#rose head wreath

[tonycries]

Knight of Roses - G.S.

Synopsis. You, heir to the throne and fated to be married off to a royal you’ve never even met. Gojo Satoru, your personal knight and the one man that will not let this happen. He will not.

Pairing. Gojo Satoru x Reader

Content. MDNI, fem! princess! reader, knight! Gojo, childhood-friends-to-Iovers, PINING, arranged marriages, Naoya is awful, Gojo YEARNS, flower language, politics, slight víolence, slight angst, matíng presses, cervíx kíssing, creampíes, cúmplay, PÚSSYDRÚNK GOJO, oraI (fem rec), he goes FÉRAL, cúmming in his pants, manhandIing, spítting, biiig stretches, dúmbifícation, cúmflation, p talking, p sIapping, overstím, proposals, happy ending, pet names, swéaring.

Word count. 12.7k

A/N. What happens when ya let a girl listen to Golden Brown by The StrangIers.

“You are not to speak, you are not to look.” The king intertwines his decadently ringed fingers on his lap, the royal signet glinting pointedly amongst them. “You are not to so much as breathe in the princess’s way from tomorrow onwards.”

And it’s only with his hard-earned years as your knight that Gojo stops himself from shuddering where he knelt, head bowing to hide the clench in his jaw.

Though, surely something must have flashed across his features - because the next few words have a familiar warmth that twisted Gojo’s heart much more than his royal timbre, “Satoru, my boy, you understand that this is your duty? Yes?”

“I understand.” The answer is instant, as is the raise of the other man’s brows. 

“And do you understand that this marriage is my daughter’s duty?” Your father barks out a disbelieving laugh into the barren throne room. “We wouldn’t want Prince Naoya getting the wrong idea between the princess and a- a knight.” 

The words make his eyes prick wetly, and Gojo can’t help but bend even lower as he whispers. “I…I understand, sir.”

After all, it was the second thing that Gojo Satoru had drilled into his mind from the very moment he first met you.

The first being that he’s loved you ever since. 

Which - retrospectively speaking - might’ve been an incredibly bold declaration coming from the scrawny, fidgeting six-year-old you happened to catch sneaking in and stealing lilac blooms from the royal garden all those years ago.

He remembers how you’d giggled, looking positively like a little blossom in all those gauzy layers of gown. Piping up from under the lilac tree he was latched onto, “My father says that’s not allowed.”

Gojo had fallen then - literally, startling about six feet from the branch he’d been straddling and straight into a scratchy pile of leaves with a dull thud! Back hurting, head spinning, it was a wonder that he hadn’t sprained anything, but right then and there he remembers thinking he was in heaven.

Because here was a pretty lil’ angel his age ogling down at him, speaking in a regal accent so different from his. “My father says that’s not allowed either.”

Your grin beamed down on him and warmed his skin even more scorchingly than the balmy rays of sunlight filtering in through the leaves. And for the first time ever in his life, Gojo Satoru had stuttered. 

“Yer- yer father sounds stupid.” He had spit out, chubby cheeks puffing out the more you stared at him. What? He was sure he looked ridiculous with all those stray sticks and leaves stuck in his cloudy locks, but did you really have to look at him like…that? 

“My father…” Your lips curled even further, as if you knew something he didn’t. “-the king.”

Oh.

Oh. 

And it’s only then that Gojo notices the thin, silver tiara on your head, a delicate wreath of jeweled flowers that twinkled almost as bright as your eyes. It reflected specks of light into his gaze almost mockingly.

Idiot- it felt like someone had thrown a bucket of icy water over him that chilled him to the very bone. 

Even at the tender- well, wise and sensible age of six, Gojo had heard from the adults in town all about the torture chambers and p-prisons that the royal palace was home to. 

Just why did he feel the need to escape from his mother at the market to bring her a batch of those wispy, amethyst flowers anyway? 

Sure, they were her favorite but- the royal family would have his head before even she did. And he didn’t even get to butter her up with the lilacs!

“Forgive me!” Gojo had squeaked out in a cry so shrill that you hurriedly took a step back, eyes widening once the interesting boy in front of you dropped to his hands and knees. “Ah- I mean uh- forgive me, your highness- your princessness.” Drooping into a bow so low that his soft tufts of hair brushed the warm ground. Words tumbling out a mile a minute, “It was an accident- I must’ve been um sleepwalking and I pinky-promise won’t do it again-”

“Those lilacs haven’t bloomed yet, y’know?” You’re cutting him off smoothly, and Gojo remembers feeling a pang of irritation- let him recite his apologies before you throw him in a cell, dammit! Right before flooding with confusion, eyes snapping up to meet yours hesitantly. 

Pointing at a pretty white gazebo, overlooking the lake only a few meters away, you’d shrugged your shoulders. “The garden staff puts the best ones in a bouquet over there.”

At which, he’d replied with an exceptionally eloquent, “Huh?”

“Well, what my father doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

It’s only after hours upon hours of picking every lilac flower in sight and chatting about all the worldly topics a pair of six-year-olds knew that you were dragged away by one of your worried attendants. 

And he almost felt…sad about it. Weird. 

The yolky setting sun that day cast shadows for Gojo to hide himself in behind one of the gazebo pillars as he peeked at your retreating back. In-step with an older woman muttering about “losing her job oh- the king will banish her.” 

And if there was one thing that he would never forget - well, amongst everything else - it was the way his heart banged selfishly against his ribcage with a repeated turn around turn around turn around-

You did. And you’d smiled, and Gojo hasn’t been able to step away from your side since.

Well, he had to - to go home that evening and proudly proclaim to his thoroughly cross mother how he’ll become a knight, that is. 

Honestly, even the colossal lilac bouquet did little to deter her scoldings about running off. But despite how bad it was - and the fact that he was sentenced to be confined to his room for a whole month - it didn’t matter.

Gojo visited you the next day, too. 

And the day after that, and the day after that- and again and again no matter how many times you’d teased him about coming so often to see you. Because you were right there no matter what royal duties or lessons dictated, waiting in the lilac garden for him. 

Every day.

When Gojo was eighteen he’d applied for a position in the royal guard, breezing through the demonstrations of physical strength because of course, he did. He’d been training for his very day for years.

And it showed - oh, how it showed. 

It showed in the way he stood almost a head above every other man lined up there, veering numerous inches above six feet. All sculptured, Herculean muscles and arms toned from years spent climbing the palace orchards with you. The strongest. 

He considered himself exceedingly humble, too, of course. 

Humble enough to not brag outright in your face once Gojo had climbed the treacherous way into being your personal knight before the age of twenty. 

“Hah, I can tell your father- erm, his majesty all about where you sneak off to now.” Gojo snickered, flicking your forehead in a way that a princess simply shouldn’t be treated. “Perhaps I’ll bargain titles with him- tell the courts about the way you climb trees, and ride horses and-”

“Snitch”

“Harlot.”

“Knave.”

“Hobgoblin.”

“Satoru.” You’d deadpanned up at as six foot four inches of white-haired nuisance clinging onto whimpers out a dramatic ouch, that one hurt. Desperately trying to keep the smile off of your face, “You’re with me each and every single time.”

Well, was. 

It seemed like the king was to be putting a stop to that very, very soon. With your looming- he gulps to keep the leaden ball of tears away from his throat, your engagement. 

“Toru—” Your voice snaps him out of his hazy little reverie, and he finds himself straightening his back into a respectful posture outside of the throne room. Warily eyeing the way you bound up to him, “What did my father want to talk to you about so suddenly?”

“Ah…” Gojo’s throat feels hoarse. Parched. The smile plastering onto his face wobbly, “Just- just security measures for the visitor we’re going to have, your royal highness.”

Your brows quirk upwards, pretty lips falling open just enough for him to realize you were about to comment on his use of that. That title. 

“Now if you pardon this knight, ma’am-” Gojo pipes up before you can bludgeon him with questions, striding down the luxurious hallway to his newly-assigned post at the royal treasury. Far, far away from your chambers. “-I have been called by Knight Commander Yaga to my-”

“Satoru- wait.”

He should’ve known better than to have thought he could escape you - not when even his own heart didn’t want to.

Lurching up in an almost-nauseating swoop the moment your voice echoes from behind, hitting his glinting armor. “You…are you okay—? You haven’t called me any of those silly formal titles since we first met.” Words practically dripping with concern, fuck- he was sure your face was furrowing. And if it was up to him he would kiss away every tense crevice. 

But no, that was not his place. 

His place was to stand rooted to the spot, face turning only a half-degree to grace you with a soft bow. Gojo knew it wasn’t the epitome of respect, but a singular look in your face right now and he would break.

“I am in perfect condition to carry out my duties, ma’am.” He’s nodding, voice oh-so-brittle in his throat for how hardened it thundered.

“That’s not what I mean.” Stubborn.

Gojo turns back to the winding corridor in front of him, “Then if that is all, I shall be on my way. I hope you have a good day, ma’am.”

“Satoru.”

And if his cheeks were cold and encrusted with a few streaks of salty tears when he reached the treasury, Gojo was only grateful that his fellow knight Ijichi was too afraid of him to say anything.

.

.

.

Gojo Satoru was avoiding you - marching the other way if he glimpsed you, running around the palace for menial tasks, he wasn’t even your personal guard anymore, for goodness’ sake! Your best friend was ignoring you and you weren’t sure why. 

Was it because you had to skip out on your daily walks in the lilac garden to greet the visiting Zenin royals? 

No, he was always so understanding of the royal responsibilities that you couldn’t skive off. Besides, his strange attitude had sparked up even before Prince Naoya and his family arrived at your kingdom - ever since that meeting with your father.

You were dying to ask the king what exactly was talked about that day, a meeting so confidential that he didn’t even have the royal advisor transcripting it. But your father was always so busy with the older Zenin couple these days, cooped up in office rooms surrounded to the brim with official documents. 

And that left you with…him.

Naoya Zenin. A prince if there was ever any, who couldn’t talk about anything but that. 

“So…um.” Your eyes dart around the palace gardens, you always did love it here - that comforting smell of flowers wafting in clouds around you. But right now you felt anything but comforted. “How are you liking the garden, Prince Naoya?”

He shakes his brown-tipped locks, eyes narrowing. “Rather plebian for a royal palace, if I do say so myself.”

“R-right…” You’re sputtering in an unlady-like fashion, “We do have orchards too if you wanted to-”

“Of course, the gardens in my palace are much bigger-” He’s waving a gloved hand loftily, nose crinkling into a sneer at the bustling gardeners planting beautiful white blossoms everywhere. Honestly, you were informed there was a grand ball soon - but wasn’t this a bit much? “And we teach the help to stay out of sight.”

“Well, I think they’re really nice.” You’re huffing, brows marrying together. 

He scoffs, “Nice- or useful?”

“Both.”You fight the urge to just storm off then and there - it wouldn’t do good to start a war between the two most powerful kingdoms right now. 

“Ah yes yes- nice.” Naoya repeats airily, words warbling as if he was biting back a laugh. “Suppose the low-borns are tolerable if they’re nice.”

A vision of Gojo - tiny and trembling into a bow in front of you - flashed through your mind, and you find your pretty heels digging hard into the dark soil. That was it.

“Perhaps.” Your voice comes out dangerously even, dangerously. Naoya only raises his brows in faint interest, “Yet, even the least tolerable tch- ‘low-born’ would be more tolerable than a pompous, arrogant-”

“There you are, your highnesses!” 

Satoru. 

You would recognize that low, lilting baritone amongst a thousand others. And before you can turn around to face your best friend that had been missing for days, he plows on, “A little gift- from this lowborn.”

Thud!

Before you can even blink, pale hands reach out to unceremoniously dump a radiant yellow flower crown on Naoya’s blond bangs. And you swear Gojo pushed down on his head harder than necessary.

The first thing you register is the warm wall of muscles pushing up against your back, lecherously counting every ladder of washboard abs and Gojo’s plush pecs in your mind. Mindlessly, you’re leaning back even closer, savoring the way his breath hitches. Harlot. 

The second thing you’re realizing is that Naoya Zenin - for the first time in twenty-something years - had gone quiet. Very, very quiet. Suspiciously so. 

You force your words into some semblance of levelness, “Are you…are you alright, Prince Naoya?”

But Naoya didn’t speak - you didn’t know if he was even breathing. Long face growing greyer and greyer by the second, he doesn’t answer you.

No, instead he’s pointing a trembling finger behind you. “You there…you- what shrub have you placed upon my royal head?”

“Laburnum.” Comes the answer - and just as soon comes a drawling, strangled squawk.

Your first instinct is to look towards the shimmering lake not too far away from you, eyes searching for any trace of those familiar ducks- before gasping in surprise and looking back to the prince. Mouth ajar, still making those undignified noises. 

Him? 

“You- you will-” He hisses, so furious that you have to take a step back - right into Gojo’s waiting arms - to avoid his flecks of spit. “-you will pay for this.”

In only a split-second, Naoya had thrown the flower crown onto the ground and wheezed his way up the flowery pathway back to the castle. What a sight it was.

But nothing compared to the way that Gojo comes into your line of sight and preens. One hand tapping at his cheek in thought, the other held behind his back. “Whoops- I forgot that the king specifically informed me that our honored guest was allergic to laburnum flowers. Guess, low-borns aren’t of good memory. Right, my princess?”

“Satoru- you- you ass.” You’re yelping through fits of laughter, not caring for the way the rest of the gardening staff smiles knowingly. “What if that bastard gets deathly sick? The blame would be on you.”

He rolls his summer blue eyes, “Proudly.”

“I should send you to the gallows for this.”

Gasping in faux shock, “Most salacious indeed!”

And for the first time in so long, it feels normal. 

The breezing heat of Gojo’s body against yours feels normal, and you couldn’t bring yourself to think too deeply about it. Too enchanted by the sheer lack of armor - all billowy white poet shirt and flattering cotton pants. 

“Y-yeah well-” Shit- why was your skin burning this way? The sun wasn’t even at peak temperature for today. Absentmindedly, you’re playing with one of his silk lapels, “Thank goodness we’re losing him in a few days, I asked mother and she said the Zenin’s are only visiting until the fast-approaching ball.” 

“Princess-” It all comes out in a rush, “-that ball. The reason for it is actually-”

“Your highness! The queen is asking for a conference with you!” The curious voices of your maidservants drag you away from Gojo’s arms, into a much less scandalous position.

And yet, with only a nod behind - you still stay standing in front of him. You stay.

“Right…” Gojo’s prominent Adam’s apple bobs as he takes a deep gulp. Shadowy gaze darting away, “I should get back to my duties, ma’am. Suguru has been abusing his position as head gardener to work me like a mule.”

The way your face crumples with disappointment makes Gojo’s heart feel sliced open. And raw. “Of course. I’ll see you around, Gojo.”

Gojo. Gojo. 

And of course he couldn’t let you walk away - of course he couldn’t let you leave his life just yet. 

So without thinking, without even realizing, he’s clasping a slender hand around your wrist to pull you back. To reel you in. To him. 

Velvety strands of snow-white curtain Gojo’s eyes, and the doughy fingerpads on your skin shiver. Mumbling, “Before- Before you go, my prin- ma’am. I just wanted to give you-” And you don’t know what makes your heart race more - the cherry-red blush painting all over Gojo’s cheeks and up to the very tips of his ears, or the sunny flower crown clasped in a hand pulled from behind his back. “-this.”

Your mouth drops into an awe-struck oh! It was beautiful - trickling blossoms of every shade of yellow entwined gently together. Embedded with celestially dainty buds of an amber so pale it looked almost white, diamonds on a tiara fit for a princess. 

You had a feeling it would be your favorite one.  

All you could think of was Gojo with his staggering hands, and his battle-worn fingers, making something so delicate for you. 

“Is…is this one just as allergy-inducing as the other, Satoru?” You’re breathing, rustled by a breeze so gentle that it almost hurts.  

“No.” Gojo whispers, just as quiet. As if the slightest sign of a raised voice would break whatever saccharinely thick moment this was, “Yellow acacia and yellow carnation. For you, my princess.”

For the way he’d be losing you just as soon as he loses that asshat. 

And even once you’d adorned his crown and been hurried off by a few palace staff, Gojo stared. Even once you were nothing but a speck of royal satin and yellow crowns, he stared. Even once you were gone, and he was left so very alone, he stared. 

Only thanking the heavens above that you always slept through your flower language lessons. 

.

.

.

Over the next few days; wherever you were, Naoya Zenin was to follow. 

And Gojo was sure that it was pushing the young royal closer and closer to a spectacular aneurysm any time that you called specifically for him to accompany you. Blatantly refusing any other knight that came your way.

The pointed third during “romantic” boat rides on the lake, always the guard overseeing dinners, the one to step in with a blunder if your future fiancé got too…opinionated. Gojo was always there. 

It was more like you spent your time trying to make his dutiful façade crack than supposedly entertaining your guest.

Sneaky princess. 

After all - Gojo found himself pacing and arguing out loud with himself any time you did - he was simply doing his job, right? Even if the aforementioned job went against just a few direct orders from the king himself. 

But these were a direct order from the princess. His princess. And Gojo had stopped his procedural traversing and ranting since realizing this. 

Although- the head chef, Nanami’s, veiled threat about turning him into pig feed the next time he heard stomping may have played a slight part in this, as well. 

And it was on such a day that Gojo found himself stationed to guard the inside of the royal drawing room. Spine ramrod straight, eyes flooded with steel while he took in the sight of you and that bastard- Naoya sketching the other in silence. 

It was a dainty, sunlit room, and the hours might have almost been peaceful - if it wasn’t for the split-haired bastard, that is. 

After that flower fiasco and a thorough telling off for misremembering the prince’s allergies, this was meant to make up for a “bonding activity” according to the king; which to him read more like a desperate attempt to push the two of you together before the grand ball tomorrow night. 

Gojo’s chest caves in with a sudden spike of pain, tomorrow night. Your engagement ball, where you will surely be handed off to a man who wouldn’t be worthy of you in a thousand different lives. 

Fuck, had it really been days since already?

It hurt too much, and so he looks towards the prince’s parchment- how insulting. Hundreds of royal art lessons, yet Naoya still couldn’t capture the exact curve of your smile. And those pretty crinkles by your eyes- they were entirely the wrong number! And Gojo’s sure that any fool could see the way your lips-

He was getting ahead of himself. And reminded embarrassingly of the hundreds of sketches of you over the years stowed away underneath his bed alongside a stubby piece of charcoal. 

And he was leaning over the prince in a way that he was sure would get him strung and quartered in the Zenin palace. Or, at least, that’s what Naoya’s daggered glare was telling him. 

With a sheepish smirk, Gojo snatches a glimpse at your artwork. Stifling a laugh at the way you’ve given up on drawing the other man and started engaging in idle scribblings of weasels and hollies. 

“That one looks like him, don’t you think?” He can’t help but whisper from the corner of his mouth, stomach swooping in delight as soon as your eyes light up. 

Tacking on a familiar hairstyle and sneer onto a particularly shoddy caricature of one of the weasels, giggling. “He does.”

Gojo points at another drawing - this time of a bullfrog- honestly, what interests for a princess. “And that’s-”

“That Jinichi.” You’re finishing off for him, carelessly drawing away a few more - quite frankly, Gojo finds everything you do beautiful, but these were appallingly ugly - scribbles of foxes and goats. “That one’s Oji Zenin, and that’s Gakuganji and that’s-”

“Ahem.”

There was only one person who could make the clearing of a throat sound so snobbish. And that was Naoya Zenin. 

Brows raised, feet tapping impatiently on polished marble as he snatches the parchment from your grip. 

Schwing–!

“Toru- no.” 

Gojo doesn’t even realize he’s pulling out his famed, silver sword until you’re stopping him with a hand to his tense bicep. Shit.

Growling through clenched teeth once more at Naoya while he nestles it back into its scabbard with unsteady fingers - only because you asked. 

But the other man doesn’t even flinch - wearing that perfect mask of regal stoicity, though Gojo manages to catch the way his eyes flicker nervously down at the hilt of his sword. Doesn’t show anything other than the tightening of his thin lips as he gazes upon your humorous drawings. 

The impatient tap! tap! tap! of his feet slowing down, stopping - before Naoya throws your paper down onto the floor and stomps. Gojo would’ve almost found it comedic if it hadn’t been for your startled demeanour.

“Excuse me-” He’s hissing, angling his broad body between you and this unseemly sight. Gojo looks dead-on into Naoya’s spit-fire red face, “-but I would have to hope not to remind a young prince of royal etiquette.”

“Excuse me, sir.”

“No need to call me ‘sir’, your highness.”

Naoya looks up, death in his eyes.

Gojo thought this might be the end. The missed trip to the dungeons all those years ago was finally catching up to him, and he would be thrown in today for drawing his weapon on a royal but goddammit- if he wasn’t going to keep you safe from his ire for as long as he breathes and then some.

But - to both you and Gojo’s surprise, and perhaps even Naoya himself - he simply turns swiftly on his heels and walks out of the room. Letting the heavy double-doors SLAM! deafeningly behind him. 

It takes a beat. One. Two. 

He counts every raging ba-dump–! of his heart against this ribcage- before the terse silence shatters with laughter. 

“Toru- To- Satoru—!” You’re wiping away genuine tears, “‘No need to call me sir-’ where did you even come up with that-”

“Fuck! You can laugh but I thought I was headed to the gallows.” He’s exclaiming, and it was quite difficult to act as if your laugh wasn’t the most beautiful thing he’d heard in his entire life. “Although- it would have been a killer last line. Wouldn’t it, my princess?”

The two of you stare at each other for one singular ba-dump–! Before bursting into peels of undignified cackles that could make an entire court shiver in scandal. 

“Killer- killer alright-” You’re rolling your watery eyes, “This is just as bad as the time you caught Yaga in his interpretive rain dance routine- I thought you were surely dead then.”

Please, Gojo’s stomach and his heart were hurting - though, for very different reasons. “Not as bad as when you wanted to play dress-up with the sacred royal crown and lost it.”

“Don’t remind me, my father was-” That’s when your tear-lathered lashes flutter, a hand coming up to swat softly against your cheek as if to jolt back your senses. You’re groaning over Gojo’s whine, “-my father. Oh no! What will he say about this?” You almost knock your cushy stool over with how fast you’re teetering into a stand, “I must go apologize to weasel- Naoya right away lest relations with the Zenins-”

“Let me.”

Your brows raise, “What?”

“Let me.” Gojo’s repeating, more firmly this time. Thumb grazing briefly down your knuckles as he pulls you back into your seat. 

Just for a split-second - like he couldn’t even think of letting himself touch such a precious treasure. 

He knows you will argue this, he knows your stupidly selfless self will fight to apologize; which is why before you can say a word, he’s marching hastily out of those same doors and towards the luxurious guest chambers. 

Truthfully, Gojo Satoru didn’t give a fuck about Naoya Zenin - but he’ll be damned if you, his beloved, was cast in a hameful light because of his childish actions. 

He has to do something for you, while he still can. While he still has you. While he can still love you.

The corridors are winding, decadent. He takes a deep breath when nearing the slightly-open gilded door of the Zenin suite, that distinctly nasally tone of Naoya drifting in conversation from within. Shuddering in a deep breath, “Pardon m-”

“-drew me as a weasel!” The prince bursts, fury seeping into every hard syllable of his. Gojo stills where he stands outside, hand on the cool metallic doorknob. “I have never met such a vulgar, unrefined-”

“Oh, do bear it until the engagement Naoya.” The gruff voice of a man responds - and he recognizes it from all the recent chiding at palace staff to be the prince’s cousin, Jinichi Zenin. “After that ya can take your time breaking ‘er in.”

What? 

“A boor telling me to break in a wench.” The younger man scoffs, though he sounds much calmer than just moments before. 

Gojo thinks he could throw up all over the gleaming floors, he thinks he wants to keel over and beg at the king’s feet to keep this from happening to you. He thinks he just might. 

But right now, he can’t bring his feet to move a single inch. Pressing himself up closer against the adjacent patterned wall, sharp ear yearning for more shards of the conversation. 

“They’re all the same anyways.” Says Jinichi, “Just give ‘er something sparkly or flowery and keep her sated. Don’t want another one running off before you can dig your claws into the crown, now, do we?”

And perhaps he’s a hopeless fool for praying that Naoya might say something - anything - else. Wishing for the non-existent good in your soon-to-be fiancé, who only grits out a displeased, “Fine. Only because I want to see her pretty lil’ face when I break her to my will.” There’s the sound of urgent footsteps, “But if father doesn’t give me the throne for my efforts then I’m killing her and you, you brute.”

Stood stock still.

Gojo doesn’t think he could move even if he wanted to - and right now, ice-cold spikes of anger were the only thing latching him rooted to the spot, not even flinching once Naoya closes the door behind him and walks- seeing him. 

His jaw clenches, eyes harrowing. “You.” 

And Naoya had very clearly taken the opportunity to arm himself in his family chamber, because his spindly fingers itch towards the hilt of his dangerously glinting sword. Just seconds away from-

“Please.” 

Gojo drops onto one knee, the tendons of his neck aching with how far downwards he had it bent into a pitiful bow. “I ask his highness to please let the princess go- to call off this impending engagement. I- I will bear the brunt of committing an offense, and will gladly take any punishment that is bestowed upon me. I just please beg of you to-”

“The same hand.”

“What?” Gojo forces himself to look up with tear-filled eyes, to face the prince squarely in his chestnut gaze. His delighted chestnut gaze. 

Pointing towards his right hand, “The same hand you were to raise your sword at me, the same hand you used to put that wretched toxic flower crown on me-” And then his blade, “-I order you to repent.”

The other man breathes, “Repent…”

“Repent.” Naoya stands up taller, perhaps the most self-confident that Gojo has ever seen him. A barbarous curl of his lips starting to form, “Repent, and I shall consider ending my engagement with the princ-”

CRUNCH!

Pain. Blinding pain was all that Gojo could feel, and…relief. 

He couldn’t even register the steady trickle of warm crimson on his skin and onto the floor in rose-like splotches - even though he could see it through bleary eyes. Head still spinning to catch up with the nanosecond events of drawing his sword and slicing a wide gash down his forearm. 

Through half-lidded eyes, he puts back his bloodied blade into the scabbard and looks up at the stricken prince. 

Repentance. 

“So you love her.” Is all that Naoya hisses. And Gojo can’t lie, nor can he muddy your name. 

So he simply waits quietly, silence speaking enough for eons. Waiting for you to be set free. And if he tried, he could even manage a smile-

Sniffing insolently - though, it sounded more like a snicker. “How valiant, for a low-born.” All that is said before he spits furiously at Gojo’s feet and breezes past in a swish of capes - as if nothing ever happened. “I might even invite you to the princess and I’s wedding ceremony.”

.

.

.

In a palace of thousands, it was only Gojo Satoru that could manage to stand out. 

None of the royal jesters could make the court laugh quite as loud. None of the other knights - no matter how muscled, or chivalrous - could make the ladies-in-waiting swoon just as much. And none of the other reputable men could make you seek him out in every chamber, state room, or training ground just like this.  

It was strange not to see even the barest glimpse of Gojo for an entire day, and the palace didn’t quite feel like a home without him.

“I’m telling you, Nobara–” You’re wheezing out in condensed puffs as your eager right-hand attendant continues mercilessly tightening away the undergarments of your ballgown. “Something’s probably happened to him or-”

“-or he’s being locked up for offending some uppity duke.” She’s rolling her honeypool eyes, one of the few who wasn’t afraid to express themselves this way in front of you. Flitting about the opulent dressing room you rarely liked to use, “You know how that eugh- Gojo is.”

“Which is precisely why I’m worried.”

Honestly, you didn’t even care for a grand ball when you didn’t know where your best friend was. Whether he was in the dungeons or…worse. 

But Nobara wasn’t here to hear you ramble about Gojo Satoru - you oftentimes got the impression that he irritated her too much for her own liking - she was here to doll you up in costly pale blue silks and muslins that draped off of you prettier than a painting. 

And you felt dizzy by the time she let you be escorted off towards the emanating music of the ballroom - with an excited goodbye and a reluctant promise to keep an eye out for Gojo. 

Hair done more intricately than you could’ve even imagined, your jewelry caught every light in the room, a bejeweled flower tiara weighing heavily on your head. Adorning your face in a crown that reminded you of the one Gojo had made you only a few days ago. 

It was almost a struggle to keep your face held high as you took the first few steps down the winding imperial staircase. To the ball. 

You have to stop yourself from tilting your head down at the thrumming masses of decadently dressed-up nobles and clinking champagne to check whether Gojo was hidden away somewhere down there. 

Manners. Posture. Eye contact. 

It was all painfully practised, and so was the tightening of your features as your own father started reading off your introduction. He never took on this task - what was happening?

“And now, for the most important guest of all-” Booming voice thundering in your ears almost as loud as your heartbeat was. The king addresses the congregation in the middle of the dancefloor, more ruler than father at this point. “-my daughter, princess of our beloved kingdom. And the queen of the next!”

Your hand stills where it had been helping you balance in your heels down the stairway- what?

Thankfully, your father carries on - or rather, not thankfully, considering what his next words are. 

“Yes, my people, this may come as a surprise to you all.” He chuckles above the deafening murmurs, and you slowly find yourself scurrying onto the raised platform your father’s throne was seated on. “But tonight is not only a simple celebration of our nation, it’s a celebration of love. Of two nations.”

There’s a beat of silence as he reaches out a withered hand to you, and you find yourself wordlessly taking it. 

“F-father, what-” you whisper, but there’s no response. Your skin bristles with goosebumps, and you’re not sure whether it’s from the summer breeze wafting from the gardens, or from the speech’s implications.

Letting yourself be pulled right into the middle of the stage,right into the spotlight - where Naoya Zenin was waiting for you. Dressed in his finest suit of white silk, adorned with layers upon layers of military accolades and velvety medals. 

The bright, blazing light of the chandelier was scorching, and your hands clench in unease. What was happening?

“That is right, my people.” The king drags your hand up to mesh in an entwinement with Naoya’s clammy ones, holding it up for the eager public to see. “After much consideration and forethought, our royal families have decided that today my daughter is the beloved princess of our nation. But tomorrow, she will be the future queen of the Zenin kingdom.”

There’s cheering - but you can’t hear any of it. In fact, the entire world could be falling upon you and you don’t think you would have noticed. 

All you can feel is the queasy churning of your stomach, and the stern whisper of Naoya’s voice against your ear. Fingers tightening around your own, bruisingly. “Dance with me before I break this pretty hand, princess.”

You’re like a ragdoll, being puppeteered in a rigid beeline onto the dance floor. 

If it wasn’t for one of Naoya’s hands bracing onto your waist, you wouldn’t even have realized that the royal orchestra had started up a gorgeous waltz. A slow, romantic melody that you might’ve otherwise loved if you weren’t trapped in the arms of a fiancé you never asked for. 

“Looking pretty out of it there, princess.” The prince sneers after a few practised motions of your dance, making your dazed eyes stray from the swooning crowd and onto his pointed features. 

And despite it all, you can’t help but feel betrayed. You thought that the two of you might have rapport at your obligation, if nothing else. “You- you didn’t even tell me. An entire engagement and you didn’t even bother to-”

“As a husband, I don’t owe my tch- wife anything.” His nose crinkles at your wandering eyes, the way your feet itched ever-closer to the surrounding people rather than the dancefloor. “Wishing it was someone else dancing with you?”

“Yes.” You’re spitting out before you can stop, trying oh-so-hard not to let your face twist into even a semblance of the fury steeped inside of you. “Anyone but a husband that I never wanted and never will want.”

“As if you deserve any bett-”

Your nails dig into one set of his fingers enough to engrave deep craters, almost enough to make him bleed. “I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man on Earth.” 

Naoya seems stunned for a few seconds - but, alas, just when you’re hoping that you’ve shut him up for good, you’re faced with the fact that the universe isn’t that kind to you.

“You mean you would marry the tch- low-born.” He pulls you into an incredibly rough twirl when the music crescendos, pulling you even closer. It’s all you can do to not fight his grip- “I’m not below finishing off his other hand if that’s what it takes to break you.”

“What are you even talking about?”

Each word jagged. “The knight. You love him, don’t act stupid.” 

Raising your chin in defiance, “So what?” And just as much as confusion filled you, as did panic. Because Naoya’s grip was only getting firmer, his moves much harsher. Opening his mouth to spit out- 

“Pardon me, your highnesses.” A deep bass cuts in, startled- you almost give yourself whiplash peering up into those fathomless mahogany eyes. Yaga’s thin brows furrowing into something heavily-set, “May I cut in for a dance with the princess?”

You don’t wait for an answer from Naoya - and neither does Commander Yaga. Swiftly sweeping you into his engulfing embrace as the orchestra changes into something slightly more upbeat. 

Dressed in a thick suit adorned with even more medals than Naoya - ones you knew for sure were real, unlike his. And you couldn’t help but wonder just how good Gojo would look with his own.

“So…” Yaga starts, once more couples join the floor and his words can’t be heard over the shuffling of feet by anyone other than you. His calloused hands let you lead him through a waltz much more mellow than what Naoya had with you. You always did think that the leader of your knights was a gentle giant. “Begging you to forgive my indiscretion, ma’am but ah- trouble in paradise?”

“Trouble in hell, as expected.” You’re shuddering, gaze bouncing off of any flash of sapphire blue around the room. 

The man in front of you nods gravely, “Right right. I might not be a married man, but even I know that times like these often call for a walk in the lilac garden. You know, to- ah, clear your head.”

Quirking a brow, you stare at him. “What?”

And oh, Yaga simply looked like all the gold in the world couldn’t pay him enough for this. 

“Times like these-” He’s emphasizing, boring deeply into your eyes as if to mean every syllable to strike your very core. And it does. You don’t know why, but it does. “-call for a walk in the lilac garden.”

Oh.

“Oh.” 

Yaga’s lips twitch upwards into an almost-smile, and his rumbling voice is soft for the next few words. “Go, your highness.”

So you do.

You’re realizing, with an ache of such gentle appreciation, that the commander had danced you two until you were practically teetering on the massive veranda. Open to the garden; where every prim hedge, bush, and tree was gorgeously decorated until your eyes sparkled. 

Your breath bates…a choice. Head turning back to the luxuries of a royal ball that was none-the-wiser. 

Then, with a brief hug you bully Yaga into, you run - as much as the delicate heels digging into your feet would allow. Faster. 

If this was any other time, you might’ve felt disappointed at how you weren’t even stopping to admire the beauty of the moonlight-bathed garden. But right now, your heart was only pounding to go faster and faster. 

Nothing else mattered. 

Gojo was leaning on one pillar of the same white gazebo - and he was beautiful. If you didn’t know any better, you would have thought he was a faerie of the night. 

Just a lone, tall silhouette that you could recognize so well; azure eyes twinkling, ivory strands of his hair shimmering with the silvery blue of the moon swimming amongst a dark sky. One he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off of until he jolts his head towards the sharp snap! of a twig underneath your rapid feet.

“My…my princess.” He falls onto one knee. 

It all comes out in a whisper - as if Gojo had dreamed of this moment so many repeated times before and wasn’t sure if this was a dream, too.

“Satoru-!”

It wasn’t.

Gojo stands up to embrace you like it’d be the last time he ever would, like you were the one thing connecting him to this life and he was a dying man desperate to breathe. 

Strong arms winding around your waist, you’re pushed against one of the closed-off walls of the gazebo before you can even realize it. Arching off of the cool wooden surface and into his blistering heat. Into every ravenous, panted-out cloud of breath against your ear, “You came.”

He sounded pained. And you were sure you did just as much when you’re whimpering, “You disappeared.”

Gojo lets off a choked-up noise that could’ve been anything from affirmation to blatant shock. Half-lidded eyes boring deeply into yours, he shrugs off the jacket on his non-dominant arm to you with a low bow. 

“May I have this dance, my princess?”

You’re gasping at the sight of starchy white bandages around his other hand, fingers hesitantly falling into Gojo’s heated flesh. “S-Satoru, what happened ah-”

But he drifts you gently into a soundless dance, the distant crickets and swish! of lilac branches your only tune. 

And you never even understood just how much Gojo was a part of your life until he was moving through the exact same steps of waltzing that you’d learned growing up. The exact same once that you used to force him to sit through.

“I thought you were here because you read my letter.” Gojo mutters, lips so close now that they grazed the sensitive shell of your ear. 

You’re having trouble finding your voice, “What letter?” 

“The- the one that I left-” Just for you. His long lashes flutter open in shock, features contorted into something almost devastated. You wonder what made him feel this way. “-the one that I left in your chambers- about the- the prince, and the engagement and-”

“I got prepared for the ball in the dressing room today, I didn’t go to my room.” You’re continuing, voice small. Scared. “Satoru…you knew about the engagement?”

And Gojo’s voice told you everything you needed to know.

You feel your angry flare up hot and red, fists curling into Gojo’s delicate lapels. But that only proves to inch him even closer and make you sound much more breathless than you intended, “You knew about it and- and you didn’t even think to give me a hint that I was being carted off like a prize for some pompous asshat?”

He looked like he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, lips still so pink in the night, wobbling. “I…I couldn’t let you be married, I just couldn’t. I would give my life if it meant you get the freedom to choose who you wanted.” Your dance had stalled, and you almost feel disappointed. “But I’m a coward, and this-” Gojo throws his hands across, voice hitching, “-sneaking around, hiding, running away is the only way I could ever-”

“You should have told me. Not just in the letter.” You’re insisting, running your hands through your hair. Suddenly, something strikes you, “That arm- it’s because of Naoya, isn’t it?”

He doesn’t even have the energy to protest, and that only spurs you on even more. “I-I could have talked to my father- maybe the council and we could have made it so that…”

“So that what?” Gojo’s voice hardens as much as it could with you, which wasn’t very much at all. His fists clench and unclench at his sides like it was taking everything in him to not just…“So that you can be the laughingstock of the kingdom when you marry a low-born knight?”

He was right. They would never accept him, no matter how much you did.

You’re rendered speechless, shivering at the way he rubs his wet eyes with the back of his hand. “Oh, I don’t want you- I need you.” And he was so beautiful like this, just centimeters away from you in the escape of the night. “I need you. I need you, I need you- I need you more than the sun above my head, and the air that I breathe, my princess. You have bewitched me, and I am yours. But you cannot be mine-”

You breathe out, “Satoru…”

“-and maybe in another life-”

“Maybe in this one.”

Soft hands rover their way onto the sides of your arms, and Gojo shakes you feebly as if to snap you out of this hypnosis and urge you to run. Eyes wide, yearning. “I have always been yours, body and soul.”

You always have wondered whether there was a method to shut Gojo Satoru up. And, right now, you think you may have found the perfect answer. 

Because his entire towering figure just melts into your touch the very second you press your lips onto Gojo’s plump ones. Soft. Velvety. 

His nostrils flare through a breathy sigh when you tilt your head mere sultry degrees to deepen the kiss. You were addicted to the honey-coated taste of him, the flat drag of his scratchy tastebuds rolling over your loosening maw. 

“Ngh- my princess…” He’s puncturing your kisses with kiss after sloppy kiss, heavy hands wrapping around your body to wrangle you flush against his hardened ones. And you could count every glissade of his washboard abs through that thin poet’s blouse, “I love you.”

You’re not sure if it’s a fragment of your imagination, or- it’s not. 

Gojo manhandles you - and himself - to sit on the opulent gazebo bench with you plopped into his manspread lap, without breaking the kiss for a split-second. Because it hurt to part from your pretty, candied lips, to let those slippery strings of saliva break in the clouded air between you two.

Even if it was to purr out—

“I love you I love you I love you-” The straight edges of his pearly white teeth sinking into your lower lip, groaning from the back of his throat. And your jittery legs shift needily on his warm, meaty thighs, “-I love you.”

“Satoru—” Just about the only thing that you can say right about now, your tone resounds in Gojo’s ears and makes him grunt. Your fingers tangle into his cushy locks, “T-touch me.”

He snickers, one hand clawing onto the crown of your sweat-dampened scalp and wrenching your face away until you’re huffing and puffing cutely for more. “Mmm, how about we use those princess-y manners of yours, hm?”

“Please-”

“Louder.”

“Please.”

“Harlot.” Gojo slides in a looong few digits past those impossibly endless skirts of yours, making your thighs dampen with treacly webs of needy slick. Letting those doughy fingerpads fringe over the covered mound of your pussy, just the very edges. “That was my f-first kiss, y’know?”

He had been hopelessly saving it for you, after all. 

Your eyes roll all the way to the back of your weighted lids as soon as he teases you, mewling. “Was mine too, so we’re even-” Your hips shift in a lazy back n’ forth on top of his heated core, “-just- just want you to touch me.”

“I dunno…” Gojo drawls - drunken. And you feel the edges of his kiss-bitten lips warp around the very tip of your plummy tongue to suck on like his favorite gummy candy, “Wanna kiss my princess just a lil’ bit more.”

Panting, “K-kiss?”

“Mhm.” 

Your eyes shutter in a heady blink, oh-so-cutely ready to crash back into a filthy, filthy French kiss once more, Gojo pulls away-

A noise of disappointment fresh on your lips and just about to spill out, before he lifts you up easily with only a single beefy hand underneath your body. Splaying you out on the sprawling wooden table right beside you, your back hits the ice-cold surface and makes you gasp into the crisp night air.

The lecherous sound of it almost as loud as the sudden clack! of Gojo’s knees collapsing down onto the floor. Your face contorts into a wince because surely it sent a stinging pain up his legs?

“M’quite used to being on my knees for you, my princess.”

But he didn’t seem to care - didn’t even seem to notice when he was much more enamored with the heavenly sight down there.

“These lips-” He smears away your lacy layers upon layers, budging up to nuzzle the soft skin of your inner thighs. And shit- the filmy glaze over his eyes told you that Gojo doesn’t even realize the way his bubblegum pink tongue lolls out over the splotchy spatters of your juices. “-were tellin’ me they feel a little…left out.”

Your mouth waters with a syrupy lamination of saliva as soon as his murked breath strikes your cunt. And the drag of his rumbling bass is so delicious – you couldn’t help but imagine just how it would feel on you.

“Just- just get it on with it-” you’re hissing, fingers latching onto a few thick locks of ivory to drudge him ever-closer. 

“Impatient.”

As if Gojo himself wasn’t impatient. 

As if he wasn’t just leaking out thick wads of drool from the parted sides of his twisted grin at just the thought of tasting you. Sliding the pointed tip of his button nose languidly up the crevice of your puffed-up slit, he breathes you in and feels his cock twitch-

“Oh, princess.” Gojo can’t move, he can’t breathe if it wasn’t around your needy cunt right now. He’s ignoring those shooting bites of pain up the sides of his arm to tug on your useless garments.

Pulling- shit, he always did fucking hate how many layers you royalty had to wear. 

Pulling and pulling until the slow trawl of your undergarments by his nimble fingers wasn’t enough, and he just had to lunge his cottony head over to plummet his pearly whites into your panties and rip—!

A proper, gaping hole where your teary pussy was- and you looked even more gorgeous down there than he could’ve imagined.

Gojo’s face was blank, eyes wide and locked right at your geysering orifice like a man starved. For eons it felt like, until you were bucking up with pure need.

You’re humming in concern, struggling up onto your elbows to stare down at him. “Sa…Toru?”

And at your pretty voice, Gojo twitches. He gasps - full-bodied, like you’d just sent a zillion volts of shock down his sloped spine just by speaking to him. And he was well and fully intent on acting on it-

“Princess…princess princess princess—” Leaking from between his lips like he couldn’t stop, he hits the cute target of your cunt instantaneously with a fat thud of spittle, one. Two. Three, until your entrance was overflooding. He’s drawling the plummy end of his spit-glossed maw across your folds, “Oh, my princess. Just look at you.”

You feel his mess drool off the side of your plumpened pussylips and smear all across your peaked clit with only a simple touch of Gojo’s round-ended thumb. 

Just down-right filthy when he crashes forward to slot the curvaceous nub of his sweltering hot tongue over the brim of your hole. Drawing all over that snug orifice with slow patterns round n’ round-

“Toru–!” It’s the only thing you know at this point. “Toru.”

“Whaaat? Jealous, my princess?” The words clang in your head- and the realization hits you at the same moment Gojo’s thickly viscous swab of spit does on your own tongue. A soft nudge at your slackened chin urging you to swallow-

And he can’t waste a second, can’t spend even a mere moment away from his favorite spot between your legs. Because now that Gojo got a taste, he wants alllll of it.

Stumbling back down in haste to plant so many uncountable smooches on your bawling pussy folds. Skimming his tastebuds just along your quivering hole.

“Shit- shiiiit–” When you’d heard court ladies giggling about this, you didn’t think it would feel this good. Or maybe that’s just because it was Gojo stuffing himself impossibly deeper between your legs. “M-more, Toru–”

Your voice was cracking just as much as his fucking sanity was. 

Trilling out into frenzied shrills when Gojo swerves his eager thumb to pry open your gluey folds even further and give your fattened clit a flick!

You swear you feel Gojo depart his jaw with a giggle when your hips are bucking up pliably off the splintered table and into the bustling hot cavern of his mouth. More. “Easy there, your royal highness-”

“D-don’t call me that–” You’re whimpering, fingers tugging on Gojo’s bangs in some form of retaliation. But, of course it backfires on you just as soon as the force makes your knight moan.

“Wasn’t calling you that.” Gojo rolls his eyes, and your heart races in anticipation when the pointed edge of his chin strikes the drowned ends of your cunt. Lathering his pretty features in all the collective beads of slick raining fountaining out of you. His summer blue eyes flick downwards - and you can’t help but follow. “Was talking to her. Isn’t that right?”

Fuck.

You were fucked. 

And you were losing your mind when Gojo drags you roughly towards the edge of the table with only an ounce of his strength. Mouth making out greedily, heels digging into the fleshy mounds of his back, you can only sob and beg for more more more-

“S’fuckin’ chattier than my girl.” He’s nodding along with every saturated squelch after squelch! resonating in his eardrums - as if it was a full-on conversation with your noisy pussy. “Let’s hope that fiancé of yours doesn’t hah- f-fucking hear.”

But Gojo was acting like he wanted him to.

“Hope the- the king doesn’t find his princess bein’ eaten out by- ngh- a knight.” Barrelling long, slender inches of his index and pointer past your tight ring of mushy muscle. 

Your head throws back when he digs into the velvety depths of your pussy with just a single quirk-

“O-oh my god, Satoru–” You’re gasping in the flowery night air, tummy aching with every pump deeper because he was just so close to where you wanted him. “More- j-just a bit more.”

And yet, he acts like he doesn’t even hear you right now. 

Cupping over one massive palm over his ear and drifting ever-closer, “Wha’s that? C-can’t hear ya, girl- ngh ya gotta be- louder.”

Louder and louder he was getting with the vulgarly fast thrust graced upon your gummy walls. The sound only makes him giggle all drunk on you, “What’s that? Here? That turn you on? Hmmm…”

And just when you’re letting your vision blur with stars- just when you think it couldn’t get any better-

“Mmmm– wan’ another taste-” 

It’s the last thing your ringing ears hear before Gojo’s lurching forwards and burying his nose into your sensitive clit to give your overstuffed entrance a leeengthy lick. Right at the very split-second the globular edges of his digits scratch at that magical spot. 

“W-woah.” Your head snaps up blearily to steal a glimpse at what had Gojo Satoru’s voice so airy n’ cracking in awe. 

Only to see him fluttering his lathered lashes, the slick-gleaming apples of his cheeks blushing. Like some maiden in love. “Got even wetter f’me, your highness.” He’s breathing out, spitting out another voluminous cobweb of drivel and watching the way it sliiides across with the ribbons of slick pouring out of you. “Ohhhh, even b-better than any candy- better than a-any dessert.”  

You yelp when one rugged and grabs a rough handful of your ass and latches his lips even sloppier against your hole. “T-Toru your arm!”

“Oh? This?” He’s glancing down at the bandages as if he’d forgotten they were ever there. “S’nothing for your- hah- personal knight. Doesn’t even hurt, I’d- I’d rather die than let a stupid injury get in the way of what I’ve been dreaming of for aaaages.”

The dual points of pleasure make your toes curl, every part of your body shaking-

Gojo was out of control now. Crazed.

High-pitched bouts of giggles escaping him, muffling around where his candy-glazed cerise lips were latched around your clit and sucking. He makes sure to hold fatal eye contact while he hollows out his scorching cheeks and drags the fleshy nub. 

 “M-making out with your pussy- your pretty, pretty pussy, my princess.” Your heartbeat echoes in rapid staccato with the vicious thud! thud! thud! of his neatly crowned fingertips pecking your g-spot. Each of his puffed-out gruffs making your tongue loosen in a please, “Making you s-so loud, making you feel so good.”

And without even realizing it, he’s rovering the papping brims of his fingers to give your clit a spank. Letting the syrupy beads slide allll the way down his tongue - letting you watch. 

“S’all me.” Gojo slurs out. “Me- me me me me–” Steady rivulets of slick bubbling from the edges of his tongue when his sinful motions get faster. Harder. “Gonna ask who m-made you feel this way n’ it’s me. Your Satoru.”

More ravenous. 

Swirling around slow probes of his sensory tips, it glazes his skin all the way down to his knobbly wrist in a thick coat of sap. Memorizing every gooey ridge and crevice inside your tight channel - shit, Gojo feels his ruddied tip spurt out a jetstream of buttery pre in his pants. 

He thinks he might just burst in his pants if you don’t finish right this second. 

But luckily - or unluckily - for him, you do. Right this very second, after being wrung dry underneath only a few more lapping slashes of his ferocious tongue, tweaking your buttony clit until you cum.

And oh, you’re so pretty when you do.

Your head throwing back with a broken moan of Toru–! It takes every ounce of trained will in his drunken body to not break off from your gooey pussy and watch the way your beautiful face twists. 

Fucked out.

“O-oh, shit–” You’re practically sobbing at this point, wrist aching with just how hard you were pushing Gojo’s readily used face into your fluttering core. Your vision blurs with sparks n’ stars, “-H-how are you so good. Unfair, unfair—”

Babbling away such nonsense with that smart mouth of yours, Gojo thinks he sees utter heaven when your hot juices flood inside his mouth in generous heaps.

Lugging down an open palm underneath his chin to greedily collect the leaking beads that sprinkly in a shiny sheen off of his chin, he finds himself moaning. “Shhh, your knight’s here. Give it t’me– use me, my princess.”

And use him you were. 

Riding out each white-hot peak of your high with slobbering grinds all across Gojo’s beautiful features. Your clit catches on the poking ridges of his mouth and nose and you squeal- “Ngh- b-better when you’re shut up like th-this, Satoru–”

Just for that, he’s spanking your goopy pussy thoroughly. 

All the way until those shots of electricity down your bowed spine are nothing more but prickly tingles, all the way until your thundering ears calm down and you can hear each damp thwack!

All the way until your high has bated and yet, Gojo is still snogging each swollen fold of your pussy like a feast. “M’sensitive–” You sniffle, and he doesn’t even seem to hear you. “Fuh-fuck, Toru, keep doing that n’ m’not gonna let you ngh fuck me.” 

That’s what finally gets his attention. 

You can feel your lips burst with a slight giggle when all it takes is a quick nanosecond for Gojo’s plumpened mouth to jerk away from your cunt with the snap! of wiry slick.

Scrambling onto unsteady feet, he’s teetering over the edge of the wood ever-so-slightly. Muscular body casting a shadow on yours, and you think he’s never looked sexier.

Fawny strands of frosty white curtaining Gojo’s half-lidded eyes, thick thighs pressing against yours shivering; and even from your position homed towards the end of the table, your eyes catch sight of such a massively outlined bulge. 

Staggering. 

One that made your hands ghost down Gojo’s tensed abs, and he’s throwing his perspiration-dampened head with a whine. 

“Need you, Satoru–” You’re managing out, strangled and messy. You’re sure you sound just as yearning as you feel. Fingers tug-tug-tugging impatiently on his gauzy clothes, “Want- you- out of these-” 

And whatever the princess wants, the princess gets. 

It’s as if on command - Gojo’s shedding his billowy shirt like it burned him. And very, very soon were his snug pants to follow, your layers, his sanity-

“Hngh- please.” He’s gruffing out, flinching just as soon as you cup his cheeks to smear away the remaining traces of slick glimmering on top of his blushing skin. Your touch was electric. Tonality painfully hoarse, “Let me fuck you- wanted it for so long. Let me fuck you please.”

Your drenched pussylips stream out a damp spot right across where you could feel his inflated vein poke between your folds. And he felt so…long. “Yes- yes, please.”

Getting the princess to say please?

He’s nodding his head shakily - Gojo could pass out, he could cu- 

Oh, just a few taps of his mushroom tip on the outer edges of your pussy and he spots something creamy topping over your mound like icing. Sweat-slicked brows furrowing, Gojo nudges in even closer to where pooling splotches of cum pours from the strawberry pink divot right in the middle of his head.

He’s cumming and he couldn’t stop. 

Couldn’t do anything but whine at the tender bolts of bliss aching all the way from his toes to his fuzzy head.

“S-Satoru did you just-”

“Shut up.” Oh, you would have his head later for this. “Shut up- shut up and just…”

N’ so he curls a hand at his bulky base and draws out a thick swab at the torrents of seed decorating your cute cunt. Making sure the milky sap formulated a glossy cap on his crownhead, before pushing rigorously in-

“F-f-fuuuuck–” he keens out, a thin line of sweat trekking down the side of his temples. And if he pushed just an inch further, Gojo could feel his hooded eyes well up with fucking tears- “Tight so tight s-sooo hot- so…”

You’re mewling, “Deeper- c-c’mon.”

He was fucking you like he didn’t even realize it - like he was enchanted by each mindless rut pulled from the carnal depths of his hips. 

Two warm hands latch on in a vice-like grip on the delicious curve of your hips, and he’s holding your body still and pushing and pushing and pushing-

“Sh-shit!” Gojo’s voice pitches up embarrassingly high at the end of his slew of swears, buttering up your insides in a muggy few ribbons of pre in response. “But s-so tight- dunno if it’ll even…even fit.”

He sounded hypnotized. 

“Are you- ngh! are you alright, Satoru?” You’re musing out, eyes glassy with a solid combination of lust and utter concern. Before you know it, your hand is reaching out to stroke the ba-dump–! thudding against his pecs.

“No.”

And it takes only the slightest graze of your doughy fingerpads against his flaming hot skin, the slightest touch from you before Gojo rudely swats your hand away and bottoms out-

You don’t even know what you were mad at- were you mad?

You really can’t even remember. Not when the crowned tip of Gojo’s incredible length was planting a sweet peck right into the sponged ends of your cervix, the entirety of his shaft spearheading you so deep that you think he might just be fucking into your lungs. 

So big that he didn’t even have to try to rub the puffy zig-zag of his veins along your sweetest spots, even the most minute gyrations made your toes curl. 

Splitting you apart. Stroking the weepy base of your slit with the hot, rounded sack of his breeder balls so right that it made you putty in his hands.

“Don’t t-touch me, my princess.” Gojo’s nuzzling his tear-stuck cheek against your own, you could feel the warble of his unsteady confessions. “Don’t touch me or I’ll…I’ll cum.”

And when has Gojo Satoru ever lied to you? Well, the upturned jolt of his split-ended tip right into the target of your mushy cervix told you that he wasn’t.

Gojo’s sinking down the edges of his teeth into his wobbly lower lip, he’s forcing his eyes to narrow down n’ obscure his crystal clear image of you to stop himself from cumming. 

“So beautiful, can’t help it–” His breath hitches once he’s pushing apart your trembly thighs and stretching them over the two ends of his broad shoulders. Your ankles pitching down onto the rippling plush of his toned deltoids. “So perfect.”

“S-sweet-talker.” You whisper, mouth as dry as the Sahara with how his thick circumference was stretching out your rubbery walls until they were seering. 

But if Gojo heard then he didn’t snap back - he was too pussydrunken to.

Moving on instinct, on that carnal twinge inside his brain that forced his powerful limbs to lock your ankles with one hand behind his head. To brace an engulfing palm right beside your head and lower himself down, down, down into a-

A mating press. 

Gojo Satoru had you in a fucking mating press.

“So mine.”

And he was pounding all his aching inches into you like it would be the last time. Like he was mazing through your adhesive-like walls and plummeting the leaky end of his cock to knock against your very womb. 

Gojo’s nose crinkles at the sheer warmth you were coating him in, dripping fresh slathers of slick in rings ‘round his hilt. He shivers as it drools down his tight balls, “I’m…I’m really fucking you- ngh! I’m fucking you, my princess.”

“Yes- yes yes yes—” Your mouth parts ajar, and you don’t know what it floods more with - your pathetic whines, or saliva. Coating a treacly river from each curl of your lips, “More. More, Toru.”

Oh.

You might have just broken him with that. 

Even through your fucked-out stupor, you’re gaping at the way that the hand beside your head curls into an unyielding fist. It has to.

Otherwise, Gojo’s plump cockhead would be sugarcoating your sloppy hole in much more than just copious amounts of sticky precum. He would’ve cum.

“M-more?” You hear from above you, your knight’s bulging pecs vibrating with the plea. Oh, was it a plea - strained, shaking. Gojo sounded as if he was two seconds away from simply bursting into crazed laughter, “More…more. My princess wants- fuck! More?”

Fat ends of his fingers lock around the sides of your cheeks and force you into such an unladylike pout. ��Say it- say it, little royal.”

“Shit!” Your core arches up into his hardened one, just as Gojo knew it would when angling his hips juuust right to give your bulging g-spot a long, hard swipe. Your throbbing clit scratching against his pale happy trail. “Yes- ngh yes I want more. Want more, Satoru!”

More. 

And more was exactly what you were going to get. More than you could handle.

Your thighs ache with the struggle to stay open when Gojo tightens his lock around your ankles. Gruffing out a tight, “Take it then.”

He was so sexy, the swelling flex of his biceps enough to make your pussy drool and him slip n’ slide pliantly. Jackhammering away rugged pumps that you feel all the way in your leaden throat.

Your most favorite spots are so bruised that they’re almost tender, curling the base of your spine with tendrils of bliss that make you yelp.

“O-ohhh my god—” The side of his neck dampens as you’re leaving hot, open-mouthed kisses that make the man pinning you down shiver. His sculpted abs twinging with every massage down your front, “Just like that, a-always wanted to fuck you, Toru–”

“Do you even hear yourself?” Gojo hiccups, the expression upon his features plain pained. Voice dipping into a whine, “Don’t know what y-you’re doing t’me.”

But now that you were babbling away, you couldn’t stop. Not even when he’s speeding up his vigorous cadence until the globes of your ass are left stinging, “M’serious– I always wanted-”

“Shut up shut up- shut up- my princess.” You don’t think that either of you were even lucid at this point, and every pap! of skin-on-skin is followed by the screeching creak of the table below you. Gojo rolls his eyes down at you fondly, “Gotta m-make you cum so you can shut up.”

Otherwise you were going to drive him wild until there’s no turning back.

Before you can let off a moan - or fervently agree - he thumbs over the perked hood of your clit. Drawing- circles? Hearts? No, his own name. 

A tedious little S-A-T-O-R-U that makes your gushing walls clench oh-so-tightly around his sweltering length. Tummy tightening into something so close to shattering. 

And Gojo was rough. Snickering at the way you whine, spilling out wadded volumes of spittle between your parted lips. He breathes, “Gonna make you cum- g-gonna make my princess cum.” You swear he nods down at your pussy and grins, “G-gotta be a good girl f’me, m’kay? Gonna be a good- girl- and…”

His hips slap sloppily against yours, overworked thumb stuttering on a swooping U over your sensitive nub. And the tension in the air pulls tight, tight, tight like the most delicate of strings, before crashing- “-cum.”

You don’t know who cums first - you or Gojo. 

All you know is that as soon as your mind explodes with bursts of bliss - his poor cock does, as well. 

Head toppling backwards, overfilled pussy slopping out waterfalls of sweet, sweet juices, it’s all you can do not to sob. 

“Fuck- fuck fuck fuck fuck-” Your nails rake red, red lines all down his expansive back. Pulling him in even closer until all he can manage are dirty lil’ half-thrusts to pound you through your high. “M’cumming, Toru-”

“Y-yeah?” Gojo’s stuttering wetly, sloppily. Pushing the fat battering of his fountaining orifice into the groove of your g-spot over n’ over n’ over. You didn’t know how anything could feel so good. “N’ who made you cum, hm? Who’s f-fucking this pretty pussy, hm?”

“You-” You’re prattling, “You, Satoru.”

“Fuck.” Gojo gapes in wide-eyed craze, breath hitching when you lean over to drag your tongue over the sappy trickle of drool escaping his rose-red lips. “G-gonna make me cum again, swear-”

And he does.

“Can- can we hold hands while I hck! fuck you through your high, my princess?” He bats his lashes, a delicate blush taking over the tips of Gojo’s ears when you lace your fingers together. 

You can feel the splat! of even more heavy seed hitting the bottom of your pussy, swashing a warm second coating to your elastic walls every time Gojo thrusts. He was so solidly inside. Pinpointing specks of pure white with each swab. 

So full. So much of his voluminous ounces that it’s taken to tipping over from between your pussylips and forming a creamy puddle below you. You’re slipping all over it with every slither of Gojo’s cock.

But neither of you can even think to bring yourselves to be disgusted. To care for etiquette. 

Because Gojo drifts his hand over an invisible line where your tummy was being bloated with his length and his cum- and you find yourself aching for more all over again. 

“This looks…” Gojo starts, syllables scratchy and jagged. He’s practically whimpering - whimpering - at the sight of that lecherous cylindrical bulge being fucked into you. 

You’re dripping with him, and his cock twitches ferally at the thought of you all round and glowing. What a pretty mama you’d make. “...looks like the n-next heir to the throne will be a Gojo, my princess.”

Oh, you liked the thought of that.

And looking at Gojo Satoru now - eyes still not fully focused with how ruined he was, skin blushed the same maidenly shade of red that his slobbering mushroom tip was, pretty smile directed at you and only you in this lilac-scented haze - you didn’t think you wanted it any other way.

But, of course, Gojo would never want it any other way, either. Never. 

He clears his throat, sapphire gaze hardening; the intensity of it sending chills sprinting down your spine. Burning with a fervent I love you I love you I love you.

Massive hands intertwined with yours pull into your line of vision, and Gojo takes his dear time pressing a lingering peck onto each n’ every single one of your knuckles. But particularly on the one above your left ring finger.

This was it. 

“My princess…run away with me?”

.

.

.

“Didya hear ‘bout that Prince Naoya?”

“Oh yes- had his bride stolen away by a knight, I hear. Put a knife to his throat n’ took her away in the dead of night!”

“Hogwash! The boy was a looker, she went quite willingly, see- I always did think that Naoya wasn’t good ‘nough for our princess.”

“Wonder what happened after? That Zenin bunch was quite furious I hear, that bratty prince is still out for blood. But ol’ Naobito and some commander came to the rescue- Somethin’ about corruption and Jinichi…”

“Bah! Who cares about that? S’the biggest royal affair of the century- a handsome knight sweeping away the beloved princess? They’re swoonin’ n’ calling him the Knight of Roses already. All I wanna know is how the young couple is doing!”

Yaga rolls his eyes at other rambunctious customers churning gossip-mill, a pint clutched tightly in one hand and a scrap of paper in the other. 

Honestly, he comes to the pub for once to escape from palace duties - and the palace duties seem to want to escape with him! 

And even after so many months since that engagement party fiasco? News really did trickle down slowly when royal scandals were so often covered.

Oh, whatever. He muses, thumb gliding over the glossy parchment- some new innovation from kingdoms beyond the sea, according to what the eagerly-accompanied writing had said. A…a photograph, you had called it.

And Gojo’s surprisingly intricate drawing of you fiddling with the ah- camera gave him an idea of the machinery, though- most of the sketches were of you. All of them, actually.

Yaga gazes on in slight wonderment at the perfect black and white depiction of your smile, rivalling the one of Gojo Satoru’s beside yours. Beaming, sleeves rolled up and fatigued with a day of hard work, so in love. 

It was oh-so-positively sweet.

The cherry on top? Well, Yaga couldn’t quite decide between the matching bands glinting on each of your left ring-fingers, the glimpse of a pretty lil’ cottage behind you two, and the massive bouquet of undoubtedly deep red roses Gojo was presenting you with.

Or perhaps it was the hand you were resting absent-mindedly on the obviously rounded curve of your tummy.

How fortunate, he tucks away the photograph into his coat with a smile and orders another pint. Knight of Roses, indeed. 

A/N. Yearning is my kink mhm. Hope you have a lovely week <3

Plagiarism not authorized.

[antinousletmehit]

Apollo and his lover got into an argument which he regrets deeply but reader is very mad at him and won't forgive him easily.The whole Olympus tries to get them together because they're fed up with Apollo's sad love poets and songs.

୨୧┇Apollo x reader

────୨ৎ──── ────୨ৎ──── ───

The great halls of Olympus were rarely silent. Gods bickered, muses sang, and the sound of nectar filled goblets clinking together echoed endlessly. But this particular week had been… different. It wasn’t the usual chorus of divine rivalry that filled the air. Instead, a melancholic voice, rich and golden, reverberated through the celestial mount, dragging everyone down with its relentless woe.

Apollo was heartbroken.

He sat on the steps of his golden temple, his lyre in hand, his head bowed as he sang yet another mournful ballad about his lover. She had refused to speak to him after a bitter argument, one involving—according to Hermes, who’d gleefully eavesdropped—a misunderstanding about Apollo’s ego and her need for space.

“I burn brighter than the sun itself,

But her light I cannot see.

Oh, cruel fates, to steal her love,

And leave her silence haunting me…”

“By the Styx, someone make him stop!” Hera groaned, massaging her temples as Apollo’s lament drifted into the great hall. “He’s been singing that same verse for three days straight.”

“And it’s getting worse,” Ares grumbled, leaning against his spear. “I’m this close to starting a war just to drown him out.”

Hestia, ever the voice of reason, frowned. “We can’t let him continue like this. He’s hurting.”

“And we’re suffering,” Poseidon interrupted, shaking his trident for emphasis. “Even my sea nymphs are complaining about hearing his sobs through the waves. My ocean, for gods’ sake.”

“Alright, everyone,” Athena said, standing up and raising a hand to silence the growing complaints. “Apollo’s our brother. He needs help. Instead of whining, let’s figure out how to fix this.”

“Fix it?” Hermes snorted, lounging on the armrest of her throne. “Good luck. The only thing that will shut him up is making up with his lover, and she won’t even look at him.”

Zeus, seated at the head of the hall, finally spoke. “Then we’ll have to make her listen.”

All eyes turned to him, surprise flickering across their faces. It wasn’t often that the King of the Gods intervened in romantic squabbles, but it was clear that even Zeus couldn’t endure another hour of Apollo’s sob songs.

“Who agrees?” Zeus asked, raising a commanding brow. One by one, every god and goddess in the room nodded. For once in their immortal lives, Olympus was united.

———-

The plan was set into motion that very evening. Each god took on a task, pooling their talents to create an elaborate display of apology that Apollo could deliver to his lover.

Aphrodite crafted a wreath of the finest roses, their petals shimmering like rubies under the starlight. “No mortal or immortal can resist the charm of my flowers,” she said smugly, twirling one between her fingers. Hephaestus forged a delicate necklace of golden threads, inlaid with tiny opals that shimmered with every color of the sky. Hermes wrote a letter, overflowing with poetic charm, and tucked it into a golden envelope. “This will sweep her off her feet,” he said, grinning. “No offense to Apollo, but I’ve got more flair for words.”

Even Dionysus contributed, brewing a wine so sweet and rich that a single sip could soothe the angriest heart. “Pair it with the necklace, and she’ll be wrapped around his finger,” he joked, handing the flask to Hera. Meanwhile, Athena and Artemis tried to coax Apollo into proper behavior. Artemis, his twin sister, stood before him with her arms crossed. “You’re embarrassing yourself,” she said bluntly. “If you want her back, stop singing about how miserable you are and do something about it.”

Apollo looked up from his lyre, his face streaked with golden tears. “But what if she doesn’t forgive me? What if I’ve lost her forever?” Athena placed a hand on his shoulder. “She loves you, Apollo. That doesn’t vanish overnight. But love requires effort, not just poetry. Show her you’re willing.”

For the first time in days, Apollo nodded, determination flickering in his sun bright eyes.

The following day, Apollo, armed with the gifts and a newfound resolve, approached his lover’s dwelling. The other gods watched from afar, peering through enchanted pools and reflective clouds, each silently praying their efforts would end the wailing. Apollo took a deep breath and knocked on the door. When she opened it, her expression was guarded, her gaze flicking to the bouquet, the necklace, and the letter clutched in his trembling hands.

“What do you want, Apollo?” she asked, her voice cool.

“I want to say I’m sorry,” he began, his voice steady but thick with emotion. “I let my pride get in the way, and I hurt you. I’ve spent days singing about how much I miss you, but Athena reminded me that words mean nothing without action. So I’m here.”

She studied him for a long moment, her expression unreadable. Then, slowly, she stepped aside, gesturing for him to come in. Back in the halls of Olympus, the gods watched as Apollo disappeared inside her home.

“Do you think it worked?” Hermes asked.

Artemis smirked, her arms crossed. “If it didn’t, he’ll be back here wailing in an hour.”

But the hour passed, and there was no wailing. Then another hour. And another.

At last, Zeus leaned back in his throne, a satisfied grin on his face. “Finally.”

For the first time in what felt like an eternity, peace returned to Olympus. And while they’d never admit it, the gods secretly congratulated themselves on the success of their rare, united effort.

[gremlingottoosilly]

Mafia!König x Florist!Reader?

You sell flowers. Nice little bouquets for teachers and housewives who want to make their routine a little brighter. Cheap ones, mostly wild things - you'd have to swat at the bees trying to get a bite, apologizing for messing with the natural pollination. You sell big, expensive things - graduation gifts, consolidations roses. Man coming in and trying to count how much their cheating was worth - and how much they could pay in ribbons for missing an important date. Then Konig came in, and brought at least 10 orders for funerals. Crimson-blood roses, expensive white lilies. Died black ribbons and some nice plastic dark plants to finish the composition. At first, you said you were really sorry for his loss, then you thought he ran a funeral home - he looked the sorts, a bit creepy and big. His mask covers the lower half of his face, the hood of his nice jacket - Patagonia, you think, out of your pay grade - dropping over his eyes. He ordered expensive bouquets of funeral flowers every other week - never the wreaths, just bouquets. Sympathy arrangements. The first he paid in cash - crispy new banknotes, looking too good to be true, made you look at them through the light and apologize - he grazed your hand in his when you gave him the change. Konig wrapped his fingers around yours for a second, held a bit too long - you didn't know what to say, so you said nothing. He grumbled something and left. He buys funeral flowers, and you aren't sure if you're curious or terrified. One night you went home a bit too late - boss asked you to close for a bit more of cash, and you can't really disagree with your late for a week rent - and you came across some weird guy. Dangerous guy. You clutched your hand around your pepper spray - useless, EU-safe kind - and then shrieked when a bullet got through the guy's skull. You think it was the first time you actually saw a gun. Heard a gun. Konig holds your hands as you scramble to your feet, and this time, he doesn't let go until you stop trembling. Pockets the gun like it's a normal Friday, and puts a worried hand over your waist. He still doesn't talk - a slight tremble in his head gives away his nerves - but he silently follows you home like a big dog. You have half a mind about letting him in, but he just stares, his head not dipping into your apartment. Next time, he buys flowers - red roses, pink lilies, dyed whites and tiny pink ribbons. He sets the bouquet on the counter for you - you don't have the heart to tell him you're sick of flowers after working with them all day, but he gets it without words. Sees your expression, nervous twitch of your lip - and silently leaves. You aren't even surprised when you're dragged into an undisclosed vehicle after your shift, your head dropping on the wide lap of a man in a suit, his red hair slightly messy from the hood he pulled off, and his Patagonia acting like a blanket over your trembling form. Konig drapes a hand over your ass and settles it near, tapping on your asscheek in a nervous rhythm. Something tells you you're about to find out where all the bouquets went.

[devdozes]

♥ Love you Love you Love you Love you

AND 100 FOLLOWERS THANK YUO SO MUCCH AAAA FLAMEREAVER PHAINON AAAA!! Phainon header art is mine!! Flamereaver phainon fanart below at the end of the post

The first time you met Phainon, he was leaning against the marketplace wall, bathed in the amber glow of Amphoreus' setting sun. His fluffy white hair ruffled in the breeze, and his blue eyes sparkled with mischief as he greeted you with a grin, the picture of an ordinary young man with a penchant for teasing.

But you were never one to trust easily. Especially not when his swordsmanship—so graceful, so precise—felt oddly reminiscent of a ghost story whispered through the alleys at night. But in the end you fell for him, you fell into an inescapable rabbit hole for him.

The Flamereaver.

A nameless swordmaster who carved a path of ruin, driven by a thirst for the Titans’ Coreflame. A shadow in the black tide, their identity unknown.

You brushed the thoughts away at first. Phainon was charming, sometimes irritatingly so. He paid attention to the smallest details, catching things even you overlooked. His laughter was easy, his movements controlled, but there was something about him—something lurking beneath the surface. A momentary flicker in his gaze when he spoke of fire, of war, of lost things.

And then the Grove of Epiphany burned.

You stood at the edge of the ruin, the scent of ash thick in the air, staring at the lone figure amidst the wreckage. His back was to you, but you knew that stance. That impossible, immaculate swordplay.

A gust of wind carried the embers, and he turned.

Phainon’s blue eyes met yours, and for the first time, they were cold.

Madness and obsession entwined within them like an inferno restrained by sheer will. His sword—slick with molten red—gleamed under the fractured moonlight.

“Ah,” he murmured, voice still as light as before, but tinged with something… older. “I suppose you’ve figured it out now.”

Your heart pounded. “You’re the Flamereaver.”

Phainon sighed, running a hand through his ashen locks, expression almost sheepish. “I preferred when you just thought I was a little too perceptive.”

“Why?” The word came out raw, barely above a whisper.

He tilted his head, considering. “Because I must. Because the Coreflame calls.”

His sword rose, an invitation, a warning.

“Will you stand in my way?”

You didn’t know how to answer.

Because the Phainon you knew—the one who smiled, who made a game of guessing your thoughts, who felt so achingly human—was standing before you, wreathed in the flames of a legend that should never have been real.

And yet, he was still Phainon.

Still the man who watched the stars with you.

Still the man who now waited for your answer, his gaze unreadable, his grip on his sword loose—but ready.

The flames crackled around you both, but all you could hear was the sound of your own heartbeat.

And his quiet, unwavering breath.

Then, he spoke again, his voice softer, almost pleading beneath the weight of something neither of you could control. "I didn’t choose this. The Coreflames… they are my burden. I must take them all, or—" He clenched his jaw, shutting his eyes for a moment before opening them again, burning with desperate resolve. "Or everything will be undone."

His fingers tightened around his sword, knuckles pale. "It’s madness, I know. But I have no choice. Every Coreflame I claim brings me closer to an end I cannot escape." A bitter chuckle escaped his lips, but there was no mirth in it. "So tell me, will you hate me for it? Will you turn away now, knowing what I am?"

His gaze softened—achingly so. Even with those cold, inhuman eyes, he looked at you as if you were something precious. Something he wished he could hold onto, even as the fire consumed him.

"If you stay…" Phainon exhaled, his grip trembling for the first time. "You will see what I truly am. And I fear—" He hesitated, his voice dropping into something barely above a whisper. "I fear that I will not have the strength to let you go."

The fire roared behind him, licking at the ruins of a past he could never return to.

And yet, in this moment, with his sword lowered and his heart laid bare, Phainon stood before you—not as the Flamereaver, not as a legend, but as a man on the edge of despair, clinging to the last remnants of something real.

You.

And then, as if realizing his own weakness, Phainon took a step back, forcing steel into his voice. "You should leave." The words were clipped, calculated—like the swing of a blade meant to sever something before it could grow too deep. "Go before I change my mind."

But his eyes betrayed him.

Even as he turned away, as he tried to retreat into the cold, his gaze lingered, filled with something twisted and aching. A love so consuming it bordered on obsession. A longing so desperate it threatened to unravel him.

Phainon had always been good at deception. But not with you.

Not when his very soul was screaming for you to stay, even as his lips told you to run.

And in that moment, you understood.

Phainon did not fear the Coreflames. He did not fear battle or ruin or even his own demise.

He feared losing you.

And the worst part? He already had.

Your breath hitched as you took a hesitant step forward. The embers danced around his silhouette, painting him in a light both divine and damning.

"Phainon…" You whispered his name, but he did not turn. His grip on his sword tightened instead, knuckles bloodless.

Another step.

The blade was at your throat before you could react, its edge gleaming with the reflected flames of everything he'd destroyed.

"Don’t."

The word was hoarse, raw, barely above a breath, but it carried the weight of something lethal. Phainon's expression was composed, carved from cold steel—but his eyes.

His eyes betrayed him.

They held the torment of a man drowning, even as his hands pushed you away.

"You don’t know what you're doing," he continued, voice sharper than the blade itself. "I warned you. You should have listened."

But you did know. You knew exactly what you were doing.

And you knew what he was doing, too.

You could see it in the way his fingers trembled, the way his chest rose and fell with breathes too uneven for someone as disciplined as him. You could feel it in the space between you—so close yet impossibly far.

"Then tell me to leave," you said, voice steady despite the sting of metal against your skin. "Tell me you don’t care. Tell me you wouldn’t regret it if I walked away right now."

A flicker.

Just for a second, his lips parted—silent, breathless, as if the words had caught in his throat before they could escape.

Then, his jaw clenched.

He pressed the blade a fraction closer, the bite of it sharp but not enough to draw blood. It was a warning. One that you knew, deep down, he would never follow through with.

"Go," he forced out. "While you still can."

And yet, despite his words, his gaze remained locked onto you, burning with something far more dangerous than fire.

Something desperate.

Something that screamed that if you took another step, if you reached for him—he would break.

And he would take you down with him.

But maybe… maybe you were already falling.

"One more step," he murmured, his voice flat, almost bored, "and I’ll carve you open like the rest."

A lie.

You knew it was.

You could see it in the tension coiling through his muscles, in the way his grip on his weapon was almost too tight, as if it were the only thing tethering him to this wretched act of self-denial.

But his eyes—

Those blue, frostbitten eyes were void of the warmth that once greeted you at dusk. They didn’t waver, didn’t soften. They remained locked onto you with the lethal calculation of a man who had convinced himself of his own monstrosity.

And still, you moved closer.

Another step.

Another drop of blood slipping from his blade.

Something inside him snapped.

With a sharp inhale, Phainon moved faster than breath, his weapon slashing outward—stopping just short of your throat. Close enough for you to feel the whisper of its edge, for the heat of freshly spilled blood to radiate between you.

You didn’t flinch.

He noticed.

His lips curled into something that wasn’t quite a smirk, wasn’t quite a snarl. "You don’t get it, do you?" His voice was quiet, laced with something dark. "I am not playing with you."

His weapon remained poised, steady, the weight of it absolute.

And yet, in the flickering light, you saw it—the minuscule tremor in his fingers, the unspoken war behind his stare.

He wanted you to fear him.

He wanted you to run.

But even now, with his face splattered in blood and his hands heavy with ruin—he could not bring himself to push you away.

"Why aren’t you afraid?"

You didn’t answer. Because you knew fear had never been the problem.

He let out a sharp breath, his control slipping. "Damn you," he whispered, his grip tightening. "You should be running. You should hate me."

A muscle in his jaw ticked. He took another step forward, backing you into the ruins. Not to corner you—no, it wasn’t that. He just wanted to be closer. To see you clearer.

To feel your warmth in the cold abyss he had thrown himself into.

His free hand, the one not gripping his sword, twitched at his side. He wanted to touch you. To brush the soot from your skin, to trace the shape of you with reverence, to make sure you were still real. That you hadn’t left him behind like the rest.

Phainon inhaled sharply through his nose, his expression twisting. He was losing this battle.

"You don’t understand," he growled, his voice raw now, slipping past the walls he had built. "I would burn this world for you. I would tear the Coreflames from the Titans themselves if it meant keeping you safe."

His blade lowered an inch. His control cracked another fracture.

"But you… you are the one thing I cannot have." His voice was hoarse, his breathing uneven. "Because I would ruin you. I would drag you into my flames, and I would never let you go."

You could see it now, the full weight of his obsession. The way it clawed at his ribs, at his very being. He could not afford to love you, and yet he did—so completely, so utterly, that it hurt.

And still, despite it all, you took another step. Closing the space between you.

Phainon shuddered. His sword fell from your throat. He let it drop, let it clang uselessly to the ground between you. His hands, empty now, hovered—hesitant, desperate, aching.

His breath was unsteady, his entire body wound too tight, as if one more second of restraint would shatter him entirely.

"You should run," he whispered one last time.

But his hands had already found your face. His sharp golden claws went over your skin, the cold metallic claws made you shiver, touch featherlight, as if he was afraid he would break you.

Or maybe… as if he was afraid you would break him.

His forehead pressed against yours, his breath warm, shaky. His heart thundered against his ribs, wild, unrestrained.

"I should let you go," he murmured, but his grip only tightened. But Then— Phainon trembled.

For all his power, for all the flames that had swallowed cities at his command, he was fragile beneath your touch.

His breaths came shallow, uneven. His body was wound tight, every muscle locked in a battle he had already lost. And when your fingers—warm, steady, unbearably gentle—cupped his face, he broke.

A sharp, wounded inhale. A shudder.

Then, the first whimper left his lips.

It was soft, barely there, but it shattered something inside him. He tried to hold it in, to swallow the weakness, but it was too late. His knees buckled slightly, his weight pressing into you, seeking something—anything—solid to hold onto. His forehead still rested against yours, but now he was trembling, his breath hitching as the first tear slipped down his cheek.

"I…" His voice cracked. His hands, rough with callouses and stained with blood, clutched at you like you were his last tether to sanity. "I can’t—"

Another whimper, this one quieter, almost strangled.

Phainon, the Flamereaver, the man who had stood alone against armies, who had burned everything in his path, was crying.

Not for the world he had lost.

Not for the lives he had taken.

But for you.

Because he knew he could never have you the way he wanted—not without dragging you into his fire, not without dooming you to the same madness that consumed him.

And yet, he couldn’t let go.

His fingers dug into your waist, clinging as if you might disappear. His body shook against yours, and when you ran your thumb over the tear-stained skin of his cheek, another broken sound escaped him—something between a sob and a sigh of surrender.

"You shouldn’t be here," he whispered, but it was an empty protest. One he didn’t believe himself.

Because when you held him, when your fingers combed through his bloodstained hair, he leaned into you like a man starved.

Like you were the only thing that had ever been real in his world of fire and ruin.

"I love you," he choked out, the words raw, torn straight from the depths of his soul. A confession and a curse all at once. "I love you so much it’s killing me."

His grip tightened, desperate.

"And if you don’t leave now…" He exhaled shakily, pressing his damp face into your shoulder, his body curling inward, caging you against him. "I’ll never let you go." . . . . . You had always loved Phainon. Not just the man who teased you beneath the golden glow of Amphoreus’ sun, not just the warrior with an unreadable gaze and a blade that moved like lightning, but all of him—the bloodstained, broken, and burning parts too.

Your heart ached, raw and desperate. He had tried to push you away, to scare you with the sharp edge of his blade, but he had underestimated you.

You were just as lost in him as he was in you.

With trembling hands, you cupped his face, your thumbs gliding over his cheekbones, wiping away the smears of blood that marred his skin. The red smeared under your touch, streaking his pale skin with warmth that did not belong to him.

His breath stuttered, his lips parting slightly, but he didn’t pull away.

He never could, not from you.

Your thumbs brushed down, grazing the corner of his mouth, lingering there. His lips were slightly chapped, parted as if he wanted to say something, but the words never came. Instead, his breath hitched—a shuddering, fragile thing—and you could see the war raging inside him.

The desperation. The love so overwhelming it made him weak.

Phainon’s hands twitched against your waist, torn between pulling you closer and keeping you away. But you made the choice for him.

You surged forward, claiming his lips in a kiss that burned.

It was not gentle. It was not soft. It was everything you had both held back for too long.

Phainon inhaled sharply against your mouth, a strangled gasp lost between your lips as his hands finally—finally—snapped up to grasp you, no longer holding back. One hand tangled into your hair, the other clutching your waist so tightly it almost hurt, pressing you against him as if you might disappear if he let go.

You deepened the kiss, tilting your head, and he whimpered against your mouth. The sound made your stomach twist, heat pooling in your chest as your fingers slid into his silver-white locks, pulling slightly. He groaned, the sound low and needy, and then he kissed you back with a fervor that nearly stole your breath away.

Phainon kissed like a man who had never known softness, like he was trying to carve the memory of you into his soul. His lips moved against yours feverishly, desperately, like he was terrified this moment would be ripped away from him.

His tongue flicked against your bottom lip, hesitant, seeking, and you granted him entry without hesitation. The kiss deepened, turned messier, hotter. He swallowed your gasp as his arms caged you in, his body pressing you closer, like he was trying to mold you into him, to make you his in every way possible.

Your hands slid down, over the hard lines of his shoulders, his chest, feeling the tension coiled in his muscles. His heart pounded beneath your palm, beating wildly, erratically, and you realized—he was scared.

Not of you. Never of you.

But of what he might do to keep you. Of how far he was willing to go.

Phainon broke the kiss with a ragged gasp, his forehead pressing against yours, his breath warm and uneven. His hands trembled where they gripped you, his body taut with restraint, as if he was fighting himself even now. "Please.. Stay.. By you, I am forever incomplete."

THIS WAS RUSHED IM SORYRYR IM USING MY MOBILE DATA

[cuckoo-on-a-string]

Yearning

MDNI

Price's love is messy; it comes courting with grave dirt on its shoes.

CW: widow!reader, parent!reader, funerals, graves, hint of obsessive behavior

He watches the mourners file by, squeezing the new widow’s hands with feeling, then moving along, leaving her palms bare, baptized in everyone else’s clammy sweat. A beggar left to fill up on condolences and wrap her children in the warm embrace of near-strangers’ thoughts and prayers. Nothing a young mother can use. Nothing a woman who framed her life around her husband’s career can fall back against.

She needs the world and a table to lay it out on.

No one volunteers. No one steps up. Everyone respects her and her husband’s memory too much to offer the kind of help she and her little girls need.

Price can disrespect her just enough to save her.

Her girls sit in the front row wearing black sundresses – one in polka dots, one with butterflies. Those weren’t bought for funerals. The new widow’s black cotton skirt is a little too casual, at odds with her pressed blouse. They’re unprepared, and he already sees the way the woman is pulling their purse strings tight like she can rub pence together to make a pound. She’s magic, aye, but no alchemist. She’s made life, but she can’t bring back the dead.

When his turn comes, he can’t bring himself to take her hand. With everything in his heart, it would be profane, especially standing beside her husband’s closed coffin.

It had been a bad op. Rotten from the start, and though his taskforce wasn’t involved, grave murmurs of how light the body bags were upon their return echoed across base. He thinks she knows. It’s printed in dark crescents under her eyes, bloodshot despite her best efforts. Most of her makeup is on the balled-up tissue set behind the arrangement of white roses to her right, her efforts to appear collected and strong melted into faint streaks to reveal everything women paint themselves to hide.

She is too real to touch, so he folds his hands behind his back and nods respectfully. “He was a good man. A good soldier.”

Her smile is wan and polite to the point of pain. “Thank you, Captain Price. He always spoke highly of you. I’m sure he’d be glad to have left an impression.”

Nodding, pinching together his own weak smile, he glances at the girls. “How are they holding up?”

“They don’t understand it yet,” she says, taking the opportunity to check on her children around his shoulder. “But they’re upset and hurt. And because they don’t know why it makes it worse.”

He takes a deep breath. “Five-years-old last April, right?”

A little light returns to her flat expression, and he’s glad he asked.

“Yeah.”

They both watch the girls for another minute. They’re surrounded by coloring books, and their respective baby blankets sit to the side, neatly folded and ready for an emergency.

He’s glad he waited for the crowd to thin.

“And you?” He swivels, catching her eyes and angling his head to keep the connection when she reflexively drifts to the side. "Are you holding together?"

"As well as can be expected. I found one of his lost socks in the laundry yesterday and –" She pauses, and it must dawn on her that was a little too honest for polite society, and she backs away from it. “I’m fine, really.”

She’s clearly anything but. Nor should she be.

 Still reluctant to reach out, he sidles a half step closer, ensuring his words are for her alone.

“Just worry about yourself. Take care of your girls. All this, all of them,” he gestures at the wreathes, and the guests, and the stiff funeral director lurking by the door, “they’ll take care of themselves. You don’t owe them anything. Do you understand?”

Her next breath shakes, and he flexes his hands to resist grabbing her, pulling her out of the limelight to a dark corner where she can cry and be a mess without worries or witnesses.

She blinks rapidly, and her hand finds his arm as she smiles through teary eyes.

“You don’t have to worry about us, Captain. Thank you.”

Still prioritizing the performance. Tending to his emotions over her own grief.

It isn’t the time or place, he knows, and he nods again with another flinching smile, stepping back so a new string of mourners can burden her with their razor-wire recollections and hollow words.

He aches to stop and speak to the girls, but they’re safely tucked away in their world of paper and crayons for the moment, and he doesn’t want to disturb them. No extended family babysit while the widow performs her duties, and the twins sit in a bubble of silence and pitying glances. He hopes they’ve had time to cry, that they’ll have space with their mother to figure out what they’ve lost.

Without permission or authority to play another role, Price finds a seat in the back of the hall, eye on the exits, arms folded. This is all he’s allowed for now, so he’ll keep watch until the time comes to speak. It’s his vigil to honor the fallen before he broaches dreams of the future.

-------

There’s no sense in this, not tactically, not practically. His entire plan is to make a selfish mistake. All his training can do is map inevitable risks and try to catch the matches before they strike, before they fall and catch on the dry fuel he’s gathering.

He looks up at the house and imagines it in flames. He’s the torch, standing at the threshold, begging for a soft place to land, even if it puts the whole structure at risk.

A whiskey sounds nice as he festers in his thoughts. But if he can’t do it sober, he shouldn’t be doing it at all. She deserves that much. They deserve that much.

It hasn’t stopped raining since the funeral. The graveside was so foul with mud the twins couldn’t get close enough to throw their flowers into the open pit. The white petals fell short, lying soggy and stained at the edge of the abyss. He’d watched their mother wipe their shoes clean as they sat with their feet dangling out the side of the car. She didn’t bother with her own, just kicking the heels off and slipping behind the wheel in stockinged feet.

She shouldn’t have had to drive herself home from her husband’s funeral. He was sure she cooked dinner when they returned, cleaned up the girls, and found herself too exhausted to mourn or sleep by the time the moon rose.

He waited three nights. He forced himself to, mocking his own rush to step into dead men’s shoes. But he never knew when he’d be called away, and without her anchor, she could be lost to the wind by the time he returned.

The rain drips from his nose and gathers in his eyebrows. His beanie is heavy with it, and as he finally lifts a hand to knock, he realizes just how he’ll enter her home: a fresh mess to clean up.

Too late to think of an umbrella now.

The porch light flicks on. Her shadow moves across the peephole, and he listens with approval as both a deadbolt and security chain clatter free.

The door opens. His breath catches.

She’s in a bathrobe, a thick fluffy thing that looks warm and soft. He can see the seam of a tank top, and her pajamas go all the way to her ankles, but the cozy intimacy is staggering. The kitchen light reflects off the hall mirror, haloing her mussed hair and weary, curious expression.

Beautiful. Effortlessly.

He isn’t here because he deserves her. The reminder barely keeps him from making his excuses and escaping into the night. He’s selfish, and she needs someone willing to selfish for her own sake.

“May I come in?”

“Of course.” She’s looking at the rain soaking his clothes, sizing up the problem she needs to manage.

As he steps through and peels off his soaked hat, she retreats to the guest bath to fetch a towel. He hangs his jacket next to a bomber jacket much too large for the woman of the house, and he unlaces his boots, leaving them beside a fleet of little sneakers and sandals in every color of the rainbow.

“Here you go.”

He accepts the towel, drying his face and neck as she leads him into the kitchen. At least he won’t leave a damp spot on her couch or the living room carpet. She pops on the kettle, and he takes a seat at the kitchen table. A tower of boxes looms in the corner, labeled but empty. A stack of flat containers wait to be assembled beside them.

She catches him looking as she drops tea bags into mugs, and says, “They gave us through the end of the month. It’s hard to pack when it feels like the girls need everything in the house at least once a day, though.”

A hum masks his displeasure. The military’s efficiency is downright criminal at times, especially when there’s an opportunity to trim the budget.

“Know where you’re going?”

“Not yet.”

The tension flows out of him. It disappears down the windows, caught in smeary raindrops that belong outside this little safe haven. He’s making the right decision. He knows it now.

Because he’s managed to wait three nights to approach – lurking at the end of her street, counting the hours like a fairytale creature making a bargain – he manages to wait for the kettle to sing, the water to burble over the tea, and the widow to come to the table with both cuppas in hand.

He accepts his with a smile. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” She isn’t looking at him. She should look comfortable here, at her own table, but she’s diminished, crumbling in, and there’s no confidence left in her slumped posture. Her finger trails the lip of her mug in an infinite circle.

He waits for her to find her courage, and he’s ready when she finally meets his eyes and asks, “Why are you here, Captain Price?”

It’s his turn to adjust his seat, leaning in as they get to the heart of the matter. Hands clasped, resting on the table where she can see them.

He’s waited, and waited, and now –

“Marry me.”

It’s honest and blunt and hopefully romantic in retrospect, but this isn’t the right time for flowers and pretty gifts. Her survival instincts are in control, and he knows he’s the only ship for miles.

“What?” Her eyes flick over his face, bouncing between his eyes, looking for the joke, but it doesn’t come, and waits until the seed roots before explaining.

“I know… a little of your story,” he says, stepping carefully for fear of landmines. He wets his lips, buying a moment between thoughts. “Without a place to return to, life after the military is… challenging for widows. Especially with children.”

Even though they’re asleep upstairs, the twins’ presence lingers. Crumbs that escaped their mother’s eye on the table. A small plastic tiger under the chair to his right. Fingerprints low on the glass door to the back yard.

Their sippy cups sit on the drying rack, and magnetic letter spell their names on the fridge.

Anna and Nora.

He clears his throat, takes a sip of tea.

“I want to marry you,” he confesses. And it is a confession. Good men did not yearn for widows before grass grew on their husbands’ graves. “I don’t expect anything, but you’ll keep military benefits, and you can decide whether or not you want to stay on base.”

“You wouldn’t offer if you didn’t expect anything.”

Her knuckles strain around her mug, and she sits up straight, alert. He doesn’t move. Breathes slowly. Keeps his head and prays he hasn’t fucked everything up in his first few sentences.

“It would be nice,” he murmurs, “to come home to people. I’m deployed more often than not, and that doesn’t leave time to keep a place of my own. If you can keep a room for me – tolerate me when I’m off-duty – that’s all I ask.”

She’s still hesitating, but war widows understand loneliness. They practice long before they bury their partners. And he isn’t lying. He will never ask for more, no matter how much he hopes for it.

He only has to plant the seed tonight. There’s time yet for it to grow. It needs to see sunlight, and she hasn’t seen that since the funeral.

“I don’t know.” There’s a battle in her eyes he has no place in. He doubts she’ll be able to sleep at all. “It’s kind of you to offer, but…”

She trails off, but she doesn’t give him a hard no. It’s time to leave before she battles herself into a corner.

“Think it over. I’m happy to wait. I know this is sudden, but I wanted to ask face-to-face, and there’s no telling when I’ll be called in.”

Moving slowly, he grabs a sheet of construction paper the girls left on the counter and writes his number in army green Crayola.

“If you want to talk more about it, or talk about anything, just let me know.”

He stands and smiles, folding the towel she lent him and setting it by his half-empty mug. “It’s not much of a proposal, but I care about what happens to you and your girls. World isn’t always kind to those it should be, and I’d be honored to help. In any way I can.”

He leaves before he can say anything he’ll regret. In a moment, there’s nothing left of him in her home but the puddle from his boots and a wet streak on the bomber jacket from where it hung shoulder-to-shoulder with the captain’s.

[yandere-daydreams]

Title: Sacrifical Bride.

Commissioned by the very lovely @yanmaresu.

Pairing: Yandere!Hades x Reader (Record of Ragnarök).

Word Count: 3.0k.

TW: Fem!Reader, Non/Con, Forced Marriage, Unbalanced Power Dynamics, Emotional Manipulation, Rough Sex, Unprotected Sex, and Mentions of Kidnapping/Prolonged Captivity. Not Canon Complacent. I Have Never Met Canon But I Hear She's Very Nice.

The wedding was a solemn affair.

Not dull, because nothing that had your heart beating so violently could ever be considered ‘dull’, and not dreary, because despite the many, many things you could say about your kidnapper-turned-husband, he wasn’t one for bland affairs. No, your dress was of the finest and most vibrant silks, your veil lined with pearls and rubies and the gown’s train long enough to swell and ebb behind you as you walked down the seemingly never-ending aisle, unaccompanied by any escort. Wreaths of shining ivory lilies and blooming chrysanthemums encircled marble pillars, low-burning lanterns casting the chapel in long, wavering shadows. The pews were empty. The only guests were his ghastly servants, and they’d never once said a word to you.

There was no officiant. Hades waited for you at the brimstone altar alone, a gentle simper playing over his lips as he watched you drag your feet and fight the urge to bolt, to run, to do the very thing that’d left you trapped in his arm in the first place. It was tempting, albeit pointless. You’d always been swift footed, but there was nowhere to escape to in Helheim. At best, you’d spend a few days hiding and struggling to survive in the empty plains that surrounded his looming fortress of a home. At worst, you’d find yourself without direction and beyond the reach of his control, hopelessly lost and stumbling through fields of fading dead and gnarled beasts and things that would make the man in front of you look hospitable, in comparison. You tried to remind yourself of that as your body begged you to flee.

As you reached the altar, his smile grew into something that could’ve been convincingly genuine, had it been able to reach the pits of lifeless ice that were his eyes. Rather, the gesture only seemed to add to the coil of dread growing tighter in the pit of your stomach as you stepped beside him, clutching your bouquet to your chest in a white-knuckled grip. He’d let you pick that out yourself, at least, and you’d taken a truly irrational amount of joy in picking wildflowers and trimming roses and breaking every rule of decorum your mother had ever taught you. Now, though, the shadows of his hall seemed to dull your vision-searing colors, and it was difficult to take joy in such a simple pleasure knowing the man in front of you sought to ensure you’d never braid daisies or sleep beneath open skies again, when he was staring you down like yet another precious gem he planned to add to his ever-growing collection. It was a cruel comparison, but not quite as hyperbolic as you would’ve liked.

There was a shallow sigh, a hand brought to the edge of your veil. He toyed with the fabric for a long moment before taking the hem in both hands and pulling it away from your face. If he recognized the terror stitched into your expression, he only deemed it worth a slight shake of his head. “Oh, beloved.” His hand fell to your cheek. “You’re as radiant as the day we met.”

The day he plucked you from your mortal life and dragged you into the depths of the earth, the day he’d forced the awful seeds of that terrible fruit down your throat and promised you would never see another living soul again. You swallowed back your nerves. “Please, don’t draw this out.”

You were lucky you’d fallen into the hands of such a mild-tempered captor. He let out an airy chuckle, turning back to the altar. It was decorated sparsely; an overflowing cornucopia posed in one corner, a standing thurible slowly releasing nauseatingly sweet incense into the stagnant air sitting in the other. Between them was only a bottle of dark wine and two twin chalices, crafted of only the finest bronze and polished until they shined in the low lighting. He filled both to the brim before looking towards you, a glint in his remaining eye as he took a chalice in either hand.

You’d been wrong when you assumed they were identical. Where one had a line of aimless, curling thorns following the rim and plunging down the length of the handle, the other was embellished with roses, abstract and nearly shapeless, forming neat columns across the body of the cup. He extended the latter to you, its contents threatening to spill as you took it in your trembling hands. You’d managed to talk him out of the more elaborate ceremonies he’d suggested, but it was difficult to remember that this was a preferable alternative now that could feel the chill of his wine seeping into your palms.

You brought it to your lips, held it there for a moment, then pulled back at the hint of a more familiar scent than that of his dizzying incense. “Pomegranates?”

“I thought it would be a nice touch.” For him, maybe. He’d always struggled to see things from your perspective. “Forgive my sentimentality.”

You wouldn’t, but you were smart enough to keep that to yourself. When he raised his chalice, you did the same, mirroring him when your own will failed you. “To us, darling.”

You nodded. “To us.”

He took a long sip from his chalice, seeming to savor the rich wine, while you drained yours in a single breath. Try as you might to enjoy it, you could only seem to taste ash.

~

A few vows were exchanged, a kiss pressed into the back of your hand when you flinched away from his attempt to communicate his affection more directly. Finally, he took your arm and guided you back to your shared chambers, lingering in the doorway while you collapsed onto his bed – your marital bed, now, you supposed. You buried your face in the silken sheets, letting out a soft groan. There would be a celebration later on, a feast with all of his many gloating brothers and prying sisters in attendance, but the worst of it was over. You were bound to him, for better or for worse. All you could do was weather the consequences.

You’d hoped he would be kind enough to leave you alone while you consoled yourself, while you took all that you knew and all that you didn’t and recontextualized it with yourself as the mortal bride to the God of Death, but a hand on your shoulder dispelled that fleeting fantasy. With no small amount of reluctance, you pushed yourself upward and turned your attention back to Hades. This time, without the pretense of custom, he didn’t settle for your hand. His mouth found its way to the dip of your shoulder, then the crook of your neck, his teeth scraping against your skin as he pressed wet, open-mouthed kisses into his chosen targets.

When he started to move towards the curve of your throat, you moved on instinct – your hands finding their way to his hair as you dragged him away from you before he could do anything you wouldn’t be able to forget as soon as he left the room. “Please,” you said, not for the first time that day. “I… I’d rather be alone, right now. If it’s all the same to you.”

His smile didn’t waver. “You know that, if it were up to me, I would bend to your every whim,” he spaced the words out generously, as if worried your feeble human mind might not be able to understand. “But we aren’t done.”

Your expression fell. “I’ve done everything you’ve asked of me. I wore the dress, and—and I took your vows, and—”

“My love,” he cut you off swiftly, bringing his hand up to cup your cheek. “Our union will have to be consummated, eventually.”

You felt your throat begin to swell shut.

“I know that, but—” You laid your hand over his, trying to call upon whatever pale imitation of sympathy might’ve existed in his heart. “—does it have to be consummated now?”

You watched as his gaze softened, as his head lulled to the side in that endeared-yet-condescending manner he seemed so fond of. Slowly, with a painstaking gentleness, he brought you closer to him, ghosting over the top of your head and lingering there, even as he started to speak. “I think,” he started, his voice muffled by proximity. “that it would be in your best interest not to keep me waiting any longer.”

It wasn’t a threat, but it was posed like one, dredged up from somewhere deep in his chest and accompanied by his hand on your waist, nimble fingers slipping underneath the sash binding your gown together. When you jerked back, reflexively trying to escape his advances, he was quick to chase you, to let his softened smile spread into an amused grin as an arm wrapped around your midriff and dragged you, willingly or otherwise, into his lap. “I don’t want to hurt you.” And yet, your safety didn’t seem to cross his mind as his blunt nails bit into your waist, as he dragged you close enough to feel his chest press into yours, to become uncomfortably aware of the stiff outline against the loose fabric of his pants. “If I rely on my own self-restraint for another day—” Another kiss, this one to the tender patch of skin above your jugular vein. “I’m afraid I might end up doing something we both regret, when the time comes.”

“Less than a day,” you pleaded as he buried his face in your neck. There was a blur of movement, the ghost of his touch along the curve of your spine, and your bodice fell away in tatters, the ruined fabric collapsing to your waist. When you moved to cover yourself, Hades clicked his tongue and you froze, letting your arms fall back to your sides. Begging him to change his mind was one thing. Going against him so transparently would only make things more difficult. “Half a day. An hour. I just— Hades, I can’t do this right now—”

“My love.” Swift, blunt, merciless. You’d been a fool to ever think he was one of the kinder gods. “I think I’ve waited long enough to claim what belongs to me.”

Any protest you might’ve had died in your throat.

You’d been a fool to ever think he was anything less than the cruelest of his kin.

You wanted to scream. If you couldn’t run, then you would yell, raise your voice and tell him that he already had you, that he’d gotten everything he could’ve possibly wanted, but anything you might’ve said was torn away and ripped to shreds as his head dipped low, his teeth latching onto the vulnerable skin of you collar bone and sinking in. He didn’t draw blood, but he didn’t have to. A bolt of pure, stinging agony shot from your chest to your core, only dulling as he pulled away with a low groan. “Have I ever told you how much I adore the sound of my name on your tongue?” You felt his hand on your hip, then your thigh, the remains of your dress cut through and disposed of with little fanfare. He gave your bridal lingerie (pure white and so obnoxiously lacy, you’d had to wonder if this was all some sadistic joke as you slipped it on) more attention, his thumb running along the delicate trim before his fingers slipped underneath it, tracing the length of your slit before doing away with the barrier altogether.

Dread and panic dulled your reactions, but it would’ve been a lie to say the feeling of his mouth on your skin had left you completely unaffected. He chuckled as he gathered your slick on his fingertips, two of which were soon pressed into your clit with a brutal sort of precision. “And you tried to play coy.” He teased the sensitive bundle of nerves mercilessly, the patterns he traced into your clit too slow and too fleeting all at once. You wished he wouldn’t touch you at all, but if he was going to, it was the least he could’ve done not to draw it out. “That must’ve been why you seemed so rushed during our ceremony. If you’d asked me to make love to you on that altar, I happily would have.”

Hot, humiliated tears welled up in the corners of your eyes. You attempted to deny it, but a cracked moan slipped past your lips instead as two of his fingers were forced into your cunt and spread, splitting you apart. Your hands shot to his shoulders, trying to stabilize yourself, but he only saw your desperation as an invitation – bowing his head and pumping his fingers into you at the kind of languid pace that left you fighting not to rock against him, not to make up for the urgency immortal creatures so often lacked. “You’re a vice,” he muttered, his breath ghosting over the shell of your ear, his tone low and lecherous. You wondered, briefly, if words that fell from the lips of a god could be considered sinful. “To think my own wife would’ve had me neglect her so severely for so long.”

You shook your head. You were married to him, sure, bound to him. But you couldn’t afford to think of yourself as his wife. You couldn’t afford to think of yourself as something so limited, something so purely an extension of him. “I’m not—”

“Don’t try to spare my feelings. I can see that I underestimated just how much attention my little mortal would need.” His wrist quirked, another digit pushing past your entrance and stuffing your pussy full as his fingers curled and ground inside of you. Against your will, you felt a tight heat begin to twist and writhe in the pit of your stomach, pangs of burning pleasure coursing from your cunt to your core. Now, you cried unabashedly, embarrassment and shame burning in your cheeks and fueling the unsteady stream of tears that Hades was so agonizingly quick to coo over, to kiss away as your hips bucked unsteadily against his hand. “What a sensitive wife I have.” That word – that awful word – was enough to earn a ragged sob, but if he recognized the connection, he didn’t deem it worth his concern. “I promise, you’ll never feel so unloved in my care again.”

You would’ve given anything to be able to pull away from him, to be able to shove at his chest and swear to all the gods you’d once worshiped that there was no part of you that could ever feel loved with him, but in the end, he was the one to let you go, to throw you onto the center of his great bed and leave you whining involuntarily at the sudden loss of stimulation. He’d never been one to deprive you, though; in a moment, he was in between your open legs, one hand wrapped loosely around your thigh while the other pulled feverishly at his own clothes. His coat fell away first, then his shirt. You heard fabric shift and metal clink and, in a daze, saw him wrap his fist around something he could not have possibly planned to fit inside of you. Half out of terror and half out of instinct, your gaze flickered from his cock to his face – to the wide, fanged grin he’d been wearing for as long as you could remember.

He moved to kiss you, and you drove your heel into his stomach.

The blow would’ve been weak by human standards, but it caught him off-guard. Out of reflex, he reeled back, and you took the opportunity to scramble off his bed and towards the door, to any part of this forsaken place where Hades wasn’t. You made it a step, maybe two before something caught your shoulder, before your body buckled under a weight greater than your own. You were dragged onto your knees before you could so much as think to slip away from him, your cheek forced against the cool marble of the floor before you could hope to make your descent more dignified. You felt his broad chest press into your back, his snarling lips against the curve of your throat. You wondered if the insult would be great enough to warrant taking your life, but the thought was dismissed quickly.

Hades had never been the kind of god capable of showing such mercy.

“I would’ve made love to you like a queen,” he spat, his tone all manic venom and overdue obsession. “But, if you’d rather be fucked on the ground like a whore, I’m more than happy to oblige.”

You weren’t allowed the luxury of bracing yourself, this time. In one brutal movement, he thrust into you, splitting you open on his cock with the kind of harsh, unforgiving force better suited to a wild animal.  There was no time to adjust, no time to sob, only Hades groaning against your neck as he bucked against you, never daring to pull out completely. Whatever agony his fingers had sparked was now ten-fold. Your legs shook, your body threatening to collapse entirely, but Hades kept your ass raised and your thighs spread, his focus entirely on bucking into you as deeply and as roughly as he could.

It almost surprised you when one of his hands shot to your head, his fingers tangling themselves in your hair as he forced his mouth against yours. You tried not to cooperate, but two fingers pressed into your clit and your mouth fell open in a guttural cry, providing an opening he seemed content to take advantage of. It was a deep, lingering, messything – all tongue and teeth – but his cock ground against something soft and vulnerable and you failed to suppress the wave of pure heat that flooded through your battered body as you clenched around him, as you came undone around the cock of your kidnapper, your captor, your husband. Hades wasn’t far behind, his composure shattering no more than a second after the walls of your cunt clenched down around him. You could only choke on your misery-tinged pleasure as his hips pressed into your ass and he came inside of you – his awful warmth soon tainting every fiber of your being.

You tried to tell yourself that, at the very least, it was over - that he’d had his fill of you and now, you’d be free to console yourself elsewhere, but your hopes were once again dashed when Hades failed to release you, failed to pull out of you, failed to do anything but press himself into your back and trail his lips idly down to the nape of your neck. “Once is a pitiful amount for a king. Don’t you agree?”

You felt his hips move back, then rock against you just as quickly.

“You can forgive me when we’re done, love.”

[surielstea]

Solstice Special

(SFW version)

Pairing: ACoTaR x Fem!Reader (separately)

Summary: A compilation of drabbles with a theme of Winter Solstice, just an excuse to write fluff really.

Warnings: All fluff! One allusion to smut (rhys), but that’s it!

3.7k words.

Rhys - Mistletoe

I leaned against the archway of the foyer, sighing as I reached down to unbuckle the straps of my heels. The day's weight still clung to me, but the familiar warmth of home promised relief. One shoe off, then the other, I barely registered the soft sound of hurried footsteps until they were practically upon me.

Rhysand rounded the corner from his office, his usual grace momentarily abandoned as he skidded slightly on the polished hardwood floor. My brows furrowed at his urgency. "What's wrong?" I asked softly, my voice laced with curiosity and a hint of concern.

He didn't answer, not with words, anyway. Instead, his hands cupped my face, firm yet tender, tilting my head up to meet his descending lips. His kiss was sudden, warm, and commanding, leaving me breathless before I had a chance to even think.

Still, I kissed him back, my confusion melting into a hum of contentment. When he pulled away, his violet eyes sparkled with mischief, and his lips curled into that devilish smile that always unraveled me.

"Welcome home," he murmured, his voice rich and teasing.

I blinked up at him, dazed. "What was that for?" I managed to whisper, still feeling the lingering heat of his mouth on mine.

His grin widened as he silently pointed above us. My gaze followed the gesture, landing on a sprig of mistletoe dangling from the archway. I couldn't help the laugh that bubbled up, shaking my head. "Did you hang that up?"

"I did," he replied, looking awfully pleased with himself. His pride was almost endearing, considering I had done all the rest of the decorating. The garlands on the banister, the wreath on the door, the lights twinkling softly in the windows—all my handiwork. And yet, he stood there, so smug about his singular contribution.

I grinned, shaking my head as I leaned up on my toes to press another quick kiss to his lips. "I think it's my favorite of all the decor," I murmured against his mouth.

He hummed his agreement, his hands sliding down to rest on my hips. "I know," he said, his tone entirely too self-satisfied. "I'll expect full credit for it."

From that day on, the mistletoe became a tradition—one he refused to let go of. Every day when I walked through the door, he'd be there waiting. His excuse was always the same, a playful glance upward and a husky, "You know the rules."

Usually, the kisses were soft, sweet. A lingering press of his lips against mine followed by a quiet, "I'm glad you're home." Sometimes he'd brush his thumb along my jaw or press his forehead to mine, his eyes saying what words never could.

But on other days—those long, grueling ones when exhaustion was carved into every line of my body—his kisses were different. They were hungrier, more insistent. He'd pin me against the wall, his hands roving over my waist, my back, his touch dissolving every ounce of tension. His mouth would trail to my neck, his voice a low murmur, "Let me take care of you." And he always did, in ways that left me breathless and melting into him.

There were moments when I wondered if the mistletoe had been an innocent gesture at all, or if he'd hung it up knowing it would become something more—a way to anchor us, to carve out a pocket of intimacy amid the chaos of the world outside. If so, I couldn't complain. It was the best idea he'd ever had.

The archway and its ever-present dangling plant became our quiet haven, an unspoken ritual that drew me closer to him every day. And it was the last night of the Solstice Season, meaning all the decorations would go down tomorrow. So when I came home I expected rose petals leading up the doorstep and candles to illuminate our last kiss beneath the dangling plant.

But when I walked inside, I found him waiting for me, not beneath the mistletoe, but by the window, a glass of wine in his hand. The soft glow of the moonlight framed him like some sort of painting, his silhouette a study in elegance and ease. He didn't notice me at first, his attention fixed on the snow drifting lazily outside.

I paused in the doorway, letting the sight of him settle in my chest. He was dressed in more casual clothes—a loose, charcoal-gray sweater and black slacks—and for a moment, I could almost forget he was the High Lord of Night, the most powerful male in Prythian. Right now, he was simply mine.

"Are you going to stand there staring all night?" Rhysand asked, his deep voice cutting through the quiet. He didn't turn, but I could hear the amusement in his tone.

I rolled my eyes, stepping into the room. "You looked peaceful. I didn't want to ruin the moment."

He glanced at me over his shoulder, a slow smile spreading across his face. "You could never ruin anything." Setting his glass down, he turned fully, holding out a hand. "Come here."

I hesitated for only a moment before crossing the room and slipping my hand into his. His fingers closed around mine, warm and sure, and he guided me toward the window. "Look," he murmured, nodding toward the snow.

I followed his gaze. The world outside was blanketed in white, the kind of snowfall that muffled all sound and made the world feel smaller, quieter. It was beautiful, but I couldn't focus on it for long. Not with the way he was looking at me.

"You're not even looking at the snow," I accused softly, glancing up at him.

His lips twitched. "Why would I, when you're here?"

I let out a breathless laugh, shaking my head. "You're shameless."

"Always," he agreed, pulling me closer. His hands settled on my hips, and I found myself instinctively wrapping mine around the back of his neck, head resting on his chest as I stared out the window. We stood there, swaying slightly to a rhythm only he seemed to hear.

After a moment, I tilted my head up to look at him. "You going to kiss me anytime soon?"

"Desperate, are you?" he countered, one brow arching.

I gave him a pointed look. "You're the one who started all this."

He sighed, a dramatic sound, but the way his hands tightened on me gave him away, he couldn't deny me.

He leaned forward, smiling as our lips nearly met but didn't quite touch. I huffed, rising onto my toes and closing that gap to kiss him. It was slow and deep, a silent confession of everything I couldn't say. He responded immediately, his arms tightening around me, grounding me.

His hands ran up my hips, large hands gripping my waist, the warmth of his touch seeping past my clothes as he pulled me closer and deepened our kiss, attempting to pour all his love into this one moment.

By the time we pulled apart, I felt lighter, the weight of my long day dissolving under his touch. "Thank you," I whispered, my fingers brushing over his jaw.

He smiled, that familiar, self-assured curve of his lips. "For the kiss? Or for being perfect?"

I laughed, shaking my head. "For this. For you."

His smile softened, his gaze turning molten. "Always, my love." He pecked my lips once more, slowly pulling away with his forehead against mine. "Always."

Az - Cookies

We had made a mess. Flour clung to the entire front of Azriel's black shirt, standing out starkly against the dark fabric, while dye from the frosting stained my hands in streaks of bright colors. The countertops were a warzone of cookie cutters, unused dough scraps, and piping bags in every color.

But neither of us seemed to care. Azriel focused on his latest creation with the precision of a Spymaster turned confectionery artist, the perfectly golden-brown sugar cookies serving as his canvas. I was still shocked he hadn't devoured the one he was decorating, considering he'd been snatching cookies fresh out of the oven all afternoon.

We weren't officially competing, but if we were, I'd be losing. Horribly. His cookies looked like something straight out of a Winter Solstice display—ornate wreaths, perfect bows, and snowflakes so detailed they might have been drawn by hand. Meanwhile, my snowman looked like he'd been through a blizzard and lost the fight. His crooked smile mocked me from the plate.

With a defeated sigh, I cleared a small space and hoisted myself onto the counter, leaning back on my hands to watch my mate work. I didn't understand how he was so good at manipulating the frosting—it seemed to defy my every attempt.

"Are you pouting?" Azriel asked without looking up, his deep voice carrying a hint of amusement.

"Something like that," I replied, unable to keep the pout from my tone.

"This was your idea, might I remind you," he said, a soft laugh rumbling in his chest.

"Yeah, yeah," I muttered, waving him off. "I remember."

Azriel placed the piping bag down with deliberate care, adding yet another masterpiece to the growing plate of decorated cookies. Finally, he looked up, those hazel eyes warm and alight with quiet humor as they locked onto mine.

Without a word, he stepped forward, settling himself between my legs. His hands, still dusted with flour, rested on either side of my thighs as he leaned in. The kiss was soft, sweet—lingering just long enough to make my breath catch. When he pulled back, his lips curved into a slight smile, dimples appearing as though summoned just for me.

"You taste like frosting," he murmured, his voice low and teasing.

A soft giggle escaped me before I could stop it. "You're not entirely innocent either." I poke his chest.

He tilted his head, pretending to think, but the mischievous gleam in his eyes gave him away. "I'm not sure what you're talking about," he said at last, his lips twitching into a smirk.

I rolled my eyes, but I couldn't help the warmth blooming in my chest.

Cass - Snowmen

"Using your powers is cheating," Cassian declared, gesturing toward my much more impressive snowman. His own creation, barely the size of a pre-schooler, leaned precariously to one side, a lopsided grin smeared across its face.

I scoffed, smoothing the snow on mine as I used my magic—honed in the Winter Court—to form the snowman's perfectly symmetrical, smiling expression. "Don't pout," I said, throwing him a smug grin. "It won't make your sad little snowman any better."

His gasp was loud and exaggerated, and he stomped through the knee-deep snow toward me, hands on his hips like a scolding parent. But the rant he was about to give cut off as his gaze flicked upward. He tilted his head back, dark hair dusted with white as fresh snow began to fall.

The soft flakes drifted between us, one landing perfectly on the tip of my nose. Cassian grinned, leaning in to brush it away with his lips before stealing a kiss, his mouth warm against mine. The cold melted away as I wrapped my arms beneath his jacket, hugging his solid torso against me. His hands pressed against my back, pulling me even closer.

But he leaned too far into the embrace, and the next thing I knew, we were tumbling backward into the snow.

I squealed as I landed with a soft thump, the freezing cold biting into me as I flailed. Cassian laughed, his deep chuckle loud and unapologetic as he flopped onto his back beside me.

"You're such a brute," I muttered, trying to brush the snow off my hair.

"And you're such a sore loser." He grinned, turning his head to look at me, dark eyes gleaming with amusement. "Thought you liked the cold?"

"I do." I glared, my cheeks flaming as the cold snow beneath me only seemed to grow colder.

"Then stop whining and enjoy it." Before I could argue, he swept his arms wide, his legs kicking out to carve a snow angel. The sight was so ridiculous—Cassian, a massive Illyrian warrior, lying in the snow and making an angel—I couldn't help but laugh.

"You don't need to use your arms, you already have arms," I said, flopping back beside him. "So ridiculous."

But I joined him, moving my arms and legs until a pair of angels stretched between us. He turned his head toward me, his grin softening into something warmer, gentler.

"I like this," he murmured. "Just you and me, acting like kids in the snow."

My heart clenched, the sincerity in his voice wrapping around me tighter than his arms ever could. I reached for his hand, our fingers lacing together in the snow.

"You're lucky I'm in a good mood," I teased, "or I'd bury you in it."

He laughed again, the sound full of unrestrained joy as he tugged me closer. His wings wrapped around us like a shield, keeping the cold at bay as the snow continued to fall. We lay there for a while, watching the snowflakes swirl down from the dimming sky.

Eventually, he whispered, "I'll help warm you up when we go inside—if you admit my snow angel is better than yours."

I rolled my eyes, a smile tugging at my lips. "Not a chance, general."

Lucien - Ice Skating

"Wait!" I called out to my mate, my hands trembling slightly as I tried to steady myself. My knees wobbled dangerously beneath me, the ice beneath the blades of my skates feeling far less forgiving than solid ground.

Lucien turned, easily as if he wasn't on blades. His golden eye shimmered with amusement, the hint of a small smile tugging at his lips. He looked as though he'd been born on skates, while I felt like a newborn fawn—clumsy, awkward, and certain I was seconds away from disaster.

I took a tentative step forward, my arms stretched out as if I could somehow will balance into my uncooperative limbs. The moment my foot moved, I lurched forward, letting out a squeak of panic.

Lucien was there in an instant. I grabbed his jacket instinctively, clinging to him as though he were the only thing standing between me and certain doom.

"Here," he said, his voice warm and steady, "hold my hands." He extended his palms toward me, his confidence so disarming that it made my own nerves feel a bit foolish. Slowly, ever so slowly, I released my death grip on his jacket and slid my trembling hands into his.

"There," he said softly, his thumbs brushing reassuring circles over the backs of my hands. "Be confident, or you'll fall."

"Easy for you to say," I muttered under my breath, glancing down at the ice with a mix of terror and defiance. "My legs are so stiff from the cold I feel like they'll snap in half."

Lucien chuckled, the sound low and rich, like molten honey. "Always so dramatic," he teased, threading his fingers through mine as he took a small step backward, gently pulling me forward.

"Just match my movements," he instructed. His voice was calm, soothing, and so maddeningly self-assured that I almost forgot my fear. Almost.

My brows furrowed in concentration as I tried to follow his lead. My legs refused to cooperate, my body too tense to glide smoothly the way he did. Instead, I felt like a lump of wood teetering on the edge of disaster, certain that at any moment I'd go face-first into the ice.

Sensing my hesitation, Lucien squeezed my hands, and warmth bloomed from where his skin met mine, chasing away the biting chill that had settled in my fingers. The warmth crept up my arms and into my chest, soothing me in a way that only he could.

"See? You're already doing better," he encouraged, his voice laced with pride.

I frowned up at him, catching the faint curve of his lips. "Stop laughing at me," I huffed.

"I'm not laughing," he protested, though his golden eye sparkled with amusement.

"You're smiling," I pointed out accusingly.

"Am I not allowed to smile at my mate?" he countered, his smirk widening.

"No," I shot back, though my voice lacked conviction. "Not when I'm one slip away from breaking every bone in my body."

He laughed then, the sound so genuine and warm that I felt my annoyance melt away. "You're not going to fall," he promised.

"And if I do?" I challenged, narrowing my eyes at him.

"Then I'll catch you," he said simply, his voice steady and certain.

Something in the way he said it—like it wasn't just about ice skating, but about everything—made me falter. I swallowed hard, the moment of vulnerability making me cling to him just a little tighter.

"Now," he said, his tone light and teasing again, "let's try this without you looking like you're walking on hot coals."

I glared at him, but I couldn't stop the small laugh that bubbled up. His confidence was contagious, and as I let him guide me step by step across the ice, I felt my body begin to relax.

The fear was still there, lingering at the edges, but with Lucien's steady hands in mine and his unwavering gaze fixed on me, I started to believe that maybe I wouldn't fall. And even if I did, I knew he'd be there to catch me.

Eris - Cocoa

I buzzed with excitement as I topped my steaming mug of cocoa with an indulgent swirl of whipped cream, crowning it with tiny marshmallows that spilled over the rim. The warmth of the drink seeped into my hands as I cradled the mug, savoring the simple joy of the moment.

"Love?" Eris's voice, low and laced with sleep, called from the hallway. I glanced up just as he peeked his head around the corner, his copper hair deliciously ruffled, his sharp amber eyes softened by drowsiness.

"Morning, Eris," I said softly, a smile tugging at my lips. He blinked at me, his expression still crinkled with sleep, and shook his head wordlessly before padding into the room.

Before I could ask what he was doing, he closed the distance between us. Gently, his hands slid over mine, tugging me away from the counter and into the hallway with the sleepy drag of his feet.

"Eris," I began, my voice full of curiosity, "what are you—?"

He didn't answer, his silence as warm and grounding as his touch. His hands in mine felt like slipping into a sun-drenched blanket on a crisp autumn morning. He led me to our bedroom, nudging the door open with a lazy kick. Releasing my hands, he turned to face me, his sharp features soft in the early light.

In one swift motion, his hands found my waist, and he pulled me down onto the bed with him. "Eris," I sighed as he reached for the blankets, cocooning us in their warmth.

"It's too early," he murmured, his voice raspy and thick with sleep as he nestled into the crook of my neck.

"My cocoa's going to get cold," I protested half-heartedly, but the argument died on my tongue the moment he tightened his arm around me.

"Just a few minutes," he countered, his words brushing my skin like embers. His fingers began tracing slow, soothing circles along my back, their heat melting away the last of my resistance. He pressed a featherlight kiss to my neck, and I couldn't stop the warmth that bloomed in my chest, spreading like wildfire.

"Fine," I whispered, my resolve crumbling under his touch. "Just a few more minutes."

His only response was a soft hum of approval as I ran my fingers through his unruly hair, combing it away from his face. His quiet breaths and the rhythmic heat of his touch lulled me deeper into the comfort of the moment. Before I knew it, I'd drifted off, enveloped by his warmth.

I woke to the sensation of gentle kisses—one pressed to my forehead, another to my cheek, and then the tip of my nose. I blinked my eyes open, greeted by Eris's amber gaze, glowing with unspoken affection.

"Morning," I rasped, my voice heavy with sleep. "Again."

His lips curved into a soft smile as he leaned in, brushing a kiss against mine. His fingers cradled my jaw, the gesture tender enough to steal my breath.

"Morning, love," he murmured, his voice still thick with sleep. His thumb traced the curve of my cheek. "Think your cocoa's cold now?"

My eyes widened as the memory hit me. I scrambled out of bed, rushing to the kitchen as Eris's amused laugh echoed behind me. I skidded to a stop at the counter, frowning down at the abandoned mug. Tentatively, I dipped a finger into the drink. Ice cold.

"It's ruined," I said, pouting as I turned to Eris, who had followed me with his usual unhurried grace. "It was the last of the cocoa powder."

He leaned against the counter, his hair still a mess from sleep, and shook his head with a smirk. "You forget who I am."

Taking the mug from my hands, he held it between his palms. Within seconds, steam curled into the air, and the rich scent of cocoa filled the kitchen once more.

I smiled, biting my lip as I looked up at him. "Show-off."

"There," he said with a grin, handing the mug back to me.

Rising onto my toes, I pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth, savoring the warmth of his skin. "Thanks, 'Ris," I murmured, cradling the mug close as I took a tentative sip. The heat spread through me, as rich and comforting as the male watching me with sleepy affection.

"You're welcome, love," he replied, brushing a stray strand of hair from my face. His amber gaze held mine, filled with warmth, and I couldn't help but think there was no better way to start the day.

NSFW version here -> Link

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[nefarrilou]

Underworld Gods: Greek 🏛️ ⤷ Hades ⋮ Part 1

⌞ Top ⟶ Bottom ⌝

✦ Erinyes ⋮ ⊱ Hair 1, 2, 3 | Dress | Wings | Snake | Mask | Bracelets | Claws ✦ Melinoë ⋮ ⊱ Hair | Veil | Dress* | Cape | Rose Eyepatch + Staff | Disembodied Hands | Body Chain | Butterfly Rings ✦ Zagreus ⋮ ⊱ Hair | Bottom | Sandals | Bandages | Chain | Bracelets ✦ Persephone ⋮ ⊱ Hair | Wreath + Acc | Dress + Chain | Veil ✦ Hades ⋮ ⊱ Hair | Werath | Top | Skirt | Cloak | Skulls | Keys | Bracelets | Hands | Claws ✦ Cerberus 🐕 ⊱ Eyes | Ears | Heads*

* Edited

C R E A T O R S

Erinyes @scyllasims @simandy @lady-moriel @sewersims @zouyousims

Melinoë @qicc @zouyousims  @saruin  @ashwwa

Zagreus @raccoonium @justarandomsim  @kleos-sims  @kleos-sims

Persephone @simstrouble @atelierlena @erschsims

Hades @daylifesims @ellone-andreea @kleos-sims @mssims @bluecravingcc

@valhallansim @strangegrapefruit @bradfordsims

Cerberus @voidfeather @mahocreations

[lianadelune]

pairing: emperor caracalla x fem!reader

author's notes: i'm in love with him, your honor

part 1

the throne room of the twin emperors was a place where decisions of life and death were made with a flick of a wrist, its magnificence designed to intimidate and impress. massive marble columns stretched to a vaulted ceiling painted with constellations, while golden chandeliers cast a warm glow over the cold, intricate mosaics covering the floor. at the center of the room stood two identical thrones, one for each emperor, their backs adorned with gilded eagles clutching laurel wreaths.

it was here that you were brought, flanked by soldiers who led you through the imposing bronze doors. you entered with your head held high, your foreign features and proud demeanor immediately drawing attention from everyone. courtiers whispered among themselves, the rumors of your curse swirling in the air like smoke.

caracalla sat on the left throne, his body slouched lazily but his sharp eyes gleaming with intrigue. his tunic was dark red, a bold contrast to the opulence around him, and his fingers drummed idly on the armrest. he looked every bit like the predator you had heard about, his lips curling into a faint smirk as he watched you approach.

geta, seated to his brother’s right, was more composed. his posture was rigid, his expression unreadable, but his gaze was no less intense. dressed in white and gold, he exuded authority and calculation, his mind clearly assessing you like a piece on a chessboard.

the guard captain bowed deeply before addressing the emperors. “great caesars, this is the captive of whom the rumors speak—the woman said to be cursed by venus herself.”

caracalla leaned forward, his interest piqued. “the infamous venus’ wraith. i was expecting... more chains,” he quipped, his voice laced with amusement.

you met his gaze without flinching, your defiance palpable. “perhaps you should have brought more, if you think I need them.”

the room fell silent. gasps rippled through the courtiers, and even the guards stiffened at her insolence.

geta raised an eyebrow, his lips pressing into a thin line. “bold words for a captive,” he said, his tone icy. “do you not understand where you stand, foreigner?”

“i understand perfectly,” you replied evenly, your voice carrying through the vast room. “i stand before men who believe themselves gods but bleed like mortals.”

caracalla laughed, the sound echoing through the chamber. “i like her,” he said, casting a sidelong glance at his brother. “she speaks with the confidence of someone who doesn’t fear death.”

your jaw tightened, but you said nothing.

caracalla rose from his throne, descending the steps with a languid grace. he stopped just a few feet from you, his dark eyes gleaming with curiosity and amusement. “they say any man who dares to love you meets a tragic end,” he said, circling you, reminding you a lion sizing up its prey. “tell me, venus’ wraith, do you believe this curse is real?”

your voice was steady, though a flicker of pain crossed your features. “what i believe is irrelevant. the gods enjoy their games, whether we believe in them or not.”

caracalla’s smirk widened. “i don’t fear curses. or gods.”

“that makes one of us,” you replied with a sharp tone.

geta rose from his throne, his movements deliberate and commanding. “brother, don’t let your amusement cloud your judgment. if the stories are true, keeping her here could be dangerous—not just for us, but for rome.”

“and if the stories are false?” caracalla countered, turning to face him. “what better way to disprove them than to bring her into our court?”

the two brothers locked eyes, their rivalry simmering beneath the surface. you could practically see gears turning in emperor geta's head, after a couple second with the twins staring at each other geta sighed, waving a hand dismissively. “it... would be good for rome's fame when the word spreads and the other lands find out we have the infamous venus' wraith here... do as you will. but if this said ‘curse’ brings trouble, it will be your burden to bear since you so adamantly want to keep her."

but that wasn’t all, was it? you saw the shine on geta's eyes while thinking about his brother’s proposition, he came to a conclusion… but you were sure emperor geta would keep that to himself until time’s right, he’s that kind of ruler, no one ever knew what geta was planning to do until he already did it and by the rumors you heard before being held captive it almost always envolved someone with a knife on their backs… literally and figuratively.

caracalla turned back to you, a wolfish grin on his face. “you’ll serve me,” he declared. “you’ll dine with the court and entertain us with your wit. let’s see if this curse of yours has any bite.”

your gaze hardened, but you did not resist as the guards escorted you out of the throne room.

you whispered eerily while being taken away.

"good luck then"

caracalla watched your retreating figure, a flicker of fascination sparking in his chest, ignoring your words.

geta returned to his throne, his expression dark. “you’re playing with fire, brother,” he warned.

caracalla only chuckled, his eyes still fixed on the doors through which you had disappeared. “perhaps. but, as you are very aware brother, i’ve always liked the burn.”

you expected to be brought to a regular cell, a place fitting for a prisoner such as yourself, a dirty prison made for those who the emperors deemed less than nothing, undeserving to have at least the minimum a human should have to survive unscarred, both mentally and physically, a place with little to no sunlight, no bed, only the hard cold floor as a place to rest, and food not nearly enough for a small person to survive making them start to think that the rats running around looked appetizing.

you had accepted this was your fate when the emperors decided to keep you in the palace.

after all the deaths you caused, maybe you even deserve it.

but to your surprise you were brought to the top floor of the castle, a place truly fit for royalty and royalty alone.

the marble halls shimmer in the golden glow of torchlight, with intricate mosaics depicting the victories of rome lining the floors and walls. massive columns of polished ivory and black stone support the vaulted ceilings, painted with celestial imagery to reflect the gods’ favor. every corner of this level exudes grandeur, a constant reminder of the emperors' divine authority.

‘a bit egotistical in my opinion’ you thought ‘but beautiful nonetheless’

while being escorted to one of the three rooms on that floor you tried to think of an actual reason for them to keep there. did emperor caracalla really mean it when he alluded to wanting an opportunity to test their powers against the will of the gods? what about emperor geta with the odd glint in his eyes the more he thought about his brother’s idea to make you live in the palace, you wish you knew what both of them are thinking. were you a spectacle for the court? a new deadly weapon in their arsenal? political strategy? just plain and simple curiosity? all the above?

too many variables for you to get even close to a conclusion.

but one thing you knew for sure, they’ll regret it… just like everybody else.

when the guards opened the double doors of your newest room you were left in awe, staring at the large room with your mouth wide open and eyes shining brightly as if you were a kid looking at their newest gift at saturnalia, it was something you expected in a palace but still, you never thought that one day you would be able to see it let alone live in it.

the centerpiece of the room is a grand canopy bed, draped in layers of silken fabric dyed deep purple and gold, your hands delicately touch the frame, intricately carved with motifs of laurel wreaths and mythical creatures, you recognized the two sirens in the middle of the bed and a phoenix in between them, you turned around seeing tall, arched windows, framed by heavy velvet curtains, opening them left you with a breathtaking view of the city below and the distant hills.

it was perfect.

now that you were finally left alone your stoic facade got replaced by a huge smile, you jumped on the bed, happy to finally be able to sleep on an actual soft bed instead of the hard ones you were used to in hotels you stayed, having to change every other week when people find out you were venus’ wraith.

you didn’t want to think about your past or variables and possibilities like you always had since you discovered your curse, you also didn’t want to try and guess what the emperors were thinking, get inside their heads, you had a feeling you weren’t gonna like there.

you let yourself enjoy, at least for a little bit, the comfort of this tiny piece of your new life, after a long time just feeling ashamed for something that was out of your control, feeling those awful thoughts leave your mind you fell asleep.

after the heavy doors of the throne room groaned shut behind you, the space was left eerily silent in your absence. caracalla leaned back in his gilded throne, the lion motifs carved into the armrests glinting faintly in the dim light of the torches. his fingers tapped an idle rhythm against the polished wood as a crooked smile played on his lips.

“she is… unlike anyone we’ve met before,” he mused, his voice low and carrying a trace of amusement. “bold enough to speak plainly, yet clever enough to know her place.”

geta, seated in the larger throne beside him, steepled his fingers, his expression unreadable. the cold silver embroidery of his tunic seemed to match the detached tone of his voice. “boldness can be dangerous. it breeds unpredictability.”

caracalla turned his head slightly, his piercing gaze narrowing on his brother. “and yet, unpredictability is what makes her intriguing, isn’t it? someone who defies tradition, dares to enter our halls, and yet does not cower. i see why the city speaks of her in hushed tones. do you think she feels the thrill of having someone’s life in her hands for something as simple as falling in love?”

geta’s lips tightened into a thin line, his dark eyes fixed on the flickering flames of the brazier. “intriguing or not, thrilling or not, she is still an outsider. a foreigner. her presence here invites gossip, and gossip can lead to dissent. we already walk a thin line with the senate.”

caracalla could be many things, bloodthirsty, a monster, impulsive, the list goes on… but on the contrary of many think, he wasn’t stupid, of course because of his disease his mind gets cloudy every once in a while, but right now his mind was as clear as crystal, he knew his brother wasn’t telling the whole truth, maybe he wasn’t even telling the truth in the first place.

but it wasn’t worth it to confront him, geta would only antagonize him, making him believe it was all in his head, his mind would be foggy and confused, making him act and feel insane like everyone believes him to be.

perhaps they were right.

but right now caracalla wanted nothing fogging his mind, especially when it was full of you.

caracalla waved a dismissive hand, the ruby on his ring catching the firelight as he smirked. “let them talk. let them wonder. she is no threat to us here.” his voice dropped, taking on a darker edge. “unless, of course, you plan to fall in love with her.”

geta’s gaze snapped to his brother, his composure unwavering but his tone sharp. “i am not the reckless one here. whatever amusement you find in her will not distract me from what’s supposed to be our duty to rome.”

caracalla laughed, the sound echoing through the chamber like a predator’s growl. “oh, come now, brother. you see the potential as clearly as i do. imagine her in the court, an exotic symbol of rome’s dominion over even the most defiant.”

maybe if he pushed a little geta would open up about his plans, once in his life he would trust caracalla with something, anything, but of course that didn’t happen.

geta remained silent, keeping his thoughts behind the usual cold and calculating facade.

caracalla’s smirk faded, and for a fleeting moment, something unreadable flickered in his eyes. then he leaned back again facing away from his brother.

well, it isn’t like he’s telling the whole truth as well.

the tension between them lingered like smoke in the air, unspoken truths and unacknowledged fears weaving an invisible web.

[trashmouth-richie]

frangere me | break me | 🥀 [3.4k] emperor geta x reader

dulcis ut rosa || dulex

vitiosus + deliciosus || ad caelum vel infernum, tecum sum

18+ smut, violence, talks of war

The stone wall bit into the tender flesh of your back. With your head thrown back, a silent moan etched itself across your face. His name fell from your lips like a prayer, and Geta responded with a groan against the column of your throat, a deep thrust pistoning so hard the paintings hung beside you fell in a loud crack to the marbled floor.

It had been like this for months. What started as a midnight affair blossomed into fucking in broad daylight. The thrill of being caught making the lust for one another heighten to the Gods above. Each time was better than the last. Geta quickly became attuned to your body. 

You pleasured him beneath his desk as he discussed military stations and territories with his generals, his poker face never faltering— only hitting the large desk with a fist as he came hot and heavy in your mouth. 

He had you screaming in the middle of the coliseum, the sand rubbing against your forearms as he rocked his mighty cock into you, a whip in his right hand slapping your ass with glee. 

Fucking Geta was sinfully erotic, filthy and savory. A favorite time of yours was when you were face to face, a shared orgasm breathing between you as your hips circled his cock in the balineum, water splashing and slapping around you. 

His was during the light of dawn when he took your hand pulling you to where his throne was perched in the throne room. Geta was gentle as he kissed you, his fingers were feather light touches against your molten skin, he knelt before you as you leaned back in his throne chair, his laurel wreath crown balancing on your head. 

He licked and bit at your thighs. Suckling on your clit as he whispered, “mea imperatrix,” working you through the earth shattering orgasm as you coated his tongue. 

You couldn’t get enough of him, and he of you. The wall of this palace held many secrets, but yours and Geta’s was by far the most delicate of all.

—

Goosebumps prickled your skin as Geta ran blunt nails down your back. It was nearly daybreak, yet you still hadn’t left his chambers, how could you when his arms were wrapped around you pleading for you to stay with him just a little longer. 

You’re drifting to sleep against his chest when his breath fans against your ear, “you have not bled this month.” 

“Hm?” you mumble sleepily, a yawn drawing past your lips.

Sitting up in his bed, Geta hooks a finger under your chin. “Do not be coy, my dulcis… you haven’t bled yet, have you?” 

Stretching the kinks from your arms and spine, you rise to your knees, peeling your warmed skin from his, still sticky with the grape wine you poured down your chest and Geta had licked off just hours before. 

You met his eyes as they traveled across your body, “the month is not over, there are still days left for the cycle to begin.” 

Geta’s eyes continue descending down your bare body before him. The beautiful curves and supple skin he dined on, pinched between his fingers any chance he could get. He had claimed you every night and day for half of this year, and he’d continue doing so until his death. 

His chest rose and fell heavily as he scrubbed his hands down his face, “we have not been careful, my seed drips between your legs at this very moment.” 

Reaching for his hands you delicately pull them from his face so you can stare into his dark eyes. The torture this man was battling internally would one day consume him, and you tried your hardest to keep him afloat. 

“I have never missed my cycle, and I won’t this month either. I know the way my body works.” 

Geta grabs your wrist and kisses your open palm, “I know every inch of your body better than the maps of Rome on my desk. You smell sweeter, your breasts are fuller, I can tell by the way you whine and purr with pleasure that your nipples are significantly tender, more than usual.” 

You frown, pulling your eyebrows together before he swoops you up and lays you down, kissing your neck as you giggle. His face dangles inches above yours. “All of Rome will know our secrets when you start showing.” 

You move his face from your neck and hold his cheeks in your hands, rubbing against the rough midnight stubble collecting on his jaw.

When dawn creeped into the last dark drink of night, Geta was the most handsome to you— when the sleep drug heavy on his eyelids and those salmon tinted lips moved lazily when he spoke. Moving a lock of untamed honey from his forehead you admire him wholly. 

“We don’t know that I’m carrying for sure. For all we know, my love, this could be the work of Mercury.” 

Geta sighed deeply, “do not mistake my worry for ignorance. I would fill you with my heirs every year for the rest of our lives if that’s what you wanted. My worry isn’t about you bearing my child, it’s about the other that rules half of this kingdom.”

“Then maybe it is time for the unveiling of this adulterous devotion.” Pulling yourself up to his mouth, you slot your lips between his. Kissing him deep until your tongues join and you can feel the tension and worry seep from him. 

Geta slides down resting his body gently onto yours, “Not until a crown lay on your head and you stand next to that reptilian infant before the gods— no adultering has been made.” 

“And you’d want to wait for that moment?” you question. 

He bit your lip with his teeth until you squealed, and his tongue lapped up the single drop of blood that appeared, “I will stand before Rome tomorrow if I thought it meant you being mine was equal to your safety… Caracalla will not take this union and betrayal of ours lightly.” 

“I thought my bloodthirsty lover would kill any man who threat—”

Geta laughs darkly, “Caracalla is not a threat— merely an annoyance who uses others for his dirty work, but he is vile, and will go to extreme lengths to destroy anyone who crosses him… rest assured my little wicked thing—I have plans for him. My taste for bloodlust has not lost me yet.” 

He smiles then like a man gone mad, your blood staining the crooks of his teeth. 

“I will wait however long… but let’s not bother ourselves with him tonight Geta, I want you inside of me one last time before I have to pretend we’ve never lied together.” 

Your legs open for him, the heat from your core beckoning him as slick wets your lips. His eyes darken, “my favorite game, acting as if I hate you all day only to fuck you until you’re weeping into my sheets at night.”

He dives into your neck, sinking his teeth into your skin biting harder when you moan. 

“You’re the worst, my love,” you say breathless as he reaches between your bodies and nudges the head of his cock between your folds, a small moan on your lips as you circle your hips needing him deeper, “absolutely the worst.” 

Geta leans up, grabbing you harshly by the bend in your knee, a wicked grin on his lips as he thrusts his cock into your wet welcoming heat, “that’s right, and don’t you ever forget it.” 

—

A servant’s day in the palace was bleak at best. Following Caracalla around as he fussed over his appearance, and shouted at staff for the way the grapes tasted, it was all monotonous. Everyone gathered for the mid day feast, a summer celebration where servants and the royalty eat in the same hall. 

You hid your smile when Geta approached behind his mother. The dried blood on your lip from last night a steady reminder of why you ached between your thighs today. Heat flushed your skin when you imagined those great veiny hands scorching body as he came loud inside of you. 

What if he was right? What if you were with child? A small ripple of joy shot through you at the way Geta didn’t seem afraid of having a babe with you. You let your mind wander as you sit next to the other servants of the palace while they gossip, and you pick at the roasted pork before you. 

You imagine him being stern, those overgrown hands of his no doubt able to discipline unruly children bearing their father’s eyes and quick fired temperament. But that side of Geta that no one else in Rome knew about would also leak through his tough exterior. 

The piece of him that was sweet and caring, that part of himself that he bore to you over and over again because of the way you made him feel. He was sweet, kind, gentle when needed. 

A smile presses on your lips and you hum an audible sigh. Yes, Geta would be a good father— when that time came, if it ever did. Your heart flutters and your stomach lurches when you peek over your shoulder at him. 

His jaw was set tight at the head table as he listened to his generals whisper about the upcoming war. A flicker of those dark eyes catch yours and he balances a smirk on his lips for a second before shooting a wink and quickly 

turning away. 

Your small victory over the contest of staring is short lived before a loud whisper interrupts your daydream of that devious mouth on your skin. 

“Don’t lie Jessaphina,” Claudia hissed behind her hand, “you’ve never been to his chambers!” 

“I have so,” the blonde announced unabashedly, sipping loudly from her wine, “how else would I know that it’s high in a tower? Or that he prefers the shades to be drawn at all times… but the view from his balcony is breathtaking, I could really get used to it.” 

Claudia clicks her tongue, “you’re going to get yourself killed with such nonsense lies. No whore is allowed in the Emperor’s chambers.” 

“You are if you’re invited.” Jessaphina crooned, a smile on her lips, “my garments are on his floor as we speak.”

“Jessapahina!” Claudia hissed out every ‘s’, “it’s impossible is it not? You’re betrothed to one of the general's men, fifth in command.” 

“Fourth— Claudia, and not anymore…Geta has promised me the throne besi—”

Slamming down your plate you had heard enough. It took seconds for you to reach across the table, an even shorter amount of time to wrap your fingers in her braids and bring her face down hard into the oak table until the satisfying sound of her nose breaking had every pair of eyes on you. 

Your name was screeched from Claudia’s lips as she tried to pry your fingers from Jessaphina’s hair. Rage boiled within you and a sudden rush of ecstasy as Jessaphina’s screams became blubbery sobs. 

It was his voice that silenced the room, demanding all attention to him. Your eyes met Geta’s and it was then and only then that hot tears welled within your own. 

Without breaking his stare, you spat on Jessaphina, unfurled your fingers from her blonde locks and spun on your heel, storming out of the dining hall.

Betrayal. The one person you had put trust in, gave everything too and more— and it was gone. 

You didn’t make it very far before a fuming Geta met up with you, “what in gods name are you trying to do?” 

Spinning to face him, you slapped his face with tears rolling down your cheeks, “I should ask you the same question!”  

Geta’s face burned with crimson as he stared down at you, “watch your tongue—”

Your hand cracks his other cheek, “how could you?!” 

“Gnat,” he says through gritted teeth, “I have no idea what you are asking.” 

“Jessaphina! The blonde whore with the now broken nose! She claims she’s been to your chambers!” 

He laughs in annoyance, “what?” 

“She knows where it is what it looks like— she knows that your curtains are drawn in darkness!” 

Geta reaches for you but you swat his hand away, “of course she is lying, I’m sure she has heard that from the servants who come to clean.” 

“She said she was invited!” you spat back, at him, “that she was to be your equal on the throne, that her clothing was strewn about your chambers as if she belongs there.”  

His left eye twitches at the crease, “I have never seen that woman before in my life. You are it for me, mea amor—”

“Don’t!” You screech, shoving him away, “do not call me that when you’ve been fucking another!” 

“I know nothing of her!” Geta yells loudly, “not my eyes, nor my hands or lips have touched anyone but you.” 

You scoff then, “you never touched me either when we started out. Remember? It was only my mouth, and your cock.”

Geta sighs and hangs his head, those dark eyes pooling with tears, “my sweet girl, please.” 

“Is that all I am to you? A warm mouth… even now? We play in the shadows of secrecy…all those nights swearing how I am yours… were you ever once mine, Geta?” 

“Mea domina,” he whispers, pulling you to him as you cry into his chest. “I am yours and yours alone, what more proof can I offer you.” He pulls your chin up to him, wiping a line of tears from your eyes. “I swear on my crown, there hasn’t been another since you, and there won’t ever be.” 

He doesn’t owe you anything. He’s an emperor, and you are nothing but a wet fuck when no one is around. After all these months you’re still his secret. 

You jerk your chin away from him, your hands falling to their sides, “I’m such a fool aren’t I? For ever believing a word that comes from your mouth.” 

Geta pleads your name as you pull away, leaving his heart shattering to pieces as he stands alone. In the same corridor that this all had started— it would also end.

—

Geta was a miserable man without you, he felt hollow— exactly as he did before your pretty and defiant smile came here.The daylight was easier on him, but when night fell he felt as if he was being suffocated, as if every breath was expunged from his lungs in one tight grip on his throat. 

Were you hurting? Were you as bad off as he was? Geta was many things but he wasn’t a liar, he truly had never seen that woman until that very day when you smashed her face to bits into that table. 

Days passed without him even catching a glimpse of you, but the night was filled with ghostly pearl whispers of your voice in his ear, invading his dreams and keeping him awake. 

He assembled soldiers into the foothills to train for the impending war. Cracking a whip over their heads as they fought to the bloody death to prove themselves to him. 

Every ounce of pain he felt since you left was pushed into those men, he was ruthlessly deranged and couldn’t be stopped, the spitfire temper he was known for was back with a vengeance, led by a weeping soul. 

Around the fire one evening as Geta polished his sword while the few surviving men slept, the ground crunched beneath Acacius’s feet. 

“Your excellency,” he greeted with a bow of his head, “I have my best guards watching Emperor Caracalla in my absence.” 

“Very well,” Geta mumbled, his vacant eyes losing focus. 

Acacius fiddled with the leather on his wrist, “yes, and the—erm.. sir? Your lady…would you like me to watch for her as well?” His dark eyes looked pitifully at his broken hearted Emperor. 

Geta’s eyes met Acacius’ and the moon kissed the tear as it fell on his cheek, “please.” 

-

Caracalla was full of himself. You were certain of that, and because of that reason alone— he didn’t notice that your eyes had lost their sparkle, or the way the skin beneath them seemed to darken from lack of sleep. As long as you paid attention to him he could give a shit whether you looked off or not. 

You had heard from the others that Jessaphina would heal fine. And from Caracalla’s loud mouth he said that Geta had taken troops to prepare for the inevitable battle that loomed ahead. 

Hearing his name burned like fire in your stomach. It had only been three days without him but you felt as if it were a lifetime. The palace was lonely without his presence.  Most nights you found yourself wandering the halls like a spirit, sneaking into his study and curling up on the chaise. Replaying your nights together in your head until the sun shone through the curtains. 

You missed him, and you felt sick to your stomach thinking of the pain in his face when you wouldn’t listen to him, wouldn’t give him a chance to explain. But you were also hurt, deceived by the only man you’ve ever truly cared for. 

It was irrational the way you had reacted, you spent every night in Geta’s arms for months on end, how could he possibly be seeing anyone other than you? He couldn’t have. It was that simple and truly were a fool for doubting him. 

More days passed and every time you heard a galloping hoof on the rocks your heart burned with it being Geta returning to you, but every time it wasn’t him. 

It wasn’t until tending to Caracalla’s wardrobe one evening that a lower ranked general you’d never seen before approached you in a hushed whisper.

He was covered in sweat and smelled of the wind as if he had just rode back from far away. He bowed at the waist before grabbing your hand and thrusting a note into your palm before leaving immediately before being seen.

The parchment was covered with soil and splattered in blood, but nonetheless you knew who it had come from. 

—tonight, when the moon is highest, meet me, our spot—

The corridor was ominous and pitched into darkness as you looked past the pillars into the sky. You had never been more nervous than tonight. The moon was positioned correctly as it always was in the beginning when Geta had requested you to meet, but he had yet to appear. 

You remained near the opening, feeling the humid air warm your face as the cicadas sang their mating calls. The loose fabric of your stola flowed behind you in white lengths. Dutifully, patiently you waited for your Emperor’s return. 

Too long it had been since you’ve held his eyes in yours, since his smell invaded your nose and filled your lungs, you couldn’t wait to throw yourself into his arms, to tell him how ridiculous you had been. 

Footsteps had you turning the same time a familiar voice rang in your ears. 

“There you are.” 

—

“… we must move through the western front for the advantage.” 

“Neigh Titus, the southern region is less barren, easier to disguise amongst the trees.” 

Geta and the highest generals were sitting in the war camp pouring over maps and territories on where to strike first. A full week had passed since he’d been home, but the attention and focus he put into his men waa slowly mending himself to how he was before you. 

“Emperor!” Acacius roared, slapping open the tent opening out of breath, “a word, please.” 

Geta flicked his wrist to release his men. After filing out of his tent, Acacius interrupted before Geta could ask. 

“Word just came from the Hill that there’s been an ambush.”

Geta’s nostrils flared and he rose from where he was sitting, the psychotic twitch in his eye stung as his breath quickened.

“We’ve been prepared for retaliation for weeks, our walls will hold until we get back— tell the men to gather their weapons, we are leaving camp immediately.”

“This is not an enemy led attack— it’s from within our own walls!” 

“Wh— Acacius explain yourself!” 

Acacius yelled frantically, “Staff are dead, soldiers killed by their own bloodlines— and your lady… my excellency, she’s been taken.” 

🌿🌿 there will be another part bc i can’t help myselfffff i love the angst 😫

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@alyisdead

[22ayla21]

Can I have idia x fem Reader, with unusual hair like him but instead of a fire her hair grows a halo of flowers on her head that change according to her feelings, Like rose flowers when she feel love, or withered flower when sad, or turns into thorns when angry and upset.

Flowers burning in the dark

Her feelings blossomed in a wreath on her head, his flared up in a pink flame, and the more they tried to hide them from each other, the brighter the fire became.

Idia wasn't sure he could handle it. He wasn't sure about most things when it came to people, but especially when it came to her.

Her hair didn't burn like his, but it glowed in its own way. The wreath of flowers that appeared on her head changed depending on her emotions. At first, Idia thought it was weird. Then, it was beautiful. And later, it was unbearable, because now he always knew how she felt.

When she was happy, daisies and lilies bloomed in her hair, and then he felt like he was in the sun, even sitting in his dark room. When she was sad, the petals of her flowers began to fall, and he frantically searched the Internet for ways to cheer her up, even if he couldn't bring himself to leave the room. And when someone made her angry, her hair became covered in spikes, and then Idia was glad that the evil laughter sounded only in his head.

He didn't know why she appeared so often next to him. Maybe because no one sat next to him, and she simply had nowhere to go. Maybe because he was the most harmless in their strange school. Or maybe she just liked watching his hair flare up chaotically with blue flames, as if reflecting his emotions.

Idia didn't know how to deal with feelings, but especially not with his own.

He first realized it when he noticed the roses in her hair. Delicate, half-opened buds. Not flashy, but still noticeable. They appeared when she was looking at him, and Idia nearly ran to her room.

Roses. Love.

It had to be a coincidence. A mistake. A glitch in her magic or whatever. But the more he convinced himself of it, the hotter his flame burned, and the more the roses in her hair bloomed.

He didn't like things that couldn't be predicted, but he couldn't look away from this.

[bullet-prooflove]

Ivy: Frank Langdon x Reader

Tagging: @kmc1989 @julessworldd @yousigned-upforthis @travelingmypassion @julius-ceasar

Prequel piece to:

Hypocrite - Frank struggles to make amends for a past wrongs.

Crash - Almost getting you fired wasn't the lowest point of Frank's addiction.

Rock Bottom - Frank hits rock bottom when he sees the devastation his addiction's caused.

Little Black Dress - Frank starts to spiral when he realises you're dating.

Every Damn Day - A drunk text leads to a confession.

Wet Dream (NSFW) - Frank sometimes dreams about the life you had together.

War Stories - A realisation about your coping habits leads you to Frank's door.

The Three Cs - Frank and you finally discuss your issues and pave away towards the future.

The Wall - A date at the climbing wall leads to a revelation from Frank.

Commitment - You create a fun way of showing Frank your commitment to the relationship.

All In (NSFW) - You and Frank take a big step forward.

Slut (NSFW) - Frank gets a little bratty after a bad day.

Nightmare Fuel - Frank's been waiting for the fall to come.

Boo Fucking Hoo - Your forced to defend yourself after you're attacked outside the hospital.

Until now Frank has never considered a tattoo.

He’s always been appreciative of your artwork. The nights he spent tangled up in you, his fingers tracing over the intricate Greek mythology scenes etched into your skin.

Medusa carved in stone on your left bicep as a representation of the work you do as a SANE. Persephone and Pandora’s jar nestled on a bed of roses on your right. Theres five others hidden in different places all over your body and he’s kissed every single one of them as he’s learned their stories, each one filled with meaning.

The only thing in Frank’s life that’s ever held any meaning was you, which is why he’s sitting in a tattoo shop, his shirt hanging open as he stares up at the ornate design on the ceiling. The tattoo artist presses the stencil to his chest, his palm soothing down the ivy wreath design that rests right above his heart.

Growth, tenacity, resilience.

All traits that remind him of you, all the traits he’s going to need on his road to recovery because he’s three months sober and he’s only just now coming to terms with the fact he’s lost the love of his life because of his addiction.

“You ready?” The artist asks him, picking up the rotary pen before dipping it into the ink.

“Yea.” Frank says, shifting in the seat, he slinging his arm up over his head. “I’m ready.”

Love Frank? Don’t miss any of his stories by joining the taglist here.

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Like My Work? - Why Not Buy Me A Coffee

[yeoldenews]

A selection of looks from the 18th Century equivalent of the MET Gala (aka The Queen's Drawing Room) in March 1789.

(To help with your mental images - this would have been roughly the court silhouette at the time.)

Queen Charlotte - "Was dressed in purple, silver and orange body and train; the petticoat likewise of purple and silver, richly embroidered upon crape. Her Majesty’s head-dress was the most superb and beautiful that ever appeared at Court. A bandeau of purple sattin was fastened around the cap, with a motto in diamonds of “GOD SAVE THE KING.

Round the Queen’s neck was a medallion, tied with a double row of gold chain, and across her shoulders was another chain of three rows of pearls, and five rows of diamonds fastened low behind, with a fine miniature portrait of the KING, studded with diamonds, hanging in front. The tippet was of fine lace, and fastened with the letter G. in diamonds."

The Duchess of Gordon - "White sattin, superbly spangled in gold, and drawn up with a bandeau of the most costly embroidery, imitating the sun [in] the fullness of its glory. The petticoat was festooned in a beautiful manner with branches of oak."

The Duchess of Devonshire - "A white sattin petticoat most superbly embroidered with wreaths of foil, flowers and stones, the gown of dark green sattin, richly embroidered with spangles; and a most beautiful diamond stomacher."

Lady Lloyd - "A crape petticoat, over one of white sattin, with stripes of purple velvet, ornamented with gold and stones, representing peacock feathers. The train purple, trimmed with crape.

Her Ladyship's cap had a painting, describing Britannia kneeling and offering praises to heaven for the recovery of the King, very richly ornamented with diamonds, blond, flowers, and feathers. In the front, "Dieu nous le rend," (God restores him to us,) embroidered in gold letters."

Mr. Pitt - "A green and rose striped velvet, richly embroidered with gold and silver stones; the waistcoat of white satin, embroidered as the coat."

The Hon. Mr. Edgecumbe - "A blue and brown shaded velvet, most superbly embroidered with diamonds and point lace, with beautiful bouquets of flowers; the waistcoat of white satin, embroidered the same"

Sir John Marriott - "Sea green striped velvet, with gold tissue embroidered waistcoat."

and my personal best dressed -

The Duchess of Rutland (who was making her first appearance at court since the death of her husband) - "The time allotted by the decree of fashion for customary suits of solemn black, and all the trappings of widowed woe, being expired, her Grace, lovely in her person, and attractive in her manners, came forward in all the fullness of splendor, and in imitation of the Heavens when they declare, by a rainbow, that the tears of the sky have stopped, wore a dress of embroidered crape, fashioned in such a manner as to resemble that variegated sign of an unclouded atmosphere. But we are at a loss to find out what was meant by the gold-spangled darts of lightning that appeared through this rainbow, unless that her Grace meant them as emblematical of what her eyes can do, now that the day of weeping’s over. To write, however, in more plain terms, we shall state exactly what her Grace had on. It was an embroidered crape, something in imitation of a rainbow, having variety in its colours, and being ornamented with gold spangles which really appeared like darts of lightning through the crape, and gave it a most superb appearance. Her head-dress of white crape, with a towering branch of ostrich feathers, and the motto of God save the King,  in white and gold."

(source: The Times, March 27, 1789.)

[blessedbyahuntress]

Warrior of the Sun and Moon

Chapter One: The Blessing of the Sun

Prev/Next

A/N: HEHEHEHEHE (Ya that's all I got [I'm high on caffeine, if you can't tell])

Warnings: Handsome immortal alert! Handsome immortal alert!

Word count: 850

When you were nine, you snuck out of your room for the first time. You’d been ordered to stay in the chamber under the watchful eye of your servant, but you felt jittery and restless.

You needed to get out of the palace, abandon these stone walls for a little while.

The afternoon sun shone through the beautiful stained glass windows as you kept your head down, back pressed against the wall. If what Telemachus had accidentally told you was true… 

There it was. Your hand wrapped around a lever, the metal cold on the palm of your hand. You pulled, a harsh jerk of the wrist. There was a loud scraping sound of stone grinding against stone, and you cursed. Your servant would find you soon if you weren’t fast enough.

You turned, slipping into the secret passage that had opened next to you. 

The darkness that engulfed you made you nervously drum your fingers on your leg, nails skimming over the hunting knife that was hidden in the folds of your dress- the dagger you’d stolen from your older brother the time Telemachus had allowed you into his room.

You swatted away a cobweb that was trying to get entangled in your hair. Your steps became faster, more determined to get out of this awful space.

A breath of fresh air hit you in the face, the wind running its chilly fingers through your locks, tugging at your hair playfully. 

You took another step forward, and suddenly you were falling, sun blinding your eyes as they stretched wide in panic. You landed on your back, all of the breath knocked out of you.

“Holy-”

Someone above you tsks. “Is it really appropriate for such a young lady like you to be cursing?”

You jolt up, banging your head against someone else’s forehead. You lay back down with a groan. “Who the hell are you?”

“You shouldn’t answer a question with a question, princess.”

You cross your arms over your chest, head still pounding. “Mine seems more important,” you argue. “Who are you?”

You feel a hand rest gently on your forehead, and the ache begins to dissipate. 

The person chuckles lightly. “Well,” he said- you figured it was male, though he spoke in more of a sing-song. “Maybe you should open your eyes before asking such things.”

You frown, earning another laugh from the unknown person. Slowly you blink, your eyes adjusting to the light. Standing above you was the tallest man you’d ever seen. He was bathed  with a golden glow, bright blue eyes gazing into your own. A laurel wreath shone atop his head, perfectly tan arms crossed over his muscular chest.

Somehow you knew this was a god, though it wasn’t his appearance that gave him away- rather, it was his presence. 

“Apollo?” You whispered softly, as if you believed if you stirred the air too much, it would scare the god of the sun away. 

The addressed deity threw his head back, a booming laugh escaping his lips. “Yes, that is I, little mortal.” 

You stood, dusting off your dress. As quickly as you rose, you dropped into a grand curtsy. “Lord Apollo, to what do I owe the honour?” 

“You are smarter than you look.” You weren’t sure whether to be proud or offended by his words as he circled you, studying you as a king observes his prize bull. “Tell me, little mortal, how did you know that I am Apollo?”

You tilt your head. “You feel like the sun,” you stated bluntly.

That got him to chuckle again. He paused his pacing to look you in the eye. “I suppose. But I have come to answer your prayer.”

You blinked. “What prayer?”

Apollo furrowed his perfect brow. “What do you mean, ‘what prayer’?” He questioned. “Y’know? That prayer that you sent me when you were two, wishing you could be like your father, the mighty Odysseus?”

“Did I?” You try to remember what he was referring to, but you come up empty. “Sorry, but I don’t think I even knew you existed at such a young age.”

“Ah.” Apollo waves this off. “It doesn’t matter whether you remember it or not, for I am here to make your dreams come true.”

“Uhm,” you said. “No offense, Lord Apollo, but how…” You trailed off as the god held up a golden bow, fitted perfectly for the palms of your hands to grip. 

You reached out to touch it, mesmerized by the curve of the limbs and the string that seemed to change colors in the sunlight. Apollo held it closer, as if urging you to take it. You didn’t need any further encouragement, small fingers wrapping around the weapon. 

As you grasped the bow, a shimmering belt appeared on your waist, a quiver full of arrows attached. You gasped, running your fingers up and down your new accessory. 

When you looked up, mouth opening to speak, you met Apollo’s shining blue eyes. “Thank you,” you murmured, tone filled with emotion and gratitude. 

“Anytime, Y/N,” the immortal said, shooting you a wink as he faded away. 

“Anytime.”

Taglist: @barrythestrawberry041 @shapter-draws @sunshinewhosketches @myriad-of-passionate-pettiness @shroombloom248 @my-gods-i-read-too-many-books @keikeiluvyou @tati-the-fangirl @bookmuncherss @sabrina-senpai @artemis-andrea @sunshinedaisy21

[maxispixels]

HANDPICKED

PART FOURTEEN.

Hobie Brown x GN!Reader

3k words

You work at a flower shop in late 70s London and Hobie's being a menace. Slowburn? Probably will be around (more) 10 parts. Strangers to reluctant acquaintances to friends to something more. Maybe a lil' messy ? (very)

Part one. Part two. Part three. Part four. Part five. Part six. Part seven. Part eight. Part nine. Part ten. Part eleven. Part twelve. Part thirteen. Part fourteen.

The bell rang over your head, welcoming. It felt like spring inside of four walls, the smell of flowers and a herbal blend of tea greeted you almost as warmly as Rose, a nice break from the cutting wind drying your skin. A lot of boxes and other deliveries were still unopened. When she saw the scratches on your hands and the bruising around your brow bone though, her soft smile got replaced by tight lips.

 “What happened to you?” she asked eagerly, stepping around the counter surprisingly fast for a limping lady, her wrinkled hands cradling your face. “Did that punk do that?” Her voice rose, gingerly squishing your cheeks.

“What?” You blinked at her. “No. No, not at all!” You were so offended by her accusations, you lost all ability to remember and tell the lie you had prepared for this. “I got in a fight and punched some guy at a bar—” You blurted out so honestly that she could only believe you, no matter how surreal you getting in a fight in a bar seemed.

“You? Punched some guy at a bar?” She repeated in a mix of awe and disbelief, before shaking her head. “You know what? I’m not going to ask. We got all of our deliveries for Christmas, unpack it, I don’t pay you to stand here.”

“I just got here!” you protested, but she scolded you like you’d been lounging all day.

“With 30 minutes lateness.”

That got you. You groaned, defeated, feeling your face flushed at the memory of your reason for being late, the mere thought reminding you of the lingering warmth of Hobie’s arms around your stomach. 

Without any more playful bickering, you kneeled to the cardboard boxes, precision knife in hand as you carefully unravelled beautifully red poinsettia trees, small pine trees and other branches and wires. 

You had a few commands for Christmas wreaths and decorated small Christmas trees. So you sat in the back and mostly worked on that, as Rose was more fit to handle customers than crafts, her trembling hands making it hard to carefully use secateurs. 

You weaved together flowers, red ribbons, stars and angels on pine branches, your hands roughened and smelling like cedar. You had gotten a few small cuts, but you often did when you had to work like that. It didn’t really hurt, you had gotten used to your hand stinging.

Rose checked on your progress a few times, dropping pieces of advice, that were really just orders said nicely, for your arrangements. 

You helped her out a few times with hanging decorations around the shop, until she left earlier in the afternoon, leaving you to tie the ribbons behind the counter.

By the end of the week, you were ready for December, christmas wreaths nicely arranged on the shop’s shelf, flowery christmas trees at every corners of the room, red and white ribbons, mistletoes, and the sweet smell of the sugar cookies Rose left for you. 

When the bell above the door jingled again, a sound familiar and so harmless, you thought it was Rose finally coming back for her purse.

“I put it in the back, next to the kettle.” You mumbled without much more thought, working on an intricate knot.

And when you were met with nothing breaking the silence but a rumbling breath, you had to look up. Your breath caught in your throat, choking you silent. 

Bob, Rob, Robert, whatever his name was, stood in the doorway, his silhouette blocking out the gray light from the street behind him. He looked rough, bruising still faint along his jaw, a split lip healing ugly. 

You weren’t ready for this, not now. Not alone. The last time you saw him, there had been fists, anger, the taste of blood in your mouth. Hobie wasn’t there. No security, no one to pull you out if things turned ugly . You gripped the counter, legs unsteady.

“Unsure what you got in the back, but I assume you didn’t expect me.” He mumbled, in a feeble attempt at humor. 

You weren’t sure how to react, your eyes wide as cold sweat ran down your back. You were expecting him to pounce at any time, your fingers even discreetly reaching for scissors or something in case of emergency.

But he didn’t move. And then in all his rough, awkward glory, Robert sighed, scratched at the stubble on his chin, and muttered, “D’ya have flowers for a tosser needin’ to apologize?”

It broke the tension like a stone through glass. You blinked, and if you weren’t shaking in your boots, you would’ve scoffed.

“What?”

He shifted, looking uncomfortable under your stare. Like a child getting scolded. “I dunno. Somethin’ that says I was a proper arse, but, y’know, with petals.”

You didn’t move. Your body still buzzed with the echoes of fear, of old instincts telling you to get ready to run or fight. But he just stood there, hands shoved deep in his pockets, eyes flicking around like he’d rather be anywhere else.

“Are you trying to apologize to me? Is that a joke? Or have you been visited by the three ghosts of Christmas or something?” You muttered tentatively, a hint of something mocking in your tone, despite the shakiness of your voice. 

He rolled his eyes, before exhaling sharply. “Ain’t here to fight. Swear.” 

It was supposed to reassure you, but it didn’t, not yet. You stayed still, watching him step closer, waiting for the punchline of whatever cruel joke this might be.

He reached for a small ceramic trinket, a tiny, painted poodle, and turned it over in his fingers, gently rolling his thumb over it. A habit, a nervous tick, something he needed to fidget with for a moment.

Just like Hobie.

Your stomach twisted and you swallowed hard.

They had the same sharpness, the same exhaustion, the same anger buried under layers of bitterness. But where Hobie had fire, Robert had something hollowed out inside him. Something that made him mean, something that made him lash out inside of pulling people close.

“I was a real prick to you,” he muttered, looking down at the old poodle. “Said shit I shouldn’t have.”

You stiffened. “You don’t say.”

That almost  got a laugh out of him. Almost.

Silence settled again, but it wasn’t the same as before. You studied him, still wary, still unsure. You should hate him. Maybe you did. But it was hard to look at him now, bruised and tired, and not think of Hobie. Of how easy it would’ve been for things to go differently, for Hobie to be the one standing here with more anger than love left in his chest.

Finally, Robert sighed and set the tiny ceramic pup back down. “Hobart pulled my arse out of a real mess the other day. Coulda let me get nicked. Shoulda, probably.”

Your brow furrowed. “What?”

He rolled his shoulders, like the memory was physically uncomfortable. “Were to the same protest. T’got bad. Couldn’t get out quick enough. Hobie could. But he didn’t.”

You could picture it too easily. Hobie, exasperated but unwilling to leave someone behind. Even Robert.

You crossed your arms, heart still pounding, but something about the situation was shifting.

Robert sighed again, like he hated what he was about to say. “I guess I owe him a little now. But that doesn’t matter, whatever went sour between us—shouldn't have taken it out on you.”

That caught you off guard. Your grip on your arms loosened just slightly.

For the first time since he walked in, Robert met your eyes. There was something that wasn’t just cruelty or smugness or a need to twist the knife.

Regret.

You let out a breath you hadn’t realized you were holding. “You really buying flowers for an apology?”

He shrugged. “Actually, I hoped the intention would’ve been enough. Don’t got a single coin in me pocket.”

The bell above the door jingled again, with Rose’s cheerful voice breaking the tension. Seemed like she finally remembered her purse.

“Hello hello,” she greeted.

Suddenly, you had an idea. Something petty, and wicked. You pointed an accusatory finger up to Robert’s confused face, and, with all the annoyingness of a child denouncing another… “He was trying to steal flowers!”

No matter what happened next, the expression on the idiot’s face was worth it. “What? No, I wasn’t—I didn’t-”

Rose’s face fell in exaggerated disappointment, and you had to bite back a laugh. In a follow-up of events you couldn’t keep up with as all your focus was on not cackling, Robert found himself forced to leave his precious cowboy hat on the counter, and to hang all the tinsels, fairy-lights and garlands where you got too tired to do it yourself. You didn’t exactly mean for Robert to linger any longer, but you had to admit it was delicious to see him obey an old lady with his tail between his legs. Rose could be scary.

For so long, you’d imagined him at this towering threat, something sharp and cruel, something you couldn’t face. But now, watching him sulk under Rose’s orders, scowling at tangled Christmas lights, he wasn’t some nightmare anymore. Just another lost man. A mean one, yes, but maybe not as bad as the only parts you got to see. 

When she was done retrieving her bag and gone for good, Robert shook his head. “That was low. And petty.” He grabbed his hat from the counter in a swift movement, tipping it back on his head.

The irony wasn’t lost on you considering the things he did. He deserved it, you thought. And there was something profoundly healing about seeing the man that scared you so much, to the point you’d almost wake up in cold sweat if he visited your dreams, pouting like a child.

From Hobie’s point of view though, as he approached the shop, the scene wasn’t one of reconciliation. All he saw from behind the windows was your glossy eyes and trembling lips—which he couldn’t imagine were from your laughter—and Robert’s fussing.

He stepped inside quickly, almost slamming the door. “You’ve got to be fuckin’ kidding me.” 

You saw it all unfold in a split second, the way Hobie strolled dangerously, jaw clenched, fingers curling tightly around the paper bag in his hand like he was resisting the urge to throw it at Robert’s head.

“You’re tellin’ me I saved your sorry arse just for you to come bother us again?”

Before Robert could open his mouth, you stepped between them. 

“It’s okay—Everything is fine.” You said, and the humor lingering in your tone confused Hobie more. His eyes switched from you to Robert, holding his hands up as to show how innocent he was in all this.

You put a hand on his chest, grounding. “He came to apologize.”

Robert scoffed. “Didn’t say I was good at it though.”

Hobie shot him a look so sharp it could’ve cut through steel. “Lucky for you, I don’t give a shit.”

Robert exhaled, shaking his head. “Right. ‘Course. This was dumb.” He turned back toward the door, hands back in his pockets. “Forget it.”

You hesitated. You shouldn’t feel bad for him. But you did. 

“Robert.”

He paused, glancing back at you.

You swallowed. “For what it’s worth, I forgive you.” You mumbled tentatively, eyeing Hobie in fear of his disapproval. You couldn’t forgive in his name, it wasn’t your place, and he clearly didn’t seem ready to. But unless something else you were unaware of got out, you didn’t hold a grudge against the man.

His mouth twitched, almost a smile, almost something genuine, but he didn’t say anything. Just nodded once before stepping out into the street, the bell jingling behind him.

The second he was gone, Hobie exhaled hard through his nose, muttering something under his breath before turning to you, scanning your face, your stance, looking for any sign that Robert had rattled you.

“He didn’t do anything.” You reassured him. 

Hobie grumbled, still clearly pissed. “Shouldn’t have to deal with his shit at all.”

You sighed. “Maybe. But… I think he needed to say it. And… It felt good. To hear it.” You paused, looking in the distance for a short moment. “Plus, wait till I tell you all that happened—” You smiled, already chuckling at the mere thought of recounting Robert sheepishly following Rose’s orders.

Hobie studied you for a long moment before his shoulders finally eased, the tension draining just slightly. He sighed, handing you the paper bag. “Got you something sweet. Figured you earned it.”

You smiled, taking it, letting the sweet smell of baked goods warm your soul. “Thank you.”

“I’m stealin’ half of it though, I earned it too for dealing with this.”

You chuckled. “Fine. I’ll get some tea.” And just like that, you disappeared in the back.

Part of you was a little disappointed everything couldn’t just be alright with Robert. Maybe you had hoped for a moment that they would be fast friends again, but considering their history—or rather what little you knew of it–it was a bit unrealistic. 

You watched the bubbles in the kettle, the bruises healing on your hands. For a minute, you let yourself sit with it. The simple fact that you had stood your ground. Twice. The fear hadn’t vanished, not completely, but you hadn’t let it win. And that was something new.

What you found funny a minute ago left a strange taste in your mouth. Not bitter, not sweet. Just like the tea currently infusing, you’ll need to sit for a little while longer with the feeling before finding the true flavor. 

For now, it was a strange mix of new-found confidence and uneasiness at something you weren’t used to yet. 

Hobie eventually followed you there. You felt his warmth against your back as his hands found your arms, and his nose the back of your head. “I closed the store.” He murmured mischievously.

“But it’s still early?” You turned to look at him, confused.

“I wanna enjoy my tea time in peace.” He argued, pulling a chair for you, just wanting to chat and relax.

You smiled and sat down with him, your hand searching for his, kissing the palm.

“So, should I tell you everything now or?...”

“Depends. Did you punch ‘im again?”

“Better.” You bit your lips and he raised an eyebrow.

“Now, I have to know. Spill.”

And so you recalled the events to him. From uncomfortable apologies, to false accusations of flower theft to him doing your work as reparation. 

“Flower theft? Seriously?” He scoffed. “Don’t go givin’ him credit for my work—” he joked in disbelief of you randomly snitching on the man. For something he didn’t even do. “I’m glad it was you I had to deal with instead of Rose.” He laughed at the old woman’s way of dealing with thiefs. 

In turn, Hobie told you about the protest a little more, how he almost left Robert to deal with the cops on his own but couldn’t really bring himself to. 

You were supposed to open the shop again after your tea break, but neither of you moved. 

The warmth of the back room wrapped around you both, the scent of cedar and old leather curling in the air, mingling with the soft hum of the kettle. Hobie stretched his legs out, his hand still loosely tangled with yours, thumb brushing over your knuckles in absentminded circles. The world outside kept turning, but none of it mattered right now. 

No fear, no running, no fighting… Just this. Just him.

———

That night, his body felt warmer, his hold tighter, his voice softer.

You weren’t sure how long you’d been laying there, tangled up in each other, listening to the faint hum of the city outside. The occasional siren in the distance. The quiet creak of the radiator. The steady, rhythmic sound of his breath.

Hobie was never still, not really. Even now, his fingers traced absentminded patterns against your back, like there were some invisible guitar strings along your spine. It made you shiver. 

You weren’t even sure who spoke first. But at some point, in the warmth of the covers, in the soft glow of streetlights spilling through the window, it just happened, inevitable, like a thought waiting too long to be said.

“You know what you are?” His voice was hushed, low, like a secret meant just for you.

You hummed against his collarbone, pressing your face into the curve of his neck. “Do tell.”

“A flower bloomin’ in the cracks.” His fingers ghosted over your shoulder, resting there. “Right in the middle of all this concrete and shit, still standin’. Still thrivin’.”

Something warm bloomed in your chest. You pulled back just enough to look at him, your fingers brushing the line of his jaw. “You wanna know what you are?”

He smirked, teasing. “A proper pain in the arse?”

You huffed a laugh, shaking your head. “A dandelion.”

His brows lifted, amusement flickering in his eyes. “Now that’s just rude.”

You bit your lip, hesitating, then admitted, “I used to be scared of you. Scared you’d just… scatter in the wind. Be gone before I could catch you.” Your voice was quieter now, barely there. “But you’re still here.”

His smirk faded, replaced by something softer. “‘Course I am.” He cupped the side of your face, his thumb gently running along your cheekbone, right under your eyes.

You swallowed, your fingers curling into his shirt;

“I love you.” Your voice barely made it past your lips. It felt strange, like stating something obvious, something that should’ve been said earlier.

Hobie stilled. Just for a second. No teasing remarks, no witty deflection. Just that look. Like he had been waiting to hear it, but hadn’t dared to hope for it.

His forehead pressed against yours, his grip tightened, and his voice was steady when he finally spoke.

“Yeah,” he murmured. “I love you too.”

It was simple, certain. He kissed you then, slow and lingering. Like he hadn’t a hundred times before. Like he had all the time in the world. And you were sure he wouldn’t be going anywhere.

Tags: @hoe-bie @kittenjujusblog

hey haha so um yeah this is over I guess and I'm completely normal about it *sobs uncontrollably* no sorry it's fine it's just i never did that before (finishing something)

I'll do some tidy up eventually, a navigation system will probably make it easier,,, also just some tumblr formatting to make things neat

[dastardly-imbecile]

Among the Roots and Baby's Breath

AO3 HERE

You have a bit of a hard time comparing, pushing the image of König before you, smaller than he really is, consoling you and being consoled in turn, with what else you know he is. Contrasting it against the King of the forest, ostensibly, tall as an oak and broad as a mountainside, predator of some order and cunning of another, ripping open a deer’s stomach with his bare hands. Trailing after you, you, for some reason that you still haven’t been able to pin down. 

—

You’re a witch, summoning a guide to lead you through the forest. Unbeknownst to you, he knows you a bit better than you know him. 

OR

Stalker!konig, but make it fantasy. Also, Graves is an asshole 

---

Wordcount: ~18k

title is based on wine red by the Hush Sound

By the time you’re lighting the first stick of incense, dawn is kissing its way up the horizon, long fingers of cirrostratus clouds running through the sea of vermilion and coral, dipping into the pale cerulean pooling in the center of sky. Good. Preparation for the binding took all night, but it’s always better for the ceremony itself to be under the light of day—gives you a good idea of what you’re about to deal with, a better send-off into the forest. 

At the moment, you stand near the edge of a large, grassy clearing, a little ways into the forest. Many paths branch off of it at seemingly random intervals, made of everything from dirt to mushrooms to stone. Behind you is the camp, still headily asleep under the burgeoning Autumn dawn—a group of ten or so; the Lord Graves, two of his soldiers, and the crew of two merchant caravans. And four horses, though you count them a measure above the humans. 

The air is wreathed in smoke, in the scents that have grown familiar after dozens of bindings—the musk of ginger and basil, the heavy sting of citrus. Other things, too, as the forest and your magic coalesce into one—things that don’t necessarily have a real smell besides the one you can know. 

Salt and copper; a fawn’s first blood, stained upon the teeth of the wolf that killed it. Petrichor and rot; a corpse polluting clear riverwater, glass-black eyes staring at the full moon overhead. Smoke and roses; the first flower after a wildfire, pushing up through a layer of ash and charcoal. A thousand other things, identifiable only from experience—and a touch of magic—and you pause for a long moment to take it all in, let your chest expand and inhale the comfort of the woods. 

Lasts only a moment—the silence is broken all too soon by the clearing of a throat, the shuffle of footsteps. You half-turn to regard, from the corner of your eye, Lord Graves, standing a healthy distance away from your circle. He is tall and strong-featured, blonde hair slicked back, the picture of sinister aristocracy. Deceptively patrician, especially when you know that his family is hardly more than landed gentry—then again, that’s the very reason he’s here. Inferiority, the biting desire to rise above his station. The very reason he came to you, Witch of the Dyrewood, to lead him and his business venture safely through, past the grasp of the trees to the lands beyond. 

“Are you ready?” He asks lightly. His accent is rougher than that of the old families—more evidence towards his family’s recent ascension to wealth—but it has a pleasant sort of drag to it. Or, it would, if you had any sort of patience for him. You shake your head. 

“Not quite. I’d advise you keep your distance. I will notify you.” The words are sharp. You try to soften the blow with a half-smile, but it comes serrated and taut despite your best efforts. Ah, well. If it teaches him not to interrupt a ritual, then all the better. 

“By all means,” he replies, taking a step back. You don’t miss the thinly-veiled curiosity in his gaze, the hesitation before he finally turns and treks back to camp. Not brave enough to ask to stay, which is good, because you would not let him if he did. Magic of your breed is a sacred type, more than lordlings and casual passers-by deserve. Something for you, you and the soul within the woods, She who you have never seen, but perhaps will someday—when your final breath scrapes from your throat, and you give yourself back in the ways of decay and dirt. 

You circle around the ring, lighting all thirteen sticks of incense, examining the lines you drew in the dirt—they stretch across the ring, connecting the thirteen points to each other in an increasingly complex pattern. Built on the back of a web of straight lines, ascending each level with the addition of curls and dots and small, complex runes, until it looks like nothing but a mess of random scratches to the untrained eye. You, though, you can trace the contour of a stroke, how it weaves around its siblings as if dancing. The veil of smoke in the air gives them a sense of movement that echoes the organic—desire trails made by animals in the deep wood, the pattern of a bird’s wings and ants patrolling in a pattern of calculated randomness. 

You take a deep breath and, without further ado, begin to speak. The language that spills from your mouth as slickly as oil is not one that you understand, not without concentration. Moreover, it’s not the sort of language you necessarily want to understand—you know the gist of the words, as your Mother taught you, something along the lines of, help me, and don’t lead us astray, and, a gift from your mouth to ours.

It’s a prayer, ultimately, it’s the same beseechment that humans have asked of their Gods from the beginning of time, and it’s best not to think you can withstand the sanctity of a Deity’s tongue. That’s the kind of hubris that ends in gray matter upon the forest floor and bones twisted into the roots of a tree. 

So, you let it pass, and focus instead on the lone hawk wheeling through the sky overhead, mouth forming the syllables as familiarly as a lover’s kiss. Despite your efforts, as the chant goes on—one minute passes, then two, more and more of your attention is drawn to the movement of your mouth. To the pressure that builds in your sternum. Holding your breath, but in reverse—instead of the desire to intake a gulp of air, you want to expel the words, spit them out so fast that it burns. By the third minute, your eyes begin to tear up, throat hollow and scratchy from the rising of your voice. You dig the fingernails of your left hand into the arm of your right, drawing crescents of blood—anything to keep you grounded, anything to distract you from the words, to stop you from focusing on their meaning.

Fourth minute. You can tell, in some vague world, that you’re screaming them out, nails scratching thin lines through your skin, pain insignificant enough as to be ignored. Fifth, and finally, the pressure lessens. The last few syllables bleed out of you with a slow, quiet timbre that’s as much forced by the condition of your throat as they are a part of the spell, and when the last phrase falls from your lips, the change is already evident in the natural world. Around you, the thick cloud of incense smoke coalesces into thin lines. They shine a muted gold in the sunlight, long gossamer strands of hardened smoke that twist and intertwine into delicate knots. Soon, the strands of filament begin to dart into the forest, swiftly losing themselves in the darkness between trees. 

When you turn, you are almost nose-to-nose with Lord Graves. Must steel yourself not to take a step back, but you do dip into a respectful bow. As much for the decorum as to hide your face, give yourself a moment to sheath your annoyance. You told him to stay away. 

Then again, you were yelling. Maybe he was curious. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Still should’ve heeded your instructions. You bite back the vitriol. When you rise back up, your expression is carefully neutral. 

“It is done,” you say, coughing once. He raises a single eyebrow. 

“Water?”

You nod reluctantly. He turns around, to the caravaners packing up behind him, and calls, “a waterskin for the lady!” When he turns back to you, he adds, quieter, “complicated ritual, huh? Is it this hard to undo, too?”

“Magic’s always hard,” you reply, which isn’t the real answer—which is that, though binding is complex, unbinding is easy as a few words. The truth, though, usually doesn’t go over well with your patrons—they don’t tend to feel safe, knowing that a monster can be released so easily—and so you lie for the sake of it.

“How long will it take for it to… arrive?”

“Perhaps an hour. Maybe two, three. I cannot tell.”

He furrows his brow. Opens his mouth to speak, but is interrupted by a young girl running up—she’s hardly more than ten, dark-skinned and red-haired, likely one of the drivers’ daughters—with a water satchel clutched in her hands. You take it with a muttered thank you, and she smiles at you brightly before sprinting away. When you return your gaze to the Lord, irritation has splashed across his face, and his next words have a curt snap to them. 

“We don’t have much time to waste.”

“It’s the forest’s decision,” you reply. Only when his brow furrows a touch deeper do you add a belated, “milord. My apologies.”

The formality, at least, seems to satisfy him. Some human equivalent of rolling over, showing him the softness of your stomach and thin skin around your throat, submitting with a word and a bashful look. He leaves you with nothing but a harsh glare, which is more than you can say for some of your other customers. The ones who hit you, you do not abide—that is a surefire way to get left behind, stranded in the woods—but acerbic words, you’re used to. 

Not all of them are like this, the aristocracy that you serve, of course. It’s a varied group. Some of them are relaxed enough that you can fall into easy banter; good company for the trip. You remember a quite pleasant Lady Laswell, who tipped you generously and gave you small pouches of saffron and vanilla. Some are nauseatingly scared of the woods, others are blasé to the point of hubris. 

Most, though, are Graves’s type—second sons of second sons, looking to prove their worth in the world through you. Ship their goods through the Dyrewood, instead of braving the ocean trip of months, and reap the rewards that come with such efficiency. Funny that, even with that, most don’t think to toss a bit of respect to the woman who enables their trip. 

Ah, well. You’ve been through this tired train of thought a thousand times. Now, all there’s left is to wait—you take a grateful sip of the waterskin, letting the lukewarm liquid soothe your throat, and collapse to the ground. 

You’ve done at least six dozen bindings, by now, probably more, and you still cannot predict what the trees will give you—not one time, have they given you an identical creature. You think you could do a binding a day for a thousand years, and still, there would be more beasts yet that you would never lay eyes on. The monsters you bind are just as varied as the monsters you serve—good, bad, ugly. 

One of the best you can remember is a small fae sprite, who told jokes on the road and traded you a kiss for a pound of gold. Others are agreeable, but nothing remarkable—a bear shiftling who led you through the trees with the steady competence of a seasoned warhorse. Some are uncanny, like the being who took the form of a human man, dark-skinned and handsome, and who watched you at all times with a gaze you could not tell was malevolent or not.

It’s not often that there’s something bad, but you can recall, many months ago, a skeletal wraith with a skull for a face, who you had to rebind thrice, lest he escape. At the end of the journey, when you unbound him, he told you in no uncertain terms that if you ever roped him again, he would pry the jelly from your eyes and make your teeth into a necklace. 

So, you quite hope that the forest does not give you him, but you simply watch the trees with idle curiosity. Eventually—you do not know the exact time, but it’s long enough that the camp has awoken—you dig a small, leather-bound journal from your satchel and begin to thumb through the pages. You’d have a more exact measurement of time, usually, but you’d lost your sole pocketwatch only days before. 

Strange, especially because it’s valuable enough that you only ever take it from your cottage on expeditions. You cannot imagine misplacing it, but it’s one of an escalating series of strange happenings back home—things you swear are inches away from where you left them, faint smells in the air that you do not know are imaginary or not. The loss—or theft—of your watch is only the cap to a long line of oddness that you cannot explain, not with magic nor convention. 

Ah, well. Maybe you’ll return home to find your cabin entirely ransacked; maybe there’s some malady of insanity in the air and the forest will clear your head. 

You flip through your journal with idle curiosity—it’s nothing new. You have pored over these sheets a thousand times. The first half of the book is in your Mother’s handwriting: long, looping scrawls of spellwords, annotated in spots by yourself—small corrections on pronunciation, clarifications on certain phrases. She’d been the one to teach you magic, but after her death, you’d depended on the book for much of the lessons that’d been beyond you at the time. The latter half is, consequently, your own notes on spellwork, experimental sketches of runic circles, incense recipes and half-developed spells. You grab a small stick of charcoal and flip to the most recent page, which contains a single line of what is supposed to be a rain-summoning charm. 

Much to Graves’s dismay, the sun is at its zenith by the time you begin to see flickers of gold once again—small motes of honeyed light that vanish like slips of flame. You stand, brushing down your trousers, and tuck both book and charcoal away. In all that time, you managed to divine a grand total of two new words, which is more progress than it sounds like—sometimes, you spend an entire day with your hands clutching your head, and only manage a single letter. The language of the earth is a hard one for human cells to comprehend. 

Foolish of you, to think that the forest could not surprise you, after all you’ve seen—that’s the first lesson of witchcraft , the last thing your Mother told you, before your neighbors dragged her into the town square. Never be complacent. 

It’s the movement of the trees that clues you in first. They rustle, and birds of many colors flee into the sky. Then, it is parting the treeline, stepping into the clearing—you must take a step back to take it in. Him in. Tall enough to match the boughs of the nearest trees, bipedal like a man. In seemingly random places, his tanned skin gives way to auburn fur, the color of mahogany, and despite his human frame, there is something savage to the way he carries himself. His face is covered in a shaggy overhang of vine and moss, but two horns protrude from the greenery, curling back upon themself like a ram’s. 

He is the largest creature you have ever seen. Made moreso by the thin lines of gold chain around his wrists and legs, deceptively dainty. 

Your heart jumps into your throat when he turns to you. There is a moment of stillness—you wish you could see his face, if he has a face—and then, he walks towards you, as casual as anything. Most wait for you to come to them. Others fight the bindings, struggle until you talk, until you find something to bargain for their cooperation. 

He, though, he walks towards you, coming to a stop at the opposite end of the now-garbled circle. All the magic has dissipated to nothing, by now—incense sticks burnt black and carefully-carved lines smudged to nothing in the dirt. Still, he tilts his head down, examining it like he can glean some detail from it. Looking for a way to escape his binding? The rules technically prohibit him from harming you, but you’re still cautious as you make your way around the circle, coming to a stop directly before him.

Swallow. Remember the procedure—you have done this a thousand times before. Routine. 

“Hello,” you say cautiously, “I am the one who summoned you. You may call me the Witch.” Not your name, clearly, but you don’t give it to the ones you summon. The binding is the sort of bond that lingers, even after it’s no longer in use, and if he had your true name, he could use it to turn the spell back upon you, to curse you in turn. 

“Kleine Spinne?” he replies, cocking his head the other way. His voice is higher than you’d expect of a creature of his size, the end lilting up in a question. 

So he doesn’t speak the common tongue. Not a problem—it’s more unusual when a creature does—but you simply push the meaning of your words through the bond. It is stranger that he has a language of his own, but you can content yourself with not knowing what he’s saying. That’s how you’ve lived your entire life, after all. 

“I apologize,” you continue, “if this is detrimental to you. In exchange for guiding us to the other side of the wood, I can provide you with much. Food, or gold, or a small spell.”

He tilts his head the other way, still examining you. You wait a long moment, but he still does not respond. 

It’s only when you repeat your words, pulsing the meaning down the golden conduit between you, that he says, quietly, “nein.” 

“Hm?” you ask. He hesitates for a long moment, before shaking his head. 

“No? To the bargain, or to guiding us?”

“Nein,” he repeats, “ich werde dir helfen, Spinne. Ah, help. Guide?”

Your eyes widen at the sound of your language on his lips. So he’s smart, or perhaps he’s gleaning more from the bond than you’d imagined. Interesting. Still, you only allow the shock to last for a fleeting moment, before returning to aloof neutrality, a controlled smile splitting your face. 

“Thank you. Do you have a name I could call you?”

Again, he hesitates, before saying, eventually, “König.”

“König,” you repeat. It does not have the tang of power that real names do, so you suppose he’s giving you a pseudonym as well. More evidence pointing towards intelligence. 

You can’t tell how this bodes for the journey. The smart ones are, sometimes, funner to travel with—always nice, to be able to talk, to find a companion—but they also tend to give you the most trouble. 

—

The Lord rides in the frontmost caravan, of course, but you take to the ground—both to have a stronger connection with your newfound guide, and because you simply like it. To have your feet planted upon the loamy forest floor, to look at the canopy overhead and have all the glory of the world at your eye level. König plods at the front of the group—he chose a seemingly-random direction to leave the clearing, down one of the many branching paths that came off its edges, but you trust him as implicitly as you’ve trusted all your dozens of other guides: which is to say, enough that he’ll get you out on the other side. 

You’re thankful you have him, too. The Dyrewood is no slave to traditional cartography, as evidenced in the first minute of the journey: you leave the clearing, soon enclosed by trees, and then König makes a turnaround, and begins to walk back down the road in the way you came from. At the movement, one of the caravans stops, and the driver shouts down, “wrong way!” 

You half-turn, regarding him calmly. “No. Follow us.”

There is plenty of grumbling, of shared glances between the two drivers—no doubt silently speaking of your insanity—but then ten minutes of walking passes, an hour, and you still have not broken back into the clearing. After that, to your satisfaction, there’s no more complaints as to König’s choice of direction. You’re not sure by what mechanism the forest’s natives use to navigate—and, you would dearly love to know—but, when faced with the peculiarities of the path, such as ten-way branches and nonsensical roundabouts, he is unfazed. 

You must wonder how he would walk when there’s no path. How all the inhabitants of this thicket burrow through the undergrowth and swing through the canopy, a thousand chittering creatures, of feathers and fur and notched scale. Eating and killing and fucking, life so bright and vivid that you can almost taste it. For a moment, you ache for it, to know this land more intimately than you know yourself. 

The brewing want is interrupted by a timid, “Madam Witch?”

You turn. Seeing nothing behind you, it takes a moment to think to look down—down, towards the young girl by your side. You recognize her as the same one who brought you water. Seems more than a tad negligent to bring a child on a journey like this, but you try to have sympathy for her father—perhaps he has nobody to watch her, perhaps he’s hoping to eke out a life on the other side of the woods, bringing his family along in his wake. 

“Yes?” You ask, stooping slightly. She tilts her head, tucking her hands behind her back like a proper Lady. Must’ve been taught by her father, perhaps to ensure she did not do anything uncouth to draw Lord Graves’s wrath. 

“Did you make these trails?” She asks. You shake your head. 

“No.”

“Who did?”

“I don’t know,” you answer truthfully. Someone of great magic and might had to carve these paths into the forest, twist the brutality of the natural world into something just a little more human. Not human enough, of course, for any two paths to ever lead the same way, for their loops and twists to make any logical sort of sense, but maybe that’s precisely why they work—nothing so stolid as brick houses and stone castles could survive in this wild. “Someone long before our time.”

“Okay.” She frowns for a moment, biting on her bottom lip, and then nods at König, leading the way up ahead. “Could you… could he… find a better path?” She hesitates, before adding, “it’s rocky. Hard for Trillie and Ajam.” 

It takes you a beat to realize that Trillie and Ajam must refer to the two horses chained to her father’s caravan. Another to assess the path, notice that it has grown rather rocky, and a pang of sympathy shoots through you, more for the animals than anything else. It endears you, as well, that the girl came to you not out of concern for the cargo, or with a complaint about the bumpy ride, but as an act of care. 

“I’ll ask him,” you say. Must curtail the joy that lights up her face with a measured, “I cannot assure that there is another path.” 

She stares for a moment, before nodding cheerfully, and racing back to the caravan at the back of the line, swinging herself onto the base with a practiced ease. You take a quick breath, peering at the hunch of König’s vast back, before speeding up your pace to fall in line with him. 

He does not turn to look at you, as you step up beside him, but he does slow fractionally. Which doesn’t say much, when each stride of his is still twice that of yours. 

“König?” You ask. At this, he does turn down, piercing you with a gaze you cannot see. He is by far not the strangest beast you have ever met, nor is he the most unfriendly, but something about him still sends a tremor down your spine. That impenetrable curtain of green that shields his face from you, his sheer size—your head comes up only to his mid-chest, and you are tall for one of the fairer sex. “I do not know if you heard-”

“Ja,” he replies immediately. You can surmise enough, when paired with his nod, that that means yes. 

“Is it possible?” 

Again, he repeats a curt, “Ja.” 

“Good,” you reply. He nods sharply, looking back up, towards the road. You follow the line of his gaze. Ahead, the path branches into three—one makes a turn back towards the way you came, and another continues forwards, and the third splits off at a rightward diagonal. He does not even pause to think, stepping directly onto the diagonal one. It does not escape your notice, as the next hour passes, that the road gradually grows less rocky, melting into packed dirt. 

“Thank you,” you voice aloud. 

“Natürlich, Spinne.”

Your attention catches upon that last word—Spinne. He’s said it thrice, now, all in relation to you, so you can only infer that it’s some sort of nickname. Witch in his language, perhaps?

Doesn’t hurt to ask. And you are quite starved for conversation, at this point. “What does that mean?”

“Hm?”

“Spinne. Is it Witch?”

He hesitates for a long moment. You’re on the verge of thinking it must be some insult, when he finally says, “ah, nein. No.” 

Perhaps you’re imagining it, but his voice is a touch higher than before. 

You nod, thinking that perhaps that’s all you’re going to get, when he starts looking around. Actually stops, after a moment, which is so unexpected that you’re three steps ahead by the time you realize. The caravan is still a ways behind you, but he only lingers for a moment to point to a tree. 

Not a tree, you realize. The space between two branches, in which a spider’s web stretches. Small baubles of dew stretch down each gossamer line of silk, and the sun suspends small rainbows in the middle of every sphere. 

“Spider?” You ask, and he nods quickly, resuming his stride. 

“Ja.”

“Why?”

Again, there’s a pause—gathering the words, maybe—and he says, eventually, “hast du mich gefangen. In deinem Netz. Web. Trapped me.” 

Ah. The golden bands around his limbs shine a touch brighter if you look at them. You give him an uncertain sort of shrug. 

“Sorry about that.”

“Nein,” he replies. Whether that’s a negation of your apology, or of the harm caused in the first place, you’re unsure, but don’t think to ask. Eventually, you drift away—tired, after keeping up with even his slowed stride—and the bubble of silence envelops you once more. 

—

König gets another point for finding a camping spot without needing to be asked—by the time dusk paints the world in dark, muted hues, you’re standing in a large, grassy clearing, not dissimilar to the one you started this journey in. The camp bustles about, lighting fires and watering the horses, though the Lord is of course sequestered in his own caravan already. You don’t quite mind it—though, at the moment, you’re distracted by the girl. 

Evidently, asking König to alter the path has made you nothing short of a hero in her eyes, and now, she flutters around you with all the excitement of a leaf in high winds. Her name is Lore, apparently, and she loves horses, and her mother is dead, all of which was delivered with about the same degree of levity. You pick over a bowl of stew and crusty bread while she interrogates you. 

“How are you a witch?” she asks, leaning back against the fallen log you sit on. König is nestled away in the far corner of the clearing, away from the main camp, and you keep half an eye upon him while you eat. You’d asked him earlier if he needed food—not all do, especially not conventional nutrition, when some can survive upon sunlight or entropy or human joy—and he’d given you a simple shake of his head. He had asked for permission to hunt, which you’d granted, but as of yet, he has not moved from his spot. If you look at him closely, he seems to be fiddling with the long strands of grass upon the ground—braiding them into some thin rope—which is strange, but it seems harmless enough. 

“My Mother taught me,” you say. She stares at you with wide eyes. 

“Can you teach me? Can I be a witch?”

“It’s much work,” you reply lightly, keeping in mind both that her father would likely not be happy with this conversation. 

“I can do work,” she declares proudly, “I fed Trillie and Ajam and I helped load the boxes—they weren’t heavy at all—and I’ll study.”

“More work than that,” you reply. Perhaps she hears the impenetrable steel in your words, because she falls silent after that, though the disappointment is clear upon her face. A pang of remorse, but it’s nothing personal—you’ve been asked many times over, by nobles and commoners both, to take their children in. Witchcraft is not exactly the most revered of professions, but they also see the bags of gold you carry after each mission, see the way your garden blooms lush and the yearly wildfires somehow perfectly avoid your cabin. But you cannot simply pass on this conduit to the wild to any one person—not to someone who does not know it enough to fear and love it in equal measure. 

You have only agreed once: to teach a duke’s son, a handful of years ago. Not for the sum of money he offered, nor for the prestige of it, but because their son had been lost in the Dyrewood for a year and a half. Walked in as a lad of thirteen, all gold and finery, walked out a year after his funeral, naked as the day he was born, with flowers woven in his hair and a different language stuck upon his tongue. 

Pity you’d only gotten two months with him, before his parents declared your teachings barbarous and arcane. The boy’d taken to magic like a fish to water, like a wolf to the throat. It requires that—a year and a half alone among the trees, so embedded into their being that it takes a scalpel to separate yourself—before you can truly scribe the magic of the Dyrewood. That, of course, is too much to explain to Lore, so you simply let her stew in her disappointment. 

It doesn’t last long, of course. She regains her cheer as you’re sopping up the last of your meal with the bread, asks, “did you grow up in here?”

“No,” you reply, “close.”

On the outskirts of the woods, where there was enough room to wander and not be immediately lost. You remember it as fondly as you think most would remember good times long past: all soaked in layers of honey and lavender; the sharp edges of the thicket smoothed away to waxy leaves and soft, new shoots. 

“Pa doesn’t let me go near the wood alone,” she says, “but I sneak out and pick blackberries, sometimes.”

“He’s wise to do that,” you counsel gently, “you shouldn’t go into the forest alone.” A moment of silence, in which she looks suddenly stricken—as if your advice was all she needed to learn the virtue of caution—and then, you perhaps undermine your message by adding, “I snuck off to pick blackberries as well, when I was young.”

“Really?”

You shrug. “Quite often. Would eat them hunched in the thicket so Mother didn’t see I’d broken the rules. I didn’t realize until later that she was always the one to wash their juice out of my clothes.”

Lore laughs, and you smile along with her. By now, the moon has bathed the world in silver syrup, and her father calls to her from the light of the fire—she whispers a quick goodbye, before leaping from the bench and racing towards him. 

There’s not much to the blackberry story that you didn’t tell her. It is, in entirety, one of the few truly happy memories you have from childhood. 

One thing, though, one twist to sour the batch, as also seems all too common when you think back to your youth. You’d continued your illicit blackberry-picking until, one day, there’d been a great rustling in the bushes, the movement of some vast creature in the weeds. Scared you enough that you ran back home. Maybe you would’ve gone back, if not for the fact that, two days later, they took your Mother away. 

Right. You swallow once, staring up at the moon. Nighttime always makes you macabre—maybe it’s time to retire. You stand, leaning back to stretch the tired muscles of your back, and cast one final glance at König’s corner. Hard to tell in the dark, but there is a blur of movement, the quick turn of his head, as if he had been watching you. Interesting, maybe, but you don’t particularly mind. 

Being watched is nothing new, not with the company you tend to court. Some find humans a wee curiosity, others are no doubt imagining turning you into a nice meal, and yet more are simply bored, trying to puzzle their way into your mind. While you dearly hope he does not wish to eat you, it’s no great concern if he does. 

What a life you live. 

By the time you reach your tent, on the outskirts of the campfire’s light, the shadow of his form is gone. Off to that aforementioned hunting, maybe, or perhaps he found some shuffle of undergrowth to curl up in. The thought of that, of him slumbering among leafy detritus and small insects, is strangely endearing, and you carry that thought with you until you drift off into darkness and dreams. 

—

When you awake, you almost step on the gift outside your tent. Barely manage to avoid it by skidding your foot to the right, steadying yourself with whirling arms. It has, at least, the side-effect of waking you completely, and you bend down to examine it. 

Upon a small, flat plate of bark is a stack of blackberries and, beside them, a carefully-woven bracelet of long grass and small white flowers. You stare at it for a second, and then look around—it’s early enough that there are only faint, sleepy stirrings from the camp, and you doubt any of them would’ve done this, either way. 

Perhaps you would have suspected Lore, if not for the fact that you doubt she’d even be able to find blackberries. And, of course, the bracelet. You remember König, last night, picking at the grasses of the glade, and wonder if this is what he was doing. If he was listening to your tale about the blackberries, how far he wandered until he found a bush. 

He himself is standing where the flat ground begins to bleed into trees, staring straight into the darkness of the woods. You eye him for a moment longer, before returning your attention to the small tribute. Just in case, you whisper a few spellwords, cast a small geas of detection over the offering—but it comes back blank, no record of either poison or magic or any other nasty sort of thing. Not that you thought he would try to harm you in such a way, not really, but you didn’t get this far as a Witch by being complacent. 

Safety satisfied, you spend the dawn watching the camp awake and popping blackberries in your mouth. They’re warm, bursting upon your tongue in seedy drops of sour-sweet. The bracelet is, sadly, far too large for you—almost twice the size of your wrist—and you can’t help but think that must be because König used his own hand as a reference. 

When you finally approach him, it’s at first to notify him that you’re ready to leave—the caravans are packed, horses pawing at the ground, and Lord Graves has sent you more than a few pointed glares. 

“Gut,” he replies to your gentle reminder. Raises his arms up above your head in a languid stretch, which has the side effect of allowing you an unfettered view of his rippling muscles, of the thick cords that wrap around his biceps and forearms. When he brings them down, it’s with a quick, almost shy glance at you—at least you think, given the fact you cannot see his eyes—which is immediately averted to the ground. Shyness, or shiftiness, one of the two—checking to see if you’re watching him do some version of preen, or trying to gauge how easy you’d be to kill. It disturbs you less than it should that you can’t tell the difference. 

You give it a bit before you bring up the topic at the front of the mind. Spend that hour-or-so padding along behind him, taking in the majesty of the wild. Looking at the trees that germinated aeons before your ancestors drew breath, that will stand proud and tall even when your bones are naught but ash. Watch a small, iridescent beetle slip into the hole of a tree trunk, see a three-winged bird leap from a tall branch and shoot through the canopy, leaving nothing but falling leaves in its wake. You wish you could speak every one of their languages, call them to you upon wispy breezes and an outstretched finger, lay the forest out before you and lay yourself out in turn. 

You dream, sometimes, of being half-buried in the earth, thighs encased in cool moisture and grass kissing your breasts. Of tilting your head back and letting the roots of a tree intertwine with your hair until the bark grows into your scalp. Perhaps, eventually, you rot open, two sides of your body falling apart like a book, and birds land upon your ribcage to pick through your offal, small mice make their home in your clavicle and you are there, unfeeling, as peaceful as the land has ever been and always will be. 

So that’s what consumes most of your thoughts, as König winds your group through the forest, until enough time has passed that you think you can suitably approach him. The path has changed from dirt to brick, small shoots peering out from the cracks in the stonework. On some bricks, there are small words or runes scribbled down, unintelligible after so long exposure to dirt and wind and wild. 

Once again, you must speed up to fall into step beside him. This time, he does turn to look at you, and you offer him a small smile in greeting. In the same motion, you hold up the woven bracelet—which, by now, is looking more than a bit worse for wear, the small flowers darkening and wilting, the strands of grass unraveling from each other—and say, “thank you, by the way.”

You swear he almost stops then-and-there, in the middle of the road. Freezes, at the very least, though he still manages to take a step. Regains his composure by the next, dips his head down and murmurs, “Woher wussten Sie das? How..?”

“Who else could it be?” You ask, and his shoulders slump slightly. The strangest thing about this is that he seems to be embarrassed about the fact you figured it out, this puzzle that’s not really a puzzle—and, consequently, asked him about it. Did he want you to keep it under wraps, to maintain some image of a secret gift? Was it meant to be a gift at all? Or, in whichever neck of the woods he hails from, does a gift of blackberries and bracelet signify want for death? “It was very sweet,” you add, just in case it’s the former, “I suppose you overheard us?”

“Ich habe nicht… I wasn’t… gelauscht,” he says, “wasn’t listening in.”

“I don’t mind if you were,” you say, shrugging, and truly, you don’t. It’s not like you’re divulging any sensitive sort of information, and even if you were, you can’t exactly fault him for curiosity. If you had the ability to understand his language, to listen to him speak of the forest and all its wiles, you would snatch that opportunity up in a heartbeat. 

He doesn’t respond for a long moment, so you prod at him with another question. 

“How far did you go, to find the berries?”

“Sehr,” he replies. When accompanied with a wave of his hands, with the way he splays his taloned fingers outwards—indicating the vastness of the forest—you take that to mean, far. Another beat of silence, which you’re preparing to fill, before he adds, “it was no trouble. No…. no, ah, rascheln, rustling, could frighten me. Ja?”

“Certainly not,” you reply, stifling the smallest giggle. He’s charming in a strange, disarming way, such a disparity—he carries himself as well as any lord of the forest, chest high and back straight, but there is a cowed sort of timbre to his words, to the containment of his gestures. He knows how large he is, how overwhelming, and all his grace is an attempt to curb that impression. 

You slip into silence, once again regarding the forest, but from the corner of your eye, you see him taking frequent, quick glances at you. Turning his head a fraction of the way, darting away like a frightened fish a moment later. You make a sort of game out of it, seeing how long you can play at not noticing, turning towards him at innocent intervals to watch him hastily turn his gaze towards the ground. It keeps you amused, at least until the sun is high and the line stops, allowing the horses a moment to rest. The workers dart around, preparing some light lunch of crackers and cured meat, and König vanishes from sight. One moment, you are beside him, and the next, Lore is running up to you to show you a pretty rock she found on the ground. When you turn back around, ushering her back to her father, he’s gone. 

He’s not hard to track. It’s more out of curiosity than anything—and the fact that you frankly have nothing to do, among the workers and the caravaners—that you follow the trail he makes in the woods, the line of crushed plants, of broken branches. You’re almost about to turn back to the path, give up, assume that he’s gone hunting or something of the sort, when you break into a small clearing. It’s far wilder than the one you spent the night in—small saplings push through the ground, and the grass is tall and burred, catching on your shoes and pants. 

He sits hunched upon a tall stump, back curved. Before him, marring the expanse of green, is a deer, stomach flayed open, eyes wide and white in dead panic. His hands dig into its viscera, and as you watch, he pulls a long strand of intestine up to his face, where he parts the curtain of vines to deliver it into his mouth. Crusted in the fur at his wrists is blood, chunks of what must be meat, and it drips from his arms to patter upon the log. 

You stop at the edge of the glade, hand poised upon a tree, frozen in fascination. Less fear—it’s a deer, not a human, this is the natural cycle of predator-prey—but there’s a touch of that, too. Because of the blood, because of the confidence with which he moves. Gone is that half-cowed monster from earlier, and in its place, is a savage sort of grace. The rippling of his muscles as he tears a bone free from the deer’s ribcage, the fact that he must have killed it, torn into it, with bare hands alone. 

Just as you make the decision to leave, depart in peace and leave him to his meal, his head shoots up, presumably-eyes locking with yours. In an instant, he stands, and another has him halfway across the clearing. He’s got both size and speed on his side, and for a moment, you feel like the deer, like you are watching a predator beyond any comprehension approach. 

You can run, but you will not survive. That is a promise of the woods, whispered into the ear of every wailing, blood-slicked babe. 

You can see the moment that he shutters, that the predator sheathes its fangs, retreats behind its disguise. He stops at the treeline, spine stiff, one hand digging into the bark of the nearest tree, as if that is the only thing holding him back from lunging forwards. A moment of stillness, before he hunches slightly, all the tension bleeding from his muscles. He reaches his left hand towards his right, brushing it through the fur, as if trying to clean himself back up. 

“I’m sorry,” you say, “for interrupting your meal. I was just leaving.”

“I- I did not mean to be seen this way,” he stammers, still tugging at that bloodsoaked fur. You almost smile at the statement—it sounds a shade past embarrassed, edging into the realm of panicked shame. 

“It’s nothing. You asked for permission to hunt. I did not think you would be… what, petting the animals you ate? Hand-feeding them?” Your smile widens, trying to dull whatever emotions he must be feeling, and his shoulders lessen a bit. 

“Still. I am… apologetic. What did you..?” He shifts on his feet, still nervous, as if unsure what to do with his bulk. You step forwards one cautious step, proffering the tattered bracelet before you. 

“It was a bit too large,” you say, “but I’d like to wear it. If that was the intention. And, if it’s no trouble.”

A moment of stillness. Enough that you get the faint notion that you may have offended him—interrupted his meal, asked to alter your gift. At least, until he beckons you closer, shifting backwards, back towards the stump in the center of the clearing. He kneels before it, on the opposite side from the deer, where the grass is still clear and green. You take the invitation for what it is, sitting delicately upon the gnarled wood. He reaches out a hand, but when you place the bracelet in his palm, he gestures towards you. 

“Your hand,” he says. “Ah, there is blood-”

Before he can continue, you oblige, reaching out your right, turning it so the palm faces the sky. His large hands dwarf yours by a factor of two, and when he hovers them over your wrist, as if afraid to touch you, you can feel the warmth they emanate. Most of the blood upon them is dried, or half-dried, darkening to flakes of rust that fall to sprinkle in the center of your palm. 

You look up, trying to meet his eyes, and give a miniscule nod. His hands fall upon yours, wrapping the bracelet securely, just snug enough that it sits; not enough to strangle. For how large his fingers are, and the sharp-tipped talons upon them that scrape across your skin, they’re surprisingly dextrous, tying the knot in a quick, looping movement that your eyes can’t follow. When they fall away like leaves, they reveal a perfectly-tied band. You look up, smiling, but he is not looking at you—instead, his head is turned towards the forest at an angle that feels purposefully avoidant. 

König takes one step back, and then another, towards the darkened treeline. You reach for some combination of words to draw him back, draw him back to this moment under the sunlight and with his hands ghosting over the veins under your skin, but all you can muster is a, “thank you.”

“Wenn wir nur,” he replies, which you take as some variable of you’re welcome, before he turns and ducks into the forest, more smoothly than his frame would suggest. You stand, and it’s only when you turn that you remember the deer, still dead upon the ground, half-eaten. Abandoned—or maybe he’s waiting for you to leave before he returns to his feasting. You make a wide circle around it, dipping your head towards its flat eyes in a mock solute. 

By the time you return to the resting place, pushing free from the thickets around the path, they are preparing to leave again. You take your place at the head of the convoy, waiting until you spot König emerging from the trees. Must’ve found some river to wash up in, because though his hands are wet, they are no longer red. You nod in a greeting, debating if you should say hello, but before you can decide, you hear from behind you, “Witch!” 

It’s not a call with any sort of urgency to it—that, and you recognize the accent as that of Lord Graves—so you take your free time in turning and padding to his covered cart. One pale hand extends into the open air and beckons you inside, so that you do, climbing the wooden ladder and navigating around stacks of crates to duck through the doorway. His two soldiers, both dressed in full black, are stationed outside, and neither look at you, eyes fixed steadfastly upon the forest. 

Inside, the air smells faintly of cigar smoke, and more of some sort of flowery perfume, so far and artificially removed from the blooms of the forest. The Lord himself is lounged upon a pile of pillows, a gold-embossed book to one side and a small table of tea and cookies to the other. 

“What?” You ask, which is perhaps too abrupt than he should be addressed, as evidenced by the miniscule darkening of his eyes. 

“I simply thought to invite you in. It must be tiring to walk, no?”

“I enjoy it,” you say, but that’s immediately the wrong thing to say. A wrinkling in his perfect brow, the same tick that you imagine comes about when his maid tucks his sheets in wrong, or whatever it is that people rich as him must deal with. 

Rich as him, and still with desire to be richer, to rise higher—claw some edge over his competition through a foray in the woods, come out on the other side without the saltcrust and scurvy that plagues the ocean voyages. 

Not that you have much to say about it, given you’re profiting off of this all. Your mother would never have dreamed of twisting her witchcraft in this manner, of summoning the forest’s treasures to guide, but it is a different world, and your love for the land alone will not keep you in health and standing. 

There’s a different angle to your work too, one beyond the constraints of money. Through this, your summoning and your servitude, you carve out a niche—make yourself useful. Enough that maybe the next time the tide of public opinion turns against your craft, you’ll be able to find some sort of shelter in the hollow you’ve inhabited, in the turn of gold-flecked eyes and the desire for convenience. All your Mother ever got from abstaining in usefulness was a stake and a logfire, and that’s a thought grim enough that it snaps you back to reality, back to the rattling caravan and the expectant eyes of the Lord. 

Remember. Make yourself useful, not annoying. Acquiesce, don’t argue. 

“...But I appreciate the courtesy.”

The irritation fades away in a blink. Satisfaction burns in your chest, the contentment that comes with the knowledge that you’re still able to play him like a fiddle. Give a dog a bone, let him chew himself to fulfillment. Give a Lord a bow and a humble acknowledgement of betterment, and it’s the same thing. 

He shifts slightly, affixing you with an expression that you cannot quite tell the nature of. “Remind me, how many days do we have left?”

“Four. Maybe three, give or take.” 

He nods. At least there’s none of that rash impatience you’ve glimpsed in him before—he seems to understand that this, at least, you cannot change. Seems happy about it, even. 

“And what will you do, once we’re over?”

You give a loose shrug. “Allow the forest to guide me back home.”

“Dangerous journey, for a sole traveler.”

“Not for me.”

He lets out a low chuckle that, though it doesn’t ring your bell for falsehood, you think is some degree of forced anyway. False laughter comes as easily to those of the higher echelons as breathing. 

“Useful little power.”

You nod. By now, the caravan is moving at a fast clip. You cannot see anything of the land—the windows are covered by beaded curtains, immaculately draped sheets of patterned fabric, fine as gold—but you can surmise enough to know that you’ll be unable to get off. 

Gingerly, you sit down upon one of the far cushions, distant enough that there’s space between you, close enough that it’s not an obvious avoidance. He raises a single eyebrow at you, but speaks no more, turning and picking up his book with a delicate hand. With the other, he reaches into a small wooden box, and withdraws a fine cigar. Considers it for a second, then nods at you. 

“If you’d oblige. I forgot my lighter.”

You stare at him for a long second before, eventually, whispering the spell for igniting a flame. Half-consider ‘missing’, igniting a blaze upon his blonde head, or maybe under his silk tunic, but the consequences of that aren’t worth the brief amusement. It’s a small, simple spell, only three words, and you subvocalize quietly enough that there is no chance for him to catch them. Not that he’d be able to use them either way, of course, but it’s the principal of the matter. 

The air, as can be predicted, quickly fills up with the smell of smoke, but it’s not nearly so bad as it should be. Of course, his cigar is likely some fancy concoction of minimized smoke and maximized drug, made of carefully-bred capital plants. 

In any case, it’s not entirely unpleasant—clove and leather and some warm, bitter note, like coffee or too-old blood. Lord Graves seems entirely engrossed in his book, which you gather is some sort of merchant treatise, and you are utterly engrossed—which is to say, bored out of your mind—counting every glass bead in the caravan. 

Of course, you have your own book, but you’re not about to pull that out before him, not when there’s the large risk that he will ask what you’re doing, and the smaller—but just as pertinent—risk that he will try to see it, perhaps forcefully after your denial. So you while the time away with boredom, and boredom whiles your mind away via sheer ennui, and it is only when the caravan creaks to a stop that you are finally free from this prison of wood and fabric and gold. You only manage a hasty, curt nod at the Lord, before you’re springing free into the open air. Past the driver, hopping to the ground before the ladder even extends fully and relishing in the feeling of grass and solid earth. 

So long spent in the smallest areas gives the night a new dimension: it is darker than you remember, and more colorful at the same time, and it smells of wet moss and the sweetness of overripe figs and the cold, clear air of a thousand animals’ last breaths. 

This night goes much the same as the last one—meaning, you’re seated outside the fire, with Lore chattering next to you. The stew is something different, a harsher, gamier meat, and the bread is a touch staler, but there’s no difference that matters. 

At least, until you do a perfunctory scan for König’s form and find him nowhere to be seen. Which, you suppose, is not the most unusual thing—he asked permission to go hunting, after all—but some shiver of premonition dances up your spine. You must blink harshly, shake your head once, and refocus on Lore’s questions. 

“How do you do it?” She asks, “how does magic work?”

You give her a half-amused, half-warning look. “I told you, Lore. I’m not teaching you.”

“I’m not asking for that,” she says, “I’m just wondering.”

You consider her for a moment before internally shrugging. You’ll skate over the finer details of the craft. Unlikely that she’d be able to remember it all, reinterpret and reuse it, even if you didn’t. 

“All the ritual,” you say, “the incense, the lines, is just to open a… a conduit. From me, to the forest. Then, I speak her tongue, and she answers by binding me a guide. A companion.”

“Does she tell the guides?” 

Again, your eyes skate about the clearing. König is yet nowhere to be seen. You don’t know why you’re so intent on finding him—something about him gnaws at you, some pest crossing the wires in your brain. 

“No,” you reply, “I don’t think so.”

She frowns. In the uncertain firelight, the expression is reduced to a mess of lines and vague shapes, some ghoulish twist of unhappiness upon her young face. 

“How do they know, then? That they’ll be bound? What if they’re… busy? Or don’t want to?”

You cock your head. It’s a surprisingly adroit question. One that you’ve considered yourself, plenty of times. You give her the same answer that you’ve settled upon yourself, after so many countless hours of thinking. 

“I ask the forest for a guide, and she gives me one that best suits the journey. If she didn’t want to give me one, she wouldn’t. The guiding beings, and me, and the thicket, all share some sort of…” you hesitate, trying to settle upon a word, “symbiosis. We work for each other in all ways.”

Indeed, every creature you’ve bound has had some sort of significance. Even the worst, the ones that did not seem such like a boon at the time. The skull-faced wraith, for example, acerbic though he was—during that journey, your convoy had been attacked by a pack of direwolves, and you doubt you would have made it out alive if not for the ferocity of your guide, for the power he dealt. 

It’s a give, and a take. You indulge in the wild’s gifts for now, with the implicit understanding that you will return the favor. In life, by granting boons, by using magic to shore up the plants and to bring rain, fire, wind. In death, by giving yourself to the roots and the undergrowth, letting all the earthly beasts consume your bones and scraps of viscera.

That, you think, might be a bit too mature for Lore, so you leave it at that. 

She leaves soon after, called to sleep by her father, and so you pad to your own tent. It comes with a bit of a start to note that König is back—you spot his shape padding about the edge of the clearing. He is doing something with his hands—wrings them together, brings them up to his face. Smelling something? Eating? You cannot tell, in the darkness, and before you can pick apart the motion further, he turns, gaze catching on yours. 

Immediately, he turns away again, in a quick, tight movement, as if he were the one caught staring, not you. Again, there is that niggling feeling, that notion that you have some unknown question to ask him. You dig deep into your mind, try to pry it out, but nothing comes. A moment of consideration, and then you raise a hand in a wave. He doesn’t reciprocate. Freezes, yes, stares at you for a moment longer, and then his dark shape lumbers into the trees. 

More than a bit perplexed—perhaps a dash embarrassed, too—you duck into your tent. Sleep is yet beyond you—you got a few hours of somewhat-equivalent, back in Lord Graves’s caravan—so, instead, you cross over to your satchel, pull your journal free. Root around further for your charcoal stick, hand skating along the bottom of the bag, but there is nothing. 

Puzzled, you set the book down, pry the mouth of the bag wide open to peer inside. There is everything you remember—nearly-folded clothes, a waterskin, a matchbox and small knife and various other things. Theoretically, as one of the things you use most often, the charcoal stick should be at the top. 

But no. 

Perhaps it fell, somehow, past the layers of clothes? You carefully extract every little thing from the badge, laying it neatly out upon the ground, and there is still no sign of it. As a last-ditch attempt, turn it upside-down and shake, but nothing but dust and crumbs falls free from the opening. 

You stare at the bag, at the absence of the stick, and think of your missing pocketwatch. Of the fact that either you’re insane, or something is stealing from you. You have kept your bag pinned to your side all through the day—the closest anyone has gotten is Lord Graves, but there is no earthly way he could have spirited something from it, those hours in the caravan. You did not see anyone cross over to your tent, and you cannot imagine you would miss it—to see someone walking from the nexus of the camp, from the brightness of the fire, and entering your shelter on the outskirts. 

Yes, everyone clustered near the light and the heat, utterly noticeable, except…

Except for König. 

With that thought comes the snap of a puzzle piece, comes the notion that’s been avoiding you, comes the answer to that gnawing sense that you’re missing something. 

Earlier. König’d all but admitted to eavesdropping on you and Lore, which you’d paid little mind, but he’d said something else. 

Something about rustling, something about being scared away. A little joke. 

Except, you never said anything to Lore about that part of the story. 

You fall back against your bedroll, the weight of this revelation bowing you down. Cannot be, unless it can be, but then, what does that mean? König has been stealing into your quarters, not only here, on the road, but before? That this stretches somehow back to the yawning days of your childhood, that he was there for the rustle in the blackberry bushes—that perhaps he was the rustle? 

Maybe not. You reach for other explanations. Maybe his type are mindreaders, maybe he dredged that memory from some dusty corner of your mind. 

Maybe, maybe, maybe. Numbly, you begin packing your belongings back into your bag, more haphazardly going in than they came out—because, there’s no point in being neat, is there, if some nebulous being is stealing your things, right?

Strange that this disturbs you more than the idea of being torn, eaten, killed. Perhaps it’s the premeditated nature in it—savagery is savagery, natural in its own brutal way, and if you do not like it, then at least you cannot deny nature her course. Nature, however, does not creep and steal and follow, not with motivations outside of that of the hunt, of the chase. 

Man, though. Man does. 

The thoughts chase you to a fitful sleep and strange, contorted dreams that you cannot make heads nor tails of. If the morning light does bring one thing, then it is a modicum of calmness, of reason to your being. 

Say König is… say you’re running on the base level of assumptions. Best thing to do, then, is to act normal. He cannot technically harm you, while the binding is active, and at the edge of the woods, you will release him, rebind some other being to see your way back to homeland. 

Say he can reach you outside of the woods. Say he’s been in your cottage. 

So perhaps that newfound calm is dissipating. You think briefly about moving, about finding some hovel in the crowded city center, of setting foot on flagstones and letting your lungs fill with the smell of smoke and shit, and dispose of that idea almost immediately. You’ll cross that bridge when you come to it—maybe whip up some new barrier spell, find a way to protect yourself. 

You take a deep breath before proceeding into the open air. Same morning as every morning, in the camp, the sleepy bustle of those packing, the putting out of the embers and the harnessing of the horses. 

At the door of your tent is a small pile of blackberries. You stare at it for a long moment, a lump rising in your throat. Pick one up, turn it about in your hand, and note the dried bracelet still clinging to your wrist. 

In one motion, you tear it off. In another you drop the berry to the ground, skirt around the pile. 

So much for normal. 

—

The walk helps, somewhat, insofar as ‘help’ means distracts you. You walk a careful distance behind König, staring at the way the sun glints off the gold bands entwined around his wrists. He glanced back at you once, at the beginning of this trip, and again, when two hours passed and you still had not taken to walking by his side. Quick, furtive. 

You stare at his hands. Try to spot any telltale stains of black, for charcoal marks. Even though any thief with half a brain would’ve thought to wash their hands, you’re banking on the fact that perhaps he’s brainless. 

No such luck. You had known, from the very beginning, that he was one of the smart ones. 

More quick glances as you settle for a midday meal, from across the clearing. You ignore him steadfastly, focused on Lore and her many questions. The topic of the day seems to be the Lord Graves—she talks endlessly about his clothing, his soldiers, his business. 

“He’s rich,” she says at one point, “and he uses all his money to go through the forest.”

It’s a unique enough statement to draw your attention, and you cock your head. “I think it’s less about the forest and more about the transport.”

“I would pay for the forest,” she says, “I like it here.”

“You don’t need to pay. Just give yourself to it, and it will give itself back. When you’re older, I mean,” you hastily add. Probably not a good idea, encouraging a child to run away into the forest. Blame it on your addled mind. 

Reset. Walk. Avoid. Routine, at least until König begins to slow—you slow as well, on instinct, until it comes to the point that you cannot convincingly measure your pace any further, at least not without coming to a crawl in the road, and you are forced into step with him. 

Despite his initiation of the side-by-side, he does not talk for a long moment. It’s only your continued silence that pushes the words out of him. 

“Hallo, Spinne. Did you… ah, schlafen? Sleep well?” 

It’s a painfully awkward statement. You can’t help but wonder why he’s wasting human breath on small talk like this, why he seems so eager to get a word out of you. 

“Fairly,” you reply, which, despite the restraint, is still a misrepresentation of the strength of your slumber—which would be, truthfully, badly. “You?”

“Gut,” he replies, “Ich träumte von…”

He trails off. You have no earthly idea what he was saying, so you let it rest. On another day, perhaps you would have picked at it, but you’re—understandably—less willing, now. 

Silence again. No jump from you to initiate, and he seems to have exhausted his pool for the day. You half-wish you could recapture the wonder of a new guide, of studying him, of finding amusement in all his small mannerisms, but all that’s been drained away by the thoughts that pound through your head. Thief, sneak, stalker. 

“You are not,” he says eventually, “riding, today? With, ah, the Schwächling?”

You stare up at him. The question comes with an almost endearing touch of nervousness, of thinly-veiled anxiety, that itself veils the largeness of his being, the power in every step. Makes him smaller, in some ways, less threatening, as you’re sure he’s trying to be. For whatever reason. You can’t help but remember you and Lore’s conversation last night—something about the forest, something about how she knows, how she gives what you need. 

It’s not always as clear-cut as the time with the skull-faced one. Sometimes, you see no message in the choice of guide at all. But she has never necessarily steered you wrong, and so that begs the question, what is it about König that you need, this time? 

“With the lord?” 

He stares at you for a moment. Nods. “Ja. Schwächling. The Lord.”

No,” you settle on, “no, I’m not riding with him. I prefer walking.”

“Ah. I… I as well.” He looks down at his feet, as if ensuring that he is, in fact, walking, and then back up at you. Not at you, but at a place somewhere beyond your shoulder, only regarding you through the diagonal. 

“You do that a lot?” You ask. It’s half a dry joke, half an idle comment. 

“Ja,” he replies, “back in my domain.”

“You have a domain?” You ask. It’s less the idea of him lording over some section of the forest that startles you, more the word he used. Domain, not territory, not land. Gives the concept a regal sort of lens. 

He ducks a bit lower, back hunching, presumably-chin digging into his broad chest. It’s easier to ask questions of him than to answer—makes you feel like you’re regaining a bit of control, collecting a few crumbs of whatever life he must lead. When he already must know so much about you, it’s only fair. 

“König means King, ja? From my tongue to yours. My kingdom is not stone und Dreck, like one of men, but it is one.”

“Are all of you kings, then?” You ask, “your kind?”

He shakes his head. You wince before he answers, already sensing what’s coming. 

“Nein. There is no… Ich bin allein. No others, of my species.” A moment of silence, before he rushes to add, “that I know. Know of.”

Insensitive, maybe, but blame you for being curious and uncharitable, which is always a deadly sort of combination. “No mother? Father?”

“Mutter, I did not know. Vater…” he hesitates for a long moment, before saying, “did not know. As well.”

The sheer sadness in his voice, in his demeanor, melts your walls a bit, inspires a small pang of regret that you asked when you already, presumably, knew the answer. Maybe this is a bit of a better outcome than them being dead, but you have one of both in spades, and while the death of your Mother stings more than the absence of your Father, you cannot say it’s ever pleasant to talk about. 

“I did not know him either,” you say, “he… he was fine being a witch’s lover, but not her husband, not a witch’s father. No great loss.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, “about him. And her.”

You don’t need to think to know who her is. Don’t need to wonder how he knows, either—even without the record of following and all that, it wouldn’t be too hard to guess. 

“Magic was less accepted,” you say, “when I was young. They tolerate me now, though, because I’m useful, and I make money.”

“What will you do,” he asks, “if that is not the case? Stop practicing?”

Briefly, you imagine that—never letting the power of the world sweep through your fingertips. Never walking down this twisting, unconstrained path, never conversing with a creature of the woods. Burning your journal. Surviving on scraps of reality, none of the ephemeral to usher life along. 

“No,” you reply, “I couldn’t do that. I suppose I’d just… let history repeat itself.”

He nods, and you slip back into silence. It would be easy to ask, ask about all that’s roiling in your mind. Less intimidating now, too, looking at him—you have a bit of a hard time comparing, pushing the image of König before you, smaller than he really is, consoling you and being consoled in turn, with what else you know he is. Contrasting it against the King of the forest, ostensibly, tall as an oak and broad as a mountainside, predator of some order and cunning of another, ripping open a deer’s stomach with his bare hands. Trailing after you, you, for some reason that you still haven’t been able to pin down. 

You don’t even know what his face looks like. You try to imagine it, but the two images of him conflict, and you cannot decide whether he would look like a man or like a beast, whether he would have molars or fangs, whether he smiles or frowns or furrows his brow in a growl, furrows his brow in confusion. 

—

That night, in your tent, as the third day of travel winds to a close, you try to plot out the rest of the journey in your head. Two more days—one, if you’re lucky—before you will break free from the woods. Unbind König. Receive your payment from Lord Graves. Spend a night in the city, at the quietest inn you can find, before you make the return journey with a new, hopefully less confusing guide. 

And then, home. Tantalizingly close, but you cannot let yourself get swept away in that knowledge. König is endearing, he has a sad past and a knack for getting under your skin, but you have to remember your greatest lesson of the woods: to not grow complacent. Always on-guard, eyes to ensure he does not find some way to slip the binding. 

The next morning, you wake with the camp, make your way outside as dawn paints the sky. Instinctively, your eyes find König at the edge of the clearing—he is already staring at you, when you see him, though, as is the pattern, he looks away immediately. You’re so fixated on that that you do not notice the soldier approaching you—he taps you on the shoulder, rougher than a normal tap would have been. 

“The Lord requests you,” he says, “at his caravan.”

König’s head shoots back up, looking at you like he’d heard the soldier’s words. Which, you would not be surprised, given the range of his hearing. You keep half an eye on him as you proceed into the camp. You spot Lore, helping her father hitch up the horses, and she shoots you a grin that you wanly return. 

The Lord stands on the platform of his caravan, leaning over the railing, a cigar in his hand, trailing a thin line of smoke. His other soldier stands behind him, and when you climb up, the one who ushered you takes his spot on the other side. 

“Good morning,” he says, as you come up next to him—next, meaning a fair distance away. 

From this angle, you can barely see König. You keep your eyes on him as you answer absently. “Morning.”

“I know,” he drawls, “I am looking forward to civilization. You, Witch? You have any plans for the city?”

You shake your head. “No. I’ll be going back home. Milord.” The last part is tacked on, an idle bit of respect, as you track König’s movements. You made sure he wasn’t in your tent last night by sitting right next to it with Lore, but you didn’t get the chance to take it down before the soldier summoned you. You don’t think he’d dare to go in now, in broad daylight with all the camp bustling about, but best to stay on guard…

“Right. And I’ll have to find another witch for the way back, will I?”

There’s a bit of an edge to his voice. You raise an eyebrow, puzzled. 

“You did not hire me to guide you back.”

“Right,” he repeats. “I did not. Ah, well. I’ll be glad to see how another one of your kind works. Binding is such a marvel, is it not?”

“It’s magic,” you reply evenly. You do not like talk of the arcane falling from his lips—do not like the fact that he’s considering it in any way, this art that is far beyond his fine hands. 

“Think about it,” he continues, “all these monsters, tied. Can’t harm anyone, but they’ve still got all that power. Makes you wonder… wish I could do it myself, I’d find good use, but never got the art, you could say.”

You murmur some vague assent, still distracted. He turns, eyes fixing upon you. You don’t return the stare—still watching König. “

Remind me, how many days are left on this journey?”

“Two days. Maybe one.”

“As good a time as any,” he says, and perhaps it’s something in the way he says it, or perhaps it’s the movement of the soldiers in your peripheral that finally triggers your attention. 

You barely have time to speak before a hand locks around your throat, dragging you back into the confines of the caravan. You kick, flailing out, but you miss most of your hits, and the ones that do land, do not faze your attackers. When you try to choke out a spellword—one for fire, one for wind, anything—the grip around your neck tightens, strangling the words before a single syllable can be uttered. 

Slowly, your vision darkens, the edges blurring and warping like waterlogged paper, and you do not know you have fainted until you awake, arms tied behind your back and legs bound similarly. There is a ball of fabric shoved into your mouth, which has the doubling effect of drying it out and muffling you. 

The Lord stands in front of you, suddenly tall when you are seated upon the ground before him. 

“I am dearly sorry,” he says slowly, “but it’s a harsh world, Witch. Don’t worry. If you behave yourself, I’ll let you go. Later. Later!” The last word comes with the uptick of a chuckle as he spins around, begins to pace. 

“Nobody’s ever captured one of ‘em before,” he says, back to you, now—maybe better, so he cannot see the way your brow contorts at his words—“good thing you bound the strongest for me, huh? Can’t even hurt us. Wonder how much money it’ll fetch?”

You start a new round of writhing, but the knots are tied expertly tight. He whirls around just as quickly, kneels so you are face-to-face. Puts a single hand upon your shoulder, all signs of mirth dropping away as quickly as a summer storm. 

“Look, here’s our deal. You stay good, quiet. We get to the forest. I take the beast. One of my boys will stay back with you, until we’re a good distance away, and then…” he steps back, both hands splaying out in front of him like he’s presenting a prize, “you’re free.”

Another grin. The worst thing about it is that it seems real, this joy, this satisfaction. 

“Are we clear?” He asks. You stare at him. When a long moment passes without movement, he leans down. Places a hand upon your chin, slowly nods your head up and down. 

“Yes,” he adds, in a high falsetto, “we’re clear!” 

You’re so blinded by rage that you can’t even comprehend his absence until he’s already out, one of the soldiers following along. The other stays in the room, watching you with an intentness that makes it clear what disobedience, attempts to escape, will bring. 

Outside, there is the sound of the Lord’s voice, followed swiftly by a clamor that’s quickly quieted. Informing the rest of the caravan about the new status quo, assumedly. It comforts you a bit to know that not all of the people surrounding you for the past three days have been plotting, but that doesn’t do much to improve your situation in the moment. 

Sitting there, in the half-dark, alone with the movement of the wagon and the gaze of the lone soldier, you’re forced to confront the fact that you have been complacent. Not regarding König -no, you have been perfectly vigilant—but instead Lord Graves. Depended too much on the fickle selflessness of man, on the idea that the forest held danger, not the carts trailing you. 

And now, so many will suffer for that. König, chained, Lore, pushed along in this scheme. 

The day passes, not without a bit of desperation. You try to mutter out a spell through your gag, but the moment your guard hears a noise, he cuffs you across the head, hard enough that it makes you dizzy. A subtle attempt to untie the knots binding you goes much the same way, and this time, he draws his sword. Eventually, you settle on agonizing over the coming days, alternating that with trying to think of a new plan that will not get you killed. At set intervals, the guard kneels down, withdraws the gag from your mouth and pours a carefully-measured amount of water in, with the implicit threat that a single word, and it will be your head rolling with the wheels. 

Is this how König feels, you wonder? Bound, tied, unable to do anything of his nature? Is this what you have been doing, all this time? You cannot bring yourself to hate him, or even fear him, not with this new revelation coursing through your mind. 

At some point, the carriage stops. Lord Graves returns, gives a satisfied sort of smile at your bound presence. 

“My apologies,” he says, “but you’ll have to deal with hunger, the next few days. Your little mouth is too dangerous, hm?”

You do nothing but glare. It doesn’t seem to faze him. The other guard comes in, switches out with the one who’d been guarding you. Doesn’t really matter—you don’t think you could’ve told the difference between them if there was a sword to your throat. Indistinguishable figures of black and metal. 

When he gives you water, you try another spell—perhaps this one is a bit slower on the uptake—but the guttural beginning of the word is staunched by the shoving of the gag back into your mouth, a strike for your trouble, and further thirst. 

At some point, it begins to rain. Only makes your predicament worse—your mouth is chalky now, even with the gag, and your stomach pangs in hunger. A strike of thunder, a flash of lightning, bright enough that the curtains don’t entirely shield it. The rain increases steadily, falling faster and faster, and it’s only when the carriage begins to shake that you realize something may be wrong. The thunder comes so fast, now, that it is like it never ends, and the world is a strobe of ozone-white. 

The other soldier bursts into the carriage. Not for you, but to address your guard—“Come, secure the camp! Flood!” 

He races out, and then, you are mercifully alone. Your chance. Just as you start to try and spit out a few words, however, the door opens.

Not a guard. Not the Lord. Not König, even, but Lore, sopping wet. She does not waste a moment running to you, skidding to a half-kneel. In the darkness, you cannot make out what she’s fiddling with, but when lightning illuminates the room, you see. From the bag at her side, from your bag, she withdraws a knife, begins to clumsily saw at the ropes binding you. They fall away after only a moment, cut to the quick, and as she moves to your legs, you withdraw the gag binding your mouth. 

“Lore,” you say, “how is- thank you, how did you..?” 

She looks up as the last fibres binding your feet give out. “I was packing up your tent,” she says, voice quiet and faintly quivering, “when the Lord… I grabbed your bag. I couldn’t- he hurt him, hurt my Pa, I looked for your witchcraft and I spoke the words in the book and the storm started-” she takes a deep breath, cutting herself off, and you realize that not all the water on her face is of the rain. You hover, unsure whether to embrace her, half-caught on her story of the book. 

The spell you’ve been working on, the one half-made, intended to summon the rain. Completed, twisted, in some way, to this storm of olden days. 

“You have to help,” she says, regaining a touch of composure. It’s the jolt you need, the one that reminds you you have little time left—already, it seems like the rain is letting up, like the thunder and lightning are ringing at further and further intervals. You stagger to your feet, legs dead after so much time in stasis, manage to hobble to the door. Out, into the open air, but you get only a moment to savor the taste of freedom. 

The camp, the clearing they must have found, is a mess of churned mud and puddles that approach the status of ponds. Crates are scattered across the space, some cracked open, and there is a mess of collapsed tents, peppered with moving brown shapes that you release, belatedly, are mudstained people. 

You spot König immediately, standing in the center beside the other caravan,w hich you only now realize has completely tipped over. And, beside him, Graves, who screams some order for him to lift it. He obeys, tugged along by those golden strands, but his head twists, latching onto you as easily as you latched onto him. 

The motion draws the attention of Graves, who whirls around. His face splits into an expression somewhere on the spectrum between smile and growl, manic either way. 

“I was wondering,” he says, “if you had a hand in this.”

You spot a black shape moving towards you, another on the opposite side. Not much time. 

“Guess you’re not being good. Pity that’s all this little escape’s gotten you. Just give up, ‘kay? It’ll be easier. ”

He’s so confident, beyond even the point of arrogance, that it takes a moment to realize why. He does not believe you pose any danger to his plans. 

Because of a conversation. Because of a lie, the same lie you tell all of your patrons—that it takes a ceremony to unbind a creature. He believes you cannot simply open your mouth, cannot release him as easily as a man with a hunting dog. When he asked that, three days ago, he must already have been putting his feelers out, trying to gauge his plan, and your answer fit neatly into that. 

The closer guard begins to sprint. There is a boom of thunder, and you stare at him, at his smile. Open your mouth, turn your head to the sky, try to comprehend the clouds burled overhead and the relentless downpour of rain, push all your magic into the words you scream—“I unbind you! I release you, König!”

It is a quicker process than the binding—in a blink of an instant, the gold around his limbs snaps. He wastes no time, turning on a heel, slashing a single hand across the Lord’s torso and slicing his clothes into ribbons of skin and blood and rotted finery. He does not have time to scream, before the other comes around, slams his skull against the collapsed caravan, and he collapses to the ground. 

The first soldier scales your caravan, already drawing his sword, but before he can touch you, you throw yourself from the rails, rolling in the mud, slipping only once as you rise to your feet. By the time you do, König has already made quick work of the further man, who is nothing but a lump of black upon the ground. 

The last of them, the soldier upon the caravan, hardly touches the earth, hardly has time to turn, before König leaps, a pounce to rival some great feline, barreling him down with a dull thud. 

And just like that, it’s over. You stand still, staring at his hunched form, bloodsoaked and rising. The rain does little to clean him—it is lessening by the second, and besides there is so much blood that you doubt a river could do the job. He stands as stiffly as he did days ago, when you’d seen him after the deer. All his trappings of timidness, the skin of man shed for the body of the beast. 

“I lied,” he says, voice high and accent heavy, “Spinne, about mein Vater. I knew him. I killed him, when I came of age, and took his kingdom. König! King of the forest, of it all!”

The last words, he screams to the heavens, which answers him with a great peal of thunder, some divine commiseration of his claim. You do not disbelieve for a second that he is what he says—him, before you, tall enough that you must crane your head back, blood mixing with mud at his feet, could be the king of the world for all you’re concerned. You take a step back and he advances an equal distance, leaving the body behind him. 

“You’ve been following me,” you say, “you were there, when I was picking blackberries. You were in my cottage. In my tent.” Your voice doesn’t quite sound like your own—it feels like the words do not come in-sync with the movement of your lips, like you are disconnected from your body. 

“Ja,” he says, the word half-growl, half brag, “I am König der Wälder, so you, Waldhexe, are mine as well, no? I have felt your… your strands, ihre Saiten. For so long, until they came to me.” 

It is both less climactic and more climactic a confession than you would’ve thought. 

He takes another step forwards, still tall and taut, strength personified. On the precipice of something—you could speak. You could shake him out of this, return him back to the König you’ve shared most of this journey with. 

He cocks his head. You have never been able to imagine his face, still cannot, but you know he’s smiling. Another step. He reaches out a bloodsoaked hand, viscera coated under his taloned fingernails. 

You turn tail and run. 

Even as the forest comes up to swallow you, you know that he’ll catch you. It’s not about escaping, it’s not about fear, it’s about the adrenaline that courses through your veins as easily as air, it’s about giving yourself to the wild. It’s about letting him luxuriate in his nature, it’s about the chase, the ritual that every creature of the world has performed since the beginning of time. 

Wet leaves slap at your sides as you dodge through the trees. Behind you, there is the heavy thud of footfalls, the cracking of branches. It’s all you can do to focus on not tripping, to modulate the intake of your breath, let alone check to see how far he is behind you. 

For what seems like a slow, liquid eternity, all you do is duck and sprint and pull your feet from the muddy ground, push them back in, as the noise behind grows ever closer. 

A final crash, and then, there is a hand upon your shoulder, digging in so hard that you’d swear blood wells up. You turn before he must turn you, face-to-face—or, perhaps somewhere along the lines of face-to-chest—with your pursuer. 

“Got you,” he rasps, voice low enough that you can feel the rumble through the air. 

You barely manage to nod, panting. 

“Did you want me to, Spinne? Snatch you up, take you as meine Königin?” His hand moves down, claws still dragging lines through your clothes, barely touching your skin. It settles around your waist, and his other comes around to hold it as well. It’s a special sort of exhilaration, here—to know that the softness of your stomach is so close to him, so accessible. You think, briefly, of the deer and its intestines, and a shiver wracks your spine. 

He drags you closer. You don’t exist. Bends down, close enough that you can almost see through the vein of greenery over his face, and whispers, “Ich habe so lange darauf gewartet.”

You have no idea what that means, but you’re sure you can get the gist. With shaking hands, you reach down, begin to shuck off your wet pants, and undergarments beneath them. With that, you look down, and get an eyeful of his own arousal—his cock must have been hidden in the thick tufts of fur around his nether area, but now, erect, it’s so large that you cannot imagine it having been hidden. 

König takes a step forwards, backing you up against the tree behind you, close enough that, without the shirt, the bark would be kissing the plane of your back. For a moment, you stand there, caught in the uncertainty of inaction, and then you fall to your knees. Because you already know you need more than a bit of time before you’re ready for him, and for your own selfish need to get a good look at what he sports. 

In front of you, it is even larger than your initial look—which makes sense, it’s no doubt proportional, but it’s larger than any man you have ever been with. You bring your hands up for a start, running light fingers across the length of the shaft. 

Even that light touch brings him low immediately—he hunches, hand coming up over your head to steady himself against the tree, a low groan winding through the air. Experimentally, you try again, with more force this time—wrapping your hands around the length, bringing them up to swirl at the liquid upon the tip and using the slickness to pump—and this time, the moan he lets out is loud and high. 

“Have you done this before?” You ask, caught off-guard by his sensitivity—another angle revealed of the König you know. 

“Don’t stop,” he groans, and so you pick your pace back up, repeating the question. 

He takes a long moment to answer, and when he does, it’s stuttered and breathy. Comes with an exhalation of what you think might be laughter. “Nein. Nobody to- to…” the phrase devolves into a gasp, as you lean forward, and carefully wrap your mouth around the tip. Swirl it with your tongue, and slowly, lean forwards, taking more in. 

His other hand, the one not upon the tree, comes down to your head, claws digging into your hair in a way that feels almost pleasurable, the sting dulled by adrenaline and the rapid beating of your heart. It is a hint of that strength, and you’re too hopped up on imagining the bare restraint of his muscles to worry about the fact that there must be blood in your hair. By the time his cock is hitting the back of your throat, there is still a good amount left. You draw back, then forwards again, playing at it with your tongue, using your hands to stroke the part you cannot reach. 

It’s only when you see the muscles in his abdomen tense that you draw back, letting it fall limply from your mouth. He lets out an anguished cry, instinctively canting forwards, but you drag yourself to your feet. 

“Not yet,” you chide, and his grip upon your head tightens a fractional. Not out of malice, you think, simply an instinctive reaction, a display of strength. You reach down, placing a hand upon his cock and arch up, guiding it to the heat between your legs. By now, you’re ready—or at least, as ready as you’re ever going to be for someone of his size—and he must sense that, because both his hands come down to once again wrap around your waist. As easily as if you weigh nothing, he lifts you. A bit roughly, back scraping against the roughness of the tree, but you can’t bring yourself to mind. 

A moment as he slots himself into the space, tantalizingly close, and then he keens forwards, pushing his way into your hole. It comes with a sting that soon gives out to pleasure, and your hands go around to his back, to tug at the hair there in a vain effort to keep yourself grounded. They come back red, nature distilled to purity of cell and copper. 

The pleasure slowly seeps into pain again as he reaches the base, bottoming out within you, and you bow your head down, letting it fall against his chest. He smells of blood and leather, of some aspect of nature—some combination of the thousand smells you know of the forest, all conjoined into some new arrangement of parts. 

When he bucks back and thrusts in, it comes almost as an electric shock—so quickly empty, then full again to the point of overflow. Once more, as you acclimate to the newfound rhythm, rocking along with him. He’s a mess of sounds and grunts, sometimes coherent, sometimes not—again, some twisting edge between man and beast, and perhaps the line is not distinct as you have always thought. The finest, most uppity of Lords can be as savage as any predator, and the kings of the forest can give you blackberries and weave bracelets around your wrist. 

You bring a hand down to your clit, rubbing at the bud, sending shocks of pleasure in time with his thrusts. It’s easy to linger on the edge of the precipice, pulling back only when the pleasure begins to crash down, waiting. 

Only a moment longer before he stills, twitching within you, and you allow yourself to fall in time, contracting with waves of pleasure, as strong as the thunder that shook the sky. His cum inside you, burns with a rapturous sort of warmth, and when he pulls back, you can feel it trickle down your leg. 

“Ich liebe dich,” he groans, all concept of the common tongue gone, “meine Spinne, meine wunderbare... du bist die einzige…”

You collapse to the ground, legs giving out with the force of what just happened, and he follows, albeit far less limply. 

“You took the bracelet off,” he says quietly, and suddenly, all that bloodsoaked brashness is gone—he is the same König who snuck glances at you, soft and low. But they are all the same, in the end, no? Just as the forest that brought down thunder and torrents of rain is the same one now, who peers at you with a clear blue sky and the faint arc of a rainbow, calm as any spring day. 

“I was a bit perturbed,” you reply, “when I realized I had a follower.”

He looks down at the ground, gracing a single finger through the dirt. “I… I was young, you see? And my father, he was not… not a good king, or soul. He ruled all the Wald, so I would wander out, and I found you, Waldhexe, human and not, connected and not.” 

He looks up at you, and, with a bit of startlement, you realize you can see his face—the storm and subsequent romp has torn the greenery free, and the face it reveals is not one of any bestial storybook monster, nor the finecrafted features of a human prince. He is handsome as a mountain is, with a strong nose and solid expression, fine auburn hairs running down the sides of his cheeks and chin, leading up to where his head meets his curling horns. Scarred in some places, from fights before you knew him, and his mouth is stilted open by a row of long fangs. 

More than anything, it’s his eyes that capture you—blue like the sky cracking overhead, they stare into yours with such an ardent sort of fixation that it makes you shiver, to imagine them boring into you upon you all this journey. 

“You hypnotized me,” he says, “Spinne, from the start, from the day I met you. I could not wean myself away. It was the best day of my life, when I saw your little golden cords.”

You remember the feeling when he walked out of the forest, remember your initial fascination—which has only bloomed as a flower does, only grown and turned. 

“Me too,” you reply. 

The moment, as most moments, cannot last forever—by the time the clouds clear enough to allow sunlight down, you’re standing stretching out your aching legs, tugging your wet clothes back on. His gaze follows you, a silent question in them. 

“We should get back,” you say, “the others… Lore, we have to go back.”

He stands as well. “It was she who started der Sturm.” With one hand, he points in a seemingly-random direction, but you take it in stride and begin to walk. If anyone knows the way back, it would be him. 

“She’s talented,” you say, “maybe… she asked me to teach her. I said no, but maybe that’s changed.”

The sound of footsteps has changed. Stopped. You pause, turning around, see him rooted in the earth. 

“You’re going to teach her?” He asks, something shakingly vulnerable in his voice. You tilt your head, confused. 

“She summoned a storm with a half-completed spell. She’s shown more than enough care for the forest, for the animals. I think-”

“You’re going back,” he interrupts, and then it all makes sense. You stare at him, uncertain how to proceed. 

“I.. have to. It’s my life.”

“What life?” He asks, “a… another Raubritter, another trip, another web? More? You are not happy there, Spinne, I see it. Is this-” he makes a wide, sweeping gesture to encompass the forest, “not enough? Am I not enough?”

The last part of the phrase lilts up in tender uncertainty, effectively puncturing any anger from his prior words. Moreso, when you consider them, when you see the sense. How much longer can you thrive on only bare slivers of the woods, on acquiescing to the cruelest of the human world? 

Besides, after that day of being tied, you do not know if you can stomach binding another being, justifications or not. 

“We’ll go back,” you say, “meet with the people.” You watch his face fall fractionally before you say the rest. “And then… you’re right. I can’t go back to the city, to what’s not the thicket. I’m… I’ll be your Queen, König. If you’ll take me.”

All the shutters around his face fall in an instant, leaving his sheer joy open. In a moment of impulse, you rush forwards, stretching up with the help of leverage upon his shoulders, and plant a kiss upon his mouth. It is clumsy and he does not seem to know how to reciprocate—funny, how you have not even kissed yet, but you suppose that’s another human thing—but only a moment, before he’s leaning forwards, trying to recapture it. 

Bliss in the drizzle that mists your lashes, in the warmth of him beneath you, in the feeling of his lips and the prospect of staying. Of never having to look a noble in the eye and pretend to respect them, of living the life you have always ached for, among the silver leaves and roots of a thousand years. 

—

The clearing is empty. It is not until you follow the road for another hour, lead by König’s hand, that you find them—the group of seven people, horses plodding along at the back, led not by one of the drivers, the adults, but by Lore. As you watch, they reach a fork in the path, and she points definitively down one without stopping. 

You look up at König in silent question, and he nods in response. She’s picking the right paths. If you had any doubt about passing your craft down to her, they are gone now. 

You do not know what you look like, walking out of the trees—bloodstained, soaked, hair mussed and a glow of another type tied to your limbs. Still, with all that said, you would not expect Lore's first reaction to be rushing forwards, wrapping you tightly in an embrace. 

“I thought you were dead,” she whispers into your torso, “I thought he killed you. I’ve been… I’ve been trying to guide us, and it feels like the trees are telling me where to go, but I don’t…”

“You’re guiding right,” you say, dragging a hand over her hair, trying to console her—trying to dull the impact of your next words. “Lore, do you have my book?”

She nods, pulling back to fumble at your satchel, which has been wrapped twice around her body and is still a touch too large. “I have-”

“Keep it,” you say, before she can pull it out, “I’m not… I’m not coming back. The book has everything you need to get started.”

She blinks at you, uncomprehending. 

“If you don’t want to learn the craft,” you continue, “find a way to give the book to… to Lord Hong-Jin’s son, Kim.” The boy who’d been lost in the forest, so long ago, the only other pupil you’ve ever considered teaching. “Only him. But I don’t think that will be a problem.”

No, you don’t think it will. She has seen some of the worst of the forest, some of the harshest, but that is the sort of trial that intensifies the call of power, the hunger to know the world. 

“Why are you leaving?” She asks. You hunch slightly to look her in the eyes, summoning a smile. 

“I’ve found a… found a place for myself.” 

Unbidden, the conversation from nights ago rises to the front of your mind. Paying for the forest, the idea of giving yourself and having it return itself in equal measure. 

You are offering all you have, after a lifetime of taking, in body and mind both. 

She nods in solemn understanding. Steps forwards to hug you once again, and when this embrace breaks, it’s without a goodbye that you turn, walk into the trees. König greets you from behind a thicket of bush with a simple nod of his head, the proffering of his hand. 

You take it, and he guides you fully into his demesne. 

—

One last thing. 

There is no marriage out here, of course—no priest, and besides, the ties of men hold no court here, in the heart of the thicket, where even that twisting road does not dare touch. 

Instead, there is a quiet night, with a wood cottage and a small platter of blackberries and the thin rumble of a dawning storm outside. You lean forwards and whisper to him your true name, and he does the same, allowing them both to hang in the air for a second. Tied first by bonds of the flesh, and now, with that of the soul. 

It begins to rain. You feed him a blackberry, allow his fangs to graze your fingers. 

When he kisses you, you can still taste it upon his tongue.