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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 1 year ago

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When The World Is Crashing Down [Chapter 13: Condemned From The Start] [Series Finale]

Series summary: Your family is House Celtigar, one of Rhaenyra’s wealthiest allies. In the aftermath of Rook’s Rest, Aemond unknowingly conscripts you to save his brother’s life. Now you are in the liar of the enemy, but your loyalties are quickly shifting…

Chapter warnings: Language, warfare, violence, serious injury, alcoholism/addiction, references to sexual content (18+), death, angsttttttt, more children than usual, Wolfman!

Series title is a lyrics from: “7 Minutes In Heaven” by Fall Out Boy.

Chapter title is a lyric from: “Sophomore Slump or Comeback of the Year” by Fall Out Boy.

Word count: 8.1k.

Link to chapter list: HERE.

Taglist (more in comments): @tinykryptonitewerewolf @lauraneedstochill @not-a-glad-gladiator @daenysx @babyblue711 @arcielee @at-a-rax-ia @bhanclegane @jvpit3rs @padfooteyes @marvelescvpe @travelingmypassion @darkenchantress @yeahright0h @poohxlove @trifoliumviridi @bloodyflowerrr @fan-goddess @devynsficrecs @flowerpotmage @thelittleswanao3 @seabasscevans @hiraethrhapsody @libroparaiso @echos-muses @st-eve-barnes @chattylurker @lm-txles @vagharnaur @moonlightfoxx @storiumemporium @insabecs @heliosscribbles @beautifulsweetschaos @namelesslosers @partnerincrime0 @burningcoffeetimetravel-fics @yawneneytiri @marbles-posts @imsolence @maidmerrymint @backyardfolklore @nimaharchive @anxiousdaemon @under-the-aspen-tree @amiraisgoingthruit @dd122004dd @randomdragonfires @jetblack4real @joliettes

Thank you so much for reading. I hope you enjoy the finale.🦀💚

In the Eyrie, one of Rhaena Targaryen’s three dragon eggs has hatched at last; the creature is small and pink, and she has named it Morning. When Rhaena’s tears fall onto the scales of her diminutive wings, they glitter like flecks of rose quartz. Deep within the snow-laden labyrinth of the Mountains of the Moon, Nettles is in hiding with Sheepstealer; already the nearby clans are bringing her offerings of meat and treasure, axes and clubs and daggers, hairpins carved from the ribs of enemies and necklaces made of bear teeth. Silverwing is settling into a lair on an island in the Red Lake at the northwestern corner of the Reach. Word of this has travelled back to King’s Landing, and Borros Baratheon implores Aegon II to seize Silverwing for himself; but the king does not want a new dragon. He wants Sunfyre back. That grim truth aside, Aegon is unable to trek across the continent to tame the beast anyway. Some days he cannot even cross a room. At the bottom of the Gods Eye, bodies are dissolving into bones, threads of long white hair breaking loose to flow in the currents like weightless strands of spider webs torn free by cold drafts. And only a few miles from the border of the Crownlands—preparing to cross the icy waters of the Blackwater Rush—the army of Northmen camps under a full moon in a clear, indigo sky heavy with stars like glinting coins.

“There are passageways under King’s Landing,” Clement Celtigar says. He stands by the bonfire with his sword in his hand, his face flame-bright and eager, forever licking up drops of the Kingmaker’s approval, a stray cat lapping milk splashed in an alley. Increasingly, Cregan Stark finds him tiresome. Clement is brash and dramatic, forever swearing vengeance, reveling in his newfound position as the head of his house. The Warden of the North has never had to beg for attention, admiration, acclaim. These things come to him like snow falls to the earth in winter: effortlessly, inevitably. Yet Cregan tries to be patient. Clement is soon to be his brother-in-law, and it is dishonorable to fail to extend courtesy to one’s kin. Furthermore, it seems, Clement has his uses.

“Are there really?”

Clement nods. He wears the banner of his house on a strip of fabric looped around his upper arm: crabs red like blood, a backdrop of white like snow. “That monster’s disciples used them to kidnap my sister from the Red Keep. But she fought hard. When we searched her rooms, all the furniture was upturned and the sheets ripped from her bed.”

“She is brave,” Cregan murmurs in agreement, though he is distracted now. The air tastes like smoke and ice, the wind rubs raw spots into the soldiers’ faces. They are arriving just in time. The depths of winter is no time to wage war. Cregan Stark imagines how you will greet him when he liberates you: a desperate embrace, hands that refuse to let go, whispered gratitude and breathless kisses on his earth-stained knuckles, bones of steel softened by the innate weakness of womanhood. You will love him, of course you will, fervently and entirely. Then when the realm and succession are secured, the Kingmaker will take you North and wed you in the tradition of his people, under the heart tree where the Old Gods can witness it. And then there will be the wedding night. In Cregan’s understanding, women receive little pleasure from the act itself. It is a burden they bear for the men they love, for the children they are divinely tasked with bringing into existence. Cregan Stark intends to alleviate your suffering in this regard as much as possible��yet he has already begun to choose the names of the sons he will make with you. He especially likes the sound of Brandon, sturdy and grounded and thought to mean leader or prince. “This is the last night your sister will ever spend in the clutches of the Usurper.”

“Praise the Seven.” Then Clement adds diplomatically: “And the Old Gods too, of course.”

“It’s the end of the world,” Cregan Stark says, gazing up into the night sky where constellations tell the stories men deem worthy of remembering. “And the start of a brand new one.”

~~~~~~~~~~

“How did you learn to braid hair?” little Jaehaera asks you in her lilting, reedy voice like a bird’s. You are sitting behind her on the floor in Alicent’s bedchamber. Nearby, Autumn is flipping through a child’s book with Rhaenyra’s ever-solemn son, murmuring as she points to colorful illustrations of ravens, dolphins, bears, dragons, crabs. They are learning to read together.

“My sisters taught me,” you tell the princess. Firelight turns her silver hair to gold, her pale skin to flames. Logs crack and pop as they melt to glowing embers. Alicent glances over at you and sighs despairingly. The dowager queen, so thin she might disappear, is hunched in a chair by the fireplace. She has an unshakeable, rattling sort of cough that reminds you of how Sunfyre sounded on Dragonstone when he was near the end. Her long auburn tresses are falling out in handfuls. She will not survive the winter, this is a certainty.

“You have sisters?” Jaehaera says, surprised. “How many?”

You smile faintly as you weave her hair into one thick braid like the kind Aemond once wore when he went to battle. “Three. Piper, Petra, and Penelope.”

“Where are they now?”

“Back on Claw Isle, where I came from. With our mother.” Mourning Father, mourning Everett, writing letters to Clement to keep his spirits high as he and the Warden of the North march towards King’s Landing to slay the Greens’ king and bind me to a different man’s will.

“What’s Claw Isle like?” Jaehaera asks with a child’s clear, boundless curiosity.

“Rocky, misty, grey. But the ocean is beautiful.” You think of Aegon’s eyes, the same as his daughter’s, a murky storm-blue that is deeper than it looks.

“What brought you here?”

You consider this before you answer. You see it, you feel it: cinders like dark snow in the air, Aemond’s iron grip on your forearm. “When your father was burned at the Battle of Rook’s Rest, he needed someone to help heal him. Your uncle Aemond found me.”

“And he asked you to stay with us?”

He would have slit my throat if I said no. “Yes, he asked very politely, as any gentleman would. And of course I agreed. I wanted to make the king strong again. I wanted to take his pain away.”

Jaehaera stares down at her tiny hands, palms crossed with lines that are long and shadowy in the shifting firelight. She does not speak of Aegon. She does not know him, and he frightens her: the burns on his skin, the suffering in his glazed eyes. She has no memories to impress his true character upon her. If she does not make them herself, she will believe whatever she is told. “I miss Aemond. I miss Daeron.”

“I know, sweetheart.” They were formally laid to rest yesterday on two funeral pyres. Daeron’s bloodied, charred, seafoam green cape was burned to ashes on one. All that was left of Aemond—his favorite books, his quills and ink, small leather eyepatches from when he was a boy—were torched on the other. “I miss them too.”

Jaehaera’s braid is finished. You reach into a pocket of your emerald green velvet gown to retrieve what you have brought for her: a thin golden chain necklace with Aegon’s ring as a pendant. He can’t wear it anymore. His fingers are too swollen. “What is this?” Jaehaera says as you place the chain around her neck. She lifts the ring and peers at it, gold wings and jade eyes.

“It’s supposed to resemble Sunfyre,” you explain. “Your father loves you very much, Jaehaera. He wanted you to have this ring and keep it with you always.” Aegon didn’t say that; he rarely mentions Jaehaera at all. Sometimes you think he forgets she exists. But she is a part of him, she is his legacy, and you cannot look at any piece of her without seeing the man you love.

“He gave it to me? Like a gift?”

“Yes. A gift.” A gift, an inheritance, a relic, a reminder.

Jaehaera turns around and looks up at you hopefully, vast wave-blue eyes like winter oceans. “Do you think I’ll have another dragon someday?”

Her own infant beast, Morghul, was killed in the Dragonpit before Rhaenyra fled the city. “Maybe,” you tell her. “There are eggs that could hatch someday. And there are a few unclaimed adults left, Silverwing and the Cannibal. Perhaps you’ll tame one.”

She wrinkles her nose in confusion. “What’s a cannibal?”

Someone who murders, devours, fuels their body to the detriment of their soul. “Someone who eats their own kind. Like a dragon who feeds on other dragons.”

“So just like in the war. Dragons killing dragons.”

“Exactly,” you say, a shiver crawling down your spine. “Now go show your new necklace to Grandmother.”

Jaehaera wobbles to her feet and dashes across the firelit bedchamber to where Alicent is slumped in her chair. “Look, look! It’s Sunfyre!” you hear Jaehaera chirping. Alicent examines the ring—skeletal hands trembling, large dark eyes slick with tears—and dutifully fawns over it, telling the little girl how beautiful she looks, how brave she has been. Then she bundles Jaehaera into her boney arms and holds her like she’ll never let go. Autumn catches your gaze from the other side of the room, and when you leave to return to Aegon she follows.

“What is your plan if the Greens lose the battle?” she says in the hallway under an arc of grey stones. Her tone is urgent, her hazel eyes sharp. Everyone knows the Northmen are within days of King’s Landing. Borros Baratheon—a large, loud, abrasive man, but with a bottomless appetite for combat—and his soldiers will march out of the city tomorrow to meet Cregan Stark’s army on the fields of the Crownlands, sparse and grey with winter. The Lord of Storm’s End has spent hours locked in the council chamber discussing strategy with Larys Strong, Corlys Velaryon, and the misfortunate yet courageous Tyland Lannister, maimed by his months of torture at the hands of the Blacks.

“We won’t.” We can’t.

Autumn slams her palm against the wall behind you; the sick thud of flesh against stone reminds you of the day Helaena died. “Wake up. We might. You’d better have your options figured out.”

And you recall Larys’ words on Dragonstone: I think it’s time for you to consider what your options are if a Green victory no longer appears to be viable. “We’ll run,” you say weakly. “We’ll take Aegon and we’ll escape through the corridors under the Red Keep, just like he did before. Cregan Stark will kill Aegon if he finds him. I can’t let that happen. We’ll have to run.”

“Run where?” Autumn snaps pointedly, pushing you towards a conclusion you refuse to acknowledge.

“I don’t know.”

“Where? Where could we go that is beyond the grasp of your wolf if he seizes the capital?”

“Dorne, Essos. Somewhere, anywhere.”

“The king won’t survive a journey like that.”

You cover your face with your hands, feel the biting cold of snowflakes melting in your hair, see the stains of earth on your thighs as Cregan Stark forces them apart. How can I lie with a man who hailed the deaths of people I loved? How can I spend the rest of my life listening to him being called a hero for killing Aegon? How can I give him children? How could I love a baby that was half-made of him? “We ran before. We’ll have to do it again.”

Autumn scoffs. “You have no idea what it means to be a woman on your own in the world. What will you become without a great house, without protection? A prostitute? A peasant? Will you eat scraps covered with rot or mold? Will you live in a tree? Will you beg some family to take you in? And then when the father who is oh-so-gallant in daylight starts fumbling under your blankets once the candles are blown out, will you let him inside you? Or will you fight him off and risk a blade in your guts, your throat? You have no fucking idea what it’s like out there.”

“I don’t care what happens to me if Aegon’s gone.”

“You would abandon Jaehaera? You would abandon me?” Autumn demands. “You speak for us now. You are the only one who can. Our fates are twisted up with yours.”

That’s true. And I promised Helaena I would look out for her daughter. You can’t imagine a life without Aegon; there was a time when he was only a name—and an infamous one, a terrible one, soulless and monstrous—but now he has broken down the eaves of what you were once resigned to call your life and painted colors in the sky you’d never glimpsed before, never even dreamed of. You ask Autumn with genuine, painful bewilderment: “What is the point of learning that something exists only to have it taken away? Why would that happen? Where is the justice in it, where is the reason?”

Autumn smiles, sad and patient. “Ah, this is an affliction of the highborn. You still believe that there is a design, and that life has some amount of fairness in it. There is no divine judgment being passed, my lady. There is no god weighing the worth of your dragon or your wolf or yourself. Life is random, and it is ungovernable, and it is very often cruel. And that makes it all the more remarkable that you knew the king for the time you did. That you ever met him.”

It wasn’t enough. And I can never go back to who I was before. “I’m sorry. I should not complain to you. Your losses have been terrible.”

“It is no contest,” Autumn replies, weary now. “But I should go back to check on the children. They need me.”

“No. They love you.”

And now she beams, sparkling eyes and copper ringlets. She doesn’t need to say it, you can both feel it in the winter-cold air. She loves them in return. She loves them fiercely. As long as they live, she will have reasons to.

When you reach Aegon’s bedchamber, Grand Maester Orwyle is just leaving. He bows to you and grins, pleased that you have both survived the fall and retaking of King’s Landing. He is haggard from his months in the dungeons when Rhaenyra ruled the capital, but he endured. Who would have guessed at the start of this war that the old man had more years left than Aemond or Daeron or harmless little Maelor? You wait in the hallway for the maester to amble sluggishly by, but then when he is gone, you peer through the slit of the half-open door to see that Lord Larys Strong is speaking to Aegon, who is propped up in bed on a mountain of pillows and wearing only his cotton sleeping trousers. He is thin, frail, ghostly pale with the exception of the scars that are a mosaic of white and scarlet and bruise-like violet. Aegon and Larys have not noticed you. You linger just outside the doorway, watching, listening.

You can take care of Aegon as much as you wish now: feed him, clothe him, clean sweat from his brow, dose him with milk of the poppy, rub rose oil into his scars, stretch his legs, test the heat of his skin for fever. He’s too weak to stop you. He can’t walk, can’t stand, can’t stay awake for more than an hour or two at a time, can’t even pour his own wine or milk of the poppy; the glass bottles are too heavy when full. Yesterday, Aegon had to be carried outside in a litter to see the remnants of his brothers burned on the pyres. And he had exchanged a brief, somber glance with Autumn that you neither anticipated nor understood. He acknowledges her so rarely. And yet her small hazel eyes had been alarmed, knowing.

Larys is saying with a grave expression and his restless hands propped in the handle of his cane: “Lord Borros Baratheon is asking for your assurance that as soon as the war is won, you will take his eldest daughter Cassandra as your wife.”

Aegon stares at him, incredulously, impatiently. Aegon has not called you his wife in the company of others since his homecoming. You do not ask why. You already know. It is not because his intentions have changed; it is because if he is not the victor, your life is in less danger as his captive than as his queen. “Surely even a man as brainless as Borros can surmise that there would not be much benefit for the lady now. I am a worm. Useless, pathetic, deformed, no longer virile.”

“He is willing to take the chance, I gather. And he is placing his eggs in more than one basket. He would like another daughter, Floris, to be married to me.”

“Seven hells,” Aegon mutters. Then he turns determined. “I cannot marry another. I won’t do it. I am claimed already, body and soul.”

“I fear how enthusiastically Borros’ men will fight for you if you do not agree to the match. He is risking his life for your cause. He will expect generous repayment.”

Aegon is quiet for a long time. He stares fixedly at his bedside table: a full cup, a large glass bottle of milk of the poppy. His dagger is still there from when you cut and braided his hair for him this morning; he cannot do it himself anymore. At last Aegon says, almost too low for you to discern from the doorway: “He’s not cruel, is he?”

“Who? Borros Baratheon?”

Aegon glares at Larys. “No.”

After a moment, Larys realizes what his king means. “Cregan Stark isn’t cruel. I’ve heard many whispers from many mouths, but I’ve never heard that.”

“Look at me. Don’t lie to me.”

“He isn’t cruel,” Larys says again. “Perhaps the truth is worse. He is measured, competent, merciful, wise. He is honorable. The Manderlys want to torture everyone and the Boltons itch to sharpen their flaying knives but Stark forbids it. He respects the laws of war. He tries to avoid the slaughter of noncombatants. He forbids his men from burning farms or raping women. He is devoted to the woman you call your wife. He takes no mistresses, visits no brothels. Cregan Stark is not a monster. He’s not soulless. He’s just on the wrong side.”

Aegon nods slowly, then his face breaks into a humorless smirk. “Tell Borros Baratheon that I’ll marry whichever daughter he wants me to when the war is over. I’ll marry all four if that is his preference, and bed them all on the wedding night too, one right after the other. Agree to anything he asks for. It doesn’t matter anyway.”

It doesn’t matter because none of it will ever happen, even if the Baratheon army does win the Iron Throne for the Greens. It doesn’t matter because Aegon does not believe he’ll still be here in a month, or two weeks, or perhaps even days.

But he can’t mean that. He’s not thinking clearly. He’s confused, he’s exhausted, he’s in pain, you tell yourself, before remembering that Aemond said it first.

“Yes, Your Grace.” Larys is subdued, sorrowful. He bows deeply to his king. Then he turns to depart.

“One more thing,” Aegon says, gesturing to something on the side of his bed you can’t see from where you’re standing. “I hate to impose upon you further, but I can’t manage it myself. Can you take that and empty it somewhere? I don’t care where. But you must keep it hidden from my wife. The red-haired girl Autumn knows, and so do the maesters now. They are all sworn to secrecy. Can I trust you to exercise the same circumspection?”

Larys is gaping down at an object that is a mystery to you. He begins to stammer out a reply, stops to collect himself, and starts again. “Yes. Yes you can.”

“Good.”

Larys picks up the object; you are puzzled to discover that it is a chamber pot, white and porcelain. And as he navigates around Aegon’s bed and towards the door where you wait, you see that the vessel is full of blood.

You gasp before you can stop yourself, a razor-sharp inhale of breath that both men hear. They spot you, lurking in the doorway like someone lost, someone far from home. Shock bolts across Aegon’s face, and then frustration, and then defeat, and then profound misery.

“I didn’t want you to worry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to lie to you, I just knew…I knew you’d be upset and I…I didn’t want to hurt you. I’ve never wanted to hurt you.”

“How long?”

“It doesn’t matter, Angel.”

“How long?” you ask again. “Just since this morning?”

“Four or five days now.”

“Four or five…?” Your mind whirls like storm winds. He’s dying. He’s really dying. His kidneys are failing and there’s nothing I can do. I can’t cut him open and stitch him back together. There’s no wound to scrub clean with vinegar and then bandage with honey and linen. There’s no brew that can restore the rhythm of his blood and bones and nerves. He’s just dying. That’s all there is. That’s the beginning and the end of it.

“Please don’t cry,” Aegon says, reading your face. “Don’t do that, please don’t, I’ve hurt you enough already.”

His hands stretch out to close the space between you, and as Larys slips from the room you go to Aegon, climb into bed beside him, collapse into him as his arms catch you and rest your head against his bare, scarred chest, his feverish skin mottled with the history of wounds you helped close all those months ago. “I’m sorry,” you sob. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have let you go after Baela and Moondancer on Dragonstone. I should have stopped you. I should have dragged you inside the castle to wait until Aemond and Vhagar could help you. I shouldn’t have let Aemond go to Harrenhal. I shouldn’t have let Daeron fly south. I shouldn’t have let Autumn go back to King’s Landing, and I shouldn’t have let Everett stay there. I shouldn’t have let Helaena leap from the window. I should have stopped Maelor from being sent to the Reach. I should have stopped Rhaenys and the Red Queen from taking flight to burn you in your armor at Rook’s Rest. I should have stopped this! I should have done something! The only good thing I’ve ever had to offer the world was healing but I can’t save anyone, I can’t stop their suffering, I can’t do anything!”

“None of it was within your control, and none of it was your responsibility. I am the king. The fate of my kingdom and my followers rests with me. I wear their spilled blood, not you. I am so full of red I’m overflowing with it.” And he chuckles, sardonic, exhausted. He’s already battling unconsciousness again; you can hear his heartbeat slackening, the slow laborious expanding and contracting of his lungs.

“Aegon,” you say softly, as if afraid to speak it into existence. “What happens if the Baratheons don’t win tomorrow?”

“They will. They have to. There’s nothing I can do for you if they lose.” Then he winces and groans. It’s his back again, his failing kidneys, overrun with so much ruin—burns and breaks and pressure and heartache—that their cadence faltered and then ceased. You grab his cup of milk of the poppy and tilt it against his lips; and how many times have you done this since you met him, burned nearly to death and half-mad at Rook’s Rest? A hundred? Aegon drinks it down, his arms still tight around your waist. They do not loosen until he’s out like a snuffed candle.

You refill the cup on his bedside table with milk of the poppy in case he needs more when he wakes, pick up the dagger you use to cut his disheveled hair, take it to the dresser. And in the cascade of silver moonlight flooding in through the windows, you practice laying the gleaming blade against your wrists, pressing it to the throbbing arteries of your throat, angling the sharpened point of it between a gap in your ribs and towards your racing heart.

Autumn. Jaehaera. Aemond’s child that Alys carries. I still have promises to keep. I still have tasks that cannot be left unfinished.

Helaena’s words surface like a drowned man dredged from the waves: You must whisper into the right ears.

You set the dagger down on top of the dresser and roam to the castle library where Aemond once spent so many hours. You collect a stack of anatomy books and carry them back to Aegon’s bedchamber. There, before the roaring fireplace, you devour them for any scrap of hope, any last resort. You turn pages until one illustration stops you. It is an unclothed man, his major veins etched in blue and his arteries in red, his nerves a faded yellow, his bones white and unshattered, his body a roadmap of the bricks and mortar used by the architects of nature. You have seen this image before. It is the same page Aegon teased you for studying when you were travelling by carriage back to the capital from Rook’s Rest.

You rip out the page, crumple it violently, pitch it into the fire and watch it burn.

~~~~~~~~~~

At dawn, Lord Borros Baratheon leads his men out of the city. You hear them through the glass panes of the windows, closed against the winter chill and flecked with frost: boots marching, hooves of warhorses clomping against cobblestones. They carry with them swords and spears and bows and morning stars like the one Criston Cole was famed for using. Meanwhile, throughout the city, civilians are arming themselves with anything they can find to ward off an invasion of Northmen, creatures they believe to be bestial and mindless. Men carry kitchen knives and clubs fashioned out of bits of furniture or driftwood. Women hide their young children in cupboards and under creaking wooden floors.

“I should be going with them,” Aegon says. He’s just taken another dose of milk of the poppy and is struggling to keep his eyes open. His long, slow blinks close his vacant eyes for ever-increasing intervals. You’ve changed his clothes and cleaned the sweat from his skin as best you can, but he’s burning from the inside out.

“You’re not able to fight, Aegon. Nobody faults you for that. Everyone knows you were wounded in battle.”

“They must think I’m a coward.”

“No, you inspire them. They love you. I love you.”

Aegon doesn’t say it back. He never says it back. He only offers you the same drowsy, mournful phrase of High Valyrian he always does, not knowing that Aemond told you what it means: To your misfortune.

Autumn is with the children in Alicent’s rooms. The castle is tense and as quiet as a crypt—Alicent weeps soundlessly, Larys paces the halls with Corlys and Tyland Lannister, everyone peeks out of windows constantly to see if bannermen of the victor have appeared on the horizon—but she keeps them distracted with stories and games. You cycle between Alicent’s bedchamber and Aegon’s. He is in and out of consciousness; sometimes you perch beside him on the bed, sometimes you lie curled up against him counting the beats of his heart, sometimes you help Autumn read to Jaehaera and Aegon the Younger. It is just after noon when the city bells begin to toll and screams rise from the streets outside the Red Keep. You and Autumn hurry to a window. In the distance, beyond the city gates, there is a swarming mass of infantry, cavalry, archers. Their banners, when you strain your eyes to decipher them, are not the brazen, vivid yellow of House Baratheon. They are night black and an icy, steely grey. They are the colors of House Stark.

“No,” Autumn says, denial in a protracted, helpless exhale. Alicent shrieks, frightening the children. You grab Autumn’s hand and lead her out into the hallway to warn the others if they don’t know already.

Lord Corlys Velaryon comes bounding up a staircase. “There are soldiers down in the secret passageways!” he booms. “Northmen! Armed! I’ve helped our guards bar the doors, but that won’t hold them back forever.”

Autumn looks to you. “Get the children ready to travel,” you tell her. “Find Larys and inform him.”

“Yes, my lady,” she says, and is gone. You sprint in the opposite direction towards Aegon’s bedchamber. You blow the door open like a strong wind, and Aegon startles awake. You rip through his dresser for things he will need: warm clothes, boots, his dagger, bottles of milk of the poppy.

“Get up, Aegon. We have to go. We’ll run, we’ll flee, there are Northmen in the tunnels but we’ll find another way out, we have to try, we have to, if they catch you they’ll—”

“Come sit with me,” he says from the bed, calmly, like you have all the time in the world. He is reaching out for you with one hand.

“What? No, we have to hurry—”

“Angel,” Aegon says. “I need you to come sit with me now.”

Why isn’t he afraid? Why isn’t he frantic? You cross the room with slow, numb footsteps. When you reach the bed, Aegon takes both of your hands in his own. And suddenly you know exactly what he is going to say. You remember what he told his brother in High Valyrian the last time Aemond left Dragonstone. Your voice is trembling and hoarse. Your throat burns like embers. “Aemond was supposed to be here to help us win. But he’s gone. Daeron, Criston, Helaena, Otto, Everett, Jaehaerys, Maelor, Autumn’s baby, so many people are gone.”

Aegon whispers, smiling softly as tears spill down his cheeks, one scarred and the other pure: “I’m not going to get better this time.”

“No,” you moan. “No, Aegon, no. You can’t say that, you can’t tell me that—”

“I’m not going to get better.” Now his palms cradle your face, forcing you to listen. “I’m not. And it’s okay. I’m not angry, I’m not scared. You’ve done everything you could and you’ve bought me more time and I’m so grateful. But I don’t want it to hurt anymore. I’ve been in pain for so long. I’ve been in pain my whole goddamn life.” He kisses you, like tasting something rare and fleeting. His thumbprint skates along the curve of your jaw, memorizing the angles of your bones, the rhythm of your pulse. “Please, Angel. I don’t want to try to run and die on the side of the road somewhere. I don’t want to die with Cregan Stark’s blade at my throat.”

You shake your head, unable to believe, unable to understand.

Aegon glances to the empty cup on his bedside table, to the large glass bottle of milk of the poppy. Then his eyes return to you. “You know how to do it.”

No. Never. But beneath those cold, dark, stormy waters: It would be painless. “I can’t,” you say, overwhelmed with horror.

“Listen, listen to me—”

“No—”

“Angel.”

“I can’t do that to you. Not to you. I can’t, I can’t.”

“When I’m gone, go to Cregan Stark,” Aegon says. “He is an honorable man, he will ensure your survival. He is the only person who can now. He wants to put his mark on the world. He wants to play Kingmaker. Let him. He can decree that my daughter will marry Rhaenyra’s son and ascend to the Iron Throne. He can end the war. Cregan will keep you safe. Tell him that I kidnapped you, that I forced myself on you. Tell him that I wanted an heir with Valyrian blood. Tell him that I was a drunk, a degenerate. Tell him whatever he wants to hear.”

“You would become a monster?”

“To protect you? I would become anything.”

He’s holding you, he’s pulling you into him until you can feel the fever bleeding from his flesh into yours, until you can number the knots of his spine and the ladder-rungs of his ribcage, counting them with your fingers through the sweat-drenched fabric of his cotton shirt. You draw back to look at him, to really look at him, sunken bloodshot eyes and rasping breaths, scar tissue of the body and the soul. You remember the day you met him, how he’d begged to die and been refused, how you brought him back. You postponed a debt, but you never paid it. It’s not possible to ever pay enough. You stack up gold coins in a vault until they touch the ceiling and still the Stranger comes knocking, jangling his purse sewn with scorched skin and chanting: more, more, more.

Aegon glances to the cup again. “How much?” he asks you, hushed like a prayer.

You don’t answer. Instead, you stand and go to the dresser. You open a small wooden door beneath the mirror. Your reflection is a woman you don’t know, someone who walks through fog and memory, someone made of ghosts. You take four clean cups from the cabinet and set them on Aegon’s bedside table. As he watches—eyes glassy with agony, lungs rattling—you fill them all with smooth, pearlescent, lethal liquid, as well as the empty cup that was already there. “Five,” you say, and it sounds nothing like you. “I think three at once would be enough. Five to make sure.”

He sobs with relief, and only now do you realize how badly he needed this. “Thank you. Oh gods, thank you.”

Your own words come back like an echo: I preserve life, I don’t take it. But that was a different lifetime, a different you. Aegon’s fingers are lacing through yours. He is drawing you back onto the bed, he is brushing your hair back from your face, he is kissing the path of tears down your cheeks so he doesn’t waste a drop of you. He’ll never get another taste, another chance; not in this life, not on this earth.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t make it to the end with you,” he says. “I really tried.”

“I know, Aegon.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough.”

“You’re the strongest person I’ve ever known.”

He looks down at his left hand, then remembers where his ring has gone. He chuckles, darkly, bitterly, dismayed by all the failings he is built of. “I don’t even have anything to give you.” Then he remembers. “My dagger. Can you get my dagger?”

You are petrified. “Why?”

He grins, dull teeth beneath dazed eyes. “I’m not going to hack off a finger or my exemplary cock or something. I promise. Just get it.”

You fetch the dagger and bring it to the bed, and only then do you realize what he means for you to have. He points to it, then threads it through his pale, swollen fingers: his thin lock of hair that you’ve been weaving for him since the day you met. He wants you to take his braid.

“You’ll have to cut it yourself,” he says. “I don’t think I can.”

You hook the blade beneath the top of his braid, and with a few cautious slices of the dagger it is free. You tuck the braid into a pocket of your gown, thick black velvet to guard against the winter cold. Then you lay the dagger on the bedside table and pick up one of the cups filled to the brim with milk of the poppy. Your tears are scalding and torrential; it is almost impossible to see through them. You smooth back Aegon’s white-blond hair as you pour the blissful, deadly brew through his lips and down his throat, hating yourself, knowing it is the kindest thing you can do for him.

Suddenly, when the cup is half-drained, Aegon pushes it away. “You don’t have to be here. You don’t have to watch,” he says. “I can do the rest. Go, now. Right now. If the Boltons or some other house finds you before Cregan does, they might not recognize you. They might not care. You’re only safe with Cregan Stark. He has to find you first.” Aegon takes the cup with one shaking hand and presses a palm to your shoulder with the other. You haven’t moved. You can’t move. “Go. Leave me. Now. Please go. I love you, but you have to go now.”

“I can’t,” you choke out.

“You have to.”

“I’ve never wanted anyone but you.”

“Angel,” he says tenderly, smiling. “I’ll see you again. Just not too soon.”

“Okay,” you whisper, and you kiss him, traces of milk of the poppy on his lips that deaden the thunderstruck horror faintly, powerlessly, like small clouds drifting over the sun.

“If there’s anything interesting on the other side, I’ll find a way to let you know.”

The dreams, you think. “Okay,” you say again, barely audible.

“Now go. Right now. Go.”

You wipe tears from your face with your sleeve as you turn away from him. You can’t look back; if you do, you’ll never be able to walk out of this room. You take the dagger from the bedside table. Your bare feet pad across the cold floor. As you step through the doorway, on the periphery of your vision you can see Aegon swallowing down each cupful of poison as quickly as he can. It won’t take long to stop his heart. Minutes, perhaps. Seconds. You walk into the hallway. Autumn has just arrived with Jaehaera’s tiny hand clasped in her own. A few paces behind her, Alicent and Larys stand with Rhaenyra’s son. Two orphans without choices, two pawns in a much grander game.

Autumn is panicked. “Where should we go? What should we do?” Then she takes another look at your face. Her eyes go wide with terror. “What? What happened?”

“Follow me.” Your voice is low, flat, dark like deep water. Your eyes flick briefly to Lord Larys Strong. “Keep the boy here. He’s not safe with the smallfolk yet. But the Northmen won’t harm him.”

Larys knows. It’s over. He is devastated; and yet you think a part of him might be relieved as well. “Yes, Your Grace.”

“I’m not the queen anymore. I never really was.” You give him Aegon’s dagger. “I don’t think you’ll need this, Lord Larys, but now you have it in the event of any danger. Or in case I can’t convince Cregan Stark to spare you and you decide you’ve had enough of this world. You should get a say in how your life ends. You’ve earned it.”

Then you break away from them and glide through the Red Keep, Autumn and Jaehaera trotting swiftly behind you to keep up. You pass the rookery where Aemond wrote his letters. You sweep through the gardens where Helaena loved to collect her insects. You gaze down to the beach where Daeron landed on Tessarion under a dazzling sun before winter came like a plague to King’s Landing. From inside the castle, you can hear Alicent wailing as she discovers her last child’s lifeless body. What was all of this for? Why did this have to happen? Why didn’t anybody stop it?

Out on the streets of the city, the smallfolk have flocked with their makeshift weapons to defend their homes from the Northmen. But their eyes are darting everywhere and their faces are uncertain as they clutch their clubs made out of the legs of chairs and their rusty kitchen knives. They haven’t decided if it’s futile. They don’t want to be butchered for nothing.

“That’s Autumn!” they shout and sigh, especially the women. “The mother of the king’s bastard son, the one murdered by the half-year queen!” They reach out to skim their hands over Autumn’s gown, her long coppery hair, as if she is a saint or a spirit who can impart good luck upon them, who can change their fates. They fall to their knees to bow to Jaehaera, their king’s only living child, and she blinks at them with benign confusion.

But the smallfolk have a different reception for you. You hear their venomous chattering: “Is that the Celtigar woman?” “Her family put this city through hell.” “They served Rhaenyra.” “She’s a traitor, she’s a thief.” A few of them venture close enough to tug at your gown, to strike at you. A woman’s knuckles rap against your cheekbone, raising a bruise there like lavender in a dusk sky. You think dully: I wonder if they’ll gouge out my eyes with those knives like they did to Everett.

“Get back!” Autumn hisses, shoving the smallfolk away. And when she speaks, they listen. “She is going to the Wolf of Winterfell. She is my protector. She is your protector now too. She is the best chance you have left.” And the crowds open up and the three of you pass through King’s Landing unimpeded, though cloaked in thousands of fascinated gazes.

The King’s Gate has been abandoned; the guards must have feared the Boltons’ flaying knives or Lord Stark’s dark justice. Autumn instructs several hulking men of the smallfolk to open the gate if they wish to be spared from the wolf’s wrath. They are reluctant at first, but do as she asks. When the massive doors creak open, the people of the capital huddle behind the wall and peer out skittishly as you, Autumn, and Jaehaera advance to meet the Northmen, who are bloodied from battle and now within a hundred yards of the city. Above, the sky is thick and iron-grey and frigid. Snowflakes—the first of this winter to touch King’s Landing—begin to fall and land in your hair, and you are reminded of how embers rained from the smoldering pine trees at Rook’s Rest.

“Can you catch one on your tongue?” Autumn asks Jaehaera, and the little girl giggles as they both try.

The Warden of the North rides an immense, shaggy warhorse at the head of what remains of his army. He recognizes you immediately, dismounts, approaches with determined, unbreakable strides. Clement is close behind him.

“You’re alive!” your brother shouts joyously. “And apparently not pregnant with a Targaryen bastard! Praise the gods!”

Cregan Stark does not act as if he’s heard this. The Warden of the North is not as you remember him; he is larger, heavier and broader from the muscles won in battle, coarsened by weather and war. His hair is long and dark and pulled back from his face. He wears a sword at his belt that is taller than you are when it’s unsheathed. He is entombed in leather and furs. He does not hesitate before he lays his hands you. You are betrothed to him, you are his property, would a man ask before he grabs his horses or his dogs?

The Warden of the North does not seize your forearm roughly like Aemond once did. Instead, his massive palms and fingers clasp your face as he marvels at you. You can feel the stains of dirt and ashes he leaves there. You want to scream when he touches you, but you can’t. You want to burn with rage and heartache until you crumble like ruins. Your life is already over. Your life has just begun.

“You have suffered greatly,” Cregan Stark says, a marriage of shock and reverence.

“You have no idea.” Perpetual Resurrection, you think. It doesn’t mean you come back better. It just means you’re still here.

“You are safe now,” Cregan swears. “The Usurper will never harm you again.” And it ends the same way it began: with a man mistaking your allegiance and beckoning you into a destiny that he wholeheartedly believes is greater than any you could have envisioned for yourself.

“He’s dead.”

This stuns Cregan. “When? How?”

“Today. Of old wounds sustained in battle.”

He looks at Jaehaera, noticing her for the first time. “Is that his daughter?”

“Yes,” you say. “She must always be treated with kindness. She must be protected.”

“You have an affinity for her,” Cregan notes, intrigued.

You hear Aegon’s voice, so clearly it cuts like a blade: Tell him whatever he wants to hear. “We have been through great trials together. We survived the same monster.”

The Warden of the North nods. This is a story he craves to be told. “Very well. If it is your wish that she not be discreetly disposed of as a Silent Sister, I will betroth her to Rhaenyra’s surviving son. They will unite the noble houses of Westeros and end this war.”

“The worst of the Greens are dead already. Those who remain should be shown mercy. Alicent is old and ill and broken from loss. She poses no threat. She should be permitted to remain in the company of her granddaughter. Corlys was loyal to Rhaenyra until she falsely imprisoned him for treason, and he belongs on Driftmark with Rhaena. Larys Strong, Tyland Lannister, and Grand Maester Orwyle, if no pardon can be arranged for them, should go to the Wall instead of the scaffold. And Autumn, my companion there with Jaehaera…she was a true friend to me. I owe her my life several times over. She must be permitted to stay with Jaehaera and Aegon the Younger as a caretaker, and reside in comfort in the Red Keep for the remainder of her days.”

“Who do you think you are, sister?!” Clement exclaims. “You’re speaking to the Kingmaker, not some handmaiden! You do not command him!”

“I am not commanding,” you counter levelly. “I am pleading for mercy on behalf of imperfect souls who showed me kindness during my captivity. If granted, I will consider these my wedding gifts.”

“She is remarkable, is she not?” Cregan Stark says, grinning to Clement and several other men who have ventured closer. They wear the sigils of Northern houses: Bolton, Cerwyn, Manderly, Hornwood, Dustin. They chuckle in agreement, stroking their wild beards with huge filthy hands. “Dauntless but merciful. Clever but obedient.” And then the Warden of the North claims your lips with his, chaste but overpowering, the first of a thousand kisses you never desired, a thousand acts of affection for a woman who isn’t really you, feigned resignation and bitten-back rage, eternal war with the interminable knowledge that there is something more, more, more…you just aren’t permitted to have it. It was taken from you, it was ripped from your hands like stolen treasure.

All your life you will have to murmur in wounded agreement when people recount the terrible sins of the Usurper. All your life you will have to praise Cregan Stark for killing millions to rescue you. And the days will pass, weeks, months, years, summers and winters, the births of your children and their own marriages; and when Cregan’s boy Rickon, born of his first wife, produces only daughters, your son Brandon and his descendants will become the heirs to Winterfell. In the desolate North—so far from the ocean, so far from everything Aegon ever knew—your greatest solace will be letters from Autumn as she learns to read and write, books that your husband orders for you from the Citadel, setting bones and treating burns, a tiny lock of braided silver hair that you keep in a hidden drawer of your jewelry box, dreams that you never want to wake up from.

But one day, decades after you leave King’s Landing, you will receive a raven from Queen Jaehaera Targaryen, and she will ask you: You knew the Greens in your youth, Wardeness Stark. You knew Aemond, Daeron, Helaena, Alicent, Otto, Maelor, Aegon the Usurper. What can you tell me of them? What was my father like? Who was he really?

And you’ll pick up your quill and begin writing.

#aegon ii targaryen #aegon targaryen #aegon targaryen ii #aegon ii #aegon targaryen x reader #aegon x reader

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protagaster · 2 months ago

Text

Part 4 of the Warrior!Penelope Swap AU

DID YOU GUYS SEE THE NEWS!?

VENGEANCE SAGA RELEASES ON OCTOBER 31ST!!!

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Editor/Co-Author: @somereaderinblue (GeminiWillow on Ao3)

(Cross-Posted on Ao3)

Remember Them

528 left under her command…

The scent in the air was full of metallic must. A river stream of thick red liquid flowed down the dirt floor, forming itself into a small lake made with that oh-so precious liquid life.

Pebbles scurried down the cave walls, broken apart from the crumbling rock they were once one with. A cloud of dust, a combined mixture of rubble and sand, slowly built itself up and infiltrated the entirety of the cave.

The origin of all this havoc, the very reason behind this devastation, slept soundly on the cave ground without a worry in the world. A cyclops, his one eyelid lowered in complete and utter peace; not a single nightmare plagued him once his eye shut.

If one had just arrived they would have not known of the events that transpired mere seconds ago.

They would not have known this cyclops to have declared war on 600 soldiers. They would not have seen him wielding a club, striking and killing 72 women in the name of the livestock they needed so desperately to keep going. They would not have dove out the way of his collapsing figure, the impact of his fall so severe it left devastating consequences to his cave.

Or perhaps they would have. After all, isn’t it obvious from first glance when looking into the eyes of a monster?

“...captain...”

Penelope stood mere feet before that sleeping cyclops. She couldn’t move. Frozen in her step, every muscle in her body painfully constrained…

72.

72 women she had kept safe in Troy and yet couldn't keep safe on the way home.

72 women whose screams kept ringing in her ears.

72, including her Circes.

“...captain…”

Penelope no longer felt like herself.

Right now, at this very moment, the captain was nothing more than a shell; a shell that found pain in its wholeness, for her kin were reduced to fragments left to rot like rubbish, like nothing. By the gods Circes wouldn't have a funeral or an obol, how would she get to the Underworld-

Suddenly, Penelope felt something from the real world make contact with her shell.

Ctimene gripped her captain’s arm and pulled her close, forcing the leader to look away from the dreaming monster.

“Captain!”

Ctimene’s voice, finally louder than the silence, snapped Penelope out of her detachment.

“We must move quickly, we don't have much time.” Penelope spoke with a monotone voice, not an ounce of emotion on her features.

She spared a fleeting glance to the abandoned amphorae, the wine vessel from which the Cyclops drank.

“He didn't notice I mixed lotus in his wine.”

Penelope was still in a strange state, one she’s never experienced before in all her life. But, by some miracle, her limbs were no longer anchored to her state of mind.

She wasn't ready for battle. She was ready for vengeance.

She released herself from Ctimene’s grip.

Penelope moved to walk past her best friend. The only one she had now.

“Mark my words now, this is not the end…”

Ctimene, whose red puffy eyes were only just beginning to clear, looked up with a gaze filled only with worry and concern for Penelope, whose eyes were distant and far away.

Ctimene placed a hand, so small but so scarred, so strong and yet so gentle, on her sister’s shoulder.

“But captain, what'll we do with our fallen friends?”

Penelope paused, both from her sister’s action and words.

72 women fallen at the hands of hunger and hubris. And yet it was 1 whom both women knew this question referred to.

There she was, not so close but not far enough, laying on the dirt floor; pale and dirty and cold. Her signature ribbon was stained with her own blood; the light pink did not mix well with sinful red.

Just like that, their group of 3 became one of 2.

Just like that, the feeling of emptiness inside Penelope filled with a searing rage both familiar and not.

Just like that Penelope’s impassive eyes slowly morphed into one of determination, welling up with tears that longed to make themselves known.

“Remember them.” Penelope said with no waver in her tone, despite the few stray tears now streaming down her cheeks.

Some thought her reaction to have been too late, whilst others knew it came when it was needed.

Regardless, Penelope was no longer disconnected to the moment at hand.

She was there, she was pissed.

And she was not alone.

There were still 528 left under her command. 528 who still had the chance to return to their most sacred place.

528 who were still counting on her.

Turning to face the ones who had not fallen to this monster, addressing them with her head hung in respect for the dead, Penelope spoke with no falter in her voice.

“When the fire begins to fade, for the fallen and afraid, we are not to let them die in vain…”

Finally their captain lifted her head. There it was, that raging flame in her eyes, the same one that got them through the war in the first place. The reason behind stroking those flames had changed, but the desire to burn was still the same.

“Remember Them!”

Now, with her spear in hand, Penelope stood tall and regal with its support. Her spirit may have taken a blow, but the Gods and their creatures were foolish if they thought they could waver this mortal from finding her way.

“We're the ones who carry on the flames of those who've gone,” Her voice was now booming, crying out her words like a lioness’ war cry. “And our comrades will not die in vain!”

Penelope strode to the Cyclops’ stray club, having fallen with its wielder upon his collapse.

“I need all our hands on his club! This is how we're getting out of here!”

Slicing its wooden flesh with her spear-point, Penelope unconsciously mimicked the action she had seen her husband perform many times whilst perfecting his craft.

“Use your blades to sharpen the stub, and turn it to a giant spear!”

The rest of the soldiers had seemingly recovered from watching their sisters die, all thanks to their captain’s speech.

Upon hearing Penelope’s command, each woman’s inner volcano built up to near eruption. Their anger, as hot and searing as molten lava, flowed amongst them all. Whether it be men or monsters, all in their path were naught but kindling for their flames.

These women wanted to avenge their friends. The only way to do this, they silently agreed amongst themselves, was to take an eye for an eye.

“Let's kill him!”

Penelope, though, sternly placed herself in front of their anger.

“His body is blocking the path!” She pointed to where the Cyclops lay, behind him the cave’s only source of light and fresh air. “If we kill him we'll be stuck inside!”

Ctimene, the voice of the crew, looked to her captain for a solution to their dilemma. “Captain, where do we attack him?”

Penelope glared at the Cyclops, both angered and amazed at the serenity of his sleep. “We gotta stab him in the eye!”

“Yes ma’am!”

The crew immediately put themselves to work carving their wooden spear, knowing their time was running out.

“Remember them!”

Thanks to their determination it took almost no time for the cyclop’s club to be no more. Now, reshappen to look like a crude replica of Penelope’s spear, the wooden weapon longed once more to feed on liquid life.

“When the fire begins to fade for the fallen and afraid, we are not to let them die in vain…”

The women carried the wooden spear to where their one-eyed adversary slumbered defenselessly. Along the way they passed by 71 bodies, unable to bear looking them in the eyes that are now forever filled with fear.

Penelope paused her step at body 72.

“Remember them…”

It was unfair. Nobody deserved to die today, but Circes was the least deserving of them all.

Beautiful, optimistic, loving Circes…

Even though she had been given the right to bear a Goddess’ name, something that anybody and everybody else would use to their endless advantage, she only ever used it to emphasize the importance of mercy; of greeting the world with open arms…

“We're the ones who carry on the flames of those who've gone, and our comrades will not die in vain…”

Penelope removed that pink ribbon wrapped tightly around Circe’s hair. She then collected most of her own loose and wild hair in one hand, using the ribbon to tie it up in a messy but functional ponytail.

Before returning to the living Penelope leaned down, gently shutting Circe’s eyes to spare her from the view.

“NOW!” Penelope ordered.

The entire crew, Ctimene at the front, thrust the wooden spear inside the Cyclop’s closed eye.

“ROOOOOOOAR!”

The Cyclops woke with an ear shattering cry, one that dripped with pain in its rawest form. He sat up straight away, blood dripping down from his speared eye and mixing with that little red lake.

Quick to get a grip on himself, Polyphemus immediately took hold of the second possession stolen from him that day and ripped it from his socket. No longer able to rely on his sense of sight, Polyphemus tried to feel around and grab one the monsters that intruded on his home.

However, their leader had already suspected this.

“Scatter!”

The Cyclops heard this and attempted to stop them, trying to hear and feel his way toward their direction. But ants lack sound as much as they lack size and these women have long since learnt to hone stealth into an asset more deadly than any weapon.

The women ran toward the cave opening from whence they came, large rocks and the sheep surrounding them. Behind them, the Cyclops continued to roar and cry out in complete and utter anguish.

Suddenly, another voice called out from deeper within the cave.

“Who hurts you?”

The women froze in their tracks. Their blood ran cold, their breaths grew short, and goosebumps tingled from the back to their necks.

Penelope and Ctimene were the only ones brave enough to look back.

Right there, in the tunnel leading further down the cave, a single giant eye emerged from the darkness.

“There are more of them?” Ctimene’s voice shuddered in realization.

One monstrous voice became two, then two became three. More and more voices joined the original, more than could possibly be discerned by ear.

With each voice came another eye appearing out of the darkness of that tunnel entrance. Just like with the voices, so many eyes emerged from the shadows.

“Who hurts you?”

Penelope placed a firm hand on Ctimene’s arm, looking from her second-in-command to the rest of her crew.

“Hide." She whispered.

Each woman ran to hide behind one of the many giant rocks. They were clustered in groups of two or three, most holding onto each other in a desperate attempt to sate their fear.

No one so much as took a breath. They were afraid that even the slightest movement, the quietest sound, would be all it took to alert the Cyclopes of their presence.

“Who hurts you?”

Penelope and Ctimene hid together behind the rocks closest to the Cyclopses, closest to Polyphemus.

Ctimene couldn’t take it. They had lost 72 women to only one Cyclops; how on earth would they be able to survive against an entire clan of them?

They couldn’t, Ctimene knew this.

“Captain, we should run-”

“Wait…” Penelope interrupted the other.

“Who hurts you?”

Even more Cyclopses than before, how was that even possible?!

Ctimene tried to ground herself by gripping tightly onto Penelope’s arm, but it didn’t work. There was this genuine look of horror in her eyes, as if she just realized that her life was on the line with no choice in the matter.

Ctimene had never felt this even when she was drafted to war in her husband’s stead. She had never experienced this even when fighting in the battlefields of Troy for over a decade.

But now, with the weight of her soul in another’s hands, Ctimene couldn’t shake this newfound fear of death.

“Captain, please!” She begged.

However, even with Ctimene’s hand gripping her flesh so tightly it would no doubt leave a bruise, even with the voice of her partner in crime pleading in her ear, Penelope did not falter.

“Wait.”

Polyphemus, hands over the empty cavity that once housed his single eyes, answered the question his brothers demanded to know.

“It was Nobody, Nobody…”

With that as his answer, Polyphemus’ kin backed away from the dark entry.

“If nobody hurts you, be silent.”

And with that, the Cyclopses returned to the deepest recesses of the cave one after the other.

“Don't go!”

But it was too late. Just as it had been his entire life, Polyphemus was left alone with no other Cyclops willing to stay by his side.

And so, the blind Cyclops kneeled defeated in his lonesome.

Penelope, seeing that their biggest threat was now broken, pointed in the way of the cave’s opening.

“Let's grab the sheep and away we go.”

The crew did just that, grabbing every single sheep the Cyclops had in his flock. By the end, almost every single woman ran out of that cave holding a sheep in her arms.

Not every woman who entered that cave made it out. Every woman who did manage to escape with her life intact had her outfit stained with blood. For the first time in an entire decade, that blood belonged to a dead Greek.

Penelope was the last to run out of the cave, and by definition was the last to board her ship.

She had ordered the anchors to be lifted, commanded the rowers to set a course for open waters, was prepared to forever leave this awful place and once again be reunited with her old companion that was the sea.

Only to feel a familiar dose of adrenaline rush through her blood.

A sense of blind courage invaded her thoughts. It was different from normal though; this kind of divine courage was supposed to feel empowering, but right now it only highlighted her desperation.

“Have you forgotten the lessons I taught you?” Ares manifested himself in front of Penelope, housing himself in her mind and thus visible to only her eyes. “He's still a threat until he's dead!”

Ares aimed his spear back toward the direction of the cave.

Though his eyes were covered to all the world, anyone who could look into them in that moment would see the expression of a man who cared only for the glory that would emerge upon the aftermath of bloodshed.

“Finish it.”

But there was something the God of War just couldn’t comprehend, something that mortals knew to be all too true: once blood is shed, defeat comes quickly after.

“No.”

Ares stilled, dangerously so. He slowly turned to face his mortal, eyes alarmingly narrow from inside his helm.

“No?”

Penelope knew her hands were not free of sin. Back then, during her time fighting the war, so many people who called Troy home had lost their lives thanks to her, be it her weapon or mind.

Men who bore arms for the sake of their honor, women who refused to stand idle and let their homes be destroyed, even a defenseless baby whose only sin was being watched by the Gods…

All of them were probably cursing her from the moment they set foot in the underworld.

But, even if her hands were stained with their blood, Penelope could at least justify it to herself at night by saying it was necessary. She was drafted from the Heavens themselves. She didn’t have a choice.

Here…

“What good would killing do? When mercy is a skill more of this world could learn to use…”

Penelope looked down at her hands, faintly stained with the dried blood. Belonging not to the no-eyed monster, but to her dear, precious friend.

“My friend is dead, our foe is blind, the blood we shed, it burns so hot!”

Penelope couldn’t handle it. The blood of 72 women who had thought their lives now secure, all on her hands.

How many more would bleed out as a result of her desire for bloodshed?

“Is this what it means to be a Warrior of the Heart?”

Penelope couldn’t let it end like this, she couldn’t let her sisters’ death end in such a meaningless way.

The captain immediately grabbed hold of her spear, the very same one that granted her the gift of Ares’ guidance. She turned around, walking to the end of her ship. Walking where the cave stayed ominously quiet, fading slowly as 12 ships sailed away from its rocky hollow.

Ares realized what she was planning to do.

“Don't!”

Penelope pushed his presence from her mind, but not from her body. She could still feel that rush of adrenaline course through her blood, sense that touch of mettle grounding her spirit.

“Hey, Cyclops!”

Now, filled to the brim with pure resolved boldness, Penelope felt nothing but the high of courage. Courage to face the Cyclops one final time.

“When we met, I led with peace, while you fed your inner beast! But my comrades will not die in vain, Remember them!”

The crew listened to their captain’s words, defeat and exhaustion trickling amongst them. Many shed tears of loss for their fallen friends, some still held on to each other for fear that if they let go they would lose even more of their sisters-in-arms.

Ctimene was the only one who still had the strength to look up at her captain. Her eyes were wary and her fists were clenched. A strange cynic look, faint but still there, momentarily revealed itself; only for a second.

“The next time that you dare choose not to spare Remember Them! Remember Us!”

Penelope held her head high and proud, her posture tall and straight and regal in all its glory. She lifted her spear…

“Remember Me!”

And stabbed the wooden floor of her ship. A small crack in the foundation resulted from the captain’s attack.

“I'm the reigning Queen of Ithaca! I am neither man nor mythical! I am your darkest moment! I am the unyielding…”

Penelope’s stray bangs, which could not be held back with the ribbon, flew in her face and framed her sharp, glaring eyes. For that one single moment, her face was unforgettable.

“Penelope!”

With that, the boats were quick to sail away, not a sound or a song uttered amidst the giant sea.

Nobody noticed Polyphemus' mouth split into a cruel, forboding smile.

#epic the musical #the odyssey #swap au #warrior!penelope #penelope of ithaca #ctimene #ares #remember them #canon divergent au #canon rewrite #my fic

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forlorn-crows · 1 year ago

Text

Lady of the Lake

aka kicking off kinktober with a bang aka, my magnum opus

aka the origins of lake wife, rain's tentacle monster lover from this ficlet, requested (back in march oops) by the legend @st-danger

Rating: Explicit. T for Tentacles.

Pairing(s): Rain/Lake Monster, Rain/Mountain

Tags: era iv, porn with plot, teratophilia, tentacles, masturbation, self-fuck, squirting, mind chatter, vaginal sex, anal sex, gill play, tentacle bondage, magick, cunt/clit/dick/tentacle dick for Rain's anatomy, transmasc character, original character, poetry.

Words: 11,649

Chapters/Parts: 5/5

Summary:

With all the dark magick flowing through the abbey, he wouldn’t be surprised if some of it leached into the surrounding area. Mountain’s told him all about the various creatures he’s seen on the edges of the forest: dark, shadowy things that live in the corners of one’s vision, flitting between downed trees and swaying ferns. They’re relatively peaceful entities that don’t seem to bother ghouls, humans, or other animals much. But their presence certainly hasn’t gone unnoticed.

That same looming magick resides at the bottom of the lake. Something deep and ominous. Something big. Rain can’t make head nor tail of the sentient something that must live down there. He’s felt it most recently in the new beginnings of spring: big waves of living energy reaching out to him, calling to something buried deep in his ribcage. A creature reaching out to their kin. He supposes it could be a byproduct of the changing seasons, the rush of life seeping through the cracks in the thawing ice. But the feeling in his gut tells him it’s something more than that.

Here on AO3

beta'd by @miasmaghoul, thanks for supporting me through this. special thanks as well to @askingforthesun brainstorming with me, @crimsonclergy for squealing with me about inspo pics for lake wife's appearance, and @divine-misfortune for talking monsterfucking with me ♡ also check out @kroas-adtam's amazing kinktober list, of which tentacles/monster fucking is day 1!

#the band ghost #crow writes #the band ghost fanfic #fanfic #lady of the lake #rain ghoul #transmasc rain #mountain ghoul #dewdrop ghoul #mountain/rain #rain/mountain #teratophillia #tentacles #kinktober #yall dont know how happy i am to finally have this done lmao

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fairy-verse · 3 months ago

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I'm curious since nightmare and night light are the same person why does the shape of their wing different, nightmare wing looks more like summer fairy

Looks can be deceiving, and there’s no greater example of this than when it comes to the fairies of Autumn. Mystical fairies, the big folk call them, for while winter fairies remind them of moths, and the spring fairies remind them of dragonflies, the autumn fairies remind them of nothing else than that which is strange and mystical; magical. They have peculiar wings, oddly shaped, but the more they appear to remind you of another type of fairy, the more dangerous they are. Luckily, autumn fairies are peaceful and reserved, preferring to stay in their underground domain during the day, and only emerge to the light of the night when the big folk have gone to sleep.

They are graceful and they spend most of their time outside dancing. Their twinkling lights can be seen shimmering above the surface of the crystal lake, but should any of the big folk approach, then they will scatter and disappear.

In what way are they dangerous? Well, who is to know, because there’s never been anyone to speak of it. None that has survived, that is. You see, the autumn Queen is the most deceiving of all her kin, because her beauty will lure you in, and that is how she’ll get you.

Be you kind or cruel, it matters not to the autumn Queen, because if you invade her domain then you must be dealt with. After all, there is a story that tells of how she was once gentle and sweet, the purest and loveliest of all the firstborns, but that it was tainted and corrupted once that same loveliness led her into danger. Now, although changed, that same beauty can still make others approach, but now she’s not so defenceless. She wishes to be left alone, for her and her fairies to not be disturbed, and should you tread on forbidden land then your intentions matter not.

You didn’t heed her warnings nor her wishes, and so, she will ensnare you with her beauty.

With a flash, you’ll see wings that express such wonder and light that you won’t be able to look away. They almost remind you of a butterfly’s wing, but these are greater and more wonderful to behold, and the Queen’s smile is so tender and loving.

You can’t help but approach.

And that is when those same wings change before your eyes into something terrible, something that is black and glistening, almost rubbery to the eye. But they are sharp, and they easily pierce your flesh, and the sight of the autumn Queen is terrible to behold, for now, her smile is sharp, all jagged teeth and your eyes turn dark before you see what happens next, and no one ever sees you again.

The autumn fairies are the most deceiving of all the season fairies, and none more than the Queen herself, for hidden deep within her underground nest rests her true heart, her true visage. It’s protected, kept safe from the horrors she faced all those centuries ago, and though they may look different, they are the same. The Autumn Queen has only been forced to deceive the world to protect herself and her kin, and so her light needed to change.

The Autumn Queen will never again become whole, lest the island turns pure and rids itself of all the big folk. Because, for as long as they remain, she must be strong, fierce, and beautiful. She must remain a predator who’ll always be ready to attack those who do not heed her warnings or her wishes because in truth she is always afraid.

Afraid that she’ll experience the horrors of the past again, afraid she’ll lose herself completely and become the monster her victims scream at before they die, afraid she’ll lose all she holds dear and near to her broken soul.

The Queen of Autumn is a peaceful ruler who will never attack innocents who wander about their daily lives outside of her borders, for she is tired, and her only wish is to close her eyes and rest for a century or two, and then hopefully reawaken to a perfect Island where only the fairies reside, but of course, that is just a dream, and she still finds herself in the shadows of a living nightmare.

#aufairyverse #utmv #ask for the fairy #fairy!nightmare #nightmare sans #fairyverse lore

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kthecritter · 4 months ago

Note

Hi hi

I have 2 items to request if possible

1- A shark phone wallpaper with deep ocean/sea witch themes? Perchance with more thresher sharks if doable? No symbols please

2- A lochness monster phone wallpaper with themes of murky/deep lakes and perchance some like spiky/sharp things? Maybe like spears ig? (Im not sure how to word it lol but spiky is pretty much what I want) And the otherkin symbol on it please

Thank you if you do do this! <3

here you go, I hope you enjoy! ayyy, aquatic kins rise up!!!

#alterhuman #nonhuman #otherkin #therian #aquatic kin #shark therian #shark kin #loch ness monster #monster kin #kin wallpaper #wallpaper #custom wallpaper #kin stuff #kin request #open requests

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katyspersonal · 6 months ago

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(my internet went out the moment i hit send so in case it didn't go through, here it is again, please ignore if you did receive it --)

i have another suggestion for the holes on rom's sides : spiracles ! they're openings that let many arthropods breathe, i am not sure about the few spiders that have them but for insects they're on the sides of their bodies just like that

Hey! This is an interesting idea! I will admit, although I love taking pictures of bugs, looking at bugs, holding bugs and cherishing bugs.. I haven't studied the bugs, so this information was new for me!!

Okay for the context of the ask in case if one of all 5 of you didn't see the earlier post, it was from this ( x ) discussion regarding Rom's legs and how she conveniently has holes by her sides in the Lake form:

There is a better look ( x ) provided by @beesmygod :

I suggested that the reason why Altar of Grief form, despite being implied as Rom, has legs is because past that point Rom 'grew up' and dropped her former legs with only holes remaining! And I also asked @herpsandbirds (all my cool creatures reblogs come from this blog, check them out) regarding insects and arachnids, here is what they said:

Here is on book lungs (also the wikipedia link ( x )):

I can't really tell whether Rom has anything like this from her view from below, since book lung would be located below this piece of body where legs protrude from.. which for her is her whole body?

However, something like book lung DOES seem to be present on Nightmare Apostles and Children of Rom!

I have a feeling that 'intention' might be here, but because Rom's type of spiders are so unusual and asymmetrical it is placed without the same relevance to legs! So, Rom might have it too, just less plainly so?

As for tracheae, I couldn't find any image showing Harvestmen having spiracles though, like I really don't know what I do wrong here fhsdh So I can't confirm or deny. Like I need to SEE for myself but Google is trolling me apparently :/ I found this, though:

Scorpions, for example, have several breathing holes placed below like this! With Rom the big ones go more on the side as you can see, but some still show below, and with Romlings too!

With caterpillars they do go on the sides! And yes, I brought caterpillars in because Rom IS sorta similar to one! There is an interesting bit about the 'spider' monsters and Kin in general - they are connected with Amygdalae!

Gardens of Eyes resemble Amygdalae and Nightmare Apostles serve them as we learn from Patches! Rom is like, a perfect Kin, combining all three 'branches' of eldrich; Sea because she was blessed by Kos and has tentacle tails, Star because she shoots meteorites and connection with Ebrietas and this arachnid one because of her legs and title! I feel maybe the fact spider one is 'dominant' is because you only deal with those if you sell your soul, and it was something she did, sacrificing herself for either research or humanity or both! But in any case, I am just saying maybe resemblance with a caterpillar is not accidental and she could, in theory, ascend further and become a butterfly? x) So that's why there is a hint of wings in these Kin! 'Ebrietas' is also a kind of a butterfly!

ALSO!!!

Funny enough, but Amygdalae DO also breathe in and out through a hole in the ribcage! Anatomically it is not where a book lung would be, but I thought it was relevant to the topic! Again, maybe we have to shift the anatomy of actual arachnids around a bit because these creatures were once humans (or in case of Amygdalae, resemble humans)!

youtube

^ Good video showing it well, you don't have to watch all of it, the right angles are shown soon enough. Also in general just look at Her

____________

So yeeeah.. In the conclusion, I now think it does work better if Rom shifted onto a different kind of arthropod upon ascension, whereas her "real" petrified body remained spider-exclusive. Due to maybe the specifics of WHY she left the "real" world! Also guys if anyone knows anything else please bring in up, this is deadass the first time I am learning all this information!!

#bloodborne #ask replies #rom the vacuous spider #children of rom #screenshots #bloodborne observation #bloodborne headcanons #nature #insects #arachnids #bloodborne reference

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whencyclopedia · 9 days ago

Photo

The Woman and the Monster

The Woman and the Monster is a legend of the Arapaho nation about a woman who, seeming to drown in a river, is transported to the realm of an elemental water spirit who teaches her the proper way for her people to honor him and, in so doing, be safe in his waters.

Okanagan Lake, British Columbia, Canada

Jack Borno (CC BY-SA)

The story is thought by some scholars to be an origin tale for the prayer cloths tied to trees and bushes along springs, streams, ponds, lakes, and riverbanks, honoring not only the spirit (or spirits) of that particular body of water but also those of any of their loved ones and relatives who may have died there. It is also considered the origin myth for the ritual of self-cutting as a means of sacrifice. Although, historically, the Arapaho observed the ritual of the Sun Dance, they did not engage in the self-torture aspect of the rite as practiced by the Sioux. Instead, they would offer other sacrifices to the Great Spirit, including cutting parts of their flesh.

The Woman and the Monster also illustrates the belief, held generally by Native peoples of North America in the past and present, that the world is alive with unseen spirits who must be acknowledged and respected. Such spirits can make themselves and their desires known as it suits them but should always be understood as present and aware of people's actions. One should, therefore, always behave in private as one would in the company of others, maintaining respect for the natural world and its many inhabitants, the seen as well as the unseen, such as water spirits.

Water Spirits & Proper Respect

Elemental water spirits, according to many Native American nations, are jealous of their realm and expect proper sacrifice and respect from those who use their water, for whatever purpose. Proper acknowledgment of the spirit of place for the gift of water was, and still is, understood as most important because, to simply take without asking, would be seen as thoughtless and rude, the same as not saying "thank you" for a gift, or even as stealing.

The water spirit in this story is similar to those depicted in the stories and legends of other nations, such as the Ogopogo of the Secwepemc (Shuswap) and Syilx (Okanagan) First Nations of modern-day Canada. The Ogopogo is described as an enormous serpent with a dragon's head while, in the Arapaho tale below, the spirit takes the form of a handsome young warrior. Whatever form a spirit takes, it is understood as a member of one's family and community, requiring the same level of respect. Scholar Larry J. Zimmerman comments:

Although all Native Americans recognize that nature is imbued with spiritual significance, spirits of nature vary considerably in their power and significance. In the realm where the worlds of humans and spirits intersect, the relationship between them can be complex. Some spirits are seen as vast and even universal potencies, while others may hold sway over more specific aspects of the world, essentially maintaining the world and revealing themselves in the form of natural phenomena, such as weather, wind, lakes, plants, and animals. These spirits are regarded as kin, and as such they have certain rights and obligations to each other as well as to the humans in whose proximity they live.

(82)

In Arapaho belief, all living things belong to a single family born of the Great Father (or Great Spirit, Be He Teiht) and all live together in the World House. In order to live peacefully with one's family members, one must always show proper respect, even if a request seems unreasonable, as – especially when dealing with supernatural kinfolk – one cannot hope to understand another's reason for that request but can only proceed the best one can in maintaining harmony among all who live in the World House.

The woman narrating the story clearly understands, and easily accepts, the fact she is dealing with elemental, supernatural, entities, and recognizes it is in her own best interests to comply with their requests. When the water monster tells her they will need to have intercourse if she ever wishes to see her family again or understand who he is, it is not a threat or a demand, but simply what is required from a mortal by a supernatural entity. Once a gift has been freely offered, it is reciprocated and, in this case, by the promise that the woman will never drown in any waters, nor will her people, as long as she bathes there first.

Arapaho Dress

Wolfgang Sauber (CC BY-SA)

As with all the works of Native American Literature, The Woman and the Monster is open to various interpretations. The most common, however, recognizes the importance of gratitude – a significant cultural value of the Arapaho – as the female narrator is taken by the water, and should have drowned, but is saved and returned to her people by the water monster, the spirit who both is and owns the waters. In return for the gift of life, the only proper response is gratitude and humility, as the woman shows in her actions toward the end of the tale.

#History #Arapaho

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branwendaughterofllyr · 18 days ago

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I waited almost half a year, and it was worth every second! This chapter is amazing! I want to kidnap you and make you write this all the time! Not kidding!

Right from the start, there’s a prophecy, and it seems likely that the main character is Oldgon. At first, I thought it was Aemond, but Helaena’s dream is about the sea, not a lake, and it doesn’t match Lucerys either. The mention of ‘blood-colored coral’ reminded me of Oldgon’s red symbolism—is he going to die at Storm’s End? I’m looking forward to it (sorry, Oldgon). Helaena instinctively knows the Red Spring has come, and Little Aegon’s dream is heartbreaking. Crush that cheese now, Aegon. Does he have a touch of prophecy like his sister? As a Helaegon shipper, I’m delighted (though in the story, they feel more like close siblings than lovers. Alicent probably sensed this too, which is why she opposed their marriage. She may have preferred that ridiculous idea of marrying Oldgon because of this).

Both Alicent and Alyssa endure painful separations; it seems the Red Spring has already arrived for them, with blood flowing in many ways. When Helaena sees her second blood, her nightmare will come true. Yes, that’s what I wanted from Blood and Cheese in the show! A nightmare!

The tansy story reflects a hidden disdain for Rhaenyra and shows her crumbling. Please, stop sharing things no one wants to know, Rhaenyra. The way you write her reminds me of a young version of Milly’s portrayal. I love Emma D’Arcy, but their version is a bit too gloomy. I can imagine Rhaenyra crying in front of Alyssa in their version.

Our goth girl, Alyssa, has a solid grasp of medieval politics. Yes, the necessary performance! Jace seems to miss the point, and Aemond is just jealous of Jace, yet these boys need to understand the importance of this play-acting more than anyone. You believe Sara Snow is real, right? Little Aegon is tired of this performance, and honestly, I can’t blame him. Poor kid.

Helaena’s necklace! The necklace! Fuck you, Viserys! Fuck you, Condal!

Alyssa could’ve been a septa; it would’ve been the most educational path for a medieval woman, though a very Andal-ish path. (Yes, I’m mocking Daemon here. The frustrating thing about him is his unresolved feelings for Elinor. Is it that hard to apologize and pay your respects? Yeah, that’s just who he is.)

Daemon, the highlight of this chapter, is truly impressive. I don’t mean to compare, but in some fics, he’s either a baby-eating monster or a Harlequin romance hero with too much charm. You captured the Daemon I know: a proud, violent, immature man who both loves and despises his kin. Laena, by his side, is the cheerful, relaxed mediator who softens situations (though her Targaryen nature shows in her talk with Alyssa—let’s be honest, who else but a Targaryen would marry Daemon?). I’m not a Daemon fan, but if Matt Smith could play your version, I’d die happy. He truly embodies the Rogue Prince.

I don’t want to take Viserys’s side, but Oldgon is acting like a child. I understand his unresolved trauma and anger (the heir for a day crossed a line), but claiming not to be part of the Dance while making enemies? What a fool.

Alicent… It’s heartbreaking to watch her. She does everything to protect her children, yet loses them because of it. She sends Daeron away for safety, leads Aegon and Helaena to an unhappy life(Dreamfyre omg) and is alienated (Little Aegon, don’t feel too bad; this crazy family is all miserable). And Aemond has always been distant from her (even if he’d hate to admit it—typical Andals aren’t like you, you dragonist). That leaves Oldgon and Alyssa (Did I forget Viserys? Haha). Oldgon is lost in love like a true Targaryen, and Alyssa is drowning in her own gloom and frustration. Alicent really needs a friend. Her empathy for the young girl in the scene with Alyssa was touching. Alicent was an unhappy girl, but she’s a good adult, doing her best.

Our goth girl is getting darker. Contrary to my first impression, Aemond and Alyssa seem to be forming quite a dark goth couple (I initially imagined her personality would be more like Laena’s). Alyssa is smart, understands the storm at the core of this, but doesn’t have the power to stop the game. She sees the unfair system, marriage expectations for women, and knows the future Dance ahead, but she’s helpless. Little Aegon, though not as perceptive as her, also feels this powerless dread. Watching these teenage kids try to deal with their helpless fear, Aegon’s rebellion and Alyssa’s melancholy, is so sad—no one understands them. She’s a bit like Elisabeth in the musical (I’m not sure if they perform it in your country, since I know you’re living in the US). Even if you race beyond the horizon, there’s no freedom; society haunts you like a ghost. Jaehaerys recognized this and could use it (and did so to his Targaryen children with no freedom). Sadly, Alyssa isn’t in his position. She can’t even control her father’s marriage. Oldgon, you idiot! (I don’t hate him; he’s just a typical man, as you said).

What Aemond did to Alyssa surprised me; I read it as jealousy. This poor boy seems quite taken with the goth girl, while she’s deciding whether to join the Vale war. Good luck, Aemond. And to be honest, Alyssa doesn’t seem good for your mental health. The same goes for you, Laena. Your brother and his wife probably aren’t going to be any good for your life. Don’t help them…

My overall thought is this: You must have gone through a lot writing this chapter. Capturing the calm before the storm (Driftmark) is tough, especially with so many unhappy Targaryens involved. But you’ve done a brilliant job. You’ve shown that the Dance wasn’t a one-night accident, that all our fools were playing their parts long before. Now I’m waiting for the impending storm! (Not trying to rush you—I know you’re in a busy season, and you need mental recovery. But if next chapter delays due to you, Donald T, watch out!)

I literally screamed a little out loud when I saw this come into my inbox this morning.

I had immense about of fun writing the prophecy for this chapter! I decided a while ago to embrace George's idea of dragon dreams, which are rife with strange imagery and are actual dreams, and I was heavily inspired by The Tempest when I wrote up this one.

Full fathom five thy father lies; Of his bones are coral made; Those are pearls that were his eyes: Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange. Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell: Ding-dong. Hark! now I hear them,—ding-dong, bell.

This is probably one of my favourite bits of descriptive writing of all time, and I had to give it a homage!

Is the prophecy about Oldgon? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ My lips are sealed, but I think we should all add this to the conspiracy board! I am going to level with y’all, Aeg II’s dream was not intended to be a work of prophecy at all, it’s based on a weird dream I had once, unrelated to B&C, lol. And yeah, I think Helaegon works best for me as a tragic brother-sister pait that should be teasing each other and sending each other silly christmas cards, but instead they are forced into a sexual relationship that makes them utterly miserable. And on the Helaena-Oldgon match (blegh, I felt so gross writing that up), I will say that I am actually playing the unreliable historicity of F&B. Remember, Alicent has never proposed such a thing on screen (the page?). I also purposefully reused almost the exact same language that F&B used to described Daemon and Rhaenyra's relationship when she was a young girl, which was- well, the Targaryens are constantly blurring family lines and one uncle's doting is another's grooming. (anyone spot the jade tiara?)

And poor Alicent and Alyssa, neither of them are having a good time. Helaena was right, spring is not going to be what Alyssa hoped at all. It's just blood, all the way down.

I actually thought a lot about how I wanted to deal with the birth of Joffrey. In the book, he came along right after Lucerys, but in the show, there was a pretty massive gap between the two. Considering the bad luck of Rhaenyra's mother and both of her grandmother's in childbirth, particularly Alyssa T on her third go after surviving two succesful pregancies, I imagined Rhaenyra as being leery of giving birth. As such, she was using the best form of birth control she could, moon tea. But moon tea and other herbal remedies are unreliable, pronce to over or underdosing and their side effects can be dangerous and even deadly. Both tansy and pennyroyal overdosing can result in liver failure, and the jaundice Rhaenyra was experiencing was a warning sign of that happening to her. Hence why she stopped using it for a while, and ended up with an oops baby. Fun fact, desserts, mainly puddings, were flavoured with tansy during the medieval and Elizabethan period leading to many people mildly poisoning themselves with the herbs. A young girl like Alyssa would have been familiar with tansy as a culinary herb rather than a abortificent, and also why Rhaenyra would be able to obtain the ingredients of moon tea fairly easily. The judgement Rhaenyra would face for using moon tea is not something I agree with, but it would be viewed negatively in world and associated with sex workers and adultery, and Alyssa would have been exposed to the misogynstic prejudice surronding such things. I do plan in later chapters to delve more into these sort of things, since I think moon tea is often used as a get out of pregnancy free card in fics, when it does have its dangers and risks. (I want to spoil my plans, but all I'll say is that Septa Alla is involved in such things as herblore and midwifery)

I think of Alyssa as a fairly astute child, and Oldgon is of the opinion that every day is “take your daughter to work” day if you are brave enough, so she’s really been immersed in the business of court politics for years now. And she takes pleasure in the game of it at this point, and the "rules" that are part of it. This mainly goes over Aemond and Jace's heads at this time, but Jace is teachable! He can learn! He grows up into a fairly politically astute young man! And lil Aegon is already so over it all, he'd rather dress in motley at this point.

I am SOOOOO glad someone noticed the necklace, I was literally googling what it looked like as I was writing this chapter, and I was like... oh? Wonder if I can add backstory to that!

Alyssa actually could have enjoyed septahood if she realized the relative independence and freedom of learning it could bring her, but all the septas she knows are non-controversial ones who very much toe the line, like Septa Victaria. And Septa Victaria is pretty damn boring. (Again, I don't want to spoil, but Septa Alla and her cohort offellow septas will be appearing later in the story, and they are heavily inspired by the likes of Hildegarde von Bingen and St. Radegund and other highly educated women who used relgious life as an escape from marriage and motherhood. Of course, some of them end tragically anyway, like Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz.) And also Oldgon doesn't Alyssa to move into a motherhouse and take a vow of silence and never talk to him again (Always the worst case scenario with this man).

I also will say that Daemon has his own thoughts on Elinor, and they will be mentioned in the future, but actually? He was not so nearly as hostile to her as Alicent. I headcanon a lot of Daemon's beef with Alicent as the result of her being Otto's daughter, and Elinor had nothing to do with any of that, lol.

I agonized so much over Daemon, because I know so many people were eagerly anticipating him. I really hope he lived up to all the hype. Even though he's far from my favourite, he can come across as deeply charming when he wants to, and deeply unsettling when he wants to set people off-kilter. I joke about Laena being his manic pixie dream girl, but she genuinely did seem to match his energy in a way that was more positive for Daemon, and I felt pretty sad for her character that the show chose to cut it all out and make it clear she was his second choice and she knew it.

And Daemon's appearance definately made Oldgon regress quite a bit, into the quiet little boy he used to be. Older brothers can do it you, and you it's bad with Viserys is rightfully scolding you for acting like a little baby.

And Alicent to be is such a lonely figure, especially during this time of her life. It's a loneliness that can't be fixed by simple company, bc she is surrounded by be her children and other women her age, but she cannot truly be herself or confide any of them. Really, sending Daeron off to foster is for the best, both politically and for Daeron's development, but that's cold comfort when her baby is on the opposite of the continent. I think Alicent, especially in my fic, is defined as an outsider in the midst of the Targaryens, and she is constantly reminded of that by even her own children who have their father's colouring and are riding dragons. Even Aemond, who I personally headcanon her being indulgent towards because he was " said to be half the size of his elder brother, but twice as fierce," which I decided to take as him possibly being premature, and a small, fragile baby that she coddled and let get away with much more than her first son, Aegon. Even Oldgon, who is very well-meaning and genuinely fond of her, is busy in his own life and he's never quite been able to grasp her struggled. I think she recognizes a bit of her own unhappy childhood in Alyssa, and she tries her best to be an example and a comfort at once.

Yes, Aemond and Alyssa are giving off very dark vibes even at their tender ages, and while I do enjoy Laena immensely, I decided to take more cues from Alys Rivers, Aemond's canon lover. And also, I love a witchy woman, I cannot lie. She is being slowly crushed under the rules and expectations of her society, especially in regards to how her gender limits her, but she can't do anything about it, and is doing her best to wiggle around it in small ways, and learn to manage within the confines. I actually really like the musical Elisabeth! I've never seen in it person, but I'm big into musical theater, and I've seen several of the taped peformances. I'm partial to the Hungarian costuming for Der Tod, lol. Kitsch is probably my favorite song, it is a bop! I am thrilled by the comparison, even though it’s not something I had in mind while writing! The morbid self-obsession combined with moments of an outgoing personality! I love the comparison! I think it really suits Alyssa!

I think Aemond has a lot of feelings bound up in his relationship with Alyssa that he’s not mature enough to understand or deal with, and there jealousy was definitely involved his “prank.” I think even as a child, there’s a sort of callousness to both book and show Aemond. Like, it takes a special kind of nasty to tell another kid you hope they die screaming like their father. I think it's safe to extrapolate that Aemond struggles with empathy to a certain degree, and he was perhaps genuinely a little startled Alyssa was so frightened, because he didn't find it particular scary himself. (and also he was a tad mad at her. He's not a very nice child, is he, lol)

Someone free Laena! She's too good for her mess! She needs to be sipping pina coladas in Pentos right now, not trying to fix Laenor and Rhaenyra's problems!

I am so glad to have this chapter done, and it was an important one, but I am sooooo ready to move onto the Red Spring, the Fire at Harrenhal, and Driftmark. The next two chapters are going to be back to back Aegon PoV covering those events, and I really don't want to a canon rehash, so I need to think about all the changes I want to make. To tell the truth, some of the dialogue from Driftmark is some of the earliest stuff I have written, and I need to update it to fit the changes in the story and also because I do think my writing has improved since then! (this chapter was meant to feature Otto as well, but it just wasn't working, so I cut all his scenes and had Gwayne come get Daeron instead. The next chapters will have us seeing more of Daemon, Larys, Corlys, and Rhaenys! (I love Rhaenys, I'm so glad to be writing her again)

#branwen answers #a poison tree #WHAT AN AMAZING MESSAGE I AM BLOWN AWAY

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1981-the-end-of-an-era · 3 months ago

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introduction post ✧

࿙֒͜࿚ - ࿙֒͜࿚ - ࿙֒͜࿚ - ࿙֒͜࿚ - ࿙ ⪩⪨ ࿚ - ࿙֒͜࿚ - ࿙֒͜࿚ - ࿙֒͜࿚ - ࿙֒͜ ࿚

hi! I'm Evangeline ♡ (I also use Evie, V, and Moons). i'm 17, panromantic, and am absolutely hooked on the marauders atm. (I also have autism, and I think I've developed a new special interest, lol)

This is one of my sideblogs, my main is @th30neal0ne, but I haven't really posted on there a lot :) I'm hoping I'll be able to use this blog to nerd out

࿙֒͜࿚ - ࿙֒͜࿚ - ࿙֒͜࿚ - ࿙֒͜࿚ - ࿙ ⪩⪨ ࿚ - ࿙֒͜࿚ - ࿙֒͜࿚ - ࿙֒͜࿚ - ࿙֒͜ ࿚

ao3 is thenightyorbisalsoavan, I absolutely love fanfic. Right now I mostly have Fantasy High fanfic uploaded, but I plan on uploading Marauders fics under my moonswrites pseud, which I will link when I upload the first one on there.

This blog is gonna be mostly headcanons, fanfic, and fanart when I can. I'll mostly just be using it to ramble

My time zone is EST. I'll probably upload even in the mid-late afternoons (or at 3 am), and I hope to maintain some level of posting consistency

࿙֒͜࿚ - ࿙֒͜࿚ - ࿙֒͜࿚ - ࿙֒͜࿚ - ࿙ ⪩⪨ ࿚ - ࿙֒͜࿚ - ࿙֒͜࿚ - ࿙֒͜࿚ - ࿙֒͜ ࿚

fandoms: the marauders, fantasy high, trollhunters, spider-man as a while, spider-man into/across the spiderverse

favourite things to do: read, write, sew, play dnd, painting and drawing, music(i love music)

favourite characters/kins from each fandom: remus lupin, james potter, pandora lovegood, riz gukgak, gorgug thistlespring, jim lake jr., aaargh, blinky, gwen stacy, andrew garfield spider-man

ships: wolfstar, jegulus, jily, pandalily

favourite foods: bacon, pickles, orange sherbert

music interests: the oh hellos, rebecca rea, amelie farren, peggy, hozier, livingston, a lot of movie soundtracks

youtubers i watch: thought potato, the queer kiwi, monster garden, dollightful, eoin reardon

fun facts about me: i wear glasses and am terribly blind, and while i am able to get surgery for it, i probably never will. i also collect lalaloopsie dolls

in case it wasn't obvious already, remus is my favorite ever

࿙֒͜࿚ - ࿙֒͜࿚ - ࿙֒͜࿚ - ࿙֒͜࿚ - ࿙ ⪩⪨ ࿚ - ࿙֒͜࿚ - ࿙֒͜࿚ - ࿙֒͜࿚ - ࿙֒͜ ࿚

HATE ISN'T COOL, IF I SEE IT, I BLOCK IT

This blog is supposed to be safe for everyone, let it stay that way

ps: i don't know if this is important, but the layout for this intro came from @lilyflowerpot's blog intro. I had a really hard time coming up with a layout for this post. So I just wanted to credit her for that. Don't know if it's really important, but it felt important to me. All of the info and stuff is mine though ♡

creds to picture owners on pinterest !!

#marauders #marauders era #intro post #blog intro #sideblog #remus lupin #sirius black #marauders blog #special interest #wolfstar #fanfic #fan blog #we're here with autism

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monsterblogging · 1 year ago

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Monica Schwartz: death by drowning?

So I was reading through the Pacific Rim novelization again when I noticed that Newt's RABITs included thoughts about his mother. The relevant parts of the text are:

He and his parents were on holiday, at one of the lower-Alpine resorts that aspired to be Lake Como. His mother had a concert that night.

...

The lake in the summer, the skies growing dark and the water surging, getting heavier and thicker

...

Mother never left the lake she fell in love there and And died

From this, it appears that Newt's parents were involved with each other in his childhood, but his mother met a tragic end.

Or did she? Pacific Rim: Man, Machines, & Monsters lists a Sylvia Schwartz as Newt's next of kin, and according to Travis Beacham, Sylvia is Monica Schwartz's middle name.

Either way, I think it's some pretty interesting lore about Newt's family; we can infer at the very least that Monica Schwartz was involved in his childhood somehow.

#pacific rim #newt geiszler #newton geiszler #monica schwartz

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dailycharacteroption · 9 months ago

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Roleplaying Races 15: Naiad

(art by Celiarts on DeviantArt)

I’ve said it before, but there are a handful of playable ancestries in first edition which got a blurb in a bestiary, but was never really touched again.

This is technically true of today’s entry: the naiad, but Paizo didn’t completely forget about them, as they show up again in 2E… admittedly with monster stats and only the lore drop of them occasionally becoming adventurers, but no ancestry stats… not yet, anyway.

In any case, naiads!

In Greek mythology, Naiad are a type of nymph, minor female deities that preside over aspects of the natural world, either independently or in the service of a more powerful divinity that rules more generally over the nymphs more specific focus.

In particular, naiads were the guardians of all bodies of freshwaters with the exception of full rivers, which had their own divinities. Anything from streams to fountains to ponds and lakes. Anywhere that fresh water could be found was their domain. They were known to be healers and protectors to those that honored them, but also dangerous and sometimes jealous beings, but that’s true of many Greek divinities.

In Pathfinder, naiads are a form of lesser nymph, able to bond with any body of water, rather than just being stuck with one on their moment of birth. As such, they tend to wander much further afield than other nymphs (with perhaps the exception of their more oceanic kin.)

That wanderlust and keen interest in protecting waterways and sources of fresh water means that many naiad take up the life of adventure to grow in strength and defeat evil that seeks to pollute and corrupt.

As fey creatures, naiad have a decidedly otherworldy appearance, appearing as humanoids seemingly made of water, and often adorning their forms in clothing made of living aquatic plants. Despite their appearance, however, they are very solid beings, and can come in a variety of genders despite the stereotypes of supposedly being only female.

As both fey and wanderers, Naiads don’t typically have societies of their own, though they probably pay homage to more powerful nymphs and to local fey courts when they’re in the area. Their wanderings also place them in greater contact with mortals too, so they likely have a better understanding of the mortal mindset as they interact with and integrate with their societies. They still are fey, however so their worldview no doubt clashes sometimes. They do, however, share a love of music and performance, as evidenced by the nature of their blessing when bestowed on a mortal.

Naiads are agile and charming, though their bodies are somewhat weak.

Their fey nature also gives them good night vision as well.

What’s more, being in tune with nature lets them befriend animals easier and understand the natural world.

True to their nature as nymphs, naiads can imbue a small token of favor, typically a lock of hair, which grants a minor blessing to creativity and mental integrity to the one it is gifted too. What’s more, the link between the naiad and their token lets them keep tabs on the well-being of the recipient, and they can rescind this blessing at any time.

The other iconic ability of theirs is the ability to bond with a freshwater body of water. As long as they are within a minute’s run from this water, the naiad draws protection from it, warding them against mundane and supernatural attack.

Charisma and dexterity are fun bonuses to have, making these fey surprisingly good swashbucklers. As fitting for their nature as minor muses, they also make good bards and skalds, to say nothing of their mastery of sorcery, the talents of a rogue/slayer, and so on. What’s more, their tokens and ability to draw protection from water makes defensive magic and water magic good themes to explore as well. Their only real weakness is the low strength, but that’s easy enough to surmount.

That does it for today, but we’ll be ending off with one more ancestry orphaned by the bestiary book it was introduced in!

#pathfinder #race #naiad #bestiary 6

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warrior-cats-rewritten · 1 year ago

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In honour of Halloween I present to you some spooky AUs to think about. These are free to use however you may please (though... please tag me if you do, so I can see what you did! I love seeing what people think of stuff)

Werewolf!Shadowsight: This is exactly what it says on the tin. Ashfur infects Shadowpaw with an old transformation curse during Lost Stars that turns him into a large black wolf, hungry for blood.

Zombie!Skyclan: Skyclan is infected with a zombie virus rather than driven out by the Kin, and now heading to the lake at fast pace while Alderpaw and Sparkpaw try to come up with a cure with Twig and Violet, the only healthy cats left.

Lunar Eclipse Gathering: A Lunar Eclipse triggers an opening for the Dark Forest to walk amongst the living during a Gathering. Will they keep the peace, or will the blood moon earn its name?

Halloween Dark Forest: The spirits in the Dark Forest with more typical "spooky monster" designs, such as vampires, witches, ghouls, mummies and the like, this is more artsy for those who wanna add a "spooky" image to the Dark Forest (or maybe you just wanna imagine Hawkfrost as Frankenstein's Monster idk you do you)

Anyway, Happy Halloween, stay safe!

#warrior cats #warriors #warrior cats au #halloween #shadowsight #alderheart #sparkpelt #twigbranch #violetshine #hawkfrost #ashfur

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atsadi-shenanigans · 7 months ago

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Feeding Alligators 49 - Idihwisvsga

You go somewhere else.

On AO3.

Muggy air sticks your shirt to your back. The tin siding you lean on is warm without scorching. That’s thanks to the pecan trees planted around. The sun hangs low and orange over the gentle hills in the distance.

You blink.

Uncle Randy ain’t inside. You can tell without checking. His plastic chair with its detritus of twigs and leaves and occasionally pecan shells sits out front. The stinky ash tray sitting on the nearby, wire frame table is cold. His truck is out front, but that don’t worry you.

It’s too nice to sit here, stretch out, and admire the view.

You family had tried keeping cows on this land. Y’all had a good fifty acres, once—courtesy of the government allotment a hundred years ago, cause land was owned by the whole tribe, and busting it up meant they could take the “surplus” away to sell to good, christian White settlers. Last you was here, it was down to ten after some dumbass cousin or another got drunk and sold off shares before the rest of the family found out and, real gentle, corrected him. Your neighbors now are rich White families who do run their cattle on what used to be Cherokee land (that used to be Osage land, because colonizers don’t really pay attention to who might already be living in a place when they shove a whole nation west and draw their own, bullshit boundaries).

This field was your favorite. It slopes down to a pond below. Might technically be a small lake. It’s got sunfish in it. The field lights up green and gold in the light. The water twinkles. The air smells of damp earth and damp grass and heat.

You’re so damn tired.

A thump next to you. A woman sits there. You can’t see her face all that clear; she seems real familiar, though. There’s something about her that pulls you in. Makes you feel safe.

“Quite the view, girl,” she says. Her accent is strange. Southern, but also dipped in something else.

“Mmm,” you say.

The two of you sit in silence a tick. A flock of birds swoops and swirls in a ball above the lake, feeding on the bugs rising up into the early evening.

“Long day?” the woman says.

You snort. “Long life.”

She nods along. “Ye-ah.”

It’s that drawl, the two syllable “yee-aww” you remember from your grandpa. You smile. This was his land, and his mama’s land, and her mama’s land. Your dad grew up here, and this was where Grandpa took you. It was where you found Uncle Randy years and years later. It’s home. You gaggle of cousin-aunties, all “yer kin” as Uncle Randy calls them. This land is what your kin held to as the world around them shattered into pieces, the family clinging to it like a life raft in a storm.

“You eat yet?” the woman says.

Your smile grows. “Not in a while.”

“Well, we can’t have that.” She holds out a folded cloth napkin. Inside, is a biscuit. Still warm.

It crumbles on your tongue, rich and buttery and filled with grape jelly. The two of you sit in the muggy sunshine. Until the biscuit is gone and you feel a little better.

A kid runs into view with a long, straight stick over his shoulder. Three others scurry after him, each with their own—it’s a blowgun, you realize.

“Off them boys go. We’ll see if they come back with any rabbits, this time,” Biscuit Woman says.

You watch them head towards the trees, content. But something niggles. Something about their clothes, their bare bellies and toes stomping through the grass as they talk and laugh.

“You thinking about getting on up?” Biscuit Woman says. You still can’t make out her face. It’s almost like it shifts. Dark eyes, light brown skin, but the features drift, change with every twitch of your eye.

“It’s nice here,” you say. It’s safe, here. It’s home, with your family, with people who won’t hurt you, with no hairy hyena-monsters—

You frown. No, there’s no reason to follow those thoughts back. That way is all dark and sad.

“Uhhh,” she drawls. It’s not an English stammer sound. It’s a nasal thing, swooping up at the end. It means…yes? “That it is. Good to be home.”

The red gravel driveway leading down to the red gravel road. The patch of corn Uncle Randy got from the Nation—“used to be,” Grandpa had said, quoting one of the spiritual teachers, “you couldn’t find no Indian without a corn patch.” The stalks are tall and green in the unchanging light. Two women walk amongst the patch, one with a toddler tagging along behind her, watching.

“But sometimes, you got to go elsewhere,” Biscuit Woman says.

You let your head thunk back on the tin siding. “But what if I get lost? What if I’m too tired?”

Biscuit Woman hums. Looks out over the field and the water.

“What will be is what needs to be,” she says. And reaches out to place a wrinkled, warm palm over your cheek, and suddenly your eyes are wet and your throat is too tight. “You’re a strong’un. Always were, girl. You got more fight in you.”

The tears spill over your cheeks. It’s so warm and soft, here. More women in old timey clothes—skirts and bare chests—in the corn, now stretching down to the water. Kids chase a scrappy puppy and a group of men emerge from the woods with a fresh-killed deer strung from a wood pole.

You want to stay. Want to rest. But there’s an itch in you. A hum beneath your skin. Your palms tingle and your calves flutter with the urge to stand. To move. To go.

“You can do it, girl,” Biscuit Woman says, only now she stands. Holds out a brown hand. Waits for you to take it.

You miss them. All of them. But she’s right. Your bones whisper that truth.

You slide your hand into hers. Her fingers look delicate, but they grip you tight as a raptor’s talons. She pulls you up effortlessly. Leads you as you cry around the side of the house, down to the driveway. Red gravel crunches beneath your bare feet, but you feel no pain.

The men with the deer call out and lift their hands. The women in the field smile and wave. A gaggle of kids comes running up to dance around and poke at you, laughing and giggling. One of them holds out a hand. Gives you something. When you look, you see seven dried corn kernels, blue and white.

“Thank you,” you say and swipe your face.

The kid beams and ducks behind their fellows. Biscuit Woman takes your hand in hers, examines the kernels.

“These could grow into something good, something strong,” she says. Looks up at you. “But only if you plant them, and you nurture them.”

Then she folds your fingers over the corn and you’re at the gate and two men stand there.

One is old, hair white underneath a worn, blue baseball cap. He’s got a hunch, a round belly, and a big smile. He holds out something. Red, small. Lifts his eyebrows.

You…know this. Know him. Like a word you’ve forgotten, the shape of it so close to your tongue. Something about his face, the smell of tobacco, the way he holds that out to you, waiting…

“Ani,” you say. Strawberry. Your favorite.

His smile lights up his whole face. “That’s right, sugar!”

It stabs you. You know this man. You know this game.

But then the second man steps forward. Tattoos ink a line across his face. His head is shaved except for a patch at the back. His face looks familiar, especially when he smiles.

You turn to Biscuit Woman, her hair long and loose, dressed in a skirt and cloak of white feathers.

“But what if I can’t find the way back?” you say. The question is a thorn piercing between your ribs.

It’s the familiar man who answers. Long nose, brown eyes. Something of Uncle Randy in the shape of his jaw and his brow.

“We got good at finding lost cousins,” he says. “Don’t worry, gehooch. We’ll find you, too.”

His hand on the rickety gate. He unlatches it, but only holds it, waiting for you to open it. When you turn, Uncle Randy’s house looks different. Longer, made of wood. Biscuit Woman in her feathered cloak smiles, and the warmth of it trickles through your veins, diffusing through your body.

She says, “Don’dagohvi.”

You nod. And you step past the gate.

***

You’re a child. Maybe five? Probably four. Grandpa stands by the door, wringing his hands as he cries. You don’t know why he cries; grandpa is always laughing about something. But you don’t know why the strange woman and the man are in y’all’s house, either. Or why the woman says your name wrong as she tries to coax you out from under the kitchen table, where you ran to when they came inside.

When they do finally manage it, she leads you over to Grandpa. He picks you up and hugs you, tight. He smells like tobacco, and the brim of his blue hat knocks the side of your head. He hugs you so tight your ribs creak.

“Stay strong, gehooch,” he says. “We love you, you hear? We’ll always love you.”

It’s so cold outside. The woman says she’s your mother and she’s come to take you home. Five other kids sit in the back of the van she lifts you into. The man is her husband, and now he’s your dad. Which makes the other kids your siblings. Mother gives you a plastic doll with yellow hair. Tires crunch over the red gravel and Grandpa stands outside, waving until you can’t see him no more.

And then one of your new sisters takes the doll away from you.

***

You live on the farmstead. It has no address or phone. None that you know. There are a lot of other families here, and even more kids. The oldest remembers going to something called a “school” but you’uns (the grown ups slap your head when you say words like that) do Bible lessons every day, and that’s better. That’s what Mother and her husband, The Pastor, both say.

***

Other kids don’t like you. You don’t know why. You’re not the oldest or youngest. Not the skinniest or fattest or tallest or shortest. You’re quiet. You try to make friends, but they all laugh at you and play without you.

Later, you’ll learn Mother’s shame of you. Her daughter, born out of wedlock and in sin with a poor, dirty Indian. You’re pale enough in winter, but in summer, when the sun touches your skin, you stand out. But all the other kids know your dad was an Indian and that makes you stupid and dirty and weak.

They like to show you this by throwing dried cow patties at you. Or by making you eat mud. By stealing the presents Grandpa sends you on your birthday and Christmas. Until one year he stops. Mother says he got tired of you, and you cry so hard you burst a blood vessel in your eye. Which brings the other kids down on you so bad you do everything you can to never, ever cry in front of someone else ever again.

You learn years and years later that Grandpa died that year, with a pink bicycle with your name on it sitting in his garage, waiting for you to come back. You’ll be in your early twenties before that happens, and far too big to ride that bike, tires all flat, pink ribbon still tied around the handlebars.

***

The farmstead is up in the hills. Surrounded by eighty acres of pastureland and woods. Good deer hunting, better turkey hunting. The locals know y’all are up there, and that y’all might be weird, but it’s good, christian country and at least y’all ain’t one of them new age-y hippie communes or some shit. Religion is a sacred thing here (but only of the christian variety), so they don’t ask too many questions.

You stand in that driveway now, and the dirt is a similar red to that of your family’s land. But it’s a shade off, a shade wrong.

You stand in that driveway and dread oozes across your skin like rancid oil.

Over there is the bunkhouse, where all you girls slept. The boy’s dorm. The chow hall, the main house where Mother and The Pastor and a few of the favorites slept. You’d only been in the main house a couple of times. Never for anything good. It leers down at you, windows empty eyes and open mouth, waiting to crunch down and splinter your bones between its teeth.

You turn away.

And there stands Sarah Greenwood.

You make some kind of aborted sound. Words get all tangled. Nothing seems adequate. In the silence, she smiles at you. It’s a soft thing. A sad thing.

“Sarah,” you finally manage. “Are you okay? Did they…do anything? After I…?”

But she holds up a hand to stop you. “You know why you’re here, don’t you?”

Sarah Greenwood, the oldest of The Pastor’s five daughters. The only one who took you under her wing (she was fifteen when you arrived and she did what she could). She braided your hair as it grew long, all the way to your waist and then past that.

The other girls hated your hair. How smooth it was, how thick and straight and how it never stopped growing, where theirs would break and frizz. So one day, two of them held you down while a third took scissors to it. And when you went to Aunt Patty May (the grown up women were all Aunts, but never aunties), she beat your backside black and blue for shaming yourself and destroying the lord’s property.

Guinea hens call from the trees around the gravel parking lot (not that there were ever many cars). The farmstead stretches off as far as you can see in all directions. Fields in the front, near the main house; they raised cows for a time before the market crashed and it got too expensive. Woods and scrub swallow the rest of the acreage. Trailer homes dot here and there—the other favorite families. Sarah and her husband and their four kids live in one such trailer, closer to the edge of the property. You’d been counting on that when you…

“No,” you say.

You want to go back to Uncle Randy. To where Grandpa took you after Dad died. Not here. Never here.

Sarah’s smile is a ghost. She looks just like you remember—a woman in her thirties, face tired, hair turning gray too-early. But it’s been almost fifteen years since then. She should look—

She holds out a hand. Points. Not at you, though, but past you. To the building you won’t turn to face. The thought of it turns your guts to ice.

The chapel used to be a barn, back when Mother and The Pastor first bought the place. But the faithful worked hard (and cheap) and turned the old thing into their house of worship.

The switching stump sits right outside the door. Perfectly placed for those within to witness.

“I’m not going in there,” you say.

“You have to.”

“I don’t want to.”

You left. You got away. You ran a thousand miles and you never wanted to see this place ever again. Bad enough it paints the backs of your eyelids when you have nightmares. Now she’s telling you to…?

Your stomach clenches. The wind shifts and it smells of sweet, raspberry jam.

“I can’t,” you say.

“You can’t run forever.”

You absolutely can.

The sweet scent gets stronger. Your guts heave so hard you stagger, have to brace yourself on your knees and swallow fast and hard to keep your insides inside.

Fuck. Fuck.

The chapel waits. The big, sliding front door is open, the inside black and ravenous.

Wisps of Sarah’s honey-colored hair escape her long braid to drift across her face. “You can do this.”

You really can’t.

But you take a step. The guinea hens above go quiet. The stump sits to your left. Pale wood worn smooth from many hands, not just your own. It’s cut in a way that you have to sink to your knees to drape yourself over it, skirt up while one of the Aunts flicks the switch still dripping sap from where you cut it (because half of the thing is making you go select your own tool; too thin and it’ll cut, but too thick, and it’ll leave nasty bruises).

Another step. The cicada chir stills.

That was the first time you ever saw the shining line. Judith Engel and her friends stole the doll Grandpa sent you that year, an Indian girl with tassel earrings. Judith and her friends burned the doll as a witch (you would later learn the term “in effigy”). Then you seen her kissing Daniel Sharpe. They were both kids—y’all were just kids—but girls were not supposed to talk to boys, let alone do that with them.

The line had hummed in your mind and you knew exactly what to do. You ran to Aunt Patty May, told her everything. And then you stood with the rest of the congregation as they dragged Judith Engel to the stump and you’d felt such hot, vicious glee. Your retribution. Not you, but her over there as everybody watched her squeal and cry. And she’d picked too thick of a switch. Aunt Patty May beat her so bad she couldn’t sit for days.

The chapel door waits. You spook like a nervous horse. But Sarah emerges from the shadows and beckons you in.

You close your eyes. Take a breath. And step in.

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#the sadness arc continues #feeding alligators fic #these two shitheads #astarion fic #astarion #bg3 fic #tavstarion #astarion x tav #demisexual tav #plus size tav #trauma #childhood trauma #the sadness arc gets worse #next chapter is probably the lowest point

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