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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 1 year ago

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

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

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

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

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

Word count: 8.1k.

Link to chapter list: HERE.

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

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

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

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

“Are there really?”

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

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

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

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

~~~~~~~~~~

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

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

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

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

“Where are they now?”

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

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

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

“What brought you here?”

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

“And he asked you to stay with us?”

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

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

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

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

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

“He gave it to me? Like a gift?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“We won’t.” We can’t.

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

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

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

“I don’t know.”

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

“Dorne, Essos. Somewhere, anywhere.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No. They love you.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Who? Borros Baratheon?”

Aegon glares at Larys. “No.”

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

“Look at me. Don’t lie to me.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Good.”

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

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

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

“How long?”

“It doesn’t matter, Angel.”

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

“Four or five days now.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

~~~~~~~~~~

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

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

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

“They must think I’m a coward.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What? No, we have to hurry—”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Listen, listen to me—”

“No—”

“Angel.”

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

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

“You would become a monster?”

“To protect you? I would become anything.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I know, Aegon.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough.”

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

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

You are petrified. “Why?”

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

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

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

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

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

“I can’t,” you choke out.

“You have to.”

“I’ve never wanted anyone but you.”

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

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

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

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

“Now go. Right now. Go.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“He’s dead.”

This stuns Cregan. “When? How?”

“Today. Of old wounds sustained in battle.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#aegon ii targaryen #aegon targaryen #aegon targaryen ii #aegon ii #aegon targaryen x reader #aegon x reader

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bonefall · 1 month ago

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It’s not something I can put into words, but there’s something specifically about Shellfur, the guy who has a “foreign” wife, being the one to have a cheating plotline that icks me out. It feels… almost deliberate in a way I can’t quite put my finger on

I think I understand why you feel that way. I think it's that a lot of cats have suffered and died for the cross-clan law, plus the way the narrative was so dismissive about migration in the last chapters of Star. It's offputting that we would get the first cheating plotline in years with Shellfur and Fernstripe specifically-- right at a time where the narrative is grappling with legitimizing the validity of these relationships.

After ASC had Berryheart radicalize a portion of ShadowClan on this, too. A plotline that was spectacularly fumbled, ending with a heroic death defending her family and not a single word of input from her hate crime victim, Fringewhisker.

It could also be that's there's something terrifying, but interesting in the idea too. Discomfort in the "worth exploring" type of way. What if you moved countries for a lover, only for them to leave you? Or for them to turn out to not be as kind as you expected?

For Fernstripe, that's a horrific situation. One that would be worth delving into (in fact im planning to do something like that with BB!Nightsun, details will come soon btw) with a dedicated POV. One of the unexplored evils of strict migration laws (particularly ones that depend on marriage or family) is that it's really easy to become trapped in a foreign country if the people you're relying on end up being abusive.

But.

A character is a narrative tool-- and the timing here is just terrible. I don't think it's wise to explore that now, not as a follow-up to an arc about bigotry and how it contributes to political radicalization. That's also assuming the writers aren't rat-hearted bastards trying to paint half-Clan relationships as bad things because they hate that they had to alter the status quo even slightly-- which I don't put past them.

Furthermore, from what we've seen, it's treated with all the casuality of an editor's mistake.

You can't just drop that a major supporting character has done something that should be a massive deal without follow-up. Shellfur dumping his mate less than a few months after her migration was plot relevant should cause an uproar in ThunderClan.

To have that unceremoniously done off-screen is just... beyond incompetent. Genuinely frustrating. This is an action/drama series and there's barely any action these days, so what's even left?

I hope this is just a mistake. I hope the writers see the backlash and put out a statement to fix it. I hope they DON'T decide this is a "good idea" and barrel towards it.

But if they do, I hopelessly hope they don't bungle it this time

#Shellfern #Changing skies spoilers #Shellfur #Fernstripe #The elder's quest #Cs spoilers #Shellfur I hope you don't suddenly become The Worst Guy lol

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cloververse · 2 months ago

Text

Moon 48 (pt5)

WRITING BELOW THE EXPAND

GRRRRRrrrrr this amazing page holey shit was made by my dearest friend TACOBELLA, who works on the amazing @fog-clan Catch them at: https://comicfury.com/profile.php?username=TACOBELLABAE https://bsky.app/profile/tac0bella.bsky.social https://www.tumblr.com/blog/fog-clan

Previous: Moon 48 pt4

"He is alive??” Poodle exclaimed, swatting the half eaten mice away. Trouble winced at the action but remained still, tension radiating throughout her whole body. “Oh that little ungrateful pup… You have been hiding right under our noses all this time, haven’t you…” The fluffy molly growls lowly in the direction of the trees, racking her claws against the mossy stone.

She soon let out a heavy sigh, grooming her claws in frustration. “That won’t do. That won’t do at all.”

Trouble hesitated, aware of the ruthlessness of the Hound’s executioner. Had seen first hand her power. “And what will it be done…?” Not that it was any of her bussiness, but something about seeing the cold and collected cat lose her temper like that was shocking enough to chase away some caution.

Poodle, however, didn’t even grace her with an answer, almost like she had forgotten the cat was even there, licking her paw in thought. “You were his friend once.”

“What?”

“He cared about you.” Poodle turned to face the scruffier cat, a plan clear as day formulating on her eyes. “Did he not?”

“I-if you call what happened caring, maybe love is overrated after all-“ Trouble huffs with fake humor, taking a step back, starting to feel cornered, the tension in the air getting noticeably thicker.

Poodle just laughed, equally mirthless, finally looking back at the other cat, with some sort of pity that one would look at a small kitten with. It set something off in Trouble’s mind immediately. “He tried so hard to keep your little group out of Heller's sight and yet…” She sighed. “He was a naive thing, that one. But determined enough to make every stupid decision in the book before running away. A coward.”

run.

“His heart is his biggest weakness.” Poodle continued, checking on her sharp, unsheathed claws. “Also so easy of a target. You see, it was easy to affect him the first time those he cared about got hurt. I bet this time wont be all that different.”

Run.

“You- You promised we wouldn’t get harmed if I agreed to work for you.” Trouble’s voice was starting to betray it’s shakiness, breath catching on her throat when Poodle leaned forward. “We had a deal.”

“The deal was to keep your sister fed and well trained.” Poodle’s green and blue eyes seemed sharper by each second. “Did you think we had resources to house any and all desperate Strays that come crawling? You know better than that. Or at least I thought you did.”

Run.

“You lied to me—“ Trouble hissed in outrage. “You—“

“Isn’t that what you always tell your fellow rats, love? You can never ever trust a Hound? Why are you even surprised?”

“How do you—“

“I have my ways. Eyes everywhere. Things need to stay in order after all.” She huffed, leaping down from the rock, claws disrupting the muddy soil. “Just like I’m about to find a way to let our dear pup that we miss him.” The look in her mismatched eyes was downright predatory, a simple and unmistakable threat paired with a low laugh that came before every execution. Trouble had only one word blasting through her head as she sprinted in the direction of the dirt road.

Run.

#cloververse #clangen blog #clangen #clangen art #clovermoon #page trade #welp #we barely knew ya trouble </3

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lillaluna · 11 months ago

Text

how I met my cat

Pairing: Neuvillette, Ayato, Childe, Dottore, Zhongli, Pantalone, Itto x f!Reader

AYATO

Walking down one of Inazuma's streets, which was being lit up by the midday sun, Ayato spotted what he would say after "that misunderstanding" sitting on the edge of a wooden bridge, looking wistfully at the carp that were splashing in the clear water. The kitten looked like the very personification of sunshine. His red hair was sticking out in different directions, and his face was as silly as it was cute.

The guy froze for a while, following his gaze to the picture in the water, which the red kitten was studying with such care. The noise behind him attracted a small animal, but remarkably, he did not rush to run away, he just looked at Ayato's tall figure with his big green eyes, the size of a tea saucer. The poor kitten was so overzealous with raising his red head, due to the tall stature of a representative of the Kamisato clan, that he fell funny, turning a somersault, which made him look even more disheveled.

"How clumsy you are," Ayato said, and after taking one last look at the animal, he went about his business.

What was his surprise when he noticed a red-haired, disheveled spy who followed him from one planned place to another, and eventually escorted him to the Kamisato estate.

That day, Ayato ordered to feed his personal guest, as a reward for his perseverance and endurance, because he had come a really long way with his tiny paws. And then a terrible thing happened… Ayaka saw the kitten.

Ayato swears he has no affection for the silly ginger cat, but Toma, who works late into the night, often sees Yashiro, the head of the commission, allow the animal to nestle in his lap and soothe it with his purr.

PANTALONE

Pantalone left the restaurant, and the first thing that attracted him, even across the street, was a sprawled black spot that contrasted with the snow-covered street. While the man was putting on gloves, he saw how on the well-fed body of the "spot", which turned out to be a cat, black fur was waving from gusts of wind, but he stubbornly and motionlessly lay. At some point, Pantalone allowed the idea that the animal was frozen, but he was surprised enough when he saw a sluggish movement and a prolonged "meow" when a worried young girl came out of the shop in front of the cat and put a thick and fresh sausage in front of him. She cooed while squatting next to him, stroking his soft fur and saying how poor and unhappy he was. Pantalone chuckled and went home.

There might not have been anything remarkable in this story, but Regrator noticed the cat several more times, each time he left the restaurant, the animal lay motionless near the bench, waiting for his saviour.

"Sly," Pantalone said to himself and headed across the street.

Sitting down in front of the animal, the man smiled, because from this distance you could see thick, beautiful black fur, and the fact that the cat was very well-fed.

"Very clever," said the man again, and was about to leave when the cat opened his green eyes. Perhaps sensing that he was not going to get a handout from Pantalone, he did not meow as he usually did, but sat up gracefully and blinked a few times.

No matter how funny it sounded, Pantalone invited the cat to go with him, and no matter how funny it sounded, the cat agreed and gently trotted through the snow after his recognized master.

Despite the fact that the cat has been voluntarily domesticated and now needs nothing, he likes to sneak into the kitchen and act out scenes of "hungry" fainting in front of the cooks, who are happy to feed the sly cat.

The staff of the Pantalone estate often loses a cat and they go crazy looking for it, thinking that they have missed the beloved pet of one of the Harbingers, while the animal sleeps on its owner's clothes merging with it. As soon as Pantalone calls his pet by name, he fluffs his tail and goes to greet him or keep him company, purring peacefully during long working nights.

ITTO

The eccentric head of the Arataki gang was a second away from deciding to jump into the arms of Kuki Shinobu, who was walking next to him, when a small pack of yard dogs rushed at him from the alley, but he froze in surprise when he realized that they were dispersed … by a cat. A white, somewhat skinny cat with a torn right ear and piercing orange eyes. He drove the dogs away with unshakable confidence, accompanying all this with a shrill "meow".

"He's just a demon in cat form," Itto exclaimed mischievously, watching the cat disappear around the bend.

It took several days and all the skill of the Arataka gang to find the white cat, which, unfortunately for the members of the group, Itto was delighted with.

The found animal and the "drama lover" Arataki Itto quickly found a common language and stuck to each other. The cat loves to relax, like a fluffy collar, on the shoulders of its recognized owner, in some unthinkable way, It taught him to hunt beetles and look for only the best specimens for fighting.

Despite the fact that Kuki was skeptical about the appearance of the cat, even she relented when the sneaky cat began to bring them small goodies from nowhere. That's how he became a full member of the Arataka gang.

DOTTORE

Dottore had to go to Sumeru himself, in order to purchase components sold only there for his experiments. And it was there, in the market, that the man saw a white cat holding a mouse by the tail with a fluffy paw. Dottore froze and watched with interest what would happen next. In an instant, the cat easily lets the mouse go and desperately watches its well-aimed run.

"This is a failure," the man said to himself, already about to look away from the snow-white cat, as he looked at him, as if he had heard a remark. Multicolored eyes, one yellow and the other green, looked accusingly at the man, and with light leaps the graceful animal began to chase the mouse, which had just found hope of salvation.

Waving his fluffy tail, the cat was rapidly approaching the small rodent, playing with him in a feline version of hide-and-seek. Observation and dexterity do not give the poor mouse a chance. On the move again, the cat instantly grabs the mouse with its paws, which are glistening with snow-white fur.

This little game moment is full of energy and grace, and is a reflection of the sincere joy and enjoyment that the cat gets from his favorite mouse game. And it was after that that Dottore decided that the snow-white cat from the Sumeru market belonged to him.

ZHONGLI

Morax sat in one of the gazebos near Li Yue Harbour. The man was drinking fragrant tea in silence, watching the ships that were going on a long journey. Preferring to spend time in peace and quiet, Zhongli often chose this particular gazebo, on top of a fairly high mountain. Accustomed that no one would disturb him here, the man was extremely surprised to notice a majestic fluffy red cat lying on a smooth stone ledge enjoying the rays of the sun. His bright coat shone against the background of the surrounding green cover of nature. The cat stretched out relaxed, enjoying the pleasant peace.

It would seem that over the years of his life, Morax had seen many cats, but there was something subtly regal about it. Birds were flying around the cat, singing their songs. They felt safe next to this powerful, compared to them, animal, which never harmed harmless creatures. It seemed that the mice and birds knew that this cat was not just a predator, but also a patron, calmly allowing them to be in his vicinity.

However, one little mouse decides to test the limits of the exclusivity of its security. Sneaking up unnoticed, she approached the cat and, trying her luck, tries to bite him. But it was courage, for which the little girl paid dearly.

The cat, suddenly feeling the mouse's teeth on its fur, reacts reflexively to the attack. He instantly gets to his feet and easily deals with the rodent, leaving impressive evidence of his power in front of the others.

Raising his head in proud relief and dignity, the cat turned his gaze to Zhongli.

"You can't make concessions when there is a contract. If the contract is not followed, it will be violated," the man said and motioned for the animal to sit closer to him.

NEUVILLETTE

The judge already believed that he had committed the most reckless act in his entire life when he succumbed to Furina's persuasions to take a kitten from the shelter so that he would keep him company and he would not be so lonely.

Neuvillette often watched as a gray ball of fur, trying to catch its tail, bites it, from which it then meows plaintively, as it crashes into furniture from a running start, as it clumsily falls from all surfaces that it can reach. Sometimes it seemed to him that he had sheltered a kitten with a maximum of one brain cell. This playful prankster chases after him and clings to his clothes. He attacks Neuvillette from around the corner, hisses at his shadow and hiccups funny.

"You vaguely remind me of someone," states Neuvillette, taking the kitten in his arms to go with him to his office, because it seems to him that he does not want him to leave.

This is not the first time that Neuvillette's new pet stays with him at work, and all employees adore and gladly pamper this clumsy, cheerful and active ball of fur.

One day, coming home after a brutal trial, when it was raining heavily outside, Neuvillette found a picture that made his heart skip a beat. Somehow, the cat got stuck in a paper bag, and mewing piteously tried to run to him right in such a standing position. The rain has gradually subsided, and Fontaine's relentless judge can't help but smile when he has to tear open the package to free the kitten.

#genshin impact #genshin x reader #dottore x reader #dottore #il dottore #zhongli x reader #pantalone x reader #neuvilette x reader #neuvillette #zhongli #pantalone #arataki itto #itto x reader #kamisato ayato #ayato x reader

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jayietheriverwarrior · 3 months ago

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Well. I was going to post this batch of drawings the day Star came out, but uh... yeah. How we all doing fellow Americans?

I'm definitely better off than most of the country, I'm in one of the safest blue states that just voted to protect abortion rights, but I'm worried for friends and family, for minorities and vulnerable groups in general, and even with my position of relative privilege, as a woman in America I'm still fairly worried for myself too. God, I can't believe we're in this position again. I have so much I could say, but most it's very angry, and I can save that for other spaces. Let's focus on art for now.

So, I really loved Star, I felt it was a great ending to the story, and wrapped up the emotional arcs of our three protagonists very neatly - especially best girl Frostdawn. God, what a gorgeous name. :D I was on the Froststar train all the way, but honestly, getting such a beautiful medicine cat name for her has made me way happier that she didn't immediately lose it to become Froststar. As soon as I saw that name, I knew I had to draw her in a lovely dawn setting, so here it is. :D I also have been wanting a new phone case for a while, and with my birthday coming up I figured this was the perfect drawing to use for a new phone case and splurge a bit. ^^ The case hasn't arrived yet, but I'll post a pic when it does.

Here we have Frostdawn sitting by the edge of the lake, basking in the glow of a new dawn for herself and her Clan, finally happy and free from the trauma and the responsibility of saving her Clan that weighed on her for so long from such a young age. She has an even bigger scar on her throat now, since Splashtail attacked there yet again and left a pretty big gash, and she's got a pretty decent-sized scar across her shoulders now too, and a few smaller ones scattered from Splashtail's final attack.

I'm very happy with how this turned out. :D I love how the colors all came together, how the scar turned out, the background, all of it. :D

#warrior cats #erin hunter #warriors #wc #a starless clan spoilers #warrior cats spoilers #star a starless clan spoilers #star spoilers #Frostpaw #Frostdawn #RiverClan #A Starless Clan

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rippleclan · 2 months ago

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RippleClan: Moon 75

Yellowpaw, Sandpaw, and Stormpaw are apprenticed to Asterblaze, Spikecrash, and Clammask.

[Image ID: Yellowpaw, Sandpaw, and Stormpaw are apprentices. Sandpaw says, "Do you think Thunderpaw is impressed?" Under Yellowpaw, it says LEVEL UP! YELLOWKIT → YELLOWPAW, NOISY → COLD. Under Sandpaw, it says LEVEL UP! SANDKIT → SANDPAW, SELF-CONSCIOUS → LOYAL. Under Stormpaw, it says LEVEL UP! STORMKIT → STORMPAW, KNOW-IT-ALL → CHARISMATIC.]

(Yellowpaw: 6, female, caretaker apprentice, cold, quick to make peace)

(Sandpaw: 6, male, mediator apprentice, loyal, interested in Clan history)

(Stormpaw: 6, female, caretaker apprentice, charismatic, loves to eat)

Honeybuzz helps the three star-blessed apprentices.

[Image ID: Honeybuzz, Weevilpaw, Wolfpaw, and Anchovypaw watch Estherfern talk with a Dark Forest spirit. Under Honeybuzz, it says + NEW SKILL: GOOD TEACHER.]

---

Honeybuzz cupped his paw around one of the many plucked mushrooms that formed the unholy circle. He sniffed at the herbal mixture that sealed the pickings together. A few strands of black and red fur clung to the wet earth that lined the edges of the muddy den. The constant rain of the last four days made the ground slick and sent water dripping from the root-lined ceiling. Anchovypaw, Wolfpaw, and Weevilpaw stood outside the den, heads close together as they peered inside. The rain glued their pelts to their skin.

“And you’ve known about this for how long, Anchovypaw?” Honeybuzz asked. He absently batted at his wooden necklace, the freshly plucked cicada wing glistening with raindrops. He pointedly sat outside of the circle, mud sinking into his thin fur.

“Only a few days,” Anchovypaw admitted. “I didn’t want to say anything until I could come back here, but there’s even more ichor here than there was when I first found the den.”

“You should have told us sooner,” Weevilpaw huffed with a glare so sharp that, had she had her sister’s ability, Anchovypaw would have frozen stiff.

“I wasn’t going to scare anyone if I didn’t have to!” Anchovypaw huffed. A sharp flick of his tail sent a stream of water flying over Weevilpaw and Wolfpaw’s backs. “It could have just been where the beast that killed Weedfoot went to die. I only waited a few days! It took me that long to get away from Halibutdusk!”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Honeybuzz promised. He squeezed around the apprentices, squinting as the rain splashed his eyes.

“Now we know someone else has been here,” Wolfpaw pointed out.

“What is it, Honeybuzz?” Weevilpaw asked. She moved further into the den, eyes locked on the circle.

“You remember my lessons on channeling StarClan?” Honeybuzz said, shivering. “It exhausts power StarClan wasn’t planning to use, but the immediate and physical communication can justify an absence of subtle signs and assistance.”

“But we don’t use mushrooms,” Weevilpaw said. She poked at a mushroom, making it roll out of its spot. “We form a circle of cats, not plants.”

“But do you remember when you met Terracottafoot?” Honeybuzz sighed. “I asked them to tell you about last Harvest Moon, and some of their knowledge of the Dark Forest. Newtstream, their mentor, taught them about channeling Dark Forest spirits using a circle of mushrooms.”

“Someone’s summoning Spirits of Shadow,” Wolfpaw gulped.

“Who would be that mouse-brained?” Anchovypaw growled. His claws left gouges in the mud. “We all remember the Shardling. Who would want to bring something like that back?” Anchovypaw looked like he was going to be sick. Wolfpaw rubbed against Anchovypaw’s side. “You were right, Weevilpaw. I should have destroyed this den as soon as I found it.”

“Then they would have made another one,” Honeybuzz pointed out. “No, we need to find a trusted warrior to watch this den. They can wait until the culprit visits again. Waspdawn or Puddlewhisper would do well. I trust them.” Weevilpaw’s soaked fur prickled. Her eyes widened, locked on something Honeybuzz couldn’t see. Her mouth dropped slightly, breath catching.

“Out, out!” Weevilpaw hissed, lunging past Wolfpaw. She scrambled into a thick bush, still bursting with summer life. Wolfpaw and Anchovypaw were instantly at her side, following her into the shadows. Honeybuzz stumbled in after them, sharp branches poking his ribs.

“Who did you see?” Anchovypaw whispered just as the shrubbery on the other side of the dark den shifted. Bicolored eyes glimmered through the mid-morning haze.

“Estherfern?” Honeybuzz gasped as the older cleric stepped into full view. Estherfern carried a ball of fur in her jaws, the same red and black colors Honeybuzz found in the strange den. Her fur on her cheeks drooped like heavy leaves. She strolled into the shadows, ignorant to her spies.

“The Shardling almost killed her kits,” Anchovypaw growled, his rage making the leaves shake. “Why would she deal with the Dark Forest?”

“Keep listening,” Wolfpaw whispered. “We might find out.” Estherfern placed the furballs in the center of the circle. Her cool gaze settled on Weevilpaw’s disturbed mushroom. Honeybuzz grit his teeth. Estherfern carefully nudged the mushroom back into its original position. She sat in the den’s entrance, back to Honeybuzz and the apprentices.

Estherfern declared, “I call upon the spirit of Hawthornstealer, banished from StarClan for murder in the name of his kits. Despite your sins, your assistance is required. Return to the Clans, if only for a moment. Speak to us.”

“Do you see that?” Anchovypaw whispered, pressing into Weevilpaw. “Do you see that?” Honeybuzz squinted. The circle was still. Suddenly, Weevilpaw gasped. She bit into her paw to muffle her shock. Honeybuzz braced his heart for whatever the star-blessed apprentices saw.

It began as a shift in the mud, like water in a pot at the first stages of boiling. The ground around the fur offering darkened. Black sludge bubbled out of the mud and lapped up the fur balls like medicine. The sound of its formation reminded Honeybuzz of paws trapped in thick gunk, pulling out of the mess with a sucking slurp. It leaked from under the mushrooms and collected in the circle’s center. The ichor pulled itself upward like drops of water falling from the ceiling, perverting the pull of the earth. A subtle red glow illuminated the den.

“It’s finally working,” Estherfern gasped as the ichor took shape. It lifted itself high like a cat arching their back. It clung to the ground at four points that slowly took on the details of paws. A claw-like tail sprouted from its back. The ichor bubbled and bulged into a muzzle. Two glowing red eyes erupted from the spirit’s face. StarClan help them all.

“So you are Estherfern,” the spirit said. Its voice was as sticky as the mud from which it was born, dissolving into the sound of the tumbling rain.

“Hawthornstealer?” Estherfern asked. The spirit blinked slowly, its eyelids like a mudslide.

“Why do you call?” the spirit groaned.

“Oilstripe and Lavendertwist told me your story,” Estherfern explained. She inched closer, back still stuck in the rain. “You killed an elder to ensure more food for your kits in a famine. You would have done anything for them. StarClan doesn’t seem to have the power I need. I’m hoping you can help.”

“Explain.”

“My kits are sick, and RippleClan can do nothing to help them. One of my daughters is going deaf, the other is half-blind. And now my only son has issues of the head, issues the mediators are simply bandaging, not fixing.” Was she talking about Brightpaw? Spikecrash had asked Honeybuzz and Troutpool about any relaxing herbs the young tom could take before the Gathering, something to ease the panic that overtook him when too many cats surrounded him. It was manageable. There was no need to resort to such extremes.

“You are searching for a cure.”

“I can’t let them struggle like this. How can I fix them?” The spirit stared at Estherfern silently, the rainfall burning into the background of Honeybuzz’s mind. The only sign of un-life in the spirit rested in its long, slow blinking. Even Estherfern, collected as she was, twitched under the spirit’s unending, blank stare.

“I…,” Anchovypaw whispered, “I don’t think that’s the ghost of Hawthornstealer.”

“Why not?” Wolfpaw whimpered.

“It’s too empty,” Anchovypaw groaned, struggling to find the right word. “Weedfoot’s stories said Dark Forest ghosts looked like themselves. Even the Shardling looked a little like Autumnstar, isn’t that what Downstar told us? This thing doesn’t look like anyone. It looks like a shadow."

“We may have the power,” the spirit finally coughed through its thick ichor. “We need help.”

“That’s what I expected,” Estherfern sighed. “What sort of ritual do I need to perform? Is there another spirit I should talk to?”

“Your children were destined to develop these afflictions,” the spirit gurgled. “Their destinies must be replaced. Replaced with another’s.”

“Elaborate.”

“The eyes of the clear sighted.” The spirit’s red eyes shone like a flickering fire. “The ears of the cautious listener.” Its pointed ears flicked, their first movement since the spirit’s arrival. “The tongue of the charmed.” Its black teeth peered out from muddy lips. “Three sacrifices. Three kits.” Estherfern stilled. Honeybuzz’s heart sank. Despite her standoffishness, despite her argumentativeness, Estherfern was part of the Clan, her kits were part of the Clan. How could she throw that away to fix what didn’t, what couldn’t be fixed?

“We’ll stop her before she begins,” Anchovypaw growled, inching a paw out of hiding. StarClan asked for Estherfern. Why would they send for her if she could be swayed like this?

“Offer the dead—”

“No.” All four hidden cats perked their ears high. Estherfern stood, tail rippling slowly as she stared the spirit down. The spirit, to Honeybuzz’s continued shock, flinched.

“No?” the spirit spat.

“What do you take me for?” Estherfern scoffed. “You think I’m so blindly devoted to a cure that you can turn me into a murderer? A sadist for the sake of my children?”

“You want them cured,” the spirit growled. Its paw lingered at the edge of the circle. “This is how you cure them.”

“And what happens when I do?” Estherfern asked, tilting one ear in a shocking taunt. “I know how your land works, the rules of your afterlife. They will go to StarClan some day and learn what I did for them, if they do not find out in life. They will despise me for what I have done.”

“But they will be cured.”

“Furthermore, I know the creatures that inhabit your Dark Forest.” Estherfern walked around the circle like a hunter. The spirit never turned its head, face stuck in a sneer. “It is the home of murderers and scoundrels. I would surely arrive there after my own death were I to kill three innocents for you. You would condemn me to eternity without my children.”

“You’ve already been damned, Estherfern. You brought forth the Skin N’ Bones that slew your deputy. You are the cause of your Clan’s suffering. Do you believe StarClan will forgive you for that?” A Skin N’ Bones. Of course. Nothing else would have injured Downstar like that. Nothing else would have devoured Weedfoot alive. Estherfern stopped. The calculated and callous look that always hung in her eyes cracked. Honeybuzz could almost see Estherfern’s soul drop. “Why give up now? You’re too far gone. Your children are not. Why summon us if you were not willing to do whatever it took to fix your kits?”

“I will not have them hate me!” Estherfern rounded on the spirit, lips curled tight. “I will not have them curse my name!” She shook her head low. “I will find a different cure for them. I will find another way. I send you back, spirit, back to your dark wanderings, where StarClan’s light does not reach.” Estherfern reached for one of the mushrooms. Her paw breached the circle.

“No!” The spirit dug its fangs into Estherfern’s paw. Ichor dripped into her fresh wound. She pulled back, ripping more of her skin in the process.

“I respect what you did for your kits, Hawthornstealer,” Estherfern hissed, licking her paw. “I realize now, however, that where you could put aside your kits’ emotions for their futures, I cannot.”

“We,” the spirit growled, voice dissolving, “are not Hawthornstealer.”

The spirit’s legs melted like snow. Its form dissolved and splashed about in a massive sticky pool. One by one, the mushrooms rolled into the ichor and vanished under the writhing mass as though falling into a great black hole. The ichor bubbled and squirmed as though in a death rattle. It leaked from the confines of the circle and coated the den floor. Estherfern backed up, back paws slipping on the soaked grass.

Weevilpaw raced out of the bush before Honeybuzz could react. She threw her full weight into Estherfern’s side. The two clerics tumbled into the shrubs. In that moment, the ichor exploded. It sprayed the walls of the dirt den and shot into the rain in an endless cascade. More ichor escaped the den than could have possibly made up the spirit in the circle. As it flew into the forest, large clumps tumbled to the side like wayward drops from a massive wave. The glops tumbled and sloshed against the wet ground before launching through the trees and out of sight. More and more of these glops scrambled away until finally, finally, the spray slowed. A long black trail led out of the den, which was now nothing but ichor and goop.

Honeybuzz, Anchovypaw, and Wolfpaw crept out of hiding as Weevilpaw got off Estherfern. Mud coated half of her brown pelt. The ichor stunk like rotting flesh and mushrooms.

“How long have you been there?” Estherfern asked, slow to her paws.

“Wolfpaw, you might have to freeze me,” Anchovypaw growled, claws out. “I’m a whisker’s length from killing her.”

“Anchovypaw, no!” Weevilpaw stood in front of Estherfern, paws skidding. “She didn’t want to hurt anyone. She was trying to help her kits. We can’t blame her for that!”

“But the Dark Forest…” Wolfpaw gulped. With the puff in her fur dissolved in the rain, she seemed half her size.

“It is full of dead cats, not unlike StarClan,” Estherfern huffed. She stepped around Weevilpaw and faced down the furious crowd. “All I wanted was a way to cure my kits, something you’ve shown you cannot do.”

“Estherfern, you weren’t talking to a dead warrior,” Honeybuzz groaned, almost stepping on the ichor trail. “That was a Herald. Their entire purpose is to trick the living into allowing Spirits of Shadow into the territories.” His gaze lingered on the forest. He could almost hear the half-formed monsters slurping across the grass, taking their true, cursed forms.

“You heard her!” Weevilpaw huffed. “She wasn’t going to listen to the spirit. She was going to destroy the circle.”

“She didn’t commit murder,” Anchovypaw scoffed. “You did well, Estherfern. You did the bare minimum.”

“Is it your fault?” Wolfpaw muttered, voice almost lost in the rain. “Did you get Weedfoot killed?” Estherfern stared into the ichor-soaked den.

“I didn’t know,” she said softly.

“She didn’t know, Anchovypaw,” Weevilpaw snapped. “She’s a good cat!”

“She didn’t care about killing anyone, she cared about what her kits would think,” Anchovypaw growled. “How can we trust a cleric who doesn’t care if you live or die?”

“I trust her,” Weevilpaw huffed, pressing into Estherfern. “Even though she’s strange.”

“Weevilpaw,” Honeybuzz sighed, jumping over the ichor, “take Anchovypaw and Wolfpaw and go back to camp. Just go to the medicine den and wait for us.”

“What are we going to do with her?” Anchovypaw asked.

“Leave that to me,” Honeybuzz said, shaking his head. “Now go. Stick together, and hurry. We’ll follow you soon.” The apprentices hesitated, all glancing at one another. Weevilpaw was the first to break; she joined Wolfpaw and nudged her onward. The sisters ran toward the coast. Anchovypaw followed, his burning eyes digging into Estherfern as he vanished into the foggy trees.

“It seems I underestimated the vigor of the Dark Forest’s supernatural entities,” Estherfern hummed, cleaning the mud off her injured paw.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve just done?” Honeybuzz hissed softly.

“Of course I do,” Estherfern snapped, curling her lips. “You love to tell the story of the Rippling Ashes. They ventured into the Dark Forest, they had Newtstream’s advice. What made my own approach so wicked?”

“Because it’s dangerous!” Honeybuzz groaned. “Because channeling Dark Forest souls, even when they want to help, clears a path for Spirits of Shadow, and they don’t care about any of us. They’re born to hunt. This isn’t worth it.”

“If your kits were sick, wouldn’t you do what you could for them?” Estherfern growled with a large thrash of her tail. “You can’t fix them. I thought the Dark Forest could.”

“They don’t need to be fixed!” Honeybuzz yowled, throwing his whole height up to glare down at Estherfern (who, unlike Rapidleaf, would not cower). “They aren’t dying, Estherfern! They can adapt! I’m sorry I can’t cure Thunderkit or stop Brightpaw’s anxiety, but they’ll be fine!” As Honeybuzz yowled, the first crack appeared in the sky, striking through the gray clouds. Thunder echoed far overhead. Estherfern stared at the growing storm.

“What’s out there now, do you think?” Estherfern sighed.

“Dog-cats, forsaken prey, honeybites…” Honeybuzz muttered, spine itching. “There may even be monsters we rarely see, ones we don’t have names for. We don’t want to know everything that’s out there now.”

“This is something we can fix,” Estherfern huffed. She marched around Honeybuzz and stood on the roof of the wicked den. Jaw tight as her bit paw moved, Estherfern dug at the soaked grass. Her pelt was more mud than fur. Chunks of earth tumbled into the den. The sopping ground folded in on itself like a wave. Estherfern rolled away as the roof of the den fell and covered the sticky, stinking ichor. Grass stuck to Estherfern’s underside. Honeybuzz hurried to her, helping her away from the crumbled remains of her sins.

“We can,” Honeybuzz gulped. “We can fix this.”

(Honeybuzz: 23, male, cleric, daring, skilled toolsmith, good teacher)

(Anchovypaw: 10, male, warrior apprentice, playful, curious about StarClan)

(Weevilpaw: 10, female, cleric apprentice, adventurous, curious about StarClan)

(Wolfpaw: 10, female, codekeeper apprentice, thoughtful, curious about StarClan, confident with words)

(Estherfern: 109, female, cleric, bloodthirsty, great mediator, prophecy seeker)

Sandpaw and Spikecrash arrange time for Estherfern to see the kits she worked so hard to “fix”.

[Image ID: Estherfern faces Thunderpaw, Wolverinepaw, and Brightpaw.]

---

Estherfern didn’t belong at such a lively celebration. The sumptuous food, the well-rehearsed performances… Harvest Moon was as grand as RippleClan claimed it to be. Every Clan gathered as the sunrise poked through the trees, preparing their stews and games and performances. But it was a holiday to drive off Spirits of Shadow. What good would it do to have their herald nestled in the safety of the firelight?

“Spirits of Shadow hate charms,” Troutpool explained as she tucked a cat’s wood-carved face into the boughs of a low-hanging pine. “AshClan spends a lot of time carving these trinkets, and all that care under StarClan’s protections makes them especially useful in warding off danger.” All the clerics roamed the edge’s of the great clearing with baskets of charms and other concoctions to protect the five Clans. Estherfern carried RippleClan’s heavy basket as Honeybuzz, Troutpool, and Weevilpaw prepared the defenses to Troutpool’s instruction.

“How many do we have to place?” Weevilpaw asked, shoving a charm as far into a bush as she could reach.

“We’re covering this entire corner,” Troutpool explained. “We don’t want to leave any openings for spirits.” Estherfern nearly broke the charm in her jaws with how tightly she grit her teeth. She quickly passed it to Honeybuzz.

“Estherfern!” Two figures slipped through the massive crowd. Spikecrash and Sandpaw walked side by side, mentor and apprentice in sync. Sandpaw’s gaze wandered throughout the clearing, taking in the sights of all five Clans for the first time.

“You want to speak to me?” Estherfern asked. While her tone made her question sound casual, the brown priestess hid her surprise deep. She didn’t talk to many cats outside of the medicine den. Why would two of the Clan’s mediators want her? Did they know the real reason why Honeybuzz reported a surge of spirits in the Clan? The reason it was too dangerous to leave camp alone? Why all five Clans, not just RippleClan, now had a newfound fear for their lives? Had Honeybuzz not lied for her, Estherfern would have told the truth and accepted the consequences, yet why he kept it secret, Estherfern didn’t know She glanced at Honeybuzz, but the young gold and white cleric focused on his charms.

“I’m hoping we can borrow you,” Spikecrash explained. “Troutpool, do you still need Estherfern’s help?”

“We’re just placing our wards at the moment,” Troutpool explained, reaching into Estherfern’s basket. “We could finish without her if you really need her.” Estherfern carefully slipped the basket off her neck.

“Thank you, Troutpool,” Spikecrash sighed. She flicked her tail for Estherfern to follow. It seemed no one cared if Estherfern actually wanted to speak with Spikecrash, but who was she to refuse? She trailed after Spikecrash and Sandpaw, heading over to the ovens. Clammask and Stormpaw worked with Drumtooth and Thunderpaw, laughing over an unheard joke as they tended the fire under a massive pot of stew.

“I hope this isn’t too much of an invasion of privacy,” Spikecrash began, her scarred flank lifted high in a long stretch. “Honeybuzz and Weevilpaw spoke with me a few days ago and said you were having some difficulties with your kits.” Estherfern narrowed her eyes.

“If we’re going to discuss my kits,” she sighed, “maybe you could tell me why no one told me about Brightpaw’s meetings with you?”

“So you do know about that,” Spikecrash sighed. “Brightpaw is an apprentice now, Estherfern. We aren’t pressured to tell you anything he didn’t want you to know.”

“If he’s sick, I want to help him,” Estherfern huffed.

“Why do you think he didn’t want you to know?” Sandpaw scoffed. “Look how you acted with Wolverinepaw and Thunderpaw.” Oh if only he knew just what Estherfern had done for them. What the Dark Forest wanted her to do.

“I’ve only ever tried to help them overcome their own limitations,” Estherfern said, her sharp stare ricocheting off Sandpaw and muting his confident words.

“That’s why we wanted to show you a few things,” Spikecrash explained. She waved a paw toward the oven where Thunderpaw and the other RippleClan cats gathered.

“The only goal of tonight is to have a better stew than WheatClan,” Drumtooth explained, shooting a friendly sneer at WheatClan’s oven and their large pot. He licked the surface of the stew and smacked his jaws. “It’s good, but it’s missing something.” Thunderpaw copied her mentor. Her face squirmed, thinking hard. She then made a strange motion with her paws; balancing on her back legs, she brought her paws close to her mouth and wiggled them as they moved away.

“I know this one,” Stormpaw chirped, completely focused on Thunderpaw. “If the wiggles are the sea… seaweed! That’s seaweed!”

“Yes!” Thunderpaw squealed. The two young apprentices cheered and giggled at their success, bunting one another

“AshClan borrowed our basket of seaweed,” Clammask explained, nudging Thunderpaw. “Grab some for us.”

“Grab seaweed,” Thunderpaw laughed. She quickly swiped the air like she was dragging a mouse out of hiding, then made the ‘seaweed’ motion again. Stormpaw mimicked the dragging motion as Thunderpaw hurried to AshClan’s oven.

“Why is Stormpaw learning Clan-sign?” Estherfern asked her mediator companions.

“Because Thunderpaw’s teaching her,” Sandpaw chirped. “Whenever Thunderpaw gets back from her sign lessons with Mummichogleap, she practices with us apprentices. Most of us are learning a few words so Thunderpaw isn’t left out.”

“And you want to learn?”

“Thunderpaw makes it fun!”

“You can’t expect the whole Clan to learn this second language.”

“No one does.” Spikecrash touched her tail to Estherfern’s shoulder.. “But there are cats who want to make the effort. They can translate for those who don’t know. It puts pressure off Thunderpaw. She can miss what someone said, but she’ll have friends and family who can let her know.” Thunderpaw trotted back to the oven with a few long strips of seaweed. Clammask tore the seaweed into stew-sized chunks, showing the apprentices how to curl their paws just right. Thunderpaw seemed… happy.

“Now if you’ll follow us over here…” Sandpaw purred, strolling around the Leader’s Stone. Estherfern followed, tail a bit higher than before.

Brightpaw, Ravenpaw, and Vervainpaw sat with a gaggle of apprentices from the other Clans. They lounged about, chatting and laughing. Brightpaw nodded along to an apprentice’s story, his flank stretched out like frog legs. Ravenpaw relaxed on top of him, oohing and awing over the tale.

“I don’t know what your birth place thought of disorders of the mind,” Spikecrash whispered, brushing against Estherfern once more, “but like most disabilities, you can learn to live with them. There was a great gathering of warriors and codekeepers here at the new moon, do you remember? Brightpaw managed to befriend these apprentices during the visit. They invited their friends and littermates to chat today, and Brightpaw is happy to spend time with them. His mind is likely lying to him right now, but he knows ways to manage that. He could overcome his anxiety naturally some day, but that’s a minor part of who he is.”

“I know that,” Estherfern huffed. “He loves to play with Rabbitjoy’s paint supplies. He’s sensitive, and loves his sisters with all his heart. I’ve only ever wanted to help those traits shine.”

“That’s not how Brightpaw sees it,” Sandpaw scoffed under his breath. The comment hollowed out Estherfern’s chest. Before she could respond, two brown blurs shot past the Leader’s Stone with a horde of apprentices and young warriors at their tails. Wolverinepaw and Yarrowpaw led the crowd to an open spot within the festivities. They studied their followers like leader and deputy, the sunrise framing their profiles.

“We’ve got until after sunhigh to prepare!” Wolverinepaw cheered.

“Are we going to let some dusty old bones beat us?” Yarrowpaw cried.

“No!” the young crowd yowled joyfully, already shoving and jumping over each other.

“Let’s show them what the new generation can do!” Wolverinepaw called. Her followers cheered, yowling to the high branches. They scattered throughout the clearing and split into sparring groups. They steadied their stances and wiggled their flanks. With sheathed paws, the youth of the Clans launched into training, trading blows and careful bites. Slushpaw lingered near the edge of the training grounds, cheering the others on.

“Slushpaw!” Sandpaw yowled to the older mediator apprentice. “What are they doing?”

“Well,” Slushpaw laughed, trotting up to Sandpaw, Spikecrash, and Estherfern, “Yarrowpaw and Wolverinepaw were arguing with Darkkick and another old warrior about what was a better trait in a fight; youth or experience. Suddenly all these other cats started joining in, and now the senior warriors are going to have a big mock-battle with the apprentices, plus some warriors who haven’t attended a Harvest Moon before.”

“And Wolverinepaw’s participating in this?” Estherfern huffed. She searched for her daughter in the crowd. She found Wolverinepaw rolling about with Yarrowpaw in the middle of the mess. Yarrowpaw shoved Wolverinepaw’s head into the dirt. Wolverinepaw snapped her jaw around Yarrowpaw’s leg and pulled her onto her shoulder. Yarrowpaw laughed as Wolverinepaw took her place on top of the older apprentice.

"She's as capable as any apprentice her age," Spikecrash assured Estherfern.

"She seemed so insecure during her ceremony…" Estherfern muttered.

"Wolverinepaw?" Spikecrash chuckled. "I don't think so. From what I've heard, she thinks she's strong enough to take on an actual wolverine."

"She didn't choose a role in time, though," Estherfern pointed out.

"Because she wanted to do everything!" Slushpaw laughed. "I talked with her right up to her ceremony. She had a new role in mind every day!" Oh. Had Wolverinepaw's sight not come up at all? Surely her decaying vision would make it hard for her to fight. Yet she kept up with Yarrowpaw, tumbling across the clearing with abandon. Had Estherfern's kits always been so sure of themselves? Surely they wanted cures. How else could they survive in a world that showed no mercy to the weak? In the cat-minded human's den, if you couldn't match up to the others, you wouldn't eat. Three of Estherfern's brilliant kits would have died in that awful place. Except…they weren't there anymore, were they?

"Can I guess what's been going on?" Spikecrash asked. "You've been so focused on a cure in their future, you've ignored how they are in the present. When's the last time you talked to them about something, anything but their health? Have you talked to Foampaw or Boughpaw at all?" Estherfern glanced from one kit to another. Their faces glowed with holiday glee. Did they ever glow around Estherfern anymore? When was the last time she shared a meal with them?

"Spikecrash," Estherfern muttered, her pride burning her words, "I need you to teach me something."

A short time later, Estherfern approached Thunderpaw and the RippleClan stew. The bounties of the ocean danced in the broth, specially prepared for that oh so exciting celebration. Thunderpaw stared eagerly into the stew while Stormpaw and their mentors talked with other caretakers. She spotted her mother and her eyes grew big and calm, mimicking Estherfern's eternally serene expression. Estherfern's heart did not carry that serenity as she approached her bold daughter.

"Do you need…" Estherfern said hesitantly. She awkwardly sat on her hind legs. She held out one paw, pads down, and angled the other on top of it, claws out. Thunderpaw's eyes sparkled at the sign.

"Help," she whispered as Estherfern quickly returned to a natural position. Thunderpaw made the sign with ease, quickly hopping from her hind legs and back. She ogled Estherfern, her thoughts not caught up to reality.

"I want to spend time with you," Estherfern explained. It felt like someone carved her pelt off, leaving her exposed. "I want to share your stew with you and your littermates." Thunderpaw blinked slowly. It took her so long to reply, Estherfern was about to repeat herself, just in case her pounding heart muffled her words.

"Do you want to learn the sign for littermates while the stew finishes cooking?" Thunderpaw gulped. The tip of her tail twitched wildly as her earlier joy bloomed across her face once more.

"If it means time with you," Estherfern sighed.

(Estherfern: 109, female, cleric, bloodthirsty, great mediator, prophecy seeker)

(Troutpool: 36, female, cleric, insecure, ghost sense)

(Weevilpaw: 10, female, cleric apprentice, adventurous, curious about StarClan)

(Honeybuzz: 23, male, cleric, daring, skilled toolsmith, good teacher)

(Spikecrash: 50, female, mediator, wise, good speaker, lore keeper)

(Sandpaw: 6, male, mediator apprentice, loyal, interested in Clan history)

(Drumtooth: 23, trans male, caretaker, loyal, great hunter, clever)

(Thunderpaw: 7, female, caretaker apprentice,

(Stormpaw: 6, female, caretaker apprentice, charismatic, loves to eat)

(Clammask: 69, female, caretaker, righteous, lore master, good teacher)

(Brightpaw: 7, male, warrior apprentice, lonesome, lover of art)

(Wolverinepaw: 7, female, warrior apprentice, compassionate, always asking questions)

(Yarrowpaw: 10, female, warrior apprentice, thoughtful, stares at fire)

(Slushpaw: 11, female, mediator apprentice, wise, quick witted, bats at string)

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mikobeautifulheart · 11 months ago

Text

☆Master list☆

--->There is NO smut btw just some suggestive. (or not yet)

Rules and about me here

♧Megumi♧

Drunk Megumi's over due confession

Synopsis: Megumi gets unknowingly drunk on his birthday and spills a secret.

Yuji's little sister

Synopsis: You join Jujutsu high with your older brother yuji, meeting Megumi as well.

The same.

Synopsis: Yuji dies and the weight falls on your shoulders, the only way you thought to take it of was but hurting yourself.

Crying over Megumi

Synopsis: Megumi find you in your dorm after your mission avoiding him.

Pervy Megumi (Thoughts)

Synopsis: Not a fic more just like general ideas of him.

When he finds out you harm yourself

Synopsis: Usually you don't get into much danger when you harm yourself, but his time Megumi found you.

MEGUMI SERIES

Synopsis: Gojo watches as his son grows and is there every step of the way (even if Megumi dosen't know it)

Megumi and get caught up in the moment (And on Gojo's phone)

Synopsis: Megumi gives up on his mind and follows his instincts. And Gojo bares witness.

You and Megumi have your first official date

Synopsis: You and Megumi sneak out at night only for you to be pleasantly surprised by your fist date.

Bed bugs

Synopsis: He could care less about the marks he leaves.

☆Yuji☆

Yuji being horrible at comforting you and getting jealous over a 'guy'

Synopsis: Yuji hears you crying uncontrollably but after he fails to console you Gojo interrupts. which pretty much dose the trick.

♡Yuta♡

Nothing yet...which is kinda weird because he's my favorite character.

There is a bit of him in the various fics tho.

♤Toge♤

Nothing yet...

~Gojo~

7 Minutes in panic (College AU) 1700 words EXACTLY.

Synopsis: You go to a party for the first time and run into your Chemistry partner. As luck would have it the night goes wrong when your drink turns out to be spiked and your stuck with him in your closet.

Mafia Gojo needs to go to work but you could care less.

Synopsis: Really short less then 100 words. Gojo has to go to work but you convince hm not to.

Assassin partner Gojo tries to make up for his mistakes.

Synopsis: Gojo's made a few mistakes in his job when it comes to you but in the end he knows you weren't one of them.

When you are replaced.

Synopsis: A new transfer teacher comes to Tokyo jujutsu high and she seems a bit to friendly.

Geto

Look at the various or go to the series section for '5 satges of greif'

¤Nanami¤

Teen Nanami and the random trampoline

Synopsis: Nanami just feels like a happy kid.

Teen Nanami winning cards.

Synopsis: In a game of cards, Nanami competes for the first prize which you gladly give him.

▪︎Sukuna▪︎

Sukuna switching with Yuji when your both asleep.

Synopsis: Sukuna wants a feel of what Yuji gets.

Intervention

Synopsis: You were going to go get married off to the Gojo clans strongest, how ever you disappear when you marriage was announced. The only clue anyone has to your disappearance is the monster lurking in the woods.

Choso

He gets jealous of your new pet cat.

Synopsis: You find a stray cat and Choso is not a cat person.

-Series-

5 stages of grief

1 Denial, Megumi Fushiguro

Synopsis: After Megumi's death you start seeing him everywhere, but every time your reminded that he is dead.

2 Anger, Suguru Geto

Synopsis: After his death you cut yourself off and busy your life with work, however when your called into Shibuya you can't bring yourself to kill him, until he assures you that its okay.

3 Bargaining, Satoru Gojo

Synopsis: After Gojo's death you try everything you can for years but nothing will bring him back.

Various JJK men and scenarios:

-Pretending to be your boyfriend and saving you from creeps:

Synopsis: Creep approaches, their there to save you.

Megumi and Yuji

Gojo and Geto

Nanami and Toji

Sukuna and Choso (Coming soon)

-When you forget your umbrella:

-Synopsis: You forget your umbrella but they find solutions.

Yuji and Megumi

Teen Gojo and Office worker Nanami

-When the train is crowded

Synopsis: The train goes thorough rush hour and you guys got stuck in it.

Yuji, Megumi and Yuta

-When the secretly hear you sing

Synopsis: You don't like singing infront of other people, but they want you to sing around them.

Megumi and Yuji

-When they accidently fall on you and vice versa

Synopsis: Its exactly what it sounds like.

Yuta and Yuji

-When you go to your first festival with them

Synopsis: You go to the festival for the first time with

Megumi, Yuji and Yuta

-When you turn delusional

Synopsis: From sleep deprivation to blood loss.

Yuji and Toge

-When you think they would hurt you.

Synopsis: When arguments bring your instincts back, they almost drop everything to love you again.

Yuji and Megumi

Yuta and Gojo

-Movie date but things get heated.

Synopsis: A simple movie in an almost empty cinema is good enough. (Not smut but suggestive)

Gojo and Megumi

-When they eat the last donut

Gojo and Yuji/Sukuna

-When they have an older GF

Yuji and Yuta (Aged upish, nothing illegal okay)

-Their morning voice

Megumi and Yuji

-When someone breaks into your house

Megumi and Yuji

If you want anything else or the same thing for a different character, just request I don't really have any rules-ish.

More to come!

Pleseee give me request, i'll die if I don't write anythingggggg.

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quitealotofsodapop · 6 months ago

Note

Even after e erhthing settles down in the pilot and they're able to finally, properly, have a chat... Peaches is still nervous around DBK. It's hard for him to go from jsut being Pigsy's nerdy eldest son to Wun Wukong and he's still skittish from being chased across the entire city and over the seas by a scary demon bull. He's also not quite convinced DBK won't hurt him... it takes a lot of gentle prodding for DBK to get his fur to stop puffin up in fear every time he comes near. He is very much regretting how he handled his resurrection and seeing Sun Wukong so soon after his release.

Yeah, once both families make it to FFM and see the signs pointing to Peaches *being* Sun Wukong with memory loss, things get really awkward. Not just between the Noodle family, but with the addition of the Demon Bull clan, who vow not to fight Peaches until he regains his memories of being Sun Wukong.

The Bull fam also point out that Peaches, for all his powers and Staff; doesn't remember any of his training from Subodhi or his brethern. All three of them make up the very few people who knew Sun Wukong enough to help Peaches regain his experience.

Of course initial training doesn't go as planned; "Bad Weather" occurs not due to an attempt at taking over the city, but through a training session gone awry. It ultimately leads to the Monkey Bros deciding to split Sun Wukong's powers between them; two clumsy demi-god monkeys are easier to manage than one *super powerful* one.

But again, as you said; trust doesn't come easy. And these monkeys are puffing up like scared cats the next couple of times they see DBK or his family.

DBK is trying his best not to scare the little guys. He oft forgets that Peaches isn't exactly his xiandi anymore, tho he acts a lot like Wukong did when he was a younger monkey. The major difference being the absence of his responsibilities as King and the influence of the Brotherhood. And of course the addition of two fathers, a fishy uncle, and a loyal little brother and friend. DBK and PIF may clash with MK and Mei at times, but they admit that they are good influences on their reclusive son.

And of course there's Pigsy and Tang to contend with. The pair, as shocked as they were to discover Peaches' origins, aren't eager to throw him into the light as a hero.

Pigsy: "Please, you have to understand. For the last 18 years he hasn't been some demi god or whatever, he's been my son. And I can't stand the thought of anything happening to him." DBK, touched: "I... I understand your pain. Sun Wukong helped save the life of my own child before my imprisonment. You have my word as both a father and a king, I will not ever harm your son." Pigsy: "You better not. Cus' if you do, I ain't sure which of us will kill you first." (*DBK looks over to see Tang, Mei, Sandy, Mo, and MK glaring at him with distrust in their eyes*) DBK: "I wouldn't have it any other way."

It's the confirmation from Dadsy that DBK is chill that ultimately helps warm Peaches to him and to training with the Demon Bull fam.

#peach soup au #sun wukong #lmk dbk #lmk demon bull king #lmk demon bull family #lmk pigsy #lmk dadsy #lmk aus #lmk #lego monkie kid

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justastraymoa · 5 months ago

Text

ADVENTURES WITH CHEESE EXTENDED EDITION PT 9

As soon as I saw Cheese I ran to him and scooped him into my arms. Cheese made an annoyed noise and wiggled, but I held firm.

“You had me worried to death! How could you do that to me!” I chastised in a cutesy baby voice. Cheese looked away, uncaring about the agony he caused me and the years of my life he took from me.

Beside me Chan gave Felix a hug clapping his back loudly. “Thank you so much man! We have been looking everywhere!”

Felix laughed uncomfortably. “No problem. I didn’t even recognize him; it’s been so long.”

“And he doesn’t like you because you scared his mother.” Lino put in as he came over to scratch Cheese behind his ear.

“That too.”

“This more than makes up for that. Seriously, thank you, Felix.” I added giving the man a relieved smile.

“You are such a naughty, naughty boy! You had daddy and mommy scared.” Lino lectured Cheese, who again was uncaring and just wanted to be put down.

A new person walked into the room with a wide smile on his face. “Apparently, he likes scaring people. He nearly had me jumping out of my skin hiding on the black rug and blending in.”

“This is Jisung, one of my roommates.” Felix introduced the new man. I nodded and smiled at him.

Chan chuckled. “Yeah, I changed my blankets because he blended in to well with my old ones. I kept sitting on him on accident.”

I jumped slightly as there was frantic pounding on the door. Jisung opened it to let in Bin and Hyune who looked like they ran all the way here from my old apartment. They immediately zeroed in on the cat in my arms.

Later on, that night as we all ate dinner (I hadn’t eaten all day and when Chan found out he scolded me like a dad for ten minutes) Lino brought up putting a chip in Cheese.

I shrugged. “Honestly it never occurred to me to do that. But it’s a good idea since he has gotten out twice now. And with you guys taking him on trips and crap.”

Lino looked relieved. “Exactly. And if this should ever happen again, we can find him right away.”

“Plus, I am going to take him to the vet anyways to get him checked over for injuries. I can just have them put the chip in then.” It would be a weight off my chest knowing that we had a very good chance of getting Cheese back right away if he escaped again. And most places have chip scanners now so if some nice person took him to a vet or animal shelter, they would be able to contact me.

I smirked at Bin. He had spent almost every second doing little things for me and Cheese to ease his guilt. I kept telling him it wasn’t necessary, but hell if he would listen to me. Instead, he actually let Cheese on his bed and made me my favorite snack before bed.

Cheese scratched at the door again mewing pitifully before turning his big boba eyes on me. “Nuh uh, mister. You aren’t going to cute your way out of this one. We are almost done then we can go home.” I reached a handout to offer pets, but Cheese ignored it, meowing loudly at the door again.

Cheese was so mad at me he slept with Chan for 3 days. But at least I knew that I could find him now and that he was okay and healthy.

Now the Chan Clan was gone for 2 weeks on a business trip, and I had the apartment all to myself. It was too quiet. I was used to there being noise always coming from somewhere.

I was used to being able to talk to one of them or show them a stupid video or meme I found of them that would make them laugh or blush. It was one of my favorite past times now. But it was lonely in this apartment without them.

I had spent a whole day distracting myself by cleaning everything I could get my hands on. Right down to washing and sanitizing Cheeses toys and putting his cloth toys and blankets in the washer. I even went through my dresser and filled a garbage bag full of clothes to donate.

Now everything was spotless and the whole apartment smelled like cleaning supplies, but I had nothing to do. Anytime I started to watch tv I would get to a part that I wanted to show one of the boys and remember again that they weren’t there. And a lot of shows I was watching with them, and I couldn’t watch without them here. That ruins all the fun.

Even cat movie Friday was a bummer. I watched the first movie I found that mentioned a cat. Turns out it was about a cat who was abandoned and spent the rest of the movie searching for his loved ones. I was sobbing the entire time.

My phone rang early the next morning with a video call from Lino.

“Melluh.” I mumbled still half asleep.

“I told you she would still be in bed.” Bins tiny voice came over the line and I opened my eyes in confusion.

All 4 of my boys were on the tiny screen of my phone. Squished together so they could all fit into the frame but looking happy enough. I sat up and rubbed my eyes trying to wake up. “S’okay. How are you? I miss you.” I mumbled.

“We miss you too, y/nnie!” Bin said way too loudly making me flinch slightly.

Hyune squinted and leaned closer to the phone. “You look puffy.”

“Gee, thanks oh so much. You look great. Like usual.” I rolled my eyes.

Hyune ignored me. “Have you been crying?”

This got everyone’s attention and they all suddenly looked very concerned. I waved their concerns away shaking my head. “Yeah. I watched a sad movie last night. It got me right in the feels.”

“You watched a sad movie for cat movie Friday? Why?”

I swear. “I didn’t do it on purpose! I just chose one at random and it happened to be sad. And then I couldn’t just stop watching because then I wouldn’t know what happened and it would bother the hell out of me!”

“Whatever, who cares. Where’s Cheese?” Lino asked. I glared at him. I know he cared about me, but sometimes his words did hurt a little.

“I’m hanging up.” I announced.

“No, wait, I’m sorry! It is good to see you too, just I need my fix of Cheese too, you know.” Lino was quick to back step.

I sighed at moved so Cheese was in the frame too. He was sleeping peacefully on the empty side of my bed, one of his blankets curled around him like a nest and him nestled inside nice and toasty warm.

There were 3 collective ‘awwwws’ which made Cheese crack an eye open before stretching out his front paws and yawning.

I did have to admit I saved the video and all the photos I could of the kitten interview on my phone. They were truly adorable and the interactions with them were funny as hell. Chan was such a little baby when it came to their sharp claws. And Lino was just chilling there like an expert cat whisperer playing with them and keeping them calm in his arms.

You would think Chan would be in better practice in dealing with cats now that he has lived with Cheese for so long, but apparently not. And Hyune was really about to love all Cheese privileges if he says one more thing about dogs being better than cats. That’s a crime in this house. And I will not stand for it!

A/N: Cheese is back home from his wandering! Now we can get back into his more fun shenanigans!

I hope you enjoyed and as always thank you for any and all interactions

Skz + pets masterlist

Taglist: @whatdoyouwanttocallmefor

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askinkiskarma · 2 years ago

Text

Masterpiece

dbf!Jake Sully x (f)Metkayina!Reader

Wc: 2.4k words

Synopsis: Jake Sully comes to settle among the Metkayina and quickly becomes your dad’s best friend… and your biggest nightmare and desire, all wrapped in one smirking, annoying, irresistible package.

Warnings: smut with minimal plot (p in v, fingering, slight degradation kink, slight praise kink, mean!jake, overstimulation, edging, creampie, daddy kink, pet names, age gap)

A/N: i need it besties, i need it bad. also thank you to my bestie @karma-is-a-cat-purringinmylap for the continuous amazing music recoms. enjoy x

“My love’s got a super sweet taste and a wicked mean face and it makes me go ah!

My love’s got a super sick mind, oh, it’s sicker than mine, and it makes me go ah!”

Jake Sully.

Jake Sully changed everything the second he arrived in your village, the second he became one of your dad’s confidants, one of his best friends. The second you laid your eyes on him, a man more than twice your age, and you knew you were doomed. Because he was the most beautiful, the most enticing, the most dangerous man you have ever met. He came by your tent all the time, spent so much time with your dad, you began to find it suspicious, in time. You noticed him. You studied him. Soon enough, you picked up things that other didn’t seem to, that only you seemed to be privy to. Like the way his eyes glimmered with a hint of sickness in them, a tinge of depravity that you knew all too well, that you noticed in him because you recognised it in yourself. Or the way his tail had a few distinct patterns of movement, and the one he displayed, consciously or subconsciously, you weren’t sure, when he was around you was entirely different than any other one that he had around anybody else. Or his scent, how musky and woody it was, and how intense it got when he was in your tent - maybe because that was the only time you were in tight quarters together, so it was the only time it was not diluted by everyone else’s scent. Or how he addressed you - always with a smirk, a smile that could make even the most stoic of people drop their inhibitions… and their loincloths. Kid. Doll. Girl. So many things, minuscule to most, but unforsakable to you.

“It is decided. Jake will teach you how to work a bow and arrow. With everything happening with the Sky People, we need every advantage we can muster. We need to be strong, ma ‘ite. I need to know you’re safe. Jake can keep you safe, I am sure of it.”

“Oh, trust me, I will do my very best to make sure she is ready.” How did your dad not notice it? The way he spoke, like there was always another meaning, a hidden message behind his every word. The way it curled and undulated, the way it left his sinful mouth that was always stretched in a smirk, devilish and unholy. The way you were so damp at the promise of his words, you were scared to death everyone in the clan would be able to smell you. You could smell it. And looking at Jake eyeing you up and down, lingering stares on your lower abdomen, his smirk increasing in size and his gaze in its intensity, you knew he could, too.

And you knew he wouldn’t just let it go.

You were in the woods one day, a small break from practice as you lay on a rock, in a frilly loincloth and beaded top that barely covered your perky breasts and hard nipples.

“Does anybody buy it?” His head tilted to a sidw with a quirk of his brow and an inquisitive smile plastered all over his face. It would be innocent enough, his question, if it wasn’t for the intensity of his eyes that stared you down, like they were undressing you as he spoke.

“Does anybody buy what?” You spat, a little more forceful than you intended. His attitude was driving you crazy. He was intoxicating your every sense, his presence, his very being crawling into your skin and making a home of it, and you didn’t know if you were powerful enough to drive him out. You didn’t know if you wanted to drive him out.

“Your little good girl act. I mean they seem like they do, all of them, the whole clan bright eyed and bushy tailed when you walk past. All of them enamoured by you, or by who you’re pretending to be. Don’t get me wrong, kid. You do a good job. It could almost get me fooled. But then I see your eyes, that just for a second drop the act and your real self, your real thoughts are reflected in them, I see your face contorting in anger, or frustration.” His hand trails up your thigh and you shudder under him. “In ache, and desire.” His hand moves to your inner thigh, inching upwards until he makes contact with your loincloth, that much like most other days recently, was damp. “I can smell you. Smell your needy cunt, smell how much it wants me. So tell me, how do you do it?”

You let out a breath you felt like you’ve been keeping for too long, maybe your whole life. This man was depraved, and wrong, and a heathen, and for the first time in your life, you felt understood. You felt seen. Like you could finally do what you’ve always wanted to, but was scared no one would be able to withstand. Like you could finally let someone have his way with you, the way you’ve always wanted to.

You turned around to face him, angling your face to be able to look into his eyes, those predatory eyes. He was so tall, so powerful, and you wanted him. And you would have him, if it was the last thing you'd do.

“I don’t know, I assume the same way you do it.”

He raised an eyebrow yet again, eyeing down your body until his hand wrapped around your throat and squeezed. You gasped and clenched your thighs together.

“You like to talk back, don’t you? We’ll have to see about that.”

He unwrapped your tewng skillfully and groaned slightly as he took in your dripping cunt, the slick running down your thighs.

“What would your dad say, huh? What do you think he’d say if he heard about what I’m going to do to his precious daughter? To his… innocent baby girl?”

You let out a small moan and shut your eyes tightly as the anticipation was already wearing you out. His fingers flicker over your folds, thumb finding your clit and circling it, putting pressure on it as he sinks two digits into you, stretching you out.

“What would he say if he found out that his daughter’s a little slut? Huh? That she’s dripping wet before I even touched her, that she’s moaning with my hand around her neck? That she’ll be moaning with my cock stuffed down her throat later?”

Not that there was any doubt in your mind, but this man knew how to fuck. It was clear by how he was fingering you, how he was able to locate your g-spot almost immediately, how he knew exactly where to put pressure and how much of it, how to release his grip on your throat at the exact time needed to maximise the pleasure that felt too intense to bear even before you even got the chance to cum.

You had no answer to his questions, you had no thoughts in your mind other than the feral primal need of him deep in you, so deep you hoped you’d finally fill a hole you’ve felt has been empty in you for too long to even remember when it started.

He continued pumping his long digits in and out of you skillfully, until you were so wet, his ministrations were creating unattractive squelching noises that he sneered at, increasing his pace, drowning them out with the sounds of your pained mewls.

“Cunt so wet for me, doll. Can’t wait to fuck you til you’re dripping in cum. D’you think your dad will finally notice then?”

“I need t-to…”

You could hear the stupid smirk in his voice as he spoke.

“Use your words, kid. What d’you need?”

“Cum, fuck!”

He curls his fingers in you, hitting that spongy part of you that needed it most, and then pulled out, leaving you a panting mess.

“Oh, you need to cum? Shoulda thought of that when you gave me attitude earlier, kid.”

You felt like crying, but didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. You had a hunch this wasn’t the first or only time this man would make you cry, and the later you started, the better. The feeling though, ecstasy bordering on pain, was weaking your resolve by the second, and soon enough, the emptiness you felt was hurting you.

“Please.”

“Please what?”

“Please fuck me… daddy.”

You watched as Jake’s expression darkened, a growl spilling out past his parted lips, his canines in full view now, sharp and deadly, and you throbbed in need when you thought about them sinking into you, marking you, making you his.

“You want daddy to fuck you, kid? You want daddy’s cock in you?”

You nodded vigorously, tears prickling painfully at your eyes, and out of pity or his own twisted needs, he undid his loincloth in one sweep motion, and allowed you your first look at him, in all his impressive, thick glory. He was a sight to behold and you felt the need to swallow, and the need to tell him to fuck your mouth until his cum coated your throat.

He takes you by the underside of your arms and lifts you up, and you instinctively wrap your thigs around his thin waist, pulling him as tightly on you as you can, cunt flush against his abs. You throw your head back when your back slams against the trunk of a massive tree, and the pain feels so much like pleasure you’re close to release again, mindlessly grinding on him.

He takes your jaw in his hand and forcefully brings your face into view.

“Cut that shit out, d’you hear me, kid? You’ll already be limping by the time i’m done with you, you want to be limping and not even come?”

“Just fuck me, daddy, please! I need it s’bad!”

His cock prods at your sopping entrance, twitching wildly against your folds at your words.

“Goddamn, girl, you really are a slut. So eager to get fucked dumb, you’re like my dream come true, aren’t you?”

“Can’t wait to fuck this dirty mouth one day.”

“Yes, daddy, yes! Can’t… can’t wait either, daddy!”

He laughs mockingly at your desperate tone, and fills you up in one thrust, hard and ruthless, giving you no time to adjust to the enourmous length or girth, that was stretching you almost painfully, curving slightly against the resistance of your cervix, forming a bulge in your lower abdomen that you stared in awe at.

Jake lets out a guttural moan as he bottoms out in you, balls pressed against your folds. His eyes are shut tightly and his head slouched forward to rest in between your breasts.

“Fuck, kid, you’re so fucking tight I feel like I could just cum in this pretty pussy right now.”

He reaches a hand to your lower abdomen and presses on the little bump, and you whimper as the sensation overload makes you convulse on his dick, your thighs weakening aroud his waist.

“Feel how deep my cock is in you?”

“Mmm-hm, ah! Yes, d-daddy.”

“I’m gonna fuck you so good, girl, your cunt’s gonna stretch to my cock, you’re going to be made for me. My toy.”

You nod, tears streaming down your face as he takes one of your nipples in his mouth and sucks, and the other in between his fingers, twisting and squeezing.

“Your toy, daddy.”

His cock starts moving in and out of you, slow at first whilst he’s still teasing you, still denying you the pace and intensity you need to cum.

“Are ya gonna call me daddy in front of your dad, too, kid? What would he think if the name just slips past your lips? Don’t think he’d like his adoptive daughter behaving like that, what d’you think?”

“D-don’t care! You c-can both be my daddies! Argh, fuck!”

He lets out a big laugh and slams into your cunt aggressively, knocking the air from your lungs.

“You like it, don’t you? Like playing with fire, like the little slut you are. I betcha wouldn’t even mind getting caught with your dad’s best friend’s cock deep in your cunt, huh?”

You shake your head, feeling the tears on your lips and their salty taste as your tongue swipes over them. You cry out in pain when he slams into you over and over, sacaddic thrusts that have no way of getting you off, only enhancing the feeling of despair you feel bubbling into you at being denied so many orgasms.

“I’m not letting you cum ‘til you admit it, girl.”

“Fuck, fine! I wouldn’t mind, I want them to catch us, I want everyone to know!”

You feel exhausted, but you still manage a loud burst of moans when he finally starts picking up his pace, holding you down by your throat as he ruts upwards into you, making you see white all around you as the world fades from view and is replaced with just a glow that spreads and increases in intensity and you feel the pressure in your core building once more, enough to make you cry out wildly.

“Yes! Yes, feels so good, daddy! You’re fucking me so well, daddy.”

“I know, kid, I can feel your tight pussy squeezing me. You want to come on my cock, girl? Come for me so I can fill this cunt with my load, huh? D’you want that, doll? Want my cum deep in you?”

“Yes, fuck yes, daddy!”

The orgasm washes over you like that one wave you got caught under as a child and could not escape, so powerful and all-consuming, you felt yourself trembling on him and he spills his seed into you, warm and sticky as it falls down your thighs, as he fucks it back into you, over and over, making sure it stays there, making sure it’s imprinted in your walls, just like his presence was imprinted in your mind.

“You did so well, doll. Maybe next time your two daddies can take turns fucking you, huh? Would you like Tonowari’s cock filling this pussy up while I fuck this pretty mouth?”

Well, your life might never be the same again, but it was definitely never going to be boring around Jake Sully.

Now, am I sick enough to make a dbf!jake x reader x stepdad!tonowari ??? Maybe 😉 if besties want it?

taglist: @fanboyluvr

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kel-lance · 8 months ago

Text

JJK Mafia Au (JJK x Reader) PART 4

(quick chapter//moving plot)

Warnings:

- TW: Dead dove dont read (DDDR) Minors do not interact (MDNI): SA, Physical Assault, DubCon, NonCon, Mindbreak, Public Humiliation, Breeding, Ownership, Gaslighting, Multiple manipulation, RWORD, PTSD, a lot more toxic sh.

Premise:

Reader lives in a city where the two biggest gangs keep things line until the third gang showed up. That had nothing to do with you though, until dumb luck just happened to favor you one day. Basically You’re picked up and used by every dangerous criminal within the clans due to some alliances they had to create due to some members messing up the previous alliances. ((Almost everyone’s gonna have a turn 🤗)) ( i have 12 chapters planned out right now meaning after i write those ill still be writing more.)

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AN: Sorry for the long update i'm trying not to get evicted bc i was fired a while ago bc of a protest (surprise surprise big companies don't like or care about palestine or other places like it.) but i had to give away my cats and am still struggling i have my socials in my masterpost if you could help if not its okay ily, I hope you like it

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After the three took a break from you, Sukuna pushed Yuuji towards you. Todo just follows along, trying to make sure Sukuna doesn't kill Yuuji as they just don't know what Sukuna could be thinking at times like these.

You lay a top the bed, sheets strayed, your hair messy, your whole body sweaty and broken, you entirely were weak, and Yuuji couldn't stop saying sorry to your fucked out face. "Let's see what you got."

You didn't feel anything for a few minutes until Todo broke the silence. "You've got to do something, brother, you know I'll back you up."

Yuuji just continued to stand there. If he were to fight Sukuna with Todo on his back, he wouldn't know who else would fight with them. Todo would lose everything he already has and would blindly die for him, which he would never ask for. But if he were to go through with fucking you again for Sukuna's enjoyment, Todo would also have to add himself into the situation. This double edged sword was going to stab him either way, but which would hurt you less?

"Don't take too long..." The leader made motion that he was going to start walking towards you two. "NO." Yuuji covered you on the bed, staring off back at his older brother. Todo comes behind Yuuji, putting a hand on his shoulder before giving him a look, and sighing understandingly as he stripped off his shirt.

Todo and Yuuji's was almost awfully awkward at first. They just felt bad, not being able to tell if you were even conscious anymore and continuing to do to you what they were doing.

Really they weren’t allowed to stop until Sukuna was satisfied. Until Yuuji was sobbing, begging him to give you and everyone else a rest. He was asking what would it take to stop this?

The older brother taunts, “Maybe we’ll keep her til she births one of our children, or multiple if she can create sufficient and strong offspring. I don’t know, Yuuji, should I start a farm because of you? I heard the Zenin clan is somewhat similar…”

“Please, please, Sukuna what do you want?” He was breathless. “This has to stop, you can’t-.”

He stops his younger brother, “I have, I did, and I can continue this for as long as you both live. I think that may be the conclusion I’ll come to, don’t you think it would be fun to be an uncle?” His big hands caress your stomach, feigning tenderness to his soon to be child or “sibling’s” child.

- You go back to your room where you stay in for a week.

- A random night, someone breaks in and tries to kidnap you and you didn’t know who it was, obviously you weren’t going with them without an explanation.

-That caused you to fight back as your dealing with everything so far, you were getting pissed being treated like a doll. The person who broke in gets captured, just before he says “Yuuji’s waiting outside, trust me.”

- Sukuna's family come in trying to make sense of the situation and the others had captured the mystery guy

- That's not before he throws you to two female ninjas. They secure you quickly and run back to their master Toji.

- their clan/gang is super powerful, the twins you can guess are Maki and Mai, and Sukuna (the new head of one of the three big families that control the large part of the area, the head of the Kamo gang) had just kidnapped their son, even if he did happen to barge in.

- Megumi’s been friends w Yuuji since they were kids but they never shared that.

- they met bc they were fighting bc yuuji was taught to fight ppl who give them looks (Sukuna wanted him to protect the family name no matter what, and megumi just had that face… and when they realized that they were part of the other side they had to come to extremes before realizing they were different from their families.

- they knocked each other out senseless and somehow one was still alive, megumi sat with yuuji while he regained consciousness and they started to talk more. Battered and bloodied but Yuuji finding the humor in it while Megumi thinks enough to like his character and realizes he’s just a big strong idiot.

- Maki and Mai are close, as sisters should be and they both have their loves (nobara and momo) and we all have to go team up with the gojo clan in order to make sure this trade off is safe and megumi and yuuji aren’t dead

- because now yuuji is with you at the toji clan too, it was supposed to be just you getting captured and then yuuji leaves to live his own life but now he’s in front of toji saying it was his fault that megumi’s now with his brother (sukuna)

- Yuuji explains that he and his son were friends since childhood, he says everything and everyone's on edge bc toji does what he wants, whenever, whatever, really anything for money.

- He says he knows he doesn’t have money, but the only thing he does have was something they both risked their lives for, so toji gets curious and wants to try you out.

- Toji fucks you senseless, making you think the train ran on you were more merciful. He was trying every hole, every position, just dressing you up and doing whatever he could with you, you were actually at your limit with him, enough to bring you back enough to start fighting again. You were getting sick of it, actually you think you were getting sick.

His inconsideration was on par with Sukuna's, though Sukuna cared more about his new objects while Toji wants them to know their place and to leave when he tells them to. He had to know why they would do all that for you//how did you survive so long in that clan he just has to see how durable you are and he’s LOVING IT.

- He asks you what you’ve been through and you don’t respond so he hits you again and again but you don’t cry so he does it AGAIN and you flinch enough to stop him, and start taking off his pants. His only response was "e’s like "Oh so they already trained you."

- You suck his dick and he pulls you up to kiss him, by your neck and places you on his dick and fucks you in the air, using gravity to its full advantage, that was the start of it all before the days of relentless attention and use, you were more sore than any of them have put you in. The hitting, cuts, just the amount of violence he's integrated into your sessions felt like training again, but worse.

- He’s wondering if he could keep you as his slut but remembered that it would be stupid to start a war when his kid couldn’t keep it in his pants. He blames Megumi for having a cold heart compared to his father's icy one.

- Toji makes up his mind to help and plans to betray/kill the sukuna clan when they get megumi back bc he doesn’t care but doesn’t say that.

-He plans a meeting with the other clan the top three have been fighting over the position of this location for years and now and ofc they’re all on edge.

- Gojo comes to the meeting with his clan, they’re not worried bc they know some of their clan can befriend some of the others involved. No ones been dead so they have some sort of unspoken treaty to leave each other alone but they never asked much from the other ever.

- Gojo settles down with his group, smug and tired bc everyone needs them to fix other peoples' problems for them. The community relied on the Gojo Clan to protect them when they also work with the Kamo and Zenin gangs, the people outside are just as gullible. He sits down and asks what could big ol Toji need from him,

- “It’s Megumi”

- Gojo drops his smile. Their other unspoken alliance was when Megumi was beaten up at a really young age bc of his status and itadori happened to be there too (same elementary school). Gojo beats the fuck out of the people who targeted the kids/second to heir the clans, and left, but Megumi finds him and asks why would he help them.

- Gojo said he can’t have his competition get angry, his people are at stake. (referencing to the shifting power in-between the gangs that they didn't know about yet, and that his person was leaving his clan to join the other, he didn't know why he was doing anything anymore at that point but he couldn't let more powerless powerful children get hated on.) Megumi says thank you and takes Itadori back near his gang before disappearing back to his clan.

- Gojo actually has been in contact with his friend who's joined the other clan. That's how he knows what's usually going on with them to keep them rangled up and behaving as much as they could to not cause trouble or cause attention to groups like theirs.

Gojo and Geto were very young when they met, and since their lives were everything but normal, they were given the chance to take in more young bodies to add to their clan. They raised them together, but geto left.

Gojo begged for days for him to reconsider, they day he left he was inconsolable, especially since he took the twins too. Geto couldn't separate the girls, but he could separate himself from Gojo, in his head it's to help Gojo in the future because of the power he'll have.

Gojo didn't care about that, he didn't want help he just wanted Geto. That was all he needed, he had decided. He could have ruled the world and done it confidently if he had Geto by his side, but things don't go through when you're young, and now you're about to catch as many years he hadn't been able to get out.

- He's not nice at all when you're under his care. With Geto leaving at a critical age in learning, his feelings had been all over the place. He was completely disordered, his goals and morals and everything went awry, with the years he couldn't get himself out of the timestamp of when he knew happiness.

- So he asks you about Geto, his best friend, the only one that could make him feel real again. The one person who didn't do things for him because of his name and status, and yet left with the excuse of protecting Gojo from future evil. It was enough to drive the strongest insane.

- He asks you everything by torture, not too physical that anyone can see. WHen trading you back you should at least look and act like you're in the same condition, if not better than what you were when they traded you off. Just anything that Toji didn't already give you, Gojo would have mindless enjoyment from digging his fingers into the fatter parts of your belly, legs, and forearms.

- He’s only doing this to see Geto again. He just wants to pass the time until he can finally feel good again. He's strong, he's smart, he's beautiful, when would life be good to him instead of him making everyone else's lives better just by being there. It made him coky, it made him secretly weak willed to his own desires, so his processing was different than most.

- He asks u what he looked like and everything about him while fucking you. it was the closest he’s got rn. "I don't know's" made him reel back more, his strikes becoming almost boneshaking and shattering. He was making Toji seem gentle. Now that something he cares about is just a memory away, he just couldn't stop himself.

-You were so close to him, even if you never spoke to him, even if you never saw him in the maybe month you were staying at the Pink haired clan. But his aura seemed to have darkened when you mentioned twins. There were just so many either of you could have known but it just seemed to rile him up more. Seriously you would need a doctor and healing time after this. You couldn't let that happen again.

-There was nothing else to take from it, it was a hell you would only wish for the person already committing it. It made you miss the tenderness of Sukuna and the warmth of Toji, it didn't matter what they did or how you got there, anything sounded better than Gojo being without his favorite things. And you were barely part of it.

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