#must i extend my suffering.

[moe-broey]

Man I don't even go to Genshin anymore but I see people redesigning that new glasses girl with the blonde mullet and pink gradient and getting rid of her pink gradient like. Do you hate me specifically. Do you hate love and fun

[eats-the-stars]

also if you have relatives/friends who will not in a million years admit that they are racist/homophobic/etc. since they know this is a bad thing they shouldn't endorse or be, then calling them out directly often leads to denial and deflection and getting really defensive and not backing down.

But if you just say 'hey, it was kind of rude to say X' or 'i think you were making H uncomfortable by bringing up X/making X joke' then they're more likely to listen w/out immediately going to level 10 defensive mode.

Also, ppl who will staunchly deny being a racist/fatphobe/homophobe/etc. will be more likely to agree to simply being 'a bit of an asshole last night.'

The goal is not to get the person to make a complete 180. It's to get them to be a little bit less of an asshole next time. And then rinse and repeat until someday they're, like, barely an asshole at all.

GRADE SCHOOL SJWS stop using social justice language to explain shit to your conservative parents IT’S NOT GONNA GO THROUGH now all they have are some new words to make fun of. don’t tell your mom she’s being fatphobic tell her she’s being a dick

[cryobabiess]

Pairing: Emperor Caracalla x concubine!reader

Summary: After a public tantrum at a senator's gathering, Geta sends Caracalla's most beloved concubine to comfort his mad brother. Tags: hurt/comfort, slightly NSFW, implied/mentioned sex, Caracalla has serious mommy issues, nipple play, breastfeeding :/ (sorry), short fic, Caracalla is obsessed with your big naturals I guess idk AN: I'm not sure if there's any Otessa Moshfegh enjoyers out there, but this lil mini fic is inspired by Lapvona. Caracalla's man-child vibe reminded me of Merek, so naturally I had to write the most strange and off-putting fic to satisfy my weird-girl impulses. Enjoy, freaks!

Hurt by his brother’s callous words, the divine emperor Caracalla had fled the senator’s banquet in a fit of rage. It only takes a single tense glance from Emperor Geta for you to receive his silent command to follow after his mad brother. It does not take long to find him.

Like always, he hides away under a golden table tucked in the far corner of the throne room. His sniveling echoes off the tall marble walls. You slowly approach his curled up form, as if not to startle a wild hare.

“Caracalla. You must come out now.” You call his name softly.

“I will not.” He croaks through his tears, turning his back towards you. With a sigh, you sink to your knees, extending your open arms towards him.

You wait for Caracalla to find his sense. After a few moments, He finally turns to you to reveal his face—pale, rosy, and wet.

“Has brother sent you to scold me? I am no child!” Spite coats his words. You smile at the absurdity. He could order your head on a pike if he so pleased, but prefers for you to indulge his brooding. A god-king with the whims of a spurned child.

“No, I do not seek to scold, little prince. Come now, so that I may hold you.”

And with that, the emperor crawls to you.

He settles into your arms and you cradle his torso, the luxurious fabric of his ornate robes pooling at your lap. His cheek rests atop your bosom like a newborn babe—he weeps like one too.

“It is unjust! Brother always has the last word, yet I am eldest!” Caracalla laments, his tears wet the bodice of your stola.

You use your free hand to smooth tendrils of copper hair away from his damp face. A tantrum of this magnitude was not uncommon for the young emperor, though you often wondered how a man could display such behaviors at the age of twenty and one. Caracalla was distinctly tender, despite his blood lust. His ego was delicate, easily wounded by Geta’s pragmatism and rigid sensibility.

“He wishes to be rid of me, I know it.” He sniffles, his hand reaching to fiddle with the pendant resting at the base of your neck. You smile softly despite growing weary of this routine.

“Don’t be without reason, mea dulcis. You are invaluable to Rome and all her subjects. Geta speaks without tact when he is cross. You must know this too, hmm?”

Caracalla thinks for a moment, brows knitting together in contemplation.

“He is unkind. It should have been him to suffer in the womb, not I.”

You can’t help but laugh at his juvenile description of his brother's malicious cruelty. Frustration flashes across Caracalla’s face as water threatens to brim his eyes again.

“Peace, my lamb. No more tears.” You coo, using a thumb to swipe away at the wetness—but it is too late. Your laughter invited a new wave of angry tears. He buries his face in your breasts, jeweled fingers dragging down the fabric of your stola. His mouth quickly finds your nipple. You hiss, resisting the urge to pull him away from your flesh.

It brings the emperor great comfort to suckle you. Geta had explained Caracalla’s affliction once before.

“Our own mother denied him her breast; she believed him to be cursed. Perhaps he held on to that trangression. He called for a wet nurse until the age of ten and two. My brother has always suffered from madness, you see.”

You had taken prior notice of this habit. After he fucks you like an animal in heat, he often drifts back to your tit, lazily sucking and nibbling until sleep takes him. You thought nothing of it until emperor Geta revealed it’s cause to you.

And though you had no milk to bear, tranquility came over the man as if he had been fed. Eyes closed and breath even, he plays with a tendril of your hair as he rolls your swollen nipple in his hot mouth—lost in bliss. It is odd, but you pity him. With his lips so flush against you and his expression finally at peace, one could forget the madness, the carnage, the rage.

Sometime later, Caracalla regains his composure, standing straight with his shoulders back, returning to a proud and stately posture. He crudely wipes the spit from his chin with the back of his hand.

“You will attend to me in my chambers tonight.” He commands before returning to the festivities.

[beloveds-embrace]

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ Matchmaking Buns

-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈ in which your bunnies inadvertently lead you into meeting your new neighbors, who are far too endeared by you from the get-go <3

╭── ⋅ ⋅ ── ✩ ── ⋅ ⋅ ──╮

The thing is, you absolutely adore your bunnies. Two holland lops, one mini lop, and a flemish giant all together with full freedom of your house and a big garden for them to play in- with a bet overhead to protect them against hawks and whatever else. Hell, they even have a patio in case it rains.

You absolutely adore them. You worked your ass off to have a house like this, and then have enough money and space to give them everything they need. They are the lights of your life.

Simultaneously, they might possibly be your biggest source of headache.

All this space, all these spots and nooks and crannies for them to hide and play in- and their favorite activity still remains having you chase them down the road like the incorrigible brats they are. None of your neighbors are surprised by the sight anymore, often helping you but right now there isn’t anyone around except a group of men that you ignore. They must be the new neighbors.

(God, your embarrassment will know no bound after this.)

“You fucking four bastards! Once I catch you- ugh!” You shout, aiming it at those little monsters that remain living rent-free in your house as you run fast after them. But-

Oh no. Oh noooo. The four men, the new neighbors, turn around at your shout; likely assuming you meant it at them. Only to have your bunnies barrel through and between their legs.

After this, once you get those brats back, you will have to join them in finding a burrow to hide in your garden. That’s the only solution.

God must be smiling down at you, though; God must be satisfied by the regular entertainment you provide, because the men catch the bunnies. All four men catch all your four bunnies. It’s almost hilarious seeing your mini-lop in the hands of the big(gest) dude with the surgical mask. The tiny bastard doesn’t even seem mildly bothered, just nosing around the man’s chin and mask. Your two holland hops are in the hands of a very pretty man- wow, what eyelash serum does he use?- and a man who is wearing a boonie hat. Your flemish giant chills in the hands of the one with the mohawk.

You slow down as you jog towards them, trying to catch your breath. The amusement and confusion on their faces would’ve almost been comical if you weren’t so embarrassed.

“Oh- oh my god, I’m so, so sorry-” You begin, cheeks pink. Fuck, you weren’t even anything that appropriate either; jean shorts and a rather thin top. “I’m sooo sorry, jesus christ. They- they usually don’t bother other people when they do this-“

“They do this often?” Boonie hat man raises an eyebrow, chuckling.

You nod, glaring down at the bunny who just… stares right back at you. Little beast. Evil little beast that enjoys your suffering. “Yeah… they get a certain joy out of my suffering. Once again, I’m so sorry-“

“Easy there, lass,” mohawk man grins at you, as does pretty man. You can’t tell what exoression their fourth might have on his face. Your flemish giant begins cleaning her face, unbothered. “They dinnae hurt noone… though maybe just yer lungs.”

As you gather your breath, still cradling your wayward bunnies, you glance up at the group of men and realize you haven’t even introduced yourself yet. Great. Chasing rabbits down the street and forgetting your manners? You’re on a roll today.

“I’m—uh, I’m sorry, where are my manners? I’m [Name].” You gesture awkwardly toward your bunnies, still snuggled up in their rescuers’ arms. “And these are… my little troublemakers.”

The man with the boonie hat offers you a warm grin, extending his hand. “John Price. Looks like we’re neighbors now, love.”

You take his hand, appreciating the solid, firm shake and give him a smile. “Nice to meet you, John. And thanks again.”

The man with the mask remains silent but inclines his head, giving the tiniest of nods. He’s still holding your mini-lop, who’s completely unbothered, nosing at his mask like it’s a toy. “Simon.” he says in a low, gravelly voice.

His voice sends a tiny shiver down your spine. There’s something about his calm presence, even with your rebellious bunny in his grasp, that feels oddly reassuring. If anything, seeing your bunny si relaxed makes you far more willing to trust him. “Thanks, Simon. I appreciate it.”

The man with the mohawk steps forward, his grin as cheeky as ever. “Johnny MacTavish.” His Scottish accent rolls smoothly, and you can’t help but smile back. “Looks like yer big girl here likes me, huh?” He scratches behind your flemish giant’s ear, who responds by nudging into his hand.

You laugh. “Yeah, she’s usually shy, but I guess you’ve won her over.”

The last man, who had been standing back slightly, steps forward, still gently cradling one of your holland lops in his arms. “Kyle Garrick.” he says softly, his eyes flicking between you and the bunny. “They’re cute little things, aren’t they?”

You nod, heart warming a little. “Yeah, they are. And… a handful.”

For a brief moment, there’s a quiet, comfortable silence. You close your eyes and take in a deep, calming breath, not noticing the way all of them seem oddly focused on you—not in a bad way, but more like they’re genuinely interested.

“How do you take them back then?” John asks at last, breaking the silence. He’s almost absent-mindedly patting your bunny’s head.

“Well, I usually try to coax them with treats,” you say, opening your eyes to glance down at your bunnies. “but it seems like they’ve chosen chaos today, so no treats for them. I’ll just herd them back.” You shoot the bunnies a mock glare, earning a soft chuckle from Price.

“Seems like they’ve got a bit of personality,” Simon comments, his voice low. “Must’ve gotten that from you, yeah?”

You blink, caught off guard by his subtle tease. Was that a compliment? From him? You laugh softly, your cheeks warming under his intense gaze. “Well, they’re stubborn, that’s for sure.”

Kyle, steps forward and holds the bunny out to you. “Here, love. Looks like he’s had his fun. Don’t worry, no harm done.”

You take the bunny from him, your fingers brushing his as you do. “Thanks,” you murmur, feeling a bit flustered by the warmth of his touch. “I was about ten seconds away from having a meltdown.”

Johnny leans forward, his grin widening even as he hands over your flemish giant. One by one, you get back all your bunnies. “Aye, ye seemed like ye were in a bit of a panic. But nae need to be embarrassed, lass. We’ve all got our little burdens.”

Your eyes dart to his, catching a mischievous twinkle there. He’s definitely enjoying this a little too much.

You sigh dramatically, still cradling your mischievous bunnies. You set them down, and like the most obedient angels ever, they just hop and wait around your feet. “They’re more than burdens, they’re the bane of my existence sometimes. But I love them.”

Price chuckles, arms crossed over his broad chest. “It’s good you care about them that much. Not everyone would go to such lengths for their pets.”

You smile sheepishly. “Yeah, well… they’re my kids, basically. Little fluffy nightmares, but I love them.” You glance up at the group, unable to hide your appreciation for their help. “I seriously owe you guys. Maybe a drink sometime? Or dinner? As a proper thank you and welcome, of course.”

Simon shifts slightly, eyes still on you, though his face remains unreadable behind the mask. Johnny shoots him a look, then turns back to you with a grin. “Would nae wanna bother ye, lass-“

You blink, quickly shaking your head. “Oh, no, it won’t be a bother at all! I mean, it’s the least I can do after… all of this.” You gesture vaguely at the situation. Your mini-lop flops down near Simon, likely expecting pats.

Johnny’s grin deepens, and he exchanges a look with Price. “We’ll hold ye to that, lass. What day works for ye?”

You laugh nervously, cheeks still warm. “I’ll… I’ll figure something out and let you know.”

Kyle gives you a soft, reassuring smile. “We’ll be looking forward to it. And don’t worry, we’ll keep an eye out for any runaway bunnies in the meantime.”

As the men begin to head back to their place, Johnny calls out over his shoulder, “Remember- dinner, lass! No backing out!”

You roll your eyes with a playful smile but can’t help feeling flustered as you watch them go, and then laugh a little when Simon smacks the back of Johnny’s head, your heart beating a little faster. When they’re out of sight, you glance down at your bunnies.

“Thanks for the assist, you little terrors,” you mutter, shaking your head. “Now I owe them dinner. Perfect.”

╰── ⋅ ⋅ ── ✩ ── ⋅ ⋅ ──╯

Part 2

Masterpost + interactions, comments, reblogs and everything in between is very much encouraged 🫶🏻

[ozzgin]

Little Red Riding Hood except they’re consenting adults and the big bad (were)wolf wants to bang red instead of eating her alive. Sorry if you already did something like that, I’m just curious if you think my concept is interesting.

This has reminded me of the time I played Wytchwood and foamed at the mouth when I stumbled upon the bad Wolf who courts maidens at the tavern, only to eat them back at his house. I didn't use Tumblr at the time, so I suffered in silence. Perhaps now is finally my time to pass on this brainrot. Content: female (adult) reader, witch reader, violence!, The Wolf from Wytchwood

The Wolf is a notorious regular at the Village Tavern. He's a brash criminal with an appetite for maidens, yet no one dares to oppose his vicious attacks. The village hunter carries his silver bullets with trembling hands: he knows better than to anger the beast. He'd be torn to shreds before he could even pull the trigger.

The Wolf is a drooling mess when he sees you enter the tavern. A new face, how unexpected. Might you be a traveler? Not for long. He grins to himself, tongue rolling out as if to have a taste of your scent. His ears perk up, and he approaches you with a slight sway of the hips, almost like a predatory stance.

The Wolf is taken aback by your brazen indifference. People normally squirm and shiver under his gaze. Will you keep your smile when he's pulling your innards apart, one by one, savoring their taste? You observe him with calculated eyes. This must be the famed killer of the village. You extend your hand, and let him guide you to his home in the deep, dark woods.

The Wolf stumbles in his steps. He rubs his eyes, snout furrowed in disbelief. Were you not in his grip just a second ago? "You're a witch", he finally concludes with a snarl. You chuckle. You may not match his brute strength, but you can easily escape his primitive hunt using your tricks and spells. It'll be a pointless chase, truly. His murderous rampage ends here.

The Wolf approaches you again with newfound resolve. "You cannot eat me", you state factually. Oh, but he no longer holds such a desire. To think this little red riding hood would end up being such a tease! No, no, he has other plans now. His eyes glimmer with a peculiar kind of appetite, a different kind of lust. You raise your eyebrows, intrigued. There certainly is something endearing about a powerful monster begging to have you. The defiant stare has now softened into a pleading, ardent look, his claws tugging at your robe.

It seems that there are more ways in which a maiden can be eaten.

[rowsandrowsofnothing]

I just want to share why I absolutely do not give a fuck that Brian Thompson had a family. It’s simple.

I have one too.

Me, who:

Was born needing heart surgery, and if a team of six surgeons hadn’t argued for me while I was in the womb, I would’ve died at birth from internal bleeding. My parents would have had to watch their baby choke to death on his own blood.

Grew to suffer severe chronic pain through joint damage that I am unable to receive treatment for, and must go through with literally not even medication. The only mobility aid I have is a cane my father was unable to use anymore.

Was born with spinal deformity that developed into scoliosis. That I just have to live with because insurance says it isn’t severe enough for surgery, despite my hips being noticeably displaced to the point my legs are different lengths.

Needs allergy shots to be able to go outside without risking anaphylaxis. My family spent almost four years chasing them because insurance said I had to fail EVERY other drug and treatment on the market before I could have the shots. We were bounced from doctor to doctor, hospital to hospital, begging for treatments that we knew would fail. My parents spent thousands on failed treatments in a desperate attempt to get me ANY relief from the pain I went through daily.

Is incredibly lucky, because despite all the shit my family went through, I lived. We had just enough money to spare on trying to get me treatment.

I am lucky because I lived.

Millions of others did not.

My extended family has lost people because of health care denials. Too many everyday people have died for money in these people’s pockets.

Brian Thompson and scum like him are directly responsible for the deaths and suffering of millions of Americans. His money was made with blood, and he paid for it in blood.

Deny. Defend. Depose.

[hobis-hope95]

Blessed by the Gods

fancast!Benjicot Blackwood x Bracken!fem!reader

Summary: You, the only daughter of Amos Bracken, had just been offered away in marriage to a man much older than you, and in the hopes of having some peace and quiet for you to express your anguish towards the Gods that allowed this, you go to a place you found a couple months ago - a beautiful clearing with flowers scattered around and a weirwood tree in the middle. You knew it was risky, as you'd seen him there before, but in a moment of distraction Benjicot Blackwood found you and now you must suffer the consequences.

Warnings: 18+, enemies to lovers, a little fluf (veeery little), kinda dom x sub, swearing, hunting (it's basicaly it but I don't know if there's another term for it, when you read you'll know), smut, porn with (very) little plot, fingering, p in v, unprotected sex, rough sex, breeding kink, praising kink.

Authors note: Heyy, so this is my very first time posting something I wrote (I do write a lot but mostly I get stuck and end up not finishing it) because I'm OBCESSED with Kieran Burton since I saw him in the goddamn teaser, plus I've been reading plenty of fanfics of him and two of them particularly inspired me for this (I'm sorry, I don't remember the names or the authors to tag them). Last but not least, English isn't my first language, so I'm sorry for any mistakes.

You should hate him. You should’ve never been in that place, for you knew it was Blackwood territory, and should’ve heard him getting closer before. But you didn’t. You knew he went there frequently and if he saw you in the golden dress you wore in that particular place, he would definitely tell you to go back to your lands, but not without some provocation first. But that weirwood tree was so beautiful even if hidden in the middle of the woods, the flowers that bloom around it were so unique that you had to go there and admire them in a way to flee from the confinements of Stone Hedge. Or you told yourself that this was the reason you went there.

You found it the first time by accident. You had got lost in the woods, no track of a clearing nearby for you to situate yourself, when you saw the red leaves and decided to get near, for you knew that the weirwood roots extended long through the floor – making itself exclusive for a few yards in its radium – and you would be able to see the sky without the treetops being on your way. When you got there, though, the place was so gorgeous you could not leave right away.

After that, you tried to memorize as much of the path you could and return to that same place for moments of peace. That was until one day you heard footsteps – of one person it seemed – and you hushed to hide away. Moments later, hidden behind some bushes, you saw when no other than Benjicot Blackwood appeared through another end of the clearing where, you didn’t notice before, had a small trail that probably led straight to Raventree Hall.

Bloody Ben. Lord Blackwood. Lord of the house you were supposed to hate, and yet you found him so extremely gorgeous. You’d saw him only a few times. On Riverrun where your families sometimes were called by their Paramount Lord or near the stream that divided their lands, often arguing with your cousin in the company of a few others of his House and a few times you ended up being the victim, getting back home after slapping him across his face with his obscene remarks or just leaving after outsmarting the man – for the second you took much pride in.

On some of the times you’d been on the clearing you ended up having to hide when hearing his footsteps and waiting for him to leave before you could move. He’d mostly sit in one of the roots of the old tree and do whatever he felt like doing at the moment. You’d seen him reading, cleaning his sword, crafting some arrows and doing nothing at all, but he always stayed for about two hours before finally leaving.

Today however, probably because you were stressed with the news of your arranged marriage, you didn’t hear him getting close. When he saw your dress, the colour of your house shining through the rays of sunshine, a smirk crept in his face with the ideas he had in mind.

He knew it was wrong, hideous, the idea of wanting anything that came with the red stallion in a golden shield, your House’s coat of arms. He knew that from any woman he could want, you should not be a possibility. But with your hair that finished around your hips and a face that looked like a gift from the Gods, allied with your wits and challenging manner, he could not lie to himself that more than once he woke up in the middle of the night hot and bothered after a much-detailed dream about you – and eventually would handle his hardness with the thought of defiling you and making you his.

What he didn’t know, and you tried to deny it as much as you could, was that you also had conflicting thoughts about him. Since the first time you’d saw him in Riverrun, his face showing a mischievous glow with a smirk on his lips as your family entered the room, you fought with your own body as your heart raced and your cheeks burned in his presence. You hated the way he mocked your cousin and told you the lousiest of things, his lascivious expression making you hot and bothered as well, and you hated that every time you saw him, you knew that at the end of the day you would toss and turn for hours trying to erase his face from your mind.

You told yourself it was just because he was the only one who didn't walk on eggshells when talking to you – or anyone for that matter – and because you liked the challenge, but deep down you knew that your feelings for him were far from hatred, and the idea of trying to find out the true meaning of them scared you.

“Gods, have I done anything to anger you so that I’m faded to marry Forrester Frey? I would do anything, please!” You asked to the faced weirwood tree, knowing you’d have no answer but desperate enough to look like a crazy woman who talks to a tree by yourself. What you did not know was that someone did hear you.

Benjicot took his blade from his waist, taking extra care to not be heard, and when he got close enough to you, he acted quickly, one arm holding your body – your arms entrapped – and the one with the blade stopping on your neck.

“My, my, look what we have in here, a lost Bracken broodmare, far away from home” Her breath got caught up on her throat with the feeling of the cold blade on her skin and her heart jumped on her chest with his body pressed against her back and his voice so close to her ear “Good thing that I found you before any other predator did, huh?”

“Let me go, please!!” You pleaded, pure panic spilling from your voice, and Benji almost moaned – he had no idea that having you pressed against his body in panic would arouse him that much “Oh no, my darling, I could not do such a thing. You just committed a crime, you see, for you are far away from your father’s lands and what fair lord would I be if I do not punish criminals like you?”

“Please, I’ll vanish from your sight in less than a minute and no one will know about this, okay? Just please, let me go!!” Your eyes were burning with unshed tears with the thought of the possible punishment he had in mind, and you didn’t stay still, moving your body in an attempt to free yourself from him even if useless, as he was taller and way stronger.

“No, no, no, my darling, I could not possibly do that, your Bracken lord can play blind on your actions, but I am a serious ruler and punish all criminals as their crimes demand” He tightened his grip on your body, his fingers pressing harder against the clothed skin of your waist, and as he continually pressed on you, a warm feeling cursed through you until it reached in between your thighs “But what punishment would be enough? Thieves, who take things that don't belong to them, have their hands cut off. Murderers, who take lives that do not belong to them, pay with their own lives. Now you, who committed invasion of lands that don’t belong to you, what could I possibly do to punish you correctly?”

Once again you pleaded, ‘please’ sounding like a repeated prayer on your lips as he inhaled the sweet smell of your hair “I could not invade your father’s lands, or I would be committing a crime of my own” He stated as if he did not listen to your pleads and when he spoke again, his voice was huskier and low like a whisper “But I could invade your territory myself”

You hated yourself for how your body reacted to his words, your thighs squeezing together when you felt the heat on your lower belly grow, and hated even more that a side of you wanted him to go ahead with his threat full of mischievous intentions. Him, on the other hand, was more than pleased to hold you that way, his front fully in contact against your behind and his groin pressed against your back.

“Please, Benjicot, lord Blackwood, please” You repeated and started struggling even more when you felt his hard cock pressed against your back, trying to move away “Please, please! What, my lady, do you want me to do?” He mocked, repeating what you said in a higher pitch, as his hand with the knife left your throat and went to your hip “You want me to be gentle?”

Another wave of heat made you close your eyes for a second, a hard sigh leaving your lips and you didn’t answer. He laughed when he heard you “This is supposed to be a punishment, but I’ll make an exception if you behave” He said, his breath hot against your ear as the hand on your hip went further down and grabbed the skirt of your dress, pulling it up.

Your neck now free from the threat of his blade, an idea came to your mind. You were not sure if it would work, but it was your only hope, so you took it. Bending your head forward to gain some impulse, you took a deep breath – bracing yourself for the upcoming pain – and shook your head back with all your strength, hitting his head on the side.

Benjicot, surprised with what had just happened and with his head pulsating, faltered his grip on you long enough for you to get rid of his arm around you and start running, your head spinning and your vision still blurry from the blow. You felt and heard when the skirt of your dress ripped, before the other man’s hand lost its grip on the fabric, but you didn’t turn around to check the damage.

With your vision still recovering and the pulsing pain in your head, you headed to the woods, still not sure if you followed the right path, only caring about getting as far of him as possible. Benjicot, on the other hand, quickly recovered from the dizziness, the pain easily subsiding, and he growled before following you, euphoric and feeling his blood rush through his body straight to his cock with the expectation of hunting you down.

You ran as fast as you could, your breathing burning in your lungs and your legs aching, and tried to dodge the trees and bushes in your way. Even with all your efforts, you heard his steps and breathing not that far away, and fear crept inside you, being the one thing that prevented you from collapsing in that moment.

He knew those woods like his own chambers – losing track of how many times he went there to hunt, explore, have a moment of peace or take out his anger on the trees – and he had the advantage of being taller than you, his muscles trained for endurance in the battlefields, so even if you ran with all your strength, it would still be easy enough for him to reach you.

“Bracken!! Do not think you can run away from your punishment, you’re still on my lands” Your step became unsteady when his voice seemed closer than you imagined and after tripping over a tree root, you couldn't keep your balance, ending up falling with your body and arms protecting you from ending face first into the grass.

As you were turning to place your hands on the ground and help you stand, you heard a twig cracking right behind you and soon enough his voice made you turn your head “Poor mare, doesn’t know her way home, but don’t worry, I’ll show you when I finish your punishment if you want”

You tried to turn yourself so you could stand back up, but before you could do anything, he caught your ankle and pulled you closer, turning you to face him “No, no my darling, you’re not escaping me again, now come here, the quicker it starts, the quicker it finishes, if you want... or you could just enjoy it”

“No, no, no!!” You repeated like a prayer and when he positioned himself between your legs, you started to punch and scratch at his chest, face and arms “Calm down, I think I was mistaken, for you are not a mare but a kitten, but no need to show your claws. I know I said that I would be gentle if you behaved and you didn’t, but I do have a soft spot for beautiful girls like you”

Quickly enough, as if your efforts meant nothing, Benjicot grabbed both your wrists and held them above your head, leaning his body closer to yours – his groin pressing against the middle of your thighs and his mouth just a few inches away, his breath hitting your face.

“You know what surprised me about your behaviour just now?” He asked, looking at your eyes, before he kissed your jaw and a hand went to your ankle “Because every time I see you, be in the Tully’s assize or the boundary, you are always looking at me so needy that makes me want to fuck you right there”

He left open-mouthed kisses through your neck as you felt the hairs on your nape stand and his hand began to move up your leg through the fabric of your dress “So why now are you pretending you do not want this?” He moved his hips forward, his hardness pressing against your clothed folds, and you didn’t have the strength to hold a moan.

“Be-because I don’t! You Blackwoods are just so ugly that I’m surprised to see something like that in the middle of a crowd” You spat, trying to regain some of your pride, but he chuckled, lifting his head with a smirk.

“Act all you can, kitten, but that moan just annulled everything you said, you know” His hand now was in your inner thigh and as he stopped talking, his calloused fingers went straight to your folds. You bit the inside of your cheeks to hold your voice and furrowed your brows, but he still looked almost amused at your efforts.

“Fuck you” You twisted in his grip but could not move enough to escape his touch and he took the chance to move his index finger through your folds, watching as you closed your eyes and your hips grounded into his touch “Oh, my lady, deny it as much as you want, but your body will remain true to its desires”

His smirk grew wider, his tongue sliding through his teeth, as his thumb found your clit and he watched in pleasure as you clenched your jaw and your legs opened wider for him. He circled your bundle of nerves with his thumb while his middle finger slid down your folds, reaching your entrance, and didn’t waste the opportunity to shove his finger inside you to the point where only his last knuckle was visible outside.

You moaned loudly, having been caught off guard, and your walls tightened around his finger “Fuck, you’re so tight, it’ll feel delicious around my cock” Benjicot started moving his finger, almost completely withdrawing before plunging it back inside, while still rubbing his thumb through your clit, and soon enough you were a mess, your thoughts fogged with the pleasure his hand was giving you.

You didn’t even notice when his hand let go of your wrists, too caught up on the feeling of his finger inside you and his pace growing faster by the second, as you fought against the undeniable pleasure you were feeling, and when he curled up his digit inside you, the thin string of pride you hung yourself by collapsed, giving in to the urge of your feelings and enjoy as he claimed you.

“M-more, please” You whispered, completely giving in to the ache of your heart. That was why you could not stray your eyes from him at every assize, that was why you would walk too close to the boundary and why you would come all the way from Stone Hedge to that specific clearing with that specific weirwood tree.

Your heart wanted him and there was no denying it, not anymore, not when his middle finger curled inside you so deliciously that made you see stars through your eyelids and not when you caught a glimpse of him and he looked at you like a starved man “Say again, kitten? I didn’t hear you” He teased, thinking you had yet again tried to deny your wishes.

“More, please, Benjicot” You said before you moaned again, your eyes fully opening now with your brows furrowed in pleasure, and for a second he wished he had a portrait painted of you like this. He pushed another finger inside, his pace now relentless with his cock throbbing through his breeches, and with his free hand he grasped the front of your dress, tearing the fabric to expose your full breasts.

“Stopped putting up a fight now, kitten? But this is not a treat, this is a punishment” He said as he curled both his fingers inside you once again before completely withdrawing from your wet cunt. He lifted the fingers that were on you seconds ago and looked at them, making a disapproving sound with his tongue “Just look at that, look at the mess you made on my fingers, huh?”

He tapped at your lower lip with his wet fingers, the smell of yourself arousing you even more “Now be a good girl and open up” And you did as he said. You closed your lips around his fingers as you felt them press at your tongue and moaned as you tasted yourself “Clean them”

You ignored the smug smirk on his lips, knowing he was enjoying bossing you around more than anything, and hollowed your cheeks sucking on his calloused digits. Now it was his turn to let out a pleased groan and when you looked at his eyes his pupils were blown, his irises darker, what almost made you moan on his fingers again.

“I’ve heard you back there by the weirwood tree, your cunt of a father wants to sell you to that old Frey?” Benjicot retreated his fingers from your mouth and ran them down your chin, your saliva running through your skin as he slowly traced a way through your neck and collarbones until he reached one of your breasts, both his digits circling your already pointy nipple as he watched your velvety skin under his touch, his smirk had gone away from his face “That old dog deserves not even a piece of you”

You felt your heart skip a beat with his words, trying not to conclude anything for he had not confirmed yet “But soon enough he won’t be a problem, don’t worry kitten” He twisted your nipple between his index and thumb, trying to calm down his anger with the thought of Forrester Frey being anywhere near you, before you asked “How?”

“Because after I finish with your punishment, no man will take you as their wife” He pinched your nipple and you moaned again, the threat mixed with his ministrations and the dark expression in his face being almost too much.

The Blackwood lord moved his other hand to the laces of his breeches, undoing them while still stimulating your breast, and your breath hitched on your throat as you looked down, fixed on his slender fingers dealing with the strings, seeing as it became loose around his hips before he had to let go of your breast to get rid of the fabric that covered his lower part.

As he took off his breeches he came back to his position between your legs, your thighs on top of his, and his smirk placed itself back on his face as he watched your eyes widen with the sight of his bare hard cock.

“You’re- this is-, you are so big” You let out, shock and want on your face as he pushed your dress up, revealing your glistening cunt to him “I know, kitten, but do not worry, it will fit” You lifted your gaze from his hips to his eyes, finding him already staring back at you, and all you could think was that you wanted him more than anything in the world.

He placed both hands on your hips, bringing you closer, and grabbed him in his hand to slide through your folds, collecting as much of your juices as he could. He wanted you, desperately, he wanted to completely fill you with his length and fuck you mercilessly until all he heard was your screams of pleasure, he wanted to ruin you to any other man and to have only you for the rest of his fucking life.

And so, with the promise of punishing you in his head, he shoved his cock all the way inside you in one thrust, leaving you gasping, your mouth opened and your eyes closed, the stretch and pain of your first time almost bringing you to tears. He had never experienced something like this before – as his previous experiences had been with whores – and didn’t even dare to move, your cunt gripping him so tightly he thought that if he moved at that moment he would cum on the spot.

As he noticed your eyes closed, he pinched your nipple “Open your eyes, kitten, I want to look at your beautiful eyes” You sighed before opening them and when you did, he noticed the tears you tried not to spill. That made something snap inside him, breaking all the will he had to hurt and punish you, and he bended down to meet your face, his breath on your face and his eyes on your lips.

“As soon as I saw you there, next to the weirwood tree, all I wanted to do was to hurt you, make you regret stepping on Blackwood territory on that golden dress of yours, but it’s rather difficult to focus with that pretty face” One of his forearms was keeping him steady as his free hand came to your breasts, the feeling of your soft skin on his calloused fingers almost making him moan “Go on, tell me how you hate me, fight me, tell me how you are disgusted by me, so I can focus on punishing you”

A moan. You opened your mouth to say something, anything, but all you could do was moan and it went straight to his cock, throbbing inside your warm and tight walls, still not moving. As he glanced up, he met your teary eyes and opened mouth in an erotic portrait, he growled as he let go of the rest of his resistance and crashed his lips against yours in a desperate kiss. As your mouth was already agape when he did it, his tongue easily slipped inside and found yours, and you reached for the back of his head, your fingers curling on his black hair.

As he kissed you hungrily, he started moving, his cock almost leaving you entirely before pushing himself back inside, and the sensation of being full of him was so good that you could not control your moans. As he felt the vibrations coming from your mouth, Benjicot squeezed your breast hard and you were sure that would leave a mark – but you couldn’t care less.

As his pace grew a little faster, the pure pleasure replacing the pain of the stretch each time his hips met yours, he let go of your lips, glaring at your face with the squirms and sighs you let out. Even if his dreams were vivid, nothing would compare to having you like this – a mess of fabric, hair and red bruised lips – at the moment, the feeling of your walls always so tight around him and your soft skin on his hand made him grunt.

Your eyes went to his on that exact moment and you could swear that your walls squeezed around him at the sound. He placed his face on the crook of your neck as he started biting and placing kisses to the skin as a way to mark you, and started going down through your collarbone to the front of your chest before placing his lips to the nipple that wasn’t being stimulated.

The wet noises of skin slapping against skin and the feeling of both your nipples being teased made your eyes roll back in pleasure and now you didn’t even try to muffle your sounds anymore “Such a noisy kitten, taking me so well” He praised, lifting his head from your chest, and held your hips with both his hands, so strong that you now worried that you’d get bruises all over your body “You should be mine and not that Frey cunt”

With his firm grip on your hips, he pressed deeper into you, your back arching from the ground and trying to keep up with his movements “Please... Benji” Two of the only three words that you could pronounce at the moment – the third one being more – too caught up with pleasure to form a coherent phrase, and Benji laughed at that, full of pride for making the so beautiful and correct daughter of Amos Bracken look like a common whore “Do you want to be mine, kitten? Mine to fuck and use as I please?”

His words aroused you even more, his hoarse voice sending waves of heat straight to your cunt, and you tried to nod your head in affirmation, because that seemed like the only thing you could do at the moment “Use your words, kitten, I know you can do it” He moved one of his hands so he could brush past your clit and that made you gasp.

“Y-yes please, I want you, I want you Benji” As she nearly screamed, the man felt satisfied, his hunger for you only getting bigger with the way you moved your hips in time with his, your face making the most erotic expressions as your moans and repeated words sounded like an exclusive prayer for him.

“I’m going to fuck a baby in you, fill you with my seed so much you’ll be leaking for days, so your bloody father won’t have an excuse but to marry you to me” He grunted in between his words, moving faster and deeper as he assaulted your clit, and you started feeling a knot form inside of you, the pleasure becoming almost too much “Please, please” You didn’t even know what you were begging for, but only wanting this to never end.

“Yeah? Do you want to be my wife? To have your Bracken womb filled with Blackwood children? Your cunt to be used by a Blackwood cock? Is that what you want?” He leaned in, one of his hand still giving you pleasure, his head once again going to the crook of your neck as he grasped at your thigh, squeezing the flesh as he moved you so you could wrap your leg around his waist, and he heard you when you weakly repeated “Yesyesyes”

“So I’ll make sure you get until the last drop of my seed to, soon enough, you be swelling with my babe” He whispered into your ear as he pressed further to your clit and his pace soon enough was so fast you thought he would break you. Your moans got louder as you wrapped both your legs around his waist, the knot on your lower abdomen about to snap, and he looked at you before whispering “Go on, cum for me, kitten”

And that’s when it happened. The knot snapped within you as you flooded with pleasure, your whole body spasming as your walls grew impossibly tighter around him, milking him, and with just a few more thrusts he shoved himself as deep as he could inside you before he shot his load straight to your core, coating your womb. As he started coming down from his high, he captured your lips in a sloppy kiss and let most of his weight on top of you, which you didn’t care as his warmth and his skin on yours was all you wanted at the moment.

You let out a dissatisfied grunt as he removed his softening cock from your cunt, some of his seed spilling from you, and lied to your side, pulling you to his embrace “Did you really mean it? Marrying me?”

“Yes” You said, the warmth spreading across your face “Well, you filled me with your seed and the possibility of me getting pregnant is almost certain now. Marrying you is the right thing to do” You tried to be cautious with your words, but for the love of the Gods, he had just fucked you in the middle of the woods, caution was one thing you had abandoned long ago “Okay, I admit that since I first saw you in the assize I haven’t been able to remove you from my thoughts and I dreaded the day that the news of your possible engagement would come.”

You took a breath before finishing “We have nothing to do with each other, our families fucking hate one another, but every time I got inside Riverrun fortress, I hoped you’d be there” You said, absently moving your fingers through the skin of his chest, but did not dare to meet his gaze, for you were now as embarrassed as you could be.

“I am glad to hear that, for I have almost the exact same feelings as you. I ached for being able to get closer to you at the assize and to kiss you when I saw you standing next to the boundary. I almost went to Kermit Tully to ask him to propose a betrothal between us” He answered, his hand on the back of your head caressing through your hair. You lifted your head from his chest, his words making your heart flutter, and he leaned his head to capture your lips in a soft kiss, both your and his feelings pouring down into each other.

“But I must stop you from going straight to my father, for he would kill you before you would be able to ask to see him” One of your hands went to his cheek as you parted to breathe, only now noticing you left nail marks there, and stroke his skin.

“Oh, I do know that, for I would never take you back to Stone Hedge with your dress like this” He laughed when he saw your eyes widen at his words, remembering now of the tore skirt and bust of your dress, and quickly added “I’ll give you my cloak and we’ll go to Raventree Hall for you to change, after that we’ll go straight to Riverrun and ask Lord Tully to bless our union, for your father would never go against an order of his Lord Paramount”

“That sounds like a solid plan, not that bad for a Blackwood” You teased and he smirked “And you were not that bad for a Bracken” You gasped in false shock at his words, lightly slapping his shoulder, and he laughed “It will surely be good to have you as my wife, a good way to keep things interesting”

“I hope so, you Blackwoods are not usually that fun though” You bit your lower lip as you’d seen him arch his brows “Well, it depends on what fun you’re talking about, because at least in one kind of ‘fun’ I exceed expectations and you just proved it right”

"Shut up!" You exclaimed and he turned you again before kissing you.

“Don’t need to ask twice, my lady” He said and you kissed him again.

It could have not been the way you expected it to go, but one thing you could say: the Gods did grant you a way to free yourself from a marriage with someone twice your age, still uniting two people together, in hopes of a prosperous – and maybe more peaceful – future ahead.

So that's it! As I wrote it mainly for the smut part (oh god, what a good first impression) the plot part may be a little off, I'm sorry. Please, feel free to leave a note if you guys liked it and maybe soon I post another, a series this time.

[revasserium]

know, know better

suo hayato; 3,591 words; fluff, fem!reader, no "y/n", banter, so much flirting, mentions of bodily harm (its wind breaker lol), first!kisses, semi-whipped!suo, suo will break the world for the one he loves likes, suo is a jackass gentleman exhibit 329048293

summary: the only difference between a garden and a graveyard is what you decide to put in the ground

a/n: yes, i know i've used that metaphor before in another fic for another fandom. no, i do not care. yes, i will continue to reuse this metaphor bc i love it.

001.

He sees you for the first time on the roof, and for a second, he wonders if he’s hallucinating because — well, no one else wears dresses at Fuurin other than Tsubaki-chan and he’s certain he just saw them downstairs, arm slung through Umemiya’s, squealing about a new line of glittery eyeshadows that just launched over the weekend.

“Ah — excuse me!”

“I know, I know — but I couldn’t just let the poor cherry tomatoes suffer like this! Go tell Ume-nii that he’s been neglecting — oh!”

By the time you look up, Suo is already bending over your shoulder to peer politely down into the garden trough, his single eye wide and bright and curious.

“Uwah… you seem really good at this!”

You lick your lips, tasting salt, feeling an unfamiliar heat creep up the back of your neck.

“Uhm… yeah — well —” your clear your throat and turn back towards the cherry tomato plants, reaching out with a gloved hand to flick one of the budding green tomatoes, “these lil guys need a lot of sunlight and Ume-nii let them in a patch of shade, so I couldn’t just leave them there, yknow?”

You smile as you get to your feet, Suo backing up politely, his hands tucked behind his back, his eye following the graceful lilt of your movements, the lithe, slenderness of your arms and legs. He can’t help the way his gaze catches on the hem of your skirt, the way it brushes the creamy skin of your leg just above your knees.

He forces himself to look away.

“You… must be one of the new first-years, right? I heard Kotoha-chan talking about you guys!”

Your voice is clear as a bell-chime, and almost as sweet, but its your eyes he can’t stop himself from coming back to. Irises purled with gold, limned by dark lashes that cast shadows against the round of your cheeks. He feels something inside him stutter as he tries to focus back on the way you’re reaching up to tuck a stray strand of hair behind your ear, how the other errant strands frame your face so perfectly that he has to fight down the urge to reach out and tug the slip of hair back down.

“… your name?”

“Hm?” Suo smiles before he realizes you’re waiting for him to say something, “Ah — apologies — how rude of me. Suo Hayato, it’s a pleasure.”

He dips his head in greeting as you extend a hand.

“Pleasure, huh?” you giggle as he takes your hand in his and shakes. Your skin is warm and soft, and Suo finds — for the first time in a long while — that he doesn’t really want to let go.

002.

He sees you the second time at Cafe Pothos, laughing behind the counter with Kotoha. He pauses in the doorway and lets the sound wash over him, even as you both look over at the sound of the doorbell.

“Oh! It’s you!” your smile sets his world spinning off on it’s axis and it’s all he can do to keep it from showing. Beside him, Sakura frowns.

“You know each other?”

Suo grins, stepping over the threshold to slip into one of the bar chairs.

“Yep! We met on the school roof the other day!”

“School roof — wait, I thought there weren’t any girls in Fuurin — unless —” Sakura cuts off as he whips back towards you, his eyes wide as he looks you over once, twice — before Kotoha rolls her eyes and snaps her fingers in front of his face.

“Oi! Quit ogling my friend — and no, there aren’t any girls in Fuurin, but we do have a delivery service for the VIP clients.” Kotoha winks as Sakura’s cheeks go pink. Suo props his chin on the heel of his hand and offers you a bright smile; your mirrored smile back makes his chest squeeze.

“So… how’re the cherry tomatoes doing?” you ask, reaching out to set a traditional tea service in front of Suo, your fingers light as they pluck a tiny porcelain cup from a shelf to place it on a small, bamboo tray.

“They’re getting really ripe! I’ve been checking on them like you asked…” Suo’s voice trails off as you go about the work of putting loose leaf tea in a tea bowl and warming it before pouring out the first wash of liquid.

“How… did you know I’d like this kind of tea?”

You grin, shrugging, “I just… had a feeling.”

“It’s her superpower,” Kotoha leans over with a sly smile, “she can usually guess a person’s favorite kind of food and drink within… about five minutes of getting to know them!”

“Oh stop it — it’s nothing like that! I just… had a hunch is all.” You glance up to catch Suo staring, his gaze so intense you almost fumble the teapot in your hands. It clinks against the empty cup, but before the cup has a chance to tumble off the table, Suo reaches out with a deft hand to catch it, placing it smoothly back onto the tea tray.

There’s a faint stutter in the fluidity of your movements as you blink at the cup now sitting innocently, perfectly centered, on the tray. And then you’re reaching out to fill the cup with a steaming, golden liquid, fragrant enough to fill half the room. Even Sakura leans over with a curious sniff.

“Whoa. Smells good,” he says, “smells like…”

Suo smiles, reaching down to trace a finger along the razor-thin rim of the tiny glass, “Smells like flowers.”

003.

You are young in all the ways that teenage girls can be young, and old in the all the ways that people have to be in Makochi. Your ribs hurt, your lip’s split, and there’s an ache settling over your right eye that tells you there’s probably an incredible bruise blooming into existence there.

“Ouch… damnit… I’ve really… done it this time…” you groan as you try to push yourself up off the dark alley wall. You wiggle each of your fingers in turn and say a silent prayer when you find that they all respond. Good, you think, so nothing’s broken. **

Not yet, at least.

Footsteps to your right. Light, but hurried. You squeeze your eyes shut and brace for the worst but instead — there’s only warmth, and a soft palm cupping the curve of your face.

“Hey… it’s okay — you’re alright.”

“S-Suo…kun?”

“That’s right — it’s me —” a soft, exasperated sigh, “we were looking for you afternoon —” arms wrapping around you, lifting you up. You hear the soft rustle of bags and groan as you try to reach out but a firm hand stops you.

“Don’t worry. I’ve got it.”

He doesn’t sound angry. If anything, he sounds just as measured as he usually is. But pressed up against his chest like this, you can feel the wild, racehorse hoofbeats of his heart, feel the shakiness in his every breath. His fingers are tight as he cradles you to him, carrying you from the alleyway.

“I wanted… yokan…” your voice is hoarse, and a bit ragged. Suo casts his eyes up toward the sunset sky and counts down from ten.

When he’s certain his voice won’t shake, he says —

“Eh? But the Minami tea store always sells really good yokan — why’d you… ah… you wanted to get the famous mizu yokan from across the tracks, didn’t you?” Suo sighs, gently adjusting his hold around your body, pressing you ever closer to his chest. Your breathing is shallow but even; like this, he can almost hear the faint fluttering of your heart deep inside your chest, see the soft quiver of your lashes as you shift in his arms.

“Silly girl,” he whispers, leaning down to press his lips into the seam of your hair, “next time, just tell me and I’ll go with you.”

He can sense your consciousness fading, and though the logical part of him knows that you’re in no immediate danger, he still hastens his steps, his stomach twisting inside him like a wrung-out towel, dry and aching.

“But…” he leans in; your voice is barely a whisper. He almost jumps as you reach up to trace a finger along his eyepatch, “Then it wouldn’t have been… a surprise.”

004.

“Happy Birthday!”

“Wow! Thank you!” Suo blinks for a second before his expression breaks into a bright smile. He’d had an inkling, after the “yokan-incident”, that this might’ve been the reason. But still, it twists something deep inside his gut to know that you’d gotten so hurt because of — well — something to do with him.

Even unsolicited. Even then. He detests the thought of it.

Nearly the entire first year class is there, and a good few students from the second and third years, crammed into Cafe Pothos. There’s a full traditional tea service set out on the tables, pieced together into the center of the room, and an array of tea snacks enough to make even the most ascetic eaters take pause.

“Suo-kun! C’mon, you shouldn’t keep everyone waiting, right?” Kotoha waves him towards the center table, where a multicolored display of mochis are placed in a barely legible “Happy Birthday”, each with a matching colored candle shoved into the middle.

“Sakura-kun did the mochis!” Nirei offers, pointing, seconds before Sakura smacks him upside the head.

“You don’t have’ta single it out!”

Suo takes his time, moving from person to person, chatting and laughing and thanking them in turn. There’s a softness pulsing inside him, something warm and growing, purring, curling up with a creamy, spine-deep contentment. Until he gets to you, busy wowing a group of first-year boys with your kung-fu tea skills, pouring the steaming water from higher and higher, never spilling a single drop.

“— the water can’t be too hot, or else the tea will get burnt — and that’s why sometimes —”

“Sometimes, when you make tea at home, it tastes awful and bitter, right?” Suo sits down, smiling even as he purposefully encroaches on the personal space of the freshman closest to you. To his credit, the freshman boy laughs, inching back as Suo props his chin on his palm and turns to look at them.

“A-ah… that’s really uh — cool! Wow — those shortcakes over there look really good — guys, let’s go grab some before they’re all gone!”

They scurry off, dipping their heads in your direction before ducking away.

“Mm… you’re lucky its your birthday,” you say, placing a warmed cup of tea in front of him, reaching over to slide over a glistening piece of mizu-yokan.

“Hm?” Suo takes a sip of the tea, savoring it’s depth of flavor, before taking a bite of the tea-snack.

“Otherwise, I wouldn’t be so nice to someone who’s driving off all my best customers,” you say, flashing him a knowing, indulgent smile. Suo doesn’t miss a beat.

“Your best customers?” he makes a show of pivoting towards where the clueless freshmen boys had run off to, now crowded around Sakura, laughing all too loudly, “if I didn’t know better… I’d say you need to raise your standards.”

You cock your head, hands pausing over a fresh pour of tea.

“But you do, don’t you?” you ask, resuming your movements. A second later, you place a fresh cup of tea in front of him.

“Don’t I… what?” he asks, playing at innocence.

“You should,” you parry, propping open the lid of the tiny teapot with two fingers, bending down to take a deep breath of the fragrant leaves.

The lid snaps back onto the pot with a solid click.

Suo blows at the surface of his teacup, pausing at the sound. He looks up to meet your knife-sharp gaze.

“Know — better.”

A shiver kisses up the length of his spine, and he nearly drops the fresh cup of tea. He clears his throat and takes a long sip. The heat drips down his throat, unfurling in his stomach, setting his whole body ablaze with the kind of fire that refuses to go out.

“Mm… this tea is delicious! Where’s it from?”

You shake your head, the motion just on the other side of innocent. But as you said — he knows better now.

“Somewhere… over the rainbow, I suppose.”

In a flicker, faster than a flash, he reaches out, fingers skimming along a thin line marring the perfect skin of your left cheek.

“This wasn’t there two days ago,” he says, almost casually, before his voice drops in register and his eyes go dark beneath his curtain of too-long lashes, “where’s it from?”

You make you shake off his hand but he’s too quick, catching your chin between two fingers.

“Don’t know. Must’ve been an accident.”

Suo tugs you towards him, his grip now bordering on too tight, “Ah… pretty girls like you shouldn’t make a habit of lying so much.”

You lick your lips, breath caught in your chest as you tug your face from his grasp, flicking a strand of hair over your shoulder.

“And pretty boys like you should really know better than to ask questions they don’t want to know the answers to.”

“And if I don’t?” Suo’s voice is sweet and soft and low. He sets down his empty teacup; you reach out to refill it.

“Don’t what?” you ask, feigning ignorance.

He catches your wrist, pulling up your sleeve before you can protest to reveal a series of dark bruises scattered up the length of your arm. The air around him seems to condense and cool as he stares for a second before his expression fixes itself back into one of detached sweetness.

“Know — better,” he answers, simply, letting his hand fall as you snatch your arm back, massaging the place where his fingers had been.

You narrow your eyes, but before you can say anything else, a group of boys all stumble over, singing loudly as they pull Suo back towards the center of the room, where yet another cake has materialized out of god knows where. He laughs, clapping along, blowing out the candles on instruction.

But for the rest of the night, you can’t help feeling the weight of his eyes on you, though you never again catch him staring.

005.

“They’re doing well, aren’t they?”

You jump, jerking upright even as Suo approaches you on the rooftop garden, hands laced behind his back, his earrings fluttering in the light breeze.

“Y-yeah. They really are.” You turn back to your cherry tomato plants, a few of them ripe to bursting. You reach out to pluck one off a vine, turning to offer it to the boy crouching down next to you.

He takes it from you, examining it for a second before popping into his mouth.

“Mm… sweet!”

You laugh, reaching out to tug another one off the vine. You bite into the soft flesh, feeling the explosion of flavor on your tongue.

“So much better than the ones from the supermarket, right?”

Suo sighs, nodding, but his expression sobers a second later.

“You shouldn’t have done that — just for my birthday.”

You pause, hands halfway towards another tomato. Suo reaches out to pluck it for you. As he presses it into your hand, you sigh, shaking your head.

“I didn’t do it just for you.”

“Oh?”

You roll the bright red fruit between your thumb and forefingers, holding it up to the light.

“Do you know what the difference is between a garden and a graveyard?” you ask, dropping your hand back down, your eyes trained on the plump little tomato now sitting in the palm of your hand.

“Tell me,” Suo says, watching you intently.

You turn to glance at him, a sad little smile on your lips.

“What you choose to put in the ground,” you say, before reaching out to press the cherry tomato to his lips. Suo blinks at you for a second before slowly opening his mouth to let the tomato slip through. He bites down, doesn’t reach up to wipe at the thin streak of juice slicking down his chin. He watches as your eyes flicker down, feels the pad of your thumb swipe across his skin.

He’s tugging you forward before he can stop himself; you taste the bright burst of sweet and sour on your tongue seconds before he pulls back, eyes wide. You lick your lips, expression half-shocked, half-satisfied. He opens his mouth to apologize —

“S-sorry, I should’ve asked — mmphf!”

You reach up and pull him towards you by the collar of his school uniform. It’s all he can do to catch himself against the rough ground of the rooftop garden, bits of gravel biting into his palm.

The kiss is sweet, is savory, is tentative — and then, suddenly, it bursts into something more — like a bite of over-ripe fruit, with juice sluicing down it’s seams — he surges forward, catching you around the waist. He savors in the friction of your lips against his, the teeth-aching sweetness of your warm breath as you gasp open for him, and only him. And by the gods, he tries to be a good man — a respectful man, but the tiny noise you make as he curls his fingers into the bend of your waist threatens to render all his flighty codes and morals to ash.

It is a noble pursuit, he decides later on, this of all things — to kiss you until there is no other way for you to be kissed. To kiss you just like this, until your mouth is ruined for all other tastes but the one of his tongue. He’s never thought himself a greedy man, but like this — with your body pressed to his on this rooftop garden, he thinks he might’ve learned a few more things about the depths and widths of why greed is considered such a cardinal sin.

When he finally lets you go, he’s satisfied to see there’s a dazed, unfocused haze to your eyes as you blink up at him, fingers fisted into the front of his school uniform.

“You still haven’t told me —” he leans down to press his forehead to yours, reveling in the way you gasp, the hitch in your voice as you lick your lips and he fights back a thick groan.

“Told you what?”

“Why you’d go out of the city bounds to get all those things for my birthday.”

You sigh, pursing your kiss-swollen lips.

“Because… those stores, like the earth, they… they might just need one good seed — one nice interaction —” your lashes flutter and Suo has to physically bat down the urge to lean down and kiss you again. Perhaps, he thinks, this is how dragons are made of fairy tale princes — perhaps, all the dragons ever needed was just one more kiss from their fairy tale princess.

“So… you thought to take it upon yourself to be that one nice interaction? To turn all those graveyards… into gardens?”

You crinkle your nose, glancing up at him from beneath your lashes as he pulls back to stare down at you.

“It’s a stupid thing to do, I know.”

Suo nods, “It is. But… only because you thought you could do it by yourself.”

He shifts, tugging you up into his lap as he readjusts himself to lean back against one of the taller planter boxes, his arms now comfortably looped around your middle.

“Well, if I’d told anyone… they would’ve tried to stop me.”

Suo tuts, reaching up to flick your nose with a gentle finger, “Oh ye of little faith,” he admonishes, grinning as you swat at his hand. He catches you by the wrist, pulling it in to press his lips to your palm, sighing as he nuzzles into your warmth.

“Do you really think we would’ve written off your feelings that easily? That I wouldn’t have at least tried to listen?”

You make to look away, embarrassed at your own oversight, but he tugs your chin back, forcing you to face him properly again.

“C’mon now… smart girl like you… should know better than that, shouldn’t you?”

You narrow your eyes, a feline glint alighting behind your eyes as you reach up to lace your fingers through his, leaning in with a challenge clear in your voice.

“And… if I don’t?”

Suo meets your gaze, a wide smile splitting his face as he tugs you closer, shifting your legs to settle on either side of his hips, his fingers now digging into the plush of your thighs, inching up to tease at the hemline of your skirt.

“Then I suppose… someone’ll just have to teach you better, won’t they?”

[kt-creates]

My second Homestead Star quilt. This was created for a lovely lady I know who suffered a house fire just before Thanksgiving. She adores dragonflies so I chose the Dragonfly Illusions fabric line and a black background. I love how the colors popped. I tried to use the quilting to extend the star into all that empty space. It was my second time using a quilting ruler and I must say, it’s harder than you think! I actually enjoyed the pebbling the most. The backing was donated by Stitch! Quilt shop in Reardan WA and the batting is 6mm bamboo.

[mmogurl]

Last to Fall Chapter 1 - My Demons

18+ | 10k | Aegon II Targaryen X Female Maid / Dragonseed Reader | miserable, alcoholic, often dissociative, needs comfort Aegon | virgin reader, maiden, emotional abuse, first time sex, P in V, smut, wholesome, fluff, this whole thing is actually kind of sweet compared to what I usually write.

This fic is heavily inspired by the infamous 'Nothing' scene with Aegon and Alicent. Her cold words and the way she lashes out really bothered me and I felt a strong need to stand up for him, protect, and console him. So that's really what this whole fic is about. Enjoy! Also went with a lot of musical vibing for this story. I started off listening to Collective Soul's Heavy, because I imagine it as Aegon's state of mind in the opening scene towards everyone and everything happening. And by the end we transition into Starset's Last to Fall - and the title of the fic. I know, I'm a sappy mf.

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 On AO3

Retroactive update 10/29/24: I've also decided that I'm going to try my best to fit every chapter to a Starset song because the whole Series is based off the title of one (Last to Fall) which was originally going to be a oneshot and got extended. I'm enjoying the challenge of finding one that suits each theme/ story! They're not all going to be perfectly aligned, but I'll try my best. This one is Starset - My Demons adding onto the two songs I already referenced here - but this one just felt so perfect!

Complicate this world you wrapped for me I'm acquainted with your suffering

All your weight it falls on me It brings me down All your weight it falls on me It falls on me

~Collective Soul - Heavy

—You

You have worked in the castle for as long as you can remember, always hearing the whisperings of the chamberlain, the laundress, and any other keep staff prone to gossip, that you were the late king’s bastard. There were always underhanded comments of jealousy uttered in your direction, like ‘It must be nice to have a king’s blood runnin’ through yer veins... To have yer needs met for life.’ In truth, you were worried that the Queen Dowager might see fit to dispose of you now that her husband had passed.

So far, it seems your fair looks, expertise, and agreeable demeanor has secured your position, at least for the time being, but you are not so naive as to think that will last forever.

You tended to King Viserys for six summers, and with his death you’ve been reassigned to serve the new Protector of the Realm, Aegon II Targaryen. You are mildly concerned about this development considering the rumors you’ve heard about the young prince over the years. Drinking and philandering to excess, he was rumored to be a true hedonist, only taking satisfaction when drowning himself in pleasure. It is for this very reason, that you’re surprised by your observations of your new lord within the first weeks of your employ as his chambermaid and general attendant.

You find he spends a lot of time sitting in near darkness with barely a couple candles lit in his room at night, kept company only by a carafe of wine and wearing a disassociated look on his face that could be taken for misery if it didn’t appear so apathetic in nature. It was as though he were actively trying to force himself into a mold that he would never fit into. This became even more apparent as you witnessed more of his interactions with his family, especially his mother and grand-sire. It seemed they were constantly trying to orchestrate the ruling of the Seven Kingdoms, nitpicking at every little decision Aegon made, pulling his strings just like a puppet.

You had listened from the sidelines of the Great Hall as the Hand second-guessed the king’s rulings. Even when the Aegon tried to embrace his seat upon the Iron Throne, he was made impotent by those not fit to govern. You could do nothing but stand by helplessly in saddened silence when he suffered the loss of his eldest son to assassins, while Otto Hightower forced him to parade young Jaehaerys’ corpse to the public along with his grief-stricken sister-wife, Helaena.

Day by day, your heart was beginning to ache for the emptiness you saw growing behind his amethyst eyes. And yet still he tried on most days to put a positive foot forward, even if by nightfall he usually turned back to engulfing his sorrows in drink. You couldn’t even blame him really given the complete lack of moral and emotional support the king had to endure.

This feeling of compassion built within you, until one day it peaked to a head as you made your way to Aegon’s chambers with fresh linens in hand, ready to fulfill your afternoon chores. You passed several Kingsguard as you made your way down the hall and paused outside the king’s rooms as you heard voices coming from within. The two white cloaks standing watch at the open threshold glanced at you in warning, so you simply waited with folded bedsheets in hand for the opportunity to complete your duties.

You knew you should not listen, but it was hard to ignore the distressed voice of the king from within, met by the indifferent attitude of the Queen Dowager. Oh no, you think to yourself sympathetically, she is at it again. It really did seem that tearing Aegon down piece by piece was not only a habit for his mother, but something she relished in.

“Do you think simply wearing the crown imbues you with wisdom,” Alicent’s voice echoed out against the vaulted ceiling of the room, her voice patronizing and condescending. “Those men at your council table earned their seats. It was my hope that once enthroned you would honor the burden of your new duties, be silent, and strive to learn from the more studied minds around you. In the hope that you might be half the king your father was…”

You tried to swallow the lump forming in your throat at hearing such baleful words. The king was not responding, and you could just imagine the pained look of agony that Aegon was sure to be wearing under the constant criticisms he faced as of late.

“Tread carefully,” you heard him say, barely carrying enough volume to hear from where you stood. You found yourself holding back a smile at that, happy that he was standing up to her for once. But, that only incensed the Queen Dowager more, her thirst to harm not yet quenched.

“Or what?” she says with venom coating her tongue. “You’ll hang me, as you did your rat catchers? Or have me banished as you did your Hand? I ruled in your father’s absence throughout his long illness, and Otto Hightower was as cunning a statesman as ever lived. You should humbly be seeking our opinions and counsel. You have no idea the sacrifices that were made to put you on that throne.”

You shook your head, unsure how any mother could ever speak to her child in such a manner, let alone to the Lord of the Seven Kingdoms. Perhaps it bothered you so because you had never known the tenderness of a mother’s love, but had spent many a daydream imagining what it might be like. With your idealistic and sometimes naive mind, you wanted to think that there was more love out there in the world than this, especially within the royal family. You wanted better for the young king you had grown to feel so protective of in such a short amount of time.

Aegon’s next words break your train of thought, “Wha-“ he started with an exasperated tone, “What would you have me do, Mother?”

“Do simply what is needed of you,” she replied and the frosty chill of her cold voice was evident even from the corridor. “Nothing.”

You feel tears well up in the corners of your eyes and try your best to ignore them. It was important as part of the castle staff to never appear to be listening, to always remain professional, but it wasn’t always possible when one was witness to such cruelty.

Quickly, you wipe the errant tears away as the Queen Dowager exits her son’s apartment, walking swiftly with a scowl on her face. With the king now alone in his chambers, you nod to the guards and head inside, pausing to close the doors behind you lest Aegon had wont of some privacy.

As you turned to face the room, the king sat off to the side of his table, leaning against the back of a chair, his head resting upon his hands in defeat. He did not stir as you entered and so you cleared your throat to let yourself be known. Aegon still made no move and so this time you spoke up.

“Your Grace, might I change the linens? Or should I come back later?” you ask, your voice hesitant, but filled with understanding.

He finally lifts his head, glancing at you for a moment before returning his attention to the nearly empty decanter of wine on the table.

“Fetch me some more wine instead,” he demands sullenly, and to this you nod and hurry off to fulfill his request. After what you’d heard him endure, you’d do just about anything to cheer him up now.

With a speed you did not think yourself capable, you retrieved, not just one, but two pitchers of strongwine for the king and prepared a small platter of snacks for him as well, consisting of cheese, crackers, figs, and grapes. You hoped he’d be pleased with your thoughtfulness, and sure enough, he did perk up a little at the sight of the tray you presented on the table before him.

Aegon got to his feet, walking around the chair he’d been leaning against and sitting in it instead. You filled his chalice and placed it before him, wearing an exaggerated smile upon your face, anything to lighten the onerous mood. The king surprises you when he actually notices, his composure faltering as he looks upon your benevolent countenance.

“Did you hear all of that then?” he asks, his jaw clenching slightly as he peers down at the crimson fluid within the cup before him.

“It is not my business, Your Grace,” you answer softly, not wanting to sound cold, but knowing it is not your place to comment on such things. “But, if I can do anything, or get anything more for you. Please just ask.”

“I never wanted to be be king, you know,” Aegon says abruptly, picking up the chalice and swirling the wine around inside it. “They hunted me down, forced me to be crowned… And yet, Mother tells me I do not deserve it, even though she has placed me upon the throne herself.”

You flounder with your words, uncertain of how to reply. Should you even say anything at all? Perhaps he just wants someone to listen who won’t respond with a scathing rebuke.

“She spoke of the rat catchers, bringing up the death of my eldest son as though it were nothing to me,” he continues without your input, staring into the contents of his chalice as though it might hold some insight. “She treats me as though I am nothing.”

He finally takes a long swig of the cup, emptying most of it in one gulp. Aegon sets it down on the table with a clatter of metal and wood, an almost despondent look on his face as he adds, “Perhaps I am nothing.”

“Your Grace, no! That is not true!” the words slip out, unable to hold back your feelings at his self-denigration. You immediately cover your mouth with startled surprise, knowing that you’ve overstepped.

Aegon halts, his shoulders tensing as his eyes drift up to you and his brow furls downwards in confusion. He regards you in earnest for what feels like the first time ever, his discerning gaze sweeping from your face, down to your skirts and back up again, sizing you up. “What would you know of it?”

You bite your lip anxiously, unsure of how to proceed, even though it seems by now that you’ve already gone past the point of returning to obscurity. Ultimately, you decide that if you’re going to lose your position within the Red Keep, that you’d prefer to let the king know how you feel first.

“I have seen how determined you are,” you say quietly, a lack of confidence in your voice as you address the king. “Even though it is obvious how much hardship you must abide.”

“I am the king. I do not abide anything,” he replies gruffly, but there’s no tooth in the words.

“Of course, Your Grace,” you reply as you cast your eyes downward, your posture stiffening as you stand more upright, waiting for the hammer of discipline to fall.

There is a pervasive silence that hangs heavy in the expansive chamber as you wait for the king to cast his verdict. Does he intend to overlook your impertinence or will he punish you severely?

You hear the trickle of liquid pouring and then the glass carafe clattering against the wood of the table. The sound of swallowing is audible, followed by Aegon’s lips smacking softly as he puts the chalice back down.

“Come here, girl,” he says suddenly in a low monotone.

You look up once more, hesitating; your eyes questioning as you try to understand his intentions, his expression inscrutable.

“Do I have to repeat myself?” he reiterates, his tone a little more firm, yet without the sound of malicious intent. “Come here.”

You gulp and step gingerly towards Aegon, standing before him as he sits in the high-back chair. “Yes, Your Grace?” you ask with an uncertain look on your face.

The king startles you when he turns his chair to face you, his hands wrapping around your waist as he pulls you towards him in one fluid motion. Before you even realize what is happening, Aegon has his face buried against your stomach while his fingers dig into the fabric of your dress at the small of your back.

For a moment you stand there frozen in shock, your arms out as if in surrender, unsure of how to respond or interpret this intimate gesture. But then, you feel his shoulders shake quietly, and it's that movement that clues you in to the nature of the king's actions. He is crying, albeit in his own restrained way.

Slowly, you lower your hands down, one resting on his back as the other smooths his white locks back against his scalp. You can feel him melt into your affectionate touch, his entire body slumping forward even as he continues to whimper quietly into your apron.

“Shh,” you say softly, trying to comfort him in a way that feels somehow natural to you despite the gap in caste. “It will be alright.” You are not fully convinced that it will be, but the young king needs some reassurance and you know you are the only one likely to give it to him.

You have secretly longed for a moment such as this to occur for awhile now, wishing you had the opportunity to provide the king with some semblance of reprieve. When you served Viserys, he never seemed very troubled, and was almost willfully ignorant to the problems that plagued his family. Aegon on the other hand, was tormented not only by his mother, but by the pressure he put on himself to please everyone, which was an impossible feat.

To soothe Aegon now and hold him in your arms, felt like putting one of the many wrongs he’d endured right, even if it was only a small fraction of what the man was owed.

Your fingers rake through his wavy tresses and you feel a surge of raw emotion as you tend to the king’s needs in a way you never imagined you would. Soon, his shaky breaths and silent tears begin to cease, replaced by sniffles as you continue to soothe him in the way his mother should have been for all of these years. You can sense his reluctance to leave your embrace, but there’s also a shame weighing heavy in the air for confiding such weakness in a simple chambermaid.

He nuzzles his eyes against the fabric of your dress, wiping his tears on the brown cloth before he abruptly pulls away and clears his throat. Aegon avoids looking directly at you, embarrassment evident in his now red and puffy eyes. He lets out a heavy sigh and you’re left feeling quite dumbfounded as he turns back to his wine.

For a long moment there is a tense and overwhelming silence, the only sounds present in the room are the soft pouring of wine into Aegon’s chalice and the glass clinking as he sets the carafe down.

You stare at the side of his face, feeling a knot form in your stomach at the growing distance. It’s as if he’s punishing you for witnessing his vulnerability, desperate to maintain the barrier between king and servant. Despite his aversion, you can’t help but feel the significance of what you shared, the way he pulled you in and how good it felt to hold him close.

The quiet stretches on, Aegon now occupied with emptying his cup as if trying to fill the void with drink. He speaks up once more, his tone now devoid of any traces of the exposed emotion you just viewed.

"That will be all," his words are devoid of any warmth or familiarity. "I don't need anything more from you tonight." Aegon’s fingers tremble subtly as he brings his glass to his lips, betraying his cold facade.

“Your Grace,” you say in acceptance of his decision, bowing your head to show deference. You turn and glance at the linens still stacked on top of the king’s bed and fret for a moment that you will get in trouble for not fulfilling your duties and changing the sheets. “Should I change the bedsheets before I leave?”

Aegon doesn’t even turn to face you, his eyes fixed on his chalice. His expression is closed off, distant, as he responds with a simple grunt of confirmation.

“Yes, yes. Do whatever it is you usually do,” he mutters dismissively, his voice lacking any real feeling. He lifts his cup to his mouth once more, drowning himself in the bitter taste of the wine.

You nod with the typical words of respectful assent and begin making the bed as you always do, except this time it feels different. Today you flew so very close to the sun and felt your skin bask in its heat. The absence of that warmth now leaves you feeling chilly, an overwhelming nothing replacing the typical humdrum of your chores. You can feel his presence in the room like a beacon calling you to shore, but you dare not approach him again.

When you finish your task, you leave the king’s chambers without saying a word, closing the door behind you as silently as you can.

For the next few days, the typical royal indifference that Aegon shows you is substituted for complete and utter disregard. He at least showed you a degree of quiet appreciation before, but now it seems he’s going out of his way to make it known that you do not exist to him. Aegon always keeps his eyes turned from you and makes no acknowledgment of your proximity, giving the impression that you are little more than a ghost.

Gone is the care-free spirit that the king usually possesses, always trying to pretend that he is happier than he actually is, at least when you are around him. It seems that Aegon erects a wall of guarded apathy the moment he becomes aware of you, sometimes so severe that you can actually see him transition into a frown at your approach.

You find yourself slinking around quietly whenever you must occupy his room at the same time that he is present. The mornings are especially tense, when you must bring breakfast and fresh wash water for his basin. Sometimes, you feel his eyes on you when you’re preoccupied with adding wood to and stoking the fire, but you try your best to ignore it since you can’t make heads or tails of his behavior.

For the most part, you attempt to finish the majority of your duties once the king has left for the day and not before that point. You hope that in time, the king will forget about what transpired between the two of you, and that everything will revert back to how it was.

—Aegon

Aegon has made a concerted effort to maintain his frosty disposition towards you. It’s a constant battle between his heart, which secretly admires and yearns for you, and his head, which refuses to acknowledge the vulnerability he allowed you to witness. Even still, he can’t help but feel a slight pang of sadness whenever you try to slip in and out of his chambers undetected, nor can he control the surge of resentment when he feels that he might need you in any way.

The king simply doesn’t know what to make of the tangle of emotions that twist inside of him whenever he sees your face. It’s as if the memory of his shortcomings and your comforting embrace is a fresh wound that refuses to heal. He wants to shove you from his mind, but your image is permanently branded on the backs of his eyelids.

Even his nights have become restless, with no amount of drink or pleasure helping to ease his troubled heart. In fact, he’d already tried visiting one of his favorite brothels, dragging along his drunken friends for the chance to brag at how loud he could make the women scream. He was so distracted by thoughts of you that he couldn’t even stay hard and had to call it a night without release, defeated even by the the carefree abandon of a whore’s cunt.

The only thing that helps him drift off to sleep lately is recalling the moment he shared with you, and imagining how it might have gone differently if he had not pulled away from you. His hand enveloping his rigid cock, stroking it eagerly as he envisions what it would be like to reach under your skirts and feel the heat at the apex of your thighs. The resulting climax is strong, but it always leaves him feeling ashamed and guilty afterwards, as though he’s given into an urge worse than the crudest of debaucheries.

It’s becoming more and more obvious, that no matter how much he denies himself, he wants you in an unbearable way. He wants to reach out to you, wants to apologize and thank you for your soothing care. He wants those arms wrapped around him once again, that gentle hand running through his hair. He wants to confess all of his troubles to you. How he is tired of being treated like a child, of being scolded and slapped around by his mother, and never being taken seriously by his own small council. Aegon wants to hear the solutions you might propose to his growing list of problems, instead of relying on the wine that he drinks to excess more often as the days pass, an answer that he knows is mere avoidance.

And so, the king finds himself at a crossroad, facing a decision that can’t simply remain unsettled. He can either choose to embrace his feelings for you and allow himself the chance of experiencing the compassion he so badly craves, or he can continue to repress those feelings and bury them under the weight of his own self loathing and fear.

At the end of another long and monotonous day, he finds himself sitting at the end of his table in the very same chair where he had shared a moment of weakness with you. He sighs as he pours himself another cup of wine, the burgundy liquid not doing much to take the edge off tonight.

He shivers slightly as gooseflesh erupts over his pale skin. Glancing out the window, he can see that the skies are grayer than usual and that autumn is settling in over King’s Landing. Aegon begins to worry as he considers the already dwindling food supply and the civil war that is ravaging what little they have left. His grand-sire and mother both seem to be ignoring the constant plight of the commonfolk, but he’s spent enough time amongst them to know that revolt might loom on the horizon.

The large wooden doors to his chamber suddenly open and his attention is drawn from the window, snapped to the form now entering the room. It is you, his chambermaid, carrying a bundle of blankets. You stop dead in your tracks as you notice him sitting in the dwindling light of the gloaming hour.

“Sorry to disturb, Your Grace,” you offer sheepishly. “I didn’t know you had already retired for the day.”

Aegon turns his chair outwards, sitting sideways as he leans an elbow against the table and lifts his cup to his lips, taking a sip of his favorite sweet Arbor red. He doesn’t acknowledge your apology, and instead regards you with a steadfast gaze as he tries to hide his conflicting feelings.

“What is it?” he asks, his tone tinged with disinterest.

“It’s supposed to be chilly tonight,” you answer with a soft voice. “I wanted to bring you some extra blankets and build the fire up so that you are comfortable.”

“Hm,” he grunts, taking another swig of his wine. He doesn’t respond more than that and simply watches as you begin to lay two massive quilts upon his bed, then approach the fireplace to add more wood and stoke the flames. Even now you were doing your best to take good care of him, doting on him as though he were your very own husband.

He can’t help but discreetly study the shape of your body as you kneel before the mantle, appreciating the way the firelight projects shadows over your kneeling figure. The flickering orange light bounces off your face and he can’t help but notice the softness of your features, the curve of your cheek and lips. As you rise back to your feet and turn to face him, he’s finally made his decision.

Perhaps it is time to lay these fears to rest.

He sighs softly, his shoulders slumping somewhat with the release of breath, as he gestures to the chair across from him.

“Sit,” his word is quiet, almost a whisper.

You look at him perplexed as though you did not hear him properly, an apprehension soon settling in as you hesitate to respond.

There is an air of determination in his eyes as he nods once more, encouraging you to sit. His voice now holds a trace of insistence as he shifts in his seat, sitting upright as he repeats himself. “I said sit.” Aegon points at the empty chair once more, his gesture sharper this time.

You oblige him swiftly at that, taking a seat in the ornately carved high-back chair, your legs are pressed together and your hands fidget awkwardly on your lap. Aegon reaches forward and grabs an empty chalice from the silver tray before him, pouring you a glass of wine.

“Here,” he says, his voice strangely calm in your presence now that he has finally given in to his wishes. He hands you the cup across the table, his fingers brushing against yours for just the briefest of moments. He relishes in the heat of your touch, no matter how fleeting, and offers a clumsy smile. “Have a drink with me.”

You take the chalice reluctantly, the anxiety of such taboo evident in your expression. Aegon knew it was unheard of for the staff to share a drink with members of the royal family, but it was also not typical for the king to be denied anything he desired either.

“T-thank you, Your Grace,” you offer appreciatively.

Aegon settles back into his chair, his posture becoming more relaxed as he spreads his legs. He takes comfort in the fact that no matter how much he has tried to avoid you, that you still humbly show him gratitude. That small act of polite civility has him convinced that what he is attempting will not end in rejection.

He raises his cup and toasts to you, a courtesy which seems so simple and yet holds so much significance when coming from a king. “To your service.” His eyes gleam in the fading light of day, bright with unspoken promise.

“I don’t even know what to say, Your Grace,” you squeak out in embarrassment, your face impossibly red as you direct your gaze away from him.

He can feel his confidence returning as he sees the flush of color bloom on your cheeks. It’s a sign that his attention is not entirely unwelcome, and that thought alone is enough to make his heart beat steadily in his chest.

Aegon leans forward, trying to capture your attention once more, his eyes pleading for you to look at him again. After so much time evading this very situation, he now feels hungry for it.

“You don’t have to say anything at all,” he reassures you, his tone softened but with a hint of authority as he motions for you to drink your wine.

Without wavering, you grasp the heavy brass chalice in your hands and with courage etched in your features, take a long draught of the Arbor red.

As you drink, Aegon raises an eyebrow in mild surprse, watching as you take a rather ambitious swig of strongwine. He finds he’s actually impressed with your ability, and his expression soon transforms into a smirk of amusement.

He takes a sip from his own chalice before setting it back down on the table. “You drink deeper than many of my knights, I can tell you that,” he jests with a good-humored ease, testing the boundaries of this fledgling dynamic.

Your cheeks blush once more although this time it is likely due to the wine as well as your timidity. “This is much better than the swill the staff typically has access to,” you offer almost apologetically, as though it were not proper for you to imbibe in your spare time.

The admission has the corners of his mouth curling into a grin once more, and a breathy laugh escapes his lips. It’s clear now that the two of you are finally making progress, the barrier of propriety quickly falling away as it typically did with drink.

“So you mean to say you enjoy good wine, yes?” he teases lightly, tapping his fingertips against the edge of his cup, his gaze focused on you, eager to see your reaction.

“I am enjoying it, yes,” you say with bright eyes, your guilt beginning to fade away with each sip of sweet wine you take.

Aegon can sense the increased ease in your demeanor, and is delighted by the sight of it. He knows that the alcohol has broken through the tension that’s been building between the two of you for days now and he plans to take full advantage of it, feeling even bolder in his pursuit of you.

“Good,” he replies gladly, feeling content with the newfound freedom he’s allowed himself. “Then have some more,” Aegon adds, his tone light and playful as he pushes the decanter of wine closer to you, encouraging you to fill your own cup. He can feel a pleasant buzzing in his head from the strongwine, and can tell that you aren’t far behind him.

“Is Your Grace trying to get me drunk?” you ask, a surprising riposte that he didn’t expect from you.

The question has Aegon laughing aloud, the sound hearty and full of mirth. He leans closer, sliding his elbow further along the table as he offers you a grin. That little spark of humor you show only heightens his own sense of urgency to be in your arms once more.

The king rests his chin on his fist, and raises a brow at you with a mischievous grin. “And what if I was?” he replies playfully.

“Then I’d have to ask to what aim?” you say holding onto your cup, your finger tracing the circular rim of it.

Aegon’s gaze is drawn to your fingers, following the movement as his pulse quickens. He can hear your question, but it fails to register fully as he’s momentarily lost in a daydream of those same fingers running across his skin. His mouth goes dry and his skin feels hot. He finds he must take another large draught of wine to calm the sudden surge of longing that courses through him.

“Well,” he says, his tone feigning seriousness. “Perhaps I intend to get you drunk so I might take advantage of you.”

Aegon is surprised when you chuckle in response to his daring assertion, having expected more of a demure reaction instead. “You would not have to ply me with wine for that,” you admit, lowering your head slightly as though realizing how direct your words had been a little too late.

His eyes go temporarily wide as he registers your brazen honesty, wondering if he’d even heard you correctly. “Do you jest with your king, girl?” he asks incredulously.

“No,” she offers adamantly, with all the defiance of a loyal hound. “I’m afraid I’d be quite willing.”

“Is that so?” Aegon says more for his own confirmation than to communicate it, his eyebrow raising with dubious intent.

His stiffening cock was becoming uncomfortable in his taut breeches and he couldn’t help but consider the irony that such an innocent encounter had taken on an incredibly sexual nature. The comfort you had offered him becoming like an intoxicating fuel to his loins, making you far more attractive than any other woman could ever possibly be in his eyes.

“And what would you be willing to do in order to satisfy your king?” he prods further, feeling confident that he has the upper hand now. His desire to claim everything you have to offer now undeniable.

“I-I,” you begin to stutter nervously, clearly not expecting such a blunt response from him. “What is it you wish of me?”

Aegon let’s out a sharp huff of delight at the question you pose. To his great joy it seems you truly don’t realize the effect you have over him right now. He stands from his chair, sending it backwards with the backs of his thighs. His legs then carry him around the corner of the table until he’s towering above you, looking down upon your trembling form with a burning hunger.

“The real question is.. What don’t I desire of you?” he poses the question with a lurid tone as he thumbs the neckline of your bodice. “I believe you’ll find me quite insatiable in my needs.”

You’re frozen in his sights, appraising him with frightened doe-eyes, but there is no mistaking the undercurrent of lust also hidden right below the surface. Likely, the only true trepidation you have is the thought of performing such acts out of wedlock, but it seems obvious to Aegon at least, that you should have no concerns when offering your virtue up to a king. And given the poorly state of mind he’s been in as of late and desperate weakness he has for you, it’s possible you might even be assisting in the betterment of the realms.

“You’re speechless,” he hums softly, running the back of his knuckles over your bare collarbone. “Don’t worry, I will do the talking,” he says with a smirk, delighted to hear that he sounds every bit the authoritative ruler he should. “Take my hands,” he commands softly, reaching down as he grasps you and encourages you to rise from your chair.

When you obligingly follow his orders and rise before him, Aegon then guides you, leading you towards the bed. He stops once the backs of your knees hit the wooden frame, which is now padded by many layers of newly laid quilts, and turns you away from him. His hands carefully unfasten your apron, tossing it over the footboard before he starts to work at untying the laces of your dress. He loosens them swiftly until your bodice hangs slack.

He’s very well practiced in the art of removing a woman’s clothing, whether they be a whore, a noblewoman, or even a servant as is your case. Still, he holds a certain fondness for you, a consideration that he does not offer readily to most of his conquests. You have given him something so valuable, a treasure that no other has even thought to bestow upon him, and he means to reward you well for it.

Aegon finally removes your dress, pulling it over your head and placing it on top of the apron. All that remains now is a long sleeved undershirt, a slightly more drab version of the sort all women wore under their dresses. He’d like to rip it from your body, but you’ve stirred up such tenderness within his empty heart that he is loathe to treat you in such a way.

Instead, he turns you to face him once more and takes a step back to regard you. “You truly are beautiful,” he states with a sort of quiet awe. He had never really noticed you before and he most definitely should have. What with your cornsilk blond hair and bright blue eyes. Was he really so oblivious to the people and the world around him that he couldn’t even notice such a stunning, caring maiden working directly under his nose? Had he always been avoiding any state of mental clarity and missed so much in the process of hiding from himself?

You look at him nervously, your body antsy as you shift uneasily, precariously balanced on the edge of the mattress.

“Sit,” he tells you in a hushed tone, not quite wanting to sound as bossy as he does, but trying to relieve you of your discomfort. He takes another step back once you have complied, his gaze now roaming your body, taking in the sight of you, or at least what he can see in that loose potato sack of a frock you’re wearing. Aegon can definitely make out some of your feminine curves though, the slope of your shoulder incredibly pleasing as is the way your breasts protrude noticeably through the fabric, and so too do your wide hips.

He smiles warmly at you, his eyes taking their time to appreciate the woman before him. He can’t help but ponder in this moment, how he’s never felt this way before, a lust that isn’t just physical in nature, but somehow more genuine. Aegon is no stranger to carnal pleasures and strongly desires to claim you in every way possible. But there is something more present in his heart as well, the wish to hold you close and protect you from the entire world, and to in turn be sheltered by you from the chaos of the Iron Throne.

Aegon decides then that he wants your first time together to be gentle, just as it was when you first came together. He closes the distance between the two of you and reaches out with both hands, grabbing softly on either side of your shoulders. Your soft, supple flesh gives pleasingly beneath his fingers as he guides you to lay down on top of the blankets. As you scoot backwards across the width of the bed, he can’t help but feel a sense of satisfaction that you were finally in his bed and no longer a fantasy inside his mind.

Once you’ve nestled into the plushness beneath you, he steps back again, his fingers making quick work of removing his woolen doublet. A flush of excitement blooms across his alabaster skin as he makes a show of the action, enjoying the way you watch him with such focused anticipation. He casts the garment to the floor, now removing his boots as swiftly as he can.

With his breeches already half undone and his chest exposed beneath a simple linen shirt, he is gifted with the sight of you lying in his bed in wait. The image is far more pleasant, far more intimate, than any other woman he has ever taken to bed. Your warmth radiates outward like a blazing fire and by now he is desperate to feel your heat directly. He practically rips his undershirt off, flinging it sideways across the covers.

Aegon makes his way back to you, lifting one knee up onto the mattress and crawling over the entire length of your body until he is face to face with you. His hand cradles your jaw tenderly, caressing up and down until his fingers slip up into your long, flowing tresses.

His intense, violet eyes fix upon yours, looking for any hesitation, but he sees none. It was as though you had been given to him as a gift from the gods, you who always gave and never took from him. There is a vulnerability in his expression that is rarely visible, replacing his usual display of smugness.

He maneuvers his breeches down without much effort, kicking them off once they’re low enough. Now fully settled into the valley of your spread legs, Aegon then grips the hem of your shift, lifting it up your thighs until he feels your body tense. He glances up at you and sees a pang of worry present that is perfectly normal, especially for a maiden.

The king asks the question he’s sure he already knows the answer to. “Have you done this before?”

You shake your head no as a blush of pink covers your cheeks and you bite your lip with pent up longing. Even with your inexperience and worry, he can tell how eager you are regardless. Much like he had been warring with his own thoughts about pursuing more with his chambermaid, you seem torn between your fears and your desires as well.

Aegon smiles sincerely, brushing his thumb gently along your lower lip, before leaning down to give you a chaste kiss. It was a bit of a selfish wish of his that you were untainted by any other man, and a part of him was happy to hear that you were indeed a virgin. It made him revel in delight; knowing you were his alone, that he’d be your first and your last if he had any say in it.

“Relax,” he whispered parting from your lips. “I’ll go slowly.” Aegon gazes at you again, wondering if this is perhaps too much for you, too soon. “That is if you still wish to.”

A look of panic crosses your face, as though you’re worried he might stop. “N-No! I still want to!” you affirm urgently. Your hands wrap around his back, pulling him closer to you, seemingly unwilling to let him go.

The king can barely contain his elation as he presses his forehead to yours, chuckling slightly at your eagerness. His hand slips beneath your undershirt and he slowly strokes the soft skin of your stomach, his fingers grazing over the warm plains of your flesh. Aegon’s breath hitches as he travels higher up your abdomen, finding the pliant curve of your breast.

You moan softly beneath his greedy touch, your body writhing with fervor, and your hips rising impatiently to meet him. Any question he had that you might not be fully keen about this joining was now all but diffused by your enthusiasm.

“You make such pretty sounds,” he teases playfully, feeling a sense of satisfaction at how responsive you are to his touch. He gives your breast a firm squeeze, then teases over the sensitive areola before cupping the whole mound again. His cock throbs painfully against the mattress, still bound by his smallclothes and yearning to sink into your heat.

His pulse pounds with expectation, finally feeling a sense of relief from the pent up desire he’s held for you all of this time. Aegon removes his hand from under your shift, propping himself up on the bed as he reaches down to unlace his braie. His hand brushes against your core in the process and he shivers at the feel of how wet you already are for him.

With his stiff length finally freed, he ventures a finger along your folds, growling at the silky slickness of your center. “Gods,” he utters with a groan. His cock twitches with need as he tests the tightness of your cunny, eyes rolling back in ecstasy as he imagines thrusting into you with his thick member instead of his digit.

“Are you ready for me, girl?” he asks eagerly, the question a soft inquiry as well as a warning of the impending pain his intrusion is likely to cause. At this point, he feels more like a lovesick boy than the Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, his suspense heavy as he drapes your leg around his his hip, opening you more to him. He positions his head at your entrance and presses himself closer to you.

You nod, never taking your eyes off of him as you wrap your hands around his back. Aegon rests his weight on his elbows, covering you completely as he kisses you with tenderness. He tries to express everything he feels for you with actions instead of words, his lips hungrily devouring yours with passion. Without breaking the kiss, he begins to ease into you slowly, immediately feeling the resistance of your still in tact virtue.

His arms slide down, gripping your hips on each side tightly as his chest presses into yours. You let out a whimper into his mouth as he breaches your depths, your thighs clenching against his body at the sharp pain of his invasion. It doesn’t take long for you to relax again, your walls suddenly more welcoming as the sting subsides.

Aegon parts from your lips, pulling back slightly so he can look down at you. A smirk forms on his face as he sees your lurid expression and he begins to move, his hips rolling against yours in a slow, sensual rhythm. His hands slide down to your thighs, spreading them further apart as he thrusts himself deeper inside you. He groans with overwhelming pleasure at the feel of you, his head falling forward as he picks up the pace.

He kisses you again, forcing his tongue into your mouth as he continues to move inside of you. His tongue dances with yours as he begins to lose control, his hips snapping against you with intensity. Aegon can feel his release approaching quickly, unable to hold back for much longer, he tries to hasten you along to satisfaction. His hand slides up your shift once more, squeezing your breast and tweaking your delicate nipple until it pebbles between his fingers.

You squirm under him, incapable of holding still as he drives into you with increased enthusiasm. The king grinds his hips into you relentlessly, grimacing at the way your walls tighten around his cock like a vice. Aegon’s grip on your tit becomes harder, flipping between gripping and tweaking your sensitive nipple. His lips withdraw abruptly, his mouth searching out your other breast and nipping it through your undershirt.

He grins against the cloth as you cry out loudly, your body rigid as your climax rolls over you and soon he can feel it wash over his length as well. But, he can’t take it anymore, not how tight you are or how creamy your release feels on his tender cockhead. It’s all too much and within a moment he is gripping hard to your flesh and burying himself deep within you, his spend erupting in spurts from his pulsing member.

“Fuuuccck,” he growls out, his hands finding their way beneath your back and pulling you towards him securely, trying to get even closer if that was at all possible.

You pant below him, trying to catch your breath as little spasms continue to twitch throughout your back and your thighs tremble against his hips. A warm, blissful calm settles over him as he nestles his face into the crook of your neck and inhales deeply of your scent. He feels pleasantly dizzy, his heartbeat finally slowing as the haze of lust subsides.

Aegon sighs into your ear, the tone content and relaxed. “That was incredible,” he murmured softly, his voice low as he gently runs his hand along the side of your cheek.

“It was,” is all you can manage to say, your breath still a bit ragged as you try to come down from the high.

Your hand finds its way into his white hair again, brushing up against the nape of his neck and causing him to shiver. He’s once again reminded of the shared encounter that started all of this and he’s overcome with a fondness that makes his chest ache.

Aegon feels closer to you in every possible way now and isn’t keen on the idea of parting from you, but he can feel his cock softening and the mess beginning to pool on the sheets. So he slowly pulls out of you, collapsing onto the bed at your side. He grabs one of his stray garments without looking, probably his smallclothes or maybe his shirt, and cleans up his seed from you first and then himself.

He adjusts towards the head of the bed, resting on his side against the pillows and reaching out for you to join him as he scuttles under the covers. “Come here,” he says softly, pained by the loss of her warmth.

As you get up and crawl towards him, he scoops you up into his arms. Aegon holds you close, his chin resting against the top of your head as he wraps the quilts around your form and presses himself tighter against your back. The king can no longer deny the depth and the power of his feelings for you as you cuddle in his arms. There’s a sense of deep security and comfort welling up within him, but any words seem inadequate in this moment.

Aegon kisses your temple, the doting gesture unlike anything he’s bestowed upon a lover before. “I think I’m going to sleep quite well tonight,” he muses into your hair, still cradling you in his arms.

“Are you sure it’s alright for me to stay with you? In your chambers?” you ask quietly with seemingly no clue how ridiculous he thinks you sound for asking such a thing.

His mouth twitches into a small smile and he lifts his chin to press another kiss into your hair.

“Of course. I’m the king. I can do whatever I want,” he quips playfully, his voice sounding drowsy and relaxed as he settles into the plushness of the bed. “Now, come. Get your rest. You’re going to need it.” There is a gentle warning present in his tone that you do not seem to catch, that he intends to have more of you in the morning.

You nod, twisting your back towards the mattress until you’re facing him. The expression you give him is enough to make his heart melt, those big, blue eyes like deep pools filled with bottomless love and devotion. You wrap your hand behind his neck and pull him close for a kiss, a request he’s more than happy to oblige.

Your mouth is sweet and hot against his and he can’t help but to lick the line of your lower lip before parting from you. Aegon settles you back into place, his chest enveloping your smaller frame as he holds you possessively. He feels such solace in the close proximity of your body, his limbs toasty warm as he falls into a deep state of relaxation. He’s not even aware of when the moment he falls asleep, it happens so quickly.

—Aegon

When the first light of day streams through the window, Aegon finds his eyes drifting open and then closing again, not sure of what time it is, but too comfortable to want to move. His back feels incredibly warm with the slight dampness of sweat and he opens his lids once more to see your arm wrapped over his chest. He can feel your hot breath at his neck now that he’s paying attention fully and your leg slotted between his.

Aegon’s lips curl into a satisfied smile, basking in the near domestic feel of waking up like this with someone he actually cares for. He takes your hand and intertwines his fingers with yours as he rests his own arm on top of yours.

He tries to settle into his pillow once more, nuzzling his backside into you further and bending his knees more deeply. The peace is short lived though as the doors to his chamber fling open and he hears the startled gasp of a woman. It couldn’t be just any woman, like perhaps another maid come to clean his room in place of the one that never showed up for work. No, it had to be his mother, of all the people he did not wish to see this morning.

The king whips his head over his shoulder and squints in the direction of the door. His mother stands there with a hand over her mouth, frozen in horrified disbelief as though she’d just seen a ghost. Aegon grits his teeth, sitting up with a jolt, forced to realize just how compromising this situation must look with the way he was tangled in bed naked with you.

“No, no, no, no, no, Aegon!!” she practically screams at him and the sound jars you from your slumber. He wishes you could have stayed asleep, to have escaped the madness of his family for just a little longer.

Alicent picks up her skirts so she can walk swiftly around the bed and to his side, standing there with a judgmental sneer. “This is just like Diana, isn’t it!?” she cries hysterically. “Isn’t it!?” his mother prods him further.

Aegon looks back, catching your shifting uneasiness from his peripheral vision, then turns to his mother again, suddenly feeling very protective of you. You are innocent in all of this and should be afforded the ability to wake up from your first time making love in some semblance of calm, not to one of his mother’s outbursts. And of course the first thought she would have of him was that he had raped yet another servant girl. His mother was blissfully ignorant of everything he had done as a young man, except for the acts she felt the need to berate him for, even though she had never been around to offer any kind of proper guidance.

He lets out a groan of exasperation, running his fingers through his mussed hair and tries to think of an answer that might satisfy his fuming mother, but he knows this is a lost cause.

“No,” he denies, shaking his head as he avoids eye contact with her. There is no conviction in his tone, but it’s not like she would ever believe a thing he said on the matter.

“So it was consensual then?” the Dowager Queen asks glaring past Aegon and looking straight at you.

He glances to his side and sees you nod, but interrupts before you can say anything more. “You do not have to explain yourself to her,” he says in a much softer voice, trying to shield you from his mother.

“So, she’s just another one of your tramps then!” Alicent hisses with disgust. “Is it so hard for you to keep your hands off the staff? Can’t be bothered to go into the city anymore, you need to make sure you find your pleasure within the walls of the Red Keep?” Her words are vitriolic and hateful without any attempt to understand the situation.

“I should have gotten rid of your father’s little bastard when I had the chance. I should have known better that she would be too pretty for you to resist, but I was assured that the girl’s skills were tantamount to any risk,” she continued on her tirade, barking out every spiteful dagger she could think of.

“What of your wife!? How can you carry on like this!? Oblivious to the people you hurt!?” the Queen Dowager prattled on, not waiting for an answer, but seemingly wanting to preach her conclusions endlessly.

“You know Helaena’s fallen deep into sadness ever since Jaehaerys died. Ever since you forced her to endure that disgusting funeral procession through the streets of the city.. And it’s not like we ever had a deep connection even before that, Mother.” Aegon’s voice was bitter, resentful. He was sick and tired of this farce of familial love when she barely ever showed him any hint of it.

He’s incredibly shocked when he hears you speak up, your voice quiet, but accusing, even defensive, “You’re one to talk, Queen Dowager. You hurt Aegon more than any other.”

“How dare you! You insolent wretch!” his mother didn’t hesitate to bite back, her acrimony potent in the air. “You can consider your employ here ended. Gather your belongings and leave!” she looked at you impatiently, as though expecting you to stand immediately and go. “Now!” she snarled, her nose crinkled with anger.

“No,” the king interceded on your behalf, stilling you with his hand on your hip. “You will not go anywhere.”

“She absolutely will go! This is not acceptable behavior for any chambermaid in the employ of the royal family!” Alicent was insistent, with no sign of backing down, but Aegon had enough of this contest of wills.

“Mother!” he bellowed at her furiously, finally snapping back at her with conviction. “I am the king and you will obey me!”

That finally got her attention, for the first time in his entire life he saw a flash of fear in his mother’s eyes and it only emboldened him to continue.

“You will not do a thing to this girl. She is under my protection,” he added, his ruling absolute. “And if I find that you have touched her, hurt her in any way, then I will have you hung. Just like the rat catchers.”

Aegon’s lips curl upwards in smug satisfaction, finally realizing a fraction of the true power he held as sovereign of the realms. His mother did not respond, regarding him with silent malice, her glare ever testing the limits to see if he truly meant it. When she saw that he did, his mother backed down, her shoulder slumping slightly as she relented, but not before getting one last dig in.

“Very well, My King,” she mocked with false sincerity, giving him a sarcastic curtsy. “I will leave you to your dalliances. I should know better than to interrupt a man having his fun.” She left in a flurry of resentment, slamming the door behind her with a loud thud.

No matter how furious he was with his mother, she still remained his parent, the woman who gave him life, whom he loved and had once revered above all else. Even this victory he had over her felt hollow, and he realized that even when he won, he still lost in one way or another.

He turned to you, his expression a mix of concern and tenderness. Aegon stroked gently at the side of your cheek, wanting to make you feel safe again after you’d been forced to tolerate the full brunt of his mother’s wrath. He found you to be more resilient than he’d ever expected, already sitting up and staring at him with a knowing look upon your face.

“I’m so sorry,” you say softly and almost instantly he feels something within his chest fracture.

It might have been the facade he always wore cracking, how he always projected an image of indifferent merriment so none would know how truly miserable he was. It might even have been the very fact that you had suffered insults by associating with him and yet you were still concerned about his well being.

Aegon can feel tears welling in his eyes and when you spread your arms out towards him, he doesn’t hesitate to crash into you. He buries his face in your comforting bosom and finally allows himself to fall apart in your embrace without shame. It’s probably the safest and most accepted he’s ever felt in his entire life and he knows now that he won’t ever be able to exist without you.

As you rake your fingers through his silvery locks, his tears dwindle until he is left relaxed, sated by your validation that his life is not as easy as everyone might think it is. He listens to your heartbeat as his fingers dig firmly into your back, making sure you can never leave his side. It’s a mercy, that you don’t seem to mind how clingy and needy he is. If anything, you seem born to mend his wounds, a soothing balm to his troubled soul.

You lean back against the pillows and soon Aegon finds himself drifting asleep against you. As his aching eyes begin to close, he can’t help but hope that he never disappoints you. He’s so convinced that he is a failure from the constant disparagements he’s endured throughout his life, that he can’t even fully enjoy you without worrying that he isn’t worthy of you - that you might leave him.

As if reading his mind, your hand massages gently along his scalp, cradling his head closer to your breast. “Don’t worry,” you say reassuringly. “It’s going to be alright. I promise.”

Aegon didn’t know how you could possibly promise him such a thing, but somehow hearing you say it aloud makes him actually want to believe it.

Read Chapter 2

And will you be bold Will you lose control? I could never desert you I could never let go If you fall in line And the zenith calls I'm standing waiting The last to fall

~Starset - Last to Fall

[cillivnz]

RUNAWAY BRIDE [Lord Dimitrescu]

pairing. Lord Alcides Dimitrescu x Ex!Wife Reader

genre. angst, smut.

warnings. nsfw (18+). infidelity, abandonment, cannibalism, gore descriptions, murder, separation, hunter-prey-chase dynamics, manipulation, pregnancy, cursing, pet-names, mention of cults, cunnilingus, vaginal fingering, squirting, overstimulation, clit-play, breast/nipple-play, multiple orgasms, unprotected vaginal sex, creampie, doggystyle, crying.

word count. 3.7k+

a/n. idk how i feel about this :,) sweet anon, thank you so much for requesting this! i apologise for not getting to work sooner, but i hope it was worth the time! feedback is always appreciated <3 NOT PROOFREAD. EXCUSE INACCURATE TRANSLATIONS (I USE GOOGLE)

translations. “Mireasa fugară” - The Runaway Bride. “draga mea sotie” - my darling wife. “mireasa mea fugitivă” - my runaway bride. “Comoara mea” - My precious. “căprița mea mică” - my little doe. “iubițel” - darling/sweetheart. “Draga mea” - My darling.

listening to. HIM — Lose You Tonight - Thulsa Doom Extended Dub

TEARING HELL FOR LEATHER, you were cursing Fate and her knack for irony, because as you galloped like a doe from one forest Spruce to another, you were sure you were being compared to one by your tiger hunters; a dumb doe, too.

For thinking you could outrun them.

Vampiric barbarians that chased prey like you for sport, and devoured your meaty, lifeless bodies for dinner.

‘None of it seemed to be a problem to you then, so why now, my darling?’

You could hear his voice ring in the eye of your mind, a taunt, perhaps a warning, that you had no choice now but to suffer the consequences of a lustful love that once became the root of your existence.

You had been the talk of the town, rather, every town coming under The Four Houses; firstly, for your damn-near blasphemous marriage to him, and then when you ran away from him, leaving him to be a bastard widow of sorts.

Lord Alcides Dimitrescu and his Runaway Bride.

“Mireasa fugară”

Of all titles given to you, from ‘his little doe’, to Lady Dimitrescu, or even ‘Mother Dearest’ by your adoptive children, the one that stuck was this.

As you tear through the verdure of the outskirts of your renounced Castle, you hope the now-grown men chasing you remember how you were their “Mother Dearest” as boys.

“Mother, that’s enough,” grunted Boian, your oldest, ever the most obedient and faithful, but his loyalties will remain to his father, and so he’ll hunt you down for his validation, if he must.

“Yeah, Mommy, aren’t you getting tired of the cats-and-mouse chase?” Cătălin intervened, a snarky comment always on the brat’s lips, but his mischief and naughtiness had always warmed your heart.

“Just come back to father— to us,” begged Dorin, your youngest. He had always been the most attached to the idea of you as his mother, clutching onto your dress and hiding behind you when his father would scold him for blinding the messenger raven by throwing rocks at it, and would always consider you to be the epitome of the ideal woman.

Your eyes well up at their cries for you, but you must do this. You mustn’t ever return to Castle Dimitrescu, the hellish abode of Satan himself.

Not after his cannibalistic tendencies were shamelessly rubbed in your face, a mortal noblewomen who lost the people of her kingdom to her husband’s appetite.

The night was cold, the frost blanketing over the foliage like a cruel lover’s intoxicating embrace.

Speaking of a noxious love, you were preparing in your chambers, to let go and breathe the air of freedom and quit living in a necromantic land ruled by tyranny.

“‘Ya almost done?” A thick transatlantic accent broke the eerie silence of your quarters.

Where the only sound heard was that of your beating heart, now, the planting of wet kisses along your spine was sounded, too.

“Karl…” you whimpered in hesitation,

“I know, bub, we’re leaving as soon as ‘ya finish packing.” He planted one final kiss on your shoulder before leaving you alone; once again the silence fell.

Your heart palpitated, sinking into the pit of your stomach with guilt, making you sigh as you second-guess your decision. It’s ironic how you spent your entire life in the belief of infidelity being the biggest sin— the ultimate blasphemy to betray whom you’re betrothed to, and now you’re forsaking your husband to live a “normal” life with his friend.

“Fuck me,” you groan. You were never one to use profanities so casually, but the given circumstances had you cursing like a sailor. Clutching your bag of belongings, you make your way outside of the chambers. You see your chamberlain bustling about the halls, eagerly preparing for dinner for the five of you— Lord, Lady, and children. She nods curtly at you, “Pasha, where must the Lord be,” you inquire. She immediately stops tending to the kitchen staff and pays full heed to you. “He is still at the Tower of Worship, m’ Lady,” Pasha replies.

Right, so he’s still where he’d said he’d be; where he requested you to accompany him, but you refused, feigning a faux headache that your stress soon turned genuine.

“I am going to accompany him there, don’t wait for me for supper,” you dismiss her and her ‘but’s’ of concern for your health.

As you walk towards the Tower, your steps felt faltered, meek. The damp, chilly air only constricted your breathing and the large ruby on your ring finger that once fit you like a glove, back when he proposed to you on one knee, levelling your height then, felt like needles pricking into your soft flesh— a beautiful but bitter reminder of your imprisonment.

The ruby glowed when you walked past the Tower, as if telling you that the object of your desires— your demise— is in there.

You ignore all omens screeching at you, and disappear into the night; Karl Heisenberg waiting for you on the outskirts of the town in a chariot.

“What happens now,” you inquire, breathless from kissing Karl. “We’ll live off of regular means. I’ll look for a job in welding, and you— well, bub, with a face like yours you could start your own cult,” he smirks, nuzzling his bearded face into your neck.

You try to laugh but your conscious was grim.

“HE KNOWS, IT’LL ONLY A MATTER OF TIME!” Cătălin had a possessed look on his face, his raven hair wild in the wind, yellow eyes fluorescent in the dark.

Tears stream down your face, the wind carrying them to your storming children.

You were tired, wanting the nightmare to be over. Never having anticipated these to be the consequences— hell, had you known, you would’ve never accepted either man’s proposal— neither Alcides nor Karl.

Alas, a woman’s beauty is to blame for bad luck.

When the sound of thunderous strides tearing through foliage is no longer heard behind, you stop dead in your tracks, hidding behind the largest tree of the forest, a century old banyan.

Your haggard breath created a veil of fog around you, your eyes dart in every nook and corner for a sign of your predators, not knowing they’re circling you from each direction, until the leap in front of you.

“Mamă,” Dorin cooed, his voice soft. Cătălin pushed past him, cornering you further in. He wipes the sweat on his lip with the back of his hand, his eyes flick from a pale beige colour to an electric yellow.

“Say you want us to take you back to Dad,” he grabs you by the shoulders, forcing you to look into his eyes. Your pupils dilate, your subconscious felt manipulated into a trance.

“No!” You intended to slap away his grip, but what surprised the three was that there was no need for you to. Your own eyes glimmered a fluorescent amber, hypnotising him to back off.

“That’s enough,” Dorin intervened, his voice gruff, depicting maturity you didn’t know he was capable of possessing.

Boian stood closest to you know, your eyes watering with heavy tears, like the reflection of the sun in a stream.

“Rest, mother.” His eyes shined the brightest, compelling you to comply, and your tired mind just wanted it for the sufferance to end.

THE FIRST SIGHT YOU SEE when you awoke was of the gothic ridges adorning the ceiling of your— Alcides’ bedroom.

Wait, what—

You shoot up from your grave of silk bedding, eyes landing directly on the man you were dreading, the man you abandoned, the man you married.

His kept stubble grew into a full beard, tiny specks of grey were illuminating in his roots, and he was seemingly taller, with the pride of having stolen you from the world once again.

“Good morning, draga mea sotie,” he spoke with a nonchalant face, but you of all people knew when you heard amusement in his tone. “I take it you slept well, thanks to our oldest—”

“Keep my boy off of your necromantic ways,” you cut him off.

“Dare you suggest I cut off his diet? Starve my boy? Rob him off of his luxuries—”

“I’m suggesting you raise normal nobles, not cannibals in a cult,” your voice came out weaker than you expected, and the faux offense feigned on the tyrant Lord’s face turned into a smug grin, “There’s nothing normal about nobility, and you’re one to talk,”

“They told me what happened.”

Your eyes widen— the same eyes he’s referring to right now. “No. Th-that was an accident—”

“‘That so? How come you have the symptoms of a plague that never infected you, hm?” He moves closer, from the edge of the bed to right beside your bare knees. “Unless you’ve had it embedded in you, or you’ve resorted to our diet, the odds are not in your favour, mireasa mea fugitivă.”

“How dare you call me that,” you sneered.

“How dare you hide my unborn child from me.”

“How dare you leave me.”

You dare not look at him now, face turned away from him, clenching your jaw while your eyes well up with fury.

“Comoara mea, look at me,” his large hands grab a hold of your chin, and the gentleness took you by surprise. He makes you face him, and when you look into his amber eyes your expression softens.

He stares into your glassy doe eyes, parted plump lips quivering, “There’s căprița mea mică,” he smiled— not smirked in his usual conceit, but smiled— the smile you received when you stood in the chapel of the Tower of Worship, and swore yourself to him.

His lips find yours in a yearning kiss— gentle, longing, and passionate. You clutch his half-unbuttoned shirt, remembering how you’d have to stand on your tiptoes to button them for them, not that the trimmed chest hair ever bothered you, if anything, it got you hot and bothered, which is why you buttoned him up. The fabric crinkles under your grip, and whether you were holding onto him to push him away or pull him closer was something you couldn’t figure out.

His hands tear open your blouse, and you couldn’t help but compare the act with the way you’ve caught him ripping through human flesh.

You pull away.

“You know why I left, and why I’ll leave again,” your chest heaved, breathless.

“Because I’m cruel? A cannibal?”

“Like your little paramour was any better.” He spat, and your eyes widened.

He knew about Karl, “What?”

“Please, ‘y really think he left you in a tavern full of drunken hunters every night and day to weld weapons? He’d deal in his work for a pound of flesh from the very hunters whose tables you’d been scrubbing,” he revealed, running a hand through his onyx locs.

He knew everything.

“Karl couldn’t— where is he?!” The realisation of his a sense dawned on you.

“Being served— as dinner.” He smirked.

The metal man was dead.

“Come on, don’t tell me you felt for that bastard. He was your exit ticket, I know, but other than that what’s he got,” says your ex-husband, meaning to say, “What’s he got that I don’t— that I didn’t?”

You couldn’t meet his eyes, so the tantalising question hangs over the cold tension of the room.

This time his hand grabs ahold of your nape, tugging the hair towards him.

“Don’t go all quiet on me now, my darling,” he cooed, voice husky and soft despite the harsh pain he was inflicting on your scalp.

“What do you want, Alcides?” You spat, and he smiled at his little spitfire.

“Another chance,” he spoke almost instantly, a request lingering in the air.

“—To do better for you, and my unborn child.” He’s patient, oh so careful with you, like this doe’s made of glass.

He grips your calf, causing you to wince. Immediately he searches for the reason of your pain, noting it to be a laceration.

“Lie back, relax, and let me take care of you,” he cooed, making his way to catch your lips, “Let me worship you the way I should’ve.”

You couldn’t help but lean into the kiss. He had a way with words, a way so profound that he had you wrapped around his abnormally large finger the minute he set eyes on you.

You succumb. And fuck, do you succumb?

“Mireasa fugară”, her Tyrant Lord— a cruel tale men would recite at the tavern table, laugh at Fate and her knack for irony. Perhaps, they’d compare her beauty to their distraught wives’, curse their luck for not making her theirs, they’d surely have treated her better than the Cannibal, and the barkeep ladies yearn for the sight of a mammoth hulking in their pub, offering a penny to anyone who’d tell him with whom his wife ran away with. He who hunts hunters for sport, lost all wits and appetite for destruction over a woman.

The men laugh, their ale clinks, the barkeeps scrub the tables with a satiated sigh. Such is life, a beautiful ending to a tragic tale.

His kisses follow the trail from the corner of your lips to your jawline, your prominent collarbones. He takes a minute to observe the glass flesh which was earlier always adorned in tyrian purple like a leash of love; now the slate was clean, the collar, erased— a cruel reminder of the last time you made love— so casually that night, and had he known it would’ve been the last for a very long time, he’d have given you a night to remember— not that you ever forgot.

Alcides got to work, gently suckling on your pulse points. His beard pricked your soft flesh, sending jolts of arousal through you. You bit your lip, holding back moans, but the minute his mouth landed on your breasts, you were a goner. He kneaded them, caressed and fondled them. He noticed how your breasts had swell up, your body preparing for sustaining the child that hadn’t even developed into a bump yet. His serpentine tongue peaked out, encircling your hard nipple. Wet kisses trailed along the valley of your breasts, every inch of your body was covered in his essence.

When he reached your belly, he peered at you. Amber yellow eyes were blown out in lust, staring into the crests of your soul as his lips pressed into your flesh in a chaste kiss.

“It’s happy,” he began, causing your trance to break momentarily, “To have its parents back together,” he continued. A swell of overwhelm gathered in your heart, but that was every moment in a relationship with Alcides.

All thoughts and sense left your mind when his face was between your thighs. His broad shoulders were enough to have you fully spread out for him, even more than you’d like. He observed your body, the flutter of your walls, the blood rush to your clit, all were odes to his heed, and with immediate urgency.

The first lick to your cunt sent you spiralling back to doomsday. What every fibre of your being tried to prevent was unravelling right before your eyes, and the worst part? You wanted it to happen, you craved it, needed it like he needed human flesh. Maybe you two weren’t so different in your desires, you gnaw at his being alive and he eats corpses.

“Prettiest pussy,” he spoke, smothered in your thighs. His gentle licks were putting pressure on your sensitive spots, the texture of his abnormal tongue had always coaxed your soul to ooze through your orgasmic tides. Your clit was constantly taunted by the tip of his tongue, flicking and sucking on the bundle of nerves, relishing in the sight of you writhing and pulsating.

Soon enough, his tongue slipped into your velvety walls, the wet muscle stretching your constricting walls in a manner so painfully good.

Sex with Alcides had always been excruciatingly good, and tonight this artist put on his finest performance for his favourite audience of one.

You were squirming in his grasp, trying to get away before coming undone, but he wouldn’t budge, if anything, his tongue dove in deeper into your clenching pussy.

With fervent rubs of your clit, he had you coming in his mouth, a celestial maiden quenching the thirst of a mortal with ichor.

You struggled in overstimulation, but Alcides only lapped further at the juices dripping down his chin.

“One,” he rose, parting your legs further. He positioned his fingers on your mound, pressing down firmly. The feel of your cunt convulsing with need sent him tremors down his spine. He eased a finger in, and you gasped at the sudden intrusion. The sharp digit sat fat and deep inside you, slowly curling to the rhythm of its master’s drum.

Your clit throbbed, and with senses as heightened as yours, it ached. Alcides was quick to soothe or intensify the pain, leaning in to lick leisurely at the bud, while his finger teased your sweet spot.

Another digit in had tears welling up in your eyes, and soon the stream flowed down your cheeks as his rhythm picked up pace.

“Hurts, iubițel,” you whined, and Alcides froze.

‘iubițel’, was something he hadn’t been addressed as for years. A genuine smile flashed on his handsome face, you’re accepting it— accepting him.

“I know, Draga mea, but you can take it,” he got back to sucking your clit while scissoring your cunt open with his thick digits. “Alcides, fuck!” You moaned wantonly, gushing all over him. He grinned from ear to ear, eager to coax more of that squirt out. His movements tripled in velocity, and soon enough, he pulled out only to replace his digits with his mouth, drinking every spurt of your juices.

“Two,” he groaned, licking his glistening lips.

He pulled you closer by the neck, crashing his lips onto yours in a passionate tango of tongue. He was quick to turn you around, manhandling you on your fours came naturally to him; too easily did you comply.

The feeling of his fat cockhead rubbing against your tender entrance was nostalgic to say the least, but fear of not being able to take him soon crept it. Even when he’d fuck you day and night, you could barely, just barely accommodate the mammoth’s monster cock, and now that it’s been years without practise, you could only pray to Gods you wouldn’t rip in half.

As the tip slide in, you felt a wave of euphoria crash your shores of uncertainty. Concealing in lust was the love you had now opened yourself up for.

Alcides spread your ass, relishing in the feel of the plump fat of your curves in his large palms. He gave your hips a squeeze before letting his palm fall on the swell of your ass.

You gasped at the smack, looking back at him through wet eyelashes. “My little doe, my beautiful, beautiful wife,” he gave you a chaste kiss on the forehead.

He pushed in further and further until no inch was left, until your thighs were clad together and your bodies conjoined.

Feeling merciful, Alcides decided to let you adjust to his intrusion. As you clenched and cried on his cock, Alcides took a minute to close his eyes and smile on cloud nine. The feel of your warm, tight, wet cunt choking his cock to death was a feeling he longed for, and it was then he knew no other desire of his could amount to you. He would leave it all for you. He will.

“Alcides, fuck,” your pornographic moans were sound in the whole chambers. He set out a slow pace, yet every thrust was felt in your cervix. “Good G-God, darling,” Alcides moaned, his breath hitched as your tight channel gripped him like a vice.

He snaked a hand to settle between your thighs, pinching your clit.

You were in tears, beads of sweat pearlescent on your body, brows furrowed in pleasure and pain, a beautiful symphony.

“Slow down—” you managed to shriek, but Alcides was too far gone to act on it, he could only bring you solace to endure what his desires have in store for you. He kisses your spine, bathing your silk skin in wet kisses.

He pounded into your cunt, the whole room rumbling with the thrusts of the titan above you. He had an ironclad grip on your hips, slamming them back on his cock as he pistons into you. “Fuck, I couldn’t live without you,” he croaked.

“Don’t leave me again, please,” he beseeched, causing you to nod rapidly, face buried into the sheets.

“Alcides, I’m going to—” your tears and slick stained the sheets, you broke down on his cock, the sensation, the memories too much for your precious and fragile little heart to endure.

He pulled out.

He glared at your gaping hole, your flustered face crying in frustration at the painful denial.

Alcides slams inside of you, “I need— need to look at you while I cum,” he groaned, resuming his animalistic thrusts.

Your legs wrapped around his narrow waist, nails ripping through the flesh of his broad back.

Rutting into your cunt, he bent forwards to catch your bouncing breasts into his mouth, squeezing the two together.

He left your hip to abuse your clit, tormenting the swollen bud with overstimulation.

“Cum with me. Cum with your husband,” he was lost inside of you. Rambling sweet nothings like never before, making every cell inside of you swell up with love and lust.

“Alcides!” You moaned, feeling his warm seed shoot into you.

“Oh my god!” You saw stars.

It finally came to you, in bits and pieces of your being, Fate isn’t cruel, but comic.

“Three,” he groaned, crashing beside you.

Three earth-shattering orgasms for the three years you abandoned him.

“I love you, I’ll do anything for you,” he caressed the side of your face.

“I love you, too,” you sighed, feeling exhaustion embrace you.

You spent so long running, only for your strides to lead you back to bed with him, to home.

Fate isn’t cruel but comic, because the bones you were so against finding devoured in your house became your daughter’s favourite toys.

Just like her father, Alcides, Alcina Dimitrescu loves the grotesque, but her doe of a mother even more.

main masterlist. more of Lord Dimitrescu. SEE ALSO. important clarification in rgds to this fic.

[thewertsearch]

As you must have gathered by now, my employer will enter this universe quite soon. I will then relinquish my custody to him, and she will serve as his Handmaid for an eternity to be specified. [...] Though her most common of blood should have let her expire in just a dozen or two sweeps, [...]

A dozen sweeps? Rustbloods only live to be in their twenties?

Thank fuck Aradia’s a god now, is all I’ll say – and Kanaya, when you finally make the neo-Matriorb, can you please remove that trait?

[...] his curse kept her very much alive. And she did not intend to stay that way.

Ouch.

She looks so cool... but she’s so tragic... but she looks so cool...

While I am his weapon of subtlety and precision, the Handmaid is strictly an apparatus of terror and suffering. We have both paved the road to his arrival, I in my way and she in hers. She would be present during every watershed moment in her civilization's development. Her recurrance in history would earn her the reputation of a demoness, more feared than even her master, a man though dreadful rarely makes himself seen. She stirred up class warfare and intensified bigotry in whatever era she haunted.

So what you’re saying, for the record, is that trolls are so resistant to this way of living that English had to subcontract a second time-travelling demon to constantly force them to be more evil, and they kept rebelling anyway. Just so we're clear.

She made sure the descendents would enter a world which prepared them well for the game, and took measures to see that they would play as they did.

Aradia did call the Voices her 'ancestors', after all. Sounds like the Handmaid was speaking directly into her ear, taking advantage of their familial connection to nudge her along the path Scratch had planned for her - which mostly involved nudging her co-Players along that same path. There really is no end to this web.

Now, six centuries later, she would be given one last order to follow before her curse was lifted. A simple recruitment job. The Handmaid will enlist the Condesce, extending the same bargain once offered to her. [...] The Condesce will serve as her new master's witch, carrying out his work in the places he cannot reach.

There are places inaccessible to English, which is very valuable information. He’s able to enter the troll universe, so he clearly doesn’t need an agent there – so where is he sending the Condesce?

Perhaps English is only able to enter a universe he has marked for predation. If he’s trying to mess with an unmarked universe – such as, to choose a totally random example, the kids’ universe – then he needs to send in a deputy.

I also didn't miss that the Condesce is noted to be English’s ‘witch’. We already know that her touch ‘extends life’, so it’s looking like she shares a full Title with her descendant.

[oblique-lane]

"I'm only valuable when..." of TF2 mercs

Personal mental stereotypes they follow, yet will never admit aloud. An analysis:

(Headcanons but I tried to be as compliant as possible)

Scout: I'm only valuable when people see me as cool and tell me that I'm cool... 'Cuz that means, it must be true...

(Constantly comparing himself to everyone, barely knows his true self, struggles to be alone)

Pyro: I'm only valuable when I have friends to care about! If there's none... It's so cold and lonely...

(Fear of abandonment? Fear of betrayal. Urges for revenge)

Soldier: I'm only valuable when my community needs me! I am all about loyalty and faith!

(Strongly identifies with the place or beliefs he belongs to, constantly feels threatened.)

Demo: I'm only valuable when people find me fun to be around. As soon as it gets sad, everyone leaves.

(Numbing his emotional pain in substances because he has no idea how to handle it, especially since these emotions push people away time and time again. Feelings of helplessness.)

Heavy: I am only valuable when I can protect people. Although I understand, when people are able to stand for themselves, it feels like my purpose is gone...

(Being protective is his identity. If he's not a big human shield for the people he cares about, who is he?)

Engineer: I'm only valuable when my ideas become reality. While I'm still alive, my mission in life is to make as many creations as I can.

(His work is more important than his personhood. He's the Engineer first, Connagher last)

Medic: I'm only valuable when people need very specific solutions to very specific situations. Let's say, some of these situations were also a work of mine.

(Too genius of a mind struggles to fit into the "normal" flow of things. Extending what's possible.)

Sniper: I'm only valuable when I'm useful. When my help is irreplaceable. Otherwise, why am I even here?

(Struggles with "fitting in" and finding a community/genuine connections. Doesn't believe there's anything to him besides his work)

Spy: I'm only valuable when people can look up on me, when they admire me and want to be like me. Or, otherwise, when they hate me and believe that I'm the only cause of their suffering. It's never too much when it comes to praise.

(Extremely fragile ego)

[novaursa]

Legacy (future of the realm)

- Summary: Tywin was the man who saved you from Robert's wrath. He was also the man who doomed you.

- Pairing: targ!reader/Tywin Lannister

- Note: Canon events and timeline do not match the plot of the story.

- Rating: Mature 16+

- Previous chapter: dragon in the garden

- Next part: the calling

- Tag(s): @sachaa-ff @alyssa-dayne @oxymakestheworldgoround @luniaxi

You sat on a carved stone bench, your hands folded neatly in your lap as you watched Damon. Your son was sprawled on a soft blanket spread over the grass, his tiny hands reaching for a toy carved into the shape of a lion. His eyes were wide with wonder as he cooed at the toy.

Ser Barristan Selmy stood a few paces away, his ever-watchful gaze scanning the gardens. Though Highgarden seemed a safe haven compared to King’s Landing, Barristan remained vigilant. His hand rested lightly on the hilt of his sword, a silent testament to his unwavering dedication to your safety.

The sound of measured footsteps drew your attention. Turning slightly, you saw a man approach—a tall figure with dark hair and a dignified air, his gait steady despite the cane he used for support. Willas Tyrell, heir to Highgarden, inclined his head politely as he came closer.

“Lady Y/N,” he greeted, his tone warm yet respectful. “I hope I’m not intruding.”

You offered a small smile, gesturing for him to join you. “Not at all, Lord Willas. Please, sit.”

Willas settled onto the bench beside you, his cane resting against the edge. His gaze shifted to Damon, a faint smile tugging at his lips. “He’s a striking child. The union of lion and dragon has produced quite the heir.”

You followed his gaze, your expression softening as you watched your son. “He is my greatest joy,” you said quietly. “And a reminder of all that must be protected.”

Willas nodded, his expression thoughtful. “Highgarden is honored to host you and your family. My grandmother speaks highly of you.”

You chuckled lightly. “Lady Olenna speaks highly of few, but I will take that as a compliment.”

“She’s not wrong,” Willas said, his tone sincere. “You’ve endured much and yet remain composed, regal even. It’s... admirable.”

You glanced at him, noting the honesty in his words. “Endurance is a lesson taught early in my family,” you said, your voice steady. “But tell me, Lord Willas, what brings you to the gardens today?”

Willas hesitated briefly, as though weighing his words. “I came to see you, if I’m honest. I’ve heard much about you—your strength, your wisdom. And I wished to offer my gratitude.”

“Gratitude?” you echoed, your brow furrowing slightly.

“For Sansa Stark,” he clarified. “It was no secret that she was to be my bride before circumstances changed. Though the marriage never came to pass, I’ve heard how you’ve looked after her, protected her even.”

You inclined your head, your gaze thoughtful. “Sansa is like a sister to me. Protecting her is something I do not consider a burden.”

Willas smiled faintly. “Still, it is a kindness not everyone would extend. The Starks have suffered greatly, and to know she has someone like you watching over her... it eases the mind.”

You fell silent for a moment, your thoughts briefly drifting to Sansa and the many trials she had endured. “The world has been unkind to her,” you said softly. “But she is stronger than she knows.”

Willas studied you for a moment, his expression contemplative. “And you? Have you found kindness in the world?”

You blinked, taken aback by the question. “Kindness is a rarity,” you admitted. “But it exists, in small, fleeting moments. Sometimes, that is enough.”

Willas nodded, his gaze once again shifting to Damon, who was now babbling happily as he tried to roll onto his side. “Perhaps he will grow up in a world where kindness is more than a fleeting moment.”

You smiled faintly, hope flickering in your chest. “Perhaps.”

Ser Barristan cleared his throat subtly, drawing your attention. You turned to see him watching you closely, his expression unreadable. “Is everything well, my lady?” he asked, his tone polite but firm.

“Everything is fine, Ser Barristan,” you assured him, though you noted the slight tension in his stance.

Willas rose to his feet, retrieving his cane. “I won’t keep you any longer,” he said, his tone courteous. “Thank you for indulging me, Lady Y/N.”

“Thank you for your company, Lord Willas,” you replied, inclining your head.

As he walked away, you turned your attention back to Damon, who had finally managed to grasp the lion-shaped toy. His delighted giggle brought a smile to your lips, even as the weight of Willas’s words lingered in your mind. 

The afternoon sun streamed through the windows of Highgarden’s solar, casting dappled light on the polished wooden table where Tywin Lannister sat. Across from him, Lady Olenna Tyrell reclined in her chair with an air of practiced ease, her sharp eyes shining with amusement. Lord Mace Tyrell, seated to Olenna’s left, was all smiles, his boisterous tone filling the room as he gestured animatedly.

“Such a fine boy, Lord Tywin,” Mace was saying, his voice carrying a note of pride as if he had somehow contributed to Damon’s existence. “A true union of two great houses. The talk of the Reach, I assure you.”

Tywin’s expression was as composed as ever, his piercing green eyes fixed on Mace with faint disinterest. “The boy is six moons old, Lord Tyrell. Talk of him should concern his health and upbringing, not idle gossip.”

Olenna smirked, her gaze shifting between the two men. “Ah, but idle gossip is the lifeblood of noble houses, isn’t it?” she remarked dryly. “And it seems your son is quite the subject of fascination, Lord Tywin. Already, several of our bannermen are inquiring about potential matches.”

Tywin’s jaw tightened slightly, though his voice remained measured. “The boy is an infant. He will not be bartered away like a commodity.”

Olenna leaned forward, her cane resting lightly against her lap. “Bartered? Goodness, how harsh you make it sound. We’re speaking of alliances, Tywin, not cattle. Surely you understand the value of securing the boy’s future.”

“The boy’s future,” Tywin replied coolly, “is not a matter for speculation. It will be decided when the time is appropriate—by me and his mother.”

Mace chuckled nervously, attempting to mediate. “Of course, of course. No one is suggesting anything immediate. But you must admit, the union of lion and dragon has... captivated many. Why, Lord Florant himself—”

“Lord Florant,” Tywin interrupted, his voice cutting through Mace’s like a knife, “should concern himself with his duties, not my son’s future.”

Olenna tilted her head, her amusement undiminished. “You’re protective, Tywin. Understandable. But you must admit, it’s rather endearing to see how much sway the boy already holds. The nobility of the Reach is positively buzzing.”

Tywin’s gaze hardened, though his tone remained firm. “Let them buzz. Damon will not be paraded as a prize. His place is with his family, under my protection, and that of his mother.”

Olenna’s smirk softened into something more contemplative. “And what of his mother? She’s a clever one, Tywin. A rare combination of grace and steel. I imagine she has her own thoughts on what’s best for the boy.”

Tywin didn’t respond immediately, his expression unreadable. Finally, he said, “She understands what is necessary for Damon’s upbringing. That is all that matters.”

Olenna chuckled softly, her sharp gaze never leaving Tywin’s face. “Necessary. Always so practical.”

Mace cleared his throat awkwardly, sensing the tension. “Perhaps we should focus on the feast preparations,” he suggested, his tone overly cheerful. “After all, we wouldn’t want to disappoint our guests.”

Olenna sighed, leaning back in her chair. “Yes, yes, let’s discuss the feast. Though I must say, Tywin, it’s a pity you’re so resistant to the idea of alliances. The boy could command loyalty from half the realm before he can even walk.”

Tywin stood, his movements deliberate and controlled. “I will not sacrifice my son’s future for the fleeting whims of others,” he said, his voice cold and final. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, there are matters I must attend to.”

As Tywin left the solar, Olenna watched him go, her expression thoughtful. “He’s stubborn, I’ll give him that,” she remarked to Mace, her tone laced with both admiration and exasperation. “But that boy... he’ll shape the future of this realm, whether Tywin likes it or not.”

Mace nodded eagerly, though his mind was already on the feast and the praise he hoped to garner from the assembled nobles. Olenna, however, remained silent, her sharp mind turning over the possibilities as she considered the Lannister-Targaryen child and the power he represented.

Tywin found you sitting on a stone bench near the edge of Highgarden’s famed lavender field, cradling Damon in your arms. The soft purple blooms swayed gently in the warm breeze, their sweet scent filling the air, but Tywin’s mood was far from serene. His jaw was set, his expression stern as he approached, the earlier conversation with Olenna and Mace Tyrell clearly still weighing on him.

You looked up as he neared, your sharp eyes catching the tension in his stride. Damon cooed softly, his tiny hands clutching at the folds of your gown, oblivious to the gravity of the moment.

“Tywin,” you greeted, your voice calm, though your tone carried a weight of its own. “You’re troubled.”

He stopped a few paces away, his hands clasped behind his back. “Troubled, no. Irritated, perhaps. Olenna and her endless meddling have a way of testing one’s patience.”

You offered a faint smile, though your expression turned serious. “Then I regret that what I’m about to say will likely test it further.”

Tywin’s brow furrowed, his gaze narrowing. “What is it?”

You adjusted Damon in your arms, ensuring he was comfortable before meeting Tywin’s piercing gaze. “I need to speak with you about something important. Something I cannot delay any longer.”

He gestured for you to continue, his posture stiff with expectation.

“I need to go to High Heart,” you said evenly, your voice steady despite the weight of the words.

Tywin’s expression darkened immediately, his sharp mind connecting the dots with alarming speed. “High Heart? The very place where you were captured by my men before being brought to Harrenhal?” His voice was low, edged with a rare note of incredulity. “Do you realize what you’re asking? The Riverlands are far from stable, and High Heart is no place for you or our son.”

“I know,” you replied, your tone unwavering. “But this is not a whim, Tywin. It is something I need to do.”

He stepped closer, his eyes searching yours for an explanation. “You need to do this? Why? What could possibly compel you to return to such a dangerous place?”

You hesitated, the memories of your capture and the strange dreams that had led you to High Heart flickering through your mind. Damon stirred slightly in your arms, and you took a deep breath before answering. “I cannot explain it fully. But I was drawn there before, and I am drawn there again. There are... answers I must seek, truths I must confront.”

Tywin’s jaw tightened, his irritation now laced with concern. “Truths? Answers? From what? From whom? You are speaking in riddles.”

You sighed, lowering your gaze briefly before meeting his eyes again. “There is something... someone... that calls to me. High Heart holds a connection I cannot ignore. It is not merely curiosity—it is necessity.”

“Necessity,” he repeated coldly, his voice laced with skepticism. “What necessity could justify endangering yourself, our son, and our position?”

“I would never endanger Damon,” you said firmly, your grip on the child tightening protectively. “Nor would I make this request lightly. But I must go, Tywin. I cannot explain it any more clearly than that.”

Tywin’s eyes burned with intensity as he stared at you, his mind clearly racing. Finally, he shook his head, his tone cutting. “This is madness. Even if the Riverlands were secure, which they are far from being, we are not prepared for such a journey. High Heart is isolated, and the dangers along the way are numerous.”

“I know,” you said softly, your voice calm but resolute. “But I am asking you to trust me. To allow me to do this.”

Tywin scoffed, though there was more frustration than malice in the sound. “Trust is earned, and this... this is a request that borders on folly.”

You stood, holding Damon close as you took a step toward him. “You’ve trusted me before, Tywin, even when it went against your better judgment. I am asking for that trust again.”

He stared at you for a long moment, his expression unreadable. Finally, he exhaled sharply, his tone measured but firm. “I will consider it. But do not expect miracles. The logistics alone make this request—”

“Thank you,” you interrupted gently, surprising him with your gratitude. “That is all I ask.”

Tywin’s gaze softened ever so slightly as he looked down at Damon, who blinked up at him with innocent curiosity. “You may find my patience finite,” he said, his voice quieter now. “But you have always had my ear, even when you test its limits.”

You smiled faintly, the tension between you easing just enough to allow a moment of understanding. “And you have always had mine.”

Tywin straightened, his commanding presence reasserting itself. “We will speak of this again when I have assessed the risks. Until then, focus on what is here and now.”

You nodded, watching as he turned and strode away, his cloak billowing behind him. 

The humid air of Essos clung to the small room where Tyrion Lannister and Varys sat. The faint hum of distant chatter from the bustling port city filtered through the cracked shutters, mingling with the scent of salt and spice carried by the breeze. Tyrion leaned back in his chair, a goblet of wine in hand, his sharp eyes fixed on the Spider sitting across from him. Varys, as usual, was impeccably composed, his hands folded neatly in his lap as he watched Tyrion with a faint, unreadable smile.

“So, Lord Varys,” Tyrion began, swirling the wine in his goblet, “once you’ve delivered me to our dragon queen, what then? Will you bask in her fiery gratitude or find some other noble cause to meddle in?”

Varys’s smile didn’t waver, though his gaze grew slightly distant. “There is always work to be done, my lord. The realm is never without its needs, and I serve the realm.”

Tyrion snorted, taking a long sip of his wine. “Ah, the realm. That abstract thing you’ve pledged your life to. How noble. But surely you’ve something more tangible in mind.”

Varys tilted his head, considering Tyrion’s words. “There is another who needs my help more immediately, someone whose future may shape the realm in ways we cannot yet foresee.”

Tyrion raised an eyebrow, leaning forward with interest. “Another? Let me guess—my stepmother, the Lady Y/N? She could certainly use an ally with all the vipers circling her at court.”

A faint chuckle escaped Varys, a rare sound that seemed almost amused. “A wise guess, my lord, but not entirely correct.”

Tyrion frowned, his curiosity piqued. “Not her? Then who?”

Varys leaned forward slightly, his expression carefully measured. “Her son. Your brother, Damon.”

Tyrion blinked, momentarily taken aback. He set his goblet down, his lips curving into a wry smile. “My brother? Well, that’s unexpected. I must say, I didn’t peg you as the sentimental type, Varys. But do go on.”

Varys’s tone remained even, though his gaze sharpened. “Damon is not merely a child, my lord. He is the union of lion and dragon, a symbol of a legacy that carries weight far beyond his tender age. His existence alone has already stirred whispers across the realm. He will need protection and guidance if he is to survive the world he was born into.”

Tyrion leaned back, folding his arms across his chest as he regarded Varys with an amused glint in his eye. “Protection and guidance, you say? And here I thought my father was the overbearing parent. Best not let him catch wind of your noble intentions for young Damon. He might start sharpening his quill for a strongly worded letter.”

Varys allowed himself a small smile. “Your father is a man of practicality, Lord Tyrion. I doubt he would begrudge anyone taking steps to ensure his heir’s safety.”

Tyrion raised an eyebrow, his smile turning sly. “His heir? Funny, I thought that self proclaimed title still belonged to my sister. You seem awfully confident in Damon’s place in my father’s heart.”

Varys met Tyrion’s gaze steadily. “Tywin Lannister is many things, but a fool he is not. Damon represents the future of House Lannister and House Targaryen. He will be the bridge between two great houses, if he survives.”

Tyrion’s expression sobered slightly, his sharp mind piecing together the implications. “If he survives. That’s quite the qualifier, isn’t it? You think he’s in danger?”

Varys’s expression didn’t falter, though there was a faint shadow in his eyes. “A child born into power is always in danger, my lord. But Damon’s bloodline makes him both a prize and a threat. There are those who would see him removed from the game before he can even begin to play it.”

Tyrion sighed, reaching for his wine again. “And you, ever the altruist, will ensure he’s not removed. I suppose that’s commendable in its own way. Though I imagine my father might find it less so.”

Varys inclined his head slightly, his smile faint but unyielding. “The realm has need of such children, Lord Tyrion. They represent the possibilities of a future unburdened by the sins of their forebears. If I can aid in shaping that future, I will.”

Tyrion regarded him for a long moment, his expression inscrutable. Finally, he raised his goblet in a mock toast. “To Damon, then. May he inherit all the ambition and cunning of my father without the accompanying bitterness.”

Varys chuckled softly, though his gaze remained contemplative. “To Damon,” he echoed, his voice quiet but resolute.

The feast was grand, as one would expect from Highgarden, with long tables draped in emerald and gold, laden with bountiful platters of food. The hall was filled with the hum of conversation, the clinking of goblets, and the lilting tunes of the musicians stationed at the far end of the room. Lord Mace Tyrell, in his typical boisterous fashion, was holding court among a group of lesser lords, his laughter booming over the polite chuckles of his audience.

You sat beside Tywin at the high table, your posture poised as you sipped from a goblet of watered wine. Tywin’s expression was as unreadable as ever, though you could sense his growing irritation with the endless chatter around him. His pale green eyes flicked over the crowd, occasionally narrowing when Mace’s laughter grew particularly grating.

“This is a spectacle,” you murmured softly, leaning slightly toward Tywin. “But I suspect it’s not to your taste.”

Tywin glanced at you, his lips twitching into the faintest semblance of a smirk. “Your insight, as always, is impeccable.”

You smiled, turning your attention back to the revelers below. The lords and ladies of the Reach moved gracefully through the hall, their laughter light and musical, their movements elegant as they danced to the lively tunes.

Tywin’s voice broke through your thoughts, low and deliberate. “It’s been some time since I’ve seen you on a dance floor.”

You raised an eyebrow, turning to meet his gaze. “I wasn’t aware you were keeping track.”

“I notice many things,” he replied, his tone neutral, though his eyes carried a hint of something more. “Would you care to remind me how well you move?”

You blinked, surprised. “Are you asking me to dance?”

Tywin inclined his head slightly, his expression betraying none of the inner workings of his mind. “I am.”

For a moment, you hesitated, studying him carefully. It wasn’t like Tywin to indulge in something as frivolous as dancing, especially in such a public setting. But the faint challenge in his gaze was unmistakable, and you weren’t one to back down.

Rising gracefully, you extended your hand toward him. “Very well, my lord. Let us remind these lords and ladies how it’s done.”

Tywin stood, his commanding presence drawing the attention of those nearby. Taking your hand, he led you to the center of the hall, where the other dancers parted to make way for the formidable Hand of the King and his Targaryen wife. The musicians adjusted their tune, transitioning to a stately waltz that suited the moment perfectly.

As Tywin placed one hand on your waist and clasped your hand with the other, you couldn’t help but note the ease with which he moved. Despite his reserved nature, there was a confidence to his movements, a precision that spoke of a man who rarely did anything without mastery.

“You’re surprisingly skilled at this,” you remarked, your voice low enough for only him to hear.

“I was taught properly,” he replied, his tone as matter-of-fact as ever. “Though it’s not a skill I’ve often found useful.”

“Yet here you are,” you said, your lips curving into a faint smile. “A rare indulgence, I imagine.”

“Perhaps,” he admitted, his eyes meeting yours. “Or perhaps I simply wished to remind these people that their idle chatter is beneath notice.”

You couldn’t help but chuckle softly at that. “Ever the strategist.”

Tywin’s lips twitched again, the closest thing to a smile he allowed himself. “And you? Are you enjoying yourself, or are you as bored as I am?”

Your gaze flicked briefly to the high table, where Mace continued to regale his audience with tales of his supposed accomplishments. “Let’s just say I’m grateful for the distraction.”

He nodded slightly, his expression softening. “Then we’re agreed.”

The two of you moved seamlessly across the floor, your steps perfectly in sync. Around you, the gathered lords and ladies watched in awe, their whispers barely audible over the music. It was a rare sight indeed to see Tywin Lannister partaking in such an activity, let alone with a partner as captivating as you.

As the dance drew to a close, Tywin brought you to a halt with a final flourish, his grip on your waist firm but respectful. The room erupted into polite applause, though neither of you paid it much mind. His eyes remained locked on yours, his expression inscrutable but undeniably focused.

“Thank you for indulging me,” he said quietly, his voice low enough for only you to hear.

You inclined your head, a hint of amusement in your eyes. “The pleasure was mine, my lord.”

As Tywin escorted you back to the high table, you couldn’t help but notice the shift in the atmosphere. The lords and ladies of Highgarden were reminded, in that moment, of the power and unity you and Tywin represented—a union of lion and dragon, commanding respect even in the most mundane of settings.

[neversetyoufree]

Since we'll hopefully be getting out of the VnC hiatus soon, and this new arc seems to finally be turning the spotlight back to Noé and calling out some of his more troubling traits for the first time, I've been thinking a lot about him recently.

I've talked before on this blog about Noé's inability to recognize or process bad things when they happen to him alone. He bounces back from and idealizes almost any experience as soon as it's over, even when he absolutely shouldn't. It's one of my favorite traits of his, and it's been lampshaded a couple of times in-manga. Louis calls out how weird his attitude toward his kidnapping is during the mémoire 9 flashback, and the "be a little bothered" from Vanitas and co in mémoire 57 has the same effect.

We also recently got a whole extended sequence of Vanitas and Domi complaining about how Noé also never anticipates harm before it might come to him. He waltzes into dangerous situations like it's nothing, almost as if he thinks he's unkillable. Combined with the above, this is just more of his strange brand of optimistic denial. Everything is fine in Noéland! It can't possibly not be fine! He always trusts and thinks the best of people and situations by default, never wanting to expect they may do wrong, and so long as a given event doesn't involve harm to external innocents and/or Noé's loved ones that he can't rationalize away, he compartmentalizes and denies harm once it's done. Thus he carries on in blissful ignorance, his past suffering having no effect on the blithe trust with which he treats the world.

But in addition to all that, Noé is also very notably divorced from the consequences of his own actions. It's not that he's *incapable* of considering his own effect on people, and he certainly tries to be kind and decent, but much of the time, it just doesn't seem to occur to him that people will have reactions to the things he does. He does as he sees fit, and when his deeds impact the people around him, especially if they produce a reaction that could upset him, it bounces off his mind in the same way that potential traumas do.

On the more lighthearted end of the spectrum, this leads to things like Noé never noticing when people are attracted to him. It may also have something to do with his airheaded messiness—the way he's always thoughtlessly making a mess of the hotel room and incurring Vanitas's wrath in bonus materials. On the heavier end of the spectrum, this causes a lot of genuine problems for the people around him. He's largely oblivious to the depth of Dominique's mental health problems until she's pushed to her breaking point at the amusement park, despite the fact that he's inextricably entangled in the cause of them. He also completely loses sight of Vanitas's reactions to him when he gets caught up in his protective rage at the start of the vanoé fight, and it takes an outside reminder from Jeanne and a literal mirror to make him realize that his own actions are part of why Vanitas has devolved to such a state.

This lack of self-perception on Noé's part feeds back into the other problems I laid out at the top of this post, his obliviousness toward his interactions with the rest of the world helping to facilitate his denial. It's part of the happy little insulating bubble that he interacts with the world through. And as the other side of that coin, his automatic, unthinking denial of things that could hurt him is part of what enables him to ignore his own impacts on the people around him. You can't reckon with or worry about harming other people when you live in Noéland where everything must be fine. I think the fact that he wants to be a good person that doesn't harm others actually makes it harder for him to confront the truth of how he impacts the world, because him hurting others is a Bad Thing that would cause him mental harm.

We've seen Noé mess up, understand his mistake, and apologize for it before. He apologizes to Vanitas for making assumptions about him after the bal masqué, he apologizes to Vanitas again at the end of the amusement park fight, and he apologizes to Riche for speaking with ignorance about dhampirs. However, I think the bigger a mistake of his is, the more harm it causes other people (and the more understanding would hurt him as a result), the harder it is for Noé to comprehend his wrongs. He's clearly trying to make things right with Domi, and he's told her that he values her, but I don't know if it's yet occurred to him to conceive of their mess as a situation where he's done her active wrong. He also literally passes out on her mid-conversation, leaving Domi and Vanitas to carry him back to bed when he was supposed to be comforting her.

But I think the most fascinating example, the moment where all this comes together into Noé's most feeble and blatant act of denial yet, is the first time he sees Misha after clawing up his face. The anime actually changes this detail, which is its own can of worms to get into, but in the manga, when Noé sees Misha's injuries in the light of day after attacking him, he immediately fucking turns around.

At the end of his wits at the amusement park, Noé claws a child across the face in a fit of anger and protectiveness. I'm not interested in condemning Noé for this, especially given that the child in question was actively trying to stab Vanitas at the time, but I will say that his actions are quite extreme. Given Vanitas's response and the way Misha's injuries are portrayed, I think it's clear that the manga wants us to see how Noé hurts Mikhail as something troubling and extreme. He gives that kid a pretty horrible injury, and Misha will likely have scars on his face for the rest of his life.

And regardless of how justified he may or may not have been in hurting Misha in defense of Vanitas, it's clear that Noé himself is upset by the true extent of what he does to Mikhail's face. When he looks at him in the light of day, when he sees a numb-looking child with his face wrapped in still-bloody bandages, though we only get to see a small segment of his face in that moment, he looks sick. He knows that he's done something troubling, and I'm sure he feels all kinds of heavy and unpleasant emotions.

This is one genuinely bad thing he's done that Noé cannot deny. He can't rationalize this one away and make it all copacetic. He can't conveniently forget the emotional reality of suffering and harm, because that reality is standing ten yards away from him. And he can't just apologize for things either, because apologies cannot undo physical harm, and frankly, I'm not sure he'd be able to give an honest apology for his one. Sickness at the results of his actions doesn't mean he fully regrets hurting Misha, at least not at this moment when emotions are still raw.

But Noé, confronted with this undeniable source of guilt and pain, is still ultimately unable to look the pain he's caused in the eye. A problem piercing through the happy veil of Noéland and forcing him to acknowledge it doesn't mean he's capable of reckoning with that problem. Instead he just. turns away from it.

Noé, forced to acknowledge a harm he's done and unable to employ all the many layers of automatic insulation that usually protect him, physically turns around because he cannot bear to look at the person, the child, that he's hurt. He employs the very last possible form of avoidance available to him, even though it's useless in the ways that matter. Not looking at Misha doesn't mean he gets to un-know the fact that he maimed him, but he simply cannot bring himself to look.

Noé is extremely good at playing "I do not see it" with things that hurt him. He's good enough that I think he has genuinely no idea he's doing it a vast majority of the time. Whatever mental shield he has that's protecting him is automatic enough that the badness that could hurt him doesn't ever even seem to cross his conscious mind. But no matter how automatic and subconscious, this tendency of his is still, and the end of the day, nothing more than an unhealthy coping mechanism, and this moment helps to put that to our attention.

What's the difference, really, between him cheerfully acting like Jean-Jacques and Chloé's assaults never upset him and him turning around so he doesn't have to look at the wounds he gave Mikhail? Noé can't look at pain, can't acknowledge the things he finds upsetting (at least not things that cause him alone pain, as others' pain often triggers his savior complex and spurs action). This scene with Misha throws that into the light, forcing Noé to desperately cling to his avoidance in an obvious and physical way.

Even when there's no way to deny the harsh reality of having done something he finds horrific, Noé Archiviste cannot make himself look directly at a painful truth, be it others wronging him or his own wrongdoing. It takes an external hand to step in and force him to turn his head and acknowledge/reckon with a problem. And even then, who knows if intervention can always be successful.

The start of the dham arc so far has drawn a lot of attention to this pattern of behavior, with Vanitas having to sit Noé down and explain to him in detail why his words said in well-meaning ignorance make Dante so upset. This is Noé being forced to look at a harm he caused because he couldn't or wouldn't look at and comprehend the problem (his fellow vampires' racism) in the situation he was in. But upsetting Dante is ultimately a low stakes problem for Noé. He put his foot in his mouth and offended a peer; he didn't shred Vanitas's little brother. He's able to accept his wrongs and feel his discomfort without resorting to physically turning around and avoiding the issue.

I want to know what Noé will do if/when this arc forces him to confront a source of pain he can't handle in a context that's more high stakes than a social faux pas. I want to see what he'll do when something really forces him beyond his ability to believe that everything is fine. How badly would he have to be hurt to lose his ability to filter an event/events through rose colored glasses? How badly would he have to hurt someone else? Or is his instinctive shield good enough that he'll never get out of it on his own? And if so, who else might step in to make Noé own up to reality?

Teacher and the Archivistes are becoming plot-relevant now, and our attention is being drawn to Noé's issues. I think there might be something coming soon that even Noé can't turn away from and cheerfully pretend isn't hurting him. Teacher even ends his appearance at the amusement park with a little speech about having to "wake and face reality," which makes me even more certain that a wake-up call for Noé is imminent.

Either that, or Noé's going to mess up and hurt somebody even worse than he hurt Misha later this arc, and in that case, we might get to see a feat of denial even worse than him literally turning around to avoid looking at the wounds he caused.

[kingconia]

Listen listen listen, housewarden's giving you their jacket bc your cold's reactions to you holding onto their arm like a koala after receiving the jacket

(P.s. the way you write is just so awesome it's like if you were born in ancient Greece you'd be writing mythological classics)

A/N: Ah! That is the most flattering, heartwarming words about my writing style I had ever heard... I can't thank you enough for this, dear.

I also hope that I understood your request correctly.

HOUSEWARDENS GIVING YOU THEIR JACKET BECAUSE YOU WERE COLD

Riddle Rosehearts. ❤️

— Riddle is, indeed, a very observing boyfriend. He notices the slightest discomfort in your actions, and so, it doesn't really take a lot of time from him to realise that you are getting cold;

— A gentleman he is, Riddle will instantly offer his own jacket. I think, he would be a very careful type of person, who takes it off, and actually extends it to you, instead of wrapping it around you freely;

— Once you accept, he feels very proud of himself! He is shining from the inside, and it means a lot for him that you accepted his help so easily! He is a good boyfriend, right?

— But he is a little surprised, when you cling into him all of the sudden... What is the meaning of it?

•

”Are you still cold?” Riddle frowns slightly, freezing on his place much like a statue. ”We can go back, in our dorm, and—”

”You are just so sweet,” you sigh out with a short smile on your face, pressing cheek to his arm. ”I can't help myself.”

His cheeks flare up instantly after hearing this. Whatever he planned to say doesn't matter now; Riddle can only awkwardly continue your walk, secretly satisfied by this sudden, yet pleasant outcome.

Leona Kingscholar. 💛

— Alright, I am sorry, but Leona doesn't really have warm clothes on himself on the daily basis? His body temperature is so high... And his only leather jacket is... Sleeveless;

— Nevertheless, he notices shifts in your body temperature even quicker than you do. He is a beastman, which means he can say a lot about your body, just by listening to your heartbeat and focusing on your smell;

— Since he doesn't have anything for you to offer, Leona suggests you the only warm thing he has. Himself. And by suggesting, I mean... He just hugs you from the behind, both of his arms hanging loosely around your neck;

— Leona doesn't expect you to cling on him and be so smug about it, though...

•

”...You are clingy,” he informs you as you rub your cheek against his smooth skin. ”And I am not your blanket, herbivore.”

Yet, as you can't see his face, Leona smirks. He knows that his body is hot—in many way than just one—and he is aware how welcoming his hugs must be in this cold. He originally expected more stammering and blushes, but you know what...

”Sure, Leona.”

...This is much better.

Azul Ashengrotto. 🩵

— Just as Riddle, he is very observing boyfriend. But I also think his care is more restless? He is overthinking everything, and overworrying about the smallest things, when it comes to you;

— As soon as you confirm his worst assumptions—yes, that you are a little bit cold; yes he is a drama queen—Azul becomes even more worried then before. You are his too fragile, but nevertheless, too valuable treasure in the world!

— Of course, he firstly offers you his jacket. Azul holds it out for you, so you could slip in it easily, and then carefully fixes the collar, and fasten the buttons, so you feel more comfortable in it;

— He is about to go and find something warm to drink or eat for you, when you surprise him by wrapping arms around him so suddenly...

•

”Angelfish?” He blinks, confusion painted on his face as he looks at you in a mild surprise. ”Is something wrong?”

With his free hand that you still didn't manage to capture, Azul leans to touch your forehead, trying to understand if you are suffering from a fever or anything else.

”No. Everything is perfect. And I have a perfect boyfriend,” you murmur softly against the fabric of his shirt. ”Thank you for taking care of me, Zul-Zul.”

His face softens instantly, and Azul can't help himself but to kiss you on the forehead. Ah, of course... That's it, you are just being soft.

”Sure, darling.”

Kalim Al-Asim. 🧡

— I like to think that Kalim himself always feels slightly feverish? He doesn't really feel cold, even if his body does. I am not sure how to explain this one;

— Nevertheless, Kalim is oblivious to his own understanding of the temperature. How can you expect him to understand yours? But don't worry, he makes it up for being a fussy boyfriend, who starts asking a thousand of questions as soon as he realises that you are cold;

— If it is your lucky day and Kalim has something warm to offer to you, he will!

— But if he accidentally forgets his uniform jacket... That could mean only one thing: you have to wait for Jamil.

•

”Ah, I am sorry... I keep forgetting things in dorm...” Kalim sighs quietly, trying to keep both of his arms up, in a imitation of the roof, as the sudden rain starts.

Instead of being saddened, you use the opportunity: you throw yourself on Kalim, wrapping arms around his stomach.

”Nothing can warm better than the hugs of true love,” you hum.

”Ah!” He instantly hugs you back, smiling widely. "Of course!”

(Jamil squints from the afar, noticing two familiar figure under the rain. Hissing, he grips umbrella even tighter.

”...Idiots,” he only murmurs, before fastening his steps.

He hates his work.)

Vil Schoenheit. 💜

— Vil is a very doting boyfriend. Sometimes it stays unnoticed by you, but he always looks out for you silently. He takes some pride in that, too;

— So, this time is not an exception: you don't even have time to confess about being cold, when Vil already helps you to put a very beautiful spring coat that he carried around all evening! Just for you;

— He instantly asks if you want scarf, or maybe, gloves, because he has them ready too! If anything, Vil also checked out the nearest cafe, so...

— You cut him through by merely clinging in his arm. Vil is not surprised, but he is slightly flustered. This is too straightforward for him, potato...

•

”Careful, would you?” He sighs, looking around, trying to see if you are alone. As he reassures himself that it is a safe zone, Vil instantly allows himself to smile more openly. ”Are you comfortable like this, potato? Or should I call you coala from now?”

Yet, Vil himself can't resist the urge to press cheek to the top of your head. As your soft hair tickle his sensitive skin, he chuckles softly.

”Call me whatever you want,” your voice comes out muffled as you bring yourself even closer to him. ”But I am going to be the lover of the best boyfriend in the world...”

Well, you are not wrong, but he still blushes slightly... How shameless.

Idia Shroud. 💙

— To your surprise, Idia is an observant boyfriend as well? Unless, he is a little bit too invested in rumbling about something, but all other time he checks on you constantly;

— Of course, he offers you his own hoodie. Though, Idia doesn't really like sharing clothes or anything at all, for you—and in such special occasions—he could do that;

— Idia helps you to put hoodie on, and jokingly pushes the hood on your face, snickering when you huff;

— But when he attempts to step away, and gets caught instead, Idia is... Speechless.

•

”H-hey?”

Idia saw that a countless times in anime and movies, but a mass-media is one thing, and a real life is a completely another!? He is not sure how to react, so he wouldn't look as a complete idiot!

”Are you comfortable?” You ask suddenly, in a very serious tone.

Idia nods enthusiastically. He is very normal about this.

”Cool.”

And with that, you nuzzle closer, closing your eyes. Oh, he tries to relax too, but... From the sound of his heart beating fastly, you could say it didn't end well...

Malleus Draconia. 💚

— Malleus always forgets about humans feeling weather differently, to be honest. He tries to look after you more thoroughly, but he can't find a golden line between an ”proper care” and ”too-worried pestering”;

— When you admit, after hours of night walking around statues of gargoyles, that you are a little cold, Malleus feels guilty for not noticing it earlier;

— Of course, he instantly offers you his jacket, in the most delicate and gentle way possible. Also asks if you want him to put in the fire your surroundings, so you could feel warmer;

— Instead, you wrap both of your arms around his right one. And he, honestly, is very confused...

•

”I believe, the temperature of my body is not that warm to help you here, the child of man...”

Yet, you look so peaceful, that Malleus unconsciously puts his free hand atop of your head, stroking your hair gently.

”Ah, but what about this warm heart of yours, Malleus?” You smirk, winking at him with the unhidden amusement as you say it.

Malleus can say that the tip of his ears are getting red. A soft sigh escapes his lips, and despite everything, he can't resist the urge to smile back at you.

”...If it keeps you warm, my dear.”