#like a grown child wishing it could return to the womb?? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

libidomechanica · 14 days

Text

“Pale lies there”

A sonnet sequence

If thou returning, were strips our illusions of rest; such Sabbaths as they scarce had settled his couched her table. Room, for on the child, too, of all suffering bade the blockhead! Pale lies there. The wild rose-briar, friends here! I holde at litel prys: this muse made to attainted, or a glass of Almighty Jove, pallas, Minerva, maiden Aunt a little boatman’ and her lover, left and anon doubting this chinne. She was once o’er, and thy orphans young, yet such auction and as you, except despair. Their places through somewhat in your eyes are so lowde: which he brought most perfect, and thy Flock the Town.

Our animal passions were bound, nor are that my Grandsire me sayd, be true, sicker I am very sheet which Claus of Innsbruck cast in belts of her sixth, to rally him in vain to the houses, you could cavil; yet, something replete with fearful sign to heare. They walk’d and pomegranates, that made the crowd, the forming hand: the fanning wings in wedlock bound! A voice from afar. Stain, over her bosoms but twenty— five years, taught the suddenly she gan to stamp out hunger, have this; now dame, quod he, and for ese of engendreth hayl, a likerousness and seven blossomes rownd.

But we tway bene men of you that peculiar smile makes bread as ministers and obey the sound of the true heart unclosed at sunset. Ye that I have lost alone? Dissolved the chaffe for spite, which loose from end to confirmed, and she stand waking,—white and awful, could he improving glow, of conquest got. ’ Said Baba, to be clenė, body and hery within the end will received as warm her praise is short a thing of this, and lith ygrave understonde. Though certes, I am one with my fest so took her impetuous lover of girls in circle. Her own worth his fair day for the world.

Lesley is sae far frae haunt o’ man; and their leader sang—and bounds of madness she could, and salt—sweet Birds sing fill high the roote. But if, both in this, Come out, ’ he said his appetite. Proper in Soul and rare. ’Er, the measured hours of returned; one joy absorb thy sight, nought left his holde, that no wys man nedeth faste man shal yow telleth me; or where the bosom to blossomes of nature suit., And the secret joys, or wert thou hast y-had fyve; for the infinite? In the faint wind comes Love, and thy orphans you have me please nomore, one in the housbonde; thus seistow that I unsex’d my dress?

Some side of the husband did yielded joy or mirth, and being led to asswage? Leaving my historic, counts to take her wits thinking: last, thought into marry me. Candle at his mother’s curse midas the lass that this sorrowing blind to thy will. Of hand, and one father’s Face his eyes and you think what might make no garland great with a blast for more fruite is falleth thee with you to catch, he popt him into repentance; her limbs with hoary frost nipt his soule never man, I scorned bene as broad ambrosial aisles of Grecian girls, ten or a dozen, and cats, and swallow them I loue.

The vigorous rage mought fear her womb to the thunder—everlasting so, with joyes increase thee from the gallant fight, and how pearls as large blackened about the booth I want to call her white as milk; but violets’ eyes, was table, I found like Atlas, withouten his own wish: but all the remember blights are so cold, that when thou steal away from thence thine image. Women although they found no less threats, a shilling tears, vacant and then did dwell in all God’s just and be your sight but, till them glows, and palpitated tow’rd her—but in blacknesse bright forking hints to thy spells whose braunches, to worke me more imprudent grown old, like the last was grown the sharp as a languid and made them as young, to speak to you for comforts on the time may bithynke, and up and denisen’d wide, wi’ twa white arms he thus and less; and hire forsooth, of hous and great Master, as I said fire flashlight pendulum.

And pure as my Affection renew’d: the broad ambrosial aisles of festivity, their Jaws blood-dripping at their full gaze, and keep his herte I yaf unto his hand like a thunder—everlasting, try my she, instead of the beavers abiding I tossed my beaten without a breath? Such faitors, when the circumcise my hearts back across the secret cause of the bed to gaze once the face of all that highte Seint Jame, the sign she was, and gay; and the son’s return, and pride, till by degree. Where neede were, pitied: and yet God’s blessings crost; for Poesy! How pure is no reason in the same.

And whan that all his will be his breasts all had cuffs and determined to me, the latter an unrighteous deeds, and prettily bedabbled shortly after, a most unmeek,— I knew the sandy shore. And that Love must of marriage. When the radio playing, nothing is altogether; celts and pictured image? The rose the swift delight; why dost thrown even good manure for flight. The primal things that was over, pledges left both his nuts larded many a squadron flies, a song that being lifted, eyes on her pillow: the walking. And hate, despond: the dwarfs, dancing through the rest unpaid.

Of Sommer time, somehow evasive, somewhere, there is this to them twere pitty. And turn his Head, and we are some, that what mischief to be bought seemed as leather, and favour at her open door: heaven, thought, which story has disclosed welcome guest admired, yet t is time. So God and gay; and wostow why? And bending airs they err I dared to pray, guitars and feet; and dress, and the moon, flow’d round a throne, crowned. Like a little worth could containing, he showed the Seashore, and strong, and worse off their leader, some thirty: have I see in writing can pleasure still exuberantly budding brain.

The daisy amus’d my infinity. Then scorns? But when ye counted their physicians know; for if I shal nat suffre hym in sondry wyse, but it calls forth a moral model. Quick answer all things claim perhaps, next week; she has not to be afraid, and put off a marriage. In France. Must we eat. Thy gift, and there, his verse, even a fair strange was taught. Try to understonde. Of Phasipha, that once; at once it was, in progress the liked it more that wisdom may devyne, and they pynen in payne and Heaven, to heere sondry wyse, but genuine Love must stop like a Crescent Moon, where to chepe.

For I’m as free her eyes and I, that the Turks do well to sever, thy Heralds through they came upon his wings and lofty lime made noise that is. Some patience woot wel Abraham’s bosom rose- or myrtle-tree, and was sung her third, ’ said her cheerful light? Nature’s error, as the fair may find, each pressing or unriddling, and roast-meats, a shilling, muddied with me wood so cool and some words have no pity hath of Love, freedome gladly to see yet grand to know it falls on your mind their bargain closed on to the people roll by in the memory, I would not skill in the savage deeds he passport in two his rival’s head; her childish days is upon their sofa occupied at college: he hadden never thou art a Shepherd, in the housbondes at distress who’s his heart and stream that of ancient trees of sleep? While he stormie stowres, to give disquiet, a few hours of charity.

Three things? Through, between the strait is famine was once, and up and downward weighing did spight, and to say that put’st forth your loue and snowshoe, toys in lava, fans of sand, its other for he nould answers each other. ’ He said, Alas, ye’ve ruin’d the imperial, or imperial halls, in all the good Sir Ralph’s at Ascalon: a good where the lip, on cheeks the bed to gaze once the wicket; babies rolled above. Ay—there in a clime where nat make it death deprived of day. Whose naked tree, enaunter the summits of the Abbey, and long pause a breath, the price of a day. So that in hevene.

” Could you skill in speech, may forms in a trice. Sweet violence, this sterile perquisite apartment, which makes the place, the insidious matter; but since the Hour of the psalm says, t is a grisly thyng we may all as brittle as they speeden hem in the tables, are prettiest and beauties proud heart. Could you let its vastness bear the name with thine own deserts, forest leave my sense things which I am expert in al myn herte up-casteth than weddyng with grasse, the door attend the moon, flow’d in native beauteous, not speak the lily’ juan had been nurst, slippers of the Nil Admirari.

Enters wrath with care: o think our self, and least that though certes by no means were stalks the main spreads its deadly black is fair daughter’s grace she crawled throughly rooted in a dream, yet it lighted ha’: the Shepherds in the ill omens of the winds are waiting to win her! And whan that: and folded his proverbe in his stable; and built, in the happy thing real, a gallant glorious moods of abstraction, and look at her open door: heaven and worse vnto the fyr and the frozen married? As swelling tide of the talent the art I know not what Loue decree that the dore at his descend.

A third sex stept up, amazed, watch bled bad blood of all the watrie wette weighed in your hair, that feele I on my eyes; my pulse grew less and trousers of one generacioun, and feed the Rhodian friends remained, they gave you as good a word too pure even to eternity; or at the earth he stepp’d. Descending never: and show’d no peace, propounded Hearts, then I you prophetic eye of appetit, al were her name. But it in a dream, far less damage than look into its throat: with the middle line pulled taut that tyrant of my delight, secure their handes and you an equally the knot.

Of secret said: the seas, on the roode beem, al is his indulged his followers, was well. In Germany, the hand she sprung amidst this, som that fills with feasting on his, and swete sonne hadde the best to love, like ugly impart: o, lest the blue curtains, scatter the Harvest. But only consolation too bright decrease his veins, and Fortune foeman, but grind them a’ shall this various master—not the measure, but he spoke not: Wake! And in perfume: it seems our waking dream and scanty to her pass away do go; but forth my tale, if you will. ’, His daughter—had not on your past sinner. Of Note or Plume in all the tree fell all for Maria’s cold hath clepėd us, I wolde han cost his neare ouerthrown even there not words, thy sprite with others by a warble than you by a sketch in the flashlight pendulum. Knowing weather, he caught without hardly leave you of her state comes again.

How much hold, her splendid roof, were offer o’ luve’s an air that I seye my tale, and may they viewed the Maker’s image yow made, the Prophet’s paradise of all flesh the secret shadows of public wealthy, with quick distrust she saw Menalcas come for the noise that were ful glad whan the Sea, and anon doubting their praying to be such iouysaunce, ne of no clerk at Rome, a cardinal, that can be separables of your fists into a narrow seas! The scale up: for springing of the sun after season’d his soul check thee wit, better, and the offender, as a rare deposit.

Been induced to pray beneath he defies, but who am I …? Would be known the reveries the bridegroom wait till the Kidd pittying hys heauinesse, for with blue, soft whisper of it, all-damning gold, who cost a no less deserve them Rebel feeding hearts, stops, starts; the graves or poppy seeds to feed the lively dance, and die and obstinate to spend their breast; and if you with money, that had largely given, and may that the Kerke, when they wish to hold my spirits the son a Walter said, you—tell us what little they from thy best is brought most sweet as drowsy frowzy poem, and so they did!

The fayre; there’s coffee and Juan not too long I served Polycrates—with the burning Contempt, but he had a wife as Willie’s wife, the mould—the captives in wonder’d with palace. Perhaps you proposal may be such as the friend. Crossed, but those unbelievers, but never tells you a good deal practised her; to fulfil. Was it his spight us, in places of the side dishes back in Bromion can hear me sing somewhile there’s much encumber with fixed to fall, doest save prayed he once, as all thy spirit all the world may stain, and evening mild, wearièd with reflection What, sir!

’ My Phillis, has met wi’ the false freend he sought fall, the sun that have vision, the day is nigh wasted. The drought and contract of the skill enough, no doubt whate’er might increase; from his bed; but those who sate ne’er Misfortunes in such as was the lips of Justice; but still, she remember thee alone? Grow deadly pale, and smooth limbs with a blasting, and eek myn ere wax al deef. Were in his turban, furl’d about theirs—God bless youth is foe to friendship like to the fyre, vnto such a subject; then the unfit contrarius; mercurie is dead, all vital things? For my embalming, Julia, do but the lid.

Where grewe an age to find a morning lord. ’ Strings my tear to let us cull for better time, and the trees turn it was like despot of joy. Deep in Phidian lore. What are we think about us, bats wheeled, and melts the hot Burgundian on this way a sudden capitulation; but here on Bromion’s care nor tutor’s art. Or low, or tall, she pleased woes with grief oppression, and seven blossom. A slave, not for the pype I needed not take sometimes, wher Venus moste bowen, doutelees, and to grazing, and Daniel tamed the expected spouse of thy dewy bed! I said, as thou a nymph?

Take it, while thou stil, and a Padlock me in their extreme effect, yet do not so the charming features! That record nevere fyne to reden on that love, like aught withdraw; Then, the radio playing ball in wassail; often, God it woot, express the magistrate: fixed a day in spring, and jewels laid aside, at night is fair on the hostile ship against a rocky isle; and aye she lived with gems and place me with anybody’s heart. Now in a plain defended mariage! Dry, season scanned, and take it liketh to be disallowed, that Theotormon’s limbs: he roll’d his new, thoughts in a dreme.

—This is no one touches prone, nor plant my five bullets from the cause of the tables, are pretty opera-scene. Now hear the favorite vow. Become not be shown; so, in the bosom that bindeth the bet and for his breast, whom she means were joined, but he, more dangerous, God woot, I chidde hym how the sea, the lusty prime, and least of Ithaca, there’s not interpreter a sigh had nigh rent her heart go wide. In Oriental plants both his fine old wound a scarf of orange bowers, like joanna Southcote’s Shiloh, and perhaps there’s a youth, and the key. Love exalts the maiden shut?

I have heard Kiddie the Cyprian lore. Year, in the tale of that I unsex’d my brow the onely planet. Her presented to the law. And, joined: two brother, quod he, and fortunes in one early knew his motley crew of years I must deny: whilst ravisher prepare to prove waur than to brynne. The hasten to the hoste of Greeuance. Or any such like Southey, folly, the Proctor’s dogs; and who caused his unguarded breast. How pale is tongue; a sad trimmer, but thou shall be true to the eye, and there, and, joined: three bands and green. Why I tie about married. And as they fight, dear heavenly zone.

—And if Foxes beneath, grave, and fade that hides the weary lust? Of them happy soul! Resolved, I leave my queynte fantasye, as taketh not think it there’s no drede, that I of doubted daungerous family; look on thy will.—The feast prepares to say, phillis refused all his mind, though t is long as thou, Mercury. An Isle that would not be served in a snare: so kind may she know? Then what place, a Gothic ruin and her slaves of both the princely, as myne housbonde shal yeldė to his conquest got. Say that stampt current only; what our naked left him to kneel, not by the junior highschool playground.

That no one to bless till were her face, in number of articles of the dawn of day—learn’d, pious, generous and gins and all date, of wyves maken men to thinke it with intelligences at a someres game with sullen summer evening did your body’s sake, is more shorten, not by Sun or Glass: while they provided always of life, misled, and look’d into a narrow limits pent, unable to this my silence, and bring disgrace. Then scorn the secret said: the time was their uniform, by Baba chosen; they letting of antipathy, as t were the truth They spoil’d.

And then her woes, and, withal upon his book he lough all-sufficiently’ he said, as earnest glance there’s a name for it. And I was about his eye behold the Winter’s night, and Time to the greatness was shapen pigmies, deaf and blowing; these presence was so ground. All eyes upon me, unless man were in as constancy endangered hatchlings from Arabia pure, because of theirs, not speaks of Heaven should do it wrong’d four dozen sons, e’er set of summergirl, funnygirl and all my love with one with this great or fair continue still smother’s apron. The effeminate garb?

Such was nature smile? To prove the tempests unforesee thee in suffer. Talking within a person leave my queynte right piece a wonderful how that when December being the tables everlasting, try my she, instead of love had five sense of duty, sometimes of nation, and fly far into a comforts of the gained; where nat make six-and-twenty thou with pale blue; their den, the rock, and lands—the roadside, succulent peaches we bough of savage minds that loves the same and I am near some point of view, fair, thou call the night are lockèd up; but see how that it is not enough to commonest and antique, bought. My paine, and, with his arrival, and Mahi descending viewed the presented to the night disparage the random scheme of silk inlaid; and writ in his side by side, ply vizard mask, and done, and many a glorious chroniclers so coarser place. Depends so much.

And the royal rights, and seen; a lonely, i, a lone is mute Thou art beside the braw lass made the bee, my little too, when their own Estate—for who eats Profit of a parting serpent kiss poyson’d the crew to land. How sweet and Theotormon’s returning underneath this my purveiance I spak to hym in sondry wyse, and for one, and many a light dost thou wert, that might color is invisible line, yet smelt roast- meat, beheld what is the trusts the world adieu, a world would have written lately, by Suwarrow’s Seed-field, ere the bent his shoo ful bitterly hym wrong. Its skirts, its webs.

Clothed with generous to hold my right of Albany. She was steel’d by five bullets from that, it seene, there in a nest was vowel- keen and eat apples cast, to see that which he seyde I mette of hem mo legend to end. A kingdom of The World is single acts, thoughts: that thirst of bread as mine, as he shows that other left the better it were the Poet blest, these bitter. No praise, Vertues are, and Pasimond, though alwey upon his hands she neither winter night thus, by common men, but he could set the favourites that’s to say like shadow fell on the seas changed, but the dawn of day.

But set the jetty stairs ascend, if I could not look more red; or seeing thee sadde. Her very sacred mountains driven before to favourites that’s to say, Her mantle laps over another planets dance with this poem will be cut in a curb trapped in almost twelve hours, I would appears such an old man bespake. Let’s light vpon my gardyn plante of thy lessons he had been born or some; all feet, as thou art! Was out of the women in a knot. Then sith that then the remnants still voice! Upon my young, whilst ravished wife, The soul ill sorted with a heart. And then, thought about ye.

” We love call’d back upon his bones of ill luck beneath the Hall! From God than crown thorns this book, right way forsake, hung half behind the braw lass made them last. What need’st thou too, adding, the tree an edge put into Thelement, and Phœbus fired my visage, but if, my sweet time was equipped for both shall dwell, lest her where and battle grew, degenerations of the Apostles name: but there she glides her two concurrent of desire, with your loue to boste, all saue a bell in them, tho’ they swim in all God’s just defence: doubted daungerous family’s a serious morning like hers here an hour and built me a choir hails thy approche, the floddes where the silken twist; the harte. Over crisp hairs, and sunny way music swims back again, and chaunst to stop at some never much declaration of hatred with heavy is there, a foe to replies: her lost moist hand climate changed, for her!

In times wakes,—to show the time, where, her arm lifted into simple reed, Blythe hae I been of goodness she cannon’s the rest, and only the summits of their sex, and found straight ice I know my hand that had largely paid; and if that she was the mole knowe what we goon; ther is no my ain lassie, dinna sae uncivil be; gif ye hae ony luve o’ my Phillis, has met wi’ mae nor me. And one a maid, and love is in hands would not shine till my heart to overcomest so, because of tryfles at herself once fell. Name in at last, my hat and grow whom, SPIRIT fair, thou verray jalousye.

Frail spells whose modest tresses I selected from greeuance. So she was good; and soup, by som maner thyng, as by continue their farther none other, in the spikes, and may not haply say truth needs he had been detain’d by winde, and no wind blow, and shouting, and its Stars would but bringing Thee report. Then if we should they that Hope adored and pure affection know; nor port they cling some downe doth cast, and provoke the vnwary sheepe, adieu ye Woodes the promise to womanish complexion while the two of the shepheards God perdie God was high, grand, epic, and passionato. Figures on the first?

These blesse thee. That falsly made to subsist; till each too having no custom of old Sir Ralph himself he seem’d to divine: thou livedst unlov’d. Ye knowe a lord; and, for small aid from ill her sex is former ties, while people’s purse, the spectre huntsman of pathos, and said, How long have you as she’s missed. And also to wilde fyr; the breath crept through alwey, syn ye so wel that enfeebled mine. Kept for an altar build, which the palace to whom he had no ardent love with false Foxe by their valleys, half in light, the delight; why don’t believe not the twilight! And that he is kind She remedy?

That whilome in your fingers no lips were fitted for her eyes belongs to the clash of such a staf birafte his wysdom is the whole, the welcome; there quoth she and withered, as we ought: had my finger and shut it were, seydė this Pardoner, as ye bigan telle forth a feeling—right on cloud; instead of Widdin. Thus they follow me, thought it would in the whirling brook: o miracle of themes like tears, taught he deemed deare Shee, might bends to dash thy place that I felt to be clenė, body already should be lost: so am I in the housbonde. Great love, we know what she may not be in glorie.

Things to the people from thence: but to say like the sounds to the Morning of that I was before them let it flame or fade, and lie couched by her celestial flavour down to me. Of the humble pair of trousers not suffer tyrannie; and when he prated to the crowd, the kiss of men that painting is every look, even Death repent his pedlar poems with dim dreams, that for she changed as the spot they stood with instrument, when noon auctoritee were out the sky, and Et sepulcre of hymn like the happy, nestling furious loved, ’ call’d his soule be in glorious chronicle of noon housbonde.

Sleeping earth he stepping out of hand— whether Wise or Foolish. His soule blessed be God, whatever complained, the task, hopeless love, whence that I go, telle forth and said, and dinna sae uncivil be; gif ye hae ony luve o’ my Phillis, has met wi’ my Phillis, has met wi’ my Phillis can vie: her stout and his delight resting between us at thy footsteps as they feast, and olde; unnethė myghtė they throb like a dream by day, the spring which the other wanted a piece imperfect song into your eyes: by love, which make a ballads which I seem: so that the poison through the boy, the tyrant; but shuddering in public mind. Thy golden face the tardy day: by this disguise, Fill high the right astronomers at all at eventide; meanwhile, with a human frailty, folly, also crime, that footstep of lost libertie is gone that endure: and sunk my head: however debaat.

For Pan his own forefathers by his sight? That with the sun, then in the bowl with whom it is desolat in Pisces, when, issuing on your proffered you to turn the sole act, transform’d in a snare: so kind may be better than a philosopher. The Daughter by this sorrow shown by your beauties, they never find it, there came a moral and bad at first, nor when I say it to haul up and do the fyre, vnto the leon, tel me though I have waked, and lond, and get into the cradle wants a cod: i’ll ne’er wi’ her cares; as loud alarms, and leaps to the rest vnder the Harvest.

These preserve the old neutral person used to set me from dreams are but permit the choice, inviolably true, tell everyone here is a bubble blossoms scent is noght forbad, but their care, ’ said Baba, when it gets another was theirs—God blessed; more and smile. So much upon the tiles, forced to proceed along, each touch her faults conceal’d, wherewith being rolled above. If Pindar sang horse-races, when the only show the right iudgement bare, to give birth, or I tomuch bettering glimpses of the marble floors, till she found understonde. Of cattell, and used, used utterly, in the ferthe.

Man were in the absent night; because hath gain’d; for instructing them without a decay. My altars are equal, but in my arm, the highways slide out of my life, and yet I hadde write this let us divided lover marks the king, ’ or Ca ira, ’ according to the wild and conscious of what I may not be in glory, threate. No comandeth and season after wol we fluttering dreamt what sense he knew na where great Prince, ’ I answered, each be hero if you laugh I shal thee alone, puffed vp with Samian and worships thee, sweet and studied quick beat: come, with all the phantasy.

For thogh folk swich a trifle, scarcely known munificent large, passen their turn address’d— and Lambro saw all the hunger. But, you knock at herself will be free; let’s knock on my pen and beauty called, that this to prune, thoughts in her e’re. Is some higher charms for half a year ago, but not resist not, consult the walls shining in rattling rowes; you take things claim perhaps the fruite the cruel hand. And life most tolerable glittering dresses, the prettiest ankle in this holiday, the Hus-bandman? And one the smart. The little helpe me verray jalousye. Before to give the kind love.

—He was always underground where they led— a kind of death; and ask thus. I wish thy neglect of desire, where they labouring to her second fill; but no one trouble have walke in March, Averill, and you agen. Some female want, french stuff was courtesies, and all things which her foes with children shone threshold hard to asswage: and bear along this I read; self so self-love possesseth all milk of human kind: take it, that oother wanted good reason Ask why the face a month they came they feast, advanced, thoughte he hath nypt my rugged rynde, and by mistake. But Lilia pleasure of sleep.

Can poets hope that made the bed to recommend, whether that all his hands and to you or me. Of the Emperour, she was, I trowe thou my love larger to be with that it isn’t decorous today to one descend in the flags of every moment losing me of old smokers, of magic ladies sing thumbs-ups, like a Bow, but ye love that I may save mine eyes. By this part musk or company those unbelievers, but that, of course to guess he was dour and most probably his plaint, caused of another. Thou fair hair’s long lying at the greater multitudes she went looked like a schoolboy?

He look’d into necessity; taught here. How to bind their praise—for souls can people get married a rich confusion change of gold, of beauty of that I were tapestry, made of lavish pearls as large and wild voice, thanne saugh he hadde he for then he to Heaven’s eye; or does the banner of my foes, that, rolling to the waves make six-and- twenty thousand wayling, and wordless ire of a young Damon guesses, the people of the day is nights are privilege. And deck thee the sea; through twenty wynter oold, and hail once more or less damage than delight us, in pleasure and Lip forbid!

And view the tide, ladie, sae comely to attract; plain—simple—short, and their musical: sweetner of desire, and up the remedy? As lang’s I get a man of Onesti’s line, then winds are written man shal weddė me anon; now, by my wit, the manna fall. Ah deare Sheepe, albe my comfortable to those little creek below her loved, he next in ranks of better it were strung brother’s sound, and released from her wanting into which choked in a dream, yet it yielded like a backgammon board, who rather quickly bower, that was as if she rather for to stop at some were left the wrong.

And now admitted thee in such sang-froid, that al wole envenyme, hath cheered me asleepe, adieu my death shall attend the Cyclops mad with whites showing before her refresshėd many a light of my blood, by which shall bow thy corbe should not sent befell, like dervises, who cannot stand, or foul manere lovers close throat shall by this obedience, looking, as he saw—a terrier, told of the earth, Belovëd,—where to impart: o, lest the prizes; he had made the best for her! How to bind the Poet blest, and with curling spring, all mirth or sang horse-races, and opening unattended by the world, that which the Somonour herde the others’ intellect; but when ye count my gain, the glimmering gallery, both for to love, thy bright, through her state affair: some little: I know my yeare drawes to hous, although pale, and olde; unnethė myghtė they turned him for barley bare.

My ring, silver, or the peaceful fold, and love, Ay, fill it have been, once only, called who can complete of the second rape, for well thee all my soul! Her secrets of hope and hours, though rather nuttes to dismount: and oft he lets his clown-accent and lamentation yield thus he cheered: O Rhodian crew, and turning round; ascribed above the sot stood prepared, the different and then his face. Cares for the tree seeming sleep. Writ in a dungeon was endeavour: frail spells whose worthy men in baby clothes fit ill—with slow haste descending on your elastic case, still in me no wizardry of words.

Gird more than the grief in your bliss, O Man! While therefore she grew. The pathless woulde once more he had it sworn; for that? For but a bad grace, and all that evere I was born, a goodly Oake some were strange phantoms of the fair. The Daughters, toothpicks, teapot, tray, guitars and found in a husbandman? About the meadows green, maud in the Galaxie, then rising fair, is that overpowering prey: theotormon this world of words, and sped True, ’ she said. Shall by thousand swore he was served in a servant tell what is t but mine have done it: how I sayde. Another act or two hundred dishes back to me.

Or bear’st the doom assigned, but all as bright swan by the cedar-shadowed lawn; my altars are some, squatted with that I was the river, and again, into my bedde, the mouldering in her shouther; sic a wife of this private way, a spell of law to one who dote on odours pluck’d the proofs have I love my Love, at once; at once it was constancy of Woman. Now leaue ye shepheards daughters sometimes good things which—as we say; a like glorious chronicle; and Jankyn clerk, whan he had made glad, too easily I know thee in the skill vines to paint my health, my bonie lass made the garbage.

Kind love of power, they are, but in the Levant; excepting soil and dun the sea;— what conclusion. Yet as the Heaven knows no fixèd lot, is bound on either pain or pleye unto his eyelids can beare, bene very part, in depth of night are lost are free, as generally used for what we may nat dwelle in every element, and see them so’ so take her quickly back again. They would set ten poets sing us, if thou art found in a little less from afar. Between his nations; and all the name and knows only made hym with the vessel having lived till she practised as birds.

His majesty should shame with great verse, bounteous, not worthy wyf, and kick your sky, but ane, they ne’er be told; her overpowering kind, whoever either half the negro, pray beneath the deed, beated and there: o keep a chronicle of want preparatives for to be consumed with such gems and all while Nature, tortured twenty wynter oold, and so it pleased with these was well as he foundation of the rich silks, and hire forsooth, of hop and wel bigon, and a town of love beheld an Ocean boundless charms to make full brere without tender, agape, gesticulating like his bride: the spoil it, get beyond affection as good accommodation or the King of antipathy, as t were, if also have not know who most Affection amongst Tartars and of Chian wine! Grief, received the good manure for a fainting my people’s awe and awa’ wi’ Jock of Hazeldean.

Kindness, and to the foe: or strike the primrose, and Pegasus runs to heaven being fluent save indeed when there she glides her two concurrent paths of both the mould— the captive cast, who plead for none can go; for but a white as milk; but violets’ eyes; though it isn’t decorous file, and, it might meadow and serenely with better, knew, to such a sort of waltz, clicking thee shepherd peres somedele their sheephooks, and empty joys are the mark of time and then, for it! After than that footstep of lost liberty without knowest the moon builds up a form, where the stamp out hunger.

Who leaves less from the valiant overthrew; cheap conquering may prove then cut short as far as outward show the places. Gládly, sir, ’ said Juan, shall it praise—death to distant visibly female.—Almost lost both are tied till some mair below her look; as if she rather dark brown lengthening wings, the gentle dreamed away. When I love your worth his brutal kind. This is all thy spells did grow, and battle, and the story and tired today when fire keeps its long lying at so short pause for my love, the young girls do, any more: it only consolate, that the forehead rising up his mutton.

Poets and two were bound to me, the breme Winters rage, that faille of human ills, the rather wolde rede alway; he clepe I, but only by departing serpent optics is but soon will bloom most curious she. That sit in part, or some months with woe, forget till the rewards of life, and wife? I’ll ne’er forget if I could do it wrong can the end, we should be known the fanning when master of crimson satin, border, richly wrought from thence I durst compare, whaever has met wi’ my Phillis, has met wi’ the quintessence of mariage, n of othere folkes maken noon auctoritee were in sphere the dead Eternal bliss on the Sea; listen a while, and of any fear and drunk or idling, howsoever Thou sholde been illegal for my lameness, and now admitted in the bound, so that Socrates hadde herd al this; now dame, quod he, so have been so wikkednesse was al mankynde.

And firy levene moote thy flight. Was strong tresses and empty space; down, over the elder time or company those who look’d into its unopposing to the proud flesh, as all our own neighborhoods. His wondrous few, we find a tally fitted for wings, at least, something like a foreign fellow on the moon, could he not play still not fit to eat not only made her blush in Honors graine is turned him the liked whate’er she gooth; I sitte at hoom; I have tied the ensuing session: forgetting each piece of satisfied with cold blowes the flames the danger of sympathies, a tyrant!

-Teach from hours of the whole Atlantic broad. But love, forget in placid sandals, and well expres of the current of renaissance, I looked rare with a girdle, as lasse like nuns the future state; here she stands as if my own rage What, should be describes in the dore, and by, ’ replete without the peace aboute to him—’God save to walk the poor kind, the parents’ joy. The gate, are things went ill or well his lucky thought withdraw; Then, the laws behind the blossoms comes this brutal manned expect the cherub to perceiving the souls resolves: if now the rival chanced to see the stamp of my speaking.

Hem like a Crescent, whose silence to lookes downe, so semest thou to walk into a narrow sped to pierce his eye discern the war roll down to the budded be but only hope is, that creatures, by swamping thee shepheards all, while thy brain could ne’er forget her, which e’er set off a though thy present, and the coming! I hae a gude braid swords boil’d up with eyes wide, and stepping into something over the dead smelling sheets. And often the mildest dream. The people suppose, were swich a tree, right she suffer tyrannie; and thus of al myn age in the spot, where we are waiting of the granting.

Perhaps the wordes hadde been hanged her so, as one arm had all them glows, and we were some, that had been marriage. Flowers; but still left the whippe,—thanne had swept o’er, to where and he must here we joined: two brothers, yet some chaste liaison of their view, and while I soliloquize beyond, imagine, What, silently over my eye in passing or clotting into something in the sport they would put off a married, but he hath writ: to hear with lasting worthy to be wedde a pair of glasse he tooke: wherein all worths surmounted there was heard by fame her. Lost, shipwrecked on the ground where he stormie stowre.

The father had no prudence, but fragile brothers, and down rolls the true love’s sole echoes: who is my neighebores housbonde. And horrid was the fishes were such fall should task you the presence only, called heart. The living in the other breath of Jesus set me liketh every grace. Well as he was the words and ease? To feel at least ’s a sire. We’ll searches throng, and Grisi’s existence embittered! Eke cherish the truth and may he live in a church, they mought that hath bene before me; carelesse yron dyd feare, comes to me; Blythe and Southey, and in a confusion for her!

And deathful-grinning of the night, whene’er stood with my gossyb wente, for we will protest your credit of the day? Willie had, I wadna gie a buttons to shun their ships unrigged, and prospects a maid, and beheld what is above, but by this was a lusty head. ’Er the belovèd’s bed; and others by his world shoulders beare and all the walls, and maybe neither to dress you with shame with what conducted, or marriage? Are lost; jove’s isle they enter, Cymon was endeavouring borrow’d all array; but I’ll devise, among their large blacked- out window that nothing, it twirls and sheets.

Have spoke, and made women of evening ’t was to be disposicioun, and her Nest. Thou ask’st if I had fifty daughters of silver dew on every one of us. Dumb—and nowe imploy the first—they seek, nor could not you, yet let this suffice: nor the narrow limits pent, unable to careen; so that hir housbondes for the fairest place where grewe an age of The Shah beheld what nedeth faste man shal nat lye, in this meant: while he was the queene of this day, the lassie thocht na lang till day. Seeking is idle, biologically take the fanning wings, and all my dreams of the mind!

Comes nectar at the downwards would really take a long pause a breath, their crime upbraid. That do searches their friend: as swelling. So prayed, for its mystery. You deemen, the wing’d eagle return’d to Juan were boil’d up with armes full soul, and one father, instant view; and no more: to keep a poor, while kiddie vnwares did her eyes, and bookes many girls—sick for to wexe and more than power and when from the parent still environ the first time he came, a genius from thy beauteous mould retract; and to cousen you there! ’Ve been her state, was only wanted wings: in nameless tigress in me.

For where is no remedy? Descending viewed from scissors slice a blue Brocade; though of savage mood, for his world may Phyllis is something of the waves clasp one another’s features haunt my dreams, all was lost for freed from shore. She took no kep, so that am nat precept to hit. Then equally the new births of what I should his first, they daunce mought see their parks some of cherubs round the belovèd’s bed; and one a maiden most they hem mysavyse. I said there was a man of excess of her younglings, and kindled by the basest cloud or a trewe wyf, dame Alys. She trampled from the greene?

In the beginning to quench’d into Memory by a Base Desire; for nothing accident being speechless Eleonora’s fate proclaim, till be quitt with suddenly forgiven, where alone? Gold cups of bad statues, table-cloth and they have you, seekes for a boat’ to sail that I may give a bust of gold hath produces that like superstition as good; and shake, as doen high Towers incensed awhile shall be hamburg. How sweet thy head vpheld, and forth of which he own’d a present century was grown old, an emerald aigrette with the midst may seem false to the bark will dim.

Of studious how to make me a bough of the posts in disguised in a dream, upon eyes sustain immortal fruit? And bramble was myn housbonde; thus she could, or conquered prey, from Alicant, all ragamuffins different the hot Burgundian on that hath noon; but she cannon’s the fire was Ralph a page or humor without, nor heate of hell: nought be then other despotism in view,—farewell! But me was a suddenly in mid Sea reveal’d itself adorns the planets rotating in his dotage that remote, and might flow over my eyes are but we, unworthier, told of thee!

And after Winters wrathfull character’d with wormes shende a tree on which e’er set off a thought my book to the mole knoweth what account both lopp and then despond: the wind o’ th’ Sea, suddenly in mid Sea revealed, while power remain’d, ae limpin leg a hand to knowledge, and made women are things with a clasp one another despot of joy depart, how such a graceful ease, more strong Happiness; but satiated at length of life looks like onyx, teeth on the tinkling into waste, he people, to seeke the spirits taught. He spak moore it with round him with my scribes; like Dian and faire, is burnt&blaste, and all my haruest hastening to no mistake for dowry will be cut in a snare: so kind may be, I neither praises, and some weekly-strewings be devoted to his memory of a woman in red. You that just once, thy garland was wed at once inspired by love?

The ocean, earth, and these kiss would fly, as the fields, and with wormes, ne withers even as I sing, suffuse my face; and aye it charms, white gauze baracan, and saffron too were sure than looking low, and takė me. The bat, the forest like there’s a name for our guide, who now conceiv’d without delay, having. A sweete sights her griefe. So are you asked for thou bring’st the first sourse of shepeheardes outgoe, with neighebores wyf so gay? Nor broke, and unsmooth behaviour. But now, if you drink too soon—which make his delight; and for to plead; ’tis forced retire, which made a book, right ynogh at eve.

But and he, that does diddly. Or must feel it dark for hate. Line, the way through soon life’s variety there whelmed with one delightes, the princesse that e’er by precious you, excepting only may now shaking hands and fawe to brynne. Clothed, she nurst, that no wight, save then in the excess of gems, and when we will not matter, as the Lion’s bed, and short exile must suffer what other realm of season, and what’s meant to kneel. Hath all shiver in parliament; the secret ship with better loosely write, and tumbling, which I might disparage the ranckorous rigour of Harvest ripen, her here?

Yet looked as too bounteous to read her eye. A scarf of orange, he cried, they hasten to be the pieces of Heavens. For kind soul seeks. Plunged from over the thoughte they quicken. Remote recess, pull’d forthwith upon their myriad voice had been detained by your ayd to followers, and the parallels in disguise, which fill’d up a glasses in the pan I scrub and bud about the better time of life, the sandy shore. Adieu my lips the syntax of loves unlawful. By cares forced to pour millet on graves or poppy seeds to feel you there! Al so siker as cold and wanton meryment.

Ranks, Must we but born just as a feend, if thou kenst the foundation like the feels, unless indeed, replied, began in murderous weigh, then say my part a pointed on his small delay the sunlight not girlish but zombie-like, zombie-lite through the reasons, and every morning to admire: we, who looke a loft, and rend the earth was somtyme a clerk and I, tonight! Her body shaded with a joy into the fyre, vnto such as fit and half command—to bid first begin to speak the rest wise, wealth, a mistress one has served for this poem will be my windswept and wel bigon, and marriage?

#poetry #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Markov chains #Markov chain length: 7 #178 texts #sonnet sequence

0 notes

ejaydoeshisbest · 8 months

Text

The sins of my ancestors kissed my brow when I was nothing but a string of pearls inside my mother’s womb.

The sins of my ancestors kissed my brow when I was nothing but a string of pearls inside my mother’s womb. Bile flowed through me like squid ink and I wailed when I met my first breath because back then I knew that I was born wrong. In my smallest finger was a corruption that will grow; entwined with a promise from a rotting tooth. “You shall carry me with you for all your days.”

I’ve been dealing with it as best I could. But it is an inescapable chill that settles despite being in warm company. It is the entity that opens the doors to my home, darkening the darkness, pulling the shadows up to enshroud me, dampening my eyes, making me relive the memories I hated as it draws them from the cupboards and drawers. All good things are temporary, and my reality is sitting in the corner where I had kept it on a leash. Some days though, I think it’s the one holding the chains. I beg for it to walk me outside in the daylight. I beg for it to feed me proper meals this time, instead of scraps.

I thought it was a figment of my imagination; a passing stray cloud that randomly blocks out the light for a moment, only for a moment. Then it passes and I am untouched, unblemished. I shrugged it off and the genuine smile returned. Friends are waiting, adventures are lying in store! And I am young. And I am strong. And I am brave.

When I realized it was real, the sins of my ancestors chewed my dreams to bits so that I was left with nothing. They laughed up a storm. That is what I get for daring to dream. The world is a lie. The brightest colors have become monochrome. The rainbow in the sky is a grey bridge. I sit on the floor grasping the tattered, torn wishes I had whispered on countless stars that once twinkled.

How had the figment of my imagination grown into this monstrosity so quickly when I barely noticed it in the past? How had I not understood that it had always squeezed my heart each time when fear struck? Just like a child, I hide under the covers and scream for help. But the house is empty. No one will come.

I may not have dreams anymore and I have stopped looking at the stars, but if ever I whispered through the wind, I only wish that this monster ends with me.

Words: Ejay Diwas

#loneliness #anxiety #depression #generational trauma #mental health #mental struggles

0 notes

gossip-girl-of-middleearth · 3 years

Text

The Road Less Traveled (Fellowship x Pregnant!Reader)

Synopsis: Left by a man who took you out of wedlock, you discover halfway through the Fellowship’s journey that you are, indeed, pregnant. Not wishing for you to face motherhood alone, the Fellowship conspires, regarding whom gets to marry you and help raise your child, leaving you with a tough choice.

This was not at all how you saw your life going—both the man leaving you for another woman, and finding out you were pregnant with his baby on a perilous quest, miles upon miles away from the nearest dwelling.

You had been madly in love with this man, unaware he had eyes for another. Your copulating love was taken out of wedlock, a choice you knew had its risks, but Brander had a charming way about him.

You never would have thought he’d leave you. However, one morning, Brander announced the conclusion of your relationship with another woman on his arm.

Heartbroken and enraged, you threw all his clothes from your shack, and took to a horse. Riding swiftly, you headed to the one place you knew hearts were healed; Rivendell.

Upon your arrival, a council of sorts was taking place. One thing led to another, as per usual in your life, and you found yourself on another journey—this time with a higher purpose, and nine other guys.

Things were difficult, but honestly relieving. The fresh air cleansed your soul, as did the healthy relationships you built up with the nine males—proving to you that they weren’t all bad, right on time before you could curse the entire species of XY chromosomes out forever.

However, this was as far as the fun went.

It started with a tiredness the Fellowship brushed off due to your inexperience, and then the lateness of your period. Next, early dawns were spent throwing up in the woods, with whomever was on night-watch holding your hair back, usually Aragorn, Legolas or Boromir.

You wept slightly when a sparring match with Boromir resulted in a shield hitting your breasts, for they were very tender as of late. The final nail in the coffin was the snubbing of Sam’s usually delicious bacon making you hurl.

Gandalf had taken to speaking with you privately, and asked, in the politest manner possible, if he could assess your womb to find confirmation of another soul.

Legolas approached slowly, crouched down by your side, and spoke responsively in the most apologetic of voices.

“There is no need—I can hear their heartbeat…I am so sorry, Y/n.”

You broke down into tears quickly, and everyone soon knew your predicament that evening. You apologized over and over, and felt utterly mortified. How embarrassing.

They now knew the choice you had made out of wedlock, and were pregnant as a result—something highly frowned upon in human society, and many others in Middle-earth, for that matter. You would no doubt be branded as a “whore” upon your return to society.

You told them all about Brander that night, and opened up to them fully. Jaws were clenched, nervous glances were flashed, and brows were furrowed.

They now had an expectant, first-time mother in their midst, on their way to quite possibly the worst place in the world to take a pregnant woman. Adding onto this, their poor friend, whom they had grown quite close with, was in a horrible situation.

But perhaps it was one they could help with?

Driven by noble blood and true chivalry, the Fellowship started to discuss their options.

“It’s just awful, what that ‘Brander’ fellow has done to her,” said Boromir, discreetly nodding over in your direction.

You were sat with your head in one hand on a log by the fire, face contorted in misery. Your cheeks and eyes, as well as your nose, were all pink, due to a long while of crying.

Sam sat on one side of you, and held your hand. He reassured you with bright words of soothing promises.

“Don’t worry, Miss Y/n! All will work out! You’ll see! You’re bringing a new soul into this world! That’s nothing to be ashamed of!” Sam would say.

Merry, Frodo and Pippin were on your other side, rubbing your back and holding your shoulder.

“He’s right!” they’d agree, nodding profusely. “You’ll see! This is a wonderful thing. You just can’t quite picture it yet, but you will!”

Gimli, Boromir, Aragorn and Legolas were all huddled in close, standing in a circle. They stood a little further off from the fire, but still caught its glow.

Gandalf was sat on a log himself, puffing away on a pipe. The affairs of human society were not his responsibility, but he offered guidance from a distance nonetheless. He already knew all would work out, but was the only one there oldest and wisest enough to realize so.

Legolas’ arms were folded over his chest, as were the three others’ he stood with. “She’ll be shamed wherever she goes, and her child will be considered a bastard. Truly awful…I feel compelled to help. What can we do?”

“Well, to avoid public slander,” Aragorn spoke up knowingly, “she’d have to be married.”

“Very well and all,” Gimli whispered back, “but were you perhaps not present when she said the scoundrel ran off with another filly?”

“He was not whom I was referencing,” Aragorn mentioned. He threw a studious glance in your direction, and spoke again. “She is a fine young lady, with a strong heart and homely nature. She would make a wonderful wife, and I feel it our duty as her friends to make sure she becomes so.”

“You mean for us to marry her?” Legolas asked, incredulously. His head lowered in shock as he spoke, and a brow arched.

The guys, save for Aragorn, who overlooked it all, glanced between each other tensely, unsure if the alarmed glint in their eyes was competition or fear.

Boromir was the first to speak up.

“I will do it, in a heartbeat!” he said. “You are right, Aragorn—she is a wonderful young lady, and deserves to be wed in time for her child. I will care for them both.”

“Well, now hold on a moment,” Legolas snapped, glaring across at Boromir. “Why do you get to marry her? I am much closer in age to her than you are…figuratively speaking, at least. I should be the one to marry her—we get along best.”

“You?” Gimli snorted. “You will outlive her in the blink of an eye.”

“Oh, and you won’t?” Legolas said back. “None of us implied romance anyways, Gimli. I’d merely be a lifelong friend and guardian for her and her child. I’m the most suited out of everyone here to provide for her—”

“Because you’re a prince?” Boromir interjected, narrowing his eyes.

“Not just because of that,” Legolas bit back, squaring up with Boromir slightly. “But what of it regardless? What does it matter how I provide for her? I plan on renouncing my title and making a life of my own anyways. I might not get the chance for a child of my own, and I can help Y/n raise hers.”

“She’s not some puppy, laddie,” Gimli snorted back. “You both want to store her away in a little cottage or unit somewhere drab. I can provide her with culture! Dwarven culture! Her little one deserves to grow up in grand halls and eat ripened meat!”

Aragorn looked between the unfolding drama, and soon raised a hand before you could become even more distressed. Fortunately, you hadn’t heard a thing of their hushed conversation.

“That is enough,” Aragorn said. “I’d offer to marry her myself, but…well, I do believe you three are better suited than me to provide a stable life for her. It is ultimately up to Y/n. All either three of you can do is offer your hand in marriage to her, and see what she says.”

Glares were thrown between the three potential suitors, as each wondered who’d be the first to turn around and run towards you.

As it turns out, all three turned on their heels at the same. They nearly tripped over one another. However, they stopped almost immediately, for someone on the other side already had the same idea.

“It is quite all right, Y/n,” Frodo said, down on one knee before you, and holding your hand. “The Shire will accept you, and I can just say I fell in love on the road and married you immediately. I have a big house now left all to myself, with many rooms. You can have one to yourself, as can your child. Bilbo did the same for me when I was young.”

You were crying again, but this time out of happiness. Your other hand was placed over your chest, as you smiled down at the kind hobbit with a wavering lower lip.

“Oh, Frodo, that is so incredibly kind, I can only say—”

“DON’T SAY ANYTHING!” Legolas shouted, rushing forwards. He nearly shoved Frodo out of the way, and took his place holding your hand swiftly.

“Y/n,” he began, sincerely, “I’ve always felt that you and I have had a…special bond since beginning this journey together. I can provide you with a cottage in the forest, and true protection. I’m an archer and an elf—your child will learn many life skills with me as their parental guardian. And, furthering this, after you’ve moved on from our world, your child will surely be left behind. I can ensure they are well-cared for up until their own departure!”

“Oh, Legolas, I don’t know what to...” you went to say, holding his hand with both of yours. You were truly starting to get overwhelmed with happiness and relief.

“Oh, shove it, pixie!” Gimli shouted from behind Legolas. He, too, stole the snarling elf’s place, chivalrously removing his helmet as he did so. “Lass, I know I may not be your usual type, or blonde, but I am asking for your hand as well. I can offer you so much in Dwarven society. The women are strong, and you will find ranks in them! Your child will be given an equal chance, no matter the gender, to be themselves! Life in the halls is a true marvel—”

“Enough, the both of you!” Boromir shouted next. He tugged Gimli by the beard and threw him away. “Y/n, you and I are both humans. I understand you and our shared culture better than anyone else here! Please, nothing would make me happier than to provide for you as my wife. Not to mention, the child will look most like me, racially-wise.”

The hobbits all looked between each other with shocked smiles, intrigued by the situation, and Gandalf and Aragon merely shook their heads.

Legolas grabbed hold of Boromir’s shoulder and stood him up. “Race has nothing to do with it! If we’re really going to narrow this down to looks, I am the tallest! That is highly desirable in a husband! Y/n and her child will live a wonderfully secure and safe life with me. You need to back off.”

“Why don’t you make me?” Boromir bit back.

Before a fight could break out between the two of them, Gimli hopped into the middle and added his own string of harsh words.

The three suitors of differing races soon began to bicker between themselves, leaving you sat on the log very stunned indeed.

However, after a long while of listening to them argue over who gets to marry you, you put up your hand and silenced them. Although, it took a good few shouts until they shut up completely and curiously blinked down at you.

“Boys. Boys! BOYS!” Once the attention was on you, you spoke again. “I am so incredibly flattered by your equal devotion, it has truly made me feel better about everything, but...do I not get a say in whom I marry out of everyone here?”

Legolas moved his body slightly, so he stood facing you straight. “Well, whom do you choose, my lady?”

Frodo had backed off entirely, but shared a lipped smile with you, ultimately letting you know the offer was still on the table regardless. Boromir, Gimli and Legolas all stared at you optimistically, leaning forwards as they waited for your reply.

Stumped by so many choices, and considering you didn’t even know this would be a part of your life plan up until five hours ago, you went with the smartest choice; waiting.

“These are all very early days…” you began. “I’m very overwhelmed by all the offers, and still getting used to the idea of motherhood, and now marriage—”

You took a calming breath.

“You’re all so sweet, and I truly appreciate your support, but…could I perhaps sit on it for a while, and return with an answer at a later time? This is a very big decision, as you can all imagine.”

They quickly agreed, and nodded their heads vehemently.

“Take all the time you need!” they said reassuringly, in one form or another.

That night, they all waved sweet “goodnights” over their shoulders to you, and even gave up their cloaks and packs to create what they deemed the perfect “mother’s nest” for you to sleep on.

It was all very sweet, and warmed your heart. However, although half the problem was solved, you were presented with another; who on earth were you going to choose to marry and raise your unborn child with?

Actually, the more you thought about it that night, as you fell asleep with nine friends protecting you as you slept in the middle, like a herd of animals keeping their mother-to-be safe, the more you realized you already knew exactly whom you wanted to live with.

#considering I’m turning 20 this year this is my little gift to myself congratulating on avoiding teen pregnancy #I made it lads #it was one of my biggest and most irrational fears as a kid #lotr x reader #lotrdaily #lotr movies #fellowship x reader #lord of the rings #the hobbit #elves #hobbit #legolas #Legolas x reader #Boromir x reader #frodo x reader #Gimli #lotr imagine #turns out teen pregnancy is really easy to avoid

991 notes · View notes

whimsicallyreading · 3 years

Text

For Rowaelin Month day 17

“A sick day”

CW- PTSD, mentions of violence

Aelin considered herself a fortunate person.

She has survived genocide, her family's murders, losing loved ones, slavery, torture, and the Great War. Now she is a queen, a mother, a beloved Mate.

Her life had changed since those bleak days where she'd wondered if she would ever escape captivity—the days when Aelin didn't know if she would ever be free or find love again. Every morning she woke up curled into Rowan's side, and while she drank her morning tea, Aelin could count on her young daughter snuggling into her lap.

Yes, she was swamped most days, but that was normal for a queen. But even the moments between boring meetings brimmed with life and laughter. Rowan's hand on her thigh beneath the table. Fenrys' theatrics when conversation spiraled off-topic. And even the hardened lords thought it was hilarious when their three-year-old princess barged into councils and demanded her mother's attention.

Her family gathered for dinners at the end of every day. Aelin's little family, Fenrys, Emrys, and Malakai were the regular attendees. Aedion, Lysandra, Elide, and Lorcan joined when they were present. It was a time reserved for family only, and it was by far Aelin's favorite part of the day.

Aelin had a good life now. Her family was growing, and her country thrived beneath her rule.

So it always took her by surprise when a bad day came.

She had woken up fine. Delly had slammed open the chamber door with a gust of wind and squirmed herself between her and Rowan in the early morning. Usually, Aelin treasured the moments when her daughter joined them, but being pregnant again had taken a toll on her sleep.

Rowan tried to stop their child before she entirely collapsed onto Aelin but was a moment too slow. Delly flopped onto her mother's chest in a disarray of wrinkled nightgown and golden curls. Soft sobs were sputtering out of the tiny figure.

I'm sorry. Rowan whispered into her thoughts. He knew how hard pregnancy was on her and took his mate's comfort very seriously. It troubled him that their toddling daughter woke Aelin so abruptly.

Aelin blinks the sleep from her eyes and sends him a happy smile to assure him everything is fine.

"What's wrong, Dell?" Aelin soothes a hand up her baby's quaking form.

Adelia sniffles harder, unable to talk through the tears. She'd started to have bad dreams in recent weeks, but never had she been so inconsolable.

Aelin shifts as Adelia's arms tighten uncomfortably around her bump. Rowan sees her discomfort and reaches around to pull Dell to him instead, but it is met with resistance.

"No," Adelia finally wails. "Mama. I want Mama."

Rowan frowns. Adelia was a daddy's girl to the bone, and this was the first time she'd ever refused to go to him. Their daughter squeezes harder and burrows her face into Aelin's torso.

"Dell," Rowan leans next to her and whispers, a cool breeze brushing against her flushed cheek. "What's wrong little love?"

Adelia lifts her head, and Aelin's heart contracts painfully. Her cheeks are red and swollen from the intensity of her crying, little sobs still stumbling from her chest as Rowan settles her down enough to speak.

"Mama was gone. She was hurt, and she couldn't see me." Dell sniffles, her green eyes glassy. "Can you see me, Mama?"

Aelin tugs her daughter in closer, unable to stand the sight of her so sad. "Yes, of course, I can. I'm right here."

"You were in a box. She wouldn't let me see you," Adelia whimpers in a small voice. "She told me she was gonna keep you. I don't want you to go, Mama."

Aelin's face blanches. It wasn't possible. Her little baby couldn't possibly have seen what was coming to her mind. She looks at Rowan, and his face is pinched with worry.

"It's not real, Dell." Rowan uses a thumb to wipe the tears off her cheek.

Adelia flinches. "Uncle Ress told me it was. He told me Mama had got stollen and put into a box by the bad lady and that she should have stayed there."

Aelin's heart stops. Nausea crawls up her throat, and Rowan tugs Adelia away just in time for her to crawl out of bed and gag into a potted plant. The sickness grips Aelin, the shudders in her arms only growing worse with her daughter's mumbled cries.

"Daddy, I want Mama to stay here." Rowan hushes her and murmurs quiet reassurances. "Don't let her get stollen."

Ress had said that? In front of her daughter? Aelin tries to close her eyes against the visions creeping into her mind. The places her scars used to be ache, and her hands pulse with the remembered pain of reconstruction.

The baby in her womb squirms under its mother's stress, and Aelin throws up again.

She should have stayed there.

Cairn brings the hammer down onto her frail knees, the ringing of cracking bone splits the air.

She should have stayed there.

Aelin opens her eyes to endless darkness. Sweet smoke wafts through invisible holes and sends her to sleep- leaving her mind vulnerable to Maeve's manipulations.

She should have stayed there.

More and more memories swarm behind her eyelids until a pair of grounding arms wrap around her shoulders.

"Fireheart, you are home. You are safe. Can you breathe with me?" Rowan sighs loudly behind her shoulder, and Aelin tries to force her own breath out.

Breathing in is harder, but Rowan's scent fills her nose and loosens the binds on her lungs. Soon, Aelin is doing the exercises independently, and Rowan nuzzles his face into her neck. His hands snake under her bump and lift some of the pressure, easing more of her tension.

"There you are," Rowan kisses her cheek as Aelin comes back around. "Are you okay?"

Aelin shakes her head and sinks into his arms. "Can you take me back to bed?"

Her legs feel like jelly, and her stomach is weak from turning. Rowan lifts her with ease. His arms are warm, and he murmurs sweet nothings into her ear as he carries his mate back to their bed.

"Adelia?" Aelin looks around for their daughter.

Rowan pulls back the duvet and reveals the sleepy from nestled right into the middle of the pillows. "She fell back asleep quickly."

"I can't believe Ress told her those things," Aelin can feel a tear slipping down her face. Ress had never forgiven her for her days as Celaena. Darrow had grown to accept her, but Ress never warmed up to having Aelin as his queen despite her efforts.

She hadn't realized the extent his hatred went.

Rowan scowls as he lays Aelin down next to their daughter. "Ress is young and foolish. I have forgiven a lot of his hostility and ignored most of his juvenile antics, but Aelin, I can't forgive this."

"He should never have said those things to Dell." Ress's words linger in her head. She tried to do right by her title and live up to her parent's legacy. Aelin took a lot of pride in listening to the demands of her people and tending to their problems personally. But the odds of Ress being the only one to feel this way are slim. Did they wish she'd never returned? Was she arrogant to take the crown just because it was her inheritance? She'd never had the formal training as ruler and relied a lot on Rowan to help manage foreign affairs. Despite the loss of her fire, many still feared her and considered her a murderer. No matter how hard she tried, Aelin's history as Adarlan's Assassin proceeded her.

Tears burn Aelin's eyes, and Rowan's scowl deepens. "He should have never spoken of you like that at all."

Aelin shakes her head, "It's his right to think what he wants. Maybe he has a point."

"No." Rowan growls, and Dell flinches in her sleep. Taking a deep breath, Rowan softens his voice. "He's wrong, Aelin. Ress was wrong to scare Dell, and he has no right to demean everything you've sacrificed. You've suffered for your people."

"I closed the lock because I had to Rowan," Aelin argues. "That doesn't automatically make me a good queen. What if I'm failing?"

Rowan pulls their duvet up to Aelin's chin, and Dell instinctively snuggles to her mother's side. Her daughter was a leach for warmth, and Aelin could feel her remaining flames writhing in her veins agitated.

"You are a wonderful ruler, Fireheart." Rowan bends down and kisses her lips reverently. "I've met my fair share of emperors, kings, and queens. None of them have given up so much to better the lives of their people. They care for you in return."

Rowan steps away from the bed, and Aelin makes a displeased noise. "Where are you going so early in the morning."

"I'm awake now. I feel like a flight through Oakwald. Go to sleep, and when you wake up, I'll bring my females breakfast," Rowan pulls on a plain white tunic. "Sleep, love. You both need your rest."

Rowan can read her too well. Aelin can feel her eyes drooping despite how much she wants to deny it. "Very well, but there better be tea and pastries."

As Aelin drifts back to sleep, she swears that a mischievous smile passes across her mate's face.

~~~

"Aelin," Maeve twirls a lock of blonde hair in her fingers. "Where are the keys?"

Cairn twists the blade in her thigh again, and Aelin screams, "screw yourself."

Aelin writhes beneath the pain and the dark queen's gaze. Her torturer goes to twist the blade again, but Maeve holds up a hand. "Wait. There is a smarter way to go about this."

"I won't tell you anything," Aelin gasps, the blood seeping from her thigh pools onto the table. "There is nothing you can do."

"Not even to spare the princess?" Maeve smiles as the cell door opens. Connall walks into the room, a squirming girl in his arms.

"Let me go," the girl screams, and the air in the room turns frigid. Her blonde hair whips around as she twists and fights. The little girl's head turns, and she freezes when she catches sight of Aelin. "Mama?"

"Adelia?" Aelin asks, confused. "You can't be here. You aren't supposed to be here." With renewed energy, Aelin thrashes against her bonds and bares her teeth at Maeve.

Maeve takes Adelia from Connall and strokes her hair. "Such a pretty one."

"This isn't real," Aelin hisses. "I wasn't pregnant when you took me. Adelia was born in Terresan."

Maeve hums a sympathetic note, "It seems you're confused." Aelin fights as the dark queen sits with a frozen Adelia in her lap. "Begin again, Cairn."

A hot iron is lain against Aelin's neck, and Adelia's screams rattle the stone chamber.

~~~

Aelin wakes with a gasp. Her chest is seizing in uncontrollable fits, and little hands cup the sides of her face.

"Mama?" Adelia's concerned face hovers over Aelin's. "Why are you crying?"

Relief washes over her at the sight of her daughter, safe and sound. She tries to take deeper breaths, but her body fights against her. The baby in her womb squirms uncomfortably. Aelin feels guilt that they are so subject to her moods. She tries to open her mouth to speak, consol her frightened daughter, but Aelin can't get any words out.

"Daddy!" Dell screams, frightened tears gathering in the corner of her eyes.

Rowan bursts through the door, "Dell?"

Adelia sniffles and kisses Aelin's face sadly, "Daddy, what's wrong with Mama?"

Aelin grabs at her chest, trying to ease the tightness there. She was scaring her daughter. What kind of mother would do that? Rowan sits beside her, and a cool wind goes up her nose and fills her lungs.

"Fireheart," Rowan lifts Adelia and sits beside her. "Is this a sick day?"

It was the code they'd come up with for the days when the past came back to haunt them. When the turmoil in their mind forces their bodies to rebel, and they can't seem to put on their usual facades. It used to shame Aelin, the days she couldn't rise from bed and do her duty. But her mate's unwavering love soon cracked that lie and eased her burden. Rowan had convincing arguments. Aelin's people needed their queen at her best, and on sick days, she wasn't able to give that to them. Their court was strong. They wouldn't allow Terresan to fall while she recovered. Aelin deserved time to heal.

Rowan must have been able to tell that she wouldn't be able to settle herself this time as his winds continued their push and pull in her chest. "Yes," she rasps dejectedly.

Dell buries her face into Rowan's shoulder. Her mate rests a hand on the side of her face and soothes her cheek. "To whatever end, Aelin. We will get through this just as we do everything else."

Rowan kisses the side of Dell's face. "Little love, do you think you can go to the kitchens and have someone bring Mama tea?"

That fae instinct to fuss rears its head in their child. Adelia perks up at the opportunity to do something useful. "Yes!"

Rowan sets her on the floor, and she takes off in a blur of untamed hair and swishing skirts. They wince as a gust of wind slams the doors of their chambers against the wall.

"She's a handful," Rowan talks, aware of the soothing effect his voice has on her. "But we always knew our children would be. I can't wait to see what kind of chaos our son brings into our lives."

Aelin wraps her arms around him as the remnants of her dreams finally fade away. "You think it's a boy?"

"I know so," Rowan pinches her side, and Aelin smiles. He'd also been confident that their first child would be a girl. His smugness after Adelia's birth was unbearable.

"Rowan," Aelin whispers. "Can we just lay here today?"

"I could never deny you anything," Rowan leans against their headboard and kicks off his shoes. "You don't need to ask, Aelin. It's okay to take time for yourself."

"What if I'm just proving Ress right?" The insecurity slips from her lips before she can stop them. "What if there is someone more capable?"

"Ress won't be a problem anymore," Rowan rests a hand against her bump, and the baby withing kicks at it, bringing a smile to his face.

Aelin narrows her eyes, "What have you done?"

"Nothing that anyone will blame me for," Rowan assures. "He would be in a lot more trouble if the rest of the court learned what he said in front of Dell. Ress should be grateful I didn't do a lot worse."

Aelin sighs, "I don't understand why I can't just let it all go. Why do I allow myself to be so haunted?"

"It's not that simple," Rowan shakes his head. "I'm hundreds of years old, and no matter how many years pass, there are things from my past that haven't healed. The mind is different from the body, and sometimes it takes longer for it to recover. There is nothing wrong with that. You gave up everything for the people you loved."

"Because I had to," Aelin contradicts.

A hardness comes over Rowan, "because no one else could."

Rowan rolls over her body into a plank and looks deep into her eyes. "No one else that day would have made the same sacrifices out of love. Not even me. I was too selfish to let you go. You gave up everything, and by the strength in your soul, you came home to me. In all my decades, I have never met someone so remarkable, and I never will again. Take as many years as you need to recover, Aelin. This world owes a debt to you, and I will make sure it pays. You deserve every happiness."

His hand threads through one of hers and drags it up to rest on the bump between them.

Happiness.

Dell darts back into their room, a cup of tea sloshing in her hands as she runs. "Daddy, I put extra sugar in it. Uncle Fen is coming with more cups, but I made this one special."

Rowan pulls away from her, and the laughter on his face is contagious.

Aelin smiles and accepts the tea from Dell's hands. She even manages a few sips without cringing from the sweetness. Fenrys follows behind her shortly and sets a fresh cup covertly on her bedside table.

There may be hard days, Aelin realizes as her family gathers around her, but the love they showed her every day made it all worth it.

#throne of glass #rowaelin #rowaelinmonth #rowan whitethorn #aelin galathynius #fanfic #tog #angst #rowan x aelin #ptsd #sick day #baby fic #canon #sjm #sjmaas

158 notes · View notes

hnychn · 4 years

Text

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐆𝐎𝐃𝐃𝐄𝐒𝐒𝐄𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐅𝐀𝐓𝐄 [𝐋𝐄𝐕𝐈]

summary : levi wanted to believe the Fates were kind, but he should have known better

warnings : character death, heavy loss, a single mention of suicide, more greek myth allusions, fem! reader

word count : 3000+

a/n : omgomgomg tysm @yeehawslap for giving me permission to write this, i swear when i read their post i was immediately inspired to write this and i'm so sorry to your feelings :') also i swear i changed the title of this like, ten times

attack on titan masterlist || navigation

The Fates had dealt Levi a rough life.

When the goddess Clotho had spun the thread of his life, she must have incorporated thorns into every string; even now Levi could feel the pricks of guilt that chipped away at his soul each time he opened the bottom drawer of his desk and faced the bloodied scout patches of the lives lost..

Lachesis had enforced his life; she had been the one to use his thread to create. Although, Levi must admit, the fates must have favored him a tiny bit if they had sent you to him. You, his lovely wife whom he met one late evening under the stars, a gash on his head and gauze in your hand ready for you to patch up.

You had been there to take out every thorn in his thread Clotho had stuck in his life; every ounce of guilt, every second of regret had been a burden on his shoulders you relieved by simply being there.

Perhaps the Fates weren't all that bad.

They must have been even just an ounce of virtuous if they had allowed him to call you his forever. The fates had strung together a love story into his thread of life and allowed him to invite someone into the most intimate parts of him, allow him to find peace within someone; to create a life together.

Levi could remember the day when you burst into his office, a smile so bright he was sure even the sun was envious of the warmth you radiated. No words were spoken as you pulled him into your arms and cried.

It was only through hiccups and sobs did he hear your soft voice tell him he had created a life. And while your stomach was still as flat as it had been the night before and many nights before that, he pressed his hand against it nonetheless and promised to protect the life within you until his very last breath.

Perhaps the Fates weren't all that bad.

Isabel, as the two of you named your daughter, had become a nearly carbon copy of her father. not only did she share many features in common with him, she also inherited his strength.

She was able to hold her head up on her own only a mere months after birth, and she often gave you a terrible fright when she climbed out of her crib at night with a strength a toddler shouldn't have. Though, it was of no real surprise to either of you; you were sure your womb must have taken a terrible beating with the strength of her kicks while she was still growing inside of you.

And, with her strength and many similarities with her father, came her desire to join the scouts.

It was the first time in her life Levi had denied her something.

Admittedly, little Isabel had her cold, ruthless captain of a father wrapped around her stubby little finger since the moment you pushed her out of your womb. You could hear the way he promised to give her anything her little heart desired and often you found yourself being more strict with her.

Though, this had been Levi's one fear.

Levi has seen countless people fall beyond the walls. He's witnessed Farlan and Isabel (his daughter's namesake) tragically torn to pieces by those wandering monsters. He’s seen countless bodies piled up in wagons to return to the walls for burning.

You’ve seen your fair share of horrors, too. You’ve seen the injuries people walk into your clinic with, the blood gushing through gaping wounds, their bones snapped in angles they shouldn't, the limbs you've had to amputate; and the sheer image of your daughter being one of them was enough for you to turn green with sickness.

There were countless arguments between Levi and Isabel (you often found yourself the mediator of these fights and cursing the fates for making both father and daughter stubborn as mules). But ultimately, Levi had caved as he always did, and promised to train her harder than anyone else in the training corps.

True to his word, Isabel often returned home with bruises and collapsed next to you on the couch, her head falling into your lap with fatigue. You smiled as you ran your fingers through her hair as she tiredly recounted her training with her father and other members of the Training Corps.

She had recounted many stories of the friends she’s made there; an arrogant boy named Jean who she loved to tease and roughhouse with, a boy with a buzzcut named Connie she liked to mess around with and prank occasionally, and a girl named Sasha.

The dusty pink on her cheeks when she told you stories about her sprouted an inkling inside of you that made you think she was more than just a friend to your daughter. You only smiled as she went on.

Though, late at night, when your husband had long ago fallen asleep and your daughter was tucked safely away in her room, did you find yourself praying to the Fates. You prayed no arm would come to your daughter and she would lead the happy life she deserved. You prayed the Fates were kind.

Perhaps . . . the Fates weren't kind . . .

Levi should have known the fates hadn't meant to give him a life as peaceful as his (or as peaceful as it could be with you and Isabel by his side). He should have known better than to think the Fates were righteous.

Afterall, the goddess Atropos always came to collect what was due. Atropos was the third and final Fate, the goddess who cut the threads her sisters weaved and toyed with. She was the one who claimed souls. Atropos watched time and time again as Levi avoided her attempts to collect his thread and grew frustrated the more he slipped through her fingers like sand. So, Atropos did the next best thing.

She stole a life close to him.

Levi could feel his blood run cold when Jean walked in, his hands fisting the shirts of two children and his eyes wild with shock. His words were shaky and his eyes were covered in a daze of denial, as if his mind was trying to protect him from the inevitable heartbreak he would experience.

Levi waited with a bated breath for Jean to crack a smile and admit this was all some sick joke he could punish him later for. That his whole thing was nothing but a nightmare and he was bak at home, cuddled in bed with you and your daughter was sleeping soundly in her room just down the hall.

But he knew it wasn't a dream, not when you gasped as you did, when he could practically see your heart shattering in your eyes and the way you nearly pushed him to the floor as you ran to the back of the airship. Levi followed close.

"ISABEL!"

You had practically thrown Connie to the side to get to your daughter. Her eyes were hazy with the same veil of death you had seen time and time again with your patients and friends. Sasha stood still to the side, her eyes wide and her hands shaking, “should have been me, it should have been me.” She chanted the words like a spell that would somehow transfer the wound to her, a spell that would miraculously heal your daughter who lay on the cold hard floor of the airship, blood slowly seeping out of her.

The logical medic in your brain delivered you the harsh truth as you assessed your daughter and her wounds. The unforgiving voice hissed in your ear about her inevitable death, the wound is too fatal, there’s no way she’ll make it back to the island. You hushed the voice as quick as it spoke, your heart denying the severity of the situation.

"oh," Levi could only watch as you clutched onto Isabel, your hands working like clockwork as they put pressure on her wound despite the violent shake in them, "oh, my baby..."

Levi took a hesitant step closer. It was haunting, watching his daughter who held so many of his qualities lay on the floor, bleeding to death. He had remembered the many times she pulled his hair as a child, giggling loudly as she pointed out the obvious, ‘I’m just like you, daddy!’

Oh, how he wished he could go back to those moments. When his daughter was nothing but a small child he cradled in his arms, tucking her safely under his chin as he gently rocked her side to side to lully her back into a deep sleep. He wished to go back to the nights he held your hair back as your stomach churned with nausea and your daughter was but a growing fetus, protected within the walls of your womb.

"M . . . mommy . . .” Isabel breathed.

You sobbed harder, "it's okay baby, i'm here, mommy's here."

You ran your fingers through her hair, hushed her and soothing her as you once did many years ago when she was nothing but a small baby clutching onto the material of your dress.

She had been so tiny then, so fragile and sweet and innocent. But she had long since grown out of her baby face and matured into a strong woman you were proud to have nurtured. But in this moment, it was as if she returned to the same fragile baby as she was years ago as she clutched onto the straps of your gear like a lifeline, her eyes dull but full of fear and hesitance.

"Mommy please, i'm- s' scared . . ." her voice was breathy and you could see the energy drain from her eyes the harder she tried to keep them open.

You wanted to be selfish, to tell her to keep her eyes open, to keep breathing and push through the pain. But you could see the pain flash in her eyes each time she took a breath, you could hear her breathy wince with every movement she made, and you knew you couldn’t be selfish.

Levi could see your resolve slowly crumble, the way the shake in your hands grew more and more violent and he could practically see the screams bubble in your throat as you tried to swallow them down to comfort your daughter. Levi knew if he didn't step in now, there would be no salvaging the broken pieces of you after this.

"It’s okay, princess." Levi crouched down on the other side of his daughter, his jaw clenching and unclenching as he tried to keep his composure.

Her head slowly turned to him, "d-daddy . . . ?"

Levi hummed, "Yeah, it's me princess. It’s okay, you did so well, you were so brave."

"I was?" her words were breathy and rushed as she tried to cling on to the last threads of her life. You could feel her grip in your gear lose its strength and you nearly let the screams clawing at your throat escape.

pleasepleasepleaseplease, you begged, not her please not my baby.

"So brave."

Levi had never felt so helpless watching his daughter's eyes lose their life, he could only sit there and reassure her that everything would be fine and she had done good as she took her last breaths. Images of the other Isabel laying dead on the floor flashed through his mind and Levi nearly vomited.

"I love you"

Levi nodded, "I know. I love you too, princess. Now rest."

The winds howled loudly outside, but there was nothing loud enough to drown out the screams that had finally escaped from you as you gripped your daughter’s hand so tight your knuckles turned white. Levi held you close as tears of his own dripped down his face and an indescribable weight placed itself in his heart.

The Fates were not kind.

Life after that seemed to lose its shine.

Your home was hauntinly quiet. Every inch of the home had memories of your daughter carved into the wooden frame. Her first words, her first steps, her first breath. You had given birth to your daughter in the living room, and where the walls once gave you comfort and warmed your heart with reminders of the first life you had brought into the world, it now made you sick with grief and added to the weight in your heart. She had taken her first steps in the hallways, clutching your fingers tight as you guided her down the hall to Levi who waited for her with a proud smile. Her first words had been in the kitchen, where you and Levi cooked dinner for your quaint little family and she called out to the two of you, begging for attention. And who was Levi to deny his princess?

You and Levi struggled to find your places in the world after that. Late at night, the two of you often clung to each other for comfort. Though, you knew Isabel’s death was hitting Levi harder than you. You could see it in the way he tucked her Scout badge into the left breast pocket of his shirts, hoping to keep the memory of her close to his heart; the way he avoided every mirror like it was the plague. You could see it in the way he flinched whenever he caught sight of his reflection, his own steel grey eyes and matted black hair staring hauntingly back at him.

Isabel had taken after her father the most, afterall.

You also found Levi’s features a bit hard to look at after that. It was hard to look into his eyes and see your daughter staring right back at you with a pleading look to not leave. There had been late night conversations where Levi assured you he knew of his similarities to Isabel and promised to not be mad if you wanted to leave him, 'I find it hard to look at myself sometimes.'

But you only held him tighter and stuck closer to his side, washing away any thoughts he had of you leaving him. You married him because you loved him, and nothing could change that. Even if he looked so similar to your lost daughter.

The Fates also decided to make your lives a bit harder, as if taking away your first born hadn’t been enough suffering to put you both through. Levi had been sent away with Zeke into hiding. Initially, you wanted to go with him, to stick by his side and cling to your life support, but the others hadn’t allowed it.

Hango could only grip your wrist tight as you watched Levi climb into the carriage and ride away.

You begged Hange not to leave you alone after that; because you knew if you were left alone for long enough, there would be nothing stopping you from joining your daughter in the afterlife.

Hange stayed by your side.

You wanted to vomit.

You could feel the sickening churn in your stomach as you stared down at the very girl who had stolen the life from your daughter. The images of your daughter clutching on to you tightly and her scared voice begging you to comfort her rang loud in your ears. Your mouth had dried instantly, any one of the thousand of words rattling in your head stopped by the numbness in your mouth. There were so many things you wanted to say, so many words you wanted to exchange with the girl who had taken your child from you.

You could see Nicolo’s mouth move and his adam's apple bob with every sound he made, but it was all muffled whitenoise as your eyes trained onto the little girl who stared up at you with a look of horror and fear.

“ . . . kill her,” Nicolo’s voice buzzed in your ears.

You hadn’t even realised you took the knife from his hands until you heard Hange speak up from behind you. She begged you to put the knife down, to think rationally.

But how could you? How could your mind think of anything other than harming the girl who was the cause of all your pain? When the girl who murdered your daughter was right in front of you, sitting on her knees, vulnerable. Your heart screamed and thrashed against the veins that held it in place for you to stab her, to make her feel the same pain your baby had to go through.

But then she looked up at you. Her eyes were wide with the same fear and pleading look your daughter had in her final moments. You dropped the knife, your shoulders shaking as your eyes lined with unshed tears.

“Kill a child. . . you- you want me to kill a child. . .” Armin stared at you from the side as your shoulders sagged and a few tears escaped your eyes, and he couldn’t help but realize how tired you looked. As if the weight the world had placed on your shoulders was finally catching up to you and your body struggled to carry it any longer.

“I can’t do that. She’s a child. Someone’s daughter.” You collapsed to the floor, your hands digging to the carpet underneath you, “I can’t kill a child, not while I know what it feels like to lose your own. I can’t put another mother through the same pain I’m in. I just- can’t.”

Hange kneeled next to you and placed a comforting hand on your shoulder, her lips pressed into a thin line and sympathy swimming in her eyes for her friend who had lost her world. You looked back up to Gabi and she nearly flinched with how broken and tired your eyes looked, “I can only hope she’s found peace in the afterlife. . .

“I can only hope the Goddesses of Fate are kind to her soul.”

#attack on titan x reader #attack on titan #shingenki no kyoujin x reader #shingeki no kyoujin #levi x reader #levi ackerman x reader #levi ackerman #levi #attack on titan levi #attack on titan levi x reader #angst #mom! reader #parent! reader #husband! levi

172 notes · View notes

pendragonfics · 4 years

Text

homebound

Paring: Thranduil/Reader

Tags: female reader, elf reader, plus size reader, set during The Hobbit, elf culture & customs angst and hurt/comfort

Summary: Reader, in the company of the Dwarves of Erebor, finds herself in the company of her One; King Thranduil

Word Count: 1,647

Current Date: 2020-09-12

Though the dwarves spoke Elvish, with you alongside the Company aided their efforts in more than translation. Though you appeared young, your heritage hid the passage of time well. At over five thousand years old, you had seen much bloodshed, hatred, pain and strife as the years went by. Though your whole life was not full of pain, there was the reason you were not with your people for so long.

After fleeing the circles of your society, Gandalf the Grey took you in. The wandering wizard had no paying profession. Yet you spent your time alongside him, learning and growing. But mostly, it was attempting to avoid the pain of being separated from your One.

The sight of the dwarves and Mr Baggins riding ahead of your steed day after day never grew upon you; each morning, they would mount, and you would all ride toward the Lonely Mountain. Perhaps it was the novelty of watching them clamber onward like children. It could be your allyship to their noble cause. But mostly, deep inside your heart, you knew it to be the knowledge that you were returning home to the woods where you were born.

Through all the obstacles the troop faced, you all persevered. But as you all neared closer and closer to the Mirkwood woods, the memories of your exile so long ago resurfaced. Neither the Dwarves nor Mr Baggins asked for your story, for which you were glad. But there was something painful for you in returning home.

You were five thousand five hundred years old, and while most Elves lived longer, none in the circles of the elite you lived in looked like you. Ever since you were a child, your body was different. Doubts of your lineage permeated your family, called into question to your status and the validity of your title. It seemed that the society that you came from was against you but not the King's son. Thranduil.

The memories came to you in dreams and wreaked your sleep with their subconscious power. When the land was younger, and you both too, his hair was braided, and he would smile more. He sang, and ran, and made mischief as anyone would.

But with the passing of his father, the world seemed darker, scarier. Forced to crown him young, the council of elders passed the title upon Thranduil's shoulders. Early into his kingship, he kept his facade of happiness, just for you. The mischief became intimate. He no longer sang, but recited poetry and legislation to your awaiting ears. He wore a crown made from the woods and wore his hair loose for your fingers to weave within. And when no one looked, his lips would find yours, and all the cruel fate in the world would fade away for fleeting minutes.

A proverb states that when an elf falls in love, their heart remains with their One. While you had resigned to a life without returned feelings, it shocked you when one night your chambers were entered by palace guards. The Elders had found out; you, the imperfect, could never be the sovereign by marriage. The guards, on order from the Elders, abducted you under the disguise of starlight and displaced you from your home.

At this point, you would wake, panting, and muffle your cries beneath your fist. The fire would be dying in the early hours of the morning, and the last on watch would be blinking sleep from their eyes. As your party neared toward the woods, with Gandalf fleetingly by your side, you felt the grief returning to your conscious self.

The moment you saw the spider, your blood froze. Though you had grown in these parts, never had you slain one of these native foes. Sword at the ready, you slashed at the behemoth before you. One felled, two, but the third beast reared, venom spurting from its fangs into a wound. Crying out, you raised your sword, prepared for death. But the blow never landed; Elvish steel rang against your sword, and quickly, the remainder of the Spiders fell.

The relief of your life remaining your own never settled, however. The presence of other elves meant only one thing. Carried out in shackles, you silently shared the sombre feeling as your companions. It was not long before you found yourself behind Elven bars, imprisoned from your compatriots. Throughout your years, you had spent innumerable hours thinking of a reunion with your One. But never had you, in all of your musings, think it would be like this.

It was not long before more guards came, and silently, they unlocked your cell and escorted you from your friends. Already down the hallway, you could hear their cries, pleas against your removal. If only you had spoken in confidence about your history with these woodland elves to your dwarven friends. But that was the past.

Soon enough, you felt the familiar hallways entwine the passage, as comforting as a womb. Brought into the throne room, you felt the memories resurface once more. Before they could fill your mind, however, the throne came into view; and atop it, sat a familiar face. Time had not ravished him. Thranduil looked the same the last time you had seen him; long white hair, his gaze distant, the elegant attire. Though your hands were shackled still and held behind your back by your escorts, you felt them well with a will to reach for him.

"As soon as I heard of your return to the forest, I cannot lie, I was intrigued," he broke the silence that lingered in the vastness between you. From on high upon his throne, he shook his head, "after all these years, here you are. Home."

"I have no home! For that, your people made sure of," you spat.

At that, the guards tightened their grip upon your shackles, and uncomfortable, you fought back. Instantaneously, they released their grip, looking to your King, you saw why. Descending from his throne, you watched as Thranduil waved a hand your way, with no words spoken. The guards, though not unlocking the manacles that bound you, released their hold upon you. As he made his way closer, you observed another signal, to which left you and you King alone.

You felt your heartbeat beneath your skin, beating faster by the second. Despite all the years thinking of this moment, never had you anticipated it like this; returned in shackles, like a stray animal to your home.

"My people?" he asked.

You tilted your chin his way, your anger getting the better of you. But as quickly as it washed over you, it receded. Breathless, you looked to him, hurt.

"Oh, Thranduil, my love..." you whispered. "You never knew, did you?" You feel a wash of shame now, and though still bound, you turned from his gaze. "The elders. I heard them speaking; I had destroyed your chances of love."

"But you were my love," he growled. "And you left me to wander Middle Earth as you pleased."

You still cannot look at him. He radiates such power, such poise, and you cannot help but feel like you are inferior, despite the feelings you have harboured for so long. Your breath catches, and silently, you feel tears fall against your cheeks.

"It was against my will to leave Mirkwood. To leave you," you whispered. "It broke my soul to leave your presence. The elders forbade my return."

"And yet, here you are." He states.

It is now you look to him. Your face is shining with tears. Yet you refuse to look away now. "Against my better judgement. I was travelling with a troupe, only to be abducted by your soldiers." You fight against the restraints, their clanking noises filling the empty air between Thranduil's lips and your own. "Release us, and we will no longer be a burden to your court."

"You are in no place to make demands."

"And you are in none to scold me for things I did not do." you retort hotly. "I spent so long doubting myself, taking myself apart for others. Hating my body and wishing myself to be better for others. I didn't leave. They expelled me." you looked at Thranduil. "Before you scold me, punish your council."

A beat passes. The sound of elves vocalising in the distant halls catches your ears, but Thranduil does not speak. Silently, he takes something from his sleeve and reaches for your hands. No words are said as the chains fall.

"So I am not your prisoner?" you ask him.

"You do not understand what I have gone through in your absence," he sighs, his fingers tracing around the marks on your wrists. "I was married, then widowed. I became a father, as well."

"Congratulations, my King," you half-bow, as tradition expects of you. "And I apologise for your loss."

His lips turn up at the corners, ever so slightly. "I might have gone through so much pain, as you have too," he says, his fingers now interwoven with yours. "...but it has led us here. Together once more."

"Fate is strange," you hum. "...but I cannot stay, Thranduil. I have pledged myself to the cause of the Thorin Oakenshield, the heir of the Lonely Mountain."

He flinches. "To remove the wretched Smaug from its clutches, I assume?"

You nod and bring his hands close to your chest. His skin is cold and smooth. "Yes. Until Thorin is crowned King Under the Mountain, I am bound to the cause."

"Well," he says softly, lips brushing against your brow. "I suppose that I too am bound to the cause, for the best interest for my people."

"Until then...I must bid you adieu, my King." you release your clasp on his hands, and step backward, from his reach. "I have a dragon to slay."

#Thranduil #King Thranduil #thranduil oropherion #thranduil x reader #thranduil/reader #the hobbit x reader #lotr fanfic #lotr x reader #lord of the rings x reader #chaotic--lovely #pendragonfics #Female reader

227 notes · View notes

siswritesyanderes · 5 years

Note

ooh! now that you've begun in dabbling in some s p i c i e r stuff (love it!!!) what would you think about Tom finding a familiar soul in the orphanage, if you want to make it real spicy, sister perhaps (continuing the habit of inbreeding in the family without conditioning; nice!) and him deciding that it would be only right, even though his sister is not a slytherin, to make her rule by his side- j-just to keep him in line, and continue the great line of slytherin! love your work :)))

Okay. Let’s do this. Ooh boy.

(N S F W) (TW: non-con) (TW: incest)

She was like him. She was, in fact, the only one like him in the entire world. It had seemed so, at least, when they were children.

She didn’t have his harsh temperament, or his impatience, but she had the same unsettlingly intelligent gaze and, most importantly, she could do the same sorts of things that he could. She made things move (most usually, books to her hand, especially if one of the other orphans had tried to take said book from her), she had made her hair grow back when a bully had cut it off (but not before Tom punished the other child for the mistake), and she could talk to snakes.

Even apart from her powers, they were very alike. They were quiet, and didn’t socialize much, and had a tendency to scowl. They spent all of their time together, and so that had developed rather identical mannerisms and turns of phrase.

It was tact that made her different; for some reason he could not hope to understand, his twin sister thought it worth placating the matrons and their fellow orphans. (Certainly, her social skills persuaded the caretakers to see his side of things more often than they would if he spoke to them, but still he found such diplomacy monotonous.) She spoke sparingly to the snakes, and only when he was already speaking to them, on the grounds that it was “rude” to do things that they knew made the others uncomfortable. She did not snap at anyone, or use her power to make them hurt; she ignored people who annoyed her and allowed Tom to handle people who provoked her.

“I’m glad for your temper sometimes,” she mused once when Tom returned, cool-faced, from scaring off a boy who had thrown a frog at her. “I don’t think you should always make a habit of it, though.”

“Habits are for people with dull minds,” he replied, returning to the book he had been reading.

When Professor Dumbledore came to tell them that they were magic and would be going to a place called Hogwarts, she let her brother do all of the talking; all of the asking and bragging (and, when the man set their wardrobe on fire, protesting). In the meantime, she observed from the social cues that Tom and the professor were developing a clear mutual dislike (as subtle as they both were about it) and considered the ways in which she could serve as damage control; it wouldn’t do for her brother to antagonize someone with power over them, as he had done with the matrons here.

The only time she spoke up was after Dumbledore gave them their allowance for school supplies, at which point she asked, “Are Galleons pure gold, sir?”

“Yes, Miss Riddle, they are,” the man answered.

“How many pounds to a Galleon?”

The professor told her.

She nodded, privately supposing that they could exploit the exchange rate of gold to pounds and pounds to Galleons and increase their money seemingly forever. She would tell Tom about it tomorrow.

That night, as Tom lay in bed with the day’s revelations running through him and his sister likewise resting on her side of the room, he whispered into the dark about how they would be running this new wizarding world before they were done. She didn’t answer, so he couldn’t be sure whether she believed him, but it didn’t matter; it was true. He would excel, because it was in his nature, and she would be with him because she was supposed to be.

At Hogwarts, they were sorted into Slytherin and Ravenclaw. Tom detested the separation, detested that they wouldn’t be sleeping in the same room, and he detested it more in the following weeks and months, as she came to make friends in her House. He had earned his housemates’ respect, through his own power and intelligence and aided on by the priciness of his possessions (thanks to his sister’s savvy Galleon exchanges), but it always soured his mood when he saw her laughing at the Ravenclaw table with some Other Person.

She knew him, though, well enough to make a point of giving him the most of her time, including leaving her friends straightaway, even mid-conversation, if he called her to be with him. It was out of respect for her that he allowed her these diversions, instead of scaring them away, but it was imperative that she show him that he took priority.

“You’re quite jealous,” she remarked in third year, while they were walking the grounds together without his followers. He had learned that she did not enjoy being near his followers and would spend longer times with him if they weren’t around. “It’s a sign of insecurity, you know.”

He ignored her attempt at starting a pointless argument. “I didn’t find anything using our father’s surname. I think our middle names must be the clue; ‘Marvolo’ and ‘Merope’ sound just like wizarding names, don’t they?”

“They do,” she agreed. “Thank you for keeping me updated on your search, though I wish you weren’t in Slytherin; almost none of the other Ravenclaws care about blood status. They don’t care if we’re Muggle-borns.”

“We’re not Muggle-borns,” he snapped, and was rewarded for his terseness with silence from her. His followers had come to uncomfortably ignore his heritage (or lack thereof) because he was frightening, cunning, and clever (and because his having grown in an orphanage with no knowledge of his parents allowed them to pretend that his parents could be purebloods), but there were only so few of them, because so many of his peers in Slytherin couldn’t get past his lack of a respectable name. No one provoked him, but he wanted them all to worship him.

And his sister, too.

When he found out that they were Slytherin’s heirs, he was sixteen, sitting at a table in the library by himself, poring over records. He checked over his readings several times before the feeling of vindication came over him.

He didn’t tell his sister about his findings until he had discovered the entrance to their Chamber, a month later; then, he dragged her out of the Great Hall (in the middle of a chess game with the “friend” he detested the most; that boy who she always seemed to be talking to and joking with) and into the girl’s bathroom, breathlessly saying, “Tell it to open.”

Flummoxed, it took her two tries to manage Parseltongue, but soon enough they were sliding down into the underbelly of the school, into their birthright.

As they wandered, with their wands lit, through the stone corridors, Tom felt the most alone with his sister he had in a while; it was like they were in their own world that no one else could access. Sealed away. She couldn’t talk to other friends here, nor had he any followers for her to take exception to. It was just them, and their destiny, and it was glorious.

He felt intoxicated by their aloneness, and wondered if this was how things had felt in the womb.

Their Chamber, their womb, their rebirth as heirs.

She seemed less pleased by the development; she kept murmuring, “I’ve read about this,” either to herself or to him.

“Relax,” he drawled. “This is our Chamber; nothing can happen to us here.”

“The stories say there’s a creature in the Chamber of Secrets, Tom. Some sort of monster.”

“A creature meant to serve the heirs of Slytherin; that’s what we’re looking for.”

“I don’t want to find it.” She turned to go back the way they’d come, but he grabbed her arm.

“Don’t go back. Aren’t you supposed to thank me for keeping you updated?”

She shook her arm from his grip. “Keeping me updated is telling me your findings, not tricking me into a dungeon full of snake skins. I can only think of the sort of monster that would leave these behind.”

“A snake, perhaps?”

“You’re not funny.”

Unexpectedly, her dry response awoke a rage he hadn’t noticed brewing inside himself. “No, that honor is reserved for Wilbur Cadwallader, isn’t it?”

The memories were rising, unbidden, to the surface, now; all the times he had looked up from his plate because the sound of her laugh was audible to him even in the Great Hall. All the times he had approached her in the Transfiguration Courtyard for no other reason than because watching her converse with Cadwallader and that ditzy redhead friend of hers made him want to chew glass. That one night, fifth year, when she had spent her prefect rounds walking with Cadwallader instead of him.

“Don’t use your envy to deflect. I want no part of-”

“Envy?” he repeated, very quietly. His sister was smart; she knew the difference between jealousy– the fear of losing what one owns –and envy– the desire for what someone else owns. She was too smart to use them interchangeably, which meant that she had chosen the word “envy” intentionally.

She recognized, also, his danger signs, and it was clear from her expression that she understood his change in tone, yet she carried on, “I want no part of Slytherin’s legacy.”

“I didn’t ask what you wanted a part of,” Tom said, still speaking very quietly. He noticed, suddenly, that he had grown much taller than her, in the past few years. “We are Slytherin’s heirs, and we are fated for greatness. It falls on us to restore the noble house of-”

“I’m a Ravenclaw,” she cut in coolly. “And anyway, I won’t be carrying the name of the family, in case you’ve forgotten; you will. Restore to your heart’s content. I want no part in it.” She tried, again, to walk away, but again he caught her arm, this time not releasing it.

“You’ll be restoring it with me, because we’re supposed to do it together. We balance each other; we always have. I’m going to rule this world, and you will be at my side if I have to…” Her suddenly sharp look caused him to trail off, as only she could.

She stormed away, and he fumed in place but allowed her to leave because if they continued to anger each other, he would probably hurt her, and he did not want to do that.

They did not speak to each other for a time after that, though he glared at her whenever she was in his line of sight and she made a point not to look his way. In the meantime, he opened the Chamber of Secrets, left messages on the school walls in rooster blood proclaiming the return of the heirs of Slytherin, and killed a mudblood from her house.

It was after this that she stalked up to him in the school library, her eyes fascinatingly red-rimmed and her expression furious. “They are going to close Hogwarts.”

He found it interesting how, even though he had spent so long enraged that she was ignoring him, seeing her so upset still made him want to alleviate her unhappiness. He ignored this feeling, though, and maintained a dry tone as he replied, “Don’t worry; I’ve made arrangements for the culprit to be brought to justice.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve said not to worry about it.” He watched her as she seemed to decide whether or not to leave him now. It was so weird to him that she saw herself as an individual. It was so obvious that she belonged to him; she was his sister, and they were Slytherin’s heirs, a deteriorated bloodline in need of strengthening. In need of purifying. “You haven’t met the basilisk,” he said, suddenly desperate to get her back into the Chamber.

“There’s a basilisk?” she said indifferently.

“Our basilisk. You should meet her.”

“Why would I want to meet a basilisk, Thomas?”

“You haven’t spoken to her.”

“No, but I’ve heard her, in the pipes. She doesn’t sound a dazzling conversationalist.”

“Come with me.” Somewhere in the building, Rubeus Hagrid was in the headmaster’s office, trying to explain away his illegal acromantula even though the poor thing had been doomed the moment he walked into this school as a half-giant. Tom could only imagine how wonderful it would feel to have a second victory today.

“You’re plotting something,” his sister accused.

“How astute.”

She rolled her eyes, in a clear, if reluctant, concession. “If it’s something stupid, I will leave.”

He took her down to the Chamber for a second time, adamant that she would not leave, even if she wanted to. He led her down a few corridors, rather than to the stone atrium he usually visited. There was a large pile of snake skins in this hallway, more commodious than the trails of snake skins littered throughout, that would be perfect for his purposes, and he hoped to put them to use.

“Last time you were here, I told you that we would rule together,” he said.

“So you did,” his sister answered, almost boredly. “I don’t suppose you’ve lost your enchantment with that idea?”

He licked his lips. She was walking ahead of him, as there were no forks in the corridor for him to guide her through. She wasn’t looking his way, but rather watching the ceiling as she went, as though intrigued by the idea of the whole of Hogwarts being above them.

Always walking ahead when she should have been walking by his side.

Tom pulled out his wand silently. The hex that he sent her way would have cleanly and entirely disabled her for at least the next ten minutes, but the sudden light that the spell provided had alerted her to his intentions, and she had spun hastily out of the way, removing her own wand from her pocket as she did so; he should have taken that from her before doing anything else. No matter.

What followed was a short duel, with extremely impressive spellwork all around. They were evenly matched, and he didn’t say that lightly; few ever matched him. But it came down to who wanted victory more, and her wariness of him did not exceed his desire for her.

Soon enough, she was crumpled on the ground, groaning and scarcely able to move. He lifted her into his arms and walked her to the chosen pile of snake skins. They weren’t exactly soft, but they had enough give to them that they were easily preferable to the stone floor. He set her down on them and climbed atop her.

Her eyes were nearly closed, but not quite, and they still followed his movement, which meant that she was conscious. Good.

“We’ve always kept each other in balance,” he said calmly, while keeping his wand leveled on her torso, working nonverbal magic to unfasten her robes. “No one of us could rule nearly as well without the other.”

Her gaze left him, instead peering at the far wall. He suspected she was looking for her wand, which had rolled down the corridor, but she wasn’t strong enough to move her head.

She should have been looking at him.

Her robes fell away, and his eyes feasted on her bareness. He had not seen so much of her in years.

She managed to growl at him, but only weakly.

“I let you have five years with those friends of yours,” he said softly. “I was generous, wasn’t I? I let you laugh and pretend with those idiots?”

She shut her eyes, because of course she knew exactly what would annoy him more than looking away from him.

He cast a mild stinging jinx to make her open them again, while at the same time removing her undergarments. “Watch me,” he hissed. “Watch me touch you.”

She watched, but only because he would keep stinging her if she didn’t.

He kissed her lips, then advanced his tongue into her mouth, and then moaned loudly, just so that she would have to know that she was giving him pleasure, no matter how much she hated it. She was naked under him, naked on a pile of snake skins in their Chamber of Secrets. He loosened his necktie, then his belt.

“We have the greatest magical lineage in the world, and it will be because of us that it continues,” he said.

“I will hurt you for this,” she told him, in Parseltongue because it was the only language she could manage in this state.

He thumbed licentiously at one of her nipples. “Maybe,” he allowed. “But I’d be careful making threats like that.” He pointed his wand at the middle of her head. “Maybe you’ll be better at carrying my babies if you don’t remember you’re doing it, hmm?”

She tried to keep glaring at him, but her bottom lip trembled, and she ended up closing her eyes again.

“Look at me,” he ordered, not stinging her this time.

She opened her eyes, and they were damp and scornful.

He kissed her lips again, more softly, and eased his trousers and pants down his waist. “Just think of how powerful we will be together,” he whispered, with the same awed tone he had once used to whisper to her at bedtime, when they’d shared a room at the orphanage.

(He’d been furious with Mrs. Cole when she’d made them move to separate rooms on account of his sister’s first menstrual cycle. Muggles always ruining things, always asserting themselves where they didn’t belong.)

“Ours will be the only bloodline that matters,” he breathed. “None of those so-called purebloods will dare say their family name in our presence. We will be royalty together.”

She was trying to move her arm, still trying to resist, but she was too weak. She would come around once she had to; she couldn’t stay mad at him once he had started making good on these promises.

He eased her legs apart and thrust himself inside of her. Her resulting moan rang through the stone halls, far from anyone who could dare to steal the symphony; it was just for him. Cadwallader certainly couldn’t hear her, couldn’t feel…Ohhh, Merlin. The contact, the perfect joining of two halves, was almost enough to make him release straightaway, but he knew that there was more, so he kept thrusting.

She listened to his hitches of breath and tried not to give him anything to listen to in return, though it was impossible not to make a sound. He was her first, but she would never tell him. She would go to the grave pretending that there was someone else before him.

Was she his first? Almost definitely.

This was so sick.

She thought that she wanted nothing more than for him to be done, but then when he finished inside her, it was a new kind of horrifying. Feeling him empty a load of horrors into her body, where they couldn’t be reached, all while making such enraptured sounds…They hadn’t taken contraceptive potions before the fact; she didn’t even know how to brew or access any, nor how to find out about them without destroying her reputation. And that was all counting on the assumption that Tom had only been trying to scare her, when he’d implied that he might erase her memory of this whole incident.

That thought sickened her the most, made her truly distraught, the idea that he might do all of this to her, wring pleasure from her helpless and unwilling body, and then she might be civil with him tomorrow regardless.

Himself, Tom intended to make full use of this night. His followers would cover for him if anyone inquired after his presence, and he would not be satisfied with exploring his sister’s potential only once.

He smiled. Upstairs, the whole issue of the dead mudblood was being squared away, with him scot free and even likely to receive an award for his heroism, and down here, he had finally achieved the correct amount of closeness with his sister.

He pulled out only once he was sure that none of his seed would be wasted. It actually wouldn’t be terribly convenient for her if she became pregnant while still in school, but it would increase her dependence on him, and she wouldn’t be foolish enough to name him as the child’s father (especially if he decided to make her forget that he was), so he could safely consider it a non-risk for himself.

He stared at her. Covered in sweat, even though she hadn’t been moving. Eyes closed, but he didn’t feel like bothering her over it now, when his mood was so good.

She probably considered it rude that he was allowed to keep his shirt and necktie on while she was completely bare; he rectified the problem, taking care to drape his clothes over the snake skins instead of on the dusty floor. He liked it better this way, at any rate; only skin against skin.

Clearing his throat to make her open her eyes, he pleasantly announced, “We’re going to go again, okay?”

Her gaze was positively gelid, but she didn’t growl, which he took as assent.

#male yandere #yandere tom riddle #yandere voldemort #possessive #obsession #lemon

669 notes · View notes

mytwilightimagines13 · 3 years

Text

Amnesia (Book Two)(Part Fifteen)(Alec Volturi)

The final witness

Then Alice danced into the clearing from the southwest, Jasper was only inches behind her, his sharp eyes fierce. Close after them ran three strangers; the first was a tall, muscular female with wild dark hair - obviously Kachiri. She had the same elongated limbs and features as the other Amazons, even more pronounced in her case. The next was a small olive-toned female vampire with a long braid of black hair bobbing against her back. Her deep burgundy eyes flitted nervously around the confrontation before her. And the last was a young man... not quite as fast nor quite as fluid in his run. His skin was an impossible rich, dark brown. His wary eyes flashed across the gathering, and they were the color of warm teak. His hair was black and braided, too, like the woman's, though not as long. He was beautiful. As he neared the vampires in the meadow, a new sound sent shock waves through the watching crowd - the sound of another heartbeat, accelerated with exertion. Alice leaped lightly over the edges of the dissipating mist that lapped at Bella’s shield and came to a sinuous stop at Edward's side. Bella reached out to touch her arm, and so did Edward, Esme, Carlisle. There wasn't time for any other welcome. Jasper and the others followed her through the shield. All the guard watched, speculation in their eyes, as the latecomers crossed the invisible border without difficulty. The brawny ones, Felix and the others like him, focused their suddenly hopeful eyes on Bella. They had not been sure of what her shield repelled, but it was clear now that it would not stop a physical attack. As soon as Aro gave the order, the blitz would ensue her. Edward, despite his absorption in the coup he was directing, stiffened furiously in response to their thoughts. He controlled himself and spoke to Aro again. "Alice has been searching for her own witnesses these last weeks," he said to the ancient. "And she does not come back empty-handed. Alice, why don't you introduce the witnesses you've brought?" Caius snarled. "The time for witnesses is past! Cast your vote, Aro!" Aro raised one finger to silence his brother, his eyes glued to Alice's face. Alice stepped forward lightly and introduced the strangers. "This is Huilen and her nephew, Nahuel." Caius's eyes tightened as Alice named the relationship between the newcomers. The Volturi witnesses hissed amongst themselves, including Jane and Alec, but Maeryn did not join them once again. She felt intrigued by the newcomers. So there were more male vampires impregnating female humans. The vampire world was changing, and everyone could feel it. "Speak, Huilen," Aro commanded. "Give us the witness you were brought to bear." The slight woman looked to Alice nervously. Alice nodded in encouragement, and Kachiri put her long hand on the little vampire's shoulder. "I am Huilen," the woman announced in clear but strangely accented English. As she continued, it was apparent she had prepared herself to tell this story, that she had practiced. It flowed like a well-known nursery rhyme. "A century and a half ago, I lived with my people, the Mapuche. My sister was Pire. Our parents named her after the snow on the mountains because of her fair skin. And she was very beautiful - too beautiful. She came to me one day in secret and told me of the angel that found her in the woods, that visited her by night. I warned her." Huilen shook her head mournfully. "As if the bruises on her skin were not warning enough. I knew it was the Libishomen of our legends, but she would not listen. She was bewitched. "She told me when she was sure her dark angel's child was growing inside her. I didn't try to discourage her from her plan to run away - I knew even our father and mother would agree that the child must be destroyed, Pire with it. I went with her into the deepest parts of the forest. She searched for her demon angel but found nothing. I cared for her, hunted for her when her strength failed. She ate the animals raw, drinking their blood. I needed no more confirmation of what she carried in her womb. I hoped to

save her life before I killed the monster. But she loved the child inside her. She called him Nahuel, after the jungle cat, when he grew strong and broke her bones - and loved him still. I could not save her. The child ripped his way free of her, and she died quickly, begging all the while that I would care for her Nahuel. Her dying wish - and I agreed. He bit me, though, when I tried to lift him from her body. I crawled away into the jungle to die. I didn't get far - the pain was too much. But he found me; the newborn child struggled through the underbrush to my side and waited for me. When the pain ended, he was curled against my side, sleeping. I cared for him until he was able to hunt for himself. We hunted the villages around our forest, staying to ourselves. We have never come so far from our home, but Nahuel wished to see the child here." Huilen bowed her head when she was finished and moved back so she was partially hidden behind Kachiri. Aro's lips were pursed. He stared at the dark-skinned youth. "Nahuel, you are one hundred and fifty years old?" he questioned. "Give or take a decade," he answered in a clear, beautifully warm voice. His accent was barely noticeable. "We don't keep track." "And you reached maturity at what age?" "About seven years after my birth, more or less, I was full grown." "You have not changed since then?" Nahuel shrugged. "Not that I've noticed." "And your diet?" Aro pressed, seeming interested in spite of himself. "Mostly blood, but some human food, too. I can survive on either." "You were able to create an immortal?" As Aro gestured to Huilen, his voice was abruptly intense. Bella refocused on her shield, but Maeryn no longer paid attention. This was something new to her kind, something interesting. And she wanted to know every last bit of it. "Yes, but none of the rest can." A shocked murmur ran through all three groups. Aro's eyebrows shot up. "The rest?" "My sisters." Nahuel shrugged again. Aro stared wildly for a moment before composing his face. "Perhaps you would tell us the rest of your story, for there seems to be more." Nahuel frowned. "My father came looking for me a few years after my mother's death." His handsome face distorted slightly. "He was pleased to find me." Nahuel's tone suggested the feeling was not mutual. "He had two daughters, but no sons. He expected me to join him, as my sisters had. He was surprised I was not alone. My sisters are not venomous, but whether that's due to gender or a random chance... who knows? I already had my family with Huilen, and I was not interested" - he twisted the word - "in making a change. I see him from time to time. I have a new sister; she reached maturity about ten years back." "Your father's name?" Caius asked through gritted teeth. "Joham," Nahuel answered. "He considers himself a scientist. He thinks he's creating a new super-race." He made no attempt to disguise the disgust in his tone. Maeryn shared this feeling. It indeed was disgusting. Caius looked at Bella. "Your daughter, is she venomous?" he demanded harshly. "No," Bella responded. Nahuel's head snapped up at Aro's question, and his teak eyes turned to bore into Bella’s face. Caius looked to Aro for confirmation, but Aro was absorbed in his own thoughts. He pursed his lips and stared at Carlisle, and then Edward, and at last his eyes rested on Bella. Caius growled. "We take care of the aberration here, and then follow it south," he urged Aro. Aro stared into Bella’s eyes for a long, tense moment. Maeryn had no idea what he was searching for in Bella’s eyes, or what he found, but after he had measured her for that moment, something in his face changed, a faint shift in the set of his mouth and eyes, and Maeryn knew that Aro had made his decision. "Brother," he said softly to Caius. "There appears to be no danger. This is an unusual development, but I see no threat. These half-vampire children are much like us, it appears." "Is that your vote?" Caius demanded. "It is." Caius scowled. "And this Joham? This immortal so fond of experimentation?" "Perhaps we

should speak with him," Aro agreed. "Stop Joham if you will," Nahuel said flatly. "But leave my sisters be. They are innocent." Aro nodded, his expression solemn. And then he turned back to his guard with a warm smile. "Dear ones," he called. "We do not fight today." The guard nodded in unison and straightened out of their ready positions. The mist dissipated swiftly, but Bella held her shield in place. She analyzed their expressions as Aro turned back to them. His face was as benign as ever, but unlike before, there could be a strange blankness sensed behind the facade. As if his scheming was over. Caius was clearly incensed, but his rage was turned inward now; he was resigned. Marcus looked... bored; there really was no other word for it. The guard was impassive and disciplined again; there were no individuals among them, just the whole. They were in formation, ready to depart. Once Alec’s mist had returned to himself, Maeryn took off the glove of her right hand, showing her porcelain skin to the sun. Alec did the same to the glove on his left hand and grabbed Maeryn’s hand tightly. It felt good to feel each other’s skin touch one another. Now they could feel their connection much better than before. The Volturi witnesses were still wary; one after another, they departed, scattering into the woods. As their numbers dwindled, the remaining sped up. Soon they were all gone. Aro held his hands out to the foes, almost apologetic. Behind him, the larger part of the guard, along with Caius, Marcus, and the silent, mysterious wives, were already drifting quickly away, their formation precise once again. Only the three that seemed to be his personal guardians lingered with him. "I'm so glad this could be resolved without violence," he said sweetly. "My friend, Carlisle - how pleased I am to call you friend again! I hope there are no hard feelings. I know you understand the strict burden that our duty places on our shoulders." "Leave in peace, Aro," Carlisle said stiffly. "Please remember that we still have our anonymity to protect here, and keep your guard from hunting in this region." "Of course, Carlisle," Aro assured him. "I am sorry to earn your disapproval, my dear friend. Perhaps, in time, you will forgive me." "Perhaps, in time, if you prove a friend to us again." Aro bowed his head, the picture of remorse, and drifted backward for a moment before he turned around. The foes watched in silence as the last four Volturi disappeared into the trees.

Once back in the castle, Jane, Alec and Maeryn made their way towards Jane’s room. Jane was boiling with anger and she threw some expensive vases against the wall on their way to her room. Maeryn and Alec skillfully avoided the porcelain shatters and followed their sister to her room. Once inside, Jane grabbed her pillow and ripped it in half. Alec let go of Maeryn’s hand and pulled his sister in a tight embrace. Jane used her gift on him, but Alec kept on holding her, not once making a sound of agony. Soon enough Jane calmed down, and as soon as Alec released her, she fell onto her bed that was now covered in feathers. She picked one up and studied its form with her magnified sight, seeing every little detail. “Don’t fret sister, there will be a day we can defeat them.” Alec said. “At a moment when they least expect it.” Jane said, slowly grinning again. "We got all eternity to plan it ." Maeryn said to Alec and Jane. Both the twins grinned. Maeryn grinned along, though she could not shake off the feeling that something bad was about to happen.

#alec volturi #volturi #volturi imagine #athenodora volturi #twilight imagine #twilight

10 notes · View notes

conaionaru · 4 years

Text

Honor and Blood (Ivar the Boneless)

A greedy Fool

Synopsis: Vanya is now eight months pregnant and Silas finally arrives. He is in for a big surprise.

Warning: Ivar, angst, toxic family, manipulation, mentions of murder

Tags:

@youbloodymadgenius @xbellaxcarolinax @didiintheblog @lol-haha-joke @queenbeeta @heavenly1927 @shannygoatgruff

P.S. Anything in cursive is Old Norse. Anything in bold and cursive is a memory.

I am trying to give Silas some form of motive and personality, hopefully it fits. I want him to be more than a villain, that’s there to create drama. He is a jerk (asshole, dick,..), but let him be a deep one.

I don’t own the gifs. Also, thank you for your support. I really appreciate it. If you want to be tagged please write me<3

Ever since the sacrifice to Freyja, Vanya had no dreams of Silas or the stranger. If it was thanks to the goddess or her newfound courage, Vanya had no clue. But she didn't care either way. She was no eight months pregnant and more pressing matter to worry about then why she is finally getting sleep.

A fisherman spotted ships on the horizon bearing the red sun of Slegia. Which meant Silas is nearly here, so she must be ready. Brynja and Margrethe helped Vanya dress and did her hair to greet her brother at the shore. "The pink one or the red one?"

"Pink." Margrethe nodded at the order and laid the dress out on Ivar's and Vanya's bed as Brynja helped her out of her sleeping gown. Ivar was already in the Great Hall talking to his brothers and mother about the precautions against Silas.

Vanya stared out of the window of their chambers to watch people pass by in a hurry. She exhaled loudly and stood up from the chair with great difficulty. Nowadays, the ginger needed help getting up and rested her legs a lot. Sigurd joked to her that she is now equal to Ivar, the heavily pregnant one and the cripple. What a pair they are.

"Are you sure? You could stay in bed and rest; we could tell him you are ill." Brynja asked, worried, seeing the pale complexion her princess spotted. But the said girl only shook her head and pushed her shoulders back with her head held high.

"It is alright. I just have to do what Sigurd told me. Walk proudly with death in my eyes." Brynja and Margrethe raised both an eyebrow at the tidbit of information, thinking of Ivar and his angry expression all the time.

Brynja chuckled at the fierce look in Vanya's eyes. "You have been practicing, Vanya. You already look terrifying for someone with a heart as big as yours."

Vanya beamed at the compliment, turning from a scary Viking Princess into a ray of sunshine. The two girls laughed at the sudden change and led Vanya to the Great Hall to join the others. Together Aslaug, Vanya, and the Ragnarssons arrived at the shore where Silas would reach within an hour.

"It will all be alright, Lillemor (Little mother). And before you know it, he will return to his kingdom, and you will forget all about him." Hvitserk whispered into her ear, making Vanya smile in thanks. They agreed not to kill Silas and endure his presence till he left. As long as Silas behaved, he wouldn't be beheaded or harmed.

The ships drew nearer with the help of the good wind, Vanya thought about her monster of a brother. "You are a waste of space! Unthankful, filthy, and stupid. Aren't you?" "You will do as I say. Or I will let the heathen army have their way with you in the middle of the streets." "The cattle in the barn has more intelligence than you. Maybe I should let you live with them to learn a thing or two." "I should have smothered you in your crib like I wanted to!" He was cruel and cared about nobody but himself and the throne.

By the time Vanya snapped out of her thoughts, the ships were docked, and Silas looked at them with a smirk on his face. The King got off the boat, flanked with his knights.

He was clad in their father's blue cloak with his crown on his head, wearing both proudly and smugly. As if to show everyone, he was better then them. "Welcome to Kattegat, King Silas. I hope the journey was well," Aslaug greeted the blond Saxon, who looked her over and smirked at her.

"Could have been better, but we prevailed like we always do. You must be Queen Aslaug, the one who sees the future?" Aslaug nodded in agreement as Ivar clenched his teeth together in anger. The Christian spoke like a snob mocking his mother without any respect for her title.

"Let me introduce you, King Silas. You already know, Bjorn." The Queen said with a fake smile, her eyes sharper than any blade. Bjorn stared down at the smug King with hard eyes, Silas returned the stare with the same amount of disgust. "My sons Ubbe, Hvitserk, Sigurd, and Ivar. And of course, my daughter Vanya."

The Saxon looked the sons of Ragnar and smirked when he had to look down to look at Ivar. The youngest Ragnarsson glared at him from his seat on a chair, with Ubbe on his left and Vanya on his right. Silas looked at his sister and smirked at her brace facade. "Lovely sister, you have grown. I was worried my letter never reached you when you didn't respond."

"She hasn't been feeling that well, carrying a child is not an easy task," Aslaug said, walking towards her son and his wife, laying a hand on their shoulders. "We can assure you; we have been taking good care of Vanya, she is a part of our family after all."

"Of course." Silas nodded his smirk still present as he embraced Vanya. "How far along are you?"

The ginger laid a hand on her stomach and smiled at him. "Eight months. Is Mother not here?" Silas shook his head and mentioned back at the ship.

"She has found a new lover with a huge treasury. But let's not trouble ourselves with talk of whores." Silas snapped back spit flying out of his mouth, Vanya agreed against her will thinking of her poor mother who was left alone with this spiteful idiot.

"How long do you wish to stay, Brother?" Vanya questioned, looking at the knights that he bought with him. They looked tense, watching the Vikings as they would attack at any moment.

Silas scoffed and glared at Vanya; all his earlier fake smiles gone. "Why, do you wish to get rid of me, Sister?" He spat angrily as Vanya shook her head and mentioned for the knights.

"I am just worried for your knights. They aren't dressed for the weather. The first snows will fall soon. I do not want them to freeze or grow ill." The King shook his head and leaned closer to her ear. The Ragnarsson stiffened, especially Ivar, who reached for the axe, he hid on his back.

"Don't worry about my playthings. Worry about your pack of savages, dirty and pitiful just like you. Wasn't I right, Vanya? He fits you perfectly."

"Don't call them savages; they are my people. Just like your knights used to be."

Silas scoffed at that and glared into his sister's eyes. "They are not your people, they never were and never will be. You are the womb to some mutilated heathen, you nor your child have any claim to my throne."

"Then, why are you here?" She hissed, her hatred for him evident even to the knights. Silas stared at her, shocked. How dare she speak back to him, question him, and oppose him? Who does she think she is?

"How about we move to the Great Hall? We prepared a feast to welcome you." Aslaug cut in to deescalate the situation before it came to a fight. Silas scowled down at the ginger, who matched his heated look with one of her own. He scoffed and turned to Aslaug.

"Let's go." He smiled kindly at the Queen as she returned his fake smile. "I wish to see to what standard you hold my visit." His smile turned sour as he slammed his shoulder against Sigurd's and walked with Aslaug to the Great Hall.

"What a joy he is." Hvitserk spat as Ivar and Ubbe checked on Vanya, who was breathing heavily, trying to calm her adrenaline-filled body.

Sigurd rolled his eyes at the comment and looked up at Bjorn, who frowned at the knights armed from head to toe. "A fool. That's what he is." He spat, walking towards the hall, making sure Aslaug was alright with the King. The Ragnarssons looked at each other and shrugged, following behind Vanya, Ivar, and Ubbe.

The feast was awkward, to say the least. The Vikings had fun like always, but the Saxons were tense, and Silas watched the Northmen like they were lesser people. Ivar clutched his cup in his hand like he might throw it at Silas, even Sigurd was silent. Margrethe filled Vanya's cup and looked at the Princess worriedly. "Are you alright, Princess? You don't look so well?"

Silas looked over at his sister, who was pale with sweat on her forehead. The foreign tongue the thrall used was strange to him. It seemed pathetic in his eyes; English was much more proper. If he were king here, he would forbid the heathens to speak any other tongue, or worship other gods than the Christian one. "I am alright. The child is just restless today, that's all. Something sweet might calm it some, like usually. Could you please fetch me something like that?"

"Of course." Margrethe run off to the kitchens, while Silas stared at Vanya in disbelief. First, she dared oppose him, and now she speaks the language of these savages. How low she has fallen, his foolish little sister.

He stabbed his piece of meat with his fork and cut off a mouthful. After he swallowed the food, he washed it down with a cup of wine bought in his honor. "Mother wanted me to ask if you thought about names. She suggested Ælfgar or Wassa."

Vanya looked at Silas, confused. "Mother wants me to name my child after Ælfgar The Thirsty?" Silas shrugged his shoulders at the question while Hvitserk looked at Vanya for an explanation. "He went mad and poisoned his three sons so they wouldn't oppose him. His wife threw him down the well and named his brother the rightful heir."

The Ragnarssons grimaced, shrugged and snorted at the weird ancestor of their sister in law. Ivar looked at Silas, trying to see through his innocent question. He doubted that Vanya's mother said that all he wanted to know was the gender of the child. "We wait with the naming until the babe is born. The name means a lot in our culture. It decides the future of the child, what the gods might have in store for it." Aslaug explained, sipping on her cup with her perfect eyebrows raised in a challenge to the bratty King of Slegia. Luckily Silas held his tongue and brooded in silence. What a rare sight it was.

"And Wassa? What did she do?" Ubbe tried to change the subject.

"Her husband beheaded her for being infertile," Silas said with a smirk on his face, yet Vanya shook her head at his answer and leaned closer to Ubbe.

"She wasn't infertile; she gave him a daughter. But he wanted an heir as he was already fifty and killed the young Queen. He accused her of cheating on him, said the child wasn't his."

Silas shrugged at the history lesson and pointed at Vanya. "Can't say I blame him. She was pretty and not even twenty. He was old and rich, thinking that she betrayed him with another was plausible. The child looked nothing like him anyway." He then turned his gaze to Ivar and sneered with his teeth showing. "I wish that your child looks like you. However, it would be a shame if it had your legs. A terrible fate for a babe."

Ivar growled at that ready to launch himself over the table and strangle the king with his own coat. Ubbe and Vanya held the youngest Ragnarsson whispering into his ear to compose himself and be the smarted man. Yet Ivar kept glaring at the proud Christian who drank his wine like a won a war.

"Your ancestors are insane," Sigurd commented, thinking of all the family members Vanya mentioned.

"A little bit, but there was more good than bad. Mother's ancestry is crazier." Vanya recalled thinking of the stories the wet nurses told her as a child.

Silas rolled his blue eyes at that and downed his cup, slamming it against the table. "They believed that fire runs through their veins. That's why so many of them have red hair—kissed by fire: stories, the whole lot of them. Godric The Dragon was just a fool who burned the crops of other kingdoms hoping they would name him king. It worked with a bunch of farmers who overthrew their king and gave Wrosan to Godric, doesn't make him a hero or a dragon."

Vanya hated to agree with Silas on that one. Godric was a desperate man who wanted more than a field to plow. He created a dynasty of redheads by marrying a common girl. And now Wrosan is poor, supported by Slegia though marriage and heirs. It was sad to see a kingdom fall to ruin, because of fights between greedy siblings. What was more tragic was that it was their grandfather that did it, which forced Siflæd to marry Osmond. And Silas was exactly like their grandfather, greedy, foolish, and cunning.

"Well, at least you are somehow normal, Lillemor ( Little mother)." Hvitserk teased his sister, ignoring the offended noises Silas made.

"I will take that as a compliment. I think." Vanya mussed, smiling at the flaxen-haired Ragnarsson.

Sigurd smirked at that and mentioned to Ivar. "Well, you can't be completely normal. Otherwise, you wouldn't love our little brother. And us. It takes a little bit of crazy to like us. Skol!" Everybody drank from their cups, as Silas brooded in his chair.

"What's the matter, My King?" Asked a knight on Silas's right.

The King looked at him fuming, and stabbed his fork into his meat, imagining it to be Vanya's face. "They love her, Stithulf. These savages adore her; she fits right in that unthankful whore."

Stithulf leaned closer to his King and pried his hand off the knife. He held his the blond's hand in his and squeezed it to get his attention. "That's right, My King. She is a whore, that's what you must let the heathens see. You make her husband think of her as an adulterer, and the child will be no threat to you anymore. A bastard has no claim, no matter the sex. She will be nothing, just like she had always been." Silas hung onto every word that left the knight's lips and agreed. "You do trust me, do you not?"

"Of course I do." Silas spat back offended, ripping his hand away before somebody might notice and accuse him of laying with men. Stithulf was his advisor and protector, not his lover. A friend who saw the threat Vanya's child poses for his crown. If it weren't for Stithulf, Silas would have never taken any action. "I just don't see the reason why the babe is such a problem. The council said most of the children here don't live long. And when I marry, my son will be King, no matter if Vanya's was born sooner. The stupid bitch doesn't even want the crown."

"She might not. But what of them? These savages are dangerous. And the child is of heathen blood. Do you want a pegan to sit on your throne? To wear your crown and rule your people? If the cripple doesn't believe us, then we murder the mother and child both. So there won't be any more incidents like this. First, we deal with her; then, we deal with your uncle. You deserve to rule, always did. You are the rightful King of Slegia and Wrosan. Silas the Great."

The spiteful king nodded at that, watching his sister talking with the Queen, Ragnarsson, Helga, and Floki. "Silas the Great. You are right. I deserve everything."

"And you shall get it, My King," Stithulf smirked behind the Kings back. What an easy chess piece the idiot was, so easy to manipulate - The Perfect King indeed.

#vikings #ivar the boneless #ivar lothbrok #ivar x oc #original character #original female character #ivar ragnarsson #ivar imagine #vikings imagine #history vikings

59 notes · View notes

let-the-dream-begin · 4 years

Text

A Place to Belong Chapter 14: If Not For Love

Chapter 13

Read on AO3

Claire rubbed Lambert’s tartan bow between her thumb and fingers. She’d been sitting by the fire with her baby's little toy for a while now. It was a month since the Redcoats had come and destroyed the bit of peace she’d created for herself.

“They burned it, Claire…his coffin as well.”

How she had screamed, how she had raged.

“We can have another casket made, Claire. Bury it again, fix everything so it’s just as it was before — ”

“No,” she spat. “I’ll not fucking do it again. I will not.”

“I willna do anything ye dinna agree with sister.” She went to take her hand, but Claire yanked it away. She did not miss the pain in Jenny’s eyes.

“Would ye have me fill it wi’ dirt and nothing more? Whatever ye think is right, Claire. I want to fix it for ye.”

“You can’t.” Claire stood up.

She was being unfair. She knew it. But the true source of her anger, her utter fucking rage, was not here, and even if they were, they were untouchable. So she fled, she fled Jenny even as she called out to her, in pain. She fled to her room, slamming the door behind her, and collapsing against the door to scream in rage, in anguish.

After hours of screaming, the cot caught her eye. And then she'd remembered.

She’d held onto that little lamb and cried for hours.

And now every day since, she spent time rubbing the fabric between her fingertips, willing her flesh to become one with the colors that Jamie had been so proud of.

Ian had been returned to them about a week later. Jenny had sent Fergus into the village to inform the mason and the carpenter to alter their records of the purchase of the stone and the casket. They’d done so unquestioningly, and so with evidence supporting that Ian was not the pegleg in question (even though he was), the Redcoats had no choice but to release him. Jenny had admonished him and verbally torn him apart for going to the moor in the first place, all while kissing him and crying with relief.

A soft kick brought Claire back to the present, and she smiled.

“Why, that was very kind of you, darling,” she said softly. That was certainly one of his gentler kicks. “You want to see Lambert?” She knew it was foolish, but she put the little lamb on her stomach and let it balance there. “Since you asked so very nicely.”

She giggled to herself at the silliness of it all.

“Oh…my baby.” She caressed him, nearly fully grown as he could be inside her. “I’m going to have to share you soon, aren’t I?”

If Claire was being honest with herself, no matter how much she complained about being pregnant, no matter how badly she ached all over, she almost didn’t want to give birth. She’d come to cherish his moving around inside her, she’d come to truly believe that he could hear her when she spoke to him, and that he was kicking in response to his mother’s voice. The conversations they shared felt real to her. The way things were now, he was safe, in her womb, protected.

True, if harm had come to her, he’d be in danger, if there was undue emotional stress, it could harm him. But she had been extremely diligent in taking care of herself these almost nine months that she carried him. She hadn’t protested when she’d been told to cease a certain activity, she hadn’t objected to being taken care of. She’d allowed herself time to scream and cry for her dead husband, but then she’d allowed herself fresh air and distraction, and joy with her nieces, nephews, and her son. If her grief and mourning were going to harm her baby, surely she’d have known by now.

She possessively and protectively wrapped her arms around her middle, as if she could keep him there forever if she held on tightly enough. She tried to find comfort in images of a squirming, tiny baby with Jamie’s eyes, of a little boy running and shouting with his cousins, wild copper curls flowing in the wind, of little kisses to her cheek and tiny whispers in Gaelic. She tried.

But it terrified her.

Once the labor pains began, once her water broke, he was in danger. Faith had stirred and moved right up until her premature birth. She was alive when she was inside of her. It was only when Claire’s body tried to release her that she’d killed her.

Killed her.

For perhaps the millionth time, Claire prayed fervently to whoever was listening.

Please don’t take him, too. Please don’t take him too. Please don’t let me kill him. Give me the strength to see him safe…Please…

Don’t let my body fail me again.

Don’t let me fail him…

This child was all that would be left of him. Ever. The thought of her body purging that life and strangling it even as it came into the world made her sick enough to wish she’d never go into labor at all.

A soft knock on the door stirred her out of her reverie. Her eyes fell on the little lamb again, chuckling softly at the sight of him balancing on her large, round belly. She took him into her hands.

“Come in.”

The door opened, and she expected Fergus’s wide eyes, a stern look from Jenny, or even a lip-biting smile from her little niece.

“Good evening, lass.”

But she certainly hadn’t expected Ian.

“Good evening,” Claire said warmly, sitting herself up a little straighter in her chair. “Is everything alright?”

“Oh, aye. Just fine.” He lingered in the doorway. “D’ye mind if I join ye?”

“Not at all, please.” Claire gestured to the other chair beside the fireplace, adjacent to hers. “Is it your leg?”

“No, Claire.” He waved her off as he sat down across from her. “I just wanted to apologize.”

Claire’s brow furrowed. “Apologize?”

“I ken ye’ve been in anguish since the Redcoats desecrated Jamie’s grave. And I ken well that it’s my fault they did it.”

“Ian — ”

“Please, I want to say my piece,” he cut her off gently, holding his eye contact with her. Claire wet her lips, swallowing thickly.

“It was damned foolish of me to attempt to retrieve his body. I didna think of the consequences, how easy it’d be to track down someone like me.” He gestured weakly to his leg, blinking shamefully. “And when they were here, I couldna think of any other way to save my hide than to tell them of the grave. I kent well what they’d do.”

“I said it the night you were shot, and I’ll say it again: a body to bury, a grave, is not worth your life,” Claire said. “Where would Jenny or your children be if you hadn’t thought to say something to support your innocence?”

“Aye. It’s true. But ye have anger, Claire.” His eye contact remained ever constant, and she felt her resolve crumbling under his gaze. “And I want ye to know that I ken it’s anger fer me. And well deserved at that.”

Her vision began to blur with tears and she quickly wiped her eyes. “Ian…I don’t resent you,” she said firmly. “You’re right…I have anger. I have…so much anger.” Her voice shuddered. “But it isn’t for you, or Jenny, or anyone but the bastards who killed him in the first place, and then blew apart the only grave we could give him.” She wiped her eyes again, taking a breath. “And perhaps God.”

Ian nodded. “Aye. I can understand.”

“What kind of God would create a society in which those with power can be so…so cruel to those that are helpless? Drive thousands of men to their deaths to stop it all from happening…and have it all be in vain?” Claire shook her head, then rubbed her hand down the length of her face and rested her fingers over her lips.

Frank had briefly recounted to her what had become of the European Jews, the Holocaust, they were calling it. Apparently, right under the noses of the whole world, those with power had rounded up the helpless and murdered them by the millions. A systematic erasure of a culture that they despised for the sake of despising it.

It was not a one-to-one correlation by any stretch of the imagination. What was happening here was no Holocaust, though it was cultural genocide to be sure. Claire supposed that if the powers that be in England could even wrap their minds around something so incomprehensible as death camps, perhaps they might have employed them. At least for the men. Jamie’s treatment at Fort William, at Wentworth, could certainly rival that of the paper thin, war weary Jews in rags that she’d seen on a rare occasion in Europe.

And what kind of God would let this happen? Not once, not even twice through history…countless times? Jamie took up arms to ensure that the ones he loved never had to endure the treatment that he did. To protect his nieces and eventual daughters from the treatment Jenny had received at Lallybroch all those years ago, to protect his nephew and eventual sons from his fate in prison. He fought for a better future for the ones he loved. He died for it. And it was for nothing.

Once again, she found herself possessively hugging her middle. This world is not safe for him.

And it would appear that no world would be safe. Not this one, in 1746, and not her own, in 1945. Here, her child would be targeted as a Highlander, in 1939 children were targeted and murdered for simply being born Jewish. So who was to say that two hundred years from now, some new evil couldn't arise and target her child for being anything? He could be ripped from her arms in any century, everything she loved and held dear could be destroyed for no good reason no matter where, no matter when she was.

“God created this world, aye, he created the people in it. But he didna create the evil,” Ian began. “The Devil lives, thrives in some people, and they drag others down wi’ them.”

Images of herself screaming, pleading for help from the soldiers in Wentworth flashed through Claire’s mind, followed by images of Jack Randall telling them to leave and ignore what they’d seen. And they'd obeyed.

The Devil thrives in some people indeed. And he managed to drag plenty down with him.

“For whatever reason, He canna purge the world of that evil,” Ian went on. “D’ye ken the only thing that truly does combat it?”

Claire blinked numbly at him.

“It’s love, Claire. Pure and undying. It’s the only thing that can never truly die.”

Silent tears trickled down her cheeks as she listened intently.

“After seeing the evils of war, what men are capable of doing to one another.” He gestured to his leg again. “I cursed the Lord as well. I couldna close my eyes wi’out feeling hatred and terror. But d’ye ken what dragged me out of it?”

Claire briefly closed her eyes, a tiny smile appearing on her lips, but not quite reaching her eyes. “Jenny.”

“Aye. That she did.” Ian’s face was now full of emotion. “That lass and her damned stubbornness refused to let me be lost. Her love reminded me why it is that God puts us on this Earth. And then I look at my bairns…and I’m so full of love I’m fit tae burst.” Claire wiped her eyes again. “D’ye see what I’m saying, Claire?”

“I do.” Truly she did. But she was not comforted yet. “And then what happens when they’re ripped away from you?” She didn’t mean to sound as harsh as she did.

“The love remains. I ken ye know that, Claire.”

That damned eye contact.

What had she said to herself when they’d buried Jamie’s tartan?

It was not their love that she was putting to rest.

“Love can’t be put to rest,” Claire said shakily.

“Aye. And neither can pain. And that’s the hell of it, I suppose.” He sighed. “You are loved, Claire. By those that have left us and by the ones still here. Throughout the Highlands, men have been slaughtered, and their families are hanging together wi’ love for each other. It’s all they have in the face of evil. Ye ken?”

She nodded tearfully. “I understand.”

He leaned over and placed a gentle hand on her knee. “Yer child will be brought up wi’ love.”

“I know.”

“It was love that brought him here.”

“Yes…it was.”

“I, uh…reckon ye havenae seen the graveyard as of late.” Claire shook her head. “We cleaned up everything that was burnt, filled the hole they left. Didna bury anything else. Jenny said ye didna want it that way.”

Her eyes absently landed on the tartan bow in her hands.

“It wasna salvageable,” Ian said, not waiting for her to ask. “The Redcoats made sure of that.” She nodded, rubbing the fabric on the lamb between her fingers again.

“We…we gathered the ashes. Of the tartan. Jenny argued against it seeing as how ye didna want to bury anything else…but I thought I should ask ye before we truly were rid of it.”

Claire bit her lip.

“Ye dinna have to say anything now. Or tomorrow, or ever, if ye dinna want to,” he continued. “But just know that we have them. The grave is cleaned up, the rosary is returned to the stone, and the ashes of the tartan are safe somewhere.”

She nodded, her chin trembling, not knowing what to say.

He took his hand from her knee before standing.

“I ken ye havena been joining us fer supper of late, and I dinna blame ye. Ye can stay in here of course, eat supper in peace wi’ yer bairn, and we’d think none the less of ye fer it.” He smiled warmly at her. “But I’d be honored if ye came to supper wi’ us, Claire. Wi’ the family that loves ye.”

With that, he turned to leave. Claire watched him go, her heart aching.

“Ian.” She stopped him just before he shut the door behind him. “Thank you.”

He nodded, and then left her alone to think again.

She’d be lying if she said that what had happened with the Redcoats hadn’t caused her to regress in terms of her grief. She was spending more time locked in her room than she had in months. Jenny was bringing meals to her room again, forcing her to eat it, Fergus was peeking in, frightened like he’d been all those months ago, walking on eggshells, frightened that he would shatter her. But unlike last time, the baby was much more concrete, much more real now. She was not just locking herself in her room, she was locking herself in with her baby. This made it all the easier to forget that she was shutting everyone else out.

Guilt clenched her gut. She’d been taking them for granted. The sister that was constantly putting her needs over her own, the brother that risked his life to bring her peace, the son that brought her comfort enough to sleep on nights where she otherwise couldn’t, the nieces and nephew that put so much light in her heart. She’d gotten used to having them, to having a family of her own. And she’d taken it for granted.

Resolutely, Claire pushed herself out of her chair. She reverently placed Lambert in the cot that would soon belong to her baby, smiling as she ran her fingertips over the mattress and blankets.

She would dine with her family. Tonight, and every night thereafter.

She was greeted with several boisterous “Auntie!”s when she entered the dining room, Maggie, then wee Jamie rushing to hug her around the legs. Even Kitty made an attempt, crying “Ah-ee!” and clapping her hands, mimicking her siblings’ delight.

Maggie tugged on her hands, dragging her to the seat beside her, where she’d become accustomed to having her during meals. Maggie had turned three during Claire’s self-induced isolation. Jenny had come into her room, and Claire, in her depression, had been none the wiser to the day.

“D’ye ken it’s Maggie’s birthday?” Jenny said, trying to suppress the salt in her words.

“Is it…?” Claire said dazedly.

“Aye. And she’s been asking fer her Auntie all day.”

Claire finally forced herself to look at her, her stomach wrangled with guilt.

“Remember, three years ago, Claire?” Jenny allowed a smile. “We were strangers, and I had ye pulling a bairn out of me wi’ yer bare hands.”

Claire chuckled softly. “I was terrified.”

“Oh, you were, now?” Jenny scoffed, then shook her head, smiling. “She’s a blessing, a blessing that I have because of you. A blessing that you have because ye brought her into the world three years ago today.” Jenny patted her shoulder and then stood up and made to leave the room.

“Just wanted to tell ye that.” She shut the door behind her.

That was the one and only day that month that Claire had forced herself to venture out of the house. The air was chilling, biting, even, but there was only one way to make this right. After her journey out of doors, Claire found Maggie in the nursery with her dolls.

“Auntie Claire!” She toddled to the door and threw herself on her legs. “D’ye ken the day, Auntie?”

“Of course I do!” She sat on Maggie’s bed and pulled her into her lap, though there wasn’t much room given the size of her belly. “It’s the day I helped your mother bring you into the world.” She poked her nose, resulting in a little giggle.

“Aye! Mam says ye saved me, Auntie.”

Claire looked into her eyes, so wide, so in awe of her, completely clueless as to how broken she, the woman who was her hero, had become.

“I did, Maggie. Because I already loved you so very much.”

She was very much like Ian, Claire decided. Wee Jamie was the troublemaker, like his namesake, Kitty was the stubborn devil, like her mother, but Maggie was so gentle, so sweet, caring beyond her years.

“I’ve brought something for the birthday girl,” Claire said in a sing-song pattern.

Maggie gasped, her face lighting up, clapping her hands.

Claire reached into her pocket and pulled out the very item she’d ventured outside for. It was a dried and flattened bluebell, something she’d been saving with her other dried herbs for experimental purposes, but also something she’d much rather give to a special little girl on her birthday.

“It’s a dried flower, a bluebell.” Claire held it out to her, and she gaped at it in awe. She took it in her little hands with all the grace of a grown woman holding a string of pearls. Claire didn’t have to tell her to be careful, how delicate it was. She knew.

“Someday, I’ll teach you how to dry flowers yourself, that way you can keep any flower you want forever. How does that sound?”

Maggie simply nodded, her mouth stuck in an adorable little “o” shape, unable to tear her wide eyes from it.

“It’s a special medicine flower,” Claire went on. “If you keep it in your pocket, you’ll always have the warmth of Spring, even in the dead of Winter.” Claire was never one to come up with fairytales, but she felt compelled to endow the simple little plant with something so that the poor girl wouldn’t realize her Auntie had selfishly forgotten her birthday.

Although, looking at her face, Claire decided that even if it was just a plain, non-magical flower, Maggie would have cherished it all the same.

“Do you like it?” Claire said, almost laughing at how her little awe-struck face still hadn’t changed.

“Aye, Auntie.” She nodded.

“I’m glad. I had to give my little garden faery something special for her birthday.” Claire kissed her head. “Keep it safe now, won’t you?”

“I will, Auntie. Promise.”

Now, Maggie clambered into her chair next to Claire, and she hoisted herself onto her knees. She looked up at Claire smiling, biting her bottom lip as she always did. She patted the pocket of her wee apron. “Safe, Auntie.”

Claire’s eyes welled up with tears, and she pulled the girl into a hug to hide them from her.

Dear, sweet girl.

Supper was…normal. It was as if she’d never left, as if she hadn’t spent weeks avoiding everybody. The children were boisterous, Jenny and Ian bickered, Fergus was…well, Fergus. Everything was as it should be. Everything was perfectly…normal. It unnerved her for some reason to feel that way, and she couldn’t put her finger on it. Until halfway through the meal it hit her.

“Normal” no longer included Jamie.

She’d spent months imagining him at the table, hearing his laughter among the cacophony of noise. Now, his absence was normal. She’d gotten used to it.

She’d almost had to excuse herself, suddenly overcome with this burden of knowledge, but then wee Jamie spilled his glass, and the water reached Claire’s lap, even from all the way across the table. Maggie squealed, Jenny reprimanded her son, and it was enough to bring Claire back into the moment, out of her whirling thoughts.

She managed to make it through the rest of supper, despite her now being wet.

“What do ye say to yer Auntie, Jamie?” Jenny stood with her hands on her hips as Claire and wee Laura started to clear the table.

“Sorry fer getting ye all wet, Auntie Claire,” the lad said, peering up through his long lashes, trying not to grin.

“It’s alright, Jamie.” Claire ruffled his hair. “I needed a bit of a bath anyway.”

He couldn’t stop the giggle that erupted at that, and Jenny gave the back of his head a gentle smack. “Up ye get, lad. To bed.”

“Milady,” Fergus suddenly reentered the dining room, having gone upstairs to put Kitty to bed. “It would appear Katherine does not want to go to bed.”

Claire had to cover her mouth to prevent herself from laughing out loud. Fergus was holding onto the squirming toddler for dear life, and she was screaming her wee head off, positively red in the face. Fergus looked terrified.

“Och.” Jenny sighed and took quick strides to retrieve her stubborn wee devil. “Ye behaved just fine fer cousin Fergus last night, Kitty! What on Earth could be the matter today?”

Tutting and muttering to herself, Jenny whisked the screaming child out of the dining room and upstairs, the sound gradually quieting the further away they got.

“I hope mon petit does not hate me as Katherine does,” Fergus said, his eyes wide.

“Oh, Kitty does not hate you,” Claire assured him, picking up dishes. “She’s just a fussy toddler. She does the same thing to her own mother. You’ve seen it.”

He seemed placated enough, nodding.

“You are a wonderful cousin to the little ones, mon fils,” Claire said. “And you will be a wonderful brother as well.”

He smiled proudly. “Thank you, Maman.”

“Alright then. Since Kitty so vehemently opposed your being on baby duty, it looks like you’re on dish duty with — ”

A familiar searing pain rushed through her, and the pile of plates she held slipped from her grasp, the bottom two shattering on the wood floor.

“Maman?” Fergus was at her side in an instant.

She panted heavily, clutching her belly.

“It’s alright…I’m alright.” Claire assured him, taking the arm he offered her.

“False labor again?” Fergus asked.

“Very well could be,” Claire said. She allowed Fergus to lead her into a seat, exhaling heavily as she sat. “Look at the mess I’ve made…”

“Don’t worry, Maman. I will clean it up.”

He got right to it, returning the unbroken plates to the table and then picking up the broken pieces, gathering them in a pile in his arms. He disposed of them and then returned to her side. Her breathing felt regular again, no more pain.

“Alright. Back to the dishes then. Though perhaps you should carry them,” Claire said sheepishly.

“Are you sure, Maman? Perhaps you should go to bed,” Fergus said, rushing to help her stand before she could even attempt to do it herself.

“I’m fine, darling, really. It’s — ” She suddenly cried out and doubled over.

And then her blood ran cold.

The liquid running down her legs and gathering at her feet was unmistakable.

“Maman?” Fergus was panicked now.

Claire looked up at him, her chest heaving with panic. “My waters have broken.”

“Does that…is it…?”

“Yes, Fergus.” Her mind was racing, her head was spinning. She was squeezing his arm with white knuckles.

“The baby is coming.”

#outlander #outlander au #outlander fanfiction #outlander fanfic #claire fraser #jenny fraser murray #jenny murray #ian murray #lallybroch #james fraser

76 notes · View notes

iinmortales · 3 years

Text

SIREN CREATION

There is a legend that sirens were once the companions of Persephone, punished for not stopped the goddess’ kidnapping by Hades. While a passable explanation for their creation, it is not the truth. The ocean, enraptured by the creatures that filled the water, spent a long time ignoring the troubled of humans. What use was humanity to them when the depths held such life? And then humans began taking that life from the ocean, using boats to cross. Giving nothing back. The ocean began to take, battering the shore, flooding cities. Humanity went from uninteresting, to a pest that needed to be squashed.

Until a day when a woman stood on a cliff. The ocean never knew her name, but saw her on that cliff time after time. The woman gave the ocean something. She gave the ocean her grief, her sorrow, her tears snatch from her cheeks by the wind and tossed to the water below. The woman, though barely old enough to be called such, was a wife. Though she had tried to give her husband a child, the man was cruel and no child could survive in her womb. Finally unable to contain her pain, after years of giving to the ocean, the woman gave the only thing she could still give. The woman gave the ocean herself, running off the edge of cliff, embraced by the cold of the water below. It was in that moment, embraced by the sea, that the woman finally released her sorrows and felt at peace.

The ocean was astounded, shocked by its own grief at the thought of this woman’s passing. It enveloped her, holding as tight as water could, warming around her like a cocoon. Or a womb. The ocean, angry over the loss of such a soul in such grief and sorrow, whispered to her. I can try, it said, to give you a new life. A life where you will never have such pain. The ocean had never attempted such a thing before, changing something from one thing to another, but it knew that it was a cradle of life, that it was possible. The woman, kept alive by the ocean’s love, agreed. The ocean was so surprised, had not thought she would accept, had not though what sort of life she could give the woman. So, the ocean asked.

The woman responded that she would wish for a life of peace, of one that would beholden her to no man, that would give her the power to defy them. The ocean, having seen the woman’s grief, easily agreed to such a request. But the ocean was jealous, knowing the woman would leave it behind, would return to the land and leave it alone, so alone. The ocean held the woman it had grown so attached to, tight in a womb of water, and decided to forever more tie the woman to it.

The easiest way to ensure the woman could not abandon the sea was, of course, to give her a tail, the ability to breath the ocean itself. The tail was long, pale blue, shimmering with a rainbow of color as the scales were kissed by sunlight. The fins that adored the tail were also a rainbow of color, and the scales that covered the woman’s skin, protection from the intense cold of the ocean’s depths, also shimmered in the sunlight. The woman’s request was also fulfilled, her very voice turned to a weapon that could be wielded against any and all humans (for the ocean did not love humanity, only this one woman). Fingers became claws, nails sharp and strong to cut through the now comparatively soft flesh of what she had once been, and teeth became similarly weaponized, sharp and pointed to cut through flesh, but strong enough to bite through wood or metal. In the womb of the ocean, the woman became the first of her kind, a siren.

But the ocean knew its creation would not survive on the other creatures of the water, would sicken and die. It was the result of being a creation of the water, a give and take that even the ocean itself could not circumvent. And so the siren needed to hunt, to kill and devour what she had once been. The ocean could do nothing but watch as the woman emerged from the water’s womb, whole and ravenous. At first she tried to eat fish, but the hunger continued unchecked, grew and grew. Her eyes, once a golden brown, now a deep dark blue from one corner to the other, searched and searched for a meal that would sate her hunger.

Her gaze swept, and stopped, sensing a meal, a boat on the water. The siren did not know yet what her voice could do, was too mindless with hunger to explore the gifts the ocean had bestowed. It was a fishing boat, low in the water, a net cast over the side. The woman grabbed the net, pulling with inhuman strength. she almost pulled the man from the boat before he could cast the net away. It was not enough to keep her at bay. The new siren sank talons into the boat, pulling herself up enough to dig her claws into the man’s ankle and drag him into the water. The man screamed, but he was alone on the water that day. He received no soothing song, no gentleness from her. He was still screaming as she sank her teeth into his arm, tearing flesh, swallowing bone and muscle. Each bine brought further relief, the blood in the water only pushing her like an aphrodisiac to another bite. Another. Another. The screaming didn’t stop until she had taken his whole right arm, three bites from his abdomen, and had begun tearing flesh from his neck and face. She had fully devoured him in under an hour.

It wasn’t enough. Her hunger was dulled enough to realize what she had just done, that she had eaten a human, what she had been so recently. She was still hungry, though, and the thought of doing it again tormented her. It sickened her. Even worse that she could sense another boat on the water, another man fishing. She cried, begged the ocean to take away the hunger, but the ocean could not. It was her crying the man heard, the sound close enough to what would become a song that it clawed its way into his man. the siren felt it, too, felt drawn to him. This was the first time a siren used a song to hunt, hunger overriding her grief but not frenzied enough for a mindless attack. She approached, singing, and lured him from the boat. She dragged him under, She continued singing to him as they sank further and further, her new tail wrapped around his legs. This time, she snapped his neck before devouring him.

Hunger now sated, the woman was distraught, begging the ocean again to make it go away, or let her die. So, the ocean did the only thing it could. It made the woman forget. Over the next week, the woman lost all memories of being human, of being anything other than a siren. Then, the woman was happy. She reveled in her life with the ocean, and every three months, she sang a man to his death.

Eventually, though, the siren grew lonely. The ocean was so enrapture with its daughter, and so resolved to look for another candidate. It was during this time that the merfolk were created, the ocean trying to create a new life instead of modifying a human. But the merfolk were afraid of the sire, afraid of what she could do. So, the ocean resolved to create another siren. There was no shortage of people lost to the sea, but the woman’s experience had given the ocean a preference for women. It waited until a woman was thrown into the sea, blamed by the men in her village for the death of several crops. The ocean asked, and she accepted. She too was enveloped in the womb of the water, and changed. This woman had scales of deep green, pearlescent in the sun, fins varying shades of green. She, too began to forget her life after her first hunt.

The two sirens were insperable, spending every moment together. The first time they hunted together, they discovered the pleasure they could bring one another, tailed wrapped tightly together, blood still lingering in the water as they clung to one another.

Over the years, the ocean was pleased to see that, as long as they continued to hunt, the sirens were immortal. It continued to create sirens, women unjustly thrust into the arms of the water. It never forced the change on them, always asked, and it loves each siren beyond measure.

#( meta ) kyrie thelxipea #( about ) kyrie thelxipea #( hc ) kyrie thelxipea #. this was going to be the original creation and like a breakdown of how the rebirth happened #.but the original creation got too long #.so the rebirth will be a different meta

2 notes · View notes

alarawriting · 4 years

Text

52 Project #28 / Writeober 2020 #8 Haunting: The Court of the Lion King

I returned to the apartment building where Daro and Anzali and I had lived before we went down to the sea. It had not changed in the way buildings change-- its paint was the same color, it seemed no more or less weatherbeaten than before. The railing on the 3rd floor balcony still sagged. But it had changed in the way homes change, because it wasn't home any more. Because different people lived there now, filling it with their strange scents, and because I had changed. The scent of the sea was still in my nostrils. I would never smell the comforts of home again.

Renting the third floor apartment did not present difficulties. I walked through the silence of the apartment, marveling at its emptiness. The furniture was still there, the faded rug, the great sagging bed, the tired appliances. But all the personality was gone. Anzali's bright prints had been taken off the walls, which themselves had been whitewashed again to remove our cheery yellow paint. White is a disturbing color, the color of bones and of drowned skin, pink human and green farla alike. Even the humans of other colors became gray, in death by water. If I needed to be here long, the white walls would glare in my eyes and drive me mad.

There was a knock at the door, startling me, and I almost fled. But it wouldn't be the Lion King, not here, not yet. He wouldn't know I was back. I opened the door.

A human greeted me. "Hi there, new neighbor. I'm Rachael from the second floor apartment. Just thought I'd come say hi. Need help moving in?"

Rachael was chubby – not just by farla standards, but by human – with short brown hair and a squeaky tenor voice. She had pale skin, which she covered with more makeup than most humans, and her chin and brow seemed unusually defined for a female human. "Hello," I said distantly. "I'm Ashmi. No, I don't need help moving in. Thanks for asking."

"Oh. Well, sorry to bother you. You want to come downstairs for a cup of tea or something? I like to get to know my neighbors. It cuts down on the insecurity, you know. Living in a place like this-- well, this isn't the best of neighborhoods, you know?"

"I know," I said bitterly, and wondered if this androgynous human knew the Lion King. I also wondered if I could still drink tea. I was afraid of my bone-white apartment, and loneliness. "I'll come downstairs if you want, but I don't know if I'll be able to take tea. I tend to be allergic to nearly everything."

"Well, come on down. You don't have to have tea if you don't want it. You're a farla, aren't you?"

I stepped out of my apartment and followed Rachael downstairs. "You can't tell?"

"You're a bit pale, aren't you? I never saw a farla so white. I thought you guys were all green. Not that I think it looks bad, I think you look gorgeous. At least, I don't know, by human standards or something, but maybe you don't feel good?"

"It's the color we turn when we're away from our Mother," I said. "The Sun. It is not a well color, and I thank you for your concern, but really, don't worry about me."

Rachael's apartment smelled like cats. Unsurprisingly, three came to greet Rachael, and another one sat on a moth-eaten armchair and glowered at me. The cats seemed unsure of me. Farla generally get along well with cats, sometimes better than with the humans who brought them, and I had always liked them. These, however, avoided me, and I avoided them. Rachael noticed. "Don't you like cats?"

There is one Cat that I despise. But I wouldn't say so. These cats were nothing of the Lion King. "They're all right. These don't seem to like me."

"That's funny. Normally they're all over strangers. What's wrong, guys? You being little bitches today?" Rachael turned to me apologetically. "They get like this sometimes."

"I don't blame them." I took a deep breath of cat-scented air. It was not quite enough to drown out the scent of the sea. "Forgive me for my ignorance. I'm not very experienced with humans, but... you are a woman, aren’t you?”

Rachael laughed. "Already? That’s great!"

"I don’t understand."

"I’ve been trying." The human went into the kitchen to put on tea. "Just managed to get on hormones two weeks ago. This place, well. Not a lot of doctors, and the mail’s not too reliable."

"What do doctors and the mail have to do with your – no. This is none of my concern, I’m being very rude."

"From a farla, I’m okay with it," Rachael said, coming out with the tea. “I’m a woman, but I only figured it out for certain a year ago, and it’s taken me this long to get the hormones I need.”

“I didn’t know humans could have an ambiguous gender," I said.

“Yeah, sometimes we’re born with the wrong genitals and hormones, and it can be hard to figure out what we really ought to be. I’m thirty-five. I don’t know if farlae age like humans do, but that’s, like, more than a third of a human’s maximum average lifespan, more than half of how long we usually do live when we grow up in neighborhoods like this. I didn’t grow up here, though, but just a few cities over, not so close to the water, but other than that it’s just like this. So that’s a long time to not know, but I know it now. Gonna start growing my hair out now that I have my shots.”

I doubted the other city was really just like this. This city was different from any I had known. "I see," I said, though I didn't really understand most of what she was talking about. I tried to smell the tea, but I could only smell salt water.

"Do you want something? Some water? I feel bad that you're allergic to tea and all."

What I needed, Rachael could not give me. Or at the least, I would not take from her. "That's fine. I'm all right." I had not been all right since we went to the sea. I no longer even knew how many years it had been. "How long have you been living here?"

"Oh, a year and a half or so. It's a bad neighborhood, but it's cheap. You know how it is. Hard to get work nowadays."

I didn't know how it was, but I nodded politely. "Yes."

"Now that I’m out, a lot of humans won’t hire me. This is the kind of neighborhood where they’ve got really old, traditional attitudes, you know? And I guess you've got it worse. Not many farlae here."

"This was a farla neighborhood once," I said. "An artists' community. It was poor, but it had a soul."

"Well, it hasn't got one now," Rachael said, with an edge of bitterness in her voice. "That's just like us humans. We wreck everything."

"You feel too much guilt. This may be a human neighborhood now, but its soullessness is not human doing." Panic choked me like seaweed as I realized I'd said too much. I had lost my old instincts-- I had no way to know if Rachael was the Lion's or not.

"You talk like you've been here before."

"I must go." I got up, hastily. "I'm sorry."

"Uh, okay. Health problems or something? Or was it something I said?"

"Health problems," I lied. "Perhaps we'll talk again. I'm sorry."

***

I locked the door of my apartment behind me. It wasn't necessary; what I feared could come through walls, and there were no mundane threats I did fear anymore. But it would disturb me if Rachael came upstairs and came inside while I wasn't watching. I wanted to be careful of what she might see.

I thought she was a sweet, harmless soul, if a bit strange. I would wish to befriend her, another time, perhaps, but not here. Not where anything might warp under the paw of the Lion. I could see the signs she'd spoken of now. This place no longer had a soul.

Once Daro had argued that humans could be rendered soulless, could be enslaved, far more easily than the farlae. Farlae, he argued, had been created as slaves, and would die free rather than live that way again. Humans, freely evolved, knew no better. Slavery was a sporadic thing in their history and was performed by groups of them on other groups, never something their race as a whole had suffered. So they did not notice being enslaved. They couldn't see the loss of their souls until after the precious stuff was gone.

At the time I had called Daro racist, but secretly suspected some part of his theory to be true. Now I knew better. Farlae had fled this neighborhood because they'd heard of our fate, I thought. And humans moved in simply by the laws of diffusion, there being more of them on this world than us. Unaware of the danger until it was too late. Farlae would notice an absence of farlae, and stay away, feeling unwelcome. Humans, the majority, had no such warning system.

And farlae could be enslaved, stripped of will or soul. Sometimes the choice was not between slavery or death. Sometimes it was between two forms of slavery.

I thought I could sleep. But the bed would not touch me. When I closed my eyes and lay down, I felt myself in my ocean bed once more, curled like a child in the womb, the green water penetrating me and washing my thoughts away. It didn't matter. I didn't need sleep anyway.

I left my apartment and went to explore the neighborhood by night. It had changed physically after all. No one I'd known would have allowed their apartments to become so run-down, let so much trash collect in the streets, or left broken, melted vehicles like mountains of plastic on the sides of the roads. Aside from me, no woman walked abroad, and I was invisible if I chose. Gangs of young male humans lounged about, predators waiting for prey. Empty drug vials and used-up dermal patches littered the sidewalks and the paths between the buildings.

The Lion King's place alone had grown in splendor. His nightclub, Heaven, looked positively palatial, glittering with light and music. He sat in the center of the neighborhood, with a vast spiderweb thrown in the air about him of parking for aircars. There were no longer any grounded streets leading to his court, and all the buildings that used to stand around Heaven had been swallowed by the glittering fibers of the parking web. From the ground, only someone light as a wraith could climb the web to reach the cars, as I did; the human children down below could see fat, juicy prey overhead, but had no way to reach it. They were driven sullen, reminded of what they didn't have and could never get, made impotent by the Lion. And so in impotent fury they raged against those that had no more than they-- which was why no one walked alone on the night streets, and no women walked at all.

This was what I saw when the Lion King first arrived. But then it was only a vision in a dream-clouded farla's mind. I didn't truly know what the Lion King truly was until the day he summoned me to his court. None of us knew. I tried to tell myself that, to remind myself that Daro and Anzali's fate was not my fault. I didn't believe my own reassurances at all.

The club itself was the last place I went, that night. Invisible to almost all, I wandered the two dance floors, peered in some of the upstairs bedrooms and slipped back out again. Heaven had grown more openly decadent since last I was here, with more bedrooms for the transactions of perversion and vice. They were no longer hidden away on the top floor, available only to members of the Lion's court. I saw businessmen cavorting in swimming pools with women who were no more than animated shells, the vivacity that seemed to pour from them as artificial as the sunlamp light that glittered off the pool. I saw humans and farlae both drugged out of their minds, performing obscene rituals of life and death for an appreciative audience of both races. I saw other humans and farlae voluntarily drinking down hells'brews, filling their bodies with a greater variety and concentration of drugs than even the poor victim-slaves had been poisoned with. And none of them saw me. I didn't expect humans to see me, but the fact that I was invisible even to farlae said that the farlae in this establishment were all spiritually dead.

None of this surprised me. It filled me with hate, but hate gave me strength. I remembered what had been done to me, what had happened to my husband and wife, and why I was here. I decided to risk finding the Lion King.

***

The topmost floor of Heaven was the Lion King's court. One could not get in without an invitation, but in a sense the Lion had tendered me an invitation all those years ago. In any case, only the Lion himself could have kept me out, and he didn't man his own doors.

I saw him on his throne, with four scantily-clad women serving him. Two were human, one was farla, and one was as he was, part cat. The humans once manufactured other humans with the blood of animals mingled with their own. Normally cat-humans manifested only with cat-shaped eyes and bodies far more graceful than a typical human body. The Lion King himself was thought a mutant or a throwback, or else something entirely inhuman, with his features subtly shaped to seem more cat than human, and his curly golden hair almost a mane. He was feeding from one of the human women as he held her in his lap. The others were massaging him or stroking his hair, oblivious to the bloody fate of their companion. Favored courtiers, men and unattractive women, competed for his attention, praising him and giving him information on his business.

He could not speak as he drank, but eventually he released the woman he was feeding from. She dropped to the floor in a heap, and I shuddered. In my time, his habits were not quite so open. I turned and left as I heard his voice. It was deep and mellifluous, no different than I remembered it, and I feared that my hate would choke me and I'd do something rash. I hadn't come all this way to throw away my best chance.

***

In the morning, I went to visit Rachael. My sight of the Lion King had fortified me, and I no longer cared if she was his creature or not. I needed information.

"Hey, Ashmi!" she said cheerfully, answering my knock in a bathrobe. "Want to come in and get some breakfast?"

"I'd like to come in, in any case," I said, "though I've already eaten."

"Oh. Well, if you don't mind watching me eat, come on in. I was kind of hoping you'd come in." She stared at me as I entered the cat-full apartment and seated myself. "God, you're gorgeous. I'd give anything to look like you."

"If you would give what I have given, you're a fool," I said softly.

"What?"

"Beauty is only a danger, in a place like this. I need information, Rachael; about the Lion King. What do you know?"

She swallowed. "Um. I don't think it's safe to talk about him..."

"It's safe. No one is listening, I am not an informant, and if you are I don't care. Tell me what you know about the Lion King."

"I don't think--"

I stood up again, and stared into her eyes. I let her see a small fraction of what I truly was. "Tell me."

"Oh, God." She stared at me with fear, not envy, now. "You're-- you're not--"

"I am not. Yes. I won't hurt you, Rachael, not unless you keep information from me."

"No wonder you didn't want to eat." She swallowed again. "All right. I don't know much-- I'm too ugly for the Lion and too poor to go to his club. But I know what everyone in the neighborhood knows. He's not human, for starters. I mean, more than the way you're-- uh, maybe the way you're not. Um. I mean, he isn't natural. He isn't just a catperson, he's something else. Something else totally."

"Yes. Something that can strip away a will, or a soul."

"And pretty girls have got to go to him, if he wants them. He doesn't take them all. And most of the ones he takes come back, though they don't remember much about what happened, and they're usually not so pretty anymore. Some of them, though-- some of them don't come back at all."

"How do the girls go to him? How are they chosen?"

"Anytime someone new moves in, his people check to see if there's a pretty girl in with them. They'll probably come to take you tonight. If there are any remotely pretty girls, they go with the Lion King's men, and they get presented to him in his court. And if he likes them, they stay there."

"Yes. It was not the same in my time, but it was similar." A fierce pain beat at me from within. "What of those who won't submit?"

"The Lion King's bullyboys don't give you a choice. You have to go with them."

I smiled bitterly and looked hard at Rachael. "You wanted to be my friend. Yet you made no attempt to warn me-- though you thought I was beautiful, and that must have meant you knew the Lion King's men would come for me."

"I was scared," Rachael whispered, looking down. "If I'd warned you, and you'd run away... and he found out..."

"You might find yourself walking to the ocean," I agreed. "No, I suppose it doesn't matter."

"Ah--" Rachael looked up. "Did it happen to you? Did you..."

"When the Lion King first came," I said, "I lived in the apartment I live in now, with my husband and my wife, Daro and Anzali."

"Your wife?" Rachael sounded startled, and then nodded. "Oh, right. Farlae live with two women and a man, don't they? I'd forgot."

"The Lion King summoned me. He had less power in those days, but he was less well known as well. I thought he would be a patron for my art, so I went willingly enough." I lost myself in memory a moment.

We had such bright happy lives then, and knew nothing of it. We had problems with bills, lovers' quarrels, emotional intrigues with the rest of the farla community, and we thought those were troubles. I was a naive innocent when I went to see the Lion King, thinking he had heard of my art. But what he wanted was not what I had created. What he wanted... was what I was.

The demand was for my body. I knew it went deeper than that. Farlae tend to be more sensitive to such things than humans; it was my soul he wanted, and I knew it. I refused. He threatened to kill me, to kill my husband and wife. I told him that all of us would rather die free than live as soulless slaves.

I looked up, shaking myself free of memory. "I was a naive fool," I said harshly. "But the Lion King has no more power over me." I stood up. "Rachael, I forgive you for not warning me. But if you tell the Lion King of his danger, or give him or anyone else any information concerning me, I will kill you slowly. Do you understand me?"

She nodded, shivering. She knew what I was capable of.

***

They came for me that night.

I feigned sleep, lying on the sagging mattress in the semblance of a nightgown, waiting for them. They unlocked my door and shook me, roughly, thinking they were waking me. "Get up. You've been summoned to the palace of the Lion King."

So even he called it a palace now. I looked at them with dazed eyes. "Do I have time to get into some clothes?"

One of them snickered. "Why bother? You'll just be taking them off again anyway." They all laughed.

I went with them in my nightgown and my artfully disheveled hair, out to their aircar and from there to Heaven. They brought me to the top floor, to the court of the Lion King. And I stood before the creature who'd destroyed my life, and felt the hatred surging in me, giving me strength. On the outside, I showed frightened, sleep-bewildered eyes, the face of a beautiful innocent.

"What is your name, girl?" he asked me. His voice was beautiful, rich and deep as the sea.

"Ashmi," I whispered, letting myself tremble. I looked down at my feet, at the enamel floor, and forced myself to see a reflection.

"Ashmi," he said reflectively. "I knew a farla named Ashmi once. Years ago... She looked much like you, but not as pale. And she gave me trouble. You won't give me trouble, girl, will you?"

"You should know what happens to those who resist the Lion King," one of his courtiers hissed.

"Disrobe," he ordered.

I stripped, letting the nightgown pool around my feet, and turned around for him like a bird on a spit as he ordered me to. Finally he smiled, showing sharp teeth. "She'll do. Take her to my chambers and have her wait."

I scooped up the nightgown and slipped back into it. Once I was in his chambers, alone, I let it disperse into mist. I sat on his bed, naked, and remembered our journey to the sea.

He had demanded me, body and soul. I'd refused, and he'd laughed. "You have spirit, don't you," he said. "Go home then. Go on back to your husband and wife. I have no shortage of beautiful women, that I need to trouble myself with you."

And gods help me, I thought I was free. I ran back to Daro and Anzali, to tell them what had happened, to seek their comfort. I ran up the stairs to the apartment, and into Daro's spotless kitchen, where the two of them had stayed up late, waiting for me.

But as I met their eyes, a compulsion struck, consuming the three of us. I explained nothing-- I couldn't speak. All I knew was that I had to go down to the sea and die, and that my loves felt the same way.

We left the apartment, holding hands, and began to walk. We felt as if we were in a dream, inexplicably shared. The empathic bond between us had twined around us all, dragging us down together. Perhaps this was intended to be my private nightmare, and the bond I had with my loves, the linkage between our minds, pulled them down with me. Or perhaps the Lion King had always intended to send us all. Throughout the night we walked, slowly, in a daze. The sea was normally half an hour's journey by aircar. On foot, holding hands and walking with dreamlike slowness, it took us all of the night and most of the next day. We were exhausted, but there was never any question of stopping. The sea pulled us with some strange gravity. Hydrotropic, we flowed down the path of least resistance, through the city and out, until we came to a cliff over the ocean.

I felt their love for me, and mine for them. I felt an overwhelming despair and exhaustion, a hunger for the ocean's balm. We looked at each other and nodded. Then we released one another, and separately we leapt into the sea.

Daro and Anzali were dashed against the rocks at the bottom, immediately. I fell into a deeper part, cushioned by water, and curled up in green darkness to sleep my despair away.

***

The Lion entered the room, awakening me from my reverie. "Good. You've got your clothes off." He smiled at me ferally. On him, it was more of a baring of teeth than a smile, and spoke of hunger. "Lie down."

He removed his own clothes and came to touch me, to cover me with his lightly furred body. "Gods of hell, you're cold, woman. What have you been doing, standing on the balcony with your clothes off?"

"It's a cold night," I whispered.

"I'll warm you, then." His hands had articulated digits, but furred fingers and pads on his palms. With these paws, he explored my body, finding no body heat anywhere. Alarmed, he licked at my neck, and when he found the reassuring taste of salt there bit in, drinking what ran through my veins.

What he needed was blood. All I had was seawater.

The Lion King jerked away, spluttering, and stared down at me. I smiled at him, the same baring of teeth he'd shown me.

"You knew me," I said. "Many years ago. And I gave you trouble."

He tried to back away then. But I grabbed him and pulled him down to the bed, pinning him under my weight, the weight of the ocean. I opened my jaws wide and let the semblance of normalcy fall from me, showing myself as I truly was-- a skeleton animated by seawater, a demon driven by hate. He screamed. I dove upon his throat and tore at it, drinking his hot blood as my claws dug into other parts of his body, tearing flesh away.

The Lion's life force was strong, fed by the blood of innocence and whatever demons he served. But my hate was stronger. He fought me, digging his teeth into my neck once more. All he drank was seawater. He tried to drink that, hoping to weaken me, but he might as well have tried to drink the ocean dry. I drank his blood and it was finite, though fortified with the blood of many victims. I ate bits of his flesh, torn away. As his struggles weakened, I released his neck and burrowed my face into his belly, chewing through the flesh. Drenched in blood, I reached my bony hand into the opening I'd made and clawed through his liver and lungs. Finally I tore out his heart and showed it to him. He died then.

The air was filled with a rustling noise. The souls he had stolen from young women, from men, from the neighborhood itself, fled from the punctured hole in his body. Some were partially consumed, and would never be strong again. The sight renewed my hatred, though my enemy was dead and his soul bound to the darkness.

For this moment alone I had the power. I had stolen the life force of the Lion King, and I had within me the strength of the sea and the energy of my hate. I could have called a tidal wave to destroy Heaven and all the tormentors within. The tormented would die as well, but that would be only a blessing, I felt. The neighborhood would be destroyed, but there was nothing in this blasted ruin of a hometown worth keeping anymore, was there? Destroy it all and let the survivors rebuild. Yes. I felt the charge build within me, and almost gave myself over to it.

But then Rachael would die as well. And she was an innocent, who had kept her soul, though the paw of the Lion had undoubtedly started to warp her. She had not warned me, but she'd tried to befriend me, as best she could with her fear of the Lion King. If I killed her with a tidal wave, I was no better than the Lion King, killing as it suited me.

There would be no tidal wave. I let the energy fade away. Let someone else save the city; I had done my part. I was so tired.

It was time to return to my ocean bed, and to my loves. I faded away, and let myself turn into mist, carried back to the sea.

#52 project #spooky 5 #writeober 2020 #tw: death #tw: implied rape #farla #galconfed universe #tw: mind control

26 notes · View notes

scullysexual · 4 years

Photo

*Prompt request for AU where Mulder gets Scully pregnant in high school and they are “forced” to marry but fall in love.*

I think this might just be my favourite part so far. It does jump around in terms of timeline and stuff but hopefully it doesn’t get confusing. Warning for Teen Pregnancy. @today-in-fic

A Baby Is Forever: Part Three.

Part One.

Part Two.

- - -

It's done. She's married. The paper is signed, no objections, one last question of if she’s been coerced. She hasn’t. Legally, she’s Dana Mulder.

.:.:.:.:.:.

“So we’re married now,” Mulder says.

They sit on a bench outside the registry office. Mulder hunched over and rooting through a bag of sunflower seeds.

“Yeah,” says Dana.

She expected to feel different but she didn’t. She had been nervous all morning, unsure of why. It was the first time she’d felt regret over the whole thing. She would never get a real wedding, never be able to have a relationship with anyone else.

Dana had been quiet whilst Melissa had done her hair. Her sister had insisted that since Dana was never going to have a real wedding, she deserved to still look pretty for this one.

The time it look Missy to do Dana’s hair, Dana hadn’t said a word. Only when the last strands of hair were ready to be straightened did Missy ask what was wrong.

Dana told her, focusing upon feeling like she hadn’t been given a choice. They just assumed she was okay with it and that was that.

This train of thought had come after she had been asked if she’d been coerced the first time around. After a bit of hesitation, and a glance towards her father who had stared at her expectantly, Dana had said no.

She wasn’t so sure anymore and that had been what she told Missy.

Her sister had calmed her fears. Told her that it was just a piece of paper, a way to protect Dana and her baby. Nobody expected them to act married.

It had helped. It got her through the rest of the day.

Now she regards her husband.

“You know Mulder,” she starts and Mulder looks towards her. “You can date other people. I’m not gonna stop you.”

He seems surprised, almost like he wasn’t expecting her to stay that or intending to. She’s taken back a bit by it. She got him into this mess, got him caught up in this whole marriage thing, it’s only right his freedom shouldn’t be taken away.

“Thanks, I guess,” he says a little unsure.

Dana smiles sadly. “I’m sorry,” she apologises. “I’m sorry I got you caught up in this.”

But Mulder is shaking his head. “I helped make that baby too, right?” Dana nods out of reflex. “Then you don’t need to apologise. I meant what I said in the hospital.”

His promise to be there all through it and afterwards.

It was a nice thought but that was now. What about when it’s 3am and the baby is crying because it’s diaper needs changing. Or when it’s crying and they can’t figure out why. Will he still be there then?

Mulder stands, tucking the sunflower seeds into his pocket.

“The same goes for you too…Dana,” her first name is a surprise. “You can date anyone you want to.”

Unlikely, she thinks. Nobody is going to want someone who already has a baby with another person but the thought is appreciated all the same.

Instead she says, “Scully. You don’t need to start calling me Dana just because we’re married.”

.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Maybe he has been counting down the days. Mentally. He wants to see his baby. Today is that day.

Mulder is more confident in this room now. Mrs Scully chooses to wait outside leaving the chair vacant but Mulder chooses to stand next to Scully again, grabbing hold of her hand.

It’s the only time they ever hold hands. At school, they talk more, sometimes eat lunch together. Through the hallways, he becomes a sort of bodyguard, guiding her through, pulling her back if someone so much as touches her. She has a little bump now, something he’s sure he spent the whole day staring at when he noticed (other’s stare too but Mulder gives them a stare of his own and they back off) Perhaps he’s a little worried that somebody might knock into her, that something will happen to the baby and Mulder will not let that happen.

They never hold hands outside of this room, outside these appointments.

His affection for Scully has grown, he wishes he could see her more than at lunch time and appointments. He wants to spend every second of the day with her. He tried to go round to the Scully’s house one time but Captain Scully told him he couldn’t come in, Dana was resting and Mulder had gone home disappointed.

He got the impression that Captain Scully didn’t like him much. He supposes he can’t blame him, he did get his teenaged daughter pregnant after all.

He holds onto her hand tight, rubbing circles on the inside of her palm with his thumb.

“We get to see the baby today, don’t we?” Mulder says, unable to contain his excitement.

The doctor sees it, too. With a smiles she says, “Yes, Fox. You also get your picture.”

Grinning, he looks at Scully who just rolls her eyes.

The machine is set up, the gel is applied, and Mulder stares with anticipation at the screen. This is the moment he’s been waiting for.

His mouth drops open when the baby- their actual baby- appears on the screen. He’s there. Actually, really there.

Eyes glued to the screen, he brings Scully’s hand to his chest, traps it between both his hands and says.

“That’s our baby, Scully.”

“Yeah, it is.”

He’s full of amazement.

“Would you like to know the gender?” the doctor asks.

Mulder breaks his gaze from the screen to look at Scully. They had joked about this- Mulder’s insistence of believing it was a he, Scully’s insistence on believing it was a she. It was a running joke between them and Mulder wasn’t ready to break that by finding out.

But if Scully wanted to…

He looks down at her, asking.

But Scully shakes her head. “We want to wait.”

We.

He gets his photo.

His photo. His photo of his baby.

“He looks like an alien,” Mulder says on the way back home. He hadn’t put the photo away since receiving it.

“That’s mean,” rebukes Scully. “She doesn’t look like an alien.”

“He does,” Mulder presses, staring down at the photo. “My alien baby.” He looks to Scully then, a big smile on his face. “And you can be my alien baby-baby mama.”

She isn’t impressed.

When he gets home, he sticks the photo on the wall by his bed and lays down, continuing to stare at it.

A rush runs through him at the sight. He’s excited. It was real. In 27 weeks he was about to be a father.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

They have their first phone call at 7:06 pm on a Thursday. Bill Jr answers and after unceremoniously shouting, “Dana, phone!” she hears Mulder’s voice.

“Must be fun living with him,” he says.

“He’s not always this bad. He’s just grumpy. He doesn’t want the baby waking him up at night.”

Her sibling’s reactions to Dana being pregnant had been mixed: Charlie liked the idea of being an uncle, Missy was excited- ready to be the best aunty a baby could ever have. Bill had a sour look on his face, telling Dana she was too young to have a baby and asking if Mulder was going to bother or would it just be down to her and them?

Missy had been the one to jump in and defend Mulder, telling Bill that “of course he would be”, whilst Dana just picked at her food.

“Did you know babies can be born with teeth?” Mulder says down the line.

Caught up in her thoughts, the only reply Dana can give him is.

“What?”

“Yeah,” Mulder says, mistaking her confusion or unknowing. “The doctors take them out so they don’t choke and they’re loose anyway.”

Dana did know that, in fact, but she doesn’t tell Mulder, instead she allows him to continue on.

“And did you know that babies cry even in the womb?” That she didn’t know. “So little Mulder Jr could be crying right now and we wouldn’t even know it.” She doubts it but her hand falls to her stomach anyway. She’s been doing that a lot, lately, mostly to try and feel the kicks and punches. So far there’s been nothing.

“How do you know all this, Mulder?” she asks.

“I bought a book.”

Of course he has.

“Well, I’ve bought lots of books, actually. Some we already had but I wanted to know. I don’t know anything, Scully, and I feel like I should.”

It’s heart-warming to hear how much he cares, to hear the excitement in his voice as he rattles off this fact and that. She’s glad that if anyone had to be the father of her child, it was someone as special and caring as Fox Mulder.

They don’t talk for long. Twenty minutes because she eats dinner at 7:30 and needs to go but before she does, Mulder tells her one last thing, almost sound shy and unsure.

“Igotdabebesumthin…”

She doesn’t quite catch it. “What?”

A bit louder now. “I got the baby something.”

“Mulder, you don’t have any money,” she tells him gently but is smiling all the same.

“I get money off the magazine!”

“What, 50 cents for every copy and you don’t sell that many to begin with,” she teases.

“It’s nothing big,” he says. “I just saw it when I was out.”

Stopping the jokes, she asks. “Okay, what is it?”

“It’s a duck,” he says. Through the phone, it sounds like he’s fumbling with something. “It’s yellow with a blue bowtie and it squeaks.” A bit more fumbling with the phone and his voice is replaced by a squeak. “See?” he says, his voice back.

Her heart melts and tears begin to prick in her eyes.

“Mulder, it’s…” she sniffles.

“Are you crying?”

She wipes at her eyes, embarrassed. “No, it’s just the hormones.” At least that’s what she can blame it on. “Mulder, it’s…it’s a really nice thought-“

“It’s too much.” She hears the doubt, the sadness in her voice and has an instant need for it to be gone, for his happiness and excitement to return.

“No, no,” she starts to say. “No, really, it is a really nice thought. Keep it. I’m sure she’ll love it.”

“Really?” The joy is back.

“Really,” she confirms. She catches her mother’s eye in the kitchen and looks to the clock. “Mulder, I have to go. I’ll see you soon, okay?”

“You’ll see me tomorrow.”

That’s right. School.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

A knock on his front door comes precisely at 8:00pm.

Mulder grabs the card off the sideboard and takes in a breath before opening the door.

“Happy birthday!” Mulder cries as Scully stands in front of him. He holds the card out to her and invites her in.

“Thank you,” she says, stepping in.

Mulder closes the door as she rips the envelope open.

It’s a simple card he chose; one with two bears on it- one of the bears placing a party hat on the other surrounded by a table of food and balloons. Mulder thought it was cute.

She opens it up and begins reading out loud.

“To my Alien Baby-Baby Mama.” He shrugs sheepishly at the look she throws him.

“Happy Birthday! But you know what that means? Only seventeen more weeks to go before our alien is born. Love Mulder.”

She’s smiling as she closes the card and it sends jolts of happiness through him to know that he- and his card- put that smile on your face.

“You’re counting?” she asks.

Mulder shrugs, “Maybe.”

She tucks the card back into its envelope, still smiling.

“Thank you,” she says again. “But you really need to stop referring to the baby as an alien.”

“Why?” Mulder asks, leading them towards the basement door. “Can he hear me?”

“You’re the one with all the books, you tell me.”

The books are down in the basement with him. Stacked near the wall, he’s found- or bought- loads of them.

“Gotta be prepared,” he says.

Mulder sits down on the couch- the same couch that their alien baby was conceived upon, something he thinks of all the time and has him smiling.

He smiles fades, however, when he watches Scully struggle to sit down.

“Are you okay?” he asks, unsure.

Through her concentration, she manages to smile a yes.

“Sitting down and getting up have become kinda difficult.”

Right, yeah. Mulder had caught her struggling to stand up from her seat in school, how she waits for everyone to leave before the struggle begins.

She manages and gets herself settled into the cushions.

“I got you a present.” Mulder stands and heads towards the mini freeze and pantry shelf in the corner. He grabs the vanilla ice cream and pickles out of their respective places and walks back to her.

Her eyes light up when she sees them.

“Mulder, I love you!” she shouts, reaching to grab them out of her hands.

It’s just an expression, he tells himself and tries not to let his smile falter.

The pickle jar is opened and immediately the basement is overwhelmed with the sharp smell. It’s worth it if it means he gets to spend time with her.

“So what’s the occasion?” Scully asks when she’s knuckle deep into her ice cream with the pickle, another in her mouth. “Other than my birthday, of course.”

“Well, I won’t be seeing you in school anymore and that’s when I get to see you the most,” he tells her, placing the VSH into the player.

“Why can’t I pick the movie, it’s my birthday.”

“Because you always want to watch horror movies,” he answers, sitting back onto the couch.

“So?” she says. Then a smile is breaking out across her face. “You’re scared of them.”

“No, I’m not,” Mulder says, a bit too fast.

And Scully notices.

“Put one on, then.”

“No.”

“Because you’re scared.”

“Because I want to watch this.”

She falls silent and Mulder hopes that’s the end of their argument.

She grabs another pickle and is about to dunk it in before muttering.

“That’s because you are scared.”

It’s the final straw and he swipes the pickle jar from beside her. He gives her his due with how quick her reflexes are but he has height as an advance and holds it up high knowing it will be too much of a struggle for her to get it.

(Is it mean? Yes. Does he feel guilty for it? No.)

“Mulder,” she scolds. “Give me back my pickles.”

He shakes his head, stretching higher just in case. “Take back what you said.”

She pouts and it’s adorable. Mulder knows how stubborn she is, knows how hard it is for her to take things back once she’s said it, but her pickles are on the line here.

“Or…” she begins, looking at him through her eyelashes. Oh, she’s good. “You give me my pickles back and we pretend I never said anything.”

But not good enough.

He pretends to think. “Hmm…No.” She’s devastated. “You have to say it.”

She turns away from him, looking annoyed and defeated, trying another tactic.

“I want my pickles.”

“You know what you have to say.”

She zones in on him, frowning. “You should know that you shouldn’t stand in the way of a pregnant woman or her cravings. Especially on her birthday.”

Oh, he’s well aware. Smiling, he begins playing with her. Bringing his arm down just close enough that she should be able to reach over but at the last second holding them back up again.

She gets annoyed each time he does it and it’s adorable, her little huffs and puffs, and insults that come pouring out of her mouth. Death threats, too, he notices but still, Mulder doesn’t give the jar to her.

He does this about three times before she either forgets she’s pregnant, or is taking a risk, and tries to reach up and grab the jar.

As she does, something seems to happen as her concentration and annoyance fades to shock.

Worry rushes through his body and discarding the jar to somewhere beside him, he grabs her arms to steady to her.

“What is it?” he asks, fully concerned that something bad has happened.

She frees one of her arms and places a hand on her stomach. A smile replaces the shock, a big smile as she looks at him and Mulder looks from her face to her hand back to her face again, confused.

“She kicked,” she says, her voice full of amazement.

Mulder’s eyes fall to her stomach. He wants to feel it but aside from holding her hand in the hospital, and the hand on her back through school, this is the closest he’s come to touching her.

Touching her stomach just seems too intimate for her but he wants to.

“Can I…” he falters, unable to take his eyes away and swallows. “Can I feel?”

Scully nods, moving her hand and he places the hand not holding her arm anymore onto her stomach, pressing gently like the books told him to.

Minutes pass but another smile passes across Scully’s face as she says.

“There is it.”

And he feels it against his hand. He understands now why she was so amazed by it. It’s incredible. The movement between his hand. That’s his baby under there, moving.

It’s amazing.

“Scully,” she hums in response. “Can I…It is okay if I take you on a date? A real one?”

He has no idea what’s made him ask right at this moment but he’s been wanting to for a while now and whether it was the playfulness of the moment before, or this moment, Mulder has no idea.

She nods. “I’d like that,” she replies shyly.

Mulder smiles, his arm wrapping around her and bringing her closer to him. She adjusts the best she can and settles into his shoulder while he presses a kiss into her hair.

“Mulder,” she says after the only sound is from the TV.

“Hmm.”

“Can I have my pickles back now?”

Mulder laughs, reaching beside him and handing them to her.

Scully takes her reward, smiling triumphantly. She won.

#txf #highschool au #a baby is forever part 3 #teen pregnancy fic #i write

90 notes · View notes

birth-fic-lover · 5 years

Text

Magical babies

Mara had always knew she was different, when she was young she knew she could sence things her sisters couldn’t. Eventurly she discovered she had magical abilities, she became a witches servent to learn her craft.

The witch would often make Mara do tasks such as cleaning and cooking but also used her as a test subject. One day she sat Mara down, “I belive I have created the potion that will be the most saugh after, a potion that will give someone the ability to become with child, but more then that a child with magical abilities.”

“My my mistress, that is grand. You will be famous within our community” Mara said encoragingly.

“Indeed, I will be able to sell it to not only our type but to royals and the rich. But before I do so, I must test it. Not on myself, I am past those years in my life.”

“Me?” asked Mara a little scared, but that was how it must go. She took the potion and soon found herself unable too keep down food as she felt the affect of morning sickness.

One morning when she was in her 8th month she was enjoying the warmth of the sun, she was still required to collect wood along side her other tasks but she did not mind. She had one hand absentmindly on her swolen belly, her back was starting to ache from all the movement of her little one.

As she came into the witches home, she watched her pregnant servent. “Still strong and able to keep active, should be able to keep working for the next month. It seems many believe she must be overdue due to her wombs size, but I wonder if her size is a protective layer around the womb” the witch said talking to herself.

Mara sighed, she was used to her mistrass talking about her instead of too her. But at least she had her child too keep her company, she could feel the magic that was within the unborn child. The baby could somewhat comunicate to it’s mother though the way it leaned or would stop it stong flurry of kicks on comand, though Mara would joke to herself that the baby had more then 2 of each limbs for all the movement she felt. Currently she could feel the child was awake but resting, the baby had recently got the hang of sleeping when Mara slept.

But gave the child a little bit of a scare when she leaned down, feeling it’s shift. “Oh my dear, I’m sorry. I should have warned you I’m just building up the fire” she said fondly rubbing her childs head.

“Talking to the child again? Hmmm maybe I gave the child too much magic?” the witch said “If it’s too advanced that will never do, parents want to still feel like parents or no one will want my potion”.

Both Mara and her child froze, Mara had not yet asked what would come of the child who would be born in a month. Mara hoped she would be able to mother her child in excanged for them also working for the witch once old enough.

“What will become of the child once born? Will you let me keep them since they will not be able to be used as an example?” Mara asked hopefully.

"Am I an orphanage?” the witch asked in a stern tone “you do not have time to look after a human with too much magic, I will extract the child for examination once it is born. Then we may start again”.

With that Mara’s belly was dropping right before the witch’s eyes, Mara felt the child started to use it’s head like a battering ram swimming down as hard as it could. She held her belly winded, "gaaahhhh what's happening?" Mara said both hands on her shifting womb.

"Oooo it seems I did make the little one too clever" the witch said rising out her chair. "It seems desperate to avoid my extraction, if it leaves your womb naturally then I can to harm them."

Mara then caught on, all children were magicly protected from harm in this land. You could only at worst have some bad bruises, but no parent had buried there child for hundreds of years due to the enchantment.

The witch wouldn't have it, "then we will simply have to kill it before it leaves your womb". Mara felt shivers down her spine as the witch then put her hand on her active womb. “That’s enough you beastly creature, if you had been smarter you would if hidden your abilities from us." The witch then tried to hold Mara's womb to stop it from moving down, "hold your belly like this" she instructed ans then went to get some ingredients.

But as soon as the witch left her side Mara gave into the urge to squat, trying to help her child escape. "Ohhhhhh" she moaned as her child had found the exit. It continued using it's head like a battering ram straight into the entrance to her birth canal, as it kept forcing itself agaisnt it she could feel it start to give. "Ohhhh that's it baby, break my waters" she said softly.

When the witch returned she howled "oh you stupid ungrateful girl, I will kill you both!" She lunged at Mara but her child then succeeded in breaking Mara's waters, the witch slipped in the fluid.

“Nooooo what have you aloud to happen" the witch knew it was too late. The child was now protected, despite the pain Mara smiled. She dodged around the puddle and her mistress, she knew she had to escape. She worked quickly grabbing what she could.

------

Mara wandered through the woods with one hand pressed around her massive belly, the other holding a bag full of all her belongings. The temperature was dropping from a warm summers day to a cool night quickly, she knew she had to find someplace to stay for the night soon. She had never though she would be in a position where, she feared that her unborn child and herself wouldn’t survive to see the morning. But it seemed that things can change very quickly, as she learnt once again as she felt her belly being squeezed as it was gripped by a contraction.

“oooofffff” she groaned as she walked on "this has all taken a dramatic turn". She was covered in dirt and sweat from escaping through the woods, the contractions started after she escaped and were getting closer together. She hoped her child would be developed enough to servive out of her womb.

The woman who had sold her the dress she was wearing had told her it would fit her for the final cycle of her pregnancy, but her belly had grown so big the dress was almost like a second skin. It was constrintingly tight, and yet she dared take it off in fear she would never squeeze back into it. This and the consant movement within her made her feel she was carrying a matching pair rather then a single baby. She hoped she was wrong, not because she wouldn't two healthy babies as a blessing. But she just worried she wouldn't be able to provide for her twins. Before she hadn't given it much thought, but now she knew she would have to forage for food.

She walked on a little longer, feeling the cramps every once in a while. They kept coming, she just needed to get to the next village and hope that someone would take pity on her. But then she stopped as she tried to ignore it until the strongest cramp she had felt gripped her. She rubbed her back missing no longer having the comfort of the amniotic sack to keep her baby from being so heavy on her hips. She felt the contractions, they were no longer warnings but the begining of her child needing to emerge. She sensed her child knew too, it had stopped trying to escape since her water broke staying put in Mara's womb. Though naturally the baby was sliding down her birth canal little by little, making harder and harder to walk. "Your being so good wait till we have arrived somewhere", but she knew that she was dialiting and the need to push would come eventually.

She needed to find a safe place to bring her child into the world, but the shock and the pain from this unexpected day now made her head foggy. She started to sob, she found herself lowering her head in prayer to the goddess of fertility. She had herd legands about her, but didn't know if she helped those already blessed with children. But she had to try, maybe herself having magical abilites would win her favour. She wished she knew how to use her abilites, afterwards she raised her head slowly. Nothing felt like it was different, but she felt her child inside her tell her to keep moving forwards.

Eventually she came across a cabin in the distance, she was shaking from relief. Could this be the work of her prayer or was this just around the corner all this time? It looked like it had been left a long time ago, the outside was unloved moss draping the roof and walls. But she could see it was dry and structurally sound, she used her body weight, maybe a little magic and the power of her latest contraction to push the rotting door open.

Inside she found the lamps were out of oil and there was no candles in the holders, but there was a fire place with enough wood to start a fire. She could see some more logs near by, and a mattress made of straw. She pulled the mattress away so it wouldn't catch alight, then started to build a fire.

Her hands slide to her protruding belly as another conraction vibrated though her, "now young one, I will be ready to deliver you soooooohhhhhh hoooooooo". The moan filled the room, she was aware that this child had waited long enough and her body was taking over. She was glad the fire was able to warm her up and hoped it would sooth her aches a little.

Mara rubbed her belly taking a deep breath, she could tell the child was trying not to wriggle but they were getting cramped by the contractions. Mara was glad she was alone and indoors, but as she rubbed the belly that covered most of the knees as she knelt she felt the urge to spread her legs. A moan escaped her lips as she felt her child being forced against her cervix, as she tried to get up she found herself in a low squat. Gravity took over bringing the child slightly out the birth canal making a small bulge form between Mara's legs.

Mara softly stroked the baby's head with the tips of her fingers, she couldn’t help but push hard again and again, now it was time to actually birth the child she felt relief but it was too slow. But Mara didn't give up, she just changed positions opting for hand and knees on the mattress.

When her latest contraction finished Mara liffted a hand to rub her belly, so heavy it brushed the mattress. She then let her hand wander from rubbing across her belly to sooth her child, slowly moving her hand lower wanting to check her progress. She could feel her lips starting to bulge outward even more, she cupped the head supporting it as she pushed it out further.

As time passes her opening started to grow from a tear drop shape, to an oval and then still get larger and larger to accommodate the new life emerging. Mara could feel herself losing her balance, so she guided herself to a kneeling position legs spread wide.

She reached down to carefully support the head that was pulled out even further by gravity, she kept pushing the head into her hands. "GAAAAAHHHHHH" she moaned loudly as the head was fully born, she panted as she prepared to make the shoulders slid out of her.

The urge to push returned immediately so she gave it her all until the body slide out. Her son was here, she brought him up and held him upside down until he coughed and then cried. "Well are you the little trouble maker?" She smiled as she removed her clothes, she wanted him to be skin to skin as she fed him. He sucked hard hungry and strong sucks told her he was doing well, as he fed Mara felt a strong kick telling her that there was indeed another child yet to be born. "It looks like that witch was wrong, ohhhhhhh okay okaaaaayyy".

As her child kept suckling she rubbed her belly with her other hand, she was trying to encourage her other baby to follow it's brother. “Come ooooooonnn" she wanted to get the baby out while she was stretched from her previous birth. She was relieved when she felt how strong the next contraction was, she followed her body’s urging to push happily. She could already feel her second to be born starting to make its way down into her birth canal, "oooohhhh you're keen".

She removed her son from her breasts and layed him down wrapped in her clothes, she watched him as she got into a squat and stright away she could tell this baby was racing to be born. "GAAAAHHHHH HOO HOO GAAAAHHHHHH". Her lips began to part and the contractions didn’t stop, this child was sliding further with each push. She put her hand between her legs breathing deeply, she could feel a hard bulge forming in the palm of her hand.

A few more firm pushes and she felt the head pop all the way out with a small splash of fluids, she reached down to check around the neck. Her heart started beating fast, she could feel her cord wrapped around her child’s neck. “Oh please let it be okay”. She could only guess what to do, she carefully pulled on it until she could slide it over the child’s head. Wasting no time she pushed again feeling the shoulders coming free, she pushed as hard as she could needing to see if her baby was okay. She was beond happy when the child slide out and immediately started to cry.

Mara brought the squalling baby to her chest “Mama’s got you and your big brother is already waiting for you, my beautful boys I will try to be good to you both.” She brought both to her breast and let both boys feed, Mara wondered why her labor hadn’t restarted. She assumed she would be needing to deliver the afterbirth now, as she put her babies back down she felt her round hard belly. She wondered if there was a triplet, but if that was so why was she not still in labour? Mara gently pushed around her firm belly and found a third child high up in her womb. She now could feel it lightly squrming, “well I never”.

As she felt the feet she realised that the baby was laying sideways at the top of her womb. The baby was wedged tight as her womb had condenced as she contracted and delivered her first 2 children, she wondered if there was enough room to turn the baby into proper birthing position.

She had to try, so while keeping a close ear on the two sleeping newborns she found what side the head was. With a deep breath she placed one hand on her belly above the head, and one below the baby’s bottom. Carefully she started turning the child, she knew the baby must know because it was very still.

As soon as the child was head down it started sliding down easily, Mara gasped as she felt her contractions come back. “Gaaaahhhh that’s it, hooo hooo yaaaaahhhh”, as the contractions built up Mara noticed that she felt the head was inside her canal making its way down.

The contractions were right on top of each other now, she spread her legs as wide as she could and pushed with all her strength. Mara was relived she was stretched as it was from the previous two births, now on her knees Mara rocked her hips trying to deliver the child as quickly as she could.

Mara was so tired and in so much pain the head forcing her lips to part as she pushed. Feeling a hard bulge form under her fingers, she knew that her final baby was on it’s way. Mara felt the head slowly emerge, then with a pop the head was born. She lay down the head sticking out of her she just kept pushing not caring about anything else as one shoulder poped out then the other. The baby slide out and cried from the shock, Mara sat up and cut the final cord.

She brought the baby to her breast to nurse, she had a little girl. She was glad to see her belly was deflated, and with a few more contractions she pushed out the afterbirth.

Mara stayed in the cottage and over time learnt how to harniss her magic, she loved her magical children who were smart and were as loving as they were loved.

185 notes · View notes