you’re moaning while I’m stuffing this ass,” Erik’s fingers rapidly stroked Milana’s pussy, “That's it, spread your cheeks slut and look at this hard dick sliding in and out of your tight little asshole.”

Milana’s eyes connected with Erik’s dick, “Unh, fuck.” 

“You’re a good girl?” His dick started hitting her ass faster.

“I’m a good girl-yes, get it baby.”

“THAT'S what i'm talking about,” Erik could finally go at the pace that he wanted, “Train me daddy, fuck,” Milana’s ass started creaming Erik’s dick, “I’m a good girl I’ll take it in the ass.” 

“Damn, girl…” Erik chewed on his plump bottom lip. 

“Let me show you I’m a good girl,” Milana gripped her sheets and started moving her hips to meet Erik’s strokes. Just minutes ago she was crying about how it hurt and now she is accepting Erik’s fat dick in her ass. 

“Oh yeah? Put that work in for daddy,” Erik’s fingers alternated between rubbing Milana’s clit and fingering her pussy. 

“Yes, daddy,” Milana’s face frowned with ecstasy, “Unh, fuckkkk,” Milana started squirting. 

“Yeah, you’re a good girl, keep squirting, come on,” Erik pushes Milana’s thighs back and pounded her ass. Milana’s hips kept moving and Erik was growing frustrated. Slapping her ass, Erik’s fingers squeezed Milana’s legs harshly and his nails were digging into her skin. He really loved her ass. Milana scratched his abs and slapped his chest. He was getting balls deep in her ass, growling in her ear, biting her neck, and gripping her thighs. 

“If you keep it up daddy will fill this ass up with my fat nut,” Erik whispered in her ear. The squishing sound of his big dick pistoning into her ass as he rocked her body brought him to the brink of climax just as Milana reached hers. 

“This big ass dick got me squirting…UMMMMMMMPH! FUUUUUCK,” Milana pushed that squirt out her pussy and it stained Erik’s dick and thighs. The dick was buried in her ass and yet her pussy still reacted to it. Erik quieted Milana with his lips. He swallowed her cries and pushed himself in deeper to make his balls slap her ass. Unable to hold back any longer, Erik pushed himself all the way in and held it there. Dick pulsating, Erik’s thick cum filled Milana’s ass. Her warm hole drained him dry like she was sucking the life force out of him. Erik couldn’t speak, all he could do was sweat all over her and kiss her lips and face. Pussy a creamy mess, ass filled to the brim with Erik’s cum. Lifting his sticky body from hers, Erik kissed a trail down Milana’s body before his thick lips found her pussy. He used the suction of his lips to clean off her pussy. 

“You still want that free massage? I’m there all next week.” 

Eyes like stars, Milana gives Erik a tired smile with her hand stroking his goatee. It felt so good and so right in his arms and this was her first time with Erik; to accept the adoration that was being given to her. Milana was very certain that Erik has other women waiting in line for the opportunity to have him. What transpired between them has Milana anticipating future sex. If only.

“How does next Friday sound?” 

@tgigoldie @soufcakmistress @chefjessypooh @chaneajoyyy @pananegra @theblulife @becincere @blaqwidow91 @fish-outta-watah @eyeknowmywrites @crowngold @njadakillthiscookie @blktinkerbell @luvanxi @sheisexcellent1 @chocolatedippedinhoney @brandithecrystalgem @dababydababydababydababy @soulfulbeauty19 @btitannaaa @sunkissedebony97 @youngblackndgifted @harleycativy @rbhp @thee-germanpeach @thadelightfulone @palmstreesallday @skylahb @bakaris-shorty @nizzle-mo @truglori @queenflaws @ljstraightnochaser @theegoldenchild @scrumptiouslytenaciouscrusade @nickidub718 @vikkidc @thehomierobbstark  @abluesforlyssa @abeautifulmindexposed @fd-writes @chasingsunlight @sickaddiktions @munteanhore @xo-goldengirl @tiava143 @33kiara@honeytoffee @asiasblackworld727 @momobaby227 @informalmelancholy @soulshinechronicles @hearteyes-for-killmonger @goddessofthundathighs @soulfxll @whazzzupmyhitta @seyven89 @lahuttor @janelledarling @shewritestheblues @fanfangal @kreolemami @thoughtsoftheantagonist @luvwitoutlimit1 @mygirlrenee @hippiesandpeacesigns @alittlejd @jaysaidhi @chaneajoyyy @walkrightuptothesun @shawnstacksss @theesotericqueen @mareethequeen @browngirldominion @ceeverse @therealmrsrhodes @sensitivelegend @teheeboo @yomiloo @msreshel @bbygirrll05 @fahi0nanart @afteracouplepuffss @shaelyn102 @yaminax-kuss-a @lackbbaby @amyhennessyhouse @thattruckinwitch @dameshaemonique  @glittermakesmesmile @justgetitoverwith0  @notavintagecliche @pariahcolored @cydneyrenee4 @ajjiiaaahhhh @naeelyniecee @ambthegamer @efonteno @mikesteel20 @wisenerdcreator @draggingstxns @eevolsidog @xoxomyaah @asweet-serendipity @therealmrsmbjordan @ajspencer1892 @queengodiva619 @niqui87 @quietpoeticheart @itsjustyazz @dasia21 @woah-express @bbgiirrll @backandbetter2 @megabriahall @forbeautyandlife @queenflaws @cecereads209 @queenbetter @yomiloo @daddys-baby-girl-t @lovinthemelanin @ladymac82 @ambitionwood @t3mporaa @toniilaney @iv0rysoap @sinfully-dope @lovehatecritique @chocolategirl605 @naysianaee @nyleveeee @erlebnissebliss @melinaasap1 @woahthatshitfat @that-chick212 @scarypumkin23 @sambuckyslayallday @vikki240401 @kuaua98 @enigmadivine @gingerylimonte @counterfeit-recherche @unholyxcumbucket @xdezaraex @missgigglesmoultrie @imrootingforeveryoneblack @dashhoney25 @oversorry @abluesforlyssa @honeybeejaes @admirehermind @wassuduoo @kaykay0829 @woahitslucyylu

[the-raven-who-writes]

Medieval Adventures: A Tale of Kingdoms and Knights

Genres: Slice-of-life, Fantasy, Magic, Self-Insert

Trigger Warnings: Descriptions of flames and matchboxes, mentions of food

Word Count: 2252

Chapter 3: Back to modern society

Summary: Jo unpacks and places a spawn point in her room. Then, she spawns at a very modern house where her friends live.

 I trudge upwards on the creaky wooden stairs. If I wasn’t tired before, I sure am now. Luckily, I think I’ve reached the end of these wooden wedges. I reached a hallway lit by the light of lanterns fixed up on the walls.

Behind me is the common room, with square pillars like the ones in the tavern.

Brown, tacky carpets are spread across the floors. Embroidered couches stand adjacent to the fireplace. Even with the dim lighting of the lanterns, I can see the frays of the fabric and scratches on the wood.

A few lit candlestands are scattered across the long rectangular table in the middle of the room, parallel to the fireplace. A few loaves of bread and bowls of soup lay on the table. The room in front of me reads ‘Chambre Neuf’. Neuf could mean ‘nine’. So, mine should be…

Slipping the bag into my other hand, I move from the door to Room 9 to Room 12. Chambre Douze. It only takes me a few steps left to before I lodge the key in and turn it to open my door.

A small bed pushed against the sepia wall with faded flaxen-yellow sheets is lit up by the faint light from the windows. Moonlight, or starlight is the question. An empty lantern and an unlit candle on a stand lay on top the bedstand. I close the door, yawning. I place my bag near the tall cupboard.

I summon a matchbox and strike a match across its side.

Chhhk.

A bright flame sparks on the tip of the match. Enchanting. I press the top against the unlit wick of the candle, lighting it.

Blowing out the match, I sit on the bed. Soft, but not as much as the sheets of the modern era. Don’t think it’s linen. Placing the candle in the lantern, I pick it up and walk to where my bag lay. I open the oaken cupboards and unbuckle my duffle bag. Time to put some part of my clothes in.

—————————————————————————

Jo let her mind wander, remembering what things were like before she left to see this kingdom. Obviously, she was from a modern World. Or Universe in her case. If you haven’t read the explanation, the two Universes mostly discussed are the ones Jo was born in (aka; where you, the reader, was also born) and the one she made. Different planes of existence.

Anything that she imagined, it was real here, in one World or the other. Of course, she did have her favorites. One of them had a few friends of hers. Technically speaking, they were her imaginary friends back when she wanted them. She’d speak to thin air from someone else’s perspective.

While it was the one she visited, she didn’t go to Perth in Western Australia. Rather, she went all the way to London in the UK. And what better way to go than flying as the Green Raven?

No, not environmental-friendly exactly. More of green being her favorite color and it being incorporated into her Hero costume. There are Heroes and Sub-Heroes. Whole other story. Basically, a superhero. And you’d think that was enough for her. But with a surge in the number of Sub-Heroes and less crime, she got bored.

“Any civilians who spotted the Green Raven zooming across the darkening skies of London would’ve been lucky. I’m pretty fast. Normally, I’d have stopped to check in on the ravens of the Tower, especially after Huginn and Muninn’s chicks had become more than a year old. Their feathers must have grown by now. I’m sure they look dashing.”

The candle’s light flickered precariously. Jo put her bundle of petticoats down, before cupping her hands around the flame. A draft must have blown in from the window. Jo looks up to be proved right when the casement window was open.

She got up and closed it before she continued unpacking. The bag was almost empty now. Almost. She stuck in her hand and felt something small and hard. There were several of them.

“Huh? What are- wait. Don’t tell me.”

She pulled out a fist full of gold coins, bearing an insignia of the sun. Equinoxian jutons! How’d they get in the duffle bag?

…

“Right, Avery and Eli insisted I took extra, just for precaution,” she realized, scratching her nape. Twenty jutons and fifty grains. “The exact amount I carried in my cloak. That is not extra. I guess I can pay back my debt sooner than I thought.”

Jo could hear oh so clearly both Avery and Eli’s ‘I told you so!’ in her ears. She sighs, shaking her head at the thought.

She put her bag to the side, picking a night-gown from the shelves. That’s what she’ll appear in when she spawns. Either by a knock at the door or voluntarily. She moves the candle to the bedstand.

Jo glanced at her pendant. Green crystal. A simple name for something that was worth more than a few diamonds. It healed you and kept you safe. Magic, of course, was involved.

She flops onto her bed, undoing the ribbons in her braids gently. Well, who wanted to pull their hair a little too hard on accident? Putting them aside on the bedstand, she blows out the candle.

Foo.

She pulled the covers to her shoulders, slowly exhaling.

If she were in her own bed, she would have spent some time world-building and making up scenarios that gradually get fuzzier and more illogical as she started to fall asleep. In a story? Not quite. Especially when she wasn’t in a default World. Those were where she spawned.

She closed her eyes, letting the exhaustion blanket her. Taking a deep breath, the girl feels herself dissipating. A relaxing feeling, really.

Any ache in her body faded away as bliss took over her being. She smiled softly as she dissolved into bits and pieces of nothing. A white glow replaced the exhaustion, shining tenderly with a certain nostalgia. And like that she was gone. The covers deflated without the person under them. Everything else in the room stayed where they were. But she was gone.

—————————————————————————

Sunlight shone through the blinds, beside a much younger girl.

Emerald Ross leaned against the cushioned armrest of the squashy cerulean-blue couch playing on a Nintendo Switch. The eleven-year-old had short curly hair the shade of marmalade put in pigtails. A round framed pair of glasses circled around her round eyes, the color of which was the same as her name.

Behind her was Elisabeth Leferve-Chang, previously referred to as Eli. Straight, dark aegean-blue hair tied up in a bun as she vacuumed the carpet. Her almond eyes were a curious shade of rose, framed by a pair of browline glasses.

It was a Saturday, and no one was up yet, excluding the two of them and Milo Ross, who had an early work shift. Since Emerald got up at around six-forty in the morning, brushed her teeth, combed her hair, and did some homework; Eli gave her the Switch that she got on her birthday a year back.

With noise of the vacuum, Emerald didn’t immediately notice the soft glow emanating from the seats of the couch, including the one below the cushion she sat on.

When she did, she saw a familiar someone fade into existence, piece by piece. Her head lolled drowsily onto her left thigh. Startled, she dropped her Switch only to realize.

“Eli, Jo’s back!”

Eli, who was now in the other side of the room looked up to observe Jo, who sat up stretching. No longer in her nightgown, she wore a green T-shirt with black stylized font and knee-length shorts.

Emerald picked up the Switch that she dropped on the floor. Luckily, it was unscratched. Yet, she pouted.

“You made me drop my Switch! I lost now.”

Jo rolled her eyes, grabbing a pair of glasses out of thin air. Sure, she could change her appearance and give herself better vision permanently; but she was just too used to her low-bridged glasses.

And no, not everyone in this house wears glasses. Emerald only wears them while reading or using screens. I should have mentioned it earlier.

Now, shouldn’t she apologize? “Sorry, Emmie. Good morning. You too Li. Li?”

Eli was nowhere to be seen.

“What’re we doing up this early?” Jo smiled.

Emerald shrugged, glancing at the player menu which reflected off her lenses. Jo stands up. Patting the kid’s head, she ambles to the window. Peeking through the blinds, she glances at the houses on the other sides of the street.

Jo sat back down at the couch when Eli joins them with two cups of chocolate milk and one cup of tea.

“So how was it?” Eli asked curiously.

Right. She almost forgot about it. How? She doesn’t know how. It didn’t help if she had argued with someone and forgot about it five minutes ago and- wrong story.

“It was nice,” Jo replies, cocking her head to the side. “Much better than I thought it would be in a few ways… and worse in others.”

Eli tilted her head. “What d’you mean?”

Jo leaned back, resting on the soft pillows as she crossed her arms. “Well, there was a storm when I went in.”

“And?”

Jo blinked. “Wait, you knew?”

The older nodded along with Em, who was sipping on her cup. Yeah, no, almost everyone she knew in this World had seen her depart since it was a while since she did something like that.

“Yeah, we heard the rain. It wasn’t some white noise like you thought. But we realized that after you stepped in.”

“Oh my- really?”

“Yes, really,” Eli echoed, drinking her tea.

Emerald looked at Jo. “You’re not sick, are you?”

Jo shook her head, taking a sip. The milk was a bit too sweet for her taste, but barely. At least the milk was warm. Only psychopaths liked their chocolate milk cold. Unless it was a milkshake. No, off-topic.

“I managed to get myself a spawn point and met some friendly people,” she continued.

“Who’d you meet?” Em asked.

“Knights,” Jo responded. “There’s Sequin, Jakob, Will and Kyda.”

“Nice,” Emerald commented, placing her cup on the floor. She picked up her Switch, ready to start over.

Eli tutted. “Now, that’s enough. Go continue your work.”

“But-”

“Emerald, I said fifteen minutes.”

“But-”

“Emerald.” Eli insisted firmly.

Em groaned, putting away the Switch and walking upstairs.

“Finish your milk!”

“I’m already done!”

“Good job! You’ll get another fifteen minutes soon, okay? I’ll be up soon.”

“Okay!”

Emerald nipped up the stairs, leaving Jo alone with Eli.

“What’s the time here?”

“Hm.” Eli picked her phone up from the coffee table.

“Seven-forty a.m., fourth September.”

“Fourth?”

“Yeah,” Eli confirmed, finishing off her tea. “Where’s your portal stop?”

“Inn room,” she answered, staring at the table. The girl sat in silence for a bit. Sure, the latter part of the visit wasn’t so bad. But it kept tugging at her mind how different it was from her expectations. Why? It didn’t seem like that when it was just Level-1, a skeleton. A one-dimensional draft. It was sunny and ethereal, and like a warm hug. Comforting. There were so many places Jo could’ve visited. She wasn’t as outgoing in her real life. She was definitely staying longer. But, the storm….

“I don’t know why it was stormy. It’s literally supposed to be the kingdom of the sun!” Jo admitted with pent-up frustration. She leaned forward, her voice increasing by an octave.

Eli raised her eyebrow, taken by surprise at the sudden outburst that broke the silence. “It is stormy for you where you live, right? That could be the reason.”

“Yeah, but the thunder wasn’t loud enough to make my heart beat out of my chest! I never got wet in the rain and I almost got drenched! Where did that come from?!”

“Jo-” Eli interjected.

Jo didn’t listen. “Really, I come here to enjoy myself and to make myself happy! If I’m not safe here then-”

She cut herself off, shaking her head. No, that wasn’t right. She took in hard breaths, realizing she spoke too fast to breathe. The girl glanced up at the older.

Eli stared at her with an unreadable expression. Fear? Confusion? Concern? Disbelief?

Annoyance?

Jo sat back, regretting even thinking about it in the first place.

Eli opened her mouth to speak. “Hey, Joanna-”

She got interrupted by two figures walking into the living room. One was a man and the other a woman.

“Oh, you girls are up already?” asked the woman, who had curled short pecan-brown hair and a friendly face.

“We are, good morning Mr. and Mrs. Ross,” greeted Jo, snapping back to attention.

“Good morning Mum, Dad.”

The man grinned. “And a lovely morning to the both of you.” He had a hooked nose and a receding hairline. Barely.

“Now, Jo, you know you could just call us Willow and Henry,” Mrs. Ross stated for what she considered the umpteenth time. “Is anyone else up?”

Eli got up with the empty cups in hand and left to the kitchen.

“As far as I know, only Emerald. She’s upstairs studying,” Jo answered.

“Oh? Well, then I’d better start on breakfast. Henry, come on.”

Willow made her way to the kitchen with Henry following right behind. Jo slumped back onto the couch, laying lazily. Close one. She remembered how this all started…

—————————————————————————

A/N: Yes, a cliffhanger. Mm-hm. No, we won’t be staying for here longer than a few chapters, so I’m not taking the medieval out of Medieval Adventures.

You can’t write about lighting candles if you don’t light candles. Just kidding. But writing about unpacking luggage. That you need experience if you want to write it in a unique sort of way.

Just to clarify, neither Em nor Eli (pronounced Ellie) are Willow and Henry’s biological kids. And they aren’t the only ones. Any more than that would be spoilers.

That feeling of ‘dissipating’ is based off my experience of falling asleep in a much faster pace. Relaxing, but feels like you’re fading into the realm of unconsciousness comfortably.

There’ll be more new characters if you aren’t familiar with my YT. They’ll all be introduced though, and there isn’t that much on my channel, but you could check it out. Be prepared for cringe though. I also de-aged Emerald from there.

Anyway, thank you for reading!

Taglist: @transgender-er, @startheultramarinesquirrel, @stupid-sparkles

[fanfic-scribbles]

one missing body: my own

Fandom: MCU Captain America/Avengers

Summary: Bucky finds his arm in England, his feet in Thailand, his tongue in Romania, and his heart in Brooklyn. OR Bucky does “Eat, Pray, Love” his own way.

Quick facts: Romance – Steve Rogers/James “Bucky” Barnes – [No Reader-Insert at all]

Warnings: Slight dissociation at points (sort of?), body issues, kind of angsty, hopeful ending

Words: 2698

A/N: This is a relatively short thing for how long it took me to write. Oh well. It’s one of those things where I had to realize it wasn’t going to be as good as it was in my head, but it still turned out better than my resignation allowed for. I’m glad I got it out and I like re-reading it, and that’s enough for me. And because I constantly forget to do this: this is MCU set after CA:TWS and ignores everything past that. (Except for one thing I partially stole from CA:CW. Partially.)

   ~

He rattles as he pulls i- no, the train rattles. Or maybe it’s the station. He is unsteady on his feet but it feels familiar. Loud sounds crash in his ears while the ground falls– pulses– underfoot– no footing–

“-ate; are you all right?”

He blinks. The station is quiet again. Nothing shakes, and he unclenches his fist. One of the rowdy drunks from the other end stands in front of him, only sober enough to squint in concern, face still flush and breath coming out in heavy sour waves. He– Bucky, he doesn’t want to admit it but he likes it– could kill the man in an instant. It would take maybe half a minute to take care of the other three, a minute for the station agent and businessman, and then maybe two more to get all the cameras.

He has a memory that blurs into another, two men, fifty years apart in time, each handing him a gun and telling him to do what needs to be done. Or maybe he is the gun being handed over. He is made of metal, after all. Bolt. Chamber. Sights. Muzzle. And trigger. That’s all that matters. All that–

“I’m fine,” he says, voice low. It doesn’t sound like his, doesn’t sound like it comes out of him, but he feels it in the back of his head and the base of his throat. “Thank you.”

“Yeah. Yeah, all right,” the man says, hesitating. He looks around and then…holds out a small card. Nonverbal command words don’t work on him, not anymore. And the embossed letters and pen-scratched numbers are unfamiliar. Bucky stares at it and the man leans in and whispers too loud. “I don’t know how long you’re here for but he helped my mate and he wouldn’t care where you’re from. All the same hell, right?”

“Right,” Bucky lies, because he has lived through many hells and all of them have been very different. But he takes the card (left hand, gloved, unnoticeable and unmemorable and he moves it but is it really his?) and puts it in his pocket. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” the man says and goes back to his friends.

Bucky looks down and stares at his hand for a moment. His fingers flex, independent of his own thoughts, and the ground seems to move under him.

He looks around for somewhere to sit but the closest bench has the businessman on it. It will have to do. He strides over, forcing his movements to be slow and light (heavy, purposeful, meant to terrify and stop but not now, not now). The station agent gives him a friendly smile and watches him until he sits. The business man scoots aside but nods in respect and goes back to reading his paper with tired, unfocused eyes. The businessman is not afraid. None of them are afraid.

He puts his hands in his lap, stares down at his gloved fingers and flexes them. Both sets move the same, in response to his commands. They curl, and flex, and even ripple up and down, one after the other.

He is the light bulb that flickers nearby, here but not fully, conspicuous but ignored; in and out and off and on. The weight of weapons sit like ghosts in his palms. Experimentally he mimes a finger on the trigger in his left hand, and holds an invisible knife in his right. But he stays the imaginary execution on both counts and allows his hands to fall open, fingers slack. Inactive.

How does a light bulb hold a gun, anyway?

~

He is in Thailand now, stuck in a resort area near tourists up too late and waiting for the small hours of the morning when he can slip away unnoticed. The sand is cool under his bare foot and because his other boot isn’t broken it makes him feel even lighter on that side. Uneven.

He frowns and shucks the other shoe, tossing it on top of his bloodied, ripped jacket. It’s a shame– he liked that jacket. And the shoes. The cold sand is interesting though; it rolls over his feet like tiny little beach balls. Beach balls? Beach balls. The term is familiar but it holds no meaning for him. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t have to.

Grains of sand shift and slide everywhere as he moves his feet under and through. Earlier in the day there had been a child who had jammed his small, flat feet in the sand and proclaimed himself “stuck,” theatrically pulling at his legs until his friends ran over and mimed pulling him out.

But the granules slide over skin, sticking to nothing. He is not stuck. His feet are rooted to nothing, held by nothing. One lifts, his toes curl, and he slams it down, making tiny brown beach balls scatter. And then he lifts it again.

He can set it wherever he wants.

For now, he stretches his leg out, leans back against his arms, and waits.

~

Sound is generally unpleasant. Everything is loud and the focus he once had that allowed him to pick out piecemeal conversations seems to be gone right now, or else scattered amongst his shattered mind like everything else he’s supposed to be.

Lahore is not much different from other cities when it comes to sound, but he’s found some respite in a park. The noise spreads out and the talking is so distant he doesn’t feel compelled to follow the threads. It’s all nothingness in the background; birds and people and cars somewhere beyond.

Laughter– loud, nearby– makes him flinch so hard the seat of the bench begins to give in his grip. It’s a man and he’s still laughing, so loud that it’s all Bucky can hear, except that it isn’t; there’s a laugh in his head that sounds just like it and that is all he hears, that laugh, the faintest pressure of a thin arm wrapped around him as they stumble out onto the still-wet street together and quickly uncouple but stay close, so close…

He blinks and loses the image of scattered cars, the faint whiff of fresh rain and road, and stares out at grass and a young father running after three children with a baby in his arms, all of them shrieking and laughing as he continues to laugh and chase after them.

Bucky is shaking, nauseated by the jolt of past to present and the hole in between, but he shuts his eyes and loosens his grip on the wooden seat and listens to the family’s laughter until it becomes something else. Something new.

After that, the noisy road becomes a background thrum and the birds don’t seem so bad. And even when they are, he can find that special laugh in the back of his mind and he pulls on that bell even though it makes him want to shake because they have taken so much from him but somehow they didn’t take that, and things are starting, starting, to make sense.

~

“Are you going to buy?”

The man’s tone is rough, suspicious, and makes Bucky shrink back. It reminds him of orders in a variety of voices, an assortment of languages, but the derision always, always–

He leaves the store, allows his feet, legs, to carry him away. He always tries to supervise his body closely, especially when it does this. He watches for unconscious memory, ready to intervene in case it takes him down a familiar trail. Thankfully there is no prescribed path, no recognizable tread; only wandering through people while the noise they make buzzes around him and fills the air with static.

He finds himself in marketplace that is unfamiliar on the surface but familiar in a way that lets him breathe. He skulks through the crowd, hunched, “preoccupied,” hiding in a way he can deny. He knows how to do this, knows how…to…

He doesn’t know why he stops, but he stares at the fruit on display. There are people here but the crowd is less, and the two women behind the stall are busy with other customers. Maybe friends, by the way they converse, but he doesn’t care.

He stares at nothing and pretends to be seriously considering some oranges. He licks his lips and thinks of…snow. Before he can pull away from that thought, he realizes it isn’t the same. Small limp flakes falling from the sky into scattered piles of dirty white sludge. Small candles in a cold room curled up under blankets with one other body, almost as cold as the air, trying to provide heat.

“Steve,” the name comes, murmured, lips tongue and teeth conspiring and committing the name into thin air. It closes his throat and opens his chest and he breathes, watches it all waft away in the cold.

When the young woman eventually comes over to check on him he says “please” and “how much” and “thank you” with a voice that feels shaky and new and old and smooth and wrong and right and his.

~

He sees it in sepia, in his mind’s eye, and sees it in much less color in front of him. It’s an old block building in a surprisingly quiet Russian neighborhood, drab and lifeless for all the color it has taken from him. Bucky sucks in a breath, spits out a curse and hits seven buzzers in quick succession.

The door unlocks. Bucky doesn’t yet move to go in. He looks around, eyes skimming past cracked paint, past the paved lot with scattered dead vegetation, past the street in disrepair and buildings and empty spaces that go on and on into the night poorly lit with barely functioning streetlights. He searches past them, staring into the distance, looking for somewhere far away from here.

He rests his left hand on the handle, hesitates, then slams the door open so hard it embeds itself into the wall behind it. He strides into darkness too deep to see anything, and he is grateful for it as images flash in front of him regardless of the time of day, or year, or decade. In darkness there was screaming, enclosure, pain. In darkness there were brushed lips, whispers that felt warm against his ear, a small body he did his best to warm and be warmed by.

Secrets, all of it, but he knows what he prefers as he knocks open a blocked passage and descends a narrow set of stairs into his own personal hell.

~

He finds his fingernails when his hand grips a wall during a tight turn and they grind uncomfortably against the stone; his eyelashes when snow falls and tries (and fails) to settle there; his sense of humor when a guard sees the bloodied bodies of his colleagues beside the still-breathing body of the man who put them there and throws himself off the side of the building.

(He finds a sense of shame at that. Just a little one.)

He finds his smile in China when a young woman catches his pen before it hits the floor and hands it back to him; his sense of smell when his nose crinkles in a smoke-filled building in Japan; the stinging annoyance of a paper cut in New Jersey.

He loses his breath while sitting on a bench in a familiar-unfamiliar-unknown park in New York. He finds a way to stumble forward on legs that do not want to move on a tree-lined street in Brooklyn. He re-discovers fear on a stoop at 0214.

~

Some days Steve Rogers feels like Iron Man– not Tony Stark, the genius-billionaire-playboy-philanthropist, but like the suit that said man puts on when the heavy lifting needs done. It’s those times he forgets himself, forgets that he isn’t what he was and there’s no going back to it. It shows uncomfortably well in how many alarm clocks he’s had to buy. His friends think he’s really grumpy when he first wakes up. He doesn’t correct them– it’s less embarrassing than to admit that he doesn’t know how to gently push a button when the alarm is dragging him out of another nightmare. That he still expects to struggle to get his massive comforter off of him. That he’s watched inhaler commercials with great interest because maybe he should– except, no, he shouldn’t, because he doesn’t have to, won’t ever have to, not anymore.

It’s not all bad. Before this body he used to think he could catch a fist, only to have his own bony knuckles slammed back into his face, but just last week he caught a grenade and threw it so high in the air it didn’t hurt anyone. A pencil moves through his fingers now as easily as it did in 1939. His face is still recognizable enough; so recognizable that Bucky could know it just as much as he did then, his own face twisting into panic and fear and–

Steve throws his arm over his eyes and lets it rest, heavy, while he breathes in and out and in and out. His brain is still too loud. That’s something he wouldn’t have minded changing. He puts his hand down at his side and sighs, wondering if it would be better if he was just the brainless muscle a surprising amount people think he is. The way they sneer isn’t so different, talking about how they can see where the Hulk came from when they think he can’t hear them, different at least in their secrecy from the bullies who looked down at his breathless body and joked about how Davenport had the right of it–

Something isn’t right. Steve blinks and sits up, stilling himself and listening carefully. The window is shut but Steve can hear the single scuff of a shoe against pavement right outside and then…nothing. The curtain is open just a slit, allowing a thin line of streetlight and Steve creeps along the floor, the single eye that can fit that field of vision flitting around, scouting wherever he can, until he decides he’s clear enough and leans up so he can look down at the street.

Steve freezes. There’s a man in front of his building, fidgeting but otherwise doing nothing but staring at the door with his hands buried in deep pockets, no hat to hide that dark hair, and no sense of shame or impropriety when he lifts his head and steely eyes pierce right into Steve’s soul.

Steve hesitates, not wanting to leave his window for fear of losing sight of him– if he could figure how to leap out in a way that wouldn’t potentially scare Bucky he would deal with every noise complaint thrown at him. But Bucky is here, Bucky can see him, Bucky is…still there. Steve mouths ‘wait’ in a vain hope but Bucky nods and that’s all he needs to scramble to his feet and run out of the room, down the stairs, almost breaking the banister when he uses it to swing a turn to the front of the house and he’s still moving even as he rips the door open and skids to a stop right in front of…

“You stayed,” he breathes.

“You asked,” the other man says, his voice rough. He winces and shrugs one shoulder. “Sort of.”

“Are you…”

“I don’t know.”

Steve frowns. “You don’t know what I was going to ask.”

Bucky snorts. “I got two guesses. And either way…” Bucky opens his arms as if presenting himself. Steve stares at his face, doesn’t look away at anything, not at Bucky’s chest, pockets, belt, not even at the left arm as it falls to his side.

“Do you want to…come in?” Steve asks, unable to keep the twinge of hope out of his voice.

Bucky hesitates for a moment, stares at the ground under his shoe for several seconds, and then takes a step forward.

~

Steve finds deep sleep for the first time in a long time. Bucky finds dreams in a large bed with a firm mattress. They both find peace and comfort as they each curl around a body that is not their own.

[simplysparrow14]

Slowly but Surly making my way through some Dark Crystal Fanfic’s that i have been slowly writing. 

Here are some sneek peaks (Alone with synopisis)  to hold everyone down. 

@fandomsonmysleeve

@solieetlunami

@jenskira

@amethystgelfling

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

Get Away From Her --> Dark Crystal

(Set within season 2. After being chased by the Skeksis Lords, Deet, Hup and Rian are cornard on the edge of a rock-cliff, a powerful thunderstorm raging over their heads. Deet can bairly keep herself together thanks to the ever-growing pull of the darkening. Rian is heavly injured. Hup is exasted, but determind to keep Both Rian and Deet safe. However, in a large display of force, the Skeksis knock the trio off the cliff, sending them tumbling down feet over heads.  Rian is knocked completly out, leaving only a badly hurt Deet and hup to defend themselves form the skeksis. ) 

Deet felt cold, icy cold. A kind of cold that settled deep down into your bones and never left. It was a constant feeling, thanks to the darkening coursing though her veins. She could feel that constant push and pull of power, the swell of dark thoughts: Of death, of pain, of sadness that wrapped around her like a cloak.

It had been a constant companion during those first two weeks after the Skeksis-Stonewood battle. It kept her company, guiding her away until she forgot where she was, and, eventually, herself.

But now, standing on the ledge above the ravine, her body soaked by the violent downpour, her cloak whipping violently around her, she felt that horrible surge of power better then ever.  Her vision was blurred, either by the Darkening or the rain dripping into her eyes, she couldn’t tell. She clutched her cloak closer to her, trying desperately to keep the power down.

In front of her, Rian struggled to keep upright. The Stonewood looked disheveled. His long sepia-and-myrtle hair was slack with rain, his long bangs laying flat to his forehead. His armor, once finely embellished, was in taters, its once well-worn leather now cut and blood-stained. A large purple bruise was swelling up against his right eyes, the horrible purple discoloration seeping into his tawny skin.

Next to him, Hup was just bairly standing. The Podling was drenched from head to toe in rain, the hair ringed by his hat plastered to his skin. His red and brown nebrie-tunic and pants were dark with water. Bruises peppered his skin, and his hand shook violently as he held his spoon out.

“Rian,” She mumbled, her voice horse and faint. She blinked a few times, trying despertly to keep her eyes clear of the darkening for as long as possible.

Standing near the basin of the cliff side before them, hunched and cryptic and macomb as ever, The Slave Master giggled with glee. The Skeksis looked just as waterlogged and heavy as they were, his fine silks clinging tightly to his skeletal form, showing off every sharp angle of his bones. The fuzz patch that sat atop his his head was stamped down by the rian, and as he waddled his way up the cliff, the heavy jewels clattered together, a horrid song within the thunderstorm. In his hands, a magnificent skeksis blade caught a flash of lightning that split the sky above them.

“Stupid! Stupid, Gelfling!” He roared, his voice grating to the ears, like a piece of stone against a blade. “Making me come all the way out here! Making me stand out here! Wasting time! Should just jump and end it! Make Skeksis lives easier! But no…Gelfling too smart to jump. Gellfing too foolish to hand over Grotton. So now Slave Master must take! must bring parasite back to castle, or else Slave Masters good graces with emperor go to waste.” He took a step forward.

“Savalum!” Hup roared. The Podling took a step forward, thrusting his spoon at the skeksis. “A nishi amoka ninya fam! No. Hurt. Deet!”

The Skeksis is silent for a moment as a dagger of lightning rips open across the sky, before throwing back his head in pure, blissful laughter. “How quaint!” He roared, taking a step forward. From her small perch on the cliff, Deet could just make out the cloud of bloodlust that somersaulted through the Skeksis’ horridly small eyes. “A podling protecting a gelfling. How louche! It be true that  I’ve seen strange relations with other creatures on Skeksas’ travels, but this one takes the prize.”

Anger boiled through Hups body, twisting and turning within his veins as he watched the Skeksis throw back his head in laughter. The Podling held his spoon tightly, small knuckles growing as white as snow, nails digging into the apeknot wood.  Hup did not dare show fear in front of the Skeksis Lord, though every nerve within his pudgy body told him to run and hide. He wouldn’t. Couldn’t. Not when Deet was to be gauged and chained and dragged back to the tall spires of the castle, where the Skeksis could do what they pleasued with her.

Hup could almost imagine what awaited her within the halls of the castle. The Emporerscruel laughter echoing down the corridors, mixed in with the giddy cheers of the others and the snake-like whimper of The Chaimberlain as The Scientists preformed macobe and unsavory experiments on her body. “For the benefit of the Skeksis,” the scientists would hiss, as he tied Deet to the essence extraction chairs and unleashed the power of the crystal.

Hup could picture that. Fathom that. He had seen the podlings held captive within the castle, had heard the chains around their necks clatter against stone as they wandered aimlessly through the corridors as the Skeksis shouted command after command.  If the podlings were any indication of the Skeksis’ cruelty and hatred to life, who was to say they couldn’t do something more fowl and horrific to Deet?

The podling felt fire burn within his chest at the thought. He wouldn’t allow that. Not while he still had air in his lungs.

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

A Happy Ending --> Dark Crystal 

(Also set within Season 2. Rian and Brea wake to find their lives completely diffrent. Rian is the Captain of the Palace guard. Mira is alive. The Skeksis are nice and not-essence dependent. Brea is back in Ha’rar, now the curator of the Library. Seladon is All-Maudra, being helped in her duties by the now Maudra-once-was, Mayrin. Tavra is married to the Sifa Onica, and is now captain of the Ha’rar royal guard.  Everything is perfect, a perfect dream come true. A happy ending for all Or is it? ) 

At first, all Rian could hear was nothing. Nothing filled his ears. Nothing cried out. Nothing sang. It was as if the world had been cut down, silenced in the middle of its precious song.  Rian had heard it once, but now nothing said a word. He laid there for a moment, his mind blank.  The ground was cool against his back, cloaking his shoulders in a pleasant sensation that drew him further away.

Until the voice called his name.

It was light and airy, soft on the wind.

It called his name with love and adoration, rolling off the tounge with ease.

Rian’s ear twitched at the sound, and for some reason, he felt his heart relax.

But… soon the voice grew worried. Then sad. Then heartbroken. It grew louder and louder. Until finally, it enveloped his ears, drawing him out of the nothing.

Rian awoke violently.. Light stabbed his eyes like daggers, pain blossoming deep within his blue irises. The Stonewood Gelfling took a deep breath, his lung filling with the cool, earthy taste of Thra as he took in the sight around him. The cradle tree was healthy and whole, its bark free of purple veins. Its leaves were healthy; Not whether or brown with decay.

“Cradle tree…?” Rian whispered, confusion settling with him his chest. No, it couldn’t be. The tree Rian remembered was old and withered, barely a tree at all anymore. Its voice had died away long ago as The Darkening  ravaged its body to the point of nothing, its large hulking body forever scared by the blight.

But above him, The forest was thick with life, vines and roots and branches all around. Crawlies scudded in the dirt, while birds cawed above him.  Leaves swayed in the summer unam breeze, and for a moment, Rian swore he heard a whisper echo from the tree above.

“Rian…!” The voice called again.

Fluttering his ears, Rian lifted himself up from the dirt. His knees popped painfully as he stood to his full height. A wave of Dizziness swept over his mind, causing him to sway and stumble where he stood. Something clattered at his hip

Looking down, Rian saw that he was dressed in full armor. At his hip, a large scabbard, its silver blade shiny with polish, gleamed eagerly in the light. In the dirt, a helmet rested, its large spikes turned sideways into the dirt

Rian took a step back. The last time he had seen that kind of helmet, his father had worn it when he left for the tithing ceremony in Ha’rar.

The sound of hooves stamping the ground and the deep throated gurgle of a Lanstrider gained his attention from the helmet.  Rian placed a hand on his sword, his fingers curling around the hilt as he watched the landstrider gallop forward. Rian’s sapphire blue eyes caught sight of the gelfling perched on top of the lithe animal.

Rian felt the air leave his lungs. He felt his stomach drop to his feet as he watched as the gelfling slowed the landstrider to a halt, then proceeded to take off their helmet.

Perched on the landstrider, her silver hair tied elaborate in a long single plait, freckles ever present in the sun, Mira looked down on Rian. Her smile was bright and full of life, and her pale green eyes shine with a playfulness Rian had never thought to see again. Patting the landstrider, Mira blinks at Rian.

“Did the Captain have a good nap?” She asked.

Rian stared at her for a moment, struggling to connect her voice with her words. It had been unams since he’d heard her Vapran accent, the light and airy way her tounge rolled the R’s of certain words. It was a stark contrast to his tough and even Stonewood intonation. Rian had forgotten how well the two complemented each other.

“Rian,” Mira said again, leaning forward a little on the landstrider. “Are you okay?”

“Mira,” Rian gasped her name. He took a step forward, eagerness racing through his veins. Tears sprang up from his eyes as he croaked out the words caught within his throat. “You’re alive.”

Mira gave a laugh–sweet and intoxicating– as she kept her landstrider still. “Of course I am,” She said. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“T-the skeksis killed you!” Rian studderd, his whole body shaking with excitement.  He watched as Mira’s ears folded back against her silver hair, confusion swimming across her face. “They drained you of your essence, and I watched as they ate you!”

“Rian, did you have a nightmare? The Skeksis would never do such a thing. They’re kind. Benevolent–.”

“Monsters,” Rian blurred out. The landstrider gurgled at his harsh words. Mira drew back against their finns, whispering soothing words. Rian felt his ears fall back against his head as he breathe in the cool, earthy air.

Mira was silent for a moment, her own ears falling back against her head as she looked everywhere but at Rian. The stonewood knew that  thoughts ran amuck in her mind. He had seen that look before. His heart swelled.  It had been ages since that look crossed his mind, and Rian felt lighter then ever at the sight.  Rian watched as the gentle summer breeze rustled her side-braids.

“You’re not well,” Mira said finally. Leaning over, she extended her hand, gloved in nebrie hide. “Come. Lets get back to the castle.”

“To the castle? To the Skeksis?” Rian said, stepping back a bit. His feet crunched against the earth as fear

“Please, Rian,” Mira pleaded, her voice slightly strained as she held out her hand.

Rian gazed at the Vapra. He felt his eyes start to sting. Her green eyes were shining like gems in the bright light, her pale gold-and silver streaked hair wind-tousled. There was love in her voice; love that, for so long, Rian had thought he’d never hear again. For so long, her voice was just a muffled whisper in his mind, a dream that fled like a frighted landstrider when he awoke. There were times where, when the wind howled just right, or if someone called his name in such a way, he turned around, hoping to find her standing and smiling at him. But, time after time, it had been a trick of his mind.

He still thought that now, standing before her, watching as she held out her hand to him, welcoming him up onto her landstrider.

But, her voice was so strong, so present in his ears. She sounded real–but was she real to the touch?

Hesitantly, he reached out. He let his fingers glide along hers. And it was this that made him crumble, made the tears free-fall against his cheeks. Made him grasp her hand and press it against his forehead, savoring her warmth.

“Mira,” Rian whispered, his voice strained with grief and relief and sadness and happiness all at once.

“Im here,” Mira said sweetly, almost worried-like. Her ears were turned forward a little, showing off her concern.

“You’re here,” Rian answers. She was real– real as the earth, the sky, the sun.  Moving closer, Rian let go of Mira to grasp the leg of the landstrider, careful not to hurt the creature as he swung a leg over its body. He scooted closer up to mira, until he could throw his arms around her waist and rest his head against her back. He took in her scent. She smelled of the armory; of the worn leather of the guards armor, the sweet, peach-berry polish used for the swords and spears. Rian couldn’t help but laugh as Mira’s heartbeat pulced against his cheek.  Mira said nothing. Instead, she moved a hand to rians, encasing his fingers with hers. Kicking her heels against the landstriders sides, she guided the beast over a hill and through the forest. Over her shoulder, Rian could make out the jagged and twisted silhouette of the Castle of the Crystal, with its cryptic spires and its thousand pavilions and windows.

Anger boiled in his gut at the sight. That bloody castle. It had been the main source of his pain for unams now. It had been the same palace mira had took her last breathe in; Gurjin had been locked within its cages as he held his ground to protect Rian. His father had sworn life and loyalty to its tall spires and horrid bird creatures that roamed its halls. Rian could have spewed curses for days on end. But, as the landstrider galloped on, his anger fell away to nothing.  tighten his grip around Mira’s waist as the two made their way to the guards chambers.

[leiawritesstories]

Keeping It Safe--Alternate Version

because i did promise an alternate ending that doesn't involve knife twisting and death tropes...@morganofthewildfire here you go darling ❤️

Word count: ~4.8k

Warnings: grief, sadness, loss, mentions of war and death, lots of emotions, brief mentions of labor, NO DEATH TROPES THIS TIME I PROMISE

Enjoy

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

The picture hung in a frame the exact shade of the dog tags hanging on a nail just to the left--dull gleaming iron gray with a faint attempt at a sheen when the light was just so, smoothly polished from loving care and the years of little and larger fingers that passed over it every time someone walked through the hallway. The glass, smooth as water and clearer than crystal, not a single fingerprint or hint of contact blurring its pristine surface, laid gently over the sepia-toned photograph in the frame, lovingly preserving the two brilliant smiles captured in time. 

An old war photograph, a young soldier headed across the wide ocean without knowing whether he would come back, a young woman who loved him fiercely clinging as tightly as she could in the few moments they had left together, a camera’s brilliant flash catching the last desperate bright burning smile the couple ever shared. The decades since had not so much as touched the measure of impossible joy trapped in that photograph, despite the ocean of emptiness that the sight of that photograph brought. 

Twenty-seven years now since Rhoe Galathynius kissed Evalin Ashryver goodbye and boarded the silver and brown bus that whisked him away, first to an army camp and then across an ocean, his only bridge of connection to the woman he loved the few letters he had time to dash off and slip into the post before the mail carrier left. 

Twenty-seven years now since the attack that abruptly ended his final letter. 

Rhoe Galathynius died without ever knowing that Evalin had been pregnant when he left. She found out days before the attack, guarded the secret closely in her heart and wrote it down in her journal and in her letter, black ink licking across ivory pages, so much life and love and laughter contained in a few simple words. 

To the right of the photograph--that letter, encased in its own frame, the clear glass revealing all of Evalin’s hopes and fears, all the emotions of a war wife. She’d barely been married three months before Rhoe got the draft notice, barely three months overflowing with joy and passion to hide that ever- lurking knowledge that he could be called away at any moment. Three months of proudly displaying the matching gold bands on their left hands before Rhoe slipped the band from his finger, knelt down before her, and pressed the ring into her hand. 

“Keep it safe for me, my Fireheart.” 

~

Evalin still wore that ring on a simple chain around her neck. Growing up, Aelin remembered asking why Mama had a ring on her necklace, and she remembered the way her mother’s voice caught when she whispered that it was Dad’s ring. 

That soft hitch in Evalin’s voice was the only outward sign of grief she’d ever shown her daughter, even as Aelin grew into a woman and fully understood her father’s death. Even still, Evalin never cried in front of her daughter, not even when Aelin turned eighteen and looked into the box of carefully preserved letters and mementos, almost able to hear her father’s voice for the first time. 

“‘Keep it safe for me, my Fireheart,’” Evalin whispered that night as she held Aelin close to her, closing her eyes against the sudden swell of memories. “Keep it safe for me.” 

Though her eyes had shone with unshed tears, Evalin still hadn’t cried on the day of Aelin’s wedding when she slipped into her daughter’s changing room and removed the chain from around her neck, settling herself into a chair at Aelin’s side. Aelin grasped her mother’s hand, willing herself to keep from crying and ruining her makeup as Evalin pressed the golden band into her daughter’s free hand. 

“Your father told me to keep it safe, Fireheart, and now I’m telling you the same.” Evalin unclasped the chain, sliding the ring free. “He would want you to have it.” 

“Mama,” Aelin whispered, the word something she hadn’t called her mother for years,  turning Rhoe’s wedding band over in her hands. 

“We’re so proud of you, Fireheart.” Evalin kissed her daughter’s forehead. “So proud.” 

And when Aelin placed her father’s ring onto Rowan’s finger, claiming him as her husband, the bright burning joy of that moment could almost drown out the pins and insignias and medals and marks of honor adorning the fine navy fabric of his jacket. The sheer overwhelming happiness filling her heart and mind and soul and body could almost blot out the rigid stance of her new husband’s posture, years of military training having drilled that posture into his bones. 

Just like her mother, she fell in love with a military man knowing he could at any time be called away to duty. 

And he had been. 

When they were dating, Rowan had knocked on Aelin’s door at the crack of dawn one foggy November morning, his standard-issue duffel bag at his feet and a storm of emotions seething in his face. 

“I’ve been called up, Fireheart.” 

She hadn’t said anything, just pulled him by the collar into her apartment and clung to him like her buoy in a writhing ocean, burying her face into his broad chest and inhaling the familiar, comforting scent of pine and mountain breezes that so calmed her heart. He’d wrapped her into his arms, tucking his face against her hair, whispering promise after promise into the messy blonde strands. 

“Come home to me,” she breathed, fisting her hands in his jacket. “Come home.” 

“Always,” he swore. 

That time, he had. 

~

Aelin remembered the strangled cry of relief and love and worry she’d released when Rowan texted her from New York, saying simply that he was back and when his flight would be landing at their local airport. She still remembered the way she gasped with all the emotions she couldn’t yet let loose when he walked through the doors, his pine-green eyes immediately latching onto her, the way her legs took on a mind of their own and brought her sprinting to him, the way he dropped his duffel and caught her and held her as close as physically possible. 

So many tears shed that day, and all of them were of pure joy. 

Eight months after they were married, Aelin came home from work to find Rowan sitting on the sofa twisting the wedding band around and around his tattooed finger, an opened envelope on the coffee table next to him, the military insignia stamped onto the paper blaring out the damning message. 

Duty. 

“I don’t want to leave you,” he whispered softly, voice broken into a thousand thousand shards as she held him, his head tucked into the crook of her neck, his broad, honed body draped over hers, her fingers carding through his short-cropped hair. 

“I know,” she breathed. “I know.” 

Both of them were crying that evening, that night, curling into each other’s bodies in a tangle of limbs and skin and unspoken promises, the faint tang of steel and sweat in the air seeming like every kind of foreboding omen. Aelin’s eyes glittered with an ocean of tears when she awoke with the dawn light, stealing one precious moment of looking at her husband relaxed in his sleep, one last moment to cherish in her heart until he came home to her. 

For he would come home. She would hear nothing else. 

She stood strong and tall by his side at the airbase, hand laced with his until the call for boarding came and he had to leave. 

“I love you,” she whispered. “Come home to me.” 

“I promise.” Rowan kissed her wedding band. “I love you, Fireheart.” Softly, tenderly, he slipped the wedding band from his finger, cupping her hand with his and placing the ring into her hands. 

Aelin swallowed her sob as she wrapped her fingers around the warm gold band, the warmth of her husband’s hand lingering in the precious metal. 

“Keep it safe for me, my Fireheart.” 

She broke at that, wrapping her arms around him and holding so tight his breath went short, her tears dripping into his jacket. Her kiss was desperate, longing, filled with a million things she couldn’t find the words to say. 

“You’re coming back to me,” she gasped fiercely as she let him go, their linked hands the only point of contact. “You are.” 

“I promise.” 

And then Rowan’s hand fell from hers as he walked away, keeping his eyes locked on hers until the distance became too great. 

~

Nine weeks later, she fainted in her office. 

Elide Lochan, her dear friend since childhood and her coworker at the publishing firm, heard her collapse and came running into her office, reviving her and whisking her off to urgent care, where the nurse hooked her up to an IV drip, took a few samples, and came back bearing the news that nearly made Aelin faint again. 

She was pregnant. 

She asked the doctor for an extra set of ultrasound photos at her first scan appointment, tucking the little black-and-white images of the fourteen-week baby inside of her into the next letter she sent to Rowan. 

His voice in their next phone call was broken for a far different reason than it had been when he left for this deployment. 

“Are you serious?” 

“Yes.” She sniffled, wishing and wishing she could be sharing this news face to face. “I’m pregnant, Rowan.” 

“Gods,” he breathed, a muffled sob echoing faintly from his end of the call. “Gods, we’re having a baby.” 

“Come home to us,” Aelin whispered when the call ended. 

His promise that time was even more fervent than ever. 

~

Six months of sharing ultrasounds and photos of her growing bump and brief phone calls whenever he was allowed time to call home passed so quickly, and before either of them knew it, Rowan was once again on the phone, this time with very good news. 

He’d be home in ten days, his tour of duty over. 

The baby kicked as Aelin gasped, tears springing to her eyes for a hundred different reasons. She rubbed her free hand atop her bump, soothing the baby. “That’s right, my little love, Dad’s going to be here so soon. You’d better wait until he gets here, I need to have his hand to shatter.” 

Rowan’s soft, raspy chuckle was a sound that Aelin wished she could bottle up and keep forever. 

Because a week after that call, his CO was the one on the other end of the line. 

She didn’t remember collapsing on the kitchen floor after hanging up the phone, torrents of shock and grief and confusion and terror washing over her. She didn’t remember reaching shakily for the phone again when a searing blaze of pain speared through her lower body, didn’t remember calling her mother or the ambulance that arrived moments later or the tension and terror of that long blurry hazy night first in the ambulance and then in the hospital. 

She remembered how Alanna wailed when she came into the world, the tiny baby girl’s lungs screaming out her arrival as if she, too, somehow knew what triggered her mother’s labor. 

We must inform you that Captain Rowan Whitethorn is missing in action. 

Aelin cradled her baby girl in a dazed state of shock, murmuring softly to her daughter and letting herself be grounded in the simple act of learning to nurse. Alanna calmed so quickly once she was fed, her little green eyes blinking sleepily up at her mother. 

She looked so much like Rowan. 

Lana grew so quickly, the tiny bundle of blankets she’d been at the hospital soon giving way to soft baby clothes and blankets and a beautiful crocheted hawk that Evalin had made for the baby. Every night that Lana’s cries drew Aelin out of slumber to feed and soothe her daughter made her wish for Rowan, made her wish that her beloved husband were there to see their daughter’s firsts. 

But for all her efforts and searches and trips to the base to meet with the commander--nothing. 

Silence. 

~

Lana took her first bites of food, said her first words, grew her first teeth, took her first wobbling steps, had her first birthday without Rowan there to see any of it. Aelin took pictures of it all, writing down the things she couldn’t capture on a camera, building a book of Lana’s first months and years for Rowan. If and when he ever returned. 

Every time the small girl woke herself up crying, Aelin wished Rowan were there. 

Sometimes, she just held her daughter and cried with her, whispering that it was okay, that Mama was okay, that it was all okay, until Lana calmed down and slept in her mother’s arms, her breathing steady against Aelin’s skin. 

Sometimes, she sat in the rocking chair and rocked and told her daughter stories of her father, building a picture of the strong, kind, loyal, steadfast man who loved her even when she was just a set of pictures of her growing self inside Aelin’s womb. Sometimes, she told Lana all about the way they met, that night in the crowded, dimly lit bar when Aelin in her “slight tipsiness” stumbled into Rowan hunched atop his stool at the end of the bar, nursing a beer and wearing a frightening scowl. Gods, how she wished he was there to laugh his dry, deep laugh and whisper to their precious little daughter that Mama was totally lying, that she was more than a little tipsy, that he’d been captivated by her since the moment he met her in that dingy dive bar. 

Sometimes, she danced slowly around Lana’s sage-green and dove-grey room, holding her daughter against her shoulder and hiding her silent tears as her daughter grew from a little baby she could cradle in her arms to a toddler whose sleepy head slumped against her mother’s shoulder. 

Always, she lingered for as long as possible, overcome by the yearning for Rowan that she thought she’d been able to control. 

Always, her hand went to the ring hanging from a cord around her neck, fingers tracing over the smooth golden band as if she could still feel his warmth emanating from it. 

Keep it safe for me, my Fireheart. 

Gods damn it all to hell, he’d promised to come back. 

~

Another photo hung next to the print of Rhoe and Evalin in Evalin’s house, one of Rowan and Aelin’s wedding portraits. In the image, Rowan beamed down at Aelin and she up at him, her head canted up to meet his gaze, the early evening sun washing over the scene and gilding the young couple in a bath of soft, golden light. In the image, their hands were linked, the golden band gleaming on Rowan’s finger like it gleamed on Rhoe’s hand in his and Evalin’s photograph. Aelin’s throat tightened every time she ran her finger along the smooth silver frame of that portrait, tracing the edge of her and Rowan’s all-too-brief happiness before the choking reality that he was still MIA crashed back down over her. 

Lana loved seeing the pictures, her big green eyes widening when Aelin held her up to see. Indeed, one of her first words had been “Dada,” spoken not long after her first birthday when Aelin was over at her mother’s house. 

Hearing those syllables in her daughter’s sweet little voice ripped the scab clean off the wound in Aelin’s fragile heart. 

~

Only a handful of weeks away from her second birthday, Lana had taken to running all around the house and yard and nearly stopping Aelin’s heart when she turned around and her daughter had run off to another room. Mother and daughter were upstairs folding the laundry--well, Aelin was folding, Lana was playing with a couple of washcloths and talking away in toddler babble. 

Four knocks thudded against the front door. 

Lana dropped her washcloths. “Door!” she exclaimed, running out of the bedroom and down the hallway. 

Aelin caught her before she could try and scoot down the stairs. “Uh-uh, lovey, Mama has to help you go downstairs, remember?” 

“I big!” Lana pouted, wriggling a little in Aelin’s hold as they descended the stairs. “Down Mama! Dow’!” 

“All right,” Aelin laughed, releasing her daughter. 

Lana ran to the door and reached up for the lock, straining, her little arms still just unable to reach it. She pouted and clung to her mother’s leg. “Wanna open.” 

“Of course,” Aelin smiled. “Here, help Mama open the door, lovey.” 

One small hand and one larger hand turned the doorknob, swinging the front door open to find--

“Fireheart.” 

Aelin’s legs wavered and she grabbed the doorframe to keep herself upright, the whirling maelstrom of emotions she’d shoved and locked away when she grew despairing of ever hearing news of Rowan bursting free from its prison and crashing over her. 

For there was her husband standing in the doorway, his hair overgrown, his body haggard, his clothes not properly fitting, a fine pale scar slashing across his forehead and through his left eyebrow, his worn old duffel bag in his hand and all the oceans’ worth of tears spilling over in his eyes. 

“Rowan,” Aelin choked out, somehow finding the strength to stand and reach out and touch his solid, stable frame and pull him into the house, sobbing, two years of pent-up strain at last relieved. 

“Aelin,” Rowan breathed, dropping the bag in his hand and carefully pulling her into his arms, staring in shock and wonder at her and at Lana, who was in her mother’s arms. 

It was their daughter who broke the silence. 

“Dada?”

Rowan heaved a strangled sob, nodding, reaching out so tenderly, so hesitantly, to touch his daughter’s soft cheek. “Hi, my little one.” 

“Dada,” Lana repeated, reaching out to him. 

Aelin nodded, her sob a half-laugh, and carefully shifted Lana into Rowan’s arms. 

The little girl stared into her father’s face, patting her small hand on his cheek, along the tattoos flicking up the side of his neck and onto his cheekbone. “Dada daw-in’s.” 

“Yeah,” he whispered, “Dada’s got drawings, Lana.”

He looked over to Aelin, unabashedly crying, holding Lana so gently, like he was afraid she might vanish if he so much as moved in the wrong direction. 

“We love you,” she murmured, taking one hesitant step closer to him, almost like she, too, was half-worried she would blink and wake up and realize that it had all been a dream. 

Rowan closed the gap, pulling his wife into his embrace, his whole family--his whole life--united at last in his arms. His shoulders quaked with the force of his sobs as he buried his face into Aelin’s hair, hiding his tears from his daughter. When he could speak again, he heaved a deep, shuddering breath and touched the cord around her neck, tracing the way it disappeared into the neckline of her shirt. 

She tugged it free, revealing his wedding band--Rhoe’s wedding band--hanging from the cord, glinting in the electric light. 

“I…I kept this for you while you were…away,” Aelin whispered, sliding the ring off of the cord. 

Rowan’s throat bobbed. “It’s been two years.” 

“I know.” An entire ocean--an entire world of grief and sadness and terror and fear and loneliness packed into those two simple words. “I know, Rowan.” Reaching down to his tattooed hand, she quietly, gently lifted his hand up, tracing her thumb over the scarred skin of his knuckles, the rough calluses on his palm, the intricate inked characters of his tattoo, some newer than others. “I love you, Rowan Whitethorn Galathynius.” 

“I love you, Aelin Whitethorn Galathynius,” he croaked, eyes and heart overflowing as his wife slipped his wedding band back onto his finger and softly kissed the gold, her lips caressing his skin. 

Still perched in her father’s embrace, Lana clapped her little hands, babbling a stream of toddler talk of which they could only make out Mama Dada yay! “Tiss!” she squealed. “Tiss, tiss!” 

Rowan blinked. “What?” 

Lana wriggled and squirmed, so he set her down and followed her as she tugged him out to the hallway. Down to where another of Rowan and Aelin’s wedding portraits hung. 

In this one, they were kissing. 

“Tiss Mama!” she declared, beaming. 

Aelin’s soft laughter echoed through the hallway. “Is that what Dada and Mama need to do, lovey?” 

“Ya!” Lana nodded enthusiastically. “Mama Dada tiss!” 

“Can’t say no to her, can we?” Rowan murmured, sliding his arms around his wife. 

“Of course not.” Aelin ran her fingertips along his face, tracing over the new scar, her touch delicate, uncertain, yet so so familiar. 

He slipped one hand into her hair, gingerly tilting her head up. “To whatever end, my Fireheart,” he breathed. 

And he kissed her slowly, tenderly, reveling in the astonishing reality of holding his wife in his arms again after two long years apart

~

A new photo hung next to the carefully preserved photograph of Rhoe and Evalin, this one framed in polished chestnut, the wood not yet bearing the grooves of many years of hands running along its surface, the glass protecting Rowan and Aelin and Lana’s beaming faces. It was their first family portrait since Rowan returned home, the first glimpse of the three of them reunited and beyond content to bask in each other’s embrace. Rowan’s soft, fond smile brought joy to his whole pose, his bright green eyes melting as he looked to Aelin, who had Lana in her arms, the little girl beaming at her parents. There was so much happiness contained in that photo, so many months and years of quietly stifled grieving giving way to unfiltered elation. So many promises whispered in the darkest hours of the night when Rowan jolted out of troubled dreams and Aelin just held him, promising that he would never leave her again, that he would never have to leave her again. So many promises to remain at each other’s sides through it all, complete with Aelin’s fiery promise to damn the whole world to hell if it ever tried to take Rowan from her again.

~

He spent so much time with Lana, the little girl taking to her father immediately, almost always by his side. Aelin didn’t know how badly he’d been wounded--physically, mentally, emotionally--but as the days and weeks passed by, his strength came back, the pallor of his skin once again giving way to health and life and vigor. Many were the mornings when she’d wake up to his head tucked into her neck, his arms wrapped tightly around her, holding on like he was afraid that she’d be gone when he opened his eyes. 

Many were the mornings when she felt the same way, when she reached blindly out to touch Rowan while still half-asleep herself, when she needed the reassurance that he was here, solid and warm and breathing and real beside her, that the last two long years of separation and fear and terror and hopelessness had finally ended. 

Every time she walked into the living room and found Rowan and Lana on the couch or the floor or the chair looking through the albums of memories she’d preserved, Aelin felt her heart swell a little bit more. Often, she would set down whatever she was doing and join her family, smiling and laughing and telling Rowan all about Lana’s first years. With input from their daughter herself, of course. 

They spent several months in that incredulous kind of peace, living in the moment and for the moment and pushing away the lingering hovering reality that Rowan’s commanders could at any point call for him and…and send him away. Again. 

And eventually, his commander did call. 

Rowan set the phone down heavily, shoulders slumping, and lifted his suddenly weary eyes to Aelin, standing a couple paces away with Lana in her arms, mother and daughter having listened tensely to the conversation. “Damn,” he finally whispered, his breath whooshing out in a great heaving sigh. 

“Ro…” Aelin’s voice wavered. “Are you…?” 

“No.” Swiftly, he gathered her and Lana into his arms, kissed both blonde heads. “No, Fireheart, I’m not going back to duty. I think.” 

Her brows furrowed. “That’s not a promising answer.” 

He pressed his lips into a thin line. “Commander told me I’m to show up at the base tomorrow morning for a meeting. Didn’t say what the--what that meeting would be, though.” 

Aelin shuddered a little. “Well…it’s not new deployment orders?” She nibbled at her lower lip, forcing herself to keep calm. “Right?” 

“Right.” Rowan stroked his thumb along her cheekbone, comforting her as he could. “It could be almost anything, but I don’t think I’m being sent back.” He swallowed, his throat bobbing thickly. “Not after getting hurt.” 

“Dada sad?” Lana piped up, the two-and-a-half-year-old girl reaching for her father. 

He took her into his arms, patting her back, tousling her soft blonde curls. “No, lovey, Dada’s not sad, just uncertain.” 

Her little fingers touched the furrow in his forehead. “No be sad, Dada.” 

His lips quirked up a tinge. “I’ll try, little love.” He planted a great smacking kiss onto her cheek, making her squeal and squirm. 

“Nooo dada!” 

Aelin huffed a soft chuckle, watching her husband tease their daughter before setting her down, letting her return to her mother’s side and wrap her little arms around her leg. “It’s okay, Lana love.” She knelt down to hug her. “It’s going to be okay.” 

~

Rowan’s fingers tapped erratically against his thigh as he sat in the car, staring straight out the window to keep his mind fixed on something rather than letting it run loose. In the driver’s seat, Aelin slipped him a glance, wishing she could reach over and hold his hand but keeping herself fixed on the road. 

All too soon, they arrived at the military base and stopped at the visitor gate, Rowan showing the guard his credentials so they could pass through. When they parked, he just stayed still, not ready to reach for the seatbelt and unbuckle himself and walk into the base to face whatever the hell his fate was going to be. Sitting there in his navy dress uniform, hair neatly brushed and badges of honor in tidy gleaming rows along the breast of the jacket, he looked like a statue. Frozen, immobile, his breath barely visible. 

“I love you,” Aelin whispered, reaching across to softly, lightly touch her fingertips to the back of his hand. “I love you, Rowan Whitethorn Galathynius.” 

Slowly, his hand curled around hers. “To whatever end, Aelin Whitethorn Galathynius,” he whispered, voice thick with unshed tears, unspoken words. “To whatever end.” 

They all walked into the building together, Rowan in his dress uniform and Aelin and Lana in dresses and nice shoes, hand in hand in hand. The officer who met them was every picture of a proper soldier, down to the crisp salute he gave Rowan. 

“My apologies, ma’am, but the orders are thet Captain Whitethorn comes alone.” 

So Aelin and Lana waited, sitting in a quiet earth-toned room with a couple of armchairs and a small bin of blocks and books for young children. Aelin tried to keep herself together, whispering over and over that it was just a meeting. Even Lana picked up on the fear layering the atmosphere, the little girl quiet and subdued, clinging to her mother rather than going over to see the toys. 

It was the longest hour of Aelin’s life. 

When the young officer--the same one who’d escorted her to the waiting room before walking away with Rowan--knocked politely on the door and entered, she shot up from her chair, ready to bombard the young man with questions. Anticipating that, he simply offered her the open door. 

“Captain is waiting for you, Mrs. Whitethorn.” 

Out in the lobby, Rowan stood facing the windows, his hands clasped behind his back in that old familiar military posture of his. He turned at the sound of her and Lana’s footsteps, a tiny little grin curving one corner of his lips. 

“Tell me you’re not leaving again,” Aelin whispered haltingly, wrapping her hands around his. “Please, Rowan.” 

That fraction of happiness curling his lips broke into a broad joyous grin the size of the whole entire sky. “I’m staying right here, my Fireheart.” 

She covered her mouth to stifle the sob that escaped, half-disbelieving. “You--”

“I’ve been honorably discharged,” he murmured, sweeping her and their daughter into his embrace. “I’m never going back into duty, my love.” 

She muffled her emotion, tucking her face into his dress jacket to keep her tears from falling. “I don’t--I don’t know what to do, Ro,” she croaked. 

He ran his hand down her back, soothing, calming. “Anything, Fireheart. We can do anything.”

~~~

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[hnnnfdfds]

Prompt: 63 Indigo skies just before dawn with Mafia Dazai x Atsushi. :)

Here, Anon... I’m sorry for the ending of this. But thank you for the prompt! I loved to try my hand at Mafia!Dazai... somewhat. Anyway, a quick warning due to Dazai being a mafia member, I had to tweak Atsushi’s character a bit... I hope you all are ok this Atsu.

Here are the prompts!

—

63. Indigo skies just before dawn

—

Atsushi knows fear.

He has learned from a young age how to taste, feel and see it. How to sense and polish it until it can be either used as a shield to protect himself or as a weapon to fight. He isn’t natural or comfortable hurting other people but growing up in an orphanage full of people who hate you, teaches two or three things about ignoring that uncomfortableness. 

Which is why he senes the fear building in Ranpo before it shows.

“Behind me, Atsushi,” he says, voice somewhat urgent. 

Ranpo doesn’t show that amount of care towards him usually. Whilst it’s clear that Ranpo doesn’t hate him—by the sweets on his desk whenever he finishes a job or a pat on his arm whenever he comes back safe—it’s unusual for Ranpo to voice it. Words come hard for someone who doesn’t know what to do with them.

He nods and steps back for the moment. Both of them know though he’d leap at the enemy the moment he smells danger towards Ranpo. Atsushi knows he’ll do it because he’s the combat type. Ranpo knows Atsushi’ll do it because his subordinate is a fool that cares way too much. 

Both also know that Ranpo will try to stop him.

“Oh, my,” a voice echoes around the beach, “I haven’t seen anyone of you for a while now.”

Atsushi looks up at the new arrival and… stares.

He can’t deny the man’s beauty. No matter how much a part of him wants to, there’s no denying that those sepia-brown colored eyes are probably the most calming ones he’s ever seen or that he’s rather fluffy hair fits around the shape of his head well. Or that the face maybe has been structured by a god.

That said though, Atsushi’s also someone who doesn’t really care that much about looks. His hair is still that unevenly cut created by someone who wanted to see him suffer after all.

So it’s not hard to notice the steel-cold look in those pretty eyes or that cunning smirk resting behind that nonchalant attitude. This man breathes danger and Atsushi has to take a few seconds to shove down the fear he develops and turn it into a resolve to not panic. 

He has to make sure Ranpo stays safe at all costs. 

“Hmm, a new one?”

He can feel the other’s gaze on him, burning deeply into his skin. In front of him, Ranpo draws a sharp breath. 

It’s not good that he’s getting noticed for Ranpo.

For Atsushi though, this is an opportunity to make sure Ranpo stays safe. 

He glares at the other but keeps his face impassive. The fear in him is boiling and he’ll use that to his own advantage.

Apparently, that catches the man’s curiosity.

“Well, should I introduce myself? My name is…”

Ranpo turns to stare at him as he mouths, ‘Atsushi, run!’

He shakes his head gently in response, ignoring fear filling into the other’s emerald eyes. 

“... Dazai Osamu.”

He knows that name. Months ago when he joined, Kunikida called him aside and explained to him what was essential knowledge about the agency. That knowledge included the Port Mafia.

Especially it’s member Dazai Osamu, the very man standing before him.

“If you see this man… run Atsushi.”

He remembers the tone Kunikida used, remembers realizing that running was just a fickle hope because most likely he’d end up dead. 

And now he stands before this man that contradicts anything Atsushi used to stand for. 

But Atsushi knows how to wield fear as a weapon, knows how to look at men with more blood on their hands than color in eyes and persist. Atsushi cannot run. Not with Ranpo there, not with the shattered windows of the orphanage in the back of his mind. So he walks in front of Ranpo and continues to glare at the mafia member.

“Ranpo-san,” he speaks up for the first time of this encounter, “leave.”

“Idiot, what th—”

“I told you to leave, didn’t I? Get help, preferably Yosano-san or Kunikida-san.”

It’s silent for a few minutes and Dazai raises an eyebrow in amusement. Then Ranpo runs, curse words leaving his mouth. 

“He left you to die all alone, huh?”

Atsushi shakes his head. “You are not here to kill me.”

“And why are you so sure of that?”

“I wouldn’t be standing and breathing if you wanted me death… You probably only see this as a quick, fun past-time activity.”

By the quirk of the other’s lips, Atsushi knows he’s playing his cards properly.

“Hmm, but what if I get bored?”

And Atsushi smiles back at him, knowing fully well how much that smile conflicts with his empty eyes.

“Then I’ll try my best to entertain you.”

Fear has shaped Atsushi and made a place for something way worse.

“Oh, but my games are not for those of faint heart, kid.”

“Dazai-san,” he starts, crouching down with one knee as he puts his gloved hands on the ground, “I wouldn’t mind feasting on your blood.”

It has made a place for a creature so luminous beneath the moonlight.

He shifts his whole weight into that one leg and waits.

And then he charges at the other, leaving behind any form of humanity he wears.

He’s the beast beneath the moonlight and he’s used to wearing cloaks made of a crimson color. 

“Dazai Osamu posses a nullification ability which can be activated by touch.” 

Avoid contact and dodge. Easy, he’s been doing that all his childhood.

He twists out of the way of the other’s attacks and dances around him, ready to strike whenever he finds an opening. 

“There’s no hesitancy in your movements,” Dazai notes, smirk fully visible. “Not like your co-workers who hold back from killing me out of all people.”

Atsushi still wears his smile.

“I don’t see the point in leaving someone so troublesome alive,” he admits. 

The killing has never been easy but the corpses rotting in the orphanage didn’t happen out of anywhere. 

“With that attitude to taking lives, you’d fit perfectly into the mafia.”

Atsushi sees the words for what they are—a taunt. Dazai hopes to use his morals to provoke him into being careless. The thing is, if those two share something then it’s probably the lack of their morals. 

“Probably,” he responds shamelessly, jumping out of the way of a kick.

Dazai blinks at that reply. 

“Then why aren’t you?”

Atsushi shrugs. 

“If I don’t care either way it’s just better to do the thing that makes people happier—saving lives and all, you know?” He doesn’t mention that that way of thinking is inspired by people being more intractable when he kills others. 

But apparently, he doesn’t have to because the mafia member is staring at him with wide eyes now and suddenly Atsushi has the feeling that the situation is about to change.

Minutes pass.

And then—

A smile so blinding settles on the other’s face, as indigo colored light shines on him.

“Say… you won’t join the mafia at all, will you?”

Atsushi thinks about it for a moment but then realizes that Kunikida would definitely kill him for joining and Ranpo would never talk to him again. Plus Yosano can be quite scary when she’s mad…

“No, not really. Why?”

“Hmm, then I’ll join the agency instead!”

“What the fuck?”

Both turn around to stare at Kunikida who is gaping like a fish at Dazai and Ranpo who just shakes his head with a sigh.

Atsushi turns to look back at Dazai before his gaze wanders up to the indigo sky. It feels almost like the sky wishes him good luck for somewhat reason but when Dazai steps closer, smiling at him he thinks he needs luck.

“Don’t dream of indigo skies,” he mumbles.

“Is something?”

He looks at the mafia member—apparently former mafia member now—and smiles.

“Just something I read in a book years ago.”

It’s quite sad. He’s pretty sure the book’s covered in blood now.

[devilsknotrp]

Congratulations, Maria! You have been accepted for the role of Abel Hawker (FC Change: Jeremy Irons). Woah. I may be biased, but I was blown away by your interpretation of Abel. He’s a human being made up of dichotomies and you found such a beautiful way to write him. His gentle yet terrifyingly stern manner of speaking, his war hero past, everything is perfect. We cannot wait to see what kind of Mayor your Abel will turn out to be! Please have a look at this page prior to sending in your account.

OUT OF CHARACTER

Name: Maria Age: 23 Pronouns: She/her Timezone: GMT Activity estimation: Every other day Triggers: REDACTED

IN CHARACTER

Full name: Abel Byron Hawker Age : 05/08/1923 Gender: Male Pronouns: Him/Her Sexuality: Straighter than the Tennessee Line Occupation: Mayor of Devil’s Knot Connection to Victim: Abel Hawker knows pretty much everyone in Devil’s Knot, whether they realise it or not. The same could be said for the Goode’s. Though he never personally interacted much with Brian, Abel certainly positioned himself at the forefront of the search. After all, a Mayor has to take responsibility for the safety of his citizenry. In Abel’s case, he does so by putting pressure on the police on Ms Goode’s behalf. Not that she asked him to, of course. Alibi: According to Abel and members of the Chapter, he attended his regular meeting after church but left early due to a headache and went home. It was, like many evenings, the usual for the Mayor. Faceclaim: Jeremy Irons

WRITING SAMPLE

The Michigan sun poked through the veranda, the soft, not too warm glow basked Mayor Hawker’s face in its orange hue. A curl of smoke cut through the clear blue skies as it wafted from the end of his thickly rolled cigar. He remained like that, leaning on his rocking chair, its long swinging creeks creating a lulling song that he could and had listened to most of his life.

It was his father’s chair, and his father’s father likely sat on something not too dissimilar. Carved from the wood of one of the many red oaks that lined the property, it represented everything the Hawker’s were about. Longevity, home-grown and standing the test of time. He fingers, rough and coarse from the years, ran over the expertly polished arms, just appreciating the craftsmanship as well as the weather.

As he sat, relaxing and looking out, a little song crept into his mind. It drew a slow forming, gentle smile on his lips, his crisp paper-like skin pulling with it. There was no one around, and that was just how he liked it in long afternoons like this. For a moment, he let his eyes closed, heeled shoe clicking against the hardwood of the patio, drumming the beat for an old ditty.

“I loved a girl in Saginaw, Michigan…” His voice was underlined with a faint croak that matched the eek of his chair, the tune rumbling deep in his chest to produce the consummate voice of an older singer.

An image began to form in his mind as he took another deep intake of his cigar. Him and his boys in the brushy fields of Pyongtaek, the beginning to the Korean war stretching out ahead of them. Benny banged his metal mug against the table with all the enthusiasm of Buddy Rich reborn, and Tony clapped completely offbeat as Abel and Ryan started up a song. It wasn’t this one, but that didn’t matter. He could still see them now, their eyes bright and ready to return home as heroes. It wouldn’t take long, after all, it was just some country folks who had caught up with the Russian’s red curtain, that’s what they thought. “The daughter of a wealthy, wealthy man…”

The image of Benny sprawled across the dirt floated up in Abel’s mind as the song continued. His guts had been a pollock-esque splash of reds and browns, glistening in the summer heat. Next to him, Tony was slumped with a bullet hole in the centre of his head.

“But he called me, that son of a Saginaw fisherman…”

And Ryan? Well, Ryan never quite came back right. They found him drowned in the river just two months before the end.

“And not good enough, to claim his daughter’s hand…”

The front gate creaked down the long garden path that led up to the porch, causing Abel to crack an eye open. He pulled the cigar reluctantly from his lips, licking the spot that it had sat on, its warm presence still a ghost against the skin.

“Now I’m up here in Alaska, looking around for gold…”

He continued, a little louder, letting the words drift towards his new guest. The flash of the Sherrif office’s brown uniform was all he needed to see, continuing to idly rock as if he hadn’t noticed anything at all. Only once the visitor was climbing the porch steps did he deign to speak rather than sing away.

“I was startin’ to wonder if you were gonna turn up, my boy.”

The youth was a rookie; it only took one glance to tell. Blonde hair and greener than the fields, the 20-something kid awkwardly grasped his belt and tried to stand straight, but it was evident with the uncertain flicker of his eyes around the large Hawker estate that it was all for show. Abel thought he recognised him, one of those good for nothing kids that got raised on the poorer side of town. Typical that George Adam would give these economic rejects a chance. “Urm…ur…Mayor Hawker, sorry to bother you sir but-”

“Aye, aye, I’m aware boy, you gotta do your due diligence and get the story of what I was doing that night.”

Abel slowly pulled himself off his chair, with all the speed of a seaswept turtle, which was entirely on purpose, as anyone who knew Hawker knows that the Mayor kept himself in good health. He gave the standard ‘ah’ that an old person was expected to give after completing menial physical tasks as if they had climbed the summit of Everest. With a wave, he gestured the kid officer to follow, pushing open his ornately carved front door and shuffling into the Hawker estate.

Estate was a polite word for it. It was a mansion in pretty much every regard, an ancestral home that would immediately put anyone at unease. There was just a vastness to it that put one on the back foot, as they look up at the ceiling that seemed almost as far as the moon, it’s large traditional beamed structure overlaying a pure white paint job. The walls were a half mix of beaming, polished to a shine, wooden panelling and delicate fleur-de-lis sprouting wallpaper that made it feel akin to a royal’s home.

Confronted by a large hallway that could easily fit three people shoulder to shoulder and a long, winding staircase that enticed one to see what the three upper floors held, the rookie police officer did what anyone would have - he froze.

Abel for his part kept walking a little down the way until he glanced over he shoulder, that grin coming out again. It was the full simper that belonged to a man a few decades his junior, but he wore it now just as he had in his youth, the life in it flashing in his eyes like claps of thunder. It that moment, it was as if he filled the space of the whole house, as grand and extensive as it was. “Come on boy, ain’t time for slack jaws, your boss will have your ass if you take too long.”

The cop shook his head free, quickly stepping after his guide. The house on its part kept an eye on the visitor, the walls lined with sprawling quantities of photos, whose subjects stared out to those passing. It went from old sepia constructs that desperately tried to fight the effects of ageing behind their glass windows to much more recent copies, showing the Mayor, his own children and a plethora of grandchildren.

Eventually, they turned into one of the adjourning rooms, revealing a parlour lounge. Abel didn’t waste a moment, his body immediately cut to the side of the room where a tray sat with a collection of alcohol, whiskey duly placed in a decanter. The rookie didn’t even have a chance to speak before the older man was thrusting a delicate crystal tumbler with the perfect amount of ice and bourbon in it.

“Ah..” The officer blinked after what seemed like an age, finally processing what was being offered and responding to it with a gentle shake of his head.

“I’m flattered sir, but I’m duty I can-”

“Hogwash.” Abel cut in. His voice had a sense of power to it, a thick with husky confidence that was at once both honeyed in Michiganian drawl and intense in its strength. It was almost like being hugged and punched at the exact same moment, it winded you, and you found yourself wondering what exactly happened.

“Ain’t your ma told you that it’s rude to refuse what is offered in a man’s home? It’s just one glass, ain’t no one gonna know.” He pressed the glass into the boy’s chest, and let it go, forcing the poor chap to hold it to avoid it following.

Abel turned around to sit on one of his lounge chairs, the movement hiding the sly smirk that drew across his lips. It always was so easy to play people to a fiddle. More often than not, all it took was a level of firmness, confidence that just begged people to question you and say no. Most people fold because humans, by nature, try to escape conflict. It only took fighters like the Hawker patriarch to know how to only bend to your own will.

“Aren’t you having some as well, sir?”

Perched on his old leather chair, Abel gestured at the boy again, his old veiny fingers beckoning him like a lazy puppeteer. He seemed almost like a relaxed king, his chin lifted in what could be confused for an old man trying to adjust his sight but was, in fact, concealed contempt. “Me? Oh no, I’m going on eighty, son, I gotta pick my battles with the booze. So, whatcha gonna ask me?”

Deputy took a sip of the bourbon likely to try to avoid causing offence and cleared his throat awkwardly before drawing closer to the Mayor. “Well sir, I just need to know your whereabouts and actions on the night of Saturday, 5th October.”

“Boy, if I told you about my whole day, we’re gonna be here till morn, how about you just give me some times to work with eh?”

A blush drew across the officer’s cheek, and he took a longer sip of the bourbon, trying to drown out the embarrassment. It was quite the social awkwardness to waste the Mayor’s time after all. “Ah yes well, any time in the afternoon would be helpful, urm, sir.”

“Well, I spend most of my evenings by the church, meetings and such with the local community. Wasn’t any different that way. I was doing an after prayer meeting at the church like I’ve been doing for longer than you’ve probably been alive.” It didn’t seem like a cutting remark, more just a flag clearly planted. It spoke clearly to the situation 'I’ve been doing this for a very long time. Have respect’.

“Yes, of course, sir, I’m sure the group will also confirm that, ah…um…” The poor newbie was struggling on the whole 'interviewing’ process, he juggled between his glass and getting a notepad from his shirt pocket. In what could only be described as an awkward tangle of limbs, the deputy eventually flicked to a page of notes and setting down his glass, he starts to write.

“Did you do anything after that, sir?”

Abel paused. It was just a minutia of movement, a brief hesitation that was entirely missable. He had to think about what he wanted to say for a moment, which was a rarity. “I got a headache, my age you know, soon as you get a whiff of a cold it hits you hard. So I came home early, and just…relaxed.”

“Of course, understandable, sir.” The youngster gave a nervous smile that likely was trying to be charming, though Abel barely gave it the time of day. Took more like cordial social interactions to actual gain his favour. He was at his heart, the sort of man that appreciated action over the frivolity of words.

“What’s your name, boy?”

The deputy blinked, and stared at Abel as if to ask 'me?’. The Mayor just raised a patient brow, a corner of his lips curled in a half-smile to encourage the boy.

“Urm, D-Deputy Roger Turner…sir.”

“Roger, old sorta name that. Did Sherriff Malvo recruit you?” Abel asked his questions with a gracious smile, but his tone was the kind that a police officer may have wielded ironically. It held a profound sense that answering wasn’t optional.

The deputy just nodded, putting his pad away and blinking away like an epiphytic deer in headlights.

“You know, I went to school with the Sherriff. I was older, but I knew him well enough. Still know him.”

Still completely lost on where this is going, the officer just bobbed his head along like a toy being shaken. His eyes were wide-eyed as if the prospect that his boss could know the Mayor well was surprising, even though anyone with even a modicum of a brain would expect it.

“I know, that if he knew one of his deputies, sent here to question me formally in the capacity of his office, decided to stand around and sip my bourbon, he’d fire them quicker than you could say missing kid.” It was said with the clinical cut of a surgeon. A master of the board calling out his checkmate, though Abel had to admit when it came to dimwits like Rogers, it so easy as to be boring.

The penny dropped. No, in fact, it tumbled down with the force of a loosen boulder, and just like that the naive youngster realised the brevity of his mistake. The only thing deputy could offer was a bumbling mess of words. “I well, you, um, I don’t…what?”

“It’s alright, my boy, I ain’t that cruel. I think we can come to an arrangement, make sure you can keep doing your good work. Take a seat.” To say Roger took the seat was being charitable, it was closer to collapse, the heavy browned leather of seat wrapping around him and making him seem like the 'boy’ that Abel had been calling him from the start. He just mutedly nodded, putting himself in the Mayor’s mercy.

The grin came back as Abel sat forward, a cat who had spotted its next meal. His eyes narrowed in conspiratorial slits a that broad smile of a kindly old man could now be seen to be what it actually had been, the deadly visage of a man who was unforgiving in exploiting your weaknesses. A game hunter in sight of prey.

“Now, why don’t you tell me all the hard work ya’ll have been doing. Don’t leave anything out.”

ANYTHING ELSE?

> Abel Hawker is a man of the draft. Not only did he serve in the Second World War upon turning 19 in 1943, but he then went on to make a second draft into the Korean war in his twenties. He’s a man who has killed and be trained to kill, causing violence to be no stranger to him. However, being a soldier has its price. There’s a simmering rage in Abel that’s hidden beneath his advanced age and small-town manners. It takes a lot to unsettle a man whose been in such brutal wars, but if you do, expect to find a hurricane of force that would rival many of Michigan’s infamous tornados.

> The Mayor was a loyal husband while he still had a wife, and can be quite the caring partner back in the days when he bothered with relationships. A sense of loyalty runs deep in him, and it spreads to his family. While he could never truly understand the interracial and liberal relationships that his children took on, he never removed his support (though he did spare a comment or two of opinion on it), because to him, family sticks together, always.

> No one is entirely sure of the source of the Hawker family wealth. It seems to be an accepted part of Devil’s Knot. The sun rises, the snow falls, and the Hawker family are wealthy. Only Abel and his father before him genuinely knows how the fortune was built and continues to be maintained. Make no mistake, the Mayor does not just sit on his inheritance, he grows it, to pass on to his son and his grandchildren. A tree after all, without the right care, only withers.

> The day of Brian Goode’s disappearance, Abel did indeed attend his usual Chapter meeting, he did also leave early. However, the bit he fails to often mention is that he had visitors to his house that evening when his grandson was seemingly long asleep. Man in dark coats and suitcases, who spent quite a few hours speaking to the Mayor about matters not uttered very openly.

> Mayor Hawker is quite the singer. Back in his day, in fact, Abel was part of a travelling band for a few years after the Korean war. It was just a hobby of boys trying to find work (Abel’s father was notoriously frugal), but should someone look hard enough, they may see old photos around Devils Knot of the band’s past shows. Still now, one can often catch him singing an old tune or listening to a recording on his record player. He surprisingly keeps up with more modern music too, but you’d never catch him admitting it. Perhaps in another life, he could have tried at it for real.

[nyrandrea]

Angel

Yep, this is what you think it is. Time to introduce a certain gal...

As always this story is inspired by @shinyzango‘s 2D Bendy AU, hope ya enjoy!

"Wow...I...I don't remember any of this."  Henry muttered in awe along with a small hint of worry.

With a few cautioned steps, he wandered out into the large, open space, taking in as much as he could. Huge posters that advertised the old cartoons lined the walls, most of them were curled up and decrepit with old age. Musty brown couches sat on both sides of the hall with small plush-like dolls lazily sitting on the cushions, while two larger ones sat up against a large pillar that towered in the middle of the room.

The pillar held a sign and what seemed to be some sort of waterfall of ink spilling from above, Henry narrowed his eyes to read the letters.

'Heavenly Toys'

He squinted even further to just make out the smaller letters that read underneath:

'Joey Drew Studios'

"Tch!" Henry snorted. "Of course he would try and pull off something like this. More profit, huh? Typical."

He couldn't even imagine how much time this would have cost the other staff members, how much back breaking work it would have taken to build all of this underneath the studio. Just the mere thought of it was enough to make his blood boil.

'And for what? Look how it all turned for you, Joey. Hope you're proud of yourself, 'pal'.'

"Henry?" Bendy's voice timidly called out from below.

"Huh?" Henry blinked as he mentally shook away his irritated thoughts before smiling down to the demon. "What's up, bud?"

"Look." The toon said as he pointed for Henry to look behind him. "It's another one a' those boxes."

As Henry turned to investigate what the little demon was talking about, he was met with the exact same Miracle Station that he saw near the safehouse a while back. It looked like a direct copy, with the ink painted ring directly in the centre. He couldn't help but be a little creeped out, there was something...oddly ominous about it.

"Weird place to put this in, huh?" Bendy commented, catching onto older man's distress.

"Ah, it's...probably not important. Maybe they just needed it for storage." Henry said, hoping to quickly brush off the topic altogether. Bendy quieted down, not pushing the conversation any further as the animator turned his back on the large wooden container and walked further into the room.

"But this place sure is huge, ain't it?" The demon quickly said to lighten the mood. "And hey look! It's me!" He exclaimed with a huge grin as he pointed enthusiastically at one of the larger dolls that was tucked away in a corner.  

"I sure am cute, ain't I?" Henry had to stifle a chuckle as he examined the life-sized doll. Just like the cut-outs, it's grinning face was emotionally blank and almost a little condescending.

"Yeah, sure are." Henry lied with an unsure grin.

Bendy was either blissfully oblivious or chose to ignore the human's remark, as he turned his attention to the other large doll that sat at the base of the ebony waterfall that poured from above.

"Hey, even Boris has a doll! Wonder if Alice has one too." The devil said as he quickly glanced around the room for any angel toys.

"Speaking of Boris, where is he?" Henry muttered as he looked for any sign of the toon wolf. Ever since he crawled through the vent to let them through to the other side, he seemed to have just...vanished.

"He's probably around here somewhere, right? He couldn't have gone too far, we'll find him." Bendy reassured, before a small frown came across his face. "But we shouldn't waste time, Boris ain't exactly a fighter."

"...Yeah, you're right. The quicker we find him, the better." Henry agreed. Besides, they had spent enough time in this room, and he was starting to feel a little uneasy. He swore he could just...feel something watching them.

With a shake of his head, he decided to brush it off, probably just old age making him paranoid.

As Henry climbed the set of stairs at the back of the hall, he gazed into the pool of ebony liquid that filled the base of the pillar, his reflection tiredly stared back. He was honestly surprised that nothing had popped out at them yet, especially with the excess amount of ink that came from above. Not wanting to chance his luck with that thought, he moved on up.

As his foot rested on the final step, the silence that encased the hall was softly broken with a strange and almost ethereal sound. Henry stopped in his tracks to listen, the sound was extremely faint but it was definitely there, it sounded like…like someone was humming, a woman. Whoever or whatever it was had a beautiful and delicate voice, it was hard not be drawn to it.

“Henry…ya hear that?” Bendy whispered, as if to try and not disturb the singing.

Henry simply nodded in silence, keeping deathly still until the voice was eventually lost to the deafening silence again. The older man let out a huge breath that he didn’t even know he had been holding.

“That voice…” Bendy muttered with a frown. “It sounded so…familiar…” The little toon's face looked as though it was hit with a sudden realization. “Alice…”

“You really think it was her?” Henry asked with a tone of uncertainty. As beautiful and fitting the voice was to the angel, it also seemed almost… subtly threatening in a way. It could have been someone or…something else.

“It has to be! She must be around here somewhere. We gotta find her, Henry!” Bendy exclaimed with a huge, excited grin. Henry was still very skeptical, but he didn’t want to strip away the demon's joy, so he simply nodded.

“Well…we’ll just keep moving forward and…who knows, maybe we'll find both Boris and Alice.”

Part of him secretly hoped they wouldn’t run into the latter.

As he approached what seemed to be the entrance of a workstation, a small machine that was attached to the wall caught his attention, it held a round clock with arrowed hands that were stuck in place, as if time had been frozen. Henry plucked the musty, sepia colored piece of paper from its slot at the top of the machine and looked it over, a wave of bittersweet nostalgia washing over him as he did.  

His eyes glanced over to the poster that resided next to the punch in stand, it held a bold illustration of the station with a small bendy head logo in the middle, along with the slogan;

“Don’t forget to punch in!

It could SAVE your job.”

Henry couldn’t help but snort at the last statement.

The older man carefully slotted the paper back in, being sure not to activate it as he could remember the clock in noise being pretty damn loud, and the last thing he needed was attracting the wrong kind of attention.

“Always on time…” Henry muttered quietly with a small smile as the paper slipped back into place.

“What was that?” Bendy asked curiously, not quite hearing what the human had said.

“Nothing.” He quickly replied as he walked away from the machine and towards a lever that resided nearby, with a small push, both man and toon were slightly startled when the sound of a machine whirring to life echoed around the corner.

Large black cables that were strewn across the wooden floors guided him into a workstation, where a much more ominous poster waited for them.

“Work hard. Work happy.”

“Geez Joey, you sure know how to encourage your staff.” Henry bitterly said with a shudder. Bendy simply looked down, choosing not to make a comment on the matter.

A small and very cramped room opened up to them, cluttered with a workbench, scattered tools, a half rotted ladder that laid against the opposite wall and shelves that held excessive rows upon rows of Alice and Boris plushies, the whole scene was just an accident waiting to happen.

"Oh hey, she does have one!" Bendy noted with a small grin, referring back to the doll conversation.

"Yeah, she uh...has quite a few actually." Henry replied with a raised brow, the Alice dolls far outnumbered the Boris ones, it was as if there was some kind of backlog. Maybe they just made too many?

Henry took a peek through the shelves, only to immediately frown as he saw the door to the next location on the other side. Even if he took away the dolls, there was no way he was going to be able to squeeze through the tight space, and he couldn't exactly break it down since he lacked a weapon to do so.

Glancing around the room, he noticed there was a lack of ink as well, so asking for Bendy's assistance was also out of the question.

"Why is there always something blocking the door?" The older man rhetorically asked with a sigh. "Gotta be a way through..."

He turned his attention to the large machinery that was attached to the walls, thick cables ran along the floor to lead to a small lever, it was worth a try. With a small grunt, he pushed the rusted contraption, only for absolutely nothing to happen. He tried again a few times but to no avail.

'Damn thing must be broken...now what?'

"Oh! Henry look! Those dolls are stuck in those belt wheel things over there, that must be what's blockin' 'em." Bendy pointed out, resulting in Henry blinking as he felt like a complete idiot for not noticing.

"Great, now I'm getting old and blind." Henry muttered as he pulled the toys out of the clogged-up machinery. Bendy crossed his arms and huffed at the human's negative attitude.

"Hey now! For a stubborn old guy, I think you're faring really well!"

"Geez, thanks, I really appreciate it." Henry replied flatly, although Bendy was as oblivious as ever to the tone.

"You're very welcome!" The toon cheerfully replied.

Once Henry finally managed to rip the dolls out of every nook and cranny and the belt wheels started rolling smoothly again he decided to try out the lever once more. With a loud grind and a shuddering clunk, the wooden shelves that blocked the way moved along the cords and swayed to a stop in a single motion, a few toys falling off at the sudden jolt of movement.

"Hey, we did it." Henry said in a much more pleased tone. "Nice work, bud."  

"You too, Henry!" The demon enthusiastically replied, before curiously gazing over at something that suddenly piqued his interest. "Wait, what's that over there?

Henry looked over, noticing a desk that was tucked away behind the shelves.

"Huh..." As he got closer, he saw that there was nothing much of interest, although two things stood out; A small wooden bowl with what appeared to be some kind of ink lump that was shaped like Bendy's head and a tape recorder.

"Been a while since I've seen one of these. Let's see if there's any valuable info here..." As he hit the play button, a high pitched male voice with a strong Irish accent echoed throughout the room, he recognized it but he could barely remember the guy's name. Shawn something?

"I don't be seein what the big deal is.

So what if I went and painted some of those Bendy dolls with a crooked smile? That's sure no reason for Mr. Drew to be flyin' off the handle at me.”

Henry couldn't help but snort at that, looks like he wasn't the only one to experience Joey's anger first-hand.

“And if he really wants to be so helpful, he could be tellin' me what I'm to be doin' with this warehouse I got full of that angel whatchamacallit. Not a scrap of that mess be sellin'!

Probably have to melt it all down to be rid of it all.”

As the tape rolled out, Henry frowned slightly. So that was why there were so many Alice dolls, none of them were making a profit.

"Huh...guess she wasn't as popular as we thought she was going to be. Shame..."

He glanced down to Bendy, who looked a little sullen at the new information.

"...You alright?" The older man softly asked, making the devil snap out of his trance.

"Huh? Me? Yeah, I'm fine. Guess it's just one a' those things. Those folks just didn't know what they were missin', Alice was a..." He paused for a brief moment before correcting himself. "...Is a great gal'.

Henry simply gave the toon a small smile in response, deciding it was probably best to drop the subject, but it seemed like the studio itself begged to differ, as the next room held an entire shrine to the angel.

A dim, flashing ceiling light was the only thing that barely managed to illuminate the room, but it was bright enough to show the countless Alice dolls and posters that were to the right, a single cut-out of the girl to the left and a large, stained glass panel straight ahead that showed what appeared to be some sort of display space with a decrepit sign hanging above:

'She's Quite a Gal!'  

Henry cautiously walked in and frowned at the sheer strangeness of it all, it was clear that this was some sort of tribute room for the angel. It was extremely unsettling, to say the least, and Henry wanted nothing more than to get out.

"Do ya...do ya think she's around here?" Bendy asked with a somewhat hopeful expression. "Oh, I do miss her..." He trailed off. Henry's brow furrowed in concern, he knew the toon was just trying to be optimistic, but the whole situation was making him uneasy, maybe he was going to have to be more blunt.

"Look, I don't think-"  

His words were abruptly cut off as the dim light from above suddenly flashed off, leaving the room in total darkness.  

'Henry?!'

'It's alright, I'm still here.'  He mentally tried to reassure the demon, who was emanating a small burst of panic. The older man tried his best to keep both himself and Bendy as calm as possible, but with the strong sense of dread that was slowly creeping down his spine, it was proving difficult.  

Luckily, the bulb clung itself back to life, as a small spark illuminated the room once more with small flickering flashes, both Henry and Bendy had no time to react though, as the room suddenly jolted to life with an upbeat musical tune.

The animator couldn't help but flinch as the small box-like tv screens that hung from the ceiling glinted with static for a few seconds, before the all too familiar face of the angel herself showed up. Henry grimaced as her sweet, sing-song like voice filled the room with a small sigh and a cheeky giggle.

"Henry..." Bendy started before a huge grin spread across his face. "It's Alice! I told you she was here!"  

Henry simply glanced down with a look of worry, not even getting the chance to say anything in return as her voice completely filled the room:

"I'm the cutest little angel sent from above, and I know just how to swing. I got a bright little halo and filled with love, I'm Alice Angel!"

"What the Hell...?" Henry muttered in complete disbelief, every inch of muscle in his body was screaming at him to run.

'It's alright, Henry!' Bendy mentally reassured him. 'She just likes a snazzy entrance, that's all.'

"I'm a hit of the party, I'm the belle of the ball, I'm a toast of every town, just one little dance, I'll own your heart. . . I'm Alice Angel!"

'Maybe...maybe she's behind the glass, go have a look.' Henry gave the demon a look of scepticism, but reluctantly complied. With a few cautious steps, he made his way up to the glass, taking a peek inside. As much as he squinted, he couldn't see a damn thing.

He didn't have that problem for long though.

"I ain't no flapper, I'm a classy dish, and boy can this girl sing.'

The room behind the glass suddenly flashed to life with an echoing click, there wasn't much in the room; Cardboard cut-out clouds, a door with a star and...he swore he saw something move there.

"This gal can grant your every wish-"

A dark shadow swiftly popped up from underneath, and as it banged it's fists on the glass with a booming thump, it screamed.

"I'M ALICE ANGEL!"

Henry froze on the spot as the black creature glared at him briefly. It looked like a woman, with a horribly disfigured face, the left side had a gaping hole where the mouth should have been, her eye on the same side was a lifeless black abyss. She had ebony hair, inked hands, two small horns, a halo...

Just as Henry managed to string together the sudden quick-fire of information, the woman screeched before slamming her fists against the glass once again, this time completely smashing it in one blow. Henry fell back at the sudden attack, and snarled as he felt an intense and painfully sharp jab just above his right eye as what he assumed was a shard of glass cut into his skin.

The older man quickly pulled the ragged shard out and clutched the wound as something warm and wet trickled down the side of his face. When he gained his senses, he found himself in complete darkness again, the chaos died down, sending the room into a sinister silence.

"Henry!" Bendy's voice quietly cried out. " Henry, are ya ok?!" The toon was absolutely radiating of worry, so much so that it nearly sent Henry's own heart racing.

"I-I'm alright bud, just calm down. I'm fine." He said firmly but gently, it seemed to work as the waves of emotion died down a tad.

As the silence drew out longer, he wondered if the woman...thing was still in the other room, or if she had somehow managed to get in this one.  

"I see you there."  

Well that answered his question.

"A new fly in my endless web." Her smooth, silky voice sent the hairs on the back of his neck straight up, a subtle movement in the shadows caught the corner of his eye, but his body was too frozen in fear to move. Some of it was his but...Bendy seemed to be overwhelmed with terror, and waves of it was being sent through the connection, rendering his body immobilised.

'Bendy...' Henry mentally grimaced, but he couldn't do anything but sit there as the voice continued, it seemed to have two tones now, one high and one a little lower. He could feel a presence come up from behind him.

"Come along now." A soft but icy hand softly caressed his cheek from behind, before slowly and almost seductively moving up to clutch his own hand, which was still held over his fresh wound, her voice dropped to a mere whisper.

"Let's see if you're worthy to walk with angels."

Henry's eyes widened with realisation, but just as he was about to question her, the lights snapped back on, revealing that she had disappeared, the only evidence of her presence being that of the smashed window. The ex animator could only stare in disbelief before a faint scent of copper wafted into his nose, making his face scrunch up slightly.

With a small grimace, he slowly lowered his hand from his brow, flinching when he saw the fresh coat of blood that covered his fingers and palm. A slight twinge of worry pulled at his mind.

"Hen...Henry...?"

The older man looked down and strained a small smile at the demon, who's face had fear and concern written all over it. Henry couldn't help but feel guilty every time the demon pulled that face, which was pretty often.

"It's fine, bud. Just a small gash, didn't catch my eye, thank God." Henry said with a quiet sigh of relief. It was bad enough when his leg was injured, never mind being blinded.

"Oh...but it's bleeding..." Bendy timidly pointed out, Henry was quick to catch onto his point and ripped off a bit off the sleeve of his shirt before wrapping around the side of his head and over the wound as a sort of make-shift bandage.

He made sure not a single drop of blood got onto Bendy's page.

After dressing his wound and making sure it was nice and tight, he decided to remain seated on the floor for a few minutes more so he could regain his composure. With a few deep breaths, he finally managed to slow down his still pounding heart, even if it was just by a little bit. At least it was something.

"...o...as...at..." Bendy's mumbled with a spaced out and mildly disturbed look.

"Didn't quite catch that, bud." Henry inquired.

A few moments of silence followed.

"...Who was that?" Bendy finally asked again with a more focused frown. Henry felt himself mirroring the same expression.

"You and I both know who that probably was." The human said bluntly, he was willing to put up with the toon's naivety before but after what had just happened...

"It wasn't Alice." Bendy quickly said, wanting to rule out the obvious possibility immediately.  

"Bendy, you saw what she-"

"It was not her." The demon stated with a firmer tone this time, a small beat of annoyance hitting the connection.

Henry, deciding it was best not to push the topic, simply said, "Well...maybe it was a copy of her. Like how that other Bendy is a copy of you?" He tried with a lighter tone.

"Yeah...yeah I think you're probably right. The real Alice has still gotta be around here somewhere..." Bendy said with a little more positivity, before a feeling of guilt overcame him.

"Sorry for snappin' at ya, Henry. Are ya alright? How's the cut?" He asked tentatively.  

"There's no need to apologize, I understand." The older man replied with a nod and smile, before chuckling, "And for the last time, I'm alright. It'll heal up soon enough."

"Heh...I know." Bendy said with a sheepish grin. "But it's my job to worry!" He added with a prideful tone. "Someone's gotta do it." The toon boasted with a big grin.

Henry simply shook his head and rolled his eyes in response, though with a slight wince due to fresh wound still stinging a little.  

"Alright...we should get out of here, before something else decides to show up." Henry grunted as he got up from the ground, his bones creaking in protest as he did. "Hope Boris is faring better than we are."

"Yeah. H-he should be ok though, I'm sure of it." Bendy's voice held a hint of uncertainty, but he made sure to mask it with his usual upbeat grin. "But...are ya ok to walk? Yer legs are shakin' a little."  

"Just the adrenaline wearing off, takes longer than it used to, unfortunately." The human sheepishly admitted. The demon gave him a look of understanding.

"Well just be sure not to strain yourself, ok?"

"You got it, boss." He teased the toon with a smirk, who returned the gesture.

Feeling a little more at ease, he spotted a small passageway to the right that exited the room, which he was more than glad about. The corridor was short but winded with several web-filled corners, and as he reached a wall that looked as though it had been knocked down, two split paths opened themselves up to him.

Both branches were branded with an ink splattered sign that read:

'The Demon' and 'The Angel.'

Which path will the boys take? Each one has their consequences...

Let me know what y’all think! ;D

Chapter 1 - Friend - https://nyrandrea.tumblr.com/post/160888670286/friend

Chapter 2 - Rest - https://nyrandrea.tumblr.com/post/160888769001/rest

Chapter 3 - Enemy - https://nyrandrea.tumblr.com/post/160963746341/enemy

Chapter 4 - Family - https://nyrandrea.tumblr.com/post/161237849016/family

Chapter 5 - Nightmare - https://nyrandrea.tumblr.com/post/161560167591/nightmare

Chapter 6 - Bond - https://nyrandrea.tumblr.com/post/161937236941/bond

Chapter 7 - Breakdown - https://nyrandrea.tumblr.com/post/162340494396/breakdown

Chapter 8 - Communication - https://nyrandrea.tumblr.com/post/162871280071/communication

Chapter 9 - Crimson - https://nyrandrea.tumblr.com/post/163606028971/crimson

Chapter 10 - Power - https://nyrandrea.tumblr.com/post/163998136526/power

Chapter 11 - Sanctuary - https://nyrandrea.tumblr.com/post/166585429386/sanctuary

[writinggeisha]

Why is color in writing so important?

Pablo Picasso said that “Colors, like features, follow the changes of the emotions.” Picasso was an artist who evoked emotion with colorful pigments. As a writer, you can do the same with colorful words.

Note the different pictures painted by the following two paragraphs.

Ned gazed at the calypso-orange horizon. A lapis-blue speck sparkled above it in the deepening violet of a new night sky—Planet Vorton, home.

Ned gaped at the corpse-grey horizon. A mold-blue speck festered above it in the deepening black of a smoggy night sky—Planet Vorton, home.

Same number of words, different colors, with complementing adjectives and verbs. One paragraph emanates optimism, the other gloom.

Compound adjectives sometimes require hyphens.

According to The Chicago Manual of Style, if a compound adjective appears before a noun, it should be hyphenated.

Compare the following examples:

Tristan wore an eye-catching purple tie. Tristan’s purple tie was eye catching.

Wendi modeled a melon-pink dress. Wendi’s dress was melon pink.

Accent colors with adjectives.

Here’s a list over one hundred adjectives from thousands you could choose to produce more vivid descriptions of the colors in your writing.

A Accented, achromatic, ashen, ashy, atomic

B Blazing, bleached, bleak, blinding, blotchy, bold, brash, bright, brilliant, burnt

C Chromatic, classic, clean, cold, complementing, contrasting, cool, coordinating, creamy, crisp

D Dark, dayglow, dazzling, deep, delicate, digital, dim, dirty, drab, dreary, dull, dusty

E Earthy, electric, energetic, eye-catching

F Faded, faint, festive, fiery, flashy, flattering, fluorescent, frosty, full-toned

G Gaudy, glistening, glittering, glossy, glowing

H Harsh, hazy, hot

I Icy, illuminated, incandescent, intense, iridescent

K Knockout

L Lambent, light, loud, luminous, lusterless, lustrous

M Majestic, matte, medium, mellow, milky, monochromatic, muddy, murky, muted

N Natural, neon, neutral

O Opalescent, opaque

P Pale, pastel, patchy, pearly, perfect, picturesque, plain, primary, pure

R Radiant, reflective, rich, royal, ruddy, rustic

S Satiny, saturated, shaded, sheer, shining, shiny, shocking, showy, smoky, soft, solid, somber, soothing, sooty, sparkling, stained, streaked, streaky, striking, strong, subdued, subtle, sunny, swirling

T Tacky, tinged, tinted, tonal, toned, traditional, translucent, transparent

U Undiluted, uneven, uniform

V Vibrant, vivid

W Wan, warm, washed-out, waxen, wild

Enhance multicolored objects with adjectives such as these.

B Bicolor, blended, braided

C Cataclysmic-colored, checkered, compound, contrasting, crisscrossed

D Dappled, disparate, dotted, dusted

F Flecked, freckled, fused

I Intermixed, interwoven

J Jumbled

L Lined

K Kaleidoscopic

M Many-hued, marbled, mingled, mixed, motley, mottled, multicolored, multihued

P Particolored, patterned, peppered, piebald, pied, polychromatic, prismatic, psychedelic

S Salted, speckled, splotched, stippled

T Two-tone, tricolor

V Varied, variegated, veined

Nouns provide more opportunities to add color and detail.

A Accent

B Bleach, brightness, brilliance

C Chroma, clarity, CMYK, coating, color wheel, colorant, coloration, cover

D Deposit, depth, diffusion, dimension, dispersion, dye

F Film, finish, flicker, fluorescence

G Glare, glaze, gleam, glimmer, glint, glisten, glitter, glow, gradation

H Henna, highlight, hint, hue

I Incandescence, intensity, iridescence

L Lacquer, layer, lightness, lowlight, luminosity, luster

M Monotone

N Nuance

O Opacity, opalescence

P Paint, Pantone, patina, peroxide, pigment, pigmentation, polish, prism, purity

R Radiance, rainbow, RGB, residue, rinse

S Sample, saturation, seam, shade, sheen, shimmer, shine, smidgeon, sparkle, spectrum, stain, stratum, streak, stripe, suggestion, surface, swatch

T Tattoo, tester, tier, tincture, tinge, tint, tone, touch, trace, twinkle

U Undertone

V Varnish, vein, veneer

Find more writing tips in

The Writer’s Lexicon and The Writer’s Lexicon Volume II

.

Available in both digital and print editions. –

Perhaps these verbs will provide inspiration.

Colors can blend, clash, or enhance. They might revitalize, fade, or overlap. Choose carefully to provide the nuance you need in your writing.

A Accent, accentuate, appear, attract

B Balance, bathe, bespatter, blanch, blare, blaze, blench, bleach, blend, blotch, brighten, brush, burn

C Captivate, clash, color, combine, complement, conflict, contrast, coordinate, crayon

D Darken, daub, draw, decolorize, decorate, deepen, dot, draw, dye

E Embellish, emit, enhance, enliven

F Fade, flare, flash, flatter, fleck

G Glare, glaze, gleam, glimmer, glint, glisten, glow

H Harmonize, heighten, highlight

I Illuminate, infuse, intensify

J Jar

L Light, lighten

M Match, meld, merge, mingle, mix

O Outline, overlap

P Paint, permeate, pervade, plaster

R Radiate, revitalize

S Saturate, seal, shade, shine, sketch, smear, sparkle, splash, splatter, spray, spread, stain, suffuse

T Tinge, tint

V Varnish

W Wash

Invent colors.

Your ingenuity is the only limit with invented colors. Consider a few examples.

Yolanda sashayed toward me, hips swiveling in a seduction-red skirt that complemented her bad-baby-black lipstick.

Either Yolanda intends to ravish our narrator, or he hopes she’s a bad girl with seduction on her mind.

Bruise-blue eyes stared out through glasses crisscrossed with cracks. Matching lumps burgeoned from Marco’s chin and cheeks.

Readers will make the connection between bruise-blue and the lumps, imagining someone who has been beaten or injured.

Find color ideas by googling phrases such as “things that are green” or “things that look blue.”

And now, a kaleidoscope of colors.

Some of the following lists contain invented colors. Many are based on objects we encounter in our environment. You can use almost any noun to create an adjective that will resonate with readers.

For the next several years, Trump blond or Hillary blonde will produce instant mental images.

Science fiction might use deep-space black, quasar blue, or starburst yellow.

An environmentalist could choose colors such as oil-slick black, smog grey, or acid-rain yellow.

Choose or invent colors that intensify your writing.

You can use many of these words as is, or precede the color they represent to produce a compound adjective. Rather than anthracite, for example, you might prefer anthracite black.

Black Anger black, anthracite, bat black, boot black, cat black, cave black, cavity black, charcoal, coal black, crow black, deep-space black, ebony, evil black, funeral black, grease black, ink, jade black, jet, leather black, licorice, metal black, midnight, mildew black, mold black, night black, obsidian, oil-slick black, onyx, pitch black, raven, sable, shadow black, shoe-polish black, silhouette black, smoky, sooty, spider black, tar black, tire black, tuxedo black, uber black, velvet black

Blond/Blonde Although blond can be used for either males or females, I and many writers prefer blond to describe males and blonde to describe females. Likewise with gender-identified pets and animals.

Why?

Blond was adopted into English from French, and the French language uses gender-specific descriptors.

Compound adjectives in the following list are spelled with the feminine form.

Almond-crème blonde, amber, apple-cider blonde, apricot, ash blonde, banana-bread blonde, blanched, bleached, bombshell, bottle blonde, brassy, bronze, brown-sugar blonde, butter blonde, butternut, butterscotch, caramel, chamomile blonde, champagne, chardonnay blonde, corn blonde, diamond blonde, dirty blonde, dishwater blonde, electric blonde, flaxen, French-fry blonde, frosted blonde, gilded blonde, ginger, ginger-ale blonde, ginger spice, golden, goldenrod, Hillary blonde, honey blonde, honey-butter blonde, honeysuckle blonde, hot-toffee blonde, macadamia blonde, mushroom blonde, neon blonde, peroxide blonde, platinum, sand blonde, straw blonde, strawberry blonde, sunflower blonde, sun-kissed blonde, sunset blonde, tarnished-gold blonde, Trump blond/e, trumpet blonde, vanilla-malt blonde, vintage gold, wheat blonde

Blue Admiral blue, Aegean blue, agate blue, arctic blue, azure, baby blue, berry blue, blue-jay blue, blue-jeans blue, bluebell blue, blueberry blue, blueberry-juice blue, bluebird blue, blue-jay blue, brook blue, bruise blue, cadet blue, cerulean, china-blue, cobalt, cornflower blue, crystal blue, denim blue, electric blue, forget-me-not blue, galaxy glue, gunmetal blue, ice blue, indigo, ink blue, jellyfish blue, lagoon blue, lake blue, lapis blue, laser blue, lilac blue, lobelia blue, mold blue, moon blue, navy, ocean blue, quasar blue, river blue, robin-egg blue, sapphire blue, sky blue, star blue, steel-blue, swimming-pool blue, teal, toilet-water blue, toothpaste blue, ultramarine

Brown Acorn brown, almond brown, amber, auburn, autumn brown, Bambi brown, beige, brandy brown, brick brown, bronze, brunet, buckeye brown, camel brown, caramel, carob brown, cedar brown, champagne brown, chestnut, chipmunk brown, chocolate brown, cinnamon, cider brown, clay brown, coffee brown, cognac brown, cookie brown, copper, cork brown, desert sand, drab brown, dun brown, ecru, espresso brown, fawn brown, football brown, freckle brown, ginger, gingerbread brown, golden brown, hazel, hickory brown, honey brown, infrabeige, kiwi brown, lion brown, loam brown, mahogany, maroon, merlot brown, mocha, mouse brown, mud brown, muddy brown, nut brown, oak brown, orange brown, peanut brown, pecan brown, pekoe brown, penny brown, pigskin brown, pretzel brown, rosewood, russet, rust, sandstone brown, seal brown, sepia, sienna, spice brown, syrup brown, taffy, tan, taupe, tawny brown, teddy-bear brown, topaz brown, tortilla brown, tourmaline brown, umber, walnut, wheat brown, whiskey brown, wood brown

Green Apple green, army green, artichoke green, asparagus green, avocado green, barf green, basil green, blue green, bottle green, bright green, cabbage green, camouflage green, cat’s-eye green, celery green, chartreuse, clover green, crocodile green, crystal-marble green, cyan, electric green, elf green, emerald, fern green, frog green, grape green, grass green, hypergreen, jade, jasper green, jelly green, juniper, kale green, khaki green, kiwi green, leaf green, LED green, olive, leprechaun green, lettuce green, lime, lizard green, loden, mildew green, mint, moss green, neon green, ocean green, parsley green, pea green, pea-soup green, peacock green, pear green, Perrier-bottle green, pickle green, pine green, puke green, sage, sea green, seafoam green, seasick green, seaweed green, seedling green, shamrock green, snot green, spinach green, spring green, sprout green, spruce green, tea green, teal, toad green, velvet green, viridian, watermelon green, yellow green

Grey/Gray Alien grey, aluminum grey, anchor grey, ash grey, battleship grey, bottle grey, boulder grey, carbon grey, cement grey, charcoal grey, cloud grey, coin grey, corpse grey, crater grey, death grey, dove grey, elephant grey, exhaust grey, fling grey, flint grey, fog grey, fossil grey, fungus grey, ginger grey, granite grey, graphite, gravel grey, gruel grey, gum grey, gunmetal grey, hippo grey, hoary grey, ice grey, iron grey, knife grey, lead grey, mercury grey, meteor grey, mummy grey, nail grey, nickel, otter grey, pebble grey, pepper grey, pewter, pigeon grey, porpoise grey, porridge grey, rat grey, salt-and-pepper, seal grey, shadow grey, shark grey, shovel grey, silver, slate, sleet grey, slug grey, slush grey, smog grey, smoke, steel grey, stone grey, storm grey, stormy grey, stormy-sea grey, sword grey, tabby grey, tank grey, tweed grey, wax grey, wolf grey

Orange Apricot orange, burnt orange, butternut orange, calypso orange, candlelight orange, cantaloupe orange, caramelized orange, carrot orange, cayenne orange, cheddar orange, cheese-cracker orange, Chinese-lantern orange, cider orange, citrus orange, clementine orange, coral orange, crayon orange, curry orange, fire orange, flame orange, goldfish orange, mac-and-cheese orange, mango-tango orange, mandarin orange, marigold orange, marmalade orange, monarch orange, nacho orange, nasturtium orange, naval orange, papaya orange, peach orange, peach-butter orange, peach-sorbet orange, popsicle orange, pumpkin orange, safety-vest orange, salamander orange, salmon orange, sherbet orange, shrimp orange, starfish orange, sunset orange, sweet-potato orange, tangelo orange, tangerine orange, terra cotta, tiger orange, traffic orange, yam orange

Pink Amaranth, azalea pink, baby pink, ballet-slipper pink, blush, bright pink, bubblegum pink, cantaloupe pink, carnation pink, cerise, champagne pink, cherry-rose pink, coral, cotton-candy pink, crepe pink, cupid pink, cyclamen pink, damask, flamingo pink, fuchsia, geranium pink, grapefruit pink, lemonade pink, magenta, mandarin pink, mango pink, melon pink, old-rose pink, oleander pink, parfait pink, pastel pink, peach, peach-blossom pink, peony pink, piggy pink, piglet pink, pomegranate pink, prom pink, punch pink, raspberry-smoothie pink, rose, rosewood pink, rouge pink, salmon pink, seashell pink, sherbet pink, shocking pink, strawberry pink, swine pink, taffy pink, watermelon pink, Zinfandel pink

Purple Amethyst purple, amparo purple, boysenberry purple, burgundy purple, Byzantium purple, clover purple, concord purple, coneflower purple, cyclamen purple, eggplant purple, fig purple, gentian purple, gooseberry purple, grape purple, heather, heliotrope, hyacinth purple, indigo, iris purple, jam purple, kazoo purple, lavender, lilac, lollipop purple, lotus purple, magenta, mauve, mulberry purple, onion purple, opal purple, orchid purple, periwinkle purple, petunia purple, pillow purple, plum, posy purple, primrose purple, raisin purple, regalia purple, rhubarb purple, royal purple, sage-flower purple, sangria purple, sugar-plum purple, tanzanite purple, Tyrian purple, violet, wild-berry purple, wine purple, wisteria purple

Red Apple red, auburn, beet red, berry red, blaze red, blood red, blush red, brick red, burgundy red, candy red, candy-apple red, candy-cane red, carrot red, cherry red, cherry-soda red, Christmas red, cinnamon-candy red, communist red, copper red, coral red, crab-apple red, cranberry red, crimson, currant red, fire red, fire-engine red, fire-hydrant red, flame red, flaming red, garnet red, ginger red, heart red, henna, holly-berry red, jam red, ketchup red, lady-bug red, LED red, licorice red, lipstick red, lobster red, maple-leaf red, merlot red, mulberry red, neon red, pepper red, pomegranate red, poppy red, radish red, raspberry red, roan, rose, rouge, ruby, Russian red, rust, rusty, Santa-suit red, scarlet, sorrel, stoplight red, strawberry red, sunburn red, titian, tomato red, tulip red, Valentine red, wanton red, watermelon red, wine red

White Alabaster, angel white, ash white, blizzard white, bone white, bread-dough white, cake white, cameo white, chalk, chaste white, chiffon white, china white, clamshell white, cloud white, coconut white, cornstarch white, cream, crème, dumpling white, eggshell white, fizz white, foam white, fog white, frost white, gardenia white, ghost white, goose-down white, heron white, hospital white, KKK white, ivory, lace white, lather white, lily white, linen white, lotus white, milk white, mist white, moonstone white, noodle white, paper white, parchment white, pearl white, phantom white, picket white, platinum white, polar white, porcelain white, powder white, rice white, salt white, Samoyed white, sheet white, skeleton white, snowflake white, specter white, starch white, sugar white, talc white, vellum white, virgin white, wedding-veil white, winter white, wonton white

Yellow Acid-rain yellow, autumn yellow, banana yellow, bourbon yellow, bumblebee yellow, butter yellow, buttercup yellow, butterscotch yellow, cadmium, canary yellow, chick yellow, corn yellow, custard yellow, daffodil yellow, daisy yellow, dandelion yellow, Dijon yellow, duckling yellow, egg-yolk yellow, flaxen, ginger yellow, gold, goldenrod, grapefruit yellow, hardhat yellow, honey yellow, jaundice yellow, lemon, macaroni yellow, maize, mustard, omelet yellow, pencil yellow, pineapple yellow, plantain yellow, poppy yellow, rubber-ducky yellow, saffron, sawdust yellow, school-bus yellow, scrambled-egg yellow, starburst yellow, sticky-note yellow, straw yellow, sulfur yellow, sun yellow, sunflower yellow, sweetcorn yellow, tallow yellow, taxi yellow, turmeric yellow, wasp yellow, whisky yellow, yield-sign yellow