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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 16 days ago

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The Keys Of Heaven [Chapter 1: He Will Come Again In Glory]

A/N: I've had this idea since I saw Conclave in October, but I never imagined it would coincide with an ACTUAL papal conclave 😅 Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoy "volcano fic" at long last!!! 🌋❤️

Series summary: Three years ago, Father Aemond Targaryen performed a miracle. Now he is a cardinal, a media sensation, and a frontrunner to be elected pope. You are a nun who has been brought to Vatican City to assist with the papal conclave. But when your paths cross by happenstance, you must both reckon with your decision to join the Catholic Church...and what you want from the future.

Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), references to abuse and violence, volcanoes, bodily injury, death, peril, scheming, pining, some drugs/alcohol/smoking, Catholic trivia you never asked to learn, kangaroos!

Word count: 6.6k

🦘 A very special thanks to my Aussie slang consultant @bearwithegg (any mistakes are mine) 🦘

💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Tagging: @mrs-starkgaryen @chattylurker @lauraneedstochill @ecstaticactus @neithriddle

🗝️ Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist 🗝️

“Are you responsible for the koi?” a man asks.

You whirl, spilling pellets of fish food across the pebble pathway, sand-colored tuff made of volcanic ash. Cardinal Targaryen is standing there, and of course you recognize him immediately. His hands are clasped behind his back, his head is tilted thoughtfully to the side. He wears a gold cross, a zucchetto upon his still-blonde hair, and a cassock, scarlet to symbolize the blood a martyr is willing to shed for the Faith; it has exactly thirty-three buttons, one for each year Christ spent on earth. You grin proudly. This is a promotion, an escape from doing the washing in a basement full of spiders. “I sure am, Your Eminence!”

“Including that one?” He points: by the edge of the pond, a large red-and-white koi is floating with dull, dead, lidless eyes.

“Oh no,” you moan, taking a closer look. “No, no, no, it’s rooted. This is not good.” You turn back to the cardinal. “Please don’t tell Sister Augustina. She already thinks I’m an idiot because I don’t know how to work a fax machine.”

Cardinal Targaryen chuckles. “A fax machine?”

“I didn’t think people still used those.”

“I didn’t either.” He’s still watching you closely. “Have we met before?”

“I don’t believe so, Your Eminence.” You saw him arriving at the Domus Sanctae Marthae this morning—rolling his luggage, handing over his phone, sequestering himself from the outside world—but it was other nuns who tended to him, not you. You had been assisting Cardinal Bogdi Marcu of Romania, who probably has first-hand experience with stegosauruses and mastodons.

“You remind me of someone, but I can’t recall who...” Cardinal Targaryen studies you for a little longer, then beams benevolently. “Well, the Lord commands us to be compassionate, and so I will help you hide the evidence and spare you from Sister Augustina’s wrath.”

You should protest—surely this is beneath him—but you are so overwhelmed with gratitude that for a moment you forget this. “Oh, bless you!”

As the cardinal scoops the deceased koi out of the pond with two large, cupped hands, you use your fingers to dig a makeshift grave under a lemon tree. It is December, and the Vatican Gardens are not dead but slumbering, the air cool and the sky grey, the soil soft and dark and damp as you burrow until you hit the impassible layer of clay beneath. Cardinal Targaryen lays the koi to rest in the trough, then together you hastily inter it. When the hollow has been filled and the dirt smoothed, he looks around the nearby flower beds for a large stone and finds one, places it atop the koi’s clandestine crypt, and stands back, admiring his work.

“Now you will escape all suspicion,” he says.

“Thank you, Your Eminence.”

“You may call me Aemond.” He bows his head in greeting, holding his hands behind his back again. His speech is formal and measured, crafted in English-taught boarding schools, just a ghost of Mediterranean inflection like the lingering pink of a sunburn. “I’m Cardinal Targaryen of Greece.”

You tap your own left cheek, indicating his scar. “I know who you are.” But you would even if it wasn’t for his mutilation, his eye that was permanently stitched shut. Three years ago when he was thirty-eight, the same age you are now, Aemond commandeered a fishing boat and saved a group of fifty tourists from a volcanic eruption on Santorini, where he was a priest at the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist. He instantly became a pop culture phenomenon—news interviews and televised sermons, statements on current events and viral memes—and was made a cardinal soon after. Miracles are so rare in the modern world; those who wield them must be elevated to prove the magic still exists.

You give him your name, and the cardinal—you cannot bring yourself to think of him as Aemond, too informal, too intimate—surmises: “You’re here for the conclave.”

That is sort of true. “It’s such an honor.”

“Hm.” He is scrutinizing you again, his remaining eye sharp and blue and fascinated. “Are you certain we haven’t met before?”

“I don’t know where we would have, I’ve never been to Greece.”

“Perhaps on one of my diplomatic missions. The Philippines, Indonesia, Colombia, Japan, China, Bangladesh.”

You smile. “Never been to any of those either.”

“You’re from Australia.” Your accent makes this apparent. He’s touching his chin, he’s determined to puzzle it out. “Which part?”

“Up north in Queensland, originally. But I’ve mostly lived in Sydney for the past fifteen years.”

He shakes his head, mystified and frustrated by it; not much eludes him. “I visited Sydney once but it was forever ago, I was just a kid.” He is still thinking. On other pathways through the gardens, red dots of cardinals are walking off their flights from six different continents, murmuring solemnly to their colleagues or lost in the solitude of prayer. “How was this arranged, you traveling to the Vatican?”

And so you tell him the most abbreviated version: Mother Maureen Ashwell of the Sisters of Charity of Australia wrote to Sister Augustina, a friend for decades, a pen pal of sorts, and asked if she could use you. When the cardinals convene each time a new pope must be elected—ten years since the last conclave, or twenty, or thirty—there is a great need for labor, and particularly the labor of women, anonymous and thankless and uncomplaining: washing, cooking, serving, scrubbing, safeguarding, the endless, ever-patient matrilineal caretaking. Sister Augustina acquiesced, and so you flew to Rome with another nun from your convent, Sister Rhaena, who is very young and very in awe of everything all the time. Whatever affection Sister Augustina has for Mother Maureen has not translated to you. She scowls, she huffs, she loathes how you fold clothes and make beds. When Rhaena playfully tried to give her the nickname of Sister Tina, she received a pair of cuffed, ringing ears in return.

As you speak, Cardinal Targaryen gazes at you fixedly; and then his jaw drops open in amazement. “Dear God,” he says, his remaining eye wide and starry. “You’re the girl from the beach.”

~~~~~~~~~~

How old must you have been? It comes back like sandbars revealed by low tide: you are around nine, and Aemond perhaps twelve, and you meet when your parents have—separately yet providentially—planned family vacations to Sydney for the same week in December, when the Northern Hemisphere is shivering and the South is in the early days of summer.

You drove ten hours south from Toowoomba, he flew over nine thousand miles east from Athens, and you fall into step together on wet sand that collapses into the shape of your footprints. And while your respective siblings are elsewhere—getting slathered with marshmallow-white sunscreen, being fished out of the rough waves—you and Aemond build sprawling sandcastles and decorate them with seashells, and make banners out of dried seaweed impaled on pieces of driftwood, and share the picnics your parents packed: you have Vegemite or tuna sandwiches, meat pies, Tim Tams, Granny Smith apples, and Illawarra plums, while Aemond contributes soft triangles of pita and a platter of accompaniments, tzatziki, hummus, other spreads made of feta cheese or eggplant or fish, the cold crisp relief of a Greek salad wet with olive oil.

You find each other each morning of that week, an infinitesimal eternity. He is the first boy you see as a man—his shadow tall, his voice patient and wise—and there is a powerful pure drive to be close to him, a phantom longing for something you don’t know exists yet. You make him smile and laugh; he loves the way you say sanger instead of sandwich, and esky instead of cooler box, and togs instead of bathing suits, and defo instead of definitely. You tell Aemond you want to move to Greece with him. He tells you he wants to marry you one day. He weaves you a ring made of seaweed greener than any emeralds, but you leave it on your nightstand before going to sleep and wake to find that your mum has thrown it away because it smelled like the ocean, salt and sun and eons of lives coming full circle in the depths.

On your last night in Sydney, the four parents arrange to have dinner together at a pizza place by the boardwalk, and you hear them chuckling as they make light, patronizing exchanges: too bad long-distance phone calls are so expensive, awfully sad for them to have to say goodbye, kids have such short memories, they’ll get over it. As Aemond leaves with his family—he’s the last one out the door, glancing back at you again and again—you watch him vanish into the inky darkness and the glare of the streetlights, and from a little black radio beside the till there is a song playing, maybe Dylan or Joel or Springsteen, one you’ve never been able to remember well enough to find again.

And when you arrive home after an impossibly long day of driving and open your suitcase, the seashells you hid in the bottom have been jostled and crushed until only the dust of them is left, and the loss hits you, sharp and deep, and you begin to sob so loudly your mum comes running, thinking you must be bleeding to death.

~~~~~~~~~~

He finds you where you are plating the antipasto to be ferried to the cardinals—cured salami and prosciutto, tomatoes, olives, pepperoncini, artichoke hearts, ribbons of fresh basil, and cubes of provolone and mozzarella glistening with olive oil—and tells you to follow him. You want to listen, and you have to anyway; in the Church all men outrank all women, and the distance between a cardinal and a nun is particularly vast, a transcontinental flight, the depth of an ocean.

You step away from the plates, looking back at your compatriots. Sister Augustina is glaring at you, bruise-blotched hands gnarled but steady, eyes like a basilisk’s. Sister Rhaena’s lineless face is alight; Tell me everything he says! she mouths, as if Cardinal Targaryen is a celebrity she’s had tacked to her bedroom wall since she was in secondary school...and actually, that might not be too far off the mark. The other three nuns you find yourself working with most often—Sister Penny from the U.K., Sister Nuru from Kenya, and Sister Helvi from Finland—watch you leave with puzzled, transfixed stares.

At first you’d found it impossible to use his given name, but now that you remember him, it’s very difficult not to. You have to remind yourself that you are not alone, not children on a beach where roos hop in the rust-fire dawn; you are in the midst of one hundred and six cardinals, plus a few who are eighty or older and therefore ineligible to vote, yet have nonetheless come to lend their wisdom to the deliberations. Some of their faces you know, many others you don’t, even after hours of research before your arrival in Vatican City.

You say as you trail Aemond uncertainly: “Cardinal Targaryen...?”

“Sit,” he orders when he reaches his table, pulling out a chair. You peer back at the nuns again. Sister Rhaena is exuberant; Sister Augustina looks like she’d enjoy burning you at the stake. You drop sheepishly into the red velvet chair and shrink under the intrigued gazes of the four cardinals who are seated with Aemond. You recognize Cardinal Orlando Almazan of the Philippines and Cardinal Luckson Louissaint of Haiti, whose large dark eyes roll to Aemond as he sips his wine and smiles to himself. Aemond tells his allies as he sits down beside you: “This is Sister Sydney.”

“Welcome, Sister Sydney!” booms a chubby man in his fifties, a warm perpetual flush in his full cheeks, salt-and-pepper hair, a short tidy beard.

You titter and bow your head, deferential. Your hands are clasped together in your lap, resting uneasily on the white wool of your habit. “Thank you, Your Eminence, but that’s not actually my name.”

“Are you from Sydney, Sister?” Cardinal Almazan asks; he is a small quiet man who is easy to lose in a crowd. He is presently doling out lollies and bikkies with labels you’ve never seen before; he must have brought them with him from the Philippines. He slides one over to you. Jelly Straws, the colorful package reads.

“We met there as children,” Aemond says. “About thirty years ago. And we hadn’t seen each other since.”

“C’est pas vrai!” Cardinal Louissaint exclaims as the others chatter incredulously. “Really? Is it possible? And now you find that you have both come to the Church by different paths? Incroyable.” He introduces himself with a broad grin and another curious glance at Aemond.

“How fortuitous for the Lord to bring you together again,” Cardinal Almazan says. He tells you his name and gestures for you to open the Jelly Straws.

“Yes,” Aemond muses, almost like it’s an afterthought, as if divine intervention hadn’t occurred to him. While you’re still hesitating, he rips open the Jelly Straws and takes a green one for himself, crystals of sugary coating snowing down on the table. “Mmm. Watermelon.”

“Aemo, give me a mango one,” the loud salt-and-pepper haired man says, holding out an open palm. And you recall abruptly, like something shattering against the floor: Did I call him that on the beach? I think I might have.

Aemond tosses him an orange Jelly Straw, and then tells you, pointing at the man: “Kazimierz Nowak of Poland.” Then he indicates to the last attendee, fluffy brown hair and round glasses, composed, bookish, mid-forties, the second-youngest cardinal here in the dining hall of the Domus Sanctae Marthae, the residence of the cardinals for the duration of the conclave. “Shane Campbell, American by birth, now serving in Mongolia.”

“Easiest assignment,” Cardinal Nowak mutters as he tears open a package of Sky Flakes, and the other men chuckle.

“Kazi, you are being rude again,” Cardinal Almazan scolds him, but he’s smiling. Unfamiliar snacks rotate around the table: Fudgee Barr, Kopiko, Super Stix, Hello Panda. Cautiously, you take a pink Jelly Straw from the package and pass the rest along. It tastes like strawberries, sweet and summery, golden sun beating down like it has in every other December you’ve ever lived through.

Cardinal Campbell tells Kazi: “I would happily die by arrows or being roasted over a gridiron if it would at last win me your esteem.”

“You could just lose four fingers like Jake,” Kazi suggests. He waves to a cardinal at a nearby table: Jacob Green, a Brit serving in Iran. You know his face; last year his capture and torture by a militant group was widely publicized, as well as his commitment to remain in Iran after the Church paid a hefty ransom and arranged for his safe release.

Cardinal Campbell holds up his hands and ponders them. “Which fingers could I spare?”

“Start with the ring fingers,” Cardinal Luckson Louissaint says. “You won’t need them.”

You all laugh, and Rhaena appears with plates of antipasto, including one for you. She cannot disguise her excitement; she is glowing with it, she is beaming, she almost drops Aemond’s serving on the floor as she goes to set it in front of him. “Thank you very much, Sister,” Cardinal Almazan murmurs as she scurries off again.

The men begin to eat. They speak with great familiarity and have nicknames for each other: Aemo, Kazi, Lucky, Lando, Cam. You pick up your fork and peer nervously around the dining hall. Many cardinals are watching you now, some amused, some fond...but others are frowning.

“Eat, Sister, eat,” Lucky urges you. He is short and round and has a gruff voice and hands calloused from the sort of work most cardinals abstain from. “You are in the right place, I promise. This is the kids’ table.”

Cardinal Orlando Almazan, Lando to his friends, appears startled. “I’m sixty.”

“That’s mid-twenties in cardinal years,” Kazi says. “Hey, Lando, did you ever watch that show I emailed you about?”

“Oh, it was awful.” He spears a chunk of salami with his fork.

“What show?” Aemond asks.

“Cribs,” Kazi says, and the others snicker.

“So wasteful!” Lando laments. “All those bedrooms, bowling alleys, movie theaters, garages for ten cars...all I could think about was the good those resources might do elsewhere.”

Kazi sighs. “You can’t look at anything without seeing orphans.”

Lando opens his hands. “And is this such a failing?”

“Well, it’s not very interesting.”

Lando grins. “Interesting men make poor cardinals. We figured that out in the 1500s when they kept murdering each other.”

“Might be a good tradition to revisit,” Lucky jokes, but in a very low voice. And he nods towards a table across the room, where several cardinals are glaring and hissing conspiratorially amongst themselves. You recognize some of them, older men with forceful fields of gravity: Bernardo Ferrari of Italy, Florent Auclair of France, and Matej Jahoda of the Czech Republic, a favorite to be elected pope.

Kazi says: “Jahoda thinks he is entitled to lead the Church because atheists killed his family.”

You are horrorstruck, a palm pressed to the white wool over your heart. “Did they really?”

“Prague Spring,” Aemond tells you, a phrase that carries with it vague connotations from Modern History in secondary school: 1960s, Eastern Bloc, Soviet invasion, self-immolations, tanks and smoke in the streets.

“It is very sad, what happened to his people,” Lando says softly.

“Yes, of course, but you cannot buy the Chair of Saint Peter with tragedies,” Lucky replies, then winks at Aemond. “Although perhaps you can earn it with miracles.”

“It wasn’t a miracle,” Aemond demurs, as he is expected to. To agree would be sanctimonious, prideful, unholy. No cardinal may campaign for himself, nor be seen to covet the papacy. It is disqualifying to be perceived as ambitious; and so those who want it most become good at pretending.

Cam leans across the table to whisper to Aemond: “Jahoda calls you The Cyclops.”

Aemond smiles as he crunches on a hunk of cucumber. “For something to be a monster, you have to be afraid of it.”

You take shy nibbles of your antipasto. On the other side of the dining hall, Cardinal Jahoda rolls his eyes and glowers at you and Aemond, then turns to say something you can just barely hear to his companions: “He will do anything for attention.”

“What was that, Cardinal Jahoda?” Kazi shouts across the void, and a hush ripples through the men dressed in red, the women in white or blue or black—depending upon which order they belong to—skittering soundlessly on the outskirts as they fetch water and wine and bowls of pancetta and pea risotto, the next course. Over one hundred souls wait to see what will happen next. The lines have been drawn and the frontrunners are no secret: the conservatives favor Jahoda or Leopoldo do Carmo of Portugal, the moderates are split between Jacob Green and Gideon Saati of South Sudan, and the liberals by and large are planning to vote for Aemond when the cardinals are locked in the Sistine Chapel.

Slowly, Cardinal Jahoda rises to his feet. He is an imposing man with iron-grey hair, broad shoulders, and large hands that could have gone to war if he’d chosen a different vocation. His voice is not gravelly like Lucky’s, but clear and deep and colored with a strong Czech accent. “Brothers, this is a time for reflection and solemn prayer, not fraternizing.”

Aemond stands. Enraptured gazes follow him, eyeglasses are put on; some cardinals smile, others glare, others only observe, opening their hearts to be swayed in either direction. “Cardinal Jahoda, surely you do not believe that our sisters are fit to prepare our meals but not to share them with us.”

Jahoda is dismissive, as if Aemond is a child to be shushed. “Ah, you do nothing with pure intentions. Do not pretend you care for her.”

“You are upset,” Aemond says with mock earnestness, and there are chuckles in the audience. “Perhaps you are lonely and in need of better company. Perhaps you would like to invite one of the other sisters to join your table.”

“God has ordained different roles for us. I would not presume to alter them.”

“And this is the thinking that has left our Church in such a precarious state,” Aemond says, and there is a chorus of responses: groans and objections from the conservatives, cheers and water glasses thumped on the tables from the liberals, the moderates splitting the difference. “You would not presume to question anything, and so you are content with an institution that stands still as the world keeps moving.”

“The Holy Father, may God rest his soul, was a progressive,” Jahoda counters, sparring with words like blades that clang together and slice just millimeters from the blue shadows of veins. “And for all his triumphs—serving the poor and the destitute so faithfully, welcoming with open arms migrants and refugees—he failed to strengthen the Church. Millions around the world are leaving Catholicism to become Evangelicals. The Vatican is deeply in debt. Recent press coverage of the Holy See has been marred by misinterpretations and vagueness, mixed messages, claiming to champion human rights while enabling China and Russia—”

“Concessions must be made if we are to have inroads to reach the people of these nations.”

“And so you would negotiate with tyrants.” Jahoda gives Aemond a hard, searing look, as if this is a betrayal. “Appeasement is not the solution to our problems.”

“Neither is alienation from modernity! We can choose to challenge ourselves and our Faith in order to meet the needs of the time we live in and reinvigorate the Church. We can explore the possibility of ordaining female deacons, we can extend blessings to same-sex couples, we can make celibacy optional for our priests as so many other religions have done already, we can do more to protect the climate which will in turn save countless human lives, we can allow the divorced and remarried to participate in communion!”

But this is too much: the conservatives are jeering and the moderates look startled, as if a fire alarm has just gone off. The liberals are gamely trying to drown out the opposition with cheers, applause, bangs of fists and water glasses against the tables. The nuns clutch their rosaries. You exchange a glance with Rhaena, who stands nearby carrying a bowl of risotto she’s completely forgotten about. She is mesmerized by Aemond. She mouths to you: Can you believe him?

You can, but you can’t; he’s exactly the same as the boy from the beach, he is so different, he is still watchful and clever, he is sharper and bolder and scarred.

“Brothers, brothers, please!” Cardinal Blaise Seaborn is pleading. He is the dean of the College of Cardinals, responsible for summoning them for the conclave and presiding over the proceedings. He is eternally flustered, his hair in disarray and his cassock rumpled. “We can discuss these matters in the general congregations tomorrow. Now is not the time. You’ve traveled so far and you must be exhausted. Please, I implore you, take your seats and finish your meals that the sisters have worked so diligently to prepare.”

Jahoda waves a hand flippantly as he lowers himself back into his chair. “You cannot understand, Cardinal Targaryen. But it is not your fault. You do not have the wisdom. You’re just too young.”

And as Jahoda retreats, Cardinal Auclair leaps up from the same table and strides to the center of the dining hall. He is tall and lean like Aemond, white-haired since his thirties, fiendishly quick, a fox, a peacock, a mercenary. No one would ever vote for Florent Auclair to be pope; it is well-known—yet never said aloud—that at home in Paris, there is a widow he has taken a special interest in and three children that share his aquiline nose and small, icy eyes. But this does not mean he is impartial. In your corner of the room, Lucky is drumming his knuckles heavily on the tabletop. Kazi passes you a half-eaten Choc Nut.

“Your Eminences,” Auclair begins with a sweep of his hand. Cardinal Seaborn peers around as if searching for someone to stop this, as if it isn’t his job. “The Holy Father was known for his humility and his gentleness. Let us now bring balance to the Church with a leader who is strong, and experienced, and attuned to the ancient history of our Faith. Not an idealistic youth.”

“I wonder about this fixation upon age,” Aemond says, and all eyes snap back to him. Cardinal Seaborn looks on wearily, feebly. “We believe in a Savior who redeemed the world at thirty-three, but a man at forty or fifty is not fit to lead His flock?”

Auclair is incensed. “You compare yourself to Christ?!”

“You pretend to know my mind!” Aemond thunders. “And the gifts that God has bestowed upon others. There is no greater arrogance.”

Auclair mocks venomously: “What is the saying? He who enters the conclave as pope leaves it as a cardinal.”

“And I have voiced no such aspirations.” But he has led Auclair into the trap of speaking them to life, and now they are loose in the air like fireflies and no one can forget them.

Auclair switches to Latin, and Aemond follows him seamlessly. Then Auclair pivots to French, a language that many of the cardinals have at least some proficiency in, and Aemond hesitates; you have the impression he can understand most of what is being said, but Auclair talks so swiftly—surely this is intentional—and Aemond stumbles over his words when he tries to defend himself.

Lucky surges up from the table and meets them in the middle of the dining hall, assailing Auclair with a deluge of French. Aemond gracefully retreats. As the emperors stand back, the gladiators bloody the floor. Now the cardinals are in uproar, a deafening rumble of palms and fists against the tables, an incomprehensible storm of languages. Kazi and Cam are bellowing to cheer Lucky on. Lando looks at you, smiles placidly, shrugs, takes a bite of his risotto.

“Cardinal Louissant, please!” Cardinal Seaborn begs. “Please, Brothers, let us return to our seats! This is no way to honor the memory of the Holy Father!”

The cardinals fracture away from each other, Auclair returning to one side of the room, Lucky to the other. Auclair hisses at Aemond as he withdraws: “Even your hero Saint Thomas Aquinas agreed that pride is the most reprehensible of the seven deadly sins.”

Aemond says: “And fortunately for you, Your Eminence, lust is the least.”

“Le salaud!” Auclair roars, and again the cardinals erupt into chaos. “Le crétin, la bête!”

As the dining hall is engulfed in jeers and laughter and applause, Aemond stands by his chair and sips his wine, cool, composed, too statuesque to be human. You gaze up at him and think: What happened to that boy from the beach? Cardinal Seaborn physically places himself in Auclair’s path to stop him from crossing the midpoint of the room. Sister Augustina is crossing herself.

“You still need one more miracle to be a saint, Targaryen,” Auclair seethes as Cardinal Ferrari coaxes him back to their table. “Surely that is what you dream of. No throne on earth is high enough for you.”

Aemond does not reply. He sits as if no one has said anything and eats his risotto, neat but famished forkfuls. Lucky, Kazi, Cam, and Lando give him encouraging thumps on the back. In return, Aemond flashes them a sly, crooked smirk. Then he turns to you. “Tell me about the work you’ve done with the Sisters of Charity of Australia.”

It’s a command, not a request; still, you deny him. You stand, casting a wary glance at Sister Augustina, who is lurching towards you on jolty, arthritic legs. “I really must go serve dinner with the rest of the sisters, I’m only here in Vatican City with Sister Augustina’s blessing and I fear she is dangerously close to revoking it.”

Aemond’s companions wish you goodnight, but he’s not quite done with you yet. “That’s not why I did it,” he says, indicating to the seat he led you to. “To prove a point.”

“I know, Aemond.” And you should have called him Your Eminence or Cardinal Targaryen, but you didn’t, because he’s not just a cardinal. He’s your friend.

As you depart, Aemond picks up a pack of chocolate-flavored Sky Flakes from the table and offers them to you. “Bikkies, right?”

You grin. He remembers. “Too right.” You take the Sky Flakes; you’ll share them with Rhaena tonight.

But when dinner is over and the dishes have been cleared, Aemond finds you again, this time at the threshold between the dining hall and the corridor that leads to the stairwells and the elevators. The Domus Sanctae Marthae—Latin for Saint Martha’s House—is essentially a hotel, built in 1996 by Pope John Paul II for guests to Vatican City and to house the College of Cardinals during a conclave. It can accommodate one hundred and thirty-one souls in small, spartan rooms: no televisions, no radios, no computers, no cellphones, no worldly distractions, no undue influences upon the cardinals’ meditations. They are to listen to the whispers of God, not journalists, not family or friends, not bribes or threats or pleas, not even the crowds of faithful Catholics that gather in Saint Peter’s Square with handmade signs and flickering candles.

Aemond asks, spotting the plain iron medallion hanging from your throat: “Who are you wearing?”

“Saint Agatha.”

“Bona of Pisa would have been better. The patron saint of travelers. Or perhaps Mary MacKillop, the patron saint of Australia.”

“Yes, Aemond, you’re very smart.”

He chuckles and watches you, and even when he doesn’t say anything you feel no instinct to leave; this is unfinished. His hands are clasped behind his back again, as if he is afraid of what he will do with them if they are untethered. A scarlet torrent of cardinals lumber past as they journey to their rooms. Rhaena, curious but not wanting to intrude, loiters a ways down the hall as she waits for you.

“I still remember saying goodbye to you, isn’t that mad?” you tell Aemond. “We were with our families at that pizza place, and it was dark outside, and as you left it was like you vanished into the white glow of the streetlights. And there was some song playing...I don’t know, I’ve never been able to find it again. But it was sad, and I think it had a harmonica.”

Surely he thinks you’re a bit gone for holding on to that moment from almost exactly twenty-nine years ago; maybe he’ll even think you’re making it up. But instead, Aemond gazes off into the Red Sea of cardinals—a lava flow, a bloodrush—and then after a while he comes back to you. “It’s a Bruce Springsteen song,” Aemond says quietly. “It’s called Atlantic City. If you look it up when all of this is over and we’re no longer sequestered, I think you’ll discover you recognize it.” And as you stand there, speechless and thunderstruck in your spotless white wool, he begins to leave. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Sydney.”

“Defo,” you reply; and when Aemond blinks at you, stunned, you smile.

He smiles back, touches the gold cross that hangs from his neck, turns away from you and is lost in the gore-red current.

~~~~~~~~~~

Everyone agrees he is smart, but how far has that gotten him?

He has leapt from one island to another: born on Nisyros, educated at British boarding schools and seminaries, and finally assigned to Santorini, and it is here that he waits to become someone. The Church has been the refuge of superfluous sons for two thousand years, a throne that requires no inheritance, a ladder to material comforts, security, status, power, fame, immortality for those who climb high enough. And what is the price you must pay? A relatively painless sacrifice when one considers the rewards: you may not marry, you may not have children, you may not experience romantic love if you are still under the belief that such a thing exists.

He came to the Faith through his mother, Irish by birth and always yearning for somewhere that was cool and wet and green. But perhaps its roots cannot thrive here in the dry air and volcanic soil. Of Greece’s ten million inhabitants, only one percent are Catholic, and while that number grows with each new wave of refugees from Lebanon, Syria, or Iraq, he finds himself languishing in scenic Mediterranean irrelevance. At the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist, he ministers to sunburned tourists and dozing old people. He has a plan, but it’s happening so slowly; and patience is a virtue but he has no illusions that he possessed many of those.

It’s summer, hot and glaring and the height of tourist season, when he feels the earth shift beneath his feet as he is ruminating on his disaffection at the Old Port of Fira. Across a narrow strait of the Aegean Sea, he sees the sky change color above Nea Kameni, an uninhabited island and popular site for hiking and sightseeing. Because he was raised on Nisyros, he knows what signs foretell an eruption. Because he’s been on yachts with his boarding school friends—sons of dukes, daughters of prime ministers, bottles of vodka and MDMA pills—he knows how to sail.

It’s late in the day, nearing dusk, and so most of the tours are already back; but there is at least one group left on Nea Kameni, and he knows this because he can just barely see their boat moored to the dock and thrashing on suddenly murderous waves. And then the crater of the volcano explodes, and smoldering rubble pours down onto the dock, and the boat is crushed and they are stranded. He can almost hear their screams. He can imagine the lethal red heat of the lava that will soon be swallowing them like Jonah was wrenched into the belly of a whale.

For the very first time in his life, Aemond could almost believe in God, in divine intervention, in miracles; because in the scorching black plumes of poison rising from Nea Kameni, he sees the white of the smoke when the College of Cardinals has elected a new pope.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Should we have a cuppa?” you ask Rhaena as you place a kettle on a hotplate in the small kitchenette. A corner of the ground floor of the Domus Sanctae Marthae has been set aside for the nuns, each bedroom containing two single-sized beds; you and Rhaena are roommates.

“That’d be lovely.” She sighs as she sits down at the table and rips open the package of chocolate-flavored Sky Flakes. She looks exhausted, shoulders slumped, eyes puffy.

“You alright?”

Rhaena nods. “I’ve just been flat out since the second we got here. And I still have another load of washing to get done tonight. Did you see those spiders in the basement?”

“Oh yeah, heaps of them.”

Rhaena shudders, then perks up when she takes a bite of a Sky Flake. “These are good though.”

“I’ll help you with the washing.”

“Is he like you remember?” she says, and you know who she means. Light floods back into her face; gravity lessens in her bones. She is sitting up straighter. She is entranced. “Was he the same way as a boy? So clever and fearless and magnetic?” Then Rhaena gasps and glances worriedly at the third nun in the room, whom she had forgotten about: Sister Augustina is at the opposite end of the table, collapsed with her head resting on her forearms, her body eerily motionless. She’s always doing this.

You smile. “She’s asleep, Rhaena. She can’t hear us.”

Nonetheless, her voice drops to a whisper. “She won’t stop hitting me.”

“I’m sorry.” You pull back your sleeve to show Rhaena the discoloration of a bruise left by one of Sister Augustina’s clawlike hands. “Keep your distance as much as you can. I’ll try to distract her.”

Rhaena gives her unconscious tormenter one last mistrustful look. Despite Sister Augustina’s mortal faults, you have compassion for her. Wrath comes from pain, a vivid red like stoked flames or fresh blood, and something terrible must have happened to her: a lost loved one, a suffering nation, betrayal, rejection, abuse. But she’s still in the Church, she still has faith, and you find that beautiful. She wears a black habit and a medallion depicting Saint Zita, the patron saint of servants, housekeepers, and lost keys.

Rhaena prompts you: “Well?”

Her question still burns in your skull, low like embers: Is he like you remember? “It’s difficult to explain,” you say slowly. “Sometimes he’s just like that boy from the beach. And then in other moments he looks like a stranger.” He is cunning, he is prideful.

“He would make an extraordinary pope, don’t you think?” Rhaena says wistfully as she nibbles on her Sky Flake. “He’s so well-versed. He’s young, he’s charismatic. And he’s performed a miracle. The lava stopped when he held up his hands, that’s what the tourists he saved told the reporters. What other cardinal can say that? Who else could claim to have been chosen by God?”

Your reply is vague, and not only because you’re supposed to believe God alone will decide who the next Holy Father will be; you aren’t sure how you feel about Aemond being pope. “We’ll have to see what happens.”

“And we get to witness it...right here, where Saint Peter founded the Church two thousand years ago...” Rhaena is in awe of your good fortune, Sister Augustina and the spiders and the endless chores notwithstanding. “What was it that you said to Mother Maureen to convince her to send us to Rome?”

You haven’t told Rhaena the real reason why you’re here. It would hurt her, you think; you are like an older sister to her, or perhaps even a mother, a resurrection of the one she lost to a postpartum hemorrhage when she was a girl. Engraved on her plain iron medallion is Saint Jerome, the patron saint of orphans and abandoned children.

So you lie. “Papal conclaves are so rare, maybe once every ten or twenty years. I won’t have many more opportunities to see one. When the Holy Father passed, Mother Maureen and I were discussing it, and I mentioned how fascinated I’d always been by the process and how I would love to assist with a conclave someday. And she made a call to Sister Augustina that same night.”

Rhaena smiles warmly. “Mother Maureen is so kind.”

She really is. “We are very fortunate to have her.”

You pour boiling water into two cups with one teabag each—Yorkshire Tea, of course, brought in your luggage—and let them steep. Then you turn to contemplate Sister Augustina, still sleeping.

“Don’t,” Rhaena pleads.

You smirk guiltily. You can’t bring yourself to exclude her. It’s not the right thing to do. “Sister Augustina, would you like some tea?” you ask loudly. She doesn’t stir.

“Leave her alone,” Rhaena begs you. “She’ll just find something to snap at us about!”

You try again: “Sister Augustina!”

She still doesn’t move. Now you and Rhaena are perplexed; it’s never been this difficult to rouse her before. You go to Sister Augustina and prod her shoulder, then scream as she spills bonelessly across the floor.

She’s dead.

#aemond targaryen x reader #aemond targaryen #aemond x reader #aemond x y/n #aemond x you #aemond targaryen x you #aemond targaryen x y/n #aemond fanfiction #aemond targaryen fanfiction #conclave au

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thinemoonshine · 10 months ago

Text

༄LECHE OF THE SIRENS.ೃ࿔*

corrupt!enhypen ot7 x siren!reader warning(s): the boys being downright disgusting, reverse harem, mature themes, obsessive and possessive behaviours, (y/n) is manipulative and puts them in their place, unconventional 'love' type: mini series word count: 10.4k

seven nobles who are corrupt meets a girl akin to a celestial being. little do they know, that the maiden is anything but—as she is the bane to all abominable man, a siren.

𝓟𝓐𝓡𝓣 1

𝒮unghoon scoffs incredulously at his friend, Jongseong’s, decision to sneak into the prostitute house through the back door. “Don’t tell me you’re still playing the role of the refined, virtuous young lord?”

Jongseong clicks his tongue with a frown as he turns his face away from his deprecating friend. “I have to. If I wish to be the head of my house, I have to maintain a polished reputation. My father sees to it that I will.”

The young can only roll his eyes though a ghost of a smirk plays on his lips. “Oh, and you’re doing a very good job with that, aren’t you?”

“How is it that you’ve managed to keep your wickedness hidden?” Jaeyun asks with an arch of his brow.

“Because I’m smart,” Jongseong shamelessly confesses as he faces them once more. “I only use those with either nothing to gain…or everything to lose if they were to be acquainted with me—that includes the ladies.”

The other five of his friends, excluding Riki and Sunoo who seem to be disinterested in their venereal subjects, only stay silent at the side—arms crossed and deadpanned.

“Well then, the three of us will proudly enter through the main door while you have to sneak around like a little rat for daddy,” Heeseung mocks to which Jongseong frowns at but he tells no falsity.

He then turns to the youngest three with hands in his pockets. “What about you lot?”

Riki wraps an arm around Jungwon’s shoulders with a playful smirk. “We plan to watch them dance. They have a performance tonight.”

“And we’ve gotten the VIP tickets,” Won adds and pulls out two slips making Seong knit his brows.

“Only two?”

Sunoo raises a hand. “I’m staying out. The aromas they they use are headache inducing.”

“Suit yourself,” the oldest of the bunch says casually with a shrug before they all haughtily enter the establishment in the red district.

The lone member sigh watches them disappear before he retreats to the lively booths that line the roads. Various savoury smells and appetizing images of food bring delight—rekindling his spirit for fun. He’s always been fond of all types of delicacies.

“What would you like, young man?” The vendor asks Sunoo who so conspicuously eyes the food at his stall with stars in his eyes.

The customer grins happily, ear-to-ear before he speaks. “All of it!”

—

“I’ve eaten too much, ugh,” Sunoo groans and pats on the waistband of his high-waisted trousers that make his every move uncomfortable. Even breathing is distasteful with each inhale causing his slight bloated abdomen to strain against the band.

As he walks at the side of the now much serene and isolated street as it’s nearer the exit of the district, he halts in his steps at the sigh of a maiden standing near the shore of the sea.

She’s clothed in a ragged dress with the hems either disintegrated or chewed away by ants and its colour has faded to the point where one can’t exactly discern its original hue—whether grey or brown or beige or even white.

Furthermore, she lacks shoes—standing with her feet bare against the sand as she blankly stares at the water that rolls towards her toes but not close enough to touch.

Sunoo scowls, disturbed and mainly disgruntled by seeing an obtrusively nameless, untitled woman who so clearly does not belong in the festive and enchanting district. He’s about to turn away but the maiden does so first—meeting his glare that instantly softens to be filled with astonishment.

He’s awestruck.

The beauty the lass beholds is unlike any other. With eyes as clear and scintillating as the full moon yet deep and secretive like the depth of the seas, dewy skin that shimmers beneath the light, cheeks that bloom radiantly with life and lips pulled to the loveliest smile that the young noble has ever seen—she is mesmerizing.

So bewitching that it enthralls him—his every senses—to the point that he believes that she might not be human.

And for someone renowned as one of the most irresistible and pursued men of the time, that statement holds no exaggeration.

“What a beaut!” A man suddenly comes by with his friend. The two are dressed in fine suits and adorned with ostentatious accessories, displaying their wealth and rank in the social class yet their behaviour juxtaposes them.

Their faces are flushed and hair all tousled, clearly blotto.

“Which company are you from, huh?” The man hiccups as he approaches the mysterious girl who’s now focused on the pair. “Pretty girl like you wearing crappy clothes like this in this place can only mean two things.”

She remains still and silent with head lifted to look up at the taller man looming over her.

“One, you ran away. Two, you got thrown out because you’re not ‘performing’ well. Not…satisfying enough,” he continues with a drunken chuckle while his friend snickers.

The first sound emits from the girl when the latter roughly grasps her jaw in his hand, causing her to gasp. He hums as his eyes narrowed onto her. “DANG! With this typa face, tho! You’re too precious to he thrown! You ran away, huh?”

She takes a step back.

“No, no, don’t you dare run,” the man growls and now grapples her by the shoulder with his free hand. His face expresses displeasure but it soon shifts to a mischievous grin. “Why don’t we find out ourselves, hm? If there really is something wrong with ya.”

His hand unlatches from her jaw to travel down her neck to her collarbones and Sunoo, the only witness to the whole scene, turns on his heels to walk away.

‘She’s ravishing, but she’s still a shameful, used woman with nothing to her name,’ he thinks vainly and begins to step away. ‘Whatever happens is not my responsibility—and none will care either way.’

He begins his stroll but is compelled to turn once more at the sound of a painful grunt and he’s met with the view of the young woman biting the hand of her assaulter that rests on her shoulder before she kicks the other in his shin.

And with another swift motion, she retrieves an auger shell from the sand below them before slashing its sharp tip against their faces—almost stabbing one of them in the eye which leads to him stumbling backwards and crashing onto his arse.

“YOU WHXRE!!” The one on his feet roars with pure wrath and the gaze in his bloodshot eyes is baneful. He plans to end the girl right where she stands.

But just as many times before, she stays mute and skillfully dodges him with a mere bend to the side—his drunken self too wobbly to move as agile as he wishes. And right when his back faces her from his reckless offense, she stabs the shell into the flesh of his back without a single blink. Once, twice—and thrice.

His wail of pain cuts through the tranquility of the night as he falls onto his palms and knees into the water. Blood flows rapidly from his three wounds despite them being quite tiny. She dug them deep enough.

“Take him with you,” is all the girl says to the one trembling with fright and thus, forced to sobriety—his face blanched and the centre front of his trousers carrying a warm, dark patch.

He pathetically crawls to his injured friend and carries him onto his back before hasting away like a scurrying rodent.

She who remains behind observes as they further away before dropping the bloody shell and inhaling, exhaling, as if to calm herself—ignoring the second presence who stares her from afar with wonder in his widened eyes and cheeks in a faint rosy tint.

He already found her entrancing enough by a mere glance, but now, seeing what she’s capable of, seeing how a true gem she is, he’s utterly spellbound. And he truly must be because he’s completely unaware of her approach until she stands before him with an arm’s length between them.

“Why did you not aid me?” She queries and the sound of her voice tickles his ears, causing his hair to rise and his insides tingle with a rush of sparks he’s never felt before. “Why leave?”

Sunoo looks down at her as his breaths slow, the adrenaline that courses through him from just watching her beginning to calm. “…There was no reason for me to help. You are an insignificant stranger and neither did saving you will benefit me in any way.”

“How cruel,” she says yet, those words hold no criticism or any sort of sentiment. It’s simply a statement, an observation and still, the softness and tune of her voice in which she uses to speak—a most subtle raise in pitch at the end—makes it seem as if she’s…amused. “It’s a shame you think of me in such way when I think of you so highly.”

The other maintains his position as she takes a small step forward. “What do you mean?”

“I was hoping to gain your attention. I’ve been seeing you since before, Sunoo,” she continues and her knowledge of his name befuddles him. He should be interrogating her, demand answers as to how she knows of his identity however, the fact that she seems to be interested in him outweighs any other thought.

His face mantles and long pretty lashes framing his foxy eyes flutter at his flustered rapid blinking. “Y-you have?”

She nods her head and he’s never seen someone conduct a simple action so gracefully, especially so with that sweet smile that resides on her face. “I think you’re a very noble man, Sunoo. To leave your friends as they fall victim to their insatiable desires… You are different.”

Sunoo is uncertain what it is about her words, but they always squeeze his heart as butterflies emerge in his stomach. And those gorgeous eyes…the bat of her lashes as she looks up at him, the unwavering tenderness in her gaze and undivided attention—it’s unalike any of the many, many he’s received in his life.

He wants more. He wants her. And if acting as a righteous, refined young lord is what it takes to ensnare her, he can play the role for as much as he needs to.

“It must be cold, isn’t it—to wear such a thin dress in this night breeze?” He begins and wears a beguiling smile that never fails to swoon those around him. “If you don’t mind, would you allow me to gift you with a few warm coats and dresses?”

The maiden shakes her head as she turns away. “It is fine. There is no place for me to put them, anyways.”

At this, the noble’s brows raise. “Do you…not have a place to stay?”

Her silence confirms his suspicion and as vile as it is, a sense of relief and delight fill him. An opportunity strikes.

Suppressing the urge to let his smile tilt to a cunning smirk, she asks the girl.

“Then, would you like to stay in my residence for the time being? There are plenty of rooms to offer and I would not mind the company…if you will have me.”

The other lifts her head to him and the expression on her face already tells him of her decision—widening his grin.

—

“He ditched us without a single notice and now he’s disappeared for a whole 2 weeks cooped up in his home?? That’s awfully suspicious, wouldn’t you think so?” Jongseomg clicks his tongue harshly, both annoyed and worried for one of their youngest as he stomps up the former’s grand staircase.

Being friends with one another has its perks, one of them being that they don’t require to send letters to inform them of their visits—their doors always open to each other.

“Maybe he’s been occupied with all his lessons? He told me he’s been slacking,” Jaeyun tries to assuage the older’s frustration but his only response is ignorance.

Five figures trail behind him and their paces fasten when they reach Sunoo’s floor. Their soles brushing against the squeaky clean tiles create rushed, dissonant shuffles and footsteps.

But before they can venture further down the corridor to his room, they’re forced to a halt at an unfamiliar sight—or to be exact, an unfamiliar person.

Slipping out of her room is a girl accoutred in a silk white dress that shimmers softly at every sway, its fabric hugging her chest, following the shape of her bosom down to her waist while its long skirt flows down in freely—allowing for as much stretch of her legs as she wishes.

Butterfly sleeves hide a majority of her upper arms with a sheer fabric layering the silk, creating a more sophisticated and elegant form. Her further adornments consist of a snowy gold bustier corset top to accentuate her frame while the frills that are sewn onto its upper edge give the illusion of being a part of the butterfly sleeves—making it seem as if she’s wearing an off-shoulder dress.

Her ensemble is an immaculate combination of extravagance and yet gracefulness. Whoever made it is surely an exquisite tailor.

Although, the 6 young men would know nothing about it considering they’re not able to dwell on her dress as they’re too busy gawking at the ethereal damsel that stands before them. They’ve seen many women before—some even doing more than seeing—and yet, they’re confident to declare that they’ve never seen one quite like her.

She’s breathtaking in a way where it’s inhuman. As if she’s an extraterrestrial being—or a creature of myth that tends to lure unprotected, vulnerable men like they are at the moment just to bring them to their demise.

A lethal beauty.

Unlike them however, (y/n) merely shifts her glance between them just to identify. Not once does her eyes widen and sparkle nor do her cheeks flush from the fluster of meeting such unrealistically gorgeous young men who can instantly bring anyone—and anything—below their feet.

“(y/n), why did you—Oh,” Sunoo sounds—tone shifting from curious to blunt indifference.

His presence that exits from the same chamber (y/n) emerged from instantly rouse suspicion and intrigue in his friends.

Jaeyun scoffs. “So, this is what this was all about? You’ve found yourself a woman and decide that you’d rot in your mansion with her—neglecting your own friends?”

Sunoo frowns as he shields (y/n) from their prying, scrutinizing eyes. He was never one to really care about their reprimands. “Neglect? It’s not like you’re all under my care. I’m not your parent who needs to coddle you.”

“Kim Sunoo, you know that isn’t what we mean,” Heeseung rebukes, a sharp and fierce glare on his otherwise doe eyes. “You vanished for 2 weeks with not a single word!”

“Do I need to inform you of my activities?” The younger hisses with his own eyes whetting and things would have escalated from the fire growing in the two if it isn’t for (y/n) placing a hand against her host’s arm.

His glower softens almost immediately as he shifts his focus onto the girl—his instant sickening his friends.

(y/n)’s voice is gentle, airy like the morning breeze as well as clear and alluring like the glistens of the water surface from the shining moonlight—charming one to stay and watch the waters glitter.

Or in terms of voice, seducing one to not just remain and hear but listen—just as how they all fall into an unanimous quiet.

“Should I leave?" She asks, shocking Sunoo terribly as dread fills him. The idea itself is horrifying. "It seems I might have overstayed my welcome."

Sunoo shakes his head vigorously. "No, no! Don't leave! I—They are just being rude, they know nothing."

His frantic behaviour that drips with desperation is both amusing and astonishing to his friends who have never seen him act so...pathetic before. He's always been the embodiment of sophistication, of grace to the point that it's boastful at times.

(y/n) looks up at him nervously, her brows tilted with worry. "But—"

"(y/n)," her host cuts her off as he cups her cheek, thumb caressing her skin tenderly. "Don't fret, hm? This is all just a small argument between my friends and I. Why don't you go back in and practice the new piece I taught you?"

Seeing no reason to refute, the girl nods and returns to the room she exited from with quiet nimble footsteps.

Sunoo's gaze that was warm and endearing turns frigid and stern the moment she disappears and he turns his head to his friends. "I'm not going to entertain this useless bicker between us so I suggest we digress. Leave, stay, I don't care what you do as long as you don't disturb us again. (y/n) is my guest and she will remain here for as long I will her and none of you are to defy that."

With one last warning glare, he turns away to join (y/n) whose melodious play can be hear from the momentary opening of the door before Sunoo slams it shut.

A deafening silence overtakes until Jaeyun clears his throat.

"You heard what he said so who's up for an impromptu sleepover?" He suggests with a playful, wide grin as he wiggles his dark brows at the others.

—

It's so fun being powerful. They can make anything happen with a flick of the wrist or a snap of their fingers. With just a simple order from them, those around them easily oblige—eager to execute every command. Just how they need not to lift a finger while their servants back home are panicked—rushing to pack clothes and other necessities for their young masters who so suddenly sent a letter informing them of their plans of staying at Master Sunoo's abode.

Jongseong scoffs as he recalls his maids and butlers running from the gates the moment their carriage arrived and pretending to be all calm and collected as they stood in front of him—as if their skin wasn't glistening with sweat and breaths weren't heavy as they pant.

Knock, knock!

He furrows at the abrupt interruption of his reminiscence and sits up on the bed to face the door. "Who is it?"

"It's (y/n)," the entrancing voice from before promptly straightens his posture as he springs onto his feet.

Clearing his throat and neatening his shirt while approaching the door, he abruptly halts at the ridiculousness of his own behaviour. Why is he trying to impress a poor, insignificant girl anyways? He already heard the talk from the servants on how Sunoo randomly brought her home while she was still in her rags and completely barefoot.

"What is it?" He utters with a heavy sigh as soon as he opens the door.

"Would you like some tea? I made it myself," (y/n) asks with a hopeful mien, eyes sparkling and lips in a small smile.

The other cocks up a brow skeptically. "You know how to brew tea?"

"I watched," she answers, deepening his skepticism.

Another long, unamused sigh leaves him. "Just get in."

She enters cheerily and sets down the tray on his little tea table while watches behind with arms crossed and gaze sharp.

“I thought it would be a nice welcome. Sunoo taught me that it’s good etiquette,” (y/n) says as she pours him a cup of warm tea with calculated, precise movements—shocking him, to be honest—and placing it down in front of him without a single tremor. “I hope you find it to your liking.”

Jongseong scoffs at his futile wish. He’s one of the most picky when it comes to his meals—always thinking none of is good enough and that includes how he enjoys his tea.

He had to personally teach his servants how to brew and how much sugar to be used to actually make one fitting his palate and even then, they still can’t satisfy him.

After a few gentle blows to cool down the hot drink, he brings the brim of the cup to his lips for his first sip and once again, receives another surprise. It’s…splendid. Such aroma and perfect balance between tea and sugar that spreads perfectly on his tongue and warming him from the inside—akin to sitting in front of the hearth during winter.

He lifts his gaze to meet with (y/n)’s as he lags to utter the words in his head—all of them jumbled from both disbelief and yet, amazement. “How did you make this? It’s exactly as how I prefer it to be.”

“I…um, I actually asked your servant beforehand on how you typically enjoy your tea,” (y/n) timidly answers as she stares at her fiddling fingers on her lap. “I apologize for not asking you myself and instead, intruding on your privacy.”

Strangely, he doesn’t mind very much although usually he would find it offensive that someone is investigating him through his servants. Instead, he finishes the rest of his tea before passing to her on its small plate. “Pour me some more.”

His request rekindles a discernible light onto her face as she physically perks up—eyes upturning and corners of her lips curling as she obliges. And Jongseong can’t help but admit that she looks…adorable.

For him to be able to control her mood with a few words or actions, he finds it amusing and truly lovable—so much so that he doesn’t notice how much time has passed with her sharing her experience living at the mansion while he merely sits and listen with a gentle smile retained on her face.

Only when the room darkens to the point the cups in front of them are almost unseen and their faces are shadowed does he finally, take note of the time.

“Oh! I’ve taken too much of your time. I should leave now,” (y/n) exclaims with alarm as she rushes to her feet while collecting all their cups and biscuits back onto the silver tray. With hands on her stomach, she then bows at Jongseong respectfully, bidding him goodbye before she lifts the tray and out she goes.

The lone man remains in his room as his servant enters to light the candles and lamps before leaving him to his own devices.

As much as he enjoys the silence, he never knew how lonely it can be…until today.

Strolling through the corridor is (y/n) who’s reminiscing her conversation with her guest before and a smile stretches itself onto her face. A glint sparks in her eye and a passing Sunghoon espies the ambiguous expression she wears but she disappears down the stairs quickly, ridding him of the opportunity to observe more.

His luxuriant dark brows knit in wonder as he returns to his room.

—

The next day is just like any other for (y/n)—awaking at the sounds of cheery chirping birds, freshening up with the help of her designated servants and getting dressed with the outfit of her choice before she leaves to have her daily etiquette lesson with Sunoo.

One might think she’s the lady of the house from the way she’s treated by the staff and to even be privately tutored by the young master himself—that’s the grandest, most gracious gesture he’s ever done for anyone at all.

But to think she’s only a nobody picked up from the street, it’s a cultural shock to others.

“Good morning, Sunoo,” (y/n) greets Sunoo who’s already waiting for her on the windowsill as he stares at the sunny view outside. “Will we pick up from yesterday’s lesson?”

The noble lad turns to her, his eyes already scintillating with adoration as he approaches her with long, calculated steps. “How about we take a break today? The day is beautiful outside.”

His suggestion excites the other who nods vigorously and he giggles with contentment—hand reaching up to fix her hair and trailing his fingers to the side of her face to warmly press his palm against it.

Electrifying tingles bloom in his chest when she reciprocates his affection by leaning against his hand, her eyes shutting briefly before they open to look up at him.

Sunoo feels his breath hitch. She always does this to him. Every single time. He initiates the intimacy and yet at the end he’s the one breathless and desperate for more, craving for her touch and wanting her to want him just as he does to her.

“I’ll tell the servants to prepare you favourite pastries and tea. Wait for me in the garden veranda, hm?”

She nods and he reluctantly slips his hand away, leaving him feeling cold and bare as he yearns for her warmth and comfort once more.

(y/n) casually makes her way to the garden, humming one of the sweet melodies Sunoo taught her to play on the piano as she ambles.

An air of peace and joy encompasses her, disregarding the predatory eyes that ominously tracks her every move from behind a tall bush. His hand rests on the side of the prickly leaves as he stalks the naive prey.

His tongue darts out to wet his bottom lip as a sardonic smirk reveals itself when he sees her stop at the veranda–taking his first step towards her.

“I thought you had lessons,” Heeseung begins and the girl spins on her heels.

Her brows twitch upwards subtly at his unexpected presence. “Yes, I was supposed to. But Sunoo thought it was better to enjoy the sunny weather today.”

“‘Sunoo?’” The male repeats, intrigued by the fact that she’s on a first-name basis with the oh, so majestic Kim Sunoo. He scoffs—though, not of demeaning nature. “I see you address him using casual terms. Will it be improper of me to ask you to do the same for me?”

(y/n) tilts her head, puzzled and he continues.

“Lee Heeseung, that is my name. But you will just call me Heeseung.”

Her lips form an ‘o’ in understanding before she beams brightly—fingers pinching the sides of her skirt to slightly lift them up and perform a curtsy. “It is a pleasure to know you, Heeseung. My name is (y/n).”

“Just (y/n)? No family name?” Heeseung furrows. He knows her origins are obscure but he expected her to at least, be aware of the name of her kin. However, the nod of her head answers his curiosity. And somehow…he favours her even more because of it. “I’ve been told on how Sunoo found you near the edge of the red district unaccompanied and lost. It must have been terrifying.”

The girl’s gaze travels down to her shoes before back up at him, unsure of what to say. “Well…”

Heeseung translates her uncertainty as meekness however—a sign of vulnerability—and he’s more than glad to be the pillar of her strength if it meant she’ll lean onto him. “You can tell me anything, (y/n). I’ll be there whenever you need someone to talk to.”

His hands gather hers before he clasps them together, swallowing them completely and a shaky breath escapes him at the sight. With eyes swirling with ambition, he looks into hers with feign empathy—doe eyes feigning innocence and goodwill as he closes the distance between them.

“Will you let me? (y/n)?” He ask—no, pleads, almost as he continues his pretense of a selfless hero. He lowers himself to a slight extent as to not intimidate her by looming over her completely though, it fives not much of a difference. His frame still shadows away the sun from her anyways, leaving her with dim lighting as she’s nearly caged by him.

The maiden smiles softly before nodding although remaining quiet and Heeseung immediately lets out a breath of relief. For a moment there, her stillness seemed to suggest rejection but she must have merely been nervous.

“Why are you acting so benevolent suddenly?”

Her question takes him aback and he stammers, “P-pardon?”

His gaze falls from her face to their hands when she slowly slips hers out to rest them onto his larger ones—thumb softly drawing circles onto his skin which brings desirable shivers down his spine.

“I know how you are. I’ve seen you. Committing all those criminal acts, indulging yourself in dirty riches and greedy gambles as you find pleasure in women that you deem worthless thus, undeserving of any care or compassion—and neither do you give any compensation for those that you’ve treated with injustice,” (y/n) speaks with an eloquence that leaves no room for debate. She isn’t just reiterating all those rumours she might have heard but she is fully cognizant of every word she speaks, of every allegation that they are nothing but truths.

Heeseung is struck by a turmoil of emotions: displeased and offended by her unvarnished tongue yet at the same time wonderstruck by her character that completely goes against his initial impression.

“You…! I thought you were of low origins? You should not be aware of anything regarding the aristocracy!” Heeseung hisses as he snatches his hands back in attempt to conceal his disconcerted demeanor.

But (y/n) retains her sangfroid as she lets her arms relax onto her sides. With a pretty smile gracing her pretty face, her lips part to speak pretty, pretty words.

“If your genteel veneer is merely a pathetic attempt to lure me, then I’d very much prefer it if you were to bare your teeth and spit your venom into my tea,” she says in a whispery tune, just enough for both him and her to hear. She then lifts her hand up to trail her feathery touches down from his neck to his chest—paralyzing him as he shudders with unashamed titillation.

His eyelids fluttering and breath hitching as she smirks deviously, an image even Sunoo has yet to be graced with.

A kittenish giggle escapes her and the sound of it ignites him—hair rising and pants tightening especially when she pulls him down by the nape to whisper.

“Because at least then, you might have the chance to ensnare me with your sincere wickedness rather than your feeble, futile attempt to be a saint,” she snaps and he groans at the feel of her lips lightly grazing the shell of his ear before she pushes him away. “Sunoo will be here soon. I suggest you leave.”

Poor Heeseung’s head is much too dazed and fogged to respond as he drunkenly drags himself away with a painful throb in his lower region and skin flushed red as he replays his moment with her again and again in his head.

(y/n) is a pretty woman, the most gorgeous he has ever laid eyes upon—but she is as lethal as she is beautiful. And what unraveled just minutes ago shows him that she is so much more capable than what she seems. This is mere child’s play.

And he wants to know everything about her.

—

“But young master, this amount may be overwhelming for the villagers. Some of them may not be able to afford this,” Yoo, Sunoo’s aide, voices his concerns after receiving the list of demands from the noble.

Nevertheless, Sunoo remains quiet as his eyes sharpen at the sheet he vigorously writes on—burning the letters with his fervent glare. “They live and conduct their business on our property thus, it’s only fair that they should comply with our rules and commands.”

“However, this is too sudden! Would it not be best for you to grant them a period of time to prepare their payment?”

“Father has instructed me to collect a certain amount during his leave and although I do admit that I have been negligent in fulfilling his wishes, it is justified as I have more priorities to tend to.”

The aide bites his tongue from blurting out a name at his master’s mention of ‘priorities.’ Clearly, his priorities are—is, actually, (y/n) alone.

From tutoring her personally to spoiling her with endless jewels and clothing—even calling over one of the most renowned tailor in town—and spending his day and nights with her behind closed door doing what ever it is they are doing.

Yoo doesn’t blame (y/n), of course. If anything, he thinks she has been one of the sweetest characters he has ever been graced with. However, he can’t deny that she is a great distraction to his master.

“Young master Sunoo—” He attempts to begin another argument.

“Aide Yoo,” Sunoo abruptly interrupts with his voice only slightly raised but the lowness of its pitch that’s inordinate for one who’s typically said to be akin sunshine causes the other to tremble. He gulps as his face blanches with fright.

The noble gently puts his quill down but his following acts are anything but—with a gaze so banefully intent that threatens to almost kill, he perturbs the assistant. “It seems you are mistaken. I’ve passed that document to you not to hear your thoughts but for you to simply relay it to the village. What is so difficult for you to comprehend?”

“I-I was only trying to help, my lord.”

“Well, it’s futile and in all honesty, irritating. Now leave for (y/n) will be arriving soon—and by then, no one is permitted to enter my study,” Sunoo commands with a hiss to which the aide instantly bows at before scurrying out.

He shuts the door behind him as quiet as possible but nearly screams his lungs out at the sight of (y/n) who’s standing by the entrance. “(y-y/n), Master Sunoo is waiting for you.”

With another small bend at the waist, Yoo dashes away to promptly finish his assignment and the girl slips into the chamber.

Seeing her is like a breath of fresh air for Sunoo and he instantly rises to his feet before rushing to the maiden—seizing her into his arms and laying his head against her crown.

“(y/n), my lovely (y/n)…” He mumbles and the other says nothing, only patting his back in a slow, calming rhythm—its sensation quietening the loud noises in his stressful mind. “Come.”

She follows obediently, letting herself be lead to the couches before he sits them both down. After straightening her gown for her, Sunoo coils his arms below her waist and lays his head against his chest—listening to her heartbeat as if it’s a lullaby.

A small smile graces his face as his breaths slow to relax.

(y/n) gazes down at him momentarily, trailing down his features and tracing their shapes before turning her head to his overfilled desk with its surface covered in sheets after sheets of documents. He’s slacked far too much to spend his time with (y/n).

And the knowledge of that brings a content smile to her face. She has him right where she wants him.

“Busy?” She asks quietly, almost in a whisper to not interrupt the tranquility that encases them.

Sunoo nods, bottom lip sticking out unconsciously at the reminder of his despair. “Father is returning in two weeks. I have many works to settle before then.”

(y/n) hums in acknowledgment as her fingers begin to comb through his dark brown locks, causing pleasurable tugs onto his scalp and he almost purrs in delight—nuzzling more against her bosom as he raises slightly to feel more of her touch. “My poor Sunoo.”

A love arrow straight to his heart.

She’s accepted him. She’s regarded him as hers. It was always him to express his affections, him to initiate the meetings and now, she’s finally welcomed him into her world. Oh, how blessed does he feel. Suddenly, all that pile of work on his desk doesn’t seem so daunting—his being now buzzing with bliss.

And (y/n) certainly knows that. From the way his smile widens, apple of his cheeks glow in a rosy hue and eyes visibly upturned even while shut, he’s overjoyed. Using her other hand, she begins to outline the features of his soft, angelic visage, mourning at the fact that he’s not as sweet as he looks. Still, she’s grown quite attached.

“(y/n),” he calls suddenly. She hums in response, urging him to continue. “What am I to you?”

It’s this question. It’s not frequent but some of her previous victims have too, inquired her the same and with each, she answers differently. An answer she knows has to be believable, not too exaggerated but not too humble and yet impactful enough to occupy his head and ring in his ears—hypnotizing them to believe her fondness of them is sincere.

And for Sunoo, it’s simply too easy.

“You’re my saviour,” she purrs and the allure of her voice upends the hair on his skin and his body quivers ever so slightly as eyes flutter open with surprise and yet, admiration. The pounding of his heart only heightens at the sight of her already looking at him with the most endearing smile cast on her lovely countenance—eyes swirling with an ambiguity but nevertheless, warmth for him.

His own stare softens, melting into hers as they search her face for any hint of falsity—rejoicing internally upon seeing none and his body lifts to place his plush lips on hers for the briefest of moments.

And yet that single second felt like heaven to him.

The feel of her bare skin against his mouth ignites a desire in him he never knew he had, overtaking his senses and ridding him of every thought—the heavy longing for her growing with every breath wasted not having her and it festers inside him, eating away so quickly he feels he might shrivel and perish.

But he can’t yield to it—not now. He might scare (y/n) away, especially after her confessing her heart, professing to him of her trust and devotion by calling him her hero, her knight in shining armor. He might ruin his chances before he even completely captures her heart.

He titters at the surprise painted on the girl’s face and he lifts his hand to caress her cheek with the gentlest of touches. “And I shall be for as long as you wish.”

—

“The fish tell me you’re an exquisite skater.”

Sunghoon’s brows knit as he turns to face the owner of the lulling—yet, with a touch of mischief—voice. “The fish?”

She nods and directs her gaze to the large man-made pond at which he crouches beside. “They tell me you tend to skate here when the water freezes over as you find yours at your own home not as freeing.”

The noble readies to stand but decides against it when the girl joins his side—mindless of the ends of her dress that drape onto the grass as she gazes longingly at the water. “Is that so? What else do these fish tell you?”

(y/n) smiles, as if amused that he seeks to know more despite the ridiculousness of her statements. As an underwater creature, it is a norm for her to speak to marine life but the same can’t be said for a creature of land. “That you possess an extravagant beauty among your kind.”

At this, a corner of his lips twitch to a smirk of intrigue. “And? What do you say?”

Her stare shifts to the man’s reflection cast onto the still water’s surface. “I wouldn’t say I’m against it.”

Her indirect yet direct admission of his beauty makes his smirk widen into a grin and he too, turns to look at the pond.

‘What a shame. A beautiful woman and yet, disturbed by her own insanity,’ he thinks and exhales through his nose. But the smile on his face doesn’t falter. ‘Well, she isn’t completely useless.’

Of all the women Sunghoon has shared his bed with, none are comparable to the woman who now sits a mere forearm’s length away from him. If he plays things right, he might be able to have her tonight.

“So you think I’m handsome?” He asks boldly and (y/n) nods but still keeps her attention to the small fish swimming. “Then, why don’t you look at me?”

His question prompts her to do exactly that—to look at him—and she’s abruptly met with his deep gaze boring into hers. He smiles at her obedience. “Tell me, what you like about me.”

For a moment, a silence encases the two with the exception of the occasional chirps of birds and faint rustles of the flora dancing into one another with the help of the wind.

She's attentive towards him, eyes fixed on his face and although Sunghoon knows that she's only finding the answer to his question, he can't help but feel slightly abashed—tips of his ears turning red as his apple bobs in his throat from the fluster.

"You remind me of winter," (y/n) finally responds and he blinks, nearly missing her answer if it isn't for her tilting her head at the notice of his straying mind.

He clears his throat to gather his voice. "Are you a fan of the season?"

"I suppose. The cold and snow refreshes me in comparison to hot, drying summer," the girl explains briefly and once again turns away to look at the pond—making him frown.

The lack of attention from her is beginning to vex him. What's so interesting about a pond and its small swimming fish? Obviously, nothing much—especially with the Park Sunghoon existing in the same space. He's far more eye-catching and valuable than a pool of water.

He retains his composure however, knowing that he can't lose his head if he wants to succeed in his objective. "You must be good friends with the fish seeing as how you're so engrossed by them."

His comment earns him a soft chuckle and he'd be lying if he said the saccharine sound doesn't placate him. The twinkle in his eyes and fangs peeking from below his top lip as he smiles are telltale signs.

"You're so silly. I was more of looking at the water. My close fish friends are at sea anyways," she answers truthfully but Sunghoon believes it as another one of her crazy talk.

And in order to win her heart, he chooses to entertain them. "Must be lovely to have friends from so many places. I take it that they're very cordial?"

The girl nods and her face suddenly lights up as her figure perks. Sunghoon watches with puzzlement as she reaches into a seamlessly hidden pocket at the side of her dress before pulling out her fist and offering it to the noble.

One of the latter's dark, luxuriant brows arches with skepticism—that is, until she uncurls her fingers to reveal the three irregularly shaped pearls resting on her palm.

Even when they're not in perfect circles, they are still priceless and beautiful—white coats carrying a pearly sheen that shines at every light and the rawness of their forms create an exquisite uniqueness that Sunghoon has never seen on any other jewel. An inestimable grandeur.

"I received these from my friends but now that I see them, I feel that they would be in much better hands in yours," (y/n) claims as she gently places the three orbs onto his opened palm. Eyes upturned and smile bright, she looks at him with an apparent eagerness. "With such smooth porcelain skin, you seem to be a pearl yourself."

Sunghoon is unable to retort a witty remark, nor can he muster a scoff—captivated by the girl as he admires her limitless geniality. How can one be so unconditionally kind and sweet to a naive extent? To casually grant one with prized possessions simply because she thought they would look better on him. It's foolish—and yet, he finds it so foolishly lovable.

Stretching his lips to a smile, he's finally able to let out a small chuckle. "Are you sure your friends won't be upset with you by giving these to me?"

(y/n) shakes her head and stands—hands dusting her skirt and straightening it before she turns towards the mansion.

"How are you sure?" Sunghoon asks once more as he too, rises to his feet and now towering over the other.

The latter titters and brings her hands behind her back, clasping them together as she begins her amble. "Because I ate them."

It's like every single gear in his head has stopped and all senses numbed apart from his hearing as her voice—her answer echoes in his ears like an enchantment.

'She...ate them?' He mentally thinks and yet, instead of feeling horrified or even mildly perturbed, the hunger he's felt since before only grows—bubbling and boiling in his stomach up to his chest and throat as it urges him to just seize the defenseless girl in front of him.

To paint her skin with his tongue and relishing in her taste, coating every surface with his moisture before sinking his teeth and leaving conspicuous dents of his fangs as to mark her, warning any other who dares to approach. He craves to own her, to make her his and his alone and have her sing and scream his name so frequently that it becomes the only word she knows—to be the only one she recognizes.

Oh, how terribly starved he is for her.

"Are you not returning? The sky will darken soon," the girl asks as she twirls to him slightly—skirt swaying and hair flowing in the wind before she tucks it behind her ear to reveal her face. Her pure eyes staring curiously at him as she awaits his answer.

Sunghoon gulps, both mind and heart turning erratic as he struggles to remain composed and stoic despite his flawless performance throughout the years.

"Sunghoon?"

He throbs with need at the sound of her voice calling his name and his lashes flutter from his shaking lids, dazed and mesmerized by just a simple gesture from her before he nods his head with a stutter.

A gone man.

—

Jaeyun melts into (y/n)’s hands that play with his hair—braiding and twirling the dark locks with her fingers, delivering delicious, gentle tugs onto his crown—and his eyes are shut tight as he relishes in the feeling.

It all happened so quickly, unexpectedly, for him and (y/n) to become close. All it took was him loitering in the garden one afternoon from boredom and (y/n) inviting him to join her lone picnic. He accepted, seeing as he had nothing else worthwhile to do but he didn’t expect anything from the activity.

He thought it would be mediocre at best. After all, what else is there to do aside from sipping warm tea and munching on fresh fancy-filled sandwiches? And he can’t even do anything ‘exciting’ with (y/n) being so out in the open.

And yet, after a few minutes in, Jaeyun was filled with a sense of tranquility and comfort that he’s never felt before.

He was embraced by a warm sense of home and relaxation, one that entirely limps his body and empties his mind that makes him believe the respite he’s had all this time before are poor excuses. There’s just something about (y/n), something that makes him feel so casually free and blissful—even while doing nothing and just…reveling in each other’s presence.

Just like now.

“(y/n),” Jaeyun starts quietly as he leans his head against the pillow she put on her lap for his ease since he’s sitting on the carpeted floor and her on the couch. “How would you like to stay at my residence for some time?”

The girl’s motions freeze entirely and that one simple act instantly makes him straighten his back as eyes shoot open, alarmed and anxious.

“(y/n)?” He calls again, shaky, as he spins on his seat, looking up at her with eyes pleading for an answer to her abrupt change. What was it? Did his invitation offend her? Does she think that his offer is with salacious intent? It won’t be a surprise if she did. Did his reputation precede him and affected her view of him without him knowing?

The noise in his head quietens as she begins to speak.

“No, it’s nothing. It’s just…I don’t plan on leaving Sunoo, Jaeyun,” (y/n) softly declares as her fingers brush the fallen strands of his hair away from his eyes. His doe eyes blink up at her nervously as his brows raise and angle downwards at the end, an adorable expression for an atrocious man.

Jaeyun gently holds her hand just as it begins to retract. “But, why? It won’t be for long. Just for a brief, even a visit! You’ll love it there, I’m sure of it.”

“Sunoo won’t like that,” the girl rejects again with a soft shake of her head. “He’s my saviour, Jaeyun. He was the one who brought me to his home and cared for me. I’d hate to go against him in any way.”

For the first time in forever, Jaeyun loathes himself for having fun. If only he wasn’t so drunk and occupied with the pleasures of the red light district, he might’ve been the one to find her. He might’ve been the one to welcome her in his home and is able to covet her freely without fear or concern for anyone else.

Because then, he would be the one to own her. The one whom she’s tethered to, just as how she is with Sunoo.

He furrows, frustration imbuing.

“But recently, I have been a bit worried,” she says suddenly and this pulls the other’s attention back to her. “I overheard him last time discussing with his aide regarding the collection of tax. And I know, I know it’s for the greater good but…I can’t help wondering if his aide’s words run truer than I hope.”

“What do you mean?” Jaeyun asks, now fully focused as he sees an opportunity to cease her concern, to be her knight in shining armour. His hand squeezes hers assuringly, prompting her to spill the words in her head.

She sighs in defeat. “His aide said that the amount of tax might be too overwhelming for the people, but Sunoo said it was urgent and that nothing could be done.”

Jaeyun restrains from scoffing out loud. He knows that the only reason their host is rushing with the collection is because he had been slacking.

“I’m aware that there must be a reason why he’s putting such great pressure on the villagers but I fret,” (y/n) confesses and meets his eyes, making his heart skip a beat. “Do you think they’ll be alright?”

This is it. His moment.

He smiles and shifts to sit on his heels before clasping both her hands in his. His thumbs draw soothing circles below her knuckles. “If it may bring you some sort of comfort, we can go to the village.”

The rekindled sparks in her eyes bring him more joy than he ever thought they could and he unconsciously wears a grin as his tender gaze is transfixed on her.

“We can?”

‘No. To be honest, no. Not without Sunoo losing his marbles,’ he thinks but his smiling eyes say otherwise.

“Of course.”

—

CRASH!

“Where is she?? FIND HER!” Sunoo shrieks with unbridled wrath as he tightly grips (y/n)’s dress in his fist. Shards of white adorned with prettily painted flowers scatter the sparkling floor from the tea set he hurled towards the wall.

His aide flinches at his piercing scream and gathers his hands together in fear while maids hurry to clean the mess. “W-we’re trying our best, my lord.”

“Do her servants have no clue where she went?” Sunoo snaps as fox eyes sharpen more than they ever have and Yoo shakes his head vigorously. “I should’ve assigned her those guards but I didn’t as I was afraid she’d get uncomfortable. Foolish! Idiot!”

Yoo and the other staff around shudder violently, terrified of what their master will do. They have never seen him be so cross and upset—because he has never been this emotional before. But ever since (y/n) entered his life, they’ve seen many changes in their employer.

“Young lord! We’ve brought a servant who said he saw (y/n) before her disappearance!” A guard declares after performing a respectful bow and enters the chamber alongside his colleague with a shivering slim boy held tightly between them.

Sunoo’s glare shifts to the poor staff member and only then does Yoo feel like he can breathe—stumbling slightly as his abrupt inhale nearly knocks his balance.

“Speak,” the noble orders lowly and the worker gulps harshly.

“I-I saw her in the garden with M-Master Jaeyun. The two were unaccompanied which w-was odd but I thought they were merely enjoying a stroll so I…I said nothing.”

SMACK! THUD!

Gasps erupt from the other servants while hands fly to cover their mouth, taken aback. Widened eyes glance at the noble before they quickly avert them, horrified at the thought of the repercussions if they are caught.

The fallen boy remains ashamed and hurt on the ground while holding the stinging pain against his cheek from Sunoo’s abrasive slap.

“That accursed Jaeyun hyung…” He curses below his breath before turning around, a motion everyone is grateful for as they watch him sit on the missing girl’s bed. He stares at the expensive silk in his hand before running his other against the soft sheets of her mattress. His inordinately unfeeling gaze casts onto her pillow as he smiles at the imagery of her slumbering peacefully but it vanishes as quickly as it forms. “Go to the village. I have a feeling that they might be there…”

His orders are absolute—all necessary figures quickly departing to execute his demand while the servants hastily leave him to the comfort of his own presence, hoping he will simmer down.

Sunoo lays on her bed and buries himself underneath her blanket—basking in her scent and lingering warmth as he clutches her dress against his chest. His head turns into her fluffy, soft pillow and lets his lips brush against the cool fabric as a woeful whimper sounds.

He misses her. He wishes to see her. To touch her and embrace her and be graced with her presence, be spoiled in her unconditional affections. He yearns for her. He needs her.

He can’t live without her.

Knock, knock.

He doesn’t respond to the sound, expecting the visitor to take their leave so when the door swings open, he’s quick to recover to a sitting position as a glower forms.

“Who dare—Sunghoon hyung?” Confusion laces the younger’s tone as the said noble moseys into the room. “What’s so urgent for you to disrupt my private time?”

A scoff emits from the older as his thick, defined brow cocks up with intrigue. “Private time in (y/n)’s room? Seems scandalous, is it not?”

His mockery ticks him off and Sunoo stands, letting go of the girl’s dress in the process. “If you have nothing worthwhile to say, leave.”

Sunghoon raises his hands to his chest in surrender. “Calm. I was merely trying to lighten the mood.”

The younger’s silence and intensifying glare should be enough as a hint to leave and yet, he still chooses to stay.

“Please, the matter I am to discuss with you is regarding (y/n). I’m certain that you’d like to know.”

The other perks.

“I’ve noticed that she doesn’t seem to be quite…fortified in the head. There seems to be a few screws loose,” Sunghoon says slowly and the younger noble’s silence compels him to continue. “So I was going to suggest a proper facility for her to perhaps, fix her. A new institute has recently opened up near by home and I’ve heard of their excellent treatments—always proving to be effective and the staff are cordial and capable.”

Feeling proud of himself, Sunghoon grins brightly as he expectantly rubs his hands together behind his back. Of course, his ‘helpful’ suggestion is a mere excuse. After Sunoo drops her off to the institute, Sunghoon will only collect her and have her stay in his abode—to be his once and for all.

Sunoo isn’t dumb, he’s bound to be suspicious but among all of them, he is also known to be one of the nicest despite his stand-offish attitude. He’ll accept Sunghoon’s proposal if it meant better lifestyle for (y/n).

But perhaps, he’s become too naive, too complacent and confident to realise that his friend’s affections for (y/n) has run deeper than he bargained for. An affection so strong that it borders with obsession.

The sound of the younger’s scoff pulls Hoon away from his reverie and his dark brows knit at him. “So, you too?”

“Pardon?” Sunghoon sounds, visibly confused and Sunoo stands before striding towards him with a mien, solemn, and gaze, frigid.

“First it was Jaeyun, and now you. It’s laughable how any of you think that you can steal (y/n) away from me,” the host scoffs, a cynical smirk on his face and he tilts his head up to him. "I think it is wise for you to leave my abode at this moment, and never set foot in it until I permit you to."

Sunghoon's luxuriant brows knit as his panicked eyes flicker between the other's, deeply shocked by his abrupt verdict. Seeing the inordinate hostility in his golden eyes and the taut fists trembling on his sides from his restraint, it is as if he no longer recognizes. As if they are distant strangers.

His words are caught in his throat, horrified at the young's unforeseen aggression and thankfully, he needs not to respond as the rapidly approaching clamour and discordance of sabatons against tiles.

Like an alarmed lemur, Sunoo's head snaps to the door instantly as eyes widen with anticipation right as his guards enter while flanking (y/n) and Jake. Relief washes over him, shoulders falling and corners of his lips curling as he pulls the girl away from his men's holds.

"(y/n)! I thought you left me. I was so worried," Sunoo sighs into her hair as he embraces her tighty—a scandalous gesture for unwed figures and yet, none dare to refute. He expects to be reciprocated, to feel her own limbs wrap around his torso with warmth yet instead, he's pushed an arm's length away and is greeted by a face scrunched with pure franticness and concern.

"Sunoo, it isn't his fault! It was my idea, truly! I was the one who encouraged the escapade. Not Jaeyun!" She pleads for mercy—not to grant it to her, but to Jake. And it irks Sunoo, so so much to an extent where he wishes for the older lad's demise.

He casts his focus to the said man, eyes that were previously soft and cordial turning sharp and beady like those of a serpent's as he calmly approaches the apprehended noble. "Jake."

The lack of honorifics shocks the latter who's so accustomed to the other addressing him with respect—even if they were to be in a friendly banter, Sunoo never forgets their proper labels as he thinks of dignity very highly.

Which meant that right now, Jaeyun is very, truly, undeniably fuc—

"Just as I have said to Sunghoon, you are to pack your bags and to never dare to approach my property in any circumstance. And this order is to remain until I, myself, revoke it," he hisses his words that are laced with venom. Glare fixed solely on the man whose face blanched upon understanding his command.

That would mean he can never see (y/n) again. He can't simply accept that.

"It wasn't my fault! If you weren't such a selfish, lazy arse, you would not have needed to burden your people with an absurd amount of tax! (y/n) was just worried for them and I sought to ease her of her anxiety that was caused by you!" Jaeyun argues, seething as his chest heaves heavily. It's unwise to argue with the host whose edict will dictate his fate but that's all he can think of.

Sunoo scowls, brow arches with disbelief. "What?"

The feel of cold, trembling fingers intertwining with his distract him and he grows quiet upon meeting (y/n)'s gaze. She shakes her head softly as she rolls her lips between her teeth, brows scrunch and eyes constantly shifting from one of his to the other.

"Please," she begs wispily and brings his hand against her cheek which she then nuzzles into. Like ice to a bruise and a hearth in winter, Sunoo's tumultuous emotions are pacified, leaving only heavy exhaustion from his mental strain and the shaky exhale he perform is a telltale sign. He overlooks the curl of her lips when he surrenders into her—cupping her other cheek with his vacant hand before he presses his plush lips onto her forehead in a lingering, intimate kiss.

Sunghoon and Jaeyun gawk at the sight, both shocked and envious of his privilege to do such a thing with her, but they are quickly dismissed by him who chooses to abide by her requests. Even Sunghoon is excused as he's now too eager to spend time with (y/n) after being deprived of her for hours.

As the doors of her lavish chamber shut behind the two nobles, they turn to one another and exchange knowing yet simultaneously understanding looks before they separate to their own private rooms.

"I didn't know you would be so affected. I apologize," (y/n) says softly as Sunoo brings her to the bed before gently sitting her beside him. "I promise I will not do it again."

The noble stares at her, hurt flashing across his deep gaze as he recalls how she willingly chose to leave him and follow Jaeyun, but he only shakes his head a smile. She's still his and no one can change that. "It's true I was I upset. But, it was my fault. I knew I was being unfair to the people, but desperation lead me to be...selfish. I shouldn't have." "I'll mend it. I shall revoke my order and instead, retrieve the amount needed from my personal vault. My father would not know if I don't tell him, right?"

He lets out a small chuckle with a grin that spells mischief and slyness. His eyes upturned as they scintillate with excitement.

And at that, (y/n)'s brows raise briefly, pleasantly...surprised at his sudden declaration. He'll use his own wealth to correct his wrongs? Of course, it is to be expected—for one who is morally responsible and selfless—but never did she expect that he, or any of the seven nobles, would make such a decision.

"(y/n)?" Sunoo calls softly, bemused by her abrupt silence before finding himself grappling to remain solid and sane when she presses her lips against his cheeks. His temperature spikes, each nerve end tingling as his face turns pink like a blossom. "(y-y/n)?"

The girl smiles as she cups his cheek, an enigmatic yet, warm gleam in her eyes as she stares tenderly at him. Sunoo feels as if he'll implode from how inordinately quick his heart rate is.

"You're sweet," she says, a strange sense of ambiguity laced within. Her thumb caresses his dewy skin that blooms redder. "I've truly...grown attached."

𝓟𝓐𝓡𝓣 2

ᡣ𐭩ྀི₊ ⊹ masterlist ᝰ.ᐟ✮⋆˙

inspired by ‘milk of the sirens’ by melanie martinez and ‘siren’ by kailee morgue

𝜗𝜚 enha are very ew here :C so proceed with caution!! i can't wait for (y/n) to give them a taste of their own medicine :D erm, if you enjoyed it, don’t forget to leave a heart and reblog—they give me some motivation, ya know? but please, do not spam like!! X♡X♡, romi ⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

taglist for this series is open—send an ask to be included ♡

@angelicyouth @lilyuwon @sakanelli-afc @lakoya @clara12o @heeseung-min @inkpot-winters @lilikisuki @randomanothercreature @laylasbunbunny @hveanlyanqelic

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hopelessromantic5 · 1 year ago

Text

King Arthur happens to be traveling through Ealdor the exact day the citizens decide they’ve had enough of Merlin.

Labeling him too dangerous, they tied him up on the pyre in the center of town.

As long as Merlin had been alive, he’d never seen this pyre lit.

He would’ve just gotten himself out of this situation with his ‘gifts’ if it weren’t for his poor mother.

The villagers would never let her live in peace if he magically disappeared.

No, this was the only way she could go on living, even with a broken heart.

He didn’t fight. He didn’t really hear much of what they spit at him. But he could hear his mother wailing at him, to save himself, to do whatever he must do.

He’d resigned himself to an early death.

Tom, the town representative, started spewing some righteous words at him. New Religion words that didn’t quite make sense to him, but that’s to be expected. He is, himself, a creature of the old religion, if prophecy is to be trusted.

“Do you have anything to say for yourself, serpent?”

Merlin opened his mouth to tell his mother that he loved her, but he stopped short.

In the distance, he could hear a sound.

The beating of hooves on hard, cold dirt.

Visitors were approaching.

It must be fate, he thinks.

As the horses drew closer, the villagers slowly turned their attentions away from him.

Merlin simply hung his head, letting the Earth he loved so dearly decide which way his life would swing.

“What is the meaning of this?”

A calm, steady voice came from behind him. Deep and concerned. Merlin wished he could see the man.

“My lord,” Tom bowed, as well as he could, which was strange.

Upon realization, Merlin’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head, were these visitors noble? They never had nobility stay long enough to make comments on anything, only ever just passing through.

“I asked you a question.” The voice said again, with all the authority of someone who’s used to using it.

“This man is a sorcerer, sire. We were just-“

“What has he done?”

“Sire?”

“What has this man done to call for these extreme measures?” When no one answered him immediately, he rephrased.

“Surely there must’ve been a crime committed?” As if it’s a question.

Merlin’s mother pulled herself out of shock and brought herself forth.

“He did nothing, sire.” She spoke firm and unmoving. She must’ve seen hope in this man that Merlin had yet to lay eyes on. “He’s only ever used it for healing wounds and helping our gardens in the winter. Please have mercy on him, my lord. He is my only son.” Tears started falling as her voice broke. She finally met Merlin’s eyes again and he smiled at her, weakly.

“So this man-“

“Sorcerer.” Corrected Tom. What a dick.

“This man, did nothing but heal you and help you survive and this is how you repay him?”

Again no answer.

The man seemed to gesture at Tom, walking towards the town elder, and bringing him finally into Merlin’s line of sight.

The doomed boy nearly gasped.

Silver and red bled together in the sun, armor and finery melded like roses in white sand.

The man-the lord…the knight? He had golden blonde hair, that shone like it’s own light.

Blue eyes made even more obvious and striking surrounded by unblemished, sun-kissed skin.

“You seem to be leading the horde. Tell me why?” No, answer. “Cut him down.” A command. The stranger’s face was a hard, blank line.

Funny how, even then, he didn’t feel like a stranger. But Merlin was in no state to remember it.

“My lord, I do not think that would be wise. Your father was the one to wage war on magic-“

“I am not my father. Cut him down.”

Merlin swallowed. Uther Pendragon was the only person in his mind that waged the war on magic, that began the purge. Which means this man could only be his son, Prince Arthur.

What a prince he was.

Well, King, now.

No wonder every person in the vicinity practically dropped to their knees upon his arrival. They’d all heard stories of ‘The Just King’ that now reigned over Camelot. Giving whatever he could to his citizens that needed it most, never turning anyone away who seeks shelter. Merlin had heard the same as everyone else. Seeing the King in person now, he was in awe.

“I will not endanger the lives of all who live here.” Tom turns back to Merlin with the lit torch.

Merlin held his breath, but the second Tom turned away from him, the King pulled his sword. It made the loveliest sound as it left the sheath.

The sound of salvation.

Tom had the tip of a majestic blade directed right at his throat, as the King spoke again.

“I said, cut him down.”

The look on the King’s face was one that could kill.

Merlin wondered momentarily why he cared so much.

Finally someone from the crowd stepped forward with a knife and began to cut away Merlin’s ties.

Hunith leapt forward and engulfed her son in a hug, while also somewhat holding his body upright.

He did not want to let go, considering he thought he would never get to hug his mother again. But the entire village was watching them.

As was-

“What is your name?”

It was phrased as a question but spoken like a command. Merlin knew it was directed at him without opening his eyes.

He did, reluctantly, release his mother and turn to the golden King, facing deep blue eyes head on. Never cowering.

“Merlin.”

The King must’ve seen something in him. Something every other person was blind to or chose to ignore, simply because he was a peasant. He took a step closer and Merlin could hear the tiny tink of metal pieces on his shining armor, as he did so.

“Well, Merlin.” He said, as if trying it out for himself. “Seeing as I’ve just given you your life, I’d like to ask a favor.”

Merlin’s curiosity was peaked, to say the least. King’s didn’t ask favors, they took whatever they wanted.

King Arthur did not wait for a reply to continue.

“I’m in need of assistance. And I could use someone with a gift like yours, specifically.”

Merlin narrowed his eyes in minuscule doubt. Doubt of intentions, doubt of his safety.

The King somehow knowing his exact thoughts said

“Of course you would be permitted to come back when you are needed. And when I have accomplished my goal, if you wish, you can leave. I will not keep anyone against their will. I am simply offering.” A small smile played on his mouth. Flush pink lips. He also held up his hands as if to say ‘I will not harm you’.

Merlin’s gut told him to follow this man.

Terrifyingly, his intuition told him to follow this man, practically a stranger, anywhere. Everywhere.

Merlin felt a pull he’s never felt before. In the moment, he assumed it was immense gratitude for saving his life.

Merlin turned to meet his mothers eyes, he already knew what she was going to tell him.

“I think it will be good for you. To get out for a while.” She smiles softly.

“Will you be alright?” He whispered, glancing at the crowd still gathered around an unlit pyre.

“I’ll be fine.” She grabbed him in a bear hug, like she always did. “And if they boot me out, I’ll come find you.”

Merlin sighed into her shoulder.

“Alright.”

When Merlin turned back, the King had turned his eyes to the ground, giving mother and son a moment of privacy.

Merlin was starting to warm to him already.

“Can I pack first?”

King Arthur met his gaze then, doing that half smile thing, again.

“I suppose.” He nodded. “But don’t dawdle we need to move if we want to make it back before sundown.”

“Yes, sire.” The title which usually held reverence and respect, was laced with sarcasm. He didn’t seem to think twice, as he strode away towards their hut to gather his things.

If Merlin had looked back, he would’ve found a fully beaming King looking after him and about six knights with faces of complete shock.

And perhaps, one knowing mother.

#merthur #merlin #arthur pendragon #merthur fic #merlin and arthur #hunith #king arthur #Ealdor #might continue #longer version will probably be on ao3

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raven-at-the-writing-desk · 10 months ago

Note

A fun question your opinion: In each arc, what do you think is the theme of each arc? ( It can be a motif, messages, subject)

These are a mix of jokes and serious thoughts ^^ just to avoid the post from being too heavy overall!

The Rose-Red Tyrant:

Breaking free from perpetuating a cycle of abuse

You are your own person, not a puppet controlled by your parent/guardian

At the same time, you have to take accountability for your own actions (your background can explain your poor behavior toward others but it does not excuse that behavior)

Control that is too constrictive will only push away potential connections and experiences, keeping you isolated and complacent

Anger management classes are good for you, guys

The Usurper from the Wilds:

Let’s play fairly and be good sports!

Judging people for their merits rather than by titles or birth

What makes someone worthy to lead is noble behavior and attiude

Standing up for what’s morally right, even if everyone else seems to be against you

You have value, worth, and hope in spite of what others may tell you and put you down for

It’s totally okay to get revenge on the asshole that tripped you that one time/j

It’s technically not a crime if you don’t get caught (except Leona did, in fact, get caught)

The Merchant from the Depths:

Don’t be ashamed of your past self—embrace it, accept it, and use it as a point of reference for self growth

Be the bigger person rather than becoming a bully yourself

Let your accomplishments speak for themselves

There is no “easy way out” or shortcut; be prepared to face the consequences of your actions

Not everything is as it may seem (think about the “trick” with Azul’s contracts)

… Read the terms and conditions very carefully and think things over before you sign a contract 💀

Schemer of the Scalding Sands:

Wow, this baby can fit so much generational trauma!!

Sometimes you just miss each other’s messages or greatly misinterpret the other’s intentions (Kalim giving Jamil the benefit of the doubt, Jamil obviously being the Bad Guy and everyone else has to point that out to Kalim)

There’s a very complicated relationship between those in power and those without power; this can breed hatred for those at the top

Talent and skill left unacknowledged can fester into resentment

Institutions of higher education can and will accept monetary bribes, what are you gonna do about it?

Not everyone wants to reconcile and make friends; this is okay and should be more normalized

A Beautiful Tyrant:

You can try your best and work hard, but life doesn’t owe you anything (depressing thought, but unfortunately true)

Beauty is not limited to just one’s looks; beauty can also extend to one’s character and actions

Your worth shouldn’t come from external forces; if you are satisfied with yourself, you will always be “beautiful” no matter how you look or what losses you may experience

Public opinion and the entertainment industry are brutal af

Screw gender norms 😤

The Watchman of the Underworld:

The grieving process in general

Moving on from the past instead of fixating on it and letting the past consume your present and hold you back from a future

Learning to forgive yourself

Reaching out and making new support systems/opening up to others to help you cope

Bearing the sins of your ancestors (Shroud family curse)

The Lord of Malevolence:

Change is inevitable, all good things must come to an end; we must learn to accept them and bravely move toward the future

Love endures, transcending race (Sebek), blood (Silver), and time (Lilia)

Self-sacrificial love (Maleanor for Malleus, Lilia for the other Diasomnia boys, Dawn Knight for his own family, etc.)

Is it “true” happiness if it is a fake reality, a convenient dream?

We hate and fear what we do not understand, even though we have the capacity to

You cannot live forever in a happy fantasy world where none of your loved ones/favorite characters leave you, your trauma doesn’t exist, and everything conveniently pans out how you want it to; sooner or later, you must “wake up” and face reality (this point is particularly meta; it applies both in-game and in the real world, speaking to us players and our relationship with the escapist fictional content we consume)

Prologue: Welcome to the Villains’ World and Overall Main Story:

The power of friendship :))

Revisionist history (cuz… y’know… Great Seven and all)

We’re stronger together than alone

It’s okay to rely on others

We may be very different people from very different backgrounds, but it is still possible for us to understand one another

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queereads-bracket · 1 month ago

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Queer Fiction Free-for-All Book Bracket Tournament: Round 4

Book summaries and submitted endorsements below:

Nimona by ND Stevenson

Nimona is an impulsive young shapeshifter with a knack for villainy. Lord Ballister Blackheart is a villain with a vendetta. As sidekick and supervillain, Nimona and Lord Blackheart are about to wreak some serious havoc. Their mission: prove to the kingdom that Sir Ambrosius Goldenloin and his buddies at the Institution of Law Enforcement and Heroics aren't the heroes everyone thinks they are.

But as small acts of mischief escalate into a vicious battle, Lord Blackheart realizes that Nimona's powers are as murky and mysterious as her past. And her unpredictable wild side might be more dangerous than he is willing to admit.

Graphic novel, fantasy, adventure, humor, secondary world, young adult

The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson (The Masquerade Series)

Endorsement from submitter: "This book has all the sapphic women - and a hugely diverse cast of characters. Plus it has very ornate world-building and does a scathing critique of colonialism. With political intrigue and a will-they-won't-they relationship between certain characters."

Tomorrow, on the beach, Baru Cormorant will look up from the sand of her home and see red sails on the horizon.

The Empire of Masks is coming, armed with coin and ink, doctrine and compass, soap and lies. They’ll conquer Baru’s island, rewrite her culture, criminalize her customs, and dispose of one of her fathers. But Baru is patient. She’ll swallow her hate, prove her talent, and join the Masquerade. She will learn the secrets of empire. She’ll be exactly what they need. And she’ll claw her way high enough up the rungs of power to set her people free.

In a final test of her loyalty, the Masquerade will send Baru to bring order to distant Aurdwynn, a snakepit of rebels, informants, and seditious dukes. Aurdwynn kills everyone who tries to rule it. To survive, Baru will need to untangle this land’s intricate web of treachery - and conceal her attraction to the dangerously fascinating Duchess Tain Hu.

But Baru is a savant in games of power, as ruthless in her tactics as she is fixated on her goals. In the calculus of her schemes, all ledgers must be balanced, and the price of liberation paid in full.

Fantasy, epic fantasy, politics, secondary world, series, adult

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edgeray · 8 months ago

Text

"FIGHT SO DIRTY BUT YOU LOVE SO SWEET

Talk so pretty, but your heart got teeth" - Teeth, 5 Seconds of Summer

MAFIA AU Arlecchino x Reader Oneshot | Part 2 of "LATE NIGHT DEVIL, PUT YOUR HANDS ON ME"

A/N - As promised, here is the (albeit, very late) 250 follower special. Art by M-Alexa. Content Warnings / Info - Arlecchino uses they/them pronouns, sugggestiveness, pet names, borderline smut, no feminine pronouns for reader, 10.7k words

Monsters are very real. You know that they’re tangible because they’ve touched you in ways so intimate you could delude yourself in being familiar with them despite how icy their touch is. What draws the line between monster and human? You can't say anymore, not when involuntary sensations and uncontrollable emotions have entangled you with the Fatui, the Fourth Harbinger to be exact, a monster in every right, and yet…

You used to think that the line was cut-throat, a visible drawn etching in the sand–so easy to see when someone passed through. As obvious as their appearance once they've entered through the doorway. It was evident in those that were painted in wretched and jagged scars like their skin was a blank canvas. Perceptible in those that too rarely stifled their brash volatility, taking pride in their bruteness and their trigger-happiness. Apparent in those with their sly-eyed, piercing scrutiny, silent as the dead they were, yet it was usually among these archetypes whose power reigned the most throughout. Discernable in those that can wear many faces, spilling a hundred lies from their lips with as much effort as it takes for them to breathe; typically, they were as inviting as a puppy guiding a lamb to a den of wolves.

You couldn’t discern anymore what kind of monster Lord Arlecchino matched. Was it that they were never a monster to begin with, or is it just your irrationality muddying what should be the obvious? It should alarm you that your mind doesn't perceive them as such anymore, despite knowing so little of the danger they grasp underneath their fingertips. How quick they were to wrap their hand around your throat, tantalizing you with each scrape of carmine nails against your kiss-bruised skin.

But monsters are incapable of love. You think you've been fooled in believing in it when they trace your body with their touch, but then again, what monster's touch can be akin to that of an angel’s? Maybe angels themselves were also monsters. It's how you knew they were the most fatal mistake you could have made but you remain unapologetic shamelessly. Why should you, for indulging in something so tasteful? Is it not human desire to be selfish, to satisfy oneself? It's only natural to savor sweet fruit.

Their touch still lingers, on every inch of skin their depraved and gluttonous they could reach, the heat from their contact ever present like bubbling magma underneath the surface. Even after they're gone, it still tingles with sweltering desire and comes with the vivid image of their imprintment on you. How you remembered their wet lips against your neck, teeth sunk in and the rough drag of their tongue across, while their fingers edged closer to the waistband of your fishnets. Oh, how you remembered the delicious grinding of their hips against yours, a coarse friction that sends shocks of pleasure through you as they swallow every wanton cry from your lips and stifle any movements from you with a tight grasp of your waist. As red stained marks were stamped over the expanse of your bare clavicle, you remember a particular sultry chuckle from them when they captured your wrists in one hand effortlessly, willing you unable to touch them even when you had begged to do so. How cruel of them to deprive you of what you so avidly coveted, but you think their touch is rewarding enough to dismiss the one-sidedness of the physical intimacy.

Though, you hesitate to call it physical intimacy. Somehow, the touches that lit your heart ablaze the most only scrape the surface of indecency, as nothing transpired beyond kisses and love marks. It was the first time you left a private room relatively untouched, and though they had definitely teased you of it, no action slipped lower than your collarbone–not even a single piece of clothing peeled from your body. It leaves an unsettling, complex bundle of desires: wanting more and less of their touch simultaneously: you long for their touch, to feel that addicting fervor again, for your own unchaste gratification, however, having not been used as a tool for sensual fulfillment, you almost find it…nearly comforting–freeing may be the right word. A relief from what was usually an obligation. It’s… strange, is the least you can account it to. You’ve never wanted more from a client. Every past one has been just a means for income, hardly even considered cheap entertainment, and yet… you find your thoughts returning back to them, ensnaring your mind and plaguing your consciousness with memories of your two’s ‘unchastity.’

Lord Arlecchino, the Knave, the Fourth Harbinger of the Fatui, stole your thoughts just like a thief in the night, the ghost of their whispered words frequently haunting you. “‘I think I’ll keep you to myself after this,’” they had said with such certainty, and that voice would repeat indefinitely in your ears. For the most inexplicable reason, you found yourself eager, having believed them, however, you quickly discovered how naive you were–foolish to have ever hoped in such a shallow assertion and absurd to have wished for that in the first place. How dim of you to trust words influenced by fleeting ardor, for allowing irrationality to creep up in your vulnerable state of intoxication from them. They had left your body that night, with little to no effort, unsatisfied yet marked by them entirely, remnants of their presence still scattered on your body. How cruel, and yet very characteristic of them, though the latter recognition almost physically burned you to admit. A burn that you couldn’t quite associate one feeling to it.

You think the feeling is akin to abandonment, maybe betrayal, but you couldn’t fault Arlecchino–not when you were the one to have fallen for their lies. In the heat of the moment, their amorous words had done nothing less but stroke an ember within your body, fueling your own feverish arousal, amplifying your experience, but that was all it was. Abandonment couldn’t be correct, not when you were never theirs in the first place and you had willingly offered yourself to them. Nor can betrayal suit it; there was no foundation of trust built between the two of you either. You should have known that trust, among your clients especially, is as flimsy as a sheet of paper. But what can explain this obstinate hollowness in your chest, unable to be filled no matter how many meaningless acts of intimacy you throw at it, or how many fantasies you’d delude yourself once you're in the solace being underneath your covers? It’s a clawing irritant that occupies your mind when you’ve found yourself alone, seeking for the phantom presence of them.

You miss them–at the very least, their touch–you realize belatedly, and for that you couldn’t consider yourself to be more pathetic. Never before in your experience have you ever thought of a previous client but you suppose every day is an opportunity to discover something new. Attachments were a sure way to kill yourself in this business, in the underground. You had intended on keeping yourself alive, but here you are. How degrading of you, you internally admonished, fool, fool, fool.

What was it about them that had captivated you so much? Perhaps it was their unique charm. Curt and sharp as they were, you could not help but admit there was something alluring about their words, the authority that dripped from them, instilling you to do nothing but obey them. Perhaps it was their captivating appearance, a masterful and tasteful blend of ruggedness with class, snow white hair adorned with ebony streaks framing their porcelain-like face, but their stature was nothing of that case. Though lean as they were, from the rare prodding touches they allowed you where you could feel their toned physique, you can tell strength and power laid underneath their fingertips; if not from that, then perhaps how easily they nearly suffocated you with one hand alone, or how they had easily hoisted you up and against the wall. The red crossed pupils were nothing like you’ve ever seen and underneath that ever-piercing behold you’re little more than a timid prey before a hungry beast.

Your interactions with Lord Arlecchino were like being teared by the fangs of a voracious wolf. Every delicate sense–touch, hearing, sight, smell, and taste–pecked away little by little until all you could register in your lust-brimmed mind was their entirety. Sapping away your strength and resistance, impelling you to submit your all to them, through their every feverish touch; deafening your eardrums with each wet noise that followed their lips; dizzying you with their faint, earthy cologne; your eyes drinking in their appearance with every chance; and oh, their sickeningly sweet taste–far too depraved and far too addictive. You’re breathless everytime you think of it. When they finally released you, peeling away from your form, your body looked as if it had just barely escaped a maiming from a wild animal: teeth indents, light scratches, and red blotches of their lipstick flecked your upper torso and face.

They parted from you hours into the early morning. It felt like they had been stealing your breath for hours. You couldn’t count how many times their lips met yours, but it was enough where you could memorize the texture of them, of their warmth and sweetness. You couldn’t recall the duration the two of you spent locked with each others’ lips, but you could recall the various positions they had you. One such position, you muse with clenched thighs, was when they towered above your lying form on the couch, a bent knee in between your legs and their arms on either side of your head, planting their palms onto the cushion underneath you while they descended down to capture kiss after kiss from you. You remembered the tickling sensation of their ivory and raven strands that fell on your cheek, and how you raised a gentle hand to brush them away. In retaliation, what could only be described as something in between a growl and a grunt came from the Harbinger’s throat, one of their hands moved away from its resting place besides your head and clasped with yours, before firmly planting it against the sofa–a clear lesson not to touch them so casually, to which you smiled cheekily. They stole that smile away with little wasted time using a harsh nip on your bottom lip.

And then, like that, they left.

A week has gone by–more accurately, six days–since they had last appeared, and in that period, you’ve yet seen them. You worked consecutively, opting to even neglect your free work day, with the hopes of catching a glimpse. Ultimately, however, your efforts bore no fruit; not a single of your customers was the white-haired devilish angel that plagued your thoughts. White-hot shame and crushing disappointment grew with each passing day. The first unspoken word of advice amongst your fellow dancers was that attachments to customers are never worthwhile: even frequent customers disappear, and if you are lucky, you discover why. The reasons ranged from death to simply boredom, but the latter is always the most devastating, an agonizing reminder of how insignificant your life can be.

You had hoped to consider yourself among the smarter of your coworkers. You thought yourself immune to those follies, impenetrable to the charms and advances of all your customers–none to date had made your heart palpitate the way it did in the Harbinger's presence. It's unfathomable that you allow yourself to sink to such depths, to find yourself coveting for something you shouldn't, for something you can't have, for something that is beyond the likes of you. Convincing yourself with certainty, you were sure that you were above the idea of ardor–percase, your mistake was appraising yourself of just that. Now, you struggle against the very woes your coworkers forewarned you about.

Lying conscious on your wretched mattress, the cycle of rue repeats internally, battling against the drowsiness from your day's work. The thin and tattered sheets do little to provide you with the warmth you seek, and the lumpy, yet simultaneously, feathersoft pillow fails to ease your neck. The discomfort is only heightened by the darkness that plunges your chamber, like an abyss that's consumed you whole– just like your thoughts.

You urge your mind to settle, to calm a roaring yearning forever left unsatisfied, for even a single minute of slumber but it's futile. Once more, your thoughts drift to your angel donned in scarlet–divine touches and blest hymns. If touching this bit of heaven garners this cruel punishment of eternal desire, then you will cling onto these phantom traces of theirs until the gates of hell swallow you whole.

Soft, thudding noises approach you from the foot of your bed’s direction. Lifting your gaze to the door, the question comes of whose presence this is. Already having worked your shift, there is the possibility your manager came to you because of a unique request–one that he himself couldn't refuse. A weight manifests in your stomach, unease slinking towards your thoughts; this is your off-time after all and . There’s the foreboding knock on your door, before the knob turns with a click. Your manager walks through, his short, plump silhouette before you–

Your oxygen is teared from your lips, making you breathless as an imposing aura overtakes your entire form, as if gravity grew exponentially stronger just then, pushing down on you with the goal of crushing you until nothingness. Your lungs burn from the deprivation of air and a prickling sensation coats your skin, the combined effect making you tremble like a meek sheep before prey. Their footsteps as they enter your dwelling increases the pressure on your shoulders, forcing you to shrink into yourself. This commanding presence is far from being foreign, there are only a few customers–mafia members–that come to mind that can inflict this kind of dominion. Frozen in place, your heart quickly halts as your sight takes in the person before you, a dawning recognition falls upon you: this isn’t your manager. Instead, what replaces him, is a taller, leaner stature, vaguely familiar but distinctly not him. Plunged in darkness, you couldn’t discern any more details, and the unknown identity induces every hair on your limbs to stand up.

And yet, despite the unrest that forms inside of you, for an inexplicable reason, there comes a lilt in your heart, your roseate thoughts returning to one individual with a dire need.

The person makes no movements nor noise, but they are certainly aware of your presence. They remain in place near the doorway, as if prompting you for any action. Yet you’re too unsure, too cautious to act. With each passing second of silence, the air thickens, making it increasingly harder to not sink into the covers of your bed and allow your blanket to swallow you whole. Disbelief settles within you as the two of you linger in silence. Your whirling thoughts start to justify those doubts, crushing that meager hope inside of you. It is not them, because you have been deceived, tossed aside like a broken doll, no longer of entertainment or use to them; abandoned by someone who never truly considered you as theirs in the first place.

Still, you couldn’t discern the reason for the palpitation of your heart at that moment–isit out of fear or anticipation? Likely, it's a combination of both. It hums in your ear, your pulse faint but tangible and steady, and a chill crawls up your spine, eliciting you to tremble in place like a mouse about to be preyed upon. Becoming more certain that they are not the Harbinger, terror worms into your mind and inflicts upon your heart. Your heart rate skyrockets as if the beating organ is thumping out of your chest, deafening you with nothing but the erratic drumming. Have they come to end you? Have you displeased a customer so much that they intend to make you repay the price with your life?

It is a simple utterance. It is a single word that echoes through the room, one syllable that rings through your ears. And yet, it is this sound that rips your heart from a cold, drowning, lonely abyss and plunges it into the warm, welcoming depths of a familiar company. It shreds any lingering doubt within you like claws would to paper, eradicating it as if it was nothing more than a miniscule pest. In your veins does your pulse sing, humming a delightful hymn, the returning sensation of warmth fills you. Had you been anyone else besides yourself viewing this, you would call it a pathetic sight, but in this whisper of time, a wild inferno of your desires is lit and swarms over your mind. With just one simple utterance, you had turned from a scared, cornered mouse into an awaiting puppy–tail wagging and ears perked–for its approaching owner.

“Doll.”

You know of that voice far too well, for only having heard of it for one night. A persistent, almost tantalizing voice that creeps into your dreams at all hours of the day, murmuring with an alluring lilt the same pet name in your ear like the Harbinger had done six nights prior. It is the voice of a seraph under the guise of a demon. And when an ethereal being beckons you, you have no other obligation but to respond.

“Sir?” The softest of whispers escape you, bated breath evident in your voice. You worry that the barely audible title doesn't reach their ears, but then the soft thumping of stilettos reverberate through the room, matching the pace of your rapid heart, nearing you, until they appear by your bedside. Upclose, you swear that red x’s glint dimly. An obscure shadow casts over you and the silhouette of a hand reaches out; their palm grazes against your throat as slender fingers seize your chin to tilt your head up–a familiar hold that involuntarily soothes you given the sigh you release.

“I told you, didn't I?” They say with an alluring lilt, a telling sign of a smirk on their features. They stroke their thumb over your bottom lip, before pressing down. Involuntarily, your tongue peeks out to lap at their thumb pad. Your cheeks swarm with an unbearable calidity, which spreads to the rest of your body, suffocating flames that scorch your entirety.

“I said that I'd keep you as mine. Or did you forget?”

Forgetting their words was as plausible as you learning how to fly. You stopped yourself from carelessly revealing how their discrete promise haunts your ears, ringing through your thoughts at any spontaneous minute; you had no desire of disclosing just how much of an influence they have on you–whether that was to persuade them or yourself more. Instead you offer them a wordless shake of your head.

Arlecchino lets out a content hum, before their hand slides down from your chin to your arm, grasping it with a bit of firmness.

“Come with me, Doll. Such a quality doll such as yourself deserves a suitable dollhouse, is that not right? This,” You assume that they gesture to the room from the shuffle of clothes. “is hardly fitting for you, the sad state that it is.”

Your heart beat falters for a moment, as contemplation befalls you, attempting to properly comprehend their words. You surmise that the Harbinger is offering you for a new accommodation but you ponder the cost–surely, they would not provide it out of the goodness of their heart, and you were uncertain if they even held such a thing. As delightful as they are, forgetting your place in relation to others will only spell hazard for you. A ‘doll'–whatever that pertains to–is the service they likely seek from you, and you have a few estimates as to what it is.

It's dreadfully tempting. A chance to escape from your current workplace, but what of your wellbeing? At least, here, you could sustain yourself, shelter, food, and warmth are provided, but could you expect the same with the Harbinger? If you were to come with them, would you only be pulled deeper into the underground? Was the mafia a company you wanted to linger around? As you continue to swat back the clouds of infatuation, rationality returning to you, there are too many unknowns to recklessly comply with. Then again, what would the Harbinger do to you, if you were to refuse them? For now, you're in their favor, but who is to say you will not lose it in some erratic way?

Perhaps they will grow bored of you. Perhaps you won't satisfy them enough. Or, perhaps, they have even more nefarious intentions. The mind of a criminal is fickle and, more often than not, unstable, and in the first place, such individuals are rarely credible. If they were to promise beneficial conditions for your being, there is no way to ensure they keep to their word. Your debt, at the very least, serves as a form of protection: the nitery wouldn't be able to work you until they regain every penny you borrowed if you were dead. Arlecchino, however? They have no need to.

“You must be reconsidering my offer. That's to be expected, of course,” Arlecchino interrupts your train of thought, not a single break from their calculated way of words; it almost makes you shiver at how well they seem to read you. It truly is no wonder why they’re the fourth among the Harbingers, they truly are cunning. Do they have something to offer you for additional encouragement?

“I have no doubt that some unfortunate circumstance must have brought you to an establishment like this. With that knowledge, hm…” Arlecchino pauses, before you feel their hand leaves your arm. The darkness of the room provides little information on what they're doing, until one of their coarse hands slides underneath your palm, lifting it slightly. Cool metal slides over your left thumb.

“This…”

“Yes, it's a ring,” the mafia leader confirms. “More specifically, it is my ring.”

You trace your right thumb over the ring, feeling some sort of round jewel over it. Underneath your thumb pad, is a small etching, which you trace.

“From now on, this ring is yours. While it's not visible as of right now, etched onto it is the symbol of the Tsaritsa. It symbolizes my Harbinger status,” they continue, and you whip your attention towards them.

“Why would–” You halt yourself before you say anything impulsive. “Thank you for this, Sir, but… if it is of such significance…”

“–why am I giving this to you? Consider this an investment. Here is my preposition to you. Come with me, and you will be fed, sheltered, and spoiled by me–my protection and overseeing of your health is, undoubtedly implied. If you are displeased with my treatment, you can leave freely, anytime, anywhere, and nothing will be asked of you–not so much as an explanation for your departure. In fact, at this very moment, you could leave right now. I will not stop you.

“The ring, being the mark of a Harbinger, will almost certainly protect you from anyone sensible enough not to touch those under the Tsaritsa’s grace. Beyond that, you could always sell it to a trustworthy jewelry inspector; I know of one if you need a reference. I guarantee you that what you will earn is enough for you to live comfortably in society for at least a decade or so.”

“You would…” You stop to recollect your thoughts, as your body shakes, brimming with thrill. Your mind is still trying to encompass all of the capabilities this very ring contained. It may very well be worth ten times your entire life, and yet you possessed something such as this. With this, you could leave your hellish life behind. Everything you have always wanted could be right in your grasp now. You could finally enjoy a luxurious life, just by yourself.

“You would really give this to me? Something so precious?” You question breathlessly.

“Yes. If you would consider my preposition. So?”

A beguiled smile makes its way onto your lips.

—

The existence of monsters should not comfort you, but yet it does. No, that is wrong–there is just one exception. Having heard of such hushed stories, warning you to be wary of such shadowy beasts, the ones that lurk in unsuspecting corners and stalk the most innocuous of lambs, nonetheless, the notion of who can be considered as a ‘monster’ has been shattered by one individual. A monster in every right, except in any respect to you, can a diabolical angel still be deemed as such? Do they deserve to bear such a title, when every breath exhaled sends welcomed shivers down your spine and every contacted surface is blessed under their touch?

Perhaps you are still one of those very lambs for them. There is the possibility that you are just another sheep ensnared by a charming wolf, but then it raises the question of why you haven't been devoured yet. You have no doubt of the appetite that such a beast like them would carry, but nonetheless you remain. Will your time for slaughter come? Like herded sheep, you're fenced in, grazing through the grassland placidly, but how much longer will your freedom and life extend?

Does it still make you a sheep, if the most miniscule, internal sector of you would indulge in being devoured?

It's something you could not help yourself from wondering, even with the graciousness from Arlecchino. They've taken care of you far better than the nitery had ever, in the span of the few weeks you've agreed to stay with them, serving as their ‘doll.’ As restrictive and degrading as the role sounds, actuality does not propose the same. You're still tied to the Fourth Fatui Harbinger–come when they beckon, obey what they will–but you have a daunting amount of individual freedom you previously could never afford. Necessities, such as a living space, meals, and clothing, are all provided, lavishly, unlike your previous work environment.

Arlecchino personally had a room selected for you, a sizable, decorated chamber that housed a Queen bed, along with an ensuite bathroom. Restful sleep comes easy to you now that you've acquired a plush bed that dwarfs your figure. You've been spoiled with not only nourishing, but delectable dishes that you've never encountered before. Not only that, but they were made and served by personal chefs of the Harbinger. Upon arriving at your new accommodation, your wardrobe was brimming with all types of clothing that was suited to your size in all sorts of colors.

Perhaps it is because you haven't received such treatment before, but if you had such audacity to assume, you would compare yourself to that of a monarch's favored consort.

Your work as a ‘doll’ doesn't consist of much–that is what makes it more perplexing to you. It's not like any job or gig–you're not paid but it is no less rewarding. A ‘doll,’ from what you can presume with what they've requested of you, is a sexual partner, for when they're in need of ‘relief.’ Though you'd like for your relationship with Arlecchino to be perfectly encapsulated as just that, even that fails to entail entirely of what it is. This statement comes apparent with the case that you've yet engaged with them intimately.

You cannot deny that with this comes brewing frustration and consolation inside of you.

In the few weeks having lived at the same residence as them, which also doubles as a base of operations for the Fatui, there's quite a few things you learn of the Knave. Their assertive presence alone commands the room upon entering, and it is felt by every single soul in their proximity. Apathetically and brutally effective is how they function, no matter their audience, though strangely you are an exception to that. Stoic as they are in every aspect of their life–whether that handling mafia matters or simply eating–they have shown acts of mercy and repayment towards their subjects, especially the younger ones underneath them. Requital seems to be one of their core values, a quality that is often paired with their demand for control. Just as they oversee all around them, they themselves are not beyond their charge.

You see the discrete conflict in their eyes before each press of their lips against yours, and in their twitching fingers, which tremble in the same reluctant manner as yours does, always lingering around your waist. Every kiss is greedy and ravenous, with the intention of stealing every bit of morality within you as they draw you in, but their touch is notably neither of the two. The Fourth Harbinger exercises an awkward balance between restraint and surrender of desires–as if they craved further connection from you, but you dare not to assume so flatteringly of yourself. For this reason alone, you do not question the Knave, but it is no less vexing.

Beasts like themselves do not hold themselves back. They are voracious and all-consuming, they are merciless and eager in their plunders, second to none in selfishness and brutality. If Arlecchino is truly among them, then their behavior proves to only be baffling. If you cannot expect the worst from them like all monsters are, then what can you predict from them? For what reason do they restrain themselves? Why would they limit themselves when they have more than enough authority and force to take what they desire. You wish you could know, if only to end this constant, frustrating game of desire that you are losing.

You don't understand the casual gestures that imply something more romantic if you didn't know better. The invitations to dinner, the outings with them, the chaste kisses and fleeting touches. In each interaction, you have to remind yourself of your status–that you still hold little value, no matter the change of management, and at every drop of dawn, when you lie alone in your bed, that hollow ache sweeps over you and engulfs you whole into a riptide. What more use are you than entertainment just as empty as yourself?

Still, it is irrefutable that you hold a certain attraction to them. You covet for their contact and gaze to loiter over the expanse of your body, for their voice to always ring through your ears, for the time between the two of you to stretch past infinity; it soon occured to you that something lies deeper than just lust for the Harbinger, something you did not want to acknowledge but it has prolonged since after the first night you met them. Though Arlecchino does not place a label on the relationship, even for as foolish and swayed as you are, you could not dream beyond the contacts that hold no significance or the words that contain no promises. The knowledge of this places a heavy ache in your chest, one that pings every now and then with every meeting with the Harbinger. Knowing how futile it is, a part of yourself wants to strangle these yearnings, so that all that is choked out is a shallow, physical urge, and you no longer drown in the abyss that is Arlecchino.

It is only natural that when you harbor such complexities towards them, sexual desires, too, are a part of said twisted conglomeration of hazy emotions and affections. How many times were you in need of relief, murmuring out their name as you intensified your movements in between your legs, only to be left empty and disgruntled? If you had to give an estimate, it would be a dozen or so times. While your circumstance could no longer be judged by typical morality, the very act of yearning feels sinful, a wrongdoing, a refutal of your values. No lamb lusts over a wolf, after all, but this knowledge doesn't lessen the ache.

So, like the meek sheep that you are, you say nothing, even when Arlecchino once again requests your presence for dinner–through a relayed message from their subordinate of course. You wonder if they're aware of the very effects they imposed on you, how the simple act of inviting you to dinner makes both your heart swim and sink simultaneously.

You knock on their office door, waiting for permission until you're asked inside. You enter with a brief awed gasp, greeted by the usual suited appearance of Arlecchino. They sit behind their desk and donning a stark midnight blazer, over an ash-colored and blood-crimson vest paired with a matching loose tie underneath the collar of their white buttoned dress shirt. A lit cigarette is perched between their lips and a pair of black reading glasses nestled on the bridge of their nose. Upon your entrance, they reach up, wrenching the cigarette from their mouth to snuff it out, rubbing the butt of the stick against the ashtray beside them.

Near instantaneously, your stomach coils with an insufferable fervor, and you had to suppress the urge to squeeze your thighs, unless you wanted their observant eye to notice. You avert your gaze from the handsome sight to hide your flustered expression. Unfortunately, your efforts are in vain when in the corner of your eye, the ends of their frown twitch.

They instruct you to sit at the chair across from theirs with the motion of their eyes, and you take your seat at their desk, two plates of food sitting on the wooden surface.

“You have no issue with shellfish, do you?” Arlecchino inquires, their eyes scanning over your figure for any objections.

“Not that I know of, sir,” you answer. The mafia leader pushes a glass with a crimson liquid in it–wine, you presume. You take it. Arlecchino is an avid wine lover from what you've discerned during past dinners; although you've done this quite a few times, the thought is dizzying of how you're holding a wine that's more than likely a thousand dollars per bottle. Like with all the previous privileges the Harbinger gifted you, this is yet again another lucrative item. It only makes you wonder to what extent the Fatui's influence goes to be able to afford such expenses on ordinary things. You swirl the drink in your hand before taking a tentative sip. Each time you drink, it’s akin to dumping gold into the sea–wasted extravagance on the likes of you.

The wine sours the taste in your mouth but you don't make it apparent.

Dinner remains an awkward constant, nearly unnerving. You tether between the line of being cautious and being casual. Their methodical brutalism discourages small talk from them–given the fact that they favor intention and meaningful gestures–seeming perfectly content in the silence while you stew in chagrin. With this comes their manner of eating. They eat robotically, as if the gourmet foreign meals are nothing but nourishment, and perhaps such trivialities are of no matter to them, only further emphasizing the stark statuses of you two. Their request, however, made them seem almost eager–as eager as one could possibly be for someone so stoic– given how they requested for your presence as soon as possible. Perhaps what they look most earnestly for is observing you. You're torn between thinking they enjoy your discomfort underneath their gaze, or simply find you that fascinating. Either of them escape common reasoning.

You opt to just eat with your head down to avoid their piercing gaze throughout your meal, the only noise filling the room is the clinking of metal utensils. Struggling with removing the lobster meat from its tail, you fumble with the fork, an abashment swelling in your cheeks with the knowledge that Arlecchino was most definitely observing your tactlessness. You’ve never had shellfish prior to your stay with Arlecchino, and that was more pronounced by your lackluster attempts of stripping the shrimp shell. You attempted to learn through observation of Arlecchino, who utilizes cutlery with their typical efficiency and gracefulness. Even in the simple act of eating, they are refined in their precise and minimal movements. Unfortunately for you, that poise cannot be obtained through just viewing.

A pale hand extends and rests on top of your hand holding the fork, the sudden contact ripping you from your thoughts and your shoulders tense. Glancing up from the shellfish, Arlecchino's ever so puncturing gaze is set on you. The thumping organ in your chest pauses for a beat once your eyes lock, manifesting a silence between the two of you. There is not a hint of irritance in their expression, and perhaps you are mistaken, but there is the gleam of amusement in their pupils.

“Allow me,” they finally voice, their tone on the edge of venomous allure, and you could only comply immediately. Placing down the cutlery onto the plate and pulling your hands away, you expect for them to pick up the silverware again. Instead, they firmly hold down the lobster tail with one hand, the other hand pinching the succulent flesh before shredding it effortlessly from the shell with their. Such an uncouth movement that almost seems unfitting from the Harbinger, however, simultaneously, you cannot see their crude method out of place. The chunk of meat is then dipped in the aioli.

“Open,” Arlecchino commands, and you swallow thickly, your mouth inexplicably arid in a single moment. Once again, your easily influenced heart pounds resoundingly in your ears, no doubt induced by the most miniscule of moments from the Harbinger. Their red-crossed pupils stab into you, expectancy in them, wordlessly urging you. You open your mouth and they lift the piece of lobster to your lips, sliding their fingers and the shellfish flesh inside. You clamp down on the flesh while Arlecchino fishes out her digits, pulling away with glistening liquid on the tips of her index and thumb.

The sight makes your stomach flutter with a sensation unlike any other, an inferno emerges in your pit paired with an indisputable throbbing between your legs that makes you clench your hands into fists–a desperate attempt for restraint of your impulses. Cheeks flared from both arousal and humiliation of your indecent thoughts, you mindlessly chew on the meat, absentmindedly staring at the Harbinger while combating the vulgarity within your mind. Your liberated imagination reacts, substituting the fluid for something of a similar look that originates from a different orifice, before you banish the impurities away, remediate your thrashing heart before it threatens to collapse in itself. Finally, you swallow a bit of shellfish down your throat.

Arlecchino hums, satisfied, before they probe your lips with their slick fingers, intent, almost predatory, gaze upon you, and their pupils glint with a faint crimson.

“Clean them,” they order, and oh, if they knew what those two words do to you. Hot spikes of arousal pricks you everywhere in your body, and your loins grow damper, pulsing with need.

You part your lips obediently as they insert two of their fingers. Your warm, moist mouth wraps around them. The pads of their fingers press firmly against your tongue, and compliantly, you drag the slimy surface of your organ on the undersides, lapping at the faint taste of lobster with remnants of the aioli, before swirling your tongue around to coat the entirety with your saliva. A disgusting moist squelch flees from your mouth as you continue the ministrations of your tongue, gentle and deliberate traces to make sure that their fingers are properly cleansed.

A sudden idea comes to you, a dose of boldness injected into your veins as you continue locking their eyes with them. If they are so amused by your performance, then surely they would enjoy a little show? You silently wish for the mafia leader's grace before you act– perhaps you'd be forgiven? Better yet, you hope that you will be rewarded. They're acutely aware of the mischief in your eyes when their eyebrows lift, but you do not allow them to anticipate for long.

You hollow your cheeks and suction around their fingers while intensifying your tongue's movements. To add to it, you lean forward, slipping their fingers deeper until your lips reach the base of their final knuckle, nearly gagging from your impulsive action. Still, it does not dissuade you, and you continue your behavior, aware this very gesture was the epitome of playing with fire. More slick sounds erupt from your suggestive acts.

You scrutinize their facial expression for their reaction in an attempt to gauge their response, and quite notably, their pupils are darkened. Instead of the previous ruby hue, they are now a deep scarlet, bordering on maroon, and are brimming with an emotion so intense you feel as though you could be devoured whole just by their dark abysses. Their usually maintained and composed face is cracked by the parted lips of theirs, as if they were in awe of your impudence, and the slightest knit in between their brows, implying more than their regular apathy. You have drawn their attention just as you wanted, but now you fear the consequences.

“Feeling bold, are we, doll?” They murmur in a low, tantalizing purr as they extract their fingers from you with a wet pop, and you nearly whine from the loss of contact. A dribble of spit escapes from the corner of your lips and they wipe it away with their thumb. Their middle and index finger gleam enticingly as your slaver drips down. Bringing their hand to their lips, they reward you with their own show, a slow deliberate act of tracing their fingers with their own tongue, their attention still fixated on you throughout its entirety. Watching the organ's motions further stirs the boiling desire in your groin. The Harbinger never fails to tempt you, provoking a visceral reaction from you with just the minutest gesture.

They must know. They must know how deeply influenced you are by them. You make your allure to them unmistakable, their actions signify their awareness, and they use this to further taunt you, to further bait you into their trap. For what reason, you're not privy to, but they prey upon your desire for them, stringing you along on for their entertainment. Are they aware that this game is comparable to torture to you? Like dangling fresh greens in front of a dying, starved lamb, your ache is palpable to only you. To long for something that you cannot. It is tormenting and demeaning, though maybe that is suitable for a monster.

A devil in the guise of an angel truly. Maybe they are purely enjoying your suffering, knowing that your every action can only be done by their whim. You have fallen in their hands, utterly dependent and reliant on them but no less grateful. A deceived sheep in the claws of a cackling wolf. It is a game to them, you are just a toy, and you would be foolish to think otherwise. So expectedly cruel, and yet it crushes your heart. You are tired of the charades, of your affections hardly acknowledged and no doubt unreciprocated, and you are tired of how their presence plagues your thoughts entirely. They are eager to use you just as they had always wanted, a ‘doll,’ something willing to twist and bend to their desires.

You wish that you are more than just a doll. That your skin is not made of plastic, that your limbs are not so manipulatable, that the attire that you wear cannot be so easily altered based on the spontaneous desires of someone else. You do not want to take only what you've been given. Is it hopeless, brazen, to want more despite your place? Does it make you nothing more than simple-minded and naive, to wish that their touch expressed beyond the voraciousness and obscenity?

“Did you enjoy it?” Arlecchino pries you away from your thoughts, and you flick your eyes towards them. Blinking, you finally recall the context, and fumble with your words.

“Ah, uh, yes,” you stammer, forcing a small smile, berating yourself for your blundering response. “The lobster was great. Thank you so much, Sir.”

Their pupils still remain on you, hardened with their usual frigid gaze. “Then why do you appear so downcast? Is the meal not to your liking? I will make sure the chefs prepare something else for you.”

Your blood freezes and you go wide-eyed. Of course, they would notice your absent-mindedness, you have still yet controlled your emotions. Reprimanding yourself internally, the desire to scream out boils within you, like a pot that threatens to boil over–you want to exclaim that they are the reason you are like this, why you are in a constant state of conflict and anguish, why your heart can never rest when their presence is near. Instead, you find your throat caught in a trap, preventing any words from escaping, and any voice you try to grapple slips through your fingers. The very notion of requesting for more is insolent; had they not provided you enough? Ingrate is what you would be if you vocalize anything.

Shaking your head, you reply with, “No, it's okay. There was nothing wrong with my meal. I was just preoccupied with my thoughts for a little bit, I apologize, sir.”

“Please inform me what it was that was entertaining you for so long.” The implore leaves their lips as they tilt their head, propping their elbow against the table and leaning their cheek into their palm. Their attention is utterly consumed by you.

Your lip quivers. So many unspokens lay on your tongue, awaiting for an emergence that never comes. ‘You’ is the most dire utterance, but you bite your tongue and purse your lips. Flitting your eyes down to your finished plate, you avoid their boring gaze which drills right through your skull, and manage to note your arms, which are dotted with the occasional burn scar–courtesy of the more unsavory customers–an agonizing momento of how filthy you are, sullied by many before. How you could compare to a doll is unfathomable to you. A doll's skin is not tainted, marked with signs of impurities. Even their touch, as angelic as it, could not cleanse your surface, why would they dare engage with you?

“Trivial matters, sir,” you respond with, unable to admit the snaking insecurity up your spine, that would only have them throw you away. You gather that insecurity had no place in the Harbinger's home, that needless feelings were to be disposed of immediately. Searching their features at any hint of persuasion, their blank stare offers nothing to you. The mafia leader picks up their glass of wine, lifting it up to their lips for a sip.

The, the glass is placed firmly on the wooden surface of the table, accompanied by a loud thud, the abruptness causing you to flinch back; your entire form taut as every fiber in your being tightens, your heart rate reverberates in your eardrums, and a cold shiver sneaks over your back.

“Do you take me as someone so easily deceived?” They demanded, their voice instilled with cutting authority, sharper than any knife as it stabs into your gut. The lit fury in their eyes is enough to make you recoil in your seat, shrinking into yourself as if you could become small enough to disappear, and underneath their scrutiny that is all you want to do. You tore your eyes away from them, the weight of their burning stare unbearable, almost with the intention of cremating you in the very chair. A part of you wishes that were the case, if only to flee from the crisis you are now a part of, only caused by your idiocy.

The Fatui Harbinger, for how generous they've been to you, is no less deadly, and perhaps you’ve had a healthy dosage of dismissing apparent hazards when it comes to them. Whether it be due to Arlecchino's unique charm and ambiguous benevolence, or your stubborn child-like innocence–the one that still yearns for affection and company in a cruel world–that refuses to yield, subconsciously, you knew that you would never truly be safe. No amount of self-delusion masked by wishful thinking could ever make that fruition, it will not erase the fact that your life balances on the careful palms of an awaiting wolf, whose intentions are mysterious. Nonetheless, this moment creates a no more nauseating moment that strikes your gut and fills your head with a haziness that is as oppressive as it is harrowing.

You hardly believe that you can lie once more–for all that you are aware of, Arlecchino may punish you with your death for disobeying–though with the imminent danger you’re still conflicted. You wanted to drown your fondness for them in the sea of your consciousness, anchor the hefty mass so that it could never resurface, no matter how much it struggles to swim. Complying with the mafia leader's demand means plunging your hands into the water and unlocking the chains, letting the emotions swim beyond your reach and leaving you stranded in the midst of riptides and storms. If it meant many more years without turbulent waters, then you'd never unchain them, because that is the only way to stay afloat.

But dying due to the fear of rejection is truly a pathetic way to go, even to the likes of your already pathetic existence, isn't it? You’d like to pride yourself as above those standards, at the very least. However, unveiling your naive attachment to them is unfavorable. Whatever may come from defiance, you are not sure it is worth condemning yourself to, not for someone seemingly as volatile as they are.

Perhaps you could still spare your buried endearment as well–twist and mangle your words until what the Fourth Harbinger knew was only the mishap-twin of the authentic version. Let them misinterpret and craft their own figment to be as far-fetched yet close from the truth as possible. Paint over and ornament your hopeless ardor until it is unrecognizable to the artist and only that. Half-truths and omission sculpted into something believable in the eyes of Arlecchino.

“You,” you declare simply, looking up back at them with a poor imitation of their repose. “It was you, Sir.”

Arlecchino stews in silence, although not visibly, you could presume that they have some amount of shock from your words, and the questions in their head. Their eyes darkened slightly, like dark abysses preparing to consume you whole if you so much as misstep once.

“For what reason?”

Gulping considerably, you pull together your resolve and start. You look up to meet their steady gaze. “A quality doll requires proper care and maintenance right? Like when you said that a quality doll needed a fitting dollhouse.”

Their hand reaches for their wine glass again.“Yes, that is true.”

“But a quality doll is wasted if it is not played with properly.”

Arlecchino breaks away their stare to intake their wine, a longer sip than their usual. “Are you implying that you are not satisfied with my treatment, Doll?”

“No. No, I am not satisfied.” You wince at your direct response, but you are not left with any other option–you can only pray that Arlecchino doesn’t take offense to it.

“Greedy,” the Harbinger remarks as they place down the drink. “But perhaps there is some merit to it. You are right: It is my responsibility to take care of my things and it seems that I've been neglecting you.”

They flit their eyes to your plate. “Are you finished eating?”

“Ah, yes?” You stumble over your words, a bit on edge now that their inquiry implied they had more in plan with you. It is not out of the question, though typically when they did invite you to meals like this, they would dismiss you to do what you wish afterwards, sending you away with a drawn out kiss. You're yet able to know what to make of your current situation. It required little words to gain what you wanted from the Haringer: more attentive treatment from them without the implication of your desires, so easily accepted by them. Maybe then, you wishfully

They rise from their chair, removing their reading glasses and setting it on the surface of the desk. Strangely enough, they take their wine with them.

“Sir?” You question as your eyes follow their movement. They maneuver around their desk, heading towards the door.

“Follow,” they state, though there is no real urgency or demand for it, more like a suggestion. They turn their head over their shoulder, examining you–testing you, you guess–and how could you deny? You trial them after them, with an enthusiasm which you hate having to compare that to an anxious puppy. The two of you exit the office, and you’re guided to an adjacent room, this one you've never been to before, nor has ever seen its content. Since your time here, it's remained secured and you've yet seen a single soul enter.

You're not quite sure what you expect when Arlecchino leads you inside but it certainly is not a bedroom. Nonetheless, that is what is presented to you. Simultaneously sleek and modest, adorned in splashes of black, red, and white–a color palette you associate with just one individual–it is the epitome of sophistication without bordering on extravagance and a starking reminder of the presence beside you.

For some reason, it never occurred to you that Arlecchino necessitated slumber. Perhaps since you've always considered them something else entirely, something beyond human, you feel what borders on astonishment with the discovery that, indeed, the Fourth Harbinger does sleep. To say that it humanized them in your eyes is a stretch, but it is a signifier that they are not as infallible and unfeasible as you believe.

The implications of being guided to their bedroom, however, also creates havoc among your thoughts, and your ears all but physically singe from your mortification. Vulgar fantasies invade your mind, with images of your nude body tangled together in the satin gray sheets with varying positions. Your heart, the fickle and persistent thing that is pulipates again, pumping through your ears. The setting only enforces your wanton imagination, exacerbating its control over your mind. The delusions become not just visual, but auditory and haptic too–their whispered, husky voice murmuring sweet promises in your ear as their nails trail lower and lower from your stomach, their fingers exploring uncharted territory.

Choosing that the best course of action would be to ignore the astir depravities, you instead propose a question to the mafia member as they allow you to enter the chamber first.

“This is… your bedroom, my Lord?” you question anxiously, taking the time to observe the room as the Fourth Harbinger enters behind you. “How come you've brought me here?”

“I am not fond of letting blunders remain as it is for long, less of all those that are my own fault,” Arlecchino answers, the shutting of the door momentarily interrupting them. “If it can be helped, oversights must be corrected immediately. Let problems fester for too long, and they may grow beyond my control.”

You note that it's a rather vague response. As you turn around to further confront them, there is the sudden and firm tug of your arm, and far quicker than your mind can comprehend, you're whirled around and pressed against the surface behind you. You suck in harshly from the rapid movement and an arm besides one side of your head locks you in your place, sandwiched between the door and Arlecchino with no exit available.

Flaring crimson irises meet your vision, inky pits brimming with what could only be described as a fervor drill into you. Wildly, your heartbeat thuds against your ribcage, your breath effectively robbed by the towering being before you. Below your skin, exhilaration floods through your veins, spreading the incessant heat through your entire form, most especially to your loins. Their hot breath skims across your inflamed cheeks, and their lips only stray a few centimeters from yours.

Involuntarily, your focus darts to their enticing mouth, which tastes like the finest of wine–so extraordinarily sweet that it is intoxicating. A flavor that keeps drawing you in, making you an alcoholic as you drink yourself dizzy from a sip, then another. And you would do anything for just another sample. You want Arlecchino to consume your entirety, your taste buds, your consciousness, your senses, surrender every part of you if it means gaining the most miniscule pieces of themselves. A plea rests on your tongue and in your wide, crinkled eyes you make your intentions clear.

Wordlessly, you beg for them to devour you like the monster that they are. Lure you in with their touch again, which they know burns every single rational thought away and spreads a relish that feels like a religious blessing. Take you, if only for a single second, because a second will always be sufficient enough until the next, when you cannot help but wish for it sooner.

“Do you desire me?” They speak, as if the answer is not apparent. As if the evidence is not in your trembling body, bristling with elation, or in your needy hands, which all but reach out to grasp them closer. As if they are not aware of the effects of their numerous taunts, how they fluster you enough to force you to glance away or stumble over your speech. They are aware of it as well as you are and it is with this that you realize the insinuation of their question, and this understanding is what evokes the hitching of your breath. They ask for confirmation, for approval–for consent.

“Yes,” you answer breathlessly, no need to expend more words for something so simple. How else could you answer otherwise?

Arlecchino does not grant you the kiss you so very much desire. Instead, they maneuver one of the arms propped against your head, their hand cups your chin with a tenderness so unlike them, and their thumb grazes over your bottom lip. Their gaze becomes entranced, fixated on your mouth.

“Given your past employment, I was under the assumption that any gesture more sensual would unease you. For that reason, I was hesitant to initiate more. After all, nothing is more unpleasant than an unwilling toy, who does not desire to be played with. My oversight, however, has affected you adversely, which I hope to fix currently.”

Flicking their hardened stare to your eyes again, they add, “If you will allow me.”

Stupefaction befalls upon you, your mouth parts as you grasp onto the new information. If their words are true, then it means that your attraction to them is mutual, not one-sided, and their established distance was out of consideration for you. The thought is more than enough to spark giddiness within you. The Harbinger may not be so inaccessible as you previously thought, perhaps your affections could reach them.

They hardly seem so monstrous as they did three weeks ago. Maybe they never were one to begin with. Your elated-addled brain can hardly produce a coherent string of thoughts, leaving you to only feebly nod.

That is enough as a response for Arlecchino as they descend upon you, slotting their lips over yours in a way that can only be described as perfection. Their lips drains you of your oxygen, but were you capable of it, you would allow them to steal every part of you with their perfect mouth. The succulent flavor of them remains constant, delectable as they were on the first night you met the Harbinger, and even after the numerous kisses you've shared, they are just as intoxicating. You briefly wonder if you're only drunk off of their taste because of the taste of aged wine still abundant on their lips. Arlecchino swallows you up into an eternal riptide of their taste, and you willingly drown, surrendering the rest of your senses to delight in this.

This is the type of sensation that comes from dancing around a demon, the sort of feeling that makes such heartache involving the fallen angel all the more worthwhile yet agonizing; it serves to only lure you further in its trap that you can't fathom escaping from. Now, your body buzzing with an elation that can't be matched by another, all you can wonder is how you've been able to live this long without this very gesture that breathes back life through your veins and makes your heart swell with vitality. With this, you believe this is the pinnacle of your life–no other experience that can quite enrapture you like this–a phantom ache finally filled, finally whole.

Half-lidded eyes with crimson x's lock on yours, and you think you may have rediscovered your favorite color.

You lift your arms over their shoulders and fold them behind the mafia leader, locking them in place. With a gentle tug forward with your arms, they lean deeper into your kiss, and a deep grunt rumbles through their chest, inducing goosebumps over your skin. Meanwhile, your fingers card through their silky, snow-colored strands, tugging lightly as you moan softly against their lips. Something warm settles on your right cheek, cupping that side of your face delicately.

The rough texture of their tongue presses against your lips, before their lips latch onto your bottom one. They suckle with such a gingerness you forget about the depraved hunger behind their x-pupils, a plea for permission, for entry which you allow instantly. You part your mouth. With a fevered haste, their tongue slips into your orifice, and you let out a throaty groan. It invokes a rumbling through their throat, a sound that must have belonged from seraphs. They urge on, exploring the contours of your mouth with the intent of diligently memorizing the relish and texture. Committed to familiarizing themselves with every crevice and curve, they scrape their tongue against yours, before prodding gently deeper, grazing the roof of your mouth.

In turn, you playfully drive your tongue forward, caressing against the bottom of their flexible organ. A pleased hum resounds through them, the reverberation making you shudder delightfully. Your body feels like it's being swarmed with an oppressive heat, willpower and sanity suffocating under the mafia leader's every action, and every thought replaced with the stabbing desire that courses through your veins. Every second that they linger, an invisible string tugs you towards their direction with the lightest pressure, and you’re once more in their neatly filed claws.

Is it really sending a lamb to the slaughter when the lamb is willing, or when the wolf is so inviting?

The lack of swelter is palpable once they suddenly break away, and you realize belatedly the lack of air in your lungs. You heave for air, and Arlecchino does the same, every brief exhale tickling your cheeks. Silence, save for your rapid breathing, fills the room, but the mutual eye contact says more than enough between you two.

“Do you want to…?” The Harbinger inquires, their words halting into a tense silence, vigilantly examining your features.

“Please,” is all you could whisper out, as if that very word carried your entire soul with it, and the singular murmur shatters the being before you. Just a second ago, what stood before you was a person of authority and restraint. Arlecchino was esteemed among the Harbingers, a mortal representation of poise and dignity. Never before has their composure faltered, not to any enemy or ally; there’s yet been an instance that the mafia’s leader's repose was weakened. However, you have always been an anomaly.

Their crimson pupils pierce into you, as their hands linger beneath your hips.

“You truly will be the death of me.”

---

Reference for Arlecchino in the second half.

Smut will be in part 3.

#arlecchino x reader #arlecchino x you #arlecchino #arlecchino smut #arlecchino genshin #genshin impact x reader #genshin x reader #genshin impact fanfics #genshin impact fics #genshin fanfics #genshin fics #genshin impact smut #genshin smut #edgeray.writes

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fyxestroll · 3 days ago

Text

Sweet Old Hereafter (1)

pairing: sanguinius x reader (fem.)

description: why does the embrace of a stranger, a god feel so familliar?

warnings: descriptions of workplace accidents and wounds.

notes: have had this fic's concept slow cooking in my brain for a while now. sorry if I've been MIA busy with school.

As a child, your parents would take you to Angel’s Fall with them. You would be sitting on your father’s water cart while your mother helped your father haul it along. The statue of Holy Sanguinius would serve as a beacon, its figure visible in even the thickest Red Mists as if illuminated. On the way, your mother would tell tales of the Great Angel’s exploits from His war against the mutants of ancient Baal to His noble sacrifice against the archtraitor.

Fascination was a given; your parents expected that fascination to become faith. Sadly, piety was one of the few things you hadn’t inherited from them. Mass, Sanguinala and other holidays were attended for the sake of routine—normalcy and you mainly looked forward to the food served after.

(You try your best to ignore how Wrong it felt to pray to the Great Angel. That was heresy.)

But that was just you.

Earthly matters are easier to wrap your head around. They’re easier to understand, and the cause and effect are visible with clear physical consequences. There was a clear line to trace, unlike in faith with simple logic to answer to whos, whats and whys. You consider yourself practical, instinct and mind geared towards not just surviving in the sands but to thrive in it.

It’s how you survived in Baalfora, survived the call to arms against the xenos and now, how you will survive after the Devitation.Your family considers it the Emperor’s will, you consider it your own.

Ignoring the skin-deep itching on your stomach, you haul another crate above the titanic walls of the Arx Angelicum. The honor and awe (and the feeling of sinning) of being present at such a holy place had worn off after a month of back-breaking work. The progress in rebuilding the planet and the moons’ infrastructure was astonishingly quick for mortals and sluggishly slow for the Angels.

You stop for a moment to drink water from a canteen strapped to your tool belt. Being under the Angels’ care had many perks, and a steady source of water was one of them, but even with a steady, constant supply, you still take your time to savour your thirst being quenched, albeit momentarily.

“You have stopped for too long, girl.” You freeze as the vox veiled voice reaches your ears and you come to see an Angel clad in crimson armor approaching. You twist the cap back on your canteen and lower your head.

“Apologies, Lord Sophos.”

The Astartes shakes his head, a gesture that looks awkward but not out of character for Lord Sophos himself “Worry not, girl,” he assures, “your exhaustion is understandable,” and lifts the large crate with inhuman ease. “But, we have much to do.”

He tilts his head towards a much smaller crate. Immediately, you understand his wordless instructions. “Come now.”

He leads the way through the maze of scaffolding that covers the outer wall of the Arx. The Angels have a name for this wall, the Arx Mucus or something. To you and your fellow mortals, this wall was just simply the outer wall or The Wall. Nearly a year ago, you had almost died outside of it in defence of this fortress-monastery.

Beyond it, remnants of the alien swarm still lingered.

You'd rather not think about that.

Pushing away the lingering memories and unnecessary dread your redirect your focus on keeping up with Lord Sophos. He has already troubled himself by slowing his pace, you wish not to trouble him further.

Any other Angel would have continued forward, forgetting your presence entirely and leaving you lost in this maze. But not Lord Sophos. Lord Sophos is kind and far kinder than any of his brothers that you have encountered. The sons of Sanguinius had inherited His benevolence and nobility, but none of his mythical patience. When interacting with mortals, at least. Lord Sophos is the only exception you’ve encountered.

You reunite with the rest of your group. It consists of a mix of chapter serfs, civilians and a lone Astartes—Lord Sophos, who took on the role of foreman. None of you had experience in any form of construction work. Except for Kua, a fellow resident of Baalfora who was a carpenter by trade.

“We have returned.” The Angel’s voice booms, sending vibrations to your bones. You briefly wonder if that volume could be achieved without the armour’s vox unit.

Alcaryu, a chapter serf, approaches and gets on his knee. “We have done as you have ordered, my lord.” He reports eagerly. Too eagerly for your liking. The young man (close to your age, sadly) acts like a living caricature of a loyal attendant straight out of a holo-drama.

“Good.” Lord Sophos responds without missing a beat. “Continue dismantling the plates as the techpriests instructed.”

“What of the crates, my lord?”

“Equipment for servitors.”

Alcaryu stiffens. The air around your small group prickles. Good to know you weren’t the only one who found servitors unnerving.

“Understood.”

You settle back into the flow of work with the rest of your group, unscrewing armoured plating and noting down damaged sub-sections. Time goes by quickly, the group working in practised sync.

Soon enough, Baalprimus and Baalfora were visible in the early evening sky. They glowed two different shades of pale silver, with Baalprimus being the brighter of the two and Baalfora being the larger.

The twin moons reminded you of your grandmother’s heirloom silverware she inherited from her grandmother. She insisted it was meant for special occasions, but never used it for any.

The set was lost much to your elder sister’s chagrin. She was eager to use it once you sent word of your cousin’s induction into the chapter’s ranks.

You eye the silver of Baalfora, wondering what she was doing right now. You’re glad she weathered the storm with her husband’s tribe.

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

Lord Sophos appears beside you and stands in silence. Over the horizon, flashes could be seen. A battle of some sort was taking place. If you listened intently, you could hear the sound of guns ringing in the distance.

A breeze blows, it’s dry, hot and stings your skin. It cools the sweat on your skin and makes the view disturbingly scenic.

Click.

Hiss.

Lord Sophos removes his helm.

“Do you miss home?” he asks, his voice a melodious tenor. It was an odd question, considering who's asking.

“I do.” You miss your family, the woven mat you called your bed and the night market down the Sanguinian Way. The home you’ll return to won’t have any of that, not for a few years at the very least. That thought makes the homesickness worse, so you try not to think about it often.

A comfortable blanket of silence falls over both of you, the relaxed thrum of a long day’s work ending underneath.

You glance at Lord Sophos and wonder if Angels feel homesickness still.

There’s something clenched within his armoured hands. He tightens and loosens his grip on it as he locks onto the distant battle. A shadow falls over his brown eyes, sadness and rage swirling within.

Danger. It reminds you.

You stand beside an Angel of Death, a being that could end your life in a heartbeat.

Troubled. You realise.

Something was troubling Lord Sophos.

‘Are you alright?’ You wanted to ask, but you remind yourself of your position. Compassion, however, gets the better of you, and you opt to silently stay by his side. This wouldn’t be the first time you’ve done this.

The battle in the distance slows, implied by the gradual lessening of flashing lights. Lord Sophos looks down at you, mouth open to dismiss you for what was likely the last time.

“Girl-”

CRASH!

Something hits the watchtower above.

You had half a second to register it before pure pandemonium.

Debris falls, glass and scaffolding hurling down like meteors. A few unlucky workers and servitors are crushed in a display of sickening gore. You only see a glimpse of it as Lord Sophos tackles you onto the ground and uses his body as a shield. Rushed messages are sent through the vox informing the chain of command.

A large pane of glass falls onto Lord Sophos’ back. He remains steadfast. The glass shatters into pieces. A few shards cut your hands and face.

Then silence.

The only sound you could hear was the sound of your own heavy, panicked breathing.

Lord Sophos is quick to his feet and assesses the situation.

Something lands on your face.

A feather?

It’s large, larger than any avian you could think of and colored a beautiful shade of off-white you’d only seen on pilgrims’ clothing. Blood from your cuts stains the barbs, creating a wonderful but upsetting combination.

THUD!

Something lands. It sounded like a slab of meat being slammed onto the ground.

A scream, deranged and frenzied, pierces the air. It’s Kua

You push yourself to get on your feet lest you get crushed by stray debris. The cuts on your hands and face sting, warm rivulets of blood flowing from them. Your legs shake, out of shock—or maybe fear, you can’t tell.

In front of you is the thing that crashed into the watchtower, a crumpled heap of feathers. In the background, Kua is screaming out in pain. A metal pole had pierced through him, pinning to the wall.

The thing moves

Everyone stills.

And—

And. You let out a shaky breath as the thing—no, the man stretches out his wings. White feathers shine in the moonlight as his blonde hair sways along with the wind.

Sanguinius. Your mind provides.

But what was in front of you was not the likeness of the Great Angel you’ve seen a thousand times over, but of a predator. Like a blood eagle, He scans a crowd, ready to pounce as He stands on all fours.

You hold your breath, instincts screaming for you to run, to hide. You do neither.

He turns His head to your direction.

Your heart stops.

Your eyes meet.

Run!

RUN!

But you can’t. Fear has seized you.

The Great Angel infront of you is a far cry from any artwork’s depiction. Missing was the nobility, the kindness. In it’s place is the look of a wild animal, spooked and pushed to a corner.

There’s a brief flash of recognition in His wild eyes.

He pounces.

Time slows. The millisecond before contact felt like forever. In which you braced yourself as best you could, fully expecting to be mauled and torn to shreds, maybe even eaten alive.

None of that happens.

Instead, a hand cups your face, and another pulls you into a close embrace. The action is familiar, practised like He has done this a thousand times over.

He wipes the blood from your face with a swipe of His thumb, uttering frantic words that sounded like an apology. The language is foreign, neither high nor low Gothic, not even one of the many dialects of Baal. The way He speaks it is clumsy, words so obviously pronounced wrong it was evident even to a non-speaker.

He pulls away briefly, holding you at arm's length. You tense. You’re forced to come face to face with Him.

He’s beautiful, you thought. None of the countless statues and murals of Him did Him justice. None captures that dangerous edge just below the surface.

And his eyes.

Throne! His eyes!

You could drown in them.

A sea of blue tinged with blood red as if someone had bled into water. A storm of emotions swelled within them. Anger. Joy (?). Sadness. Grief. And—

He lets out a shaky breath and pulls you into an embrace, tighter than the last. He buries His head in the crook of your neck, breathing in your scent. It’s familiar, intimate. To Him at least. Then you feel it, warm against your skin.

Tears.

—Relief

Your fear morphs into confusion, and you're unsure of what to do. Instinct tells you to push the Great Angel off, the sudden physical contact and weight throwing you off kilter. You restrain yourself from doing so.

Sobs wracked His body as He softly cried in your ear, still speaking words in that unfamiliar language. It sounded like apologies.

As His tears wet your shirt, all you can do is stare into the distance, confused and with a gnawing feeling that you’ve forgotten something.

#warhammer x reader #warhammer 40k x reader #sanguinius x reader #primarch x reader #sanguinius

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sunsbaby · 3 months ago

Text

.ᐟ dean winchester x beach babe!reader

| warnings . . . blood . dean is a pervert . weapons (readers gun) .

You and Dean's first meeting wasn't how many had expected...

The sun was bright and unforgiving. Heat blazed down on your form, pretty much baking you. But, instead of burning your body reacted differently—most would call you sun-kissed; however, you preferred the term 'sun-child.' Afterall beneath the sun was where you spent most of your days. Your shades perched on your nose perfectly.

Men stared, hungry eyes raking down your figure—it was disgusting and you were never afraid to call them out on it.

"Uh, sir, your staring is creeping me out. Look somewhere else before I put 'Cherry' to use." Was your go-to response, pulling out your gun just enough to where they could see it. Normally it scared them away, the look on your face showed you meant business.

You weren't one to bluff—which could be why you were banned from some beaches, but that didn't matter. Your gun's name was Cherry, to match your 57' Thunderbird! That car was your baby, and nobody but you was allowed to drive nor touch it. Now, usually that line would work on anyone that tried you, but not this one.

But oh lord was he handsome. His stubbled chin, piercing green eyes that just drunk in your body like you were a glass of whiskey—you could tell what he liked, they all had that look—and those muscles. A girl could only dream of being crushed by those during. . .Nevermind that! A scowl appeared on your features, which to Dean made you look even hotter. He did have a thing for women when they were mad.

"Oh c'mon sexy, you think i'd be scared of that little thing?" His voice was even better than his looks, you wanted to eat him up right then and there, but you had to stay strong. He was being a total dick-wad and you weren't going to stand for it.

You stood up, brushing off whatever sand was stuck to your bare skin. Bikini clad form sauntering over to him with a subconscious sway of your hips. Palm finding itself rested on his cheek, Dean smirked—he thought he had you. It wasn't until a loud crack was heard and Dean's face began to sting.

"Do not talk to me that way! You may be a total hottie, but seriously? Ew!" Dean couldn't hear what you were saying, his mind was focused on the slap you'd just given him. Who knew such a pretty thing like you had the power of Sam. He wasn't even mad, his eyes widened and a smile crept onto his face as he stared at you—now up close and personal.

With a roll of your eyes you pushed him away, annoyed that your hit barely affected him, all he wanted to do was practically eye-fuck you like a pervert! You didn't mind much though, he was so much more attractive than the bums that normally come your way. Before Dean could snap out of it, you were gone. The only thing left of you was the red handprint on his cheek and the purr of your car's engine fading away.

The second time you saw mister pervert again—which turned out to be your last 'meeting'—was when he saved your ass. It was just a normal night for you, bonfires on the beach, drunk people feeling each other up, and vampires? Maybe it was stupid of you to follow a random guy back to his car—which was weirdly parked far away from the social gathering. But, in your defense you were drunk and maybe a bit high, and he was hot! Not your fault.

You had your back turned, about to open the backseat of his car before you heard a weird noise behind you. Even in your drunken state you knew something was off, so you swung your arm back, managing to hit him directly on the side of the head. Just then you noticed the fanged teeth, what the hell was this guy. He got up quick, quick enough to grab you tightly. His head moving down towards your neck. . .

Blood was all over you, the guy who you were about to hook up with head tumbled onto the floor. Crimson liquid staining your body, and bikini. Your eyes locked with, him, the guy from earlier. Only this time he was with someone much taller—and equally as handsome.

"What was that." You spoke as you stared directly into Dean's eyes, confusion and shock lingered beneath your orbs. Honestly it wasn't like you didn't have suspicion of supernatural creatures being real, seven-year-old you and that damned monster in your closet.

"That, sexy, was just a glimpse into my world." Dean thought you were so hot covered in blood, which was weird, but it isn't everyday he gets to see a babe in a bikini covered in vamps blood. Sam could feel the tension radiating from the two of you whether it was sexual or not—he would guess the first.

"I want in, and maybe I can use that 'little thing,' to save your asses one day–hmm?" You mocked him, reminding Dean of your earlier interaction. He was going to say no, going to tell you it's too dangerous for a pretty thing like you. But, then he remembered the slap you gave him, and how you carried yourself like nothing could bring you down.

So, here you were, following his Impala in your Thunderbird. The wind flinging your hair around wildly as you blasted music loud enough heaven and hell could probably hear it. The way to the bunker was long, but nothing like a bit of motels and diner stops.

sunny yaps! HIII EVERYONEE!! this is just the meeting of dean and beach babe!reader, the next part will dive into them now! I HOPE U GUYS ENJOYY!! COMMENTS ARE APPRECIATED I LOVE U ALL!!

special tags! @figthoughts @bluemerakis @ultravi0lence14 @h8aaz @dulcescorderitas pls lmk if u wanna be removed or added!!

𓂃 beach babe!reader intro

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bardic-inspo · 1 year ago

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Dhampir Dreams

Pairing: Spawn Astarion x F!Tav (Generic/Unnamed)

Part 1 of 2

Rating: Explicit (Smut)

Key Tags: breeding kink, pregnancy kink, body worship, light dom/sub, light bondage, light praise kink, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it dacryphilia, cunnilingus, PIV, Astarion’s past trauma, smut with so many feelings but nearly no plot, character introspection

Summary:

Tav saw beauty in Astarion he couldn’t have seen himself, even if he had a reflection to gawk at. She made love with a man who never thought he could have anything near it. Made all his red dreams come true, and then said: go on, make new ones, in whatever color you like. Astarion never thought about being a father. Not before her. Or: an angsty-turned-horny character study about the pale elf and his thoughts on creating new (un)life.

A/N: This is my first stab at writing a more generic Tav. Tav in this piece is AFAB and uses she/her pronouns. Most other identifying features are left out.

Click here to read on AO3 instead

Astarion’s never thought much about making another vampire.

In the rare moments the notion occurred to him, he shoved it to the far back shelf of his mind so as not to waste himself on an exercise in futility. What did it matter, after all, while Cazador still lorded over him?

More than anything, Astarion yearned to see Cazador’s blood spill. In his mind’s eye, he’d watch it pool across the floor, not unlike the way he'd seen so much clothing puddled at so many heels. The lake he’d make of his master would be wide enough to swallow the garments of all who’d stripped bare before Astarion. Every sweat-soaked night he found himself bound to another moldering mattress beneath someone else’s weight, rocking through the motions that left his stomach sour, he’d fill his mind with such sweet dreams as Cazador’s death.

Whether Cazador would allow Astarion to drink his blood before being relieved of it varied with the fantasy. The dream changed as often as the hands on Astarion’s hips. It mattered little to him whether Cazador’s end came with true vampirism or not. As long as he ended.

As long as the vile river of shit that comprised Astarion’s life ended, one way or another. For better. Or for good.

Of course, he flirted with the fantasy of his own spawn, sent out like skittering spiders to dispense his will. Foul little monsters they would be. Fine tools to have in his arsenal; Astarion would only want such wretches of his own the way one might want a hammer to pound a nail. And what he wanted didn’t hold any weight while bound in Cazador’s chains.

So the idea recoiled into the dusty recesses of his mind, collecting cobwebs kitty-corner to such out of reach trophies as freedom from his servitude to Cazador and the sun itself. Both still gleamed, despite the tarnish of time and hope rusted over. Despite Astarion’s prayers, no heroes came to save him. No gods or slayers or saviors spared him from his servitude.

Until the illithids did.

Despite everything -- the centuries of torment, the hollow where his heart should be, its silence in his ribcage, the scars on his back, the thousands of other lashes that Cazador let fade from his porcelain skin -- Astarion did the one thing Cazador could never.

He stood in the sun. And on the sands of that same beach, another miracle washed ashore. A contradiction. His counterweight to everything else he’d ever known.

Tav.

Astarion’s hands roam the supple shape of her nestled against his bare chest. Her breath crests and falls soft and rhythmic, like the gentle slap of waves against the cliffs where they first found each other. His darling is always so serene in her sleep. Astarion dips his head down, nosing her splayed hair on the pillow, drinking in the lovely scent of lavender that always lingers with his lover.

Often, he wakes before her, as he does now in the dim blue light of dusk. Not yet dark enough for him to step outside, but for the moment, there’s nowhere in the world he’d rather be. Not even in the raw, rippling light of day.

The smell of her has his eyelids heavy again, the steady patter of her heartbeat hypnotic in his head. His hands curve over the flare of her hips before slipping beneath the hem of her tunic. He stifles the satisfied hum that bubbles in the back of his throat as his palm smooths down the lithe stretch of her stomach. He resettles with his nose in the crook of her neck, eyelashes grazing the twin puncture scars that mark her as his.

He’d thought, once, that he’d ascend and have her at his side for an eternity. He was scared. Frantic. Grasping. He thought he had to grasp at something, fashion some sort of tether, to have her. Thought he had to have power, and enough of it, to keep her. Now he holds her every morning in the bed they share, until day becomes night again. It’s as effortless as blinking.

Now, the thought of turning Tav into a vampire turns his stomach.

His lips brush, tender, to the flutter of her pulse in her neck. He loves those marks he gave her. He loves the way her fingertips tap against them when she’s lost in thought. He loves the way she arches into his arms as he feeds, the way her body gives and gives to him alone. That sleepy, slap-happy smile she has when he’s lapped his last for the evening. The way her eyes roll back, and she gasps, breathless, as he kisses a trail from her neck to a nipple and sucks fervently.

He loves that he’s marked her, but that it didn’t change her. He can still curl into the heat of her skin at night. Still watch her preen in a mirror. Still stare at those gorgeous eyes and know the shade of them is hers. Her cheeks still turn the shade of sunrise when he leans in with a lustful whisper, or grazes her waist with a feather-light touch.

Absently, his fingers follow the path of an old scar on her stomach. At its end, he finds the start of softness. Astarion loves that, too. She didn’t used to be soft there, when they were just surviving. They’re not just surviving anymore.

Perhaps he’s changed her after all. It’s not so scary anymore to admit she’s turned him, too. Not to the light, or anything so nauseatingly righteous. But rather, so Astarion could see himself in it. Even if his days of standing in the sun are done.

I’ll be your mirror, she vowed, what feels like another lifetime ago. She smiled in that fond way of hers that, at the time, hurt to look at too long. He scoffed at her poetic ruminations on his hair curling near his ears. The creases when he laughs.

Tav saw beauty in him he couldn’t have seen himself, even if he had a reflection to gawk at. She made love with a man who never thought he could have anything near it. Made all his red dreams come true, and then said: go on, make new ones, in whatever color you like.

Astarion never thought about being a father. Not before her.

He’s thought of Tav as a mother before. It flitted through his mind when Astarion watched her ease Arabella’s pounding heart with the gentleness of her own. That feeling lingered when Yenna joined their camp, and Astarion caught Tav teaching her cards. Combing the snarls from the girl’s hair. Coaching her in the basics of swordplay.

She’d be a wonderful mother. Astarion has no doubts in that regard. And he, well…

He doesn’t have an example to look back on, or one to look up to. But he has his compass. Tav’s heart beats, sure and steady, in his ear. That sound’s guided him through so much else. How could he lose his way for long, if there were two pitter-patters to listen to?

His palm paints cool over that blooming softness in her stomach. An ache burns in his own. The sort of hunger her blood won’t sate. Would she taste even sweeter, he wonders, with her body rounded and swollen?

Of course she would. So hard to improve something so perfect already. But she’d be radiant, if she were ripe with their child.

And after, when their babe is born, and her body is new all over again, he'd love every line, every fold, every mark that came from their coupling. He’d worship every part of her that was remade by the two of them to make the three of them. Marvel at the way the same body that first truly fed him would feed their child, too.

He’d help her find her way back to pleasure in her own way, in her own time. Just as she did for him. His Tav gives, and gives, and he’d give her anything, everything, for the rest of his days, if a wretch like him would be so stupidly blessed to be the father of her child.

Astarion pulls a breath between his teeth, his nose flooding with her floral scent again. That would change, too. She’d carry new notes in her sweat, in her slick, in her blood, while carrying their babe. Astarion wants to taste them all, to learn what songs she can sing while he does.

Instinctually, he presses to the plump of her ass to soothe the building stiffness in his cock. He plants a muted hum in the fabric of the pillow. His groin throbs to the thump-thump of his compass, beating oblivious beneath her ribs.

He pictures pouring into her, night after night, his spend spilling in little translucent rivers down her slicked thighs, overflowing from her cunt. Too much for her to hold in, but she’d take him as long as it takes until life sparks inside of her. Tav’s determined in all her undertakings. Resilient.

And in his dreams, she’s pliant. Pleading.

“Star, please.”

She’s trembling in that slinky, translucent nightgown she wears to bed sometimes. The one that hardly hides her skin, but cloaks it in a delectable, silvery sheen. He likes it too much to ruin it. Or at least, he has every other night.

Oh, he’d like to ruin it, now.

Tav’s pupils are blown black with want. Sweat shimmers on her skin, spurring his tongue to swipe his own lips. Her shoulder peeks bare from her nightgown, and Astarion can see her pebbled nipples, dark beneath the sheer silk that separates them. Hardened with hardly a touch. A feeling he’s intimately familiar with. His cock twitches as he strokes the back of his hand over the soft swell of her breast.

“Aren’t you sore, sweet thing?” He tries for tender, but it comes out coarse. Rough like the way he wants to grip her hips.

“So be gentle,” she says with a sultry smile, lips peeled apart and glistening just enough that Astarion can’t peel his eyes away. “I know you’ll take good care of me.”

Astarion slinks forward, crowding her against the edge of the bed. Careful, like cradling glass, his palm reaches out to cup the side of her cheek. She sighs into the touch, the curve of her smile reaching the heel of his hand.

“Always,” he says reverently, before his voice sinks to a growl. “You’re always so, so eager…for me.”

Her lashes flutter low over hungry eyes. All it takes is one little wordless bob of her head for Astarion’s own hunger to have the best of him. With a lazy roll of his wrists, he shoves her back with kind but firm force. The mattress bends with her impact, her breathless laughter nearly lost beneath the whine of the wooden frame. Astarion crawls after her, hands fisting in her nightgown, and pulling her free of it.

And then, she’s bare beneath him. Writhing from his tongue and teeth. Gasping out the best words he’s ever heard. Astarion downs them like a man starved, kissing her with the kind of fervor he thought reserved for bloodlust. But her lips, the promises they pour, are sustenance all on their own.

“I’m yours,” she whispers, “all yours. Always. All of me.”

Astarion can’t stifle the whine that drags from some hollow in his chest he never knew about before.

The bed creaks as he hitches one of Tav’s limber legs up over his shoulder and nips a path of sharp kisses from her ankle to the crux of her thigh. He pauses, sweeping a feverish gaze over the spread of her: legs parted in his grip, that perfect slit, already wet with want, the rest of her sprawled naked across the bed, at his mercy, at his desire, at her own.

He leans down, tongue dipping leisurely through her cunt. Always, she swore. So there’s no hurry in how he takes apart the woman he loves so dearly, in one of her favorite ways to be unmade. No matter how many times she claws the sheets and hisses, “Please, Star. F-fuck, I need you inside of me.”

It turns something in the depths of him to hear his own name said as a prayer. It makes him want with a force and harshness stronger than any thirst he’s felt for blood. He wants to turn her. Change her. Forever, for good. For the life they could make from their bodies, bound as close as souls could be. He wants to see her swell with the love they make, with all the love he’ll leave inside her.

She’s so close, her legs quaking violently when her hand tangles his hair and yanks his head upright. She’s beautiful, flushed ruby red, taking her air in shallow doses. Her eyes burn with equal measures adoration and reproach.

Astarion smirks, unrepentant, lips smeared with devotion. “My love, any work of art takes time. And that’s what we’re making, you know. When others look upon our progeny, they will weep in the sight of such beauty.”

“If all it takes is time, dearest,” she says, with a smile just as filthy, “then I don’t want to waste one second of it lying here empty.”

“Mmm,” Astarion sighs, nosing down against her throbbing clit, eyes flashing back to hers as he dares another lick. Her fist tightens in his hair. Astarion only chuckles.

“You’re right, of course,” he croons. “That won’t do, at all. I do recall promising to-- how did you put it the other night? ‘Fuck you full and senseless’? I’m more partial to what you begged me for a tenday ago, when I had you face-down and waiting for me as soon as the sun was set. Remind me again, my love, what you said when you weren't gasping my name?"

Astarion presses the tip of his tongue to her clit again and tastes her rapid, ravenous pulse in the heat of it. Tav’s hips jerk in response, but he holds her fast.

“I-I said I want-- that I want--”

“You want me to ‘breed you like a damn animal’," he finishes for her. "Oh, don’t be shy now, my sweet. We’re far past that. And we want the same things, after all. But," he sighs, letting his lips drag through her flushed folds, "I've another promise to keep, first.”

Astarion flicks his wrist, muttering magic beneath his breath. Tav’s sharp little yelp of surprise shoots heat straight to his groin. His cock throbs as she settles again, arms bound above her head by his mage hand, tits bouncing from the slightest struggle against her restraints. She smirks up at him, eyes aflame with fresh desire. Escape is the farthest thing from what she wants.

“You lie back now, dear,” Astarion drawls. “You’ll take me soon enough. You’ll be so good for me, like you always are, and take everything I give you. And I’ll take very, very good care of the woman I intend to make a mother.”

Astarion watches her keenly, tracing his forefinger down through her slick. He unfurls it, circling her cunt daintily, and watching her writhe for even the faintest promise of friction. He’s not sure if it’s his mercy or his selfishness that readily discards the thought of keeping her here, just like this, for the rest of the day. She’s mesmerizing, with the way her back arches from the blankets, and how her body strains towards any touch he’ll spare her.

All mine, he thinks, with a smile that makes him feel weightless. He grounds his hardened cock against the edge of the bed, groaning. All yours, darling. Just for you.

Pride rumbles low in his chest as he sets his mouth back to work again and knows she can’t cover her own. There’s no muffling his name pouring from her lips. No hiding how she cries for him. Her whole body winds taut, shuddering with every stroke of his tongue.

Finally, finally, he lets his finger slip inside her. Astarion sighs into a satisfied purr, letting the tremble of it soak into her sex. Her cunt’s a vice around his knuckle. Every pump of his finger feeds the building burn inside him, fanning the ache to be sheathed in that tightness. He only aches more, feeling her squeeze around his finger, and knowing she longs for him just the same.

He slips in a second finger to join the first, feeling her spread and then clench anew. Astarion ruts aimlessly into the mattress, in time with the thrust of his wrist. The head of his cock weeps anticipation with the rogue tear trailing down the side of her cheek. It’s only pleasure that makes her cry.

There’s only love in her heavy-lidded gaze as she pants, “Please.”

Mercy, then, Astarion resolves. For both of them.

Her thighs quiver against his ears like leaves in a breeze. Astarion swirls his tongue against the bud of her clit and sucks tightly. Tav stiffens abruptly. His arms hook firm around her legs as a shattered sound breaks from her throat,and a hard tremor courses through her hips.

He holds her through it, pinning her to the bed until just the faintest brush of his lips has her shuddering. The start of her plaintive whimper has him easing back. A murmured word sets her wrists free of her restraints. Her heart still hammers, sumptuous, in his head, as he peppers her legs in kisses soft as velvet.

“Beautiful,” he whispers with each one, slinking up her body while she comes back down. “So, so beautiful.”

He thinks of new life, as his knee bends between her thighs and drags her open all over again. He thinks of the graveyard, where he had her freely beneath the stars, in the dirt where he woke centuries ago. He thinks he’d be happy to die again, this way, as he slides forward and buries himself inside her waiting heat.

Astarion grates out a long, low moan as he basks in the wrap of her arms and her cunt. Dimly, he feels her fingertips threading gently through his curls. He thinks of sunlight on his skin again as he sinks in fully, bracing his arms on either side of her head, letting his forehead tilt against hers. He can feel her pulse thrumming through her body, through his cock, through his fogged-over thoughts. His hips roll to the sound, as if it beckoned him to motion. Tav’s head drops back into the pillows. She lets out a long, contented hum, while her body rocks in time with his.

“Is this what you needed, darling?” He huffs a laugh, catching her lips in chaste kiss. It’s enough for her to taste her own sweetness. And one squeeze from her cunt is enough to cut his breath away all over again.

“I think you needed me, too,” she purrs.

“Y-yes,” he stammers through bared teeth, his throat tied taut as she wrings him for all he’s worth. “Yes.”

She knows exactly what he needs, what he yearns for. He needs her, needs this, needs to see his seed seeping from her fucked-out hole, pink and puffy and leaking. He’ll know the rest of it was spent so deep inside her, her fertile womb is flooded. That’s his, too, with the rest of her.

Hips high for me, beautiful, he’ll say, when his last thrust is done. And he’ll hold her legs up against his shoulders, kiss her heels, and slip the pillow beneath her pelvis. Just to be sure it takes.

It’ll be another couple months before they’ll start to see the fruit of their efforts. Until Tav starts to bloom with it. And then, he’ll be hard pressed not to have his hands on her every hour. Cupping the fresh heft of her breasts as they grow with the passing days, heavy from him, for the babe growing in her belly. He’ll soothe her weepy eyes and tits alike, with a skilled tongue and sweet whisper. Rub her shoulders to ease the new weight her bones carry. Draw his nose down her neck and smell not just her, but himself, and the consequences of what they did, right here in this bed.

Feel her change beneath his hands and feel so fucking proud to be the reason.

Pleasure winds, binding, around his cock, and he feels that hunger snap its jaws around him all over again. His hips snap with it, jerking frantically. I need you, all of you, he thinks, and if he weren’t already fucking her, he’d be on his knees, begging for all he’s worth. Her cunt quivers, and he’s lost to the grip of her. Astarion shoves his own knuckles in his mouth to stifle a strangled cry.

“Star?”

Astarion rips awake in a sweat. He sees familiar wooden beams above his head, above his bed. Sunlight streaks the floorboards, leaking from behind the curtains. Turning his cheek, he finds his lover peering at him from over her shoulder, concern wrinkling her face. Tav still lays on her side, and Astarion still presses against her back. But his hand clamps tight to her thigh, bare where he hiked up her tunic. And his cock twitches fitfully against her ass, unspent and painfully hard.

Just a dream, then. For now, at least.

He lets out a long, weary sigh, slumping back into the sheets. Tav tilts her head, the worry in her gaze gradually dissolving into a mischievous gleam.

“I thought you might--” she starts, snickering, “but you were having sweet dreams, weren’t you?”

“The best I’ve ever had,” Astarion mutters mournfully as he buries his face in his pillow. “You were there, of course.”

Astarion rarely sleeps anymore. It’s not normal, not natural for an elf. But it was a trick he taught to dodge Cazador’s torment at least for a few hours a day. Reverie used to mean putting the horrors on repeat. He’d slowly eased from the habit, now that he has new memories worth seeing a second, third, or hundredth time.

Still, occasionally, he drifts to sleep without meaning to. Sometimes, he wanders off into novel nightmares. Or, if he’s lucky, he dreams of making love to his wife and making her pregnant. Of making their own little dhampir.

His hips shift, and he hisses. Pre-cum seeps from the head of his cock, slickening the shaft. It’s not enough. Not after such a succulent fantasy. But one touch from his darling might have him sated, if not entirely satisfied. Pleasure stabs, sharp, through his groin as she shifts and brushes him with her motion. He grimaces.

Just one touch alone could do it.

“I’m here now,” she smirks, twisting to face him. Her hand slips down between them. Mercy, he thinks, as her fingers wrap his length. He thrusts into her palm with a pleading whimper. “Tell me all about these dreams of yours.”

A/N: If you're yelling "Let him breed!!" at the screen just know I'm right there with you holding a megaphone about it 💜

If there's interest (from others & myself) perhaps there might be a part two where Tav takes matters into her own hands. Makes him say exactly what he wants, if he wants to have it so bad 👀

EDIT: This is now officially a part one of two 😉

If you'd like me to add you to a tag list for future one-shots, or all of my future BG3 fic (including multi-chapters), leave me a comment and let me know which you'd like!

& HUGE thank you to some lovely Discord and Tumblr friends/moots who cheered me on as I worked on this one! 💜

Tag List: @wilteddreamsofbaldursgate

#astarion #astarion ancunin #astarion smut #tavstarion #astarion x tav #tav x astarion #astarion breeding #bg3 #bg3 fanfic #astarion fanfic #astarion x f!tav #f!tav x astarion #my writing #baldur's gate 3 #baldur's gate #divider credit: firefly-graphics #end banner credit: cafekitsune #dadstarion

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tricksh0t · 4 months ago

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★ the aspect of the warrior

☾ ellaria sand & oberyn martell x top m reader (+ olyvar)

𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘬𝘴𝘩0𝘵 ⛥ first threesome 😜 (technically orgy); connected to broken merchandise (petyr baelish) but can be read as a standalone. unfortunately ended up having a lot more olyvar than i intended, so take that in mind.

𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘵𝘴 ⛥ 3.25 words

cw: switch reader, top male reader, bottom oberyn, switch oberyn, blowjobs, non-descriptive cunnilingus, prostitution, use of the name whore, missionary, doggy, mentions of the Faith religion, lighthearted and humorous s*x, unfortunately rather fast paced

You've served a long variety of clientele before. Men and women, cock and cunt. You've tugged brown, black, blonde and red hair; stared lustfully into brown, onyx, green and blue eyes; kissed both rough and soft lips as well as given and taken.

You've had real warriors who played into your character or were simply too clueless.

Bastards, too. Waters, Rivers, Flowers, Hills and Stones. Maybe a Pyke and Snow or two, but never a Sand.

Nobles, as well, of many different statures. Wealthy and unfortunate, Lords and Ladies, heirs, but never a Prince.

Prince Oberyn Martell and his paramour, Ellaria Sand, were simply not an offer you could refuse; but they had come without an appointment or any notice, and so you were already caught up with another client.

You'd never miss this for the world, though.

"There he is. The Aspect of the Warrior." At the sound of Oberyn's voice, Olyvar pulls off the prince's cock with an obscene, wet pop.

Prince Oberyn looks you up and down, taking every inch of your well-oiled, famed muscles, from your neck to your calves. Eventually his eyes land on your already sweaty small clothes, and the forming bulge of your arousal. "You are very late, Ser Strong. We would have died if you had been a second too late. You come without your armor, even."

"Cut him some slack." Ellaria chimes. She pets the girl's hair who's currently eating her out absentmindedly, like it's nothing. "He was obviously previously preoccupied. Though, if you ask me, he should've cut whatever he was doing to come straight here."

Olyvar watches, both amused at your humiliation and also annoyed because you've taken his attention.

Oberyn grabs a handful of your new salesman's hair, just calling for his attention as he tugs. "How much is he, then?"

"Expensive."

"More than you?"

Olyvar scoffs, but does give in and nod.

The prince doesn't let the gesture slip by. "What is it, do you two not like each other?" He is growing more amused by the second.

Olyvar looks at you. There, beneath his glare, you catch a glint. He's just playing. While both the prince and his paramour may know your warrior reputation is only a facade, they do not know many other things about how you play. "He is distasteful. Just look at him, all that muscle and he does nothing but fuck all day."

Both Ellaria and Oberyn laugh, falling into the web of how captivating Littlefinger's whores can be.

"Let them have a go at each other, see if that settles their differences." Ellaria suggests.

Oberyn agrees by silently letting go of Olyvar's hair, but his face gives off all his excitement. He's looking for a show.

Olyvar approaches you in quick strides, then he's quickly wrapping his arms around your neck and giving you a kiss that'd steal the breath of anyone that isn't used to him. You reciprocate, roughly grabbing hold of his naked hips, shifting more towards the small of his back. You grasp, getting the bones of his hips and the meat of the top of his cheeks within your knuckles.

"Let's give them a show." Olyvar whispers as he pulls away. You can barely reply before he's pushing you, knocking you down on the bed right between Ellaria and Oberyn. The perfect spot.

He climbs onto your lap and you're back to kissing again. It's a clash of teeth this time, a methodologically feigned hunger for you and what you can bring him. Your hands quickly find his hips, and you're playing just as hungry, guiding him into a harsh, unsubtle grind over your thinly veiled cock.

You can faintly hear the other girl shifting, pulling away from Ellaria as the woman has stopped paying attention to her.

Olyvar moves and so do you, back on your elbows and lifting your hips so he can take your small clothes off. Your cock springs out and he's already grinding against it, ready to take it in in one swift go.

Before that even happens, though, Ellaria gasps a "ooh" and Oberyn wolf-whistles.

The prince's voice stops the two of you. "Now that is a cock that cannot go to waste."

You and Olyvar exchange looks. It's a quick thing, before the blonde is slipping off your lap, his job accomplished.

Oberyn gestures for you to come to him, but Ellaria grabs hold of your bicep before you do. Her hand cannot even wrap around it. "Ladies first." She says, addressing her lover with a smirk.

The prince obliges with a smile of his own, but you've long years of reading people and can see below that a slight bit of disappointment.

Ellaria lays further back onto the bed, her short hair falling behind her, splayed out like a halo. She spreads your legs as if to show herself off as your prize, that charming smirk on her face daring you to take it.

You kiss a path up her ankle. A Sand, tanned skin and dark hair yet both are smooth and shiny, unlike what Lords tell you about Dorne. They portray it as a land where the people broil miserably under the heat, causing wrinkles in the youthful. Perhaps it is that they are wrong, or perhaps it is that Ellaria Sand is a woman well taken care of, lucky to have caught the eye of a Dornish prince.

That same eye follows you as you trail up her leg and to her cunt, getting a taste of it; protective, perhaps, or otherwise jealous.

"I've had enough of tongues," Ellaria says, calling your attention. She tilts up your chin with just two finger, "'sides, that cock of yours is what we're interested in, Aspect of the Warrior."

"Nothing about my muscles?" You respond, fixing yourself up into position, kneeling between her legs.

Ellaria can admit that her eyes trail down, beginning at your shoulders and your biceps all the way down until she can't. "They are very appealing, but you must understand I often get my fill." She glances towards her lover.

Oberyn winks when you glance over.

You concede with a small laugh and the shake of your head. "Then what appeal is there to The Aspect of the Warrior?"

"Fame and reputation." Oberyn answers for the both of them. Ellaria is much too impatient on the other hand, and beckons you in by kicking your ass slightly with her foot. "You're rough, but also pliable. Headstrong, but also willing."

You'd reply, but Ellaria is staring you down with such a look of "just do it already".

You obey her, slowly pushing into her warmth. Her hand lands on your shoulder, well-kept nails digging into the flesh.

"I'm not fragile." She says confidently.

And again you obey, though you'd been cautious initially for a reason. Ellaria gasps, legs wrapping around your waist with a start. Her nails rake down your back.

"A stretch?" Oberyn asks, head propped up with his elbow, much more interested in this than the whore licking at his asshole and prepping him.

"Very." She says, almost having to choke it out. She sounds eager anyway when she continues, "Go on."

The first you give her seems to Ellaria much too boring. If you have a big cock, she expects you to know how to use it. "Is that the hardest you can go, aspect?"

You'd expected her to learn her lesson after the shock of having to take all of you in swiftly.

"The Aspect of the Warrior is also part of the Faith." You almost scold as you grab her by the lower back and hold her up, giving you a better angle to thrust into her cunt. "So, as much as strength is a part of him, the Faith cares for his subjects."

"Very charming, the way he talks in third person." Oberyn jokes, but his paramour is much too preoccupied with the cock splitting her open, the way she seems to like it.

She clenches around you, head already falling back. Her mouth splays open with mutterings of curses and moans.

She can hardly let go of you, even, the clench keeps you there, as if her legs don't do a well enough job already, and her arms are wrapped around your back.

"You must have a name, beyond Faith and Warrior. You don't expect her to scream those, do you?" Oberyn steals one of Ellaria's hands from your back to lazily intertwine his fingers with hers.

"They have been heard, around the halls." Olyvar responds for you, still servicing the prince with his tongue.

He looks amused at that, exclaiming sarcastically, "Oh, warrior! Save me, warrior."

"Yes," Ellaria moans, caught up in her own world, "yes, ser."

"Hmm." Oberyn hums, impressed. "That works."

You wonder if you're doing a better job than the prince usually does. For a couple so active, you'd imagine there's some sort of desensitization by now. There's some pride in knowing that you're making her feel this good, to lose her mind, when Oberyn might not even do the same anymore.

Speaking of, he watches in interest as you lick your thumb to press it down against his paramours clit. She keens loudly as you rub the nub in circles, prompting a quick and shuddering orgasm.

"That was fast." Oberyn teases, giving her hand a squeeze.

"Oh shut up, you." Ellaria wheezes out, regaining her breath. She squeezes back.

She gives your cock one final squeeze, like a parting gift, as you pull out. As soon as you do so, Oberyn is beckoning you over, much better at hiding his impatience and so displaying it now.

He's slower with it, though. It is merely having you that excites him already.

He parts only one leg, encasing your side with it, while he keeps the other under you so your hard lengths are not far apart. When he grabs the back of your neck to pull you down for a kiss, it is an intentional move, as you lean down towards him and your cocks press against each other.

His tongue was hot against yours, his swollen lips addictive, and so you chase him as he parts from the kiss. He grinds his cock up against yours, and so you chase that as well with your hips.

Oberyn's already got you wrapped around his finger.

You hardly notice the way Oberyn is sizing you up until Ellaria speaks up, propped up against the pillows in a heavenly kind of way in her post-orgasmic glow. "He's bigger. No use in denying that."

"I usually don't like brutes." Oberyn says, and somewhere, vaguely, you know he's playing it off by monologuing. His hand reaches down to guide your cock to his hole. "The bigger men get, the more disproportionate and ugly they become. Take the Mountain, for example. That kind of man can only be loved by his mother."

"I bet even that isn't true." Ellaria laughs.

Between the two of them, you're more preoccupied with getting your cock into the prince. For one, you've yet to orgasm, for two, he's a prince.

Maybe it's being a Prince that makes you pretty, or maybe it's being a Lord that makes you ugly, because in the hierarchy of nobility, Oberyn Martell is probably the best noble you'll ever get to fuck, and it isn't for his money or his status.

Oberyn stares you down as you push in. His stare keeps you in place, washing away any aspects of having the bigger body and muscles, of being The Aspect of the Warrior.

He's stoic, like this isn't his first time.

Olyvar speaks up, calling your attention. He's splayed out comfortably on the bed besides Oberyn, instigating, playing that game again. "Have you taken any bigger, Prince Oberyn?"

You and Oberyn turn back towards each other at the same time. The prince reaches up to cup your cheek, some form of endearment that once more keeps you submissive to him. He's inclined to say yes, to poke fun, but, "No, I have not."

"You're playing him a fool." Olyvar says. His hand is warm on the small of your back. Its thumb flicks over your spine, making you shudder.

Oberyn whistles. He felt that. "It is rather fun, you know. A brute at your heels."

Not The Aspect of the Warrior, pointedly. Oberyn sees past your act, doesn't care for it. To him, you're just a big man with a big cock and muscles you don't know how to use.

He takes the sex casually, not giving much reaction to the thrusting of your hips, however slow you're taking it right now. You can't help but take it as an offense. You've always been revered as The Aspect of the Warrior with your clients, for your strength and your build, even by Ellaria herself.

You yearn for a reaction from this tough prince.

You play into the submission, leaning down to capture Oberyn's lips in a kiss, because you want him to think you're needy for it.

He smiles into the kiss, heaving a small laugh through his nose. He finds you amusing.

Little does he know, it's only a distraction. You lift him up, causing him to gasp, then place him on his stomach. Oberyn immediately turns his head to look back at you with indignance, but his eyes shut quickly when he you thrust up to the hilt, because he gets to feel all of you.

"Does that feel good?" You lean down to whisper into his ear as you start up again, going slow just to tease him, because you know he can take more. "To feel all of me?"

He tries to keep stoic, but it's clear in the way his breaths grow ragged that the answer is a resounding yes.

"Did you prep him properly, Olyvar?" You ask just to tease the prince, feigning care.

The blonde chuckles. "Spit and tongue then oil and fingers, my love."

"My love? They've been playing us a fool, Oberyn." Ellaria jokes, but her paramour is much too preoccupied with the cock splitting him open on the more literal sense to notice.

Oberyn sucks in a gasp when you thrust up particularly harshly for the first time, then follow up with that same strength over and over, resulting in a sharp whistle-y sound. It seems to embarrass him.

Much of you embarrasses him, though it seems to please him at the same time. You're bigger than him in body and muscle, engulfing his figure as you fuck into him; you've got a bigger cock, and you pleased his paramour well with it.

There's jealousy somewhere in there, but he doesn't act on it, not when he gets to have you.

"He's good, isn't he?" Ellaria hums.

"Yes he is." Oberyn replies. His face isn't even pointed towards his paramour. It's rather amusing for you this time.

You pick up the pace, and he still doesn't break; because it's not admitting that you're good that you want, it's making him moan unabashedly.

You move his knees, propping him up on them to better fuck into him. Oberyn's breath hitches. Then you press a kiss upon his spine, and, "Oh, warrior!" How ironic.

A steady stream of groans leave Oberyn's mouth as you fuck him. You keep a hand beside his head to lean over him, and another warm hand over his cock. It wraps around the girth of it easily, and then some.

Ellaria laughs, because she of all people should know that Oberyn does not often get like this. "You're no Warrior."

"You're the Stranger." Oberyn chimes up for his part. The need for humor and the lift of his lips in an open-mouthed smile afterwards shows you just how much he likes it.

You chuckle, "Shall I be the death of you today, then, Prince Oberyn?"

"You know, at some point," He laughs too, shakily, "it gets rather fatuous."

He is right. You let your movements take over, pleasuring him. As is your job, pleasuring him, and even past the "honor" of fucking a prince, there is the pleasure of fucking Oberyn.

He's tight, but not like a virgin, you're not his first experience and you like that, because you can go as rough and fast as you like and Oberyn will take it. The pleasure is in knowing that you're the one creating the obscene slapping of skin in the room, and the eyes that watch you, the beautiful Ellaria Sand and Olyvar, your occasional lover. The pleasure is in knowing that you're making a real warrior such as Oberyn shiver and moan.

The hand you have wrapped around him begins to work him in tandem with your thrusts, and it has him spilling over.

Oberyn slumps forward with a sluggish smile, closed teeth now that he has a break. "Will it put a dent in the fortunes I have brought if I ask for another round?"

Olyvar smirks, "If you make it quick, it won't."

"And the warrior still hasn't finished." Ellaria remarks as you pull out of her lover, cock still proud and strong.

"Endurance," You reply, "a selling point."

"And here I thought we were simply not good enough for you." Oberyn turns around to lay on his back. His breaths slow as he relaxes. He nods his head between you and Olyvar, "So, you and him, history?"

"Just coworkers." Olyvar says, all business. "I'm sure you know there are certain folks that simply aren't good at this sort of thing."

"So we weren't good enough." Ellaria laughs. "I'd like to see you get the aspect off, then. If we simply aren't experienced enough."

Olyvar is more than welcome to. In fact, he seems eager to, as you fix yourself upright on the bed and he crawls towards you. Once more, you are playing a show, except this time, there is no goal except to pleasure you.

"Prince Oberyn, Lady Ellaria," Olyvar says as he nears your cock, "take pride in knowing you are simply not whores."

You feel like a King, getting to have all this: a Sand's cunt, a Prince's hole, your part-time lover's mouth. "I'm pampered." You voice.

He stares up at you as he takes you down to the base, something that causes clear surprise in the two Dornish. Olyvar's words make sense to them now, it's the experience that comes with working as a whore that allows him to do this. Or perhaps it isn't, perhaps it is your history together.

You won't voice it, but it's comforting coming back to Olyvar. The way you watch him isn't sultry, it's endearing. The way you grab a handful of his blonde hair isn't sultry, it's appreciative.

Olyvar has boundaries with his clients. He won't swallow, and he won't let them finish inside him, but you're not a client.

When you cum, you do so down his throat, and he swallows gladly.

Oberyn applauds, pulling you away from the sight of Olyvar. "And the show comes to an end."

"So it does." Ellaria sits up and leans towards you, capturing you with a much-needed kiss. She is just a good a kisser as her lover. "Whenever we find ourselves in King's Landing again, I'm sure we'll cross paths."

"I might have him brought back to Dorne, actually." Prince Oberyn jokes.

"You'd like the competition?" Ellaria teases.

Oberyn's eyebrows furrow at that, his anger at the idea almost real. "Perhaps it is a bad idea, then."

A Sand and a Prince, added to your list.

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