#muse: aspen winter

[multi-royalty]

NEW MUSE : ASPEN WINTER

Aspen is a the 100 original character created by me, more info being added below to be added to my carrd later!

BIOGRAPHY:

Aspen is a member of Lexa's Trikru, she works closely with the commander herself and has done so since Lexa had ascended, the two had been close when growing up among the clan, however there had been many attempts to keep the separated due to Lexa's heritage (the night blood). Both of Aspen's parents are dead, killed by the mountain men at mount weather during failed reaper transformations when she was fourteen years old. She was always a smart and outgoing child, and had been no stranger to the mountain men attacks. They had risen drastically during her generation and many of her clan had been lost to the reapers. Aspen had always excelled in hunting and combat despite her parents not always supporting the 'blood must have blood' ideology, Aspen knew that in order to be truly seen by the clan that she'd need to support in ways that stood out and were recognisable.

Trikru vs Skaikru - the alliance:

Despite Lexa's willingness to put her trust into Clarke and Skaikru itself, Aspen stayed quiet on opposing opinion. She took a lot longer to convince that Skaikru came in peace, merely wanting to survive on the lands that were brand new to them. Aspen silently thrived on order and communication so when a new clan had quite literally fallen from the sky, this was something that had her wires crossing. Eventually however, Aspen does come around and supports the idea of an alliance with skaikru, she admired their technology and aspired to learn more for hersef.

BASIC INFO:

Full Name: Aspen Winter Age: 22 Date of birth: 26th November 2129 Gender and Pronouns: Female / she / her Face Claim: jennifer lawrence Appearance: Long brown wavy hair and blue eyes Height: 5'9 Species: Human (grounder) Occupation: defender of the commander Sexuality: demisexual

VERSES:

are yet to come but will be written out on my carrd. For now she is to remain within the 100 universe and I shall see on branching out in the future!

[carxlines]

ENDLESS edits of - 𝙰𝚜𝚙𝚎𝚗 𝚆𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚛 ∞

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

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

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

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

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

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

Word count: 8.1k.

Link to chapter list: HERE.

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

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

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

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

“Are there really?”

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

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

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

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

~~~~~~~~~~

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

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

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

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

“Where are they now?”

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

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

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

“What brought you here?”

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

“And he asked you to stay with us?”

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

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

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

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

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

“He gave it to me? Like a gift?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“We won’t.” We can’t.

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

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

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

“I don’t know.”

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

“Dorne, Essos. Somewhere, anywhere.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No. They love you.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Who? Borros Baratheon?”

Aegon glares at Larys. “No.”

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

“Look at me. Don’t lie to me.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Good.”

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

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

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

“How long?”

“It doesn’t matter, Angel.”

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

“Four or five days now.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

~~~~~~~~~~

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

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

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

“They must think I’m a coward.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What? No, we have to hurry—”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Listen, listen to me—”

“No—”

“Angel.”

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

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

“You would become a monster?”

“To protect you? I would become anything.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I know, Aegon.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough.”

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

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

You are petrified. “Why?”

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

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

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

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

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

“I can’t,” you choke out.

“You have to.”

“I’ve never wanted anyone but you.”

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

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

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

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

“Now go. Right now. Go.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“He’s dead.”

This stuns Cregan. “When? How?”

“Today. Of old wounds sustained in battle.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[sketchyallstar]

Pixie Hollow OC doodles! This is the first time I’m concretely designing Drizzle, Aspen, Zenith, and my newest OC Erys, whom I see as the most direct self insert out of my previous attempts. My oldest OC is Ella, who’s based on my favorite fairy to play as among my Pixie Hollow Online accounts. Later I made Brightly, but I didn’t feel super connected to her so I made Drizzle, then I decided they’d make a good odd couple duo so I made them sisters, in a different way from Tink and Periwinkle. They’re two fairies born of the laughter of twin babies, so they came into being at basically the same time and see each other as twins. I was also playing with the concept of a winter fairy and that’s where Aspen came from, but I used her to flesh out Ella’s character as an OC and not a player character. Basically, Ella is an artist and Aspen is her muse, but Aspen is an introvert and doesn’t know what to do with all the attention Ella gives her. Much much later I made a fairy with a new made up talent, Valora, who can dreamwalk. Using her story, I also made my first Sparrowman OC, Zenith. He has a job that keeps him up at night, Valora has a job keeping her up at night, there’s grounds there for a ship. Their relationship is a bit of a Tink/Terrance ship, where Zenith has a crush on Valora but she’s a bit oblivious to it.

My current self-insert, Erys, is a Storytelling talent, but she’s not great at telling stories verbally. Her thoughts are scattered, her mind wanders, she gets fixated on the wrong details sometimes, and some fairies think she’s Incomplete. She heavily relies on pixie dust to show visually what she’s trying to say, so she’s overly conscientious about her pixie dust supply. Best friends are Rani, who finishes her sentences, and Prilla, who can get where Erys is going with a train of thought without words sometimes. Still, despite her struggles, she’s always writing notes, and fairies who read her ideas and story fragments think they’re great, sometimes brilliant. The only thing holding her back is that she can’t finish off any of the stories she starts.

[lcstinfantasy]

[ cancelled ]  for our muses’ flight to get cancelled due to the poor weather conditions and now have to entertain themselves while they wait { rafe }

welcome to the holiday season! 

this was the one bad thing about traveling during the winter. you'd never know how bad the weather was going t be and he should have known that flying this late in the season to aspen was going to be dicey. the flight cancelled due to too much snow on the runway for any plans to land at the moment. so it's been delayed for a few hours cause rafe mild annoyance. at least he was stuck with his cute ass girlfriend the whole time. "mhm, whatever should we do to pass the time?"

[feathersontheclyde]

#FEATHERONTHECLYDE - A mutuals-only multi-muse nurtured by sunshine.

About me:

Sunshine, 30, she/her ( trans fem ), Taurus. I'm an absolute dingus who lives cringe and will die cringe. I love my muses and animation and stories so much.

Rules:

This blog is not a safe space for bigots so take it somewhere else.

Don't be a dick. Be patient. Any vague posts will be met with a block. I come here to write what I want when I want to.

No forced shipping.

Please tag any bodily harm graphics. I also have Trypophobia so anything with a bunch of holes makes me nauseous.

NSFW and triggering themes will be present and tagged. 21+ to follow because of that.

Lastly, keep me out of your drama and be kind to one another. This is a hobby, remember that.

Mains & Affiliates:

@soughtbirthright

@entangledmuses

@lcstinfantasy

@descendantes, @r4chelamber

@ner0tic

@dcmur3

Quick Links:

Credits

Rules

Locations: Click for more !!

Kildare Island

Muses:

ORIGINAL CHARACTERS

Celeste Winters - Witch, 22 FC: Kaylee Bryant

Sylvie Nightbloom - Seer, 15+ FC Maisie Williams 

Aspen Lightfoot - Elven princess, 21+ FC: Ruby Cruz

Elizabeth Murphy - Teacher, 20+ FC: Dakota Johnson

Alicia Piao - Psychology Student, 20+ FC: Natasha Liu Bordizzo

Tiabeanie Florence - Princess,15 FC: Georgie Henley

Allison Roe-Scott - Fashion designer, 18+ FC: Leighton Meester

Grace Scott - Student, 18 FC: Sara Waisglass 

Alwyn Oakdweller - Half-elf, 25+ FC: Henry Cavill

Dante Moore - Vampire, Forever 18 FC: Quincy Fouse

Astrid Green - Bar / Lounge Owner, 20+ FC: Zoey Deutch

Jacklyn “ Jack ” Esparza - Student, Soccer player, 18 FC: Ruby Cruz

Umi Okoye - Student, animator, 18 FC: Ayo Edebiri 

Sergio Garza - Cps worker, 30+ FC: Oscar Isaac 

Leslie Bishop - bodyguard, driver, 30+ FC: Jesse Williams

Aubree Fraser - Nurse Practitioner, 20+ FC: Jessica Henwick

Peyton Wong - Photographer, 19+ FC: Chase Sui Wonders

Greta Cohen - Event Planner, 18+ FC: Emilija Baranac 

Ryker Cameron - Kook, 20+ FC: Ryan Gosling

Jaden Reeves - Werewolf, 20+ FC: Josh Hutcherson

CALL OF DUTY

Kyle " Gaz " Garrick (25+) - FC: Elliot Knight

Simon " Ghost " Riley (25+) - FC: ???

EUPHORIA 

Fezco (19+) - FC: Rish Shah 

Jules Vaughn (18+) - FC: Hunter Schafer

Cassie Howard (18+) - FC: Sydney Sweeney 

Nate Jacobs (18+) - FC: Jacob Elordi

THE WALKING DEAD

Rick Grimes (30+) - FC: Andrew Lincoln

Carl Grimes (18+) - FC: Tanner Buchannon

Glenn Rhee (20+) - FC: Steven Yeun

Andrea Grimes (20+) - FC: Candice King

Rosita Espanoza (20+) - FC: Christian Serratos

THE WITCHER

Geralt of Rivia (30+) - FC: Henry Cavill

Jaskier (30+) - FC: Joey Batey

Tissaia (35+) - FC: MyAnna Buring

Cirilla of Cintra (14+) - FC: Freya Allen

THE SOCIETY

Becca Gelb (18+) - FC: Gideon Adion

Harry Bingham (18+) - FC: Alex Fitzalan

Cassandra Pressman (18+) - FC: Rachel Keller

Kelly Aldrich (18+) - FC: Krstene Froseth

Gareth Visser (18+) - FC: Jack Mulhern

Gordie Moreno (18+) - FC: Jose Julian

Clark Beecher (18+) - FC: Spencer House

GIRL MEETS WORLD

Lucas Friar (14+) - FC: Peyton Meyer 

Maya Hart (14+) - FC: Sabrina Carpenter

Topanga Mattews (30+) - FC: Rachel McAdams

Augie Matthews (14+) - FC: August Maturo

Isadora Smackle (14+) - FC: Cici Balagot

Farkle Minkus (14+) - FC: Corey Fogelmanis

STRANGER THINGS

Eddie Munson (18+) - FC: Joseph Quinn

Jane Hopper (14+) - FC: Millie Bobby Brown

Jim Hopper (18+) - FC: David Harbour 

Nancy Wheeler (18+) - FC: Natalia Dyer 

Max Mayfield (14+) - FC: Sadie Sink

Robin Buckley (18+) - FC: Maya Hawke

Carol Perkins (18+) - FC: Chelsea Talmadge

Will Byers (14+) - FC: Jack Dylan Grazer

Tommy Hagen (18) - FC: Chester Rushing

Steve Harrington (18) - FC: Joe Keery

TEEN WOLF

Derek Hale (30+) - FC: Tyler Hoechln

Stiles Stilinski (30+) - FC: Dylan O’brien

Liam Dunbar (30+) - FC: Dylan Sprayberry

Kira Yukimara  (30+) - FC: Arden Cho

Jackson Whittemore (30+) - FC: Colton Haynes

Mason Hewitt  (30+) - FC: Khylin Rhambo

ONE TREE HILL

Nathan Scott (18+) - FC: James Lafferty

Karen Roe (30+) - FC: Moira Kelly

Kieth Scott (30+) - FC: Craig Sheffer

Peyton Sawyer (18+) - FC: Hilarie Burton

HARRY POTTER

Luna Lovegood (18+) - FC: Evanna Lynch

Neville Longbottom (18+) - FC: Matthew Lewis

OUTER BANKS

Rafe Cameron (19+) - FC: Drew Starkey

Kiara Carrera (18+) - FC: Madison Bailey

JJ Maybank (18+) - FC: Rudy Pankow

John B Rutledge (18+) - FC: Chase Stokes

Ward Cameron (30+) - FC: Charles Esten

Wheezie Cameron (15) - FC: Julia Antonelli 

Topper Thornton (19+) - FC: Austin North

ANIMATED TV & MOVIES

Catra (18+) - FC: Lulu Antariksa

Ballister Boldheart (30+) - FC: Riz Ahmed

Vi (20+) - FC: Brianna Hildebrand

HEARTSTOPPER

Nick Nelson (18+) - FC: Kit Conner

Darcey Olson (18+) - FC: Kizzy Edgell

DISNEY MOVIES & TV

Evie Grimhilde (18+) - FC: Sofia Carson

Ben Florian (18+) - FC: Mitchell Hope

Queen Elsa (18+) - FC: Anya Taylor Joy

Honeymaren (18+) - FC: Devery Jacobs

Kristoff Bjorgman (18+) - FC: Lucas Till

Olaf (10) - FC: Asa Butterfield

Fawn (18+) - FC: Maia Mitchell

Flynn Rider (19+) - FC: Ben Barnes

Amity Blight (15+) - FC: Kiernan Shipka

Jack Frost (19+) - FC: Thomas Brodie-Sangster

Astrid Hofferson (19+) - FC: Britt Robertson

Miguel Rivera (10+) - FC: As Himself 

THE VAMPIRE DIARIES

Damon Salvatore (18+) - FC: Ian Somerhalder 

Klaus Mikaelson  (25+) - FC: Joseph Morgan

Bonnie Bennett  (18+) - FC: Kat Graham 

Vincent Griffith (30+) - FC: Yusuf Gatewood

Freya Mikaelson (25+) - FC: Riley Voelkel

LIFE IS STRANGE

Dana Ward  (18+) - FC: Lily Collins

Alex Chen  (18+) - FC: Brianne Tju

Chloe Price  (18+) - FC: Emma Mackey

Warren Graham (18+) - FC: Austin Abrams

Stella Hill (18+) - FC: Maitreya Ramakrishnan

Luke Parker (18+) - FC: Ross Butler

Kate Marsh (18+) - FC: Grace Van Dien

SCREAM MOVIES & TV 

Billy Loomis (18+) - FC: Skeet Ulrich

Mindy Meeks-Martin (18+) - FC: Jasmin Savoy Brown

Chad Meeks-Martin (18+) - FC: Mason Gooding

Noah Foster (18+) - FC: John Karna

Dewy Riley (23+) - FC: Dave Arquette

Tatum Riley (18+) - FC: Rose Mcgowan / Christina Hendricks

Wes Hicks (18+) - FC: Dylan Minnette 

THE LAST OF US

Joel Miller (30+) - FC: Pedro Pascal

Ellie Williams (18+) - FC: Bella Ramsey

Dina (18+) - FC: Cascina Caradonna

Tess Servopoulos (30+) - FC: Anna Torv

MARIO UNIVERSE 

Bowser (??) - FC: As himself 

Princess Peach (18+) - FC: Sydney Sweeney

Toad (??) - FC: Jack Dylan Glazer

RED DEAD REDEMPTION

Arthur Morgan (30+) - FC: Tom Hardy

Abigail Marston  (25+) - FC: Rebecca Hall 

TWILIGHT

Edward Cullen (18+) - FC: Robert Pattinson 

Charlie Swan (40+) - FC: Billy Burke

Jasper Hale  (100+) - FC: Jackson Rathbone 

MISCELLANEOUS ANIME

Saitama (18+) - FC: Adachi Yūto

Sakura Haruno (18+) - FC: Robert Pattinson

Naruto Uzumaki (18+) - FC: Suda Masaki

Houtarou Oreki (18+) - FC: Kubota Masataka

Haruhi Fujioka (18+) - FC: Watanabe Mayu

Tamaki Suoh (18+) - FC: Sato Ryuji 

Arisa Uotani (18+) - FC: Hirose Alice

Nana Osaki (18+) - FC: Rila Fukushima

Taiga Aisaka (18+) - FC: Natsuki Margaret Gibb

Yui Harasawa (18+) - FC: Ririka

FNAF

Vanessa Afton (18+) - FC: Elizabeth Lail 

Suzie / Chica  (9) - FC: Dakota Fanning

SUPERNATURAL 

Dean Winchester (30+) - FC: Jensen Ackles

Bobby Singer (50+) - FC: Jim Beaver

Meg Masters (1000+) - FC: Rachel Miner

MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE 

Frank Castle (30+) - FC: Jon Bernthal

Peter Parker (19+) - FC: Tom Holland

Tony Stark (30+) - FC: Robert Downey Jr

Vision (??) - FC: Paul Bettany

Bruce Banner (30+) - FC: Mark Ruffalo

Jessica Jones (30+) - FC: Krysten Ritter

DC CINEMATIC UNIVERSE

Bruce Wayne (30+) - FC: Robert Pattinson

Selina Kyle (30+) - FC: Cameron Bicondova & Monica Baccarin

Harley Quinn (30+) - FC: Samara Weaving

Arthur Fleck (30+) - FC: Barry Keoghan

Barbara Gordon (20+) - FC: Kat Mcnamara 

Dick Grayson (20+) - FC: Brenton Thwaites 

DUMPLIN’

Ellen “ El “ Dryver (18+) - FC: Odeya Rush

Bo Larson (19+) - FC: Luke Benward

[foxglove-the-never-fairy]

Fairy Names Pt. 2

Fly with you! It’s been a while hasn’t it? Anyway, I’m here for a second part of one of my most popular posts.

The first post listed fairy names that were used in the DS game “Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue” in the create-a-fairy section of the game. While the names provided were feminine, I have pulled all of the masculine fairy names from the original Pixie Hollow game. Some names are repeats from the original post, but I kept them in as I wanted to get this out as soon as possible. I hope you enjoy. Here’s the original post.

~🧚🏻‍♀️🔥 Foxglove 

First

Aaron

Ace

Acorn

Agate

Ajay

Alabaster

Alder

Alec

Aleron

Alex

Anchor

Andrew

Archer

Axel

Badger

Bailey

Baker

Bale

Banjo

Barclay

Basil

Benjy

Bert

Bevel

Birch

Bo

Boomer

Boone

Brock

Bruce

Brynn

Buddy

Burr

Burton

Buster

Calder

Casper

Cecil

Cedar

Chance

Chase

Chip

Clay

Cliff

Coal

Cog

Comet

Cosmo

Cote

Covey

Crag

Crane

Cyan

Dale

Dane

Darius

Darrin

Dawson

Decker

Deon

Devlin

Dewey

Donner

Drake

Dug

Dunn

Dustin

Dusty

Echo

Eddy

Edward

Elk

Emery

Erik

Ernie

Errol

Fennel

Fincher

Finn

Fir

Flint

Ford

Francis

Garnet

Glen

Gourd

Gourdie

Grove

Grub

Gull

Hale

Hare

Harris

Hawk

Henry

Heron

Hob

Jacob

James

Jasper

Jay

Kernal

Koto

Lance

Lark

Leaf

Lore

Lute

Lyric

Martin

Maze

Mica

Michal

Nadir

Nester

Oak

Ollie

Onyx

Otter

Peat

Pier

Pine

Quake

Quarry

Quinn

Rain

Ranger

Reed

Richard

River

Robin

Rook

Rusty

Rye

Sage

Sam

Scout

Sean

Seth

Shale

Shoal

Skimmer

Skyler

Spike

Spruce

Sterling

Stone

Tad

Teak

Thatcher

Thistle

Timber

Tiny

Toadstool

Tobey

Todd

Topher

Torn

Torrey

Vail

Valiant

Vern

Vic

Wedge

Wes

Wren

Wynn

Zak

 Middle

Air

Almond

Apple

Aspen

Autumn

Badger

Bark

Beacon

Bear

Bitter

Brave

Bright

Brisk

Broom

Bumble

Candle

Cedar

Chilly

Citrus

Cloud

Cloudy

Clover

Cocoa

Copper

Cricket

Crow

Cub

Dapple

Dash

Day

Drift

Eagle

Elm

Evening

Falcon

Far

Fern

Fig

Fire

Fleet

Flicker

Foggy

Fox

Frost

Frozen

Funny

Garlic

Green

Hail

Hasty

Hawk

Hickory

Holly

Hurry

Ice

Ivy

Jelly

Jumpy

Lemon

Light

Lightning

Lime

Little

Lock

Lotus

Magic

Mango

Maple

Merry

Misty

Moon

Morning

Moss

Mossy

Mountain

Muddy

Never

Nickel

Night

Nimble

Oak

Orange

Otter

Parsley

Pear

Pebble

Pepper

Pine

Plum

Pollen

Pumpkin

Purple

Quick

Rain

Rainy

Rock

Rumble

Sage

Sandy

Sea

Shy

Silk

Slight

Snow

Sour

Speedy

Spider

Spring

Squall

Star

Storm

Stout

Strong

Sugar

Summer

Sun

Swift

Tangle

Thunder

Tiny

Toad

Tumble

Twisty

Water

Whiffle

Wild

Wind

Winter

Wrinkle

 Last

Beam

Bee

Bell

Berry

Breath

Breeze

Bug

Button

Buzz

Chill

Chime

Cliff

Cloud

Clove

Crash

Curl

Dale

Dance

Dash

Dew

Din

Drop

Dust

Ear

Elbow

Eye

Feather

Field

Fig

Flame

Flap

Flash

Fleck

Flight

Flip

Flipper

Fly

Fog

Foot

Forest

Freeze

Fruit

Garden

Gem

Glade

Glimmer

Glow

Gourd

Grace

Griddlee

Gust

Heart

Hill

Hop

Horn

Hush

Jewel

Knee

Lake

Light

Lock

Loop

Lull

Meadow

Mello

Mint

Mist

Moon

Muddle

Muse

Newt

Noise

Nose

Peal

Pebble

Petal

Pin

Plume

Pond

Pool

Ray

Ripple

River

Roar

Root

Row

Ruckus

Rumble

Sand

Shadow

Sky

Smash

Song

Spark

Sparkle

Sparrow

Speck

Spirit

Splash

Spring

Sprite

Sprout

Stem

Stone

Storm

Stream

Stripe

Swamp

Swirls

Thistle

Thorn

Toad

Tree

Twill

Twist

Vale

Valley

Vine

Weather

Web

Whirl

Whisk

Whisper

Willow

Wind

Wing

Wings

Wink

Wish

[malboraslihan]

to whom it may concern, 

i’m not sure if you remember me, but i certainly remember all of you. i know it’s years ago now, but you used to spend every winter break here. some of you learned to ski before you even learned to walk, others were always throwing snowballs at my window while i was in the lodge’s office — you were a troublemaking bunch, to say the least. 

speaking of troubling, i bet you’re wondering why i’m writing this letter. i’ve recently gotten news that a company has bought all of your families’ chalets, with plans to demolish them and turn them into a ski resort here on aspen highlands mountain. some of you may already know this, but it may come as a shock to those of you that didn’t. 

i know it’s been ten years since you were all last here, but i recall that aspen highlands is full of so many memories for each of you. i would hate to watch the chalets you frequented every winter simply get torn down without inviting you all back here one last time. 

what do you say? one last winter season spent at each of your families’ chalets? it’ll be just like old times, you’ll all have the chance to reconnect, and i’ll get to see how you kids have all grown up. your chalets are here waiting for you, just say the word. 

 warmest of regards, 

 lester the lodge manager

PLOT: from business deals and money making, a friendship was born. and when new york city became too much and they needed a day off, aspen highlands was the perfect getaway vacation to take your family on. for fifteen winters, the friends would reunite after christmas and spend some time together within the quiet and private walls of their chalets. while the kids would be out playing together, bothering the staff and getting high on hot chocolate, the adults occupied the bar and the sauna for nights and days. there’s no way of knowing how many multi million dollar deals were sealed and signed behind those doors, but there’s one everyone hears about. 

on march 11, 2013 the cover of new york times carried those friend’s names for the worst possible reason. a scandal that costed which of them millions, bringing some to a complete bankruptcy and giving others a few sleepless nights to burden. to this day no one knows who  leaked information, who was to blame for the missing documents and after none of them agreed to say a word, the story died down after a few months. silence following their story now, the winters spent on those lodges never spoken about and the chalets left to gather dust. 

 the kids that were once attached to bone saw themselves moving schools, houses and some even states to make sure the group was no longer a unit. life carried on, the memories from the lodge were now whispered instead of told happily on the dinner table, most thought they would never set foot on those grounds again. until now. 

TL;DR: rich kids whose parents were attached to the bones and would always take them to aspen during the winter, they’ve grown together and after fifteen years, there was an issue with a business deal they were all involved in and the friends drifted apart completely. swearing to never speak again, they made sure to separate their children as well, or at least try. ten years after their last winter on those chalets a secret company has managed to buy all their chalets and is turning them into a ski resort. the manager that watched over the chalets has sent out a letter inviting the group for one last winter before it all goes to dust. 

GUIDELINES

1. your usual rp etiquette: no god modding, try to interact and plot with everyone. please, no ooc drama and if there’s any issues contact me or leesh privately so we can handle it directly.

2. muns and fcs must be over 21, the age range for muses is 24-27.. no problematic fcs, the usual banned: no dead fcs, minors, people who have stated before they don’t want to be used in rps, all that jazz. i also reserve the right to deny any fc that makes me or anyone else uncomfortable.

3. please don’t join if you’re not planning on being active. i understand school, college, work and all that can get in the way and that this is only a hobby but in order for a group to work people must be present at least once or twice in the day or a few hours a week.

4. this won’t be first come first serve, each mun can apply for TWO MUSES.  

APPLICATION

( faceclaim, age, gender, pronouns ) is that FIRST LAST NAME? i definitely didn't expect to see them again here. i heard they're a/an OCCUPATION now and are known for 3 AESTHETICS. a lot can change in ten years but it was just yesterday that they loved FAVORITE WINTER ACTIVITY. do you think  they remember when BEST MEMORY FROM WINTERS SPENT AT THE LODGES? i hope so. ( alias, url, tmz, age )

ex.  ( harry styles, 67, cis male, he/him ) is that MICHAEL MYERS? i definitely didn't expect to see them again here. i heard they're a WAITER now and are known for HIDING HIS FACE BEHIND A MASK, HAVING A CREEPY SONG PLAY WHENEVER THEY’RE AROUND AND NAMING HIS FAVORITE KNIFE. a lot can change in ten years but it was just yesterday that they loved THROWING HOT CHOCOLATE ON HIS FRIENDS. do you think they remember when HE LOCKED EVERYONE INSIDE THE DINNER ROOM FOR HOURS? i hope so. ( pennywise, clownstats, est, 21+ )

TAKEN FCS

alexa tiziani (fleur)

amelie zilber (jules)

bridget satterlee, cody christian (barbie)

cindy kimberly, hugh laughton scott (kat)

dua lipa (kenny)

jade distinguin, michael yerger (leesh)

jay gould, mishti rahman (bela)

jessica clements, ryan manick (ron)

[cityofdreamsrp]

YOU ARE INVITED TO JOIN US IN ASPEN FOR OUR WINTER TRIP!

As voted on by you, the members, City of Dreams will be heading to none other than… Aspen, Colorado!

Aspen is a place where every day holds an opportunity for greatness. It is a collection of remarkable moments that can’t be duplicated. It is an opportunity to break free from the “norm” and find inspiration in nature or around the corner. You can find this and more in this welcoming mountain town whose culture fuels the soul. Aspen’s enriching experiences will remind you just how great life is -- and can be!

Guests will be staying at the Viceroy Snowmass Luxury Resort, one of the most luxurious resorts in Snowmass Village and is filled with top-notch amenities. Upon landing in the Apsen/Pitkin County Airport, guests will be transported with complimentary ground transfers to the resort. Once you arrive at the resort, you will be immediately checked into your rooms and your fun on the slopes can begin! 

The City of Dreams winter trip is a MANDATORY event for all celebrities taking place from February 18th to February 25th. If your muse has children, they are more than welcome to bring them along or leave them back home with a babysitter! Daycare services will be provided throughout the entire week if needed. There will be more information to come, including the roommate list and detailed posts about the events taking place during the trip, so please keep a look out for all of that!

We can’t wait for everyone to join us and embark on a week full of relaxation and adventure! Please be sure to tag all event related posts with: #CODGOESTOASPEN

OFFICIAL ITINERARY:

2/18 - Guests Arrive / Snow Bar Welcome Party

2/19 - Free Day

2/20 - Skiing Day

2/21 - Free Day

2/22 - Snowman Contest

2/23 - Free Day

2/24 - Ice Palace Ball

2/25 - Free Day/Departure of Guests

[mykawinchester]

Don't be Discouraged

🌑︎ 🌒︎ 🌓︎ 🌔︎ 🌕︎ 🌖︎ 🌗︎ 🌘︎ 🌑︎

☽ ᴍᴜsɪᴄᴀʟ ɪɴsᴘɪʀᴀᴛɪᴏɴ ☾

In a world full of people You can lose sight of it all And the darkness inside you Make you feel so small

But I see your true colors Shining through I see your true colors And that's why I love you So don't be afraid to let them show Your true colors True colors are beautiful Like a rainbow." "True Colors" Cyndi Lauper

🌑︎ 🌒︎ 🌓︎ 🌔︎ 🌕︎ 🌖︎ 🌗︎ 🌘︎ 🌑︎

☽ ᴘʜᴏᴛᴏɢʀᴀᴘʜ sᴘᴏɴsᴏʀs ☾

PANIQ // True Colors Collar Pride at Home // Mainstore

Violetility // Pride Plugs Pride at Home // Mainstore

🌑︎ 🌒︎ 🌓︎ 🌔︎ 🌕︎ 🌖︎ 🌗︎ 🌘︎ 🌑︎

☽ 🇧​​​​​🇴​​​​​🇩​​​​​🇾​​​​​ 🇬​​​​​🇴​​​​​🇦​​​​​🇱​​​​​🇸​​​​​ ☾

Head: Lelutka // Avalon Body: Reborn Body Mod(s): N/a Skin: Voegel // Millie Body: Velour x ItGirls // Picasso Babe // Slim Muse Eyes: Someone // Duality

🌑︎ 🌒︎ 🌓︎ 🌔︎ 🌕︎ 🌖︎ 🌗︎ 🌘︎ 🌑︎

☽ ʙᴇᴀᴜᴛʏ ᴇɴʜᴀɴᴄᴇʀs ☾

Hair: Stealthic - Malibu Makeup: Lashes: Someone // Delicate Lashes Eyes: Hexumbra // Ramona Eyeshadow Amara Beauty // PAH24 Liner Set Details: Hexumbra // Margo Contour, Blush & Highlighters Lips: Tear // Melanie Nails: Som // Checkerboard Nails Tattoos: Lilithe // Selene Lilithe // Meliae Lilithe // Cerridwen Hexumbra // Face Bats

🌑︎ 🌒︎ 🌓︎ 🌔︎ 🌕︎ 🌖︎ 🌗︎ 🌘︎ 🌑︎

☽ ғɪᴛ ᴄʜᴇᴄᴋ ☾

AsteroidBox // Aspen Hoodie // PAH24 AsteroidBox // Syade Pants Miss Chelsea // Elle Hi-Tops

🌑︎ 🌒︎ 🌓︎ 🌔︎ 🌕︎ 🌖︎ 🌗︎ 🌘︎ 🌑︎

☽ ᴇᴍʙᴇʟʟɪsʜᴍᴇɴᴛs ☾

PANIQ // True Colors Collar // PAH24 Ysoral // Malie wedding ring Ysoral // Clem Lip Piercings Little Fish // Angel Yummy // Winter Memories Locket Yummy // Zodiac Charm Necklace Real Evil // Fated Necklace Real Evil // Royalty - Queen Ring Vibing // Celestia Rings Rotten // Dainty Nose Junk v2 Violetility // Moth Septum Violetility // Pride Plugs // PAH24 Magika // Prue Headband

🌑︎ 🌒︎ 🌓︎ 🌔︎ 🌕︎ 🌖︎ 🌗︎ 🌘︎ 🌑︎

☽ sᴇᴛᴛɪɴɢ ☾

Mysteria // Editorial Vol.2 // Disturbed Foxcity // The Hangout // Sunset

🌑︎ 🌒︎ 🌓︎ 🌔︎ 🌕︎ 🌖︎ 🌗︎ 🌘︎ 🌑︎

☽ ᴛᴇᴄʜ ᴄᴏʀɴᴇʀ ☾

Alchemy Viewer Custom EEP & Light Prims

[multi-royalty]

LIKE FOR A STARTER FROM : ASPEN WINTER

multi's please specify who for!

[ducknotinarow]

07 Casey Summer - [☕] our muses make hot chocolate together

| SEND AN EMOJI FOR A STARTER ! ↳ winter season & holiday based

Summer did love hockey a lot. It was sort of her whole family thing. Dad got introduced it to her pops and she was born watching hockey basically herself. Not fully true but they were happy to stick to that being the case. But Summer had to admit sometimes? she didn't only love the sport itself. Sure slamming the edge of her stick to the puck and watch it fly across the ice was a thrill she never truly get over. But she also just loved being on the ice itself. The feeling of blades gliding over the surface, the speed she got when she pushed off against her feet. Skidding across it and sending the shaved ice on the surface flying out. How the smooth surface would get all scratched up. Of course fresh ice was the best to skate on. The same appeal that stepping into the fresh snow offered she guesses.

Why she loved when her team did these little 'skate parties' the night before a game. It was all meant to build up moral for the team, help them bound and such. At first? yeah it seemed dumb. But it started to become her favorite thing to look forward to come hockey season. And since they did this at the rink? It met pops was able to join here and there. He didn't come everytime just to be on the safe side. But when he did come it made it twice as fun to Summer. Even if he refused to get on the ice.

Summer thought as she slide over to the wall and came face to face with her dads. Beaming smile and blue eyes sparkling. Her cheeks and tip of her nose wore a small touch of red to them between the cold and pushing her self to win the race she and her teammates just finished. First to do ten laps was the winner and Summer, of course, took that very win. And of course, she had to race over towards her dad's smiling as bright as she can. And has in the longest time. Holding on to the wall slightly lifting up to the tip of her blades.

"Didjya see 'hat!" She exclaims loudly as if they were watching with the other parents. "I smoked thier asses!" She states before either could congratulate her on thier own. Smiling when of course they went and told her hiw fast she was. It was one of best skills her speed. She was fast with her gear on but faster without it. Let her lap the boys on her team without breaking a sweat. Really only one other person on her team could come close but they basically were left to catch her dust from behind herself.

When Summer eyed the cups in her dad's hands she soon became excited for something else. "Oh I want some!" She claimed ni doubt she be given anyway as she pushed over to the door and opened it up to get off the ice for the warm chocolaty treat. She was determined enough to get it as she undid the ties of her skates to make it easier to pop her feet free from them. Gathering up the laces in her hands to make a sort of handle for her self to hold them together. As she made her way her Dad's. Luck on her side as Casey handed over a cup to her. Or they just knew it would be best to get her some as well.

Summer snaged the cup and didn't wait a second to down her first sip of the stuff. Small relief coming over herself as she felt the warmth if the drink fill her and seemed to help restart warming her up. Nothing hut lile hot chocolate at an ice rink. It was like drinking a coke in winter there was just an experience behind it that didn't need words it was just known to be great. Summer smiled and moved to sandwich herself between her Dad's. Turning to watch her team still on tje ice themselves a few parting after finishing the race themselves finally. Of course Dummer kept track of hiw long it took each of them to come in after her own win. As she sipped from her cup eyes took notice of the second place win. Aspen. She wasn't all to sure what todo about the Aspen situation still.

She let's her eyes drop actting as if her cup of cocoa was suddenly the most interesting thing in the world to her. But it wouldn't save her as he came over smiling himself memtiong her win. And she hated how that set a flutter of wings in her stomach. "Eh ya know me, nothin' but bustin' with natural kick ass skills." She manged to voice. As she felt warmth creep past the numbness of her face. Eyeing how her Dad seemed to lower down to set elbow on the wall and literally get in Aspens face.

Another part of her on going issues on the Aspen situation. Her Dad was being oh so normal about it! And that so wasn't causing any issues! And of bo one could tell that was sarcasm she would make it clear none of that was ture. Casey was really showing how well casey he could get about something the moment he learned Aspen liked her. Summer? Was still figuring that out herself haven't making a full idiot of herself. She didn't need her Dad being well like this.

Summer handed her cup over to Raphael who on the other aide despite a glare aimed at Aspen seemed the lesser of the two. And took the cup with out a word about it from her. "Dad" Summer tried to voice a simple plea thst easily went ignore by Casey. Summer was glad he didn't have a bat on him at least. As she could tell Aspen did seem slightly intimidated by her Dad. Great perfect just perfect. Summer can't help but think to herself as tries to budge her dad thinking it help but even she knkwns it pointless. "Oh uh the guys seem ta want ya Aspen." Summer voices pointing out to rest of the team far across the other side of the rink. Aspen turned to follow and seemed to maybe take her hint before skating off.

"Dad could ya do me favor and stop!" Summer complains the moment Asprn was out of ear shot. "It bad enough you showed up with a fuckin' bat could you stop glaring at 'im 'ike that?!" Summer expresses she knows in part its pointless of course but she was still going to try. Turning towards Raph next. "Can you please make 'I'm stop?" Summer asks next. When Raph simply looks between them only to say 'nah' and smile! As if this was anything to laugh at! Before taking a drink from her cup. Summer groned and threw her upper body on to the edge of the wall. They were impossible when it came to this.

Burying her fave into her arms, it was a mystery Aspen bothered to talk to jer after that whole 'hey turns out we've been dating and I really like you in a not friend way' she can't even talk to her Dad's about that because the second Aspen is mentioned? Theu because like this! She swears they thought Aspen was a purple dragon or something. She wished she could die honestly. She not sure how she manged to show her face tonight how was she meant to go to the game tomorrow even.

Maybe she should act sick. She felt it right now anytime Aspen came around. Not the feelings of a crush that she rather he never look at her again after what happened and the two people she wanted well needed to talk to were just being so werid about it all. She loved her aunt Von but she always wanted to turn into in a sex Ed conversation and that wasn't what she needed right now. She figured her u cle Don may be just as bad. She thought about asking Ariel but then she have to explain how stupid she really was and she didn't want to relive that. Her stomach started to twist more and more the back if her thoart did this werid motion she suddenly felt sick. Head lifted face as green as Raphs as she threw her head forward and let her precious hit chocolate fall on the ice.

Well guess she found her way out of the game now

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

When The World Is Crashing Down [Chapter 10: Blame Everyone But Me For This Mess]

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

Chapter warnings: Language, warfare, violence, serious injury, alcoholism/addiction, references to sexual content (18+), Aemond-induced chaos, death and destruction, witchcraft! 🔮

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

Chapter title is a lyric from: “I’ve Got a Dark Alley and a Bad Idea That Says You Should Shut Your Mouth” by Fall Out Boy.

Word count: 6.2k.

Link to chapter list: HERE.

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

Only 3 chapters left! 🥰💜

“Aemond!” he roars into the cerulean midday sky, knowing it is useless, that fate has already spoken.

All his life, fate has proven Criston Cole wrong. He once believed he could not rise above being born to a steward in the Dornish Marches. He once feared he would never be permitted to join the Kingsguard. He once felt in his twisting, self-loathing guts that he would never love any woman but Rhaenyra. And Criston once knew—without reservation, without complexity—that Alicent’s eldest son would never amount to anything worthwhile, could never be courageous, self-sacrificial, competent, a true king. Each time, fate had a different ending in store.

All around him, Green soldiers are dying in what will be known to history as the Butcher’s Ball. They are being slit open, disemboweled, crushed beneath the hooves of warhorses, stabbed and clubbed and speared. The Northmen have scorpions with them as well, with massive bolts to bring down dragons; but they are unnecessary. There are no dragons on the battlefield today.

Criston pictures Aemond as a boy, always so sullen, always so dutiful. He read and he wrote and he sparred in the castle courtyard until the blisters on his palms burst and bled and then turned to callouses, knots of dead-nerved scar tissue that grew over his wounds but never cured them. Criston did not just believe in Aemond’s abilities, his honor; he was certain of these things, he carried them as interminably as the lines in his palms. Criston knew Aemond and Vhagar would be the saviors of the Greens in this war. He knew Aemond would be here.

But he’s not. He’s just not, and there’s nothing I can do to bring him.

Cregan Stark is cutting through the Greens’ men. He is not a soldier, he is a force of nature, he is a thunderstorm or a famine or a rogue wave, he is winter coming to rip the trees bare and bury the weak in frostbitten earth. Arrows are loosed by the Northmen’s archers, lethal hissing rain. One hits Criston in the shoulder of his sword arm. Another pierces him through the small of his back, severing his spinal cord and dropping him to his knees.

Through the fray, Cregan sees the Kingmaker. He wants him, he wants Criston’s blood on his blade, his hands, his face; and what the Warden of the North wants, he is never denied.

Alicent, Criston thinks, and he remembers her lying in bed after giving birth to Aegon. She was a girl, just a girl, pale, sick, in terrible and unspoken pain, never the same in body, forever darker in mind, alone in a room full of tapestries of her husband’s house as the court celebrated her newborn son. She knew she had been used. She knew this was her life and always would be, a wheel that goes around and around and crushes the same bones until they stop mending, until the misery and desperation becomes so much a part of you that you could almost forget it’s there. It’s your shadow, it’s your religion, it’s a sigil or a ring.

I suppose now I have something to live for, Alicent had said, and Criston sat on the edge of the bed took her small, cold hand in his own. He raised her knuckles to his lips and answered: I swear to you that I will always protect him. That I will never let him die.

Here in the Riverlands as Cregan Stark descends upon him, Criston looks up again and sunlight spills over his face, warm and kind and golden; but the sky is still empty.

~~~~~~~~~~

In the gardens of Dragonstone, on a bench carved out of gloom-grey basalt, you pull Aegon’s legs into your lap and roll up his loose cotton trousers to inspect them: scars that have knit shut the gashes bones once cut through, muscle mass that is slowly building itself back again, good circulation, able to carry him if only for short, hard-fought distances. You have bled twice since Aemond flew back to the Riverlands to seize Harrenhal. Here under flinty autumn skies and pine trees that sway in brisk wind that smells like saltwater and metal, you think that perhaps the earth is done giving things. This is the time for harvests, not blooms. This is the season of endings, long nights full of cold stars, firelight, reaping.

“Stop,” Aegon says gently. He’s clutching a thick wool blanket around his shoulders. He’s always cold now, pale and shivering. His silvery hair hangs in untamed waves around his face adored with only a single small braid that you weave for him each day. “I don’t want you to do it.”

No; he only wants the maesters to see his weakness, his suffering. “I like taking care of you. It’s the only thing I’m good at. It’s how we met, remember?”

“Oh, I remember.” Now he smiles. “I have no idea what you saw in me.”

“An exemplary cock, mostly. Better than any in my medical books.”

Aegon laughs, a sound you rarely get to hear anymore. Then he is grave again. His hair blows in the gales that roll in off the ocean; his eyes, a tumultuous blue like waves in a storm, are ringed by shadows. “Angel, listen to me.” He places a hand over yours where it rest on a knot of scar tissue just below his kneecap. “If I don’t…” He pauses, and you think as you look at him: He’s nothing but scars now, he’s nothing but pain that is calloused over but never forgotten. “If I’m not here when the war is over, I want you to know that you’ll still be protected. Aemond knows. Larys knows. You are to be provided for. You will reside only where and with whom you choose to.”

“Why wouldn’t you be here?”

Aegon shrugs, avoiding your gaze. “We should be realistic.”

“You’ll be here. You have to be.”

Aegon stares into a thicket of rose bushes, blood-red petals and twisted thorns. And he says faintly, like something a strong wind could carry away: “I’ll try.”

“We’re winning, Aemond and Criston and Daeron and the Greens’ armies. They might have won already and we’re just waiting to hear the words. Aemond will end the war and then we’ll all be together again in King’s Landing.”

Aegon gives you a wry smirk as you roll back down the legs of his trousers, concealing his roadmap of harm. “A man like Cregan Stark would not be such a disappointment. He would be able to ride into battle. He would not have compelled you to bloody your own hands. He would not be feeble and deformed.”

“It can’t be anyone but you.”

Overhead, half-shrouded in mist, there is an immense reptilian shadow and a rumbling like the earth splitting in two, cracked and forced apart by eruptions of steam, lava, trapped toxic heat. Gingerly, Aegon returns his boots to the earth, stony and barren. He winces and groans before he can bite it back to hide it from you.

“I’ll go,” you tell Aegon, skimming your fingers through his hair and touching your lips to his temple. His wave-blue eyes are watery, grateful. “Stay here. I’ll bring him to you.”

You hurry through corridors and down spiral staircases, watched by dragons of iron and stone with fire burning in their mouths. And of course, there is more than one reason why you want to greet Aemond by yourself. You don’t know what he will say to you; you don’t know if he’s still angry. But when he strides through the entranceway of the castle to meet you—his hair in one long white-blond braid, his black coat billowing around him in the sharp wind—he is not alone.

There is a woman with him.

“…Aemond?” you say, staring at her: hair like onyx, skin like snow. She grins at you beneath eyes that are pools of ink, dark and glassy and with hardly any whites. You do not believe she intends to unnerve you; still, there is a blade-cold shudder that tumbles down the rungs of your spine.

Aemond replies with pride that is hushed, pure: “This is my wife.”

“Your…?” You cannot look away from her. Her gown is black lace with long, dragging sleeves and a train that curls around her like a dragon’s tail. You can see glimpses of her starlight skin through the fabric, her forearms, her waist, her thigh. Isn’t she cold? You are wearing heavy velvet, pine green like Aegon’s banner, and still the impending winter needles at you. “Who…?”

Lord Larys Strong arrives, his cane tapping on the stone floor. When he sees the woman, he jolts to a halt and gawks. “Alys?”

“Hello, brother.” Her voice is deep, smooth, melodic. She speaks the language of ocean currents, roots in dark fertile soil, the revolving of the stars.

You turn to Larys. “Who is this?”

“A bastard daughter of my father,” Larys answers, slow and disbelieving. “Alys Rivers. She…she was at Harrenhal, last I saw her…years ago…”

“And now she is here with me,” Aemond says. “She is precisely where she belongs.”

Silence fills the room, the world, the space that has opened up between you and Aemond. Wife? Bastard? Harrenhal? At last, you manage shakily: “Aegon is in the gardens. He’s waiting for you.”

“Good,” Aemond says. He wears something you have never seen on him before: not just pride but serenity, consolation, contentment. “There is much to discuss.”

As slate-grey wind whistles through rose thorns and cranberry bushes, you and Larys step out into the gardens with your uninvited guests. Aegon’s eyes snag on Alys, widen, and then dart to you. He mouths: Who the fuck is that? You shrug, bewildered.

Aemond says: “Allow me to present my wife, Lady Alys Rivers of Harrenhal.”

“Your wife?!” Aegon exclaims, like he couldn’t possible have heard correctly. “Your wife?!”

“Yes.” Aemond’s arm snakes around Alys’ waist. She folds into him, palm to his chest, lips to his throat, something creeping and boneless like ivy or mist or smoke. “You’ve had two now. I’ve only just found mine.”

“Rivers,” Aegon echoes incredulously. “A bastard from the Riverlands.”

Larys notes: “One of my father’s natural children.”

“A Strong bastard?!” Aegon cackles and looks to Larys. “Where is Daeron presently? Can he be summoned here? He should see this.”

“It is no jest, Your Grace,” Aemond says calmly. “It is a true pairing of souls.”

“And you were not at liberty to give yours. You have to marry Borros Baratheon’s daughter. That was the deal, that’s why he has pledged his army to us.”

“Daeron can do it.”

“Daeron won’t be old enough to marry for years, and that’s not the point! This is a slight, an egregious slight, to reject a Baratheon noblewoman in favor of a…a…what was she, a serving wench? A wetnurse? What happened to your pathological obsession with self-righteous duty? And why aren’t you and Vhagar with Criston?! Is this what you’ve been doing for the past six weeks while I was trapped here, suffering and useless? You’ve been hiding in the crumbling towers of Harrenhal with your so-called wife? What was so fucking crucial that it kept you from the battlefield—?!”

“She carries my son,” Aemond says.

A gasp spills from you before you can silence it; Lord Larys covers his mouth with one hand. Aegon stares numbly at his brother, not warring with envy or spite but raw astonishment. This is an asset to the Greens, it is a detriment, it lifts a burden from his shoulders, it imperils all of you. “You have no way of knowing what it is yet.”

“I know. We know.”

“And why have you flown to Dragonstone?” Aegon demands. “To torment me with your disobedience, to illustrate so vividly how all that relentless, calculated striving has finally cracked your brain in half—?!”

“No.” Aemond glances to you. “Something has happened. And I wanted to be here in person to deliver the news and…express my condolences.”

“Condolences?” you say, fearful, alarmed.

“Lord Larys will not have received word yet,” Aemond continues. “It has only just transpired. But Alys has seen it.”

Aegon shakes his head. He doesn’t understand. “Seen it…?”

“She sees things. The future, the past. Not every detail, but some of them. She’s seen Mother in the Red Keep, a prisoner but still alive. She’s seen Jaehaera safe and well at Storm’s End. The child has a protector, though Alys isn’t sure who.”

“She’s a witch?” Aegon says flatly. “This bastard Strong woman that you have taken to wife is, among all her other deficiencies, a witch?”

And Alys answers in a voice like the night sky, dark but threaded with glimmers of stars, moonshine, comets: “I am a woman who lives between two worlds. Your Angel is much the same, I think.”

Aegon blinks at her, not entranced or awed but fighting the instinct to flinch away.

“There have been riots in King’s Landing,” Aemond says.

“Yes, obviously. Everyone is aware of that. I think the Wildlings north of the Wall have heard.”

Aemond ignores the jab. “The Master of Coin, Lord Bartimos Celtigar, was travelling through the city in a carriage when…” He trails off, uneasy. He glances at you again. His sole remaining eye—river-blue and without any malice—shimmers with grim compassion.

“What?” you say. “What happened?”

Aemond speaks to Aegon in words you cannot comprehend, swift ageless High Valyrian.

Aegon sighs testily. “Slower. Enunciate.”

Aemond tries again. Aegon repeats a certain word, unable to decipher it. Aemond offers him several others, what you can only assume are synonyms.

Aegon’s face goes even paler, the last of the blood draining out of his cheeks. Then he reaches out a hand to you. “Come here,” he beckons softly.

“Why?”

“Angel, come here now.”

“They killed him, didn’t they?” you ask Aemond. Your voice is trembling, icy, choked. He was an architect of Rhaenyra’s war effort, but he was your father first. He was a beast with blood on his hands, but now you are too. “The common people hate Rhaenyra and they hate my family. So they murdered him.”

Alys says: “They did not just murder him.” And she is not taunting you, though she grins like she might be; she has lost pieces of what it means to be human. She is no longer fluent in anything as trite as sympathy or decorum. Her obsidian eyes gleam, polished, glowing. Her long black hair blows in the wind. There are raven feathers in it, you notice now, and twigs, pine needles, earth, sand, ashes. “They bound and tortured him, they sliced off parts of him to keep as relics, they rode on horseback through the streets swinging his severed head and cock as they celebrated an end to all taxes—”

“Will you shut the fuck up?!” Aegon shouts at her. “Angel, please, come here.”

“Your brother was there too,” Aemond says solemnly.

Yes, of course he would be. He was always Father’s favorite. “Clement,” you whimper, pressing a palm to your chest. Your lungs burn as they drink down chill autumn air that cuts like a blade.

“No,” Aemond says. “The other one.”

“What?” No. No, that can’t be true.

“Not Clement,” Aemond insists. “It was the other brother. The burned man.”

No. No no no. I can’t believe it, I won’t believe it.

“Angel,” Aegon pleads, still reaching for you.

“Everett,” Alys says, dreamy, not knowing how cruel it feels, like splinters of glass beneath your skin instead of arteries and muscle, like shattered bones. “He was not difficult for them to catch. He could not run.”

Your words escape in a hoarse whisper. “I don’t believe you.”

Alys offers her hands. They are long, lithe, white like a skeleton’s. “Would you like to see?”

“No.”

“I can show you. Then you will trust what I say.”

“Alys, my love,” Aemond warns.

“No, you’re a liar,” you snarl at her. “You’re not a witch, you’re not some prophet, you’re just a liar and I don’t believe you—!”

And before you can flee she’s crossed the space between you, she’s gripped your wrist with those slender claw-like fingers, she’s pouring her magic into you like poison down a prisoner’s throat. The vision surges into your skull and fills it, sight and sound and scent: Everett screaming as he is dragged from the carriage, the hoard ripping at his clothes and his eyes, dull kitchen knives pulled from pockets, the coppery ether of blood in the air. You can feel the feverish heat of the crowd. You can feel their boiling-over animal rage. You can feel everything, but you can’t stop it.

Beyond the grisly mirage, you can hear yourself shrieking, muffled and distant; and you can hear someone else bellowing for Alys to let you go. Her hand is yanked off of your wrist and you are abruptly back in the gardens of Dragonstone surrounded by indomitable flora that warps and tangles and endures. You are kneeling on the cobblestones, tears flooding from your eyes. Aegon is on the ground with you, his arms circling around your waist. He is calling Alys a bitch, a monster, a demon. He is threatening to feed her to his dragon.

“Forgive me,” Alys says to you, peering down with a vague sort of regret etching lines into her brow. “I did not intend to cause any distress. I only meant to help you understand.”

Aegon seethes at Aemond: “Take your witch back to Harrenhal.”

“No,” you protest; and Aegon studies you, puzzled, as you gaze up at Alys, this half-human phantom that dwells between realms, something like a dark mirror image of an angel. “What else have you seen?” Tell me Aegon lives. Tell me the Greens win and we have a chance at a better world one day. Tell me this was all worth it.

“She has seen Daemon and Caraxes meeting me at the Gods Eye,” Aemond says. “She has seen me taking flight to join them in battle.”

Aegon is stunned. “When?”

“Soon. Three days from now.”

You sob, thinking of Everett; and Autumn too, wherever she is, who will reappear when the war is over searching for home but forever unable to find it. Aegon holds you and you pull yourself into him, arms slung around his neck. His silver hair brushes your face; his scarred right cheek is rough against yours. When you breathe in violent hitches, you inhale rose oil and wine and salt and warmth and misery, you taste the war that built him and now has returned to claim the debt.

“It’s Rhaenyra’s fault,” Aegon whispers, fierce and merciless. “We will kill Daemon and Cregan Stark. We will retake King’s Landing and capture Rhaenyra. And I swear to you that she will burn.”

Aemond is saying: “Do we have permission to stay the night or not? We’ve traveled a long way. My wife is tired, and so is Vhagar. Another flight so soon would tax her.”

“You can swim,” Aegon pitches back.

Lord Larys Strong—ever servile, ever composed—clears his throat, both hands resting on the handle of his cane. “Would anyone care for some soft-shelled crabs?”

~~~~~~~~~~

Mist hangs heavy over the castle the next morning, a cool metallic grey like steel; the sun is muted, only a wisp of itself, a memory that is swiftly fading. Alys Rivers stands in the surf fetching seashells and stones that she plinks into a basket. Locks of her long, wild hair dip into the roiling water and emerge sopping and heavy, sticking to her ink-black gown. Aegon is curled up with Sunfyre at the edge of the beach. The dragon breathes with rattling, labored heaves and Aegon pets his golden face, wishing the beast’s wings to knit themselves back together and his own legs to be strong again, murmuring to Sunfyre in some clumsy patchwork of High Valyrian and the Common Tongue to assure him that he’s served his king well.

You and Aemond walk down the windswept beach together, your boots sinking in wet sand and leaving imprints like bruises on flesh. Your gown is a deep, vibrant red like the sigil of the newly decimated House Celtigar; Aemond’s hair is wavy and damp and blows loose in the breeze. You are reminded of the night you shared with him six weeks ago, though you don’t want to be. Neither of you have mentioned that indiscretion. You believe you have silently agreed to forget it. You ask the prince regent: “How many people do you think you’ve burned in the Riverlands?”

“Why do you care? They’re not you. They’re not me.”

“Perhaps each life we take robs something from us as well. It carves a piece of the soul away and leaves it less than it was before.”

Aemond raises his eyebrow, intrigued.

“I am less than I once was,” you explain. “Acts of love feel like violence, violence is mistaken for love. Things that horrified me a year ago are now what give me solace when I dream of them. Vengeance, slaughter, fire and blood. Aegon grows more bitter, more ruthless. And so do you.”

“We will have the luxury of reforming ourselves when the war is won and Aegon is the undisputed king of the Seven Kingdoms.”

“If there’s any part of us that remembers who we were supposed to be.”

“I remember exactly who you were.” Aemond grins. “Fawning over Aegon, weaving braids into his hair. Scurrying around with your bandages and vinegar and honey. Always seeking to take his pain away. Always waging your own little war against the agony of mankind.”

“That feels like a different person,” you say, peering out over the ocean.

“We will build monuments to those we’ve lost,” Aemond promises. “Jaehaerys, Maelor, Otto. Your brother and my sister. You say you dream of fire and blood? I often find myself dreaming of Helaena.”

You turn to him, startled. And you recall the warnings her ghost gave Aegon before Baela and Moondancer arrived on Dragonstone: Don’t fall, don’t fall. “Does she say anything?”

“She keeps telling me I’ll lose my left eye.” Aemond smiles wistfully. “And I answer: Helaena, that’s happened already. But when I try to comfort her, when I try to embrace her, she turns away from me and says it’s too late. That I’ve ruined myself.” He walks with his hands linked behind his back, his face thoughtful but not brooding. “I still miss her,” he says. “And I still feel responsible. But things are easier now.”

You follow his eyeline to where Alys is plucking a starfish from the frothing waves and placing it in her basket. And doesn’t it make some strange bit of sense that Aemond’s match would be someone rare, bizarre, gifted in ways that are in equal parts mesmerizing and fearsome? “I’m glad you found someone who eases your burdens.”

“She has suffered tremendously. She knows what it is to be unloved and overlooked. She had to reinvent herself, just like I did. She had to shed her skin and step into a new one that she stitched together herself.”

“Perpetual Resurrection,” you say softly.

“Perpetual Resurrection,” Aemond agrees.

Now Alys is trekking up the beach to join you, her soaked hair whipping in the wind and her basket slung over one arm. From where he sits with Sunfyre, Aegon watches her with narrowed, disapproving eyes. “This belongs to the king,” Alys says to you, opening her hand. In her palm rests the ring of gold wings and jade eyes. “You should return it to him. He does not like me.”

You gasp and take the ring that you last saw before Aegon fell from the sky and shattered his legs, his spirit. “How did you find this?”

“It spoke to me. I spoke to it.” She smiles, more like a leer, though she does not mean it to be. Her eyes—onyx, jet, black moonstone—are bright with amusement. “See? You do not understand. Sometimes it is best not to ask.”

You slip the ring onto one of your fingers for safekeeping until you deliver it to Aegon. From the stone staircase that leads up to the castle’s main entrance, Larys waves Aemond over to him. Aemond kisses the woman he calls his wife farewell—a deep, burning kiss—and then departs. You say to Alys: “How did you become…like this?”

“I surrendered to it. Anyone can, if your life is hell and you are willing to burn it down to the foundations. You go deep into the swamp and then it goes into you. It grows through your skin and into your veins. It tangles up with you, vines climbing your ribcage and spine like ivy on a trellis. It changes you. It makes you greater than you were before. The victim becomes the victor. The weak turn watchful and wise.” She is gazing at where Aemond stands with Larys, exchanging theories and plots. Aemond shakes his head at something Larys says. “I always knew he would find me. The man whose fractured pieces fit with mine. Yet each time I thought I glimpsed him only to realize he wasn’t the one, I would think: How long must I wait? I have buried so many children. Will I ever have more? Will he come to me before it is too late? Is it too late already? But no, he flew to Harrenhal just as my hopes were giving out like a dry well. And Aemond was worth every second, minute, month, year. He was worth the beatings and the contempt, the rapes and the blood. He was worth all of it.”

Alys reaches out to touch your cheek and you recoil; but she is not giving you a revelation this time. She is merely tucking a loose strand of hair behind your ear with a fond, maternal smile. There are mottled plumes of violet and indigo on the side of her throat, you notice only now. Alys catches you staring.

“Aemond can be rough, domineering,” she says with a sly smirk. “You know how he is.”

You know how he is. You know how he is. Horror strikes you like lightning; you imagine what other visions she has swimming in her changed blood. “It was a mistake. Aegon must never learn of it.”

“Of course not. That would kill him.” And you are gutted by a blade of cool serrated treason. Alys does not appear to be aware of it. “If I can ever be of service, please do not hesitate to summon me. I can appear and speak to you briefly, perhaps for five or ten minutes. I will be like a mirage, a ghost. Find a closed door and write my name upon it in blood. Then knock three times and open the door. I will be there.”

“A door? Which door?”

“Any door.”

You contemplate her. “Why would you believe that you owe me loyalty?”

“Because of Aemond,” Alys says simply, without any trace of resentment. “You mean something to him. So you mean something to me.”

He doesn’t crave me anymore. He has his own prize now. “I think you’re mistaken.”

“I never am.” Then Alys glides off to rejoin her husband.

Hours later as you are helping Aegon into bed—he must be carried up and down the castle steps by his guards in a litter, something he considers mortifying—you weave a new braid for him and then pour him a cup of milk of the poppy when his glazed eyes keep listing to the glass bottle of pearlescent relief, deadened nerves, liquid dreams. You crawl into bed beside him, curl up against his scarred chest, listen to the slowing thud of his heartbeat as his arms enfold you and draw you in ever-closer. His dragon ring glints on his hand, returned to its rightful place.

“Your legs?” you ask, kissing the gnarled scar tissue that has grown over his collarbones like climbing roses, like ivy. He can’t really feel your touch there, that’s not why you do it. You do it to show that you aren’t repulsed by his wounds and could never be, could never think of any part of him as something less than wondrous.

“That’s most of it,” Aegon murmurs drowsily. “I’ve started getting this ache in my back too. It won’t go away.”

“What?” You bolt upright in bed. “Show me where.”

He gestures: the curve of his spine, just above his hips. Panicked, you begin pressing lightly over where his kidneys are.

“Here? Aegon? Does that hurt?”

But now he’s realized how frantic you are, how upset. “Oh, no, never mind,” he says, clutching his pillow and feigning being too tired to speak on the subject for even a moment longer. He yawns dramatically. “It’s just a sprained muscle, I think. You know I’m always crawling around now like some kind of vermin. It’s nothing serious. It will heal in time.”

“Aegon—”

“I’m alright.” He grabs your hand and pulls you back down to him, buries his face in your hair, nuzzles and sighs contently as he whispers: “Shh. I’m alright. Stay, stay.”

~~~~~~~~~~

“You left him!” you hear Aegon yelling from his rooms, and you drop the book you had been reading in the castle library, an anthology of illnesses of the body, the mind, the soul. You sprint through the shadowy corridors towards the noise, the hem of your sapphire gown fluttering around your ankles. You are always dressed in jewel tones these days. You are anything but neutral.

In Aegon’s bedchamber, Larys has pressed himself to one stone wall like he wishes to disappear. Alys is observing with her strange, impassive, void-dark eyes. Aemond is being berated. He does not appear resentful or defiant; no, he is paralyzed. He is haunted, he is damned.

“You left him!” Aegon screams again, and hurls a full wine cup that strikes Aemond in the chest, spewing red through the air like blood spurting from slit veins. The king is standing, but with great effort; he is scrabbling through the drawers of his bedside table for things to throw at his brother. Yet the glass bottle of milk of the poppy remains untouched. “You abandoned him, you betrayed him, you fucking murdered him!”

“Aegon, what’s going on—?!”

“Almost a week ago, Cregan Stark’s army met Criston’s in the Riverlands,” he tells you. He is panting, red-faced, furious as he recounts Lord Larys Strong’s words, the news the Master of Whisperers only now received from one of his innumerable informants.

You stare at Aemond, horrified, already knowing what this means. “And Aemond wasn’t there.”

“He was at Harrenhal!” Aegon roars, tossing one of your medical books at Aemond, a volume on herbology. It strikes the prince in the nose, and blood gushes from his nostrils; ruby droplets freckle his hair. Aemond makes no attempt to defend himself. He is in shock, he is mourning. “He was fucking his witch while our men were being butchered!”

“Criston, he’s…he’s…?”

“He was slain in battle,” Larys informs you quietly.

Aegon staggers to his brother, shoves him roughly, receives no retaliation. “He was the closest thing you had to a father, he worshiped you, he loved you, and you left him to fend for himself after I told you over and over again that you and Vhagar needed to stay with him, and now he’s gone!” There are tears on Aegon’s face, crystalline tracks that bleed down his cheeks and jaw and throat. “You killed him, you killed him!”

“The Stark men?” you ask Larys, not wanting to know but needing to.

“Moderate losses. Now headed south towards Daeron and the Hightower army.”

“You fucking traitor,” Aegon hisses, sobbing, beating his palms against Aemond’s chest again. “Your whole life all you’ve wanted was responsibility and the second someone gives it to you, you throw it away! Why can’t I be the one with a body that works?! Why can’t my dragon be whole again?!”

And at last Aemond finds his voice. It is brittle and almost too hushed to hear. “I’ll make this right. When I defeat Daemon and Caraxes at the Gods Eye, it will be over.”

“It’s already over for Criston!” Aegon explodes. “It’s over for Helaena and Jaehaerys and Maelor, it’s over for Otto and Everett, it’s over for Sunfyre, we keep losing people and it’s all your fault! You started this war and you’re too much of a goddamn coward to end it!”

“He will end it,” Alys says in that deep placid voice like dusk, dawn, midnight.

“Don’t try that bullshit with me! I don’t want to hear about your delusions, I want him to do his goddamn job! I want him to act like the hero he’s been begging to be seen as since he was five years old! You know why no one wants to write books about him or carve his face into statues? Because he doesn’t fucking deserve it!”

“I’m sorry,” Aemond whispers, his mouth trembling.

“You should be!” Aegon hemorrhages, and then collapses to the floor, moaning with his face in his hands.

You go to him, try to soothe him, grab the wine cup from the floor and fill it with milk of the poppy, tilt it against Aegon’s lips. He gulps the numbness down with helpless, hated need. Aemond and Alys flee for the doorway.

Aegon says, suddenly more calm: “Aemond, wait.”

The prince regent stills and turns back, listening. Aegon, with great difficulty, begins to say something in High Valyrian. Aemond cuts him off. “No, that won’t happen—”

“Please,” Aegon rasps. “Listen to me.” Then he continues. And as he speaks, Aemond’s eye fills with tears, a glistening like ice over lakes in the winter, like gemstones in a crown. You look between them, searching for any clues you can read.

“I understand,” Aemond says at last.

“Good. Now get out.”

Aemond wipes his face with his sleeve and then disappears from the room. You tell Aegon as you rise to your feet: “I’ll be right back.”

Aemond is moving quickly; you don’t catch up with him until he’s passed through the castle entranceway. Down by the ocean waves beneath a blood-red sunset, Vhagar is already landing, leaving cataclysmic imprints in the sand with her claws, trenches and impact craters. From the edge of the beach, Sunfyre watches with dull, wounded interest. Alys is halfway down the staircase. Aemond stops when he hears your footsteps, waiting under the rising full moon and materializing constellations.

You demand: “What did he say to you?”

“Nothing.”

“Aemond.”

“He’s confused, he’s exhausted, he’s in pain. He doesn’t understand—”

“Aemond, what did he say?”

The prince regent sighs and looks at you. “He said he doesn’t think he’s going to get better this time.”

I can’t believe that. I can’t survive that. “Why did you have to do it?” Your voice splinters; your throat burns. “He’s right that you started this war. You’re the reason Rhaenyra will never negotiate. You’re the one who made this horror inevitable. Why did you have to kill Luke?”

The dusk is radiant on Aemond’s face like firelight. It is a long time before he speaks. “I never intended to.”

That doesn’t make any sense. “What?”

“I never gave Vhagar the order. She went after Arrax. I tried to stop her.”

It wasn’t murder. It was an accident. And you think of all the times people have told Aemond that everything that’s happened is his fault, and how he has never disagreed with them. “Who knows?”

“You. Alys.”

“No one else?”

“Who would believe me?” Aemond smiles faintly, profoundly sad. “And even if they did, would that make me so much more noble than a kinslayer? A Targaryen who can’t control his own dragon? A man who is reckless, ineffective, unworthy?”

Here in air the color of flames and gore, you tell him, perhaps more kindly than he deserves: “You’re worthy, Aemond.”

“I will end this. I will meet Daemon and Caraxes in battle. Alys saw it.”

“Did she see you win?”

“Are you worried about me?” Aemond teases, grinning crookedly. And he does something that he hasn’t tried in a long time. He swipes for your forearm and you snatch it out of the way just before his fingers can close around it, just before he can catch you. Aemond chuckles. “I don’t want you to worry. I’ll win the war for the Greens. We will return to King’s Landing, we will rebuild, Aegon will heal. He will live for a long, long time.”

“Yes,” you say, wanting so desperately to believe it.

“You know,” Aemond adds as it occurs to him. “If the king does happen to predecease you, in ten years or twenty or thirty…and you find yourself unincumbered…Aegon the Conqueror had two wives. Alys would always be first, but…”

“No, Aemond.”

“Fine,” he says, agreeably enough. He smiles down at you. “I will come back to let you know when it’s done. Then I will fly south to join Daeron in annihilating Cregan Stark’s army. And then we’ll all go home.”

Yes, yes, let that be true. “Good luck,” you tell him, soft like a whisper.

“I don’t need it.”

Aemond descends the staircase, climbs up the rope ladder into Vhagar’s saddle, takes flight with Alys into the late-autumn dusk; and you watch them vanish into the crimson horizon until the sky is empty.

[sunlightmurdock]

Pursuit | Bradley Bradshaw x Reader (18+)

Synopsis: Two days into a group ski trip and Rooster has torn his ACL and is stuck on the couch, feeling sorry for himself. Someone has to stay back and take care of him — lucky you. Rooster hates trivial pursuit, and takes this as his opportunity to turn your friendship into something more.

Warnings: pwp, pinv, unprotected sex (make good decisions)

…

“You must think I’m an idiot.” Bradley mumbles as you fiddle through the board games under the book shelf. You glance back at him over your shoulder, and laugh. For his sake, you shake your head.

There are times in your friendship, more often than not, where it’s appropriate to make fun of him. This isn’t one of these times. Rooster’s feeling pretty sorry for himself right now, and he doesn’t need any salt on his wounds.

He does look pretty ridiculous, though. He’s stretched out along the sofa, a bag of frozen peas on his knee and a compression bandage under that. Wearing sweatpants that are a size too big to allow for the swelling, and a sweater that’s a size too big because that’s how he likes his sweaters to fit.

It’s day two of your week long trip to the mountains with your closest friends. This was what you had been most excited about when Phoenix had told you she was marrying Dani. Dani’s family had an incredible lodge up in the Rockies.

For Phoenix’s birthday this year, she invited you and your closest friends up to the lodge. Everyone else is out on the mountain right now. You’re sitting in the living room with Rooster, trying to find something that’ll make the time pass.

Yesterday, on the first day of the trip, Rooster was being Rooster and Hangman was being Hangman. Rooster — who had never been snowboarding in his life before this week — wanted to keep up with Hangman, who has spent a month in Aspen each winter since he was six.

Now, he’s on strict bed-rest (well, couch rest) and will be for the next two days. Feeling sorry for himself with a pulled hamstring and a torn ACL. Considering that he can’t move from the couch without support, someone had to stay back and take care of him. Today, it’s you.

“Could’ve happened to anyone.” You soothe. Anyone that tried to go down a red slope on their first day on a board. Bradley tucks one arm behind his head as he watches you rummage through the variety of old board games.

It’s snowing pretty hard outside and has been since you arrived. Kind of foggy too. Not exactly ideal conditions for someone who has spent maybe thirty days of his entire life in the snow to learn how to board. Especially not when he’s surrounded by already fairly proficient boarders.

“Oh — Trivial Pursuit!” You gasp, tugging the box out from under the monopoly and dusting it off. Rooster groans and leans his head back against the arm rest.

“Or we could just watch paint dry.” He mumbles, a testament to how boring of a game he feels that trivial pursuit is.

“Shut up. I love this game,” You push yourself up and walk over to the couch, setting the box down on the coffee table. You sit down on the floor with your back to the edge of the couch. “And it’s your fault we’re stuck in here so it’s only fair that I pick the game.”

“Yay.” Bradley says dryly.

You lift the lid off of the box and set it to the side.

“Could we at least get drunk while we play?”

You muse with the idea for a moment and shrug. That doesn’t sound like such a bad idea. You take the box and press it into his hands, “Fine. You set up. I’ll make us some drinks.”

Rooster has to grit his teeth as he pushes himself somewhat upright and cranes his torso forward to set the game up on the coffee table.

You have to take a moment to watch in amusement as he struggles to set the game up. You love that idiot. He’s been one of your best friends for going on eight years now. You’ve been on a couple trips together, countless missions — you’ve become great friends. Which is why you don’t mind caring for him while he’s in pain.

He helped you out when you dislocated your shoulder at Hangman’s pool party that one time. It’s only fair.

You pad dutifully to the kitchen, ready to embrace the carer role to its fullest extent. Maybe a good nurse wouldn’t have topped the hot chocolates up with a little too much Baileys — but you know Rooster, he’d prefer it this way.

“This is incredible.” Rooster groans as he settles back comfortably against the coach and warms his hands around the mug. It’s already plenty warm in the living room with the fire that Bob got going before everyone headed out about an hour ago.

You settle down onto the floor, pleased to find that Rooster has actually set the game up correctly.

“The person who invented this combo deserves the best head.” He adds, letting out another groan of pleasure as he takes another sip.

You wish you invented it. Maybe it’s the fact that you haven’t had sex in a while, or maybe it’s the fact that you’re sitting on a faux fur rug, in front of a log fire, snow outside and a gorgeous man behind you — but the sound of that groan hits you right between your legs.

Your eyes widen slightly.

There had been a few intimate feelings towards Rooster when you had first met him. He’s an attractive guy. It had almost happened. But it hadn’t. There had been this tension in the beginning.

There were so many almosts. So many almosts that you had just given up. Clearly the universe was giving you a sign that it wasn’t supposed to happen. You had stopped trying to make it, and fallen platonically head over heels for Bradley Bradshaw.

You had been comfortable as just friends for a long time now. But shit, does that guy sound pretty when he moans. You scold yourself for things like this regularly. You shouldn’t think that your best friend sounds pretty moaning.

“Alright. I’m going first.” You decide, feeling the need to quickly change the subject.

“Aren’t we supposed to roll to decid-“

“It was my idea, I’m going first.” You insist.

“I’m injured — I should go first.”

You end up going first. You smirk as you shake the dice in your hand. He swats playfully at the back of your head.

This is how you have always showed affection. Gentle bullying. You’re a very affectionate pair. You had to tone it down last time Rooster had gotten a girlfriend. You understood why she was mad, you would be too. It was a shame she didn’t stick around long — you liked her.

Since then, you had been a bit less open with touching each other. Especially around others. People thought your playfulness was sometimes flirting. Of course, it wasn’t. You didn’t let yourself do that anymore.

After he smacked your head, Rooster brushes his fingers over the top of your hair, brushing it back off of your shoulders. You feel no urge to shrug his off as he trails his fingers along your shoulders. He toys with your hair, curling a loose strand around his finger and unwinding it.

“You have to ask me the purple question.” You pass him back a question card without looking at it. There’s a disappointment that fills you as his hand leaves your hair. He sighs softly and lifts the card.

He chuckles the moment he reads it. “How many movies did Sean Connery play James Bond in?” He asks. Bradley knows for a fact that you don’t know the answer to this question because you’ve consistently refused to watch any of the James Bond movies with him for as long as he’s known you.

“Mm… seven?”

“Lucky guess.” Bradley mumbles. He hits the back of your head again. ‘Accidentally’, as he’s passing the card back to you.

You turn and bite his leg. You’ve always had a very playful friendship. You bite his shoulders, his hands — whatever’s in your way or within your reach when the necessity strikes. Now, it’s his thigh.

He flinches, then stills. It’s only once you’re pressing your teeth into his thigh, looking up at him, that you realise how compromising of a position you’re in.

He’s wearing grey sweatpants. Your eyes flicker down and you know exactly where his dick is under the material. Luckily, it’s resting against the other thigh. His lip has quirked when you look back up at him.

You withdraw quickly. Turning and taking a large gulp of your hot chocolate before picking up the dice again. You got your question correct, you get to keep rolling. You make an eight question winning streak. Rooster finishes his hot chocolate before it’s even his first turn.

“Could I have another one?” He asks you, resting his empty mug on your shoulder like he’s going to leave it there to fall on you. You sigh, dramatically, as you push yourself to your feet. You finish off yours and nod, heading for the kitchen once more.

“Fine. But if you need to pee then I’m not holding it.” You answer back.

“My leg is fucked, my hands work just fine. You just like thinking about my dick in your hands.” He calls to you. You’re glad you’re in the kitchen where he can’t see the way that unnerves you. You bite your cheek and go about making each of you another drink.

Rooster has to lean forward to roll the dice on the table. He really can’t move much. Any movement on his knee still really hurts.

“Thanks, honey.” He smiles sweetly and purses his lips like he’s going to blow you a kiss as you hand him a drink that’s almost as much liqueur as it is hot chocolate. Just the way he likes it.

“No problem, princess.” You answer back, settling back in on the floor and grabbing a question card as you sip at your own.

One of Rooster’s primary issues with Trivial Pursuit, is the length of time it takes. He makes a ten question correct streak before it’s your turn again. Two hours and three more drinks later, Rooster is tired of questions.

He’s barely lifting his head as you tell him what to do. Roll. Ask me the blue question. Answer the red question. Roll again.

He’s staring at the wooden beams above his head. The architecture really is beautiful in this place. So is the mountain, and there’s a great view of it from the living room but he still would rather be out there, rather than stuck in here like an idiot.

He drums his fingers on his stomach and looks towards the book case. His eyes scan over the other board games over there. Looking for something else. Anything better than this. Nothing that he can stand to spend another three hours doing.

He’s bored.

“Okay, ask me purple.” You hand him another question card. He sighs softly as he takes it. Even reading the question takes too much effort at this point. He looks at you. You’re facing the board, your back to him as you wait to get another question correct.

Rooster looks towards the fireplace, watching the flames crackle and rise. Then he looks towards you again. A thought crosses his mind and he squashes it instantly, then hesitates. No harm in asking.

“Can I see your tits?”

You turn, dice still in hand, and blink at him. He’s looking back at you like he had just asked you how your day was going. Like that was the most normal thing in the world to ask his best friend of eight years.

“It would make me feel a lot better.” He adds. Your lip quirks slightly at the fact that he’s playing the sick card. You aren’t sure how boobs cure knee pain, but you know that at this point in your friendship, questioning Rooster’s strange brain is pointless.

He looks so cozy. Somehow perpetually tanned, cheeks flushed slightly from the warmth of the fire, his hood resting around his shoulders and his hands tucked into the pockets of his hoodie. He smiles softly at you.

“Are you serious?” You ask, raising an eyebrow at him in disbelief. He nods his head, tucking an arm behind it like he’s settling in to watch his favourite movie. He smiles at you, then nods again for you to go ahead.

“You’re such a teenager.” You scoff. Humour is the only way you know how to handle this. You still aren’t quite sure if he’s fucking with you.

“Please? — I’m bored, I need something to help me refocus.” Rooster smiles. Fuck, he’s so pretty. You shift slightly, half turning to face him and resting your elbow on the couch cushion. You scrunch your brows at him, trying to suss him out.

You’ve known him for long enough now to know that he’s serious.

You debate it. Debate just nut-tapping him and calling him a pervert. But it really is just your boobs. He’s seen you in a bikini a hundred times. Seen you in some pretty risky clothes when you’ve gone out drinking together. You know he knows what your boobs look like — what difference does it make for him to have also seen your nipple?

He’s watching you expectantly.

“Just for a second.” You agree.

“Seriously?” He wasn’t expecting you to say yes. Honestly you were expecting to try to hit him in the nuts. He pushes himself up onto his elbows. You’re half tempted to tell him no. The other half of you wants to see if he finds you as attractive as you find him.

Just for the validation.

You shrug your shoulders at him, twisting yourself up onto your knees. You grab the bottom of your sweatshirt, watching his eyebrows lift in anticipation.

There’s a split second where you hesitate. Sure, he’s your best friend. But after this, he’ll just be you best friend who has seen your tits. You think about it as he stares expectantly at you, still pushed up onto his elbows. Lots of your girl best friends have seen your tits — it makes sense that he would too. Fuck it.

You lift your sweatshirt and the loose fitting t-shirt that you’re still wearing under it. You’ve forgone a bra, considering that the plan was just to sit beside Rooster all day and make sure he didn’t die of boredom.

His lips part slightly as you lift the sweatshirt up and expose your chest to him. He stays there, propped up on his elbows, that stupid bag of probably thawed out peas still on his knee as he just stares at you. His lips quirk, ever so slightly, like he’s going to smile.

Every time you get drunk, you’re possessed by this overwhelming urge to tell Rooster what gorgeous eyes he has. It’s not your fault that he looks like the prettiest thing in the entire world when he’s blinking at your with those big brown eyes. You watch those pretty eyes now.

Men amaze you. He’s truly so mesmerised by what’s before him. You give him a while to just stare. Maybe twenty seconds. It certainly feels like longer. Then your cheeks are starting to redden. You scrunch your nose, feeling suddenly anxious by his lack of reaction.

“Say something, you freak.” You demand. Yet, you don’t drop your sweatshirt back down. Rooster’s tongue darts out to wet his lips. He swallows and lifts his eyes to finally look at your face.

“Can I touch them?” His voice is low, serious. His gaze flickers back down for a moment before he reminds himself to be respectful and looks back to your face.

You purse your lips.

“Mm… don’t you think that would be crossing a line?” You ask gently. This is not only your best friend, but also your wingman. You have to go to work with him after all of this.

“I think I already crossed that line.” He nods downward. You follow his line of sight to his half-hard cock straining against his grey sweatpants. Damn grey sweatpants. The sluttiest of men’s clothes. You’ve heard that Rooster is well endowed, and you’ve always been curious. You aren’t disappointed by what’s in front of you now.

You want him to touch you. In fact, you can’t think of anything else right now worse than denying him. Than denying yourself this.

“Just for a second.” You agree once more. You can’t pretend you don’t want him to touch you. He scoots over to make room for you to sit on the edge of the couch cushion. Your ass is half hanging off of it when you sit.

“You could just… it would be easier.” Rooster gestures for you to straddle him. You take one more look at the bulge in his sweatpants.

“I think that would be too far.” Truthfully, you don’t think you have the necessary self-restraint to be sitting on his dick and not take this far enough to ruin your friendship.

Rooster nods. You lift your sweatshirt once more. He lets out a soft breath. This time you notice his Adam’s apple rise and fall in his throat.

He reaches out tenderly, hand cupping your left breast. He squeezes softly, swipes his thumb delicately over your nipple, then brings his other hand up to cup your other breast.

He groans softly, just like he did when he first tasted his hot chocolate, kneading your breasts in his hands. Bradley’s lips quirk up into a soft smile, content for the first time all day.

His eyes flicker up to yours as he shifts slightly more upright. It’s then that you realise he’s going to kiss you. Alarm bells. Every brain cell you have is screaming that once those stupid, perfect, pouty lips touch yours — there is no more friendship.

In the interest of preserving the relationship with the best friend that you’ve ever had, you drop your sweatshirt and move away from him to sit on the floor again. Bradley adjusts himself against his sweatpants. You don’t see him frown.

“It’s your turn to ask me a question.” You announce, handing him a card without looking at him. He takes the card and settles back against the couch with a soft sigh, then clears his throat.

You can hear that he wants no part in continuing this game. But if you stop playing now then there’s nothing to do but sit here and think about how badly you want him to fuck you. So many almosts. You can’t take another one.

“Red. Okay. Uh… how many years did it take Michelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel?” In Rooster’s defence, you can hear him trying to hide his bored he is for your sake. Still, you don’t turn to face him.

“Six.”

“Four.” He corrects you. He tosses the card back onto the coffee table and gently strokes your hair back off of your shoulder. You hand him the dice without meeting his gaze.

He sighs softly, toying with the dice for a moment. He shifts a little. Adjusts his half-hard cock. Looks down at the board. Thinks about how much longer this is going to take.

He rolls a five, then watches as you move his piece. You grab the question card. He trails the pad of his thumb from your jaw to the collar of your sweater. You’ve never played a game of Trivial Pursuit with this much sexual tension before.

“W-What is the literary term for a word describing a sound?”

“I truly couldn’t care less if I tried.” Rooster admits. After all, honesty is the best policy. You can’t turn to look at him. You don’t have the restraint. You want him so fucking bad that’s is almost pathetic right now.

So, you sit and wait patiently for him to just spit out the fucking word onomatopoeia. Just answer the question, Rooster.

He reaches out and slides his fingers around the base of your neck. He squeezes softly and strokes his thumb affectionately against the skin of your neck. He guides you back until you’re turned to face him.

He looks at you, his eyes hungry with lust, the intensity in those pretty, brown eyes sending shivers up your spine.

You let out a soft breath now that you’re staring at him. He can tell that you’re doubting this. That you’re starting to overthinking it. That the clock is ticking down quickly before this becomes just another almost.

He leans quickly forwards and captures your mouth in a kiss. Before you have a chance to freak out. You melt against him. Again, he groans, this time into your mouth. The sound vibrates through you and propels you into his arms.

You push up and swing one leg over his hips, straddling him without breaking the kiss. You take extra care to settle in delicately against him, not wanting to worsen his injury. He slips his tongue into your mouth, holding you against him with his hand on the back of your neck.

From here, you can feel just how hard he is. Rock hard and pressing into you. You grind down ever so slightly, feeling the tip of his cock graze you. The realisation strikes that he isn’t wearing underwear for the exact same reason you don’t have a bra on — you refuse to be subjected to such discomfort on a day of promised laziness. He’s made for you.

“Aren’t you…” You pull back, breathing hard. It’s like he can’t stand not having his mouth on you. His lips are on your throat the moment they leave your mouth. “Aren’t you kind of incapacitated from the waist down right now?”

“Don’t worry about it.” His hands are already slipping under your sweater, pushing it up your torso. You lift your arms up obediently and let him strip you of your hoodie and t-shirt. “Fuck me, you’re perfect.”

You can’t pretend that that compliment didn’t go straight to your head. Your ego is inflated and you’re suddenly feeling much more confident about this encounter.

He lifts his head and kisses your shoulder, both hands sliding up your torso and grabbing at your tits. Rooster groans, peppering soft kisses along your skin. You’ve always wondered what that stupid moustache would feel like against your skin. The answer is that it’s actually surprisingly pleasant. It tickles just enough to make you shiver but not enough to be irritating.

Rooster wraps his lip around your nipple, pinching the other between his fingers, making you gasp softly. His tongue flicks over the sensitive bud, pulling away, grazing his teeth just lightly over the tender flesh. He watches your head roll back. He groans more urgently this time, squeezing your tits in his hands as he turns his attention to the other nipple.

The line has been well and truly crossed already. There’s no way you can look him in his stupid, beautiful eyes again and pretend that he didn’t have you soaking through your panties with just his mouth on your tits.

You grind down against his cock, moaning softly at the friction. Your thin pair of leggings and his sweatpants don’t separate much. You can feel exactly how rock hard he is. You grind desperately onto him as he sucks a faint purple mark into your skin — just a light one that’ll fade within a couple of hours. Just enough that when he pulls back, he can admire the teeth marks on your skin.

His hands find your hips as he guides you, he presses his good leg down and uses the leverage to drive his cock up against your core. He pauses, holding you still, rocking the tip of his cock against your clit through your clothes. Your mind goes blank. Through your clothes. He found it through your fucking clothes.

You’re rocking your hips, grinding desperately against him through your clothes. He groans, taking just a moment to rake his eyes over your shirtless body, skimming his fingertips along your side.

“Fuck, I need to see what I’ve been fucking missing.” He breathes out, tugging at your hips. He slaps your ass, lifting his head and kissing you hard. You moan into his mouth. Your fingers slide down his chest, pushing under the hoodie, sliding it up his chest. He has to sit slightly, grabbing a fistful of fabric from behind his head and tugging it off.

It’s more than warm enough. The fire and your body heat is more than making up for the snow outside.

You stand up to rid yourself of your leggings and socks, embarrassed suddenly that you’re in a skimpy thong in front of your best friend and he’s laying there with one arm tucked behind his head, just smiling.

He shifts his hips slightly to get comfy. Your eyes fall down to the straining bulge in his sweats. Your lips part slightly. He brushes his palm over his cock, adjusting it slightly to ease his discomfort.

“I’m just really excited that I’m winning.” Bradley jokes breathily, nodding towards the game. You have to giggle. His fingers curl around your wrist as he tugs you back down to him again. You lay on top of him this time, your knee resting between his.

His hand grabs at the back of your neck as he guides your mouth against his, his tongue curling into yours. He pushes his hips against yours.

You’re both shifting, the couch is a little too small for both of you to fit comfortably. Your foot knocks his leg just slightly. He gasps, squeezing his eyes tightly shut. He takes a moment, then let’s out a strained breath.

“Oh shit — I’m sorry.” You gasp, sitting up quickly to make sure he’s okay. He grabs the bag of peas digging into his side and tosses it across the room. You look down at his bandaged knee, brows scrunching. “Rooster, maybe we should wait until you can move again.”

“Already waited eight years.” He grabs you and kisses you again before you have time to process what he has said. The knowledge that he has wanted you just as badly as you have wanted him creeps into your heart and makes itself at home there.

Your ego really can’t take much more of this, you’re going to be insufferable if he continues with all of this flattery. But equally, you don’t want him to stop.

“I can take care of you,” He promises, nudging his nose against the crook of your neck. “Whether I can move or not. I’ve got you.”

You can’t resist. Your hand wraps around his cock over the soft jersey material, palming over his length as his tongue caresses yours. His hand slides between your bodies and nudges your panties to the side.

“You’re fucking soaked.” He murmurs. You roll your hips against his fingers.

“You’re fucking huge.” You reply. He smiles against your lips. He pushes harder against your hand, trailing his fingertips between your folds. You slide a hand up into his hair, humming softly as you tug at his curls. You’ve been wanting to do that for a long time.

He grabs your leg and adjusts your position to give him easier access to your pussy, slipping a finger into you. You hmm softly, tugging at his curls again. He groans into your mouth. His ring finger slides into you alongside his middle. He curls them both into you.

You feel his cock twitch in your palm as your walls clench around his fingers. There’s an urgency to this now. You’re in the living room of the lodge, about fifteen feet from the front door. It’s been a couple of hours, everyone will be back soon.

“That feels good, huh?” Like he already knows that it does. Because it does. All you can do is breathe, soft whimpers spilling from your lips as he works his fingers into you. It feels better than good. You wish you had the words.

Your fingers curl around his wrist, rocking yourself down onto his fingers. Excitement pools in your stomach as you fall forward slightly, bracing yourself onto his shoulder.

All Rooster can think about is that one time he was so drunk that you tried to do the nice thing and let him sleep in your bed. The plan was for you to take the couch. But then he had been so heavy, and so uncooperative — literally dead weight — that you had just left him curled up on the floor in your room.

He’d woken up the next morning while you were in the shower. The soft moans spilling from behind the bathroom door. The two of you had been completely alone in your place. He’d thought of those sweet sounds of you touching yourself constantly since then.

You sound even better now that he’s touching you. He groans softly against your lips, he’s enjoying this just as much as you are.

“Ah… fuck.” You sigh contentedly, swallowing hard. “Rooster. I’m so close.”

Music to his ears. Truly. He grabs the back of your neck with his free hand and pulls you close, eyes locked on yours as he works his fingers into you with his other hand.

If this is him injured, you’re mad at yourself for denying yourself all of him for all this time. You don’t have much time to be mad at yourself.

Your head lulls back, muscles tensing, fingers curling around his shoulder tightly. You’re whimpering, moaning, fucking yourself on his fingers.

“Look at you,” Rooster coos, half-teasing. You don’t have the words to bite back, breathing hard as you try to steady yourself in your post-climax haze. “Christ, you’re so good. So good.”

You can’t wait any longer. The moment your world stops spinning, you push at the waistband of his sweats. He obliges, pulling his fingers from you and pushing the sweats down to his shins. You can see the discomfort on his face. The pain he’s trying not to let you see.

“Rooster…” You frown.

He shakes his head, “I’m fine. Seriously. Doesn’t even hurt.” Actually, his leg is throbbing because it hurts so bad. But, his cock is throbbing too and he knows which one he’s more likely to listen to. You wish you had the strength to argue with him.

You shimmy out of your panties and lean down to kiss him. Your hands held his shoulders as his own squeezed softly at your ass, then grabbed his cock in one hand. He lined himself up with you as you dripped in wetness. His eyes meet yours as you rocked yourself against his tip.

Rooster shivers, even with the heat from the fire. He grabs your thighs with both hands, raking his nails against your skin. A muscle in his jaw ticks.

“So, you don’t want me to make you feel all better?” You tease. Voice soft and feigning concern. You even bat your lashes and squeeze your tits together for him. Then, you sink your hips down slightly, letting his tip nose at your entrance before you lift away again.

Rooster swallows. He manages to nod his head as his hands find your hips. Those pretty brown eyes look up at you, expectant and eager. His hands squeeze around your hips. Your grind yourself along his length, just letting him feel how worked up he’s got you.

“Fuck, of course I do.” Rooster rushes out, his hands finding your hips, giving the skin a firm squeeze. He ruts his cock against you, grinding it against your clit.

You slowly sink down on him, taking in his tip. A soft squeak slips your lips. He squeezes softly at your thighs again. His eyes shut, preventing himself from grabbing your hips and forcing you down to take him in all at once.

Bradley pushes himself up onto his elbows and lifts his chin, lustfully hooded eyes looking up at you as he grabs the back of your neck and guides your mouth to his. He kisses you softly, caressing his tongue against yours. His other hand strokes at your hip.

“You alright?” He whispers against your lips. You have to grab his shoulder tighter, worried for a moment that the sound of his voice alone might send you over the edge. You’re still, just hovering there, with him just barely inside of you.

“Mhm.” You breathe back, resting your chest against his as you sink the rest of the way onto his length. Rooster grabs your hips with both hands and pulls you tight against him, driving himself as deep as he possibly can.

You hit his shoulder, then grab his chin. His brows furrow slightly, confused as you lean in and look him in the eye.

“Hey. Let me.” You demand. He loosens his grip on your hips, smirking softly as he nods for you to do exactly that.

You lift yourself just slightly, rocking back down once again, finding a soft rhythm. Sinking up and down on his length. More full than you’ve ever felt. Head lulled back.

The pain of him stretching you out soon fades. Rooster feels it when it happens. Feels you relax, your walls fluttering around his cock. Each bounce filling you with strong surges of pleasure. You pick up speed, your bodies sloppily colliding.

Sounds of your breathless pleasure filling the empty lodge. Maybe even the forest outside. You couldn’t care less at this moment in time.

You arch your back, grabbing onto his thigh for support as you fuck yourself on him. He squeezes softly at your hips, sliding his hands down to your ass instead. Trying to take a backseat and give you full control.

“Fuck, you feel so good.” He groans, throwing his head back against the cushioned arm of the couch. Rooster’s brows knot together, his eyes fluttering shut. Your palms rest against his chest, unashamedly checking him out while he isn’t looking.

You set the pace, taking care of him exactly like you promised to. Fucking your self on his cock, moaning his name like a pornstar. Rooster groans, lip between his teeth. He doesn’t feel sorry for himself anymore. Fucking up his leg is worth it. He’d sit through this pain six times a week if it meant he got to experience this as a result.

His cock twitches, you feel him squeeze your hips tight and slow your pace. He whimpers softly, lifting his head and taking your nipple into his mouth, flicking his tongue expertly against the sensitive bud.

His hands grip hard at your ass, pulling you towards him as he squeezes your cheeks between his fingers. He growls lowly, shifting his hips, changing the angle. Letting his cock hit your g-spot each time you come down on him.

Your desperate moans fill the air, mixed with each of his soft grunts. The sounds of your pleasure make him twitch inside you. There’s nothing he loves more than knowing how good he makes you feel.

“‘M not gonna last. You feel so fucking good.” He pants, fingers pressing so hard into your hips that forensics might be able to take a fingerprint sample from your skin later.

“I’m almost there,” You pant, leaning down to kiss his jaw. “Don’t you dare stop.”

He smacks your ass, half-playfully, guiding your hips as you ride him. He presses his heel into the couch and drives his hips up into you as you’re coming back down on him. Just once.

You cry out, then gasp in. He took his lip between his teeth, grabbing both of your hips, guiding you as you bounced on his cock, his eyes on your face as your brow furrowed in pleasure. His eyes glance down to your tits, watching contentedly as they bounce.

“You’re so beautiful,” He groans out, breathing hard. “Look so fucking pretty when you’re all full like this.”

“Yeah?” You breathe out, lifting your hips until his tip is the only thing filling you, then sinking down until he’s nestled fully inside of you, grinding your hips down against him.

“Fuck. Yeah.” Rooster grabs your hips. “Wanna fuck you. Gonna take it like a good girl for me?” You crash your lips hard against his, nodding feverishly.

His hands slide down to your ass, his palm connecting hard with your right cheek, then squeezing at the soft skin with both hands. He presses his heel into the couch for leverage, mouth falling down to kiss at your chest as he fucks into you from below.

You grab onto his shoulders. You take him perfectly, your walls squeezing around his cock as he pounds into you. You fall against his chest, moaning desperately into the crook of his neck as his cock drives into you.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” You aren’t sure, and you’re glad he can’t see your face because you know he’ll never stop teasing if he knows that your eyes just rolled back in your head. His name pools off your tongue like liquid gold.

His hands squeeze at your ass, smacking at your cheek, groaning breathlessly.

“I’m gonna — I’m-“ You can’t manage real words right now. He grabs a handful of your hair and tugs as his other arm tucks around your waist and keeps you steady as he pounds into you.

Earth shattering. It’s the only way to describe it. His soft groans in your ear as he fucks you through potentially the most intense orgasm you’ve ever had. Toes curling, eyes shutting, voice faltering. You’re glad you fell against his chest before, because you know you would have outright collapsed if you hadn’t already.

You’re clenching around him, kissing lazily at his neck and whimpering as your sensitive pussy contracts around him.

In a loud groan, you felt him begin to spill into you. You mewled over him, your legs shaking as he kept his speed, his cock sending spurts of hot liquid into you. You whimper as his cock pulses inside of you.

His hands are all over you, not able to focus on any one thing — not able to touch enough of you at once as he comes. Your name spills desperately from his lips as he gives one last, deep spill into you. His thrusts falter, slowing until they stop all together.

He holds you there, against his chest, his cock still in you, until you’ve both caught your breaths. He kisses your temple softly.

“Onomatopoeia.” You say against his throat. You press your lips tiredly to his salty skin.

“Huh?” He clears his throat then swallows, his voice hoarse from moaning your name.

“Onomatopoeia. Literary term for a word describing a sound.” You breathe. He chuckles, his laughter rumbling in his chest and vibrating through you.

“Fuck off.” He scoffs, pushing at your face until you’re barely resting against his shoulder anymore. You smile as you push yourself up, shooting him a playful wink.

You both groan softly as you lift your hips and let him slip out of you. Both of you look down at the cum that drips onto his pelvis as you lift off of him.

“Phoenix would kill us if she knew we fucked on her mother-in-law’s couch.” You whisper, as if it’s suddenly important to keep quiet. Rooster nods his head in agreement as you push yourself up and step into your panties.

“Could you grab me some tissue?”

“Yeah, I’ll be right-“ Your leggings are halfway up your legs, your top half still completely bare when you’re silenced by the sound of a car door slamming. Your eyes go wide.

You grab your shirt and hoodie in your hands and sprint for the bathroom, leaving poor, injured Rooster to fend for himself.

“Wait — where the fuck are you- dammit.” He struggles back into his sweats and rushes his hoodie back over his head. The door to the downstairs bathroom locks behind you. You can’t face your closest friends right now.

Luckily, there’s plenty of gear to get out of the car. They take a good couple of minutes. Rooster stares at the ceiling. He can’t believe you ditched him in his hour of need, with his pants literally around his ankles.

That reminds him, he fixes the compression bandage on top of his sweats that had gotten all messed up during the rush.

“Bradshaw, how’s the knee?” Hangman calls as he swings through the front door, carrying two boards over his shoulder. Rooster pushes himself up on his elbows and peers towards the door over the back of the couch.

“I’m — Yeah. It’s the same.” He calls back.

“Where’s your nurse?” Coyote teases, following right behind Jake. Bradley is reminded of your betrayal.

“Peeing, I think.” Rooster answers. Phoenix and Dani head in. Then Bob and Payback. Then Fanboy, who’s not carrying anything. Mickey walks around and shrugs his coat off, tossing it onto the arm chair.

He looks at Rooster and scrunches his brows, then looks towards the fireplace. “You want me to put that fire out? — You look kinda warm.” Fanboy offers. The sweat beading on Rooster’s forehead gives him away, but Mickey doesn’t suspect anything.

Rooster presses the back of his palm to his forehead, wiping away the sweat that had gathered. He nods his head gratefully. The door to the bathroom unlocks and you step back out, dressed, composed.

Your eyes meet his. Rooster smiles softly, it’s a sweet enough look. But something in those pretty, brown eyes says you’re going to get it once I can walk again.

…

Tag List:

20th-centu-fairy-girl

@nattygee

@blendedcookiez

@blindedbyyourgrace17

@vensidia

@wwwpxper

@imhereimqueerandicannotdrinkbeer

@sparrows-corner

@worldsoldestpizzaslice

@needf0rspeed

@saltyturtlejudgeflap

@auggie-16

@666abby6666

@fantasy-addict354

@a-sweet-little-fangirl

@nqberries

@starksbabe

@ahhmeils

@sydneejean

@lizziespidiepridie

@thedeviltohisangel

@levylovegood

@lovingonshawn

@impossiblebagelcowboyfreak

@americaarse

@pleasedontblameme

@sl13-ce

@spooky-titties

@walkonthewiidside

@rororo06

@amandacavill

@serendiipty

@1-800-imagines

@amandarebell

@earth-to-lottie

@n3ssm0nique

@littlewhiterose

@lovemesomevesey

@annakatf

@acdassenza

@shadowvera

@jonginvlog

@simpandslut

@bonnieelizabethparker

@criminalyetminimal

@americaarse

@lunamoonbby

@perpetuelledaydreaming

@everything-i-love-in-life

@xxlilyxx90

@hootylou

@pizzaprincess07

@thelifeofthelifeofme

@luckyladycreator2

@alanadetigy

@happy-2b-here

@leftpalacellamalight

@tooflef

@alana4610

@spidey-d00d

@unordinare

@shawnsthighs

@ycarlii

@alanadetigy

@marvelsvalhalla

@imdeadinsidesiriuslydead

@cherrycola27

@carolfoxs-blog

@thesewordsareallihavetogive

@the-winter-marvel33

@owenniasstars

[aceghosts]

OC Associations

I was tagged by @scungilliwoman, @florbelles, @clicheantagonist, @johnnycranes, and @belorage to share some associations of my OCs.

I'm sure most people have been tagged by this point, but I'm going to throw a few tags to @adelaidedrubman, @commander-krios, @spookyvalentine, @allthearchetypes, @bluemojave, @honeysides, @hoesephseed, @gamer-purgatory, @heroofpenamstan, @henbased and anyone else who would like to do this! (Also, I apologize if I tag you and you've already done this.)

Associations under the cut!

Blue Murphy

Animal(s): Blue Jays, Dogs, Mountain Goats, and Grey Wolves

Colour(s): Navy Blue, Forrest Green, Olive, and Dark Brown.

Month: March

Song(s): Raise Hell by Brandi Carlile, Rocky Mountain High by John Denver, Way Out There by Lord Huron, Sunshine on My Shoulders by John Denver, and Elijah by Matthew and the Atlas.

Number: 13

Day or Night: Day (Specifically Sunrise)

Plant(s): Colorado Blue Spruce, Aspen Trees, Douglas Fir Trees

Smell(s): Pine Trees, Coffee, Earthy, Woodsy

Gemstone: Aquamarine, and Amazonite and Smoky Quartz

Season: Winter

Place(s): Forests, Mountains, Ranger Stations, Parks (Anywhere outdoors really)

Food(s): Sweets, Granola, and Burritos.

Astrological Sign: Aries

Element(s): Fire

Drink(s): Coffee (with too much sugar), Orange Soda, Energy Drinks (The more likely to give you a heart attack, the better).

Commander Rooney Shepard

Animal(s): Panthers, Lions, Black Cats, and Screech Owls.

Colour(s): Black, Royal Blue, Red, and Silver.

Month: November

Song(s): Legends Never Die by Against the Current, Saturn by Sleeping at Last, Butterflies and Hurricanes by Muse, Meteor by Architects, and Leaving Earth by Clint Mansell.

Number: 7

Day or Night: Night

Plant(s): Oak Trees, Blackthorns, Black Tulips, and Red Corn Poppy.

Smell(s): Metallic, Spearmint, Tea, and Model Ship Paint.

Gemstone: Onyx, Obsidian, and Sapphire.

Season: Fall

Place(s): The Normandy

Food(s): If it isn’t drowning in hot sauce, Rooney isn’t interested. (The only exception is Shepherd’s Pie.)

Astrological Sign: Aries

Element(s): Water

Drink(s): Tea (of all varieties), Guinness, and Water (Hey, you gotta stay hydrated to save the galaxy.)

[bowiepens]

i’d love to get some new threads going on disc0rd ♡ ( sapphic only )

here you’ll find a list of my favourite faces ( it’s still a wip, i’m sorry ) ( i highly prefer faces on that list + fcs i’ve interacted with before, but we can discuss !! ) under the cut i’ll list some muses / faces i really want to use + ships i’m rlly wanting rn !!

PLEASE LIKE OR DM TO EXCHANGE DISC0RD DETAILS !!  ♡

( italicised are my favourites !! )

faces ( * i would prefer to write against ) ;  anya taylor-joy. aubrey plaza*. danielle rose russell. d’arcy carden. hayley williams. jameela jamil. jodie comer. julia rehwald. kaylee bryant. lauren tsai. olivia cooke. phoebe bridgers. taylor swift.

muses i’d like to use ;  alanis ortega. anya vorontsova. aspen hollace. bee lucille. berenice xie. blossom serrano. chai tseng. chihiro mathers. clementine taylor. eve d’angelo. freya de luca. lottie winters. marzipan medina. maxine mooney. minnie fisher. mio sato. ofelia ramos. riley ozwin. romy fauchelevent. rooney mckenzie. ( i’m also happy to make new muses on the spot  ! )

ships i’d like ( * i would prefer to write, but idm ! ) ; kaylee bryant* / danielle rose russell  ♡  lauren tsai* / aubrey plaza  ♡  kaylee bryant / lauren tsai.  ♡ anya taylor-joy* / olivia cooke  ♡ anya taylor-joy* x jodie comer ♡  phoebe bridgers / hayley williams.

feel free to dm me if you’d like to give me any of those ships !! otherwise, feel free to like and i’ll go through your muses + such !! i’m not set in stone but i am quite picky with faces lmao, sorry if that’s not your thing i totally understand !! ♡