#re-reading this series after a decade

[aeyumicore]

wasteland

decades after the destruction of judgement day, you return to the abyss meadow—now an empty wasteland. a painful walk down memory lane has you remembering all the sinful things sylus did to you on the day he’d brought you to the blooming field of blood-red datura.

━ .ᐟ✧ PAIRING: dragon!sylus x female reader (afab)

━ ✧.˖ GENRE: smut, porn with plot, porn with feelings/angst, angst with slight/no comfort (depends how you want to look at it), fluff, continuation of myths

━ .ᐟ✧ WORD COUNT: 15.9k

━ ✧.˖ WARNINGS: mdni, explicit sexual content, dragon!sylus, two dicks!sylus, dom!sylus, monsterfucking, HEAVY SPOILERS and references to sylus’s lore/myths (beyond cloudfall), themes of depression/trauma/loss of a loved one, marking (scratching and biting) and possessive behavior, implied virginity loss (both mc and sylus), slight BARELY coercion (trust me mc is more than willing), p in v, fingering with claws, eating out, face riding, horns as handlebars, belly bulge, belly swelling from cum, double penetration (in v), slight bondage with sylus’s tail, no protection, breeding kink, talks of mating and pregnancy, multiple orgasms, somewhat angst no comfort (depends how you look at it), has some comfort, some fluff, lots and lots of smut, knotting, fucking with knot, lots of overstimulation, boobie play, lots of making out, lots of biting, use of Y/N, use of petnames (sweetheart, little dragon, dove, sparrow, love, sorceress), slight references to ‘please & thank you’ fic (easter egg dialogue hehe), will add more warnings as needed

━ .ᐟ✧ LINKS: wasteland song - has arcane spoilers (please listen to before reading) | wasteland song - no arcane spoilers | beyond cloudfall myths | ao3

━ ✧.˖ A/N: helloooooo she is finally here jfc. first and foremost PLEASE listen to the song linked above before reading as it was a HEAVY inspiration for the angst portion of the fic, as well as parts of the fluff. of course it’ll still make sense without watching and listening but i think it’s much more impactful with, otherwise the lyrics are whatever haha. 

the song is wasteland - royal & the serpent from the netflix series arcane by riot games! highly recommend watching if you haven’t :) 

secondly, this fic contains HEAVY HEAVY spoilers and references to ‘beyond cloudfall’ - sylus’s second myth set, which i’ve also linked above. if you haven’t done those and care about spoilers, i would not recommend reading this. also it won’t make as much sense if you don’t know what happened in those myths, but the smut still makes sense re: sylus is a dragon. 

please enjoy <3 i will admit this was really difficult for me to finish, i don’t know what it was, i lost steam half way through and really had to force myself. i am not 100% happy with the way it turned out, but i also did really enjoy writing it! i think i cried multiple times writing this lmao

will likely be on a writing hiatus. if i do write it will be for caleb :D until next time friends. i love you <3

THIS IS MY ONLY ACCOUNT. I WILL NEVER POST MY FICS ON OTHER TUMBLR BLOGS. I WILL ONLY POST ON THIS ACCOUNT AND ON AO3.

✦ . ˖ ✧ .ᐟ ˖ nsfw | minors dni | 18+ only | minors dni | nsfw ✦ . ˖ ✧ .ᐟ ˖

♫ I've held on for as long as I can, For the ones that I had to defend, I've been strong every day of my life, If she wants, death could take me this time. ♪ 

♪ This world is a wasteland where nothing can grow, I used to have strength, but I ran out of hope, I know it's my fault that I'm here all alone, This world is a wasteland, Please let me go, go, go, go, go, go, go. ♫

♫ If I could just lay my head down and rest, If there was nothing to fight or protect, Maybe then I could finally be free, Maybe death is like falling asleep. ♪

Hollow requiems echo in the recesses of your numbed soul, overtaken by the howling of the violent wind. Your heels crunch against barren ground, covered in fragments of basalt and granite, a speckled sea of death. 

It was hard to imagine that this very valley was once covered in countless blossoming blood-red datura, peppered across the vast green fields of the meadow. Like the twinkling stars in the open night sky you’d spent many hours staring up at, atop the cliff top lair you briefly called home, years ago. 

The memory of the blooming flowers, nestled against the stark contrast of those powerful ebony horns, the faint notes of requiems once sung under the gleaming moonlight, taunt you as they resonate in your aching mind. Your tail flickers, soul clenching in distaste. 

Or perhaps it was your fragmented, barely-beating, heart. It was hard to tell these days.  

You draw a shaky breath, willing your body to continue forward. It’d been decades since you’d last come here. After the events of the last Doomsday, events that you were all too familiar with, Philos had fallen to chaos and ruin. Tarus City was no exception.

And of course, the meadow had not been spared. 

Guilt gnaws at you, clawing deeper than any beast ever could. The meadow–the resting place of your beloved. Your dragon. 

Sylus.

Of course, it looked a little different now. Nothing like the day he’d pressed his lips to your forehead for the last time, his soul returning to the clouds above.

You stare out into the rolling hills of charred forests, the arid rivers snaking through the canyon like a dragon’s spine. Flecks of ember from the destruction of Doomsday still flit against the winds around you like dancing midnight petals. But there’s no flowers in sight. Not a single one. 

The endless crimson mountain range stretches around you like an aegis, almost as if trying to protect the innocence that was once kept hidden here. A lifetime ago.

What a joke. 

Everything you had ever held dear, ripped from your hands. Flaunted before you, reminding you of how helpless you’d been to fate’s cruel whims. 

♪ This world is a wasteland where nothing can grow. ♫

“What I desire is to live freely and die without regrets.” You’d said that, once upon a time. 

Did you?

If you died tomorrow, could you say you had no regrets?

Your fists clench at your sides, your claws digging into your palms, sure to break skin and draw blood. You knew the answer to that. 

You’d devoted your life to filling countless troves with what treasures remained on the empty husk of Philos and enacting revenge on the members of the Sanctuary and Legion that’d survived Doomsday. Revenge and plunder, just like old times.

The day those horns had dawned from your head, your tail descending from your spine, you’d become one with Sylus. He gave you power; he gave you freedom.

So why now, when you’d accomplished everything you’d always wanted, did your life feel anything but free? 

Everything you thought you’d wanted.

So what did you want now?

“You know, Tarus City can have flowers that bloom everywhere, as far as the eye can see.”

Your breath catches in your throat, the sound of his voice in your mind is as clear as the first time you’d heard it in the obsidian chapel. The same moonlit chapel in which you’d promised your souls to one another.  

Lead weighs on your chest as you gaze out at the desolate fields, once a spiritual sanctuary for Sylus and you. Could it ever return to the way it was? Could flowers really bloom here again?

You’d give anything to see just one of those ruby moonflowers again, petals the same shade of scarlet as the eyes you’d dreamt of, time and again. 

But like those beautiful eyes, you knew deep down. You’d never see those daturas again. 

♫ I used to have strеngth, but I ran out of hope. ♪

You resolve yourself to go numb, as you had countless nights before, when dreams alluded you and nightmares sought you. Your body moves mindlessly on its own, your eyes glazed as you watch the cloudless sky above. 

Would Sylus be disappointed if he saw you now? An empty shell of the sorceress that’d unsealed him from the Abyss and freed him in more ways than one. 

Once upon a time, you could put on a brave mask in the face of losing your dragon. 

But over time, the memory of his body, heavy and whole, fading in your arms, the petals of his soul slipping through your trembling fingers, etched itself into your soul. No matter how hard you tried to forget, you’d always remember. And because of that, your courage quickly turned into a searing rage that consumed every fiber of your being.

What would he think?

Well, you’ll never know will you? The voice in your head taunts, unmistakably yours, yet foreign and faraway. 

Since you’re the one who plunged that sword into his heart.

♪ I know it’s my fault that I’m here all alone. ♫

Eventually, you find yourself atop a small clearing overlooking the entire valley. An eerie sense of familiarity grapples at you as you stare out into the horizon, feeling nearly as empty as the land before you. 

You’re not sure when it started to happen. The days started to feel longer. You could no longer hear the melody in songs, see the beauty in patterns, taste the flavors in fruits you once loved. 

All things unnecessary to a dragon’s survival.

Were you surviving? Your heart was beating, blood coursed through your veins, air traveled through your lungs, and yet…

You didn’t feel alive.

♫ This world is a wasteland. ♪

The wind howls on, the swirling ash making your eyes prickle. You turn on your heel to leave. There’s nothing left for you here. Nothing but fragments of the life you could’ve had, with Sylus. 

But as the sun melts into the sky, descending into the crimson expanse of mountains, your soul is hit with memories so clear you double over, clutching your shoulder as it throbs.

“Only you and this flower…can touch me here.”

You stifle a sob, your other hand coming up to cover your mouth as you stare out into the bittersweet dusk. The way the waning light descends the scarlet contours, perfectly framing the once picturesque grove. And then it hits you, all at once like a wave crashing against you, pulling you under, until you can’t breathe. 

This is the exact spot Sylus had taken you to the first time he’d brought you to the Abyss Meadow. After the night you’d promised your souls to one another.

The exact spot he’d let you weave those same delicate daturas into his horns, grimacing adorably the entire time as you did so. Where you rolled around the meadow grasses in his willful arms, revenge and the Sanctuary a long forgotten thought, just you and your dragon. 

The spot he’d kissed you for the very first time. The first of what you’d thought would be a lifetime of kisses shared with him. 

Where you’d shared yourselves wholly, bodies and soul, every touch a promise, every kiss a vow. 

The mark on your shoulder burns, your vision hazing with tears that you’re not sure you can blame on the ash anymore. Clenching your eyes shut, you blink them away, trying to steel your resolve and push the memories back down, where you’d kept them hidden for decades. 

♪ I'm not ready to face it. ♫

But they rattle violently in the cage you’d built for them, your spirit is unrelenting. Or perhaps, it’s the remnants of his own soul etched into yours that refuse to let you fade completely into the darkness. 

♫ Don't go saying goodbye. ♪

Eventually the branding waves of agony that radiated from the bite thrum to a pulsing halt, replaced with a heat that was all too familiar. You finally crack open your teary eyes, your vision filled with the breathtaking canvas of sunset. 

The colors cast the withered meadow in the same breathtaking glow from that day.

♫ There's a beauty in changes, and I wanna try. ♪

–

Red.

Growing up in the Ivory City, you were surrounded by nothing but the blinding incandescence of white marble that was said to symbolize purity and prosperity. On the other hand, the children of the Sanctuary had been conditioned to associate the color red with Doomsday, the Fiend, and death.

But as the flecks of vermillion heat sparkled in Sylus’s eyes, his sultry gaze flickering to your lips, you knew you’d never known a color so beautiful.

“But only for one person,” he murmurs, claws gently gripping your neck, his other hand stroking the datura he’d placed behind your ear. Sylus takes a second to admire the delicate flower, imagining Tarus City covered in them. And you, among them, serenading those familiar requiems for him. 

His hooded eyes meet yours again, and a low growl elicits from his chest as his body is overcome with a burning need to claim you. His beloved.

“Sylus…” you plead breathily, squirming under his gaze and shifting atop him, still straddling him in the field of blooming red moonflowers. Sylus hisses, his slackened jaw twitching and his claws digging into your chin, bringing you closer.

“You had better watch yourself, my little sorceress,” Sylus purrs dangerously, fighting to maintain control, “I should warn you–”

Your heart hammers, pounding audibly in your ears, as Sylus pulls you the rest of the distance in. His bottom lip grazes against yours as his eyes flutter shut, his breath hot and sweet, “I don’t have the patience to wait any longer.”

He wastes no time before furiously crashing his lips to yours, claiming what was his. His claws are deliciously possessive as they trace your racing pulse, savoring the way your body  trembles under his touch. 

You moan into his open lips when his fingers softly wrap around your neck, the tips of his ebony talons tracing soft patterns into your skin. He smirks against your lips, taking the opportunity to push his hot tongue against yours, tasting every inch of you.

The world around you fades away, your senses filled with only him. You can vaguely feel his tail wrapping around your thigh, the tip stroking the bare skin of your calf as you tightly clutch his hips. 

The raw passion of his tongue against yours makes it feel as if he’s nearly breathing fire into your soul, his body growing more demanding as he feels your heat pulse against the growing bulge in his pants. The intoxicating smell of your arousal nearly sends him into a frenzy, and it takes everything within him to not throw you under him right then and there. 

When you finally pull away to breathe, you’re a panting blushing mess. Sylus on the other hand only smirks up at you, his frustratingly beautiful face lightly dusted in a peachy sheen. Overcome with the urge to wipe the smug look off his face, you brush your thumb across his kiss-bitten bottom lip, forcefully resituating yourself on his lap. You bite back your grin when he hisses, his claws digging into the fat of your hips.

“What did you mean, when you said ‘you couldn’t wait any longer’?” you tease, fueled with confidence as you watch his vermillion eyes darken, the muscles of his abdomen tensing as your hands trace their way down his body. When your fingers graze the blood-red gem embedded in his chest, Sylus’s hand catches your wrist, his grip firm yet tender.

He brings your hand up to his mouth, pressing your palm into his lips, “Do you really need me to say it?”

You bat your eyelashes innocently at him, pouting, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Sylus’s chest rumbles as he chuckles, his eyes gleaming mischievously. His eyes never leave yours, the heated desire in them making the arousal between your legs increase, as he kisses your fingertips one by one.

“Dragons are solitary,” he says, kissing the pad of each finger. His tail uncoils from your thigh, only to loosely wrap around your waist, reminding you of how the mountain cat would twist its tail around your ankle.

“We grow up together, in packs,” his words are melancholic, as if remembering a painful memory, but when his ruby eyes return to yours they shine as bright as the waning sun above you, “But when we reach adulthood, we tend to go off on our own.” 

You pondered his words, waiting for him to go on and doing your best to swallow the lump of emotions that’d formed in your throat at the thought of Sylus, alone for centuries. He nips at your fingers, his tongue coming out to lick tenderly at your skin. 

The swirling heat in his crimson orbs are shadowed under his thick eyebrows, the very eye you’d been so drawn to boring into your newly intertwined souls. 

“Can you recall what that human said that day at the market? The merchant?”

You nod curiously, biting back the shiver as Sylus continues to lick at your skin, daring further and letting his canines graze you, “Yes. That the Fiend would meet his destined archnemesis once more.”

His hands abandon yours, settling instead around your waist. His fingers dig into the soft flesh of your hips as he beckons you down towards him, the corners of his lips quirking upward as he watches you squirm, a faint gasp escaping your parted mouth when his claws inch their way up your exposed back.

“Archnemesis…” he scoffs cryptically, pushing your body down against his chest, wrapping his thick arms around your smaller body, “Such a foolish human concept.”

Sylus shifts so that you’re lying completely on top of him, his tail securing you against his heavy abdomen, the unmistakable outline of something large and terrifying pressed against your core. 

“Fate binds souls together–it’s written in the cosmos far above the clouds before the existence of time. Two souls that are a reflection of each other, in enmity and devotion. It’s much more than a mere destined archnemesis. This is the way of the world.”

The weight of his words begins to dawn on you, the meaning of them pressing heavily on your thundering heart. Sylus presses his lips to the mark he’d left on your shoulder in what felt like a lifetime ago.

“Ngh–!” you cry, Sylus’s teeth sinking into you. He bites down, tail constricting around you, wanting to hold you closer–tighter. You squirm against him, fingers pulling at his silver tresses, nearly seeing white as the pleasure and pain simultaneously shoots out from the crook of your neck, ebbing into every nerve of your body.

You can feel Sylus’s smug smile against your throbbing skin, his own hips coming up to grind torturously against you. He’d grown painfully hard, his cock unbearably hard in the restraints of his pants, fighting its way to get to you.

“Dragons live in solitude for the remainder of their lives,” he continues, his lips suddenly at your ear as you’re panting into his hard chest, trying to control your pathetic moans, “But some are fortunate enough to find–what you humans might call–their soulmates.”

Sylus grabs your jaw, forcing you to focus your hazy eyes on his. Though his grip is bruising, his thumb strokes soothing circles into your skin.

“A dragon mates for eternity, in this life and the next. There is only one–if even that.”

“Archnemesis, soulmate, mate. Call it what you will,” he whispers huskily, the desire in his voice palpable as he brings your chin in, his eyes darkening with a mix of lust and adoration. Your chest flutters as you take in the implication of Sylus’s words. The puzzle pieces of your fractured life began to fall into place–the Sanctuary, the weapon inside you, the golden lamp you’d treasured. Everything.

“I have known your soul was destined for mine, long before you pulled that Gods-forsaken sword out of my chest,” Sylus growls, nearly feral as the last of his patience snaps. You dissolve into a fit of squeals as Sylus effortlessly flips you under him, his hands cupping the back of your head and your lower back protectively as your body hits the plush meadow grass. 

“And I can’t wait a moment longer.”

He wastes absolutely no time in bringing your lips to his once more, swallowing your moans and replacing them with his own heated breath. Your hands claw at any part of Sylus they can reach, nails leaving behind a red trail of passion that makes him groan with excitement. 

Possessed with the need for more, you wrap your thighs around his waist, using your legs to cage him against you. Sylus’s grip in your hair tightens as he pulls away, a string of saliva  connecting your feverishly panting lips. His other hand comes down to clutch your thigh, his fingers crawling under your dress. 

“Y/N. Do you know what you’re doing?” he pants, chest heaving, pupils blown with a lust so dangerous that your instincts are screaming at you to run. You bring your hands up to cup his face, mustering up all your courage.

“Why don’t you enlighten me?” you whisper, your eyes fluttering as you trail your fingers down his chest, resting them right above his belt and letting your fingernails delicately stroke the hair that leads to his pelvis. 

A primal snarl erupts from Sylus’s chest at your blatant teasing, and in the blink of an eye you find your wrists bound above your head, his thick tail wrapped around them like a rope, his knee forcing your thighs apart.

“Just so you know, my love,” he leans in, face inches from yours, his arrogant smile hauntingly beautiful and terrifying all at once. He dips into the crook of your neck, heated breath washing over your mark, “Dragons are not known to show mercy.”

“I can handle it, Sylus,” you retort defiantly, though your trembling voice almost betrays you. Sylus only chuckles, his eyes glinting wildly at you, swirling with the darkness of all the things he wants to do to you.

“That’s my girl.” 

You’re unable to speak further, crying out when Sylus’s fingers, that’d found their way under the skirt of your dress, demandingly cup your leaking sex, his lips latching onto the burning mark on your shoulder once more.

His tongue on your neck alone is enough to have you writhing under him, begging and pleading for more. The pleasure is so overwhelmingly blinding that your eyes are squeezed shut, body convulsing involuntarily to even his gentlest touches. You’d surmise that it must’ve had something to do with what he’d said about your fate bonded souls, that made your body react so violently to his. 

Unfortunately, he doesn’t let you ponder it further, his finger dipping in between your dripping core to snap your attention back to him. 

“Are you still with me, sweetheart?” he coos, brushing his middle finger up and down your weeping slit, careful to only brush against you with his calloused skin, keeping his claws tucked away. You glare up at him, weakly slapping his forearm that was wedged between your shaking thighs. You open your mouth to snark at him, but Sylus uses that moment to stroke your clit with the pointed edge of his talon. 

“Sylus!” you cry, halfway between a moan and a scream, “Ahhngh–p-please!”

“Mmm? What’s that?” Sylus murmurs, twitching his fingers to ever-so-slightly caress your aching clit with his claws. “Begging for more already?”

Your back lifts off the ground, the feeling of his fingers on your cunt so sharp and dizzying that your mind is caught between wanting to squirm away but needing to chase more. But it seems your body knows exactly what it wants, arching further into his hand, forcing his fingers further into you.

Your hands come up to grasp the back of his neck, fingers threading into his hair and gently stroking the base of his jagged ebony horns. Sylus freezes, his jaw tightening, a choked grunt escaping him, despite how badly he tries to hold it back. It doesn’t go unnoticed by you.

“Sylus?” you whisper incredulously, your fingers pausing, “Does that hurt?”

Sylus doesn’t answer, his breath coming out in shallow and needy pants, eyes shut as he hovers above you. His fingers have stilled, though still between your folds. Your worry dissipates when your eyes drift down, trailing down his trembling abdomen, all the way to the lump in his lap that ruts desperately against your thigh.

It’s then you realize that your formidable dragon does indeed have a weakness. 

How adorable.

So with Sylus’s finger still parting your soaked lips, you use one hand to tenderly grab one of his horns, the other hand coming down to palm his bulge. His reaction makes you bite your lip with satisfaction, as his knees nearly buckle, still hovering above you, and his eyes filling with a volatile hunger. 

“You never learn do you?” he bites out, but he doesn’t pull away, his body only leaning further into your touch. His head nuzzles ever so slightly into your fingers that are still intertwined into his hair, stroking his horns.

“I would say I’m faring quite well, wouldn’t you agree?” you croon, emboldened by the way his hips thrust down into your open palm, even if only imperceptibly. 

At your adorably bold words, Sylus smirks at you, head cocked in amusement. His red eyes glimmer, a thick cloud of predatory desire swirling in the pools of garnet.

“You shouldn’t taunt a dragon, my love.”

You shriek when Sylus’s finger enters you, claw and all. You’re so wet that the brief sting of his lethal talon only serves to intensify the overwhelming waves of ecstasy he’s so deliberate in giving you. His finger moves so intentionally inside you, careful to only use the tip of his claw in ways that will have you clenching him for more. 

Sylus swears under his breath as he watches the way you writhe against the ruby flora, his erection growing unbearably painful and wet within the constraints of his pants. 

Dragons may not have the ability to recognize beauty. But as you clung to him, nails digging into his skin, sweet voice only capable of calling out for him, your wide eyes fluttering open and shut in overwhelming ecstasy…

Sylus knew there was nothing more beautiful in this world.

“Sy-Sylus,” you cry, “It’s t-too much. C-can’t–!” The dangerous feeling of his claws inside you is starting to make you delirious, your head dizzy with the need to come undone all over his fingers. The foreign pressure in your abdomen scares you into trying to scamper away from his hand, finger flicking inside your constricting walls

“Hm? Don’t you trust me sweetheart? I know exactly how much my little dragoness can take,” he murmurs gruffly, his thumb pressing harder into you. It seems Sylus knows exactly what he’s doing to you, because his tail wraps firmly around your waist, locking you in place, demanding you receive every bit of him. 

“You can take another, hm?” he asks, but his tone all but commands it. 

Your eyes widen; honestly you don’t think you can. Just one of his fingers has you feeling like you might pass out from the unfamiliar feelings of pleasure. Just one of his fingers has you feeling so full you might combust. 

He’s on his knees between your legs now–the juxtaposition of such a formidable being kneeling before, pleading for your pleasure, makes your body clench with even more anticipation.

“D-don’t know if I ca-aan,” you whimper brokenly, body still pathetically arching into his hands, chasing an ecstasy you don’t even know if you can handle. 

Sylus tuts gently, “Tch–you can. I need to stretch you out here before anything else can happen.”

You shiver at his words, trusting the foreboding warning wholeheartedly. Sylus was a dragon, after all, and you had no doubt he would be well-endowed, like everything else about him. Probably much more than your poor human body would be able to take. 

And the thought of that alone makes you crave him like nothing before.

So you nod slowly, and Sylus smiles, the pride evident in his eyes. 

“Good girl.”

Sylus tips your chin up towards him with the tip of his claw, capturing your lips into a kiss that steals your breath away. At the same time, he slips another finger into you.

He swallows your cries, and your fingers frantically grab hold of the grass around you, tearing and shredding at the green blades. If it weren’t for his tail wrapped around your waist, holding you in place, you’d be thrashing wildly, the ecstasy of his two fingers and claws inside your plush walls nearly unbearable. 

Sylus’s nips at your lips, before his tongue replaces them and stakes claim to every inch of your mouth. He groans into you, using his spare hand to palm his painful erection, still restrained in the confines of his pants. When he pulls away, saliva dribbles down your chin, his lips trailing kisses down your jaw and to the shell of your ear.

“So tight around just my fingers,” Sylus seethes hungrily, his hand moving faster now, breath coming out shallow and hot against your ear, “I’m the only one that’s ever been here, hm?”

He curls his fingers inside you, his claws grazing just slightly against the spongy surface of your walls, demanding a verbal response from you. His voice drips with a possessive intensity that makes your entire body throb. 

“Of course,” you whine, slightly embarrassed as your body arches up to meet his hand's ministrations, close to coming undone, “Wh-When would I have…at the Sanctuary…?” 

A deep and satisfied rumble of satisfaction comes from Sylus’s chest, as he buries his face into your neck, inhaling your scent. Almost like a purr.

“Mine.”

With two of his fingers scissoring in and out of you, stretching you out to your max, you quickly feel like you’re about to absolutely burst, the edges of your vision turning white, stars clouding your sight. 

“Ngghnh–Syluus…” you slur, your eyes watering, slightly terrified, “C-can’t anymore. Feels like m’gonna explode–!”

Sylus growls excitedly, fingers moving more insistently, literally trying to pull the orgasm out of you. The sounds of his palm slapping against dripping pussy grow louder and louder, all your senses overwhelmed until you’re on the verge of losing consciousness to it all.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” Sylus praises, his canines at your earlobes, his own voice tinged with a primal hunger that’s barely held back by a thin string of restraint, “Cum for me, just like that.”

Though his words are simple, there’s an underlying command that lies just beneath the surface. Sylus would never stoop as low as to beg for anything, dragons were incredibly prideful beings after all, but more than anything he needed to see you cum, right now–for the very first time. Something he’d imagined more times he’d care to admit, on the many late nights you’d shared looking up at the moon after a journey of ravaging and plundering treasures. 

So instead of begging, Sylus sinks his teeth into the brand on your shoulder, once again laying his claim on you. Your sweet taste fills his mouth and he can’t stop the muffled moan that escapes him, devouring you to his absolute content, fingers never faltering once. 

Your eyes roll into your head at the indescribable sensation of pain and pleasure that surge from your neck, the shockwaves connecting with the same spasms of ecstasy that emanate from his fingers buried in your cunt. 

“Sy-Sylus—! Ngh–It’s c-coming!” you can’t stop yourself from screaming unabashedly, though it didn’t matter as Sylus made sure there wouldn’t be anyone for miles and miles, for this very reason. 

He doesn’t respond, alternating between biting and licking affectionately–aggressively–at the place he had marked you as his. His tail tightens around you, making you feel so deliciously suffocated, in the best ways. Making it feel like your very life depended on him.

Your next breath of air, your unrelenting pleasure, your soul. 

Sylus, Sylus, Sylus. 

With a strangled cry of his name, you feel the foreign sensation of a tension cord snapping in your gut, followed by a warm gush of mind numbing euphoria that consumes your entire quivering body.

Sylus swears under his breath, his fingers slowing but not stopping, helping you ride out the lasting waves of your very first orgasm. He releases your tender skin from his teeth, his hot breath blowing against you. His claws capture your chin between them, gently pulling your head back down to meet his eyeline. 

“Look at the mess you’ve made, Y/N,” Sylus hums, slipping his fingers out of you and lifting them so you can clearly see the way they’re dripping with something clear and wet. Your cheeks burn in embarrassment. 

“It’s not m’fault,” your voice comes out annoyingly shaky, still recovering from the earth-shattering experience. You swat his hands away weakly, “Stop. S’embarrassing.” 

Sylus chuckles, letting you push his hands back towards him. But he tenses suddenly, the thick muscles of his arms locking. The planes of his sharp jaw twinge, his entire body rigid, like he’d just been struck by lightning. 

“Sylus?” you whisper, sitting up and cupping his cheek into your palm, “What’s wrong?”

Sylus’s eyes are locked onto his fingers, his nostrils twitching. You’re mortified when Sylus brings his fingers to his face, his movements almost trancelike. 

“Don’t do that,” you protest, eyes wide, moving to grab his wrist. But Sylus dodges you easily, swiftly removing his arm from your grasp, the smell of you on his fingers intoxicating him to the point of madness. The sheer primal hunger in his blood-red eyes is so far away, you almost don’t recognize him. 

You’re acutely aware that you’re currently no more than a little rabbit trapped in a lion’s den. If it weren’t for the way his tail still wrapped around your waist so tenderly, you’d think he was the same Fiend that nearly lost himself and killed you that day. 

Sylus doesn’t speak, his chest heaving erratically as he brings his fingers up to his lips, tongue catching every rivulet of your slick. His pupils dilate, locked onto you, a storm of emotions brewing beneath the carmine pools, his primal instincts nearly taking control. One thing swims to the surface above them all. 

Hunger.

In a fraction of a second, you find yourself pinned to the grassy floor again, your head thudding to the ground against Sylus’s protective hand. Your wrists are bound above your head, with one of your thighs held open by Sylus’s tail and the other with his knee. His lips are everywhere, first at your neck, then down your shoulder, lingering at your mark, then trailing down your collar, to your breasts. 

“Mm–ngh! Sylus?” you can hardly speak as he lingers at the swell of your chest, “What are you doing?” 

“I can taste you,” he hisses, reaching your naval. You can vaguely recall the conversation you’d had with him awhile back–that dragons couldn’t understand a song’s melody or see the beauty in patterns.

Taste the flavors in food.

“More,” is all he’s capable of biting out, before prying your thighs apart. Of course, Sylus had no idea what it meant for something to taste sweet, how the burgundy jewels of the pomegranates you loved so much tasted. But if he had to take a guess…

They’d be nothing compared to the honey he had found between your legs. 

“But–I thought dragons c-couldn’t…ah–!” you trail incredulously, yelping as Sylus hooks one of his arms under your knees, sweeping you briefly off the ground so he can yank your skirt off in one swift motion. 

You’re left in only your drenched undergarments, skirt thrown somewhere to the side as Sylus resumes his relentless journey into your inner thighs, leaving a trail of angry hickeys in his wake. 

“We can’t,” Sylus pants into you, suckling on the soft plush of your thighs, eyeing the glistening folds of your cunt that peek through your sodden panties like his next prey. He’s so close that you can feel his hot breath against your core, and it only makes you wetter. 

“But apparently I can taste this.”

The moan you let out is more beautiful than any melody you could ever sing for him, as his mouth closes over your clit, tongue wedging between your slicked lips.

“W-Wait Sylus, m’sensitive!” you protest, still coming down from the way he’d just made your body explode minutes earlier, your core quivering against the heavy demand of his lips. But as you sit up on your elbows and peer down at the silver-haired dragon between your legs, taking one look at Sylus, you know there is absolutely no getting through to him. 

Sylus has his mouth latched onto you, like he’s trying to drink your essence right from the source. His nose is buried right beneath your clit, every slightest movement causing the strong ridges to brush against the taut bundle of nerves, making it difficult for you to think straight.

You try to sit up further, but Sylus’s large palm comes up to flatten against your stomach, forcing you back down. He looks up at you, eyes dark and eyebrows furrowed, practically glaring at you.

“Don’t deny me of this,” he growls pleadingly, the sheer need in his voice making your toes curl against the grass.

The strength of his hand has you flopping back down, your body already succumbing to Sylus, yet again. You want to curse your traitorous body as it grinds into his greedy mouth, your mind battling your body’s instinct to chase the feelings that only Sylus can seem to give you. 

Why not just give in? That’s what Sylus had been teaching you, right? 

Live freely and die without regrets.

You grab two fistfulls of Sylus’s soft silver hair, pulling him impossibly closer to the apex of your thighs, shivering as he moans into you. His thick arms wrap around your thighs, holding on greedily, claws digging in.

“I should punish you for keeping this from me,” Sylus pants, pulling away for a brief second, giving you a pointed smirk. He uses his thumb to wipe the sheen of your arousal from his bottom lip.

“You can’t always get what you want Sylus. Sometimes you have to work for it,” you quip breathlessly, reeling from the sudden lack of his warm and wet tongue. 

Sylus chuckles, dark and rich. The dangerous glint in his ruby eyes is one that is all too familiar to you. Your skin crawls, pebbling with goosebumps, and before you can scamper away from him, his fingers come down with a resounding wet ‘smack’ against your unsuspecting cunt.

“Sy-Sylus!” you cry, halfway between a screech and a moan, your body convulsing into a painful arch as it reaches up to meet his palm. Sylus uses that moment to hook his other hand under your back, lifting your body up with one arm, and hoisting you into the air.

You flail as he swings you around, pulling at his hair until you grasp his horns. Sylus hisses, and you find yourself back on the soft grass matted floor. But this time you’re on your knees, straddling Sylus’s face.

“Sylu–ngh!” your eyes widen when his tongue licks at your slit, “P-Please! This is embari-ngh-sing!” It’s impossible to get your words out coherently when his tongue is moving so insistently, trying to drain every drop of your essence.

He digs his claws into the tops of your thighs, trying to pull you down, despite the way you fight to keep yourself propped up on your heels.

“Don’t resist,” he tuts, his voice muffled and rough, “Sit, love.”

”No!” you protest petulantly, sobbing in ecstasy as he sucks down hard on your clit, as if punishing you for your disobedience, “I’m heavy. Don’t wanna squash you.”

“Do you truly think so little of me?” he scoffs, positively offended, his breath warm against your core, “Sit. Now.”

You bite your lip in uncertainty as you stay hovering above him. Sylus remains patient, indulging himself instead by sinking his teeth into the soft skin of your inner thighs. You tremble, nearly doubling over as he suckles on your leg, biting a trail of flowery bruises leading up to your core.

You remain stubbornly, but shakingly, upright. Sylus sighs, losing his patience completely and yanking you down by your thighs, leaving you with no choice but to completely fall onto his waiting mouth.

Your eyes roll back, knees buckling entirely, when Sylus’s tongue enters you, stretching you out over his overeager lips. Your entire body nearly gives out, as you fall forward, your hands barely coming out in time to catch you before you collide with the meadow floor.

But when your palms are supposed to meet the grassy floor, Sylus catches them instead, your fingers intertwining desperately. The tips of his claws stroke your burning skin, terribly soothing compared to the way his tongue was ravishing you so filthily.

Your body reacts to him so readily, your hips starting to grind down almost instinctively, much to Sylus’s satisfaction. His cock twitches, heart nearly pounding through the veins that bulge along the sides, at the idea of you using him for yourself. He hums in pleasure, pressing a teasing kiss to your clit and whispering, “That’s it sweetheart, take what you want from me.”

His words make you squirm. Your hands card through Sylus’s soft silver locks, grabbing hold of his ebony horns for leverage. Sylus growls at your core, the vibrations of his low rumble making you writhe and grind harder onto his lips, your body being pushed toward another explosive release. 

“Hah, c-can’t anymore!” you cry, gripping his horns tighter, riding his face for dear life. Sylus doesn’t speak, but his enthusiastic tongue wordlessly conveys his words for him.

You might not be able to, but you will.

Your thighs cling to him, hips rolling into him with wild abandon. Everything about him, his honeyed words, his expert tongue, his possessive fingers make your body desperate for more, to take everything it wants. You’re so lost in your own pleasure that you don’t notice the way Sylus is likewise losing his mind beneath you. 

The way you grip his unbearably sensitive horns makes him jerk with need, the taste of your arousal a never ending drug on his tongue. Above all, the way you rode him, the way your body sought exactly what it desired, the way you surrendered to desire, to him, in this moment. 

You truly were the other half of his soul.  

“O-Oh go–od Sylus!” you moan brokenly, your voice hoarse from the incessant cries, bordering on screams, for him. Your thumbs dig into where his horns meet his scalp, your chest heaving violently as you try to stay upright on his tongue, coming undone across his eagerly waiting lips.

Sylus growls in relief, his enthusiasm bordering on obsession. His tongue laps up every honeyed drop, savoring a taste he knew he’d become all too addicted to. Luckily for him, he’d have you for the rest of eternity. And he fully intended on tasting you, devouring you, every day of his life. 

As you start to climb off his face, Sylus grabs you before you can crawl onto the floor, away from him. He carries you as delicately as he would the blooming daturas that surround you, laying you before him, settling between your parted thighs. 

“Sylus,” you murmur breathlessly, looking up at him. The waning sun peeks out behind his head, the sky a sunset sorbet that is beginning to melt into the indigo of approaching night. With the fading sun behind him, he is an utterly devastating sight for sore eyes. 

You loop your arms around his neck, dragging him down to you. He grunts, letting himself be pulled down to you, a ghost of a smile on his kiss bitten lips.

“I want…” you murmur hoarsely, trailing off as you let your fingers fall, tracing the muscles of his chest, drifting further south until they are grazing the defined contours of his abdomen. 

Sylus’s fingers grasp your chin, bringing your eyes back up, where you meet his fiery gaze. His thumb presses into your bottom lip, prying your mouth open gently. 

“Go on, my dove,” he hums, his voice practically a purr as he presses the lethal tip of his claw onto your tongue, “Tell me what it is you want.”

You open your lips to speak but between your sore throat, parched from your incessant moans, and the foreign desire still growing in both your gut and your heart, you were far too ashamed to speak further. But with the way Sylus was staring at you, his right eye flickering dangerously, you knew he could see right into your soul. 

Sylus’s lips turn up into an absolute shit-eating smirk, his beautiful deep garnet irises gleaming with a rich amusement. 

“Can’t speak anymore?” he chuckles amusedly, his eyes crinkling at the corners.

“That’s alright,” he murmurs, his voice taking on a snarl that’s simultaneously dangerously edged yet velveteen. The ends of his claws trace your pulse as his fingers venture down, making your breath hitch. You shiver, giddy at the idea that those very talons, that were capable of such destruction, were now caressing you with so much tender passion.

“All you’ll need to be able to say is Sylus, hm?”

You light absolutely ablaze at his filthy words, your stomach churning in anticipation at what you know is coming. What you want more than anything you’ve ever known. 

His fingers, that’d found their way to the swell of your chest, shred the delicate straps of your corset with the slightest flick of his claws. You squeal as your naked body is exposed to the elements, writhing as the wind nips at your bare skin.

“Hey!” you protest hoarsely, sitting up, your arms darting to wrap around your chest, “Was that really necessary?!” But of course, Sylus is far quicker than you. He catches your wrists easily, holding them in his hands, leaving you beautifully exposed before his hungry eyes.

“No,” he smirks cheekily, face coming inches from yours, his breath fanning across your lips. You glare at him in annoyance, which only makes his grin widen.

“Now it’s my turn to take what I want,” he murmurs, pushing you flat against the grass. With your hands still restrained against his palm, he kisses down your neck, leaving a trail of claiming bruises along the way. 

“Beautiful. The truest treasure,” he rasps between kisses. He lingers on the mark on your shoulder, not being able to help but to indulge himself there.

A stream of unabashed moans escape your lips as Sylus bites down, hard. So hard you think he might draw blood. His canines are so close to your pulse; your instincts scream at you to flee, but your soul forces you to stay. 

Pain and pleasure, it was all the same. If Sylus was giving it, you wanted it.

This is the man fate had destined for you. Your dragon.

And you fully intended to show him that as well. 

With his head at your shoulder, his own neck exposed to you, you couldn’t help but press your lips into his pulse. Sylus tenses in surprise, unwittingly sensitive, but he doesn’t pull away. In fact, his body bucks into yours, his pelvis pressing into you, as if desperately seeking something from you.  

“You never learn do you, my little sparrow?” he bites out, his voice rough and raspy. Despite his words, he doesn’t pull away in the slightest. You smile into his neck and gently sink your teeth into his soft skin, desperate to mark him in the same way he’d marked you.

Sylus's breath grows erratic against you, his chest heaving unsteadily. His hands come up to hold you possessively against him, his powerful tail coils around your arched waist, like you might disappear at any second. Your fingers thread into his hair, hooking onto his horns again, as you continue to kiss into his neck. 

But suddenly, Sylus is yanking himself away from you, his tail prying you off of him. 

“Too much?” you mumble apologetically as you watch him straighten up, waiting for him to settle back down. 

But he doesn’t. Instead, he props himself onto his knees, focussed and dangerous. Like a predator before the hunt. 

“No. It’s not enough.”

With that, he’s undoing the buckle of his belt, his darkened eyes never leaving yours. You can’t help but bite your lip as you watch the bulging veins of his forearms, his hand reaching into his undone pants. Sylus looks devastatingly handsome as he undresses himself before you, eyeing you like his next meal. 

You don’t get to see him pull himself out before Sylus is back on you, his lips fervently attacking yours. You don’t know what’s changed, because the Sylus that’s kissing you right now has completely thrown restraint to the wind, like he’s trying to claim every fiber of your being with this one kiss.

His body is so imposing atop yours that, even naked, you feel nothing but warm and safe in the evening breeze. He’s so close, you can feel his eyelashes on your cheek. But you can’t stop pulling him closer, moaning in satisfaction when he holds you bruisingly tighter. 

Still, you want more of him.

Your hand inches down to grasp his manhood in your fingers, pulling away from the kiss with a choke. Being a dragon, you had no doubt that Sylus would be larger than what you’d been told was average from the other women at the Sanctuary. As soon as your fingers make contact, Sylus’s tail is roped around your wrist, the thick scales digging into your burning skin, his eyes filled with a volatile hunger. 

He doesn’t pull you away. His tail wrapped around your wrist seems to be more of a silent warning.

If you continue, there’s no going back.

Sylus’s eyes follow you carefully, his right eye shining as he seems to read your every whim and wonder. Every doubt, every fear, every fantasy. 

“You can take it, sweetheart,” he coos reassuringly, reading your mind like the back of his hand, thumb catching a stray tear you hadn’t even known had fallen, “I’ve more than prepared you.”

You eye him skeptically, taking a deep breath, peering down at where your bodies are firmly pressed together. Your breath hitches at how pathetically small your hand looks wrapped around him, his erection as beautiful as it was terrifying.

How many fingers had you been able to take earlier? Two?

You were fucked. Literally. 

“Y/N,” Sylus calls, his voice taking on a tender warmth that you rarely heard from him, clearly able to read your nervousness. 

He grips your chip and tilts your face back up to meet his eyes. Hoisting you up by your waist, he sets you on his lap so that you’re straddling him, wrapping your legs around his hips. His cock stands proudly, arousal smearing all over your bare navel, brushing against your clit as he presses you so deeply into his body that it rests between your leaking folds. Fitting like a puzzle piece. 

“I have waited over a millennium for this. For you. I can wait a millennium more, until you’re ready.”

Your body immediately reacts to his profoundly heartfelt words, your chest constricting and your core fluttering. It’s not hard to decide what you want, right then and there.

“I trust you, Sylus,” you say firmly, voice still raspy and hoarse, “I want you. Please.”

Sylus curses under his breath. One forearm wraps around your ass, lifting you and his other hand angling himself so that his thick leaking head is nudging right at your entrance, begging to be inside you. You writhe at the friction, your hips rocking onto him on instinct. 

The silver haired man growls, arms tightening around you like a vice, “You drive me insane, Y/N,” he rasps into your ear, his breath hot and heavy.

At long last, he presses himself into you. Crying out, your nails dig into his shoulders, sure to break skin. The discomfort was immeasurable, your body wildly confused by the intense pain but the strange feeling of intimacy. 

“I don’t think I can–I can’t!” your hips locking, eyes welling with tears. The stretch was beyond anything you could have ever fathomed, and you were almost sure he would break you.

“You can, you can,” he soothes, almost desperately, like he was terrified you might ask him to stop. Every muscle in his body was locked and tense as he fought the urge to ram right into you, ravaging you like every instinct was telling him to do. 

With even just the tip barely inside, he knew this was far too dangerous. The feeling of you wrapped around him was far too addicting, one of few things that threatened to make him lose all humanity to the untamed dragon blood flowing through his veins. 

You always were his one weakness. 

The urgency, the desperation, in his voice makes your tummy flutter, your body tightening in response to him.

Sylus hisses, his tail constricting around your waist, claws digging into the fat of your hips, “Don’t tighten up. Not if you want me to be gentle.”

“Am I?” you moan as he shifts, sinking slightly more into you, “M’sorry Sy. D-didn't mean to.”

A low rumble ripples from his chest as he does his best not to slam you down the rest of the way down onto the hilt of his cock. Which was nearly impossible because every time he moved at all, he swore your pussy was trying to choke him out. 

“Is it all the way in yet?” you whisper, fighting to keep your voice level. You had never felt more full in your life, your gut on the verge of splitting. The pain and since dulled into a somewhat bearable ache, but it was by no means comfortable. 

“Half way, love,” he murmurs, pressing a tender kiss to your forehead. 

Your eyes widen in shock, “W-What?!” You look down between your bodies, and sure enough, Sylus was still hoisting you halfway above his impossibly massive member. There’s a faint smear of red across the sheen of your combined arousals. Your blood. 

Before you can speak further, Sylus presses his lips to yours, stealing your breath as his own. He swallows your moans, his tongue and cock simultaneously sinking further into you.

A string of saliva connects your lips when he pulls away, his fingers tenderly holding your chin, his darkened scarlet eyes piercing into yours. His right eye glimmers with a dangerous edge. 

“You’re doing so well, sweetheart,” he rasps, still hanging onto his last thread of his control, “You can take it all, can’t you? Perfect little mate.”

Your chest and core simultaneously flutters at his words and you’re fueled with a newfound confidence and an overwhelming wave of lust. It really seemed that Sylus knew exactly what to say to you to have you wanting more. 

Wrapping your arms around his neck, you roll your hips, trying to inch your own way down him, practically able to feel his pulsing veins throbbing against your gummy walls. The pain from the stretch was still there, but Sylus had prepped you so thoroughly that it was beginning to be difficult to feel anything but good.

“I can take more Sylus,” you murmur into his ear, pressing a wet kiss into his throbbing pulse, “I want more.”

An animalistic snarl rips out from deep within Sylus’s chest. His fingers squeeze literally bruises into your hips as he whispers back into your ear, breath hot and heavy.

“Yeah? That’s my girl,” he rasps, trying to contain his hunger, before lowering you the rest of the onto his cock, seating you entirely on his lap. 

He gives you a second to adjust, licking the tears that had started to stream down your cheek. It quickly feels unnatural, and you’re desperate for some friction, the pressure of him at your cervix too intense. 

“Ngh–Sy-Sylus,” you moan, “Please, move–do something.”

Sylus twitches inside you, your words fueling him with the desire to breed you full of him, “You’re playing with fire, my little dragon.” 

He wraps his thick arms around your body and begins to bounce you up and down on his lap, trying to keep a slow and gentle rhythm, doing his best to ensure you’d be in as little pain as possible.

Of course it didn’t matter, with his sheer size alone, pain was inevitable.

But so was pleasure.

Your body had begun reacting to Sylus all on its own, your hips rolling into Sylus’s sculpted abdomen, trying to pull him deeper into your saccharine heat. 

“Ngh–haah…Sy-Sylus!” you splutter, fingers clawing deep red welts into the ropes of muscles on his back, “Feels…”

His tail tightens around your waist, the tip stroking along your thigh, almost affectionately. His pace grows increasingly more vigorous, more excited, as he watches your face contort in different phases of pain and pleasure, “You feel incredible.”

His words, the feral rasp in his voice, so animalistically raw and primal, makes your entire body clench with excitement. And Sylus can feel all of it, every quiver, every twitch.

“You’re so damn tight,” he bites out, rutting up into you, “Trying to break me?”

“You’re–ngh–s’dramatic,” you tease, weaving your fingers through his hair and stroking his horns. 

Sylus’s tail grips you, his body tensing as you gently provoke the sensitive ebony spurs. You can swear his rhythm falters, but he composes himself instantly. The rough scales lining his muscular tail sink into your skin, leaving beautiful little crescents behind.

“Am I now?” Sylus smirks, his tone warning you that you’ve used up all his mercy. Your cries amplify as Sylus’s intensity picks up, his pelvis slamming into your cheeks. You’re so caught up in the borderline violent thrusts that you don’t notice when Sylus’s head dips down, his lips latching onto your breast.

“Oh Gods,” your voice is hoarse and broken with desire, nearly drowned out by the wet slaps of his body pounding into yours. On the other hand, Sylus’s mouth is deceptively tender, suckling so gently, teeth grazing so intentionally. His coarse fingers pinch the nipple that he can’t attend to with his tongue, all the while still driving himself deep into your gut.

His free hand comes down between your bodies, the slick that had smeared there coating his fingers as he finds your clit, sending your eyes into the back of your head. The valley echoes with a broken record of your combined cries of pleasure and the lewd sound of wet skin colliding.  

“Does every inch of you taste this damn exquisite?” Sylus demands breathlessly when he pulls away from your breasts. The way you felt wrapped around him was making it difficult to control his instincts, needing to remind himself that he needed to be careful with you.

“Hah…only t’you–! Only for you,” you can barely register the words coming out as your ears pound, your vision starting to blur as the same tension you’d felt twice earlier starts to build in again. 

A possessive growl erupts from Sylus’s chest, unable to contain his instincts. But the corners of his lips quirk, a pleased smile gracing his features. 

“Only for me, hm?” he licks a stripe from your neck to the mark on your shoulder making your entire body shudder.

Sylus’s talons dig into your thighs, now using both the strength of his thighs and arms to fuck you relentlessly onto him. Your back arches backward at the sheer force of his body and you use your palms to catch yourself on the ground behind you. Sylus’s tail steadies you, but at this angle he reaches a new depth inside of you, his impossibly thick cockhead roughly caressing a sensitive spot inside you that has you seeing stars.

“O-Oh Gods, oh Go-ods! Sylus–!” you chant like a broken prayer, your lower half rolling into Sylus’s lap impulsively, like it was the most natural thing in the world. You use your hands that are planted on the ground behind you to give you leverage, just letting your body do whatever feels right, feels natural.

With every roll of your hips, your clit brushes against the silvery mat of wet hair painting Sylus’s pelvis, making your eyes gloss over with a fucked out bliss that has Sylus nearly coming undone himself.

His eyebrows furrow, red eyes swirling with shadows as he watches you atop his cock, his mate. The distinct outline of him strains against your delicate skin every time he thrusts into you, bulging against your naval. 

Did you have any idea how insane you were driving him right now?

He hooks his hand behind your waist, just one palm enough to cup the small of your back and pull you back to him. He pulls you flush to his body, your bare chest pressed against his, your hearts pounding against one another.

“I’m a selfish man, Y/N,” he rasps into your ear, fighting to not explode into your gummy walls. 

“S’okay,” you cup his face in your hands, pressing your lips to his in a chaste kiss, “I love that about you. I love you.”

Sylus’s tail tenses, still wrapped possessively around you, your proclamation making him snap. Before you know what’s happening, you find yourself being thrown back onto the grassy floor, Sylus’s hands cupping the back of your head as he sets you on the ground. Somehow, he still finds a way to keep himself snug inside you, unwilling to pull away for even a split second.

“Sylus!” you cry out, half in surprise, half in excitement, as his heavy body presses down onto you, his lips less than an inch from yours, cock nearly in your throat.

“Sweetheart,” he groans, voice coming out unusually…frenzied. 

He truly was a selfish man, in every sense of the word.

“You can take another for me, right?”

“Another?” you squeak when he licks your cheek playfully, tenderly. 

“I’m pretty sure I can…cum–” you flush at the word, still slightly reserved with your newfound sexuality, “–again.”

Sylus chuckles huskily, pressing a soft kiss into your lips, “That’s not what I meant.”

Though he keeps his voice level, he couldn’t keep his heart from hammering erratically in his chest. You felt so indescribably perfect wrapped around him, he couldn't even fathom that it could get better than this.  

You were everything he imagined, and then some. 

You groan when he shifts to his knees, repositioning himself. Sylus moves his hand to grab the base of his length, and you’re about to protest, not wanting him to pull himself out of you. 

But he doesn’t. 

Instead, you feel the odd sensation of something else poking at where he had already had you completely full with his ridiculously thick cock. Something that was grinding against your clit, like he would with his thumb, toying with you as if also trying to get inside you. Something equally, if not more, massive than what was already nestled inside of you. 

There was no way he thought he could possibly fit more inside you.

With your eyes wide, you shakily, address the silver haired man hovering above you, “H-How did I not see that you have t-two?!”

Sylus throws his head back with a breathless laugh, his entire body shaking. He strokes your cheek with the tip of his ebony claws, staring wryly at you with his sparkling crimson eyes.

“The same way I can hide my wings.”

He strokes the leaking tip of his second cock along your clit, making you shiver. You can’t deny how good it feels, and how exhilarating the thought of it is. The way he looks at you, desperate, feral, and with all the intensity a hunter would stare at its prey. 

It makes it impossible for you to think coherently, the lust overpowering all sensibility.

“You can take it,” he coos encouragingly, using his second tip to smear your combined slick around your taut opening, as if preparing you to take him. 

“You could–ngh– barely get one in, what makes you think I’ll be able to take two–!?” you writhe, forcing the words out as Sylus continues to slowly rock into you.

Your squirming only makes you tighten further on Sylus, working him up further. His second cock had hardened to the point of pain, no matter how firmly he stroked it. It needed you, and nothing else could satisfy him. 

The desire on Sylus’s face, on his body, is palpable. You can see the beads of sweat gliding down his sculpted face as he restrains himself, his chest heaving as he tries to lock his instincts away, a dark storm of frustration in his eyes. 

“Oo-kay, I’ll try,” you murmur, hoping to the Gods you’ll live to see another day. Sylus’s carmine eyes light up, a proud grin donning his devilishly handsome features. 

“Good girl.”

He forcefully pounds against you, still only letting his second cock grind against your clit. Every thrust causes it to glide against you, rubbing against the sensitive bud, like he was fucking the lips of your cunt with it.

Your fingers claw at the ground as the anticipation boils, waiting for him to just put it in. 

“Sy–ngah–just do it alr–”

He presses his thumb into your lips, interrupting the beginnings of your frantic rambles.

“Breathe out.”

Just as Sylus’s hips are about to snap against your cheeks again, you feel him finally push himself into you. 

Your eyes go wide, mouth agape, as he stretches you until you fear you may actually pass out. You’re so wet that it doesn’t take much to coax it through the initial stretch. But it still hurts, far worse than when he’d initially penetrated you. 

However there is also far more pleasure than before. The two sensations tug at one another, making your mind reel with tumultuous chaos. A tormenting mixture of ecstasy and torment, threatening to shatter your mind.

“S-Sylus, I-I can’t, s’not gonna fit,” you whimper when the stretch becomes too much. Peering down, you see that you’d taken the entire head of his second cock, and you don’t think you can take any more. 

Sylus groans, his eyes squeezed shut, a storm brewing within him. The feeling of your perfect cunt wrapped around both of his cocks was unlike anything he could have ever imagined, and he was at war with the feral part of himself that was threatening to break free and take you like he was in rut. 

“It will fit, my love,” he soothes tenderly, his fingers rubbing soft circles into your hips.

He bends down, taking your chin in his fingers to pull you in for a kiss. But before your lips meet, he whispers heatedly, eyes overcast with a swirl of inexplicable emotions.

“You were made for me, Y/N. Of course it’ll fit.”

His eyes flicker to your lips, before coming back to your eyes, silently asking for your okay before proceeding. As much as he wanted this, more than anything he wanted you to want it too. 

Your heart swells, core fluttering at his words. Sylus hisses when he feels your walls clenching against him, inadvertently sinking further into you.

Gasping, you pull him the rest of the way towards you, circling your arms around his neck, and pushing your lips onto his. You take that moment to arch into him, letting him push deeper into you, biting down on his lip as he sinks further to the hilt.

Sylus kisses you so fiercely that you don’t even notice that he’s fully inside you, both cockheads pressed as deep as they will possibly go. Just as he claims every inch of you with his tongue, his arousal coats every part of you, marking you from the inside.

He pulls away with a snarl, his entire chest shuddering, a visible sheen of sweat glistening on his muscled body, “Sweetheart, I need to move.”

You nod, eyelashes fluttering as you fight to keep your eyes open, “Mmngh–you can move, Sy. I-I want you to.”

Sylus’s eyes darken, his palm slamming down on the ground beside your head. He’s completely hovering over you now, his lower body pressed so deliciously into you. Like he owned you.

Laid out against the tapestry of blooming datura, you made his heart stutter, his right eye twinging with inexplicable desire. You were more magnificent than any work of art. After 1,600 years walking these lands, Sylus finally knew what beauty was. 

“You’re perfect,” he murmurs, slowly pulling out of you before rolling his hips back into you. He’s so deep, stretching you so full, body so heavy on top of yours. You can’t feel anything but him, and it makes you want to come undone all over him again. That sensation in your gut, that you had become all too familiar with, had already built to a near bursting breaking point. 

“Soo deep–angh–s’fuuull,” you slur, graspingf his horns again, stroking them affectionately, letting the rough ebony edges ground you.

“Fuck,” Sylus curses sharply as you grope his sensitive horns, barely able to contain his own moans. His knees nearly buckle, using only his arms to keep him propped up over you. Squeezing his eyes shut, he takes a deep breath, forcing himself to regain his composure.

His hips roll into you like the tides of the ocean, his pace smooth and rhythmic. There’s a filthy wet ‘smack!’ every time his pelvis hammers into you, the ecstasy your bodies create together makes you leak uncontrollably, even so tightly plugged up by both his lengths. 

“Feel me right here, love?” he grounds out, using one hand to press down firmly on the soft plush of your stomach. You squeal when you feel him pushing down on you, forcing your sensitive spots to clamp down on him. With two of his cocks inside you, there’s absolutely no space for that, the pleasure it brings you sharp and overwhelming. 

“Yes-yes—! Please!” you plead, hoping he’ll have mercy on you. He’s driving you closer and closer to another orgasm, and you don’t know if you’ll survive this one. 

Sylus can feel it too, the way your saccharine walls begin to squeeze him so sweetly, your beautiful starry eyes hazing over—too fucked out to focus, your clit hardened to a pebble against the slicked mat of silvery hair dusting his pelvis. 

With you like this under him, mercy is not something he’s interested in. 

In fact, Sylus had never felt like more of a beast than he did now. And the only thing he had an appetite for was you. The only thing that could sate his hunger was feeling you come undone so exquisitely for him again.

He plants one foot on the ground to give him more leverage, letting him thrust down into you more powerfully. Your thighs were spread so widely to accommodate him, your feet swinging wildly as he rolled his pelvis so deliciously into you, his entire body cascading like tidal waves.

“S-Sylus–ngah!” your relentless moans for him would be embarrassing if you weren’t so deep in the hole of lust, “Soo full–ngh–feel s’full–!”

“I know, love,” he purrs, “You’re so beautiful, with me inside you.” He softly strokes the bulge in your tummy, sending shivers down your arched spine, the sensation so otherworldly. 

He delicately, but firmly, grabs the back of your neck, his fingers long enough to enclose over your entire throat. Gently, he pulls you forward, forcing you to look down at where he’s palming your stomach.

“Taking me so damn well,” he growls, his fingers threading into your hair now, gripping with just enough tension to make you tremble with excitement. Your forehead knocks against his, his damp bangs fluttering against your eyes. Your fingers dig into his shoulders, nails clawing into the thick ropes of muscles there. 

“Mngh–Syluus, I can’t take much more. M’close again–!” 

His hand forces you to watch where he was literally rearranging your insides and has you teetering off the cliff of climax, hanging on for dear life. Sylus’s pace only quickens, his hips pounding into you with reckless abandon now, unable to stop himself, any previous gentleness long gone. 

As a Fiend who’d spent his entire life plundering the world of its treasures and riches, he’d come to know insatiable greed. Dragons inherently took and took, feeding off the gluttony of the human soul, unable to quench their own need to acquire. 

He’d spent a millennium acquiring the most exquisite jewels, extravagant weapons, rarest heirlooms–what he wanted, he took. And yet, every waking day was the hollow echo of a broken harmonium. 

But now, with your angelic little cunt wrapped so perfectly around both his cocks. Your nightingale voice that so often innocently serenaded him, moaning his name like a prayer, greedily begging for more. Your fluttering, doe eyes, glimmering back at him with an entire universe of emotions–desire, anticipation, greed, love.

Sylus realized he’d never known true desire. Not until he’d met you. Nothing he’d ever experienced compared to what it felt like now, to want you–to need you.

And he’d desire nothing, now and forevermore, if he had you. 

Sylus’s fiery breath fans across your lips, his hand holding the back of your head demandingly, voice raspy with an unyielding desire, “I can feel it, sweetheart.” 

“Don’t make me beg, hm?”

His heat fueled words, all but a demand, make you shake to your core. Your body’s perfect reactions to him only make Sylus more vigorous with need, growing impossibly harder inside you. One leaking tip brushes relentlessly against your g-spot, the other bullying into your cervix, damn near trying to find its way into your chest. 

“Sy-Sy–ngh–m’cumming–! Please–!” your neck is hinged back in an ear splitting cry, your hips arched so deeply into Sylus that your spine feels like it might snap. 

“Sh-shit–just like that,” Sylus grits, groaning as your cunt tries to wring him dry, “Just like that, sweet girl. Cum for me.”

Your body convulses, goosebumps littering your skin, as Sylus continues to fuck you through your orgasm, your vision blurring and tears seeping out from the corners of your eyes.You don’t know if it’s because you’ve cum three times already, or because he has you absolutely speared on both his massive erections, or maybe because he looks down at you with all the adoration you think one could hold for even the stars. But this orgasm is far more explosive than the previous ones, and it makes you scream into the night.

You release fiercely against Sylus’s body, the wet gush of release simultaneously erotic and strange. The muscles of your thighs trembled viciously. Your cries of complete and utter pleasure are strangled, your voice nearly gone now. Sylus is cooing sweetly into your ear, but you can't hear him through the blood pounding in your head, your eyes having a hard time staying focussed. 

You don’t even notice when Sylus shifts, now on his knees, his fingers grasping the plush of your hips. Your back now rests against the matted meadow floor, your vision filled with the sky that was slowly filling with stars. 

But your sight is incredibly shaky, Sylus’s grip on your hips bruising as he pulls your body into his relentlessly, still chasing his own release. 

Your senses slowly start to come back to you, the feeling of his cocks still rutting deeply into you sobering you up. The feeling was strange; it was by no means painful, but it was sharp and made you wince.

“Ungh, Sy–s-sensitive,” you whisper, your throat scratchy. Though his thrusts are rough, possessive, he’s somehow still careful with your body, making sure you’re not a complete ragdoll against his demanding pull. You crane your neck slightly and see that, during your momentary orgasmic state of incohesion, Sylus had placed his pants under your head, and what was left of your clothing under your naked back. 

The simple gesture makes your heart skip with inexplicable happiness as you gaze up at him, admittedly growing aroused again, watching him. 

His sweat matted silver bangs had been tousled back, as if he had run his fingers through them. Thick eyebrows, arched downward, darkening his already smoldering irises, watching you like you were the reason the sun rose every day. His entire body was layered in a thin sheen of sweat that made him appear as if he was chiseled from marble, like the sculptures you’d see in the Ivory City. 

“You know, dragons like to mate in the sky,” Sylus groans, a near ramble, delirious with desire, clearly near his own release. His tail flickers wildly behind him, and you use your calf to rub against it. He tenses with a strangled moan, snapping his hips particularly harshly into you. Your eyes roll back as he bruises against your cervix, your sensitivity at an all time high.

“Sylus!”

“One day, hm? Right now, there’s nothing I want more than to see you spread out amongst these flowers.”

Another series of desperate ruts that have you writhing at the intensity.

“We have all the time in the world.”

His honeyed vows have you keening, your body reacting viscerally. Sylus reels when you clamp down on him, doubling over with a strangled groan.

“Not gonna last much longer if you keep doing that,” he pants into the crook of your neck, chest heaving. You loosely wrap your weak arms around his neck, nipping at his earlobe, enjoying the way he flinches.

“Please,” you beg, knowing how much he loves your greed, “I want you to, Sylus.”

A rumbling growl emits from Sylus’s chest, still pressed against yours. Your brain is far too exhausted to register how quickly he moves, maneuvering your thighs until they’re pressed against your breasts.

“Yeah?” Sylus snarls, his entire body caging you in, thighs closed over yours. You swear you can hear your muscles groan in protest, not meant to be this flexible. He’s practically sitting on you, except he keeps most of his weight off of you. From this angle he reaches the deepest he’s been able to, locking you in a mating press that he’s determined to breed you full in. 

“You want me to cum in you, sweetheart?” he rasps, completely feral–too far gone. He’s ramming down into you now, using the strength of his thighs and gravity to knock the air out of your lungs, cocks reaching deep down your throat.

“Too-nghn–too deep!” You don’t know how it’s possible but you feel the coil in your core building again, and you’re certain you won’t survive it this time. It’s too fast, too sensitive, too taut.

Sylus groans, the sound of his pleasure making your mind spin. His rhythm stutters, and you swear you can feel him pulsing inside you, literal vibrations rocking your core. You’d like to think he was as close as you were, again.

“Needs t’be deep, love. If you’re going to give me an heir, hm?”

Your eyes widen at his words, heart skipping a beat. Sylus falters again, feeling you tighten at his words, before smirking crookedly at you.

“So damn tight. Does my sweet girl like that idea?” he croons, almost condescendingly, but threateningly serious.  

Your vision is blurred with euphoric tears, but you can clearly see Sylus’s enchanting eyes looking down at you as they had many times before. They were always intense, the carmine hues able to peer right into your soul. But the heat in them now, as he watched you writhing in ecstasy under him, would put a wildfire to shame. 

You look up at him through your dewy eyelashes, grasping his shoulders, and nod wordlessly, unbelievably aroused by his lewd words of passion.

Storm clouds swirled in his scarlet eyes and he leaned down impossibly closer to you, pressing your bodies tighter together, forcing himself deeper.

“You’re going to take my knot like a good little mate, hm?”

You weren’t entirely sure what that was, but the way Sylus said it just dripped with a possessive sensuality that made you want to submit to his every will. Your stomach flutters at the thought of it, and so you nod eagerly.

“Ungh–anything, Sy–! Anything for you.”

Sylus snarls, nearly baring his teeth, unable to contain the sheer primal joy he felt from your sinful words. He was already having a hard time keeping his instincts at bay with how you felt wrapped around him, underneath him, but now you were on the verge of making him snap entirely.

Did you have any idea what you were doing to him?

“The world needs more dragons, don’t you think?” he snarls, his hand pressing down roughly on your stomach where his two cocks threaten to erupt inside you. The implications of his hand cupping your stomach send you over the edge once more.

Gods, you’d be so beautiful carrying his brood. 

“C-Cumming Sylus!” you whine, voice pathetically broken, body spent beyond belief. Your nails drag through his shoulders, piercing his skin and spilling blood, as every nerve in your body lights ablaze under his touch.

Sylus sinks his teeth into the sensitive spot on your shoulder, needing to claim you as he pushed himself to the edge. Your cunt convulses viciously against him as you cum, the feeling of your perfect heat milking both his cocks pushing him to cum with you.

“F-Fuck, Y/N–!”

Sylus explodes in you with a strangled groan of your name, his release thick, plenty, and scalding. It sends a claiming heat from your core all the way to your fingertips, making you shiver as you shudder with the waves of your climax, crying repeatedly for him.

You feel like you might burst, your stomach swollen with not only his cocks nestled in you but the sheer amount of cum he was still spurting in you. If you weren’t so blissfully fucked out, it might’ve been a bizarre sight, your tummy bulging with the weight of his unending seed painting your walls cream. 

“Mine,” he groans into your neck, sinking himself back into your mark, still rocking into you, still spurting white into you. There’s far too much, leaking out of where he was still connected to you, rutting into you. 

It quickly becomes too much; you’re not sure if you’d become too raw or if you’d simply had enough, but a strange pressure begins to build. And soon that pressure becomes a stinging, painful stretch. 

“Sy-lus,” you whisper, tapping at his chest frantically, “W-Wait please. Something hurts.”

Sylus affectionately licks at the mark he’d branded you with, releasing your legs from the mating press he’d held you in. You whimper in relief when the tension in your hips finally releases. Sylus gently wraps your legs around his waist, but the growing pain between your thighs doesn’t subside.

“It’s my knot, love,” he growls, his voice gruff and gravely. His entire body trembles at the sensation of his knot swelling–filling you, the idea of his seed being stuffed deep inside you making it difficult for him to calm his raging instincts. 

His hand palms where your thighs meet the plush of your rear, kneading into your ass and gripping you closer to him. You instinctually squirm away, the stretch becoming unbearable. But you quickly realize that you physically can’t. You’re literally locked onto him. 

Sylus hisses, holding you in place, desperately trying to get you to stop moving.  

“Please, sweetheart.”

From the sweat dripping down his brow, his jaw clenched so sharply it could cut stone, you realized his knot must’ve been incredibly sensitive. If you weren’t the one getting stretched out onto it, you might’ve even teased him. 

“Just so big, t-too much,” you squeak as he swells further inside of you, not sure how much more you could take. You look down at where his abdomen is pressed into you, the area a pearly mess of your coalesced spend.

You could vaguely see that Sylus had in fact slipped one of his erections out of you, occluded by the sight of the other still engorged and locked inside you. You briefly wonder if the other one is also swelling with a knot. Had he pulled it out for your sake?

“How–nghah–how much more?” you pant, trying your best not to clench down. 

“Almost. You’re taking me so well, Y/N,” Sylus murmurs, deceptively sweet, when all he wanted to do was ram his second knot into you. The battle between his innate draconic instincts, wanting to claim you full force like a beast, and the dual need to protect and cherish you, the last bit of his soul that was untainted.

You squeeze your eyes shut and nod, burying your face into his neck. His scent invades your senses, and you can’t help but moan, lips latching onto his racing pulse. Sylus groans, fingers grasping the back of your head and pressing you deeper into his chest. His tail wraps around your waist again, needing to be closer to you, deeper in you.

“Look at you,” he groans breathily into your ear, the swelling finally seeming to finish, “Taking my entire knot, hm?”

With his entire knot wrapped in your perfect heavenly cunt, Sylus can’t help but start rocking into you again. He’d cum so thickly inside you that his knot actually begins to thrust ever so slightly, the friction sending his eyes reeling backward.

Your eyes blow open, wincing at the feeling of prickling overstimulation. But when you see him, you find yourself not wanting to tell him to stop. 

Sylus’s pearly white canines have dug into his kiss bitten lips, a rosy blush dusting his sharp cheeks. The emerging moonlight makes his argent hair even more ethereal, mussed back in an adorably messy way. His breath is heavy–desperate, face contorted in pure euphoria as he slowly thrusts into you again. 

When you look up at him, you catch him watching you, his eyes overcast by the furrow of his thick eyebrows. 

Reflected in the sea of searing vermillion, the adoration and worship burning brighter than the moon that illuminates a halo behind him, you see your soul reflected back at you. A soul that had been burned black, a puppet without a heart, consumed by revenge and contempt. 

Until a fiendish dragon had plucked her out of the Abyss, and breathed fire back into that very hollow vessel of hatred, illuminating her spirit golden with greed. 

That very greed not only saved your life, but showed you what it meant to be alive. 

You let him slowly fuck his knot into you, whimpering as he stretched you to the point of breaking. Oddly enough, you didn’t hate the feeling, even though it stung. In fact, your body seemed to crave it, crave his body claiming yours. 

“You feel so fucking incredible,” Sylus growls, his movements growing more and more insistent with every passing moment. From his gravelly voice you can tell he’s quickly losing control. Your eyes flutter upward, becoming overwhelmed, your poor body unable to take any more. 

“Syluus, no more,” you grip his forearm, voice weak. Sylus stills when he hears the genuine pain in your voice. His lips are instantly at your temple, pressing kisses into your damp skin.

“Apologies, my love. I got carried away.”

Sylus shifts, cradling you so that you’re now on top of him, his strong arms holding you protectively. His knot, still swollen, rests tightly inside you, plugging you full of his thick seed. You listen to the thrum of his heartbeat, the two of you laying there in a serene silence that nearly lulls you into sleep. 

“You are my fate,” he murmurs imperceptibly, pressing a soft kiss into the claim on your shoulder. His tail has found itself wrapped around your body again, the thick and cold scales digging pleasantly into your burning skin. 

“Hm?” you mumble, sleep creeping in on your consciousness like a thick misty fog. 

Sylus’s chest rumbles with a deep chuckle, his fingers carding through your hair. He can feel his knot slowly beginning to subside, though his body still rides high from the passion. 

“Nothing. Sleep, my little dragon.”

–

“Sing for me.”

Sylus’s wings are cocooned protectively around your naked body, seeing as he had absolutely shredded your clothes earlier. The two of you sat against the trunk of a large willow, with Sylus’s back pressed against it, and your back pressed against his chest, his thighs caged around yours. His tail rests on the ground, coiled around your feet, flickering every so often.

You’d awakened to a moonlit tapestry of stars and had stayed to admire them in the serenity of the valley, instead of heading back to the chapel. 

You crane your neck to look back at him, “What, no please?”

Sylus arches an eyebrow at you, “Were you always this cheeky?”

You can’t help but let out an amused snort, “Were you always this demanding?”

Sylus grimaces, bordering dangerously close to a pout, “Will you sing for me?”

“My throat is sore,” you whine. It was wholeheartedly the truth; your voice was raw from your prior vigorous…activities. But the adorable sulk on his face has your resolve slipping away.

“Just a little,” he murmurs, his bottom lip jutting out ever so slightly. You don’t even think he realizes he’s pouting.

You turn your eyes back to the night sky with a giggle. He always demanded you to sing for him, especially when you’d watch the moon together. It was almost a ritual for the two of you. And you rarely denied him.

♪ “This world is a wasteland where nothing can grow,” ♫

Sylus’s wings tense around you as you start singing, his chin resting on the top of your head. The gentle lilt of your voice sent a shiver down his spine, as he tried to recognize the lyrics. But he realized you hadn’t ever sung this one for him before.

♫ “If it weren't for you, I'd be here all alone,” ♪

You keep your voice low and steady as you sing the melody, staring up at the moon in the cloudless sky. It shines even brighter than it had that night in the chapel. 

♪ “I know in my heart this is where we belong.” ♫

The next lines get caught in your throat when a droplet of water splashes on the crown of your head. 

Odd. There hadn’t been any clouds in the sky.

You tilt your head all the way back, trying to get a better look at the sky, “It’s starting to rain.”

Sylus’s upside down face blocks your view, looming over you. He gently grasps your chin and brings your lips up to his, capturing you in a slow and tender kiss. 

A few more raindrops fall onto your cheek, making you shiver. The valley rain is strangely warm.

When he releases your lips, Sylus wraps his arm around your chest, holding you to him. His heart pounds so heavily you can feel it thrumming against your naked back. 

“Oh! I think the rain stopped Sylus!” you gasp, holding out your palms and extending your arms beyond the shade of the willow to try and catch some falling rainfall.

Sylus’s chest vibrates with laughter. He presses his lips into your hair, taking a deep inhale of your scent. Your pheromones nearly have him throwing you under him again, blood rushing south. 

“Thank you,” he murmurs, his voice muffled against your head, shifting so his erections aren’t pressing into your spine. 

Turning to look at him, you giggle in surprise. The silver-haired dragon was not typically a man of many ‘thank yous.’

“For what? Singing?

Sylus doesn’t answer immediately, staring up at the silky glow of the full moon. His normally shadowed irises glisten unusually bright under the radiance of the stars. 

He’d always wanted someone to watch the moon with. 

Sylus looks at you. The corners of his lips are curved in a barely-there smile, but his crimson eyes behold you such devotion that your breath catches. Deep inside the recesses of your consciousness, you can feel your soul tremble, as if being caressed by the claws of another. 

“Yeah. For singing.”

–

A drop of water splashes against your cheek, shaking you out of your reverie. 

You frantically wipe the tears from your cheeks away with your fingers, but the water only continues to fall.

Looking up, you realize the sunset had faded into night. In your reminiscing, clouds had overtaken the sky, crystalline raindrops starting to cascade from the heavens. 

It’s…raining. 

It hadn’t rained for decades in Tarus City, not since that day atop the Highest Court of Justitia. 

Not until now.

♪ This world is a wasteland. ♫

You reach your hand out to catch some of the falling water in your palm, enjoying the sensation of the droplets splashing against your tepid skin. 

A fleck of ebony ash drifts into your palm, the lingering orange ember fading away like a melting sunset when it meets your wet skin, tragically beautiful. 

Like a body fading into crystals of midnight, getting swept up into the clouds.  

♫ Don't let me go, go, go, go, go, go, go. ♪

The raindrops mix with your tears. You’re not sure how much time passes with you standing there in the rain, a mess of silent sobs. Seconds, minutes, hours, you’re not sure how long. Time seems to lose meaning as you stand there, your emotions coming out in an endless stream of tears. Eventually your eyes dry, your body dehydrated with nothing left to shed. 

But the rain doesn’t show any signs of relenting.

When your bloodshot vision focusses just enough for you to regain your sight, you watch as the rainwater seems to melt away the thick layers of soot that had caked the meadow floor for decades. 

The rain was pouring down like silver threads now, gathering into the streams in the depths of the meadow. The way the water trickled down the spine of the empty riverbanks almost made it seem like the valley was alive again.

You look up at the sky. Darkness had come quick, especially with the amount of rain clouds that had surfaced. There weren’t many stars visible, the twinkling lights hidden by the smog and the clouds. 

But as you watch the billowing storm clouds, the wind picks up, parting the column of clouds into two, allowing the glow of the moon to illuminate through. 

Your breath catches as you behold the sight of the moon. It was a full moon tonight, a halo of argent brilliance. 

The same moon you’d watched together here, on that night. 

You couldn't recall the last time you'd allowed yourself to gaze at the moon like this. It felt wrong–to watch the night sky without Sylus. Or maybe you were just too much of a coward. 

Wherever he was, was there a moon for him to gaze up at too? 

Standing here in the valley, under the bask of the moonlight, you feel closer to him than you had in a long time. There’s so much you wanted to say to him, to apologize for–to explain. But you struggle to find the words, your voice caught in your throat, drowning in unrelenting rain and inexplicable emotions.

Your heart drops when the light wanes, the moon getting swallowed up by the unending storm clouds, the moment passing as quickly as it had come. 

Some words are like the moonlight hidden by the clouds. Once the moment passes, there’s no need to say them anymore.

The rainfall drizzles to a stop, leaving you a soaked and shivering mess in the creeping darkness. Though the rain has stopped, the clouds remain. They blanket the entire sky, reaching towards the valley. They trickle over the tops of the scarlet mountains, spilling down like a waterfall.

You’re about to turn to leave when another falling fleck of ash flits in front of your face, tickling your eyelashes. 

You catch it in your open hand, waiting for it to dissolve into the dewiness of your palm. But it just lays there, whole and unyielding. Picking it up, you examine it carefully, before tentatively twirling it around between your fingertips.

What you thought was a fleck of ash wasn’t actually, but a midnight datura petal. 

Your eyes widen in shock, cradling the fragmented bloom in your palm as if it were a newborn hatchling. Whirling around, you search for any possible signs that there could be flowering daturas in the valley. But the ground is covered in nothing but melting ash, as far as your eye can see. Surely nothing could have survived here. 

But the flesh feels healthy and supple as you pinch it gently between your fingertips, as if it’d just been freshly plucked. 

Wrapping your arms around your soaked and shivering body, the petal tucked in between your fingers, you look out one last time into the vast expanse of ashen scarlet hills. 

Somewhere out there, there is a blooming datura. If even just one. 

“Tarus City will bloom once more–as far as the eye can see.”

You let the wind carry your voice off, louder and stronger than you’d intended. The meadow listens, your words echoing into the heart of the valley.  

“But only for you, Sylus.”

You bring the datura petal to your lips, pressing it tenderly there. For a second, you contemplate holding onto it. Taking it with you. 

But perhaps that’d been your mistake all these years.

Holding on when you should’ve been letting go. 

You unclasp your fingers, and the wind lifts the petal from your hands. As it flutters past your shoulders, there’s an inexplicable warmth that emanates from Sylus’s mark–the faint traces of the bittersweet scent of cindered blossoms tickling your nostrils.

It drifts higher, towards the call of the wild–the mountain ranges beckoning it toward them. Higher until you can barely make it out from the expanse of the twilight sky. 

Higher, until it disappears beyond the cloudfall.

♪ Don't let me go. ♫

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[marknee]

bts fanfics i think shakespeare would enlist himself into the military just to show the boys.

chapter iv. ✷ chapter vi.

KEYS ON SEVERITY OF SHAKESPEARE’S STATE:

( ✮ ) — he’s not really thinking about enlisting, is he?

( ♬ ) — what do you mean shakespeare shaved his head?.. oh no.

( ✎ ) — don’t military bases have security? how the hell did that man get inside?

( ♛ ) — he’s proper pulling a cross country right now. the boys look confused. and horrified.

THE SHAKESPEARE SERIES.

WARNING: keep in mind, some of these authors are very strict on the rule that no minors should read their work if they’re underage, and i will honour that. but, at the end of the day, i am not your parent. so, there’s that. but heed my warning wisely. any smut or 18+ content is highlighted in bold.

NOTE: dear readers, did you miss me? it’s been a while since i’ve shared my secret recommendations with you. but, since the two year anniversary of this special series has recently passed, i thought it was about time i spoiled you again. i’ve had quite a while to think about this one. so, i hope you’re ready. let’s give shakespeare something to enlist for.

( ♛ ) AMALTHEA — by @daechwitatamic

!! seokjin x reader | 40k !!

best friend’s older brother!au, smut (18+), fluff, angst.

bfb! bfb! my best friend’s brother, my friend’s brother! bfb! bfb! my best friend’s brother, my best friend’s brother!

this is one of the BEST seokjin fics i’ve ever read. straight to the point but there is no other way to put it. got to the point i would wake up earlier just to read another chapter before work. i was always present, bitch.

alike most of you, as someone who reads A LOT (re: i have no credentials for this, just my mum), i can tell when someone pours their every blood, sweat and tears (ha.) into writing. and for me, this is one of those writers.

this writer really shocked me at how much i connected to this story whilst reading n how attached i felt after finishing. caught me off guard, but so did death to shakespeare… sooo, what can i say.

“it’s been over a decade since that night, and you still don't know if he meant his family, or you.” dude i wish you could’ve seen my face. lmfao.

let’s just say there’s a reason this one’s first. amazed. truly.

( ♛ ) MOON MAGIC — by @jincherie

!! hoseok x reader | 33.8k !!

mermaid!au, pirate!au, fluff (like.. teeth rotting).

“and he calls me mooonlight toooooo,” she sings into the empty crowd with tears in her eyes. she meaning me.

now i know i’m known for having a sweet tooth, but damn! youse are gonna eventually turn me into an elizabethan england commoner. y’know, the crap dental hygiene n all. (re: shakespeare’s teeth.)

but, you know me. i looooove a good ‘ol fantasy inspired fic, so i guess i’m willing to risk a little here. and this one was worth risking for.

slams hand onto the table. the world building! this writer was not playing around when it came to painting us a picture of the world they wanted to create. i wanna live in this fic i’m not joking. get me in touch with namjoon asap for some of that moon magic shit. ok, rolls credits.

perfect in every single way. this is my first run-in with this writer, but am i swimming (sorry.) my way over to their masterlist? yeeees.

“he laughs and tells you that, actually, it's probably the youngest three princes that are most beloved by all.”

yea girl. not on my watch. enjoy!

( ✎ ) ALL GROWN UP — by @btsgotjams27

!! jungkook x reader | 64k !!

friends to lovers, older woman/younger man, smut (18+).

the fact this fic was loosely inspired by one of my all-time comfort kdramas… i didn’t even have to question adding it to my list. it felt like i was watching it for the first time again… deeply sighs. ahhh the nostalgia…

i had this fic bookmarked on my ao3 for the looongest time, but it was only recently that i got round to actually reading it. and i’m so glad i did. bless her, she was waiting for her moment to shine. and it’s now.

youngest kids in the family please raise your hands! all in attendance! you are welcome and appreciated here. the feeling of desperation, trying to get people to see you as your current age rather than the little kid they’ll forever remember. i think that’s why i loved this fic so much: i could relate to it.

alike this story, most fics on here are on the older side of things. but honestly, if it’s good and genuine, it’ll last forever. no matter how much time has gone by. feelings stay - perhaps even grow?

the same for our adorable pair over here. could time play in their favour?

you let me know when you finish it.

( ✮ ) ALIVE AHA FXCK — by @softyoongiionly

!! vampire!yoongi x human!reader | 42k !!

vampire!au, smut (18+), soulmate!au (you know i had to), please read the trigger warnings.

devoured. no pun intended. though other vampire synonyms include but are not limited to: consumed, ate, guzzled, feasted etc… thank you google, after a few questionable internet searches.

i cannot tell you how glad i am that shakespeare never wrote about vampires. cuz he would’ve written my ass into that damn thing and killed me off from the things i’ve said about that guy. and the things i will continue to say…

i love this fic on a personal level. it reminds me of being fourteen again, curled up in my sheets as the sun reaches the tip of my windowsill and the morning chill settles in after a night of fighting sleep to finish a fanfic. it’s safe - i’m safe.

i genuinely had so much fun reading this story. the characterisation of both the reader and yoongi is so unhinged and playful and i’m obsessed. if i could recommend it to anyone, it would be my younger self cuz i know she’d love it :,). n she did!

y’know, sometimes you just gotta read a silly - infused with twilight puns - vampire-themed yoongi fic for the world to feel alright again.

and it did - for me. n now - for you.

( ♛ ) OLDER — by @lovieku

!! dilf!jk x inexperienced!reader | 18.2k !!

smut (18+), dilf!au, best friend’s father, age gap.

pure, undeniable and utter filth. in the best fuckin’ way possible. yea, if you could crawl into my mind, plunge into the inky depths of whatever lurks there.. this is what you’d find lying on the sand floor. unadulterated sin.

i am so disgustingly obsessed with this fic i can’t explain it, hence why it’s ended up on my shelf of recommendations. it scratches and pleases a deep, desperate itch in my brain. maybe it’s the age gap, who knows?

this writer has a talent for making us - or, me. - claw at something forbidden in an almost hungry advance. the sinner doing the sinning. and goddamn, i’m impressed. n i bet shakespeare is too. well, he fuckin’ better be.

the characters are imperfect and selfish and lustful, but oh my god i love them. add on dilf!jk with his slutty, unbuttoned shirts and you have me sold.

@lovieku you are such an amazing writer. you have such a way with how you express. do not underestimate that. i am beyond excited to see your future works :)

masterpiece. but what the fuck was that ending.

( ♛ ) HABITS OF A CLANDESTINE NATURE — by @alphabetboyluvr

!! college!jk x female!oc | 16k !!

rich!jk, waitress!oc, enemies to lovers, smut (18+).

he got, he got away! he got away! he got away! he’s got a way, he’s got a way! awayyyyheyeyyyyheyyy! yea, but didn’t manage to escape a 460-year-old poet, nor me.. so..

clementines, fruit trees, the sound of innocent laughter, wind chimes, a sheer blur of colour, soft hands. things that come to mind whenever i am reminded of this fic. a solid and beautiful depiction of hurt and love and everything in between.

this writer knew straight off the bat how to sell this pair to the audience. how to capture us and string us along for the journey of two hurting, longing and hurting all over again. shakespeare bought the hanging fruit that’s for damn sure… me too then, perhaps.

the vision for this story is perfect to me. i almost want to give the writer a kiss on the forehead.

i did write down one quote; used from the story. a way to sum it all up. “the perfect place to get lost. the perfect place to get found, too.”

if you’re looking for somewhere to get lost, i hope this satisfies that need. i also hope i come back to read this every once in a while. for old times sake. to get found again.

( ♬ ) GUILTY AS SIN — by @gldrushh

!! brother in law!jungkook x widow!reader | 32k !!

forbidden love!au, smut (18+), angst.

“it began to lose its meaning. healing. as if it were something—a destination you could stumble upon.” oh, don’t even talk to me. people died. shakepeare died. april 23rd 1616.

god, this story is just so raw in and of itself - perfectly depicting the human experience of love and loss. inevitable and sometimes unexpected. i was - n still remain - in awe.

i crossed by this fic unexpectedly and i’m so glad that whatever butterfly effect led me to finding this succeeded, but damn that action also had consequences… like real bad… haha….

i want to cry every time this fic crosses my mind. dramatic? lil bit. but when you read it, holy shit - this will make sense to you young’uns. in due time.

well, to be even more dramatic as such… my wounds from reading this are still fresh (i will sob don’t test me), so i hand the torch over to you to make of this story what you will.

please go into this fic with no expectations. go in willingly and just… fall into it. i will be on the other side when you resurface and i will definitely say something ironic.

like i told you so. xx.

( ♛ ) CALLING PRODUCER MIN YOONGI — by @bangtan-dreamland

!! yoongi x reader | 4.6k !!

strangers to lovers, just fluff all around.

now this is the bitch i aspire to be. dials random ass numbers of random ass strangers just to yap. oh yea, that’s my kinda girl. i just hope she knows she’s the coolest person ever to exist to me. i want to buy a star for her. a big, bright one.

i think i have said this before, but never ever underestimate the power of a drabble. a short fic of little can hold the weight of ten times that amount. especially this one (which i read that long ago but has ultimately ended up here - says it all tbh).

this fic is everything and more to me. i miss it when i’m not reading it, and i miss it when it’s right in front of me. it has me wanting to ring up random people in hopes of meeting my true love - which i won’t, but who knows what might happen?

also, to point out - the immense chemistry between these characters is off the charts. felt like i was intruding on my own phone call.

good dialogue? tick. amazing characterisation? tick. interesting plot? tick. has shakespeare wanting to never learn how to use a phone in case he puts this fic to shame? tick.

lol.

( ✎ ) THE LOVE PROGNOSIS — by @awrkive

!! surgeon!jk x surgeon!reader | 90.9k !!

roommates!au, medical!au, smut (18+), fluff.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarggggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhh. aaaand scene!

can i be honest? y’all stress me the fuck out! and you know who you are! starts with ‘j’ ends with ‘k’. the other one being ‘s’ ends with ‘e’. but one of you i like more and it’s not you, shakespeare.

the time it took me to finish this insanely crafted three-parter was embarrassingly short. (i think i formed a dent in my bed). so when i finished i was - obviously - heartbroken, so i did what every sane person does. i read all the drabbles. aaaand the tlp social media extras. and listened to the playlist. and cried. duh.

whilst all the fics on here deserve their own kdrama, i feel this one would ruin me completely. it’s weightlifting fairy kim bok joo all over again. it’s potential is there. like, c’mon screenwriters. i know you want to. or just pay me to do it.

the characters, the yearning, the friendship - immediately gets flashbacks… - ten’s across the board!

@awrkive is one to look out for. for real. i - along with everyone else here - will be tuning in. full volume.

oh yea, whilst we’re all still here. fuck that other guy. you know who you are! (no spoilers here).

( ♛ ) LET’S GET QUIZZICAL — by @taleasnewastime

!! jimin x f!reader | 28.6k !!

friends to lovers, angst, smut (18+).

sooooo… what i’m hearing is.. we all weren’t aware flo rida’s stage name is just florida with a space..? right? right.? cuz when you say it like that..

having been a victim of multiple pub quizzes in my past (haven’t won - yet!) the dialogue in this story was fucking perfect and scary real, depicting the anxiety, thrill and pure adrenaline running through your body as you rack your brain of every dumb fact you’ve ever read and hope it’s made a home somewhere up there.

not to mention you gotta trust your teammates like your life depends on it - cuz it fuckin’ does. n park jimin being one of them? the rest of the teams… y’all better not even bother showing up atp.

i thought the manor of the story being told through its settings was.. a slice of genius. so so cool and helped set the tone too. every time we transported back to the quiz i clutched my pearls in sheer relief.

also, i wish i could’ve highlighted angst in bold cause damn! you really hit us round the head with that one. and ofc i loved it, but damn. take notes, shakespeare. we don’t have to be killing characters off to ruin mk’s life. hm?

nothing less than spectacular from our @taleasnewastime.

( ♬ ) TRICKS OF THE TRADE — by @stutterfly

!! yoongi x reader | 24.1k !!

body swap!au, soulmates!au (you know me), smut (18+), humour.

peers down through speckled glasses, what’s next..? …oh god. sighs heavily and licks pen.

so i knew from the moment i read ‘body swap’ within the tags that this concept was gonna be so fuckin’ weird but so damn good. and low n behold, it didn’t disappoint. luckily i am a lover of fuckin’ weird.

this concept is so difficult to write. the foreign sensation of a different body and trying to channel each thought n emotions involved is complicated to convey, but this author did it so incredibly well.

also, not to be that person… but that smut… i’m gon’ be sleeping soooo well tonight let’s just say that lmfao. 100/10. might go back n read it when i’m done with this.

blushing… X

shakespeare couldn’t even fathom a story such as this - and we’re talking about the guy who once wrote about an incestuous relationship between a king and his daughter.

crazy work. you are so cool @stutterfly.

( ✎ ) TRIVIA LOVE — by @luxekook

!! namjoon x reader | 5.4k !!

non idol!au, smut (18+).

to quote myself from my reblog on feb 26 2020, “why was i smiling the whole way throughout this??” n you know what? hell yea i still stand by that!

this is the second pub quiz fic i have within this chapter (surprisingly, but not disappointing), but the circumstances cannot be more different.

the first group i would join, perhaps even rally with a little. but if i’m ever attending a pub night and these mother fuckers are in tow, best believe i’m leaving. they’re not ones to fuck with yo. they have $20 to win. they mean war.

since we’re at the end, and i’m 100% convinced nobody is still reading these, soooo… i can speak my truth. someone get me on joon’s lap. you gon’ be calling me cinderella cuz it’s gonna fit perfectly by midnight bro. on the dot.

this is - n will always be - a classic to me. one that i will always return to eventually. i can dress up all i want with these big fics, but these smaller ones are always a guilty pleasure.

like cinderella returning to her mice friends (or whatever), i will always come back to @luxekook and their stories.

forever xoxo.

MARKNEE’S SPECIAL MENTIONS:

caught my attention, and deserve their flowers.

( ♬ ) THE DEVIL SKATES ON THIN ICE — by @vankoya

!! yoongi x reader | 60.5k !!

winter sports!au, fluff, angst, humour.

my love life also skates on thin ice. lmfao. especially after this.

( ✎ ) KNOCKED — by @sailoryooons

!! streamer!seokjin x f!reader | 10.6k !!

roommates to lovers, smut (18+), humour.

more like she’s about to knock him out.

( ♬ ) NEFARIOUS — by @yoonia

!! jimin x f!reader | 39.2k !!

sex club!au, gentlemen club!au, smut (18+).

lets out a long sigh. won’t be in a rush to forget this one.

( ✎ ) THINGS WE DON’T SAY — by @wintaerbaer

!! taehyung x reader | 54.5k !!

best friends to lovers, slow burn, eventual smut.

the found family trope is strooong.

© marknee, 2025. all rights reserved.

[show-us-kaidenshenandoah]

Wicked Gelphie fans, i need you guys so badly to know how well Elphaba/Glinda are "good timeline"d "history doesnt repeat, it rhymes"-ified by Dorothy/Princess Ozma in Baum's original Oz book series. like. Dorothy/Ozma get everything; theyre the sweet, intimate friends-to-"??? are they a couple?"-ified political power-sapphic-duo that Gelphie would have wanted to be. like??

if you merge canons, fam... Wicked-Glinda must be struggling, seeing Dorothy/Ozma be everything she and Elphaba could have been.... omfg... the angst potential, the envy of watching a couple of sapphic childhood sweethearts get everything they were denied, fulfill Glinda and Elphie's dreams, and seemingly so easily too...

(also!! they even CAN look like a kid-Glinda and kid-Elphaba! there's canon to justify that kind of appearance paralleling!!)

faq below if you want more context

edit, psa: i did read these books from like.. the ages of 10 to like 14 or so, maybe as young as 8? idk, i dont remember. anyway. its been a decade since i picked them back up. and i didnt think this would gain as much traction as it has been after 100+ notes in less than 24 hours. uh. so. take my chronic memory loss-addled summarization with a grain of salt?? like? i just wrote this post so i didnt have to re-vent (agAIN) to my friends about how much i fucking love Dorothy/Ozma, period, much less in parallel to Gelphie. so. enjoy, carry on, and whatnot lmao

1️⃣: there's Oz books? plural???

yes, Baum wrote 14 books about Oz, actually. also, he wrote them under the appointment of "the royal historian of Oz" instead of "author", so there's other "official" Oz books by other "royal historians of Oz"

Baum wrote so much bc (he needed money, yes, but also:) kids would send him questions in fan-mail, and he would proceed to answer them via new novels. so he never planned to make more Oz books, he just (wasnt good with money and also) was routinely inspired by the kids who wrote to him and would write the stuff they wanted to learn about Oz and whatnot

2️⃣: does Dorothy go back to Oz? wasn't it all a dream for her??

yeah, Dorothy returns to Oz a lot in the books, she eventually even moves to live there permanently. bc, in the book series, it's a real place

only in the 1939 film was Oz ever a dream

3️⃣: how does Dorothy look like Glinda OR Elphaba?? what are you talking about?

okay so, "The Wizard of Oz" has an illustrator, W. W. Denslow. in the book, Dorothy is confirmed to be wearing a blue-white gingham dress (she changes outfits tho, she doesnt always wear the same dress all 14 books like she's some cartoon character); but im pretty sure her hair was all Denslow(? i could be remembering wrong. p sure im not tho??). this is what the 1939 movie based her appearance off of. so i can see why youd go "she doesnt look like Glinda or Elphaba"

BUT Denslow and Baum started feuding. so for the rest of the Oz books that Baum wrote, he had a different illustrator by the name of John R. Neil

and Neil decided to give Dorothy for every one of the books he illustrated (so, 13 of Baum's books to Denslow's 1 book of Baum's) a cute lil blonde bob, making her look like what i assume blonde-Glinda looked like as a child. i think she'd approve lol

so!! Dorothy very much looks like a trendy little Glinda, with her cute blonde bob, her fashionable drop-waist dress, and bows for most of the Baum series, actually!

(also, Neil had a preference for dressing Dorothy in this red and polka-dot number, but, again, she does wear other outfits)

(lmao also look at Tin-Man and Scarecrow with blonde-Dorothy, they look like her two gay dads encouraging her to just go be herself at school?? i love them)

(also, if you see "Eloise At The Plaza"-energy in this Dorothy design, im right there with you lol)

4️⃣: who is Ozma??

she's the Princess of Oz. she eventually appears in the second book of the series. she rules Oz after the Wizard

she's actually a really interesting transwoman allegory too. (spoilers for a book from the early 1900s?) she was born a little girl named Ozma, but has a spell put on her as a baby to be genderbent and was socially raised as a little boy under a different name, and she later realizes who she truly is: a girl. she finds the transformation scary, as she returns to her girl-form she always truly was, but she feels better and more herself now that she is Ozma again. i dont think L. Frank Baum intentionally wrote her to be a trans allegory, but you can very obviously see why our trans elders fucking LOVED Ozma back in the early 1900s

also, she has a similar "sir, you fucked up" relationship with the Wizard as Elphaba*. and, also like Elphaba, Ozma politically tries to make things in Oz better (just.. unlike Elphaba, Ozma has the power and support to do just that p much asap)

* (edit for contextual clarification on how the Wizard fucked up: the Wizard fucked up with Ozma because he is ultimately and p directly the reason why she was genderbent/hidden. he deposed of her family and sent her away. Baum decided later on to backtrack a little bit on this(?) because he wanted to bring back the Wizard and, in order for Baum to do that, has to try to not make him SO terribly horrible??? so like. Ozma does end up forgiving him and tolerates him amd he's nicer, later on, within the books. but i doubt any modern adaptation of the books would follow that, personally. even as a kid, i went "bullshit" and headcanoned that Ozma fucking hated the guy and, at best, MAYBE tolerated him for Dorothy, but overall did not like him for justifiable reasons! i think the direction society seems to have taken the Wizard is interesting, and i wouldnt be surprised if there was at least one future adaptation that made him The Bad Guy in a very Rumplestiltskin in the Once Upon A Time TV show kind of way. but like. in the books, they do END UP getting along. i just forever disagree with Baum on that lol i think the Wizard fucked up, and in book 2 of the series (the one where Ozma is, y'know, introduced), it is obvious the Wizard FUCKED UP. but yeah. also, Ozma does get her dad back. her mom was kind of never in the picture to begin with, specifically in a Ponyo's Mom kind of way, like, she made Oz and then left it for her husband and kid to rule, so. yeah. im getting off track. my point is the Wizard did a full-on coup on her family and then banished her and genderbent her so no one would recognize that she had claim to the throne he was sitting on!! he fucked up! so, like, i personally hc that Elphaba founded the "i hate the Wizard" club to which everyone slowly joined, like Fieyro and etc, and Ozma is their youngest member. the Wizard did both Elphie and Ozma so dirty, omfg)

it also should be mentioned, Ozma in NBC's "Emerald City" was casted as Black (her actress being Jordan Loughran). so, though Ozma does not have green skin (but also? neither did the Wicked Witch of the West in the books, she wasn't green there. that was a 1939 film decision to make her green. so! Ozma could be green!! why not!), but she does have Black features to theoretically remind Glinda of Cynthia Eviro's Elphaba when you consider that casting. or, if you prefer a Jewish!Elphaba casting, a'la Idina Menzel's Elphaba, i think Ozma's book design works well to interpretively parallel those features too. or both, if you like the sound of a Black-Jewish Elphaba and Ozma paralleling lol

(edit, because i thought i mentioned this but? no?? i didnt?? i must have misclicked or something to have deleted the paragraph. im so sorry, here you go:) also, when Ozma was a boy, she was basically enslaved to her jailor of a caretaker. which one could interpret as "oh, a Cinderella story!", sure. but, with a Black Ozma, it does read as an intergenerational grief-formed power-fantasy that is both empowering and poignant for Ozma to have ran away from her enslavement and gone on to become a princess afterwards. to any Black folks who may be going "is this going to trigger me?" about Ozma having been a child-slave, i remind you that Baum wrote this intentionally for children, so, no, the books do not sit in the trauma and horror of enslavement, but whether or not it would trigger you yourself is up to your discretion. i will say, Baum did NOT write the American Girls' Addy of his time (context: a children's book about a child-slave that does go into the horrors, some, though in a kid-friendly way) or Louis Sachar's Holes (i asssume i dont have explain Holes since its movie was such a hit), i remember it as even more kid-friendly than either of those also-children's books, so i would assume most people would be fine? but you are responsible for your own mental well-being, i urge you to confirm if it is fine for yourself however you need to do that. but, yes, you can use this backstory as further evidence for your Ozma being Black, of course! you can have Ozma be Black regardless, but if you want this as further evidence, go ahead! and also, it does parallel Ozma to Elphaba in the sense that Elphaba's family mistreats Elphaba! (i will, regardless of if you prefer a Jewish and/or Black Elphaba, add that doing so is also a nice "fuck you" to Baum in how, being a white man of the late 1800s and early 1900s, did end up throwing in racist and/or antisemitic caricatures here and there within his 14 books, unfortunately. i, an Indigenous American, remember as a child still immensely enjoying Oz despite Baum being racist towards Native Americans. if youre curious on the egregious level of it all and if the story could still be enjoyable, id say it's in the realm of Peter Pan, Willy Wonka, and Matilda of "wow. that is shitty. im going to pretend this thing i love is good instead via cognitive dissonance")

regardless, in John R Neil's illustrations, Ozma does have black hair, so that too coincides with modern understandings of Elphaba

(there is also her appearance in Disney's "Return to Oz", performed by Emma Ridley, where she is blonde. but, though i love that spooky movie, that's neither here nor there. as far as im aware, only in that movie has Ozma not had black hair)

anyway, she rules Oz; and by book 3, becomes really close friends with Dorothy. they're not a canon couple, not anymore than Gelphie is, but they are such close and affectionate friends that they are so easy to ship as childhood sweethearts (so, no, there is no moment of 🎶loathing🎶, but i find that sweetness makes them an angstier parallel for Glinda to watch over, personally lol)

like here's some illustrations from the books of them just being two "gal pals". no wonder our queer elders shipped them lmao and this isn't even all of their illustrations together, this is just the first spurts that google shot out at me lmao

also??? this is them with book-Glinda. not only do they look absolutely darling, also, yes, Dorothy becomes a princess, because Ozma said so. they co-rule Oz together. they are just too sweet, fam, i love these two little childhood sweethearts, i choose to see Dorothy's princess-ship as the same as two kids promising to marry one another when they grow up. this is so cute

and can you imagine Wicked-Glinda? looking down at these two, seeing what could have between herself and Elphaba had things turned out different??? im making myself sad

(also "Book of Glinda" is so wild. both in terms of "...Baum, how do you not see this as queer?" like with one example being like "Baum, you put that Glinda has 100s of single women at her beck and call in her palace, this is so easy to see as sapphic, sir"... and then, over here, we have John R Neil repeatedly reading "gave a platonic, innocent kiss" and going "okay, so, uh, making out? i dont do platonic kissing" lmao anYWAAAAYYYY, THAT'S NOT RELEVANT HERE)

🌟5️⃣ bonus:

so, you might have a few follow-up questions. like, what is "Elphaba" like in the books? what does she look like?

well, she's really only in the first book. she's one-note, evil, dies. she's not green-skinned, and she isn't given any sort of name. she is only called "the Wicked Witch of the West", that's it, she is not Elphaba

however, i will mention the Wicked Witch of the West, in the books, is a fashion disaster and i want to see her look used as evidence that "yes, goth-Elphaba and dark-academia-Elphaba are 10/10, but also?? kitschy grandma-core knitwear-Elphaba × her fashionably Barbie pink girlfriend". i'd love to see art of that. i'm just saying

also?? this isn't related to her at all but guess what

Scarecrow/Tin-Man was like THE ship for our queer elders. they are so emotionally intimate, they live together, it's great, look at these pictures of them being absolute bros (can you see why they were shipped so hard)

i bring this up, bc you could argue Fieyro/Boq if you merge canons to make your own narrative and whatnot. guess Fieryo and Boq kinda had their own mirrored 🎶loathing🎶 period under that framing lmao

or, if you hate Boq, youll probably love the Tin-Man's angsty "ship of Theseus"-like backstory as the once-Nick Chopper(: his human name, pre-tin-ification) that is in the books

so! enjoy that knowledge!! theyre super cute in the books, i love them. again, not a canon ship, but still beloved by our elder queers, just like Ozma and Dorothy

i hope it makes even more sense now why our queer elders used the phrase "Are you a friend of Dorothy?" as code to see if someone else was queer, not even taking into account the 1939 movie or Judy Garland's relationship with the queer community

anyway, albeit this is all the basics generalized, that should be everything

but yeah!! Ozma and Dorothy reminding Glinda of what could have been, of what she lost, being the sweeter "next generation" version of Gelphie?? tugs so hard at my heartstrings

but yeah, do whatever you want with Gelphie, Fieryo, and Part 2. im just saying. the angst potential of being envious and living vicariously through someone and seeing other people get the happy ending you were denied?? is right there lol

(edit: this awesome video by Kaz Rowe JUST came out if you want to hear more about the Oz book series, its queerness, its author, its GLARING PROBLEMS including but not limited to instances of racism, and so on and so forth. Kaz Rowe is a fantastic video-essayist, so i hope you watch the video and enjoy their hard-polished craftsmanship)

[lamentationsofalonelypotato]

Chapter 18: First Impressions Are Often Correct

Pairing: Soldier Boy x f!reader, Reader POV

Summary: When the reader left Payback 40 years ago after a falling out with her childhood best friend she never looked back, but when two men show up to her apartment and start asking her questions about the past, the reader begins to think those things can’t stay hidden and starts to question what’s real and what’s fantasy.  This is a re-telling of The Boys Season 3, where the reader is a supe who's known Soldier Boy since 1927. The chapters will fluctuate between past and present. This is chapter eighteen of my "You Call It Madness But I Call It Love" series. (I'm so bad at summaries please forgive me!)

Word Count: 11.6K

Warnings: I'm going to rate this one 18+ just to be on the safe side. :) References to sex, Cursing, Angst, Mentions of Death, Blood, Gore, Possessive Soldier Boy, Protective Soldier Boy, Soft Soldier Boy, Soldier Boy might be, is, really, absolutely, completely a little OOC. Soldier Boy is really all you need as a warning.

Note: This is told from the Reader's perspective. Any references to the reader is made using you or your. There is minimal use of y/n. I tried my best to proofread, but nobody's perfect. Reader is described as "curvy" occasionally. If you don’t like, don’t read, but if you do like, you’re my favorite!

Internal Monologue is in first person and is in italics

Series Masterlist

Masterlist

A/N: I'm so sorry, I know this has been a long time coming. I work hard, but writer's block works harder tbh.

It had to be herogasm. You think to yourself with an audible groan looking up at the mid-century house from your position in the tree-line while watching the couples on the back porch writhe against one another.

The three hour drive from your apartment to Vermont had been uneventful and quiet. Every once in a while Ben would whisper something to you and you would half answer, but only because your mind was somewhere else or rather on someone else.

It was on Rosemary. She had stopped trying to text you or call you, and the silence was worse. You had no idea what she was going to do or what she was thinking. It was a miracle that she hadn’t shown up to your apartment and kicked down the front door before you left. You knew she was angry about the whole situation. And the sooner you dealt with the twins the sooner you could go see her.

Of course you still had no idea how you were going to bring up the conversation with Ben and you knew that there was no way he would let you just leave with no explanation to go talk to her.

This is why I hate texting. I should have just gone to see her, I shouldn’t have told her that Ben was back in a text, if anything that's a three drink minimum. Hell, she's probably half way through a second bottle of wine by now. Something that you also had considered several times today. Guess sobriety is going out the window. Shocker.

Ben kept asking you what was wrong, sensing your discomfort on the drive and held your hand tightly between the two of you, but you only shook your head whenever he asked. He thought that you were having second thoughts of going after the twins, but that was the one thing you were sure of. They deserved to pay for what they did, all of your team did. Anger rises beneath your skin like a roaring crowd when you think of all the years Ben spent alone in Russia being tortured and experimented on. Years that you could have stopped if only you'd known, years that he could never get back, memories that wouldn't fade in the next decade or two, and memories that you hoped you could replace by making him feel loved, by holding him close, and allowing yourself to forget the memories that still plagued you when you thought about the past.

But you still didn't know how the hell you were going to tell him about Rosemary. Every moment it felt like the words were going to vomit out of your mouth, but you clamped your jaw shut. You didn’t want to talk about Rosemary in front of Butcher and Hughie, didn’t want to tell Ben like that. What you needed to say about Rosemary and Lou didn’t deserve to be shouted at him or said in haste, you wanted to sit Ben down and tell him, give him time to adjust to the idea. Because you had no idea how he was going to react to the news that he was a dad and a grandfather.

Would he pull away again? Would he run? Would he leave me? Those thoughts kept swirling around your mind like a mixtape. You were scared that by telling him about her would make him go cold like he did the moment you told him you loved him. You remembered the distant look that replaced his smile as soon as you had uttered those three little words.

Little but not simple. Three little words that launched ships and started a hundred wars. Three little words with the power to create and the power to destroy. Three words that Ben had said to you more times than you could count since he came back to you, and three words you wished you never stopped hearing him say, the three words you always wanted him to say to you.

If Ben pushed you away now, you knew that you wouldn't survive it this time, knew that there was no going back. Which made you more fearful about Rosemary's reaction to Ben coming back into your life.

You were afraid that Rosemary would give you an ultimatum and make you choose between her and Lou or Ben. You really hoped that it didn’t come to that. You had just gotten Ben back and you didn’t want to have to pick between him and your family.

Because Ben is family too. You knew that deep down in your bones, even after everything that happened, Ben was your family. He was the only person who knew you inside and out, the only man you’d ever loved and the only person who understood you. You couldn’t turn your back on him and you didn’t want to shut him out. Not when you loved him more than life itself.

Your frown deepens as you continue to watch the people on the back porch while your supe hearing picks up the moans and sounds of the couples inside and the subtle thump of music, new pop songs that you didn't understand and didn't try. You were up with the times, but it didn't mean you had to like what was happening or the new music being produced no matter how hard Rosemary tried to get you to listen to it.

You sigh again, trying to drown out the sounds by focusing on the wind moving through the trees and the birds flitting through the branches overhead, but it wasn’t working. The beautiful day was already ruined by the loud and messy sounds from the inside of the house. 

“Always wanted to bring you to one of these Sweetheart.” Ben glances over at you with a cheeky grin, lowering the binoculars from his eyes, but then he notes your frown. “Then again-“ His hand comes around your waist to pull you into him. “That means I would have had to share you with someone else, and I’d much rather have you all to myself.”

 You can feel his smirk against your ear, but it does little ease your anxiety about Rosemary and the looming conversation you were going to have with Ben when this was over.

Hughie had disappeared a few moments ago to scout out the inside and to find the twins, while Butcher was doing a walk of the perimeter, leaving you and Ben to wait for the all clear. A welcome break, because every few minutes Hughie would play with a Geiger counter and the high pitched creak-like squeak was giving you a headache. Not to mention annoying you. You'd only been able to have a few sips of your coffee this morning after Butcher and Hughie burst into you apartment, but at least your anxiety was picking up the slack.

Because of course it was.

The house in front of you looked innocent enough on the outside, big windows light wood,  but now that you were here, you really didn’t want to go inside. Despite wanting to face the twins, you didn’t want to go inside and be reminded of the one reason why you stayed away from Herogasm.

At least today we aren’t attending it as much as crashing it.

“Why do you think I hated going to Herogasm?” You murmur, frown deepening at you continue to stare at the house.  The memories of the past had an ugly way of crashing down on you and despite not wanting to make Ben feel guilty, keeping them to yourself made you feel worse. Plus you figured he knew when you were lying, because Ben was basically a human lie detector when it came to you.

Ben sighs, his warm breath washing over the side of your face as his arm tightens around your waist to secure you to him. “Sweetheart please look at me.” His voice is comforting, filled with emotion, but you still don't look at him.

“What?” You whisper, mind still a million miles away.

His fingertips come under your chin to turn your face to his. Ben’s green eyes lock with yours, soft and apologetic, familiar in the best way and weird given the fact that he was wearing his uniform. You’d never seen him look so sorry when he was dressed up as Soldier Boy.

“I would have killed any man who tried to touch you, especially after the night we shared together. When Vogelbaum danced with you I wanted to rip his arms off.”  His eyes darken.

You remembered the way he watched Vogelbaum and you dance together at the premiere with the cameras flashing in your eyes, but then the image of Countess plastered to his hip arises. The way she ran her hands up his chest, the way he turned his gaze away from you to stare at her.

“Yes, but see I never killed any woman that touched you-“

Double standard much?

“Well-“

“Countess doesn’t count.” You snap.

Ben’s thumb strokes along your jaw, before his expression softens again. “I’m sorry.”

“You’ve apologized-“ You sigh, suddenly guilty. You hadn't meant to snap at him like that, you were on edge because of Rosemary, not because of what Ben did in the past. You were already starting to forgive him for what he did.

“Not for this.” He takes in a deep breath before he pulls you closer to him. “I’m sorry that I made you think I didn’t want you. Because I do. I don't want anyone else, haven't ever wanted anyone else like I want you. I was so stupid. I fucked those other women because I couldn’t handle how I felt about you and I didn’t think that you would ever want me even a fraction of how much I want you-“

“More.” You whisper before you can stop yourself, laying your hand against the front of his suit.

“That is impossible.” Ben smiles faintly.

You toy with the material, plucking it between your fingers. “It’s okay. I understand why you did it. But it was hard to watch you with them.” You try to fight the image of him and Countess again, that is quickly followed by the memories of the many women over the years you’d see Ben with in public and of course the memory of the first and only Herogasm you ever went to, the one you left early because you couldn’t bear to see Ben with anyone else. The same one that you swore you saw Ben watching you just as closely when Noir tried to reach out for you and you walked away.

It’s different now. You think to yourself. Ben said that he’s wanted me this whole time and I believe him. I don’t think he would lie about something like that, not to mention he’s been more open about what he’s feeling.

“I know.” Ben continues to stroke along your jaw. “But I promise it won’t happen ever again.”

“I believe you.” You lock your arms around the back of his neck to hold him closer to you, loving the way his body felt wrapped around you, like he was molded just for you.

“Good.” He leans his forehead against yours for a moment. "Can I kiss you yet?" Ben's words are quiet, barely above a whisper, so low that you know if you didn't have super hearing you'd have missed them.

"You've never been a patient man. In all the years I've known you." You breathe with a smile.

"Maybe I've just never met someone worth waiting for." Ben's nose nudges into the space between you faces, waiting for you to tell him it's okay and you want to. "But you are Sweetheart."

"You've waited forty years."

"You waited longer."

His words make a ball of emotion lodge in the back of your throat, because it meant Ben listened. He heard everything you said to him and he wasn't going to forget, he was going to make this up to you.

It was hard to say no to him, not when he was smiling at you and gazing at you the way you'd always wished him to.

"We both know I'm a bit more patient than you."

"Maybe."

"You know, maybe we should be focusing on something else right now." You smirk, still keeping your lips just as hairsbreadth away from his.

“It's hard to focus on anything else, not when you’re wearing something like that.” Ben purrs, thumbs brushing against you hips in a way that makes your chest tight.

Your smirk deepens “Oh this old thing?”

At the last minute you had chosen to wear the outfit you had picked when you thought you were going to be going to Russia to get Ben, rather than your old supe suit. You didn’t want to be connected with the person you were then, and despite Ben’s want to hold on to Soldier Boy, you were more than happy to let Indigo go.

The outfit was working better than you thought. The tight black tactical pants, combat boots, black leather jacket, and long sleeved leather corseted blouse that was sinched at your waist all perfectly accentuated the curves that your mother tried to hide. When you had walked out of your closet wearing it, Ben’s entire body had gone rigid.

“What?” You’d asked him with an innocent smile standing just a few steps outside your closet, while watching the tension in his shoulders.

“Damn it sweetheart you’re making this hard.” He had responded, clenching his hands into fists at his sides to hold himself back from crossing your bedroom to touch you. It made you smile wider to understand that he was trying to respect the boundaries you made between the two of you.

“What is it that I’m making hard Benjamin?”

“Fuck. Don’t tease me. Nobody likes a tease.”

You’d smirked at him. “Sorry babe you walked right into that one.”

“It’s not fair-“ Ben had growled.

“What’s not fair?”

“You wearing that, biting your fucking lip like that-“

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He’d stalked towards you, eyes dark, causing you to back up until your back hit your pale bedroom wall. His hand had landed next to your head, the other wound around your hip so you could feel the heat of his skin through your clothes.

“You know, two can play at that game Sweetheart.” Ben had murmured, easing his face so close to yours that you could feel his breath against your lips.

“And what game is that?” You’d said it trying to keep your composure, but the dark look in his eyes and the smell of his shampoo was everywhere. Your heart beat had given you away, thudding violently in your chest as if it wanted to break free. It was hard to ignore how much you still wanted him after all these years.

"You know exactly what game." Ben had held your gaze, raising an eyebrow as a confident smirk pulled at his lips. He could hear your heartbeat too, probably could smell how much you wanted him. “But you’re so fucking beautiful I'll let it slide.”

“Huh?” It had been the last thing you thought he was going to say. If anything you’d thought he was going to tease you.

The hand that had been previously on the wall near your head dropped onto your face to gently trace the arch of your brow and the dip of your bottom lip.

“You always have been. I thought I remembered wrong but-" His expression shifted from the seductive smirk into something softer. "Fuck I missed you." Ben had leaned his forehead against yours. "So tease me all you want. I'll wait, because you're worth every second."

Remembering what he said earlier still filled you with an incredible amount of love and made you want to kiss him all the more now. Knowing that he was willing to wait for you to be okay with whatever came next made you fall harder for him. But now you knew that you needed to focus on what you were about to do. And standing here in front of the house, listening to what was going on inside made you sober up, just a little bit…. But not completely.

"Then again I thought those overalls were pretty sexy too." Ben states, staring down at you with a wide smile as the mid-afternoon sun turned his hair into a light brown and found the flecks of gold in his eyes. He looked every bit as handsome as you were accustomed to, so much in fact that it made your heart ache.

"Sure." You roll your eyes. "I think you're the first person in history to say that." Your fingers lightly curl into the strands at the back of his head.

"Maybe. Or maybe you're just the sexiest woman in history."

"Shut up."

Ben's gaze darkens. "Make me, Sweetheart."

Every viable thought except the thought of crashing your lips to his vanishes.

I wonder if they're as soft as I remember. If he still makes that sound when I-

"You two ready?" Butcher interrupts appearing just over Ben's shoulder, but smirking when he sees how close the two of you are. "Or do you love birds need a little alone  time?"

You roll your eyes and let go of Ben's hair, as he loosens his grip on your hips. Stepping back away from him was like having a bucket of cold water drop over you, you missed him and yet he was standing a full sixteen inches away from you.

This is really not good.

"You have the worst fucking timing." Ben moves to pick up his shield, but the playful smirk he'd had a few seconds ago has been replaced with a frown.

You wondered if he was as disappointed as you were.

The wind shifts and you can smell the Temp V in Butcher's veins, hear the steady beat of his heart as it pumps blood through his body, strengthening him, making him feel indestructible. When Butcher and Hughie had injected it at the back of Butcher's car, you couldn't help but be reminded of the day you took V. You had been afraid and when they injected it, you remember the pain, the unspeakable pain that made you scream so loud that Ben heard you from the room he was being kept in, and he broke through the wall to get to you. It was how the scientists learned that Ben had super strength, because he had smashed through solid rock to make sure you were okay.

Butcher shrugs and begins to walk through the trees towards the side door of the house, leaving you and Ben alone.

"You didn't answer my question." He hefts his shield up with a smirk.

He didn't have to explain, you knew he was asking about the kiss. "I'll take a raincheck."

"Hmm." Ben takes a few steps towards the house, before he stops to look back at you. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Huh?"

"In the car, even now. You're kinda quiet." He shrugs.

"I-" You were going to say that you were fine, but you knew that he would clock the lie. "We need to talk about something, but it can wait. This is important too."

Ben's frown deepens, but then he finally sighs. "Alright. Come on you’re lagging behind doll."

"Guess you changed your mind about wanting me here." You snort as you catch up to him.

Ben puts his hand on your wrist, turning you to look at him. "I always want you with me." His hand trails up your arm to finally rest under your chin. Ben smiles, leaning down towards you, but before you can arch up into him, he presses a kiss to your forehead. "I love you." He murmurs into the top of your head.

"I love you too."

And with that, you both follow Butcher into the house hosting the worst event in all of history.

I should have brought ear plugs. You cringe as you follow behind Ben and Butcher, weaving through the lower levels of the house. Maybe someone will let me borrow their blindfold. Hopefully there are nose plugs somewhere… well there have been other kinds of plugs but those are a bit big for my nose.

You walk down the staircase after Ben and Butcher who pulled ahead a few moments ago and as you do the sharp sour smell of a chemical wafts in your face, different than the other odors in the house.

What is that?

You round the corner and see Ben up ahead, shrouded in smoke, staring down an attractive muscular black man who for some reason has decided to raise his fists to challenge Ben. Your eyes trace the man's face, recognition pulling at your heart. You knew who he was. The first time you'd seen him he'd only been a boy, made eye contact with you at a funeral you couldn't help but go to, after Ben made a mistake. You'd offered the boy an encouraging smile and left the boy's family an envelope of cash in their mailbox because you couldn't think of anything else to do for them. You knew it couldn't replace who they lost, but you didn't know what else to do. Ben had been upset with himself after, he always was when he lost control. He showed up on your doorstep like he always did, drunk, high, smelling like stale perfume, and fell asleep in your bed after you reassured him the same way you always did.

Now that little boy was grown up and standing in front of you. You see recognition flash in his eyes as he sees you. Of course it does. You didn't look any different and you hadn't worn your supe suit when you went to the funeral.

"Not him." Butcher says to Ben, but Ben doesn't look away from the man.

"Ben." You whisper, reaching out to touch his arm gently.

Ben's eyes flick to yours. The look in Ben's eyes is familiar, predatory, unwilling to back down from a fight. Soldier Boy. You'd seen it countless times before, talked him out of killing people in the past. You hated how quickly you had to slip into your old job, the one that made you feel like a babysitter, but you shake it off.

"He doesn't know what he's doing. Come on. The Twins are upstairs, I can hear them arguing." It was true, you could, but you didn't want this to turn ugly so quickly. Not when the real reason why you were here were currently arguing about toilet cameras. 

His jaw tightens, eyes sliding to the man standing at the other end of the room, before he nods once and motions for you to go ahead of him.

As you continue to move through the house, you fight the shudder that threatens to travel down your spine when you think of how Ben looked moments ago. It was the first time you had seen Soldier Boy since Ben showed up again, and it was the same way you remembered it. You just hoped deep down that Ben really did want to change and that he was adopting the façade of Soldier Boy to get through what came next. You knew that you were going to have to adopt one as well.

"Here." You stop just before the two of you round the corner where the Twins were in the other room. "Let me go first. They might not try to run if I go in before you."

Ben frowns. "I don't want you to-"

"I know, but it'll be better this way."

"Fine."

You walk around the wall and towards the circular room where the Twins are fighting, ignoring the couples on the outskirts that are grinding against one another.

Like Countess, the Twins didn't look good, both were considerably older, rounder, grayer, and more wrinkly than the last time you'd seen them, but they were still the same. Still arguing and still just as annoying as they had been forty years ago.

"I never want to see you again!" Tommy spits at his sister, adjusting the golden robe slung over his shoulders that flaps around him like a cape.

"Oh sure!" Tessa sniffs while puffing on a joint. "Our Westfield mall appearance is next week and nobody is going to come see you without me!"

That must suck to have your powers depend on someone else.

"Wow, mall appearances? Aren't we all getting a bit old for that?" You flash a winning smile as you step down into the room, locking eyes with Tessa.

Both of the twins visibly pale, their hearts speeding up to work overtime, as the stench of adrenaline begins to waft through the air between you. It's almost comical how identical their reactions are to Countess' at seeing you for the first time in forty years. Then again you hoped that you looked better than they did.

Why didn't I try to find out more after Ben "died?" If our entire team had this reaction to seeing me then I would have known the truth and Ben wouldn't have been in a fucking Russian Lab all these years!

Their plan to ensure you not being in Nicaragua had paid off, because not only were you not there, you didn't want anything to do with any of them. And you wished that you had confronted them all those years ago. You knew that you'd live with that guilt for a long time, but now you allowed your anger at what they all did to Ben, overpower it.

"Y/n-" Tessa stutters.

It was weird to see her at a loss for words. You and all of Payback had listened to her nag Tommy since the moment they joined the team. Judging by what you had walked into, you figured that she hadn't changed at all.

"Hey long time no see!" Tommy fakes enthusiasm while licking his lips nervously, eyes darting to the open doors behind you. You could practically see the escape plan forming in his mind.

"You know, when I found out you guys were living in Vermont I was surprised. I would have thought that you moved down South. They’re probably more accepting of your relationship.” You make air quotes around the word relationship, before shifting your smile into an worried frown. “Oh sorry, are the two of you still pretending that you’re not fucking?”

Tessa’s gaze turns stone cold. “What the fuck do you want?”

“I was in the neighborhood, thought I’d check in.” You look around the room. “You guys have a nice house. Must have budgeted better than Countess did. Her tailer, now that was a shit hole. Must not have done as many mall appearances.”

Tommy’s heart skips a beat at the mention of Countess’s name. “Look y/n-“

“Please. We didn’t have anything against you. We didn’t come after you. Even after all these years we left you alone.” Fear seeps into Tessa’s voice with her plea, eyes wide with worry.

They had reason to be worried, you’d all but admitted to killing Countess.

“Oh sweetie.” You with false sweetness in your tone. “It’s cute that you think you can beg for mercy. That you're deserving of it.” The room begins to shake with the force of your anger as your eyes shift to bright purple. Cracks like thin spiderwebs stretch through the wide windows behind them and through the thick drywall as you lose control, the composure you always held on to drowning in the flood of emotion you feel when you look at the two of them. “Ben told me exactly what happened that day-“

“He lied to you!” Tommy exclaims. “He went crazy! You know how he gets, how he loses control!”

“He lost control and we had to protect ourselves y/n-“ Tessa adds, another lie.

Ben steps into the room beside you, his eyes are focused on the Twins, and if you thought they looked afraid when you showed up, they look near dead when Ben appears.

"You were saying?" You raise an eyebrow.

"Ben! Hey Buddy!." Tommy forces another smile but pales when he realizes Ben just heard him and Tessa try to lie to you. "How are you? Long time. We were just talking to y/n about-“

Ben's eyes narrow, stopping whatever Tommy was going to say about you.

"Nicaragua wasn't our fault!" Tommy says to recover. "Neither was the premiere." His eyes dart to yours, cowering under the purple light that pulses from your irises.

Wow. Just. Wow.

"We swear." Tessa adds.

"Why should we believe you?" You spit.

"Please-"

"Then whose fault was it?" Ben's frown deepens, hand tightening on the shield.

None of the other couples have stopped what they are doing, too enthralled in one another to notice what was going to unfold between the four of you.

"It was Noir!" Tommy shouts desperately, his eyes flitting from Ben to you as if trying to see which one of you will believe him. "He gave Ben to the Russians."

It's almost pathetic watching his mad scramble to protect himself. Apart of you hates that you don't feel guilty for any of this, at least with Countess at the beginning you felt some guilt for hurting her, but with them there was nothing. Not even the prick of remorse, there was only anger.

Ben chuckles under his breath. "We all know that Noir didn't even take a shit without Vought's say so."

"Not to mention his head was so far up Stan's ass it's a wonder that he could breathe." You narrow your eyes at the two of them waiting for them to make a move. They might be cowards, but if you knew the Twins well enough, you knew that they weren't above throwing a bolt of lighting in your direction. And you knew for a fact that electrocution wasn't fun.

"It's the truth!" Tessa shouts above the moans and wet squelch of the people around you. “Please y/n we have children.”

“You're really the worst liar hon. Always have been." You snap, listening to her heartbeat jolt in her chest as she attempts to save herself.

"Please talk Ben out of this, just like you did for Noir-“ Tommy's plea falls on deaf ears, but you knew what he was talking about. The day that you saved Noir's life because he started a fight with Ben over a stupid role in a movie. But this was different, no part of you wanted to save them from this, to save them from what they deserved.

“Noir will get what’s coming to him.” You don't recognize your own voice. "You brought this on yourselves."

But then something shifts in the air, call it a feeling, or an energy current, but something feels wrong.

The music coming from the radio has changed to a Russian pop song, why it's playing you have no idea, all you know is that it does something to Ben.

The sound of his shield hitting the ground rings in your ears and you turn to look at him. His entire body is tensed beneath his suit, sweat dotting along his hairline, red beginning to creep into his cheeks. His eyes are squeezed shut and he shakes his head as if he's trying to clear it.

"Ben? Are you okay?" Your hold on the room vanishes, eyes fading back to their normal color as your worry turns to Ben.

His fists are clenched tightly together as he brings them up to the sides of his head, chest beginning to glow with his new power, the one you'd never seen before, the one that Ben said practically vaporized whatever was in it's path.

Shit.

"Ben. Stay with me, listen to my voice." You touch the sides of his face, begging him to listen to your plea. As much as you wanted the Twins to pay, Ben wasn't just losing control of his powers, this was different. It was almost like he was being dragged somewhere else, somewhere you couldn't follow.

"Everything's okay. I'm here, I'm right here." You soothe, but he continues to glow brighter and brighter and you're directly in the line of fire.

Shit.

Ben's eyes flash open, no longer bright green but an orange-gold that makes fear snag in your ribs like a fishing hook. His hand makes contact with your chest shoving you to the side, out of the way of the beam, but unfortunately through the solid rock wall.

You don't really know what happens next. The world goes black for a few minutes, not like when you die, but just black as everything burns around you when Ben explodes. You're not sure how long you're under, could be minutes, could be hours, all you know is that when you wake up everything hurts.

It's how you know that you didn't officially die. Whenever you woke up after death, it was different, you felt powerful, reborn, but right now you felt like a train ran over you. A headache throbs at your temples as you begin to come to, blinking your eyes against the darkness that doesn't go away. Your ears are ringing, filled with the screams of those who survived and the smell of burned flesh and blood surrounds you like a cloud.

A mountain of rubble and roofing covers you, leaving you in the darkness to get your bearings, but nothing feels broken.

At least the brick fireplace broke my fall. You think to yourself with a groan as you begin to push off the planks of wood and pieces of the roof that cover your body, so you can sit up. As soon as you do, your head spins and you fight the unpleasant urge to throw up.

Great. Might have a concussion.

You might be as strong as Ben, but your ability to die meant that you were just a little bit less equipped to handle a hit like that.

Ben. Worry and fear war in your heart as you look around the broken room that lays in tatters around you.

The house isn’t recognizable anymore. Singed carpet floats in tufts with ash around your face like a swarm of flies while fires burn in clumps all over the ruined room. Chunks of drywall and planks of blackened wood litter the floor and the back half of the house is gone, burned to a crisp in the blast from Ben.

What the fuck did they put in his chest? Ben had tried to describe it to you, tried to explain it, but standing here in the rubble you understood just how bad it was. The ruins in Mid-town you had seen the coverage of on the news, but it was a completely different thing to experience it in person.

People are going to think that he did this on purpose. That he's a bad person, that he's some kind of terrorist. The thought is immediately followed by the fear that Vought and the government would come to take him away. Your jaw tightens. I'd like to see them try.

The bodies of Tommy and Tessa are burned beyond recognition, still holding hands, but now are just blacked lumps of flesh and bone that lay where they tried to make their final stand. But you feel no remorse.

It’s what we came here to do, to make them pay. You bite the inside of your cheek listening to the screams of those who survived. I just didn't think that so many others would get hurt.

You continue to look around the room, worry rising in your chest as you think of Ben and remember the look on his face. He had been scared of what was about to happen even if he didn’t want to admit it. He lost control. In the past when he lost control the worst thing he could do was rip someone in half or smash their face into a pulp, but now if Ben ever lost control he'd level a building.

I see a lot of yoga in his future. Or maybe anger management classes.

Although the thought makes you smile, as soon as you see Ben everything else fades from your mind. Ben is on his knees in the center of the room, head slumped forward on his chest, hands laying limply by his sides, as he takes in shaky breaths. You could hear the frantic pound of his heart, beating hard against his rib cage as if begging to be released. Seeing him like that almost sends you into overdrive. You’d never seen him look so defeated, so small, so tired, so… lost.

“Ben?” You fall to your knees next to him, reaching out to touch his face, to bring his attention to you.

His body tenses as you do so, eyes narrowing when he meets yours like he doesn’t know you. His eyes miles away.

But where?

“Hey, it’s me.” You say gently, cupping his face with your hands to rub your thumbs across his cheeks while fear grips your heart as you try to bring him back to you. “It’s me, I’m here. It’s okay.”

Ben inhales sharply as if suddenly remembering, the look in his eyes clearing for a moment, rising through the fog. "Y/n?" He whispers.

"Yeah. I'm here." You repeat, smiling at him even though the urge to cry builds in the back of your throat. It broke your heart to see him like this. You push his hair back from his face, brushing the ash from the mahogany strands.

 “Are you okay? Did I-“ Worry etches itself across his handsome face.

“I’m fine. Shhh.” You soothe, pulling him against you so your can rub his back softly and lock him in your embrace. But the truth was you were afraid. You didn’t understand what happened and couldn’t explain the look in his eyes when he went under, when he started to lose himself in his newfound powers. Ben crumbles into you, leaning his head against your shoulder as if needing it to strengthen him.

“It’s okay. Everything’s okay.” You weren’t sure the effects the blast had on him, just that he seemed unsure as to how the hell he did it.

 Where did he go in those moments?

“The twins?” Ben mumbles.

“They’re dead.” You could hear the approaching ambulances and police cars, hear the anxious chatter of the survivors outside.

We’ve got to get out of here.

“Come on. Let’s go.” You say softly rising to your feet and helping him up. Ben stumbles a step, shaking his head like he can’t catch his bearings and the worry comes roaring back. You catch him and tilt his body so he can lean on you. “Ben are you okay?” Your fingers dance against the sides of his face trying to bring his focus back to you, because you were afraid he might lose himself to whatever the hell happened before.

“I will be in a minute.” Ben takes in a shaky breath, leaning on your shoulder. "I don't know what happened."

"It's okay." His shield rises telekinetically from the rubble and into your outstretched hand that glows a brilliant purple in the dusty light. Smoke billows up from the room around you obscuring the sunlight that filters through the ruined front of the house, but you can still see the front drive already becoming swarmed with people and news crews.

Because that's exactly what Rosemary needs to see, me and Ben on the 5'oclock news. Fuck.

"Come on." You lead him back the way you can, toting his shield in your free hand, down the stairs.

When you spot Butcher, Ben straightens finally catching his bearings and takes the shield from you. Butcher looks from Ben to you, eyebrows raised.

"Sorted?"

"Yeah." Ben frowns.

You could tell that he was still a little shaky, but you knew he wasn't going to admit that to anyone, especially not to Butcher. Your gaze falls on the man from before laying on the ground, the man that Butcher had told Ben to leave.

Why did he want Ben to spare his life if Butcher was only going to beat him down?

But just as you take a step towards the man to check him for injuries, a long shadow falls on the floor at your feet.

Your eyes jolt upwards and focus on Homelander. The smell of hairspray, hair dye, and cheap cologne waft through the air at Homelander's appearance.  He's shorter than you expected him to be, not overtly muscular, but he didn't need to be. Supes with superstrength didn't need to look like body builders, and you suspected that the only reason why Homelander even had any kind of muscle was for his image as America's Hero. Then again, you never complained about Ben's muscular physique.

I don’t think anybody should complain about that and- Nope. Nope. Not thinking about that right now.

But as you stare at him there's something wrong, something that you can't place, something that tugs at the back of your mind when you look at him, almost as if you've forgotten something important.

Seeing him in person is surreal. You'd only ever seen him on the news or on billboards or on those stupid energy drinks that were sold at the bodega on the corner where you get coffee filters sometimes, but the look in his eyes is the same. It's cold, unfeeling, and reminds you of those ridiculous shark documentaries that Rosemary is obsessed with. The only time she could watch shark week was after Lou went to bed. She said that watching it made her feel better about her job and you didn't complain.

Homelander looks around the room forcing a smile, a predatory glare in his eyes.

"William Butcher and Soldier Boy. Of course you are behind this. It really is all about me." Homelander's smile widens.

Narcissistic much? This guy's like a walking red flag.

He takes a step closer to the three of you, and Ben steps in front of you to shield you from Homelander's view. Homelander clocks the movement, but then tsks his finger at Butcher.

"William we made a deal to fight to the death, you and me." Homelander's eyes begin to glow. "You cheated, deals off."

The red flash of the laser-vision illuminates Ben's face in sharp contrast as the beam hits Butcher full in the chest propelling him back into the wall. His body falls to the ground and lies still.

Well. That's not good.

Honestly you didn't like Butcher all that much, but you couldn't help but feel a little bit bad.

You glance up from Butcher's body to gaze at Homelander again. Fighting him hadn't been on the agenda today, but it was starting to look that way. You knew what his powers were, knew that Vought probably told him his entire life that he was a god and that no one could compare to him. And you knew that the man standing next to you hadn't changed enough to walk away from the fight, no matter how bad his odds were.

And deep down you knew that you weren't going to let Ben take that beating, which of course meant that you were going to fight Homelander. Not that you were afraid of him. One look at him might have sent everyone else heading for the hills, but he didn't intimidate you.

"I watched all your movies, hundreds of times. You were the only one that was nearly as strong as me." The look on Homelander's face is one of respect almost wonder.

And you can imagine a smaller version of Homelander being fed all the same propaganda that Ben and you were fed all those years ago, imagine Homelander growing up hearing that he was stronger, greater, faster than Soldier Boy, and imagine Vogelbaum working hard to make sure to mold Homelander into the hero that America wanted. Not to mention all the shit he probably heard when he was with Stormfront. You were very happy that you didn't have to see her again, though now you had a fun story to tell Ben about one of his exes.

“Buddy you’re wearing a cape, do you think you look strong?” Ben frowns at Homelander.

“It is pretty stupid.” You agree examining Homelander’s supe suit. “Honestly I thought you had it bad with that dorky looking helmet-“ You glance at Ben out of the corner of your eye.

“Really? You’re gonna do this now?” Ben glowers turning his attention to you.

“I’m just being honest it was pretty bad and I’m glad you decided not to wear it today. But his cape is definitely worse.”

“Do you want me to bring up that ridiculous hood you had?”

“You can, but I won’t believe you, because that hood was fabulous and I looked fantastic in it.”

Homelander clears his throat to catch your attention. “Um hello?”

“Hi.” You force a smile. “Oh sorry did we interrupt your little monologue?”

Homelander's gaze turns icy as you continue. “Because we can take this from the top. What was the line again? Something about power or watching his films? I was only half listening. Did you want me to record it for you so you can post it on your socials?”

“What the f-“ Homelander begins to say, but you interrupt him.

“I mean. That is why you practiced it in the mirror for so long right? And why you did your hair and makeup?" You scrunch up your nose. "I'd skip that last mist of hairspray if I were you. You want it to look smooth, not look like you stuck your finger in an electrical socket.”

You could tell that Ben was trying to maintain his composure, but his mouth was twitching in a smile. “Oh wait does your suit have a body cam? I guess that makes things easier, because it probably doesn't have pockets. Not to mention if you dropped your phone while you were flying around-"

"Who the fuck are you?" Homelander spits interrupting you.

"No one important."

“Is he really what passes for a hero these days?” Ben cocks an eyebrow. “He’s just a cheap fucking knock off of me.”

“No.” Homelander snarls, eyes beginning to glow bright red. “I’m the upgrade.”

The laser cuts through the air in slow motion, but you’re already moving.

"Ben!" His name rips from your throat as you lunge forward and shove him as hard as you can out of the way of the beam. You feel the laser tear through your body, the force throwing you backward through one of the wood paneled walls and then the darkness swallows you whole.

If someone were to ask you what it was like to die, you wouldn’t know how to answer. To exist in those thirteen seconds sometimes feels like a dream, like you're floating, but it's always silent. And the silence scares you. How quickly it comes to drag you under and how it seems to replace everything you know or remember about the real world until you come back to life. You understood why Ben didn't like being alone, because you didn't either. It reminded you too much of those moments you were gone, wishing for it to stop. There was never a bright light, there was only the darkness and the silence that fell when your heart stopped beating.

When you take your first breath in thirteen seconds it's full of dust and ash, swirling into your mouth as you inhale sharply to jumpstart your lungs. But at the same time everything is different. The colors in the room are brighter, the sounds more acute, the smells just a fraction stronger, and you feel different. Power floods through your limbs, swirling through flesh and bone, pouring through your veins, electrifying through each nerve ending and setting you on fire, more than any other power ever has. You'd never felt power like this before. Even with Countess and the others that had killed you, no other power you'd ever gotten had felt this strong.

You stand up from the rubble you landed in, covered in a layer of dust and blood. The hole in your new outfit where the laser struck is just under your left breast, the mark left behind already a pink scar. And you knew that Ben would probably kill you for it later, for taking the laser for him, but you didn't care.

Homelander is floating in the center of the room, holding Ben by the throat, smiling cruelly at him.

"Hey asshole." You snarl, spitting out a glob of blood onto the ruined carpet. "We're not done."

Homelander turns his head towards you amused, while Ben grabs at the front of his suit, trying to get his attention, but Homelander is focused on you.

"So that's it? That's your big trick? Laser vision? Forgive me for not cowering in fear." Your hands clench into fists at your sides.

He eyes you for a moment. "You're Indigo aren't you?"

"I used to be. Now I'm just disappointed. I expected more from Vought's big hero, but now I see that you're just another asshole who thinks he's a god." Your eyes drift to Ben for a moment, worry clawing at your heart when you meet his gaze. "So drop him. Before I drop you."

"You’re very confident for someone who was dead a few seconds ago. I don't really see how that ability is going to help you-"

"Before I didn’t want to kill you."

"And you think you can?" He laughs.

"No." You smirk. "I know I can."

"Who do you think you’re talking to?"

"I’m not talking to much." Your eyes narrow. "But I'll be nice, and I'll give you a chance to leave. To tuck your tail between your fucking legs and fly away. We didn't come here for you and you and I don't have to do this."

"And if I don't leave?"

"Then I'll kill you."

"I'd like to see you try." Homelander throws Ben as hard as he can through the brick fireplace, causing rock and mortar to rain down on top of him, but Homelander's eyes don't leave yours. “Well why don’t you give me your best sho-“

He doesn’t have time to finish his sentence, your body ploughs into his tackling him through the solid outer wall and onto the back lawn.

Truthfully you hadn’t meant to go through the wall, you’d only meant to pin him to it, but flying was proving just a little more difficult than you expected. Your hand closes on Homelander’s wrist bringing him down against the ground so hard that the earth quakes, before you throw him as far away from you as you can.

His body spins awkwardly in the air, before he ploughs into one of the thick oak trees head on, at the edge of the backyard. The loud snap of the tree compensating for Homelander’s body fills the air.

He stumbles to his feet, eyes narrowed in pure hatred, lip curled back in a snarl, and his blonde hair flopping forward into his face.

“You chose wrong.” You spit, rolling your shoulders, preparing for what came next.

Homelander lets out a roar and flies towards you, arms outstretched for you, but you’re ready for him.

You catch his fist before it lands against your face and tighten your other hand around his throat. Your bodies are floating two feet off the ground, but it doesn’t faze you.

When Homelander’s gaze meets yours you see just a flicker of fear, a spark, quickly masked by his shock. He struggles to pull away to push you away with his free hand, but all you do is tighten your grip.

 "You've never felt real pain before have you?" You force your face into a sympathetic frown, before your eyes harden. "Allow me to enlighten you."  You throw him to the ground again, watching his body spin and screech against the grass and dirt.

 Given the screams and smell of blood in the air, any witnesses from the massacre inside were at the front of the house waiting for the police, leaving you and Homelander on the backside of the house alone.

Worry for Ben rose in your chest like the peak of a wave, you hadn't seen him since Homelander threw him through the fireplace, but you funnel that worry into all encompassing rage.

"They told you that you were a god right? That you were the most powerful supe that ever lived. They were wrong. There's only one supe more powerful than you, and you just fucking pissed her off." You shout beginning to float towards him.

Homelander growls rising to his feet, eyes glowing bright red as he fires a laser at you, but you’re ready.

Your own beam catches his mid air between you, the high pitched sizzle and smell of ozone floats across your face, but you don't back down. If anything, it just makes you more angry.

And then something slams into you from the side, breaking the connection between your beam and Homelander's.

"What-" You shout, looking up at the body above yours, preparing to blast them off, but you realize it's Ben. "Ben what-"

"Stay here." He growls, eyes black. Ben looks pissed, whether it’s because you pushed Ben out of the way before or if it’s because he’s annoyed that Homelander punched him you’re not sure.

"What?" You look beyond him, to see Hughie and Butcher tackle Homelander to the ground.

They're going to try to turn him human.

"I can hold him down-" You say. “Let me help.”

"No." Ben snarls as he stalks towards Homelander, his chest beginning to glow.

“Ben-“

“Stay the fuck there.” Ben shouts still looking at Homelander.

Your eyes flit to the leader of the Seven. Watching him struggle against Hughie and Butcher, who yell at one another, but you don’t hear them. You wait for the remorse to crash over you, the guilt, but it never comes.

I gave him a choice. He could have run. He didn’t. He chose this.

And just when you think it’s all over, Homelander breaks away from them, surging up into the air to freedom. You feel your feet leave the ground to follow him, someone’s hand tightens on your ankle and drags you back down to earth.

“No.” Ben’s voice is more of a growl than anything else.

He’s angry, that much you can tell from the look on his face and from the way his eyes have hardened into two solid chunks of emerald as he locks eyes with you.

But why? Angry because Homelander got away or angry because I pushed him out of the way?

“Ben I can get him. Let me go.” You kick your ankle but Ben holds on.

“No.” Ben snarls. “You’re not about to go after that sick fuck by yourself.”

“Ben-“

“No. If I have to chain you to the ground I will.” Ben pulls you down further and releases your ankle to  fasten his hand around you waist to hold you tighter against the ground. “You’re not going after him.”

“Fine.” You snap pulling yourself from his grasp, your own temper flaring.

You hated when Ben did that, when he acted like you weren’t just as capable as him of doing this. It reminded you of your childhood, when you were treated like you were made of glass, a pretty doll that was made to be looked at but never touched.

And you knew it came from Ben’s want to protect you, knew that it came from his fear of losing you, but that didn’t make it any less annoying.

You didn’t pout when Ben went out to face someone, didn’t try to act like he couldn’t do it.

“I know that maybe I’m a little behind but… WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED?” Hughie shouts. “You have laser vision and you can fly and you can move things with your mind!?” He looks frantically from you to Ben.

You don’t answer, your eyes are still on Ben who looks ready to throw Butcher’s car into space. You could practically see the waves of anger rolling off of him like a comic strip.

“You didn’t before, did you?” Butcher’s eyes trace your body as things begin to click into place. “You didn’t before he killed you.”

“Hold on.” Hughie holds up his hand. “Are you telling me that you die and you come back to life WITH THE POWERS OF THE SUPE THAT KILLED YOU?”

“It wasn’t in the files.” Butcher’s eyes still haven’t left you. “Vought didn’t know did they?”

You don’t like the way he’s looking at you, don’t like the glimmer in his eyes as if you’d just solved all his problems. It was the exact look that was in the eyes of the scientists the day you took the serum for the first time. To them that’s all Ben and you were, lab rats, people who were stupid enough to listen to the wild ideas of glory and a better world they spouted.

“We should go.” You murmur, listening to the sounds of the ambulances and the police coming up the driveway. “It’s about to be a circus here and I'd rather not make my big social media debut covered in rubble and blood."

Ben’s mouth is clamped together, green eyes blazing at your mention of blood. You knew that he was focused on the bloody hole left behind in the corset where Homelander's laser had ripped through your body.

Another scar, another fun story to tell my daughter when I see her… great.

*****************************************

The car ride to Legend’s is dead silent. Ben doesn’t look at you, doesn’t try to hold your hand, and doesn’t try to touch you in any way. Instead his hands are curled into fists, sitting on the tops of his thighs while his anger heats the inside of the car like a furnace. You knew it was only a matter until he exploded, but now you had bigger things on your mind.

You had just exposed yourself to Homelander, showed your face to him, not to mention you admitted to being Indigo. It would be easy for him to find your real name in the Vought archives find your file and the same name that linked you to Rosemary. She’d gone back to her maiden name when her husband died, which meant the two of you had the same last name and it wouldn’t be difficult for Homelander to find her.

Which meant you needed to get to her first.

You had tried to text her, tried to tell her to have a bag ready and that you were going to pick her up, but she was refusing to do so and you didn’t exactly want to text “Homelander is a fucking psychopath and he’s going to come after you” to her phone. Plus you couldn’t exactly call her, not in this cramped car.

Legend is waiting on the front porch of his country home when Butcher pulls his car into the end of the long driveway, somewhere that you’d been to many times in the past. He's smoking a joint and scrolling through his phone, wearing the same outfit you had seen him in a few days ago.

"Kitten!" He smiles wide at you when he sees you and pulls you into a hug. “I was worried when I heard about that mess with Countess. You never called.” Legend frowns at you, blowing out a lungful of smoke. "Guess you guys had a talk."

"Something like that." You frown. "It got complicated really fast."

“I told you so.” His eyes shift to where Ben is glowering a foot behind you. "I see he found you. I didn't tell him-"

"I know you didn't. Thank you for keeping your promise." You smile tightly, squeezing Legend's hand. He really was a good friend. One of the oldest ones you had besides Ben.

"Figured if I did, you'd keep him from ripping my head off."

“Haven’t decided if I’m not going to yet.” Ben snarls and Legend's eyes widen in fear.

But you knew that he was just redirecting his anger. Ben was angry because you put yourself in harms way to protect him and the sooner you had it out, the sooner you could go get Rosemary and Lou.

"Ben we both know that you're not mad at Legend, you're mad at me. So you might as well spit it out, because we've got bigger problems than your hissy fit-" You begin to say. You were sick of him pouting, refusing to look at you, refusing to touch you.

"What the FUCK were you thinking?!" Ben roars towering over you, eyes flashing. "Getting between me and him like that!"

Legend backs away, afraid that he's going to get caught in the cross-fire.

"Calm down." You sigh, gritting your teeth together. You were trying your best not to lose it either, because the last thing this situation needed was you losing control.

"DON’T TELL ME TO CALM DOWN." Ben's hands are clenched tightly into fists, his suit beginning to glow bright.

"You're going to have to calm down or you're going to blast me to kingdom come!" You snap back.

Ben grits his teeth together and closes his eyes tightly while his chest begins to fade back to normal and when it does, he opens his eyes to glare at you. "Why did you do that? I had him handled-"

"You didn't."

"Yes I did. You didn't give me a chance to-"

"No what I did was I didn't give that psychopath a chance to punch a hole through your chest with his fucking laser vision." You poke him in the chest. "Of the two of us, I have a greater chance of surviving that!”

By then Butcher and Hughie had moved to give the two of you a wide berth, standing where Legend was watching the two of you looking bored. They were probably hoping that you didn’t cut one of them in half with your new powers.

"Are they always like this?" You hear Butcher ask Legend from where they stand a safe distance away.

"Pretty much." Legend answers, blowing out a puff of the fowl smelling smoke.

"Do you ever get used to it?" Hughie mutters.

"Nope."

“Is there an off button?” Butcher sighs.

“Nope.” Legend puffs his joint.

"You don't know that!" Ben spits back at you. "I could have!"

"I wasn't willing to take that chance damnit!"

How can I make him understand this? How can he finally understand what it would be like for me to lose him all over again, just when I got him back?

"Do you really think that I'm willing to play Russian Roulette with your life?" Ben snarls, grabbing you by the shoulders so tightly you're sure they'll be bruises but all you can do is look into his quickly darkening eyes. "Do you have any idea what it did to me to see you die AGAIN? To see him TOUCH YOU? To know that he HURT you?"

"We've already had this conversation Ben-"

"And we're going to fucking have it again!" His grip tightens. "I told you to stay behind me!"

The last time he'd touched you like this was the night of the premiere, when he told you that he didn't care about you, that he could never love you. The memory of that night lodges itself in the back of your throat, but you keep it down.

"And I told you that I wasn't going to do that!"

"Damn it y/n you can't-"

You pull yourself away from him. "No Ben. You can't tell me what to do. You don't get to control me. People have tried to control me all my damn life and when I first came with you I thought I was giving that up. But no, I just moved on and Vought took over. When I decided to live my own life, to stop being a supe, I was free! Finally! After forty years of bullshit I was finally free!"

Ben’s jaw is so tightly locked together you think you hear the grinding of his teeth. “So what are you saying? Are you saying that when you’re with me you feel trapped? Like I’m holding you fucking hostage?!”

“No.” You exhale heavily. "I understand that you love me. I understand that you want to protect me. But you need to understand that I love you too. That just as you're willing to lay down your life for me, I am willing to lay down my life for you. And if you want this to work between us, you need to understand that you don't control me. You're not my dad or my owner, you're the man I love. And until you realize that I am just as capable of protecting you as you are protecting me-"

"I know that." Ben seethes.

"What?"

"Do you really think that I don't see how strong you are?” You watch something flash in his eyes that isn't anger, the vulnerable look is back for a fleeting moment and it rocks you to your core. "I don’t want to control you! I’m not trying to. Have you thought that maybe after all this time I just wanted you to need me like I need you?"

His confession makes your heart stop. Does he really think that I don’t need him? That after all these years there’s no one else that I’ve needed more in my entire life?

“Ben.” You sigh while stretching out your hand to lay against his arm, but he flinches away. “ I do need you. You have no idea how much I need you, no idea what it did to me when I lost you even after everything that happened. I just don’t want you to treat me like I’m made of glass.”

“I don’t treat you like you’re-“ He begins to say.

“Yes. You do. And there’s nothing wrong with wanting to protect me, but you have to understand that I want to protect you too.”

He huffs out a breath, shoulders tensed, arms crossed over his muscular chest. “I do understand that. I just hate it when you do that, that you push me out of the way. I hate when you get hurt.”

“And I hate when you get hurt." You bite the inside of your cheek. "You say that you were angry that Homelander hurt me, but did you stop to consider what it did to me to see him try to hurt you? Do you know what it did to me to see him touch you?”

Ben stands there for a minute glaring down at you, before his gaze begins to soften. “No.” He grumbles.

“Exactly.”

You both stand there for a minute eyeing one another, daring the other to break the silence.

This is ridiculous.

Finally Ben, sighs out a breath and jerks you forward against his chest. The hug would be bone crushing for anyone else, but not to you.

“You’re so fucking annoying.” He mutters into the top of your head, while his body curves around yours.

“I love you too asshole.” You huff, hugging him back just as tight.

“See they always work it out.” Legend shrugs at Butcher. “Takes them a while to get there. They made my job so much harder in the 70’s. Though I will say it’s a relief that they’re finally admitting they love each other. Way too much sexual tension before, gave me anxiety.”

Ben pulls back to look at your face with another loud sigh. He still looks a little angry, but not angry enough to start shouting again. His thumb strokes against your cheek. “Are you okay?”

You nod once leaning into his touch. “Are you?” You brush back some of his dark hair out of his face, looking for bruises but you don’t see any.

“Yeah.” He nods.

“If the two of you are done, we have bigger things to worry about-“ Butcher begins to say.

“We are and we do.” You interrupt looking away from Ben to stare at Butcher. “I need to borrow your car.”

“Why?”

“I need to go back to the city.”

“What?” Ben sputters releasing you from his grasp.

“And I think it would be better if I went alone-“ You continue slowly.

Honestly you did think that it would be better if you went alone, but you didn’t want to. You wanted Ben to come with you, the problem was Rosemary.

“Like hell I’m letting you go alone with that son of a  bitch flying around!” Ben shouts, temper flaring again.

“Which is why I have to go.” You try to say it diplomatically, try to have him understand without having to explain it. But there’s really no way around it, around any of this.

“No.”

“Ben please c-"

“Don’t tell me to calm down again! I’m not being crazy. You’re not going after him!” His eyes blaze a brilliant green, as he crosses his hands over his chest.

“Ben-“

“Why can’t you listen to me for once?”

“BEN!” You shout, grabbing his face and holding his cheeks between your palms to catch his attention.

“What?” Ben’s eyes lock with yours.

“I’m not going to the city to go after Homelander.”

He pauses confused. “Then why are you-“

And you just can’t take it anymore. You can’t hold it in any longer, can’t think of a way to tell him without just ripping the bandaid off. Your eyes meet his, apologetic, determined, and just a little bit fearful.

“I’m going back into the city to get our daughter.”

A/N: I know I know, it's been a while and honestly I didn't mean to get hit by writer's block this bad 😂😭

But it kinda works out, because what better way to celebrate Father's Day than to tell Soldier Boy that he's a dad?

As always thank you so much for reading! There are big things coming! And thank so much for the love and support! If you'd like to be added to the taglist please let me know :)

Taglist: @roseblue373 @anundyingfidelity @cheynovak @cassiecasluciluce @muhahaha303

@deans-spinster-witch @kayleighmeister @demodemo909 @fruitfacess @bobbobbobinogs

@bughill126 @simplyfixated @sleepjam @tiredstrangerr @freefallthoughts

@onlyangel-444 @lov3vivian @mxltifxnd0m @mayafatimakhan @marvel-mistress

@my-obsession-spn @lifeonawhim @soldirboy @liuope @brynanna

@carpenterswife @xxannyxx @babyinatrench-coat1 @the-gentle-spirit @valryomen

@cassieriddle713 @shaggzthatsnottheworm @lil-soup @ej13928 @topstory21

@boywivlove @mrsjenniferwinchester @vivre-dans-la-nuit @megara0224 @daisy-the-quake

@thesilmarillionblog @samanddeaninatrenchcoat @libby99hb @peachhiz @tinydancer40

[ailoda]

ᯓ★ favourite writers

@luveline

@whirlybirbs

@pellucid-constellations

@aquaticmercy

@wkemeup

@intrepidacious

ᯓ★ favourite fics

Undisclosed - @pellucid-constellations

Desperate to outrun a secret that could cost you your life, you seek refuge in a small mountain town. Its deep forests and small cabins make it the perfect place to hide, but the travel website hadn’t mentioned anything about the quiet, burly lumberjack that wouldn’t leave your thoughts. No one had warned Bucky about you either.

I remember this being one of the first series I read after coming back to Tumblr. I wasn't one for Marvel AU’s at the time, as I preferred to read canon or adjacent fics, but I took a chance on this one and it completely changed everything. I absolutely loved it. It has the perfect amount of fluff and angst, and a plot to rival some of my favourite published work. The story and background are so well-placed and developed that it was too easy to fall in. I devoured this in I think two days - non-stop reading until I finished. It completely opened me up to AU’s. I come back so often as a sort of comfort read, and no matter how many times I’ve read it, I still get excited and devour it like I’ve never read it before. One of the first fics I thought of when compiling my 2024 favourites.

Just One Kiss - @sarahwroteathing

Bucky Barnes has been chasing after you since he was ten years old, but you’re determined not to give in. How long can you hold out when all he’s asking for is just one kiss?

This writer no longer seems to have an account on Tumblr. If anyone knows whether they have an active account elsewhere or have just moved accounts, please let me know!

This was the first 40s!Bucky fic that I read and is to blame for my 40s!Bucky obsession that has lasted all these months. I was completely enthralled from the first paragraph, and it stands as my favourite 40s!Bucky fic and easy my top 3 series overall. I religiously come back when looking for a comfort read or for getting my 40s!Bucky fix. It's amazing how well the characters (both canon and not) have been interpreted and developed, and as simple as the plot feels, it just works so well. There's no need for any plot twists or big moments to push the story along; the characters and the way they all naturally feed and contribute to the overall plot are more than enough. It's written so well that, despite reading it well over 10 times, I still feel all the emotions and feel just as empty finishing it as I did when I first read it. I really wish this was a printed book that I could have on my shelf; that I can always reach for and never be deleted (pls don't ever delete it!). It’s the cutest fic that has me laughing, crying, and kicking my feet no matter how many times I read it.

Twin Flames / Two Sides of The Same Coin - @anonymityisfunwriter

Grumpy x Sunshine Series

I couldn't decide on one - they both HAD to be included. These are to blame for my falling completely in love with fan fiction after a decade away. I hadn’t had Tumblr in so many years and decided to re-download during my Masters for some escapism, and boy did this deliver. The dynamic is amazing - the way they bounce off each other is a testament to the amazing writing and character development. The way they manage to create a sunshine!reader with so much backstory without it feeling childish or forced is, again, a testament to the amazing writing and planning, and just…*chef’s kiss*. Despite taking some plot points from canon films, I really enjoyed how these scenes didn't feel boring or repetitive. Similarly, I love how the reader is able to fit in seamlessly into scenes that we had already seen and bounce off an already established dynamic between Sam and Bucky. The thought and effort that must have gone into the reader's character development, never mind the series as a whole, is so evident. I have re-read and re-read these for months and will continue to do so until the end of time.

By Any Other Name - @wkemeup

When Agent Barnes is assigned undercover within Hydra, he finds himself drawn to the woman who doesn’t seem to belong in this world of violence, the wife to the head of Hydra… you. 

I re-read this quite recently and it felt like finding an old song that you loved hidden in your playlist. I've now re-read it twice in the span of a week, it's just so good. This fic stood out to me partly because of its writing and interesting and well-thought-out plot, but also because of how well-written I feel the reader is. The reader is multi-faceted and far from one dimensional, which I've found is a barrier for me reading these types of fics. While the reader embodies typical traits associated with feminine protagonists in this genre - such as submissiveness and other conventionally 'feminine' attributes - these are not portrayed as weaknesses in the typical sense. What I mean is that they are reframed to be strategic strengths. She wields her femininity and perceived lack of power in a wholly make-dominated environment to her advantage. At the same time, her 'true' strengths compliment these qualities, creating a balanced and complex character that also has room for the development we see throughout the fic. A defining aspect of the reader's personality that I really enjoy is her self-awareness; they know when and how to act, and when to hold back, making her a compelling and empowered figure in a story and genre where that is so difficult to achieve.

From the Void, with Love - @whirlybirbs

Watch two forever-lovers fall in love again. 

This was my first Loki series, and boy was it a good one to start with. I'm not one to read Loki fics usually as I can never usually find ones that entice me, but I was so happy to have stumbled upon this! A testament to the planning and writing ability was the way the reader’s involvement in the TVA storyline was interweaved without it feeling unnatural or forced. I love how the inner-workings of the reader's mind is included, and how their thoughts and feelings are so seamlessly interwoven into scenes without it feeling clunky or taking away from what's going on. I also really enjoyed the comedic elements, particularly the thoughts and reactions the reader had to things happening and how they bounced off Loki's dialogue so well. I found myself laughing so many times. It's one of those fics where you wish you could go back and read it for the first time again.

When It All Falls Apart - @bucky-bucket-barnes

The fate of the universe was in your hands. Bucky and you had been sent to retrieve the soul stone, a seemingly simple task. Unbeknownst to you, there was a hefty price to pay for such an exchange. You’re able to return to Earth, but it’s soon apparent part of you was left in Vormir.

This has to be one of my favourite fics of all time, but I also hate it. Hate it, hate it, hate it. It feeds my deepest, most love-deprived soul. I personally feel that angst is so challenging to write and write well. Part of why I feel that way is because I feel that good angst needs to convey emotions and feelings effectively because it's about expressing the character's inner world and guiding how they feel to drive and guide the plot forward. A difficult aspect of this is ensuring the reader feels and understands the character's emotions rather than letting their own feelings cloud their perception and misinterpret the character's rationale and journey - keeping the story's emotional trajectory clear and true to the characterisation you have set. This is something that this writer can do so so very well. I cried the first time reading it, and the emotions still hit me after reading it over and over again. If anyone watches K-Drama’s, this has Uncontrollably Fond vibes. Such a good read if you’re looking for that heart-ripping angst.

My Own Soul’s Warning - @aquaticmercy

You, an immortal being, fall in love with the very mortal Bucky Barnes. You would do anything for him, even if it meant you had to strike a deal with Death herself.

This is another fic that I wish I could go back and read it again for the first time. I fell in love immediately. It's the fic that cemented @aquaticmercy one of my favourite writers. Well, that and the fact that they have some of the most intriguing and well-thought-out plot ideas that I've seen. It's difficult to choose a single fic really, but I cannot not choose 'My Own Soul's Warning' - it's a difficult one to compete with for me. The writing is one of the best I’ve read and the flow and feel of the story is second to none. It seems that with every new addition to this story, it just gets better and better (which I thought was impossible). They are able to narrate feelings and emotions so beautifully that it's impossible to not feel what the reader is experiencing. One of my favourite aspects is how they are able to think of things I would never have even thought of, and how they are able to write and explain these things and communicate feelings so well. Another aspect as to why this is so beautifully written, and why @aquaticmercy is a favourite, is when a writer can - without being explicit in their writings - craft a story where the depth of emotions is palpable without needing to be spelt out, leaving readers to grasp and feel them on their own. Where the reader is feeling more than their own emotions and feelings in response to the story, but also what the writer has curated and intended them to feel. Being able to do this without explicit writing is so difficult, and part of the reason why they are one of my favourite writers in general. I've tried to explain my deep feelings for this fic in a way that hopefully makes sense, but it's difficult to write everything I love because there is just so much to say. I am in love and we are married.

[bubbles-for-all-of-us]

Hi! So I'm currently re-reading acotar and honestly I forgot how much I love this series. Because you're such an amazing writer (and if you're taking acotar requests) i was wondering if you could write a little angsty love triangle involving Eris x reader x Azriel? She's Rhys little sister and has been pining over Azriel for years but he never gives her the time of day and because of this she develops a strong friend with Lucien (they both just want to be loved) and in swoops Eris. Or Rhys makes some sort of deal with Eris requiring her help. I'm not sure I'm just such a sucker for an angsty love triangle 🤍

It took me a hot minute so I apologize. I hope you will still enjoy it. 🤍✨

You look lonely - I can fix that

You loved him. Loved him so much that you were willing to tear yourself apart over and over and over again. Watching him fall and break himself over females that wanted nothing to do with him. Settling for a temporary glimpse of love when you were there offering him a lifetime of devotion. But it’s as if he was unseeing when it came to you. As if all of your gestures of love went right over Azriel’s head.

“I just want to be someone’s first chance”, he chuckled bitterly after an argument he had with Mor. “You are though”, you muttered, despite eyes looking up at the males clouding your eyes for decades. “Not like a friend to you, little one”, he smiled at you. Making the aching whole shape of him within your heart bleed all over again. “But you are”, you muttered. Silently begging him to see you. But all he did was brush the side of your face, “You’ll sweet but you don’t know what it means to love someone who doesn’t love you back”, his words sliced you open. But you pushed the emotion deeper within. Watching him step away from you.

Then in came Elain. You had tried to keep him away. Keep him away from the hellfire that was gonna swallow him if he chose the path that he was going down in. But that had only made his frustration pour out on you. “I’m trying to warn you because I care”, you screamed at him, bitter tears falling down your cheeks. “No one asked for your opinion on my love life”, Azriel bit back, “Stick to your tea parties and pretty dresses”. You wished you could cut him out of your system. Get rid of the flame of hope.

“Save some for me”, you flinch slightly. Dropping the bottle of bourbon on the grass before reaching back to pull the spilling bottle up. Lucien didn’t seem to mind. And you were too tipsy to care as you offered the bottle to him. “What are we drinking to?”, he sat down next to you, pulling a handkerchief before handing it to you. “Our fucked love life”, you sniffed, hating yourself for it. “Yeah, fuck them”, Lucien saluted before throwing his head back, “You and I, we are on the same boat sweetie”, he handed the bottle back to you. “Two outcasts of love”, you chuckled bitterly before taking another sip.

What you didn’t expect was to find such comfort in Lucien. You two had no mutual interest in being together. There was nothing between you romantically but the comfort of having a soul that called to the same pain was as if breathing again. So you stuck together. Going on hunting trips. Parties. Gatherings. Visiting each other in your homes. So it wasn’t that big of a surprise when Lucien asked you to accompany you to one of the celebrations that were happening in autumn.

That’s how you found yourself watching him make females swoop over the magic tricks he was casting. Not being able to suppress a light smile. Loving that his playful side was slowly coming back. “Mind if I join you”, that voice alone made a shiver run down your spine. And another one once you eyes too in a sign in front of you. In a deep shade of green stood none other than Eris. Lethal the beauty of this male was. “It pains me that my brother brought a lady of unmatched beauty with him but left her alone to play ancient tricks instead”, he stepped closer bringing a scent of pines and forest with him. “I don’t mind”, you shrugged, “I’m happy that he’s in a much brighter spirit”. Eris hummed at your words. Eyes never leaving you. “And are you?”, he asked, making your heart flutter, “Are you in brighter spirits?” You tried to open your mouth to say something. Anything. To smile. To brush off the ache that didn’t leave you. Eris reached out, brushing away a strand of your night black hair, “You look lonely, my love”, he muttered, “I can fix that”.

And to his promise Eris stayed true. And soon your time was occupied with him. And only him. He showed you Autumn. Brought you down his childhood trails. His dogs had been an immense part of your everyday walks. But all of that only mattered because he saw you. Not past you. But right through you. Into the depths of your soul. “I’m not a good man”, he muttered one night, fingers lazing and brushing over your exposed shoulder. “I don’t agree with that”, you shook your head. “That’s because you make me better. I don’t have the urge to bite when I’m with you”, he admitted, filling your heart up with so many emotions yet keeping all the scars from cracking open.

You bring him home after that. To your brother. To your family. Fueled by the same urge to show him your home. Part of it you loved dearly. Only joy was wiped off your face within a heartbeat. “What is he doing here?”, Azriel snarled, narrowing his eyes at Eris. “It’s my pleasure to see you once again”, Eris didn’t even miss a beat as his fox-like eyes followed Azriel. “I’m here because I’m courting this lovely woman”, he reached out for your hand before bringing it up to his lips. “That’s bullshit”, Azriel grunted, “Step away from him, Yn”, he ordered.

“No”, you breathed. Making Azriel frown even harder, “What do you mean no?” “I am seeing him. We’re together”, you watched all of the emotions fighting in Azriel’s eyes. From confusion. To anger. To hurt. “But…”, he muttered. “I got tired of waiting, Azriel”, you sighed, “I was ready and willing to give it all to you but you pushed me away, I was a child to you”, shrugging you looked up at him. “I can’t live like a second… no fuck that… tenth? Twentieth choice?”, “That’s not true”, he cut in, reaching out for you to be met with Eris’s firm hand, “Times up, bat. She’s my girl now. And I take pride in calling her mine”.

[howtofightwrite]

Hey! I'm writing a series with a character who is a sniper. She is a private hire and ends up meeting someone who works with shorter ranged guns and weapons.

I'm just wondering how they would differ when killing someone and what are the tells of each weapon. I want to make it clear that the weapons are different but I'm not sure what those differences are

So, something that stuck out to me originally, when reading this is, most snipers are going to have a close range PDW. Whether that's just their sidearm or something more substantial, they'd need to be proficient with something in close quarters if it comes to that.

Now, the hard part about answering this question in the abstract is that, almost everything associated with firearms is extremely date sensitive.

For example, if your CQB/CQC character was originally trained sometime in the late 90s to late 2000s (in a Western country), they'd have likely encountered Center Axis Re-lock. Outside of those 20 years, then that style hadn't seen widespread adoption, or had fallen out of favor.

For some specific film examples, Vincent (Tom Cruise) from Collateral (2004) would have been working as an assassin for at least a decade by the time we see him in the film. We can make this assessment based on the way he handles the USP, and then compare to CQC training. His one-handed disarm and execute he uses in the alley puts his training sometime in the 80s to 90s at the earliest, while his lack of CAR in close quarters tells you he didn't have Western military or law enforcement training after the mid-90s.

Another film example that might surprise you is John Wick (Keanu Reeves). In those films he exhibits CQC training that suggests he still in the military less than 15 years before the events of the first film. Except his CAR stances are actually a little sloppy (which is unusual for Reeves), which suggests that Wick may have observed others using the stance, and then improvised a version of it for his own use. Meaning you can't really estimate when his combat training occurred. (This might also might explain why he's a bit sloppy about when he switches between Weaver and CAR.) By the way, it is quite difficult to pick this out. It took a few experts dinging on the first Wick film before I really started picking up on the issues with Reeves' technique. And I haven't seen anyone else draw the conclusion that Wick is probably self-taught in CAR. (This was corrected for the later films, as Reeves did get proper training in CAR in preparation for the second film.)

In particular, this is a singular example, but there are a lot of things someone can do that will inform you about their background and training. This starts with weapon selection. Things like their preferred sidearm and primary can be very insightful. People tend to go in one of two directions with firearms. Either, they're very willing to adapt and experiment, or they'll find something they're comfortable with and hone in with that specific firearm.

For example, is your sniper carrying around a Remington 700, or something like an MSR or AWM? Both are legitimate answers, but they say very different things about how your character approaches their area of expertise. Similarly, are they carrying a 1911 pattern pistol, or something more modern, like an HK USP or FN P45?

If your sniper is carrying around an AMT Hardballer, and your CQC specialist is carrying around a P45t, your CQC specialist has twice the magazine capacity. They can afford to dump rounds into someone until they stop twitching. Where as a Hardballer is “just” an extremely well made 1911. Their kills are going to look different, but it's a function of the weapon they chose.

Without knowing what they're carrying, it's very hard to answer definitively how their kills will look.

If it was me, kitting out for CQC in a situation where I'd need to hide the weapon under a jacket, I'd seriously consider an AAC Honey Badger hidden under a sport coat. (I know, I trash talked the Honey Badger a few years ago, before getting a good look at one and seeing just how tiny they are. Mea Culpa. I should know better than to shit on a gun I'm unfamiliar with by now. That's a toxic element of gun culture I've been trying to get away from. It still clings a bit sometimes.) Similarly, the Mk18 and Colt 733 are also pretty good options. That's a little bit of an M4a1 bias, but it's a decent platform. There are other valid options, those are just the first that come to mind for me.

If your character was kitting for CQC, and wanted Warsaw pact weapons, the Groza is a bit exotic, but that's what it was designed for. The SR-3M Vikhr is an update of the Val, and a pretty legitimate choice. They're both 9x39mm rifles, so long range accuracy isn't happening, but in close quarters they still hit stupidly hard. Granted, any Krinkov would work in that role. (So, mostly AKS-74Us.) (I think there were some 7.62x39mm Krinkovs, but I can't remember the name.)

So, ultimately, identifying the differences between the weapons, starts with knowing what the weapons are. Having a basic idea of how they handle (even if that's not first hand), and then being able to see how they differ from one another. This is made even harder in the sense that modern firearms have become extremely modular. Given the option to fully kit out the same gun for you CQC specialist, it's a pretty good bet you and I would walk away with distinctly different end results. Even if the base model was the same. (For the record, I'm not saying my configuration would be better. I have biases and preferences that aren't necessarily the best option available.)

The best place to start, is looking at the kinds of weapons your character would use. Your sniper's going to want a long range precision rifle and a sidearm. She might also go for a small machine pistol/SMG. Your CQC specialist would probably prioritize an actual primary. That might be an SMG, a carbine, or even a shotgun (because nothing says hello quite like three or four 12 gauge shells pumped out of a fully automatic Saiga. (And before someone corrects me, yes, I know, there are no production full-auto Saigas, however they can be illegally modified for full-auto.)

Once you know how different the weapons are, you can start digging into how the characters themselves approach combat, and how their respective styles differ.

-Starke

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[sarifel-corrisafid-ilxhel]

I gotta admit, I'm still bothered by some of the animal depictions as I re-read the Animorphs series. We've touched on the ant thing - the books were wrong, ants are awesome - but the more I look, the more I see the Animorphs' cool-vs-squick reaction to animals falls neatly into the different stereotypes of "Charismatic" vs "Uncharismatic" species. Skunks smell so badly you should fear them, but Bears are fuckin awesome (despite also being very smelly IRL). Sharks are bloodthirsty, but Dolphins are fuckin awesome (despite both being predators with overlapping niches in the same environment). Seagulls are ravenous nuisances at the beach, but Hawks are majestic soaring over the meadows (despite the fact both are just trying to find enough food to stay alive). Etc. etc. etc.

The thing is, these stereotypes are all wrong, have been known to be wrong for decades, and yet they're still what I'm expected to take as canon for the series I love - which is frustrating, because stereotypes around animals exist mostly to justify killing whichever ones bother you. So, what do I do? We have this weird dichotomy in Animorphs, where a key moral of the series is to look past what you've been told about your enemy - nobody is born evil - but also all of the animal stereotypes you know are true, Tigers are awesome but fuck Sharks and Spiders with a capital F.

Sure, I get it, it's what most people think about animals, so the Animorphs have expected reactions to most morphs. But like, a third of the Animorphs recipe was supposed to be "Teach kids about animals", and it's so sad to go back and see it's just parroting the same stuff kids already hear every day. And it's sadder to realize that the resources for knowing better WERE available in the Nineties when these books were written. I was born in '89. I grew up on a steady diet of Eyewitness, National Geographic, Shark Week, and a million animal documentaries. I still have a twenty volume illustrated encyclopedia of the Animal Kingdom from 1976 that was originally my mother's. The BBC wildlife narrator haunts my dreams.

I don't remember what the point of this post was. I'm pretty sure Sol's "doing it wrong" comment about how to be an Animorphs fan got to me, but I don't think I'm doing 'it' wrong. Animals are like, the MAIN THING in Animorphs. So it's frustrating, you know? I'm trying to write a fanfic, and I'm rereading the books again to get as many details as I can right, that's how I'm noticing these things. Is a true fan supposed to ignore this stuff? Is love of a franchise supposed to trump overlooking any possible flaws? No, that's not fandom, that's blind consumption! I think when a fan truly loves something, they're allowed to be disappointed when the thing they love falls short in some way. Maybe I'm really bad with words, but I just wish Animorphs had been written with more than stereotypes for all the animals in the series - they are kind of the main plot point, after all.

[salmalin]

My sincerest apologies and warmest welcome to my rant about FF7: Crisis Core. Or, as I like to call it,

Propaganda: The Video Game

I say this with the utmost affection. Crisis Core ranks really high up there in my favorite Final Fantasy 7 installments. I played it when it first came out, borrowing it from a friend to play on a borrowed PSP. And, the more I learn about the game and the more I replay it, the more everything lines up.

This game is not about Zack Fair.

This game is about how Capitalistic Propaganda can sink into every aspect of life to the point where it is entirely indistinguishable from reality. And it’s very overt about it. So…

Here we go.

My treatise on Propaganda’s starring role in Crisis Core.

Part One: The Timeline

Something that a lot of people gloss over due to decades of Child Heroes in media—Japanese Shonen and Shoujo series in particular—is how young these protagonists are. We’ll hand-wave a lot of stuff in non-live-action series with just a little bit of suspension of disbelief. And that’s honestly just accepted these days. But here’s the thing about those hand-waves.

Final Fantasy 7 doesn’t do that.

Now, FF7 hand-waves a lot of stuff. For example, how far you can travel in a day by foot, the distance a man weighing approximately 165lbs can jump after being genetically fused with what might as well be a cocaine demon (Jenova), and how much hairspray one can reasonably carry on a cross-country journey while on the run from the feds.

Age is not one of them.

Exhibit A: Yuffie Kisaragi.

Do I really need to say more? She acts her age. So does Zack. And Aerith, even. Most of the characters in the original lineup were over twenty for a good reason. We see several kids in the series, and they all act their age, too—both the OG and the remake. Age is not a thing that FF7 really grapples with. It’s something they take relatively seriously.

Now, to the point.

Zack is 16 when Crisis Core starts…

… and he was 13 when he ran away from home without his parents’ knowledge to join the military.

Which accepted him.

At 13.

Without a parental permission slip.

Think about that for a second.

… Or for the next several parts of this breakdown.

Part Two: The Main Character

As I mentioned in the introduction, Zack is not the main character of the events of Crisis Core. Instead, he is the focal point of the second person POV. This is not the first time Square has done this. It was done most notably with FF9, FF10, and FF12. (I’m not going to go on an Akira Kurosawa rant right now, but please check out his film “The Hidden Fortress”. FF12 and Star Wars episodes 4-6 borrow heavily from this film.) The purpose and position of this character is such that they might best witness the effects the other characters make on the world as their stories unfold, usually in the role of a love interest. For Akira Kurosawa, it may have been told this way because these people are most effected by the decisions being made.

“Well, then, Sal,” you may be asking, “who would you say is the main character? Would that be Aerith, since she’s the love interest, like in the other games?”

No, actually.

It’s the antagonist.

And by that, I mean Genesis.

Hear me out. I used to hate Genesis, for I was once young, full of judgement for flamboyancy (thanks, internalized homophobia), and was led by the narrative to believe he was mean to his friends. Then I met my Lovely beta who loved him, so I wrote a fic for her as a gift. So for that I kinda just… read stuff. Because that’s the thing about Propaganda—you gotta read stuff to navigate it. I read the in-game emails. I re-watched all the scenes I could get my hands on with him. I read his wiki and tried to track down more information about him. Then I watched the scenes in Japanese and gained a better understanding of not just Genesis, but Sephiroth’s character. And I realized that Genesis was put on this road from the start. In fact, a big part of the fact that he’s seen the way he is in Canon—only at his most hostile and lowest points—is because the story is told through Zack’s point of view.

So before we get into the breakdown, here’s the hard facts about Genesis.

1. He was a test tube baby who may or may not technically be Angeal’s fraternal twin brother, which we are not going to unpack right now.

2. He was adopted by a relatively rich family.

3. He was a child genius (which requires not only resources, but drive to achieve), and at a tender young age of like… ten or something? He decided to mess around and literally invented pasteurization. Which is incredible, and really speaks to his knowledge of the world and ability to grasp complex concepts even at a young age. But, again, this is not the time or place to unpack that.

4. He was best friends with Angeal, who might as well have been the sweetest, kindest boy to ever walk the Planet. (I’m biased. I love him.)

5. As a teenager, he became fixated on Sephiroth, who had gained national acclaim as a SOLDIER despite them being the same age. (Please see part 1 and think about that for a second.) He then goes to join SOLDIER and brings Angeal with him. And Angeal brings his step-father’s puritanical “hard work is honorable” mindset with him. (On that note, Angeal and his father’s arc really are a wonderfully scathing letter to companies that overwork their employees and how toxic/unhealthy that line of thinking is. But. Again. We are not unpacking that right now.)

6. At one point he became consumed with LOVELESS, a series of poems with heavy prose and symbolism thicker than syrup. It got to the point where he was so well known for it that there was an entire fanclub dedicated to both him and analyzing the text.

7. While he was in SOLDIER, he repeatedly had his achievements publicly accredited… to Sephiroth.

Over and over and over again.

Everyone did, really. They mention it in the beginning of the game. Sephiroth even got public credit for Zack’s raid on the castle when he wasn’t even there. How much of his legacy is real? How much of it is made up? How much of it was faked? We don’t know. No one knows. But he keeps getting credit, anyways. And when Genesis confronts him about it, Sephiroth doesn’t care. In the Japanese version of their fight scene, you could even say he indirectly implies that he wants Genesis to take his place as the “hero”. In the English, Sephiroth’s line is, “Come and try.” But in the Japanese the line is closer to, “Wouldn’t that be nice?” Which, depending on how you take his tone, can mean wildly different things—from mocking, to earnest, or even admiration—which is especially to tell because he might be annoyed with Genesis at the moment.

Fun Fact: In Ever Crisis, Sephiroth explicitly says they are making up his achievements in the press to target boys his age for recruitment. (Thus why they accepted Zack at age 13.)

My theory on this line is that he is being cynical; that Genesis doesn't understand just how harrowing and even humiliating his experience has been. This only enforces my theory that the "come and try" translation in the English not only does a disservice to a line as wonderfully heavy as, "Wouldn't that be nice?", but fundamentally misunderstands Sephiroth as a character.

8. Genesis then took the fight to Shin-Ra. Inspiring a good chunk of their staff to leave the company, he then staged multiple attacks on facilities, staff, and the main building—which also spilled out into the city of Midgar. He murdered his parents, buried them, killed everyone in town, and… Yeah. It wasn’t pretty. A lot of innocent people died simply because they were vaguely associated with Shin-Ra. These are the actions of a villain. What’s more, this is clearly a sign that he has been acclimatized to death and violence by Shin-Ra to the point where he doesn’t even consider taking hostages.

Except.

Except the entire town was a Shin-Ra town.

Banora, canonically, was a Shin-Ra built town, which means everyone there was basically an employee of the company. No one was safe. Everyone was a threat. And that…

That was how he was raised. And he finally knew the truth—that every moment of his life was touched, controlled by Shin-Ra, all the way down to his very conception. He has never known freedom. He has never known his own identity. And now that very cage was killing him, slowly and painfully, and turning him into something that couldn’t even be recognized as human. He was watching himself rot in the mirror, and it was all because of Shin-Ra’s greed. And as he searched for salvation, he sunk into LOVELESS as he always had, hinging his entire life on Minerva’s Gift because he knew he was dying and that was all he had.

9. And then he died…

10. … but then it turned out LOVELESS was actually kind of a blueprint, and he did meet the Goddess, and he did get reborn without his degradation so he was rewarded for his journey in the end.

So why wasn’t Genesis the main character of the game?

Simple.

His actions challenge the status quo without being about the status quo. It’s a story about revenge. It’s a story about retribution. It’s a story about answering mass violence with mass violence and ultimately being rewarded by it. And while, yes, the series is an action-based violence simulator, the violence in the original FF7 was a guided, tactical effort. (For all that the characters aren’t the brightest bulbs in the sun lamps.) But the biggest, most obvious shift in the narrative happened when they realized their role as terrorists—bringing mass violence to the company via bombing and open aggression—was just resulting in increasing levels of retaliation against uninvolved people. They might as well have been a child beating the ankles of a giant. The goals and themes of the game fundamentally change when they realize that answering mass-scale societal violence with mass-scale physical violence was not only unsustainable, but also wasn’t going to solve their problem.

FF7 is about change and learning when violence—and what kind of violence—is appropriate in the face of different threats.

Genesis’ arc undermines all of that, and making him the main character would contradict the very heart of the OG game.

So, instead, we are positioned as Zack, connected to him through a mutual friend. From there we see all the damage and horror this vengeance brings to those living under the status quo.

But also, that plotline’s a major downer in a lot of ways, so they needed to lighten things up a bit to keep audience involved. And that’s why Zack is, well…

Part Three: Zack is a Himbo

Please, for the love of all that is holy, keep in mind that everything I say here is with the utmost affection.

Zack is dumb as a rock.

He is a charismatic, enthusiastic sixteen year old jock who ran away from home at thirteen years old to join the military. Which, please know, why I say “military” I mean “private security guard force with a standard-issue Death Baton and a license to kill”. The first scene in the game is him being excited that he gets to murder a bunch of people in a simulation, which he is immediately scolded for by his mentor. He is a glorified, souped up private security guard who is canonically only in it for the glory at first. He wants to be a “hero”, but doesn’t seem to fundamentally know what that means. And, over the course of the story, the definition of that clearly changes for him.

Which tracks, because the story takes place over a period of time with high stress.

Occasionally I see people saying they wish that Zack had more complexity to him, and honestly? The game. Would be. SO. BAD.

Full Disclosure: I am not the biggest fan of Zack specifically because he lacks a lot of nuance. I wish he was a bit more complex, too. But I also know that would break the game. What’s worse, if he was still on Shin-Ra’s side because he understood Shin-Ra’s mission… Well… That would make him a villain, or a cog at best. That’s not main character material. It would make the ending more messed up, though.

Anywho, Zack was thirteen when he left home. He had no formal education. He didn’t tell anyone what he was doing. He even joined without a permission slip from his parents. This means that Shin-Ra was accepting thirteen, possibly fourteen year olds into the military. (Some people will say this tracks because you can get a job at fourteen in many parts of Japan. But, and this is important, you aren’t allowed to be a security guard until you’re quite a bit older, and you need a specific license for it, much like in the US.) Clearly they didn’t teach this boy critical thinking skills. Not because he’s a himbo, but because having their Super-Powered Private Security Force With A License To Kill think independently would explicitly go against their interests. (EX: Genesis.)

Shin-Ra needs SOLDIERs to follow orders or the company would no longer be able to function. Seconds and Thirds aren’t even allowed to reject missions. (One could argue that sending certain someone on back-to-back missions would be a good way for them to eliminate undesirables within the ranks by sending them to their deaths, which… would make an incredible fic idea, actually.) We already know that First, Second, and Third Class rank assignments do not actually reflect the power of the SOLDIER. This is canon. I would instead argue that those who make the rank of First Class aren’t necessarily the most powerful, but are instead the most visible in the media, thus the easiest to market, and/or the easiest to manipulate and control. (For a great example of this, see The Umbrella Academy.)

The point is, Zack may have been elevated to his position as a first specifically because he is malleable and single-minded. Even after all he saw with Genesis, he stuck by the company to the very end, with the exception of the time Sephiroth was literally guiding him to fail a mission. Zack allowed himself to take Shin-Ra’s side every time, taking down their enemies and following their orders, preserving his “honor as SOLDIER” as he had been taught. The only thing that made him stop…

… was literally getting put in a jar.

It was when he was no longer a SOLDIER.

Part Four: Honor

There is no such thing as SOLDIER Honor.

I repeat: There is no such thing as SOLDIER Honor.

It is a fictional thing that is borne of an ideology based around hard work. It only has power because it is believed in. It is an intangible social construct similar to the law, mathematical order of operations, and gender roles. So why are Angeal and Zack obsessed with it?

Pretty simple.

Angeal’s step-father followed it.

Now, we know three things about Angeal’s step-father.

1. He was chill with the fact that Gillian was already pregnant when they started dating.

2. He was a very good father.

3. He worked himself to death trying to pay off the sword he bought Angeal.

This, of course, says a lot about Angeal considering he rarely uses the sword. He essentially sees that sword as the symbol of his step-father’s life. Everything he uses it for, he sees as more important than his step-father’s life. That thing is usually Zack.

Zack, who is the child who joined the military based on stories of heroes.

Zack, who rises against Angeal in the name of his own step-father’s ideology and tries to talk him down, even at the very end. But Zack fails because he fundamentally doesn’t understand what’s going on, partially because “Soldier Honor” is just one more aspect of this narrative he was given. It is a narrative that Angeal has had to step away from, even though he doesn’t want to leave the memory of his step-father behind. He was a good man. He was a good, hardworking man.

And that is why he died.

Corporations will use you up until there is nothing left, then honor your memory/sacrifice. Shin-Ra was doing the exact same thing the company his step-father worked for did; using up SOLDIERs until they outlived their usefulness. And Angeal was horrified to realize that his “SOLDIER Honor” wasn’t honor at all.

It was willingly submitting to control.

But, unlike Angeal, over time, this meaning changed for Zack. Partially because he didn't understand it fully in the first place. It became about acting with integrity. It became about helping people. It became about not lying down and watching the abuse Shin-Ra handed out in exchange for literal money; for maintaining the status quo.

At the very end, Zack understood what it meant to be a hero.

Part Five: The Conclusion

To sum up, Zack believed in and idolized the propaganda spread by Shin-Ra at such a young age, and was so convinced by it, that he ran away from home at thirteen to join the military.

He was their target demographic, so they happily took him into their ranks. What’s more, people think this is normal enough that we see no one opposing this, because the only people who oppose Shin-Ra are “extremists” or “violent terrorists”.

Zack then became their loyal puppy, groomed to fill his role as super-powered attack dog to sick on anyone they deemed appropriate, and he filled the role. He believed he was doing good. He didn’t think they were invading another country, because that’s not what he was told.

He went after Genesis, because that’s what he was told, and he wouldn’t let Genesis’ actions shake his faith in the company.

Then he went after Angeal, hoping to get answers, only to become more confused. Angeal taught him about SOLDIER honor. He taught him about a higher calling. He was the one who made Zack truly loyal to the company. This challenged everything Zack knew.

He went with Sephiroth, planning a small rebellion of their own (a white lie on paperwork) to get answers, only to find things he wasn’t ready for and couldn’t fully understand.

Zack is shaken by each of these events. Horribly. At times, we even watch him grieve. But time and time again, he doesn’t leave the company. He sees the damage they do first hand, and he doesn’t leave the company. The company isn’t the problem, to him. He reads their emails, does their dirty work, and “maintains his SOLDIER honor”.

Zack swallows what they give him right up until what they give him is torture.

Zack swallows what they give him until he becomes their victim.

Every step of the way, Zack is fed a story of how the world is. He was raised on it. He lived it. He became part of it. He was paid peanuts to enforce the status quo Shin-Ra installed in the world by force, and he was proud of it because it was, to him, something to be proud of.

Zack believes the propaganda whole-sale, and we get to watch, from the point of view of an outsider, as it slowly destroys his life before killing him.

Propaganda has the power to make suffering normal. Propaganda has the power to make murder righteous. Propaganda has the power to take a thirteen year old boy out of his home so they can give him a sword, and when they point him in the direction of their enemies he charges of his own volition, because they made him believe in their cause. And he believes in their cause because he believes that it makes life better for everyone.

But that’s not what’s actually happening.

That’s just what he was told.

Crisis Core is about propaganda, and the depths to which it can affect our lives. It changes our belief systems. It changes our perceptions of reality. And when it’s torn down around our eyes, it can make us go insane. It can make us violent and unreasonable as we realize just how much violence is being forced upon us—violence other people just plain do not see. It's just a a piece of paper. It's just a law. It's just a job.

It's just a war.

Final Fantasy 7 was about Fascism.

Crisis Core is about the propaganda that built it. It is told from the point of view of a boy, then a man, steeped in it. He watches until the people suffering around him—Sephiroth, Genesis, and Angeal—are twisted into villains by the truths and lies around them. Genesis and Angeal are tortured by truths, Sephiroth is transformed by lies, and Zack is subsequently hunted down to conceal them.

Crisis Core is Propaganda: The Video Game.

[ddarker-dreams]

re-reading bits and pieces of SR have helped me quite a bit with post-election depression; it turns out an impending sense of doom can be evaded quite well with The Sillies! that being said, how would the bucci gang help SR Reader if she was going through a depressive episode?

i'm grateful to know that SR is able to bring some solace in what's been an awful state of affairs, as i've always considered it a comfort series myself.

[Scarlet Ribbons index]

Giorno senses something is off before you do. He's deeply in tune with your emotional state, taking mental note of everything you do down to the tiniest details. His initial instinct would be to identify any underlying issues that might have brought the depressive episode about. He's a man driven by action, willing to fight against unfavorable odds if it means enacting his vision. This leads to some internal struggle on his part, as there's no clear-cut solution to these bouts. He views you as his significant other in the purest sense — relying on you and wanting you to do the same with him. He'd eventually recognize his own hubris in his quest to 'fix things', opting for a more supportive role instead. Giorno matches his approach based on his perception of what he feels you need.

Bruno is surprisingly susceptible to your first few attempts to explain away your shift in mood. In the back of his mind, he knows something is wrong, but it's such a frightening prospect. He observed the signs in his father after his mother abandoned them. He'd get uncharacteristically stern with you, imploring that you confide in him if you keep dodging the issue. Essentially freezes your work and puts you on an indefinite sabbatical. He worries over you to the point of self-neglect. Not the healthiest approach, but there's no doubting his commitment to restoring your wellbeing. Bruno would take a break from his obligations and bring you to his hometown, where he hopes the change of pace will have a positive influence.

The ever-pragmatic Fugo would struggle with this greatly, he's not exactly a shining example of mental stability himself. He recognizes what's happening and feels utterly powerless to stop it. A bit hypocritical in the sense he'll pitch therapy or some other pharmaceutical treatment that he'd never undergo himself. He suffers from acting as an armchair psychologist, critiquing any habits that might contribute to your depression and getting frustrated if you don't actively work to resolve them. It comes from a good place; he's devastated over what's happening. You're supposed to be cheerful, making terrible jokes and pop culture references that drive him insane. He'll work himself to the bone for you to feel an iota better.

Narancia is at a loss at first. When your change in mood extends past a few 'bad' days, he can tell it's something serious, even if he can't put it into words. Ultimately, he decides it doesn't matter if it takes a week, year, or a decade; he will stick by you through everything. Narancia isn't one for subtlety, it's obvious that he's checking up on you multiple times throughout the day. He's tripping over himself to make you smile, even if it's for a fleeting second. Additionally, he's a better listener than most would give him credit for. There's absolutely nothing you could do or say that'd make him think less of you, so you never feel judged.

There is no one better at helping you feel 'normal' than Mista. He won't demand an explanation like Bruno, get frustrated over a perceived lack in progress like Fugo, or coddle you as Narancia's inclined to do. He's consistently himself. He'll take you on dates, make awful jokes, and go on unprompted spiels about his latest musings. It's not that he doesn't care — far from it — his view is just that knowing you, you'd feel bad if you realized how worried he is. If you open up to him, that's fine. If you don't, that's also okay. He moves at your pace and you never feel pressured to act a certain way around him.

Abbacchio's like well, that makes two of us. It's a complicated development. Having gone through a major depression, Abbacchio can technically empathize with you the most, but seeing himself in you is initially disconcerting. He's similar to Fugo in that your weird, peppy ways have become a lifeline. It's soul-crushing for him to recognize those first few signs. Unlike Fugo, however, he doesn't linger in this limbo for long. He takes a 'tell it like it is' approach. He won't shower you with platitudes or sugarcoat reality, but there's an undeniable thoughtfulness behind his every action. He'll give you space when necessary, sit in silence if you want company yet lack the words, ensure sure your pantry is stocked and laundry done. Abbacchio can be what he wishes someone had been for him.

[youryurigoddess]

Anyone has £260,000 to spare?

Looks like Mary, better known to general public as Crowley’s Bentley from Good Omens, was put on sale — this time for real.

And the advertisement is full of anecdotes up to December 2024, including the filming of the show, as well as interior and exterior photos that might be helpful for artists and writers; definitely worth reading if you’re a Good Omens fan!

Vehicle description and photo gallery

(As published by the seller, Jeremy Marshall-Roberts)

“Mary is a 1934 Derby Bentley Thrupp & Maberley bodied Coupe. BLE 430 – B 96 BN. Two were made but the other one has not been seen since WW11, so she is unique. She is also the only Bentley in the world to have been blown up twice on screen. She was owned by Speed King Donald Campbell in the early fifties.

I acquired her in 2009, to go with my 1947 Mark VI. Since then the engine has been completely re-built, including a new head and block, with a new clutch put in at the same time. She has also been re-wired, new kingpins, total brake overhaul, new radiator and fuel pump with suspension and one shot lubrication system overhauled. Also had the speedometer and rev.counter serviced in 2018. She runs superbly and has just had her annual service at AB Classics, who specialise in pre-war Bentleys & Rolls Royces. (He also looks after my 1936 25/30 RR.

She is currently insured for £295,000 and I will be looking for an offer around £265,000.”

History

“Ordered for Jack Odling in September 1934. One of two 3 ½ lt Coupes made by Thrupp & Maberley. The other one has not been seen for several decades and presumed lost during World War 2. Not much early history but owned by Speed King Donald Campbell in the early 1950’s. We have a photograph of the car at that time being offered for sale, with silver wheel discs. His ownership is acknowledged by all the relevant history available in various publications and agreed with both Bentley Drivers Club & Rolls Royce Enthusiasts Club records.

She went through three owners from October 1954 to October 1961. Next piece of history is she was acquired by a Mr Silk of Romford in 1973 and underwent extensive professional restoration up to 1994, with a mechanical overhaul in 1994. She was back on the road in 1998. She was then purchased from P & A Wood by Andrew Smith in August 2001. He kept her until early 2008 when he sold her to Brian Classic as he did not wish to re-wire her. I bought her from Brian Classic in April 2009 with money left to me by my late Mother, Mary. We only just made the 100 miles home with many electrical problems. I am glad to say that Brian Classic eventually made a substantial contribution to the re-wiring by Jeremy Padgett.

The following year going into the RREC Concours the heating nearly went into the red so back to Jeremy Padgett to sort out. Result was a complete engine re-build by Ristes, also replaced the radiator core and new clutch plate. Finally back on the road in May 2012. Very expensive period. However, she is now in superb condition, being regularly serviced by AB Classics. More recently the carburettors have been re-built. Following an accident on set in 2017 she was sent to Steve Penny at Penny Vintage to restore the damaged door. Sadly this was one of his last jobs before retiring. What a superb craftsman he is, he made a fabulous job of restoring her. Needless to say she still looks superb. I have owned and enjoyed classic cars since 1969 and Mary must be my ultimate car.”

TV & Film work

“Whilst paying the engine re-build bills, I asked my accountant if I could offset costs against my regular income as a Wine & Hamper merchant. I then started www.classicbentleycarhire.co.uk as I was already doing the occasional wedding with Mabel, my 1947 Mark VI. In January 2014 I received a phone call from a TV film service company, TLO Film Services. Would I be interested in bringing Mary down to Taplow near Maidenhead to appear in the Endeavour series of Inspector Morse on Saturday and Sunday in early February. I duly arrived at an old warehouse complex by the Thames where this episode was being made. I was shown where to park and told to go and have lunch. Having been shown where to go I sat down and found the running order for the day’s scenes. Half way down was a scene called ‘Bang goes the Bentley’. Quite put me off my lunch. I found the TLO guy fairly shortly afterwards who explained that my car would be put somewhere near a series of pyrotechnic effects and no, they could not afford to really blow it up. I then went for a ride in Morse’s black Jaguar.

As soon as it got dark, I was asked to position Mary near a set of what can only be described as bamboo firework gadgets. Just managed to get into place, despite the heavy mud. The storyline is that a schoolboy drops a match into the fuel tank and up she goes. The young actor pretended to light a match having opened the outer fuel flap. CGI provided the spark and the pyrotecnic machines burst into life. There was a shot of the boy running to join the others with a big burst of flames in the background lighting up the quadrangle. All done in one shot. The next day the boys were being driven down the street by the ‘baddie’. Mary was stationery with lights going round 360o and a certain amount of pushing up and down on the bumper to simulate movement. The schoolboy actors, who were heavily chaperoned, were thrilled to discover they were in an 80 year old car. And that was it. Drove home the 120 miles to Lincolnshire. Kept in touch with TLO and used Mabel in another episode of Endeavour and a friends XK140 in the Outcast in 2015.

I had sold our business in 2014 to a very nice Italian couple to take it on to the next stage. Apart from old age creeping up, we had run out of space. The business struggled on that year and then I found a near perfect industrial building in Bourne. It moved in August 2015, leaving me with my old premises where I can, if everything was perfect, stash up to 17 cars. Should explain that our old premises are in the back garden of our home. I had bought a little 18’ cruiser to do up when the call came. ‘Jeremy, I am looking for a 1926 Derby Bentley, preferably black. Can you find me one please.’ I explained that they were not invented until 1933 and that mine was made in 1934 and is grey and black and has not changed since Endeavour three years earlier. Half an hour later phone goes again, ‘Can you bring your car down for production to have a look at in Ealing early next week’.

Production were delighted with Mary, especially after a bit of a run round Ealing. At this point no-one would tell me what it was all about, apart from the fact that this was ‘The Big One’. Two days later phone goes again, she is going to be Crowley’s Bentley in ‘Good Omens’ by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. My wife quickly ordered the book and read it. The Bentley was mentioned almost 80 times. Can I please take her to a specialist body maker for her cab to be replicated for studio scenes. Can I find an interior etc. I phoned Hew at The Real Car Company, who was a tremend ous help. A complete set of instruments and a steering wheel duly arrived.

Next, I was asked if I could take the car to Wokingham to be copied. Absolutely staggered to discover they wanted the car at Rushton’s Farm, where I lived from 1957 to 1963. Father’s chicken sheds had been converted into industrial units. A half hour drop off turned into four hours, as I took an old photograph album to show the current owners. The farmhouse had been separated from the rest of the farm by this time. A real trip down memory lane for me. Looking for a Derby body, seats etc., Hew recommended talking to Bob Petersen. He was stripping down a Thrupp & Maberley saloon to make one of his famous specials, so that was purchased complete with dash, seats etc., so Mary could be well and truly replicated. Even changed the indicator switch, so that both were identical. By this time the cast list had leaked out on the Internet. David Tennant and Michael Sheen are the main stars with others being added on a daily basis. I met many people, but mainly worked with these two, especially David. He is one of the nicest guys you could ever wish to meet. Very hardworking, but happily chats to everyone. I got Mary back from the farm in September, ready to start filming. The first scene was near Marlow for a two day shoot where I started to meet the cast and crew.

Trying to teach David how to drive Mary was a bit of a struggle. Most people in their forties haven’t a clue about cars without syncromesh on all gears, and David normally drives an automatic! However, Rob, the stunt driver, did know how to drive Mary and quickly picked up the fact that the clutch cannot be depressed for any length of time. The main problem with David and Rob changing over was about six inches in height. Don’t think the seat had been moved so much for years, with a gentle application of oil on the runners and avoidance of catching the carpet. During this period Mary used the registration NIATRUC, Curtain spelt backwards (the subject is the end of the world). The Morris Minor had SID RAT, TARDIS spelt backwards. David was an earlier Dr Who! Being the grandad on set meant that I was well looked after by everyone, who made sure I had Mary in the right place and usually a radio as well. There is a lot of hanging about on set then a burst of activity. Some shots are repeated over a dozen times to get differing angles and eventually sort out which take will be used. Within a few days I was getting the hang of it, meeting the directors, the camera guys, the sound technicians, moving from location to location, usually in or around the M 25 then in central London. Naturally you can watch Good Omens on BBC iPlayer and see how much Mary appeared. There are a few pictures of what it is like on set.

The second ‘Blowing Up’. As mentioned earlier we had purchased a rotten Thrupp & Maberley four door body and this was jury rigged onto a frame with wheels. Crowley drove his on fire Bentley on to the USAF base where it was spectacularly blown up by the pyrotechnic guys. I must admit that I was rather sad to see this happening but as one of the guys said to me ‘It’s either this one or yours’. I have my video of this happening which we will try to put on the BDC website. We should have finished by Christmas, but pushing snow and ice out of the way, rather delayed things especially whilst the extras wandered about in their summer clothes before diving into thick coats etc at the end of the shot. We returned for the final ten days shooting on 8 th January 2018. Rob, Mary’s stunt driver, was on holiday so someone else was brought in. I showed him how to drive Mary, but he was not used to old cars. Unfortunately the passenger door was not closed properly and in a scene with Mary coming down the street from an angle the suicide door flew open and hit another car, writing that off and Mary’s passenger door at right angles. If he had reacted quickly and slammed on the brakes the accident would not have happened. It took an hour to dismantle the door and jury rig it back onto the main body then tape it up, and paint it. Obviously the door could not be used again so had to change a few shots. The day after the accident, Mary had a different stunt driver, who know exactly how to drive her. He had been driving Rowan Atkinson’s Aston Martin round the Alps the week before for Johnny English 3. The final day loomed, very cold and Mary was in the last UK shot at 8.00pm. Suddenly it was all over, no time to say goodbye, as we had to get everything off site by midnight.

Fast forward to April 2019 and there was a request from Amazon for Mary to be used for the launching of Good Omens. First she appeared on the ‘Green Carpet’ in Leicester Square. The event was organised chaos with the stars appearing from all over the place, and the fans behind barricades. The next five days saw us in Greek Steet, Soho on the opposite side of the road from a mock up of Aziriphale’s (Michael Sheen’s Angel) book shop. Wonderful to meet all the directors and main stars again and properly say goodbye. The fans were queuing round the block to see the Book Shop and Mary.

Now back to normality. Mary was amongst the 1321 Bentley’s at Blenheim, as well as appearing at the RREC Concours event for Derbys in June. Now in my heated warehouse under cover for the winter. In 2023, seven of us ran the 90 th Anniversay weekend of the launch of Derby Bentleys, where 104 of these cars turned up at some part over this period. Final part of the weekend was at Chatsworth House on the Sunday. Prior to this five of us met with Simon Taylor of Classic and Sports Car Magazine so that he could do an article about these wonderful cars. His article finally appeared in the December 2024 edition. Naturally Mary is one of these five.”

[dduane]

The first part of that last message got me curious -- given how long-running of a series YW is, how do you keep track of All That when writing a new entry? Copious amounts of notes? Re-reading the entire series backlog? Keeping a fully-functioning simulation of the entire YW universe running in your head with perfect accuracy? (only mostly joking with that last one)

And somewhat-relatedly, did you have any plan or idea when you started for how long YW would run? Or was it more of a "I'll keep writing about this universe until it stops churning out ideas," type of thing and that point just (very thankfully!) hasn't happened yet? I know for per-book purposes you're a proponent of outlining (I swear I'll try writing to one one day Q_Q) but do you also apply that to a series as a whole?

Let me take this backwards, as it may make more sense that way.

Particularly when doing series work, outlining is more vital than usual for me. (Which is saying a lot.) Some of the most basic reasons for this are laid out over here.

The simplest one, though, for series outlining, is logistical. Without having achieved a sense well in advance of what events (or effects of events) are going to be most formative or important (or both) for the characters in a series, you won't have allowed yourself time to think about them enough. And to fail to spend enough time on this is to cheat both yourself and the books in the series. (And your readership.)

If you're smart, you learn very early on that attempting to save time by shortchanging or omitting the planning stages is potentially profoundly destructive. You need to have a plan... and you need not to let anyone make you ashamed of needing one. Putting off your detailed character-interaction and event planning in the name of some magically occurring fit of inspiration, or theoretical bid toward creative spontaneity, will serve neither you nor your creation. You can throw "Hail Mary" passes all you like... but you'd better be damn sure there'll be someone in the end zone to receive. ...If not Herself.

...And just in case you're worried, your initial plans can be really loose! They don't have to jump out of your head full-formed like some local war goddess after somebody hits her dad in the head with an axe. The plan for the Middle Kingdoms books—after The Door Into Fire dumped me gasping by the side of the road and left me a few minutes to breathe—was nothing more than "Now that his boyfriend's finally upped the ante beyond all expectations, Freelorn finally gets off his feckless Would-Be Robin Hood shit and gets to work becoming king." I then spent the next decade thinking purposefully about how that was going to happen, and writing the second book in the series—while sufficiently working out the fine details of the climax (and beyond) to then be able to get busy executing the third book. Even though there was a change of publishers between the beginning of that series and the end of it, the basic dead-simple MK plan from a very early stage quickly became detailed and robust enough (because the series was short enough) to withstand the change. Not least because I'd been thinking about it in a general way since the early 1970s... and continue to do so, pretty much daily. The Door Into Starlight is still hanging fire...

YW has been a different story—quite literally—because the only plan extant at the start of things was, "Everybody slowly gets older (and slowly closer)." I always knew there were going to be more than the original three: there was way too much interesting ground to cover to just stop with those. (I've never yet succeeded in finding out who started the rumor that there were only going to be three books. Over time it's become one of those things you just shrug at and move on.)

(Adding a break here, because this does go on a bit. Caution: contains publishing skullduggery, plans ganging aft agley, approximate word counts, software recommendations, and value judgments.)

("Now wait just one minute. 'Feckless would-be Robin Hood shit'? Can she just say that??")

The circumstances surrounding the writing of Deep Wizardry and High Wizardry, though, made it plain to me that I was not going to be at the then-publisher (Dell) all that much longer. By the time HW came out, they were already starting to pull away from midlist books and authors in order to spend that part of the budget on best-sellers... so it became plain to me that attempting to construct a long arc with/at that publisher would have been folly. Because who could be sure what was going to happen next, and blow everything I'd built to smithereens?

Sure enough, when I finished A Wizard Abroad, Dell declined to pick it up (even though the books had been selling steadily and increasingly strongly in paperback). This annoying validation of my concerns—and my shiny new agent's—made it plain to me that further books in the series were going to need to be thematically driven, rather than mostly character-event-driven, and almost entirely capable of being taken as standalones. Any long arc was going to have to be one that could be suspended, or reworked, with little warning. Because what happens to you once, in publishing, doesn't at all mean you're immune to it after that.

It wasn't until the YW books were picked up by Harcourt in the mid-90s, with a strong editorial team behind them, that I felt confident enough to start building longer-arc material into the books, beginning with the arc that kicks off in The Wizard's Dilemma and more or less completes in Wizard's Holiday and Wizards At War. There is a secondary (and I assume, generally less obvious) arc that picks up material still unhandled in the "War Arc," and deals with it in A Wizard of Mars and Games Wizards Play. But plans for those stories' management were already nailed down in electrons as soon as 2001, because I had made some early choices about where I was going with the characters and their situations; and as new books came out, my editors agreed with me that the choices had been sound, and should remain.

I'll say this only because I've said it before: there is one piece of business planted in So You Want To Be A Wizard that has never been explicitly dealt with/followed up on in any of the books, and is at the core of YW #11. For the moment, it's safest merely to say that I do not willingly leave loose ends hanging. Beyond that, I'll leave you all to your own deductions.

...Now. How do I keep track of all this stuff? (The urge to mutter "With great difficulty" and run off into the wings is strong. But never mind.) :)

The question's fair, as there's a million-plus words' worth of it in the series at the moment. ...Mostly my guide remains the books themselves, in ebook form (in their NME versions. If I need to, I refer back to the traditionally published versions as necessary). I normally have a general memory of where a given event happens or where a given issue comes up for handling. I then pull that copy of the ebook(s) in question, and do a search on various useful target phrases until I find what I'm after, and where it leads.

For new work, or stuff not yet committed to what passes for canon, I do have lots of notes. Some of them are actually out in public, at the currently-being-revised Errantry Concordance (though they're not in any form that anyone but me will recognize). Others are tucked away in the notes sections of pertinent Scrivener files—this being one of the most valuable things about Scrivener, as far as I'm concerned: the ability to store project notes in the project itself as opposed to "all over the damn place." Others yet are in my iPad, as either typing or dictation, and get transferred to other files/formats as necessary.

But the very first thing that happens, when a new work comes into train, is an outline. Sometimes a hilariously simple one, sometimes one with more detail in the middle than at the beginning or the end. Doesn't matter what shape it starts in. All notes, scraps, prose chunks, random thoughts, and midnight cogitations, get slotted into place in this until it's ready to be organized and sent off to an editor. And this outline—no matter how fragmentary or how polished—remains ready to hand at all times until I've finished with correcting the book's ARC and am looking at the release date.

And then I zip it up and put it away where I can find it later if I need to... because some other plan, still in the building stages, may need something in that one that never happened, but now has its chance. Because in YW, as everywhere else in my work, it's so often about the things that have always almost happened... until they do.

...Anyway: HTH!

[storiesofsvu]

Decadent Desires Ch 11

Emily Prentiss x fem!reader warnings: language, alcohol, smut, dirty talk. okay y'all apologies I thought life was going upwards and it was going to be super easy to power through a ton of writing but when life throws one bad thing at you beware there will likely be two more coming with it. UGH. I'm going to try to focus on this series for the rest of the week, we'll see how that goes! Thank y'all for sticking around and being wonderful!

Emily was a firm believer in a few things, and putting in over a hundred percent effort when the world was aligning you with a crap day was one of them. If she came to work with a hangover, she worked hard and did her job even better, knowing it was self inflicted and her own fault. On days when she was feeling more run down, exhausted or if she was starting to get sick, she put more effort in. Spent a little bit more time on hair and make up, made sure to wear the right kind of clothes. As much as it would be nice to wear something cozy and lean into the exhaustion, it always made her feel worse. The ‘you look tired’ comments, her complaining about a headache or stuffy nose digging her further into the pity party hole. If she looked her best, she felt better about it, the compliments during the day would help boost her mood and by the time she was clocking out she was re energized.

It was partially that, and her wanting to keep up with the fiery spark that had been launched the previous weekend that led to her decision. Sharing Jackie with you, watching the pleasure you got out of giving another woman pleasure and in a situation where she could actually watch rather than be focused on trying to remember how to breathe. It was utterly enthralling and invigorating and she was more than ready to fully embrace that level of spiciness on a more regular basis. After all, that’s what this type of situation was for, you’d said it yourself, exploration and discovering new things was the highlight of having this dynamic.

So when Emily got dressed that evening, she opted for a more fitted pant suit, leaving just enough to imagination and then reached to the back of her closet. She’d worn the red bodice top a handful of times over the years and it was a trusted favourite, fitting her like a glove, semi sheer lace between the boning, and intricate patterns over her chest with the perfect amount of cleavage pushed up. Even slightly shielded by her blazer it was enough to make anyone take a second glance and the smirk was present on her lips when you all about lost your breath when you laid eyes on her that night, stumbling over your words as you tried to limit the amount of compliments you gave her before you were even seated.

Emily had chosen to mix things up a little bit tonight, enjoy some new scenery outside of the Waldorf, opting to have dinner around the corner at Mastro’s Steakhouse instead. In between moments of conversation and trying not to ogle Emily you had managed to order starter cocktails and get some recommendations from your server before finally willing yourself to look through the menu.

“How do they expect me to choose between the filet and the lamb?” You muttered, chewing on your lip as you read through the enticing descriptions.

“Just get both.” Emily suggested with a shrug and you glanced up to her with a crinkled brow.

“That’s so much food! Not to mention the cost.”

“Cost isn’t a concern.” She replied, a grin on her lips, “eat a bit of each and take the rest to go, quality leftovers.”

Your gaze drifted off to a nearby table, eyeing their plates while you thought it over, “they would be far superior to the leftover pizza in my fridge….”

“Then it’s settled.”

You let out a small breath, a smile creeping onto your cheeks, “do you know what you’re getting?”

“I was leaning toward the lobster tail.” She glanced over at you, “sides?”

“Mac and cheese or scalloped potatoes?”

“Both.”

“Don’t we need a vegetable in there?”

“Last time I checked potato was a vegetable.” Emily replied with a grin and you laughed before agreeing with her.

Meals were ordered and delivered before you knew it, too full from the rich foods you both opted out of dessert, only to be convinced by the server to take some to go. You took your time to finish your cocktails, Emily swiping the bill before you even had a chance to try and look at it. You said a quiet thank you to her, pressing a gentle kiss to her cheek as you gathered your take out bags and made your way out of the restaurant. It was still warm enough outside that you hadn’t bothered with a jacket, summer still clinging to the city, the heat lingering in the night air when you stepped out into it.

Instinctively, your arm slid into Emily’s, her hand finding yours, intertwining your fingers as you made your way through the streets. She let out a soft hum, eyes flickering up to the skyline and part of her wished you could see more stars inside the city, she was lost in her thoughts a moment later, only faintly aware of your hand in hers as you guided her. If it wasn’t for the physical connection and sudden jolt when you stopped in your steps she easily would have walked into the road without looking.

“Hey…” you squeezed at her hand gently, “you alright tonight? You’ve been pretty quiet, kinda off…”

“Yeah.” Emily sighed softly, giving you a small smile as she shook out of it, “I’m just tired and it’s been a pretty long week. I think all this extra running around the city is taking it out of me a bit more than usual.” She didn’t really want to admit being worn down, she certainly hadn’t planned on it but she guessed her walls had slipped down more than she’d meant for them to and you picked up on it before she even realized.

You let out a small laugh, “you know the entire reason we went the direction we did with our agreement was to not have any extra stress or exhaustion, right? We didn’t want to make your to do list any longer or more tedious than it already was. These dates don’t have to be weekly either, remember, I’m not dependant on the money. If you ever want to cancel or skip a week or two I get it, you can stay home and veg out, taking time for yourself and resting is important.”

“I know,” she started, feeling a warmth moving through her knowing that you wanted to make sure she was taking care of herself, even if she wasn’t doing it on her own, “and it’s not just that, work exhaustion is different, I figured I still had enough energy leftover for dinner and I would hate to cancel.”

“Just know you’re allowed to, even last minute. If I already happen to be here I’ll order some room service on your account and call it a night.” You replied with a slight tease, nudging at her side when the light changed so you could cross the street.

“I was looking forward to it, honestly and I do really enjoy spending time with you. It’s such a huge relief to hang out with a fresh face, someone who isn’t part of my team yet still understands the politics of it all.” She let out a breath, nearly muttering the last part to herself, “I guess I kind of just miss my bed…”

You chuckled, “you’re telling me your bed is comfier than the Waldorf? What else have you been hiding from me Agent Prentiss?” You prodded at her side and she huffed, rolling her eyes, “I’m kidding. I get it. Especially with your job, you’re off travelling all week and when you finally do get home you just want to be surrounded by your own things. There’s a comfort and relief about being in your own home and safe space and there’s nothing else like it.”

Emily hummed in recognition, not entirely sure where to go from there or if the conversation was done entirely. She supposed it was, you’d simply asked if she was alright and she thought she’d given an adequate answer, though as you moved down the sidewalk it appeared it only sparked more questions in her brain.

“Can I ask something?”

“Of course.” You glanced to her, a welcoming smile on your face.

“Aside from like, the original safety thing, not wanting to let a near stranger know where you live… why hotels?” She watched for a moment as your head titled, your eyes narrowing as you thought and you shrugged.

“A lot of sugar….” You struggled to find the right phrase, “pairings have outside relationships, either one of them or both. A lot are married, open or not sometimes you never really know.”

“So it’s about the secrecy?”

“To a point.” You nodded, “most of the time having a sugar baby is their way to have a little secret life, it’s fulfilling a fantasy that they wouldn’t be able to achieve in any other way. Living the high life, fancy hotels, expensive dinners, lavish vacations, yacht parties, flying first class or private, it’s all about showing off. Hence why a lot of the babies embrace the look and personality of a hot young bimbo, that’s what the Wall Street guys want to show off to their so-called friends while railing lines of coke with a spare hundred dollar bill.”

“So-called friends?” She asked with a grin and you laughed.

“The ones who don’t care that you’re dangling along some barely self respecting girl to all the weekend parties when your wife is at home with the kids going to the country club with the friends of yours that would rat you out.”

“Ah.” She grimaced and you laughed again.

“They’re not all like that though, some of them just want to experience a little thrill, have a little fun on the weekends. They use hotels cause they’re attempting to create the life they wish they could live all the time; they’ve got a surplus of money because they live modestly otherwise. They might be living in a bare bones, affordable apartment where they cook the same dinner every night before repeating the mundane task of putting on an ill fitted suit and crunching numbers all day. They don’t want their sugar babies to see that because it kills the vibe, shatters the illusion if you will. It’s like.. the separation of fantasy and reality, ya know?”

“Makes sense.” She nodded, letting out a soft sigh as she stalled when you came to the entrance of the hotel. “Feel.. completely free to say no to this, because I know it might be awkward or off putting, but is there any chance you’d be comfortable just coming back to my place? Who cares about the fantasy?”

“You already mentioned waterfront views, I know your place has to be nice.” You teased and she nearly rolled her eyes, biting back a laugh.

“I’m just so sick of not sleeping in my bed right now and honestly,” her voice softened not wanting to be overheard, “lugging toys around the city has become a major pain in my ass. I almost grabbed the wrong go back for work this week and I don’t even want to think about what the ramifications of that would be.”

You let out a laugh, a smile taking over your cheeks as you shook your head at her before leaning in to peck her cheek, “I’m totally fine with that.”

Emily let out a breath she wasn’t aware she had been holding, looking up to you with an almost shy smile, “thanks. Did you want to leave your car here or follow me?”

“I actually took an Uber.”

“Perfect.” Squeezing at your hand softly she redirected the two of you away from the pedestrian entrance to the Waldorf, heading in the direction of the valet instead.

*

Emily unlocked the door to her apartment, guiding you into the entry way and telling you to make yourself comfortable while she locked the door behind herself. The small entry hall lead into a nice kitchen, island facing the open living and dining room combo complete with gorgeous hard wood flooring and stunning floor to ceiling windows.

You stepped out of your shoes, leaving them on the mat at the end of the short hallway, moving through the space as you admired it. There were a handful of case files on the dining table, Emily’s glasses sitting beside them, a blanket strewn over the back of the couch and multiple mugs scattered around the coffee table. Your hand absentmindedly trailed over the back of one of the living room chairs as the view out the windows truly caught your attention. It looked like there was a wraparound balcony, the perfect place to admire the skyline over the river and you could only imagine how stunning the sunsets must be.

Behind you, Emily had tucked the leftovers in the fridge, pulling down a couple of wine glasses after selecting a bottle from the rack. She was about to ask if you were okay with red or if you wanted something else when she glanced over her shoulder, eyes catching you peering out the windows. Something about the way the moonlight cast over your skin, catching the shiny decals in your dress made her completely forget the wine as she remembered her original intentions for tonight. The bottle left abandoned on the counter, she slipped her blazer off, draping it over the back of a chair, fully revealing the bodice as she padded through the room, approaching your back. A hand gently landed on your waist as the other brushed your hair off the back of your neck before Emily’s lips hit the tender skin.

“You like the view?” She murmured, smiling at the way your head easily lolled to the side to give her more access.

“It’s gorgeous.”

Her lips met your skin again, leaving a trail of kisses up it until she nipped at your earlobe, her hands squeezing around your waist. You relaxed into her, a small puff of breath leaving your lips when her teeth sunk into your neck.

“You know, for someone who wanted to skip the hotel, you certainly are eager to get to the bedroom…”

She chuckled against your skin, leaving kisses across the column of your neck and back of your shoulders in between her words when she spoke again.

“That was the plan…show off the place… get you comfortable… have a glass of wine or two… relax…” her teeth pulled at your earlobe again, “but now?” She nudged her nose into your cheek, turning your face back to the windows and with the low light from over the stove there was a faint reflection of both of you in the glass. “Seeing you in front of these windows… I kind of want to fuck you up against them. Let the whole city see how gorgeous you are when you come.”

You let out a quiet moan as her lips pressed into the crook of your neck, her fingers slipping under the straps of your dress, letting them fall over your shoulders. She grabbed your waist again, pulling you tightly flush to her and ground her hips into your ass. Your breath caught in your throat, a surprised gasp escaping your lips as your eyes flew open again, catching her gaze in the window.

“Have you been strapped this whole time?”

She kissed the back of your shoulder, lips twitching up into a grin, “I like to be prepared.” Emily’s finger curled under your chin, turning your face so she could press a kiss to your lips before guiding you to turn around fully to face her. Her hands found the hem of your dress, toying with it, “feel like we should get rid of this.” In one swift movement it was off over your head, dropped to the ground completely forgotten, leaving you in just a pair of barely there panties. “Now… how about you get on your knees for me, hmm?”

Emily reached behind her, grabbing a cushion from the couch to drop at her feet as you did as you were told, bracing your knees on the pillow as you gazed back up to her. Her fingers trailed down your face, cupping your cheek softly as her thumb traced the outline of your lips and you couldn’t help but part them. Her thumb easily slid into your mouth and you were quick to wrap your lips around it, sucking it deeper into your mouth.

“Good girl.” She praised, pulling it out, watching the way your eager eyes followed her hands to her belt, “I want you to touch yourself, get that pussy nice and wet for me while you suck my cock, alright?”

“Yes.” You nodded, bracing up on your knees while she undid her pants, opening them far enough to pull out the toy, stroking it a few times before guiding the tip of it toward your mouth.

Your lips wrapped around the head of her cock, slowly sinking down onto it until it had completely disappeared into your mouth. Your tongue swiveled around it, coating it with your saliva as you slowly pulled off of it, letting it pop out of your mouth and you glanced upwards to catch Emily’s eye. Tongue stuck out you licked her from base to tip, your hand wrapping around it, stroking it to smear the spit around, making sure it was covered in wetness. Your other hand came to rest on her thigh, creeping upwards and she tsk’d at you, her hand wrapping around your wrist.

“What did I say, princess?”

Your hand retreated back to your own body, sinking down it and slipping into your underwear, the tip of Emily’s cock resting on your stuck out tongue as you did so. When your fingers hit your clit you slowly began rubbing at it, a small moan leaving your lips as you eyes fluttered shut.

“That’s it.” She cooed, “that’s my good girl.”

Her hand wrapped around the base of the toy, pushing it deeper into your mouth while your lips wrapped around it again. Your body began rocking in tandem to the pace of her hips, grinding down onto your hand as you continued to sink her cock into the back of your throat. She could hear your whimpers and whines getting louder and more frequent, muffled by the toy in your mouth as you continued to play with your clit. Driving her cock deep into your mouth, she let out a soft groan as the base of the toy pressed against her, your breath hot on her skin.

“You take me so well.” She praised, her hand cupping the side of your face, thumb stroking at your cheek as you let her cock drop from your mouth with a gasp. Your body shuddered, thighs squeezing together as you let out a whimper and she chuckled. “I know princess, it’s hard to multitask, isn’t it?”

“Fuck…” you muttered, leaning toward her again but her finger tapped your chin, signalling to shut your mouth.

“How wet is that little pussy of yours? Let me see.”

You slid your fingertips through your folds, gathering up your juices before pulling your hand out of your panties and lifting it up. Emily’s hand wrapped around your wrist, examining the way your fingers glistened in the moonlight before tugging your arm gently and you nearly scrambled to your feet. Your eyes widened when her lips wrapped around your fingers, a moan coming from her throat as her eyes shut for a moment.

“Always so sweet.”

“Thank you.” You murmured, your chest practically heaving in anticipation, watching as a dark gleam took over Emily’s eyes.

“Turn around,” she twirled her fingers and you did as she asked, “brace yourself on the glass.”

Taking a couple of steps forward your hands met the cool glass, a shiver running through your body as you looked out over the city. Emily’s fingers tugged your thong down your legs and as you kicked it off you couldn’t help but shiver again, feeling entirely exposed. You knew no one could see you at this height, but the thrill of being completely bare pressed up against the glass while Emily was still dressed sent a thrill through you, your cunt pulsing already.

Behind you, Emily crouched down, her hands sliding up the back of your thighs, spreading your legs, thumbs sliding up your pussy, smearing your juices. She let out an appreciative hum before leaning in, tongue lapping through you and you gasped. Her mouth wrapped around you, sucking your juices, getting a better taste of you before standing upright again, an arm wrapping around your waist.

“You’re so wet you’re practically dripping down your thighs.” Her lips met the crook of your neck again, “you must really want to be stuffed with my cock, hm?”

“Oh god, please.”

“Well then I guess it’s a good thing you’re so good to me princess.” Her hand wrapped around her cock, spanking it against your cunt and you shivered in her arms.

“Please Emily…” you whined, “please fuck me.”

The head of her cock nudged at your pussy, a shuddering breath escaping from your throat as she teased you for only a second before plunging it into your cunt. She sunk in halfway before pulling out and sinking back in the rest of the way until her hips met your ass. One of her hands stayed wrapped around your waist, holding you steady while the other braced herself on your hip.

“You like that?”

“Mmhmm.” You nodded furiously as she picked up the pace, cock thrusting deeper into you with each push of her hips, “god.” Your hands scrunched against the glass, aching for something to grab onto, “so fucking deep.”

Emily gave you a particularly sharp thrust, the air in your lungs breaking free in a sudden gasp that morphed into a moan as she hit even deeper inside your pussy. Your body pressing up against the glass, a cold sensation taking over your chest, nipples rubbing the window as heat coiled within you, wafting off Emily’s body behind you. Your pussy was squeezing around her, you could feel and hear your wetness smearing around the toy, noises matching your moans as she fucked you. With each thrust your body rubbed against the glass, nipples hard swollen at the friction as your body ached for more.

“That’s my pretty girl.” Emily husked, her breath hot on your neck as her free hand slid up your back, tangling into your hair and she pulled.

You let out a gasp, nearly whining at the way her fingers tugged at your roots, pulling your head back so she could hear the way your panting was getting louder. Your back arched heavily, hips pushing back towards Emily with each powerful thrust of her hips, ass bouncing when she sank fully into you.

“F-fuuuck!” You cried out, pleasure shooting through your body, “m’close!”

“So fucking hot like this princess.” She groaned, the hand she had wrapped around your waist sunk south, playing with your throbbing clit and you whimpered, your hips faltering as she fucked into you faster. “Come for me, want you to squirt all over my cock.”

It was too hard to get anymore words out, strangled moans and whimpers were all that would leave your throat, your lips wide and eyes scrunched shut. Each time Emily’s cock dragged through you it hit your g-spot and when she pressed your clit harder, your body jumped, a loud cry leaving your lips as your orgasm burst through you. You could feel your pussy clenching down hard around the toy, a gush of juices bursting around it, dribbling down your thighs.

“That’s it baby…” Emily cooed, her hands running up and down your sides as her hips slowed, fucking you through your orgasm, “so fucking good for me.”

Your forehead gently dropped to the window, a small fog forming on the glass from your panting as you began to catch your breath, body still quaking with aftershocks. Emily slipped out of you and you could hear droplets of your juices hitting the floor, dripping from your cunt and her cock. A gentle kiss was placed between your shoulder blades, hands squeezing at your waist making sure you were okay before the warmth of her body briefly disappeared from behind you.

A dishtowel hit the floor and an arm wrapped around your waist, tugging you to collapse down on the couch. Somewhere in there a shirt was pulled over your head, a blanket pulled up around the two of you as Emily wrapped around your back. You could feel her now bare legs on yours, the lace of her bodice softly scratching at your skin.

Your eyes fluttered open, a soft sigh leaving your lips as you took in the skyscape outside the windows, glittering stars in the horizon. Emily’s arm loosely hung around your waist and your hand found hers, giving it a soft squeeze before tickling up and down her arm, tracing patterns on her soft skin. In return she left a kiss on the back of your shoulder. You weren’t sure just how long you stayed like that, watching the night sky before Emily finally spoke.

“Did you want to stay? Or should I call a car?”

You let out a happy sigh, rolling over to face her, “I’m pretty sure there’s dessert in those take out bags and I remember hearing something about a bottle of Bordeaux.”

She chuckled softly, happy to extend the night even further, “you’re not wrong on either of those accounts.”

__________________

@mickey-gomez @momlifebehard @daddy-heather-dunbar @maybe-a-humanbean @rustyzebra @leftoverenvy @kades95 @dextur @supercriminalbean @emilyprentisssluvr @lex13cm @zizzlekwum @emobabeyy @riveramorylunar @scorpsik @onmykneesformarvel @inlovewithemilyprentiss @regalmilfs4me @ara-a-bird @inlovewithmiddleagewomen @kmc1989 @irishavengersassemble @hopedoesntknow @venromanova @waitaminuteashh @noahrex @imlike-so-gaydude @wittygutsy @cx-emerald-cx @momily @nilaues @borinxnovak @Soverign @v3nusxsky @mccdreamys-writes @l4yne @obsessedwjill @supercorpstan97 @asolitaryrose3 @lisqueen @mrs-prentiss @whitewinewithice @d33pd3sire-blog @daffodil-heart @maximoffcarter @i-lovefandom @chimnlex @moonlightjxuregui @chestnutninny @gamma-rae-bursts @just-moondust @idkifimasub @gaydragonwitch @dowsedwithbleach @divergentalwaysandforever-blog

[frownyalfred]

“Great,” Bruce said, watching as Kent did a slow circle around him, nostrils flaring, “I’m bringing the party to you.”

“I’m far too old for that kind of party, sir.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

IM RE-READING A CORAL ROOM AND JUST. UGHHHHH YOU WRITE ALFRED AND BRUCE SO WELL.

First of all, Bruce has no business being as funny in his own head as he is. He's fucking hilarious. Every time he's about to die he just thinks "oh this bodes well" and Idk id I make it out to be funnier in my own head but shit I keep giggling like a school girl.

Also, his banter with Alfred??? Like that dialogue I added in this ask??? Those jokes just after they had a moment of pure love as Bruce tries to get him off the comms bc he doesn't want him to hear him die and Alfred refusing??? And immediately after when things take a turn, Alfred being like "nvm you're on your own"

AJDKAJDKDJD I CANT GET ENOUGH OUT OF THIS SERIES

Thank you so much! I loved writing Bruce in that first fic, he was so miserable but also so funny (in a dark, grim way). And Alfred was the same, trying to be supportive and beta-like without spooking his charge. They really are a Pack, even though they tried to deny that for like four decades. Agh they make me crazy.

[houseofhyde]

iv. another man's pain

pairing. aemond targaryen x fem!reader synopsis. a visit to dorne goes awry as an unexpected visitor arrives, tensions between in-laws come to ahead at last. chapter warnings. no use of y/n, brother-in-law!aemond, stark!reader, infidelity, purity culture, lady stark is having a brat summer ( sunbathing and arguing with her situationship ), male infertility, canon-accurate misogyny, mentions of pregnancy + marital s/a + war crimes + death, a little angst, a little fluff, a little smut ( unprotected piv, breast/nipple play, oral- f receiving, aemond is the verbal consent king ) please kindly notify me of any warning i may have missed. word count. 19.4k (for my pwp girlies: they fuck at the end, i swear 😭) hyde’s input. this chapter is extremely yap-centric, i'm so sorry. i could not get these bitches to shut the fuck up. please ignore any typos, i've driven myself mad re-reading this over and over :( another man's series. feast. comfort. pleasure. pain. legacy. jealousy. ( coming october) read on ao3. listen to the playlist.

The heat in Dorne is sticky.

Stifling, overwhelming, heavy. Upon inhale, it slides through the nose, yet, in exhale, it weighs heavy on the chest. It leaves one panting like a dog, with sweat that soaks through linen, and a longing for the forgiving breeze that sweeps its way through the Red Keep. Already, you await the day the carriage arrives to shuttle you off on your journey back to the capital, if only to move an inch without leaving a river of your own perspiration behind.

Six days and five nights into your moon-long stay in the southern lands of sand and your trunk remains fairly untouched, filled to the brim with clothes too heavy to face the heat. Helaena promises it’ll pass, that soon you will acclimatise and find yourself basking in the kiss of sunlight upon your skin. “Until then,” she’d assured you, a gentle squeeze at your hand across the vanity’s table. “You’re more than welcome to make use of my old dresses. With my body in recovery and two children in need of my care, I no longer make up the same shape I once did.”

At first, the proposal was to host you in Sunspear. A written invitation, extended by none other than Prince Qoren himself, hand delivered to you by one of the King’s squires as you shared a morning under the shade of the godswoods alongside the Dowager Queen. The pair of you had read over it in tandem, a silence overtaking, before you promptly announced your need for rest, scrambling the letter as close as possible to your chest as you raced off to the safety of your quarters. By evening, your husband had been informed, his own mother encouraging him to accept the invitation.

“It will serve the girl well,” she’d insisted, clutching at the arms of her chair within the hall of the small council, meeting long over and naught but the mother and son occupying the tension filled room. “There’s been little joy for her here as of late. The burdens of politics have begun to take toll on her, for certain. It will serve your wife well to take a much needed break.”

“The only burden politics brings her is the difficult decision of which gown to wear to dinner with Lord Up-Himself and his Lady wife of House Prissy-Cunt. Meanwhile, it is I, her husband, who bears the true difficulties of the crown!” Woe is he, the king who never wanted to be, trapped eternally in a life of decadence and obedience, a war raised in his name, and half a bloodline destroyed in his wake. Otto Hightower had warned his daughter, before the dragons had truly begun to dance, of how Aegon’s self-inflicted victimhood would one day be his downfall. With every passing day, the King’s mother sees this destruction growing closer. “My wife is of no use to me building sandcastles down South. She needs to make me an heir, not run off to take care of my sister’s.”

“A visit to Dorne may prove to be more fruitful than you believe, Aegon.”

And, so, it was settled. Three moons after the birth of Prince Qoren and Helaena’s second child — a moon-eyed boy, with his father’s raven locks and his mother’s smile, awarded the name of Jaehaerys — you would depart the city gates, with a small travelling band of knights upon saddles and a carriage large enough to sleep two, yourself and your dearest lady-in-waiting.

Only days before your arrival, however, tragedy struck. An assassin of the Free Cities, infiltrated within the walls of the Martell’s seat of power, made an attempt on Princess Helaena’s life. A half-failure, the assassin claimed a life but mistook a sleeping maid for the dragon girl. The premises were vacated, with Prince Qoren demanding his family find shelter someplace safe, someplace private. 

Three leagues to the west, buried away from curious eyes and beached by the waves of the Summer Sea, the Water Gardens sit. With a decadent, lavish palace leading out into a garden of rare beauty where palm trees stand taller than dragons, and water lilies float upon crystal-clear ponds, and rose buds burst into perfect bloom. Raised in honour of his darling wife, it is a vision of Prince Qoren’s that stands not yet completed, the beginning structures of what will one day be a private sanctuary to the dornish royals, a home to grow their own in, far away from the intruding eyes of court and capital.

Welcomed with open arms — that very soon wrapped around you in a tight squeeze — thus began your peaceful getaway.

Where days in the Keep are spent hiding in shadows, and exchanging pleasantries filled with discomfort, and sitting rigidly at a family dinner table, your days in the Water Gardens are full of glee. The laughter of the many Martell children, running rampant down hallways and through bushes, dirtying their knees with the green of grass and the rough of sand. Afternoons splayed out on beds, hand-fanned with the fallen leaves of palm trees, a soothing battle against the burning heat. A table foreign to silence, with Prince Qoren’s ever present queries into your day, and Helaena’s ecstatic chatter over the recent stitching patterns you’ve taught her, and the many other welcoming faces of the Martell bloodline, each smile warmer than the last.

By far, however, the thing you enjoy most is this: watching over your niece.

Day by day, at an hour when the newborn babe lays his head down to sleep, be it morning, or noon, or evening, you have taken it upon yourself to relieve poor Helaena of the tougher parts of motherhood, gifting her with the blessing of uninterrupted rest as you take her firstborn by the hand and let her guide you around the dornish grounds.

More often than not, she brings you here, to the shallow waters of a pond, with a sweet aroma of surrounding blood-orange trees and the calming sounds of water flowing out a central fountain enough to ease even the most troubled of minds.

Right now, your young niece stands soaked to the bone, dancing around as you sit close by, feet dipped within the very same cooling waters with the occasional splash coming your way from the toddler. In the few days you have been here, she seems to have grown so quickly, doubling in size before your very eyes, and finding a more steady manner in which to stand upon her feet, and learning to babble more syllables, each sounding less like nonsense than the last.

“Aliandra,” at the call of her name, those violet eyes are upon you. They carry the signature twinkle of a mind yet unmarred by life shining bright in your direction. “What is this called?”

You extend your hand towards her, a freshly peeled chunk of orange plucked between two fingers, and await the acceptance from her smaller hands.

“Fruit!” You believe is what she means to say, though her r is hardly pronounced and you’re certain she’s added an extra vowel at the end.

Still, you give her the win, departing with the sweet slice and delighting at the mess made as she bites into it, a spray of juice splashing down her tiny palms. It is incentive enough to move closer, wading through the shallow waters and leaving the lower fabric of your dress to soak itself as it trails behind you. At the height of the young princess, you sink down onto your knees, a much needed refreshment as the water settles over your waist.

“Here, sweet girl,” with a voice as gentle as your touch, you guide her to dip her juice stained hands under the water, the whole of your thumb wiping at the inside of her palm. “We ladies mustn’t dirty our hands.”

In lieu of a reply, the small child merely giggles and surrenders herself fully into your hold, her tiny limbs relaxing so suddenly, you have no choice but to let her rest within your lap, a head of white blonde hair finding respite upon your shoulder.

There is a strange emotion that only the presence of your niece seems to conjure. One of desperation, one of tenderness, one of an all-consuming need to hold her as close as possible and shelter her from all harm that may befall her in the cruelness of this life.

As a child, you’d never truly known the experience of being the elder sibling, the one looked at to lead, and guard, and tend to any other youngling alongside your parents. That job had always been Cregan’s and, for better or for worse, he had made a point of truly stepping into this protective role when it came to you, watching over you from cradle, to courtyard, to the carriage that dragged you down to your fated marriage.

It is half a wonder if this feeling she gives you is owed to the Mother and her instincts at last taking root within your heart, a seed watered slowly into a sapling that promises to grow and spread its branches from limb to limb. An emotional catch-up to the rest of your body, cursed by the moon’s blood for almost a decade, only now do you feel fit to step into the role of care-giver, nurturer, mother.

As if reading your thoughts, Aliandra nuzzles deeper into you, a tiny fist clasping a mighty hold of the yellow silks you wear.

“Are you tired, little darling?” Though she shakes her head in denial, you hear and feel the way she yawns against you, no doubt tired out by the blaze of the sun’s warmth.

You choose to stay like this a little longer, swaying slowly back and forth as you clutch your niece against you, small ripples in the water left in the wake of your movement. They seem to grow larger with each sway, the tremor upon the liquid’s surface lasting longer, the ripples rising higher and dipping lower.

A squawk of birds steals your attention in time to catch how the small flock fly away from a palm tree. You can’t help yourself from pointing at the tree, nor the whispered inquisition you throw at the girl: “Ali, what is that called?”

You watch her head raise off your shoulder, her whole body shifting to look at the tree, her head comically tilting straight up at the sky. The wind picks up, the palm leaves beginning to shake back and forth as the girl lets out an excited squeal. “Zaldrīzes !”

A cloud seems to swallow the sun whole, a cast of darkness coming across the gardens and greying the world around you. In your arms, the child’s excited chant continues, both hands pointing at the sky as a tiny voice calls out syllables you can’t make meaning of, over and over.

“Zaldrīzes ! Zaldrīzes ! Zaldrīzes !”

Craning your neck back, you point your eyes up to the sky and find a mass of flesh.

Aged, large, green.

Claws, tail, wings.

A dragon.

The dragon.

Vhagar.

As a child, you begged your mother to visit the beach.

The request came no more than a day after Cregan had returned from a voyage to the Iron Islands, the first of many politically motivated visits he’d make with your father before his passing. You had been young at the time, no larger than a child of seven years, and so full of wide-eyed belief and childlike wonder that it wasn’t difficult for your older brother to enchant you with stories of sand made of specs of gold, and crystal blue waters warm enough to melt away centuries of snow, and a horizon that knows no limit, stretching onward into an eternity of undiscovered lands, where not even the fiercest of dragons dared venture towards. You’d decided, then and there, that you would be the one to go discover such lands, man your own ship and set off along the perfect waters.

This dream would die, of course, many moons later, as you boarded your first ship and a great fear of it took grip of you.

Your mother hadn’t the heart to tell you the truth of the matter. Of how the beach Cregan had visited had been naught but a warsight, sand made of the dust of bones ground down by time, and water so violent it sweeps away anyone fool enough to dip their feet in, and the sea-creatures dwelling at the bottom of it, with more tentacles than eyes, and more teeth to ever dare count. She instead nodded, brushed the hair out of your eyes and promised you, one day, she would take you to the beach.

It isn’t quite what you expect it to be.

Toes buried in the sand, eyes watching as the tide rolls in only to roll back out. Unforgiving heat burning away at your corneas, the subtle blush of salt in the air. The constant rise and fall of waves collapsing into one another, the overwhelming loneliness that settles in as you realise it is only you here, no sight of your mother, her bones now long gone and buried beneath the walls of Winterfell alongside your father.

The dream of a child is wasted on the pitiful adult.

“Typically, people choose to bathe in the sea, not stare at it from the shore,” a voice calls on you from behind.

Across the beach, the prince strides, kicking up a storm of sand in his wake. A whole four days have come and gone since his arrival upon dragon’s back and, still, he has made no accommodations to his attire, the ever-present shades of Targaryen black and Hightower green sitting snug along his limbs. Without a doubt, the clothing of his house is out of place in this garden of blooming colour, yet the thought of him wearing anything but his leathers would be wrong. It wouldn’t be Aemond.

“I find I much prefer the view from here,” you remark, letting your eyes wander as far down as the length of his torso before you’re forcing them to look onward, back to the constant flow of the water. Something magnetic seems to tug at your soul, willing your feet to shuffle two steps closer to his incoming figure, drawn to close the space between. You dig your heels in the sand and will no further movement from yourself. “This is the first time I’ve stood upon a beach like this. It is… not what I’d expected. I feel no siren’s call towards the sea, no desire to soak myself within its merciless waters, no matter how tranquil and forgiving it may seem.”

The sun hovers low on the horizon, a hair’s breadth away from sinking beneath the line that separates sky from sea and taking with it what remains of the day, plundering the world into the darkness of night. There is a part of you that knows you should find your way back out of the alcove, through the rocky tunnel that feeds straight from the Martell’s summer home out onto the sandy beach, the call for supper soon encroaching on you and demanding your presence. 

But if to know is to care, then perhaps you are not so aware of what mannerly duties are expected of you, for you harbour no desire to attempt any movement that even dares remove you from the one-eyed prince’s presence. For too long, you’ve waited to be in it. 

“Surely you cannot truly claim to prefer standing here, if you do not yet know what it means to let the sea wash over you,” it’s hard to resist temptation, your eyes cast upon him once more. The same well-kept hair, the same brown patch covering his tarnished eye, the same ever-present pout upon his perfectly bowed lips — his time at Dragonstone has changed little of him. You wonder if he notices the changes in you. The lonely spark in your eyes, the threat of an incoming frown line, the sorrow that has rained down over your once positive mind, dampening you into nothing but a mirror of duty, set to obey the status quo laid out by the queens who came before you. “Declaring favour without so much as attempting another option, is that not so similar to settling?”

“You fail to consider that perhaps I am afraid to take the plunge,” an answer you fire with far too much haste, a chord struck within you, a conspiratorial mind that digs for deeper meaning than what the prince offers at base level. “Treading into sea from land is no safer than flinging one’s self off the sails of any ship. I am the queen, after all. I cannot be so reckless as to risk getting caught within waves and ripped beneath the surface by unforeseen currents. I have no desires to meet the Drowned God. Not all of us may rely on the luxury of deserting upon a dragon's back at the first spark of danger.”

Silence settles in between you like fog.

There is a call to anger that brews deep within you, one that has endured far too many moons of being trampled down under the weight of your own exhaustion, freed alas by the crashing of waves and the heat of the sun. 

In the days following the prince’s departure from court, you’d grieved. First had come the sadness, nights spent weeping into the smell of your own sheets, arms curled around your own self as you bathed away whatever lingering touch of his remained on you. Tears gave way to desperation. You picked up a quill, put ink to paper, wrote out the words he’d not given you the time to say, only to falter when the time came to send it off to Dragonstone and, instead, choose to burn it in the flames of your chambers’ hearth.

For a moment, watching how the fire ate up your fragile pleadings for answers from the prince, you’d felt that first flicker of anger. A warm, inviting temptress, blooming in the guts of your body, whispering riddles in your ear of how the prince had no right to play you for a fool, to plunder you both down into the pits of seduction, only to disappear in the night, leaving you stranded with no way back.

As quickly as the feeling arose, you shut it out, choosing instead the easier, more acceptable approach: you denied his very existence. When his name was mentioned at the dinner table, you ducked your head down, kept your focus on stabbing at the next piece of food with your fork. When dragons flew above the skies, weaving through the towers of the Keep, you refused to glance up. With time, it all grew easier, new duties thrust upon you as you and Aegon embarked on your first royal progress throughout the Westerlands, and less hours spent trapped within the walls of the very home in which he’d fled from you. It became as though the Prince had never even existed, much less the complications that came along with him.

Yet now, standing face to face once more, that temptress has returned, an iron fist of anger clasped around your heart.

The prince dares to call your name, gently, as though he’s yet to feel the burn of your glare piercing through his skull.

“Eight moons since you left court and not once have you returned,” your tone has more bite than even you are used to. Words that possess fangs, sinking deep into the prince and drawing blood with one foul swoop. He, of course, doesn’t show this, face as stoic as it's ever been. That singular eye, however, can’t hide the truth, widening slightly and wavering in its powerful stare as your ire rips a wound right through him. “When your dragon flew overhead, I thought this was it, at last you were here to see me. That perhaps you had caught wind of my travels and were no longer capable of denying yourself the need to come to me. Yet four times the sun has risen and you have made no effort to seek me out, you barely glance my way as we break bread at the same table, and you cut through corners to avoid crossing paths with me throughout the palace walls. Now you call upon me, after all this time, with the intention of… What? Sharing false small talk? What a fool you must take me for.”

“My departure was nothing personal, you should not take such offence,” whether he intended it or not, his answer almost seems to goad you, tossing more oil into an already raging fire. The condescension, the thoughtlessness, the implications of his words, dismissing the rightful irritation his actions have brought upon you and denouncing them as naught more than the silly fancies of a self-obsessed mind. It reminds you of Aegon, demeaning you without sparing it so much as a second thought. “I had no other choice but to leave.”

It hits you like a bucket of ice water, tossed upon the raging anger, not enough to scare it away yet enough to tamper it down, have it willing to at least listen to what possible reasons the prince may have had, and condemn him from there onwards. So, you enquire, “why?”

“What grows— Grew between us was dangerous. Deadly. It was not safe within the Keep, knowing our paths would keep crossing and feelings would complica-”

“Then you shut them out!” A step you take forward, the stomp of your foot kicking sand upon your ankles. You wish to invade his space, get him uncomfortable with the tangible closeness of your bodies, united upon common ground and beneath turbulent skies, yet with little remains of the interest you once possessed for the one-eyed prince, diluted by his abandonment in court. “Whatever those feelings are, you push them down until they no longer make noise within you, and you try to feel something else, for someone else, and you move along.” Much to your chagrin, the prince is turning his back on you, literally this time, twisting on both feet and seemingly attempting to flee the field of fire. You can not grace him with such sanctuary, hand darting out and catching a steady grasp on his forearm. “You do not simply take off at dawn’s first light!”

“Do you not think I have tried?” Aemond turns too quickly for you to process, stumbling backwards only to remain caught by his own hands, blunt nails pinching into the skin of your wrists as he presses them tight against his chest, his face so close to your own, you could commence counting his every eyelash. The sound of his voice, a musical combination of exasperation and desperation, holds priority over your attention. “For moons I would keep my distance, keep myself at bay. Only to lay it all to waste, time and time again, at the first sign of you needing me. No one has ever-” The prince pulls in a deep breath, a subtle shake of his head as he lets it free. His eye slips shut, only to reopen and stare upon you once more with a false promise of calm. “I have tried to lay this to rest, do not rob me of this fact. But, you see, it is hard to make a scar out of a wound you keep reopening.”

“You speak as though it were not you who made the first cut!” Try as he might, his peaceful tone of voice can not sway you to relax, your frustration doubling as the words burst out of you, hand fighting its way out of his hold and jabbing a finger at his solid chest. “Or was it not you who welcomed himself into my bed? Was it not you who offered to be my tutor? Was it not you who held me close, only to keep your distance and act as though nothing happened for weeks to come afterwards? But at least then you were still present in court. I mean, you could not even grace me with goodbye. Would it truly be so bad, Aemond, to feel something? So bad that you had to cross sea and mountain just to escape it?”

“When that something is for my brother’s wife, yes.”

“Oh, as though he cares!”

“He does! He would! What is it that you do not understand, Lady Stark?” It is fortunate no others are present to witness the way you and the prince stand so close, nose to nose, chests heaving every breath as though they may be your last, voices raising louder with each exclaim you throw each other's way. “Aegon would have my head on a spike if he knew the thoughts of you it conjures.”

“That is not true. I would not allow him,” both of you know it is a meaningless mutter. You have no control over Aegon, you never have. That doesn’t stop you from denying truths, an attempt at filling both your minds with fallacies of a future. “We could find a way. We have to at least try rid ourselves of the troubles he causes-”

“What would you have me do, woman? Kill my own brother?”

“You are hardly the one to play outrage at the thought of killing your own kin,” you don’t mean to say it. You know this because, the moment you do, your stomach drops and there’s the fear that you may in fact spill your guts up any second now. A mind both stubborn and still ruled by an anger conceived in sadness, you give yourself no choice but to push onward with your cruelty, no chance to apologise or take it all back, and do the one thing you’ve wanted to do since the prince first strolled into the halls of the Martell home: throw yourself at his feet and beg he never leave again. “What is it the smallfolk call you? Ah, yes, Prince Aemond the Kinslayer.”

For a moment, time ceases to be and the world no longer moves.

The waves do not crash, the birds do not sing, the air does not reach your lungs. A background that fades to grey, until all that is in focus is Aemond and the disbelief you strike within him. It’s a gentle progression, like ink staining paper, the way his teeth grind under a clenched jaw, and the way his nose flares almost defensively as though he’s trying to make himself appear as big as possible, and the way his eye moves through shock to anger to nothing. Two steps back, a pause, followed by another step back the moment your feet dare move an inch closer. A deep breath followed by a huff of anger, before at last he speaks again and the world falls back into view, full focus, full motion.

“My sister sent me to fetch you,” over the horizon, the sun is nearly gone and, with it, it’s warmth. You feel a chill run down your spine, a first since you arrived in Dorne. “She awaits you in the nursery.”

The prince has already turned and began to stride back from whence he came before you can even put thought to word, feet frozen in the sand as the rift between you opens wider.

Aemond disappears.

An act he is growing familiar with, a complete removal in the middle of the night, flying off on his war beast. And while you do your best to avoid glancing at the empty seats around the breakfast table, and feign disinterest at the mention of his name as it is spoken, you come to learn it is not Dragonstone he has fled towards, and it is not a journey he made alone.

In the fallout of the attempt on Helaena’s life, Sunspear had remained desolate. Men and women armed with metal and spears the only souls to move within the home, with rat catchers and maids welcomed on every third day of the week to maintain the home's upkeep. Even those who inhabit the city had retreated to the mountains, homes abandoned in fears and whispers of another Dornish war on the horizon, a new enemy yet to be unmasked.

It is Qoren Martell that decides enough is enough. Mounted upon his trusted steed, backed by a flock of his most trusted advisors and fiercest swordsmen, and with the protection of a dragonlord patrolling from the skies, he returned at last to the seat of his house. A letter reached Helaena’s hands, a reassurance of her husband and her brother’s safe arrival, followed by a promise to ensure the safety of both her and her children, a husband's devotion to bringing punishment to whomever orchestrated such a cowardly attack.

You receive your own letter, too. Penned by Aegon, the parchment informs you of his own travels, accompanied by his mother, to the riverlands. A show of good faith, he calls it, an attempt to mend what fragile loyalty remains after Aemond’s fire-filled rampage. You can’t imagine it is so easily fixed, with their lands scorched beyond use and half the riverlords struck down dead amidst their support towards Rhaenyra’s claim. Before you can dwell too long on the ghosts of recent history, Aegon closes off his writings with a request. Perhaps, it is a demand.

I believe we are overdue a talk, wife. Upon your return from Dorne, I do hope that you will find time to at last discuss the shadow that looms over our union. In the meantime, enjoy what remains of your stay with my sister, I am sure your company during this frightening time is much appreciated. I hear my brother has at last flown from his nest on Dragonstone. Perhaps he has more interest than I give him credit for in keeping this family safe.

You have yet to respond.

Trust this: it is not from a lack of trying. You have sat before parchment, quill clasped in hand, more times you can recall, and attempted to construct an appropriate reply. The first carried a stench of guilt, an involuntary admittance to something the king has yet to even accuse you of. The second, third, and fourth edition had been a stream of consciousness, in which nothing made sense and the letters all crashed into one another, written with shaky hands. The truth of the matter is that you’re not entirely sure what is expected of you, what kind of reply is desired.

On one hand, you could assume his words are a warning. A scarlet letter, branding itself upon your skin. He may know of Aemond’s presence and, with it, the possible scenarios that may play out between you two, meaning he knows of what has already transpired between his wife and brother. On the other hand, Aegon’s request could be about something as simple as the need to both agree on a redesign of tapestries within the throne room. Meaning it could be nothing of importance, nor danger, nor threat.

It does not make your hand sit any steadier as you make yet another attempt at conjuring your response.

“The Triarchy?” Helaena’s voice will never fail to soothe an unnamed ailment within you, so soft and welcoming you hardly believe she was raised in the same home as someone as brash as your husband.

“Hmm,” or as him. He returned this morning, at an hour one would hardly call appropriate, the screech of a dragon flying overhead your wake-up call, half falling out of your bed in shock. “It seems they’ve come to claim more than they were offered. Apparently the events at the Gullet were more bloody than they were promised, and now the Stepstones are not a good enough reward to compensate for the nameless men they lost. One must wonder how they did not expect the presence of dragons in a feud between dragonlords.”

The Targaryen siblings sit at the opposite end of the communal balcony from you, a crystal table adorned with golds and bronzes between them and two cups of wine — Helena’s remains untouched, Aemond has reached for his thrice. The view ahead is one of tranquil beauty, where children are playing in the fountains, leaves are rustling in the wind, and a sleeping she-dragon is sighted over the stretch of the Gardens’ walls. You almost wish to tell them to take their chatter of warfare and betrayals elsewhere.

You opt, instead, to continue staring down at the page in front of you, no more than three words cursed out in ink.

My King husband.

“My husband has not returned,” Helaena remarks on what you’d silently noted. Not only his absence, but the entirety of the fleet of Dornishmen who departed by his side, too.

“He remains at the seat of his house, sister. The people of Dorne need to know their so-called prince has not abandoned the city to savages,” in the corner of your eye, you see him, sat with his back perfectly straight and his hair impeccably done, one arm outstretched upon the table in front of him, the other plucking a grape off a vine and delivering it past his pouting lips. The image of him, relaxed and confident, angers you more than it would typically, your wound still unlicked from the incident down at the beach. “In the meantime, I am to fly to the Stepstones and remind them of the dangers of making enemies with a dragon. Should these pirates dare not retreat, then myself and the Lord Martell will begin talking war strategies, deliver an attack so brutal, they’ve neither the will nor the ability to strike back.” Let the history books know that you do not mean to laugh. It simply escapes you, too quickly heard by the siblings before you can even dare hide it. “Am I amusing you, Lady Stark?”

Four eyes, focused solely on you. Six, truly, if you factor in the cupbearer who’s feigning minding her own business, the watering-can she hovers over a bush of nearby roses long ago emptied and free of any liquid. Helaena’s stare is one of curiosity, a million unspoken questions flashing behind them as she bares witness to the tense atmosphere between you and the prince. Aemond’s own gaze is a challenge, a novel of unfinished business, the sour tone with which your last interaction ended still very much present, even if he tries to hide it behind a snide smile.

“Apologies, good-brother, I do not mean offence,” it is tempting to cast your eyes down onto the still blank page before you, will yourself to continue on with your task at hand — giving response to the Targaryen man who you truly owe it to by marriage — but that would mean breaking the intense stare that exists between you and Aemond. That would mean defeat. “Please, continue as you were. Do not let me distract you.”

It seems he too has no desire to forfeit in this war of eyes. There’s a brief squeak that plays as he slides his chair back, the arm that rests upon the table now bent at the elbow and serving as support to his weight as his frame leans closer in your direction. The smile on his lips only grows, rousing a deeper shade of unease in you. “If you’ve something to add, I insist. You are the queen after all, are you not? Who better to comment on the wars that ravage our lands than you, a lady who has never tasted blood.”

It strikes you, hot as fire, strong as iron.

You know in which way he means it, that you’ve never drawn blood from another, never pressed blade into flesh, never drained the life out of a man’s eyes. True intentions don’t stop you from being thrust back into that room, on that night. The sound of rain crashing down on the city, the stench of the two men in your chambers, the taste of your own blood on your tongue. Fighting, screaming, crying. Pleading for your life, running through the halls of the Keep for someplace safe to hide, someplace the rats couldn’t find you.

“Very well, if you insist,” you manage, as you always do, to shove the memory behind, lock it back in the cage of Unwanted Trinkets. May it play out only in your sleeping mind, where no one can witness the weakness it casts over you. Besides, there are more pressing matters at hand currently, such as matching wits with the Crown Prince. “If you cut the head off the serpent, ten more will grow in its place.”

“Sister, your patterns of speech seem to have influenced Aegon’s lady wife,” Helaena meets his words with a gentle smile, one that doesn’t quite match the glazed over look in her eyes. “Speak plainly.”

“Apologies, I believed your skills were at a level to understand such a simple riddle.” A frown bends, momentarily, at the skin of the prince’s forehead, as the cupbearer chokes back a  snort of laughter. You would be lying if you said it doesn’t bring a sick kind of satisfaction, even if it’s immediately followed by a guilty kind of remorse, echoes of your true self, one who would never wish to place the handsome prince within such a public humiliation. “You are rushing into another war, after what will perhaps go down as the bloodiest one our lifetime will ever know. Have you considered that threatening them with the very cause of their ire is only bound to guarantee more backlash? Yes, there is a certain chance that you and Vhaghar will strike fear as you fly above. Maybe you will even burn a few pirates to make a point. But for every one you kill, countless more will take their place. Your viciousness will unite their armies.”

“Then how exactly do you suggest I answer those who would have my family killed? To those who would see our lands ravaged, and our women raped, and our men slain? Should we perhaps host a feast in their honour, open the gates to King’s Landing, lay down our swords and-”

“Give them what they want.”

“My sister’s head?”

“Repentance, apology. Tell them of your failings to protect them at the Gullet, mourn their losses. Mention how fortunate they were that at least the Lys fleet had not been sent into a bloody rampage,” you speak as though you have no reason to waiver in your idea. It is a testament to the years you’ve endured within the Keep, catching the tail-ends of conversations amidst the Council, and attempting to soothe Aegon’s insecurity driven rants of his lacking position among all those who would advise him. It had been your own duty, as his wife, to hold your tongue and speak no part of your mind, serving as nothing but a vessel of agreement to his own warped ideals on how his kingdom should be run. But Aegon is not here and the prince truly had insisted you speak. “Once you’ve made yourself the remorseful council, you must hire an assassin. There are plenty of them within the Free Cities. Whispers sing of tensions brewing amongst Tyrosh and Myr, the wives of their fallen men claim Sharako Lohar led them to their deaths. A Tyroshi killing a Myrish holds more threat to their cause than the great Prince Aemond Targaryen mounted upon his dragon. It will divide them, long enough for you to rinse your hands and let the infighting begin. They’ll be too busy killing one another to unite forces against you.”

Echoes of the children’s laughter fills the air. Glancing through the marble railing, you spy a few raven haired babes — cousins to Helaena’s own — scuttle around in the waters, splashing any who dares step in their line of sight. It carries a certain innocence, one you fear the day they lose.

The creak of leather, a crack of palm striking palm. Aemond sits further back in his chair, smirking as he lets his clapping come to a slow stop. “My my, with such advice, I do wonder why my brother has you here, instead of seated at his council.”

His words do not strike you as earnest, a syrupy kind of distaste laced throughout them. You meet him with a reinforced amicability, doe eyes and sweet mouth. “The King believes it is of more priority that I be here.”

“How curious,” what you wouldn’t give to wipe that smug look off of his face.  “Surely not because of Helaena’s attack. That happened days after you already set off.”

“You speak the truth, good-brother. The ravens upon Dragonstone must truly be put to work for you to be so clued in on my royal plans.” Let it be his turn, you think, to wear the consequence of his own embarrassment upon his face, a rosy tint creeping over the tips of his ears and a hitch in his otherwise calm breathing. “If you must know, the King sent me here to visit my niece and nephew. He believes time with your sister’s children will serve me well. An old folk tale has the maester convinced there is correlation between the presence of children and a woman’s fertility,” you seem to strike a chord within him, for the composure cracks a second time, long enough to let a chortle break through. “Am I amusing you, Prince Aemond?”

It feels good to throw back his own words in his face. So good, in fact, you feel a throb between your legs, a warmth buried only beneath a thin layer of pale cotton. Helaena at last takes a hold of her wine, swallowing down two heavy cups. There is trouble upon her face, one that almost makes you regret the conflict that plays out between her brother and you. As though she senses your eyes on her, she meets your gaze and shakes her head slowly, mouthing a series of words you can’t decipher.

“Apologies, Lady Stark,” Aemond, none the wiser, steals you back over to his side of the table, a fresh layer of amusement painted over his features. “I just find it curious that my brother sends you here, yet there is no sight of him. Forgive me if I am wrong, but don't both the man and woman have to be fertile if they wish to conceive a child?”

For a moment, there is only panic.

Panic that he knows of the private dwellings between yourself and the maester. Panic that he’s read through the lines, with that sharp mind of his, and joined the dots on why your marriage to Aegon is yet to prove fruitful. Panic that he knows of the conspiracies you yourself have yet to even pose against the King, the questions of his fertility disputed only between you, the maester, and your reflection.

You can not let him steal your leverage, not when it is one you’ve clutched so dearly against your chest, all in anticipation for the right moment to present it to Aegon.

The fear must not be too loud, too noticeable, and so you right yourself, reassure yourself that his words are no more the product of a sharp tongue aiming to cut, not of a mind meaning to threaten.

Gathering your paper and your ink, you rise from your seat at your own table and give the Targaryen pair a curt nod, dismissing yourself before you may linger too long on the true intentions of Aemond’s questioning of the King’s fertility.

“The Crown commands my King husband to deal with more pressing matters. It is a burden you should feel lucky you will never bare, Prince Aemond.”

Days pass with little of note.

The monotonous routine you’ve carved within the Water Gardens brings far more joy than the one you live, day in and day out, within the Keep. You do not tire of it so easily, and instead find beauty in the tranquillity, and comfort in the quiet rustling of the household. Qoren and his men remain absent, and the skeleton crew of guards that stay behind keep mostly to themselves, polite yet brief greetings exchanged when paths cross within the walls. Vhagar and her rider also hang nearby, a threat large enough you almost think the need for guards unnecessary. The Martell women keep close quarters, mothers and grandmothers who watch over their blooming children, indulging in their cups and sharing tales from their marital lives the women of the court would no doubt turn their noses up at. They have no shame, and it is frequent they encourage you and Helaena to do the same.

“We are the true keepers of power in our houses. We are the ones who give life through our cunts.”

You have yet to convince yourself this isn’t all part of a dream. A paradise, hidden amidst deserts of sand, where women claim the power of the land, and there is no reason to live if not to graze on freshly picked fruit and sleep the day away under the shades of palm trees. For some reason or another, you find yourself thinking of your good-mother, Alicent, and how deeply she deserves a life like this, free to rest alongside her darling daughter, away from the stresses of the courts, her temperamental sons, and her oligarch father.

The babe in your arms lets out a gentle coo.

At last he’s fallen asleep, no more tears running down his cheeks nor snot bubbling out of his nose. Wiped clean, tear free, he nestles easily into the arms of his aunt, comfort so aplenty his eyes threaten to fall into sleep with every blink he takes, those striking lilac eyes stubborn in their endeavour to look upon you a little longer.

You’d found him crying in his cot as you entered the nursery and had been quick to aid his poor wet-nurse, teats exposed and struggling to get the protesting child to drink. She, too, herself wore fallen tears, a great relief coming over her face as you gently took the babe out of her arms and insisted she go rest. Not a moment too soon, she departed out the room, leaving you alone with your nephew.

Of both of Helaena’s children, you’ve yet to spend much time with him. Moons old, he clings closely to his mother and his wet-nurse. His father too, when he sits present. He is a sweet boy, quick to smile at the simplest of things. The dark of his hair clashes against the blonde of his sister’s, and yet they both make up the perfect mix of their parents. The pair of them are everything your good-sister deserves.

Sinking into a rocking chair, you let the babe snuggle himself against your chest, the picture of innocence held safely in your hands. You peel one away from cradling him, too tempted to ignore your desire to run your pointer finger over the gentle slope of his button nose. The boy’s eyes slip shut a few moments, and you nearly believe you’ve succeeded, until they spring back open and he stretches a stubby arm out to capture your finger in his mighty claps, his entire fist covering no more than one of your knuckles. All the while, he’s smiling up at you, speaking in a language of coos you’ll never understand.

It doesn’t stop you from giggling, enamoured by his very existence as you let your feet begin to rock the seat ever so softly.

“You are a natural,” the prince’s voice is an intrusion that nearly leaves you jumping out of your bones. Dressed in his riding leathers, armed with his swords, he is every piece of the Aemond you have always known. And, yet, somehow he feels distant, different, changed. For a moment, you nearly convince yourself there is a longing in his eye, only to quickly remind yourself of the fraction that stands between you, a rift that remains divided, much as it may pain you. “I imagine you must be desperate for motherhood.”

“I must,” you agree, because that is what is expected of you. Then you recall you are far from the Keep, and it’s master of whispers, and circle of spies, free to speak upon a doubt you’ve never shared. It isn’t hard to convince yourself it holds no meaning that it is him you choose to share it with, he is merely the fool unlucky enough to have presented you with the opportunity to talk. “Must I? In truth, it scares me.”

A weight lifts off your shoulders, the deep breath that follows easier to achieve than ever before. A lady should only ever dream of motherhood, not cower from it. Yet, you find no judgement in the prince, only silence, the kind that implores you to continue speaking your mind.

“This fear, it is not for myself, but for any child I may have. Aegon, he is… a difficult man but I often wonder how much that crown upon his head is to blame. I ask myself, would he have turned out different, were he not groomed to sit upon that cursed throne? I do not want to bring a child into a world where it is no more than a chess-piece. To live a life where its only purpose is to fulfil the role of heir and wait around for its father to either die or grow so weak he must renounce his crown,” like river to sea, the fear flows out of you, spilling itself down your entire being, a cold chill striking at your heart. The boy in your arms tightens his hold upon your finger and attempts to pull it towards his gaping mouth. You try to picture the conqueror’s crown — your husband’s crow — upon its head, and grow fearsome at the image of it encased around the babe’s neck, his tiny face turned black and blue under the choke it holds him in. A blink of the eye and the babe is all rosy cheeks and golden skin once more, smiling with success as he suckles at the tip of your finger. “And that is only the curse of the eldest. I do not even wish to begin thinking of what would come to be of any other child I birthed, the spare to the Iron Throne, the hatred they’d cast my way for not having birthed them first. I do not want it, any of it. I do not want my children to experience the same childhood as Aegon and you-”

You feel more than you hear the way Aemond flinches at your choice of words. Where days ago you thrived in poking metaphorical needles at his frayed edges, now you wish you could swallow the words back in and erase them from existence. Dead and buried lays the anger that had so consumed you, the ghost it leaves behind wearing the name of acceptance.

The prince had claimed no other choice but to leave the Keep and, your own agreement to the side, you believed him.

“It was not so bad,” his voice comes out in that breathy tone you’ve come to know over the years, a feat he cannot help when emotion wells too high within him and clogs up the space in his throat. He moves in search of where you sit, a repeated clink ringing as the hilt of his sword meets the buckle on his green, leather jerkin with every step he takes. “There were good moments. A few with our father, most with our mother.” When Aemond at last stands before you, that singular eye glances down at how you never falter in your rocking of the child. The babe takes interest in him, too, sacrificing the grip on your finger to stretch out in search of some piece of the prince. “Your children will not know a childhood of my kind. They will be loved, nurtured, protected.”

“You speak as though it is a law, not simply a hope,” you say, a furrow brandishing itself across your brows as your eyes flick up to meet his face, momentarily, before quickly glancing back down to where the prince lays his hand out for his nephew to take, a delighted laugh shaking out of Helaena’s boy. “How can you be so certain?”

With his free hand, the prince bridges the gap between you, the warmth of his palm finding rest upon the side of your face, robbing you of any sight but his well-angled, sharply-defined features. “Because they will have you as a mother, Lady Stark,” it is barely a whisper, yet the heartbreak laced within it leaves behind a hole in your chest, vacant and bleeding. The pad of his thumb smooths over your cheek slowly, as though it moves at a will not controlled by the prince, pure instinct commanding it to comfort, to soothe. It would be easy, you think, to slip your eyes shut and sink into a fantasy where this is your life. A babe in your arms, Aemond at your side, that fluttery feeling in your chest swelling so large, it threatens to explode out of you. But the prince clears his throat and you are back in the real world, your nephew in your arms, your good-brother standing too close. “You must allow me to apolo-”

“Brother!” At the intrusion of Helaena’s voice, both of you jump back, his hand ripped from your cheek and the babe’s grip gone from his fingers. Your good-sister seems none the wiser to the scene played out before her, an earnest joy upon her face and her daughter’s legs dangling from where she sits propped on her mother’s hips.  “I did not think I’d find you here.”

It feels like an accusation, an imaginaged query that bites and snarls at your mind, threatening to strike you if you do not lay all your sins at her feet. Reminiscent of Aegon’s ominous letter, paranoia makes home once more within your bones.

The prince, on the other hand, appears as composed as ever. A memory plays on in your mind. His chamber walls, his taste fresh on your tongue, his mother stood across the room. Even then, inches away from being caught, he’d not even broken a sweat.

“I came only to announce my leave,” words you loathe to hear.  “Your husband and I have some matters to converse, arranging a meeting with the Triarchy being one of many.”

Helaena seems relit by a flame of excitement as she shuffles over to a nearby table, rifling through the many papers strewn across it, scribbles of figures and etchings of jumbled words stained on them. The parchment she settles on seems to be the only one folded over neatly, not a single wrinkle to be found as she holds it out towards her brother. “Please, see that this reaches my husband!”

He can only nod in agreement, slender fingers plucking the parchment from her own before tucking it safely within an inner-pocket of his jerkin. Though his back is facing you and his attention remains on his dear sister, the words that follow out his mouth feel as though they’re meant for your ears only. “I will return in five days.”

Your eyes seem to linger on the door long after he’s walked out of it, Helaena talking away in your ear while a desire to sleep what remains of the day away takes root within you.

The prince turns out to be a liar.

Five agonising days come and go, each more tortuous than the last. The hours seem to crawl, slower than Helaena’s newborn, and the greatest curse known to woman befalls you, a stain of red between your thighs and an agonising pain stabbing at your abdomen. At the very least, you try to console yourself, it falls here, under sun and sand, and not in the stone cold walls of the Keep. You won’t have to face Aegon’s snide comments as you announce the repeated failing of your couplings, just this once.

A sixth day dawns, and no sign of a prince nor a dragon shadows over you. A fact you pretend not to notice, a promise of disinterest upon your face as Helaena comments on her brother’s absence seven days after his departure.

On the eighth day, a letter arrives, your name branded upon it. It carries word from your brother. One part heartbreak, the other part intent on mending it. The death of your Septa, taken in her sleep as peacefully as many may only dream of, and the birth of a new Stark. His only daughter, seven years her brother’s junior and, yet, already the apple of his eye. Cregan writes of how the instant he held her in his arms, he was brought back to the first time he’d held you as a babe, all squirming limbs and sniffling tears, and thought there was no better name for such a child than your own, in honour of her Queen aunt.

The news makes your heart ache, a longing for a home that no longer exists — at least not in the way you remember it — that crashes over you and spills out of you, tears staining your cheeks as you lay restless in your bed, the ceiling above blurred by your own sorrow. You should be there, in Winterfell, warmed by furs and surrounded by family. True family, not the disfigured image of it the Targaryen house tries to uphold.

Were your father alive, you would be where the wolves belong. In the north, wife to a Karstark, or a Mormont, or any other house that bears its sigil and bends the knee to the Warden of the North. You no doubt would be happy, whether there be love in your marriage or not, with a handful of children to occupy your time and your childhood home no more than a few days ride away at all times. Perhaps you would live an entire life never casting sight upon the King, or the Crown Prince. They’d be only names in a history book, royalty out of reach. Would life have been easier this way?

A door slams.

A fact you’d dare not take note of, were it not for the late hour, the outside world already enveloped by darkness hours before. You rise slowly from the mattress, the sheets pool around the naked skin of your waist. Sitting patiently, you await another disturbance to the quiet, pray for something familiar, like the gentle pitter patter of mischievous children running down halls, or Helaena’s voice calling out your name, awaiting entrance to your chambers. It wouldn’t be the first of her midnight visits, a comfort you’ve both come to seek in each other when the night is dark, and the palace is silent, and no greater time exists to exchange laughter like the young girls you’d both wished to have been, free of duty, free of pressure, free to live.

But there’s no calling of your name this evening, and so you settle with the silence that remains. With no sleep on the horizon, and no sign of Helaena’s company, you decide you must at least try to induce your own rest. Covering your naked skin with a dress that lays discarded at your bedside, you inch your way over to the unlit hearth and work at starting up a fire. When a spark lights and the crimson flames begin to dance among themselves, you secure a pot of water over it. Your mother always swore there was nothing that could not be fixed with the sacred remedy of her herbal tea, not even insomnia. And though you’ve not quite her mother’s touch, you’d sat by her side plenty a times as a child to give the recipe a try.

Another bang rings out.

Your heart seems to still, as do your hands. With only a blink of the eye, your head fills with visions of a massacre. An intruder, who’s sat idly by and waited until now, when only women, children and a handful of guards inhabit the home, to enact their butchering. Perhaps it is an opportunistic attack, a nameless nobody, with no real idea who sits inside the lavish walls of the Gardens, stumbling across the residency and deciding to try their luck at breaching the unguarded walls. The more horrors you envision, the louder the voice in your head grows as it commands you to move, take action. At odds with your own self, your body seems to move on account of some other force, rushing over to the chamber’s vanity. Searching for something to do harm with, you find it in the shape of a letter opener. Thin, delicate yet razor sharp, a silver knife you clutch within your palm.

The chamber door creaks as you open it, much to your dismay. You pause, awaiting a terrible discovery from someone, faceless among the shadows of darkness. There is only silence, again, until another noise plays out.

The sound is human, you have no doubt, a sharp inhale or a pained hiss between clenched teeth. Your fingers curl tighter around your weapon of choice. The sound repeats and plays out longer than the last. Your eyes flicker to a door. A little down the hall from your own, it sits ajar, a light within it bleeds out into the darkness. Another hiss sings out into the night through the crack between the door and its frame.

You steal your breath, tread only on the tips of your feet. Inch closer, and closer, and closer to the door. With your free hand grasping at the handle, the other gripping even tighter at the envelope opener, you pull the door open and raise your weapon, preparing to at last strike the danger, the threat, the intruder, the… “Aemond?”

The prince stands across the room, his back facing you. A looking glass before him, the image he reflects within it is fickle, forever morphing under the flickering light of several low burning candles. If not for the signature starlight silver tresses, he’d be scarcely recognisable.

“My apologies,” at the sound of his familiar voice, you feel your shoulders slouch and your nails retract out of the skin of your palm as the grip on your weapon loosens, your hand lowering back down to your side. There is no intruder, no attacker, no danger. There is only Aemond, a man who only steals away any fear of harm you may possess. Perhaps that is why it is easy to let yourself give into the temptation to inch closer into the chamber, even if he gives you no leave to do so. The two steps you take announce themselves with an echo. “I did not mean to wake you.”

“It has been nine days,” it is a pathetic proclamation made in desperation, yet it is spoken all the same, a tremble in your voice that matches the one in your chest.

The prince makes no move to face you, his focus stuck on the mirror in front of him. You squint your eyes, and try to make sense of the image he paints in his reflection, but it is a useless action. What you do manage to see is the lack of a leather strap fastened around the back of his head. The eyepatch sits disregarded by his feet, as though ripped off with haste.

“I had duties to attend in King’s Landing,” his hands ball into fists as your stomach twists with knots. The movement calls upon your attention and only then do you notice it, the stain of blood upon his fingers. “My mother requested my presence.” 

It is unnerving to picture him in the Keep, the threat of Aegon’s letter still weighing heavy on your mind. Had the two ran into each other, crossed paths within a hall? Is that why blood now drips from between his knuckles onto the cold floor below? Impossible, you try to reason with your own mind, for surely Aegon would not let him walk away with his life if he knew of your betrayal. But perhaps it is the King who met a certain fate and the blood on the prince’s skin belongs to him. Aemond has always been more skilled in battle, after all. The remnants of dinner turn in your stomach as bile swells up the canal of your throat, an acidic burn that makes a nest for itself at the back of your mouth.

“Are you hurt?” Another hiss slips past his teeth as you question his state, as if the gods mean to rob him of any right to deny it.

“The hour is late, Lady Stark,” the fist squeezes tighter by his side, a second drop of blood splashing to the floor. You step closer and search for a better view, the face in the mirror still obscured. “Return to your chambers.”

“Aemond,” you give a silent prayer, inching closer, eyes stuck on the width of his leather-clad back. The stench of dragon still reeks off them. He must have just arrived. You reach a hand out, so close to touching him, yet far enough that you feel no reprieve of feeling the man you’ve long now missed. “My prince, something brings you pain. Let me help you-”

“Do not come any closer.”

“You cannot expect me to rest, knowing you are injured!”

“It is for your own good,” the mirror gives away his frown and how it shadows over the rest of his face, a mass of darkness haloed by burning light. Were the timing more suited, you’d take note of how angelic the image is, one of pure divinity, a man so infused with beauty, the Gods grant you no grace to gaze upon him. A third drop of blood hits the floor, though this one does not fall from his hand. “This is not a sight suitable for a lady.”

“Gods be good! Aemond, be quiet,” you say, louder than you intended. In a fear of waking anybody else, you clear your throat and compose your nerves. “You do not get to decide what sights are suitable for me. I do.”

By some miracle, the prince puts no effort into halting you from twisting him around to face you. At the curl of your fingers around his forearm, he’s already turning into your touch, feet smudging the red blood across the floor as they move to point towards you. Once your eyes dance up the length of him, scanning for the first sign of a bleeding wound, and settle upon his face, you come to realise what reaction he expects of you.

A disgusted grimace, or a terrified scream, or a heartless laugh. Whatever it is the prince sits awaiting, he does not receive it. You do not even flinch as you take in the sight of his left eye, no leather to hide it, no sapphire that fills it. An empty socket, marred by scar tissue, a bleeding gash reopened atop his eyebrow. A river made of pain and the essence of his life, that flows down the length of his face and drips off the razor sharp edge of his jaw.

“I warned you,” the prince speaks with false pride, one you do not fail to see right through, even as his intact eye stares you down in a challenge, daring you to give him the disgust he thinks he deserves.

“Come,” you plead instead, hand slipping down to grip at his wrist. “Let me see you in a better light.”

He gives no fight against you as you begin to lead him away from the looking glass, grip tightening and pulling further away as you watch him attempt to grasp at the sapphire sphere he leaves behind. As the two of you slip through the chamber doorway, out into the dark hall, your sweating palm loses its hold on the leather. The prince’s hand catches yours, denying it retrieval back down to your side, an effortless lacing of fingers that serves only to make your journey all that easier, pulling him along behind you, hand in hand, to your chambers.

“Sit,” a poor attempt at commanding, finger pointing over at the chair that lives in front of your vanity. The prince makes no move towards it, hand gripping firmly at your own as you go to move away, eyeing the steaming pot atop your hearth. “Sit.”

He listens, at last, and you are free to move onwards with your goals, lighting a few more candles within the chambers before dashing over to collect the warmed water. By the vanity, the prince sits, head tipped to the ground, those blonde locks curtaining him out of sight as you make your way over. Delicate with each movement, you rest the boiled pot atop the dresser and grab at the first piece of fabric you can find. Your own smallclothes, freshly washed and folded only hours ago. 

The slosh of water within the pot as you submerge the fabric seems to snap him out of his daze, regaining his voice if only to speak words you’ve already grown tired of hearing.“This fuss is not necess-”

“Hush now,” the stubborn voice within you can not allow him to finish his sentence. Busy hands ring the soaked smallclothes. Most droplets of water rain back into the pot, while a few dance their own paths down your forearms. “What happened?”

“I insist, Lady Stark.”

“As do I,” cloth meets skin at last, a gentle swipe over the length of the prince’s jaw. Briefly, you feel the weight of the prince’s stare upon you, only for it to return to the floor the instant you try to catch it with your eyes.

You drag the linen over his skin a second time, inching a little further up. There’s a horrible tug at your heart as you smell that metallic haze blood carries. The pain only grows more intense as you watch how quickly harsh red makes home for itself in soft linen, a stain that promises to remain forever engraved.

In new light, the brightness that envelops your chambers, you’re given a better view of the damage he occults beneath that eyepatch. Some may call it a warrior's mark, a sacrifice given in exchange for the glory of claiming the last of the Conquerors’ dragons, but all you see is a blade that ripped out a child’s eye.

You do not feel disgust, not even an ounce. The gouge is a gruesome sight, that no one can deny, yet you feel oddly drawn to it. It is as though you at last see Prince Aemond, instead of the One-Eyed Prince that so fearsomely struts his way through the realm. Vulnerable, naked, whole, beautiful. Never have you felt so drawn to reach for him, draw him closer.

“It appears worse than it truly is,” at last the prince answers. “It is a flight wound. The air over Dorne is riddled with sand, it must have tore at some of the scarring.”

“Does it happen often?” You inch a little closer, till his knee bumps against your leg, and tell yourself it’s to get a better view, keep your hand more steady as it swipes further up his face, washing away at the blood upon it.

“Not so much, anymore,” you dunk the makeshift rag back into the water, the bile burning harsher at your throat as you watch how the crimson hue washes out into the clear of the bowl. You ring it out, soak it once more, only to ring it out again before you deliver it back to his face, the pathway of blood diminished to naught but the reopened skin of his brow. “Long flights are always unpredictable. Some I fair just fine, others I dismount to find my sapphire causes me pain, the skin beneath dried by the cold sky.”

The prince grimaces as you drag the smallclothes over the tear in his face, yet he dismisses your apology, reassures you that he is fine. You pretend you believe him, even if the frown remains indented upon his forehead as you finish cleaning the wound. 

With the promise of being gentle, and a hand pressed against your own heart as you vouch for your skills with the needle and your experience at dressing your brother’s wounds, the prince agrees to let you thread his skin shut. You’re quick to heat a needle under flame, and even quicker to hastily rip a loose thread off one of the untouched gowns in your trunk, returning to the vanity with the speed of a dragon’s wings.

As if hearing your thoughts, a rumbled screech echoes out into the night, just past the gates of the Martell home. You’ve half the mind to think it is Vhagar voicing her rider’s pain on behalf of him, as he sits quiet while you pierce the needle into him at last.

“It is unfair,” you mutter, much before you can stop yourself, as you thread a second loop, watching how the skin reunites with skin once more. “What happened to you, Aemond.”

“It made me the man I am today,” Rehearsed, empty of feeling, you wonder how used to those words the man has grown. Does he truly believe himself? “I am better for it.”

“I’m sorry,” a third loop, and then a fourth. The dark thread stands out against the pale of his flesh, you’re almost certain it will be visible even with the cover of his eyepatch. “For what I said to you on the beach. I was unnecessarily cruel.”

“You owe no apology, most certainly not to me,” a pained hiss flies out of him as you stab a little too harshly, a hand grips around the back of your thigh, as if to stabilise your shaking limbs. It carries the opposite effect, the tremble creeping up to reach your fingertips, the needle threatening to fall under your own nerves. Still, the prince does not verbalise his pain, never tells you to stop. The hand upon your clothed thigh squeezes a single pulse, a quiet command to continue stitching his brow. “You spoke only the truth, I have slayed my own kin,” his voice infects the room with an emotionless air, a murder stated as simply as a fact bringing a chill down your spine. You loop a fifth and final stitch. “It is I who owe you an apology. I should not have taken advantage of you that evening, in my chambers. Nor on the boat, nor your own chambers before that. Neither of us were acting in our right minds.”

“Take advantage of me? You speak such nonsense,” you do not like the way his eye returns to looking past you, nor the emptiness in his voice. “Do you ever… Regret it?” You ask, before you realise you are not quite ready for his answer, nor willing to have what remains of the illusion between you shattered. You cannot bear to be just another warm body to a second Targaryen man, and so you scramble to redirect the question. “Storm’s End, I mean.”

“No.” Heavy, powerful, punctuated. Aemond does not hesitate, even for a moment, to negate it. Still, his gaze will not meet your own. “Given the chance, I’d do it all the very same.”

“I do not believe you,” you speak, only after silence tries to creep its way back between you. The emptiness of your palm calls for the heat of his skin. You ball your hand into a fist, resist the urge to let it find rest upon the scarred side of his face. “You are not so heartless.”

“You do not know me as well as you think, Lady Stark.”

“That is of no cause of my own. I am here, idle and waiting, wishing to know more of you,” denial is futile, your hand makes its own way onto his face, forcing his focus back onto you.  "You are not the heartless monster of some bedtime story, Aemond,” you can only pray to the Seven he can hear how much you mean it. The thumb that rests against his cheek moves absent-midedly, a soothing rhythm against the soft of his skin. “No matter how much you may try to play the part, you feel. There’s no inch of you that scares me, it is fruitless to even try. I may not know you, but I see you. All of you. Man, myth, and heart.”

The wood that burns in the hearth cracks.

The birds outside the window flap their wings.

The dragon by the gates screeches.

But no sound follows from the prince.

There is only his eye, set on you and unblinking, frozen with a quiet that unnerves you. For an instant, you fear you’ve angered him. Struck a chord, made him feel weak. Played so far into your fantasies that you have cast a false identity onto him and, now, he means only to show just how wrong you are, just how little you truly see of him.

He rises out of the seat as slow as the sun does over the horizon, long limbs that stretch to stand tall and stable, and threaten to cast a shadow over even the largest of men. Your hand slips from his cheek and you take a cautious step back, an apology on the tip of your tongue.

An apology you don’t get to speak, as the prince envelops your lips with his own.

Startled, you cry out against his mouth, and it is enough to send him stumbling his own step back, eye wide with shock and his chest heaving with deep breaths.

“Lady Stark,” he starts, only a whisper of that earlier false confidence remains. “I am sor-”

“Shut up,” you don’t let him finish. Can’t let him finish, surging towards him and dragging his mouth to meet your own once more.

It is everything a younger version of yourself had thought a kiss would be.

Hands that seek the warmth of skin, lips that move with the grace of water. The two of you melt into each other, a burning desire that’s been left too long unattended at last burst into raging fires.

His arms wrap around your waist, as easily as yours grapple at his shoulders, frantic in their aim to pull him closer. His lips are soft, pink rosebuds that mean no harm as they attempt to consume you whole, his tongue a viper, striking hot venom with each lave it delivers.

There is no time for thinking. Of the dangers, and the possibilities, and the downright wrongness of your actions. Of the courts, and the spiders, and the King. Of the blood ties, and the marital vows, and the eyes of the Seven looking down. There is only Aemond, strong, and sweet, and present, pressed against you and, still, begging for less distance as he stumbles forward into you, your own feet making new space for him as you shuffle idly backwards.

Lungs that scream for air, lips that struggle to part. You make the first move, a hand on his cheek as you turn your face. His lips chase your own through the darkness of closed eyes, delivering a pleading of three pecks upon them before, at last, he gives you respite.

For a moment, there is only the repeated intake of air and heart beats that run off with the wind, forever to be lost to the wild.

“Being near you, all these days,” there’s an edge to his voice, a rasp he whispers over and stumbles on. The press of his forehead into your own, as mouths rest inches apart, lips that brush against one another as the prince continues to speak. “Watching you sweat under the sun, and care for the children,” the hands upon your body grab at the thin fabric of your dress, balling it into fists that squeeze and tug at orange cotton. “And move in these pathetic excuses for dresses,” he speaks with the desperation you feel, a warmth stirring in your loins as Aemond — consciously or not — slowly inches the hem of the dress further up your calf. “You do not understand the torment it has brought me to keep myself at bay.”

As though having spoken all he deems necessary, the prince’s kiss returns to you. For only a moment, it lingers on your lips before his focus redirects itself elsewhere and he’s chasing a pathway only he can see down the side of your jaw, his lips running off with his own kisses.

“Yet you instead chose to spend all that time at my neck,” you somehow find the ability to think, even as he melts your mind like a dragon’s breath melts armour, one clear swoop and you are at his mercy, hand tangled amidst the hair at the back of his head and holding him secure in his place against you.

Aemond smirks against your skin, trailing kisses over the expanse of your throat and dragging his lips up to the shell of your ear, the perfect excuse to whisper into it how, “some would say I am more at your neck now than I have ever been, Lady Stark.”

There is a collision between where his mouth lies and where his hands wander that leads to a peaceful departure of his kisses, a far more pressing matter at hand: undressing you. The prince seems to do so without giving it much thought, only for the gravity of his action to strike him, ice cold water and melted iron, as he takes in the sight of you, bare as the day you were brought into the world.

It does not matter that he lacks an eye, for the one he possesses carries the weight of a thousand men’s stares. A slow, agonising pause falls over his frantic need, as the prince falls into a trance, tracing over what feels to be every bump and every blemish that marks and shapes your body.

Never have you felt so exposed, not even the harrowing events of your bedding ceremony dare compare. You mean to find modesty, fruitless as it may seem, crossing one leg over the other while your arms do the same over your breasts. He can’t let that be, his own hands shooting out to gently grasp at your wrists and tug at them. Like the prince let you guide him to your chambers, you let him bare you to his eyes once more as your hands fall back to your side.

The intense stare continues, as does the silence, but, alas, he puts his skin to yours once more, a single finger that dances over the expanse of your clavicle, a teasing waltz that dips slowly between the valley of your breasts only to rise again. It takes interest in your left breast, skimming over the swell of it and, as it reaches the nipple, a second finger joins the cause. Together, they clamp round the soft flesh, a gentle pinch that pulls at an invisible string connected to your cunt, the start of an itch that demands to be scratched.

“This is wrong,” Aemond whispers, as if the words are not even meant to reach your ears. 

“So wrong,” you can’t help but echo back. There is a shake in your breath you don’t expect.

“I should not be touching you,” yet he makes no attempt to stop touching you, feet inching closer and his forehead resting against your own. “Only hours ago, I broke bread at the same table as your husband.”

The weight of his gaze lands on your lips. You await the reunion of his mouth and your own, but it never comes. Instead, his head dips down and the very same lips he uses to scowl delicately envelope the peak of your right breast. His mouth is warm, his tongue is curious, and his teeth give a gentle nibble to your right breast, in tandem with the pinch of his fingers on your left breast.

“Aemond,” a futile plea of his name. Your body calls to him, the way it only does for the prince, a subconscious squeeze of your thighs bringing a sweet drop of relief in the desert of desire.

He forces himself off of you, a sign of desperation between his kiss-swollen lips, pink, and plump, and shining with the wet of his own mouth, a perfect match to the residue of saliva he has stained upon your breast. 

“Tell me to leave,” he demands, yet makes no attempt to flee as your hand clasps at the top buckle of his jerkin, nor as you undone it and move down to the second buckle. “Before I lose any modicum of composure I still possess.”

You do no such thing.

You do not even speak.

Both eyes glued to his one, you inch your way backwards blindly, until your legs hit the edge of the bed. You let yourself fall back, unable to hold back a giggle as the mattress bounces you several times. The prince still stands a foot away, top buckles undone and the two that remain strain against the heaving of each breath that enters his chest.

“You stare too much, Prince One-Eye,” an unexplored part of you seems to take the reigns, a version of you that teases, and mocks, and feels no shame as you bend your legs at the knee, plant your feet flat against the bed, and slowly let your thighs part, baring your naked centre in a quiet offering. “Do you never tire of observing instead of participating?”

His footsteps echo, a slow approach towards the bed. He makes no sound, yet his face speaks a thousand words of longing, hunger, lust, all framed in a tightly bound brow, a pointed nose, sharply carved cheekbones, and lips that hover apart, drifting further from one another to make way for a rosy tongue that wets the lower lip. Like treacle slips down the tree or honey drips from its comb, the prince sinks slowly to his knees at the edge of the bed.

The image of a man at prayer, so buried in his worship that the caps of his knees bruise a pretty purple, made into a sin by the tugging at ankles, and the grabbing of naked thighs, and the hoisting of a single leg over a shoulder. He turns his face, closes his eye, and delivers a whisper of a kiss against the lower calf that rests upon him. It is a slow advance down into the well of madness, both the journey his lips make along your skin and the longing that it awakens in you, a heat that rises, and rises, and rises between your legs, melting away into a wetness of sin that dribbles its own path out the eye of your cunt and down the swell of your rump.

“Aemond,” it has become something more of a plea than a name. A call for something, anything, so long as it soothes your ache and laves your burning skin back to health, back to sanity. The prince protests with a tight squeeze around the meat of your thighs, his mouth paused above your knee. The eye reopens, blinks at you twice, before it shuts once more and he continues his descent down the length of you, growing closer to the apex of your legs with each fleeting kiss. 

When he strikes, he strikes hot. Like dragon’s breath, the prince’s mouth melts you beneath its kiss, open-mouthed upon the slickened lips of your cunt. Another kiss follows close behind as the prince continues a short journey higher, lips enveloping the hardened pearl that rests atop your centre. The leg on his shoulders jerks inwards, delivering a harsh kick of your heel against his back, yet Aemond barely seems to notice, too lost in the feast he sets himself between your legs.

He delves into you with reckless abandon, open mouth and curious tongue. They are a fearsome pair, who move over the length of your cunt with the grace of any great waltz. Lips pull the tongue in, and explore the pleasures of suckling at your pearl like a babe does its mothers teat. They descend further in their dance, twisting and twirling, parted lips and dipping tongue. You are rendered speechless, unable to speak much other than his Valyrian name and a cacophony of wanton moans, and shivered gasps, and back-arching whines, your head thrown back and your eyes feeling the need to shut. You cannot let the sight escape you, too far and too dark does the memory of the night in your chambers now live, more of a picture book than a motion play-by-play of the ways in which the prince had ravaged you between your thighs, the original sin of kin-by-law, kin by king. 

You’re barreling towards your own undoing, mouth barely finding time to breathe between each coo, and whimper, and cry it gifts the prince in honour of his efforts. Where he calls, you seem to follow, hips moving on their own accord to meet the breaching of his tongue between the warmth of your walls. He welcomes the movement, a groan of approval and the reopening of his eye, if only to stare at you intensely before returning his focus to what matters: delving in between your thighs.

“Ah,” he nods at your pitiful proclaim, and you swear you feel him draw out each letter of his own name upon your skin, branding you with his tongue and forsaking you to a life you already lead where the dragon prince is the only man to master the skill of pleasing you, of bringing you to a peak so thrilling it is hot white, burning, and blinding, and, unfortunately, fleeting, a beauty the gods gift you only a moment in time with, rather than the eternity you long for. 

With your good-brother’s tongue burrowed as deep as it may reach within your cunt, and his hands grasping your flailing legs tightly by the thigh, and his nose swiping back and forth at your pearl as your hips bend and rise to meet the strokes of his mouth, you at last take a tumble off the mountain of desire, rolling directly into a river of your own peak that stains the prince’s mouth. He answers it with open lips and delighted grunts, a gentleman who dares not leave a single drop of his prize go to waste.

It takes you time to regain your composure, and even longer to regain your breath, mind floating out your own head and drifting somewhere among the clouds, leaving the puddle of limbs that becomes your body. The prince, however, takes no pause, no break, no reprieve, the lips you stain with your own pleasure travelling a new path up the slope of your gut, the dip of your belly-button, the valley sloped by your heaving breast, the clavicle that shakes under the beat of a racing heart, the length of your neck that begs to be turned purple and blue by possessive lips, all the way to your ringing ears.

“Tell me you want this,” his command is but a whisper beneath the rush of your own heartbeat, so quiet you fear you mishear him. As if to reassure that your ears do not deceive you, he repeats the very same words, louder.

You nod, wordlessly, though your mind lies leagues away from rationality and you’ve little to no idea what the prince means by this. All you know is that if Aemond is willing to give, you are happy to take, no matter the nature of his gift.

No clothes live between you any longer, the prince undressed in your moments of delirium, leaving you both bare bod against bare bod, warm to touch and eager to explore and be explored, conquer and be conquered. The leg that sat upon his shoulder now clings onto it only by the ankle, the knee of it bent and sitting firmly between both your chests. The stretch of the angle brings a sweet pain to the back of your thigh, the muscle pulled taught like a bow ready to be released and shoot an arrow out into the night.

There is something hard, heavy, and warm that rests against your lower stomach, and it takes you glancing down to notice the familiar length of his cock, pink-tipped and spilling a tease of what seed lives within it against your skin, a liquid that shines under the flickering candlelight. The fire in the hearth has already lost its flame, yet you feel no chill while laying naked against the night. Though you’ve no doubt anybody feels a chill in the dornish air this evening, you prefer to credit this phenomenon to the blanket of muscle that hovers over you, four limbs, two hands and one eye that warms you beneath its stare, greater than any sun or hearth may dare.

“Tell me. Say it,” he grows desperate in his words, a hand slipping up between your bodies to grasp at your face and pull you back down to earth, eyes on him and mind back in the safety of your own head. When he catches you looking at him, at last, he seems incapable of stopping himself, bringing his mouth down against your own, a desperate parting of lips and the curious exploration of a tongue eager to taste yourself from upon his lips. Your essence tastes sweeter than you imagined, yet simultaneously more tart. Like a raspberry, freshly picked, you needn’t wonder why he feasted upon you with such delight. “Tell me I am not taking that which you are not willing to give.”

It’s not clear who out of the two of you moves, but the action gives way to friction between you, a buzz of pleasure that shoots down both your spines as you grind, body to body, mouth to mouth, heart to heart.

You realise then what he’s asking of you, the tension that has lay, building stronger and fortifying its defences over the course of an unspoken number of years, from the first moment you lay eyes on him and the night you married his own brother under his own watchful eye, to the nights of pleasantries exchange at feasts and indiscretions exchanged thrice in the privacy of each other’s company, all leading to this, right now, both of you as bare as the Mother delivered you into this world and desperate to let the fever of lust at last break between you.

So you nod your head, and quickly realise that’s not enough.

“A man cannot take what is already his,” the prince between your thighs seems to approve of your words, the hand upon your face reaching down to grasp at the length of his manhood as he aligns his hips with your own, before dragging the tip of himself between the mouth of your cunt, all the way up against the hardened nub that lives above it. “Aemond, I want this. I want you.”

“Yeah?” He croons against your mouth, tongue dipping down to brush against your own, lips parted as a single breath of air passes back and forth between you.

You nod your head for a third time this evening, curl an arm around his neck as you pull his mouth fully against your own, losing yourselves once more in a kiss of tangled limbs and racing hearts, neither mind thinking of the risks that lay on the road ahead. There are no vows that bind you by law, no customs that dictate how you should interact with each other. There are only two bodies, bare upon a bed, losing themselves in one another.

His lips are the first to drift away, while your own continue to press against the sharp line of his jaw. The weight of his forehead presses into your own, the heat of his breath warms your ear, and the tips of his fingers drag over your thigh as he takes hold of his cock once more.

“Then it is decided,” he mutters, half distracted, it seems, as the mushroomed tip of his prick at last breaches the opening of your weeping slit. “I’m going to defile you, Lady Stark.”

The first thrust is shallow. You welcome him with a delighted gasp and a tight grasp at his blonde locks. It’s not long after that he gives a second push and, lastly, a third, till the base of his cock kisses against your soaked lower lips and his stones rest against the swell of your arse.

With Aegon, the process of your couplings is ritualistic. Him, drunk out of his wits, you staring blankly at some blurry horizon. You’d cried at the beginning, till war had come and taking your husband between your legs was no longer the scariest threat that loomed in the shadows. There is always that initial pain that fades into mute pleasure, teasing you with the thought of enjoyment, only for it to be snatched away all too soon as your husband spends his seed and takes his leave, a sardonic voice that calls over his shoulder, “let’s hope you make yourself useful and spare us the need of repeating this come the next moon.”

There is a pain now, as the walls of your cunt spread and mould themselves tightly around the shape of another man’s cock, yet it doesn’t deter you. It awakens you, makes you crave a greater dose of the toe-curling pain as the prince stills himself, fully sheathed within you, mouth dancing across the skin of your neck, the length of your jaw, the dip of your clavicle. He’s everywhere upon you, a blanket of Aemond, and still it is not enough. 

The prince grasps at your ankle, yielding it down from the pedestal it took upon his shoulder. In an act of pure instinct, you choose not to lay it rest on the bed but, instead, find yourself hooking it over the slender frame of his waist. You fight back a wanton whine as it drives him closer to you, deeper in you. He takes it as his command to move at last.

It starts off slow. A testing of waters, a low burning ember. His hips retreat from your own, only to undulate back down against you, smooth as a hot blade cuts through butter. Your body reacts with ease, legs begging to spread further than they can dare go, a display of how willing it is to offer you, whole and hole, to the prince. It makes it easy to drag your mind away from your husband, and the many misdeeds of your marital bed, and the anger that begs to be called upon when you think of the years you’ve spent being bowed and broken-in by a man who knows no pleasure but his own.

You find yourself turning Aemond’s face away from your neck and up to your parted lips, need to connect with every part of him that you can as your other hand lays splayed across his muscled back, delighting as it tightens and loosens beneath your fingertips, a pattern that only doubles in speed with each passing moment, a testament to the prince finding his footing, setting a pace with which to ruck himself into your opening.

The room fills with whispers of moans, cries of each other’s names, and the squelch of his manhood spearing into you. Over, and over, and over again, till your toes curl in on themselves, and your back arches off the bed, and his mouth trails wonders down the expanse of your neck down to the valley of your chest once more, that warm mouth claiming ownerships of one of your breasts and the other is engulfed by his hand.

“Gods,” you cry out, a blasphemous act amid this display of naked sin upon the goose-feather mattress.

“No, no gods,” the prince answers, voice ragged and breath hot against skin that shines with his spit and your sweat. “Just you and me.”

The leg thrown over his waist clutches tighter, holds him close. Some part of you fears it has all been an illusion — the visit to Dorne, the return of the prince, the thrill of at last tasting the sting of his cock slipping between your lips — and that soon you will waken with a gasp to find yourself back in the Queen’s apartments at the Red Keep.

The only gasp you give is one born of pure pleasure, the gentle grind of his pelvis against the hardened pearl between your legs. It sets off butterflies that flutter in your gut and fly from there, ripples of pleasure down your thighs, and up your spine, and through your chest. 

He kisses your name against your skin, as his hands clamp down tighter and his hips fuck into you harder, faster, more desperate and out of rhythm with themselves as the moments drag on, and on, and on, a force that’s driving you both closer to the edge of pleasure and certain to throw you off it, down into the pits of blinding ecstasy.

“Aemond,” it is a warning, one you needn’t even speak, one you would not be able to put into words if you even tried. And try you do. “I’m- Ah! I can’t-”

“I know,” the prince cuts you off and, despite his ability to speak without his own vocalised enjoyment interrupting him, he is in no better state than you are, hair sticking to his sweated skin, and eye struggling to keep itself open, and hips stuttering with every few trusts they give, as though he’s actively fighting off the inevitable release his body begs of him. “I know, I know.”

A hiss blown out into the night, through gritted teeth and followed by a pathetic noise that crawls itself out the prince, the growing intensity in his grip upon your thighs, your hips, any part of you he dares touch becomes a reflection of your walls tightening around the swell of his cock and the lips kiss the base of him, praying that he never dare leave.

You feel your peak hovering right over you, as if you need only stretch out your hand and grasp at it. Instead you grasp at his hair, fingers curling around the tresses and tugging them at the roots. The moan that follows the prince is one of approval. As the world around you melts away under warmth, and light, and sweat, you stumble at last and crash straight into a blinding pleasure, a cry of ecstasy infused with his name.

“Don’t leave,” you beg, and he listens.

He takes his own leap, no warning, mouth at your ear, hands on your thighs, cock in your cunt. The pair of you are a mess of panting breaths, and ill-delivered kisses upon sweaty skin, and fluids that stain you in each other’s lust. Together you stay for what feels like an eternity, limbs entwined and air shared between you, until the prince rolls off of you and lets himself crash, back first, against the mattress. Coolness kisses at the sweat that lines your body, the wetness in your thighs one you’d usually find uncomfortable, yet you welcome it now, even as a trail of his seed slips out your slit.

This is treason, of the highest order. The Queen and the Prince, bare for the world to see, bodies sated and shaking in the aftershocks of coupling as they lay side by side, one bed that holds two hearts. His seed has stained your insides, an act that threatens you both, yet neither of you care to speak of it.

Because right now, you are not the Queen, nor is Aemond the Prince.

It is just him, and you.

No gods, no duty, no family, no honour. 

Just you and me, his words echo in your mind.

“It was an accident,” he whispers. You shift on your side, all at once, elbow digging into the bed as you scan your eyes over the length of his body, waiting for him to inflict more pain, waiting for him to scramble away from you in a hurry, redress himself and walk out the door, fleeing on his mount and plundering you into another drought of pretending his is not the company you long for. But his voice starts up once more, and the prince does no such thing. “What I did to Lucerys. I think.” Under a sigh of relief, your shoulders sag and the exhaustion that alluded you hours ago creeps up on your bones, forcing you to surrender yourself against the prince, laying your head to rest upon his shoulder, your arm across his beating chest, and your legs entwining with his once more.

“I did not give the command…” The prince continues to speak, barely acknowledging you with his eyes as his own arm secures itself over you, dragging you closer, as if there’s any space left between you to be crossed. “It was Vhagar who struck. I do not know what I set out to do that night when I took to the skies in pursuit of my nephew. Perhaps I meant only to scare him. Maybe I truly wanted to strike him at that moment, and Vhagar was merely my vessel to do harm.”

You watch the apple of his throat bob as the prince swallows back words you will never hear. Despite your curious nature, you find yourself at peace with this, no part of you wishing to learn of things he wishes to not share, events he can barely recall without a shake making nest within his voice.

“I do not know the full answer, if I regret it or not,” comfort in your silence, Aemond finds it in himself to continue recounting, letting his mind spill to the floor and his mouth collect it as coherently as it can. “All I know is that repentance is not my path to take, my role in history has already been written. Kinslayer, that is to be my legacy. What kind of man can outrun such a thing as legacy?”

You, you wish to say.

But fear you would not even believe yourself. The maesters gather in Oldtown already, putting quill to paper and weaving tales from the dragon war into the history books, binding rumours, and facts, and treason, and falsehoods into its pages. History favours the victor, that much is known, yet you wonder what the books will read and what the songs will sing of Aemond Targaryen and the acts he committed, from the lead up to the Dance, to the recapturing of King’s Landing. A trail of blood taints the path he walked, but is it any more than your husband’s? Or Ser Criston Cole’s? Or your good-mother, the instigator of Aegon’s coronation and accused usurping?

Perhaps the trails of blood all lead back to one man, Viserys Targaryen, dead and gone before the dragons took the sky, and fire and blood became not just the words of House Targaryen but the death of it.

“Promise me, Aemond,” the candlelight has burnt out, the room encased in the darkness of the moonlight, a pale blue hue that blankets over the shapes and shadows of the chambers.

“Anything,” his voice is gentle yet firm all at once, soothing in its own assurance of the word it speaks.

“Leave before morning dawns,” you feel the hand that had begun trailing patterns over the naked skin of your back freeze, unexpectant to your request. You, too, can hardly believe it. Moons you had spent in court, wishing and hoping for a moment of his company, if only to scream in his face and lament your own lonesome days in the Keep. Now, you have him bare beneath you and it is more terrifying than you ever dared consider. “I do not wish to be burdened with the memory of how it feels to lay by your side all through the night, nor do I wish to know the sweetness of your face being the first view that greets my waking eyes.”

You glance up at him, head lifting off his shoulder to fully gaze upon his naked face for one last time this evening, wishing he could understand how much you truly mean it. He gives you no response and so you take upon yourself to end the conversation, a gentle kiss delivered against the scarred tissue of his cheek, one last gaze at the part of himself he’s haunted by.

As you feel your eyes slip shut, head back upon the safety of the prince’s shoulder, it is unclear what rings louder in your ear: the beat of his heart or the final cry of his dragon gives from outside the walls.

You wake at dawn’s first light.

It creeps in through a crack between curtains, the gentle breeze of early morning air billowing them further apart with each passing moment. Disorienting, for half a moment you’ve forgotten where you are, eyes blurred by sleep that scan over a room that holds no familiarity to your apartments in the Keep. 

The bowl of water upon the vanity reminds you of where you are, and everything that transpired hours before.

A stifled yawn, a stretch of limbs. You reach a hand up to wipe the sleep out of your eyes, but on its journey it gets caught against something else. It is soft, and warm, and wrapped tightly around you. The image of the prince, head nestled against the naked skin of your chest, sleeping soundly as the world passes by and daytime steps forth into the sky.

He has broken his promise, yet you cannot even fool yourself into feeling angered.

Not when the sight is one of beauty, a rare peacefulness on his ever-weary face. He looks his age, a man no more than a couple years past his second decade. You brush your hand over his messed hair, trail over the freshly made stitches that live temporarily above his brow, and sigh in utter defeat.

Not a day will come where you will not wake and long for this sight.

And not a day will come again where you will see it.

The moon has almost completed its cycle once more, and your return to the Keep crawls closer by the day. You will soon trade your time of respite and warmth with duty and court, by your husband’s side once more. And far, far away from the one-eyed prince.

A longing to watch the sun’s light rise over the horizon calls you away from the prince, and the bed, and the chambers. You leave him there, sleeping peacefully as he tangles himself amidst your sheets, and slip out the door with no more than your wits and the very same dress Aemond had pulled off of you during the night.

You make your way quietly through the halls, your bare feet padding carefully over the floor, careful to attract no wandering guard or waken any curious child. Solitude is a virtue you have so little of, and so you want to reach for it while it sits in front of you. You almost believe you’ve achieved it, stepping out onto the communal balcony that overlooks the gardens and stares right out to the rolling tide of the Summer Sea.

Until, for a second time in so few hours, you find yourself faced with the back of a Targaryen.

“Helaena,” you call out to her gently, apologising with a smile as the hand you lay on her arm causes her to flinch. “I wasn’t expecting for anyone else to be awake at this hour. Are you well?”

You both stand before the marble bannister of the balcony, shoulder to shoulder, and as her face turns to you, you find a shell of the girl you’ve come to know.

Eyes rimmed with red, and wide with panic, and brimmed with unfallen tears. Her hair is a mess, and not in the usual careless fashion that it seems to live in, but dishevelled, distressed, as though pulled at and tugged on. She’s pale. Pale as the days she lived in King’s Landing, hiding from the world with her critters and her bugs, before she travelled south and found the joy of sunlight warming one’s skin. 

The sight of her is most unnerving.

“I used to wish for a sister,” her voice is hollow, like the rest of her, emptied of its joy. “I had Rhaenyra by blood, but she was gone by the time I reached an age where those things matter. All I had was my brothers, each one equal parts awful and wonderful in his own way.”

“I, too, knew only brothers growing up,” you hope the worry she’s birthed within you goes unnoticed as you smile her way, appeasing the strange conversation she sparks up and praying it does not head in the direction that you fear it may: Aemond. “I used to force Cregan to sit at my feet and let me paint his lips and cheeks with rouge, and braid his hair. I think he began to wish a sister for us both, if only to take my affections off of him!”

Your laughter is met only with more troubled looks from Helaena.

“Then you should understand why I am so grateful to have you now, as my sister. Not by blood, but law, but a sister all the same,” you nod in agreement to her words, place your hand upon the one she rests against the bannister and deliver a comforting squeeze to it. “Then you should understand that I worry about you.”

Ice runs through your veins, in place of blood. You begin to fear the worst, images of Helaena knocking at your door and you replying in only sounds of pleasure. Of her twisting the handle and finding the sight of you in bed with her brother, her other brother instead of the one you’re bound to by law. 

You swallow back a ball of anxious energy that lodges up your breathing pipes.

“Helaena, sister, you do not seem yourself,” you keep your voice hushed, hoping she’ll do the same if she dares speak of the events transpired between you and Aemond. You were wrong to be so reckless, to think you were safe to step where you like because you sit far from the Red Keep. Nowhere is safe enough, nowhere will ever be safe enough. “What worries you so deeply?”

“I see him,” she hisses the words, like she cannot bring herself to speak any louder, forcing it out of herself in a breath. “In my dreams. It frightens me.”

“Who?” You pray for her to tell, try to think what defence you could possibly have for yourself and the prince under the accusation of her mind’s eye, a gift you’ve heard much of and seen little, the curse of the Targaryen dreamers.

“You’re there, too, in a bed soaked by tears, and sweat, and blood,” the more she speaks, the more the fear rises within you. The fear feels bigger than yourself, bigger than the affairs between you and Aemond. “He is there, at your bedside, a hand on your shoulder. He means no harm, but death is his nature, he cannot help it. He’s there to take you.”

“Who, Helaena? You must tell me!” You wipe away the single tear the streaks down her face and cup at her face with both hands, a gentle comfort that seems mute against her fear stricken features.

“The Stranger.”

+ extra hyde !

we're finally getting into the meat of the plot, beyond these two horn-dogs trying to bang in a world that hates to see a bad bitch thrive. from here on out, expect more drama, and mystery, and death (but who's?).

i really hope the length of the chapters makes up for the slow, once a month, roll out. the series' masterlist has been edited, with 2 new chapters added to the timeline.

a quick apology to anyone who may have felt the smut is a little lacklustre in this chapter. i tried to write a much wilder, kinkier, mouthier version of the scene and, in all honesty, it did not feel true to the context under which they at last wind up smashing. writing smut and using medieval language is surprinsingly hard (no pun intended), so this is honestly a journey we're all going on together (aka me trying to navigate not being able to use the typical language of modern sex scenes).

thank you for reading, see you next month!

[sallysavestheday]

End of Year 8+8+8+8 Fic Recs

It's that time again! This was a tough year to narrow down, so you get 8 of each, with no author repeats. There's such great stuff out there to read. Enjoy!

8 of my favorite long fics of 2024

sisyphus, unhappy by @tobermoriansass. M: 140K, WIP. Curufinrod after re-embodiment is the simplest description, but it's so much more. Philosophy, musical theory, racial and sexual politics, a very dark family comedy of manners. Featuring one of my favorite Maglors ever.

Two Half-Kings and a Full Lake Between by @melestasflight and @polutrope. T: 12K. A fantastic exploration of the period in Maglor's regency when Fingolfin had arrived but Maedhros had not yet been rescued. Tense and compelling. Another favorite Maglor.

Northern Stars by @idrilsscribe. T: 62K, WIP. An AU of an AU, featuring traumatized kidnapped-while-young Elrohir making his way back from Harad to Imladris with Glorfindel's assistance. Elegant, moving prose; fantastic worldbuilding; delightfully complex OCs; etc., etc.

I Do; I Will by @littlewhitemouseagain. M: 23K. Fingon fights all the Feanorions, back to back, at his own coronation. Glorious (and painful, and moving, and hopeful, in a very Fingon way).

i've been so worried (you've been so still) by @welcomingdisaster. E: 9.5K. Maglor is drawn to an acolyte of Este after Maedhros is taken. An absolutely fantastic OC, delicious worldbuilding, and peak Sexy Maglor. Just WOW.

a stranger in my bed (a pounding in my head) by vauquelin. T: 11K. A surprise new installment makes this a 2024 fic, hooray! Maedhros and Fingon wake up married. Maedhros wants it annulled because he can't imagine Fingon is happy; Fingon is miserable therefore. Hilarious and touching at once, with the best punchline of the year.

Across So Wide A Sea by @emyn-arnens. G: 20K, WIP. A fantastic epistolary fic: Galadriel writes to Finrod (after his death), as a deliberate historical record that quickly gets very personal. Rich and complex and humorous and poignant. Delightful.

The Other Daughter of Twilight by Anna_Wing. G: 16K. Maedhros/Thuringwethil. Just read it. Go.

8 of my favorite shorter fics of 2024

The Vigil by @balrogballs. G: 5K. Celebrian plans and delivers her own sendoff, the night before sailing. Oh, my heart.

A flickering flame by @camille-lachenille. G: 960 words. Andreth/Aegnor, Finrod, and a Gil-galad origin story, oh ow!

To Evil End by @zealouswerewolfcollector. T: 2900 words. Decades after the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, Fingon comes back to Maedhros. Or does he? GAH!!

Body and Spirit by @meadowlarkx. G: 1500 words. An anonymous scholar considers the food and drink customary during Elven pregnancy. Deliciously thoughtful and creative.

we could be kings by @queerofthedagger. T: 1600 words. The copper circlet Maitimo is crowned with is a work of art. He finds that he likes it much better on another's brow. Oh, babies.

Two Peredhil and an Elf in a Boat by @cycas. G: 5000 words. Elrond begins to make his peace with Earendil. Tender, humorous, touching.

precious stone set in the silver sea by rain_sleet_snow. G: 2000 words. A Celeborn/Galadriel origin story in which he is a Teler from Alqualonde. Gorgeous. Read the rest of the series, too.

The Warning Sounds Too Late by @eilinelsghost. T: 6000 words. Part 18 of the fabulous Atandil (Finrod/Beor) series, featuring a family dinner that, like so many, sparks insights and regrets.

8 oldies but goodies, circa 2013-2021, that I've recently reread and loved again.

The West Wind Quartet by @hhimring. T: 16K. Always a fave. Maglor unexpectedly takes on a Sinda as a student. Elegant, original, and moving.

Flawed and Fair by @a-tehta. M: 33K. Classic Glorthelion. Hilarious and tender all at once. Those GUYS!!!

Though All Whom Ye Have Slain Should Entreat For You by @thearrogantemu. G: 12K. Maedhros and Elwe have it out upon Elwe's return. A classic, for all the best reasons.

The Sound Below Sound by @adnirod. T: 35K. Gimleaf eloquence and angst and beauty. Spectacular.

Detour by @dawnfelagund. T: 8K. Reborn Maedhros is resigned to a gloomy life as a teacher in Fifth Age Tirion. Then Fingon Returns, with hope (and stickers).

Defiant Hope, Take Wing, by @lordnelson100. T: 10K. Halenthir: an alternative ending to the War of the Jewels, and a heartbreaker.

a light in darkness, hope in woe, by @admirablemonster. E: 4K. A Gil-galad origin story. Perpetual fave.

Letter 97 by @batshape. T: 9K. Orc academics, Russingon, and musings on the afterlife. Delightful.

8 favorites among my own fics from 2024. If you haven't read them, do give these a try.

When the Hurly-Burly's Done. G: 850 words. Elrond and Gil-galad and Celebrimbor picnic at the edge of the world.

The Blue Line Between Sea and Sky. G: 900 words, Idril/Tuor/Voronwe. Voronwe drowns. And drowns. And drowns.

Larded With Sweet Flowers. G: 400 words. Edrahil's last moments.

O, Blithe New-comer! G: 1000 words, background Russingon. Another origin story.

The Heaped Ashes of the Night Turn Into Leaves. G: 850 words. Glorfindel is being sent back to Middle-earth. Finrod has FOMO.

Deeper Roots Than Reason. G: 5500 words. The Oath of Fëanor makes its way across history and cultures, dragging Doom in its wake. TRSB 2024.

Among So Many Marvels. G: 1500 words. Early friendship between Eomer and Faramir, built around their people's stories.

Molded on One Stem. G: 3200 words. An exploration of Fingon and Aredhel's relationship, in which they are, fortunately and unfortunately, very much alike.

Everyone! What have you been reading? Consider yourself tagged. Please share!