#lethal company had 'fallen off'

[malicious-leporine]

so my buddy @helios-fallen has been very normal over maneaters

[liliannadelaphinehartifelt]

Lucifer + Alastor - [ NSFW 3 ]

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A/N: Had this song on repeat since its release and it reminded me of these two so much…

WARNINGS: [ NSFW ] + [ MDNI ] + [ FEM READER ] + [ SLIGHT DUB CON ]

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Sharing is caring, but when it comes to being between the King of Hell himself and his newly established opponent - the all too cocky Radio Demon- you don’t have much say in who gets fair claim of your existence.

Sharing is caring, but only in the ways that matter to the men wrapped around your little finger. Lucifer needs your physical touch; he can’t go one moment without it, and god help you if you’re around other flirtatious sinners -he’ll be all over you for no reason at all. Hand on your hip, lower back, even on your ass if he’s feeling possessive. His height doesn’t matter, not when he can back hug you just fine, plant kisses on your head or temple, and sit you down on his lap without a second thought. Lucifer is a sucker for praising you, every word out of his mouth is sweeter than honey, and the knowing smile on his lips when you get all soft and shy from his gentle admiration swells his already massive sense of pride.

“You’re a sweet little sinner, aren’t you, baby doll?”

“I’m so proud of you, my love.”

“Oh, aren’t you just the cutest thing!”

“I’ll do anything you ask of me, sweetheart..”

“Atta girl…keep going…just like that…”

The King of Hell never runs out of patience for you, spending his free time in your presence without a care for his rival's foreboding aura. Though at times they blatantly argue, the drop of your sweet smile into a solemn frown has them both rushing out an apology. However, Lucifer is quicker than Alastor to admit his faults. He makes up for mistakes with sincere gestures, visiting you in the dead of night with the promise of pleasure radiating off him in tangible waves. By the following day, you can’t even begin remembering what you were angry about.

Sharing is caring, but Alastor has a hard time with both concepts. He’s not one for physical affection, preferring acts of service and gift-giving as alternatives. You don’t seem to mind, always at his side when he calls, a pretty little thing on his arm while he struts about hell running conspicuous errands, and a genuinely engaging sinner he doesn’t mind having deep conversations with. You contrast him in all the right ways: expressive but gentle, lethal but only when provoked. Unlike most demons, you hold value to Alastor, drawing out a softer, more honest version of the stag that most will never see. In private, you’re allowed to babble off his ear while he works, cuddle up in his lap when he’s feeling ‘vulnerable,’ and sometimes you’re lucky enough to get a few somewhat kind words from the overlord amid lingering kisses.

“What a pretty little thing you are,”

“I’m tempted to keep you all to myself, ma chere… Would you like that, hm?”

“I know you can’t help being a greedy girl, darling, but I’ll always be better than that pompous excuse for a king.”

“You love to provoke me, don’t you, little one? Prancing around the hotel like you do, smiling at every little thing, and showing off for attention..”

“It’s rather pathetic, but lovely things can’t control what they attract..”

He’s possessive, outright toxic in some instances, but you’re quick to manipulate the stag into an agreeable state with the threat of seeking out Lucifer’s company over his. This tactic occasionally works, but sometimes it enrages Alastor to bloodlust. His semi-polite exterior falters, causing the overlord to be on edge with everyone -especially Lucifer- and the king won’t let a chance to irritate him further slip by.

“Something bothering you, Rudolph?”

Lucifer snickers as Alastor enters the parlor through its shadows, automatically glaring at the sight of you straddling the blonde fallen angel with his hat lazily set on your head, and you giggle at his obvious disdain for the scene. “Oh, don’t look so upset, Al. I just wanted to play with Luci for a bit.. “ you flash him a cheeky grin, purposely shifting on the devil's lap to feel his growing erection and show more skin hidden underneath your fluffy oversized jumper. Lucifer chuckled, ducking his head to give you a quick kiss as the crackle of static resonated around the room, but you were far from scared of Alastor’s fury in the presence of his rival.

Sharing is caring, but later that night, when you snuggled under your bedsheets with Lucifer, lying on his bare chest, only wearing his dress shirt, soundly asleep, and listening to his undead heartbeat, you’re jolted awake by the distinctive coolness of shadows lurking over your skin.

“What made you think I wouldn’t put you in your place, my dear? That I wouldn’t remind you he’s not the only one who can lay claim to your very existence?..”

Alastor’s voice echoes through your head, coaxing you awake as his specters entangle around you. They tug, pull, squeeze, and ravish your small frame with his every word. Your cunt starts to pulse with need, leaking arousal in steady drops as a shadowy tentacle prods your entrance before sheathing itself in your warm walls with one sharp thrust.

“Ahm!” You yelp, eyes shooting open as a satisfied whine leaps from your lips; quiet moans soon follow as the bulk of shadows touches your womb with tender strokes. Two more snake up the borrowed dress shirt, swirling under the white silk with precise menstruations, encircling your fragile body ruthlessly until you’re forced to sit up in hopes of gaining more fleeting touches. “Alastor, you’re being mean…” you groan into the darkness, hips rutting down in timid circles, a reflexive action you try to maintain to avoid waking the man lying under you. Alastor’s low laughter shifts from your mind to the confines of the room, signaling his physical appearance in the space, and you’re tempted to search for him but aren’t given a chance to as the scrape of his sharp claws manifests along your sides. He’s close, so close you can feel him leering behind you, breathing in your ear as if he needed your scent to survive.

You lean backward, humming at the familiar firmness of his chest meeting your back,” Just wanted you to be a little nicer, that’s all…” Your explanation for earlier does nothing to quell Alastor’s jealousy; his hands hovering over your sides clamp down harshly, and his claws shred through Lucifer’s shirt to prick your skin. Your heart thuds wildly as a scream threatens to fall from your chest from the pain he causes, but your cunt clenches with excitement from his aggressive treatment. “Reasoning won’t help you now, darling. It seems you only understand one thing..” he purrs into your ear, red eyes glowing as they trace your flushed form, “A-and what’s that?..” you mumble fearfully, feeling a coil build in your core, but a pang of shame in your chest overrides it as Lucifer begins to stir below you. He’ll awake any second, and though you weren’t afraid of him seeing you in a whorish state, very used to being intimate with him, the unpredictable reaction he’d have to Alastor taking advantage of you right in front of his eyes was still nerve-wracking.

Sharing is caring, and Alastor’s response to your feverish question makes more sense than you care to admit. “Attention, my dear. You’re shamelessly addicted to it,” he drawls, smile widening when you whine helplessly, back arching as his shadows wrap around your breasts before swiping over your pert nipples while your cunt no longer resists forceful strokes of his shadows. Your vision blurs as the sensations blend, erasing mannerable actions from your thoughts the closer to cumming you got, and the riveting shivers vibrating your body were evidence enough. The subtle tremble of your thighs mixed with the combined noise of your soft moans and Alastor’s hushed taunting drew the King of Hell awake with a gentle start. Lucifer ruts his hips upwards on instinct before groaning tiredly, mildly aware of the familiar stickiness your arousal causes on his pale skin but unsure as to why it’s there. “Baby, what’s the matter-“He’s at a loss for words for a long moment, almost panting at the sight above him, confused at first but gradually intrigued as sleep waned from his consciousness. Alastor smirks, lips against your neck as he stares down at the fallen angel, daring him to instigate a fight. “Ah, looks like you awoke your preferred lover, ma chere. How rude…” the deer demon taunts you, clearly unbothered by your disagreements and conflicted writhing. “N-no, that’s not ah- ah- mmm fuck Al, please d-don’t!” A bright blush coats your cheeks, tears brimming your waterline as the demon nips at your bare shoulder before lapping up the blood that trickles from the wound. His gaze never leaves Lucifer’s as his tongue collects the red liquid, humming triumphantly as a prominent red color floods the ladders’ cheeks and eyes. “How fucking dare you..” the blonde hisses, voice thick with an indecipherable emotion, and you whine anxiously as embarrassment rushes your veins. It wasn’t your fault Alastor was taking his anger out on you this way, disregarding his aversion for touch in the hopes of getting back at you both, but it’d be a lie if you said you weren’t enjoying the intense situation brewing.

Sharing is caring, and you're afraid neither entity will consider doing so as a heavy beat of silence engulfs the room. The only sound is your rushed breaths, growing heavier with every thrust and twist of Alastor’s shadows in and around your body. You try to break free from the overlord, gazing down at Lucifer pleadingly for a better chance at forgiveness. Unexpectedly, his displeased expression morphs dramatically seeing the desperation in your eyes. He’d never been the type for sadism, let alone encouraging it, but your need for his help stirred a primal desire in his chest that he’d only felt sparks of recently. It was no help to him that Alastor, a demon with no remorse or pity for your plight, was the one indicting pleasure on you. He’d seen the stag agitated, irritated, and maybe even flustered but never lustful. It was new and undeniably attractive. Why waste an opportunity to use it against him?

Lucifer took a slow breath, stamping out his rage in seconds as his eyes shifted from your lidded ones to Alastor’s, “How dare you have fun without me, hm?… that’s a little unfair,” he pouts, stifling a groan as his cock twitches to life. The radio demon scoffs, forgetting his grudge against Lucifer for the mutual benefit of desire, “If you wished for fairness, you shouldn’t have fallen from heaven …” he taunts back.

Sharing is caring, but the instant sting of Alastor’s insult doesn’t anger Lucifer like usual. It eggs on the blonde, prompting him to reach for you, and you welcome the gentle coolness of his fingers trailing up front. Unlike Alastor, his claws do you no harm, never breaking skin even as he cups your jaw firmly. “C’mere, little one. M’ not going to hurt you…” he coos quietly, eyes glowing as brightly as Alastor’s as you leer into his touch like a wounded lamb. “Yes sir…” you whisper compliantly, surprised that Alastor relents his hold just enough to let you follow Lucifer’s lead. He’s relatively calm watching you, admiring how your hair falls like a curtain over your flushed face, skin glistening with a thin sheen of sweat, and the dress shirt slipping off your shoulders but sticking to your skin at every curve you had. There were reasons he wanted you to himself but dealt with sharing you with another, and this sight was one of them. You could be so good to them both, on all fours, cunt creaming from his actions and Lucifer’s words, and your loyalty to them both on a whole show no matter the implications.

Sharing is caring, and to some degree, you believe it’s a possibility for your relationship with a prideful fallen angel and an egotistical demon. Lucifer lay beneath your trembling form, muttering encouraging praises against your lips when he wasn’t connecting them with his own in heated kisses.

“Mhm, good girl…go on, come for him like you do for me.”

“Feels good, doesn’t it, baby doll..”

“Fuck, you like that hm? Want more? Ask him nicely, sweetheart…”

“Cum for us, my love…”

“You’re doing so well….taking us so well. There you go, baby, all of it just like that…”

Alastor loses track of himself within moments of watching you come undone in his shadows for the first time, hungry to feel the warmth of your cunt for himself as puddles of your cum form on Lucifer’s crotch. You don’t fight him when he replaces his specter's task of fucking you, welcoming the length of his cock with a grateful smile and melodic moan of his name. “Alastor!… nghh yess, please r-right there!..” you yelp into Lucifer’s neck, letting him cradle your head as he talks you through the rise of your next high, “You sound so precious like this, baby. Give em’ what he wants.” His tone is strained, leaning towards a moan as he watches your expressions switch between pleasure and pure wonder. Alastor is fixated on the both of you, ears twitching at the top of his head with every satiated moan you let out and sinful word Lucifer says. His hands find purchase on your hips, gripping them harshly as he snaps his roughly, plowing his cock into your cunt with so much pent aggression your legs refuse to stop shaking. “Oh, fuck…” he groans in the air, tearing his gaze away from your arched back and leaking entrance to try and slow the impending peak of his high. Self-control was something Alastor prided himself in, but it was spiraling from his grasp the longer he fucked you.

Was this what the King of Hell had been enjoying with you?

Milking you of every drop of lust in your body?

Filling you with his overrated seed in the hopes of one-upping him?

If so, Alastor could never blame him. You felt divine, after all, and had no complaints about being used for pleasure.

Sharing is caring, but you forget all about it when Alastor yanks you away from Lucifer, a hand tangled in your head so tight you’re sure he might rip into your scalp if he holds you any tighter. Luckily, the overlord refrains from doing so, opting to groan into your ear as he buries his length to the hilt in your fluttering cunt, spilling ropes of warm cum into your abused womb with no remorse. “Don’t waste a single drop, ma chere. See it as a gift for being so well-behaved,” the radio overlay in his voice is gone, giving way to an accent you couldn’t resist mewling at. Lucifer chuckled, eyes fixed on where Alastor and you were connected, smirking at the mess you’d both made on top of him. “Need a taste of that…” he mumbles more to himself, tone hungry, demanding. You’ve yet to catch your breath before Alastor lets out a short laugh, flinging you forward into Lucifer’s chest without much care as to how weak you still are, “Greedy bastard,” he snickers, slowly pulling out of you with a satisfied grin at your attempt to keep him in. “Now, now, dear. I’ll have another turn with you soon. No need to be selfish..”

Sharing is caring, and oh, how wonderful it is when you’re sat in Alastor’s lap, facing away from him, one leg bent over his while the other rests on Lucifer’s shoulder. The King of Hell kneels before you both, inhaling the scent of your cunt, and smiling at the steady stream of cum drizzling past your folds. He’d done this many times before, a being addicted to the taste of women, of you specifically, but you still shied away from his vulgar eagerness. Your coy reactions only worsened when the notion of Alastor’s cum mixed with your own eventually settling on Lucifer’s tongue came to mind. They hated each other after all, and despite getting along most of the time in your presence, you never imagined this to happen, but neither backed down from the ordeal.

“W-wait Luci, you don’t h-have-“ you start to protest quietly, squirming in Alastor’s hold to avoid Lucifer, but your refusals don’t hold any weight to them.

“Mm, but I want to, love…I can’t help it,” the blonde whined as if he’d die without getting the task done, hands cupping your inner thighs tenderly as he flicked his tongue over your slit and swollen clit. You jolted in Alastor’s grip, biting back a whimper as he mumbled into the crook of your shoulder, “It’s impolite to refuse royalty, so let him have his fill …”

Sharing is caring, and you’re sure Lucifer could survive off eating your pussy alone just fine for the rest of his immortal life. He makes a show of it, diving his tongue in and out of your stretched entrance, moving to suck on your clit every so often before putting both actions into tedious repetition. You couldn’t remain coherent as he explored your insides with expert focus, letting his tongue linger in the spongiest and sweetest spots in your cunt just to draw back and generously spit on your clit. He’d learned your body, when to hit nerves, or when to overwhelm them. As of now, every sense you had was heightened, intensifying when Alastor’s eyes studied your facial expressions, your smile growing an inch more expansive when you rushed out a warning to Lucifer.

“Gonna cum m’ gonna cum…!”

The devil perks up, delving two fingers into you, red irises dilating completely as they hit a tender spot in your cunt immediately, curling against it at a languid pace. He met your gaze with a proud smile on his face, tongue lapping at your clit leisurely, begging you to come undone without hesitation. Alastor curses under his breath, agitated by the fact that your moans are turning him on again, and you feel his cock twitch under your weight.

Sharing is caring, and the euphoric bliss of releasing in Lucifer’s mouth felt divine, bringing small tears to your eyes as he buried his face in your mound, moaning at the taste of you drenching his tongue. Alastor grunts as your hips rock to meet Lucifer's pace, hands creeping up to cup your breasts, kneading the plush flesh mindlessly to avoid bucking his hips against your backside for better friction. He couldn't give his rival the triumph of seeing him worked up at the sight of you cumming so reverently under his touch. You felt powerless between them, shaking in Alastor's arms and pleading for Lucifer to join. One look is all it takes for the two to agree, giving into your minuscule wishes and thoroughly enjoying themselves the remainder of the evening.

Sharing is caring, but if you dare to utter a word of what transpired that night in the presence of others, both will deny the implication of tolerating one another. Although, you find yourself being used by both more often, stuffed full of their cum night after night, and keenly aware of the mutual trust growing between them when you finally collapse into sleep by their sides. They're capable of fair behavior with you, but only in private. Away from the eyes of others who’ll never witness how obsessed The Radio Demon & The King of Hell are with you and you alone.

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It's just a filler post cause I'm getting burnt out with requests! ❤️ I love your ideas, so I'm trying to write them all in my style but as concisely as possible. It's tiring but fun…

[ BONUS CONTENT + ]

They may not be able to stand each other but I’ll gladly take them both (not in a fight) ❤️ credits to creator

[usmsgutterson]

so, it’s probably nothing, but it’s been on my mind sometime and I can’t let it go- hug prompts! The link for those is here, and again, you can send in as many combinations as you want!

pin hawthorne with 2, 3, and 4??

Spring- Pin Hawthorne x gn! reader

okay, thank you for sending this in! I haven't written for Pin in almost six months and I missed it a lot more than I thought lol. The prompts you sent in are as listed below:

slowdancing that’s actually just a hug with swaying involved, hugs that last a long time, and “It’s been a while,” hugs

fic type- fluff

warnings- mentions of flooding and power outages in relation to snow and rainstorms, mentions of icy roads/ground also in relation to snow and rainstorms

You’d always loved it when spring graced the island, though you weren't shy of admitting your disdain for the lethal weather that late winter and early spring often brought along.  

During winter, the stables were in a relatively consistent state of snow and cold weather from September through to the last week of March. Spring always got a late start and, as you’d noticed since you moved to the island at sixteen, winter always liked to overstay its welcome.

Spring weather typically came back around between the last three days of March and the first six days of April, often immediately following a snowstorm so severe that you and Pin would have to check on the horses at least a day in advance. You'd have to get to the stables and make sure that nothing was at risk of breaking with the strength of the wind and that everything was still properly insulated to keep out the worst of the cold.

The last week of March and the first week of April were no different that year. A snowstorm picked up on the twenty-eighth of March and lasted through to the thirtieth, you in yours and Pins loft, Pin staying with his dad due solely to happenstance, as Pin had stopped in for tea and to see how things were with his dad when the snowstorm started unexpectedly. 

On the thirty-first, a rainstorm hit and Pin couldn’t get back to you because of the risk of a power outage due to the wind, coupled with the fact that the snow was melting and turning into ice that made driving or travelling by horse way too risky. 

Pin didn’t get to your loft until the third of April, waiting out the storm--which had only ended on the second, ending on a high note with warnings of icy roads, fallen trees, flooding on the roads and warnings about floods flashing in bright white against bold red on every single news station--in his old room and keeping his dad company, the two of them playing card games when the power went out, drinking cold tea and talking in some feeble effort to pass the time. 

He knew you’d be at the stables with Gabby, Zoe, and Marcus, checking on the horses and feeding them when he saw your text that morning. Instead of telling him to meet you, though, you simply asked him to run a couple of errands in your stead, and so he did.

When he got back to the loft, he’d spent the better part of four hours on his feet. He had a twenty pound bag of cat food for the two and a half year old orange tabby you’d adopted together over one shoulder, a bag with bread, ice cream, sugar and a couple of the sweets you loved in his left hand. 

He put the bag down to unlock the door, proceeded in, fed the cat--who you’d been calling Pumpkin since you’d adopted him--and put the groceries away, happy to simply stand in your kitchen for the first time in nearly a week, a song from an indie band Pin liked playing idly through a bluetooth speaker.

You came into the house fifteen minutes later, not even registering Pins presence at first. 

But then you noticed the striking blue eyes, the obsidian ring that he hadn’t taken off of his ring finger since you got each other promise rings as a three year anniversary present the year before. You saw the black hoodie that Pin always wore during the winter, the one you always stole during the spring, and you almost felt weightless.

“Ran your errands,” he said. “How were the horses?” 

“They were fine,” you said, knowing that the horses and Bright Fields as a whole had slipped from your mind entirely as you walked toward him. “Everything was fine. Nothing took significant damage.” 

Pin pulled you into a hug and felt relief flood every single part of him with the action, felt himself relax as your arms wrapped around him and hugged him as tightly as he’d hugged you. 

You’d been communicating through a combination of facetime and texting for nearly a week, and sure, that was passable, but nothing could ever beat the feeling of your body against his, your lips on his cheek and his lips on your forehead as “I love yous” and “I’ve missed yous” and “it’s been too longs” fell from your lips. 

Somewhere within the depths of it all, Pin had jokingly asked you if you'd like to dance and you'd said yes, pulled him impossibly closer and cherished the warmth his body provided as part of you devised a plan to steal the hoodie he wore.

You knew that he'd likely swap it in favor of a knitted jumper if the heat didn't kick in in the loft by the time that the temperature dropped with nightfall, and you'd simply take it then.

You would press a kiss to his lips when he asked if you'd stolen his hoodie later on, and Pin would roll his eyes as one of his arms wrapped around you and a kiss was dropped onto your cheekbone.

The slow dance you’d begun with him wasn’t really more than a hug with swaying involved, the two of you moving slowly through the kitchen, talking idly and enjoying each others presences after almost a week of not being able to hug or kiss or exist with one another. 

It’d been a while, and that was communicated with the reluctance you had when it came to letting one another go.

Eventually, though, you did. When you checked the time, you found that you and Pin had been holding each other for almost an hour.

The realization made you laugh, contentment flooding through you as Pin pressed a kiss to your jawline, arm around your waist as the two of you moved into the living room. You curled up together on the couch, eventually falling asleep in the comfort of the silence you shared. 

[updatingranboo]

(sorry for how long this is, I swear I tried to keep it short pfft)

Hi Day! I didn’t really know where to ask this, sorry in advance if this is the wrong place or something completely out of your wheelhouse. I know you have your ‘RanbooStartingSoon’ YT channel where you upload starting soons and on occasion vods that are missing from the official vods channel (like the missing LA vod, tysm for that btw !!) so you seemed like the best person that I could ask about this; 

Yesterday I was looking for a couple vods of Lethal Company from November, because I missed seeing them at the time and had never gotten around to seeing them- I wasn’t in a rush because I thought “well they’ll be on the vods channel!” but looking through I realized they’re totally missing from there, along with quite a few other vods from November- they’re still on twitch right now, but won’t be much longer.

The missing vods as far as I can tell are: the Thief Simulator 2 vod (which I think will be gone off of twitch tomorrow, Jan 19th if I’m not mistaken) the LC vods “THIS COMPANY SURE ISN’T NON LETHAL!”, “the lethalist of companies, the best of people”, and “2 years of having EYES (LETHAL COMPANY WITH HUGE LOBBY LATER!)”, along with the VR Kayaking vod, the “planning the project fundraiser subathon” vod, and the “absolutely massive announcements” vod. The vods from after the subathon are also missing, but I’m assuming (hoping) that those will be uploaded to the official vods channel soon, although the oldest of them is already 23 days old so I don’t know. 

There's other vods from before these missing, like the RGBtrio PayDay stream and Streamer's Court, but those aren't on twitch anymore so I'm assuming those are just lost sadly.

Basically, I was wondering if you’d consider uploading the missing vods at all? I imagine you probably never planned to upload that many vods, so I completely understand if it’s too much of a hassle and you can’t/don’t want to. And again, my apologies if this just isn’t in your wheelhouse, so sorry if I was a bother. 

Regardless, thank you for your time and thank you for all the updates you do! Hope you have a lovely timezone <3

hi there!! yeah I’m very painfully aware of how far backed up the vods channel is, it causes me stress daily LMAO. there’s already vods that have fallen off twitch that haven’t been uploaded, but I’ve been assured by the twitch vods manager they’ve been saved so i have to trust.

i try not to upload anything that is definitely going to be uploaded to the vods channel, because i don’t like taking away from the traffic to official channels, and i also am working with the tiniest hard drive known to man and just. don’t have the space to download full streams most of the time :(

i do have plans to upload both of the alt streams just because I’m paranoid but believe me, I’m just as stressed and i hope that when ranboo gets back from their break the channel picks up again because we are over 2 months behind now and i Don’t Like That as the resident media preservation freak

but thank you for reaching out, maybe I’ll change my mind if I can figure something out, but for now I’m just praying that the vods channel manager knows what they’re doing 😭

[kriz-fics]

The Sword’s Legacy

Series Summary: As the heir of your father's lands, you have grown up knowing that one day you must wed to your House's advantage, and there's no better catch than the younger son of the Magister himself. Meanwhile tensions within the king's court are set to come to a head at any moment - it just needs that spark to send everything ablaze. Now in a court more dangerous than the one you entered, you find distraction and joy in the company of the beautiful boy with the beautiful eyes. You can only hope to weather the storm you can sense brewing in the horizon.

Masterlist

Chapter Sixteen: Lore and Luminaries

Pairing: Eren Jaeger x Female Reader

Genre: Royalty AU, Historical Fantasy AU, Romance, Politics, Warfare, Eventual Smut (future chapters), Slow Burn

Length: 13.8K

CW: Mentions of underage sexual exploration / mention of child abuse (physical)

“Dragon root, dried wasp stings… vervain, lovage. Grind all those up for me, if you would, my lady.”

For a long while, the sound of stone grinding against stone is the only thing to be heard in the Healer’s rooms. It is the most riveting sound, that steady rasp, bewitching in its constancy. The scent wafting from the mortar is yet another component of the enchantment that has fallen upon the space. Each breath you take is more pleasant than the last. Invigorating. It is almost enough to make you forget the purpose of the brew. And to whom you will have it served.

Mother had been taken ill a couple of days past. The sweats, they feared, at its onset. The sweats, thank the gods, it is not. The source of the bug had been confined to her cottage, to sleep away the malady and prevent its spread. 

By no means was this to be the last spate of illness within the household, Healer Darya warned. The autumn storms are soon come upon you and with them the dreaded ague. It is not so lethal as the mortal sweats, to be sure, but it is a great deal more catching and takes its fair share of lives when left untreated. 

The cooks have been outdoing themselves of late, churning out dish after dish bursting with greens and fish and eggs. Fare to prevent further illness and strengthen the constitution, it is known. The year’s bounty of oranges (bloody and otherwise) find themselves a constant on the household table as well. And lemons. So many lemons. From fowl cooked with lemons to lemon cakes to liqueurs, the cooks find no end to their utility. It is almost enough to put you off them for the next year. Almost. Lemon cakes are altogether too tasty to give up for a full year.

“My lady, perhaps you can enlighten me with the properties of lovage.” Healer Darya gives you the briefest of glances before turning to her work. 

An unusual yet not unpleasant mixture of scents trails the priestess’s words. Peppermint, wormwood, silk moss. For the tonic to revitalize Mother. You grind your own ingredients on, as ordered, before eventually answering, “Lovage is most effective as an aid for digestion. If used too much, though, it can leave the patient extremely disoriented. As such, it must be used sparingly, and with a light hand.”

“What of vervain?”

“It is often used for the treatment of feral dog bites. However, it is also generally known as a potent restorative, especially if used in tonics. As we are using it right now.”

“Quite right, and well-put.” The Healer gauges the steadily burning flame beneath the small pewter cauldron on its iron trivet. She holds out her hand. “My lady, the paste, if you please.” The unusually pleasant scent takes on a new note and a different sort of pleasantness. Healer Darya puts aside the black stone mortar and its matching pestle, before taking up a ladle and stirring the concoction. “Perhaps I’ll set you to making the next few batches of these so I might at last move on to restocking the other essentials.”

You will take no issue with that. The past week or so of Healer lessons had been nothing less than stimulating. It began with books. The Lady Alyrya’s priestess was only too happy to oblige her mistress when you requested tuition. Light reading, to start. Greens in Your Garden; Flowers of the South; Physic and Herblore, an interesting treatise on medicinal plants, written by renowned herbalist Prior Flora, which you had started two nights past.

The true work is what you anticipate the most.

“Hang these up to dry and finish the tisane.” 

A bundle of herbs changes hands, and you proceed to obey. Pennyroyal and golden parsley, you note, with no small amount of wryness as you walk toward the drying area. Herbs needed for that most infamous of brews. The Healer had been instructing you on all manners of subjects: the drying of herbs, the extracting of vegetal oils, the making of tisanes, potions, pastes. Soon, you will move on to the more difficult tinctures, perhaps even your first poultice. All of these and more you will learn. But for the brewing of that one draught.

It had not been too long ago when Father had called you to his solar, grim and grave and so disappointed. He did not give you long to wonder at his disappointment. “What is this I hear about you and Young Master Meledin?” he had inquired, brisk and uncharacteristically terse.

He changed tack at your honest confusion, which he only doubled with his next query. Young, new-flowered Lady Rhyzkova could not understand nor picture what Father was on about. You had spent a good few moments in silence, puzzling out the details. You could not imagine how you were supposed to fit that hard rod of flesh inside you, or even that you could. 

So you had, truthfully, said no, Roman did not put his penis inside your sex. That new insight gave you awe, nevertheless. You might not have taken him in but you had taken him to hand, to his nervous excitement. That felt good, he said; it felt even better when you stroked. And so you did, encouraged by his eager urging, fascinated by the way he swelled and grew harder in your grip. Even the strange fluid that leaked from him in droves (not piss, he had asked Prior Ilya) did not put you off like it had that first time (your disgust did not let you get this far, and he had wilted from the embarrassment). He had climaxed all over your hand soon afterward. The milk-white liquid that came spurting from his cock was not piss, that was for certain.

For all your honesty, Father had his reservations. Healer Darya came to confirm your innocence, sent by Lord Alexander to corroborate his daughter’s claims. You were as intact as you could be, for a highborn girl, announced the priestess. It was not a boy’s cock that caused what tears there were down there. Noble girls are more like to lose their maidenheads to horses than to boys, this is known, and you have been riding since you were six, years and years ago.

Still, it stings, even now, to know Father had not taken you at your word. It is understandable, to a degree, to make absolutely sure - your value in the marriage market would have severely plummeted had you been plucked before your time. That does not lessen the sting, even so. It is some reassurance that he had not made you drink söga, at least.

Söga, the tisane you will never learn to make if Father and Healer Darya can help it. Both know well your capacity for wantonness. Your wanton streak, as Father called it. To your face. “You have a wanton streak in you, my child,” he had said, so very gently. Somehow, that had not stung - he could have worded, and delivered, it worse. He could have called it my whorish streak. 

And so you are relegated to keeping your whorish streak to yourself. It is all to the good, anyway. You know well what is expected of a lady, especially one with a standing as high as yours. That does not stop the what-ifs from cropping up every so often; they especially love to crop up in the face of a handsome boy, and the court does not lack for those. You are betrothed to one of those, as it happens. That you will use forbidden knowledge to go ahead and fuck your handsome boy without any consequences, you do not know. But that is certainly something.

You can always brew the tea yourself, you suppose, as you grab a length of knotted twine off the counter and begin to wrap it about the herbs’ stems. Söga is disastrous to get wrong, though. A misstep in the recipe will blast your womb and render you barren, a woman’s worst nightmare realized. You cannot have that; you must have heirs of your own body and continue a line eight thousand years strong.

Mugwort and nettle and goldenglow hang before you in a neat row, joined shortly by your pennyroyal and parsley. Herbal soldiers in line, waiting for their commands. And like true soldiers, they lose their potency beneath too much sun. All herbalists know to keep herbs away from scorching heat, and the Healer is no exception. The sandstone visible through the glass window before you makes for a dismal view.

The views are more cheering where the sun is allowed to shine. The apothecary is aptly stationed right beside the entrance to the sanctum, giving the resident Healer easy access to its wealth of flora. No autumn hues are evident through the wood-and-glass door that leads out into the palace gardens. This far south, the seasons turn more slowly, and so everything keeps its verdant bloom. For the moment.

You leave the apothecary bearing a silver trayful of remedies: ginger and mint tea (sweetened with honey), essence of yarrow, a bowl of hot water and a square of clean linen, marlock salve and the revitalizing tonic, finished at last after half an hour’s worth of labor. You cannot help the irreverent smile that pulls at your lips as you pass a familiar corridor.

Down those halls is a certain sitting room, now scarce used. It was that which made it so enticing to two highborn whelps who were too inquisitive for their own good. You do not know how that servant managed to catch you at it; hardly anyone went down there, as little used as the wing was. Perhaps you were louder than you’d thought. Par for the course for children, who tend to have little thought of their immediate surroundings. 

Father had the whole wing’s rooms locked and sealed away afterward. He hardly should have bothered. It had not taken him long to send Roman away, so you were left with no boys to play around with (no boys you were attracted to enough, at any rate). And no boys to learn the way of the bedchamber with, no one to fondle and explore just to see what went where. 

The older ladies of the court told you what went where readily enough.

Mother’s rooms are empty of callers and servants but for her handmaid, the Lady Oksana Aliyeva, sister to the Lady of Noyasnoy, Tatyana Aliyeva. “My lady,” she curtseys as you brush past the gossamer hangings to enter your mother’s bedchamber. The older woman proceeds at once to tie back the drapes, her long sheet of silvery blonde hair rippling in her wake.

You set your tray down on the table placed at the foot of the bed and gather the mug of tea in your hands. You wave away the handmaid as she comes over to assist. “Leave us, if you would, my lady.”

Lady Oksana checks, draws herself up and bows before taking her leave.

“Ah, my sweet little Healer,” Lady Theresia says hoarsely from her seat in her large bed, propped up on big silken pillows against her red gossamer-covered headboard and smiling her warm motherly smile. The stuffed peacocks flanking the bed stare haughtily down at you as you walk over to the bedside and sit on the crimson bedclothes. The clay of the teacup is rough and warm beneath your fingers, the tisane not too hot, perfect for drinking.

“How are you feeling?” you ask your lady mother as you hand her the drink. Still a bit peaky, you think, taking in Mother’s drawn complexion with a surge of concern. You mislike the gravel in her voice as well as its thickness. The mint will help the rocks and the obstruction.

Lady Theresia smiles, sardonic. “The cavalry is running a charge through my body, but this old bat is otherwise fine.” Mother and daughter share a laugh. “No leeches?” Lady Theresia queries after a taste of tea.

“Perhaps later. Healer Darya will drop by to check on you.”

“Oh, thank the gods. Such nasty creatures,” Mother shudders and takes another prim sip. “Did you mix this yourself?”

“Yes.” A bowl of water is sitting beside a tiny ornate brazier on the bedside table. A square of linen floats, submerged, in the yarrow-infused liquid. You stand and take the basin, striding back to the other table at the foot of the bed.

“Your lessons are going along swimmingly then.”

The pleasant scent of yarrow drifts through the air from the bottle in your hand. You pour a capful of the essence into the fresh bowl, well-pleased.

“Tell me of your curriculum. I trust that it is a good one. And appropriate.”

You cannot fail to hear the emphatic tone your mother’s voice has adopted. “It is good. And appropriate.” No söga, have no fear, Mother dear. You hang the unused linen over an arm and gather the steaming bowl, the revitalizing tonic, and the salve before returning to the bedside table.

“Eren is a handsome lad - gods, such a handsome lad, and so well-made-” you look askance at your mother’s dreamy expression, which she hastily shakes off, “-but you can afford to wait. Not long now ‘til you can tumble your man to your heart’s content.” Lady Theresia titters as the bottle of tonic near slips from her daughter’s hand at her remark. Her laughter waxes into a hacking cough as you turn to her with abject horror on your face. Never again do you want to hear anything remotely raunchy come out of your mother’s mouth.

“Ah, but he is a sweet lad,” Mother sniffs once her laughter and the coughing subside. She dabs at her nose with a square of linen. “And he makes you happy. That is the most important thing of all.”

You set the revitalizing tonic down beside the salve. He had sent you a tonic once, over a month ago. You had never been more surprised to see Healer Dmitriy outside your rooms in Merrydell, a purple glass bottle in his hands. “Young Master Eren asked me to give you this, my lady. Essence of valerian for your insomnolence.” 

As surprised as you had been at this unexpected visit, your astonishment paled in the light of the overwhelming surge of affection that coursed through you at this most thoughtful gesture. Your unrested state had struck a bigger cord in your betrothed than you’d realized. Such a sweet lad indeed.

Lady Theresia finishes her tea at last and hands you her cup. “We are lucky in our men, you and I.” Another set of smiles changes hands. “As I hope your sisters will be. And your brother with his lady wife someday. To be lucky in love is the sweetest thing.”

You putter about the bedside table, fussing at the cup and the bowl and the brazier, cheeks prickling at that most potent of words. Love.

Several moments pass before you can return to your place by Mother’s side. “Speaking of… men and future matches, how is Father taking into account the king’s continued reticence as regards the Crown Prince’s hand?” It has been some time since last you’d spoken of the matter. You hand Mother the small porcelain tub of marlock.

“Yes, well, your father has other options. As he always has in all matters.” A lesson he has been instilling in you most diligently throughout the years. Your mother removes the lid off the tub in her hand, dips her fingers in the ointment, and smears it over her chest, pulling the neck of her nightdress down a little as she does so.

“I don’t think the prince will make Lydia happy anyway.” Not when Lady Gudrun is around to be a paramour on the side.

“They can always grow into it. Such matters are a passing thing.” Lady Theresia hands back the tub, which you set aside on the table, just as a commotion in the form of your baby brother enters the room.

“Mava!”

The swept-back drapes of the bedchamber afford you both a view of little Oliver Rhyzkov tottering down the privy chamber, threading his way past the divans, the armchairs, and the tables in his route to get to Mother’s bedroom. He is carrying an earthenware bowl filled with a glistening golden mass in his little hands.

Behind him drifts his nurse, brown-haired matronly Mother Raisa, in her cerise robes lined with gold. She is carrying her own dish, this one piled high with the harvest’s bounty: pears, peaches, plums, grapes and dates and melons, all manners of berries. “My ladies,” she bows over her bowl once she reaches the threshold of the bedroom, which makes her young ward pause and dip into his own bow.

“No need to bow to your own kin, Olya,” you inform him with a grin, taking the dish from him and ruffling his hair affectionately, making the boy giggle. Your hand shoots out quick as a whip and closes around a pudgy forearm as your brother makes to run to Mother’s bedside. “Sorry, love, but no kisses for Mava just yet. You might get sick, and if you get sick, there’ll be no more playtime. And no more swimming.”

The threat of no more swimming hits hard. Olya slumps down in your hold, pouting a most magnificent pout. “But it’s tomorrow and you said you’d be better tomorrow,” he calls out, sad and plaintive, to Mother, who smiles at him apologetically.

“I’m afraid the bug is stronger than we thought, my love. But I promise I will be better.”

“I told you to let me squish it! I’m not afeared of bugs, I can squish it! So you can be better!”

“That’s why we brought these, your little lordship, to squish the bugs and make your mother stronger,” Mother Raisa intercedes as she places the fruit bowl amidst the physic on the bedroom bench. “Only a good serving of fruit can squish this sort of bug. Of course, a prayer or two will work even more wonders,” she adds piously, clutching at the golden pendant on her chest, that of the Mother Above’s scepter tipped with a tiny pomegranate.

Olya nods vigorously. “Honeycomb makes me feel better, too, so you have to eat them all today so you’ll be better tomorrow. For true.”

Sure enough, the sugary scent emitting from the bowl in your hands belongs to his favorite sweet. You place it beside the fruits, greatly endeared.

“I can’t promise you I’ll be all right tomorrow but I will be in a few days. For true,” Mother says, as endeared as you. “And then we can swim.” 

Olya is not quite placated, that is plain to see, but he nods anyway. His hand drifts to his mouth, prompting his nurse to grab hold of the limb. He has been weaned, for the most part, from that most babyish of habits yet still it manifests, especially when he is upset. At five, he is too old for such conduct and needs further work to break the practice for good and all. Lydia had suggested smearing his hand with sun pepper jelly to stop him sucking. Mother had rebuked her most sharply and the issue was dropped.

“I thank you most kindly for the fare. From a harvest well done, indeed,” Lady Theresia remarks, eyeing the overflowing fruit bowl with so much pride. “Not just for us, I am told.”

“Not just for us,” you affirm, proud as the room’s stuffed peacocks. The past week or so had seen the doves coming in from all the Vascalene provinces, all with reports of excellent harvests. You have yet to come down from the heights of your satisfaction.

“A good portent. And good for public perception. Any proof of the gods’ favor of your rule will help ease the way when you come into your own.”

The fact is a most pleasing one. And much-needed, to help chase away the weight of the role.

“Oh, before I forget, you need to drink your tonic,” you exclaim, moving to measure and pour out the potion for your mother’s consumption. “We’ll leave you to it, then,” you put in once the philter has been drunk. You bend to pick up little Olya, who is not so little now, you realize as you feel the weight of him in your arms. Mother Raisa strides forward, voicing out aid, which you wave away. “Say goodbye to Mava,” you prompt the boy, and he obeys, adding a little wave into the bargain. “She needs to sleep so she’ll get better. And then we’ll swim.”

“Swimming! We’ll swim, we’ll swim like Renren,” Olya chirps, bouncing in your hold, to your distress. “Honey!” he demands, reaching for the corresponding bowl. Mother Raisa breaks off a piece of the comb and hands it to him. He sets to at once, happily munching his treat (Mother’s in truth, supposedly), wax and all.

You adjust your grip on him and bid your own farewell to your most beloved mother. You will visit again tonight. A good Healer must needs check on her patients most diligently.

Renren the Newt’s namesake is standing outside the rooms to greet you, to your surprise.

“Hello,” he raises a hand in greeting.

“Hello,” Olya replies, raising his own smaller honey-smeared hand to return the gesture. 

Eren smiles that warm, tender smile that has made such a home in his beautiful face. The way he regards you and the boy in your arms is achingly soft.

You shift Olya on your hip, so conscious of Eren’s gaze. “You remember Eren, yes? My betrothed.” Encounters between your betrothed and your brother have been scant. Not least because you are keeping Eren to yourself most every time, and Olya has his own little boy agenda to go through every day. “What are you doing here?” you question Eren, most curious.

He purses his lips and sighs, all tenderness lost. “I heard Lady Theresia was sick and you were tending her. I wanted to know how she was.”

Something in you squirms at the restrained fear of his mien. You know well what frightens him so. It is hard to be confronted with memories of his greatest loss. Mother’s predicament is hitting too close to home. “She’s on the mend,” you assure gently. “A day or two and she’ll be right as rain.”

“You’re a knight, right? Teach me how to joust.” Oblivious Oliver licks at his fingers, exposing Eren to the full brunt of his special stare, that wide-eyed compelling look he loves to use on everyone if he must have his way.

It is working a charm on the most susceptible knight. And does a superb job cutting through the miserable tension in the air neat as a pin. “Do you know how to ride a horse?” Eren asks the boy, who shakes his head. “That won’t do. Before you can joust, you have to know how to ride.”

“Teach me.”

“There’s a thought,” you interpose. “I think that’s a great idea.”

Olya certainly thinks so, too. He bounces in your arms again and again and again, trilling “Teach me,” with each bound. Mother Raisa strides forward to take the little lordling off your hands, and this time you let her. There is no winning against Olya, not when he has begun to work himself into excitement.

Eren chuckles at the spectacle and moves closer to you. “Your master of horse should be the one teaching you, not me. I’m hardly the right authority on that matter.”

“You’ll make a fine teacher, and I speak from experience,” you cut in, noting the frown and the trembling mouth of the little face brought about by Eren’s statement. Nothing good will come from that trembling mouth. You turn to the nursemaid before Olya can work himself up into a tantrum. “We’ll proceed to the stables. Perhaps we can commandeer a suitable pony for Olya.” Crisis averted, you think, relieved to see the excitement return to your baby brother’s face.

“You taught me how to ride and I’m a much better horsewoman for it. Don’t sell yourself so short,” you tell your betrothed, idly fiddling with the braid draped over your left shoulder. Mother Raisa and her charge have already started down the corridor. Your fingers brush against something sticky. Olya’s honey, you grimace, lamenting the stain it made on the pale green cloth of your charovma.

“I can teach you a different sort of riding, if you find me such a fine teacher.”

Your head snaps up. “Pardon?”

Eren gives you a slow, smiling gaze and does not answer, merely reaching out to pinch your cheek. “You make the sweetest faces.” He slips his fingers through yours and tugs you along.

“I have to get changed,” you force out, emerging from one of many spells he has taken to casting on you of late. Your cheek tingles where he had pinched it. “I have been honeyed,” you clarify, plucking at your dress at his inquiring look.

“Oh.”

The comfortable silence that falls between you does not last long. “Are you… sniffing me?”

Embarrassment takes his features over, yet it goes as soon as it comes. “It’s just… you smell sweet. And green. I like it.”

“Oh.”

You play with your braid once more. These Healer’s lessons are proving to be a most valuable asset in your skillset. In more ways than one. You have no choice now but to go about it most diligently. And you do so love the smell of herbs.

Into that wild enchanted wood he strode, the prince of dreams, to take up his seat in this his arcane realm. The birds chirped, and the leaves rustled, and the maid giggled, the maid of the wood, that girl with flowers in her hair.

High up she perched on her hawthorn throne, the true sovereign of this wood, and for her he bent the knee. It was never his wood, never his realm, and this he knew as he had never known before.

“Here you are at last, my lady of the wood,” said he, the prince of dreams. “You have kept me waiting.”

“Here I am at last, my prince of dreams,” said she, the girl with flowers in her hair. “I have kept you waiting, for my person’s sake.”

“I do not mean you harm, and will never. This vow, you will see, shall I keep,” said he, the most earnest of princes.

The mystery of her intrigued him so, and the sennights had been a torment. Food had lost all savor and the sun was dark in his eyes each day spent without her radiance. He had naught of her for she gave him naught, not even a name he could call with yearning lips.

For names have power, you see, said she, the girl with flowers in her hair, and forsworn will I be should I give you power over me.

Dong!

Eren looks round at the sound and instantly leaps to his feet. The time has slipped away from him and he is late. Lore and Luminaries, a Compendium of the Legends of the United Lands is thrown unceremoniously back into the lounge’s cushions as he makes a run for the library’s exit. He spares Prior Ilya a quick nod, who returns it, stiff and disapproving, as Eren speeds past his desk. He hastily straightens out the black and silver vidnon jacket (sans tunic) he is wearing with his black pants, making sure he is presentable as he proceeds down the hallway. The timepiece by the disgruntled dark-haired priest’s elbow shows the hour, that of the lynx.

Whatever seeds of remorse that have sprouted inside Eren wilt as quickly as they grow; he ought to be more careful with books, especially ones not his own, yet he is beyond caring at this point. He can always offer to rearrange the whole library in his idle hours. For now, his lady awaits.

And a true lady you are becoming, more and more each day. Some days, you would spend hours apart, you to your councils and audiences and duty, he to books and sparring and leisure. Much as he mislikes these times, some part of him marvels at them, marvels at you and what you can become. Detestable as she is in your intimacy, Lady Rhyzkova is promising to be a most resplendent woman. The image of you coming into your own excites him more than he realized.

Goldhaven’s sanctum is unrecognizable from the wood that it was two years ago. Then, it was a forest of oak and pine and hawthorn, of cypress and poplar and willow. Now, it is a park, and what oaks and pines and hawthorns there were are now growing in disparate plots across the sward. 

He strides down the stone trail that winds its way through the sanctum, eyes peeled for you. The sun is no longer at its zenith and has begun its slow descent into the west. It has dipped below the castle’s towers and so a quarter of the place is in shadow. He walks in dimness for a while until he comes across a choice of paths; he chooses the lefthand one and presses on, emerging at last into the light.

Like the gardens at home in Highridge, Goldhaven’s are elevated, perched high above the city on its leveled edifice. The wind will always blow here. It whips his hair about his face and he considers, for the briefest of moments, having it cut back to its preceding length. He has never grown his hair this long in living memory (it is almost to his shoulders now, hopelessly shaggy), and he is starting to realize why. Your voice echoes in his head, telling him how much you like the look on him, and he desists. For all the trouble it brings on, longer hair has its benefits.

A cluster of gardeners is about, trimming the verges that border one side of the large, circular fountain at the heart of the park. All turn to him and bow with their ‘Sirs’ and ‘Milords’. He acknowledges them with a nod, moving on and on and on, following his stone path. 

Still, his lady is absent, yet he knows where he will find her. Past stands of trees he strolls, once again astonished by how far this sanctum goes. The only other garden he knows can match the length of this one is the Bulwark’s. Connie had often claimed that one needed a mount to negotiate the place, as he and the Lady Mikasa were wont to do; it would take them half the day to do so on foot if they so chose to ply the full breadth of it. Eren had tested the veracity of that claim one summer’s day and decided that Connie was full of hot air and made from weak stock. It only took him half an hour to range the whole thing on foot, from the castle to the end of the gardens and back again.

He finds his lady where he knew she would be. High up you perch on the hawthorn tree, right there at the very end of the sanctum, lying latently along a sturdy branch. A fold of white cloth drapes down the bough from your dress, that white dress that exposed a great deal of smooth, shapely leg, split as it is from the thigh down. You are barefoot; your sandals peep out at him on the ground, beside a wicker basket and the godstone of this garden, a smooth, gray monolith with its proud, gray god, standing in front of this proud, tall tree.

His smile comes easily at your beauty’s behest. You have made a servant of his joy, and it comes so eagerly at your presence’s command. You are making a servant of all of him, his bits and parts, and he finds that he can care little and less. You can lead him anywhere and he will come. Unquestioningly. Willingly. Freely.

Your head turns at the sound of his footsteps. You smile your own smile and rest your head on your folded arms beneath you. “You have kept me waiting, Sir.”

Eren stares up at you, utterly charmed. “Here I am at last, my lady of the sanctum. I have kept you waiting only because time slipped away from me.”

“Ah, a flaw at last. The strong and dashing Falcon Knight is a most terrible timekeeper.”

“That is most unfair, my lady. It was only the once, I can assure you it won’t happen again. Look kindly upon me, I implore you.” Wind threads gently through his hair, light as your fingers had been that night in the Sphere. It slips through the edges of his loosely tied vidnon, its touch cool and pleasant on his bare skin. He takes a step forward until he is a handsbreadth away from the godstone. The rounded top of it reaches his waist.

“Why should I look kindly upon someone who calls me unfair to my face?” Wind threads gently through your hair, lifting it from your pretty face to flutter in the breeze. The hem of your dress ripples outward like a pristine banner. Not once did your smile drop.

He rests a hand atop the godstone. “It was the judgement that was unfair, not my lady herself.”

“The Falcon Knight has a silver tongue.” You sit up, lithe and languid, and press closer to the trunk.

“See, I have more to commend me than my timekeeping.” He comes closer, hand sliding off the godstone as he takes a step forward until he is standing by the hawthorn’s roots. His lady is sitting mere feet above him, all smiles still. He need not reach up very far to take one dainty foot into his hand. Yet he does not.

“What else commends you, aside from that tongue that gives you such credit?” You place an elbow on another branch beside you and rest your head upon your arm, playful as Alena of Makan had been with her Prince of Dreams.

Eren places a hand on the trunk, gleaming up at you, his own Alena. Without the flowers in her hair. “Wouldn’t you like to know. My lady.”

You giggle, a sound as sweet as silver bells. “Oh, I would like to know indeed.” You push off the branch and make to clamber down the tree.

At once, he reaches out to assist, taking a small hand into his own and guiding your way down the sloping trunk. The smell of leaves and herbs, that most intoxicating green smell, clings to you like perfume. It smells even better on you than your own perfume. Sweet as apples and winter roses are, they are not so comforting as the scent of fresh plant life.

You bend down to retrieve your basket, and there stands before him a maid of the wood. A vevda you wear, white and sleeveless and girdled with gold, the neck dipping down sharply to bare the shapely curves of your breasts. Your legs are as shapely, peering out from the split skirt of the garment. Your toes dig into the soft, lush grass beneath your still-bare feet. 

Eren gazes long and keen at you, committing the image of you as you are now to memory. A living fae maid. You only lack for flowers. A strong desire to crown you with such rises in him, and he glances about the wide, sweeping place. Flower bushes dot the area every few feet. Goldenglow and bronze betties and silver dream-of-morns, crocuses, peonies, even a patch of devil’s bloom with its black-and-scarlet petals, the garden is well-populated and still untouched by autumn’s hand. He will have enough for you.

“May I ask what it was that so engrossed the Falcon Knight that he would forget to keep a solemn promise?” you inquire lightly as you slip on your sandals.

“I was brushing up on my military science in the library. On the most sage recommendation of Sir Grisha.” You make your slow way back to the castle proper, hands clasped.

“Looking to gain more of an upper hand on me at our games, are we? I’ll have the truth of that tonight. I do admire your diligence. I would never think to read sleeping draughts as large as those during my reprieve.” You smile, shy and sweet, as he plucks a goldenglow from a passing bush and tucks it behind your ear. His hand lingers, tracing over the curve of your ear, slow and gentle, before pulling away. 

Eren watches you bite your lip at the gesture and look away. He bites his own lip to keep from smiling too widely. “Once you get past his tedious style, Hoover actually had interesting theses. And it wasn’t him that grabbed my attention. Prior Horst and his compendium provided a nice respite from all the philosophy and tactics.” 

“Ah, Lore and Luminaries?” You emerge at last from your reserve, eyes alight with interest.

“Mm-hmm.”

“Understandable, then. You are forgiven your lapse.”

Eren chuckles, just as you near the sanctum’s fountain. He has been rereading the old tales of late. His favorite stories ring different, somehow, though no one has changed the words. Perhaps it is he who has changed. Perhaps now he is reading with new eyes, not the eyes of a boy but of a man in l- 

Thump, thump, thump.

His hands have gone clammy in yours, though you do not seem to notice as you draw him down next to you onto the stone lip of the fountain. A circular stone colonnade, open to the skies, rings the structure. Queen Yelena Rhyzkova I stands at the heart of the fount carrying jugs, one pouring water down her stone vevda, the other spraying over her regal head. The steady splashing of water blends seamlessly with the rustling of leaves about you.

All those fade to nothing until all he can hear is the beat of his heart. Thumping, thumping inside his chest. Is he truly? He glances sidelong at his betrothed, the only girl he has ever liked this much. He likes you very, very much. But is it truly? Is it truly… love?

“The girl with flowers in her hair.” You reach up to touch the blossom behind your ear. “I only have the one.”

The sweet voice brings him back, as it always can do. “That can easily be remedied.” The gardeners have moved on to other verges. Those they had been trimming are in full bloom about you. Goldenglow, laceflowers, and violets give Yelena’s fount a touch of ornamentation. Eren plucks a golden blossom, and before long, he is plucking more, laceflowers, violets, more goldenglow. Fingers, long unpracticed, begin to remember their old skill. Slowly and surely, the crown takes shape.

“Where did you learn how to make crowns?” You observe his weaving hands, rapt.

“Mother and I used to make these for one another whenever we lounged in the gardens back home.” He smiles, lost in work and in memory. “I was her little Falcon Knight. She was my Queen of Love and Beauty.” 

The wreath lies finished in his hands at last, gold and white and violet. “Yours now, my lady, the title and the crown,” he avows, placing the ring of blossoms over your head. “The Queen of Dreams and Love and Beauty. The most beautiful Majesty.” The fae maid has flowered at last. “The girl with flowers in her hair.”

There it is, that look that he loves, the gentle awe of him come to grace your face again. And there it is, that word again. Love.

“The Falcon Knight has turned into the Prince of Dreams.” You brush light fingers over the petals and smile so beautifully. “You miss her so much,” you say, quiet and thoughtful, a statement meant to be a question yet comes out a statement nevertheless.

“Every day. And I always will.” The unceasing wind is the most comforting presence. He turns his face toward it, longing for the smell of salt. The sanctum faces away from the ocean, and so it is faint here, and far away. But it is there. Beneath the scents of the city - dust and woodsmoke and spices and humanity - there the salt breeze blows. Faint but never gone.

“You’re fortunate you can take care of yours,” he finds himself saying. “I could only watch, helpless, as I lost mine.” He takes your hands, marveling at how small they are compared to his, how smooth, and soft, and unscarred. Unmarked by violence. The hands of peace. The hands of a ruler. “The hands of a Healer,” he murmurs to himself, almost absently, caressing the unblemished skin. “You will preserve life, while I will take it away. And I have taken it away from a host of others.”

He stills as he feels the softness of your lips brush the back of his knuckles. You stroke the scarred skin, immersed in thought. “They have taken but they also give.” You hold up his hand and lace your fingers through his. His fingers close tight over yours as you reach with your other hand to cup his face, rubbing a tender thumb across his cheek. “And they can be so gentle. And so kind. And if they take, it’s only to preserve. You take to preserve those who matter.”

“And who are they, the ones who matter?”

You give him a long, considering look before giving answer. “I think… you would know that better than I.”

The ones I love. Those I am sworn to protect. The weak. The innocent. But who are the innocents, exactly?

It is too much to think about. Too much for the time and the place. Eren turns his head, to place a kiss on the cherished palm on his cheek. “Again, you always know what to say.”

You take your time withdrawing your hands, smile as soft as eiderdown. “I’m glad my words can touch you.”

“They do more than touch me, my lady.” He drinks in the sight of you, another one to keep in his memory for all his days. His eyes fall to the pendant that rests beneath the hollow of your throat, the family heirloom that proclaims to the world at large that you are no longer free for the taking, unavailable for marriage to anyone and everyone. But for him.

You will return the jewel to his House, as all brides must, to trade it for a more permanent piece, the scallop-and-pearl of those bound in wedlock.

The black pearl necklace’s chain gleams a bright silver beneath the afternoon light. Black and silver, like his vidnon. Black and silver, to your white and gold. Absolute opposing colors. Yet for all their opposition, a matched pair still.

“Lord Alexander invited me out for a gardening session,” he says, reminded of the fact by the basket that is sitting beside you. It is filled with greens, he now sees, indistinguishable from each other to his untrained eye.

“Oh?” You give him a look, of interest at the news, and of slight puzzlement at the change of subject. Which is just as well. You need to stir this ship to brighter, less troubled waters.

“Mm-hmm. I’m scared to death,” Eren laughs and rubs a hand across the back of his neck. He cannot help recalling one of his recurring nightmares ever since you had been promised, of Lord Alexander chasing him around the halls of Midford Castle, swinging at him with a gigantic bludgeon. His future father by marriage is an amiable man, true enough, yet he is also… big.

You giggle at his expression and take his hand. “Oh, you have nothing to fear. He’s the most lovable pup despite what his size may tell you. Unless… you do mean to make me cry.” You gaze at him beadily as you tug him to his feet.

He scoffs. “I’ll tell him what I told your barkeep. I have no intentions of ‘doing you dirty.’ And if I do make you cry…” he lets his eyes dip down to the luscious curves of your breasts, and smirks, “it won’t be from grief.”

His smirk unfolds into a grin at your disbelieving huff. “That’s quite enough out of you,” you mutter, picking up your basket and pulling him into a walk. The corners of your lips are twitching upward, though. “And here I was thinking I could give you a lesson in herblore to better get you into his good graces. I’ll leave you to Father’s mercy, then.”

“Please, milady, I’m sorry, milady, I won’t say no stupid things again, I do so swear. Teach me the ways of the wood.”

You beam and laugh and wrap an arm about his waist, this girl with flowers in her hair. This girl any man can come to love. “Since you asked so nicely… I am compelled. And perhaps we can scrounge up greens for Renren’s tank.”

No, not any man. Only me. Only me.

Oluo Bossard is a man who plainly loves the sound of his own voice.

“‘-flattered that you care for me so, Lady Petra, but I cannot take you to wife for I am already wed. Duty is the most jealous mistress and she will not suffer any other woman in my life,’” Bossard yammers from his place before the blazing hearth, waving his empty teacup around as he regales… who is he regaling, exactly?

Dorin Serech is sitting before him in a pale purple armchair, yet his nose is buried in a book, apparently deaf to everything but for words writ in ink. Crowded around the window embrasure at the end of the room are the Brotherhood’s youngest. Connie Springer is holding court, entertaining Bertolt Hoover and Marin Tarasav with anecdotes of his own. He at least seems to be having more success with his audience, who are laughing and rejoining with corresponding quips. The forefront of the solar sees Erwin standing behind his desk, dictating a missive to Hange, the only woman (lawfully) allowed in the Hall of the Sentinel.

Perhaps Bossard is under the misguided impression that he is interested in hearing about the paltry niceties of his life. That annoys Levi to no end. He must disabuse the man of that notion at once. He stands from his own armchair by the fire, clutching his cup of tea, and sweeps past the still-rambling knight, who does not seem to notice his lack of an attentive audience.

Prior Hange does not so much as glance up from her work as Levi walks past her seat at the left hand of the Lord Commander’s desk. He does not escape Rolf Wolfsbane’s attention as easily, though. Hard bronze eyes glare at Levi as he leans against the wall beside the fabled princely knight, the most fabled in the Royal Guard’s history. Or so they claim. Levi ignores the glower and takes a sip of his drink. Pardon me, Your Grace, but you are only a bust and I’m free to lounge about wherever I like.

It is not long until he has drained his cup. He stares down at the specks of tea leaves dotting the porcelain and feels that old and familiar feeling once more, the one he can’t quite give a name to. It is one he always has whenever his squires come into their own and he is left to face the prospect of acquainting himself with a new boy yet again. It is part wistfulness, part resignation, he supposes. But that is the lot of the knight. Useless to tell himself never to get too attached. Somehow, some way, no matter how slight, he still does.

All that at the sight of tea leaves. He can almost laugh. He wonders if the new boy will be an exceptional teamaker. Dieter Augenstein is to be the name of the new boy, a younger son of a Lesser House sworn to the Reisses, a lad of some eighteen or nineteen years. Levi will have to teach him the ways of perfect brewing if he proves to be a botch. Eren’s first attempts at brewing had been depressingly unacceptable, yet he learned in the end. It is always a toss-up with the boys. Some will always be better brewers than others. But none have yet surpassed that most consummate of brewers, Farlan Church.

“Finished! At last!” cries the Prior, at the exact moment the Lord Commander speaks.

“Copper for your thoughts?”

Erwin is glancing at him from the corner of his eye. The leaded glass in front of him shows the Hall’s yard and Midford’s main keep right across their smaller holdfast. The day promises to be a good one for rain - the autumn storms are begun at last. If they aren’t, then they will be soon, now that the Month of Storing has started.

Levi looks away from the Lord Commander’s gaze and his right sleeve, empty, armless, and pinned up at the shoulder with an iron brooch in the shape of an anvil. “Keep your coin. My thoughts aren’t worth that much.”

“These ones are, it would seem. What has the cool, imperturbable Levi Ackerman looking so… sentimental?”

“Ah, I am starving,” Hange whines, slumping down on her seat, utterly woebegone. Erwin stares at Levi a few moments more with that piercing stare of his, then turns to sit down before his desk and pick up the letter the Prior has completed, reading over the contents. 

Silently, Levi lets out a breath. Relief. Did he truly give himself away like that? I’m losing my touch. Many squires he’s had over the years, and yet the first always comes back to haunt him. It’s always the first that gets you, for everything. His first squire. His first triumph. And his first true failure.

“Where are Mike and my sweet rolls?”

“This is passable,” Erwin announces after a time, and Hange sits up, lips pouted, mind stuck on her stomach. “He’ll be pleased to hear back from me soon.”

Ortwin of Smith Street is a blacksmith of the highest standing. A standing he did not have before his son rose to prominence, some will be quick to whisper. He was one of many smiths in the area, deemed to be neither exceptional nor terrible. But that was hardly fair; his craft is as fine as any smith’s worth his salt, and he is worth his many times over. And if his son’s legend brings on more custom, what of it?

“Will you be delivering by dove or in person?” Hange yawns, rubbing at her stomach.

“In person. It’s been some time since I’ve visited.” Before he lost an arm, the Lord Commander had been known to return home on his free days and take up his old trade again. He was a capable smith in his own right; that storied blade of his, Sunstrike, is a weapon of his own making. It is no truesteel blade such as those forged by the peerless metalworkers of Old Paradis, but the sword had served him well over his years of active duty. Now it sits in his rooms, gathering dust, its vocation ended.

“How is the work coming along?” Hange asks, a little vaguely, seemingly distracted from her stomach at last. Her eyes are trained on the rest of the room’s occupants, thoughtful and ruminative.

“Well enough. Slow but sure, as they say. Fold this for me, would you?” Erwin hands the priestess back his missive and she complies, folding the parchment into a neat rectangle and securing it shut with pale purple wax, which she stamps with the Royal Guard’s seal, a crown ringed with twelve swords. “Although I fear I may never again be as able. Continuous practice is what’s needed and my duties get in the way of that. Being Lord Commander is detrimental to being a smith.”

The Lord Commander’s visits to his family forge are not entirely filial. Still he takes up his craft, trying to hone his remaining limb until it is as dextrous as the vanished one. Levi can empathize, to a point. His dear Uncle Kenny had broken his right wrist when he was a boy, soon after he had mastered the rudiments of swordplay with his dominant hand. To make him a most well-rounded warrior, the man claimed as he proceeded, brutally, severely, ruthlessly, to train his young nephew to fight with his left hand.

Not for the first time, Levi feels that most consternating confusion of anger and gratefulness that rises inside him at the thought of his uncle. Seeing Erwin struggle to recondition his body after such a profound loss only exacerbates the emotions. More than half of Levi is thankful that, should he lose his right, he will still have his left and be as proficient as he ever is in battle. Not even the Lord Commander can claim as much. Perhaps those years of hell were worth it, after all.

“Has this room ever been full?” Hange questions promptly. “With all of you lot, I mean. The Brotherhood of the Twelve instead of the Brotherhood of… Seven,” she adds after a hasty headcount of the solar’s occupants.

“It can’t ever be full,” Levi reminds her, crossing his arms over his chest. “The king is not to be left alone and unguarded under any circumstance.”

“Ah, right.” Something morose descends upon her in a flash. Unusual to the highest degree with this most upbeat of Priors. “Don’t you have three from the North? I see one northman… where are the other two?”

“Sir Julian is on duty, with Sir Keith. Sir Symon is… away,” the Lord Commander answers, careful and circumspect. Things have been uneasy with their northern brothers nowadays. Not so Dorin, not as much, with him being a Trostman (and therefore not one of the aggrieved northern parties, though their sort remains wary all the same).

Renouncing past ties and allegiances to serve one is easier said than done. Hard to keep those vows when the one you devote your life to has done you a great personal wrong. And reducing your line - a line ten thousand years old, one of the oldest in the land - to a mere shadow of what it once was is a great personal wrong, Halkin will not see it as anything but. Worse still is to eradicate your whole House, root and stem, and leave you as the sole successor to its legacy. And a fine successor Skaryn makes, one whose vows prevent him from leaving his own successors to cultivate their tree. His House will die a true death with him, in the end.

Mistrust is a chord that does not strike well with the Lord Commander yet that kingslayer Marius Zackly had given precedent for the sentiment to exist. Never again will Julian Halkin and Symon Skaryn do duty together. The squires are to be kept away from the northmen as well. They cannot risk the boys being overrun should the men act on any impulse of retribution; only the veterans will serve with them now, to keep the closest watch.

A loud whoop of laughter rings out from the other end of the room, from the squires and their cheery japes. No, not squires, no longer squires, Levi has to remind himself. They are knights now, dubbed and anointed as he is, no matter how young. And they will not remain so. Further service and battle will change that. And time. Which is, at present, working further changes on them. Connie, who not too long ago was of his height, now overtops him, to Levi’s displeasure; a large part of him feels betrayed.

“Laughter is always a good thing to hear. Sir Symon should be here to partake of it. Or at least to listen.” Hange smiles sadly. “How terrible it must be, to know you are the last. It’s a hard sentence to bear.”

“The law is the law, no matter how hard.” The Lord Commander hesitates for an instant, before advancing, “No matter his… disposition, and his judgement, it has been hard for His Majesty as well. We’re looking to you, for good measure, to keep him safe down where he will not let us follow.”

Prior Hange nods soberly, and Levi is left to ponder. His Majesty has been visiting the vaults more often these days, and lingering longer than his Guard would like. Levi can trace this change as having come about in the days of the late Lady Mariya’s death. Which had concurred with the late Zheletine priest’s court visit.

The king’s private enterprise has been years long in the making. It started with Dietrich, the most truculent of lords in recent memory. Where it will end is yet to be determined. Rod Reiss, the First of His Name, will not be the first Reiss to start this selfsame enterprise. The end may yet be imminent but it need not be uncertain, if the fates of His Majesty’s enterprising forebears were anything to go by. You would think he, or anyone else, would learn by now.

It is the stuff of the Lord Commander’s worst nightmares, this project, and it tears him between duties - to obey and to protect. He had dared ask the king, once, the nature of this undertaking, only to be coldly rebuffed and warned off of further inquiry, on pain of dishonorable discharge. No man of them has inquired since.

They can put two and two together, nevertheless. His Majesty can make his Priors swear all the oaths he requires and warn off his Guard all he likes, yet that cannot make them ignore the sounds, muffled though they are by thick metal. Levi hears them still, in his nightmares. Disembodied they are in life; at the castle in the air in the gloaming, they take on the most monstrous forms. The Titans were long before his time but he has seen the tapestries, the portraits and the paintings, and those come to life in his head in his worst nights.

It disturbs him to no end to know that the king will see them living once more.

“All this magic in the world and we can’t even wield it. All the potential, all of humanity’s progress wasted. At the least, it would make this whole thing so much easier.” Hange sighs. “It’s an ironic thing, isn’t it, that the thing we are working on is the very reason we lost our divinity in the first place.” Sworn to silence she may be yet this vow she does not keep. Not with them, the Lord Commander and his leal right hand. They proved too sharp to feign ignorance with, so there is little point in upholding the farce.

“For all the death and destruction they brought, though… Titans were a marvel unlike any other. To see even one alive… to know that it was I who brought them about… that it was due to my brilliance that the impossible was made possible… I should die happy,” Hange breathes, and slumps down on her chair, dreamy as a milkmaid mooning over her farm hand.

It is all Levi can do not to shake his head at her. “A misstep and you’ll die before you see your life’s ambition come to pass. There will be no joy in it for you, I promise you.” Doubly so should their studies cause the death of the king. Some days of late, he emerged much the worse for wear, to the Lord Commander’s increasing disquiet. Holding his tongue to obey his king is becoming more of a sore trial, day after day after day.

“The Northern Matter, it’s what’s spurring him on. They won’t stand up to him if he still had the old power,” says Hange, suddenly grim as the grave they had reduced Zheletov to.

Ill-done, it was ill-done, a voice oft suppressed murmurs within. Try as he might to play deaf, something in Levi acknowledges the voice’s truth. Once, his nights would have been spent in the company of the dangling dead. Sleeping like a log makes for a superior shield against the accusing eyes. And time. The dead have lost all the power they held over him. Something in him is appalled by the fact. Death is never supposed to be easy.

“This is not the place or time to discuss this,” Erwin breaks in tersely, a note of warning in his voice.

“Do the lads know?” Hange asks, as though Erwin had not spoken. “When are you going to tell them? Soon or late, they must know if they’re expected to perform their duty to its full.”

The Lord Commander sighs. “Soon.” When their mouths prove as closed as mine, are his words unsaid.

“I’m back.”

Hange gasps and pops up from her seat, dashing toward the solar door with cries of welcome and glee. Mike fends her off at once as best he can from his basket of goods. “Marchpane!” she squeals, grabbing at the crock of it sitting atop his promised sweet rolls. Matthias Ackerman looks on from his place by the door, unimpressed by the tomfoolery occurring beneath his bronze nose. To be sure, there is very little that can impress the bust of the first Lord Commander. Levi wonders if this was true of his ancestor in life; he will know where his own temperament comes from, if so.

“Soon?”

The current Lord Commander gives Levi the briefest of looks before he stands from his desk. The squires-turned-knights are coming over, drawn by the Prior’s capers and the smell of fresh-baked bread. Erwin proceeds to his subordinate to grab a bite of his own. “Soon.”

You tap on the door, the little knock that you and Eren have taken to using for your late-night meetings. You have not used or heard it in quite some time now, now that you think on it. The blowback from the Northern Matter had cut into your nighttime arrangements. That is not to mention the hassle that came with traveling and settling back into the rhythm of being home once more.

But you have grown peckish reading Lore and Luminaries (which you had borrowed from the library at your betrothed’s unknowing influence). Somehow, reading of Gerald and Cressida’s midnight trysts served to make you crave your beloved strawberry cream pie. And your own knight’s company. You had left the lovers of legend in their midnight garden and slipped to the guest wing, by ways only you were privy to. 

Almost all castles have their secret passages, byways to cut the time spent ranging from one side of the keep to another. Most serve a more vital purpose. Father had shown you one such some years ago. It is conveniently located in the anteroom of the family privy chambers. The second panel from the tall window to the left of the room, you must always remember. This one leads to an underground cavern, which opens up to the Arsechkalan countryside. Should the worst come to pass and you are besieged by enemies, gods forbid, you are to take here the family and as many of the household as you can and escape for the nearest sanctuary.

It is a grim probability and not one you want to think too deeply on yet you know your duty. A good ruler must save as many of her people as she can in times of peril.

The passage you took to visit your knight had a less bleak purpose. Sir Bacon - may the gods give him rest, the darling thing - had found it for you sometime before you entered court. There it is, in the corridor that leads to the empty chambers connected to yours (your future consort’s, your parents informed you). The brown tabby had tripped a mechanism in one of the hallway’s alcoves and you had both slipped through. This one leads to a hidden garden, an old sanctum, now unused, which in turn leads to the inner palace gardens (this one not a sanctum). From there, it is no trouble slipping through the castle halls to your destinations of choice. It allows you to steer clear from the guards posted by the privy chambers, at least, which makes for the greatest of godsends.

You hope Eren isn’t asleep yet.

His door swings open and a god emerges. The breath leaves your lungs with all speed.

The firelight from the braziers standing either side of the entryway gives this god a bronze cast and throws shadows across his naked skin, accentuating every line, every crest of hard corded muscle. This is a sight not new to you. You saw it then in Zheletov and see it often in your most desirous dreams, yet in this warm gilded light he is even more a glory. His is a stunningly perfect body. And he is; stunning and perfect, broad and lean and muscled, handsome, so handsome, the consummate image of a man at his best. Your eyes roam lower, to the sharp-etched muscles of his flat stomach and the dip of his hip bones, to his dark pants sitting low on his hips, to what lay beneath the concealing cloth, right there in the junction of his thighs…

Your throat has gone dry as dust. You swallow and attempt to drag your eyes up to his face. A fine sheen of sweat brought on by the fuggy air makes him gleam almost golden. Like the Sun. The Creed oft depicts him as such, Lusin, god of sun and flame and youth. The golden god, young and handsome and virile, a deity to rival that comeliest of gods Elios, the male half of Lyias the Lover.

You need not look too far to see Lusin mortal incarnate. The young man before you is fire made flesh, an ethereal being, a golden man.

He has been drinking in your own form, you realize, catching the tail end of the movement of his eyes as they flick up to yours. His eyes are dark.

“Um,” you begin, knitting your fingers together on your stomach and withering a little inside at your discomposure. Bad form, bad form. “D-did I wake you?” The stutter makes you wither some more.

“Uh, no, actually, I was just… headed there. To bed, I mean.” His eyes drop down to your chest, much exposed by your short-sleeved black vevda, and back up again. “To what do I owe this nighttime pleasure?”

“I’m peckish,” you say, your voice coming steadier now, to your relief. You try to ignore the dip in his voice as he said his last two words. “I thought I’d invite you along to have a midnight nibble, just like the old times.”

“The old times of three months ago.”

You laugh lightly as the mists of tension dissipate a little. “Yes.” You pause. “Unless you’d rather head to bed. To sleep,” you hurriedly tack on when his abundant eyebrows vanish above his hairline. “I mean, it’s late and I can understand if you’re tired and would rather rest, I can go by myself-”

There is something in the way he says your name that silences you at once. Eren gives you one of his delightful crooked smiles, full of fond affection. He holds on to his doorframe, carrying on, “I’d love to accompany you. Let me just-” He gestures down his bare torso. You wish he hadn’t.

You purse your lips and merely nod, not trusting yourself to speak. He flashes you another smile, takes another peek at your breasts, and withdraws, closing his door with a soft snap.

A quiet gasp escapes you the instant he disappears. What was it he said about less dangerous hours and less dangerous dresses? “Fuck,” you curse softly, standing still in front of his door. You glance down at your chest. It hadn’t truly occurred to you just how deep this neckline went. Not until he brought attention to it with his, frankly, shameless ogling. You didn’t even mean to tease him with this garb, truly - you hadn’t been lying when you told him of your tastes in homegrown fashions.

You stride over to the opposite wall and sit on the nearby daybed placed between two rounded pillars, a lounge for hosts to mingle with and keep their guests company. Your twined fingers rest primly on your lap. For all that you tease your betrothed, you certainly are not impervious to him. And he knows that well, and takes advantage. From thus comes your ebb and flow.

He had fucked himself to you that night you noted that ebb and flow. It is one of those strange thoughts, surreal in their strangeness; they seem too… much to be true, and yet they are. Up until that night, you had not truly allowed yourself to consider the possibility that he, Eren Jaeger - sweet and kind Eren Jaeger, a boy oftentimes so stiffly awkward in the face of desire and romance - could ever desire you as much as he apparently did. And yet he did. By the gods, he did.

You had set that drying sheet aside, singling it out lest you lose it from the countless identical others in your possession. You do not know how he used it for his pleasure (and ruminating on that brings its own pleasure). You do know that it had known the touch of that glorious body, that it had caressed the most intimate parts of him in ways you could only hope to do someday (and the day is growing closer, so much closer).

The Lady Wanton was most disappointed that he had laundered the thing afterward. Gone was his most alluring essence, lost to you this time. You had so wanted to tell him - to his sweet, sheepish face as he returned the cloth the next day - that you couldn’t give two figs about him sullying what was yours. The Lady would have been thankful for a splash of water off his skin, his sweat… even a hint of his seed.

You squeeze your fingers hard upon your lap, stunned by the turn of your thoughts. Never have you shrunk back from your most wanton musings, but never before has a young man induced so much of them out. And in that capacity, too. You chuckle to yourself. It is the most bizarrely droll thing. There he is, getting dressed for one of your many late-night jaunts; here you are, sitting on the daybed and thinking about his seed…

The creak of wood and iron hinges makes you jump a little in your seat, throwing your mind back to the present and out of the gutters that it had rolled in so happily. Your godly knight comes to you in a dark vidnon, dark as the sky at midnight, black and violet both. Its silver lining at hem and sleeve and edge are bands of stars, elegant against the darkness. 

Her ladyship Mistress Wanton rues the loss of the sight of his radiant body. You have not much to rue, in truth, favored as you are by the sight of his broad chest, partially bared by the loosely tied jacket. The light is his most ardent lover, so determined to show him at his finest. You stand from your seat, hands still clasped in front of you.

“My lady. Shall we?” He reaches to take one of your hands in his own.

You recoil at his touch, to both of your bewilderment.

“What’s wrong?” With his concern comes the smallest inkling of hurt. 

The sight of it makes your stomach drop. “I-I’m sorry. I’m just… a little wrought up, I don’t know what came over me.” You reach out for him and slide your fingers through his, holding tight. His hand is rough, so warm against yours. As it always is. “Let’s head on, then,” you smile up at him, and are relieved when he returns it.

Perhaps your wanton thoughts and his touch make for a more overwhelming blend than you realize.

The kitchens are empty, the pantry well-stocked. Not that well-stocked, Eren complains, when it fails to yield his favorite cream cakes. “I’ll have them start making them for you, then,” you say, placing your mug of tea and plate of strawberry cream pie on the wooden table and sitting down on the bench.

You have lit the branches of candles atop a couple of the fluted pillars that bound the servants’ dining hall. It is not quite enough to banish the shadows, but it is enough to see by. The room opens up to the castle’s herb garden, so beloved of the palace cooks. The waxing moon shines over the plots; its faint light silvers the greenery and lends the place a dream-like aspect.

“Please. If it’s not too much trouble. I do miss the things.” Eren plants himself next to you, having settled on a lemon cake (Armin’s favorite and a staple of their boyhoods) and his own brew. “Let’s see if they can make them as good as Lisa does.”

“I’m sure they’re more than capable of meeting your ideals.” You take your first forkful of confection. Excellent as always, you think, well-pleased. The pastry is well-baked, the cream smooth, the strawberries sweet. Just the way you like it.

“You’ve set the expectations high, milady. Here’s hoping they can, indeed, meet them,” he raises his forkful of cake at you in a teasing toast, then begins his midnight repast in earnest. “You know, for all their tastiness, these can get really sickening really fast when you have them every bloody day,” he remarks thickly, swallowing and looking reflective. “Stupid thing to fight over, though, now that I look back on it. Boys can be the stupidest creatures in the world sometimes.” He shakes his head, amused yet hangdog. “I really gave Armin hell over loving a bleeding cake, gods… speaking of, have you heard back from him yet?”

“It’s only been a couple of days since our last letter,” you remind him, making him hum in recollection. The both of you have been corresponding with Armin this reprieve, sharing parchment and taking it in turns to write down your sections. So far as you have heard, Armin’s reprieve is proving to be rather mundane. And dutiful. 

He had filled his scrolls with accounts of councils and audiences and meetings, with the occasional trifling yarn. His Alyfeis was as festive as ever, he had told you in his last missive. Some fisherman had caught a swordfish fifteen feet long, which he had offered to Lord Hagen for the audience, now they must dine on nothing but swordfish for a month, the Young Master Arlert jested. He sounds well, in any case, and both of you are glad of it.

“Nice to know it’s all rosy on his front, no matter how unremarkable,” Eren says, then snatches a piece of your pie, to your disbelief. He chews and blinks and smiles, cheeks dimpling a little, innocent as Olya after his daily shenanigans.

You pout at him a little, though you can feel your lips trembling. “If you want less unremarkable news, the one from home should serve you more than passing well.”

Eren widens his eyes at you, chewing on his own sweet now, frowning and chewing faster to chastise you as you take the moment to raid his own plate. The tartness of his cake is a pleasant change from the sweetness of your pie. He swallows and gripes, “Oi, no fair.”

“It’s more than fair, thief.”

He snorts yet smiles all the same. “All right, the debt is paid. As to that other thing… I’m to be an uncle twice over now.” His mouth curls in mild revulsion. “Their sheets must be exceptionally dirty these days for that to actually happen.”

“Oh, hush, you,” you reproach, light-hearted, smiling at his little snicker. “Took them five years this time. I suppose Zeke’s hoping for a boy. Your proper Jaeger heir.” You have to scoff at these Paradisian conventions. Ymir can rule just as well as her lord grandfather. Having or not having a cock should never be a consideration in such matters as power. In this is yet another way the Old Way triumphs over the new. You, at least, need never worry about Tibor or Oliver supplanting your rights. Vascalin is yours.

“And I move down the line of succession,” Eren declares, with no hint of envy or regret. This betrothed of yours has never aspired to further power or rule, a fact you find noteworthy. Honor, glory, and renown make his ambition, nothing more.

“Should Elva have a boy, we’ll have the making of little Ymir.” Lord Grisha had broached the matter with Father in the letter he’d sent bearing the monumental news. The birth of a brother will leave her free for wardship.

“Southron-raised, just like her uncle,” Eren mulls, taking a thoughtful sip of his tea. “A fine court to be in. I expect to see a proper lady when she comes back to us in full.”

“Of course, you’ll have nothing less.” Ludicrous to expect anything less. “Too bad she won’t have Olya for company. Still, there are the other wards, she won’t get lonely.”

Eren has finished his cake at last. “Olya’s a good lad. A champion in the making.” It had been such a joy to watch your betrothed instruct your brother in the ways of the horseman. You had acquired a pony for the little lad, a sorrel colt Olya had named… Lad. Lad was a gentle thing, an easy enough mount for a boy of five to manage. Eren had taught Olya the fundamentals, the equipment, the proper stances, and walked the boy around the inner yard to get him used to the motions. Olya had wanted to canter, but Eren put his foot down; he must walk before he could canter.

Seeing Eren handle your baby brother was… enlightening. It is not often you see him around children, yet he handles them more than exceptionally well whenever he chances to be with them. Ymir, Olya, even slightly older children like the miller’s girl Meadow, all of them he treated with an easy warmth. You find yourself pushing your fork around your plate, swirling cream and crumbs and strawberries about. He would make a great father, the smallest of voices whispers within. You smile tremulously down at the remains of your pie.

“Oh, look at this.” You have unearthed that rarest of treasures: a twin strawberry. Such luck. There it sits in the middle of the dish, a delicious red heart half-buried in sweet white cream.

“Luck,” Eren whistles, leaning closer to see. Heat prickles down your skin at his proximity.

“Do you want the other half?” You are cutting it down the middle and spearing the piece with your fork before you can think too much on anything else. You hold the utensil up to him, offering.

He does not move to take the morsel at once and merely stares at it, quite uncomprehending. Blank. There is something incredulous about his blankness, you notice. You suppress your smile. This will hardly be the first time you’ve ever fed him. You wonder what holds him back this time around.

Eren stirs back to life several heartbeats later and opens his mouth for the treat. You give it to him gladly, watching his lips close around the steel to take his half of luck. A pink flush colors his cheeks as he chews, faint in the dimness of the hall yet visible all the same. His eyes never leave yours, though.

You break the stare to tuck in to your own half, very aware of where this fork has been, of whose essence you are now polishing off the ware. Somehow, this piece is the sweetest of them all.

“There’s cream on your cheek.”

You still as a long, slender finger runs gently down the skin of your face, near the righthand corner of your mouth. You turn your head to look at Eren and watch as that finger vanishes into his mouth. He catches your eyes and flushes once more, yet his embarrassment leaves as soon as it comes. “Sweet,” he says, low and simple.

It is some time before you can think to look away, closing your slightly open mouth. You cannot recall parting them. “Let’s head back.” You make to stand from the bench.

“My lady.”

There is something in his voice that strikes. He is earnest as earnest can be when you turn to him once more. “I know I tease you sometimes but I never mean to upset. If such attentions are unwelcome, then tell me and I’ll stop. But,” he reaches up to rub at the back of his neck, looking down at his lap like a scolded boy, “I thought we’d reached a certain understanding of one another the past month or so.”

Guilt blazes up in you at his crestfallen face. “No, it’s all right! I mean,” you shy away some, fiddling with your fingers on the table, “your attentions are very much welcome.” Perhaps you had been more curt than you meant to be, earlier. And you did flinch away from him before that, much earlier by his rooms… All responses easily misconstrued. You resolve to do better moving forward. “We do have an understanding of each other now,” you add quietly. “I’m sorry if I came off so… standoffish.”

Relief overtakes him, so strongly that it brings a smile to your face. “I’m-I’m glad,” he answers softly, taking up your hand in his and kissing it, light and gentle.

You leave the kitchens with the air cleared between you.

“So.” Once again you stand at the threshold of his chambers, about to part ways this time. You give him a parting beam. “Good night, Sir. I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

“Good night, my lady. Dream of me tonight.”

Both of you giggle at that, and your fingers thread through each other upon your stomach as you contemplate your next course of action. Hesitating, hesitating… Oh, hell. You move forward and tilt your head up. Lemon and tea, soap and wood, Eren floods your being as you press your lips to his cheek, right at the edge of his mouth. You move away several heartbeats later, smiling at him one last time. “I hope your dreams will be as sweet as mine.”

And you turn and float away. You look back once you reach the end of the hall. Still he stands outside his door, staring back at you with a hand up his cheek. Like a statue. The most handsome statue. The tale of Kamilla the Kisser comes back to you then, she of the village of Swiftfrost, the girl who could turn men to stone with a kiss.

You giggle, wave, and move on.

Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

---

A/N:

Disclaimer! Any real-life herbs I mentioned and their properties are heavily played around with and may not reflect their real uses and properties in real life. Fantasy = playing around with these kinds of things, after all.

Added 1 (one) paragraph in Chap. 10 about Eren being quite fluent in the Traders’ Tongue for future purposes hehe. Also reworded a bit of Levi’s Chap. 4 dialogue to reflect the plot here - the old draft made it seem like they had no idea about Rod’s plans in the vaults.

And speaking of, yes, at last, the reveal of what His Majesty’s hobby actually is: he’s trying to bring back the Titans. Major plot point commences. To add on: Lord Commander background! And memories of squires for Sir Levi. Oh, Farlan...

I mentioned Wolfborn before, yes? Literally wrote Eren’s POV with their little theme (5:44 - 6:07)  in mind and I just *sighs* *swoons* at last, one of my favorite scenes come to life! Can’t wait for the next ones, hehehe. Ahh, the young couple coming to grips with *love*. Is it love? Is it? 😬😌🤭

Speaking of themes... toying with the idea of publicizing my playlist for the fic... and maybe publishing all the lore details as an extra (most like in AO3)... the playlist is more likely to happen but... I’ll see, I’ll see. I’ll deffo post links if I get around to them.

Again, thanks so much for the support and interest in the fic! Everyone’s been so kind and I’m storing all the love in my little heart <3 Til next time!

Tagging: @princess-okkotsu @lukepattersin​ @tojis-discord-kitten

[bitwhizzle]

I am curious about "Cody - SOLDIER FIRST" 🥰

Would love to know what it's about 😊👍👍👍👍

Oh Coline...here goes!

SOLDIER FIRST: Currently at 14K words. Actively being worked on.

It's about Cody and an OC (I started it before I fell in love with Codywan) but it's light on the relationship stuff and heavy in them becoming friends. She is a "volunteer" trooper in the GAR (lots of backstory of how that happens), and lands in the 212th with my Phantom Company. Throughout the story, Cody struggles between his feelings of being a person vs being a soldier, and basically the soldier always wins - hence "Solider First". *sad face*

Here's a snippet:

Cody scanned the battlefield, noting the alarming number of clones that lay on the ground. The battle had been tough and had gone bad quickly. Too many fallen brothers. He allowed himself a small sigh. Where was she? A small knot formed in his throat. He began to wander through the still bodies, looking for a smaller form, but then saw her. She was sitting beside a downed clone, her helmet off, her hands clasped tightly in front of her. She shifted slightly and the sun caught the tears that had spilled from her eyes, trailing diamonds in their wake. He looked at the trooper she sat beside and recognized the markings on the armour – it was Caller.

Cody the man wanted to run to her and take her in his arms and kiss the tears away. He wanted to whisper soft words of comfort into her ear, have her lean into him and surrender her safety to him.

Cody the soldier stared at her for a moment longer and then turned and walked away, knowing that there wasn’t time, or space, for him to comfort a lone soldier on the field. He had to make his reports and liaise with the other units and his general. The war waited for no one.

*Caller is one of her closest friends, he basically takes her under his wing when she joins the GAR, she is a sniper, he is her spotter.

**Taking this opportunity to brag about my Guardian (Cabur) Squad, of Phantom Company, led by Captain Silver (not to be confused with Captain Silver from Mace's company in Lethal Trackdown...I REFUSE TO RENAME MY CAPTAIN DANG IT!), Lt. Humble & Sgt. Pivot. Then there's Jigs, Medic Warn, Dash, Caller, Misfit, Fizz, Baz & Kickback (& Alice). I love them. But <<SPOILER>> I kill a bunch of them. Oops.

[storyunrelated]

Shuriken catapults

Could have been worse. He was a guardsman, after all.The man in front of private Mault was, without warning, chopped to bits, most of him from the sternum up sliced to ribbons in a heartbeat by something that blurred and whistled and whipped past faster than the eye could see. Mault, swearing, threw all his effort into stopping moving forward and flung himself backwards, landing hard as his legs flicked out from under him, crashing into the trooper immediately behind him. The trooper immediately behind him also swore.

“Man down!” Mault screamed, somewhat unnecessarily given the mist of them still hanging in the air. He was scrabbling to get a firm grip on the lasgun that had slipped from his hands when he’d fallen back. He couldn’t tear his eyes off the man just ahead, or what was left of him. 

Mault hadn’t even known the man’s name. He’d only joined the squad this morning to shore up numbers, and there hadn’t been much time for conversation after that. And now there he was, three-quarters of the person he’d been moments before, just lying at the intersection of some corridors in a building that likely wouldn’t even be standing by the time the week was out.

And still Mault stared, fascinated, appalled.

There really wasn’t much of the man left north of the waist, or at least nothing whole, nothing especially recognisable. Some of him was still attached - his arms, part of his neck, what might have been his skull - but it had all been shredded to ribbons, even through his flak. All so neatly though. No tears, all cuts, all perfect lines. 

This was why Mault couldn’t look away. It didn’t look right, didn’t look like it could have happened, didn’t look real, even though he’d seen his share of wounds like this ever since the aliens had arrived, albeit never so fresh and never so immediate to himself.

Those weapons of theirs. The long-arms. The ‘shuriken’ ones, he’d heard them called by some of the more senior members of the company. Fired storms of razorblades, he’d heard. Bursts of hundreds of discs made of something-or-other, all at the single pull of a trigger. Could do awful things to a man. Could do, well, what he’d just seen. Turn a human being into a hasselback human being in the blink of an eye.

Damn aliens.

“Grenade out!” The trooper behind Mault - the one he’d bumped into - shouted, stepping over Mault to toss a grenade around the corner and bounce it off the wall opposite. It bopped and rattled out of sight and, further out of sight, there came a semi-distant, clipped burst of plainly alien cursing and a rapid shuffle of (what Mault assumed was) alien feet.

Then the grenade went off. Shrapnel zinged past and bits of corridor rattled off Mault’s helmet as half the squad took the opportunity to dash across to the other side, hopping the body on their way.

Mault hauled himself to his feet and stumbled to the corner, hunkering there with his lasgun and risking a glance. Through the drifting smoke of the grenade he saw, other than shredded corridor, one distant, prone figure in white armour, lying where it had fallen. One of the aliens. Presumably caught a fragment while running, presumably. The white armour Mault had seen a lot. Meant it was one of the regulars - Guardians. Citizen levy or something like that. As close as you could get for aliens, anyway.

This was a relief, as if it had been one of the proper soldiers - one of the ones in blue with the big helmets with the tufts - Mault wouldn’t have fancied his chances. He already didn’t fancy his chances, admittedly, but if it had been those aliens then he would have fancied his chances even less. Those ones were professional, lethal, and merciless. Not for nothing had the squad needed replacements. Apparently there were even worse ones, too. Ones Mault hadn’t seen yet. The Guardians were about Mault’s speed. He felt comfortable 

At this rate, he put his odds of seeing dinnertime at maybe an even fifty-fifty. 

[sortyourlifeoutmate]

Shuriken catapults

The man in front of private Mault was, without warning, chopped to bits, most of him from the sternum up sliced to ribbons in a heartbeat by something that blurred and whistled and whipped past faster than the eye could see. Mault, swearing, threw all his effort into stopping moving forward and flung himself backwards, landing hard as his legs flicked out from under him, crashing into the trooper immediately behind him. The trooper immediately behind him also swore.

“Man down!” Mault screamed, somewhat unnecessarily given the mist of them still hanging in the air. He was scrabbling to get a firm grip on the lasgun that had slipped from his hands when he’d fallen back. He couldn’t tear his eyes off the man just ahead, or what was left of him. 

Mault hadn’t even known the man’s name. He’d only joined the squad this morning to shore up numbers, and there hadn’t been much time for conversation after that. And now there he was, three-quarters of the person he’d been moments before, just lying at the intersection of some corridors in a building that likely wouldn’t even be standing by the time the week was out.

And still Mault stared, fascinated, appalled.

There really wasn’t much of the man left north of the waist, or at least nothing whole, nothing especially recognisable. Some of him was still attached - his arms, part of his neck, what might have been his skull - but it had all been shredded to ribbons, even through his flak. All so neatly though. No tears, all cuts, all perfect lines. 

This was why Mault couldn’t look away. It didn’t look right, didn’t look like it could have happened, didn’t look real, even though he’d seen his share of wounds like this ever since the aliens had arrived, albeit never so fresh and never so immediate to himself.

Those weapons of theirs. The long-arms. The ‘shuriken’ ones, he’d heard them called by some of the more senior members of the company. Fired storms of razorblades, he’d heard. Bursts of hundreds of discs made of something-or-other, all at the single pull of a trigger. Could do awful things to a man. Could do, well, what he’d just seen. Turn a human being into a hasselback human being in the blink of an eye.

Damn aliens.

“Grenade out!” The trooper behind Mault - the one he’d bumped into - shouted, stepping over Mault to toss a grenade around the corner and bounce it off the wall opposite. It bopped and rattled out of sight and, further out of sight, there came a semi-distant, clipped burst of plainly alien cursing and a rapid shuffle of (what Mault assumed was) alien feet.

Then the grenade went off. Shrapnel zinged past and bits of corridor rattled off Mault’s helmet as half the squad took the opportunity to dash across to the other side, hopping the body on their way.

Mault hauled himself to his feet and stumbled to the corner, hunkering there with his lasgun and risking a glance. Through the drifting smoke of the grenade he saw, other than shredded corridor, one distant, prone figure in white armour, lying where it had fallen. One of the aliens. Presumably caught a fragment while running, presumably. The white armour Mault had seen a lot. Meant it was one of the regulars - Guardians. Citizen levy or something like that. As close as you could get for aliens, anyway.

This was a relief, as if it had been one of the proper soldiers - one of the ones in blue with the big helmets with the tufts - Mault wouldn’t have fancied his chances. He already didn’t fancy his chances, admittedly, but if it had been those aliens then he would have fancied his chances even less. Those ones were professional, lethal, and merciless. Not for nothing had the squad needed replacements. Apparently there were even worse ones, too. Ones Mault hadn’t seen yet. The Guardians were about Mault’s speed. He felt comfortable 

At this rate, he put his odds of seeing dinnertime at maybe an even fifty-fifty. 

Could have been worse. He was a guardsman, after all.

(I’m not the best at zip-zap-kapow but I’m trying to practise)

[localhopedealerr]

-Endless Light.-

Okay, finally being brave and trying my hand at this writing thing. Any kindness, advice ,and (helpful) criticism is appreciated!! i hope you all enjoy it! Sorry if its too short.

Azriel x reader fic

Tiny angst( self depreciating Az), fluff.

-Endless Light.-

Azriel had been gone for more than a week. A quick trip to one of the illyrian camps had been extended due to some unruly behavior between the men, the note he sent you going into no further detail than that. He didn’t want you worrying.

It wasn’t unusual for these visits to be extended, and although you prided yourself on being an independent women, you weren’t used to having to go without your mate for so long. You had started to miss his company, and were ready to have him back home. 

Your eyes opened slowly on the seventh night, your body having given over to sleep earlier while you laid reading on Azriel’s side of the bed. The book offering you peace from your now constant longing.  You mind and body thrummed, feeling the presence of your mate finally back within the walls of your home. You didn’t hesitate to leave the bed, now wide awake and eager to place your eyes on him to finally soothe your worries. 

Your steps were quiet as you made your way down the stairs, arms wrapping around yourself, as your head peaked past the corner, finally spying the winged male.

He looked like he had all but fallen straight into the armchair upon his arrival, his hair disheveled from his flight home , still dressed in his leathers, siphons gleaming. A picture of a lethal warrior, usually. But you saw the sag of his shoulders, something pained in his expression. He gripped a glass of amber liquid in one hand, while his Hazel eyes stared off distractedly into the fire before him. 

It wasn’t unusual for Azriel to get like this, the toll of dealing with the brutes in the mountains affected him more than he’d ever let on out loud. You had seen the change in his attitude upon arriving home from missions like these enough. Knew better than to assume he was ‘just tired’. Their actions against the females made your stomach churn, even if your mate left out most of the horrific details when recalling them to you. You couldn’t imagine having to witness those crimes in person. Having to feel responsible for them.

You knew he heard you wake, no doubt listening for your soft steps as you silently made your way through the house to find him, arms wrapping around him as you leaned over the back of the chair to embrace his shoulders. 

“Hello Shadowsinger.” Your lips murmured against his neck, pressing a soft kiss where your words ghosted against warm skin. “Why haven’t you come to bed?” 

His free hand lifted up to rest against your own that intertwined at the center of his chest, his body finally seeming to release some of the tension that sat coiled within his bones. 

“I didn’t want to ruin our reunion with my bad attitude.” His eyes glanced up to look up at your own for a moment before returning back to the burning fire. The churning in his eyes gleamed in the glow, the orange hues highlighting the sharp planes of his face as he continued to contemplate whatever plagued his mind. 

“ Should i be afraid to ask how it went this week?” You questioned, reaching out and stealing the drink from his hands to take a sip of it yourself. The amber liquid burned against your throat as you swallowed, and you couldn’t hide your grimace as you set the glass back down in his hand. Azriel smirked, the first positive emotion he’s shown you. 

He leaned back against the chair, a lock of his hair falling over his eyes as a breath left his body. “Sometimes it just doesn’t even seem worth it, you know?”

“What doesn’t seem worth it?” You asked softly. 

“ War. Battles. Constantly being at odds with the Illyrians over barbaric customs.” His eyes looked over and locked with yours, an unavoidable pang ringing through your chest at the helplessness that swam within them. “ But then I remember you. I think about what I would do if you were one of them. And it makes me want to split this whole world in two. But it drains me completely some days. I feel like I- I'm never going to do enough for them.”

You moved then, coming around the chair to seat yourself in his lap, blocking his view of the fire. Your arms wrapped around him and your lips met his finally. And although he’d been traveling all day, and hadn’t had a chance to properly wash up, his lips were still the softest thing Y/N had ever known. Soft like the first snowfall. Soft like melting and floating and being weightless in water. So effortlessly perfect.

You pulled back to study his face, your fingers tangling into the hair at the base of his neck. You could never understand how you got so lucky to have him as a mate. A male who had such compassion and depth inside of him, a light that seemed endless, even when it had endured so much.The world was surely a better plsce with his soul in it.

“ You are incredible. You have no idea the change you are bringing to the people you save. I mean, their whole world is changed because you stepped in. They have a chance at a  better life because of you. That will always make it worth it. Whether you chose to see it or not, you are doing more than enough.” 

His cheeks heated, and in an effort to hide the affect your kind words had on him, he leaned in to press another long kiss to your lips. He communicated everything he couldn’t put into words through the kiss, the gratitude for his mate seeping into the bond between the both of you

"I missed you." He murmured, lips still touching your own.

You untangled yourself from him when you both finally broke apart, cheeks heated and lips swollen. Your hand extended out to him in an offer. Ready to take him upstairs with you. A feline smile gracing your face. 

 “ Well then, come show me how much you missed me.” 

[dr4kenlvr]

wounded

pairing: baji keisuke x gn!reader

genre/wc: fluff, hurt/comfort (2.4k)

request: ok what about baji x reader meeting at the hospital au? like he makes it to the hospital and the reader is also there bc of an accident and they happen to be roommates? and even tho they're both quite the opposite they start to build a friendship, get really close and after the reader leaves the hospital baji realises how much he enjoyed the readers company + the reader comes to visit him and they keep their friendship going (overall fluff and hurt-comfort maybe?)

a/n: first off: HAPPY NEW YEARS EVE!!! now, i really love this idea, and this was really comforting and interesting to write since baji is my tokrev comfort character <3 reader sort of has my personality sorry in advance LMAO this is so self-projecting of me; thank you for requesting and please enjoy. please read warnings before proceeding.

warnings: takes place right after the valhalla vs toman fight [alt. ending], reader is hospitalized due to a car accident, re-tellings of blood, and fear. mentions of suicide. THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS FROM TOKYO REVENGERS VALHALLA ARC.

𝐀 𝐒𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐖𝐇𝐈𝐓𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐂𝐋𝐎𝐔𝐃𝐒 𝐁𝐀𝐉𝐈'𝐒 𝐕𝐈𝐒𝐈𝐎𝐍, 𝐈𝐓 𝐏𝐈𝐄𝐑𝐂𝐄𝐒 his eyes and suddenly he feels a dull ache behind his lids. he closes his eyes, 'steady breaths' baji tells himself. he's— to a certain extent,—aware of what's going on: he has two stab wounds, his head is pounding now, and he can hear chifuyu behind the crowd of doctors pulling his gurney. what he doesn't know however, is how he's gonna survive.

baji opens his eyes, a heavy soreness threatens him to close them again. 'must've fallen asleep.' fighting the pain, he looks around to his surroundings. he's now in a hospital room, it's plain and minimally decorated; bone white walls with frames of doctor alumni smiling bone white teeth— baji snorts. "who gives a fuck," he mumbles quietly, before adjusting his position. a sharp pain in his abdomen erupts a sharp groan of pain, 'motherfucker.' baji's arms lift slowly to peal away his shirt. bandages stained with the patches of blood were wrapped tightly around his stomach and suddenly baji felt like he was suffocating.

"looks lethal," a voice from his right calls out. "you feeling okay?"

baji shoots his head in your direction. he was too occupied with himself to realize you were right next to him, also in pretty bad shape: he took a glance at your face before his eyes trailed down towards your left leg that was currently being supported by a brace block.

by his lack of response, and his abundant stare, you answer his silent question: "car accident. drunk driving, the asshole rammed straight into us. and my leg, as you can see, got fucked up in the process." you gaze at it, an unsettling sensation travels throughout the limb. you typically wouldn't have wanted to remind yourself of the fear and blood you saw that night, but the boy seemed curious. "i've been practicing how to use crutches, but my body doesn't seem to want to cooperate," you scoff. "what about you?"

baji furrows his brows, he supposed you were his roomate for the next how-ever-many-days (or weeks, who knows), he ought it wouldn't be a bad idea to get to know you.

"stab wound," he mutters. your eyes widen and his gloss over at the recollections of last day's fight. blurred memories of kazutora, and mikey, and chifuyu. kazutora on the dirtied ground, mikey above him as he plummeted fists upon fists to his face. the blood he choked up was enough for baji to reminiscence the familiar taste in his own mouth. he remembered chifuyu, holding him in his arms after he had plunged the knife into his own stomach. he remembered thinking about how he was going to die, and how he was going to help everyone by doing so. 'well, so much for that.'— and that kisaki, fucking kisaki tetta. baji clenches his fish and tenses his jaw at the mere reminder of him. he hears your voice, and it pulls him away from his thoughts, "huh? sorry, what d'ya say?"

you lean back against your pillow with a consoling smile, "i said it's nice to meet you.." you trail off. the boy gives you his name: "baji, you're the first to accompany me in here— it can get pretty lonely. i'm y/n by the way."

baji returns your smile, before an unexpected yawn escapes his throat. "what time is it?" the view outside the too-small window shows a night sky: dark, quiet, and cold. baji unconsiously pulls the blanket up further to his neck.

"almost midnight, hope you're not afraid of the dark." you taunt.

baji laughs this time, "ah ah, watch it."

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐍𝐄𝐗𝐓 𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆, 𝐁𝐀𝐉𝐈 𝐖𝐀𝐊𝐄𝐒 𝐔𝐏 𝐓𝐎 𝐀 𝐒𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐍𝐄𝐃 𝐆𝐑𝐎𝐀𝐍𝐒. groggily opening his eyes, he immediately turns his head over when another groan leaves your mouth. baji rubs his eyes and attempts to shuffle into a more comfortable position. the same sharp pain from last night burns into his flesh.

"be careful baji, the doctor's advised you to not move around too much." a nurse tells him, and greets him good morning. she must've noticed him get up as she was helping you position your leg over the side of the bed. baji mutters a 'morning' back before looking over to you. your face is scrunched in searing pain while you hold onto the nurse for support as she grabs your crutches because "practice makes perfect!" he can see you roll your eyes.

"see you in a bit, baji" you tell him, sending a brief smile his way before hunching as you and the nurse slowly make your way outside the room. with you waddling on two sticks, the nurse is forced to slow herself down tenfolds. all part of the job.

baji listens to the nurse's advice and closes his eyes. he thinks about his friends, his mother, his situation, and you. you had told him that walking on crutches was difficult for you, and he hoped you could adapt to it soon. he wondered where his friends were right now, was kazutora okay? and how about chifuyu? and that takemitchi guy...

someone knocks at the door. it's draken.

"how you feelin' man?," draken says, bending his head slightly to enter the humid room. "doc said you were asleep, when'd you get up?" he takes a seat on the chair adjacent to baji's bed, slumping down after tying a "get well soon!" balloon to its railing.

baji chuckles, suddenly feeling extremely happy to see one of his friends. "just now," he looks over to draken then to the glass of water by his table. draken notices, silently handing over the cup as baji gulps it down faster than he's ever drank something. baji clears his throat, it feels slightly clammy but the taste of blood has significantly disappeared.

"only you today?" baji asks.

"yeah, the others want to see you too. they'll pop by soon enough."

baji hums, head leaning back. he sighs, "can't believe i'm stuck here. it's the worst."

draken mirrors him, leaning his head back against the plush cushion of the worn chair. "who told you to stab yourself?" he smirks.

baji laughs, then coughs, and laughs some more. "shut up asshole," genuinely smiling for the first time since yesterday, "i.. i just— man i don't know." baji was clueless on how to explain his thoughts to draken, so he left it at that. draken doesn't push him any further.

moments later, you stumble in. looking as if you just ran a marathon, you—as fast as you could with crutches—stagger your way to your bed and immediately hand the nurse the canes. you were so tired, you barely noticed the six foot tall man sitting next to baji, who looked at you with bewildered concern. baji whispers to him that you're his roomate, to which draken simply nods.

"good job today," the nurse chimes, "you're improving very quickly. you'll be out of here in no time if you keep it up!" she sends a bright smile your way (you return it with a half-assed smile of your own) before leaving the room to attend to her other paitents.

"improving quickly my ass," you mutter while reaching over to your glass on your table. you raise it to your lip to drink—only to find it's empty. your eyes widen.

"what happened to my water?" you ask baji, who looks at you, then draken, then back to you with eyes wider than your own.

"uh— um, i- i'm not sure," baji stammers as his cheeks flush in embarassment. draken snickers, back facing you as he realizes what he just did: he offered baji your cup with your drink.

draken tells you he'll get another cup for you, saying it was already empty when he came in (baji glared daggers into him), and you gratefully thank him. after he returns with the cup, you gulp it down with fevor that could match baji's. draken bids you two goodbye, before leaning down by baji's ear to whisper: "this may be the worst, but at least you're stuck with someone cute hm?"

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐍𝐄𝐗𝐓 𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐒 𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐍 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐎 𝐃𝐀𝐘𝐒, 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐍 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐎 𝐖𝐄𝐄𝐊𝐒 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐁𝐀𝐉𝐈 𝐅𝐈𝐍𝐃𝐒 𝐇𝐈𝐌𝐒𝐄𝐋𝐅 growing quite fond of you. being stuck in this bleak room that reeks of bitter antiseptic and uninviting photos of surgeons, was much better with you around.

the two of you would converse all day and night, except for the times when you declared you needed your daily afternoon naps ("why do you need to sleep so much?" baji told you. "so i can rest up idiot! you should try it—you look like a wrinkled vegetable." you relaliated.). now, baji would spend his time either napping too; or staring at your relaxed features until you woke up.

at times he needed to go get check-ups, you encouraged him that the pain will be over soon and that he's strong for keeping up with it thus far. ("don't look so glum hm? you can do it." you told him one day when he seemed extra tired. he had peered at you with a softer look in his eyes, whispering "thanks y/n, you're the best."). and when you would go for check-ups, or your daily walks with the crutches, baji could see how much you were improving with each passing day. he was proud of you, and he could tell you were too: that huge smile that graced you every time the nurse complimented your progress was something he loved to see.

as draken had promised, his other friends came to visit him quite frequently. you were able to remember some of their faces for that reason, too. there was a particular boy who came the most often by the name of matsuno. ("a friend of baji's is a friend of mine, you can call me chifuyu!") you could tell he was baji's closest friend out of the bunch, he showed you a louder and more energetic side of baji you haven't seen yet; considering his situation, you didn't expect much though. it was nice— to see baji smile so widely, mainly because he had a such a nice smile.

the days carried on like so: wake up, talk with baji, laugh with baji, check-ups, naps, continue to talk, visits, talk, sleep, repeat.

one particular night where you couldn't sleep, you nudged him around with your arm until he woke up with a small yelp. chuckling, you guiltily told him: "can't sleep, keisuke."— baji had given you the permission to call him by his first name, and every time he heard it from you, he knew it was the best decision he'd ever made. "no? then let's talk until you do, how's that sound?" he told you, reaching over to brush his fingers against yours for a moment. you smile wearily, brushing your fingers against his once more "... sounds good."

"𝐘𝐎𝐔'𝐋𝐋 𝐁𝐄 𝐃𝐈𝐒𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐆𝐄𝐃 𝐀𝐒 𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐋𝐘 𝐀𝐒 𝐓𝐎𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐑𝐎𝐖 𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆!" 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐍𝐔𝐑𝐒𝐄 cheers one morning, "isn't that amazing news? i told you practice makes perfect."

you gape at her, eyes watering with a mixture of relief and happiness,—yet also reluctance and sadness. you look over at baji, who has a look similar to yours. he sends you a toothy grin and thumbs up. you grin back at him.

"yes, that's amazing nurse. thank you for letting me know."

the nurse nods happily and recalls all the preparations needed for your discharge: who to call, who's picking you up at what time, reminders to pack everything that belongs to you, follow-ups, etcetra.

you absentmindedly nod at her rant, your mind distracted by the fact that you'll be leaving before baji does.

"𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐌𝐔𝐒𝐓 𝐁𝐄 𝐄𝐗𝐂𝐈𝐓𝐄𝐃," 𝐁𝐀𝐉𝐈 𝐒𝐀𝐘𝐒, "𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐂𝐀𝐍 𝐅𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐘 leave this disgusting place."

you laugh. "yeah," you blink back a rising feeling, "i guess you're right." you look at him.

baji's face is a faint expression, you can't tell what he's thinking. not until he tells you himself: "i'm gonna miss you, a lot."

you can't help the sparse tears that fall down your cheeks. you feel like you're leaving your best friend of 10 years, and you might as well be, with how close the two of you got throughout your time spent together. reaching over for his hand, warm and comforting in contrast to your cold grip, you smile at him. "don't worry kei, i'll visit you all the time, okay? i promise."

"you fucking better," grinning at your laugh. "i'll be here." you nod, and bid him farewell with a fleeting touch.

𝐁𝐀𝐉𝐈 𝐖𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐓𝐎 𝐒𝐋𝐄𝐄𝐏 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐀 𝐇𝐎𝐋𝐋𝐎𝐖 𝐀𝐂𝐇𝐄 𝐈𝐍 𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐒𝐓. 𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐖𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐒 𝐇𝐀𝐕𝐄 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐋𝐄𝐃 significantly, but this was something else. and the many nights after that, the unbearable ache remained. it's been weeks now, with still no sight of you. he was beginning to think you forgot.

"where's ... ?" mikey asks as he pops into the room with a bag of snacks. "'nother check-up?" baji knew he was referring to you, but stayed silent, only shaking his head and greeting his friend to change the topic.

as the two of them conversed; sharing recent gossip about emma and draken, and how takemitchi "made hina so mad the other day, i swear she's a lot stronger than him!" mikey laughed and baji cursed because he wanted to see takemitchi get his ass handed to him.

"whose ass is getting handed to who?" your voice calls out from the door.

baji's eyes widen and his heartbeat pounds. mikey turns around, cheers and mispronounces your name—to which baji hits him on the head for. "mikey! you're so embarassing, stop!"

you chuckle at the boys, making your way to the opposite side of baji's bed. "i hope you didn't give up on me," you tell him, "i promised you i'd visit no?"

he sends you a cheeky grin, reaching out for your hand the way you did his. "almost, but i knew my doubts." he shrugs.

you hit playfully as the three of you laugh. you explained to him how it took your family some convincing, they questioned why you would want to return to such a place when you didn't need to. you told them you made a friend, someone who helped you make it through the painful days in the hospital. you had to go back. for him.

so here you were, holding baji keisuke's hand as the two of you promised to stay friends forever and more.

taglist: @dai-tsukki-desu @chuuae @kazuhoya @eriskaitto @gwynsapphire (send an ask or dm to be added!)

reblogs & comments are very appreciated!! <3

[muffindaddystyles]

Tell me you love me, before I go.

A/N: A very short smutty writing I had in my swirling whole night, which unapologetically I ended up writing in the wee hours of dark.

Summary: Harry and Y/N are rivals -- very passive aggressive enemies. When on a mission Y/N breaks into his room he had no choice but to punish her.

AU: Rivals to lovers, dark sci-fi, angry rough sex, spanking and spitting, reassurance kink and unrequited love.

A war between two groups. Left one with nothing but a tech base and other with almost everything. So the Arsonists raid the Phantoms' buildings to steal food items and necessary fuels for their people since they're mostly unarmed due to lack of weapons they try to use their brain as much as possible. 

Y/N works in one of the tech bases of Arsonists and right now she's standing with her five more mates trying to figure out how to break through these large gates of the villain's building, one of his most strong headquarters. 

They've to collect some data before another truck of fuel arrives for Phantoms next Wednesday so they could have access to it without doing much effort. 

Once sneaking in successfully because the two guards were too muddled in gossiping their arsess about their maiden. The building's nothing too extravagant, sleek and able to live, dimmed to an unpleasant light indicating everyone inside it is sleeping. 

She barges into the villain's room easily and almost had all the information in her hands from his drawers when the door to the room banged close, startling her at spot and the frames of her glasses fell on the carpeted floor. 

"Shit." 

"D'ya think cursing would take ye' out of here? if so you're down bad" Her heart sinks in when his cold insensate voice booms within the walls — a heavy boot comes crushing her glasses, again and again mercilessly. 

Her blood boils. Because, what the fuck. Doesn't he have any manners? 

"Do you think I need my glasses to punch the shit out of you, you prick!!" She pounced at him, almost breaking his nose into a splitted eiffel tower but he dodged it, twisting her wrists at her back and snatching the files from her sneering menacingly —- letting her painful grunts fly over his head without any remorse. 

"Well, well." She yelps when he tightens his grip angrily, "Look what cat dragged in come little mousey we're going to have some fun." She didn't know until now that someone could be this strong as he puts her in a chair like a rag doll binding her with no escape out. 

She tries to squirm and wriggle her butt out but he just tuts standing tall and evil in front of her, she rakes her gaze slowly up to his tanned biceps and clavicles popping from underneath his flimsy shirt, matted curls grazing his shoulders. 

"Oh no, trust me sweetheart, you're going to want to stay strapped in here. We're going to find out how many times an Arsonist can break –- and for the fact my people will kill you on the spot if you step out of my room." Shiver runs down her body from fear and he chuckles, flopping onto the edge of his bed, man spreading, leaning onto the heels of his palms behind him. 

"You're pathetic!" She spits out. Full of venom. 

"Pfft, a thief telling me that 'm pathetic." He shakes his head and she's despising his audacity as if he rules the world. She could kick him square in his sexy face but the thing's she's bound to this damn uncomfy chair. 

"Atleast, I don't go on killing people." She grumps and it's like she pushed a button when his irises turn pitch dark. Her eyes widen in astonishment, reeking with fear when he leaves his spot in a thunder striding towards her furiously and drags the chair closer to him, almost lifting it inches above floor. 

The next thing she knows that a gun is resting against her temple ready to be fired, "Ye' really that desperate fo' me to prove it to you, huh?" He growls, hooded gaze following the gun that's sliding down her cheek and the way her breath wavers —- lips trembles, nose twitches he knows he's fucked. 

"Will it hurt?" If she's going to die it better be an easy way. 

His eyes soften at that. Taking in the rosy features of her, the plushiness and squishiness of her skin that his fingers feels like dipping into cream. The women of Phantom aren't like this; they're built differently to fight and kill who wrongs them -- they're almost heartless at this point. 

"Dunno, You'll get to know after taking one." He shrugs like it's not a biggie tipping her chin with the gun's pointer and her eyelids slip shuts. She couldn't cry. Even her dead body wouldn't forgive her if she would cry infront of her worst enemy for the last time. 

"I hate you, Harry. I'd never ever forgive you for kidnapping my cat when we were small." There she said it. If she's gonna die soon she better let it off her chest. Before it could hit him right in the wound he builds a shield fast arguing back with a stoic chuckle. 

"Guilt tripping wouldn't help, darling." He tuts patting her cheek with the gun's barrel —- funny case it's empty of bullets. He just shooted all of them whilst doing target practice. 

"Fuck you." She yells. 

"It'd take much more action than just undressing me naked with your bare eyes." He squeaks dramatically. Stepping away and pouts when she huffs trying to kick her feet in his direction. 

"Not my fault that you're a perv." 

He pouts feigning fake disappointment putting a hand on his chest, "You're such a grudge holder." 

"Think about 10 ways to fuck me until then 'm heading to make amends for you -- see what they offer in return of their precious nerd." He smirks, it's sad such a gorgeous face could be such evil she thinks. 

// 

When he comes back she's fallen asleep from getting tired and exhausted being trapped in the same spot for hours, "Sorry, peaches but they don't want you back –- even told me to kill you if that what it ta —- oooh" He halts in his tracks closing the door behind him quietly not to wake her up and pads softly towards her, putting her dangling head back gently in a comfortable position and tucks a strand of her hair that's tickling her nose behind her ear. 

You're not supposed to act that way with your enemy, you FUCKER. 

His brain screams but his heart says otherwise. 

She has changed. She never cries anymore. Everytime they kidnapped her or she ended up being caught from his henchmen —- she'd always need company to make her feel less frightened from the hollowness of their buildings, would cry when they'd lock her up in dark rooms. 

It's awfully hurtful how once bestfriends turns into rivals just because of a conflict that ruined their and their families lives. 

She has been doing all of this for people who doesn't even care about her. They're using her and many others like her to build a nuclear power plant so they could become intimidating. 

He retires to sleep. Debating in his sleep whether he should just free her and tell her to sleep in one of the rooms of the buildings but soon the possibilities died when he was high in his slumber. 

// 

He groans, knuckling the sleepiness away from his eyes. He woke up from loud the thumping and found Y/N trying to break the door knob, he winces covering his ears when she screams watching him lunge towards her in rush. 

His chocolate curls bouncing atop his head. His emerald eyes speaking with morning's gold and lips ripe like cherry. His brows kinked in annoyance and expression pinched in rage. 

"You're confident." He rasps out in his morning husk and slams his hands on either side of her head trapping, cornering her between him and the wall.

"Did you really think it was going to be this easy." He nothing but purres, pushing her against the door. She gasps abruptly aware of their height differences moreso the radiation of power he daunts that she ignored her whole life. 

"Hmm." He hummed. Eyes black with intimidation burning her under the intensity of it, he keeps his focus on her, smirking. "It suits you. This trying to fight me, desperation is a beautiful look on you." 

"Fuck you." 

"I mean if, ask nicely." His smile is sweetly honey and lethal if you ask me. 

She glares at him with blazing daggers, "This isn't the way you make people love you." Her chest heaving with his heat close to her and his scent enveloping her. 

"Love?" He laughs fondly even, crinkled forming by his eyes and he breathes out when she hovers her dry lips over his's, "Sweet thing this isn't about love — if ye ask me far from that." He's lying. He's full of bullshit. 

"And yet you don't touch me or hurt me." She squints her eyes up at him wrecking her brain how to slip away from his hold, "If you beg so." He simpers awfully lewd for her. Sure as rock for what he said with his whole chest. 

"Come get me then!" She trips him aside and rushes for the door when he pushes her into it tightening his hand around her throat, it's aching him to tell her the truth but he wants to let her know her worth. He rests his forehead against her's muttering a rumble deep within his chest, "They don't want you Y/N." Her windpipes squeezes painfully. The statement punching her lungs. Tears springing in her eyes. 

"You're lying!!" She looks up at him shattered and desperate. 

He caresses his knuckles against her tear stained cheek, "Shh, shh baby I'll always want you even if they don't — " He jerks back when she blows hit at his brawny chest yelling at him. 

"It's because of you!! You, you, you." He sighs. Grabbing her wrists and pining them above her head, "Shut up, please." His chillness irks her more and she nips at him feastly. 

"Make me." So he does. When her eyes drift up at his determined ones it takes her breath away and she knew it was over for her. 

His lips catches her's in a hard kiss, driving them apart with the force of it. Nothing gentle mind mushing about it rather pricking needles into her skin with the severeness of it. She feels the door rattling against her back when he shifts, pushing her against it with his hips, every thought of her exploding into white noise of want and lust. The dark curl of desire twisting in her stomach and pearling sweat on her neck. With the last thread of restraint in herself she tries to pull away. 

"No." He says bringing her lips back to his's. Cupping her cheeks to deepen the kiss and it's ardent as before not loosing it's spark, she slips her hands under his shirt — pulling him closer and the low groan at the back of his throat, a small pleading noise of want sets her skin on fire. 

"Fuck me."  She mewls. Trying to latch on his body like a kitten with it's dainty paws. 

He glides his clammy palms down her bum and grabs her thighs wrapping them around his waist. Not breaking the kiss but tasting ever dulcet corners of her mouth and creating heavenly noises. 

The next thing they know she's crawling back with the help of her bum to settle in the nest of pillows and he's fumbling with his belt buckle quite aggressively, she tugs the hem of his shirt down not satiated enough from having his lips on her and meanders her fingers in his hair to pull at them roughly in order to flush her chest up against his's.

"Never thought your sheets would have smelled other than sex." Because, genuinely. They smell that of fresh mint and roses. 

"So, you think of me doing dirty on this bed you're laying at the moment?" He asks mock and degradation evident in his tone, "D'ya get wet dreamin' 'bout me railin' ye' to death?" He grazes his teeth along her jaw and sucks at her earlobe counting in her silence. 

"Shut up." She gasps, probably from the abrupt press of his bulge against the inside of her thigh. 

"Make me then." He growls. Fisting the hem of her hoodie and pulls it over her head throwing it among his skinny jeans. Her head falls back and lips tremble from the effect of slap he landed at her outer thigh —-- she knows she can't shut him.

Though he knows that her single command and he'd be at his knees for her. 

When she clings to him for dear life and whimpers in his ear softly, his eyes widen in realization and he leans away to watch her expressions diffuse into manifold emotions. His nose scrunches up and he holds back his cooes for her. 

She's a subby. A cute one. 

Her eyes blink open to the sight of him out of his boxers and it waters her mouth —- her mind manipulating her to lunge forward and take his heavy member in her palm to give a good suck to his shiny crimson head. 

Down her throat. Nestle her nose against the trim patch of hair under his balls. 

"Like what y'see, doll?" He highers his chin quite smug about her staring and she hates him for that, "Pretty cocky for someone who likes staring at his enemy's tits." Her voice groggy. She wheezes a squeak through her nose when Harry pulls his shirt over his head revealing toned pecs and abs -- skin sewn with tats. 

Unfortunately, she doesn't get to stare at it for longer when that shirt comes wrapping around her eyes blocking her sight. 

He can never let her have nice things would he?

"Wanted to gag your mouth with it … but I'd rather love hearing you moan fo' daddy." He nips at her collarbones -- sucking it harshly to leave a prominent mark. His calloused hand rubs over her tummy smiling against her skin when she jolts and lets a little squeal slip. 

His cock drips precome at her tummy and her breath shudders into heavy pants when the tip of his cock dipped in her belly button nudging it. 

"Ha —- " He glides his sticky head down her happy trail and slips his large palm into her panties cupping her with his middle finger teasing her entrance, "Couldn't hear you!" He ducks down to put his ear near her lips and drums the pads of his digits against her cheek. 

She huffs and squirms for a second then moans breathily when he spanks the side of her hip leaving a sting, "Oh my god, daddy." His grin victorious and he lowers down to smudge his lips against her parted ones -- kissing her tongue and humming around it. 

She's somewhere it's hard to configure out, in between paradise and wonderland. 

"Tell me princess, what d'I do with you in your filthy dreams?" He grabs her jaw patching gentle pecks against her lips and he slops his finger into her throbbing pussy, "Fuckin' drippin' down ye' bum fo' me." She cries out trying to hook her thigh around him but he hisses slapping her cunt hardly -- turning her into a thrashing mess. She's trying hard to suppress the bitter-sweet sensation of her own body getting out of control and her glistening pussy lips flutter erratically creating sloppy noises. 

She squirts drenching the sheets underneath them and her panties. 

He slides his arm under her arching back pushing her up against his chest with a jerk, "Daddy's askin' you somethin'." He grits, propping his knee in between her thighs to rub it against her soaking centre. 

She gulps, licking her dry lips, "You–your rings … ah!" Her whimpers are muffled against his chest and he twists his thumb in tight circles to smear her wetness from her slit to clitoris, "What 'bout them, doll?" 

How does she tell him she liked what he did earlier. 

"Daddy, please … " She whines blindly searching for his face but he grips her wrists in his one hand and groans, "How's daddy gonna make you feel good when you don't tell him, pet?" He takes a kitten lick of her perky nipple. Teasing her areola with the tip of his cold tongue against her warm sweaty body —- he laps at it hungrily then creates a suckling noises, the noises, his slobbery tongue on her body, his fingers curled inside her pussy and the thick humidity is too overwhelming, she feels like fainting. 

She wants him, inside her needy pussy. 

She can't take the teasing anymore. 

"Spanking! I – I liked it when you did it, please." He kisses her nipple for the last time before smashing his mouth against her's in a fervent sinfulness and parts away with a smooching noise to sit back on his heels, "It wasn't that hard was it? Just a word and I could give you my whole world." The sincerity in his voice makes her want to hug him and kiss him for lifetime but for now he has other plans as he rips her panties away moaning obscenely gruff at the sight of her pussy weeping for him to pound his cock inside her, so ready and full of dripping honeyed wetness  for him. 

"Your safe word is clouds." He whispers in her ear. He knows her limits and her resistance but by any chance he'd cross it he'd never forgive himself, "What's it?" He asks and she says in wavering, "Clouds." 

"Atta girl." He pets her cheek. 

Her nail scratches the side of his hands that are pinning her down when he spits on her already damp cunt, a loud noise resonates along with her needy cries when his free hand adorned in jewels came spanking her pussy and her pelvis remains lifted in air bathing in the sting of metal and the throb rattling in her whole core. 

"This's what you wanted?" He kisses his teeth slapping her slick clit again and again, "To be roughed up by daddy, hmm." She bobs her head squirming and wriggling. Her words struck in her throat. 

"To be manhandled." He hums a growlish moan tasting his own fingers coated in her juices, "I'll show you what being manhandled really feels like." He promises her. She gasps a sweet yelp when he flips her over and throws her bum up.

His cock rubbing against her thigh and her heartbeat fastens, anticipating something, crimping the sheets in her fists and mewls into the mattress when he spanks her ass loving the way it jiggles stroking it afterwards to subside the burn down before landing another brutal one. 

She bolts her eyes shut throwing back her hips at him and he lays all the way over her back pushing her down on the bed, her cum trickling down the inside of her thigh, "Want daddy's cock?" He asks. Slicking the head of his prick up and down her asshole and slit. 

When she nods vigorously he bumps it in furious circles against her swollen bundle of nerves, "Then beg fo' it," He says intimidatingly and she doesn't waste a second before blabbering shamelessly. 

"Daddy … please I want your massive cock inside me, all of it." In her entire lifetime -- she never once uttered these kind of words. 

His heart mushes into a puddle seeing her a babbling mess and grabby hands for him, he kisses her gently speaking to her with foremost affectionate, "shh, shh moppet. You could have it anytime you want it, daddy's g'na fill you to rim with his cum and make you keep it there for hours with his prick still snug inside your little pussy, just made for him, c'mere...yeah just like that." He lays her back gently that her front is facing him now and wraps his hand around her calve raising it and pushing it against her chest firmly.

A series of pornographic moans and whimpers echoes in his bedroom when he seathes inside her slowly stretching her out in by inch leaving a burn behind her pulsating walls, their breath laboured breaths mingling, "Fuck you're so warm baby —-- hugging daddy's cock so good." He whines looking down where they're connected and knotted. His stomach twists and turns, his hips stiffens and he resists from pushing inside her when she's not ready but her milking him with her wetness isn't doing him any mercy too. 

She gropes his ass, nudging him to move and their teeths clanks, temples falls against eachother and lips whisper prayers of their unrequited love when he pulls all the way back to pound back inside her roughly. 

"You're daddy's good girl, making him feel so good. I want to keep you to myself. all of you and cherish you, make love to you, w'na mark you however I want." He groans eyes rolling back under his closed lids grinding his hips against her's in rhythmic pleasuring motions to give her clit stimulations and she cries out feeling another bursting orgasm bubbling in her tummy. 

"'M gonna cum, daddy!" She tugs at his roots and he drives more maniacly inside her, "Squirt around daddy's cock pet, so your pussy could swallow it deeper inside you." The headboard of bed hits against the wall vigorously and she digs her heels deeper into the dimples at his back moaning at the top of her lungs when she gushes all over his dick making more squelching, soapy, dirty noises of him raming inside her. 

She desires for more. 

She has become one little insatiable thing. 

His balls smacks against her bum and his thursts turn faster to chase his high, "Fuck, fuck, fuck." He curses nuzzling his face into the crook of her neck and keeps his hand around his throat with the slight pressure of claimation. 

"Come fo' me again." He spanks her ass and she clamps shut down at him pushing him to the edge of ecstasy, "Squeezing me so tight -- gimme more, I know you can princess." Her legs tremble around his waist when she crampies around him and his cock's head strokes against her sweet spot doing wonders to just topple her off real quick. 

"Daddy!" She feels floaty and foggy head coming on his cock for the many times she has forgotten. Her mind blocking out even the weak shuddering whimpers and beaten moans of Harry as he reaches his orgasm unloading inside her -- his cum sticking thickly to her walls and some of it oozing outside of her pussy hole but he pumps it back with lazy strokes. 

He lifts his smushed face from the dip of her neck, his own curls sweaty against the nape of his neck and he smoothes his palms down her sides to calm her, his lips brushing featherly against the corner of her mouth as she keeps on blabbering something. 

When he tries to pull out gently she cries out pawing at his shoulders, "Daddy no!" He caresses her sweaty hair back and gets rid of her blindfold, pecking her nose sweetly. 

He wants to take care of her. He yearned to have her like this for years. He has to bring her back from her sub-space before it's too late. 

"It's no daddy anymore, petal. I'll crush you in this position — " Carefully he tries to retreat but stop when she says in a very dejected feeble voice, bottom lip wobbling and tears springing at the corners of her eyes, "You don't want me too?" OH NO. This's what Harry was afraid about. A breakdown. He saw the storm coming but didn't know it could be this worst right when she's in her sub-space. 

His face pales at that. His state in frenzy and panic. 

"No bubba. I want you my precious girl -- s'just you're gonna get tired like this, hmm. 'N I have so much to show you and make you meet new people -- couldn't have me baby walkin' on her wobbly legs for whole day could I?" He cups her cheeks tenderly and smiles down at her warmly smothering her in devoted kisses. 

"Promise, daddy?" She sniffles staring up at him with doe innocent eyes and he shakes his head, "Harry sweet angel, come back to me moppet." He keeps his gaze locked with her's, gliding his thumb delicately against her cheeks and seals his promise with a kiss. 

"Promise." 

She lets him pull out and he shushes her wrecked whimpers with his lips. Falling to side with a large puff of breather and embraces her with his arm slinged around her shoulders protectively and she hides her face in his chest, mumbling incoherent things and he tries to stay with her emotionally and physically much as possible -- assuring her and soothing her with his sweet nothings. 

"Harry." She whispers softly and his ears perks up at that looking down at her with most loving eyes, "Hi baby." He giggles quietly kissing the tip of her nose and she sniffs cuddling into him. 

"Sorry —- " He shakes his head pinching her chin to make her look up. 

"You don't have to darling -- s'okay, everything's alright." After, making sure she's okay and giving her million re-assurances because he loves to he cleaned her with a damp wash rag. 

"Such a pretty babe." He makes her blush treating her as if she's a china glass doll who'd break at his slightest poke and showers her in praises and kisses because dunno who got her self-esteem and confidence like that but that person sure needs to get punched in their face. 

"Did I hurt you?" He asks tenderly applying a thin layer of cream on her red imprints. She shakes her intervining her fingers into his's one by one and kisses his knuckle, "No." 

"Good." He chuckles as if he was holding his breath. 

"How bout you take a lil nap and I see if I could bring us some brekkie, hmm?" He's gonna break his own rule. Taking food from mess area to your rooms and taking long showers was never allowed, having lights on after 12 because of the risk of attacks. 

"'M not hungry, please stay." Her eyes half open and her face buried into his scented pillow, "Dunno. But to me you look like y'could faint any time soon." He says sternly pulling a snugly clean duvet over her body. 

"Okie but come back quick." 

"Don't worry. In a snap I'll be infront of you." 

//

It's her fourth day here. She came out of his room to socialize just a day before and she realized from the nasty glowers thrown her way that not a single person likes her. 

But it felt like spending a lifespan with Harry. To fill the emptiness of all those moments of their childhood together they lost once after the war. 

She got to know he's the best cuddler and likes to be a small spoon, she loves to jetpack him. He seems rather scary and is scary when he's commanding people off -- they wouldn't dare but to speak a word over him but he's this big softie Y/N likes to squish in their privacy. 

He got her glasses fixed and put them over her nose with a mishevious kiss, she was unable to not to grin when he murmered against her lips, "Now you could punch me with your glasses on." 

"Seems like I don't have to do that anymore." She shrugged squealing afterwards when he threw her over his shoulder tickling her till all she coul see was him and stars. 

It was all going on track until now when she was passing through the lobby to go to Harry who's practicing out in field, "What are you doing here Alex?" She asks angrily grabbing his arm and he tells her feeling relieved she's okay, "I'm here to take you back." 

"But they don't want me back." She grits, he catches her wrist pleading her sadly, "We want you back -- Nia waits for you daily." Nia is his five years daughter. 

"I know that … but — " How she's gonna tell him she's in love with one person they despise with their whole hearts. 

"But what — "

"Alex!!" He was in the midst when she sees a bullet approaching his way from the side of his shoulder and screeches loudly pushing him aside, the bullet makes it's home in her chest. 

It was fired from Harry's gun with his own hands that were loving on her an hour ago. Life drains out of his body and he feels sickness approaching to split his throat, knees turning weak as he stares his shaking hand in horror. 

Before, he could do anything another bullet hits Y/N in shoulder knocking her to floor and this time it was one of his people, the shot was fired on instinct. 

"Put your gun down!!" He shouts at him shoving him away with a single forceful push and strides towards where the love of his life's laying in a pool of blood. 

He pulls his hair maniacly, falling to his knees and pulls her up in his lap cradling her head gently to press his lips against her forehead, "No,no,no,no baby." He sobs wiping his tears away harshly to see her properly. 

"Ouch. It actually hurts." She gives him a frail smile raising her shaky hand to cup his cheek. 

Will it hurt? 

You'll get to know after taking one. 

He wishes he could takes his words back. 

"You'll be fine, you're okay, 'm so so sorry moppet. Didn't-- didn't know y'were standing behind him, bu –-- but s'...s'okay yeah —-- call the doctor!! Why nobody has called him yet!!!" His scream thunders aggressively as everyone watches  their commander this defenceless and vulnerable infront of them for the first time in shock. 

"It's not your fault, okay?" She manages to speak groaning and eyes rolling back from pain residing in her bones torturesly, he cries out like a wounded puppy patting her cheek to keep her awake, "Please stay with me baby, please." Her chest tightens. His chest tightens from the fear of loosing her and he stands up carrying her bridal style tumbling his way on wobbly legs towards the medical ward in the building. 

His tears shiny droplets on her skin and she nuzzles into his fragrance for the last time. 

"There was no happy ending to this," She murmurs. Any, sign of life fading from inside her and replacing her eyes with stoness.

He brings her closer to himself, "hey, hey now none of that -- you're not leaving. 'M not letting you leave." He kicks open the door and lays her limp body on the stretcher. Snapping his head outrageously in every direction to find any doctor but none and drags his palms down his teary face.

He couldn't stop crying.

He's loosing the sunlight of his bleak life he must protect her at all costs.

But, life's prize is something that would have him selling all of what he had worked for and still he'd be unable to even bring her back from cold dark earth.

"Shit. Shit ---– I'll patch you up myself. I know how to take a bullet out — " He creates a ruckus around to collect stuff, "Harry! Harry! listen to me." but her hollow anguish calls for him breaks him at last. 

"How about you spend these last few minutes with me because 'm really 'bout to die commander." She tries to keep her anxious voice cheery but fails drastically coughing blood, "Don't say that baby -- I just got you, don't leave me, don't make me hate myself again." Sad tears trickles down her cheeks and he feels like fainting imagining the pain, agony and fear she's suffering from. 

She's hating to leave him.

"Maybe in afterlife, we could have a nice homely house, long warm baths and two smol kittens —- and oh I forgive you for kidnapping my cat." She admires him for the last time wiping his tears away and tries to lift his head that's lowered into shame. 

She's so fond of him at the moment.

She gulps, trying to gasp for oxygen feeling her heartbeat drop to zero, pleading him, "Tell me you love me before I go." His bloodshot eyes snap to her's and his chest heaves ruggedly with heartbreaking sobs -- his words full of sorrow tasting the bitterness of goodbye on her lips streaking away the blood on her mouth. 

"I love you so much, baby. Never stopped. Never will." She cries at last kissing him back with all the blood she has left pumping to her heart and tries to exchange the words but it was too late before she lost it all -- cold in his loving embrace. 

"Stay…." He begs praying like he did never before. 

"Y/N!!" He screams trying to shake her alive and hugs his angel to himself with mournful wails. 

Everyone standing outside the room knows that they'll never see this Harry again. 

[dreamii-yume]

@shikigamiuwu said :

"So y/n is a sex slave that Lilia brought for his son for Silvers birthday ( let’s just say that this is a medieval ages idea setup), Since Lilia know that Y/N is Silver totally type of girl, decided to brought it and gift it to her. So Lilia dress Y/N in a sexy and expensive lingerie and give him to Silver became just like the First one infatuated to Y/N and was really possessive to Y/N, Silver will go to lengths of beheading the person who touch her or help her escape from his grasp. (Lilia just supporting his son and helping him clean the mess and train her darling). You can put spicy stuff more into it if you want."

AGAIN. This plot too has so much potential to be a Sinfic _:(´ཀ`」 ∠): im crying—

Warnings : Dub-Con | Slavery | Master-Slave Relationship

Since the Valley of Thorns is essentially a place where magic is everything, I would presume that a human who do not possess a knack of magic is treated as the lowest of the low.

The man that bought you was strange, a unique multi-colored hairstyle and his fangs were sharp underneath that mischievous smile. He says he has a lonely son who had been eyeing you for a while now, but you have no knowledge of this “son” he speaks of. But this youthful-looking adult seemed like a big deal, considering how your employer immediately sold you off without further explanations. Before you knew it, you were placed in a carriage with the strange young man, giggling about how happy you would make his son to be.

This “son” of his was named Silver.

One look at him and it was immediate to you that they were unrelated by blood. For one thing, Silver seems to be a human whilst that strange man who bought you was not, he was a fairy of all things. They sure do seem like they share the same fatherly bond as strong as any other family though, it almost made you envious. “Lilia”, the name of the man who bought you, had only issued one order for you to follow, the only request that he asked of you.

“Try and get along with Silver if you will, (Y/N). Keep him happy at all times.”

You were a slave, but you were brought as a gift to keep Silver company during his birthday. When you first met him, he was quiet and polite, a true gentleman that made you feel like you were the princess and he was your knight. Perhaps it was the fact that this was the first time that you have been given this level of respect in your life that it made you feel lost on what to do. But Silver never minded your awkwardness, he sticks to you like a lost puppy when it should be you who needed to act like that. He was as strange as his adoptive father, in the most opposite of ways.

Lilia told you that Silver had been “eyeing” you for a while now, that’s the whole reason why he specifically bought you in the first place, because you were already a familiar face to him. You were confused at first, but now that you’re actually here, serving Silver in actuality, you began to understand what he means. He acts way too familiar with you, often interacting with you that you don’t think is befitting for a master to do with his slave. He follows you around like a lost puppy, asking how your day was, and even shows you quite the affection sometimes. He doesn’t show too much emotions himself, but there’s instances of assertiveness whenever he’s with you that you just can’t help but notice.

Silver...doesn’t really let you leave out of his sight, majority of all the times, not that you’re allowed to anyways. Everything that you needed to do in private must be relayed to him or else he’ll come rushing in panic the moment he finds you not by his side anymore. It’s gotten worse to the point that you were not allowed to sleep on your own bed anymore or even take a bath by yourself. You don’t get lucky when he’s asleep either, you’d think he’s a deep sleeper but as one of the personal guards of the young master of the Valley of Thorns, his strength doesn’t falter even when he had closed his eyes for the night. One little movement you make away from him always ends up with him growling in his sleep and in instant, his arms tightly wrapped around you in a suffocating manner.

“Listen to me...” He told you one night, his head laying on your lap as he reached out his hand to caress your cheek. His touch was gentle and warm yet, his expression was stern and serious, the entire opposite to show you how much you needed to pay attention to the next words that will come out of his mouth. “You’re not allowed to treat others like this, do you get it? I should be the only one occupying your mind.”

“...Like you are to mine.” He started saying possessive things like that in just a span of a few weeks, you don’t quite understand what he means the first time but you nod anyways. He always smiles when you agree with him before, satisfied with your answer but you did not expect him to sit up from his position and leaned closer to your face this time. It was by then that you realized that he had initiated the first ever shared kiss between the two of you. He was gentle, yet impatient like he had been waiting for this moment for so long that he wanted to savor this moment for just as long.

His feelings for you became stronger ever since that day, but came with it was an even stronger possessive feeling for you. Both men and women are no longer allowed to come near you, god forbid what happens to those who even dare to look at you funny. He wasn’t a violent person, just passive-aggressive most of the time, but he has the power that can intimidate people away...Hell, he can even scare you in some degree. Long story-short, the only person that you were allowed to think of was him and him alone, there are no exceptions, but that goes the same for him too.

Then, came the day of his birth once again this year, it was such a busy yet joyous day for everyone. You provided him with a simple gift that you made yourself, in which Silver had rewarded you with a gentle, grateful smile like he always doees. “Thank you, I’ll treasure it dearly.” His words alone made you warm on the inside, something that you didn’t think was possible for a slave to feel. You were lucky to be able to serve a master like him, for you to be loved and treated like how a human being should be. Silver made you feel all those things, and for that you were just as grateful.

It almost feels like you belong just right in this family.

But as night came on the very same day, you wondered why Silver began leading you away from the crowd and into his room. He said he had a request, a wish that only you could fulfill, so you were more than happy to comply. But as he sat you down to the bed and began to kiss you like he had been doing quite often now; it began to feel as if something else was at play here. “I want you...” He whispered in a ragged, impatient breath, cheeks flushing as his hazy eyes stared intently back at you.

You didn’t say anything in return and just let him do what he wants, pinning you down by the bed as his kisses became even more erratic, messy, and passionate. You didn’t know what to feel, you were so used to the feeling of being treated normally, like a friend, like a family that you nearly forget what your status really is in the first place...You are a slave through and through, you are destined to perform these acts and please your master however they desire. But perhaps it was because you’ve become too spoiled due to how they treated you that you could feel your stomach churning from the feeling of being treated differently now.

You were...nervous.

As evident with how you began to breathe heavily from just with his touch alone and his hands exploring your body had you sweating bullets. You gulped as a response when he reached down where your clothed flower was, you were trembling. You are a slave, you should know by now that you are going to be treated like this at some point in your life, and yet you were scared. The realization and the true meaning of his words when your master said that he wanted you is coming down upon you at the same time. You were scared, terrified especially as he began to mark your neck and started pulling down on your clothes.

...But it was way too late to say quits at this point for you have already fallen, you’ve lost the moment you felt yourself at home in the comfort of this family. You have no choice but accept such fate, especially when Silver looked so ecstatic about it, mistaking your trembling body as an act of excitement. In the end, you should’ve known better than to get attached to your master like this, to empathize with him and allow your mind to create a soft spot for him. You can’t bear to see him enraged, disappointed, or even sad due to your rejection...It’s all too painful for you to witness.

...But maybe that was the point after all? The unexpected fate of the slave that belonged to Silver. A proof of how emotions can too be a lethal weapon to corrupt one’s mind.

[justimajin]

Til Death Do Us Part♜Pt.11

➟ Pairing: Namjoon x Reader

➟ Genre: Angst & Fluff

↳ (6.8k), Arranged Marriage AU

➟ Summary: If someone told you that you’d be marrying the Kim Namjoon, you would think you were being lied to, or worse, that you were hallucinating. However, fate seems to have it’s own ways of making the impossible possible and before you even know it, the title of Mrs. Kim is bestowed onto you. There’s just one problem: you’re not sure if Kim Namjoon is the person he says he is and the truth of your own identity is dangling by the strength of a mere thread.

➟ Warnings: 18+ rating, graphic descriptions of violence, blood and death, character death

➟ A/N: This is the final part! Thank you all for reading this series and for giving it so much love <3

gif credit.

➟ Full Series: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10[M] Part 11

“You saw someone outside the house last night?” 

Seokjin’s arms are crossed, wide eyes swaying from you to Namjoon. 

You nod in response, “The way they were dressed, it really blended them into their surroundings. I thought maybe the lack of sleep was playing with me, but then Namjoon saw it too…” 

You peer over at your husband, who hums. “We couldn’t find them afterwards.” 

Seokjin shakes his head, appearing to still be caught within bafflement. Jimin suddenly emerges, his eyes drinking in the distress in the room. 

“I’m assuming there’s no good news?” He wonders, and Namjoon turns, raising an eyebrow in his direction. 

“Nothing?” 

“Nothing.” He sighs, roughly running a hand through his locks, “He keeps saying it over and over again, that we’re fools to think he’s pulling the strings…” 

Namjoon lets out a deep exhale, back sinking against the wall. That’s when he catches it, a sharp glint residing behind Seokjin’s glasses. 

“What?” He immediately asks as the man raises his head, shaking his head. 

“He wasn’t too forthcoming with me either, but….” His eyes suddenly sway and Namjoon follows the gesture, “He seems to really hate you.” 

You stare at Seokjin wide-eyed. 

Before you have a chance to retaliate, he beats you to it. “I’m not saying that it’s because of you per say, but more so because of your lineage….” 

“Being a L/N?” Jimin ponders, and Seokjin hums, furrowing his brows. 

“It seems he wasn’t quite happy with your marriage to Namjoon and from the looks of it, Taehyung wasn’t either.” 

Although you can somewhat grasp what Seokjin is implying, his next question catches you off guard. 

“How was Yonghwa killed, Y/N?” 

Your mouth opens and closes from the straightforwardness, but you can see Seokjin’s gears turning, so you ultimately decide not to hesitate. 

The history of your families is known to many. Trade and manufacturing seeking to forge a union between their two sectors. Yonghwa and Namjung were supposed to go through with the deal, but all hell broke loose on the fateful day when Yonghwa was found on the ground in a pool of his own blood with Namjung being visibly shaken. Revenge was rampant between the two families, your marriage to Namjoon ultimately becoming the peace offering to end years of hatred. 

“Yonghwa was murdered.” You state in a monotone voice, as if told the story numerous times, “The day he and Namjung seeked a union, Yonghwa found out that the Kim’s were building weapons they hadn’t agreed upon.”

“Yonghwa therefore decided not to go through with the union, but was murdered by Namjung who wanted to cover up his tracks.” 

After you finish explaining, your eyes drift up. Namjoon is staring at you in disbelief, orbs oscillating. 

“What is it?” You immediately ask. 

Seokjin relaxes his narrowed eyes and clears his throat, “Yonghwa was killed...but not at the hands of Namjung.” 

Namjoon continues, “The L/N’s were involved in illegal exchange through their trades, and Namjung found out during the time he was making a deal with Yonghwa. He attempted to reason with Yonghwa, but he was held at gunpoint.” 

“Through the scuffle they had, Yonghwa ended up accidentally shooting himself.” Jimin finishes, confusion drawing from your eyes. 

“W-What?” Your eyes glance at the two of them frantically, “But there’s no way, Yonghwa was found in a pool of his own blood.” 

“And Namjung was left shaken.” Namjoon adds, “He meant to forge a union, not kill the head.” 

“That’s‒….” You shake your head, utterly lost from the conclusion. It seems too foreign to you, like someone has erased years of history from your book and shoved something else in instead.

A thought lingers in your mind and your eyes snap up, gazing at Seokjin, “Why are you asking me about Yonghwa?” 

Namjoon glances up at him as well, confused from the inquires. Seokjin smiles, crossing his arms. 

“I have a hunch that I need to confirm,” He eyes you, “‒and what if I said that the two of you are telling the truth?” 

You and Namjoon share a glance, the latter speaking, “How so?” 

“Yonghwa was killed. This is the one point in your stories that stays constant,” He begins, “But the part where your stories diverge is the reasoning behind his demise.” 

“Y/N said the Kim’s were building weapons that Yonghwa didn’t agree with, and Namjoon said that Namjung found out about the L/N’s illegal activities. This led to both parties disagreeing with each other, and it wouldn't be so surprising for a fight to ensue, with both taking rightful actions to prevent themselves any harm.” 

“Yonghwa was prepared to kill Namjung at the cost of saving his business while Namjung needed to get rid of Yonghwa’s knowledge.” 

Seokjin pauses for a moment as you and Namjoon nod in response. His smile widens, curling at the corner of his lips. 

“Now the reason why I brought this up.” He clears his throat, a playful look in his eyes, “The moral of this story is that there seems to be no victor and no loser. Both families were involved in things they shouldn’t have been and were prepared to take lethal actions to protect that information, even to the extent of making the other family look historically bad in comparison.” 

Your eyes widen and Seokjin asks the question that has you stumbling for an answer. 

“So why the need for a union?” He wonders, “What was the point for such a union, when both families were already so against each other to the extent of making up false tales?” 

“Why look for peace when there’s no room for it to begin with?” Namjoon replies, and Seokjin nods. 

“Your company’s visible shareholders seem to despise the fact that you married Y/N, and I’m sure other members of the company weren’t thrilled from hearing about her lineage.” He honestly professes, “So why would they suddenly be okay with you marrying a L/N for the sake of a union?” 

“It would have to do something other than their hatred for each other….” Namjoon mumbles, squinting his eyes, “Something important enough that they would purposely need a marriage between me and Y/N.” 

Seokjin hums and Jimin abruptly sputters out an answer. 

“Something like a liability!” 

Namjoon glances at him appalled and he hurriedly rambles before he loses the thought, “Going based off of Seokjin’s theory, Namjoon would be wedded to a L/N, someone who would have created stained connections with her own family because of the marriage and be resented by members of the Kim family.” 

Jimin huffs, “Essentially she would be nothing but a liability to Namjoon’s title as the next heir…..” 

Three sets of eyes stare at him in bewilderment, and Jimin sheepishly smiles from the attention. Seokjin’s pupils light up again, a spark residing within them. 

“But who would benefit from all this?” He mumbles, “Who would benefit most from seeing you fail, Namjoon?” 

Namjoon stares at Seokjin as silence reigns heavy in the room, no clear answer forming within his mind. 

Your lids slowly flutter open. 

The entire room is dark and murky, night long having fallen within a couple of hours. You had long spent hours conversing with the others about Hoseok before ultimately deciding to question him more the next day, with Namjoon coaxing you that all of you weren’t far from understanding his intent. 

Yet your eyes squint through the dark, peering around the room in confusion. There’s sounds of feet shuffling against the hardwood of the floors, faint voices growing louder and louder with their shouting, some tinged with urgency while others not being able to fathom disbelief. 

It doesn’t take long for you to immediately reach for Namjoon, jostling him awake. Once he’s conscious, the two of you are scrambling out of the sheets in an instant, his hand wrapping around yours as you head towards the commotion. 

His backside suddenly halts, freezing in place. 

You catch onto the scent right away. 

It’s putrid and familiar….too familiar. 

Shifting forward, horror sinks into your eyes at the source.

Hoseok’s form is slumped against the front door, eyes lulled back and red soaking the outskirts of his clothes. A trail of scarlet follows him, leading up into the torn apart room he was residing in. 

***

Silence lingers uncomfortably long in the room. 

It’s stifling, tension feeling heavy on your shoulders and muting your words. Slightly fumbling with your hands, your eyes flicker up for the briefest of moments. 

Seokjin is against the wall, arms crossed against the blood stains that litter his torso. He stands opposite from where you and Namjoon are seated, adjacent from where Jimin leans against a table, in a similar condition as his hand balances against his cheek. 

Hoseok’s corpse has been removed, but you wrenched your eyes away from the multiple gash wounds that littered his torso, the overwhelming scent of blood bringing a rise of nausea to surface from your lips. 

Jimin is the first to clear his throat, peering over at you and Namjoon. “You were right, there was someone roaming outside.” 

“He was silenced.” Seokjin sighs, unraveling his arms and placing his hands in his pocket. You catch the slightest hint of remorse in his features, wondering if he was too late in arriving at the incident.  

Jimin shakes his head, “But why….?” 

“And why make it so brutal?” Namjoon’s deep voice cuts in, making Seokjin hum with a grimace. 

“This just proves that he knew something important….” You whisper. 

Seokjin hums, planting an exasperated hand against his temples. Although somewhat cruel, you understand his frustration. 

Hoseok was the only link in finding out who wanted Namjoon killed and sought out for your marriage, and now that he’s gone, you’ve hit a complete dead end. 

There’s a soft knock against the door that results in all of your eyes hiking up. Jimin steps forward, gesturing for you to be at ease as he answers. 

As the door closes, Jimin abruptly blinks, before snapping his eyes up. 

“Namjoon.” 

He stands up right away and Seokjin curiously leans over, “What is it?” 

“It’s a picture…” He states, “A picture of the weapon assumed to be used on Hoseok….”

Seokjin suddenly leans even closer, carefully plucking it out of Jimin’s fingers. He holds the same astonished expression, eyes flickering over in Namjoon’s direction. 

“I think we know who was after you, Namjoon…” 

The picture is passed over to him and you sweep your irises over it too. It’s a simple picture of a knife, but it’s one that has your eyes narrowing. 

“I’ve seen this knife before…” You whisper, mind scattering around for an answer. The intricate details and the curved edge seemed far too familiar, but you can’t wrap your finger on it. 

Your eyes flicker, recognition suddenly dawning upon you. 

“Taehyung!” You snap your fingers, recalling the time he attempted to take your life, “That’s the knife Taehyung had....” 

“It’s a custom knife.” Namjoon states, his gaze steadily hardening, “Only a few were manufactured by the Kim’s.” 

Your eyes threaten to fall out from their sockets. Your gaze oscillates from Namjoon to Jimin and then Seokjin, realizing they’ve already connected all the dots.  

“H-How does this make sense?” You shake your head, “That would mean that someone from your family i-is trying to….” 

Namjoon hums, gaze connecting with your own. There’s something unsettling brewing in his orbs, a fine line between anguish and pure rage. 

“I now understand why Hoseok decided to keep quiet.” He grits, “And why we haven’t been safe here.”

***

Your footsteps are hectic, nearly sprinting through the walls. Your hands shove against your bedroom’s door, eyes falling upon your husband’s turned back right away. 

The sound of a gun cocking has your eyes widening and you immediately scramble forward, hand wrapping around his shoulder. 

“Namjoon.” You softly call out. His brows are still intensely furrowed and jaw tensed, his gaze focused on filling the cartilage to the handgun til it’s stuffed to the brim. 

Concern drips from your stare, and you shake his shoulder again, voice firmer, “Namjoon.” 

He spins around, rummaging through his bag for another gun. You huff, grasping onto him and knocking the weapon out of his hands. 

You force him to look at you. “Namjoon!” 

“What?!” He sharply snarls, but you are unfazed. It’s obvious to you ‒ the way his form is seething with anger, the way his hands tremble as he shoves bullets into his gun, the way there’s an inkling of pain residing within his irises, begging to release him from his torment. 

You don’t say anything, simply softly shake your head in response. Namjoon lets out a scoff, a strained laugh escaping his throat. 

Your arms loop around him, resting your head against his chest. 

“I’m a tool, Y/N.” His shoulders crumble down, “Just a tool.” 

“I know.” You whisper, noticing how his anger dissolves into anguish, his form no longer tensing underneath your hold. He raises his hands to embrace you back, breaths steadying. 

With a deep sigh, he breaks away from you, an appreciative smile looping on his lips. 

You return it, but a new voice draws your attention. 

“You won’t accomplish anything going there like this, Namjoon.” Seokjin leans against the doorframe as Jimin draws closer behind him. You assume they must have followed after you when Namjoon suddenly left the room in a fit of anger, declaring that he was leaving to settle things once and for all with his father. 

His father, who eventually decided that Namjoon wasn’t good enough to be the next heir, who wanted him to be wed to you, placing a heavy liability on his ties and waiting for him to crumble underneath the title so he could have a new heir. 

But he wasn’t able to anticipate that you would turn out to be a spy, and that Namjoon would refuse to leave you, fed up with being used solely for the family business. 

You sigh, keeping a gentle hand on his back. 

“We need to think this through.” Seokjin reminds. 

“But how?” Namjoon shakes his head, “I’ll constantly be in danger‒ all of you will be in danger.” 

He glances between you and Seokjin, with the latter humming, “You’re not wrong about that, but we have to play our cards right.” 

“So what‒” Namjoon jokes, “I should just wait to be killed first?” 

There’s a twinkle in Seokjin’s eyes, a smile widening all the way to his cheeks. 

The moon rises, casting a shadow against the isolated building’s walls. 

You carefully thread through the empty hallway, pacing back and forth. A gun remains strapped to your waist, hidden underneath your clothing as your alert eyes sweep through the vicinity. 

It’s a small building, one that is barely guarded and nearly hidden compared to the others. It carries two floors, one of which contains the norm of offices, only a mere handful of workers that rigorously work throughout the day, but the numbers dwell during the peak of the night, barely a hushed murmur coming across from the doors or walls. 

Namjoon has informed his father that you and him will be temporarily staying in the building for safety reasons after Hoseok’s incident, and that tonight is the night that you’ll be staying in the reclusive area. 

Prior to figuring out pieces of the puzzle, Seokjin had come up with the plan of making you and Namjoon come off as vulnerable, essentially luring his father into the building. Upon Namjoon’s slight persistence, he had suggested that the former confront him about the entire matter. 

You had thought it was risky, too risky in fact ‒ but when Seokjin and Namjoon had abruptly shared a glance through your discussion, you knew there was more to the story than they were letting on. 

Trusting them with the matter, you agreed with the notion and were assigned to guard the area under the pretense of Jimin’s suspicions. You couldn’t figure out who the woman was that Hoseok interacted with, so alongside with ensuring no one gets in, you have the task of keeping an eye out for any unwelcomed surprises. 

It’s dead silent and pitch dark, the majority of the light sources cut off. Your footsteps make no sound against the soft wood, long having trained yourself to go unheard in case you were caught as a spy. 

Your eyes continue to sweep around the area, looking around for movement. 

You suddenly freeze. 

Creak.

Head snapping up, you carefully press your ear against one of the doors in the hallway, listening in again. 

Creak.

Your eyes widen. 

Feet quietly gliding against the ground, you carefully peer into the room through the glass opening, noticing an open window and someone fumbling around with the walls. They seem to stumble as they do, almost seeming lost until you realize that the lack of light source makes it incredibly hard to see. 

Biting your lower lip, you shuffle closer to the door, carefully waiting. 

Light pours through the room. 

Your pupils enlarge, mouth falling agape. A smile curve on her lips as she reaches for the door, but you’re close enough to reach out for her by the time it yanks open. 

Your hand meets her shoulder. 

She jolts, a gasp escaping her lips as she swivels, the light illuminating her fear-stricken features. 

You innocently quirk your head to the side, brows knitting together. 

“Geongmin?”

“Y-Y/N!” She stammers, swallowing hard as if she had seen a ghost. 

“What are you doing here?” 

Although naively surprised, there’s a cutting edge to your tone, taking advantage of her terror. 

“I‒uh, my father!” She hastily says, as if nearly forgotten the answer, “H-He needed me to bring his forgotten briefcase back home.” 

For the briefest of moments, you narrow your eyes. 

You hum understandably, “I see….” 

Granting her a small smile that she hesitantly returns, you take a clueless step back, whirling around. 

You glance around, “I can offer you some help in finding it, if it’s somewhere nearby then‒” 

The sound of a trigger cocking halts your steps. 

Although your voice is laced with tender surprise, your expression says otherwise. “Geongmin?” 

“W-Where is he?” She sputters. You casually swivel around to face her, barely flinching at the gun that is inches away from your eyes. 

“Who is he?” You press forward. 

“My brother!” She nearly yells, your blank expression drawing more unease from her, “Where is he?!” 

A long exhale leaves your lips, “About that….” 

It happens within a flash. Your fist slams into her arm, a cry slipping from her lips and the gun dropping from her hands. You swoop it up in an instant, pinning her against the wall as she’s distracted from the pain. 

You tightly hold her hands within one of your hands, the other pointing the gun at the back of her head. 

Your fingers curve around the trigger, “What has he promised you?” 

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about!” 

You angle the gun so that it presses lightly against her scalp, her entire form jolting from the action.

Your voice is firm as you ask again, “What has your father promised you, Geongmin?” 

Her breaths are ragged, “H-Heir! The title of h-heir!” 

Tilting your head to the side, you listen to her intently, “M-My father said Namjoon was weak! That he couldn’t handle being the next heir, especially after being married to someone like you!” 

Your shoulders slump down, a deep sigh leaving you. Although her declaration is vile, her words sound confusing, as if fear was taking over her mind completely. 

There’s suddenly a flicker in your eyes, recognition filling you. 

It’s a mere gamble, but you loosen your grip on her, taking a step back. She watches you in astonishment and you drop the gun to the ground, kicking it to the side and away from you. 

The fear doesn’t leave her form in the slightest. 

“Do you desire being the heir?” Your voice has become soft. 

“W-What?” Your question seems to confuse her even more, her mind spinning, “What kind of question is that?!” 

You pursue your lips, noticing how for someone that should desire to kill you, she doesn’t rush towards the fallen gun. 

“Do you want to inherit the business?” 

It’s almost like she wants to break into a fit, tell you that you’re wrong and that you’re merely some spy that’s in the way. 

But the words don’t manage to leave her. 

“What is it that you want to do, Geongmin?” You gently ponder. 

“Why are you asking me all these questions?!” She repeats, sounding frustrated beyond belief. Streaks of tears are streaming down her eyes, her hands trembling. 

A small smile tugs at the corner of your lips. 

“Because I know obligation when I see it.”

The confusion doesn’t leave her as you step over to pick up the gun again, handing it to her. 

“Here.” You merely say, looking at her puzzled gaze she sends at the weapon, “Finish the mission you were sent on.”

You stand back, right in her aim of fire. Although your expression is confident, you hope she doesn’t notice the faint tremble lodged within your hands, inches away from the gun submerged within your clothing. 

Her eyes are completely blown out, still swimming with confusion. It’s not long before she points it right at you, rage consuming her features in an instant. 

You stare right back at her. 

The gun never fires. 

It slips from her hands, crashing onto the ground as more tears pool from her eyes. 

“I-I c-can’t….” She weakly mumbles, shaking her head. A low sigh of relief leaves you before you bend down, picking up the fallen gun.

Your eyes flicker, “You regret killing him….don’t you?” 

She nods weakly, and a smile curls on your lips. 

“I’m glad you made this choice on your own, Geongmin.” 

You extend your hand towards her, granting her the chance to choose again. She stares at it for a moment, a million thoughts racing through her head. 

She reaches out, clasping onto it. 

Heavy footsteps pound into the room. 

The door is securely locked, before he treads closer, eyes narrowing. 

Namjoon sits in a large chair, his eyes focused onto the table before him. At the sound of footsteps he snaps up, a smirk curving on his lips. 

“Father.” He remarks, “I’m surprised to see you here.” 

His father doesn’t return his smile, simply humming in response. 

“Hoseok was killed recently. You need to be more careful from now on.” He snides, standing across from him, “Especially with that pesky spy living in your quarters.” 

“That is my wife you are speaking about.” Namjoon sharply interjects, voice no longer holding warmth. His father sends him a seething glare, reminding him of the time he declared he wasn’t going to get rid of you. 

“How long do you expect to keep her around? She’s a L/N, for all you know she could have dug around all of our secrets and exploited the information.” He hisses, planting his hands against Namjoon’s table, “She’ll be nothing but a burden to you in the future, you’ll be mocked by her lineage and she’ll destroy your business.”

Namjoon furrows his brows, an amused smile wanting to etch onto his lips. He’s aching to spew his knowledge about how his sister was likely pressured into taking over his space as heir, her mind filled with twisted information about the two of you by the person standing directly in front of him. 

But he keeps it together, intrigue swirling in his orbs instead, “Who would you think was attempting to take my life then? Y/N?” 

“Of course it’s her!” His father roars, “She’s been feeding her family information about us, and now she wants to take over the business by having you killed!” 

“Really?” 

His father stares at him like the simple question in itself was ridiculous. “You should have listened to me before and gotten rid of her.” 

“But my answer wouldn’t change.” He smiles, pressing his buttons further, “She was my wife then, and she is now. What will you do if I wish to stay married to her?” 

His smile doesn’t waver. It seems to do the trick, his father’s face colouring into a shade of red at his son’s stubbornness and only serving to heighten his fear. The notion should fuel his need to get rid of Namjoon, to realize that the son sitting before him isn’t made out to be the tool that he’s always wanted. 

Namjoon’s smile barely moves, even when a gun is pointed in his direction. 

“Then this will be farewell.” 

Two guns aim for him on either side. 

In an instant, his father’s eyes widen. Namjoon continues to smile, watching Seokjin and Jimin step closer. 

Rising from his seat, he clears his throat. 

“I’m not a pawn, father.” He states, “I have my own wishes, and they won’t always line up with my role as heir.” 

He shakes his head, “The hatred between us and the L/N’s is just two families blaming each other to cover up their own tracks, and should have ended ages ago, even before I married Y/N.” 

He walks over to where his father glares at him, “Now it’s time you make a decision too.” 

Namjoon raises his arm as Jimin hands him a computer and Seokjin brings a chair, planting his father down onto it. Opening the screen right in front of the man, his eyes are met with a list of endless codes, but what’s most prominent are the ones that would surely infiltrate into an extensive database. 

His father’s eyes hold terror in them, “This is….” 

“The company.” Namjoon finishes, pointing to the screen, “These codes are functional on many bases and can hack into anything, even something as highly secured as the company’s database.” 

“You’re going to destroy everything.” 

Namjoon’s eyes twinkle, “I’m going to destroy what’s left of it.” 

“You’re insane.” His father snarls, “You’re going to ruin the Kim empire and throw away this goldmine for what?!” 

“My freedom.” Namjoon simply replies, his dark eyes pushing the computer closer to him.  

His father’s face is an angry shade of scarlet, but as metal presses further into his skull, his fingers press against the keys and allow the authorization. At the sight of the last code unlocking, Namjoon’s shoulders visibly relax, an exhale of relief leaving him. 

Seokjin quickly takes it away, packing away the computer into a bag before peering at Namjoon. 

They share the same thought, “We need to find Y/N.” 

Namjoon hums, preparing to leave the area as fast as possible. 

However, he doesn’t notice how his father’s face twitches at the mere mention of you, eyes boring daggers into his son’s skull. 

Namjoon turns and it happens within a flash. 

Jimin is on the ground, scarlet hands clutching onto his leg as a gun is pointed in Namjoon’s direction. Seokjin’s eyes widen in an instant, but he’s too late when multiple bullets are fired, all lodging into Namjoon’s chest. 

There’s no way to describe the terror that strikes you. 

Tears unconsciously roll down your features, a hard knot constricting around your throat. You can only watch in horror as a staggering Jimin and Seokjin huff, dragging Namjoon’s limp form onto a bed. 

Streams of red are dripping down his black suit, three pieces of metal embedded within his chest. Your trembling hands come closer, noticing that he was luckily still breathing. 

“His lungs haven’t been damaged.” Jimin doesn’t hesitate to speak as you peer up at him, “We’re going to need to take the bullets out.” 

Seokjin quickly filters around the room, searching for supplies as Jimin leans against the bed. You notice the trail of blood beneath his legs, eyes widening. 

“Jimin, you’re‒” 

He simply shakes his head, gesturing towards Namjoon first. You hesitantly nod, taking a couple of steps back as Seokjin returns. 

A shaky exhale leaves your lips when Seokjin opens up Namjoon’s shirt, your quivering hands coming up to cover your mouth as you spin away from the sight. 

“Y/N…” Jimin’s gentle voice beckons, but you can’t seem to look behind you. “Y/N, why don’t you wait outside?” 

Although concern is flooding through every fiber of your form, you solemnly nod without hesitation. 

Exiting the room at once, you attempt to calm yourself down, eyes flickering up to see Geongmin staring at you with a troubled gaze. 

She sits with you throughout the silence, your mind completely numbing from the recent events. 

***

Over the course of the next few days, you are dangling between concern and worry. 

You’ve been residing within the Kim household in the duration and haven’t spoken to yet even seen Namjoon during that time. Although relieved that his wounds weren’t fatal, you were told that he was still unconscious and that healing from them would take considerable time. 

In the meanwhile, Seokjin and Jimin had informed you that the person responsible for his state was his father. After getting rid of the remains from the company, something Namjoon had always planned to do, his father had shot Jimin and intended to kill Namjoon. 

In response, Seokjin was forced to take immediate action. 

You took in the news with a bitter taste in your mouth, but were glad to see Jimin slowly recover from the incident. 

Upon returning and being in the household that you and Namjoon had eventually abandoned, you were confronted with the presence of his mother. At first, you were unsure of what to say, not comprehending if she knew about the prior incidents, or if like Namjoon’s father, she held a deep scorn for the two of you. 

However to your surprise, she hadn’t seemed taken aback, instead appearing fatigued, dark circles beginning to round her eyes and creases maring her forehead. It made you think back to the first time you had met the women, her elegance and straightforwardness towards you always catching you off guard. 

She had asked you about how Namjoon was doing and you had given a simple direct response, but there was a sad smile on her lips, one that had made your chest tighten. 

“I don’t hate you, Y/N. If that’s what you’re thinking.” At your perplexment, she continued, “I think it was for the best to let go of the company...at least now we can move on from holding up this Empire with our lives.” 

She faintly chuckled as you remained next to her, silently listening.

A sigh leaves her, “I’m in pain not because of my husband’s death, but because I let it get to this point. To the point where I would have lost my entire family for a mere business.” 

She softly shook her head, “I’m tired, Y/N. I’m very tired of all this.”

Her words had echoed in your mind. She hadn’t spoken to you after that, but Geongmin had soon informed you that she had never seen her mother express so much remorse before. 

With the entire Kim Empire now gone, they were simply just a broken family left behind. 

The breeze blows against your hair, the flowers underneath your toes brushing against your skin. 

Night has fallen and for a considerable amount of tossing and turning, sleep hasn't welcomed you throughout the evening. You ultimately decided it would be best to get some fresh air, desperately needing to relieve some of the restlessness you were facing. 

The pale moonlight shines down on the bed of flowers, the wind whisking past you more crisp during the night. A warm smile tugs on the corner of your lips as you kneel down, gently touching the array of white, lilac purple and petal pink flowers beneath your feet. 

Running your fingers through the stems your hand halts, circling around a certain white flower. You pursue your lips, reaching out and cautiously wrapping your fingers around the base, squeezing it tightly for a moment. 

“I don’t think my mother will be fond of the idea that you stole one of her flowers.” 

You nearly jolt, breath hitching at the sudden voice behind you. That’s when your eyes enlarge, grip loosening immediately. 

Swiveling around, the astonishment doesn’t leave your form as you rise up onto your feet. 

Namjoon stands before you, leaning against a wall with a hand pressed against his chest. He sheepishly smiles when your eyes connect, briefly glancing at the ground for a moment before looking up. 

“You know, these flowers have a history of blooming in the seasons of‒oof!”

He doesn’t get a chance to enlighten you about his knowledge of the plants, your form crashing right against his as you wrap your arms around him. Namjoon lightly chuckles, pushing your strands back and slowly circling his arm around you. Your grip on him only tightens, a fact that he’s quick to remind you of. 

“Y/N.” He strains. 

You suddenly realize your husband had recently suffered having multiple bullets penetrate through his chest cavity. Immediately stepping back, a string of apologies tumble from your lips. 

“I-I’m so sorry!” He grimaces while holding onto the wounds, but still continues to smile at you. Your eyes are drawn to the thick strips of cloth wrapped around the area, tucked underneath the button-down shirt he had clumsily through on around his shoulders.

Your eyes suddenly narrow, “If I didn’t know any better, it would seem that you’re still healing‒…” 

Namjoon sheepishly smiles and your eyes widen. Before you can say anything, Namjoon steps forward and places a finger against his lips. 

“You need to go back.” You hurriedly coax, voice dropping down into a whisper. Namjoon continues to smile, not moving the slightest. 

You press your hands against him, slowly pushing him, “Namjoon, you need rest and‒” 

“I know.” He whispers, grasping onto your hands right away. “I came here to see you.” 

“You were worried...weren’t you?” You flush underneath his gaze, averting your eyes. His smile widens for a brief second, before it drops down and he leans closer to you. 

“Y/N.” 

You look up, eyes connecting with his. You’re taken aback with the stern appearance they take on, narrowing with intent. 

When he speaks, they’re of mere facts, “I’m conscious again, and I’m able to walk…..” 

You hum, not quite understanding what he was intending to say to you. “The company...I’m sure Seokjin and Jimin told you what I did.” 

“You destroyed it.” You state and he nods, “It’s gone now and the Kim’s don’t have any means of continuing on with their busine‒” 

Life flickers into your eyes and at the sight of recognition in your eyes, Namjoon solemnly smiles. 

“You want to leave….” You whisper and he hums. 

“It’s been on my mind ever since, I wanted to ask you in a better manner but given the circumstance…” He glances down at his injury. 

“The moment I woke up, I needed to talk to you about it.” 

“I see….” You mutter, staring down at the ground. Namjoon continues to gaze at you, concern in his eyes. 

At your silence, he ponders, “What are you thinking?” 

“I don’t know, truthfully.” You whisper, “It sounds….wonderful, incredible actually‒ but….” You stare at him, “Can we do that...? Have a fresh new start?”

For some reason, you almost want to laugh, “Are people like us even allowed to have something like that?”

“Maybe not.” Namjoon truthfully says, and you peer up, taken aback from the grim in his voice, “But I don’t see any harm in trying.” 

You silently stare at him. 

You’re not a spy anymore ‒ and Namjoon is no longer the heir. 

You’re finally free, no longer someone else's tools to use. You can be whoever and decide to do whatever you want, no family history dictating it for you anymore. 

The carefree thought brings a smile to your lips, and when you look up to see Namjoon softly smiling, you wonder if he’s pieced it together too. 

Without hesitation, you take Namjoon’s hand. 

Epilogue

The sun brightly shines in between the clouds, spreading across the expansive field. 

It reaches your skin as you bend down, a small basket in your hand as you rummage around for the potatoes you recall planting somewhere. 

There’s a faint rustle from behind you and you blink for a moment, turning around with narrowed eyes. You hear it again, but this time you can see two small legs running towards you. 

A tender smile spread across your features. 

The rustling abruptly cuts off, the sound of loud thud replacing it and low cries begin to echo out instead. 

You rush forward, the basket in your hands long abandoned. 

“Seokmin!” 

The young boy continues to cry, large tears leaving his wide eyes until you bend down, scooping him up into your arms. His cries subside a little by the action and you muse at his clumsiness, acknowledging that it was a particular trait he surely hadn’t gotten from you.

Namjoon emerges seconds later, planting his hands against his knees as deeply heaves.  

“I’m sorry, he was excited to see you and‒” He pants, drawing closer to see Seokmin tucked away in your embrace with dried streaks down his cheeks. “Is he alright?”

You nod, attempting to brush away the hair from the boy’s eyes. Namjoon reaches out and you hand him over, bending down to retrieve your basket. 

You look up to see Namjoon playfully poking one of his cheeks, your son squirming around his arms as small giggles leaves him. 

The display has a smile curving on your lips. 

There was a time when you dreamed about being happy, to live a life on your terms without being at someone’s beck and call, every decision being fueled by your own conscious thought rather than programmed and ingrained obligation. 

However, that’s all it ever was ‒ a dream, a mere fantasy tucked away in the corners of your mind that you had long forgotten about. Yet somehow in some way, you and Namjoon managed to fulfill it. 

It didn’t come to you all at once, a normal life being far from the reality you were uncomfortably close to. That type of life was something that never quite suited the two of you and as a result, you had your fair share of struggles. 

You can still remember the nights you had spent with vicious nightmares, old memories plaguing you and not letting you forget that you still had marks littering your body, your own two hands long having been tainted. It would make you question if you even deserved any of this, deserved to actually be content with what you have. 

You would like to say that the adjusting process was easier for Namjoon, but there were a handful of times where he would wake up in a cold sweat, his whole form quivering next to you. It was those days you truly learned about Namjoon’s past for the first time, of the things he did or more so, was forced to do. 

You started to wholeheartedly believe it, that this ‘life’ you wanted to build together could never be possible and that a part of you will always unconsciously remember times you wanted to forget. 

That was until your son was born. 

At first, it was a whirlwind. You hadn’t expected to get pregnant so soon and you weren’t sure of how Namjoon would react to the sudden news. Fortunately he was ecstatic once you told him and it granted you some sense of reassurance, but you could clearly see it within his warm eyes and you know he could see it reflected in yours. 

Was it even possible for people like the two of you to bring another life into the world? 

You had attempted to push that thought away as far as you could during the process and luckily when Seokmin was born, something had changed within you. 

“Y/N?” 

You blink, noticing Namjoon was staring at you with concern. Seokmin is looking over as well, appearing much better compared to when you found him. 

You shake your head with a soft smile. Leaning down, you redirect your gaze towards your son. 

It still astonishes you that aside from the eyes and the hair, he appears to be an exact replica of his father, “Are you feeling okay?” 

Your son nods, a spark lighting in his eyes. 

“Mom!” He excitedly says, “Dad said‒ Dad said you were a spy!” 

You stare at Namjoon wide-eyed, who looks at his son with the same expression. 

A low chuckle leaves you, “Um, he did…?” 

Namjoon puts Seokmin on the ground and gestures for him to continue playing, turning around to you. 

“Namjoon, we said we would wait.” You whisper. 

“I know‒” He squeezes his eyes shut, “It was just a slip of the tongue.” 

You stare at him for a moment, before letting out a sigh, “It’s alright...he’ll have to find out someday.” 

“Are you referring to the time we’ll give him the chance to choose his own last name?” 

Namjoon gazes at you amused and you share a smile with him. 

“You know, Seokjin and Jimin have been wanting to see him.” He reminds you, “They still can’t believe we named our son after them.” 

“Seokmin is a nice name.” Namjoon raises a brow like he doesn’t believe you and you laugh at his expression, “We should visit sometime soon, especially because….” 

You lean closer to him and Namjoon can only stare in confusion when you whisper in his ear. Immediately, he jolts back from you, staring at you in astonishment. 

“R-Really? Are you being serious?” You nod with a smile and Namjoon is brimming with ecstasy, “Y/N, that’s amazing!” 

You point a finger towards him, “But I want to name this one.”

Namjoon chuckles, pulling you into his embrace, “Of course.” 

[jimlingss]

can i request a yoongi chef au? i feel like yoongi's culinary skills are underrated, and I'm just a slut for chef aus in general

Anonymous said: Hi I saw ur request open posts for the new year!!! Could u write more yoongi stories🥺?!?! Your stories are so fantastic and i’m thirsty for more yoongi lolol🤪(hopefully u get enough votes to do more of him haha)

I feel like Jin’s the one who’s usually written as the chef, prob because he’s the better known chef in BTS, but you’re right! There’s gotta be more chef Yoongi!AUs, so here you go!!!

↳ Buttering Up

2.2k || 100% Fluff & Flirtation || Min Yoongi || Chef!AU

He clearly doesn’t know who you are.

“Sorry to keep you waiting.”

You hum, arms crossed as you eye him up and down. His black hair is practically a bowl cut, bangs covering his forehead. He’s in casual clothes — a taupe trench and black pants — looking like he’s ready for a trip to the grocery store rather than to cook. You wonder where this child crawled out from.

“You’re Yoongi?”

“That I am.” He approaches the door of the restaurant before plunging his hands inside his trench coat pockets. He fishes out the key and unlocks it, ushering you inside. “Hope you don’t mind that the restaurant’s closed down.”

You mind much more that he left you waiting on the cold city street for over ten minutes. You still can’t believe he was late. The audacity.

“I would’ve liked to see how you and your staff do your dinner service.”

“Unfortunately, we’re booked full for the next two months.”

You scoff — how doesn’t he know who you are? You’re a food critic who’s brought highly regarded restaurants to their knees through a review of five sentences. Your words alone has had rippled effects in the industry. Even the most talented chefs hold their breaths when you taste-test.

You make Gordon Ramsey look like Mother Teresa.

This Yoongi character is much too arrogant to not respect you. His new and upcoming restaurant might have raving reviews, but you’ll see what’s really going on.

“Sit wherever you’d like.”

There are no waiters in fancy garb, no hand sewn tablecloths made of silk. He doesn’t even pull out the chair for you. Instead, he’s off flickering on the lights of the restaurant while you choose a wooden table and chair right in front of his open kitchen — which is a horrible mistake in itself.

Open kitchens have always been a concept that has fallen short in your eyes. It’s much too noisy during dinner service and it gets smelly fast. Who actually wants to leave smelling like butter and oil?

It’s something you note as you get settled. 

Your coat drapes at the back of the chair and then you watch him. Yoongi’s taken off his trench as well, revealing a white long sleeve that he’s beginning to roll up to his elbows. He’s lean and his build is small, but somehow, he’s far from being scrawny. You gawk at the veins running up his forearm until he casually asks—

“Do you have a preference for wine?”

“I’m fine with any.”

He hums and comes over from the glass cabinet with a bottle of chardonnay and a wine glass. Yoongi pops the bottle easily and pours into the pristine glass with a mere tilt of his wrist. You watch the stream fill the glass a quarter way full.

“Is there a menu?”

“You don’t need one.”

Your brows raise. “Excuse me?” 

“If I were you, I’d put myself in the chef’s hands entirely and go with their recommendation.” He strides away, placing the wine bottle on the other table and then he turns with a glint in his eye and his mouth slightly crooked upwards. “Unless, of course, you don’t trust your chef.”

Oh. He’s confident. 

You can’t wait for his ego to blow up in his face.

“Fine then.” Your head tilts upwards. “What’s your recommendation then?”

He rounds his way to go into the kitchen that’s only a few meters away from where you sit. “Risotto with grilled chicken breast, topped off with caramelized onions, mushroom, grilled zucchini and sautéed tomatoes.”

You roll your eyes. What a basic dish. Isn’t it just rice? And with chicken breast?! Ew. It's guaranteed to be bland.

“Alright then.” You give a smile that might be more mocking than intended. “We’ll see how it tastes.”

Yoongi starts and while sipping the chardonnay, you take a good look at the restaurant from your spot. The place is rustic with a hint of contemporary. There’s exposed brick, wooden tables and chairs, and low, yellow lighting. There’s nothing particularly impressive about the place.

Soon, the sound of rapid, rhythmic chopping fills the space and then sizzling. You watch him intently. And you’re appalled. This Yoongi guy commits the worst cooking sins — his pan is cold when he starts throwing on ingredients. He cooks with olive oil. He overcrowds the pan. And he doesn’t even taste test once as he cooks.

What the actual fuck. 

There’s a line between arrogance and insanity, and he was crossing it.

You cringe when he starts using his metallic spatula on the non-stick skillet.

Is he even qualified to run a restaurant?!

Or maybe your assistant sent you information about the wrong restaurant? Or maybe this was not the guy you were supposed to be eating from. What if he poisons you or kills off all of your taste buds?! Your career would be ruined.

“Everything going okay?” you pipe up.

He glances up at you for the first time, eyes peering past his bangs. “Yep. Should be done in five.”

Food is simple. It either tastes good or it doesn’t. But the higher up you go and the fancier it gets, the more convoluted the food tastes with bland flakes of gold and the same old truffle shavings. That or it’s entirely boring and unoriginal. 

Or in this case, it might kill you. Which would be the first. And you’re not happy about it.

You feel unsettled when he plops the dish in front of you.

“Chef’s recommendation.”

“Thanks.”

You feel unsettled because it actually smells good. The aroma that fills your senses is flavoursome and buttery, and the thyme on top adds a fresh hint. You’re also unsettled because the plating isn’t actually bad. It’s been presented in a pasta bowl with wavy designs and the chicken breast is thinly and neatly sliced on top. It’s clean. It’s bright. It’s colourful.

But the most lethal poisons are the appetizing ones.

“Are you going to wait until it gets cold?”

You look up, brows raising at how he’s gotten comfortable in the chair across from you. Usually the chefs and waiters or waitresses like to skedaddle off and leave you to your own thoughts, too afraid to stand in your intense scrutiny. But Min Yoongi twists off the cap of his water bottle and casually downs it in front of you.

“I’m just looking at the presentation.”

“Tastes better than it looks,” he exhales after swallowing his water. 

Your expression becomes skeptical. But you take the silver spoon beside you anyhow and decide not to waste any more time.

The spoonful goes into your mouth. He watches you. You chew.

Instantly, you halt. 

The flavour hits your tongue. Creamy. Thick. But each individual grain of rice still has some firmness with a discernible texture. It’s been done al dente. There’s sweetness from the caramelized onions. An earthy flavour from the mushrooms. A zesty touch from the thyme. The chicken breast is somehow still juicy and the tomatoes burst on your palate. 

Suddenly, you’re thrusted back into your childhood. Those summer days spent in the cottage. Sun-kissed cheeks, dirtied knees, cotton dresses. You can hear your late grandmother in the kitchen. The way she calls out that it’s lunchtime. You can feel the comfort of family and love.

It feels like you’ve become the food critic in the ratatouille movie. 

You almost cry.

“What do you think?”

You clear your throat. You have to be honest. There’s no way you can lie about something like this. “It’s good. I think...this is the best risotto I’ve ever had. You cooked it perfectly and the toppings you chose were absolutely immaculate with this dish—”

You look up at him. Min Yoongi has an enormous, cocky smirk plastered across his stupid face.

It’s entirely off-putting. 

“But of course,” you quickly add, “there are many ways you could improve on it. You could add cilantro—”

“That would unnecessarily drown out the notes of thyme you taste,” he rebukes without a single beat and you scoff. 

“I noticed you didn’t add any pepper to it which could deepen the flavour.”

“Except this dish doesn’t need it,” Yoongi deadpans. “You don’t need to help me make any adjustments. I think I know what I’m doing better than you are. Just do your job and I’ll do mine.”

You suck in your cheek and narrow your eyes on him before you take another bite of the risotto while it’s still hot. “The food is delicious, but I must say, the company really spoils it.”

Yoongi’s slumped with one cheek resting in his hand, elbow on the table. He lazily stares at you with that smirk of his. “Really? Because if I didn’t know any better, you look nervous rather than annoyed.”

You scoff for the second time. “Why would I be nervous?”

“Maybe you didn’t expect the food to taste as good as it does and that makes me unexpectedly attractive,” he states plainly. You almost choke. You hit your chest as you sputter. “Or maybe you’re intimidated by me. I’ve gotten both before.”

You wipe your mouth with the napkin. “I’m afraid you’re not very perceptive, Min Yoongi.”

“Really? I think I am.” He smiles, the corners of his mouth quirked. “I’ve read your reviews before.”

You’re unamused. “Have you now? So you must know how difficult I am to satisfy.”

His smirk is sly and it’s jarring against his softer, more tender features. He’s smaller than the men you’re used to being around, but somehow it feels like he’s taken up the entire space of the restaurant. His focus on you is sweat-inducing. Even if you don’t want to admit it. 

“I don’t think so. You’ve just been eating shit food,” he says bluntly and your brow cocks. “You just need someone good you can trust. Someone who can take care of you properly.”

You’re not sure if the double entendre is purposeful. You wouldn’t put it past him.

“And is this someone you?”

Yoongi shrugs and sits back. “It could be.”

You grab your glass of chardonnay and gulp the rest in an effort to stop the conversation before it completely derails into a different direction. Yet, Yoongi’s half-lidded and darkened eyes stay on yours with each swallow. He’s unfazed. Unbothered. And that bothers you even more — bothered in a way that makes your face hot.

There’s a clack as you put the wine glass down and gasp. 

“I’m a professional.” You won’t be swayed so easily. “I can’t be bribed.”

“Of course.” He blinks as if he doesn’t know what you’re talking about. You glare at him and he gestures to the dish. “Please. Keep eating.” 

You finish the plate.

“Do you want any seconds?” he asks as he gets up.

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?” Yoongi lingers, all too brazen and fearless. “If you don’t get any more now, you might have to come back for more.”

This time, you don’t try to hide the roll of your eyes. “That’s a presumptuous assumption.”

Yoongi smirks and his voice is husky. “After getting a taste from me, everyone comes back for more.

You scoff.

Min’s Restaurant Review

Three nights ago, I ate at Min’s Restaurant and met the main man in the kitchen. Unfortunately, he is a difficult person to interact with. I hope no one has the disservice of having to speak to the chef behind the dishes. Doing so may as well ruin the experience. Furthermore, his cooking methods are unconventional and unorthodox. It was completely shocking to watch.

However, and what I would consider most important, the food at Min’s Restaurant is spectacular. What Min’s Restaurant lacks in likeable personnel, they make up in the served cuisine. The meal that was prepared for me not only subverted my initial expectations, but overcomes, what I consider, what the food industry is lacking in this modern age exactly. Without unnecessary garnishes and ingredients, the flavours of Min’s Restaurant are both light and deep. It was an undeniable delight to consume and for the first time, I licked my plate clean. 

It is undoubted that the man behind Min’s Restaurant has the hands of god.

You should have pride.

But you’ve always loved good food. It’s your Achilles heel. It’s the one thing you’ve been passionate about since you were a kid. The reason why you love your job.

Even after writing such a review, you find yourself booking another reservation. But as a customer instead of a critic.

Of course, they were booked full for the next six months, largely thanks to your review, and they swiftly refused you with numerous apologies. But they called back not ten minutes later. You have a feeling that your name finally sunk into them — that he had something to do with it. 

That theory is confirmed when you arrive. The person in question is next to the seemingly nervous hostess as the noisy kitchen echoes throughout the busy restaurant. 

In the low lighting, Min Yoongi stands there with a relaxed smirk. As if he was expecting you. As if he knew you’d come crawling back to him to eat out of the palm of his hand, literally and figuratively.

You hate that he’s right.

“Welcome back.”

[dariaslore]

Birds

Set during the Coven's days. Griffin finds out about Valtor's demon form and things may be darker than they seem. Will she go away? Warnings: angst, dark stuff, some contents may be triggering.

She couldn't sleep.

He had told her he would be away all night, when dark magic was stronger and could be practiced at the highest levels. It was one of the many training sessions with his mothers, her presence wasn't allowed this time, the meeting was strictly reserved to the wizard and the three witches. At first they didn't take place frequently, but since a few months, now that the Company of Light was proving to be more of a threat, she had found herself spending more nights alone than usual, holed up in the mansion's library, waiting for his return. He came back extremely tired, without even the strenght to speak, his only desire was to lose himself in the night, hugging her like a safe port.

That night, too much time had gone by. It was three in the morning and he still wasn't by her side. Anxiety was devouring her, tossing and turning in bed, then she would get up and walk back and forth the room, trying to kill time. She would grab a book just to throw it away a minute later. Half a cigarette smoked, the rest was garbage, now she would light up a new one. She couldn't find peace, she knew the three witches and every scar on Valtor's body as well. They always wanted more and more and were never satisfied, he was up for anything just to gain a bit of their approval. And this was lethal.

She left the room they shared and, as her feet were pounding on the floor faster and faster, looked for the room where training usually took place. And there he was.

Gasping, hands shaking and her gaze caught by fear.

She opened the door. The pungent smell of iron flooded her nostrils. She decided to follow its scent. She felt her airway closing and blurring sight, icy needles paralyzed her heart. Her vocal cords refused to vibrate the unspeakable horror in front of her eyes. A connection had been cut off, her pulsating golden irises were screaming and the sound was dying inside of them.

She saw him tossed into the darkest corner of the room, like a used and forgotten toy.

Bowed head, his face hidden by his blond hair in an act of shameless shame. He was shaking, had goosebumps, and she could see his ribs move through the swollen white skin as he breathed. He had never looked so thin and frail, his figure so thin compared to the red scales that swallowed him bite after bite. They started sporadic from his chest and then slowly thicken on his arms and hands deformed into long claws. They painted the portrait of a beast and found maximum expression in the two huge red wings wrapped in a shield, protecting him from the cold of the outside world in an embrace. It looked like the monster was trying to save its own prey. It emphasized the misery, the greatness and strength of the red hunter and the labored breathing of its pale victim. Naked and with his back torn.

Blood overflowed copiously, snaked elegantly dragging its red vital flow downstream, it marked the grooves of his ribs and suddenly fell silent, insinuating itself between the inanimate tiles of the mosaic on the floor. His milky skin was imprisoned in a network of faults of flesh torn apart by the fiercest of beasts. It was scarred, its edges matched perfectly with the width of the claws of his hands, she could feel their power sink into his taut muscle fibers, stretch them to the ends like springs, and tear them away as waste material, a further obstacle to the main organ that he was burning to find. So he dug again, and again, in an unbridled greed for a proof of his humanity. The pain wasn't enough, he wouldn't stop until his claws gripped his beating heart. He had to tear the flesh, the dress of his existence that now felt too tight with the darkness that threatened to overflow and pick him up again in its coils.

"Go away..." he murmured.

Valtor had perceived her presence ever since she had stepped in, fear washing through her veins. She was the last person in the universe who could see him reduced to that. He trusted her, she had been the first person to dig under his surface of powerful narcissist wizard, making him discover a different person. Before her were all the things that weren't and would never be. He was never going to sleep with anyone, he did with her, he had never had a real friend, his mothers had taught him to calculate everything based on utility and how anyone was just a pawn on a chessboard. He had aquaintances, many flirts with countless women and men, and he was never the one in love. And neither were they. For each of his lovers he already knew, the moment when he left their bed, that all that would remain was one more meaningless hot night, an exercise of the word love. They all carried out in the same way, with an absence of words, and he was conscious of being but an object of lust due to his body and his power. And then, she came into his life, the only woman immune to his fiery charme and who even seemed to hate him. He had never spent an entire night on a sofa eating junk food and talking of the most diverse topics, he did with her. He had never received a hug, she hugged him, after a mission with a positive resolution. He never cared for the feelings of others, now he couldn't stand sadness to veil her eyes. She had occupied his heart and not only he loved her madly, she was also his best and only friend. He trusted her, but he didn't trust himself and the monstruosity living inside of him.

"Valtor..."

She couldn't believe it was him. She spelled his name with dragging slowness, almost reluctant to attribute the name of the man she loved to that foul creature. It was him, it had taken two words, a plead to walk out the door and go away.

"Griffin, please, go away, now."

"You're hurt" she said when the only thing her spinning mind could still focus on were his wounds.

"Go away!"

"I wanna help you."

A loud roar cut through the air, and she found herself on the ground, overcome by the power of his claws. It burned and shone bright red on her thigh between the silk of her nightgown, it wasn't too deep, a shallow cut. He had hurt her on purpose for the first time.

Another scream and another sob. Valtor was looking at his hands with wide eyes. He was forced to protect her in the only way his other self knew: violence.

"Are you happy now I've hurt you? Help me? Who do you want to help, a beast? I'm a freak. Look at me Griffin, look!" he cried amid sobs that threatened to suffocate him, too large and noisy that struck his lungs like prisoners in a desperate flight to freedom. A distorted chant broke his larynx, his swan song.

Lying on the floor with an itching cut and blurred thinking, she saw right through Valtor.

She had already heard of those feathered winged creatures earthlings believed in. She realized he was an angel. A fallen one.

He wasn't born for all of this. He was a creature of pure light bound to an eternal exile in darkness, and although the flame that burned within him tended to return to its original light source, it was held back by the iron fist of darkness. She was a creature of the dark too, a witch, but she had decided to be one, he was tainted and that made him the greatest shadow of all. The monster that enveloped him, moving the threads of his very existence, fed every day on the fiery light of his soul, now reduced to a mere flame. His monstrousness came from this destructive coexistence between light and dark, in which only one of the two would have definitively won. The flame burned, it couldn't keep silent and was responsible for his injured back. Darkness was close to him, so he had scratched it off, like a stain on a piece of precious silverware, he wanted to perform a desperate act of purification through his blood to finally wash himself away from the darkness and to get back to the pure light being he had always been meant to be. At least once.

It was written in his eyes which were shyly looking at her through his hair's wheat strands, although he tried to hide them under layers of ice and indifference. His pupils were imprisoned in a web of red capillaries, but they still managed to keep their last drop of pure humanity. It wasn't the same look he gave her every night as he adored her body, neither that of the sarcastic and ironic wizard, it was the one of every time his mothers would have criticized him, of when he tried in every way possibile to impress her, just to snatch her a compliment or a smile. In those moments he tore his heart out of his chest and fed it to his tormentor, craving for trivial affections.

She got up from the floor confident and proud, knowing what to do.

"Go away!" he yelled.

Griffin approached him ignoring all his moans and wrapped his face in her warm hands and traced every feature with her fingers. She felt the difference of texture between his skin and the red scales staining it. She stroked his nose, forehead and lips. She raised the corners of his lips, uncovering white fangs. She smiled and kissed him. Just a smack.

He was blown away, stuck in an idyll that tasted of her. Adrenaline was rushing, he had made it.

She grabbed his hand and looked him straight in the eye, the gold of her irises had never been so metallic. Maybe tired of lies, the purple-haired witch was so determined and a slave to curiosity that she delved into the darkest of truths, even one that would harm her. It wasn't over, she knew it. He was trying to play it cool, but with his eyes in a runaway dance and his smile crooked to the left, he had the classic facial expression of a child who had succeeded in getting away with something.

"Is that all? Is there anything else I should know?" she asked firmly.

That question was a cold shower. He shook his head. He was lying, there was so much more she should have known, the whole side of himself he never had control over. What she was seeing now was just a glimpse of the monster he saw every morning in the mirror, when all humanity crumbled to pieces and his eyes lost their pupils. But he still didn't want that kiss between them to be the last. She would have loved him until there was but a drop of man in him, but after that?

"You're lying Valtor. Show me, don't hold it back"

"Please, I can't!"

She would have run away. He was trying to become human again and she was asking him to show her the monster.

"Just do it!" she ordered, clenched fists and fixed pupils.

"Why are you doing this Griffin?"

She didn't answer him. She was emanating ice from all over her body, posture was stiff, back straight and lips tightened. She wouldn't give up until she got what she wanted.

He started changing, his body turning into the twisted fantasy of three long gone witches, and soon all human features were erased from his face. Stripped of his blond hair, abandoned to the ugliness of his inner skeleton. Now he was way bigger than her, the monster's palm almost the size of her entire face. All his senses were on the alert, looking for the easiest way to kill, the purpose for which it had been built. What she was in front of was a machine ready to kill, plus her neck was so thin.

She didn't even flinch. She did exactly what she had done beforehand. She watched the monster's facial expressions changing, how his blue stoney eyes were boring into her body, finding the most effective way to kill her. And then as if she had read his mind, placed that exact same palm she had held before around her fragile neck, playing the beast's game.

"It would be so easy, wouldn't it?

Damn, it would. The demon could feel her neck cracking under its strength and the air leaving her lungs in her last attempt to breathe.

"Squeeze, what are you waiting for?" she said giggling, but an invisible force was holding the creature back, incapable of applying any pressure. It screamed with rage, not realizing what was going on and why the smile on her face was getting progressively bigger and brighter. She enjoyed the fear flushing down her veins, it was too much to handle and that was making her steady. With her mind blank, she leaned over and with its hand still over her neck, kissed the creature on its mouth.

Leathery red scales began to retreat like clouds after a storm, finally letting his white skin breathe. The demon, his wings were gone.

Valtor broke down in her arms. He was too tired to express the growing happiness inside. He couldn't believe it, something like this had never happened before, getting rid of the other Valtor so quickly was an intangible dream. Everytime his mothers made him assume that form, he would spend hours of excruciating pain, waiting for the beast's claws to disappear. He holed up in the darkness, allowing himself to be consumed bite by bite, seeking in his mind an end to his labyrinth of torment. She had been the first one to get him out of there, a gleam of light at the end of the tunnel. He hoped it could've lasted forever.

He plunged into her eyes like a lost puppy, letting her capture his soul in her thick lashes.

"Don't I scare you? How can you kiss that beast? You must kill the monster Griffin, I'm begging you! Free me, save me, I can't bear it anymore! "

The more he tried to chase it away, the more he felt it crawl through his veins like a poisonous liquid. It was choking him from the inside, he could feel it making its way through his mind, it was making fun of his neurons in a black pool. He felt his head throbbing, unable to contain all that anger and hatred. He screamed in pain in a soundless space, one day he would tear his skull to pieces

"Where are you ?!" he said screaming at the top of his lungs. He couldn't see straight anymore, his whole body shaking with anxiety, blood rushing through his veins and his heart loudly pounding in his chest.

"Hush, I'm right here. I'm holding you, see?"

"D-don't leave ..." he begged her and rested his head on her chest.

"I'm not going anywhere. I'm with you, look at me." She cupped his chin in her hand, so he could meet her gaze again.

"Come on, we must get to our room, your wounds are bleeding."

"Your thigh..." he glanced at her leg with his face twisted in horror. Guilt building up.

"It's just a scratch. A pinch of magic and it will go away. It doesn't even burn anymore!" Griffin tried to reassure him.

She concentrated and teleported them to their room in a quick snap of fingers.

"Can you stand up?" she asked him.

"I- I ..."

"Don't worry, I'll hold you. You can do it."

She put an arm around his shoulder and tried to hold him by the waist, taller and heavier than her, backing him was hard: she had to.

Valtor stood up. Pangs of pain. He was weak, his knees buckling, joints croaking, it was as if his bones were breaking from the inside out on by one. He groaned in protest.

"I know, hold on, it's just one more step."

He freed himself of her grip and met the soft mattress of the bed they shared.

Griffin helped him sit up, covered his lower body with blankets, then she placed her hands on his back, focused and chanted a spell. Wet: blood between her fingers. The magic tickled the torn cells giving them a smoother edge.

"I'll be right back." she said. Then she rushed to the bathroom and, in the wooden cabinet, she found a cotton cloth, some ointments, flasks and some bandages. His wounds were too extensive and deep, she had managed to stop the bleeding and somehow reduce their size, now she had to worry about disinfecting.

"This will hurt just a bit."

"Get your hands off of me, now!"

He spun around, his voice high and firm, swollen veins and a sunken neck. It was a defensive act, it seemed to her the desperate move of an hunted animal fleeing its tormentors, veins darting with fear and aggressive bearing, pretending to be the one who holds power. But she wasn't his mothers, she couldn't get upset, he wasn't lucid and this complete reversal of attitude was proof of that. He no longer held the reins of his thoughts, he was finally letting them gallop on their own, fragments of past and present intertwined together. He proceeded by associations of ideas in an increasingly blurred time boundary: the disinfectant burned like Tharma's lightnings on his legs.

"Calm down. I'm not here to hurt you." she said. She had all her senses alert, he approached her by burying his nose in the hollow of her neck, he smelled her skin, traces in the air, caught violet and amber.

"It's me. Look, it's just disinfectant." she reassured him by pointing to the bottle on the bedside table.

Valtor retrated, recognizing it was the woman he loved and not one of his mothers in front of him. His heartbeat became slow, shoulders down, now he almost seemed like a lifeless doll in front of her. He let her keep on her work without any complaints. She finished dressing, then she bandaged his wounds in deafening silence, she could only hear his breathing.

"Stay there." she whispered softly heading towards the little wooden cupboard in the room.

It had been her idea, she felt like a stranger in that house and the thought of going down four floors each time to get to the kitchen, risking meeting her witches, made her shiver. Of course, she was much freer than any member of the Coven, somehow the Ancestors respected her, listened to her plans and strategies carefully, never a word of mockery, all she had received in years of service was advice, few compliments and an expression she could not discern. They were alert, analyzing her, looking for flaws and weaknesses, Liliss stammered something out under her breath, the others two nodded. She felt watched, stalked, obsessed with the thought that sooner or later they would've chained her too in their perverse game. For this reason she avoided all actions, tried to keep relationships with the three as detached as possible, remaining a puzzle in front of the witch of illusions was her goal.

She opened the cupboard and placed the material on the table. She put some water in the electric kettle, opened the inlaid wooden casket and began to choose the most suitable herbs, lightly caressed each one, letting the fragrances dance in her lungs.

It reminded her of her dad, as she watched him as a child as he made her a cup of tea whenever she was down in the dumps. He caressed the herbs in his study with delicacy, immersing himself in the pungent smells, then he would call her beside him in that olfactory research, telling her the benefits of each plant and how to make the most of them, and it was the sharp rosemary for healing, mint for stress, balsamic anise. In that little corner of nature, with the well-known brilliant notes of the cedar peel and the skilled hands of her father who mashed the leaves, her mind relaxed.

She waited for the herbs to finish their brewing time, then she poured the tea into a white porcelain cup adding a teaspoon of honey.

"I made you some tea. It'll help you feel better. Open your mouth, please."

She softly blew on the cup, cooling it off just a bit, and brought it to his mouth. Valtor followed her command, the smell was heady, notes of lavender, hawthorn and red tea sang as the hot liquid ran down his throat.

When he had finished to drink, she put the empty cup away and wiped his lips with her thumb. She kissed him on the forehead and let him lay down, tucking the sheets.

"Griffin ..." Valtor suddenly mumbled.

"Tell me."

"I- I ..."

"It's okay, you can tell me whatever you want."

"Why are you not angry? I- I ... hid you a part of me."

She had no right to be angry. She couldn't be when those pure eyes were fixed on hers in search of certainties. He was looking for answers and confirmation in her words, when she at first still could not realize what she had just seen. Such nonsense could not be described and questioning was useless. What could be rational about the cuts he carried behind his back or the red scales that covered him? Nothing.

What was rational about the man usually full of himself who was now trembling with fear in front of her?

"Why should I-"

"You must be."

Rather, he wanted her to be. He wanted her to scream, spit every insult, every slimy truth, so that he could sink into the depths of his self-contempt. Yet, she was calm and taking care of him. He didn't deserve it and couldn't stand her stare full of love that should've been directed towards someone way better than him. He was a hero for trying to save her from the horror that bore his name and a coward for wanting her still by his side. She hadn't run away from fear and it pulled her even closer to his heart. It was killing him.

"I know, I should've told you." he continued. "My mothers created it, something I have no control over. They wanted to try a new spell today and things spiraled out of control and- "

"And you hurt your back." she said.

And it hadn't been even the first time.

He was 7 years old, missing incisors and messy blonde curls, when he used to curl up in a corner and gaze out at the sky and the garden below from the large living room windows. He envied the swallows, they were weak, tiny fragile bones destined for a meal to a larger predator, ephemeral existences with a noose around their necks given by the true and only mother nature, yet they sang, they whirled in the sky unaware of any danger in an eternal spring. It was the same with flowers, they would be waiting a whole year to show off their magnetic colors and then bound to perish in a sweet smell that penetrated his nostrils. They all died in a quick smile, almost a game of darts, they threw themselves at maximum power towards the target of no return, as if they didn't care about the ending, it was just a necessary condition for their fleeting beauty. They slowly went towards death not feeling its weight for their entire existence, nothing more than a momentum. Blink of an eye, his irises were now laying on the various paintings hanging around the room: Liliss had an obsession for art and each painting had to represent a specif mood of hers. There were battle scenes, clanging of swords, diaphanous women with bare breasts standing face to face with a young men gambling in the dim black of oil painting. Stormy seas, forests and then aimless flowers and seagulls. Why were they still? What had stolen their right to chase each other across the sky? Someone had decided to enchant them in a precise instant, in a fixed scene against their will, while their fellows whirled free. He felt sympathy for the water lilies forced not to close and for the always red apple stuck in the basket, perhaps because he himself was a still life, the flying, the wanting, the perishing were out of his will, the one of a lacquered image. It was crystal clear in the definition itself, still life, how could a being stained by nothing have vital momentum since its very conception wanted it still? He was still life. In a frame, sick with rot and alive in the stroke of the eternal puppet position imposed by his mothers. Rot bit into his bones, poisoned his nerves and threw them into a muddy puddle where the reflection did not match his will.

His child self decided he would free every little bird from the canvas and destroy all those paintings, he hated still lives, so he bit his lip as hard as he could until the taste of iron flooded his mouth. He moved on to something else, now the game was scratching his skin to color it pink, holding his breath with the utmost force. He learned to control his flames, wanted to test its power and chose his arms as a target. He was a teenager and as he shortened his hair with scissors, he thought what it must be like to stand in their place and be cut off. And he felt it on his skin. It wasn't like anyone would've noticed, the wounds merged with those inflicted by the Ancestors, leaving cords of raised skin. He was their toy, therefore he demanded to be broken and he would help them by making their job easier. Wasn't it what a good son must do?

"At least my blood is red, isn't it?" he said as he interrupted his flow of thoughts. Lips twisted into a sinister smile and wide eyes.

"Of course it is red, but what do you mean?" she replied bewildered.

"It's good news. I'm a beast, it could've been black or blue as well, but it is red just like yours."

His calm tone spelling poisonous words hit her like a shard leaving her heart shattered.

"You're no beast." she said.

"And what would I be if not a creature? These feelings, this warmth towards you, how do I know they're mine? How do I know they're not controlling me and you're just an illusion of Liliss? Are you real Griffin? Can you answer? "

His pupils dilated, he spoke to her in a swirling crescendo, his voice rose, it cracked, its rhythm accelerated hysterically, breathing short and broken, his fingertips digging deep into her arms' skin.

"You can't love me! You just saw it!" he spat out.

She stared in horror at the atrocity of those words. Reality was mangling her eardrums as a cat scratching on a chalkboard.

"Griffin, these eyes, this hair, are just a wrapper, a beautiful case for the most hideous of gifts. If I hadn't looked like this, would you have even looked at me? Would you have ever spoken to me or would you have run away?" he asked. He asked her what she would've done, when he was the one who wanted to escape the mirror every morning. He saw the monster chuckling there behind him, next to his immaculate reflection, laughing, enjoying the blond's stupidity for wanting to conceal his true essence, as if a line of defined eyeliner and eyebrows would've done the trick.

"You're still making questions." she whispered in wonder.

"I must know!" he screamed. "I need to know if you're willing to love a monster, because ... that's what I am."

Griffin cupped his cheeks, her hands so gentle and soothing, and she smiled, the most beautiful he had ever witnessed, a glimpse of light in the pit of darkness his life was.

"You're still questioning, Valtor. You're the answer. You want me to tell you that you are good, that you are a man, to confirm something that runs in your blood, and you still do not know what it is. The answer is your own self, in your doubts. You are worried, you are taking care of something and in this action there is humanity. I cannot give you the answers you are looking for, but I can say that I feel them here. "

She placed her hand on his heart.

"When the spark in you has gone out and your vocal cords no longer vibrate, with no doubt, you'll be a monster. Without even realizing it, you'll spread terror and death, emotions will be unknown to you. But you have those and they're beautiful. You're human, Valtor, this is why you hate the beast, hence you fight. But this back means giving up, these tears on your face, well, they're a victory. I hate the monster, as much as you do, but it's not the one with red scales and big wings. Your own monster is living inside your mind, it feeds off your insecurities and how I'd like to kill it off if I only could! Free you and look at the man, I can say it outloud I- I... L-lo-ve."

Her voice cracked, the word love hard as tears tried to find their way. She held them back and took his hand between hers, in what looked so much like a promise.

"Valtor, I'll never love the beast. I love you."

"What if I were to become one? Would you give up on me? Would you ever leave me in the dark, alone? You'll never leave, will you? Will you always be by my side? Don't lie, please."

The witch hugged him eagerly as her heart broke under the weight of the demons in his mind. The adult with the oversized ego had collapsed into a child to be protected.

She lay down beside him and slowly started stroking his hair, lulling him to sleep. Another sob.

"She left me Griffin, she left me alone in the darkness with that monster. I'm scared."

"Who left you?" she asked softly.

"Believe me, I was good, I had never done anything wrong. I was small, useless, and it was too strong, I couldn't beat it. I was afraid of the dark, and she wasn't there to protect me. So dark ..." he spoke feebly, he turned his head.

Eye frames the void, remembers a room with a forthcoming beast, roaring flames, pain. The vague phrasing, frightened of giving voice to his nightmares, chased his weaknesses with choked breath, tried to catch them one by one, but they were dripping off his lips.

"Who are you talking about?" Griffin asked shaking his hand, giving him all the courage to speak up his mothers never tried to give him.

"Mom." Valtor stammered, gasping. Without even the pronoun my, he was almost referring to entities out of time and space whose name trembled leaving his mouth. She knew he didn't have a mother, the blond man in her arms was a creation of the Ancestors, yet he was longing for a family, bonds made of genes and flesh.

"Mom left me and the darkness came for me. It was so cold, I couldn't move." Darts of frozen darkness, enveloped in himself like a shivering maggot. The creator speaks, the son obeys. The creator breaks his will, sets the rules, commands. Violence, punishment, obedience, blood and broken bones. The cold becomes stronger, snow cuts his face, the son gets tired, he begins to ask questions, he strives to know the purpose of everything. "Your purpose is us Valtor, without us you are nothing" Belladonna ruled.

No words, another cry that desperately asked to be given voice. He was hungry for love.

"I don't want to be a creation. I can't be their son, Griffin. I feel it, I sense it, even they are not that powerful to create life out of nothing. It's burning inside of me, I don't belong to this planet, Whisperia's not my home, but somehow I ended up here with them, the mighty son of the Three Witches. Maybe I wasn't a good child, was I? I wonder if she remembers me. I don't remember her, one moment she was there to hold me, the next she was gone. I can still imagine her touch and scent on my skin, I bet she smelled of roses, because I love roses, don't I? I ask myself where is she now, what is she doing and if she is proud me or if she ever loved me. But she's not here. Belladonna, Liliss, Tharma never left me, though. I know, they're definitely not the mothers of the year, but they never left me. I'm a weapon, I told you, the most powerful of them all, they can't lose me. They hate the man I am, but they appreciate the beast and therefore I'm sure they would never leave me.That's why deep down I think they may care about me, I got what they need. I love them."

He smiled as he tossed his head back among the silk cushions, knowing how much a fool he was making of himself. She was still there, strong and still as always.Trembling lips, every cell of her body was fibrillating, they wanted to detach from it and rush on him like thousands of shooting stars, build him a shelter, save him from his mothers and love him, giving him a bit of that care he had always been denied. She knew her love wasn't enough.

Meanwhile Valtor wondered how much easier it would've been to turn off the light and let himself be swallowed up in an endless dream. Darkness would become his new home, and without even the small glow of its flames, it wouldn't be dark anymore, just nothing. No sound, no fight. Maybe she could've been the one able of dragging him out the pit he had digged himself. He raised his head and tried to meet her gaze for the last time, his lids starting to feel heavy.

"Griffin I don't know how much longer I will be able to keep the monster away. That's why I need to know that no matter what you'll stay by my side. Will you? "

"I.."

Interrupted sentence.

He had already fallen asleep without even waiting for the answer to how much he wanted it to be positive. It was easier to unstich himself from reality and follow the threads towards the dreamlike enchantment, in which the canvas tapestry with their smiling faces imprinted would never unravel.

She sighed. It was her turn to cry now.

She didn't know. That was the answer that was so difficult for her and it was breaking her heart. All the words of courage and comfort that had come easily from her before were now dead in her throat, none of them were for her. She had seen his blood slipping right through her skin, she had touched what was the most intimate about him that somehow managed to appear so right as it sneaked into her bony hands. The red of his blood fingerprinted his pain, left her the keeper of what was dearest to him. As the sea after an undertow regurgitates its treasures on the beach, the darkness in him had left away the most precious of his secrets: she had felt his humanity, now it was up to her to decide whether to wash it away or dry it and no soap would have ever canceled it. She could not wash her hands, she looked at them in the twilight of the night, turned them again and again, searched for escape routes between the lines of her palms, but the more she squinted her eyes in search of a pattern, the further she was pushed away. He was now in her hands.

She threw herself into the silk of the bed and looked at him: eyes closed and his lashes tickled his cheeks slightly. How could a monster be so human? And she, how could she be so hypocritical, unable to give an answer and yet she was hugging him? And fuck, how much the cut on her leg hurt.

Perhaps their relationship was a ship on fire on the high seas. Water and fire, a beautiful tragedy to be consummated in sync until one annihilates the other. Water never dies, it changes shape. The heat of the fire would've forced it into crystalline darts that would hurt the sky like swallows at dawn.

She was a bird. A real one.

Birds fly away.

[miscellaneous-obsession]

Hi, I'm not sure if you do requests but I came across your ongoing fic about Alcina Dimitrescu and the maiden. I was wondering if you could write an angst piece about the family involving Ethan Winters and him carrying out his mission in the castle (as hinted during gameplay)? You can make it as sad and gory as you want!

Ah thank you for the ask, I really tried to go all out with the piece! Also please note this was written before canon details of the girl's weakness was revealed.

The Inevitable

Warnings: Graphic violence, death of main characters, implied suicide, details of injury and blood, use of blades and guns and not suitable for minors.

Anguish consumed her entire being as sobs were ripped from her throat, each more violent than the last. Her chest heaved, becoming more breathless as tears relentlessly trailed down her cheeks, falling only to land on the creamy expanse of Alcina's dress.

Being the last to have turned, Ethan presumed her mortal connections of humanity lingered longer than most. The emotional intensity of the scene that unfolded before him forced him to avert his gaze as guilt threatened to tear through his heart. He was the cause of such destruction; he had laid waste, bringing about the death of a family in reparation and retaliation for the loss of his own.

He called them monsters, but there was always a chance he was wrong. Was it he who was becoming the villain of the story?

Forcing himself to face the consequences of his actions, his stomach turned. Recalling the events that led him to believe that the brunette was the first he had slaughtered. She had walked into the hall unsuspecting of the company hovering above on the bannister, perched in wait, ready to leap onto her frame. Unable to swarm and seek help from her sisters, Ethan had plunged a blade through the skin and muscle of her neck with such force even the crunch of bone and cartilage echoed alongside a gurgled scream. Her eyes had widened, arms flailing helplessly as her mind continued to fight, hoping that this was not her untimely end.

"Cassandra," the cry of her name rang throughout the expansive room and with force, Ethan was flung from his position over the fading woman. The redhead looked torn; anger and sorrow clashed together like waves against a cliff. Her bottom lip trembled as tears threatened to spill over with the force she blinked, a truly futile effort to contain them.

"You can't go, Cassie; who will I bicker with?"

Ethan had recovered by then, his heart aching with a drop of adrenaline as these sisters were forced to part, separated by planes of existence by his actions. The brunette now lay lifeless in a pool of her own blood, cradled by whom he knew to be Daniela. The very same redhead remained unguarded, vulnerable, and against his better judgement, he retrieved his gun. Solely focused on Cassandra's corpse, Daniela had less than a second to react as she unsheathed her sickle, refracting the bullet, so it embedded within wooden panelling rather than her head. 

"You bastard," with sloppy movements, she swung the blade that remained coated in her previous victim's blood. Advancing with ferocity, Ethan was compelled to retreat; his steps backward created a minute distance only to be quickly eliminated by Daniela's persistence. With both knife and gun in hand, Ethan continued to parry, deflecting potentially lethal blows, waiting patiently for an opening.

Two sounds followed in succession, first a second shot of the gun, then the thud of a fallen body. Not far from her elder sister lay Daniela, her body shaking as she slid across the marbled floor leaving behind an abhorrent bloody trail in her wake. Her effort was not in vain as she curled into Cassandra's now cooling body, hoping for a semblance of comfort in the absence of her mothers and only remaining sister.

Seconds later, the matriarch's wife stormed in, her fury no less palpable than her youngest’s. "No," her voice was soft as disbelief seeped in; ignoring the direct threat before her, she came to her daughter's side. The redhead forced a smile, hoping to alleviate the distress that crossed her mama's face.

"Mama," that sole word was enough for the maiden to hush the girl who she pecked on her forehead.

"Relax, Dani, you did so well, my darling. I am proud, so proud."

The slight smile, still as toothy as ever, cracked the maiden's heart, knowing it would be the last she caught from her daughter.

"Cassandra will be waiting, so do not fear, for you won't be alone."

The comfort Daniela sought was given in tenfold as always, and as she closed her two-toned eyes for the final time, she was only aware of her mama's delicate fingers carding through her hair. 

Much like her daughter, who had just passed, the blonde could not contain her pain at the sight of her deceased children. Although before Ethan could act, the two remaining ladies of the house emerged, summoned by the ruckus he was responsible for.

Bela surged forward after a single glance to her younger sisters; her protective nature had not dulled even in their deaths. On the other hand, Alcina flew to her wife's side, sharing in the grief that constricted their unbeating hearts. Never had she thought that a single man could enact such damage.

Bela was relentless, her anger conforming to her will and an advantage as she slashed with precision. Her blade getting too close for comfort for Ethan's liking, but he was prepared. Blocking and countering with his own attacks saw the blonde thrown off-kilter, her movements becoming sluggish as she expended her energy far too much over the course of the evening.

Observing her daughters struggles, Alcina moved to step in, only to be too late as Ethan used Bela's momentum against her. With her sickle wedged within the hearth of the fireplace, unable to rip it out in time, both blade and bullets penetrated her unprotected abdomen. The inhuman cry from Alcina sent Ethan staggering as she pulled Bela into her embrace, coaxing and pleading for her to stay awake. Quickly cream became crimson within seconds but was ignored in favour of re-joining her wife. Held safely in her mother's arms brought Bela a semblance of peace; she desperately wanted to stay but knew there was nothing to fear anymore, for she had her sisters to join.

"I'm sorry, mother, mama," she looked to them in turn as she spoke their favoured terms of endearment, eyes fluttering with each movement.

"Nonsense dragă mea, you were perfect." 

A small nod from the maiden confirmed Alcina's statement, confident that her daughter had succeeded. "Rest Bela," was the last thing the blonde heard as she slipped into an endless sleep, still held and cradled in the soothing caress that her mothers provided.

Only when they were sure did they let go, allowing Bela to lay by her sisters, placed with such delicacy it surprised Ethan. Only two to go; it was a thought that crossed his mind as both women stood, bodies stiff and ready to pounce as though they were predators and he was their prey.

Both matriarch and her wife were riddled with injuries by the end of the fight, Alcina more so as she had taken blows in an effort to save her beloved. Foolishly it was this notion, her own sentimentality, that brought about her end. Having collapsed her wife catching her with practised ease, Alcina was held against the blonde's chest. With an urgent need to convey her love, Alcina forced herself upright, seeking the lips of her maiden. Granting one of her last requests, her beloved closed the distance, savouring what would be the final kiss in which the matriarch would or could reciprocate. A hand rose to Alcina's cheek as she came to rest her head in the column of her wife's neck, fingers tracing skin with unparalleled tenderness. Ethan's own heart ached, he had lost his wife, his Mia, and he was the reason his ancestor was losing her own.

"I'll be with you soon, my love; I promise even death won't separate us."

Alcina hummed, although not in disagreement; she too did not want to be parted in the afterlife. "You are mine dragă mea."

"I am yours just as you are mine; that will never change."

Smoothing out tangled curls, the maiden pressed a gentle kiss to the crown of her wife's head. Seconds later, Alcina's chest stilled and only then did the final Dimitrescu shed her tears, leading to the scene Ethan saw before him.

"Where is my daughter?"

No success, her sobs continued to wrack her body, oblivious to the man's question as she pressed her face into the top of her wife's head.

"Where is Rose?"

He demanded louder each time, growing more frustrated with a lack of results he had hoped to achieve from this massacre. Eventually, without any patience left, he drew closer, his footfalls treading carefully across stained floors. Extending an arm, allowing a hand to come into contact with the blonde’s shoulder, snapped the maiden’s attention to the man who murdered her family, her innate fear of being removed from her beloved squashed upon meeting his bitter gaze.

"Why would I tell you anything, Ethan Winters?"

For once, he had no response, but she filled the silence with her resentful tone, despite her wavering voice and quivering lip. "You hold no more bargaining chips. You played your cards much too early. How foolish a man to have made such avoidable mistakes."

He scoffed as if to refute her statement; despite all of the stacking evidence that she was right, some small part of his mind refused to acknowledge or toy with the concept that she was wrong.

"You want a daughter you will not find; I will not divulge a secret of which I was entrusted with. For you killed my daughters, my wife, my everything. Nothing you can say or do could repair or undo the damage you have caused. You will leave here knowing you have failed."

With that said, the maiden prepared for the inevitable, for Ethan's weapons to end her life much like he had the other four Dimitrescu's at her refusal to share what information he desired. Holding her wife tighter and an arm resting across her daughters, she waited. But the blow nor bullet she anticipated came, leaving a hollow, empty sensation festering in her chest.

"I won't kill you until I leave with what I came for."

"Unfortunately for you, that is the opposite of what will happen."

Before Ethan could stop her, she grabbed her youngest’s discarded sickle, and for all to hear, she said aloud, "In life and in death, glory to Mother Miranda." The weapon was swung with force, finalising the end of the Dimitrescu household, allowing the last member to come to rest, still clutching her wife's body with a loosened grip.

Ethan had failed.

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Only hours later, without hearing from his sister, did Heisenberg approach the castle. Lacking his lycans or other substantial back up he entered silently, aware of the games that may be ongoing. He did not want to spoil his niece's fun.

Entering the hall brought about a shock; in the light of the fires dying embers lay those who he had called his family. Untouched from the fight, Daniela was held between her sisters, flanked on either side, just as she had adored as a child. Alcina was to their right, body held by her wife, who distinctly lacked the sickle once embedded in her skin. The very weapon was strewn to the side, still marred by her blood. Those emerald eyes Alcina adored to talk of were now closed in respect, an unforeseen gesture carried out by none other than the man who wreaked such havoc before having absconded. The matriarch's wife had her arm extended, albeit stiff with rigour mortis, across the girls, forever comforting them in a maternal gesture.

Never did Karl anticipate an ending like this, although he was only thankful for their departure together, for they remained a family even in their time of death.

But for now, it was time to inform Mother Miranda of their demise.