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comfortless · 9 months ago

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Only Other

chapter one of three.

Goth soldier! König x fem, Roman! reader

content/warnings: 18+. minors do not interact. historical au (set around 350BC); potential inaccuracies as i am no historian!, König speaks some German here (as opposed to Gothic), mutual pining & worship, mentions of an arranged marriage with a large age gap, slight sexism, descriptions of gore, groping, dubcon sword/knifeplay. additional warnings will be added to the next two chapters.

notes: for @writersdrug’s request. ^^

wc: 11k.

The barbarians are here.

The dream of river water lapping over your knees and songbirds in swaying trees fades out into a hazy fog as you begin to rise, dropping your legs from the mattress to spur yourself to move across the small room as quietly as your feet can carry you.

Heavy footfalls and staggering hoof beats from their horses weighed down by heavy sacks of supplies is what has pulled you from sleep.

The flames of their torches crackle, accompanied by the shrieks of clanging, well-polished metals singing out as if in the throes of war becomes a dull song; weapons, wicked and crudely crafted unlike the spears of the soldiers donned in red you were so accustomed to by now.

You had heard the whispers on the wind of the untamed beasts from Germania filtering in, settling down here; their arms and their blood for just a sliver of land to claim, soil to birth farmland, a semblance of peace from within the walls of the great empire.

Never, in these small words from gossiping tongues, did you suspect that these rugged men would be taking to camp so very close to your city. Not only that… they’ve been accepted into the walls, the door flung open for them with their gnashing teeth and thick, ugly weapons. These men of myth were usually set further out into the countryside, far from view of polite people to sow seed in soft fields, build the little shacks that seemed far too fragile for their rugged forms that could never compare to the villas built here.

Peering over the sill of the open window, stretching your upper half out into crisp night air to catch a glimpse of torches sailing along the breeze, flames just as ever-shifting as their darkened silhouettes, your breath seems to halt entirely. They look the trueness of harbingers like this: each somehow more imposing than the one they follow behind. You count only two horses split between the eight men of this small band.

Could any of them even speak in your tongue?

What stories could they tell?

Had any of them ventured as far as the sea or had they only bathed in waves of warm blood?

With eyes wide, you even dare to perch there to watch on, never bothering to conceal your underclothes with the faith that the darkness would hide away anything more than a illusory view of your shape.

Through the faint glow of the yellow-red flickering flames, your gaze drifts to something large, hulking and brutish, darker still against the backdrop of a sable horizon.

The shadow walks in line with the others, their proud and raucous foreign voices feathering through the otherwise quieted air… only he does not speak, does not make a single utterance of mirth or glee. He stares only forward as his feet tread on just paces behind the rest of the group.

Nine, then.

Like the tales you’ve heard of the Goths, you’ve also listened in on the children spinning wild stories of monsters, the legends of heroes of old slaying cruel beasts told by their elders. You had always believed them, even without the evidence currently striding through the sleeping streets, dark like a crypt, like the underworld itself. A true titan.

Just as your eyes track the brooding, silent form, he abruptly turns his head in your direction.

The glow of a nearby torch paints the shrouded face in the color of a dying sun, casts a glint on the thick seax strapped to his hip.

In that moment, it isn’t wonderment curling through your blood, but surprise, maybe even a tinge of fear.

Your heart hammers as you pull yourself from the window to whisper hurried, hushed prayers to Juno, protectress of women, as you reject your curious nature and climb back into your bed. You’ll bring your offerings to her altar just as any devout: incense and a sweet pastry so long as she keeps you safe, chaste.

Buried beneath cushions stuffed with straw and thin fabric sheets to tuck yourself away, you wish only to return to dreaming of the river’s silt beneath your feet and colorful birds parading past in the open air that smells only of violets and honey.

Instead, you dream of fire.

You dream of the city bathed in gold, molten and angry as the walls come down around you.

You watch as your neighbors, friends, all begin to writhe and shriek as their skin begins to blister, boil beneath until it melts layer by precious layer to puddle like oil where feet once stood until the mighty, wraithful scorch takes even that away too. What once was human becomes smoke: women, men, children, it made no difference. It all becomes a mighty roaring flame as the structures wail and crumble around you.

Yet, you remain untouched.

Dawn breaks with the puppets sewn in shadow all but entirely forgotten, washed away in the fearsome tides of your own dreaming.

You startle and bolt upright as you wipe cold sweat from your brow with the back of your hand.

You’re no oracle: it’s just a dream… Vulcan would never turn his fiery gaze to your people after you’ve all honored him so, the offerings paid at his altar had been plentiful this past year with the steady expansion of the empire and the need for well-smithed weapons.

There were no volcanoes here to sweep away your life with magma and sulfur… only the lemures that haunted old shacks with their wailing had paid a visit to you last night. You let them in with your fears, and you would ward them away next with your courage.

The sun’s warmth creeps its way in, sweeps up from your blanketed legs until it curls and caresses at your cheek. From its positioning, proud and impossibly high in the sky it’s almost as though Sol himself were staring down at you, radiant yet scolding.

You’ve overslept.

Hurriedly, you ready yourself for the day, cinching your waist, clasping the shoulder of the stola, and dutifully washing your face with still water held in a clay pot. There was little else to do than bide your time with tedium: the animals loitering about needed tending to, a neglected sewing project lay strewn across the floor that had long-awaited its completion, and as the questions began to stir in your mind again… perhaps, gods willing, you would safely be gifted the opportunity to peek at the barbarian camp. To see that peculiar titan that they kept tethered at their sides.

It was dangerous and unheard of for a maiden, of course, but with little else to do than work and practice stitching threads for a betrothed you held no true affection for, this was a significant reprieve from the humdrum of what was scrawled out into the stars.

You weren’t given the luxury of further studies and communing with the aristocrats at their hearty banquets, sipping wine and prattling onwards about politics and how to further Rome as a whole. A part of you preferred this simple life of taking to the street, to peruse the market with what little money you held clutched in your palm, to pet the horses and watch as bulls sparred out in the fields beyond. Returning home to an empty house was a comfort, too.

As always, the market is a lively place, full to bursting with people exchanging anything under the sun, either beneath painted wooden stalls or from the first floor of their very homes, all with very little regard for you.

The city was simply too full to take in every name and face, and only their chatter seemed to intrigue you anyhow. You didn’t need a scroll or a song about each individual, your people were easy enough to read: war, pride, and duty all embedded into their very blood. The only ones that drew your attention were the poets and bards, entertainers who spun their stories of lives vastly different from your own… but there were none awaiting coin on the streets today.

A man passes with his wife at his side, loudly bolstering onward about his progress on some expedition.

Women with flowers woven into the braids of their hair laugh softly behind their palms as they exchange their secrets in singsong whispers.

The children play and pocket with eager palms when salesmen are unaware, likely to be caught later on and have their hands whipped raw.

There’s no talk of the Goths.

With these foreign men, most of your people seemed unbothered, taking solace in the knowledge that the empire’s cavalry would ride to strike down any opposition. A tentative, arrogant sort of comfort that you knew very well not to trust entirely. Most were simply not as educated on the potential of what could be, hadn’t snuck around on quiet feet to listen in on the men discussing failed treaties and negotiations.

The Goths could find their own food, their own women and shelters after fighting for the empire for a time: likely what they were here to do… give up their lives in exchange for a sliver of a Roman dream. A band as small as the one you witnessed could never quite hope to topple an empire, anyhow.

That sense of safety brought forth disinterest and smug little grins with little else to say, whereas your mind only took to further conjuring curiosity.

The more you wander the more you question whether you saw them at all, or if they were mere specters, already slain and silenced on some field far off from here, long dead and forgotten by all but the sleep-addled mind of a maiden.

You’ve never felt so disheartened. Though the city remained constantly bustling and full of intrigue when you knew where to look, these days the ease of it all only seemed to further the boredom. If nothing were to come, it would be no surprise to find that Juno would serve her purpose, looking after all with her blessings. You almost regret calling for her safety last night.

If the barbarians were indeed real, had some plot to overthrow an empire with their small numbers, perhaps only a vulture would be pleased with your thoughts now: teetering on the cusp of anticipation and wonder. You would never think yourself treasonous, but to learn, to see more… Your appetite for something further than a life spent sewing and child-rearing after marrying a man that made your skin prickle with distaste in the coming winter was rational.

Maybe not to most, but to you.

The fruit stall pulls you from thought with its sappy, honey-sweet scent and brilliant colors littered in crates: reds, greens, even some soft and blue… You only then notice you’ve been standing entirely still here, lost in thought, as if expecting a bolt of lightning to split the world in two.

Two apricots were purchased, one for you and the other for the gray mare in the stable you had grown fond of. You give the merchant a smile and a few bronze coins and carry on your way, nibbling at one of the fruits on your walk.

There were usually servants tending to the horses just beyond the city's paved streets, but it seemed today they were busy with other affairs: Quinquatria would be upon the city soon, and there was much to prepare for such an important festival. The place was empty all apart from yourself and the horses, some off in the fields to gallop to their heart’s content, while others like your mare, secured by wooden gates and paddocks.

You feed her, cooing gently as she takes the pitted fruit from your hand and between her blunt teeth; then, allows you to lead her into the grass with your honeyed words and languid steps.

One day, you hoped to have the opportunity to ride her, perhaps far away to touch the waters of the ocean, to see the foreign trees in some great adventure that would leave you more fulfilled. Ideally, without being weighed down heavy with child.

Your hand strokes at her nose before she begins to tense, eyes wandering from your form to something just beyond, far off and nestled in tall, fluttering grass and small bushes. You track her gaze for a moment, finally turning to look over your shoulder.

The wind has the tops of the trees swaying along the hills, grass pushed down to kiss the earth with each flutter of air. It all smells and feels so gentle, carrying the scent of wildflowers and the soil and salt of the earth itself. Ceres would have found herself prideful at the sight; everything rich and lush with the spring… Harvests would be bountiful this year, and everyone would be well-fed and contented. It’s no surprise that after pilfering through old calendars and running his tests upon the soil, Gaius had declared that this was the year he would take you to be his wife.

Past the expanse of soft blossoms and a cavalcade of greenery, all sweeping and rolling, a beauty that would stifle anyone should they think to look hard enough… but amidst all of this sits a man that you recognize immediately. Though he remains utterly faceless, his stature is somehow enough to make a gladiator blush and turn tail in shame.

There, just where the hill dips down and gives way to the soft rush of the stream, sits your warrior. His head is lowered as he crouches by the water, hands tucked to his front as he busies himself with something in his lap. The bare expanse of his back presented to you is unfathomable even from such a distance.

The men from Germania were said to be huge, dwarfing those that you were accustomed to by lengths, tall and thick like the weapons that they carry. They were said to be handsome, too… and like some hazy dream you were already certain that he was, somehow, beneath the pelt tied round his waist to keep him warmed at night, the sable shroud hanging over his head as he works away at sharpening the blade laying over his lap.

Your legs feel weak like a freshly birthed lamb’s as you watch him; the muscles of his bare arms bulging and quivering, his nude back tensing with effort. The soft rays of the sun beaming down only seem to paint him golden, untouchable except by higherborn women and men who could pay well to have him dirty his blade or his cock. Radiant, cruel, maybe even a bastard son of Mars himself, because what better a place for a man so vast and laden with scar tissue to be than in the midst of some great war.

Someone like this, you know with a certainty, would have no time for fickle maidens with their heads filled with the fluff of fantasies, and in a way that only seems to solidify a plume of possessiveness stirred up within your head.

You wonder even, if he calls to Vulcan as he pauses to hold his blade up to the sun to marvel at his work, the sharpened silver glinting in the light. The weapon casts its rays to only further illuminate the paleness of his flesh, coupled with the gleam of the flowing water ebbing past it only serves to make him look the very picture of those old stories and myths. The older women in the city would have tapestries embroidered of this scene, no doubt, if they could see through your eyes now.

Your horse trots off, satisfied that there is no true threat here, and you feel yourself begin to creep forward.

The gods and goddesses must play their tricks, because you are no fool. The pull only feels undeniable, something that you could not fight with a stern will alone. You pacify your impromptu decision with the thought that you could turn away at any point in the meters it would take to reach him. Surely, if he turned to face you before then that same fear from the night before would come to surface and you would sprint, startled and wary.

Perhaps he would even give chase…

There’s no excitement to be held on him, either acutely unaware or ignoring your presence entirely as you draw ever-closer. The grass softens your footsteps, the breeze blanketing any sound from each shift of your legs beneath the linen stola. You’re near silent in your approach, only halting where the hill crests over the bank several paces away from where he remains seated.

Only then does he turn to look your way.

There’s no greeting, no display of friendliness. His body language remains closed off, distant, like that of a wolf in cautious preparation; deciding whether or not it would be necessary to bare his teeth, to snap and growl until your flesh rends beneath him.

So it’s left up to you and to Juno who remains harbored in your heart. The goddess would protect you most assuredly, you’ve left her offerings for as long as you could remember, prayed at her altars and devoted yourself entirely— perhaps not in the same way of the temple maidens, but certainly more so than most.

You take a breath, watching him with kind eyes and an air of unease about you that only seems sweet by comparison to the very danger that his presence proposes. He only returns your stare with something colder, detached and unamused beneath that ugly veil he wears: two holes for the eyes, dyed beneath with the red rimming yellow like the tissue a butcher may find in a plump calf.

“Can you understand me?”

There’s a long, tense silence that follows your frail question. The titan stares, looks you over from the crown of your head, briefly pauses midway- at your hips- then further. It’s both heated and cold, coaxing yet analytical.

Finally, the barbarian gives a curt nod in response, seeming no less frigid and closed off even as your voice feathers over the breeze. But he understands, can decipher your language, that’s a start.

“You are… one of the barbarians, yes?” Is that even what they preferred to be called? The word certainly sounded prettier on your tongue than the brutish pronunciation of ‘Goths’. There would certainly be some price to be paid if your blood was spilled over a mere insult…

Graciously, he only seems to overlook it as he sheaths his blade and rises to his full height, tall like the mountains you had only heard stories of, where gods and goddesses sit in council not meant for mortal ears.

Freed of any covering upon his upper body, you find yourself reluctantly mesmerized by the trail of light hair that runs from chest to abdomen and down further… until a little tuft peeks from the hem of the pelt tied around his narrow hips. The layer of fat over his midsection paves a way upward to reveal the muscles of his chest, wider and more prominent somehow than most breasts you’ve seen.

Unruly thoughts clutter that would have others questioning your status and devotion to your Gaius if they could hear them. It couldn’t be helped, you reason; you had never seen a man quite so vast, so meant for battle and breeding.

“That is what your people call me,” he huffs, bull preparing to charge. His words come out with a thick accent, northern. The trees and mountains would sound similar if they could speak at all.

He drinks you in with his eyes, fingers twitching at his sides as though itching to touch your most sensitive parts. Though he doesn’t move yet, you get the sense that all it would take is one false move, a skitter in your step that leaves you tumbling to the earth, and he would be upon you like the downpours of spring. You even wonder if he would roar like the thunder delivered from Jupiter’s weighty palms if he were to mount you.

Of course, what he sees before him is not a maiden of Rome. His people didn’t care for purity, for your religions and ideals: you’re a fertile little doe, wandering straight to a buck in his prime.

You swallow hard, a little bob from your fragile throat, to force those treasonous thoughts from your mind. Even talking to this man was a risk to your reputation… Your poor betrothed, nearing thrice your age and horribly delicate by comparison to this beast, would be up in arms if he were to find you here. More concerning, you couldn’t find it within yourself to care.

“What do you call yourself, then?” Your voice comes almost breathless, thighs pressed together beneath your stola as your own body sends its signs and omens to tell you that you’re precariously close to the underworld just by gracing him with your presence. Perhaps it would be that dark, too, if this giant decided to push you to the soil, hover over you as he plucked you apart like petals from a flower.

His eyes track that subtle shift of your legs, crinkling at the outer corners when they roam back upward to your face. The beast grins beneath his hood, you’re certain of it, and those eyes of pale blue seem to glitter like the sun's rays on the stream to your side. He shifts, crosses his arms over his chest and tilts his hips just slightly forward, some strange display undoubtedly meant to tempt and charm you.

You don’t budge from your perch, despite your body’s persistent singing for him. Enticing scents and views of flesh could do that… this man wasn’t special, you were just curious. That’s all that it was.

“König.” He answers things plainly in that lilted voice, as though he’s trying to seem more of a man to spite that boyish way of speaking. And gods help you- it’s cute.

“Does it have meaning?,” you settle to ask when he does not request your name in turn. A bit rude, though you do wonder if perhaps the bullish men in his settlements see delicate things like you more like pets anyhow. The thought of this warrior whisking you away and naming you one day… You swallow that lump in your throat again, teetering back on your heels as if to place more distance between you two.

“What do you think it means?”

That simple non-answer does finally allow your pulse to settle, only to rise immediately to find it insulting— as if this wild man with no proper education had the right to insult you at all.

He only smiles again beneath that veil when your face sours. Awful, wretched, gorgeous creature… You’re no threat to him and he knows it. He’s only playing with you, dodging your pretension with a bit of his own, and unfortunately… This is the most pleasant conversation that you’ve had with any man.

Your betrothed was only arrogant and dull, there’s no light in his eyes when he smiles at you- everything is duty. Not here. Not with König, and surely the goddess of marriage and love is frowning down at you from her lofty throne, because you’re almost certain you’re infatuated with the brute by now.

“You’re a bit rude.”

“King.” He grins, a grin that you can see when he frees the leather flask from his belt and shoves his mask upward to take a heavy gulp of what is undoubtedly Roman wine. The glimpse alone makes you weak again, honey drips from your thoughts to your cunt, and you know now that you were never simply curious.

No, this brute would be the end of your engagement and even you if you allowed it.

You watch him take his fill, catch the bitter scent in the air as a bit trickles down from his rough jaw to his throat, all covered in scars. He’s been in battle for a long time, likely why he wears the hood at all. The rest of that handsome face is undoubtedly a wreck just as what could be seen of his body, all covered in memories of where he’s had scrapes and dances with daggers only to fell his foes one by one with that long seax dangling from his hip.

After the hood and the flask are in their proper places once more, he gives you a nod, then speaks, “How many coins?”

It takes a moment for the question to register in full; he isn’t asking what you have on your person, but how much you’re worth. How much it would cost for you to spend a night in his bed, tolerating this giant between your legs…

Your attractions billow up in smoke immediately, just as you expression sours and your hands curl to fists at your side, crushing the half-eaten apricot in the process. You toss the ruined fruit to the ground, allowing the sweet juice to coat your fingers as it flows downward.

You wring your hand as you very nearly shout, “You are an animal. I’m not here to sell myself.”

Your voice falters to a meek, little whisper with your final words, the breath a weak gust through the first tiny blossoms of spring.

Of course he catches onto your body language, to the way your thighs rub and tense beneath your skirt, the way your nipples peak at the mere sight of him and all of the infatuation and curiosity in your eyes. Men knew things like this, offhandedly, it seemed; if the others were correct then this beast could surely smell you, too.

The bastard only stares, eyes narrowing as his brow pulls together beneath the hood in some strange confusion. The whores wore their togas, not the stolas of maidens and married women, even a barbarian should have known that: his men were certainly no strangers to the sweet women with their faces chalked in lead.

Then, his shoulders pull up to fall in a shrug.

“Run, then, little one.”

It’s almost as though he knows your thoughts in and out, a lemure himself as he presents the bulk of him that would strike fear into any man, taunts and goads. You don’t want another fire dream. You force your courage and mirror his stance: chin up, back straightened as you look down upon him like a goddess sent to deliver her fury with… a pitted apricot at your feet rather than bolts of famine and misfortunes.

His eyes become stars, twinkling in earnest when he sees you then. You’re no aristocrat, no empress, but you certainly feel the part when the giant’s gaze finally relaxes its pilferage and settles upon your face instead.

Your act is all for naught, because you realize that his men are approaching, opposite the stream. One of them was enough, but a hoard of others… You were not even certain that he could understand you properly, and the others could be even less patient. Your gaze travels over their forms, smaller than this ‘König’, but each equipped with their own weapons and their own scars from battle.

They look from their leader to you, eyes grazing over the plush flesh that your stola dutifully conceals like starved dogs. One of them mutters something in a foreign tongue, harsh and guttural, his eyes never leaving your shape in a display of brazen appraisal.

König responds in turn, voice taking on a lower octave as he all but barks his response: harsh, unyielding language that you couldn’t hope to interpret… but if you had to guess, you were nearly certain that his men were asking who would lift your skirts and have their way with you first.

You depart from them with tentative yet hurried feet, and you don’t look back as you cross across the lush field. There’s no stopping at the stable, not a thought in your head except that you would most assuredly not be returning. The barbarians could have the field, the stream, whatever the city’s officials had allowed them.

Just not you.

It’s Gaius that greets you when you arrive home, to the little villa he had secured for you; to the place that would become less of a home and more of a prison once the two of you were wed. You’re barely a foot in the door when the man’s gaunt face turns to you, his lips set in a stern line.

“Where were you?”

You knew that look, it’s the very same that he gives to his slaves when he’s about to bleat out his orders like an enraged goat, shove them or grab at them to feel less small than he truly is.

Your brow pinches, a shaky breath leaving your mouth as you try in earnest to look the part of an innocent lady who had not just crossed a field and fantasized endlessly of some rude, barbaric oaf.

“In the field. With the horses,” you deliver your half-truth with practiced ease. This wasn’t the first time you’ve lied to him, and it certainly would not be the last. If the protectress of Rome could overlook your stunts and recognize your discomfort in this wretch’s presence… then she might even side with you; save you from a future of sharing this man’s bed.

Gaius relents then— as much as a stoic, old man could. He reaches out to cup your face with one weathered hand and you have to force back to urge to shudder.

It’s not that you mean to be cold, not after all that he’s done to care for you… it just comes as naturally as the seasons and the wills of the gods. Something about him always made you feel ill.

You eventually, tentatively jut your chin forward just a bit to force yourself into leaning toward the touch of his cold hand.

His lips curl into an unsightly grin; then, he pats your cheek and draws away enough to bless you with fresher air to breathe without his withering presence alone contaminating it.

“I brought you a gift, meum corculum.”

“Oh…” Your words come in a little hiss, your heart stuttering in your chest as you teeter back on the heels of your sandals. The straps along your calves feel tighter now, your stola too… maybe even the room itself: everything seems to close in, and you could only silently hope he doesn’t request your affections for doing such. “… you didn’t have to-“

“Nonsense.” Gaius raises both of his hands, arcs them before stepping out of your path to reveal a new dress lying on the wooden table just beyond him, dyed a light blue.

It’s pretty, well-spun and soft-looking… yet you still hesitate a bit when you step closer to run your fingertips over the fabric. It yields beneath your touch, bunches when you move each digit along the pliant linen, and it’s the softest thing you’ve ever touched, maybe even softer than the lambs and kittens you’ve played with in the streets.

“I thought that you might like something nicer to wear during Quinquatria,” he adds from just behind you. You feel his hands trace along your arms, further, until they reach your shoulders and give a gentle, but almost demanding squeeze.

It’s meant to be affectionate and he is your husband-to-be… but he still manages to make you feel ill. It’s only a blessing that he’s never requested more from you than a peck for his offerings to you.

What a man in his late stage of life could see in you, you couldn’t hope to imagine. A fertile womb, likely, and you could only hope that that isn’t also what he saw in the women he kept as slaves in his own home further toward the city’s center. Nosy, dull man that he was, of course he needed to be closer to the housings of banquets and discussions to feel some level of importance while he kept you locked away toward the wall and the slums like some filthy little mystery.

“I’m tired, my love,” you manage, voice thin as you slowly pull yourself away, from both Gaius and the delicate blue thing you would be forced into wearing for the coming festival.

The man balks, but doesn’t push. A few seasons and he would have what he’s awaited for years, the confident gleam in his eyes tells you that he’s certain of it.

It’s difficult to believe that someone you had once considered a hero and a friend could make you feel so much disgust now. You were naïve, then, and now you only feel how those poor horses locked away in the stables must feel, burdened with a constant yearning for your own freedom.

“Then rest.”

When the door shuts behind him, you’re only then able to expel your relief. The weight of what you must do settles upon you, heavy and unyielding, the boulder of Terminus.

You can not marry Gaius. You can not continue to breathe in the stink of the city from its miasmic aqueducts, perfumed only by the crowded marketplace full of mortals so contented with their own tedium. The unknown calls and calls, howling like a mother wolf to guide you. Even with the stories told of what fiends and horrors lie outside of the city you could almost feel with a certainty that you were destined for it.

You light your incense with a lump of coal in the burner of a clay pot. Just cinnamon would have to do for now. You make your peace with that promising Juno whichever sweet, flaking pastry that appeals most during the festival of Minerva.

Though you were more than content with your wish for nothing more to do with the barbarians after meeting with König earlier… he comes rushing back into your mind, rolling and lapping like waves as you begin to prepare yourself for sleep. The polished tin of your hand mirror reflects your face as you twirl the handle in a curled palm and you stare. Did he see beauty or simply a womb…? Had you taken offense to nothing? The questions stir up remorse as you strip away your gown and take to the bed.

Just one more meeting with the foreigner, maybe. Just to say your farewells, wish him luck in future battles, bless his seax and his shield with a touch and a prayer (if he even had the sight to keep any form of defense on his person).

When Quinquatria comes, when the people are busy and satisfied with their food, fortune telling and the gladiator games, you will take your mare and ride off into a sea of stars. Each light will be a point of guidance until you reach the riverbed you’ve only ever dreamt of, until you scale the mountains that sang so sweetly from the goth’s tongue…

And perhaps he will chase you.

— — —

Quinquatria used to be one of your favorite festivals. The fortune tellers were your favorites, always seeming to know so very much with so little insight into your life. Then there were the revelers donning their colorful masks, barking out song with bitter wine painting their tongues.

You try to listen in on them as a woman traces over the patterns in your palm, the curved lines and straight, fine indentations. Palmistry, rather than any proper reading with sacrifices and proper seers stood before a temple. You reason that this is for fun, just like the wine-drinking and the gladiators fighting for their lives and the horrible stink of the city’s streets: natural, reasonable, and dreadfully normal.

The fortune teller hums as she reads you through your hand, laughs a bit when she seems to note a secret or… something. You were not entirely sure. The woman was young, her belly likely as full of fermented fruit as everyone else’s as they dance and crowd the street where you two are stood.

“You’re unhappy, girl,” the woman muses, giving you a sympathetic look before another laugh pulls from her lips.

You give her a nod but don’t say a word as she continues to stroke at your palm. Of course you were, anyone could tell just by the frail look upon your face, as if you were indeed bereft and ready to cry at any moment in this horrible, dainty dress with your betrothed fondling some lady mere paces from you.

“Yet, so lovely,” she continues, nimbly running her fingers to your wrist. She curls them around you, turns your hand over and gives it a soft pat to signify that your reading is done.

“You’re destined for a summer wedding.” Winter, you want to correct. “And your husband… strong and brave like the sacred wolf.” Weak and old, you force back with a clenched jaw.

She releases your wrist with one last assessment, “Juno favors you, sweet girl.”

You want to call her a fraud, but instead you merely part with the bronze you had promised to her. With Gaius preoccupied, his wrinkled hands already tucked beneath the skirt of the other woman’s stola, now would be the best time to wrench the door of your little cage wide open… not make a scene.

Your chest feels tight, and for the first time it isn’t from some unknown fear, it’s excitement. Your heart hammers as the blood stirs within your veins, belly tense and breathing shallow, taking a stiff pace to walk along the shadow untouched by silver paths of moonlight.

There’s a bellow, a wail as the gladiators fight some distance off. Soft words and whispers filtering past like eerie words from something ghastly, moans from a brothel, bells on the wind, the stink of rot and perfume all from all that you’ve known for so long as you leave it all behind.

Your mare is pacing restlessly in the field, her ears flicking and tail swaying behind her. You’ve no saddle, you hadn’t even thought to procure food or any supplies. You’re not even certain that she’s been ridden by anyone, but you coax her over to the wooden fence that your body rests over; hands find the velvety fur of her gray snout, fingers moving to gently caress her mane and ears.

“We are going to be free,” you whisper as your hands curl over her neck. The mare makes her displeasure known immediately, huffing and tensing immediately… and you realize that this isn’t going to work, not without her bucking you off and leaving you injured or dead. You’re not stupid or brazen enough to break a horse or anything, really. Not Gaius. Not…

You would find König. Perhaps you could even trade the Goth for a horse already accustomed to being ridden… he had already revealed his intentions, and he was easy enough on the eyes to entertain the thought.

You give the mare a kiss farewell, right on the softness of her cheek and detach yourself from the fence to wander past the silver field, the gently flowing stream. The water dampens your dress, embeds it’s cold into your very bone where the sandals fail to protect. Spring or not, it’s hardly warm at night, and there are only so many rocks lying in the water to keep you from sinking in.

The clothes are drenched by the time you crawl to the other side. On the opposite bank, it’s only then that you turn back to look over at the city, one final glimpse of a place bathed in gold; cinder and ash from torchlight, flowers and the creeping scent of decay carry on the breeze. Even from the distance you can hear the music, chimes of steel on steel, the laughter and cries of mirth and pleasure.

Begrudgingly, you feel the first seeds of regret plucking at your heartstrings. You’ve nothing to your name apart from a few coins in a pouch strapped to your hip, no weapons, no food. You could die, you verily would if you went at this alone. And still, you force your face forward and continue your steady waltz to look the unknown straight in its bloody maw.

You won’t panic, won’t fear. Whatever awaits would be better— it had to be.

The barbarian camp comes into view some time later. You couldn’t be certain how long you’ve been walking, as though some spirit had plucked the chords of your mind and left you in some confused daze. It couldn’t have been your own desperation. Something greater had to be at play, a proper destiny: one much better than the life of Gaius’s wife, owned like a hound, imprisoned and uninspired.

Though their torches burn, their tents stitched together amalgamations of old pelts and cloth, the air is fresher here. You expected the reek of death, heavy on their skin, bathed in blood and the rot like visions of Mors herself. Instead, you smell smoked meat and wine on the air: a boar and fermented grape, fruit from the surrounding orchards, the heavy scent of men. There’s no celebration here, a few men talking quietly as their eyes wander over what you can only assume to be some sort of map— tactical discussion for their next bloodbath.

You puff your chest and steel your gaze as you walk towards them, expression set not unlike the stern looks your betrothed would give.

Your attempt at intimidation only earns a flicker of hunger in the gazes of these men, and then a bout of grating laughter. They glance at one another, discussing you in hushed voices in their mother tongue before one finally looks to you and asks a simple, “Was?”

“König,” you answer simply. “Where might I find him?”

The question undoubtedly goes uninterpreted, but the name does spark a wave of interest that passes between their faces. Finally, one points toward the tent at the far side of the camp: ugly thing, vast and layered in dark tones of gray and maroon, the very structure is a bleeding animal.

You hear the laughter behind you, the lewd whispers and jeers and only a simpleton wouldn’t be able to interpret the meaning; the titan that heads their little group has a lovely woman seeking him out like a wayward dream, and with adrenaline already coursing through you the thought of spending your night here doesn’t even seem an insulting prospect.

The flap serving as the door of the tent parts as your hands move to lift it, and sure enough… the beast lies in wait in his den, seated on a mattress made up entirely of fur. His hood remains over his head as he traces the carvings on the handle of the seax, under flickering flame and the shadow of the tent König seems further unearthly, god walking amongst men as he toys with his weapon in some strange sort of ritual.

The ritual only seems to be one of boredom, because his eyes light up when they rest over you, standing like a dream as your dress billows with the breeze creeping in. You’re drenched and dirty and pitiful in his presence, but he only seems to soften when he beckons you toward him with a curl of his fingers meeting his palm.

You obey with tentative steps, stopping next to him as he waits on the bed. If it were possible for your heart to seize and halt entirely without you collapsing to sink beneath the earth, it surely would now, so close to him.

“I need a favor,” you explain in whispers. “A horse.”

“A horse,” he repeats as his weapon is set aside, “Warum?”

You don’t want to explain a thing. He’s working with the very men that could drag you back to the city after being paid heavily by Gaius… your trust is blind and foolish and you almost want to break apart right here. How stupid to believe that you could find some solace here, with a giant that walks along the cusp between men and beasts. Your shaking hands reach out to drag along his vast shoulders, lingering on the healed wounds that dent and give rise to his flesh.

“I’ll do what you want,” you offer quietly, earning a pleased rumble from his chest.

Though after a moment, he only sieges your wrists, pulls you down to the mattress at his side. He touches you no further, only stares down at you in a twist of amusement, reverence and confusion.

“Warum?,” he repeats, “Tell me.”

You wind over onto your side, staring up at him with a desperation that you’ve never known until this night, clawing down from your throat to bed it’s way into your roaring pulse, frightened and pleading. Just give in, ask no more, you want to wail to him as your vision begins to blur with tears.

Mercifully, he doesn’t ask again. König lies at your side, mimicking the way you curl onto your side and again… he smiles, though this one is unlike the way he looked upon you by the stream. It lacks that boyish twinkle, the intensity of the lines forming beneath his eyes: it’s more of a pleasantry than anything genuine.

“You are married?”

“What? No…” You swallow hard, toying with a thread that’s begun to pull free from your hip, twirling it between your fingers. “…not yet.”

“Ach… but you belong to another, ja?”

You want to howl out your frustrations up to every god and goddess above, burn through the Elysian with your misery alone. You wish, yearn for the courage to cast off that mask and lure him in with a kiss, erase any memory of Gaius with the kindling of a truer passion.

Your voice doesn’t come, and your fingers steadily pluck at that thread, feeling more unsure of yourself with each passing second.

Again, your bastard god grants his mercy as he raises a hand to cup your jaw, the warmth of him singing away the memory of the weathered hand that had touched you there before. His hand is so much larger, strong and riddled with calluses; you swear that you can feel his own fluttering pulse through his fingertips when they press against your bottom lip.

“Not after tonight,” he hums.

When the shroud is tugged up and his mouth meets your own, König’s kiss is exactly what you had expected: a sloppy, eager clash of teeth and tongue. He steadies you with a hand pressed to the back of your neck as his grunts filter past your own lips. Your eyelids flutter, then close as you allow your mind to finally relax, coaxed into the ethereal with each swipe of his tongue and pleasured sound drawn up from the well of his throat.

He pulls away with a gentle peck to the corner of your mouth, gazing down at you as though he’s been deprived of light for the entirety of his being and had only now met the sacred flame. It’s incomparable to how easily your betrothed would cast his scrutiny; though the hunger is similar, there’s something far more enticing here.

“Do you trust me?”

König’s voice holds no apprehension as he speaks; the question is just as blunt as each bulge of muscle and peek of teeth through the grin on his face, only set aglow by dim candlelight in the tent. You don’t nod, don’t even reply immediately as you stare at him a little dumbly, still intoxicated by the ferocity of his affections.

“… I don’t know.”

He moves a hand over your eyes then, gently presses his palm over you until you’re bathed in such darkness that you shudder. It’s a disconcerting feeling— not because you fear him so much anymore, but because if this were Gaius you would have already been squirming away, rushing to hide. You want to kiss his palm, revel in whatever piece of him he gives to you.

“Sehr schön,” König coos to you in a whisper. You settle further, allowing the tension to leave you almost entirely as you fall into the velvety embrace of all of this darkness and the pelts beneath your back.

He shifts at your side, and almost immediately there’s a cold chill at your collar, something sharp that he rakes over the softness of your flesh, then down, down to snag at the top of your dress. Your gasp is quieted by a kiss as you feel his weight shift over you, and just as you begin to melt into it… the fabric begins to tear, shreds as he guides his blade further, past your breasts and along your sternum, your belly, further.

“Don’t..,” you manage to hiss against his mouth, immediately taken over by the feeling of his tongue lapping at your teeth. Your nipples peak at the sudden chill as your dress lies ruined to either side of your body, thighs trembling as the blade hooks along the linen concealing your maidenhood.

One more generous, gentle cut and that comes away too.

You’re entirely bare when he retreats to your side again, one hand still clutching the blade as he moves his head to lay over your breast and… never, never had you heard of a man lapping and suckling at a woman like a pup, but that’s what he begins to do; his tongue circles over the bud, tugging it between his teeth until you feel the wetness between your legs beginning to drip to smear upon the mattress.

It’s caught, quick, as he turns the blade in his hand to slot its grip against your sex. It’s cold, but his mouth is warm, attentive as he licks between the valley of your breasts to capture your other nipple.

The noises that leave your mouth are filthy, rivaled only by the sounds you’ve heard in brothels… König only seems appreciative of them, muttering praises as he grinds the cold metal against your cunt, careful as the ridges of it graze your throbbing bud, gathering your slick to make the glide that much easier.

When he moves to dive for your breasts again, you cradle his jaw in your hands, peering up at those moonlight eyes in silent pleading as you capture him in another burning kiss.

The blade turns again, its sharpness directed down so as to not bring you any harm as you desperately roll your hips against its coldness. He groans into your mouth, panting softly just as you begin to whine.

You’ve never heard of a man making love to a woman with a weapon… or of one suckling at her as though she’s lactating when she is not, but… it has the desired result when your body tenses and all that can escape you is a frail whisper of his name.

The heat sweeps from your foggy head to your middle as your thighs squeeze around the damned thing and König presses his lips to your temple. You climax for him, chasing wave upon crashing wave of intensity with stilted bucks of your hips. He clicks his tongue in approval when you’ve finished, holds up the seax again, smeared wet with your essence and twinkling as though it had been bathed in the stream once more.

You know with a certainty you’ve lost Juno’s favor. If he chose you to carve you open with his come-stained blade the goddess would not make her descent to save you.

“Gut,” he whispers into your hair. To your horror, maybe even fascination, he raises the dirtied silver to his lips and licks your sweetness from it with another low groan.

“Wh… why would you do that..?” Your rapture feels almost shameful as you watch him lap at the weapon, the long tongue meeting silver only warmed by your heat.

He’s mad, certainly, and you only find yourself further infatuated: you reason that you must be too…

König doesn’t answer you as he sets the seax aside again, not in words. Instead, he cups your face and directs your lips to his own where he laps at your tongue, suckling it in the same way he did your tits. It’s slow and sensual, and you can taste yourself in his mouth, smell yourself on him as his hands find your waist and tug you closer until you’re lying almost entirely over him; one leg thrown over his thigh with your hands splayed over his chest.

The titan is hard beneath the pelt he wears, felt against the plushness of your thigh, the brown fur wrapped around his hips is pushed to rise where it’s harboring something akin to a pillar… but he doesn’t force you to settle over it, makes no attempt to tug it free, despite its throbbing against your leg,

“I needed your blessing,” he mutters, a hand settling over your naked hip, tracing small shapes with his thick fingers. The other finds your shoulder to pull you into a cuddle, pulled so tightly against him that you’re hardly able to discern where your warmth ends and his begins.

“A.. a blessing?” Your voice comes as a trembling croak, head pressed into the gap between a broad shoulder and the column of his throat.

“We are leaving in the morning.”

“Oh…”

“I will give you the horse when I return.”

Your head feels like a mess. You’re not even certain of what you’ve just done— did that count as sex? Would he tell the Roman soldiers he works alongside of how he had convinced some pompous aristocrat’s lovely bride to lustrate his blade with her essence? You could hit him, demand the horse now and bolt, but you only melt against him: eyelashes fluttering as exhaustion takes hold and the tension leaves you entirely.

“That’s all?”

König pets you, running a hand along your spine and back up to repeat. He presses his nose to the crown of your head, nuzzling against it until his hand is freed from your form and only then does it coax its way beneath the fur covering his groin.

He laughs at the weak sound of surprise you elicit when that beast is pulled free, another, thicker weapon curled in his hand. The thickness, the length of it that tapers off to a layer of skin, eager and pulled back from the tip, leaking beads of milky white: something that would surely tear you if he were not careful, and the thought brings you to squeeze your thighs together, concealing the leaking, thrumming thing between.

“I will fuck you when I return, too,” he huffs into your scalp, causing you to further bury your face against him, intent not to let him see the effect his derangement seems to have on you. You would let him bury himself into your chest, steal the breath from your very lungs, but you don’t breathe a word of it. Something tells you it’s a mutual thing, perhaps it was all spelled out for you when he asked for your favor rather than from any of his foreign gods.

You count your undeserved blessings. He seems sated only ruining you with his touch for the time being, you’re very comfortable here, and though you dare not speak it… you do find this brute charming. He speaks where you fail to, whispers of your beauty being like that from myths and dreams.

He doesn’t force you to leave, either, only paws at and squishes your breasts until you squeak and whine your protests, already sore from his teeth leaving their marks all over them. When he tires of his fun, you’re pulled into a crushing embrace where he rests his head against your own, blankets you in himself entirely. You were right… the shadow he casts over you blackens out the sun, moon, stars all of it; dulls the haze of carnality with something far more tender.

Your night becomes entirely made up of König: his scent like forest and sweat, the furs from beasts he’s chased down and slain, his soft breathing and gentle snores when he does fall asleep against you.

No dreams come to you, no lemures to haunt you with their wails and flames. Not even Juno descends to punish you. You’re warm and soft and contented like the kittens curled up in clusters along the streets on cold nights.

It’s the first night of peace you’ve had in some time.

When morning comes, the brightness of the sun peeking through the flaps of the tent, you wake to find König already out of bed. He stands at the far side of the tent, strapping on pelts and gear and the leather pouch filled with wine. His seax is held up in utter revelry, and mortifyingly enough… you immediately note that he hadn’t cleaned away the remnants of what occurred last night either.

When you bring yourself to sit upright, the giant only drops to his knees at your feet and curls his arms around your middle, pressing a kiss to the valley between your breasts through the thick fabric of the hood.

And… it almost hurts, to realize then that this is something you’ve longed for. You’re not arrogant enough to believe yourself worthy of some foreign worship, but he seems to liken you of some devout little acolyte, as if your come and kisses could grant him favor while he butchers poor souls all in favor of your empire: the people he had likely been communing and trading with only months before. Traitorous, mad, utterly enthralling man… You’re not certain whether you want to relieve yourself from him or guide him back into bed for more frenzied pleasures.

“You will stay?,” he murmurs into your skin as his kisses trail up to your neck.

You hadn’t even considered what you would do, it never came to mind, but staying in a shoddy tent in wait for him to return with the horse he’s promised was far from favorable. You’re out from the city, still without food or weapons, your dress and underclothes are a torn ruin on the floor, nothing but the wind and the stream and König’s stinking furs… The bathhouse seems to call to you now more than ever. Your lower lip trembles when you think of returning to that stale place, to be questioned endlessly about your affairs from your ‘doting’ husband-to-be…

Your head shakes solemnly. “I’ll wait for you at home.”

König drags you up onto your feet and closer as he savors in another embrace. You’re cloaked in a gray pelt, tied up and over your shoulders like the gaudiest tunic in the world, but you bur your nose into its shoulder, humming in contentment when you find that it smells just like him.

He’s more confident and proud than you’ve ever seen him now. The filthy blade remains strapped to his hip when he gathers you up to sit at his front on the back of his horse— a dark stallion with a pelt the same shade as the night sky. It doesn’t even seem to flinch at your combined weight, just canters along smoothly as König directs it through the sprawling field and past the stream to lead you back towards the city’s gates.

You’re not thinking of Juno or Gaius or traditions when König cinches your waist with a thick arm to draw you in closer; there’s nothing but fluffy warmth pooling in your chest sent by Venus when you feel his hips shift to press himself against your back. His head dips to kiss at your neck, your burning cheeks, shoulder, anyplace that he can.

When the horse comes to a halt with a sharp tug of its makeshift reigns, some length of rope and twine, his hand is at your rear.

Everything’s incensed and floral when you’re lowered to the ground, when he lifts the hood to grin down at you, not only with his eyes this time. It’s a sheepish, gluttonous grin, drunk off your very presence.

“I will come back for you, meine Göttin.”

And you know now, that the palm reading had been true— there’s your wolf in preparation for a hunt, the man who’s unwittingly aiding you in your pursuit of freedom painted with mountains and vast, blue skies. You will convince him to come away too, lay down the blade you’ve blessed with your pleasure. A summer wedding… far from wars of greed and smirking old men.

Your head swims when he bids you farewell, rides off on his massive horse back to his camp to gather his own men to march. You watch him go, breath caught up in your throat, a burning longing in your chest that you can not entirely dismiss.

The walk of shame only comes when you’ve crossed the threshold separating König’s world from your own.

The stink of the streets immediately washes away any lingering scent of him on your skin, on his pelt you now hide away with your arms curled around your waist.

You catch your reflection in stagnant water held in a pot, swaying and ebbing gently as others breeze past you.

You’re in a foreigner’s clothes that just barely crest your thighs, hair a mess and the carmine you had worn to bring a false blush to your cheeks is smeared over an eye and down to your jaw. You look the part of an adulteress, maybe, even as you dip your hand into the water to wash the makeup from your face.

There isn’t much to be done about the marks left over the hints of your chest revealed beneath the fur, but you make your way home without anyone even bothering to ask. If anything, the festivities from the night prior only seemed to subdue the standard bustle. You could only imagine how exhausted the hungover soldiers may have been as they undoubtedly prepare for the expedition König had mentioned.

That overrides your shame, sobers you from that sugary elation somewhat. You’re worried. It’s not just about König himself, not about the threat of fucking you when he returns left unfulfilled— though, those are enough to make your heart begin it’s hammering, rabbit in the throes of a chase. The horse, too. That proud stallion, your hope of a swift escape before winter comes and it’s all lost. If his drunken allies fail him in battle, if some other barbarian’s spear strikes true and fells your titan then the dream is dispelled into smoke, sunken down to river bed to be lashed away by frothing waters.

Whoever decided that the day after revelry would be the time to move was a fool indeed. The deities couldn’t look at you after last night, you know if they saw their noses would be turned up in disgust… perhaps not Jupiter’s, he’s more guilty than you could ever be, but your offerings had never been for him had they?

You fret and hiss below your breath as you wind your way back to the villa with its white walls and terracotta-tiled roof. The sun bears down on you like the flame of your dreaming. You’re afraid again, letting the lemures find their way in through the gaps in your shivering limbs to haunt your dreams.

Gaius is not there to greet you, likely still recovering from his own fevered night. You’re grateful for that.

The little altar to Juno still stands atop a table in your room, the burner still smells of cinnamon, dried flower petals and a dish of honey still sat there entirely untouched. She hasn’t split it in two, abandoned you, but it does feel that way when you peel away the fur.

Your fingers nudge at the bruises laden into your skin, the marks that look like teeth to either side of your breast. You press into them, gently, immediately feel that coil of heat, and you don’t want to sleep. That fire from your dream only seems to have become a part of you: you know it intimately now, it comes with pleasure and bite marks and a heavy weight harbored in your chest.

You cinch your waist and tie your stola at your shoulder, brush your hair out with a comb made of ivory. You rub your bruises with a salve made of honey, bandage up what you can and hide away what you can’t by tugging up your breast band.

The same as any other day, you take to the streets of the city and peruse the marketplace, take to the empty bathhouse to wash away all that’s consumed you over the past day. And you watch the soldiers go as they march through the streets, women and children waving away their fathers and brothers with prayers and sentimental words.

They don themselves in red, clutching their gladiuses, spears and heavy shields as they filter out and away where your very being longs to be. Their faces are giddy, almost: the prospect of pillaging and felling each enemy another delightful treat just like those found in the gladiator pits and amidst rolling with the whores in their brothel beds. You can not hope to understand their mirth, the happiness in any of the civilians either.

You watch them leave wistfully, lips pressed to a thin line, fingers digging into the waist of the stola. You down your fair share of the wine Gaius has left in your cellar. The day merely passes you by, the sewing left undone on the floor, altar bathed in cinnamon and saffron as you make your prayers and beg like any dog.

The mattress feels lonely and sad without the warmth of a body made for war curled against you, without his breath in your hair and his arms wrapped around you. It’s cold, too, and far harder than his, all straw and thin sheets. None of this feels like home.

Your eyes eventually close as the last of the sun’s rays begin to die, blotted out by the dark, untouched by torchlight.

You dream of fire.

#könig #könig x reader #könig x you #konig x reader #konig #konig x you #cod fanfiction #f: only other #tw: dubcon

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intuitively-her · 25 days ago

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There could be some turbulence going on with your family or your partner maybe? You might be in hermit mode right now because of this. Please know that these hard times will not last forever. You are getting into alignment with what's meant for you. This is a good time to manifest! You need to get serious and hone in on your goals. You are getting ready to walk into a brand new energy. Take heed on the opportunities being presented to you at this time.

Set your intentions! Use this time to dream without thinking about the limitations of life. Now is the time to start fresh! Don't let your past define you. Every day is a new opportunity to grow and learn. You need to use your voice to share your gifts with the world. Your skills are something special. Get grounded so that you can be more in touch with your intuition. Walk by faith, not by sight. Trust that your situation will get better.

You could be going through a tough time right now. Don't let yourself become closed off because of this though. It would actually benefit you to mingle with others right now. Once you start going out more and trying new things, it will help you release that stuck energy. For someone here, it's time to reconsider moving to a different city. This will allow so many opportunities to roll in for you. Like pile 1, you possess many different skills that need to be shown off. Stop sleeping on yourself!

It's time to wake up! Face your shadows, feel your emotions, and let them go once and for all. Don't feel embarrassed or ashamed to show vulnerability. You are human, just like everyone else. So, stop being so hard on yourself. If you can, talk to an elder or a parent about your current situation. Listen to their wisdom. And please, remember that life is not about the destination, it's about the journey. Take things day by day.🩷

You are stepping into a new and confident energy! Lately, you've been staying in your lane and focusing on your goals/what you need to heal. You've been glowing lately!😍 Keep up the good work. You could be gaining some sort of popularity soon. You need to know that your hard work is not going to waste. I pulled the 10 of pentacles and the 10 of cups for you. You are coming into alignment with your manifestations. Someone here needs to beware of an impure offer coming from a masculine at work. You could already have an idea of who this is. This person will want to "make a deal" with you. This is giving me pyramid scheme vibes ngl. Someone that you rejected or vice versa really wants another chance with you. They feel like y'all got off on the wrong foot. Your judgement was clouded in this situation, and you allowed your fears to get in the way of this connection. They're being genuine though; you can trust them.

You need to incorporate more spells or potions into your manifestation routine. This will allow situations to go in your favor much easier. Use your resources to help create the life that you desire. Your spirit team also wants you to stop worrying! Whether it's about a bill, your health, etc. You are protected! 444,888

It is time to let go of this person/situation that you're stuck on. It's blocking new things from coming in for you. You could feel like your life is at a standstill right now, especially at work. You need to believe in yourself! Hold yourself to a higher standard. Stop entertaining people, situations, and habits that are beneath you. It's time to lock in with yourself and put your skills to use. Once you do, life will start to flow in your favor.

You are being guided to tap into the hidden realms of your subconscious mind. Get in touch with your spiritual side. Allow your intuition to guide you. Do more things that help you feel grounded. Your guides are waiting to be made use of. Call on them when you need help, talk to them when you need clarity; they will be there for literally anything. Continue to explore your craft and exercise your gifts. And please remember that life is not a race, you're doing just fine.😉

*ONLY TAKE WHAT RESONATES*

🩷Please DO NOT copy, repost, or steal my work. Thanks!🩷

#tarot reading #pick a card #pick a pile #paid readings #zodiac reading #predictions #collective reading #tarot #555 #222 #444 #111

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therandompagesblog · 20 days ago

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SKZ Mate Chapter 24

Trigger warnings: Angst, murder, blood, assault, violence, *bring tissues*

A week went by and Y/N didn't speak to Chan. A week went by and Chan had left to meet his friend. A week went by and Hyunjin and Y/N worked on options to use their dark aura to stop Ateez. A week went by and the wolves were divided. Seungmin and Felix sided with Y/N believing her experience of living there would help them solve this problem, but the rest of them chose Minho, the annoying ridiculous beta who acted like the head alpha. It pissed her off the way he was taking charge. She couldn't stand to stay in the same room as him, despite Jisung trying to comfort and reason with her. Jisung did see Y/N's side, but it was Minho's stubbornness and his politics that made him difficult to challenge. Minho was an elder wolf. Now what that means was he was above all wolves. He was the law of that council. Minho had spent years training at the werewolf sanctuary to become an elder. He spent years learning the skills and crafts of one. Minho had the power to connect with his ancestors and others. That is why Minho had high self-esteem and confidence. His biggest weakness is not being an alpha but his rapport with the werewolf community gave him that power, so when someone disrespected him, he became agitated, especially when someone he cared about disrespected him.

Y/N and Minho had been clashing all week. It started with ignoring him and purposely leaving the room when he was there. Then it escalated when Jisung said she was being mean causing him to get shouted at, which lead to Minho trying to discipline her but the same remark of 'you're not a fucking alpha's came out. Chan had even alpha commanded her to apologise which led to her ignoring him. But today the omega had high opinions as she stood there in the living room arguing with Jeongin while Changbin and Jisung sat there behind pillows with a mixed look. Changbin was shitting himself in fear but his fear resulted in him laughing while Jisung was amused. Jisung was curious to see how the new alpha would handle the situation and he was handling it quite well. Jeongin stood there with a stoic face watching the omega shout profanities at him, knowing the beta was next door listening. None of them knew what was going on anymore but all they knew was she was upset but her words were becoming spiteful. "So what he's a fucking elder. He should know how to listen to people and understand all options." Y/N yelled at the alpha. "Y/N. Listen to me." Jeongin called out in a commanding tone. He was getting frustrated. He understood her anger and fear. He understood her projection was coming from her inner trauma and he allowed her to express that but insulting the other wolves he wasn't going to tolerate it, especially a wolf who worked day and night to save her, the least she could do was be grateful. Jeongin tried to reason with her, but she wasn't having it and he could feel his anger start to bubble inside of him. "Y/N. If you-" "Like you know anything. You're just a baby alpha who thinks-" "Go. Upstairs. Now. I don't want to hear your pathetic little whines." Jeongin alpha ordered, his eyes glowing red as he looked at her. His actions caused her to shudder. His words bled deep into her veins, forcing her up the stairs. On the way she saw Minho sat on the floor in the kitchen crying. His body jolted with every breath as he tried to stifle his cries. What have I done? "Y/N!" Jeongin shouted causing her to run up the stairs and straight into her room, her eyes glowing blue as she tried to calm herself down. I made him cry. It was all falling apart left right and center. Minho was a sobbing mess in the kitchen as he heard her hurtful words. They cut him deeper than he expected. He was listening to her. He had spent hours pleading with the council. He even disrespected another alpha on the council for her. Minho didn't understand why it wasn't enough for her, he felt sick. Jeongin was livid and kicked the back door open so he could phase. He hated the power it gave when he ordered her. He felt like a monster.

While all this was going on, Chan had met up with his friend Jaebeom who helped him before when things went bad. Chan wanted to create a plan with him so he went to meet him in the woods, but something was wrong. The more Chan walked deeper into the woods to meet Jaebeom, the more he felt something was off. Chan felt incredibly uncertain about stepping on this side of the woods. He knew Jaebeom but he hadn't actually spoken to him since he was seventeen. "I'm surprised you came alone. You're not a smart alpha, are you? Christopher." A dark voice stood behind him, taunting him. The male laughed at him, well, more like cackled at the alpha like a madman. "Hongjoong," Chan whispered. His heart dropped as he heard the voice. "Come on Chan, let's talk like alphas." Hongjoong taunted. Chan slowly turned around to see Hongjoong standing there with his arms crossed with three other wolves. An alpha, a beta and an omega. He guessed the alpha was Wooyoung, but the other beta he wasn't sure of. He didn't recognise this beta, nor the omega. Chan couldn't believe Hongjoong brought an omega with him. Did he expect the omega to fight? Chan couldn't fight an omega. No, he couldn't. Y/N adored those omegas. They set her free. They helped her escape. He couldn't take one of them out.

Hongjoong watched Chan's eyes study his wolves. He was calculating them. "Come on Christopher. There's no point in sniffing my boys out. I can introduce you if you'd like. This is Wooyoung, Mingi and Jongho. Seonghwa is hiding in the woods somewhere so if you run, he will attack." Hongjoong laughed. "What do you want Hongjoong," Chan asked, his eyes glowing red. "To kill you, obviously. " Hongjoong stated. "Did you really think that I would let you win after everything you have done to my pack? You had me exiled. You stole my alpha. Then you stole my omega and then had my beta killed. I had to let you think you had a chance with those council members. I will say your Minho made a great case against me. Trying to use maleficium against me. He's a smart wolf but not smart enough to realise my father is on that council too. How humiliating. I hope he's not too gutted about it." "She is not your omega. She never was." Chan growled stepping forward. "No, she wasn't." Hongjoong stepped forward, "but Joshua helped me get her." "What?! You're lying." Chan growled as he looked at the mad werewolf who laughed. Hongjoong in the midst of laughing signalled Mingi to attack.

Mingi was quick on his feet and grabbed Chan who took the blow, but he was quick on his feet. Chan managed to disarm him for a brief second but lost when Jongho phased and scratched the back of Chan bringing him down. Chan could smell the fear of the omega who didn't want to appear in the fight but acted on command. Chan pushed the omega off of him when Mingi shifted and pinned Chan down in his human form, biting in his shoulder, ready to rip his arm off when Chan phased into his grey wolf. He allowed his wolf to take over as he attacked Mingi, biting and snarling at him. Jongho pounced and dug his teeth into the grey wolf's tale, almost snapping it off, but he stopped. The blood of Chan fell out of his mouth and he panicked, but the shouts of his alpha forced him to fight and destroy. Chan managed to break free from Mingi and shoved Jongho into the tree, before heading towards Mingi. Chan got hold of his back leg and ripped it off carelessly. Chan didn't care. He needed to get back home to his omega.

As soon as he made the mistake of thinking about her, he felt a white-hot pain pierce through his leg. Wooyoung had phased and tackled the head alpha, dragging him by his tail before shoving him into the tree. Chan whimpered but tried to get back up but the two wolves attacked him. Chan managed to lock his jaw onto the beta's neck to snap his neck. Killing him. Wooyoung raged in anger at the death of his pack mate and charged forward snarling in rage as he tried to get the omega to help him, but Jongho couldn't get up. The omega was petrified. Chan used this against Wooyoung and pounced on him, biting into his leg and dragging the wolf harshly. Wooyoung tried to call out to Hongjoong but the alpha stood there in frustration as he watched Chan destroy them one by one. "Alright. Stop this." Hongjoong yelled. He needed Wooyoung. "I won't kill you. Go to that fucking whore. You can have. She's been used quite well, but I will say this, don't trust Hyunjin near her. Hyunjin is obsessed with her."

Chan didn't care but took his chance to retreat running as fast as he could back home. Chan didn't care about the pain in his body or the blood, he wanted to go home. He wanted his pack. He wanted her. Nothing else mattered, but Chan was struggling to continue. His vision was starting to blur as he ran, occasionally stumbling over. Chan got up again and kept pushing himself until he could reach his home or at least the clear, but he couldn't, his legs caved out and he fell to the ground, crying. He couldn't make it back. He couldn't go on any longer. I'm sorry Y/N.

Taglist for the iconic readers:

@galaxy4489 @mbioooo0000 @jisungs-iced-americano @maybeimmia @hwangrfrnd@wolfo2027 @kayleefriedchicken @leamueller920 @borahae-reads @jennibahng @cookiesandcreammy @leezanetheofficial @jutdwae-flower @danceonmyheyday @jc003 @hpnsfwaddict @linocz @itzreetal987 @skzdreamer13 @reallychaoticwoo @liv1sworld @upsidedownchaire @jutdwae-flower @danceonmyheyday @jc003 @hpnsfwaddict @skzdreamer13 @reallychaoticwoo @ihttinniee @kingdomofpentagon @pixie0627 @tsunderelino @notevenheretbh1 @catlove83 @h0rnyp0t @hash2013 @hyunmikim

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visibleclosedeyes · 1 year ago

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✧𝕮𝖔𝖓𝖘𝖔𝖗𝖙 𝖔𝖋 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖘𝖙𝖆𝖗𝖘✧

Yaoshi x reader

1k words AO3 version here

Very slightly yandere

Many years ago—possibly millennia, you were simply a small and insignificant mortal living on a planet that could only be described as desolate. It used to be full of life and vegetation—and the crystal clear water in the river always reflected the light from the sun like a valuable stone. But then it was all gone, the meteor had stroked your world; leaving nothing but a crater, a charred living being and the remains of the land and the river slowly but surely disappear. This world is dying—wasting away among the stars which share no empathy. The survivors live their life on a fragile veil of hope.

They said that the only relationship possible between mortals and Aeons is that of distant and fleeting gazes from the divines. Like a gentle yet frightening gust of invisible force and a pair ( or several pairs) of eyes staring down at them from a distance of several thousand light-years away. So you, too, assumed that to be true. Even if you pray to the Abundance, you didn’t expect anything in return–you didn’t expect answers. Even if Yaoshi was described as the most empathetic being in the universe; you believed that it has to take more than a small prayer to get their attention. Yet, you pray every day, just so you didn’t feel alone. Just so you and your family would feel better. Like a lie, parents would tell children so they would stop worrying and go to bed.

And one day you feel it; a million miles away from here—someone or something, with thousands of pairs of eyes, has glanced at you. In a small millisecond, you feel like you have seen something; the image and feelings have been imprinted into your brain like a footprint on a dry-out concrete. What WAS that? Is that what you think it is? That thing which mortal legends have claimed to be true? Aeon’s gaze. But you put no mind on it since nothing happened immediately after; you have dismissed it as a sudden hallucination from heat then go on with your day.

Little did you know that the magnificent being exists several light years away from your home planet, that entity has always been listening to your prayers. Aeons do not really answer pathstriders, and if they do that was a chance lower than finding a planet that has no sun and moon. For Yaoshi, they only converse and answer mortals only when they have met face to face. Prayers; they can hear but they do not have enough time for all the little prayers erupting from different corners of the universe. And here they thought being an Aeon would provide all the reach they needed. Still, sometimes some individuals cannot simply be ignored and you happen to be one of those individuals. Maybe it’s because of the scale of your sufferings or the constant prayers over and over again—the Aeon of the Abundance decided to glance you a visit.

That night after you have fulfilled your tasks for the day you go to sleep, drifting into the realm of dreams which stretches beyond the limitations of the universe. In dreams, mortals like yourself are boundless. To every corner of the crafted universe they go, sink themselves into the realm of thousand possibilities. You wake up in some sort of wild garden—too wild and too abundant to be any realistic garden you have ever seen from your home planet. The light shines on trees and grass seems to almost be golden but the sunlight itself doesn’t feel too hot nor does it feel too cool. Looking up ahead of yourself, a light sensation touches your cheek, you catch it, and… the object seems to be a leaf you learned from the elders as ‘gringko’. Every tree that can bear fruits bears that cannot, however, spread their large branches and lush green-yellow-golden leaves to compete. You can hear animals—like a deer and even the growling of a tiger but they seem to be far away. Critters busied themselves with harvesting fruits and nuts which seemed to never run out. What IS this place? This place doesn’t even resemble anything you have seen in your homeland. Is it possible for a mortal to imagine and dream about the thing they never experienced in their lifetime?

You follow the path forward where the grass seems to be shortened and mulled over like many have walked over them for a very long time—so this must have been the main road to whatever was waiting for you. After some walking, you see a large tree forward. A golden ray of light emits from it seems to be the culprit who dyes the scenery golden. Grinko leaves dancing in the air also seem to be let go from this very tree. On its foot, there is a figure that sitting on a throne which seems to be fabricated from all manners of barks and roots

On that throne, a figure with several arms resigns. One of their legs crossed with the other is free—in several of their palms, each one of the fruit and grain is being held. They all look freshly picked; the water drop can practically be seen dripping down the curve of plump healthy-looking fruit. You have no idea when you have been close to them enough for the strange entity to reach out to you. Your eyes went shut instinctively when one of their fingers reached toward you—a long nail scratched your left cheek with utmost care. When you opened your eyes, you were there; sat right in front of them on your knees. They were and felt larger than life, behind them was a golden tree shining its benevolent light on all creatures and critters alike, it shined through you too. Hm, how…considerate. And then you realized, that pattern, how their body isn’t pattern… they are moving, staring eyes…all over their body. Whatever they are…is far removed from what you know.

“Child, I have heard your prayers, you are in great pain. But not the pain of your—it’s the pain of the dying world and your people,” They spoke. The voice is soft like velvet slowly and gracefully making contact with your consciousness–dripping with an overwhelmingly large amount of empathy. Yet, their voice firmly reeked with confidence. Before you could say anything back a long and elegant finger pressed shut your frail lips.

“I understand, I, too, was once wondered—’ why do all things need to come to an end? Why does suffering itself have no other end other than death? Their pain, I have seen the world you have saw; through the prayers you’ve delivered to me. You shall be set free by me—and by proxy, carry my blessings to your kinsman. Only…under one condition,”

You listened to the honeyed words from the fascinating entity as you suddenly forgot how to breathe. It was now clear who this strange entity was. Yaoshi, Aeon of the abundance. But—why? And if they were real does that mean—

“Become mine. Become my Emanator and my consort; then—leave this world behind with me. You shall have to protect your kins, give them my eternal blessings. Just only if you will submit to me,”

Dividers by cafekitsune

#hsr x reader #hsr fanfic #honkai star rail #yandere honkai star rail #honkai star rail x reader #hsr yaoshi #hsr yao x reader #yaoshi x reader #yaoshi #star rail #star rail x reader #star rail x y/n #star rail x you

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esggs · 4 months ago

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Hey Handsome!

[Noritoshi Kamo gets hit on, right in front of you]

[stand-alone drabble, part of Obeisance to The Arrow universe | fluff, light jealousy, arranged marriage, contractual marriage | 1k words]

Friendships are a difficult world to navigate, especially for someone like you who’s been raised in strict isolation. Even with your cursed technique that is particularly aimed at solving problems, how do you solve this problem: Saori, who you befriended a week ago and have brought along to introduce her to Noritoshi, has been steadily flirting with him for the past 15 minutes.

Not like your husband has noticed. You had caught up with him after his archery practice, with his sports bag hung over his shoulder, and all three of you are now walking around Nihonbashi with ice cream in your hands. Saori is subtle– maintaining plausible deniability just in case. A brush of her hand against his (“an accident!”), asking if she could try a bit of his ice-cream (“I asked you too, though!”), giggling at everything he says (“he’s just so funny, you know!”), and why is her voice so much cuter and softer now?

Granted, Saori doesn’t know that you two are married, you only told her that he’s a good friend of yours. You suppose it’s not fair for you to be mad at her shooting her shot: Noritoshi, if you take a completely unbiased objective view, is really fucking good-looking. Why is he so tall? Why do his lean muscles strain against his workout clothes? Why do his built arms and broad shoulders draw your eyes? Why does his hair, parted and wrapped like always, seem so much more gorgeous, like a prince from the Edo era? And his face, it really sours your mood to admit this, his face is a masterpiece. With a blessed face like that, he could’ve been a rockstar-idol; it’s as if someone took a list of traditional markers of male beauty (lily-petal eyes, a refined mouth, ski-slope nose, straight eyebrows, delicately carved chin, long lashes and nobly-pale skin), and crafted a man with that as a to-do list. If it wasn't for his ice-cold standoffish demeanor, he'd be getting hit on everyday. No, you can’t blame Saori. You would’ve done the same if you were in her place.

And technically, you can’t be mad at Noritoshi either. You were the one who established that your marriage exists only in front of the elders. I’ll be your perfect wife and lady when you need me to be, and you let me be otherwise when I want to be. You don’t even wear the wedding ring, not wanting your peers at Jujutsu High to see you differently (Noritoshi does keep his ring on, but he has his own reasons for that; not like Saori seems to care). The perfect deal struck between you two included a tacit understanding: as long as we keep it from being a scandal, our love lives are our own, with no interference from the other.

Listen, it made a lot of sense when you two shook hands on this. It was equitable, mutually beneficial, and fair. What isn’t fair is the fact that you want to gouge out Saori’s pretty fucking eyes and throw your melting ice cream at her pretty fucking sundress. She’s so pretty too, you have to admit. And so is Noritoshi. And they seem to get along so well. It’s not fair.

Noritoshi’s picked up that you’re upset, though he’s not very sure why. You’ve been walking alongside him and Saori for the past 15 minutes without butting in a word while Saori has been chattering non-stop. You were so excited to introduce your first non-sorcerer friend to him too. Truth to be told, he doesn’t like meeting new people that much, and it’s been a while since he’s talked to a non-sorcerer, but he wanted to oblige you, as well as make sure your new friends are good to you. She’s only just started to interact with people. Noritoshi thinks as Saori accidentally bumps into him. Again. God, he really wants to go back to practising. She really can’t be blamed for her taste in friends.

Your eyebrows have hardened, as if you’re trying to make a decision. Maybe she finds her annoying too? Or maybe– is Noritoshi inwardly pleased about it? Doesn’t the thought of two girls fighting over him stroke his ego? Doesn’t he get to feel silly things like this too? Doesn’t he, despite being Noritoshi Kamo and all that entails, get to enjoy that his wife is jealous?

He doesn’t stay with that thought for too long (his face is getting redder by the second), because the way your cursed energy is darkening, this situation might not end well for anyone in your vicinity, especially not Saori. As casually as he can, he throws an arm over your shoulders and presses a quick kiss onto your hair. It’s not too intimate to be PDA (both of you would rather die) but it sends a message, especially with the ring glinting on his left hand, which is just-so-absentmindedly playing with your hair. You’re getting really good at reading his mind and playing along: you lean into his side immediately.

It’s a small gesture, done with practised ease. Saori gets the hint. She doesn’t stop talking about the price hike in Bottega Veneta though, but this time without any attempts to flirt with Noritoshi. She’s not evil that way. She might be a bit too chatty for your introverted duo, and she might not fully get the relationship between you and Noritoshi, but she’d rather grow a wart and eat it before breaking girl code: never ever eye a man that your friend likes.

Noritoshi supposes that Saori is alright. It took you a (secret) Distillation or two to understand her intentions, and another Distillation on your husband to truly sate your insecurities. He doesn’t have any secret romances with anyone, you’ve gathered. It wasn’t like you were expecting him to. Still, it does make you happy, selfishly.

You don’t even bother telling yourself things like, I just don’t want to be humiliated if my married husband is caught with another girl, or I don’t care if he likes someone, I just didn’t want it to be Saori, that’s all. Unfortunately, you are too self-aware: you might have a teensy-tiny crush on Noritoshi.

written as an inverse of #7 - Jealousy, Jealousy, where Kamo gets jealous.

timeline wise, this fic is set three weeks after reader has joined Jujutsu High. Kamo is in Tokyo now and then, for missions. Right before this fic, he was sent on a solo mission near Nihonbashi, and is staying in a hotel there for the weekend. Reader drops often to meet him. Nothing bad has happened yet :)

img credits: 1 2 3

@kalopsia-flaneur thnx for the idea!

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hazbininlove · 9 months ago

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Hopelessly Devoted

Lucifer x OC

Summary: When the Divine created his angels, it was no secret that Lucifer, his Morning Star, was one of his favorites. It also was no secret that Lucifer was lonely. And so he crafted another, a half, crafted in the light of that same star. This was Esther, the Evening Star. They were two halves of a whole, balancing and completing each other perfectly. They were a pair always seen together.

Until they weren’t.

Prologue

Once upon a time, there was a glowing city protected by golden gates, known as Heaven. It was ruled by beings of pure light: Angels that worshiped good, and shielded all from evil.

Lucifer was one of these angels. He was a dreamer with fantastical ideas for all of creation, but he was seen as a troublemaker by the elders of Heaven. For they felt his way of thinking was dangerous to the order of their world. So he watched as the angels began to expand the universe in their ways.

What most versions of the Story of Hell fail to mention was another angel, created together with Lucifer. She was Esther. Where Lucifer brought light upon the angels, she signaled the dark. Together, they balanced each other. They were created for each other! Esther loved to listen to his ideas, even encouraged them, but also grounded them and helped tame the more nonsensical. When they were together, he seemed like less of a troublemaker, and she seemed brighter and more approachable.

From the dust of Earth, angels created Adam and Lilith: equals as the first of mankind. They were crafted in the idea of Lucifer and Esther, wanting mankind to begin with a couple properly balanced. Where they failed was in not knowing that personalities could not be easily recreated. Adam demanded control and Lilith refused to submit to his will. She fled the garden.

Drawn in by her fierce independence, much like his other half’s, Lucifer found her.

Here again, the true story of Hell differs, changed over time by Hell’s denizens who only knew what they saw. Lucifer and Lilith found a friendship forged from rebellion and dreams. They talked about their hopes for this new world, and together, they wished to share the magic of free will with humanity, offering the fruit of knowledge to Adam’s new bride, Eve, who gladly accepted.

But this gift came with a curse, for with this single act of disobedience, evil finally found its way into Earth. With it, a new realm of darkness and sin, and the order Heaven had worked to maintain was shattered. As punishment for their reckless act, Heaven cast Lucifer and his friend into the dark pit he had created, never allowing him to see the good that came from humanity, only the cruel and the wicked.

Ashamed, Lucifer lost his will to dream, but Lilith thrived, empowering demonkind with her voice and her songs. And left alone back in Heaven without her light-bearer was Esther…

And as the numbers of hell grew, so did its power. Threatened by this, Heaven made a truly heartless decision; that every year, they would send down an army and extermination to ensure hell and its sinners could never rise against them.

But Lilith’s hope remained, and her dream was passed down to her’s and Lucifer’s precious daughter, the Princess of Hell.

“Charlie?”

”Oh, shit! Did you hear all that?” Charlie asks awkwardly, looking back to see her girlfriend Vaggie.

”Uh, yeah, I was right there.”

“Sorry, I get pretty worked up after an extermination happens. This story helps.”

”I know. Don’t worry, I enjoy your theatrics. Are you okay?” Vaggie asks, a soft reassuring smile on her lips as she moves to sit across from her girlfriend.

”I’m fine, just thinking about, you know, family stuff… Did you know my parents never really married? Mom never really found anyone she truly loved and Dad well… he lost his. They were friends! Still are, I think. They had me hoping maybe love would spark between them but it just never clicked, I guess. But I mean, love doesn’t always have to be romantic! And-“

“Charlie,” Vaggie starts, cutting off her rambling. “I get it. You don’t have to justify anything to me.”

“I know, I just…” Charlie sighs, leaning her shoulder against Vaggie’s. “I love my parents, and I know they love me! And I know they loved each other in their own way! I don’t know, part of me wishes that they’d loved each other a little more, or married someone they truly loved! Except now Mom’s been gone for seven years and if Dad hasn’t been able to move on from someone who he was with before the Earth and Hell were even created, I don’t think he’ll ever be able to! I mean, he gave up on his dreams but not on her?! Talk about devotion!”

“It’s kind of nice though, isn’t it? Or bittersweet, I guess, to know that you can love someone so unconditionally, even after centuries apart?” Vaggie asks, trying to lift the mood.

Charlie looks up at her from her spot on her shoulder and smiles back, feeling a warmth fill her chest as she looks into her love’s eyes.

”Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

——————————————————-

Just the prologue!! I promise this won’t just be a rewrite. I just wanted to use the story Charlie tells in the beginning to highlight the background of this plot.

This is NOT a cheating plot. I am not a fan of those, nor of making Lilith or Lucifer the bad guy in this situation (ironic, I know considering they’re the king and queen of Hell). Also I do what to eventually write a story about Lilith and Lucifer with a third but that’s not this story.

Lilith and Lucifer’s relationship in this story is strictly platonic. They love each other, but as friends, and they both acknowledge that. Idk but after watching the show, I know it’s implied that Lilith left 7 years ago but it feels like their relationship was already on the decline even in Charlie’s childhood and it felt like having her was almost like a way to try and salvage their relationship, which ultimately failed.

Anyway this idea came from that, and the fact that the Morningstar refers to the planet Venus, which is ALSO called the Eveningstar. And the same way Lucifer is means “the shining one” or another name for the morning star, Esther also means “Star”.

And well, as a libra ruled by the planet Venus, representing love and balance, this felt very fitting.

#hazbin hotel lucifer #lucifer morningstar #lucifer magne #Lucifer Morningstar Hazbin hotel #Hazbin hotel Lucifer reader #lucifer x reader #lucifer x oc #hazbin hotel #hazbin lucifer #Lucifer reader #Lucifer OC #Hazbin hotel fanfiction

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hearted-anon · 26 days ago

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"Deer" or "Dear"?

Words: 1050 Note: this duo has me T/w: slightly rough tickling we know changbin could NEVER, lots of fluff Tag list: @reginald-stay09 @itzsana-kiddingmenow @hetashi-takashimaya-apollos-kid @soap143 @jungwon-is-the-one Lee: Seungmin Ler: Changbin

Changbin hummed in thought, marker in hand as he struggled to think of how to start his birthday letter to Chan. Knowing that the leader really loved being in Sydney and with their upcoming tour there, he wanted to write the entire letter in English, hoping to give him some sort of a reminder of his hometown to quell his homesickness. Despite this, he struggled to find the difference between ‘deer’ and ‘dear’, gnawing at his lower lip in anxiety.

“Hyung ah, don’t look so tense, what’s wrong?” The elder almost jumped off his seat when he heard a sudden voice behind him, wanting to scramble to hide the card that he had spent at least an hour trying to draw the cover, which consisted of Berry and Chan hugging each other. Once he realised that it was indeed not the receiver of his gift, he relaxed slightly, dawning on him that it was none other than Seungmin that had waltzed in. He swung himself onto a nearby chair, pulling himself over towards the rapper before taking in the meticulously hand-crafted drawing, cooing at the Dwaekki as his cheeks flushed a bright red.

“Stop teasing me! I’m your Hyung y’know?!” Changbin yells with no bite behind it, puffing up his cheeks before deflating. Seungmin only gives a light chuckle, moving closer and noticing that there was nothing written on the card at all. Curious, he pries at his Hyung about the mystery behind such a well-drawn card, raising a suspicious eyebrow at the way Changbin anxiously stammers over his words, poor excuses like 'it's for a surprise!', or 'nothing much, felt like drawing…' not getting by Seungmin's knowing glare. Eventually, unable to take the continuous prodding anymore, Changbin finally admits who the card is for, his ears now glowing red along with his cheeks when Seungmin smiles warmly at the gesture.

"Cute and all, but why's there nothing written on it yet?" The vocalist questions, skimming his fingers onto the thick and smooth paper, feeling his nails satisfyingly scratching over the glitter to highlight Berry's ears and brown fur wherever else gently. He listens as he hears Changbin's struggle with telling the difference between the two words, wanting to suggest another alternative to make it simpler for the poor producer's brain, seeing how he genuinely looked torn apart with his lack of understanding for English. However, he had other plans…

"Ahh, how about you try 'deer'? It's the correct one, really!" Seungmin enthusiastically gets out, even emphasising his point by creating antlers with his fingers, a wide smile on his face. And to his utter shock, Changbin actually managed to take the bait, hurriedly writing down said word as if it was sacred to him. Something twinged in the puppy's heart afterwards, but he figured seeing his Hyung so happy, practically envisioning a tail behind him wagging excitedly, was much more worth it for the potential scolding he was going to get from the leader for teaching his own elder all the wrong things.

"Wait…deer is the animal, you tricked me!" Seungmin snickers in mischievous glory when he hears Changbin suddenly yell out in surprise, pouting as he sullenly grabs the eraser to change his mistake. Playing the obviously fake caretaker role, he runs a soft hand through the rapper's hair, telling him that it was definitely 'alright', despite the spelling mistake being completely his fault. After a few seconds of awkward silence, Changbin simply glares at him in a prolonged silence, something that makes the vocalist freeze in his tracks and stare back the same way, getting lost in each other's gaze for some time.

"I mean- what can I say- Hehehey!" The younger is cut off when he's suddenly tackled to the ground, and fingers begin to skitter up his sides. Giggles bubble up in his throat, and before he knows it, Seungmin's giggling helplessly on the ground, trying to shove a determined Changbin off him. It's no use however, as he feels like a boulder that had gotten stuck into a ditch; impossible to remove in the slightest. Changbin purses his lips for a moment, contemplating, thinking of what to say. Something teasing? Serious? Seungmin could never tell what went through his mind.

"Well, I'm just congratulating you for teaching me the right thing!" Changbin deadpans, fingers venturing to the sides of the vocalist's stomach for digging into the soft area. The squeal it elicits stuns the older for a brief moment, relishing in the breathless cackles that flow from Seungmin's mouth as he thrashes uselessly under the older. To him, Seungmin's laughter was always unique somewhat, sounding pleasing to the ears, never too loud to break someone's eardrums but soft enough to sound like absolute heaven; Changbin could just sit here and tickle the puppy forever and ever.

"Aha- Hyuhuhung plehehease! I-It's tohoho much!" Seungmin whines pitifully, and by whatever force Changbin has in him he stops, he never has the courage to go further than when the members beg for mercy; it feels like he crosses too many lines for his principals to be considered ethical. Rubbing the puppy's stomach tenderly, he ignores how Seungmin dramatically groans but yet still snickers and leans into the hand anyway, another hand laying a cup of water next to the vocalist's head. The younger stares up at the older, who went back to frantically scribbling onto his handmade card, and the smile that grazes his face is nothing more than of fond adoration, how Changbin loved to go the extra mile for his members never ceased to be the sweetest ever.

"Changbin~ I heard something was for me?" Chan coos as he steps into the room hours later, a red faced Seungmin behind him. It was presumed that a certain bunny had snitched onto the rapper's plans, and being the curious leader he was, he had to know what was going on! Eyes widening, he saw Seungmin gesturing to the back door of the office, and grabbing the card swiftly, he bolted all the way out of the room, a grinning, giggling elder following down the hallway.

It was rumored that Chan cried many tears of happiness when Changbin was caught, not after the poor younger was wrecked into a million pieces, snoring away on the elder's thighs.

#..?#stray kids tickle #kpop tickle #skz tickle #ler changbin #lee seungbin #my seungbin #AUGHHHH

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traegorn · 2 months ago

Note

"Get therapy lol" you're a real empathetic motherfucker.

Laughing at people in pain really doesn't fit with the picture of a kindly uncle looking dude, that's really sad and I'm sorry I ever followed you. Fuck you, fuck men who want to yell about slamming doors.

For real man, I'm sorry I ever followed you I'm crying now what the fuck? What the fuck?

What the fuck is wrong with you? "Get therapy" is what you say? Fuck you.

Maybe on our call this week I'll tell my therapist about the fake asshole who tries to act like an understanding elder but just drops edgelord epic bacon putdowns when somebody shares how something made them unhappy. For real, fuck you.

Okay, you sent me this string of anons because of my flippant response to this ask.

But like, my dude... I'm a stranger on the internet. I am not an "understanding elder" -- I'm a middle aged nonbinary office worker who makes some podcasts and writes comics and novels. I don't know what you think our relationship is, but I think you need to step back for like a minute.

Like I don't think you've remotely considered my perspective in this entire interaction.

I'm sitting here cooling off after a workout, watching this week's Dimension 20 episode, and I'm scrolling Tumblr. I had reblogged a poll about car door slamming, with a little thought appended about the subject... and then there's a contextless anonymous ask in my box which:

Complains about Europeans who are not even remotely referenced in the post I reblogged. Which is, y'know, weird.

Vents about their father. To me. A stranger in Wisconsin. Who again, neither knows who you are or who your father is.

Like, dude, let me remind you what you sent me. This is your exact ask:

My father used the stupid fucking car door as a reason to yell at me all the time, Europeans sound like whiny bitch ass motherfuckers who could use a few doors slammed at them. Fuck that persnickety shit. Fuck them.

Like what the actual fuck did you expect me to make of this, anon? You brought this energy to me. You didn't ask me for advice. You randomly vented to me, a stranger, without any context.

And randomly insulted Europeans, who hadn't even joined the chat.

Like the whole "who tries to act like an understanding elder" and "kindly uncle" is something you've projected on to me. I am not trying to be some wise elder or any other bullshit -- and I'm not going into how you've decided to use exclusively masculine terms for me.

Because your use of those words shows you don't know shit about me.

I'm just old and trying my best. I know some stuff, so I try to tell people that stuff. If you're coming to this from the witchcraft side, I have always maintained that all witches are equals and I am not above anyone. If you've put me in that position, I definitely didn't ask for it.

So yeah, this is where I'm at my limit. You've crafted a pretty weird parasocial relationship here and I have to get up and work in the morning. I'm glad you're getting some help, because this entire interaction has been wild from start to finish.

I am not your guru, and I am not your mom. I'm just a tired queer person who should probably go to bed.

(Also, I mostly added the song "Therapy" to the end there because it's a fucking bop and all nonbinary band Kat and the Hurricane's new album comes out tomorrow/today and more people need to listen to it)

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janicekao · 4 months ago

Text

May

The Gods Allow It

Pairing: King Aegon II x Black oc (dark smut) Summary: Based off of the series "House Of The Dragon." During a day of sitting on the irone throne and listening to the requests of the people of King's Landing, the young King Aegon sits through it clearly bored and unamused until he lays eyes on a beautiful woman who he has never seen before... A girl who is the daughter of King's Landing’s finest Blacksmith, Lady Tabitha Atkins. Warnings: mideival fantasy, time piece, rough s3x, d0m&femsub, vi0lence, smut, v1rginity taking, mentions of !ncest, fan fiction, br33ding k1nk, praise k1nk, etc. 9438 words I also recommend viewing the story in Wattpad where I was able to use 20 photos in the story instead of tumblr's 10. Wattpad link:

Enjoy my babies <3 -----------------------------------

Our bodies glisten with sweat as I throb inside of her tightening cunt, so very deep in her core that my swollen cockhead brushes against her cervix each time she bucks.

She loves it.

Voice whiny and full of sweet whimpers as she reaches for her climax, biting her bottom lip, and infatuated with how full she feels as she impales her cunny on my every inch.

I've lost count of the days since she's been here, and I have no hopes of her ever leaving.

Tabitha Atkins of King's Landing, daughter of Sir Joseph Atkins, the town's finest Blacksmith.

The absolute love of my life.

———

A far cry from a year ago or so, I sat the iron throne listening to all of King's Landing who came to their King with requests. My people were starving, poor, and in need of help. Families complained of starvation, farmers wished to be paid for their livestock that are eaten by our dragons, and the Blacksmith wanted payment for the many swords he slaved over hot fires to make my knights gear and weapons for war.

I honestly couldn't have cared less.

An elder half sibling of mine believes that she is the rightful heir to the iron throne, and because of this... War is now upon us.

I sat there that day lying to the faces of my people.

"You will be reimbursed for all that you have contributed for the sake of the crown." I yawned nonchalantly. "I, as King Aegon Targaryen II of all the seven kingdoms promise to take care of King's Landing first, after our victory in the Battle of Throne."

I knew it wasn't true, but I still said it. I am the King of Westeros, I'll forever take what is needed to protect my rights to the throne regardless of who may be affected in the long run. My dragons will be fed, and my men will be prepared for battle if any means necessary... The crown always comes first.

My dishonesty to the faces of the loyal people of King's Landing became easier said than done when the face of the Blacksmith, Joseph Atkins came along with the presence of an angel...

I lost focus. I wasn't able to lie any further, at least not to him and his company.

Each time this Blacksmith visits the throne with requests, he is covered in soot from working tirelessly near the scorching flames that burn and shape his metal... That day, the girl beside him was covered in it as well. Clearly a relative and I needed to know more about her.

Who was the girl with the shimmering brown flesh, long legged with full lips, and a breathtaking scowl?

I needed to know.

Sir Joseph Atkins began to speak about the reimbursement he required for the perfectly crafted steel he had produced for the crown's army.

I interrupted him without a single care of the words escaping his tongue. "Who is she?"

"Her?" He asked as I nodded with haste.

The gentleman stood with a proud chest. "May I present to you Your Grace, my daughter. Tabitha Atkins of King's Landing. My greatest gift from the Gods, and my trusty assistant in the Steel shop."

"Tabitha."I repeated the name with a wide smile as the word melted from my mouth like delicious cream... Gods, what a sight to see. The Hall quaked with gasps as I stood from my very own throne and bowed lightly to the tawny princess that needed to be mine.

An enchanting furrow in the brow from the nerves that fell upon her, clearly afraid of me, being that I am the King. She had obvious ill thoughts about me and my character... However gracefully, she bowed in return anyway.

It was unfair the way that she was making me feel. How much she made me come out of my usual corrupt comfort; I became determined to make her feel it too. I wanted her to be just infatuated with me as I suddenly was with her.

"The King's hand will prepare your payment, Sir Atkins." I immediately gave way to anything that would make Tabitha happy. If it was to pay her father for his labor, then so it be. "The crown appreciates your loyalty and skill."

A smile and a breath of fresh air released from the man. "Thank you my King!"

"—Under one circumstance." I interrupted. "Leave here Lady Tabitha. I'd like to familiarize myself with other youth of King's Landing... I am the King, as well as a young man."

Man to man, Sir Atkins knew exactly what I wanted with his daughter. He froze with an uneasy scowl, knowing good and well that if he left his child here with me, she'd be spent across my cock by nightfall.

But I had no plans to harm her. I gave my word. "Just for a small gathering. Lady Tabitha will be well taken care of here at the Red Keep. She will be returned, unharmed."

The elderly gentleman turned to his daughter. He waited for her permission even if it meant that denying me of her could have caused him his own head. Proud, and brave, Tabitha nodded in agreement. She wanted no issues with the crown... eager to do very much anything if it meant the safety and dignity of her family.

That evening for supper, an extremely long table divided us. Tabitha at the end, and I at the head of the dining table. The chambermaids had turned her prettier than a portrait, yet she still sat unhappy.

"Your Grace, you promised a gathering." She hesitated. "However, it is only you and I dining together."

Clearly I withheld the full truth... But why else would I had invited others when it was only her who captivated my attention, my entire being.

"The servants do not count?" Gently, I teased and waited for a laugh that never came.

"No, your Grace." Tabitha cleared her throat and frowned. "They do not."

I began to grow tired of her attitude. It was clear that she was not keen of her King and that she did not plan to make this evening any less difficult.

Being a considerably spoiled young man, it fumed me how bad I wanted her to accept me. As the King, I could do with her as I pleased. If I wanted to, I didn't need to wait a second more for her to embrace me, I could have taken her however I wanted.

Her dress enticed me. The chambermaids had dressed her in a low neckline and in my favorite shades... Colors that danced across her dark skin like velvet.

Although I smiled, my thoughts grew more wicked each second.

So used to women and whores falling at my feet and being far less difficult, my mind turned into impatient mush. My cock ached to be taken out of its confinements. I imagined masturbating over her until I could watch my seed drip down her face, breasts, and dinner plate.

... But instead, I sighed and kept my cuth. "Tell me about yourself." I insisted on conversation.

She paused.

"I am the daughter of a Blacksmith." Uninterested with where this could take us, Tabitha sighed as she began. "I take pride in taking care of my family, my community, and especially my younger siblings."

"How lovely!—" I went on to sweetly boast about her caring nature when I became rudely interrupted.

Tabitha continued abruptly. "—These are the very same people who starve daily as your loyal peasants. Yet, we still fill our every day catering to the likes of you, Your Grace. Giving our everything to the crown when we can hardly fill our own bellies. Livestock that our people raise big and strong for years just to be swallowed whole by your God awful dragons when that meat could be salted and last man an entire year of keeping King's Landing fed and surviving."

"People, children are sick and dying!" Tabitha shouted. "Eating fish from the surrounding waters for their every course because it is the only thing that is plentiful around here! Well, I can assure you one thing Sir... Guts from a fish is far from the daily nourishment that YOUR people need to survive..." That is what I can say about myself, Your Grace. I am your subject, not your friend."

"WINE." She demanded and the servants fetched it quickly.

She began to feed like a swine piglet. Gulping down rich wine and licking the bones of her lamb chops clean.

She was hungry, and she hated me.

The disrespect was unfathomable. I began to flame red, never had ever been spoken to in such way in my entire life. I couldn't tell in the very moment if I wanted to kill her, or fuck her senseless.

But what I did know is that I couldn't say my piece from far across the table.

I rose to my feet and the servants began to gasp. I shouted for their dismissal and Tabitha tensed when we became very alone in the dining hall.

She was the naughtiest thing I'd ever laid eyes on and I couldn't wait to take a bite.

Sitting in a guest chair an inch away from her, I could smell Tabitha's fear. But if you were to look at her grimace... you'd have not an idea that she was afraid. I was pissed, but Gods... If she wasn't fit for a Queen, I wouldn't know who else could be.

"I welcome you to the Red Keep as an honorary guest, and you sit before me spitefully accusing me of things that are far over your head, Lady Atkins do you have a death wish?" I bit through my teeth as my face inched closely towards hers.

"I am honest." She gulped.

"And honesty will get you killed." I snapped.

My eyes enjoyed being able to watch her so closely.

"Look at you, complaining of being starved with not an inch of extra room in this dress!" I taunted her as I pinched at her deliciously full thighs.

Tabitha squealed at my touch, she swatted my hand as tears swole in her eyes. "I was forced here!"

"Forced?" I sarcastically chuckled. "Ah yes because you seem to be so mistreated with wine dripping down your lips that is more expensive than you are."

Her jaw ticked with rage. "I don't have a price, I cannot be bought. I am not a whore.

"I never expected you to be." I frowned, aggravated at her lack of eye contact as my fingers graced her chin and turned her gaze back to me.

"Your chamber maidens bathed me." Her voice became weak. She was embarrassed that I had called on her in front of her father, in front of all of King's Landing.

I loved how she stared at me for answers... Tabitha's large brown eyes swallowed me up as her tears continued to swell. "They styled my hair, forced me into expensive garments, and shaved my cunt bare."

A chill down my spine made me shudder at the thought of her being so soft and silky beneath her dress.

"I am here to be your whore, am I not?" She asked impatiently.

"No." I refused. "Not my whore, but you are here to be mine, yes. To be my whore I would've bedded you by now, without a care of getting to know you. When I met you today I became captivated by you, I want you to feel the same."

She immediately rolled her eyes with a rude ill-mannered scoff.

"Play immature games if you want to, Tabitha... But never in your life have you come to the iron throne with your father." I dug further into her true intentions as her chest rose and fell in anticipation. "Now what made you come this morning on the day of requests, hm? Answer me!Is it because you had a request yourself? Or maybe you wanted to see the rumored usurper king in the flesh? No— you came to let me lay eyes upon you, so you could play with my heartstrings. I believe you knew what you were doing all along, what do you think?"

...

Tabitha gulped, she turned away once more from my gaze as she continued with her supper. "I think perhaps you should leave my space and try the pudding, aren't you starved?"

"More than most." I snarled. "But not for fucking pudding."

Swiping the table clean, Tabitha's tray of royal cuisine met the ground.

I grabbed hold of her, lifting her onto the tabletop as I searched frantically beneath her skirt.

She gasped, immediately forgetting formalities as she shouted out my first name. "Aegon!"

"Hush." I demanded. "Let your King take care of you."

I ridded her small clothes as if I was a child unwrapping candy. I pressed her chest backwards, forcing her to lay against the table as the skirt of her dress crept above her waist.

Gods, she was as prepped and bare as she had promised. Between her thighs glossed over with the arousal she had been denying and her mound was bountiful like a deliciously ripe peach.

My mouth attacked at her without letting a drop of her nectar go to waste. The kisses I laid upon her clit made her jolt and whimper in desperation.

Tabitha's hands pushed away at me to the point of having to force her wrists to the table as I devoured my meal. I allowed her sweet digits back when they began to comb and grip lightly through my platinum-white Targaryen tresses.

Her moans were sounds of gratification... All I've ever wanted was someone, anyone to wish me a job well done. Commend me of my efforts and assure me that I was indeed a good boy. "Is it good for you?"

Her choked sobs were enough of an answer... Her flesh flushed red as her pussy began to pulse and I knew she would soon climax across my lips.

Tabitha's hips began to grind across my face as she reached urgently for her precipice. Her pleads made her voice crack as the sound of her brain-rot echoed through the dining hall. My thumb circled her pearl as my tongue dipped in and out of her core. She came with a flavorsome cry, I groaned into her pussy and drank her release like a man starved. My tongue soaked her sweet cum up as freshly baked bread does balsamic oil.

My trousers so full of sticky precum and a hard cock, it made me brutish. I lifted Tabitha in my arms bridal style as she lay tiresome and still in shock. I warned her of my plans... I warned her that I was to take her to my chambers and we were to spend the night... the coming days... the coming weeks and months with nothing but earth shattering sex. I was to take her maidenhead, and make her part of the Red Keep, part of me.The argumentative minx had not one issue with what I had informed her with. She no longer cared to save herself for a husband because in that very moment, I was just as much hers as she was mine.

I carried her out of the dining hall with orders to the Hand of the King of what I wanted completed.

"Have the cooks prepare the same supper and have it delivered to the Atkins residence." I demanded. "Make sure it's enough for them to share with whomever they may desire."

"Anything else Your Grace?" I was asked.

I stared in the round brown irises that won my heart over.

"Aye." I nod. "Gather the council by morning-fall. King's Landing is starving, their King needs to mend their trust. Rationing... will be the subject matter of discussion."

Otto Hightower, My Grandsire and King's Hand stared at me with looks of daggers... I could see that he saw me as a foolish King, changing plans and making differences for the likes of a woman... but I couldn't have cared less.

With the title of being King of Westeros, anything is possible and everything is in my hands.

Hightower bowed. "I will relay your message to the council, Your Grace."

I looked towards Tabitha and the scowl that stained her face was finally gone... Now left with a magnificent smile that seemed to be gifted by the Gods themselves.

Our lips met as we journeyed to my chambers. As I stole her maidenhead, she stole my heart. We drank, we laughed, I even found that we shared the very same night of birth under the summer season and full moon twenty-two years ago. She was me, and I was her. Finding her was the sense of completeness I had been looking for my entire life.

———

"Aegon! I hate when you do that." Tabitha complains. She takes notice to my quiet daydreaming as she continues to ride me as if I was saddled. "Focus on me, baby."

I chuckle sweetly as I find my bottom lip bitten between my teeth, refocusing on her tight cunny that chokes my manhood and drains my stamina. "I always am focused on you my love. I found myself reminiscing on the day that I made you mine. Nearly a year today, an approaching anniversary... Thoughts help me holdout a bit until you have reached yours, now it's my turn."

"Ah yes... The day I met you upon the iron throne. I should've known trouble was amongst me." Tabitha softly flirts.

"I waited." She begins to smile, whispering against my lips. "Wanted to reach ecstasy, together."

"Mmm." I hiss lightly, adoring her wildly. "Tabitha Atkins of King's Landing... I love you with every being of my body."

"Then show me." She insists.

...

I do as I'm told.

As I lay Tabitha onto her back, my hand slips across the soft skin of her belly, through the full globes of her breast, and to her throat where I begin to choke lightly. Her legs spread, inviting me into her warmth and it only takes a second for me to find my flesh sheathed in the depths of her core.

I find a rhythm that is rough and commanding and I watch her lips fall open with strangled gasps. Tabitha attempts at a wiggle to separate us. Wanting me to allow her a momentary second of rest before she melts into the sheets. However, overly dizzy for her sex, I refuse the escape... pressing my heavy body further against hers and deepening my impale. The walls of her cunt contract against my cock, I begin to feel numb and see stars as my words stammer dumbly. Gods... Her sex could rise a dead man from the ground, and I'm the only one lucky enough to have had it.

"Fuccckk." A groan escapes the depths of my throat as I nearly give in and spill into her.

Tears of passion fill her luscious lash line and she can only squeak out soft sounds as her digits grip the sheets beneath us.

Licking my lips like a hungered man, I begin to grin as I watch her in her blissful pleasure. I cup Tabitha's face and kiss her tenderly as the kisses create faint bruises down her neck and soon down her chest where I begin to enjoy the swirling of my tongue across her aroused buds.

"You looked incredible wrapped around my cock." I softly appreciate her breathtaking beauty.

I roll my hips in a speeding passion as my cockhead knocks impatiently at her g-spot. "Aegon— please."Tabitha weeps out a beg as her nails find way into my skin.

Her pussy sops for me, creating lewd music that echoes within the walls of my chambers.

My mouth hangs ajar as I moan out worships for her.

"Gods!" I complain. "My sweet girl, does that feel good?"

She nods immediately. "So good— so good, Aegon."

My pounding weakens as I feel the need to erupt. I grab Tabitha's full hips, dimpling them with the strength of my fingers as I stretch her with the full length of my cock... I bottom out into her until my sack is flushed against her cunt and begins to drain. Tabitha dissolves into pleasure as my hot seed spickets into her core while she reaches her peak.

I expel constant grunts, body jerking each time my cum stutters a bit of its load out of me until I am left limp and soaked in a mess of our love.

Tabitha's eyebrows furrow as she powers her way through an intense climax, legs shaking until the thrill passes by her. Her chest rises and falls as she draws in breath, soon beginning to chuckle in disbelief of the moment that we have shared together..

"Gods!" She pants sweetly. "Again, Aegon?"

I chuckle gently as I place a gentle peck to her lips. I begin to peel her knees further apart. My lip catches in between my teeth as my pupils dilate, watching closely at the foray I caused upon her pretty little mound.

"Let me watch it leak out of you." I insist as my body heats again with arousal while I watch my pearly spend seep out of her pretty flower.

The corners of her lips begin to quirk upwards, teasing me gently as she pushes the semen out of her core and let it seep down her thighs.

My jaw clenches, eyes rolling back into my skull. "Fuck that's good, and you my dear— are terribly delicious and absolutely evil."

Tabitha finds her way to my chest, having me to lay backwards in the pillows and wrap my arms around her as she listens in on my heartbeat.

She sighs gently. "What's evil, is having to drink another of your Maester's tea."

"Aegon." Tabitha begins to pout over the awful medicinal herbal tea used to prevent or abort pregnancy. "If I am to drink another Moon-Tea, I think I'll die."

My hands gently comb through her wild mane of jet-black curls, full and thriving in its natural state after another day of addictive fucking. "So don't drink it... give me child, my dear."

She immediately lifts her head from my chest with a scorning frown. "You've gone mad."

"I haven't." I insist. "What will come of us? How will we create a stain, evidence of our love?"

"Aegon." She refuses the thought. "You and I cannot marry. You must marry a high-born, not the daughter of one of your subjects. Our children would be Targaryen bastards!"

"Yes!" I continue to plead. "Haven't you given it thought? My Targaryen hair, your tawny skin, and big brown eyes... the most handsome children in all of Westeros. They'll have it all. They will speak High Valyrian and ride their own dragon... Tabitha, please."

"Aegon, don't begin with this." Her refusal is unbending. She begins to dress in her nightgown, giving my voice not another thought. "With your hair, it would be clear that my children are Targaryen bastards. You'd be looked down upon as a whoring King, and I'd be looked down upon— well, as the whore!"

I scoff. "So we will wrap their hair in garment in the eye of the public if we must! It does not matter Tabby, they will be protected always and live under my roof as Princesses and Princes."

"You asked me if I have ever given it thought..." She rejoins me on the bed with a gentle hold to my hand. "I've thought about it every day since we've met, Aegon. Don't you think that I would love to be your Queen and have your children? It would be my dream to have a family with the man that I love. But sadly, that's all it will ever be, a dream.We both knew the risks of being together. We recognized that our relationship would be kept forever secret and we still went on about it. Aegon, please don't make this any harder than it already is."

Dying to continue the conversation, I even begin to imagine her womb full with my seed. I'd be sure to have the servants wait on her hand and foot... She'd wear the prettiest gowns, and her essence would make the Red Keep the most beautiful it's ever been as she would fill it with her fertility and grace.

However, the tears in her eyes pain me more to see... I can't bear to stress the situation any longer.

...

"Let's have a night of rest." I smile softly. "Only sweet dreams for thoughts."

I softly wipe Tabitha's fallen tears as she nods in agreement.

Becoming meek and childlike, she dissipates into my arms as I blow out the candles that light our chambers, and I tuck her into the satin sheets.

"Goodnight." I coo faintly. "No more worries my love, rest now."

———

Morning light stings my eyes as they begin to open, I find my dearest Tabitha above me, already dressed for the day.

I sit up from bed with playful and light jester. "Out of the many hours of morning sex that we should be having, why are you already dres—"

My words are cut short with a cruel slap across the face.

My ears ring from the forceful strike and when they finally stop, I find my lover absolutely distraught and in tears...

As my hearing comes back, my heart aches from the way that she sobs. "Tabitha?" I instantly whimper.

"You vile— sick, sick, man." The words grit through her teeth and I worry frantically for what it is that she has found out.

"YOU FILL ME WITH YOUR DISGUSTING SEED!" She begins in thunderous shouting. "You speak of a life where we are to have children together, when you have already fucked two inside of your own sister!"

My blood runs cold knowing that she knows my darkest regret... "I need to explain."

"I awaken early on the search for your Maester! For him to begin a batch of the Moon-Tea, and that is when I overheard it all!" Tabitha begins to lose color... her brown skin paling from heartbreak. "Your mother, the Maester, and your seventeen year old sister Helaena! She was lying on her back! Having an inspection by the Maester beneath her skirt when she was congratulated by him and your mother for bearing your twins! They congratulated her as the bloody Queen of Westeros!"

"Tabitha, damn it!" I spazz and my mind begins to spin with shame and anger. "The nerve of you to slither around your King's castle! Eavesdropping in on business of not your own!"

"FUCK YOU!" She spits. "I am so disgusted that I can hardly breathe without the need to vomit! Not only have you lied, withheld from me that you had already found your Queen and have been married! But for the sake of the Gods, SHE IS YOUR BABY SISTER!"

"DON'T YOU THINK I AM ALREADY DISGUSTED WITH MYSELF ENOUGH?" I stand to my feet to argue and my height frightens Tabitha enough to flinch at the tone of my voice. "I had no say in this Tabitha! Helaena and I hated the thought but it was pushed amongst us by the council! By our mother! They did not want just a high-born queen! They wanted the bloodline strictly Targaryen! This was forced upon us, Tabby!"

Tabitha's delicate hand graces her forehead as the other places on her stomach as she begins to feel even more ill. "You bedded your sister...Relieved yourself of pleasure inside of her..."

"Hear me when I tell you that it will only ever be once..." I tremble as I notice the love drain from in between us. "I was promised that giving the title of Queen to my sister and giving her an heir to the throne on our wedding night, that you and I would never have to separate... I was promised your very own knights of protection for you and your loved ones and that you all could live permanently here in the Red Keep. You are to by my only lover! Helaena maybe my Queen, but she and I view each other as only siblings!"

I clench my eyes tightly shut, reminiscing on the night I was forced to take my sister's virginity. I drank myself silly with wine just to bear it, and poor Helaena and I stuck it through for the sake of the crown.

"Gods! So now I am to blame for this incestral breeding!?" Tabitha scoffs. "You are absolutely sick in your head Aegon! I never would have agreed to this! EVER!"

As I step closer to her to beg for her forgiveness, Tabitha steps back.

"I must leave now..." She gulps. "I cannot— I cannot be apart of this, the Gods aren't happy."

"I love you." Tears begin to drop down my face and I stutter like a child being disciplined. "I need you. You cannot leave! I can— I can fix this."

I plead aimlessly. "I am the King of the seven kingdoms. You will never need nor want for anything regardless of your status here in the castle. You're mine."

She ignores me...

Tabitha wipes her tears and grabs for her cloak to leave the Red Keep through the secret exit.

Without a thought of what to do, I become a mad man... using my title and authority to get what I want.

"I AM YOUR KING!" My jaw ticks as I shout. "YOU ARE TO DO AS YOU ARE TOLD OR ELSE! YOU ARE MINE, TABITHA. I WILL NOT REPEAT MYSELF. I DEMAND YOU TO SIT DOWN AND GO NOWHERE UNLESS TOLD OTHERWISE!"

...

Tabitha freezes with tears and hatred burning within her eyes.

"Fine." She gulps, suddenly stripping out of her garments and lying back in bed. "As you make clear a million times a day or more, you are King Aegon Targaryen of the seven kingdoms. If you shall want me your Lordship, there is nothing I can do other than to continue being yours. But I'll have you know, from this day on I will never love you the same."

"Tabitha, please."I beg softly for her to stop the act of kissing loyally at my arse like the rest of King's Landing... I just want her back, I want everything the way that it was.

"Will you have me, or am I free to be dismissed your Lordship?" She lays on the unmade bed, still and avoiding eye contact.

"YOU WILL STAY!" I explode.

"Yes, Your Grace." She continues calmly. "I am ready to be used whenever you are ready to use me."

"What are you doing? Get up!" Her act of a common whore aggravates me further.

She continues anyway. "I am your loyal servant, Your Grace. Do as you please with my body."

"Get up!" My voice breaks as I continue to argue one-sidedly. "Quit with this foolishness. Your taunting is unacceptable!"

"Tabby, call me Aegon." I beg sheepishly. "Baby, I am your Aegon."

She continues robotically. "Whatever you ask, Your Grace."

I fully erupt. Grabbing hold of the full steel canister of wine, I throw it across the chambers until it hits the wall... crumbling stone to the ground from the force.

The throw startles Tabitha, she breaks out of her act and tearfully attempts to run past me. I grab hold of her wrists, pulling her into me as I beg for another chance. "Tabitha! Please! Please stop, I need you."

"Get away from me!" She fights senselessly, bruising herself as she tries to pull from my grasp.

The large double doors of my chambers open... The racket causes my mother Alicent to intervene. "What is going on in here!?"

"Mother!" I demand. "Out of my chambers!"

...

She watches upon the love of my life as if she was a stinky street harlot.

"You should leave." She speaks to Tabitha. "The King's Queen will be visiting her husband shortly."

"You mean his sister." Tabitha quickly bites.

...

"Aegon, I'll have your whore's tongue for less." Mother begins to boil over from the unfamiliarity of Tabitha's sharp tongue.

"No worries, Your Grace." Tabitha wipes her tears, bowing to my mother respectfully as she laces the last loop in the corset of her dress. "I was just leaving."

"Tabitha!" Although still bare and only wrapped in a sheet, I still attempt to chase after her as she exits. However, my mother stops me...

"It's for the best." Alicent's hand stops me at the chest. "A King who is at war over his throne does not have time to worry about the heart of a common girl. Aegon... You are King now. The responsibility of the crown is in your hands, act like it."

I watch my mother with pure hatred...

So quick to worry about the well-being of the crown, and never once the wellness of her children.

If she hadn't brought me life, I would have had the guards take her head many moons ago.

"Your chambermaids are on the way to dress you, my King." Mother smiles maniacally and caresses my face with her soft hand. "You must sit the throne today for King's Landing's requests... They need their King, Aegon. You'll have to let her go."

Let her go?

Easier said, than done.

Together, we watch Tabitha run out of the trailing hallways of the Red Keep.

Her image and the sound of her footsteps become smaller the further that she runs... And the further that she runs, the more prominent my heartache grows.

Mother stares in disgust. "She never had the strength of a Targaryen anyways... it wasn't meant to be."

Doing as told... I dress for the day as mother leaves.

Although I am escorted to the hall of the iron throne to answer the requests of my subjects, my eyes continue to fill with tears. I push them back, needing to find strength for my people. But, how am I to answer requests, when there is no one to answer my own?

Who is there to request a plead from a King? Perhaps the Gods...

Perhaps the Gods will fulfill my one and only request, to bring back the love of my entire being... My forever lady, Tabitha Atkins.

———

Three years later

I wake up in absolute agony, shouting for more Milk of the Poppy to dull my pain.

Ever since my incident, I tend to sleep all day due to the medicines given to me by the Maester. As I sleep, I either dream about the love that I lost years ago, or I dream about the terrible events of my most recent near death experience.

I've made awful decisions in my short term of being King, but nothing as bad as riding my dragon into a battle while being inebriated off of too much wine.

I had a death wish... A foolish one at that. But tired of living a life of depression, loveless, and never taken seriously... the mind will drive you to do insane work.

I may be the face of the crown, but my council and my mother feel that my ideas are idiotic and simple... They feel that I was never fit to rule, and that I should sit quietly and be useless, let them take control of the rulings of Westeros.

First they take a man's love, and then they take his power. What could be next now that they've taken it all?

I became careless with the things that I do... I decided to get wine drunk and I rode my poor dragon Sunfyre into the battle at Rook's Rest... A battle I had no business being at. Somehow I survived it... Third degree burns laced across my body, yet I am still here.

But the worst part of it all is knowing that the reason Sunfyre and I were burned to the ground was all out of one person's spite.

My own brother... Prince Aemond...

My last memory before everything went black for months was Aemond's dragon Vhagar opening his gullet of fire after Aemond's command.

"Dracarys." He attempted to kill me with this command.

I realized then how much I have absolutely no one in this life... Aemond, just like our mother Alicent, thirsty and jealous for the crown to the point of sabotaging their own blood.

My brother expected me to die that day. He expected to permanently become the King, but because I survived, he only fills my place on the throne momentarily...

As I become better, I still fear for my life. If he tried to kill me once, he is sure to try it again.

I spent my days childishly being my brother Aemond's first bully... and now I am reaping what I sewed. But as dangerous as he is, and the things that he is capable of doing... I could never trust the innocent people of Westeros in his hands, especially not with Tabitha Atkins and her family still living here in King's Landing.

With Aemond in charge, there will be war and there will be blood... Not just bloodshed from each fighting side, but deadly war crimes to Westeros' innocent subjects.

If all things are out of my control in this very moment, the least I can do is get word out to Lady Tabitha... thus I owe to her.

Grand Maester Orwyle enters into my chambers with more Milk of the Poppy, but being that there are things to be done... I cannot take it.

"Maester..." I begin. "No more Milk of the Poppy."

"But for your pain, Sire?" He frowns.

"I understand." Even the small things like gulping down my throat or speaking pains me in this day. "But my mind must stay sharp, I have a task I need you to complete with the guards... I need it done discreetly."

"Yes, Your Grace." Maester Orwyle nods. "Whatever you may need."

As I lay here, I begin to create a plan. I order the Maester to discreetly bring Lady Tabitha Atkins to my chambers here in the Red Keep. I ask him to bring help if needed be, knowing that Tabitha could good and well stubbornly refuse my command... I demand that if the girl attempts do dismiss Maester Orwyle, that he will instruct the guards to take her from the residence by force. Speaking with her is a dire need of mine not knowing what may happen in the future with my brother in charge as Prince Regent.

Maester Orwyle begins to leave with haste...

I stop him once more... Suddenly I become insecure with my injuries, wondering how my deformities look being that I haven't seen my reflection since my injuries were fresh.

"Maester." I gulp. "My skin... Am I able to even take a visitor, or am I still leaking of pus and absolutely hideous?"

Having to ask a question like such is the hardest thing I have ever done... I never in my life expected to ask another man if my flesh was still charred and horrid.

A tear rolls down my face and Maester Orwyle kindly takes my hand... "Your Grace..." He assures. "Your incident was months ago, although you may be forever disfigured, your skin has healed, and your heart is still gold. If the Lady ever truly cared for you, Sire... The last of her worries will be of your appearance."

...

His words stick with me... I begin to pray to the Gods that he is right. My only hope is that a moment within my gaze is enough to help Tabitha look past my monstrous image... Enough to let her hear me out for just a second of her time.

As I lay in bed, battered and bandaged, I continue to wait to see Tabitha's presence.

Three years have passed and I continue to think about her daily... I wonder if she has changed any, I wonder if she still hates me, I wonder if she's happy.

After many hours, my chamber doors finally open and Tabitha hurries in with haste. Tears melt down her cheeks as she crawls in beside me in bed and she lays on my scarred chest.

The weight of her body pains me a bit, yet I've never been more grateful to feel a pain in my life.

"Your Grace..." Maester Orwyle grins. "The guards were not necessary, when Lady Tabitha heard word of you being alive, she nearly beat us all here."

I immediately begin to sob. I wrap my arms around Tabitha tightly and Maester Orwyle leaves us to our long embrace.

Her curls smell of smoke and fire, clearly having been working in her father's steel shop. I inhale her missed scent deeply.

"I apologize Your Grace that I am not put together." Tabitha gulps. "I have soot and ash all over me. I've spent the day working with my father... There has been an order from Prince Aemond and the crown for a hundred swords by the end of the week or my father will be hanged!"

"Don't apologize." I insist. "You look glorious. Pretty as the very day that I met you at the iron throne. Fear not of your father's death... I'll be sure that it will not happen."

"Tabitha..." I gulp. "Why were you so willing to accept my invitation? I believed that you hated me for so long..."

"I did." She admits. "But we have had years apart, Aegon. I was able to mature and came to realize that you and Helaena were victims of something horrible... Victims of the unjust treatment of the crown's council, and forgive me for saying, but— the unjust treatment of your mother as well!"

"I know... I know."The thought of what the council forced upon my sister and I still haunts me to this day.

"I was disgusted... even a bit jealous the day that I left the Red Keep." Tabitha continues. "But what I regret the most is not standing up for you, my King. The news spread like wildfire through the streets of King's Landing... We saw your dragon, Sunfyre's lifeless body dragged through town and the rumor was that you were dead as well. When your Maester found me with the news of you being alive and wanting to see me, my feet never stopped running the cobblestones of the city until I was here in your very chambers... being able to see you for myself."

I begin to hate the way her eyes examine my body, I no longer look of the man she once knew. "I'm hideous."

"You're brave." She cups my face. "You are heroic and you survived a dragon's fire... A death that no man has ever escaped! King Aegon, stories and songs will be sang about you for centuries."

Tabitha smiles sweetly. "Cry not, Your Grace. You are a legend, and you are still here in the land of the living."

"Shall we change our thoughts to joy?" She asks with an enchanting giggle. "As I was led to your chambers, I heard youthful laughter in the courtyard. I assume they were your children? Your twins, a boy and a girl, yes?"

I pause... Not sure of how to relay the bad news out of my own mouth.

"At one time, yes..." I begin. "But as this battle for the throne continues, a criminal was sent to the Red Keep... As my son, my heir, slept in his crib... he was beheaded. My three year old child was murdered in his own bed by our enemies... His life, drug through the dirt and taken in war crimes to prove a point! To one up me for the throne."

...

Tabitha's eyes immediately glass over, turning pale and frozen with shock. "Gods... Aegon... I'm— I'm so sorry."

I softly refuse her pity. "I've done my share of grieving. I've cried until I dehydrated myself and my sister has not left her chambers since the day that it happened..."

I groan in pain as I sit up in bed with urgency "But this is what was so important for me to tell you. Dear Tabitha, the war has gotten out of hand. I believed that I was only fighting a half sibling for my throne, but it seems that I am fighting my full-blooded brother as well."

I continue to explain. "Tabby, in the battle at Rook's Rest my own brother Aemond is who burned me to the ground with his dragon... I realized then that every beating heart around me wants what I have. For the throne, there is no love lost... they will attempt to kill me for it, weaken me by killing the ones that I love most! After my boy was taken from me, I began to think of who else my heart beats for that my enemies could injure me with... My heart only is full for my children, and for you.A woman who time could not even stop me from loving."

"Tabitha, you're in imminent danger." I finally am able to warn her. "I called for you here today, knowing that my brother is out of the Red Keep running an errand... It was the only chance that I had for him not to see you."

Her head spins with all that I have to say... So much information that her and the rest of King's Landing have been kept from knowing all this time. "Aegon! And you are in danger as well! Your brother tried to murder you and now you still lay within the same walls of the Red Keep as him!? Has he come to you since?!"

"Daily." I admit. "Daily with threats to keep my mouth shut... Threats of keeping me unwell so I can never heal and come back to the throne. I lay in this bed, broken and exhausted... Afraid of every door creak, just awaiting and expecting Aemond to come inside and finish me off."

"Tabitha, I am terrified everyday." My voice begins to tremble. "But what is more frightening is imagining him come after you instead. My brother wants to see me pained and ill. As I lay nearly paralyzed in this bed, I can only imagine the evil he'd commit to break me further down. Aemond would have you captured. He'd bring you to these very chambers to beat, rape, and torture you in front of my very eyes, knowing that I am unable to stand and rescue you."

Poor Tabitha's eyes fill with fear.

"I am to leave King's Landing..." I continue. "A dear colleague of mine, Larys Strong is helping with my escape. He was born crippled, walking with a limp and a cane. He has taken pity on me now that I am crippled as well. Larys and I will escape King's Landing and he will take me to a proper place to heal and be protected from my brother and all who have ill intentions towards me. But the Gods know... I cannot leave this castle without knowing that you have escaped too. I will not leave, until I am absolutely sure that you are safe and out of King's Landing."

She begins to refuse. "My family and I— we cannot leave, Your Grace! We have very little means, we only get by each day by the grace of the Gods."

"The table, first drawer to the left." I interrupt. "Hurry Tabitha, make haste and come back to me."

...

Confusion eats at her before she is able to do as told. Sweet Tabitha sniffs her many tears back, wiping her eyes to see the contents of the drawer. She takes out a small burlap sack filled with coins of gold...

Gold shillings, that I have prepared for her to take.

Her eyes widen at the contents of the sack. "Your Grace, I cannot take this."

"You will." I demand.

"I won't!" Stubbornly, she hesitates.

I snap, drawing in the fullest breaths of air that my wounded lungs can hardly manage; I begin to shout. "Tabitha! Damn you! You will take it and you will flee to safety at nightfall, do you understand!?"

I begin to cough as the shouting drained me of my energy.

"Your Grace..." She cries. "I am not worthy of taking anything from you."

...

Now that we have gone on living very different and separate lives, I hadn't planned to bring up her personal business... But if it will help our cause, then I must.

I sigh. "Do you feel not worthy of my gift, because you're with child?"

Her eyes grow largely once more... She nearly begins to stammer. "Y-Your Grace?"

"Tabitha please..." I reject her lies. "I memorized the every freckle of your body as if it were my favorite poem. You wouldn't think I would notice your glowing skin, full bosom, and womb?"

...

Her head swivels as shame begins to embarrass her. Tears fall down her cheeks as she covers her mouth in shock. "I don't know what to say. Your Grace, I thought I wasn't to ever see you again... I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize." I plead softly. "I'm not angry, just please, come sit.Tell me of your husband. Does he treat you well?"

She tearfully chuckles, relieved that I am not angered for her moving on without me.

"Yes, my King." Tabitha joins me back onto the bed where my right-side isn't burnt and destroyed. "He's a good man. James Bartholomew of King's Landing... A Fisherman at the ports. We wedded five months ago, and he loves me."

I smile. "How could he not? You are perfect. And in another four more months, you'll be a mother. A fantastic one at that, Lady Tabitha Bartholomew."

"He loves you." I gulp. "But do you love him?"

"I'd like to believe so... But if I am honest with myself and to the Gods, what you and I shared many moons ago, is a love I believe that I'll never see again in this lifetime." Her honesty breaks me apart... Yes, the love that we shared is something we could never find twice.

My eyes wonder at her charming baby bump. "May I?"

Tabby nods in agreement.

Beneath her skirt, my right hand reaches towards her stomach where I begin to feel the child's kick. "The bairn will be strong, I sense a little lad. I can already feel his strong presence and movement."

Tabitha blushes sweetly... Her adorably round cheeks blush and swell into large red apples.

I feel sorrow as I begin to wish the child was mine... I can't help to think about the many opportunities Tabitha had to carry my own child just as beautifully. But sadly, our titles never were to allow it.

I begin to pull away, and my hand slips further down... Beneath her navel I find my digits awfully close to the warmth of her cunt and my breathing begins to shutter.

...

Tabitha gently gulps. "Will arousing you relieve your pain, my King?"

I tighten my eyes closed. "Your sex would make me whole again, Tabitha."

I sigh. "But I can't... I am burnt, disgusting, and alone... I am a cripple. My cock is destroyed, did they tell you that? It burst in the flames like a sausage on a Spit. I can't even piss without it running down my leg." (🤣 Actual quote from the show)

My jaw painfully ticks in irreparable low self esteem. "There is nothing down there to arouse, my love."

...

Tabitha pauses. "Perhaps... your mind?"

Is it even possible to release endorphins without using my cock?

Could it be?

I frown with confused thought. "Perhaps."

My only good eye watches as Tabitha takes her petite hand to my wrist... She guides it between her thighs where I am suddenly able to feel her slick.

Quietly I gasp, never in my life expecting to be able to have sexual romance ever again.

My fingers begin to become slippery as I tease through her folds...

Lying on the pillow next to me, Tabitha's sweet whimpered breaths dance across my face. I watch as her eyebrows furrow in pleasure and she begins to nibble on her bottom lip.

As I find her pearl, my fingers lightly tap at it as her nails begin to dig in my arm as she holds on to it tightly.

As I slap lightly at her clit, my digits make the sound of quiet splashing. So wet and horny, I would have been buried my cock in her if I still had my staff of flesh.

The intense teasing on her bulb causes her knees to collapse in on each other. "mm'Aegon—" Deliciously she begs. "You'll have to stop that, I'll finish too quickly."

I bite my lip, brain fogging with pleasurable need. "Just keep your knees open, be good for me little one."

Forcing her legs open longer, Tabitha begins to moan and squeak.

I become appreciative that I was able to at least keep one strong arm. A strong arm and hand with fingers to feel her addictive flesh... and sight in one eye to watch her melt over my caress.

My longest two fingers in the middle of my hand plunges into her core, fucking her like a cock and nearly arching her body from off of the bed.

Her walls clench down upon my digits, crushing them as I bang upon her sweet spot.

Tabitha begins to lose herself in enjoyment.

"Gods! Aegon, don't stop. Keep touching me— just don't stop." She dissolves into pleasure.

My heart flutters as if I can still feel my member become erect. I can't find satisfaction until I see her gorgeous face contort into tears from a good cum. "You like that? Fuck, you are absolutely beautiful my love."

I overheat, sweating from the most exercise I've had in weeks yet ignoring my pain to enjoy Tabitha's orgasm for the both of us.

"You'll have to ride it baby." I quickly demand. "Fuck my hand as if it were the last time you'd ever be touched."

Onto her knees, Tabitha sits on my hand as my digits find the insides of her tight cunt once more.

She begins to rock her hips... shouting as I swirl each finger against her cavity and let my fingers prune with her juices.

As Tabitha continues to buck, inching closer to her climax, her large pregnant tits bounce out of the top of her corset as does the curls out of her neat updo.

I beg earnestly for her to hover closer to me... As she leans my direction, my mouth suctions to her full breasts... nipping and sucking at her nipples as I devour her image and sounds, melting the memory of this day into my brain.

I kiss her neck and face as my hand begins to lose its feeling in it, I thank the Gods that my tongue once again has the chance to dance across her skin and I try my hardest not to leave love-bruises on her for her husband to find later.

A slow pace to her hips causes her to sink further down my fingers and my mouth hangs agape as I groan from the feeling of her pussy collapsing in on me.

"Yes..." I coo. "Yes, yes, sweet Tabitha, that is so good."

Twitching as her orgasm peaks, I notice her draw a breath in and feel the dire need to catch her exhale into my mouth. I swing my injured left arm to the back of her head and force her lips against mine, inhaling her expressive explosion and swallowing her choked sobs and the yummy cracks in the tone of her voice.

"Perfect." I worship. "—Just perfect."

Tabitha catches her breath, lightly smiling as our gaze meets and watching me devour her sticky nectar from off of my fingers. We moan in an overly satisfied kiss, sharing the sweet taste of her explosion.

I capture all of her beauty as I tuck her curls back into place and protect her virtue as I cover her bust back into her corset, easing the burlap sack of gold beside her breasts where no one shall find it.

Seeing her with my gold brings me joy, I could even die peacefully knowing that the gold will keep her and her family forever out of poverty.

My sweet girl's eyes begin to water. "Aegon—" She begins words that could only feel like a coming goodbye now that our time is running so short.

"Shhh." I softly hush her. "Just lay with me."

Regardless of my ugly scars, Tabitha lays her head against the skin of my chest... We enjoy the moment together, intwining our fingers as we hold hands... something we spent a many romantic night doing during our year together.

"Your Grace?" Maester Orwyle soon interrupts our nestle with the worse news. "It is time, Your Grace. There has been word that Aemond and his dragon Vhagar are nearing King's Landing. He is home early from his excursion. If I am to get the girl home safely, I must do it now."

...

My heart shatters, however, I must nod and do what's best for the safety of Tabby and her unborn child.

"Take her." I demand.

The Maester begins gently. "Lady Tabitha, please come with me."

She suddenly refuses. "Aegon, wait. Just another hour or so of conversation?"

I shake my head. "If I could, I would make it a lifetime. But I just can't spare it."

Maester Orwyle quietly gestures for the help of my guards.

I notice my knights in steel on their way to steal my lover from my arms, and I watch the pain and fear bubble into Tabitha's eyes.

"Wait!" She argues, pushing the men off of her. "Wait, what?! Damn you, Get your hands off of me!"

The guards tug on her roughly, lifting her off of the bed and to her feet as they pull her away.

Tears and anger begin to cause me more pain and distress than any burn ever could. "BE CAREFUL WITH HER DAMN IT." I begin to cough as I grit the words of my demands out strictly.

"Aegon, wait!" Tabitha begs as her arms are captured by two guards on each side of her. "Please! Just wait! Just hear me now."

"Guards." I demand. "Just—halt. Please, For one moment."

I take in a deep inhale of ragged breath that instantly burns my chest. "I am listening."

"I love you, Aegon." She bursts with a sudden admission.

My heart shatters into pieces. "Tabitha, please—"

"It is true." She interrupts. "I wish I fought harder for you. I love you, just please— just please say it back."

"And tell you what you already know? My dear, I will always love you." I gulp. "Tabitha, I never stopped loving you and I never will..."

...

I watch her gulp... she nods, hearing all that she needed to hear from me before finally being able to leave.

"Will we ever see each other again?"A soft final whimper escapes her tongue.

Gently I smile... "If the Gods allow it."

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gentlebeardsbarngrill · 6 months ago

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06/13/2024 Daily OFMD Recap

TLDR; Taika Waititi; Linds Cantrell; Dominic Burgess; Vico Ortiz; Tell Tale TV Reminder; Emmy Ballot Nominations; Adopt Our Crew: Our Flag Means Pride Raffle; FibreArtsBrigade; GLAAD Article; Articles; Schadenfreude; Fan Spotlight; Because The Night Zine; Love Notes; Daily Darby / Tonight's Taika;

== Taika Waititi ==

Source: Taika Waititi's Instagram Stories

More pictures from the peabody awards!

Source: birdrunningh2o's Instagram

And a fun and chaotic interview with Taika and Sterlin Harjo!

Source: GoldDerby's Instagram

== Linds Cantrell ==

Lindsey Cantrell making us all cry using this template on instagram.

Source: Linds Cantrell's Instagram w/ Special thanks to chaoticmulaney on Twitter (cause I saw this but forgot to save it! and you posted it-- so thank you!)

== Dominic Burgess ==

Dominic's been busy on twitter the last couple days! There' a new article by Deadline Hollywood!

Dominic was also kind enough to share some lovely colorful photos he took while out in Oregon!

Source: Dominic Burgess' Twitter

== Vico Ortiz ==

New episode of Date My Abuelita, First! Listen in here!

Source: Vico Ortiz' Instagram Stories

In addition-- if you're on Vico's Patreon, they've uploaded several more BTS Videos. If you're interested in joining to get access, here's the link!

== Tell Tale TV Reminder ==

Final round is still going on! Remember to please vote for Rhys, Ruibo, and Our Flag Means Death (as well as any other shows you'd like)! Tell Tale TV Awards

Source: TellTale TV's Instagram

== Emmy Nomination Submission ==

Great news crew! OFMD was submitted for Emmy Nominations in several categories! Wanna see all the submissions? You can visit the Emmy Nominating Ballots. For a summary, please check out @adoptourcrew's graphic / post below!

Source: AdoptOurCrew's Tumblr Wanna learn what's next with how the Emmy's work? Our friends over at @adoptourcrew have put together this awesome post about the entire EMMY process. Please visit them here. Below are some basics, but please visit the full post!

Source: Adopt Our Crew's Tumblr

== AOC: Charity Raffle Reminder ==

Our @adoptourcrew crewmates will be running the OFMPride Charity Raffle through June 28th! Reminder: Donate to an LGBTQ+ charity of your choosing and you'll enter to win a prize my one of the many donating artists, writers, crewmates!

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== Fibre Arts Brigade ==

Some news from the Fibre Arts Brigade and their craft auction for Pride Month benefiting SAGEUSA! They have some important updates for us! Please give them a read below! Fibre Arts Brigade FAQ Sage Donation Page Fibre Arts Brigade Twitter

And great news! They've already raised almost $1000 for our LGBTQ+ Elders <3

Source: FibreArtsBrigade Twitter

== GLAAD ==

Another article from GLAAD on Where We Are On TV 2023-2024 - Cancelled Series Article by GLAAD

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== Articles ==

== SchadenFreude ==

Heh heh, down 6.66% today <3

Source: Nasdaq: WBD

== Fan Spotlight ==

= Because The Night Zine =

Last couple nights to preorder the "Because The Night" NSFW Gentlebeard Zine!

== Love Notes ==

Hey lovelies. It's almost Friday! (and is already Friday for some of you!) I know this weekend is particularly hard for some of you because of Sunday, so please remember to be kind to yourself if you can.

I also just want to say, that I know change is hard. I know life is hard. So much of life is just weathering storms as they roll in, and sometimes it's just too much. When things are looking down, remember to look back at where you've been. I know it's difficult, especially if you've been through so much, but sometimes you have to look back to see how far you've come. You've made it so far. You've done so many things and made such an impact on the people in your life. Don't give up being the kind, wonderful, brilliantly beautiful person you are because of tough days. One day soon things will look up. Sending hugs your way lovelies. Take care <3.

Source: The Latest Kate's Tumblr

== Daily Darby / Tonight's Taika ==

Tonight's theme: These two are chatting, thats all, side profiles and nods. Gifs courtesy of the fantastic @5bi5 and lovely @celluloidbroomcloset!

#ofmd daily recap #taika waititi #Emmy #FYC #ofmd #our flag means death #lindsey cantrell #linds cantrell #rhys darby #emmy4rhysdarby #thriveasacrew #save ofmd #adopt our crew #adopt our crew crewmates

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admistedenslush · 11 months ago

Text

Desert Rose ~ Prologue

Aemond Targaryen / Fem!Reader

Synopsis:Aemond always held a special affection for his elder niece, Ser Criston Cole's kin.

Warnings: self-deprecating reader, abusive/foul language

════════ ❀•°❀°•❀ ════════

DORNE, 130 AC

In a Dornish hamlet, ethereal silks draped gracefully upon your form, and the soft chiming of gold jewels accompanied every movement. As young maidens danced around you, a circle of elder women surrounded you.

“Beautiful hair, thick and resilient,” one whispered, her touch tenderly weaving through your locks.

The collective murmur of agreement resonated, and your grin mirrored the reciprocity of compliments that flowed like a gentle breeze among kindred spirits.

Kindred spirits abound — men, women, and children mirroring your essence.

Amidst this tranquil interlude, a familiar, jarring screech pierced the air, disrupting the serenity. A distant crimson blur materialized in the sky, unsettling you. As the serpent-necked dragon descended menacingly, the ominous certainty of impending peril seized your consciousness.

“Run along, dears. No harm will befall you. He's here for me,” you reassured them.

“A dragon rider for you? Who?” inquired the older woman.

“My father,” you responded, prompting a furrowed brow that deepened the wrinkles framing her discerning eyes.

With eyes tinged in suspicion and anxiety, they fled, children cradled in their arms.

You remained motionless, unafraid of Daemon Targaryen, yet as he touched down, a subtle unease settled in your stomach. At that moment, your life unfolded before your eyes: a tapestry woven with images of your mother, heir to the Iron Throne, your brothers, Laenor Velaryon. And there, amidst the memories, lingered the haunting visage of the boy with the scarred face—your uncle, last encountered in what felt like a lifetime ago.

❀

Seated beneath a prayer wheel, crafted by Queen Alicent, he awaited—a miracle the queen gave you leave to enter his chambers.

“Who enters?” croaked the young boy.

Closing the chamber door, you settled by his feet.

“Guess who,” you smiled down at him.

You weren't present during the horrific incident, much like Aegon. The younger children spared you the disturbance.

“Why did you come, b-bastard?” His puffy face sought direction, frizzy hair falling untamed.

Aemond's answer didn't faze you; a wounded child stood before you.

“I thought I was your friend, your flower.” You reached for him, but he swatted your hands away.

“A rose. A desert rose. Somehow, you flourish even in the wrong temperature,” he spat.

You came to console the blonde but left, the need for sympathies shifting to you. Grabbing your skirts, you shoved the door open, brushing by the guards into the echoes of the castle.

❀

A bellow of your name and titles snapped you back to reality. Descending from Meraxes, your stepfather's gaze held a mix of anger and disappointment—a familiar look you'd encountered countless times. Though the exact memory eluded you, you believed it originated from the time you first entered this realm, a crying babe with dark curls.

“This is where you've been,” he strode towards you.

“Dorne,” you answered, feigning ignorance.

His eyes darkened.

“Do you realize how sick with worry your mother is?”

Your demeanor shifted, your hand resting on your stomach, the concern for your mother overpowering any attempt to hold your ground.

“I'm—” you began.

“No, listen to me. You don't have the fucking right to fly off by yourself without telling anybody, especially at this time.”

“I'm sorry,” teary eyes blurred your vision.

“I expected to find you a mess, maimed, scratched, on the brink of death. A corpse I'd have to carry back to Dragonstone for your mother! Yet here you are in costume, covered in gold,” he continued in a fit.

The sound of your sob halted him. He sighed, enveloping you in his arms, soothing your babbling apologies. Cupping your face, his calloused fingers brushed away your tears, your quivering mouth unable to articulate.

“ Tala. You are the blood of the dragon. Don't ever think less of yourself.” He tightened his embrace, pressing your face against his chest.

His hand shrugged off the Dornish textile from your shoulders.

“You are a Targaryen, you are your mother's daughter,” he whispered.

════════ ❀•°❀°•❀ ════════

@valleyof-goldenlilies

#house of the dragon #aemond x fem!reader #hotd aemond #aegon targaryen x reader #aemond targaryen #hotd smut

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eunjidrabbles · 1 year ago

Note

Hello how are you ?

I wanted to know if I could request a Siyeon X 8th member reader short story ? Siyeon is having a bad day, it's raining heavily and she's alone at home, bored as ever, so she decides to start a VLive.

The reader get the notification and see on the live that Siyeon is having a bad day, so she decides to make her a surprise by cancelling her plans. She get Siyeon her favorite warm drink on the way but since it's raining, when she arrives at home she's drenched. The reader doesn't care and just want to cheer up Siyeon while the wolf become a bit worried and start to take care of her younger member.

I hope it's not too precised, I didn't really know what amount of infos I should give you.

Anyway have a good day !

Rainy Seasons

(This is actually the perfect amount of info if you have something specific you want in mind and still gives me enough freedom to craft a world around it so no worries!

Edit: Ignore the fact that I'm a dumbass and I hope y'all enjoy the fic 💜)

Warning(s): None

Word Count: About 1.1K words

"... and be prepared for more downpours for the next few days."

Frowning at the downpour outside the windows of the library, you sighed knowing that you should probably start making your way back home before another mini flood happens and you get trapped in another part of town. With the cooling air conditioning blasting and the cold weather adding to the atmosphere, you had planned to go directly home and take a nice, long nap before working on the paperwork assigned to you by the company to get more ideas for content creation but as your phone buzzed, you slid it out to see a notification for a Vlive.

Searching through your memory, you don't seem to remember that anyone was scheduled to be going live today, especially since it was a couple days off to rest after filming some filler content. To be safe, you pulled out your calendar on your phone to double-check your suspicions and were relieved to find that you were right. Clicking on the notification, you were met with darkness at first before the familiar face of your older member came into view in dim lighting and you smiled slightly when you heard soft beats of music in the background reminding you of the playlist you were listening to as you were reading in the library.

"... What am I doing?"

You could see her squint her eyes in the darkness as she read an English comment and the way the cogs in her head turned as she translated her reply in English before she let out a satisfied smile. Not thinking too much into it, you kept Siyeon's stream on as you packed the rest of your belongings into your bag. It was until you paid closer attention to her actions that you realized something was up. She seemed more sluggish than usual and... quickly turning your phone brightness to the brightest it could go, you could see her nestled comfortably in a familiar hoodie. Or more specifically, the oversized hoodie you kept in the dorm, nicknamed by everyone else as the "bad feels" hoodie.

You wore the hoodie whenever you needed comforting and whenever any members see you in the hoodie, they know to leave you to your own space and that you would approach them for comfort and cuddles when you wanted. It was almost a rule that affection would not be denied if you come looking for it.

Seeing the hoodie on your elder member was weird but the hoodie held a universal meaning no matter who wore it; and to be presented with a choice between paperwork and your biased favorite member of the group? It wasn't even a choice at all. Taking one last look at the Vlive, you shut it off as you pulled out the map on your phone and searched up the nearest location to Siyeon's favorite cafe.

With a deep breath, you walked out the doors of the library, braving the rain.

The Vlive lasted for over an hour before Siyeon heard the sound of banging on the front door, scaring her slightly. Everyone was supposed to be out on their own schedules today except her, and everyone knew the passcode to the door. Hearing another bang, she quickly ended the live and approached the door cautiously.

Another loud knock made her slowly approach the door, wishing and wondering why the door to the dorm lacked a peephole to see who was behind it. Unlatching the lock, Siyeon slowly opened a crack and peeped through it to see a very familiar wet figure.

Swinging open the door as fast as she could, she stared in shock at your shivering frame, and when you noticed that the door was opened, you looked up at Siyeon with a smile, teeth clattering against one another.

"Unnie..."

Eyes suddenly widening as if you remembered something, you lifted your other hand to Siyeon while she continued staring in confusion and concern.

"T-this is f-for you. Your favourite, white m-mocha choco."

Quickly ushering you inside, you stood still where she left you, hand still outreached with the drink in hand as she ran into the closest bathroom and returned with towels. Throwing one on your head, you let the ends flop down as she wrapped the other around your shoulders. Only then did she give you a look over again, taking the drink from your hand, setting it on the nearest flat surface, and drying you off the best she could while you remained still and stared at her innocently.

"I-I mean I don't think it's h-hot anymore but still-"

"You're such a fool."

Seeing the way her eyes softened as she said that, you knew that she wasn't truly mad at you. You shudder thinking of the fact how other members were to react if they were in Siyeon's shoes but it was mistaken by her as you shivering from the cold. Pulling you close to her, she guided your head to lay on her chest as she rested her cheeks on top of yours, hand gently stroking down your back and patting your head with the other.

"Why did you..."

She trailed off with a sigh as she shook her head.

"You didn't have to, you know. Unnie should be the one taking care of you and now you're going to fall sick trying to take care of unnie."

"But I want to. I want to become someone that you can turn to and get comfort from."

You argued back but made no sign to leave her embrace or even lift your head up to look at her while she soothingly rocked the both of you.

"And you already are. I don't need you to do anything or give me anything. All I ask is for you to be safe and happy and that brings me comfort."

Slowly taking careful steps backwards, Siyeon guided your movements and you only opened your eyes to peek out behind the towel when you came to a stop. Only spotting a door in your line of sight, you were slightly surprised as the door was opened by Siyeon and she gave you a gentle shove in with a hand on your waist revealing the bathroom in her room. Turning around, your heart melted as her soft laughter echoed in the empty room, clearly entertained by your small stumble due to suddenly having your support to stand, moving away. Once she got herself together, you couldn't help but smile back at her loving gaze.

"Wash up. I'll leave a set of my hoodie and pants for you. Then after, we'll cuddle and watch a movie together, alright?"

Nodding, she closed the door behind you, leaving you to your privacy. Slowing removing the towels off your head and shoulders and holding them close to your body, you couldn't help but break out into a smile foolishly, knowing that you've made her day, and that the promise of warm comforters, a nice movie and your favourite person was waiting outside that door. Right after you wash up and dry up of course.

#dreamcatcher imagines #dreamcatcher scenarios #siyeon imagines #siyeon scenarios #siyeon x reader #siyeon fluff

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cooking-with-hailstones · 11 months ago

Text

Forever Bound to the Soul of the Hero

Fi's retelling of the Breath of the Wild Memories

(Rated T: Canon typical violence)

For @linksthoughtbrambles

Awakening

I have been asleep for a very long time.

The woods where I was laid to rest have flourished since their destruction in the last war. The spirits of the forest are chittering with nervous anticipation as I spark back to wakefulness. The Great Deku Tree rumbles his warm welcome, even though my awakening signals a portent of doom.

I feel the evil gathering in the land. Even in my sleep, I have sensed the aura of dark energy seeping into the earth, the trees, the wind, the shifting of stone on stone.

It is hard to tell how long it has been between cycles. Sometimes millennia will pass, sometimes only a hundred years. But every time the evil comes, someone will be chosen to fight back.

I can feel him out there. He sees me in dreaming, and he knows a great destiny awaits him.

It will soon be time. I shall be raised skyward once more.

Ceremony of Innocence:

“ Hero of Hyrule, chosen by the sword that seals the darkness… You have shown unflinching bravery and skill in the face of darkness and adversity. And have proven yourself worthy of the blessings of the Goddess Hylia. Whether skyward bound, adrift in time, or steeped in the glowing embers of twilight… The sacred blade is forever bound to the soul of the Hero. We pray for your protection…and we hope that-- that the two of you will grow stronger together, as one…”

I am afraid.

Much has been lost in the generations since the last champion of the Goddess bore me across his shoulders. I can see remnants of the technology, lingering vestiges that have not decayed over the millennia. But so much knowledge is gone.

There is no mystery here as to why this spirit maiden is unable to awaken her powers. The Sheikah elders from whom she must receive guidance and instruction in every generation have lost their influence over the royal family. They are only now, through their adept understanding of ancient technologies, able to regain some of their former status. But the king and these so-called priests of Hylia take no account of the Sheikah’s wisdom. Instead, they have her bathing in the sacred springs, without any of the other rites of purification. They have her speaking prayers that carry no meaning and no power. And this blessing she speaks over Link, over my new master…

This cannot be all there is. There is so much more to do. The hero’s soul has not been tempered, not been tested. While the sacred realm has long been sealed, the Sheikah of generations passed have devised many trials to strengthen our bond. But they are dormant, so it seems that this, too, is forgotten.

I have been reduced to some mere symbol, a figurehead in this war.

I am very afraid.

Listening

“From here, we’ll make our way to Goron City. Then we’ll need some adjustments on that Divine Beast so Daruk can manage it as easily as possible. He’s figured out how to get it to move! However, it’s apparent that we still have much more to learn. But to think, that Divine Beast was actually built by people… That means we should be able to understand how it works and use it to our advantage.

These Divine Beasts…so much we don’t know… But if we want to turn back the Calamity Ganon, they’re our best hope.”

My master always listens keenly to the spirit maiden Zelda, even though he lacks sufficient technical understanding to truly follow her excited monologues. She has much of Hylia’s wisdom and ingenuity. She is passionate and dedicated to her craft. In some ways, she is the most like Hylia of any of the spirit maidens I have ever encountered. I estimate that, given proper training and access to the correct tools, this spirit maiden would have a 78% likelihood of being able to forge an entity similar to myself.

The lack of technical comprehension in this era continues to trouble me greatly. The slate the spirit maiden is holding is an invaluable tool, designed by the Sheikah to interface with my technology and assist in the transmission of information, transportation, and a myriad of other utilities that they cannot even fathom. All of these have been designed by the Sheikah to aid the fight against Ganon, and it is only being used at a fraction of its capacities.

“Tell me the truth… How proficient are you right now, wielding that sword on your back? Legend says that an ancient voice resonates inside it. Can you hear it yet…hero?”

My master stops in his tracks. He cannot, I think forlornly to myself. I can see his thoughts, I am coming to know him little by little, but still, he cannot hear my voice. No matter how much I scream, my master only perceives me as an echo in his subconscious.

Being the hero is not just a matter of drawing the sword – he isn’t tested. He has not passed through the goddess’ trials and forged the bond with the master sword through the goddess’ flame. His spirit may very well shatter when he confronts the agent of Demise.

He is angry and sad and cannot tell her. He tries to listen for the sword but no one has ever taught him how, and I am too weak to reach him.

And even now, I can feel the stirring in his heart. Every reincarnation of the Goddess draws the soul of the hero to her side. Whether friends or lovers, they cannot bear to hold hatred between them. I can feel the way his heart quickens when he has to grab hold of her. I know the thoughts he does not allow himself to think.

He says nothing. She turns away in a huff, thinking this means he has nothing to say.

Devotion and Resentment

My master has awoken, suddenly aware of Zelda’s absence from Tabantha stable. This is hardly the first time she has tried to evade him, but over the last few months he has become far more adept at finding her.

There is a 75% probability that he has deducted that I am the reason he is able to trace where she has escaped, no matter how clever her trickery. He feels it not like the dowsing I used to perform, but rather as an itch behind his eyes. A compulsion that pulls him forward, towards her, demanding that he be near her. It was designed by the Goddess, that their souls should find each other. And I will always pull them together. He can no more stop following her than he can stop breathing.

After a fierce gallop across Tanagar canyon bridge and nudging his horse up to the ancient columns, he finally starts to relax. I can feel the tension leave his shoulders.

Zelda, however, seems far from pleased.

“I thought I made it clear that I am not in need of an escort,” she says with great indignation. “ It seems I’m the only one with a mind of my own. I, the person in question, am fine, regardless of the king’s orders. Return to the castle. And tell that to my father, please.”

She was in the process of examining one of the shrines left by the Sheikah monks, meant to temper the hero’s spirit and strengthen him for the trials ahead. These are objects of curiosity for Hylians, and for Zelda in particular, but they are meant to play a vital role. It is essential that the hero be able to access these shrines. Without completing a significant portion of the shrines, I predict a 98.2% chance that the hero’s spirit will break.

My master takes this in stride. It is hardly the first time he’s weathered such outbursts. He steps in line, always three paces behind her.

She whirls around. “And stop following me!”

She is so angry with him, all the time. She does not understand that Hylia’s chosen hero will follow her to the ends of the earth and beyond. He will follow her through time, through space, through any hardship, just to see her safe and the land protected.

She does not yet know that she and the land are one. And he is now starting to realize that his duty, his destiny, is to protect them all.

A Champion’s Compassion

“Ah, well…you certainly got here fast. I should have expected as much from the princess’s own appointed knight.” The Gerudo champion looks down at the sleeping Zelda. “She was out on a survey all day today. Still as the sands now…” Turning to look at my master, her eyes sparkle in the desert night. “So…? Spill it, boy. Have the two of you been getting along all right?”

Quite the opposite, I think to myself. He must have heard the thought, because he winces.

The champion laughs. “It’s OK… I know. Your silence speaks volumes.” She sighs, looking down at the sleeping princess on her lap . “She gets frustrated every time she looks up and sees you carrying that sword on your back. It makes her feel like a failure when it comes to her own destiny.”

And hardly fair, given how little progress this hero has made in his own right, I think sullenly. They are both so unprepared, so untested. Training drills and prayer are hardly enough to strengthen their spirits. The champions have been through much more rigorous trials to connect with their divine beasts. I am happy to say that Zelda’s confidence in them is well founded.

“Don’t worry, it’s not like you carry blame in any of this.” She sighs, stroking Zelda’s hair. “It’s unfortunate. She’s put in more than enough time. Ever since she was a young girl, she’s gone through rigorous daily routines to show her dedication. She once passed out in the freezing waters trying to access this sealing power. And she has nothing to show for it… That’s the motivation driving her research. I’d be doing the same thing.”

I appreciate the Gerudo champion. She is a formidable blademaster, a dedicated champion, and a wise and supportive presence in Zelda’s life. Far more than can be said for the useless aristocrat that calls himself the king, without a drop of Hylia’s blood to his name.

“She really is quite…special. You be sure to protect her with your life.” She looks at my master with a piercing maternal gaze. “It’s quite the honour.”

He knows this. I know he dreams of it every night. He knows he will fight and die for her. He meets Urbosa’s gaze, and I sense she knows it too.

The champion reclines on her cushions. She has done much to make her divine beast a more comfortable abode, befitting a Gerudo chief.

“The night brings a chill… It’s probably time we take her in. Or...” She smirks as some mischief crosses her mind, then with a snap of her fingers, the desert sky lights up with electricity.

My master stumbles at the quaking thunder and Zelda wakes up, frightened. Neither of them have ever been particularly fond of storms and lightning, even if they don’t know why.

“Urbosa! What was that?! Did you feel that?!” Zelda gasps, before catching my master’s shadow by the doorway.

“Wait, what--how did you-- what are you doing here?!”

He blushes furiously, and though the darkness might conceal the pinkish glow from some, Urbosa’s gaze is far too sharp to miss it. She leans back with a hearty laugh.

“Wha-what’s so funny?”

“Ah, you, my dear.” Urbosa wipes a tear of mirth from her eye. “One day you’ll laugh about all of this.”

I hope she is right. They deserve to laugh.

Blood on the Sand

MASTER! I am screaming as loudly as I can. MASTER! DANGER! GO!

He feels my desperation, dropping the bundle of arrows he was examining from a merchant in the Kara Kara bazaar, and takes off sprinting towards the pull that he’s grown used to, the itch behind his eyes that’s always there. But now it is more acute, so loud he must be able to hear the ringing of the dowsing call in his ears.

He rounds the corner and sees them. Those cursed agents of evil, seduced by the false promises of Demise, and they are chasing Zelda over the sands. They cackle, their wicked sickles glinting in the hot desert sun. There is a cold rage in my master’s heart, and he puts on another burst of speed, drawing me from my scabbard. I brace myself, ready for the battle, as the Yiga’s blade curves towards Zelda’s fallen body.

My master is quick, and ruthless. I feel myself slip through the Yiga’s neck with a cold efficiency as warm blood soaks the edge of my blade. The body drops to the ground as he wheels around to face the other two. I can sense their fear, and I calculate only a 26% likelihood that they will attempt to continue the fight.

Sure enough, they scatter and vanish into the desert wind. My master does not take his eyes from them until they are truly gone, only then sheathing my bloody blade and turning towards Zelda. He gives her his hand to help her upright. “Are you hurt?” he asks fearfully. I can feel his heart still pounding in his chest.

Her eyes. She has never looked at him with any fondness before, but her eyes are brimming with gratitude and care. “ No, I’m fine, I just…” she pauses, and bursts into tears.

I know Link is thinking nothing of propriety when he wraps his arms around her. I know she is thinking nothing of resentment when she buries her face in his shoulder and sobs, the fear and adrenaline rushing through her body.

Maybe this is the beginning. Maybe this is how their spirits will grow. Maybe this is how evil will lose.

Laughter

I am not supposed to feel emotion. It was not part of my design. Yet after spending millennia borne by Hylians and getting to know their innermost thoughts, I have inevitably adapted to many of their traits.

To that end, I am beginning to feel… frustrated.

“There’s one! Oh! And another! The flowers we have in Hyrule aren’t just beautiful…They’re also quite useful as ingredients for a variety of things.”

Today the spirit maiden and my master are out on a field survey. I am grateful that they are getting along better, and that her resentment seems to have given way to a nascent friendship. My frustration is not with them. It simply irks me to see the Sheikah slate being used like some ordinary pictobox.

She gasps with excitement, and Link quickly settles down beside her.

“This one here is called the silent princess. It’s a rare, endangered species. Despite our efforts, we can’t get them to grow domestically yet. The princess can only thrive out here in the wild. All that we can hope…is that the species will be strong enough to prosper, on its own.”

She smiles, sadly, and my master’s heart flutters. He understands her meaning as clearly as I do. Neither of them can thrive here. They know that their destinies are not waiting for them inside the castle walls.

The prayers, the training, the wasted time, the technology that they’ve only uncovered 18% of the capabilities of… they must feel as frustrated as I do.

The somber moment is dissipated as Zelda gasps with excitement and lunges forward.

“Is that what I think it is?! Look at this, I don’t believe it, but I actually caught one! This delicacy is known to have very, very potent effects under the proper circumstances. Tada!”

She opens her hands to reveal… a frog. My master recoils slightly.

“Research from the castle shows ingesting one of these can actually augment certain abilities. We wouldn’t be in a controlled environment out here, but with your level of physical fitness…you’d be a perfect candidate for the study! Go on! Taste it!”

Link makes a truly disgusted face.

“Oh come now, I’ve seen you eating Goron rock roast. Surely you’re not put off by a little bit of mucus for the sake of scientific inquiry?”

She may have a point there. This particular incarnation of the Hero’s spirit seems to have a stomach made of cast iron.

With a resigned sigh – he truly cannot refuse her anything – he leans down towards her hands… and the frog leaps straight into his face. He startles, falling backwards on his rear as the frog scampers away.

Zelda collapses to the ground in a fit of infectious giggles, and soon enough the pair of them are leaning on each other as their laughter echoes through the hillside.

The Question of Destiny

In truth, I do relish sword drills. It is for my benefit as well; learning how my master moves, what his grip is on the sword, the gestures he favours. My algorithms internalize and optimize every movement. As we practice together, we grow closer. Even if he cannot hear me, he knows that I am with him, helping to guide his actions and see that each strike lands true.

Zelda watches him closely from her shelter beneath the tree.

“I doubt this will let up anytime soon… Your path seems to mirror your father’s. You’ve dedicated yourself to becoming a knight, as well. Your commitment to the training necessary to fulfill your goal is really quite admirable. I see now why you would be the chosen one.”

He stiffens slightly. His father had only died a year ago, and the wound was still fresh. But Zelda seems too lost in her own thoughts to notice.

“What if… One day…You realised that you just weren’t meant to be a fighter. Yet the only thing people ever said…was that you were born into a family of the royal guard, and so no matter what you thought, you had to become a knight. If that was the only thing that you were ever told… I wonder, then…would you have chosen a different path?”

There was no other destiny for my master. He was born to be Hylia’s chosen.

Not for the first time in my long existence, I wonder at the cruelty of the Goddess’ choice of mortal champions in this cosmic war.

Link pauses a moment before returning me to the sheath across his back.

“This… isn’t about me, is it?”

Zelda blushes. “I… well…”

He takes her hand. I can feel both of their heartbeats quicken.

“I think…” he pauses, choosing his words carefully. “I think that no matter who I was, where I was born, whatever was expected of me…”

“Yes?”

“I would find my way to you.”

Prayer and Dedication

It is a unique pain that my master must experience, and thus I experience alongside him. The unique pain that comes from watching someone you love torture themselves for circumstances beyond their control.

These prayers are useless. She is not praying to a Goddess. She is meant to awaken the Goddess within her own spirit. But they still cannot hear me, and nothing I could suggest to my master would have any effect. And so, I sit, sheathed and silent as my master and I ache at the desperation in Zelda’s voice.

“I come seeking help, regarding this power that has been handed down over time. Prayer will awaken my power to seal Ganon away… Or so I’ve been told all my life.

And yet… Grandmother heard them--the voices from the spirit realm. And Mother said her own power would develop within me. But I don’t hear, or feel anything!

Father has told me time and time again… He always says, “Quit wasting your time playing at being a scholar!” Curse you…”

Holy water splashes against clenched fists.

“I’ve spent every day of my life dedicated to praying! I’ve pleaded to the spirits tied to the ancient gods. And still the holy powers have proven deaf to my devotion. Please just tell me, what is it…? What’s wrong with me?!”

Link’s composure finally cracks. I am truthfully relieved when he drops me down on the stones and splashes into the spring, wrapping a sobbing Zelda in his embrace.

“There’s nothing wrong with you. We’ll figure this out, together. I promise, Zelda, I promise…” He strokes her hair, and she weeps all the more.

I cannot weep, it is not in my design. I should not feel emotion, but despite my programming, I have begun to understand something of grief. Oh, children, what have we done to you?

They may not succeed. They may not have the strength and ability to fight off the coming Calamity. But I will fight back. The Goddess created me to protect and guide her chosen. I must do whatever I can.

Calamity and Corruption

The final spring. The last hope they had. And just as I had predicted, nothing happened.

The champions all do their best to conceal their dismay, offering words of encouragement to Zelda, but to little avail. The Zora champion starts to say something, but –

The ground shakes.

The sky darkens.

The Rito champion launches himself skyward to see what’s taking place, but before I even hear his horrified gasp, I know what has happened.

My master leaps forward to support Zelda as she stumbles. He does not need to be told either. Just as with every Hero’s spirit preceding him, he has seen this moment in his dreams since he was an infant. But he is not ready, Zelda is not ready and the Calamity must know this as well. It has chosen this precise moment of despair to strike.

The champions disperse, each of them racing back to their Divine Beasts. Without the spirit maiden’s sealing power, the only hope at holding the Calamity at bay now lies with the strength of the champions.

Link and Zelda, now alone, race down the promenade towards Kakariko village. Bolts of purple and black tar seem to be streaking across the sky overhead, the sunset rapidly disappearing behind the dark clouds.

This is unfamiliar to me. What kind of attack is the Calamity readying? I have never witnessed this before.

They keep running, over the Sahasra slope and towards Hyrule field. The castle is the nexus point. Link must be ready for when the champions reach the divine beasts for their attack. We must try to defeat the Calamity, with or without the Goddess’ power. There is only a 2.6% chance that we succeed, but 2.6% is not 0.

beep

What…?

beep beep beep beepbeepbeepbeep

A guardian! Link and Zelda both heave a sigh of relief. The guardians have been deployed from Castle Town to protect the surrounding villages. At least that will provide some measure of safety.

Wait... Something’s wrong.

POW!

Without a moment to spare, Link tackles Zelda to the ground out of the way of the guardian’s deadly line of fire. Without a second thought, he pulls me from my scabbard, leaps forward and drives me straight into the guardian’s vulnerable eye. It sparks, fizzes, and collapses, purple smoke billowing out of its joints.

“What’s going on?” Zelda screams, as torrents of purple-black tar continue to pour from the sky onto Hyrule field and Castle town. “Why did it fire at us?”

Wasting no time, Link grabs her arm and whirls around, sprinting back the way they came and dragging Zelda behind him.

“Link, no! We need to go to the castle!”

“Zelda, we – ”

A bolt of purple tar slams into me.

“The master sword!” Zelda cries.

CORRUPTION!

This is the Calamity’s plan! Oh, Hylia, no!

He has remembered his defeat from 10,000 years ago. He remembered the technology that was turned against him and his armies, and his hatred and malice are now corrupting every element of Sheikah technology, and everything they interface with.

Including me.

NO! I twist through the dark tendrils reaching through my circuitry. YOU WILL NOT TOUCH ME. I WAS CREATED BY THE GODDESS HYLIA, AND I WILL NOT YIELD TO YOU, FOUL AGENT OF DEMISE.

I push back along these tendrils of malice, burning them away with the divine light of the Goddess. I reach through the telepathic link I share with the Sheikah technology, cutting and blazing through the spreading rot. The Sheikah slate, the towers, the shrines, all the creations designed to interface with the Hero’s soul, I can still connect with them! With every scrap of energy I have left, I burn away the malice creeping through their networks.

The malice fights back, the darkness spreading… but I will not yield.

Exhaustion and Despair

The forest near the bottomless swamp is dark and twisted, the tangled roots and mud are treacherous in the shadow of the storm. It is almost dawn, they haven’t slept, they are still running. I can feel the exhaustion creeping in, their stamina depleting. I too am exhausted - still fighting against the malice, trying to keep it at bay. I cannot help them any more than this.

Zelda stumbles and cries out, falling to her knees on the path made slick by torrential rains.

“How… How did it come to this?”

My master kneels beside her, desperate to move along, but reticent to force her to keep running.

“The Divine Beasts…The Guardians… They’ve all turned against us. It was Calamity Ganon. It turned them all against us!”

She is weeping in earnest now, rivers of tears meeting the raindrops already pouring down her face.

“And everyone--Mipha, Urbosa, Revali and Daruk… They’re all trapped in those things… It’s all my fault! Our only hope for defeating Calamity Ganon is lost, all because I couldn’t harness this cursed power! Everything--everything I’ve done up until now… It was all for nothing. So I really am just a failure! All my friends, the entire kingdom, my father most of all… I tried, and I failed them all… I’ve left them all to die…

“Zelda…” he grips her tighter. “Zelda, we have to go. There may be soldiers who can protect you at Fort Hateno. We need to go.”

She nods miserably, taking his arm and standing up again. They turn to the misty shadows, and keep running.

I truly had hoped their love might be enough.

Hylia Reborn

They are tracking us. Some corruption of their programming has locked them to our signal. Perhaps it is me they are tracking, a beacon of the Goddess’ light flickering amid the swirling chaos of malice.

Wouldn’t that be ironic.

The guardians homing in on us are coming thick and fast. While I am able to target their weak points with a respectable accuracy, I was made to cut through Demise’s creations - beings of corrupted flesh. I was never made to fight these machines.

Link is exhausted. Almost two days with little sleep and hardly any food, he has taken more than his fair share of blows. There are gashes across his legs and arms that are oozing blood, and three of his ribs are broken. I predict that he will lose consciousness in less than four minutes.

But Zelda is unharmed, for now. Nothing else matters to him at this moment.

He stabs me through the eye of yet another guardian, staggering backwards and leaning on me heavily.

“Link, save yourself! Go! I’ll be fine! Don’t worry about me! Run!”

He can hardly hear her through the blood rushing in his ears, and the incessant beeping as they scan for us. I don’t know what to do! The Goddess left no instructions for this. I have never witnessed my master die.

Another guardian has spotted us through the husks of its fellows. My master is so tired, and I have no strength to give him.

And yet Link pulls me up once more, readying himself and covering Zelda with his body, as the laser flares to life.

This is it.

Hylia, forgive me. I have failed you.

“NO!”

Zelda leaps forward, throwing herself in front of Link, hands raised in desperation. What is she -?

The world explodes with golden light.

Link winces, but does not shield his eyes. Nor would I, if I had eyes to behold this sight. The light radiates from her, guardians exploding and collapsing in its wake.

She did it. Hylia has come into her own!

“Was… Was that…? The power?” she whispers in the sudden quiet that follows as the corrupted machines power down.

You did it, Zel. he thinks, and seeing her safe, he finally yields to the pain.

She whirls around as he falls. “ No, no…Link! Get up!” She lifts him into her arms, hardly noticing the blood soaking into her ruined dress. “You’re going to be just fine…”

He looks up to her, eyes full of pride, of sadness, and love, and then he lets the darkness take him.

Our telepathic link snaps. I cannot sense his thoughts anymore. He is... gone.

Hylia help me, I did everything I could, but I could not save him. May the Goddess forgive me.

The Goddess holds his body and weeps.

But, wait.

Against the pommel of the sword, I feel the slightest pressure.

thump thump

A pulse. A pulse! His heart is still beating. He might yet be saved!

With my limited remaining computing power, I desperately run through the calculations. The medical infrastructure needed to treat these wounds is sorely lacking in this era of Hyrule, but... Yes! It is there! Reaching through the Sheikah network, I can feel it, safe from the Calamity’s corruption. I remember the monk Maz Koshia designing this shrine for just this reason. The Shrine of Resurrection.

Above me, Zelda shifts. Slowly, she starts to relinquish him, not noticing the pulse that I can feel, still beating ever so faintly in his chest.

No. NO! She cannot let go!

HYLIA, HEAR ME! I am screaming through broken circuits and fragmented code. I have been damaged beyond anything I was designed to withstand, I am decayed beyond measure, but she is awake! She must listen!

ALIVE

My strength is fading, but she cannot abandon him! Not now!

ALIVE

“The sword…?”

She has heard me! YES.

“So he can… He can still be saved?”

QUICKLY, THERE IS NO TIME! THE SHRINE OF RESURRECTION ON THE GREAT PLATEAU. YOU MUST TAKE HIM THERE, NOW. IT IS THE ONLY WAY.

“I… how..?”

“Princess!” a voice echoes from across the field. The Sheikah, loyal to the last, have tracked the Goddess here. Their timing could not be better.

“Princess! Are you all right?”

She draws herself up with a strength I have never seen in her before.

“Take Link to the Shrine of Resurrection. If you don’t get him there immediately, we are going to lose him forever! Is that clear?! So make haste and go! His life is now in your hands!”

The two men nod, immediately setting to work to stabilize him for the journey. They lift him carefully, wrapping his deepest wounds in bandages, before melting into the shadows as only Sheikah can. Zelda watches them disappear into the rain, then grips me hard, clutching me to her chest.

“You speak? I can hear you? How? How is this possible?”

With the last bit of strength I can muster, I answer. YOU ARE AWAKE.

“The power?”

YES. THROUGH YOUR GRACE AND WISDOM, AND LOVE FOR MY MASTER, YOU HAVE FOUND THE TRUE POWER OF YOUR SPIRIT.

“What do I do?” she cries. “How can I seal the Calamity without Link? Without the champions?”

BREATHE, ZELDA.

I am not meant for this task. I am meant to guide the hero, not the spirit maiden, but I carry enough of the Goddess’ memories to know what must be done while she waits for the hero to return.

YOUR POWERS SHOULD NOW CONNECT YOU TO THE SPIRIT MAIDENS WHO HAVE COME BEFORE YOU. LISTEN TO THEM. THEY WILL GUIDE YOU.

She looks startled, but she does what I say. Sitting in the mud amid the husks of the defeated guardians, she takes a deep, shuddering breath. Her ancestors gather around, and I hear the whispers of Hylia’s past incarnations floating past me, just on the edge of hearing. She glows with a faint golden light in the falling rain. After a few minutes, she opens her eyes.

“Yes.” She says. “Even if he cannot yet be defeated. I can hold the Calamity at bay. I… I have done it before.”

MANY TIMES

She nods. “And what of you? I cannot bring you with me, but I cannot leave you here.”

I am barely capable of speaking anymore. The decay of the malice has been stopped by her light, but I am already close to shattering.

I AM WEARY. I MUST HEAL.

“Of course, what must I do?”

TAKE ME TO THE LOST WOODS. THE CHILDREN OF THE FOREST WILL LEAD YOU THERE.

Laid to Rest

With the spirit of the Goddess awakened within her, Zelda can now see the korok spirits guiding her, from the field of battle all the way through the Lost Woods. Now she stands at the roots of the Great Deku Tree. At last, I can rest. In Hylia’s light, my master and I shall both become whole again.

“Your master will come for you. Until then, you shall rest safely here. Although the Slumber of Restoration will most certainly deprive him of his memories, please trust me when I say that I know he will arrive before you yet again.”

She places me carefully back in the pedestal at the Great Deku Tree’s roots. I feel myself slipping into my deep sleep once again.

As my consciousness fades, I hear the Deku Tree ask “If I may be so bold…what is it that you are planning to do next, Princess?”

Zelda looks resolute. “The Master Sword… I heard it speak to me. It seems that my role is unfinished. There is still something I must do.”

“I sense there is great strength in your dedication.”

She has greater strength than ever. She is not alone anymore. The spirits of her ancestors are guiding her now, all the way back to the first Zelda who sealed Demise for a thousand years, waiting for her hero to return.

“Great Deku Tree, I ask of you, when he returns, can you please relay this message… Tell him I—"

He interrupts her. “ Now, then… Words intended for him would sound much better in the tones of your voice, don’t you think?”

She smiles up at him, nods in understanding.

As my consciousness finally slips away, I think to myself, dearest Zelda. He already knows. He loves you too.

Awakening II

He is awake, and so am I.

The spirits of the forest are chittering with excitement. Even as I rest here, I can hear the Great Deku Tree stirring with anticipation. We all felt the call of the spirit maiden locked away in Hyrule Castle, calling him once again to her side. I have felt her longing for him these hundred years.

This time, he will grow strong in spirit. This time, we shall fight together.

This time, the Calamity will fall.

Thanks so much for reading! You can also find this fic on AO3

#emily writes #my writing #fanfiction #skyward sword #Fi #loz fi #zelink #botw zelink #BOTW link #BOTW Zelda #hateno house gift exchange #hateno house #linksthoughtbrambles #gift exchange #fi lore #sheikah tech #calamity ganon

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